Energy reality

To the editor:

Your July 13 reprint on the candidates’ energy strategy included the poignant quote that the candidates “are just throwing stuff against the wall, seeing what sticks.”

Today sufficient data exist proving that:

a) globally, discoveries of new oil have fallen behind extraction for almost three decades;

b) consumption is expanding faster than production; in fact, crude oil extraction has not increased for three years;

c) the minimum growth in liquid fuels is coming from natural gas liquids, with much less from tar sands and biofuels (the latter contributing to rising food prices);

d) excepting special vehicles, gas liquids cannot be used for cars;

e) improved extraction technology, such as horizontal drilling, is sucking out reserves faster than before, making the down slope of fields much steeper than before; in fact the decline rate of mature fields is accelerating;

f) the Saudi king declared that his nation must leave that precious resource for its own children;

g) ultra-deep water production is experiencing serious delays;

h) finally (though this list could continue), oil industry costs more than doubled in this decade.

An Arab proverb says: “My grandfather rode a camel, my father drove a car, I fly an airplane, my son will drive a car, his son will ride a camel.”

What will our grandchildren ride if we fail to grasp the true state of energy affairs? Depletable resources do not flow from an economist’s elasticity curve (Give me high prices, supplies will automatically follow!) nor from political rhetoric.

Leslie Dienes,
Lawrence