Energy Wars?

From Newsweek via MSNBC.

The title is a bit misleading; I understand the author's point, but not sure I agree that there's nothing to be done, and certainly don't agree with the things the author seems to favor -- higher milage requirements (making vehicles more expensive AND less safe) and higher gas taxes (already 5+ times the actual per gallon profit of the energy producer). Energy producing nations don't make any money if they don't sell to customers. Of course, they will try to influence those customers.

Energy supplies are currently tight, and may get tighter, driving up prices. Supply and demand have met with little or no spare production capacity today due to low prices in previous years leading to an exploration hiatus in the industry. No one read the tea leaves and foresaw the burgeoning demand from China and India in particular. It takes several years to bring new production facilities online. Higher prices will bring a contraction in demand, AND increase the potential supply as exploration budgets are increased, alternates and substitutes are developed, and higher cost fields become profitable -- like tar sands.

Politically, the vast majority ((75-80%) of the world's energy supplies are controlled by state-run organizations, many of whom are not exactly friendly to the US. And the uncertainty in some of these nations (Nigeria, Venezuela, Iraq, and Iran in particular) are driving prices even higher, with a premium of as much as $10-20 being added to each barrel of oil today. And all the US gov't has done in recent years is curtail even the exploration for energy domestically, Florida and Alaska most notably. Even if more energy were produced domestically, refining capacity is also at a ceiling as well, and new refineries haven't ben built in aroudn 30 years. In addition, no new nuclear power plants have been constructed in the country for over 30 years as well. This has got to change, but won't if we don't have the political will to do so. The good news is that we squeeze more and more economic output from each BTU as time goes on -- the economy is growing much faster than our increase in energy consumption.