“A highly readable primer on many of the Nation’s energy problems. Spence Abraham, a former Secretary of Energy and U.S. Senator, has a good time cutting the many widespread myths about energy down to size – and making his readers face the hard realities about energy. To these he appends his own recommended solutions. Abraham is particularly delightful in skewering political illusions, perhaps most notably, that out there at the end of the rainbow is that perennial promise of U.S. Energy Independence.”--James Schlesinger, Former Secretary of Energy and Former Secretary of Defense
"Spencer Abraham pulls no punches as he takes on both the myths and the realities of our comprehensive energy enterprise. This is a straight-talking "must-read" for anyone who wants to understand the enormous complexities and tough choices that face our society as we face the energy crisis that touches our daily lives, effects our environment and gets to the heart of our national security."--Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, U.S. Navy, (Ret.), former astronaut, NASA Administrator and Director, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
"Lights Out! discusses the myths and facts of the global energy challenge while proposing clear-minded, practical solutions. Most enlightening and frustrating are the contradictions of establishing the appropriate long-term energy strategy within the short-term constraints of politics. Mr.. Abraham is in a unique place to tell this story, and he doesn't disappoint. The book is an interesting mix of folksy story-telling, technical analysis, and political intrigue.”--Jacques Nasser, Chairman, BHP Billiton, Former CEO, Ford Motor Company
"A very insightful and comprehensive assessment of the energy challenges facing our country with thoughtful roadmaps for the future by someone who understa...
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CHAPTER 1
Ten Myths About Energy
1. We Can Achieve Energy Independence.
2. If Gas Prices Rise Abruptly, It Must Be Due to an Oil Company Conspiracy.
3. Global Warming Is a Complete Hoax.
4. Nuclear Plants Are Just as Unsafe as They Were at Three Mile Island.
5. Renewable Energy Is Universally Popular and Completely Safe for the Environment.
6. We Are Entering an Age of Natural Gas That Will Follow the Ages of Coal and Oil, and It Will Largely Solve Our Energy Problems.
7. Raising CAFE Standards 30% Will Produce a 30% Reduction in Oil Consumption.
8. Electrical Transmission Lines Cause Cancer.
9. All the Government Has to Do Is Choose the Right Energy Technology and Subsidize It.
10. All We Need Is a New Manhattan Project to Solve Our Energy Problems.
As secretary of energy, I found that energy is a very complicated topic—both from a scientific and a political point of view. For instance, someone might suggest that to save energy it makes sense to launch a national campaign to get everyone to turn off their computers when they’re not using them. Sounds easy. But is it? For instance, how do we know turning off computers is going to save electricity? Some people say computers use more electricity because there’s a big burst of electrical consumption when they are turned on. Well, maybe we should design a computer that doesn’t have that burst. Is that possible? No, wait a minute, maybe the best strategy is a sleep mode where the computer draws very little energy when not being used. Hasn’t someone already invented that? Yes, they have, and it works well. But maybe we should be doing the same thing for DVD players. You see how things can get complicated.
It gets even more complicated because the process of decision making is constantly distorted by politics. Some individual or group is always certain they have the only solution to the energy problem. Senators from coal states are morally certain the answer is coal. Various pundits are certain that global warming is a hoax and that human beings cannot possibly do anything so harmful to the environment. Environmental groups believe with their heart and soul that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will mean desecrating the crown jewels of America’s natural heritage, while the senator from Alaska says drilling is the way to wean us off foreign oil.
All this is part of the deliberative process. That’s what democracy is about. But while I was perfectly willing to accept input from advocacy groups and congressional representatives, I soon learned that there are certain energy arguments and assertions that just aren’t true. It is oft en said, “It’s not the things people don’t know that get them into trouble but the things they know that just ain’t so.” From my perspective, it became clear that the first step in understanding our energy problems is to recognize that much of the accepted wisdom about energy simply isn’t true, and that the propagation of these myths has proved fatal to the development of good energy policy. For that reason, I’m going to start this book by briefly outlining ten myths about energy that we have to clear away before we begin the real business of trying to figure out how to solve our energy problems. In part these myths have been responsible for the failure of our energy policy efforts to date, as will be discussed in later chapters. Thus, an examination of energy mythology is in order. So here we go.
Myth 1. We Can Achieve Energy Independence.
As late as the 2008 presidential campaign, candidates were still running around suggesting that America can achieve energy independence. This is a myth that must be put to rest once and for all. We aren’t ever going to be able to provide ourselves with all our energy. We live in an interdependent world and we might as well get used to it. The key consideration is that America’s oil production peaked in 1970. At that point in high-demand periods we were producing 10 million barrels a day and consuming around 14 million. Today we import over 60% of our oil.
We may be able to cut down on some of that de pen den cy or shift it to nations we aren’t so worried about. But we’re never again going to produce all of our own oil, and we’re not going to be replacing that oil with any other fuel or technology in the foreseeable future.
Congressmen on both sides of the aisle seem to have a hard time accepting that. Free-market enthusiasts promise that high prices will automatically call forth new production. Technology enthusiasts say we can come up with some new discovery that will solve the problem at a stroke. Environmentalists say all we have to do is mandate greater conservation and start phasing in renewable energy.
There is some potential in all these approaches, but together they don’t add up. There is only so much oil in the ground. Some older wells in Texas are now pumping almost all water. Enhanced recovery methods may force out a little more of this oil, but domestic production will never supply the nation the way it did in the 1950s. Likewise, mandated standards may give cars greater gas mileage but they cannot guarantee that people will buy these cars or, when they do, that they won’t just drive them more and use the same amount of fuel. Conservation and efficiency measures can slow the rate at which our energy consumption increases year to year, but they can rarely, if ever, produce an overall decline in energy use. Population increases and growing affluence cancel them out.
In the long, long run gasoline-powered cars may be replaced by some completely new fleet running on electricity or hydrogen, but these vehicles would require building a whole new infrastructure to deliver the fuels to consumers. That construction is a long way off, and may never happen. For the present we had best face facts. We are dependent on the rest of the world for much of our oil and will be for a long time to come.
Myth 2. If Gas Prices Rise Abruptly, It Must Be Due to an Oil Company Conspiracy.
Every time the price of gasoline spiked while I was secretary, as certain as the dawn follows the night, the phones rang off the hook at the Department of Energy, particularly at my desk, asking why I wasn’t doing something about it. With each run-up in price, congressmen and senators of both parties would call demanding I take action. The suggested actions were usually absurd.
Republicans, supposedly the party of business, oft en wanted investigations into the energy companies for price gouging. Democrats, supposedly the party of conservation, wanted to slash the federal gas tax or open up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) so that people could go on consuming at their accustomed level. I especially appreciated the calls from members of Congress who opposed drilling off shore and in Alaska. Now they wanted those oil companies to start producing oil—pronto! They never understood there might be a connection.
Having served in the Senate for six years, I understand the need to posture during a crisis in order to create the impression that you are doing something for the folks back home. But these guys were always over the top. They couldn’t even admit in private that you can’t just summon resources out of thin air.
The simple fact is that the price of gasoline is only now catching up to the overall rate of inflation over the last quarter century. As I like to say to audiences, “Name one other liquid that sells for less than three dollars a gallon!” Even milk doesn’t sell that cheaply in a lot of places. Americans will pay more for boutique water and gourmet coffee, for liquid plumber, for just about any other fluid you can mention, without complaint. Somehow, though, we have come to believe that the price of gasoline is constitutionally guaranteed to remain below $3 a gallon no matter what happens in other corners of the world.
Think what it takes to provide you with a gallon of gasoline. First somebody has to go out and discover oil through the always chancy process of exploration. Then there is the cost of extracting it from a mile or two beneath the ground in some remote corner of the globe or even under the ocean floor. Then the product has to travel by pipeline to be loaded onto a vessel and carried oft en thousands of miles across the ocean to a U.S. port or via miles of pipeline. After off-loading, the oil then moves to a refinery where it is blended to some very high specification of gasoline mandated by federal or state law. All along the route here, each player is collecting a piece of the action. Finally the end product is trucked to your part of the world and sold by some guy in your neighborhood who is also trying to scrape out a living. Tack on the 18.4¢ per gallon in federal taxes plus an average of 28.6¢ in state taxes and it seems a miracle that we’re paying less than $3 a gallon. But if it jumps above $3 because of a refinery fire, pipeline explosion, or outbreak of a civil war somewhere, it’s time to call in the FBI to investigate oil companies or gas station owners.
Conspiracy theories don’t get us anywhere. The way to bring down energy prices is to increase our production or decrease our consumption, or—better yet—do both.
Myth 3. Global Warming Is a Complete Hoax.
While we’re on the subject of conspiracy theories, let’s look at climate change. The myth in some quarters is that it’s all a hoax dreamed up by environmentalists who want us to go back to living in the Stone Age. Sure, there has been some exaggeration and the “Climategate” revelations of apparent collusion between some climate researchers to exaggerate their data in late 2009 has further muddied the waters. While there are still doubts about the seriousness of the consequences, the thesis that burning fossil fuels will have an effect on our climate has to be factored into any energy equation.
First, it’s unrealis...
