Secure Our Fuels

As the Senate kicks off hearings today on cap-and-trade, university professors from Oklahoma to Illinois are taking to the opinion pages of local newspapers to lay out, chapter-and-verse, commonsense solutions that will help put the nation on a path toward affordable and reliable energy security.

Chief among their suggestions – rooted in straightforward academic analysis, not politics – was that the US must embrace all forms of energy, especially affordable and reliable reserves right here in our own backyard.

C. John Mann, geology professor (emeritus) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, writes this in a column entitled “Nation must use oil from unconventional sources” in today’s Springfield State Journal-Register, the Land of Lincoln’s oldest newspaper:

If the Obama administration is really interested in reducing U.S. reliance on foreign energy supplies, then it should recognize the value and validity of unconventional oil made from liquefied coal, Canadian oil sands and Western oil shale.

Using these vast resources to meet America’s energy needs would be a boon for U.S. consumers and this country’s energy security. And everyone would benefit from well-paying jobs and revenue that come from producing, processing and refining liquefied coal and oil sands.

A recent decision by the U.S. State Department to support oil-sands production offers at least a glimmer of foresight and flexibility.

Canada’s oil sands formations hold an estimated 173 billion barrels of recoverable oil, making Canada second only to Saudi Arabia in the size of its reserves. The International Energy Agency has said that with future advances in technology as much as 1.7 trillion barrels of Canadian oil sands could be extracted.

Despite protests from environmental groups, the State Department approved a permit for a 1,000-mile-long pipeline that would carry oil from Canada’s oil sands formations in northern Alberta to refineries on Lake Superior in Wisconsin. The Alberta Clipper pipeline will be capable of carrying 800,000 barrels per day of crude oil, shoring up Canada’s position as America’s No. 1 source of foreign oil.

Mann emphasizes the economic and national security risks associated with hampering supplies of affordable and reliable Canadian energy from reaching American consumers, which would be required under a national, one-size-fits-all low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS):

California and Oregon have banned use of oil sands, oil shale and liquefied coal, and several northeastern states reportedly plan to follow suit. At the same time, the U.S. House of Representatives is considering legislation that would impose a national ban in the guise of a low-carbon fuel standard. House members who are pushing for its passage seem heedless of economic consequences.

Quite simply, lawmakers should steer clear of regulations that discriminate between conventional and unconventional fuel sources, as they would exacerbate energy security problems without delivering compensating climate benefits. Imposing greater costs on oil sands producers and the liquefied coal sector will only benefit OPEC and would have little impact on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Given this country’s increasing rate of unemployment, we can ill-afford to turn our back on unconventional fuels.

The geology professor closes strongly with this:

As the administration works with Congress to develop energy policies, those who shape legislation need to wake up and realize that our country cannot afford to forego the use of unconventional oil. A misguided push to prevent its use can only succeed in undermining our economy.

And David Deming, a University of Oklahoma geologist and associate professor of arts and sciences, writes this in The Oklahoman under the headline “Plenty of oil out there”:

North America contains huge unconventional petroleum resources in the form of tar sands and oil shale. The western U.S. alone is capable of producing at least 2 trillion barrels of petroleum from oil shale. At a current U.S. annual consumption rate of 7 billion barrels, that represents a 286-year supply of oil, none of which would be imported. The value of this resource is $120 trillion, 10 times the size of the national debt.

We should follow Canada’s example. Starting in the 1960s, Canada began to aggressively develop its tar sand resources. As a result, Canadian production is now more than a million barrels per day, and its oil reserves are the second-largest in the world.

Oil is the lifeblood of our industrial economy. The U.S. economy will remain stagnant and depressed until we begin to aggressively develop our native energy resources. We have the technology to produce petroleum from oil shale in a manner that is efficient, economic and environmentally friendly. What’s stopping us is ignorance and bad public policy.