[GJM] Fwd: Bush's Energy Independence Talk

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----------------------------Forwarded Message----------------------------

Forum:    the Economics with Heart Forum
Subject:  Bush's Energy Independence Talk
From:     Ken (LIONHEART16)
To:       (ALL)
DateTime: 1/28/2007 4:55:31 PM

January 28, 2007
-->The Basics-->
-->The Long Road to Energy Independence -->-->
By MATTHEW L. WALD-->-->

President Bush never used the phrase “energy independence” in his State of the Union address last week, and it is just as well. His program for cutting gasoline demand is ambitious in scope, but 
modest in effect, according to experts.
The reason is that the United States has fallen down a very deep well, and it’s hard to get out. Last year, the United States imported 60 percent of the oil it consumed. If, as Mr. Bush proposes, we 
cut gasoline consumption 20 percent by 2017 — about 2.1 million barrels a day — then the share of oil imported will fall only by 4 or 5 percentage points.
In fact, the government expects the share of imported oil to fall anyway, to less than 56 percent, because of a rise in domestic production, mostly from the Gulf Coast. 
Domestic production has fallen sharply since the mid-1970s, but the Energy Information Administration, which is part of the Energy Department, expects production to rise to almost six million barrels 
a day by 2017, up from a little over five million barrels a day now. 
Mr. Bush is also proposing an increase in fuel-economy standards and an increase in the production of ethanol and other gasoline substitutes, hoping to keep oil consumption relatively steady. Without 
such intervention, oil consumption is forecast to rise to just over 23 million barrels a day in 2017, from nearly 21 million barrels a day today.
“It’s an enormous challenge,” said John Felmy, the chief economist of the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s main trade association. 
Production of ethanol from corn has already put pressure on food prices, according to some agriculture experts, but Mr. Bush’s plan involves tripling the production of corn ethanol, and making huge 
amounts of ethanol from cellulose, which is not now done commercially. 
Integrating that much ethanol into the fuel supply will involve many more rail-tanker cars or trucks, because ethanol cannot be shipped in conventional pipelines. In addition, the gasoline formula 
with which it is mixed has to be changed, or the mixture evaporates too easily, causing air pollution.
The actual amount of ethanol produced will depend on what is technically feasible and on the price of oil. But at the rate of change suggested by the Bush plan, energy independence is about a century 
away.-->-->-->Ken, the Lionhearted
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