Daniel Yergin re: US energy policy catch-up game

Let's face it, as far as my reading of history goes, the alarmist in the '70s and early '80s clearly had not correctly analysed the real energy, there were people that knew the shortages were political and not resource related. That led to foreign policy decisions that in hind sight were inappropriate. It also led to regulations that caused more environmental and economic damage.

Yergin correctly notes that North America can become "less dependent" and this is in the United States best interest, and foreign policy should reflect that. The big impediment politically is some environmental groups putting pressure on the government not to use unconventional oil. Conventional oil is clearly running out. Using less oil as fuel is clearly in the national best interests to become both less dependent and cause less environmental damage.

Here is the original nyt editorial
The New Politics of Energy - NYTimes.com

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The new reality is rising prices with spikes and troughs, same as the old reality, but we need to get out of the idiotic peak oil talk.​

 

One thing that a very good economist pointed out was that shortages of natural resources rarely have a nice linear reduction in supply along with a nice linear rise in price. The first signs are price spikes and oscillations, not shortages. This will go on for quite some time before the hard shortages arrive in force. Viewed through that education, what we are seeing makes so much more sense.

Translation -- For me the gas price retreats that occur after the surges are the best possible time to get a Prius.

(PS Where I first encounter this was in the destruction of the Western Atlantic Cod Fisheries. Lots of catch variation in the 90s was followed by an incredibly steep permanent disappearance of the entire Cod population.)

 

They look to be permanently gone. This is the Western North Atlanta Cod (Canadian/US). There is still a Eastern Cod (European) fishery and others still surviving.

 

Concerning FL-Prius #4

There are several examples in 'the ecology literature' of non-linear behaviour as you describe. Both as detailed observations of natural populations, and as characteristics of complex population models.

'Complexity theory' declares itself to be significant, and yet there may be some bits of useful truth hidden among all of the jargon.

 

Off topic a bit, but the collapse of Cod was on a total Eco system scale, and while Cod are not now, nore are they likely toe becom extinct, they will never recover in in our life times, and perhaps not ever. There is a very inserting book called "Cod" that chronicles the history of cod fishing from prehistory to the collapse. The shear volume of fish that was consumed on the back of the nort Atlantic cod fishery is mind boggleing. The shea volume of things that we don't know about ocean ecosystems is also staggering.

When you invent a industrial fishing mechanism that is so very efficient it doesn't take a genius to realize that you will soon run it. Your grand children may never know a wild caught fish, because the way humans will fish to the last fish, the nwonder where they went!

Icarus

Amazon.com: Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World (9780140275018): Mark Kurlansky: Books

 

i didn't read the article, does it cover u.s. oil usage over the last decade? seems to me we're experiencing reduced demand more due to the economy rather than efficiencies.

 

The article was written from the editorial. IMHO efficiencies would continue to improve given the cafe legislation and progress on hybrid, plug-in, and diesel technology.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/opinion/sunday/the-new-politics-of-energy.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1​

The oil story is also being rewritten. Net petroleum imports have fallen from 60 percent of total consumption in 2005 to 42 percent today. Part of the reason is on the demand side. The improving gasoline efficiency of cars will eventually reduce oil demand by at least a couple of million barrels per day.​

The other part is the supply side — the turnaround in United States oil production, which has risen 25 percent since 2008. It could increase by 600,000 barrels per day this year. The biggest part of the increase is coming from what has become the “new thing” in energy — tight oil. That is the term for oil produced from tight rock formations with the same technology used to produce shale gas.​

 

of course, when the next boom in the economy hits, it will be interesting to see how all these numbers change.