The New Energy Era

Most Americans are still not aware of how complex an issue energy is becoming in economics, politics, national security and foreign affairs. Energy requires attention. Gasoline prices at the pumps, alternative energy, nuclear energy, the availability and transportation of natural gas, the decisions of oil companies, the politics of the Middle East, potential fuel shortages and so on matter and will matter more on the coming cold nights in Chicago and the Northeast in the coming years. I highly recommend the long article by Heading Out in The Oil Drum; here are the first two paragraphs of an excellent real-life detective story as Heading Out puts the pieces together:

The story in today's Washington Post was largely related to the problems that Gazprom, the company that, as noted earlier in the week, now produces 25% of the world's gas, are having. The article sees "a looming decline in gas production" from Russia's current fields, while the Russian public still sees natural gas as an abundant cheap resort where less than 10% of residential and industrial gas consumers have gas meters. This is obviously going to be a problem for Western Europe, and perhaps the U.S. since both are planning on getting help with supply from Russia, and if their domestic demand is rising while supplies are falling, the export supply is going to decline quite rapidly.

However, it is a small paragraph in the story that caught my eye. "In recent years Russia has boosted gas supplies by squeezing Turkmenistan to sell gas to Russia at a deep discount. But Turkmen gas production is poised to decline..." [snip] ...this seemed odd to me, since Tuesday's post was all about Turkmenistan agreeing to sell China some gas. So I thought I'd, as they say, take a closer look.

I'm no expert when it comes to energy but I've been paying close attention for a number of years and particularly in the last eight months. For experts and even layman like myself, it was not hard to follow where Heading Out's story was going. The world is changing very fast. And the current leadership in Washington is not prepared to deal with it. There are solutions but they require a seriousness in Washington that has not existed for some time.