Focus 580; Energy at the Crossroads: Oil Resources

In this part of the show we'll be talking about energy policy here in the United States last week. The House passed an energy bill that proved controversial as would be expected. Supporters say that this bill will boost domestic energy production. Opponents argued the bill was loaded with tax breaks for the oil and gas companies and they said that it will do very little to bring down the cost of energy. President Bush the past couple of days has been talking about the need to move ahead on energy policy he basically endorsed those things that were in the House package talked about some others and to urge the Senate to get to work and see if some time perhaps later this summer there could be a bill coming out of the Senate and then the two would have to get reconciled if we go on from there. Our guest for the program in this hour is James McKenzie. He is a senior associate in the World Resources Institute its program and climate energy and pollution of the World Resources Institute is an independent nonprofit organization.

It was launched in 1982. Interested in promoting discussion of awareness of environmental issues. His particular interest that is Dr. McKenzie's include transportation climate change and energy security. He is a professional lecturer in the School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University he's also a visiting fellow in the Woodrow Wilson and natural national fellow. Ship Foundation program before he went to work at the World Resources Institute. He was a senior staff scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists and before that from 1907 until 1981 he was a senior staff member for energy at the President's Council on Environmental Quality and that president was Jimmy Carter. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Minnesota and did post grad work at Los Alamos San Argonne National Laboratory and we're pleased that he could be with us this morning to talk questions as always our welcome. The number if you're here in Champaign-Urbana where we are. 3 3

3 or 9 4 5 5 that's probably easier to remember that way. And we do also have the toll free line that's good anywhere that you can hear us so it would be a long distance call. You use that number and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 at any point your questions are welcome the only thing we ask callers is people just try to be brief so we can get in as many as possible but of course. Anybody is welcome to call. Dr. McKenzie Hello. Martin thanks very much for talking with us today. Pretty sure that I'm not quite sure where to start. Maybe it is the place to start is by talking about oil and its price and also the kinds of things that seem to be up for discussion now in Washington to deal with issue of supply and price. Right. No I believe that the price of a barrel of oil is fifty one sixty one I think the price is one thing we know that it's been over

$50 a barrel for more than two months now and that set a high. I think over $57. And so it's a serious issue and the people are feeling it certainly in the price of gasoline. Right which seems to add greater urgency and emphasis to the need for policy and to see what in fact we can do to increase the supply lessen our dependence on imports and ultimately do something about price. What do you think about the proposal that's now come through the House and whether it whether in fact it will address the issue of supply. As far as oil is concerned and ultimately price with the things that we use that are made out of well like gasoline. Good question. The. The bill is kind of a hodgepodge and it is weighted toward expansion of supply. The gas industry proposal for refineries and military bases things of that sort.

The problem is that it does not address the problem which is something that's neglected. There's an old saying in medicine that if you don't know what the problem is you can't solve it. And this is the case here where we have a series of linked problems which on the surface appear to be independent but which in fact are quite closely linked. And they're all related to the fossil fuels that we burn in our cars and homes. Eighty five percent of US energy supply is accounted for by oil coal and natural gas. And these are the principal problems that we really have to consider and compare with when we go ahead and look at the proposals that are being made. The for example greenhouse gases account for 85 percent of our energy supply This is the oil coal and gas that I referred to and 85 percent of global emissions. So there are major elements and and global warming is something we have to worry about when we

go ahead and propose some measures to deal with it. Fossil fuels are also a threat to national security because in the heavily waged waited upon by oil and oil is. It is in short supply in this country I'm going to be short supply worldwide in 1970 US oil crude oil production peaked in 1970 and it has been declining ever since and we're now importing to make up that difference about 50 percent of our oil as something we don't appreciate until you see the part of the body bags coming back from Kuwait from Kuwait. Not quite. Iraq and 66 percent of the oil that's remaining in the ground is in the Persian Gulf and that's going to be reaching the peak as well. Probably within 10 to 15 years. So we have oil as a as a major source of global climate change and major security risks. And then

lastly there an air pollution problem as well. So they do pose in these many problems and if you try to take a rational approach to it you start trying to. Focus on those measures which will deal with all those problems together instead of one by Weiner or not at all. We need a vision of the future. So that is like building a house you don't build a house without plans from why should you build an energy program without some sense of what the problem is what the energy is. And indeed I do know you just give us a couple of elements of what I think ought to be in a rational energy program. We should be increasing the tax subsidies for high efficiency appliances and other energy devices sufficiency is still the cheapest source but there are institutional barriers against our using energy more frequently efficiently and we have to overcome those barriers. We have to start moving away from the fossil fuels

oil coal natural gas and move to renewables such as photovoltaic cells and wind turbines and things of that sort. And if nuclear can be made safe that would be an element too since that deal's most of most of those problems for the moment. It is it is not I think publicly acceptable and the notion of being able to subsidize it as the administration has proposed to go overcome the publicans. CERN I think is misguided. There are good reasons why people are concerned about nuclear safety and waste disposal and they have to be addressed directly. If you're going to increase the use of nuclear coal and nuclear both have serious problems. The coal would have to be produced CO2 and carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas and it has to be sequestered the CO2 underground if you're going to use coal in large amounts.

And unquestionably has waste disposal and safety which is not going to be overcome by insurance premiums. In fact the industry is the reason we have an industry is because of the Price-Anderson Act which provided insurance for utilities so that they wouldn't have to worry about serious accidents. And we need to get more efficient vehicles. I drive a Prius. Try our Prius and we're getting 53 mpg. It's a very comfortable car of four seats. I mean four doors. And it's it's is an example of the kind of technology which can be brought to bear on the problem. And lastly we need to reduce energy demand to sue subsidies into taxes. For example we could increase energy taxes which and use that money to fund the Social Security fund. We can subsidize consumers by reducing the sales taxes on the very How efficient cars and things of that sort. So there is a pattern to the problem and there's a pan and to the solutions. And I think we would do wise if we were spend more time thinking about what it is

we're trying to do rather than just trying to get it down and getting into a political football game trying to pass your favorite measure. Let me just very quickly introduce Again our guest and then we'll get back to some of these issues perhaps explore them in a little bit more depth. We're talking with Dr. Jim McKenzie he is a senior associate in world resources in the World Resources Institute program in climate energy and pollution and has done work written books and studies in a number of areas including transportation climate change energy security. He is a Ph.D. doctor he has a physics degree from University of Minnesota. Also has worked for the Union of Concerned Scientists and was for a number of years a senior staff member for energy at the President's Council on Environmental Quality That was Jimmy Carter that president questions welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 just for a moment to return to the issue of world oil production I know this is something

where depending upon who you ask You might get a different answer. There are some people who think that we may actually be at possibly even have passed the peak. Other people say 10 years 15 years 20 years. The Department of Energy says we won't hit the peak till 2030 seven. But the important issue is here that people say well no matter when the peak comes. You better start getting ready to deal with that and it could take you as much as a decade or two before you could really be geared up to to deal with the problem of declining production and of course is that for those people who argue we're at the peak it's too late. What do you think now is is a reasonable sort of figure you're saying you think actually within the next few years you think that probably will get at the well be at the peak of world oil production. Yes the only comment on the first two sort of the U.S. model because it's it's a it is a very striking example of the kind of simple analysis that can be done to look at this problem. M.

King Hubbert who is a great geophysicist in 1066. He asked all his colleagues how much oil they thought would be pumped from the lower 48 states and it ranged from 150 to 200 billion browser that's a big difference. And he used those estimates to predict when it would keep if that sort of encased were the case and he tried in 1965 to 1970 and his best guess was 1970 story hit than the money right now on the head. Now rubble is somewhat more difficult because the data is proprietary that the blinds are certain countries and you can't it's hard to predict or retired to get the full number. So the analysis and I did on this particular problem was to look at potential sources in the range that people find would be ultimately recoverable. This is who we're talking about crude oil now conventional crude oil not talking about tar sands or by Tumen which is a very heavy thing to discuss oil. But basically

what it is now used for the basis of the oil industry and what they found in that is. Check this range and you apply it to what we've already produced that there would be someplace between 2010 and 2020 peaking would occur. Now tension drops is that that's one that doesn't make any difference 2010 trying to join is going to the same number really because it takes a long time to introduce new energy sources. Typically in this country if you look historically at the introduction of oil coal gas nuclear it grows at 6 percent per year and it takes maybe 55 50 to 60 years to make a major approach a major dent on the problem with new sources so I think that the message that we're hearing and the we're hearing it more and more from the oil industry confidentially if not outwardly that that production globally will probably take him 20 10 20 20 and then we're really going to be in trouble

because there isn't that much. There's no question we can import it from. We did we important to the U.S. but we can't do that globally obviously. Some I think that there is a growing consensus that that is where we have to face and given the global change problem and security power it's it's time that we start moving away from fossil fuels despite their convenience. And a parent's temporary abundance is going to be a different game. It was in our lifetimes. I mean I know that there are people who argue that while it's possible that we have maybe have gotten or almost have gotten all the oil it's easy to get. There is also oil that's available. It's out there. It's in the world but maybe in places and forms and under conditions that make it difficult. And in the past have made it not economically feasible but at the kind of prices that we're talking about now and if the prices continue to go up then actually that does mean that it would be economically feasible

to go after some of these oil and some of these other places. Does that do you assuming that that is true does that really do anything for us. That higher prices will will bring forth more more drilling and if you look again at the U.S. history during the 80s and the 70s in the 80s it was prices of fuel were high. The cry there was a quadrupling of drilling for oil. And yet it's the record shows that the present production of new oil just continue to decline. And despite the fact that the prices were higher is a geological problem and it is not readily solved or easily solved just by raising oil prices some art. So I think you know I think that you have to be careful about or in the world it is we're talking about and we're in a new record on what has happened elsewhere. It's it's not it's so readily done. You can look at

globally that many sources are beginning to decline the North Sea United Kingdom is has had a Pickens beginning to decline. And the the refined of the rich exploration companies are not now in very deep water and they wouldn't be there if they had oil that is readily available. So I think that the record shows that the scarcity is growing and is beginning to show its its impact and that. Higher prices though helpful will not solve the problem in toto or readily in any short term period. Let's talk with a caller here someone in Urbana and line one. Well good morning. I was wondering how familiar are you with say yeah with what they're planning on trying to do up at ANWAR. I guess I'm wondering I mean are they. With the oil companies be offering the federal government what a federal lease like a one sex or realty type of arrangement

where were they. Well companies would get five six and give the Treasury one sex. OK. It's isolation. I can't comment on the on the nature of the the leasing agreements but I can tell you this that I did an analysis of Anwar and assumed the oil up there would be within the range that the U.S. Geological Survey. Estimated with a mean value of 10 billion barrels. And then it's just straightforward matters. Soon that save the oil will be found in jails and pipelines would be built and all of us who probably take 10 years and then it would produce oil probably for 15 to 20 years and start declining. And it turns out that the entire market is is really very small compared with anything like the demand we are demand. US production is declining and this oil would probably become available

in 20 25 20 20 30 and and I don't know how to make the tradeoff between the value of the caribou and the wildlife out there and the oil that's going to be produced. But then it is no way a sad solution to a problem. It is at best a temporary source which would be significant over a period of 10 to 15 years and then it too would go its path. You can if you look at Pearl Harbor Day the same thing happened there. It was discovered in 66 and started pumping in 86 and declined in 96 and it's declining rapidly now. So these renewable resources follow a pattern that is beginning to grow. Hitting a peak in decline and it's. You know I'm wont to do. Who are luring these trends. Do you have it. How much of the oil from Trudeau Bay actually came down to the lower 48 Versus was used. You know further debt repayments are was you

know ships. I don't have that exact number. You have an estimate or my recollection was that the oil was mandated just to be consumed within the country. Helga wrote I may not be right on that it's been some time since I've reviewed that subject right. Oh it's kind of you know a universal quantity that can be changed and exchanged from between producers and and refiners and distributors and so it's really not quite so important we're on the same boat I guess is what I'm saying. Well I think when the you know when people say well we need that oil for you know people down here in the lower lower 48 I mean I have heard that at least some fraction of that oil was you know trade you know the Far East. But I don't really know I was hoping you might have some information. Eric thanks very much and I think he's one of the other things that that this bill that has now come through the House does or attempts to do is to promote construction of new

oil refineries. Apparently no new refineries have been built here in United States since 1976. And this is something the professor that the president has been talking about last couple. Days In particular he one of the ideas he mentioned was well maybe we could take abandoned military bases and there we could build some new refineries. Let me ask the basic question when we look at this issue of both supply and price is refinery capacity particularly a problem. Well I don't think it's a long term problem it may be a short term problem because of incidents and explosions fire in Texas a couple weeks ago and that certainly didn't help the shortage but the refinery can be dealt and you know a couple of years and it's not an instantaneous solution and it's not the problem in the sense that it's just a a one element in the chain of producing oil and I think that

it must be viewed in that fashion that it is just a temporary problem and whether we want to put him on Air Force bases or army bases is you or your opinion is as good as mine and I want to and I think it's a little zany Reischauer. But anyway let's talk with someone else we have a caller here in Belgium over by Danville. Lie number four. Well good morning sir. I really have a head scratcher here. We all understand that the petroleum the petroleum based energy sources cause global warming. We all know that it's all disappearing rapidly and we all know risk conserve. We all know what the problems are but then just yesterday or today Exxon made more profit. You know several billions of dollars. Forty four percent more than they made last year. And well Street says that's still not quite what they thought they should make. It seems to me

really the problem is not our reluctance to move away from oil as a as an energy source but our reluctance to move away from this cash cow that there is there. Well I hear you. The sense is that. It's a major policy decision whether we're going to leave the oil and go to something new. We've you know turned over our whole transportation system is built on oil and it's totally hooked on it. And to imagine changing that is created quite a task. I mean we have only three three sources electric electric cars which have the problem of not having enough batteries to take cars far enough then we have hydrogen cars which are coming along but they're store expensive and there's no you have to make the hydrogen out of coal or natural gas

or electrolysis or something of that sort. So these sources which would be available to reduce prices and provide a greenhouse gas safe future. It is not readily done and I think that that will we have to do is look at the free its resources a new career which could be a source of electricity but it has all the problems that people are aware of and caused. Probably the next best one but Nord used car for the chance to replace or oil. You need to do seek restoration. Who would have to bury the carbon dioxide underground to try and keep it from coming up and actually exacerbating the air pollution and greenhouse problems. So all of these things are coming together and

whether the oil companies movie that supplies of the future residents and utilities or some unknown but perhaps aggressive energy supplier. It's not clear at this point but the nature of the problem that we face I think is getting clear. Well it seems obvious that the people who are going to be the prayers in the future are the people who are making the money to pay people for the sixpence if change is going to hydrogen economy or whatever whatever type economy we might think about going to when it comes to preparing our energy. It's going to be the winners in this battle program be able to fund next. Thank you very much. Thank you. Maybe I should just introduce our guests to once again we're talking with Dr. James McKenzie. He is with the World Resources Institute he's a senior associate in their program and climate energy and pollution as the author or co-author of many books and studies dealing with areas like transportation climate change energy security global oil resources. He's professorial lecturer in the School

of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University. He has been a staff scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists and back between 1971. He was a senior staff member for energy at the President's Council on Environmental Quality. We're talking here this morning about energy policy questions comments are certainly welcome. All you need to do is call us 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 is the number here for champagne Urbana. Toll free 800 2 2 2 0 9 4 5 5. Just a question again going back to the subject of how much oil goes into motor vehicles we are now using something like 20 million barrels of oil a day and about half of that I think almost half ends up going into motor vehicles and so we've talked about the possibility of alternatives to the internal combustion engine powered by gasoline. But in the short term until we maybe get to something else. I think people now have been arguing and have been arguing unsuccessfully for some time that

the government should require automakers to make more fuel efficient cars. And if we did that we could significantly cut our rate of energy use. How how important do you think that would be the so called the CAFE standards corporate average fuel economy if we could we could raise those and have more fuel efficient cars. If everybody was driving a hybrid how much. How much would that mean for our energy use. Good question. You're quite right that. Of our energy supply about 40 percent comes from oil and that is about 20 percent. About half of the oil. So it's a very large and substantial amount of oil and it's also the major problem of security in national security where we're fasting having to fight wars in order to keep that

gas oil flowing during peaceful times. It's been costing the U.S.. Financial financially about 50 billion dollars per year and the fastest way to deal with it is it is as you indicated is to use these cars that are now on the road that are extant that are extremely efficient. The Prius is the one we drive and it's a marvelous car. And the reason that people haven't been keeping it there I mean using as much as this is a shortage of cars for one thing you can't make them fast enough. And there's some of that. I'm sorry. Biggest and biggest problem is Israel our line of supply at this point and the Until or until we route.

The strangest of the political problem which is that the Congress Congressman are loath to increase prices or to take measures that would actually encourage the development and use of these cars. People think that there's a big conspiracy in there may be some some sort of a conspiracy but in order to get these solutions on onto the roads we're going to have to pay a higher price for using it now already that the issues these are becoming politically unattractive and the automakers are having trouble selling them now. So it's clear that prices will affect supply. It's unfortunate that we as a as a as a country can. It seems to do what makes sense from an economic point of view. Europeans pay $4 a gallon of gas and their vehicles use only about half as much fuel as ours do. Fred we can't propose that Jimmy Carter and Marjorie's heart of

girlfriends froze just that tax and extra taxes Norm's government out of the art of the office. So it's it's a difficult challenge to adopt the kinds of measures that make sense in a real no make sense but not quite sure how we're going to get around the political issue. A lot of people have talked very excitedly about hydrogen and the potential for creating a hydrogen economy that would take the place of the fossil fuel economy that we haven't and using for example as you have discussed hydrogen power cars. Now there's there remain some significant technical challenges and again as you pointed out we would have to have some way to produce the hydrogen the cars would use and then there are questions about how do we go about creating a distribution infrastructure so that people would be able to get the hydrogen to put in the car. You know given given the fact that there are a number of technical challenges here that we would have to be solved.

What truly do you think is the potential for hydrogen powered cars and is that is that perhaps something that yes at some point will. Have but who knows when and it could take a long time. Yeah you're absolutely right. The problem is one of making the hydrogen infrastructure. The two candidates by the way for sustainable transport are electric cars on the one hand and hydrogen on the other and electricity has the advantage of there being an infrastructure in place we all have wiring going into our house and we can use that to charge our cars at night. Or we could if we had the crowds available and the. The hydrogen is a different problem. You you have first already make it and you can make it from coal gasification and you can make it from nuclear power electrolysis or you can make it from renewables such as wind in front of the tax.

Any of those will do the job. It's expensive now unfortunately and that's going to slow things down a little bit and then you really have to get a better cheaper long lasting fuel cell to drive the cars because. Or you could actually do it with internal combustion engine but the push seems to be for the fuel cells so that's going to take times round and you have a whole pipeline distribution system. We have about a hundred and twenty five thousand gas stations in this country and so it gives you an idea of some fraction of those have to be scared to triage in that and in a short enough time to allow people to actually use them. So hydrogen may very well be an attractive source and iodized I favor and I think it's it's one of the candidates that's going to be there in the longer term. But there are a lot of decisions and have to be make. The mayor should say and to make this a reality and it's not clear who's going to make them

or whether anyone will agree with them. Well we have some other people. Within Let's do that. We will go next to calling champagne wine 1. Hello hello. I am wondering if anybody has done a calculation of the amount of oil that the war itself is consuming. It strikes me that to transport all the people and supplies and machinery and then to operate all the war machinery that is not fuel hot fish and must have a huge impact on the oil for the oil supply in the world and I wonder if anybody had looked at this and calculated it. Thank you. I'm sure someone knows I haven't personally done that but it is something that can be done if you can find the information from both the fuel and the infrastructure of building turn from airplanes and so forth. I'm sure it's a sizable amount but the exact number on March I

confess I don't know and I have not done the confirmation. Thank you. All right let's go to another caller this is also someone in Champaign. Into hello and hello. Fascinating topic David. My question to you is I know in environmental policy perspectives technology is always eat is the is the driving force that will pull us out of a situation if we ever get to the point of no return. And I'm reading an article today about President Bush's for announcement yesterday he seemed to underscore that as his energy policy linchpin that is technology is the basis for the fix of our current problem is technology something we can look to in terms of environmental policy generally. And now specifically energy policy to pull out chestnuts out of the well I think the answer has got to be yes.

And when I am what I mean by that is that our energy system is not sustainable. It is finite and its and its amount I mean we have a lot of coal but even that is finite and gas are both declining and have been for some time and they're not sustainable. So you come to the conclusion that we really need to get new used sources and that means necessarily harnessing one of the sources that are available and whether it's renewables a nuclear I I don't know. But it's some form of technology is vital to pull our chestnuts out of the fire as you indicate. And I personally would interested in the field of attacks and wind renewables and those are good sources of hydrogen but they still have the problems of land use and water use. So they're even the ones that are considered

friendly by the environmentalists have their problems and unfortunately we've got to learn to live with them or try and adapt to them by developing technologies which are friendly in those otherwise available. Ali let me follow up if you would if I might president. Bush is going to go on the air tonight to talk about energy and Al in a sort of a just so Security proposal. I you know am I wrong in assuming that President Bush has decided to speak out on this issue because he never recognizes the political and or economic events that impact this day is and I think you mentioned earlier if this isn't easy issues environmental energy so intensely political and and very much economic. Politicians and American people may not have the will to do anything but talk and not do the wall. When we we need to do take affirmative action.

Well wrong and that I think you're right. The president's. Popularity has been declining rather dramatically and he is as or as any good politician who has the inclination to stay in power has got to respond to those concerns on the part of the people. The biggest problem in my view is that the American public does not understand the role of economics in solving the problems and bringing forth use technologies and solutions. Third various ways you can make this sort of change happen. You can increase subsidies. Your UK people have to buy more efficient cars you can tax them to represent the impacts of that have you can use regulation in the form of CAFE standards and you can have other kinds of rigourous for efficiency of the sort that we have for air conditioners. But all of those. Just what tools to be used to

achieve the goal of more efficient technologies to help us deal with these problems. Thank you very much. All right thanks for the call. Just one quick question here that the Bush administration has been criticized all along for its energy policy for putting the emphasis on increasing production of fossil fuels also for the emphasis on trying to increase the proportion of the energy supply that's provided by nuclear generation. And some people have problem with that and doing that to the exclusion of talking about greater efficiency that is getting more out of the energy we use. And you know greater efficiency and. And conservation and putting some emphasis on renewable sources in in the kind of conversation that's going on now in the kind of legislation now that's come through the house. Do you see any evidence of any change in that. Or are are they still

under emphasizing failing to emphasize as far as you would you're concerned renewables and conservation. You know I think that what their take what they're supposing are on the margin sort of speak they're not fundamental shifts in technology. And I think you know that Mr. Bush would would just as soon rely on the market and it's which does not reflect the cost unfortunately. So the consumers are getting the wrong signals the use of that there's plenty of oil around in the front of gas around because the prices haven't really risen that much if you look at it in constant dollars. So I think that. He's This is not a profound thinker and terms of understanding what the problem is and as a result we're not getting a very effective policy and I don't know who else is going to do it. Leadership begins at the top of the pyramid

and so far we're not we're not really getting the kind of make leadership that we need to make the adjustments that we're going to have to make to deal with these problems. I just don't see it. We have a less than 15 minutes in this part of focus we have some other cause we get right to for the benefit of anyone who's tuned in here in the last 10 or 15 minutes I'll introduce again the guest Dr. James McKenzie. He works for the World Resources Institute. That is a think tank essentially environmental think tank it's an independent nonprofit organization that's been around since 1982 interested in promoting awareness of discussion of environmental issues. He's a senior associate in the Institute's Program in climate energy and pollution and has authored or coauthored many books and studies dealing with issues like transportation energy security global oil resources. He's professional partner Professor lecturer in the School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University. And we're talking here. But

energy policy questions are welcome we'll get as many as we can going next to someone who is in Chicago and this is line for you and I. Before I get to my point let me make this point. One of the one of the callers asked how much of the put up by a loyalist jetting down to the Forty eight states and this and the basis on which they a lot of companies were allowed to take part of it to pump out was that it would be diverted to the west coast of the United States. That is California Oregon Washington. Well the fact is that the tide Lytle is going to Japan has been going to Japan for the last few years most of the time that the oil has been coming out of Alaska. And what oil has done has been to to replace that has been coming from Indonesia. Basically what you're dealing with is a bunch of fires among the oil companies.

Everybody gets lying and. And you're not getting anything and and see with our government and hence controlled by the girl industry among others you're not getting any enforcement of law or anything else to the detriment of the rest of the country. Now with respect to how to use carbon based fuels there's not going. To be a replacement for that. I think I believe that the environmental and environmental conditions will trump everything that we have to offer as far as the use of carbon based fuels. And here we see the knotting of the ice caps in the arctic and antarctic the tops of mountains of glaciers are melting everything is going into the sea and the sea is rising at the temperatures the oceans are going up killing a lot of.

Parental rights and so on. Negotiations. In a not too distant future a good part of the. The sharks of the United States and the rest of the world are going to be flooded by the oceans trucking in 10 years or 20 years to the same and have Niland will be under at least two feet of water and a an article I read a couple weeks ago said 20 feet of water. Now Louisiana is half under rather now because of the rising of the tides and so on. I think your concentration your argument and this program has been entirely a secondary matter I think you should should have been pricing your emphasis on the environmental conditions rather than just using increasing the police to your benefit. Beneficial.

Mission for the US of of Iran the callers raise the number of really good points and we are getting kind of short on time and I have some other callers I want to but I want to do is here give the guest a chance to make some response. What do you think Dr. Mackenzie Well I think he's right on the west diversion of oil from Alaska to Japan. That was well that was well known to be happening and it was debated in public and what happened was there was just save a lot of transport of oil from other sources to Japan rather than to get it directly from Alaska. So I think he makes some good points and I agree with him entirely on global warming and it's it's you know the unfortunate effects by the time they are noticed to become overwhelming and the points that you make are quite quite cracked. The Greenland ice cap is measuring is melting of all these dire things are happening and it may already be too late unfortunately were up substantially

over the background levels of carbon dioxide so I don't like to try and scare people but I think deep in my heart I think that we're beyond the point of no return in terms of climate change and its impacts and on the infrastructure and cities and so forth you're quite right. Let's talk with another caller. This is champagne County in line 3. Hello. Hi that's grim. I wanted to return to the nuclear powers thing Price-Anderson you mention and that's the government taking over liability for a catastrophic accident. You know the details of what the center GI Bill is really a relieving liability of the nuclear industry of presently. That's a specific thing and then Francis points to a lot which is kind of ironic as a model for how much nuclear power the they have in the mix but it seems that even they are looking at sort of decentralization models they're offering to the

Olympic Committee for the Olympic villages to boast to be an entirely self-sustaining. Architecture in the sense that it's going to be covered with the photovoltaics and they're going to try and integrate it and be in a model of decentralisation which I haven't heard said. There's a just a little bit of time I mentioned that the army is talking to GM about hybrid Hummers but I don't really see that as a long term solution. Thanks. Hybrid hummer so about that. Well Dr. Mackenzie again would you like to comment on what. The caller had say Well I think he's pretty much cracked the salt cellars are expensive. Face it guys you're really in a remote application where they really make sense but at the moment it's like it's like 25 cents a kilo or an hour turn to make power. And so I think that it's prices are coming down on the other hand so that there is some hope that they will become more widely

available. And I'm sorry I forgot the other part of your question. Maybe again it was it was going back to the issue of nuclear power or who built on what the government is proposing to do to try to help to provide you know assistance to to building constructing new plants. Right. Well I think that you know the role of the subsidy is unappreciated by the American public. In the 60s when the nuclear power was proposed as part of the Atoms for Peace program the utilities would go near them. They wanted to build coal plants they were doing just fine and the Congress finally said that they would subsidize them to reduce the risks. And whereas at that time it looked like another the worse case actually could do 50 million dollars damage that's in $155 of huddling. And if you look at the total amount of insurance it was not enough to cover the

accident and so the Congress I think was put up 500 million dollars worth of ancillary aid to help out in the case of a major accident. So the by removing the costs the risks the huge utilities are granted something that they couldn't otherwise have in a sense the cost of the Internet for removing these these risks and I'm not sure in detail what is being proposed. But according to newspaper accounts it is to try to remove the risk of I mean unforeseen accidents. So I'm not quite sure in detail what it is since my is my answer. Try real quick to get one more caller that would be champagne wine wine. Dr. McKenzie really enjoyed this interview and I just wanted to raise a couple points unfortunately I know are running out of time. Two things that I think

are left out of this conversation that are a real disservice to the public are one renewables really have no chance given their current level of technology of meeting our energy needs. I've I've read numbers that say photovoltaics at best will meet something like 15 percent of world energy consumption. And I think the other issue that is left out is nuclear power in terms of using liquid metal fast breeder reactors which are outlawed in the 1970s in the United States. Because of concerns the production of plutonium but which our great reactors in terms of that they don't produce waste. They can let us consume waste that's available now and that they're very secure physically in terms of you don't have issues of them going critical you don't have issues. You know Chernobyl happening again and I've

never heard either of these issues really raised in any discussion in the media about these topics. I just I wanted to bring them up and see if you get it. Well I think in the case of breeders breeders are not the benign source. They do produce all the fission products that are switching reactor would produce and I want to reactor plus some more. Now they can't convert don't convert or do convert a larger fraction of the uranium into Cutrone have been groups products waste products but it's certainly not true that there don't produce radioactive waste we produce lots of it. We're going by partly for job in a new light way but we're just going to have to stop because we're at the end of the time obviously I think one of the things we're going to have to do on some future programs is talks more about nuclear power. OK. And also about renewables but for the moment we'll have to say thanks to our guest JAMES MACKENZIE senior associate World Resources Institute Dr. McKenzie thank you very much. You're very welcome.