Obama's 'State of the Union' en energie

President Obama is bezig het roer van het Amerikaanse energiebeleid langzaam om te gooien. Vroeger was het een en al duurzame energie wat de klok sloeg. Maar in het licht van het dramatische faillisement van de zwaar gesubsidieerde zonnecellenfabrikant Solyndra en de veelbelovende perspectieven van schaliegas, tapt hij nu uit een andere vaatje. Hij gaat daarin zelfs zover dat hij het succes van de particuliere sector in de gasexploitatie toeschrijft aan zijn energiebeleid. Gebiologeerd door de klimaathysterie heeft hij in feite echter gedurende de afgelopen drie jaar niets anders gedaan dan die sector het leven zuur te maken.

Onder de titel, 'State Of The Union: Apparently, Hugh Hefner [de baas van Playboy] is Responsible for Abstinence', legt Warren Meyer in Forbes uit wat wij daarvan moeten denken.

Warren Meyer:

Had Barack Obama given this State of the Union speech at the beginning of his Presidency, I probably would have been supportive of many of his proposals. Today, though, I am simply dumbfounded at the mismatch between his words last night and his policies and actions over the last three years. We learned last night, for example, that he is against bailouts and cronyism? Really? You mean after GM and AIG and Fannie and Freddie and Solyndra, he has seen the light?

But the portion that really floored me was Obama’s taking credit for the increase in US oil and gas production over the last several years. It is certainly true that, against all predictions of peak oil, new technologies have helped drive a surge in US hydrocarbon production. Combined with a recession-driven drop in demand, America’s oil imports as a percentage of its total use has dropped to 45.6%, the lowest level in over 15 years. This surge in energy production is a fabulous reminder of how markets work.

For years I have written that the peak oil folks were missing something fundamental by performing an overly static analysis. They looked at current “proven” reserves of oil and gas and projected forward how many years it would take for these to run out. But oil and gas reserve numbers only make sense in the context of a particular set of technologies and pricing levels. As hydrocarbons run short, rising prices tend to spur both innovation and new, more expensive exploration activity. Oil and gas companies are once again proving Julian Simon’s addage that the only true scarcity is human brain power, and they should be given a lot of credit for the recent production boom.

The one person who deserves no credit for this boom is Barack Obama. in fact, this Administration has bent over backwards to make oil and gas production and exploration as difficult as possible. According to the Institute for Energy Research (IER), the Obama Administration has been issuing BLM oil and gas leases at the lowest pace of any president in the last 30 years – in fact at half the rate of the Clinton White House and 80% slower than in the Reagan era, dragging their feet to please the environmental lobby.

Further, this administration slammed the door on offshore activity in a gross over-reaction to the BP oil spill, and has refused to open it more than a crack since.

Warren Meyer geeft voorts aan dat de olieproductie van gebieden onder federale controle is teruggelopen. Gelukkig heeft de productie in gebieden die in particuliere handen zijn die teruggang kunnen compenseren.

Hij concludeert:

It is telling that early drafts of Obama’s State of the Union address called for a Federally-set goal for natural gas production. Someone, from a PR perspective, was smart enough at the last minute to leave this relic of Stalin-era five-year planning out of the speech. But it is indicative of how this administration thinks. The surge in natural gas production by private actors somehow does not “count” until Obama has given it his imprimatur. The old saying goes, “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is can hear it, does it make a sound?” For this Administration, economic activity that occurs without a politician taking credit for it on CNN might as well not exist.

Lees verder hier.

Amerika was eens het schoolvoorbeeld van de vrije markteconomie. Er is de laatste tijd echter veel veranderd. Nu leert de Amerikaanse ervaring ons dat als de politiek zich maar genoeg met de economie bemoeit, zelfs de meest succesvolle economie naar de knoppen kan worden geholpen. Maar ik kan mij toch niet aan het gevoel onttrekken dat de Amerikanen in deze nog niet aan Europa kunnen tippen. Voor Obama geldt in ieder geval: beter ten halve gekeerd dan ten hele gedwaald. Dat geldt helaas niet voor Europa. Koplopers zijn hier Groot-Brittannië en Duitsland, die beide een energiebeleid voeren dat niet anders dan als waanzinnig kan worden gekwalificeerd.