San Antonio Express-News

Book Review: Energy independence? Hogwash
by Bill Day

This is the time of year when complaints about gasoline prices get even louder. As summer approaches, prices at the pump inevitably start creeping higher, leading motorists to spawn conspiracy theories that they’re being held hostage by foreign oil producers.

Or, they want to switch to alternate fuels — anything other than the gasoline that’s readily available at nearly every busy intersection. Either way, they long for “energy independence” — without realizing that freeing ourselves from fossil fuels would mean running our lives with fuels much more expensive, much less efficient and much less plentiful than what we’re using now.

This is all spelled out in Austin writer Robert Bryce’s new book, “Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of ‘Energy Independence.'” In the book, Bryce — the author of exposés on Enron’s collapse and the Bush family’s ties to the oil industry — bluntly calls the idea that the United States will ever reach energy independence “hogwash.”

And it’s more than just dispelling the public’s misconceptions about energy, which Brice does handily in the opening chapters. He takes the “lies” in the title seriously, showing that politicians and others willfully distort the issues for their own gains.

But politicians can’t get away with such rhetoric without a populace that willingly swallows the argument. Bryce’s text is nearly 300 pages long, but I was only about seven pages into it when I realized that most people who need to read it probably won’t (full disclosure: In my day job, I do public relations for an energy company).

The author himself seems to understand that he has a lot of convincing ahead of him when he warns readers they’ll have to suffer through a few numbers and conversions (such as learning that there are 42 gallons in each barrel of oil) or in the conclusion, when he says that “the extent of most Americans’ energy knowledge goes no further than what can be contained by a snappy sound bite that bashes the Saudis or complains that gasoline now costs almost as much as milk.”

Here’s what Bryce thinks Americans should know about the energy they use:

The United States imports about 60 percent of its oil, but 80 percent of its semiconductors. Why does no one call for semiconductor independence?

Calls for energy independence started heating up after the 1973 Arab oil embargo, but the United States has never been close to reaching this goal — and very likely never will.

After Hurricanes Rita and Katrina in 2005, the United States was able to supply its transportation needs with imported gasoline. Under “energy independence,” that couldn’t have happened, and the nation’s cars would have been paralyzed.

“By any measure, gasoline is a bargain,” he writes. Adjusted for inflation, gasoline today is no more expensive than it was in 1922, and we use a tremendous amount more than we did back then. A Starbucks venti latte would be $22.72 per gallon, and Budweiser $10.65 per gallon, yet they don’t have to be carted halfway around the world and put through expensive and risky refining processes.

If Americans, who enjoy some of the cheapest fuel prices on the planet, really wanted costs to drop, Bryce has some suggestions. They should insist that the government adopt uniform fuel standards so that a gallon sold in Albuquerque, N.M., is identical to a gallon sold in Zanesville, Ohio. To free up the markets, the government should eliminate all subsidies and price controls. Most of all, politicians should dial down their rhetoric and realize that imported fuel is with us to stay.

Sometimes Bryce overstretches his arguments. He drops the Enron name often in an attempt to judge guilt by association, and he overstates the neoconservative philosophies on the Iraq war and energy independence to make the rather thin point that both are built on innuendo.

But mostly he’s spot-on. The last part of “Gusher of Lies” systematically busts apart the case for each of the supposed paths to energy independence. Ethanol is expensive, hard to transport and drives up corn prices; wind energy is scarce, unreliable and kills birds; solar is expensive and useless in bad weather and nighttime; coal-to-liquids still is technically unfeasible and very pollutive.

Bryce’s arguments to those who complain about high gasoline prices reminded me of Winston Churchill’s quip about democracy: that it was the worst form of government ever tried, except for all the others. The same is true of the system of fossil fuels the country is using now. It may not be an ideal system, but there’s a reason it’s been with us for the last century.

Original text available here: http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/books/stories/MYSA032308.9P.bo…