Headline, August13, 2013

'''OIL CRISES : THE GEOPOLITICS 

AND ENERGY STRATEGY''​'

A rarity among energy-policy experts, Amy Myers Jaffe is a voice of honest, nonpartisan reason. Jaffe has spent over 20 years studying geopolitics and energy strategy and now seems to advise not only Pentagon to Wall Street Firms but most large Oil companies for a sensible Oil Policy:

1. Build a Safety Net: Any natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina- will expose the folly of allowing refiners to operate like Dell Computer with just-in-time inventories. Every country should mandate that every Oil company keep 5 to 10 percent of its average sales of gasoline, heating oil, and natural gas on reserve for use in an Emergency, as is done in Europe.

2. Double Fuel Efficiency : All cars should be targeted by law and incentives to achieve an increase from 21 miles per gallon today to fifty miles per gallon in ten years.

3. Tax gas by dollars and not cents. More than half of the five or seven dollars per gallon Europeans spend on gas goes to Taxes. Not only has the gas tax kept the European demand stable for more than a decade, it's prompted marked advances in efficiency.

4. Work with China: An energy rivalry between countries with only plays into the hands of the producers. We all should work together to develop energy efficient technology, stockpile emergency resources, and most important, put pressure on oil suppliers to to lower prices and increase supplies.    

5. Drill more and Regulate more: More than three quarters of America's proven oil reserves  (17 billion barrels) and enough natural gas to meet their needs for a decade -450 trillion cubic feet-  exist off the coasts of Florida, Alaska, Maine and the Carlinas and in many sections of the Rocky Mountain outback  -but they remain off limits to drilling. USA needs to open them up while ensuring that EPA has greater authority to regulate them adequately. This means much larger investigative and inspection staffs and substantially higher fines for firms and that violate regulations.

6. Open Foreign Energy Markets : State energy monopolies should not be tolerated to the detriment of the two billion people on the planet lacking modern energy services . Through the World Trade Organisation and other Agencies, we need to remove the barriers to investment in energy resources and industries in countries such as Russia, Mexico, Venezuela and in the Middle East. These are the real culprits of soaring energy costs, and not depleted reserves.

7. Commit to Solar Energy : It should be the top R & D priority. Solar Power is the only alternative energy source with virtually NO waste stream.  -no carbon to sequester., no radioactive waste to be stored. For US, it should commit $ 1 billion a year to finding ways to reduce solar-energy costs from the current twenty to thirty cents per kilowatt hour to the three cents per kilowatt-hour needed to make it competitive.

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of  Sri Lanka. See ya all on the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless: ''The Beacon Algebra''.

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless