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The news couldn't be better -- and it couldn't be worse. Or ask yourself this: What do these two headlines have in common: "U.S. expected to be largest producer of petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbons in 2013," "Shift to a new climate likely by middle of the century, study finds"?
A great deal, it turns out. Evidently, as the U.S. Energy Information Agency reports, the U.S. will surpass Russia as the leading combined producer of oil and natural gas this year. For the time being, Saudi Arabia remains the globe's number one oil producer. And yes, according to a new study in the journal Nature, sometime around the year 2047 (give or take the odd decade), the world will hit a "climate takeoff point." Think of it as the moment when, according to the researchers, "the old maximum average temperatures become the new minimum temperatures, extending beyond any climate we have experienced since 1860," that is, when systematic records first began being kept.
So for the U.S., we may be talking record fossil fuel production, while for the globe we are going to be talking record heat, record storms -- of which a preview could be seen in the monstrous cyclone "half the size of India" that just came out of the warming waters of the Bay of Bengal -- and record weather disruptions as the new norm on planet Earth. The connection, of course, is record emissions of carbon dioxide from the record burning of all those fossil fuels. It couldn't be a nastier combo, something potentially straight out of Dante's inferno. And, as always, TomDispatch has Michael Klare, author most recently of The Race for What's Left, on the case. Tom
Fossil Fuel Euphoria
Hallelujah, Oil and Gas Forever!
By Michael T. KlareFor years, energy analysts had been anticipating an imminent decline in global oil supplies. Suddenly, they're singing a new song: Fossil fuels growing scarce? Don't even think about it! The news couldn't be better: fossil fuels will become ever more abundant. And all that talk about climate change? Don't worry about it, they chant. Go out and enjoy the benefits of cheap and plentiful energy forever.
This movement from gloom about our energy future to what can only be called fossil-fuel euphoria may prove to be the hallmark of our peculiar moment. In a speech this September, for instance, Barry Smitherman, chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission (that state's energy regulatory agency), claimed that the Earth possesses a "relatively boundless supply" of oil and natural gas. Not only that -- and you can practically hear the chorus of cheering in Houston and other oil centers -- but many of the most exploitable new deposits are located in the U.S. and Canada. As a result -- add a roll of drums and a blaring of trumpets -- the expected boost in energy is predicted to provide the United States with a cornucopia of economic and political rewards, including industrial expansion at home and enhanced geopolitical clout abroad. The country, exulted Karen Moreau of the New York State Petroleum Council, another industry cheerleader, is now in a position "to become a global superpower on energy."
There are good reasons to be deeply skeptical of such claims, but that hardly matters when they are gaining traction in Washington and on Wall Street. What we're seeing is a sea change in elite thinking on the future availability and attractiveness of fossil fuels. Senior government officials, including President Obama, have already become infected with this euphoria, as have top Wall Street investors -- which means it will have a powerful and longlasting, though largely pernicious, effect on the country's energy policy, industrial development, and foreign relations.
The speed and magnitude of this shift in thinking has been little short of astonishing. Just a few years ago, we were girding for the imminent prospect of "peak oil," the point at which daily worldwide output would reach its maximum and begin an irreversible decline. This, experts assumed, would result in a global energy crisis, sky-high oil prices, and severe disruptions to the world economy.
Today, peak oil seems a distant will-o'-the-wisp. Experts at the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) confidently project that global oil output will reach 115 million barrels per day by 2040 -- a stunning 34% increase above the current level of 86 million barrels. Natural gas production is expected to soar as well, leaping from 113 trillion cubic feet in 2010 to a projected 185 trillion in 2040.
These rosy assessments rest to a surprising extent on a single key assumption: that the United States, until recently a declining energy producer, will experience a sharp increase in output through the exploitation of shale oil and natural gas reserves through hydro-fracking and other technological innovations. "In a matter of a few years, the trends have reversed," Moreau declared last February. "There is a new energy reality of vast domestic resources of oil and natural gas brought about by advancing technology... For the first time in generations, we are able to see that our energy supply is no longer limited, foreign, and finite; it is American and abundant."
The boost in domestic oil and gas output, it is further claimed, will fuel an industrial renaissance in the United States -- with new plants and factories being built to take advantage of abundant local low-cost energy supplies. "The economic consequences of this supply-and-demand revolution are potentially extraordinary," asserted Ed Morse, the head of global commodities research at Citigroup in New York. America's gross domestic product, he claimed, will grow by 2% to 3% over the next seven years as a result of the energy revolution alone, adding as much as $624 billion to the national economy. Even greater gains can be made, Morse and others claim, if the U.S. becomes a significant exporter of fossil fuels, particularly in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Not only will these developments result in added jobs -- as many as three million, claims energy analyst Daniel Yergin -- but they will also enhance America's economic status vis---vis its competitors. "U.S. natural gas is abundant and prices are low -- a third of their level in Europe and a quarter of that in Japan," Yergin wrote recently. "This is boosting energy-intensive manufacturing in the U.S., much to the dismay of competitors in both Europe and Asia."
This fossil fuel euphoria has even surfaced in statements by President Obama. For all his talk of climate change perils and the need to invest in renewables, he has also gloated over the jump in domestic energy production and promised to facilitate further increases. "Last year, American oil production reached its highest level since 2003," he affirmed in March 2011. "And for the first time in more than a decade, oil we imported accounted for less than half of the liquid fuel we consumed. So that was a good trend. To keep reducing that reliance on imports, my administration is encouraging offshore oil exploration and production."
Money Pouring into Fossil Fuels
This burst of euphoria about fossil fuels and America's energy future is guaranteed to have a disastrous impact on the planet. In the long term, it will make Earth a hotter, far more extreme place to live by vastly increasing carbon emissions and diverting investment funds from renewables and green energy to new fossil fuel projects. For all the excitement these endeavors may be generating, it hardly takes a genius to see that they mean ever more carbon dioxide heading into the atmosphere and an ever less hospitable planet.
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