PowerSwitch

My job, as the President of the country, is to put pro-growth policies in place. But we're dependent upon oil, and so as our economy grows, it's going to create more demand for oil -- same with China, same with India, same with other growing countries. It should be obvious to you all that the demand is outstripping supply, which causes prices to go up. And it's making it harder here in America for working families to save, and for farmers to be prosperous, and for small businesses to grow.

The dependency upon oil also puts us at the mercy of terrorists. If there's tight supply and demand, all it requires is one terrorist disruption of oil and that price goes even higher. It's in our interests to end our dependency on oil because it -- that dependency presents a challenge to our national security. In 1985, 20 percent of America's oil came from abroad. Today that number is nearly 60 percent.

Now, all the countries we import from are friendly, stable countries; but some countries we get oil from don't particularly like us. They don't like the form of government that we embrace. They don't believe in the same freedoms we believe in, and that's a problem from a national security perspective, for the United States and any other nation that values its economic sovereignty and national sovereignty.

And finally, our dependence on fossil fuels like oil presents a challenge to our environment. When we burn fossil fuels we release greenhouse gases. The concentration of greenhouse gases has increased substantially. We recognize all three of these challenges, and we're doing something about it.



I've come today to tell you that America is the kind of country that when they see a problem, we address it head-on. I've set a great goal for our country, and that is to reduce our dependence on oil by investing in technologies that will produce abundant supplies of clean and renewable energy, and at the same time show the world that we're good stewards of the environment.

Now, look, I understand stereotypes are hard to defeat. People get an image planted in their head, and sometimes it causes them not to listen to the facts. But America is in the lead when it comes to energy independence; we're in the lead when it comes to new technologies; we're in the lead when it comes to global climate change -- and we'll stay that way. (Applause.)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases ... 80305.html

So if this isn't a wind up, the USA is going to bring average mpg to what it has been here and elsewhere for a long long time by 2020, and is also going to fuel these vehicles largely through conversion of a food crop to fuel, so the rest of the world can just F--k off.
Is that it?

also theres the admission that demand is outstripping supply

greg wrote:So if this isn't a wind up, the USA is going to bring average mpg to what it has been here and elsewhere for a long long time by 2020, and is also going to fuel these vehicles largely through conversion of a food crop to fuel, so the rest of the world can just **** off.
Is that it?

It's not a wind up as far as I can see. There's a video clip of Bush giving the speech on the second site jonny2mad linked to.

The speech is interesting wonder what the saudis and oil producers feel about it all

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/3/4/14329/49036

Bush's sleight of hand - renewable energy subterfuge

Article continues ...

The truth about Bush's energy policies.

They're certainly in the lead on climate change .....

Wonder where this will lead to??? How the hell are they going to become oil independent? Never going to happen is it? Still, I recon he's got the inside gas on the state of oil in Saudi. Must worry the crap out of him that Putin's got plenty of FF's left.

I expect they will cover all american deserts with solar panels. Where will they get them from and what will it do to the cost of PV? Initial drop due to mass production, then huge rise due to shortages of required materials would be my guess? How are they going to address the fundamental problems in the banking industry? i.e. it's dependency on continual economic growth?

Weird when you see Bush admitting that supply can't match demand eh? Still, don't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows does it? I mean you can see it all around can't you?

Wonder if Bush has done some kind of deal with Saudi? If he's as aware of this situation (of course he is!) then it's pretty unimaginable that he wouldn't be doing SOMETHING behind the scenes. There have been alot of 'unexpected' drop in US reserves of late. I wonder if they're not pumping bought crude back down wells on the quiet for later use by US military or domestic market? What else could they be doing? What do UK reserves look like? Any chance we've been trying to refil the north sea?

This speech may be a veiled message to the Saudis/OPEC. The Saudis want to avoid too high a price as they don't want the world scared off oil altogether but they also seem keen on seeing how high an oil price the world can take before it goes hell-for-leather for alternatives see eg the recent OPEC decision not to increase quotas (its also a possibility that OPEC may incapable of producing much more).

I think the speech is Bush's way of responding to OPECS refusal (failure?) to deliver more oil by saying "you've pushed us too far guys - open up the taps or we wean ourselves off oil".

He's still hell bent on bio-diesel and ethanol. Scary. Food prices will continue their 'run' then..... Wonder how many corn farms Bush owns now?

He's going to turn everything that grows into fuel by the sound of it. Wonder how long the soil fertility will last under such a policy? Remember they will eventually have no synthetic fertilisers.... I wish I knew the full chemistry behind all the fuel side of things... what gets liberated and lost from the soil when ethanol is taken from corn? Are the americans clever enought to strongly manage the return of the ethanol production 'wastes' to the land?

Actually the more you watch that the more it doesn't add up. He's planning on powering planes using Babassu nuts? Come now....

There is no way they can continue to increase GDP unless they find something mega to replace fossil fuels. Like fission. Which I notice wasn't mentioned at all in that speach.

There is no way the world can continue economic growth in the face of declining fossil fuels! The attempt to do so will see a HUGE die off as food is converted to fuel in a desparate attempt to feed the god of economic growth. Already, those Babassu nuts are being put under pressure by deforestation (to clear forest for cattle production), and it is a hugely labour intensive process gathering and cracking the nuts.... see here. Food and fuel are going to compete for land and labour. Prices are now inextricably linked and will remain so for the foreseable future.

Our market economics will come to our aid though. As food and fuel rise in price, demand for both will drop. While the rich drive, the poor will die. Market economics in action. Meanwhile a few wind turbines will be put up.

SunnyJim wrote:...He's going to turn everything that grows into fuel by the sound of it.

The new Ford Soylent Green FX, I can see it now...

SunnyJim wrote:Wonder how long the soil fertility will last under such a policy? Remember they will eventually have no synthetic fertilisers.... I wish I knew the full chemistry behind all the fuel side of things... what gets liberated and lost from the soil when ethanol is taken from corn? Are the americans clever enought to strongly manage the return of the ethanol production 'wastes' to the land?

I heard that for every lb of maize harvested they lose on average 10lb of topsoil! And no, I don't think anyone with any say in the matter even knows to return the goodies to the soil, let alone how to.

That is so scary. Rainforest -> Desert in no time at all. We'll be measuring car efficiency in miles per acre. Or Kilometers per kg of topsoil....

Actually I'd like to know what the figures are for current ethanol production? How many miles/year from an acre of land? How much top soil loss per Kilometer driven. I think that might give a bit more perspective on the problems we face...

Can't resist the temptation to try out some numbers...

Let's be optimistic and say they get 10 Te per Ha of plant-oil from some crop. 10 Te = 10,000 litres. Plant-oil isn't as energetic as mineral-oil so let's say the equivalent is 8,000 litres of Diesel.

A typical US car does, say, 28 mpg (UK gallons) = 10 litres per 100 km (the 2 figures multiplied together always give 280).

So our US driver can go 80,000 miles a year if he has 1 Ha of land given over completely to biofuels. That's quite a lot of miles for 1 person but not so mad for a Usonian household (mum and 2 teenage kids drive too). They may also lose up to 110 Te of topsoil from said Ha every year, that's about 5mm! (assuming soil's twice as dense as water?)

This is not counting all the extra kit needed for making the biodiesel/ethanol and of course they gotta eat.

There are 300M people in the USA let's say 100M households so very roughly they need 100MHa of land and that's before the truckers arrive on the scene.

The land area of the USA is just over 9M square km, or 900MHa. How much of it, I wonder, is arable? And meanwhile what are the rest of us going to eat?

These numbers are regularly calculated at the oil drum. Using corn ethanol, the entire US agricultural land could supply 20% of the US's current petrol consumption. The entire world's grain supply could fuel the current US transport fleet (or numbers of that magnitude). Corn ethanol is an insane use of prime agricultural land. Of course, there are other biofuels, but they will not allow business as usual.