Conserve or Produce? That Is the Question
Thomas McCann takes on the Bush Administration energy policy.
With all due respect to doubting Thomas, the War on Terror has next to nothing to do with energy policy. Let's say the United States bought no oil from the Gulf. Bin Laden and his cohorts would have targeted us anyway, since a) we're allied with Israel and b) we're a Western superpower. Our enemies' motivations have precious little to do with oil and an awful lot to do with religion and culture.
The current difficulty with energy supplies has nothing at all to do with crude oil, which is what we buy from the Gulf. It's all about refinery capacity.
A refinery produces a variety of products from a barrel of crude oil, notably gasoline and heating oil. We haven't built a refinery in this country in 20 years thanks to the environmentalist whackos, so as a result, the refineries we do have are always struggling to produce enough output to meet demand. Ever noticed how when gas prices have gone up in recent years heating oil has as well, irrespective of the price of crude? That's because when gas is in short supply, refineries have to make gasoline longer into the year, and delay switching production over to heating oil. That helps lower gas prices, but at the expense of increased heating oil prices due to smaller supplies.
Katrina wiped out some refinery capacity, while Rita took some of the larger refineries down for several days. Since we can't pump crude oil into our SUVs, we're stuck chasing smaller supplies. Moreover, since Americans are prone to gas panic, many people went and filled their cars up "just in case", thus draining the system of already-scarce gas supplies. All of which will both drive gasoline price up, force refineries to extend production to drive it back down, and cause the next wave of liberal carping when heating oil prices rise this winter. You can set your clock by it.
A saner energy policy might begin by eliminating different gas formulations mandated by the EPA and state regulatory agencies. Bush has done this, and the effect was an immediate lessening of the supply problem.
Another option is to to drill in ANWR and build a refinery nearby. Bush is pushing for this.
By the way, we don't get as much oil from the Gulf as you might think. 25% comes from the Persian Gulf, whereas we get 35% from North America. Just because Colin Powell liked to play racquetball with Prince Bandar doesn't mean he was doing so to lower the cost of a fillup.
Energy equals growth. It's that simple. Driving up the cost of energy through the usual lamebrained liberal schemes only retards economic growth. Recessions don't improve national security.
If you want to see improvement in energy prices and innovation, the course is clear: cut taxes and regulation. We could double refinery capacity pretty quickly, and a nuclear plant would take out plenty of nasty, dirty coal plants. Open our wastelands like ANWR to oil exploration.
And if you really want to conserve fuel, why not force Robert Kennedy Jr. and all the other liberal blowhards to take a nice, fossil-fuel avoidant transportation like an oxcart everywhere they go to deliver their bloviating speeches on the coming environmental apocalypse?
With all due respect to doubting Thomas, the War on Terror has next to nothing to do with energy policy. Let's say the United States bought no oil from the Gulf. Bin Laden and his cohorts would have targeted us anyway, since a) we're allied with Israel and b) we're a Western superpower. Our enemies' motivations have precious little to do with oil and an awful lot to do with religion and culture.
The current difficulty with energy supplies has nothing at all to do with crude oil, which is what we buy from the Gulf. It's all about refinery capacity.
A refinery produces a variety of products from a barrel of crude oil, notably gasoline and heating oil. We haven't built a refinery in this country in 20 years thanks to the environmentalist whackos, so as a result, the refineries we do have are always struggling to produce enough output to meet demand. Ever noticed how when gas prices have gone up in recent years heating oil has as well, irrespective of the price of crude? That's because when gas is in short supply, refineries have to make gasoline longer into the year, and delay switching production over to heating oil. That helps lower gas prices, but at the expense of increased heating oil prices due to smaller supplies.
Katrina wiped out some refinery capacity, while Rita took some of the larger refineries down for several days. Since we can't pump crude oil into our SUVs, we're stuck chasing smaller supplies. Moreover, since Americans are prone to gas panic, many people went and filled their cars up "just in case", thus draining the system of already-scarce gas supplies. All of which will both drive gasoline price up, force refineries to extend production to drive it back down, and cause the next wave of liberal carping when heating oil prices rise this winter. You can set your clock by it.
A saner energy policy might begin by eliminating different gas formulations mandated by the EPA and state regulatory agencies. Bush has done this, and the effect was an immediate lessening of the supply problem.
Another option is to to drill in ANWR and build a refinery nearby. Bush is pushing for this.
By the way, we don't get as much oil from the Gulf as you might think. 25% comes from the Persian Gulf, whereas we get 35% from North America. Just because Colin Powell liked to play racquetball with Prince Bandar doesn't mean he was doing so to lower the cost of a fillup.
Energy equals growth. It's that simple. Driving up the cost of energy through the usual lamebrained liberal schemes only retards economic growth. Recessions don't improve national security.
If you want to see improvement in energy prices and innovation, the course is clear: cut taxes and regulation. We could double refinery capacity pretty quickly, and a nuclear plant would take out plenty of nasty, dirty coal plants. Open our wastelands like ANWR to oil exploration.
And if you really want to conserve fuel, why not force Robert Kennedy Jr. and all the other liberal blowhards to take a nice, fossil-fuel avoidant transportation like an oxcart everywhere they go to deliver their bloviating speeches on the coming environmental apocalypse?
posted by Teflon at 8:04 PM
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