The American Spectator

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Energy's Prevailing Winds

By Philip Klein on 5.16.08 @ 12:08AM

(Page 3 of 3)

PK: What should the government's role be in all of this?

BP: I'd say in going to renewables, they'd need to have a production credit in place for a number of years, not renewing it every two years. That doesn't get the interest into it that you need to have, because people are frightened that they're investing in something that they can't get help on. So you need the production tax credit on wind. And you need to free up the right of way.

PK: In Congress, "alternative energy" often translates into ethanol subsidies, or other pork barrel spending projects. How much of the move toward alternative energy is going to have to be aided, at least in the short term, by government subsidies? Why won't companies see it in their interests to invest in alternative energies without government help?

BP: There's no question you're going to have to have the production tax credit. That's a must, because it can't stand alone without it. You're better off to create jobs at home, and recycle the money. I was against ethanol originally, but hell, I'd rather have ethanol than I would Saudi oil. They're the number two provider after Canada. They're selling about 1.8 million, 2 million barrels a day to us. Ethanol is not going to solve it. Nothing is going to solve the problem for us, because we've got such a huge appetite. We're now importing 62 percent of our crude oil. Out of the 85 million barrels a day the world produces, we're using 25 percent of it, with less than 5 percent of the population.

PK: What are your thoughts on solar power?

BP: Don't know anything about it. I just said there's a corridor for solar power from Sweetwater, Texas, to California across Arizona, New Mexico, and the California border. We're not in any solar power projects. But these are the kind of things that somebody in government is going to have to get involved in and make something happen. The country is desperate for leadership on energy. I don't think any of these politicians running for the president of the United States even have a clue we're up against.

PK: What about nuclear power? Do you think licensing more nuclear power plants would be a good option?

BP: I'm for nuclear power. We should do it. We should do everything, because we need energy from all sources and get away from what we're doing, importing so much crude oil. But, being a geologist, I have some concern over whether you've got uranium available to you.

I think the greatest source of uranium is Russia, and they're no friend. And then you look at the two largest oil producers in the world, it's Russia and Saudi Arabia, and the two largest natural gas producers, and it's Russia and Iran, and the two largest importers of oil are the United States and China. So, you're in a bad spot, and you have to get some leadership in getting this country off of the imported oil as our primary energy source.

PK: What are some of the more promising alternatives that are out there to power automobiles?

BP: The obvious one is natural gas, and natural gas is a domestic fuel. So, anything you can replace with natural gas as far as diesel gasoline is concerned, you cut down on the imports, and natural gas is a cleaner, cheaper fuel that's available. That infrastructure should be developed. It doesn't need much in the way of help from the government.

You've got to try to develop everything. You don't push anything off the table now. You just have to go balls-out to get it done, and get off of this crude oil. I just can't believe, I keep saying this. It's just a huge outflow of wealth from this country.

PK: People have been talking about alternative energy since the 1970s. What is different now?

BP: In the '70s, there wasn't a shortage of oil. Whenever oil would go up, and activity would start in alternatives, they would make more oil available, and drop the price. It would stop all of that activity. It's entirely different today, because you've peaked on the oil. In the Mideast, they can't give you any more oil than they're giving you. The game has changed.

PK: Do you think that now the technologies exist that make things more achievable than they were back when we were talking about energy alternatives in the 1970s?

BP: Sure, they're more achievable, because the price is better. Of course, the cost of development has gone up dramatically too. The only way you're going to kill demand is with price. But back in the '70s, you were taking a chance with alternatives, believing that oil prices were going to go up. When activity would start up some place, OPEC would just provide more oil and drop the price. Those days are gone.

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