The United States consumes 20.1 million barrels of oil per day, 69 percent of which is used for transportation. Nearly 85 percent of the energy consumed in the transportation sector is for highway vehicle travel, followed by air (9 percent) and rail and water (6 percent combined). Energy consumption in the transportation sector consists almost exclusively (98 percent) of petroleum fuels.
Oil demand: Why is the transportation sector key?
September 6th, 2007
What are the economic implications of oil dependence?
September 6th, 2007Oil dependence has considerable economic implications. Shrinking petroleum supply and rising demand translate into higher costs. Both American consumers and the U.S. economy are already suffering from the cumulative effect of recent increases in gas prices. Fully one-quarter of the U.S. trade deficit is associated with oil imports. By some estimates, we lose 27,000 jobs for every billion dollars of additional oil imports. Serious domestic and global economic dislocation would almost certainly occur should disruption of supply take place.
For a discussion of the hidden cost of oil click here.
Why is oil dependence a national security problem?
September 6th, 2007The U.S. accounts for a quarter of the world’s oil demand, yet it is has a mere three percent of global oil reserves. Consequently, the U.S. is heavily – and increasingly – dependent on foreign oil. Nearly 40 percent of all U.S. oil imports come from potentially hostile or unstable regimes. And 90 percent of conventional oil reserves are in these nations including ones that are sponsors of or allied with radical Islamists who foment hatred against the US. Buying billions of dollars worth of oil provides such nations the means to continue and gather strength in their war against the free world. Further, oil supply is vulnerable to terror attacks by jihadists who wish to break our economic backbone.
Register Now for Plug in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) Symposium
September 5th, 2007The Set America Free Coalition is co-sponsoring a one-day Symposium, “Plug-In Hybrids: Accelerating Progress,” on 19 September 2007, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington D.C. The symposium will cover: plug-in hybrids on the road today; fuel economy; efficiency and economics of plug-in hybrids; technology challenges; the electric grid and plug-in hybrids; legislative needs; and more. For more information and to register, click here.
Driven to Spend
August 30th, 2007The average commuter in Houston spends over 20% of their annual household income on “getting to work,” says a survey titled
Driven to Spend: Pumping Dollars out of Our Households and Communities by the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership and the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT). In other words, the average commuter in the Texas city spends more on getting to work than any other expense, including home ownership. Why? 94% of all workers in the Houston area drive to work, mostly from one of Houston’s rapidly growing suburban communities. In a given year, the partnership estimates the average Houstonian commuter spends 64 hours a year stuck in traffic jams. Cleveland, Detroit and Tampa were not far behind Houston. Key findings of Driven to Spend include:
1. Households in regions that have invested in public transportation reap financial benefits from having affordable transportation options, even as gasoline prices rise.
2. Low-income families are unduly impacted by higher transportation costs since transportation expenditures claim a higher percentage of their family budgets.
3. For the first time, the study analyzed the effects of gasoline price hikes and ranked areas by the jump in household expenditures due gas prices. From 2003-2004, Los Angeles area families paid $316 more per household for gasoline, with families in the Kansas City metro area paying $312 more for the second highest increase. The New York metro area posted the smallest increase at $220 per household.
Oil: the less you work the more you make
July 17th, 2007Oil is one of those rare products that the less one produces of it the more money one makes. The Arabs can tell us more about this lucrative business.
The overall value of oil exports by member states of the Organization Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) reached $393.3 billion in 2006 that’s $76.7 billion dollars extra, compared to 2005. Yet, all this windfall is taking place while the overall output of the crude dropped by 50,000 barrels per day, reaching the level of 21.36 million barrels throughout last year, compared to 21.41 million the year before.
Not a bad deal.
Oil terrorism near home
July 14th, 2007We have grown used to terror attacks against oil facilities in Iraq, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, but now it seems this plague is coming to a theater near us. The LA Times reports that “Mexican President Felipe Calderon has dispatched a new 5,000-strong elite military unit to guard strategic sites, including oil refineries and hydroelectric dams, in the wake of guerrilla attacks on pipelines operated by the national oil and gas company, Pemex.” and that “as many as 1,000 factories and other businesses in the Guanajuato-Queretaro region of central Mexico have been forced to shut down or reduce operations this week because of fuel shortages caused by attacks this month.” The attacks were executed by The leftist Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR, in retaliation for the disappearance of two of their militants last year in the southern state of Oaxaca.
“The damage to the economy is serious,” Ruben Aguilar Valenzuela wrote Thursday in the commentary in the newspaper Reforma. “This [guerrilla] action was well thought out…. They picked a strategic objective.”
Meanwhile, a Pennsylvania man was convicted yesterday of plotting to blow up U.S. oil pipelines and gas facilities and of attempting to enlist al Qaeda terrorists on the Internet to help carry out his plan. The Washington Times reported that “Michael C. Reynolds, 49, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., was found guilty of scheming to blow up the Alaska and Transcontinental pipelines and other energy installations to prompt a withdrawal of the U.S. military from Iraq, laying out the scheme in extreme detail to a man he thought was an al Qaeda contact but who was actually a former federal magistrate working with the FBI.”
This is another reminder that terrorists realize the best way to hurt us and the governments they hate is going after the lifeblood of our economy which also happens to be that of some of the world’s worst dictators.
Electric power generation by energy source
July 12th, 2007There is a common misconception that increasing the proportion of nuclear, solar, wind and so forth for power generation will reduce oil consumption. It is a misconception since today, unlike in the 1970s, very little of US electricity is generated from oil. Here is a chart of power generation by energy source:
Jim Woolsey burns rubber in an all electric car
July 12th, 2007
I feel the need, the need for speed
Steve Marshall and Bruce Agnew write: “It was a classic “American Graffiti” moment. A Corvette had stopped at the light next to Martin Eberhard’s new Tesla Roadster. The Corvette driver wanted a race. Jim Woolsey, former CIA director in the Clinton administration, was at the wheel of the Tesla, taking a test drive. He asked Eberhard, Tesla Motors’ CEO, what to do, and got the answer he wanted. “Take him,” said Eberhard. When the light turned green, Woolsey floored it. With a near-silent whoosh, the all-electric Tesla, capable of going from zero to 60 in four seconds, left the Corvette driver with one question when he caught up at the next light: “What is that?”"
Keep reading.
A national security no brainer: plug in hybrid vehicles
July 12th, 2007
Gaffney in a plug in hybrid, joined by Senator Brownback and Felix Kramer
Frank Gaffney’s testimony in the House of Representatives today: “Since only 2% of our electrical grid relies on oil to generate power, electrification of the transportation sector is a key element of the effort to reduce our consumption of oil.
Automobiles and other vehicles that can use electricity to provide some or all of their fuel can make a real contribution to weaning us from our oil addiction and diminishing the national security vulnerabilities that arise therefrom.”
Read the whole thing.
Rob Lowe and Rep. Markey, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, standing next to a plug in hybrid after today’s hearing.