The OPEC Secretary General has said that oil is not responsible for climate change and that the developed nations should be held responsible for the global predicament we all face today.

Oil is not responsible. It is the industrialised countries which are making all this pollution in the world.

These were the words of Abdullah al-Badri at the International Oil Summit held at Paris. He went on to criticize ’some’ developed nations levying excessive taxes on oil companies and petroleum products while extending tax breaks to renewable energy firms. He also spoke against the subsidies that the renewable energy projects recieve in the developed countries.

It is highly unfortunate to see OPEC’s single-minded and illogical stance regarding climate change and renewable energy.

The developed nations have started to move their power generation systems from being fossil fuel based to renewable energy centred systems. However, hybrids and electric cars are still expensive and with the car industry going through catastrophic period of sales, it is unlikely that they would be able to mass-produce an affordable low emission vehicle. Thus gasoline burning cars and trucks remain a major source of world’s carbon emissions. 

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I’m sure you’ve all read or heard people on TV saying that hybrid and electric cars won’t really catch on because oil prices are so low right now. Most of the time the comment goes unchallenged — which is really irritating for a number of reasons.

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Background

• The United States consumes nearly 21 million barrels of petroleum per day (7.5 billion barrels per year), one fourth the world total.
• Of the crude oil consumed in the U.S., 66 percent is imported.
• The U.S. is on pace to spend over $500 billion on petroleum imports in 2008.
• U.S. oil production currently occurs onshore in the lower 48 states (2.9 million barrels per day (mbd)), offshore (1.4 mbd, primarily in the Gulf of Mexico), and in Alaska (0.7 mbd).

More Drilling Cannot Make the U.S. Energy Independent

• The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 10.4 billion barrels of oil are technically recoverable in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)—less than one and a half years of consumption.
• The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that of the 59 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) of the lower 48 states, only 18 billion are off limits under the federal moratorium.
• DOE projects that lifting the OCS moratorium would not increase production before 2017 and that by 2030 production would only amount to 0.2 million barrels per day—less than 1 percent of current consumption.
• Total U.S. proved oil reserves are estimated at 21 billion barrels—less than a 3 year supply at the current rate of consumption.
• Since peaking in 1970, U.S. crude oil production has declined 47 percent. World production could be peaking now.

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Step Right Up And Be Amazed

It struck me today that our fearless leaders, would-be’s, and corporate giants seem to think we’re all a bunch of rubes gathered outside a carnival sideshow, leaning on the barker’s every word.

Urging Congress to lift its ban on offshore oil and gas drilling, our fearless leader, you know, President Bush, told lawmakers, “There is no excuse for delay“.

It got worse, “Families across the country are looking to Washington for a response.”  Gimme a break.

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The reason that I am concerned is that I believe that high oil prices are hurting nearly everyone and the pain will increase as time goes on. The hands on the controls, however, are feeling no pain.

The Organization of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC) is an internationally recognized cartel established in September, 1960 that holds well publicized meetings on a regular basis to discuss production allocations that are specifically designed to maintain a market price that members agree best meets their internal and external needs. Many of the country representatives to that meeting have spent lengthy careers thinking deeply about oil prices and how best to manage them to benefit the people who send them to the meetings and pay their generous salaries.

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How much does business-as-usual cost? This morning, Green Car Congress reported that the US is projected to pay $440 billion for imported petroleum in 2008:

The increase to the estimated $440 billion for 2008 is based on an average $90 per barrel crude oil price for the year. In 2002, before the current bull market for oil began, US oil imports cost less than $103 billion. The preliminary figures for last year came to some $327 billion.

With little prospect for cheaper gas prices in the future, any decrease in the US export bill will have to come from a reduction in petroleum usage.

Which brings to mind two important questions:

1. What percentage of our Gross Domestic Product will the US have to export before things start to change dramatically?
2. Where is all this money going, anyway?

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We’re nowhere out of the woods as far as oil prices are concerned, and you can read all about it in the EIA’s release.

My thanks for Jo-Jo-Loo on Flickr for the image.

Editor's note: This week, Ecotality's Bill Hobbs points to an interesting new development: Algeria, a member of OPEC, has plans for exporting solar power. This post was originally published on June 20, 2007.

A member of OPEC jumps into the solar energy business? Gotta be from The Onion, right? Wrong. Algeria, which earns $1 billion every week exporting oil, is developing a plan to generate solar power for both export and domestic use, reports Reuters.

Algeria plans to make use of its hot southern desert to develop solar power for export and domestic consumption, the Opec member country said on Monday. The scheme is due to be completed by 2015 in Africa’s second-largest country, where most of the 33 million people live in the northern coastal strip. Temperatures in the desert south are high. “Algeria has a huge sunny area with big potential to be exploited. It has also financial and human resources. It lacks nothing. We can compete with other countries,” Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil said.

Here’s some analysis from the Gulf Times of Qatar.

Opec member Algeria’s plan to generate solar power for export and domestic use is an excellent innovation that other Arab states would do well to emulate, a renewable energy advocacy group said yesterday. Wolfgang Palz of the Germany-based World Council for Renewable Energy said Arab states had been “left behind a bit” in the Western-led race for alternatives to fossil fuels but could catch up because they had the necessary educational base.

“For modern types of renewable energies like wind energy, the leadership is right now in Europe, California and Texas,” Palz, an engineer and physician by training, told Reuters. “Arab countries have been left behind a bit, and it’s very important now that political decisions are being taken to catch up with the rest of the world because Arab countries have resources - the intellectual resources - to do this.”

“We think that in the long run all renewable energies will be greatly needed because fossil and atomic energy will be progressively exhausted and disappear.” Palz praised Algeria’s plans to develop power for its domestic market as well as for exports from a hybrid solar-gas plant in the Sahara desert due to come on stream in 2009, with exports of power to Europe due to start up by 2015.

Algeria reportedly has enough oil to last it for 23 years and enough gas for 50 years at current production rates. But the country of 33 million people also has a fast growing population, high unemployment and booming demand for power.

Algeria’s move into solar energy is a very foreward thinking business move - it recognizes that Algeria’s economic future isn’t in the oil business but the energy business. Algeria isn’t the only oil-producing country that could make this kind of move. Much of the Middle Eastern oil nations are also blessed with an abundance of sunshine beating down on vast stretches of wide-open arid land and deserts. I don’t know, but I’m guessing there’s also incredible potential there for generating wind power, provided you could design wind turbines that would not be degraded by sandstorms.

As an American, I’m not entirely enthralled by the idea of the world becoming more dependent upon the Middle East for energy, but at least such diversification would benefit the environment and also lessen the dependence on the region’s abundant but ultimately finite underground energy resource.

Solar and wind power might also hold promise for parts of the Middle East and North Africa that have plenty of sun and wind but lack oil.