US Energy Policy: Most Incoherent in the World

Updates

July 12, 2015: two comments regarding methane hydrates -- 1) they won't be a big deal in my lifetime; and, 2) this is just one more example why the world isn't going to run out of fossil fuel any time soon (see original post).

Today, OilPrice suggests Japan could move to methane hydrates.

Before the [nuclear] incident, Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors provided more than 30 percent of the country’s electricity requirement. Without nuclear energy, Japan’s domestic energy resources could only meet less than 9 percent of the nation’s energy requirement. 2013 saw the country increase it’s spending on fossil fuel imports by 60 percent when compared to 2010.

Currently, Japan is one of the largest net importers of crude oil, the second largest importer of coal and the largest global importer of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Since Japan imports almost its all of its fossil fuel requirement, it has lost its trade surplus and has become a nation with a rising trade deficit.

Methane hydrates are crystalline ice that is found in lower sediments of deep sea regions and polar regions that have methane gas trapped within them. When melted, methane hydrates turn into water and methane. Methane hydrates offer a truly massive reservoir of natural gas trapped in ice.

In fact, the deposits of this “burnable ice” are so large, ( Japan has around 746 locations in its coastal waters) they could provide Japan with enough natural gas for the next 100 years at least. And there could be much more methane hydrate deposits in the marine sediments off the Pacific Coast of the country. These are big numbers. Japan has also participated in an international research team that successfully produced methane in Canada’s arctic region.

Original Post

Over the weekend, Bruce McQuain posted a great article at HotAir.com:

The United States has the most energy resources in the world AND the most incoherent energy policy

McQuain used one word that caught my eye, the same word I often use on this site. But more on that later. 

McQuain starts with this:

According to a new report requested and paid for by Congress, America's combined energy resources (principally coal, natural gas, methane, and oil) far exceed --- ECLIPSE -- the energy resources of Saudi Arabia (3rd), China (4th) and Canada (6th).

This does not include America's shale oil deposits (such as the Bakken).

This does not include America's potentially astronomic impact of methane hydrates

Data points (some numbers rounded)

Coal:

• Well known to all: US has recoverable coal reserves of 260 billion tons
• Using 1 billion tons/year, US reserves will last centuries
• The US has 30% of the world's coal

Natural gas:

• At current rates of consumption, US has 100 years of natural gas reserves, based on conservative estimates
• Congressional Research Service upped its 2006 estimate of America's enormous natural gas deposits by 25 percent
• This estimate was conservative to begin with and does not include recent shale boom underway in the US

Methane hydrates (natural gas):

• Government estimates of methane hydrates -- one word -- "immense" -- possibly exceeding the combined energy content of all other known fossil fuels
• If just 3 percent of this resource can be commercialized, that level of supply would the US more than 400 years

Oil:

• Congressional Research Services: 163 billion barrels (vs mainstream media's repeated estimate of 28 billion barrels of proven reserves)
• Oft repeated US provable oil reserves represents only 20 percent of total US recoverable oil
• True estimate of US oil is enough to maintain America's current rates of production and replace imports from the Persian Gulf for more than 50 years
• That last statement may be a bit misleading: the US is importing less and less oil from the Midease; US is importing oil from Canada, Latin America, and western Africa

McQuain concludes his article with:

We have no coherent energy plan from this administration.  Instead it seems to have gone to war with the oil industry and is doing everything it can to slow its ability to find and exploit these resources.  19,000 jobs and 1.1 billion in earnings have been lost since the imposition of the administration’s moratorium.  Both former Presidents Bush and Clinton have spoken out against the delays.   And the administration remains in contempt of a court order which ordered them to speed up the permitting process.  As a result the EIA has estimated a loss of 74,000 barrels a day of production due to the moratorium this year.

Oh, yes, the word that caught my eye: myth.

I have long been a fan of JRR Tolkien's concept of myth and quote him often. That concept is my guiding light when it comes to energy. This is an expert's opinion of the US energy policy and how Bruce McQuain concluded his post:

Meanwhile US energy policy persists in pursuing the myth that renewables are the economically viable future, with fossil fuels already, as the president said in January, “yesterday’s energy." With 85 percent of global energy set to come from fossil fuels till at least 2035 no matter what wishful thinkers may prefer, current US energy policy – much like European – is pure political pantomime.

From my perspective: America's energy industry has been Balkanized by special interests, government bureaucracy, and environmental demagoguery. We can't even put in transmission lines for wind turbines in west Texas to get the electricity to urban centers.