Re: Energy Policy / Junk Science Environmentalism

I'll confine my comments to your comment on executive optimism: It's easy to come up with a long list of reasons why industry executives may appear to be unjustifiably optimistic, ranging all the way from outright deception to simple stupidity. Some of these reasons are more plausible than others. However, as long as we're just guessing, none of these reasons is worth much. And even if we're quite familiar with a particular set of executives and believe we understand them, our understanding is not necessarily relevant to any other set of executives: Jack Welch is not Bill Gates is not Steve Jobs is not Ken Lay and so on. To imply they all fit under the same blanket would be a form of prejudice. That would be like my saying (in response to one of Al Koop's earlier comments) that views of engineers can't be trusted because all engineers have a narrow focus, while executives are looking at the big picture.

Many competent people who know a lot about world oil are aware that major changes are coming because of rapidly increasing worldwide demand and less rapidly increasing production, and because the supply of easily produced hydrocarbons is finite. A subset of these people--including at least some oil company executives--predict later and less traumatic consequences than others. I've heard a lot from those who predict the earlier and more traumatic consequences and find their arguments compelling. I've heard little from those who predict more benign consequences, but at least until I understand their positions better, I feel it's not appropriate to just dismiss them, as easy as this is to do. Consequently, I've decided to suspend judgment on the magnitude and timing of the calamity we face.

I've read lots of opinions in editorials and commentaries from people who are optimistic, and in no case so far have they made a valid case for their optimism. But those authors were not experts on energy, as oil industry executives should be. Whether or not oil industry executives can make a valid case is for me an unanswered question. I know that at least some of them have given the matter considerable thought.

No matter who's right, however, conservation and a search for alternatives are unquestionably appropriate. The questions you raise correctly imply that the search for alternatives must be done intelligently.

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Peter Cook<mailto:pwcook@optonline.net>
  To: Al Koop<mailto:koopa@gvsu.edu> ; glennmorton@entouch.net<mailto:glennmorton@entouch.net> ; dfwinterstein@msn.com<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 7:56 PM
  Subject: Re: Energy Policy / Junk Science Environmentalism

  Question: as we look at alternatives, does anyone know the costs, in energy,
  of using some of these alternatives? Hydrogen - where will get get it, and
  what will it cost in energy? For that matter, with hybrid cars now getting
  some govenrment support through tax incentives, has anyone done a study on
  what the overall enery cost of a hybrid car is, counting not just the MPG in
  its operation, but also the enegy required to manufacture, as opposed to the
  energy to manufacture conventional vehicles? While such vehicles may be
  efficient in operation, what about the overall picture from an energy
  perspective.

  Comment: regarding executive optimism, is it possible that even a bit of
  this optimism stems from a certain conflict of interest? May executives are
  compensated on the basis of company performance, either through bonuses or
  stock options, and while I may be wrong, it would seem that stating that we
  are heading for a crisis that "my company" cannot solve might have a
  negative effect on such compensation. I have no knowledge of any of the oil
  executive who have been cited on this, but it seems that such a conflict may
  exist withoug their even really seeing it.

  Pete Cook.
Received on Wed Jan 4 04:57:22 2006