Bert Caldwell Extracting the truth about global energy issues

More about the not-so-secret proceedings of Vice President Dick Cheney’s 2001 energy task force came to light last week. Coincidentally, so did a new analysis of global energy issues.

The report by the National Petroleum Council is as transparent as the vice president’s was opaque. Odd, considering it was the oil industry’s input into the Bush administration’s energy policy Cheney went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to conceal.

The Washington Post finally got a list last week of those who visited with the task force. Disgraced Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth Lay was already known to be among the anointed few who met with the vice president directly. Who else got that kind of access is unclear, but if there was any lingering mystery, the list puts that speculation to rest.

Environmentalists got a courtesy meeting, energy industry officials more time, multiple times. The proposed legislation that came out of those sessions was heavy on assistance for energy companies, light on incentives for alternative energy and conservation.

Among those who met with the vice president were members of the Northwest Energy Caucus, including then-Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Spokane, and Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Bainbridge Island.

At the time, the West Coast was riding out a severe electricity shortage, and extremely high prices. The administration was unsympathetic, to say the least, and Inslee recalls that his complaints about its failure to intervene were met with the patronizing comment from Cheney that he just did not understand economics.

Inslee has a degree in economics from the University of Washington. What he understood was that Bush, Cheney and Co. did not give a hoot about the deep blue voters of the Northwest.

The Petroleum Council was more open-minded. Its report— “Facing the Hard Truths about Energy” — was put together after input from 350 individuals and organizations, most not in the oil business.

The findings are indeed “hard,” although detractors say not hard enough. Energy demand is expected to increase 50 percent by 2030. Although optimistic that traditional resources like oil, coal and natural gas remain relatively abundant, alternative fuels will be an important part of the mix going forward. But the report also acknowledges the reality of global warming, and urges more attention to management of greenhouse gases, including the sequestration of carbon dioxide. Sequestration removes the gas from the atmosphere.

Energy independence is less important for the United States than a strong, stable global market.

The report was so compelling that council President Lee Raymond came around to the idea of sequestration, which he had pooh-poohed as chairman of Mobil Oil. He and the council also support tougher mileage standards, mandates the U.S. auto industry is fighting vehemently as Congress drafts yet another energy bill.

And the council adds its voice to those calling for more work force training. The world may have more oil but, with the majority of petroleum engineers and related specialists to retire in the next decade, too few scientists to find and extract it.

The report’s critics fault its optimism about the availability of fossil fuels, and warn that a supply crunch is just over the horizon given exploding new demand from China and India.

The administration rejects that view, even as it has come to accept the need for a more efficient transportation system. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, who commissioned the study, praised the work but told the council “Our goal is to do more with less rather than to force the American people to do with less because the supplies are not available.”

Significantly, Bodman does not mention prices at all, and the report is almost as silent. A summary does note an estimate by the International Energy Agency that $20 trillion — $3,000 for every person on the planet — will have to be invested over the next 25 years, but who will pay those costs is not discussed.

Those reports have been coming to us at the gas station, and in our utility bills. That’s where it gets really hard.