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Outside Asylum Take a walk, smell the roses. Any topic is fine, save people bashing. |
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Outside Asylum Take a walk, smell the roses. Any topic is fine, save people bashing. |
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And they're shocked. Stunned. Amazed. What rock do they live under?Just how bad are the geopolitics of energy, from the perspective of the United States?
This morning the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources launched its New Year with an unusual hearing into “The Geopolitics of Oil.â€
The consensus conclusion of the witnesses: the United States is in deep, deep trouble, facing the emergence of an “axis of oil†that threatens to recreate the bi-polar world of the Cold War, complete with Russia as a principal actor.
One Senator described the testimony as “frightening.†And the outgoing Republican chair, Senator Domenici (R-NM), said that “what you told us today is absolutely startling with reference to the future.†There appeared to be a genuine sense that some members really were surprised at how bad things look for the U.S. The shock was so great that after declaring himself a “free-market conservative,†Republican Jeff Sessions (R-AL) concluded the session by admitting that if you looked at energy as a national security issue rather than as a market commodity, Congress might be justified in spending more money on energy R&D and tax credits.
The focus of the testimony was on oil in the transportation sector, which will be responsible for most of the predicted increase in demand over the next two decades. Dr. Fatih Birol described this dependence on oil in the auto, truck, and plane sectors as “the Achilles heel†of the energy problem.
Linda Stuntz, who participated in a Council of Foreign Relations report last fall on “National Security Consequences of U.S. Oil Dependency,†stunned the Senators when she said that there was consensus among the report’s authors that talking about “energy independence†for the United States was chasing an impossible dream. Stuntz said that it was not clear whether the U.S. could achieve energy independence even with the most “draconian†government interventions. Dr. Flynt Leverett from the New America Foundation echoed Stuntz’s analysis:
“…there is no economically plausible scenario for a strategically meaningful reduction in the dependence of the United States and its allies on imported hydrocarbons during the next quarter century.â€
Having disposed of energy independence, the panel turned to the growing threat to the U.S. as the world’s only superpower. Dr. Leverett laid out a concise history of the rise of “resource nationalism†and “resource mercantilism.†Countries with oil are beginning to use oil for political leverage, like Russia’s cut-off of gas to the Ukraine—resource nationalism.. And national oil companies in oil-importing states are cutting deals with producers outside the commercial market for oil, particularly China and India—resource mercantilism.
Leverett described the emergence of a “new axis of oil,†based on Russian cooperation with the Chinese. Already this Sino-Russian cooperation has led to the minimization of U.S. influence in central Asia. And Russia and China have both been frustrating U.S. policy objectives in Iran, especially the effort to halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Mercantilism? That sounds oddly familiar. Where have I heard that word before? Oh yeah, I used it here back in December.
Now all someone needs to do is to screw up the courage to use the phrase "Peak Oil" within earshot of this august body. Well, I expect those words might be uttered during hearings soon to be held by the Hon. Roscoe Bartlett. Input on this subject from the reality-based community is long overdue.
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