Several days ago, I wrote a dismayed post about a White House background teleconference prior to President Barack Obama’s speech on Energy Security at Georgetown University. Two days has provided time to reflect on the plan and crunch the numbers. After such extensive analysis, the plan’s strengths have become clear.
The plan’s four core elements will work, syncronistically, to effect significant change to enable a shift toward a more secure and more prosperous 21st century.
As some might put it, the President laid out a solid vision to “Win the Future”.
While some might have missed it within the President’s speech and White House press releases, some critical items underpin how this plan will hasten our way toward a stronger future.
The Administration has accurately identified that America’s oil companies are not drillng up every inch of every lease out there. Evidently, extensive tax incentives and minimal accountability for pollution make it impossible for oil companies to achieve adequate profitability. And, this is why the Administration has wisely determined that it is critical to increase incentives so that we can ever more rapidly extract the 1.7 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves that is in the United States. Using up our capital, as represented in our existing oil, fits with the rest of America’s use it or you’re lose it mentality. After all, if we don’t extract it quickly enough someone could figure out a path to reduce (our drastically) our requirement to use fossil fuels for transportation. And, well, if we haven’t burned up the oil before then, consider how the Koch Brothers would suffer without those additional billions of dollars in their coffers.
Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs) are truly a critical part of the ovrall path to secure Exxon-Mobil profitability. Hundreds of billions of dollars will, over the next twenty years, lead to a reduction in oil demand by potentially one million barrels per day in the United States. This, of course, means that those resources will not be available to fund railroad electrification, extensive public transportation, a robust electric car infrastructure, and other paths that would cut US oil demand by over ten million barrels per day in that same time period. After all, cutting US oil demand in half (and global oil demand by 10 percent) could have a serious impact on the supply / demand curve and drive down oil prices enough to threaten oil executives’ bonuses and board members’ country club perks.
Yes, crunching the numbers on the Energy Security agenda laid out at Georgetown University solidifies the understanding that these measures are designed to Win The Future for oil stockholders … and represent an April Fool’s joke on the rest of us and on our future prospects.