Politico has a lengthy section on oil prices, with industry participants and observers from T. Boone Pickens to Bill McKibben weighing in. Some expect the low prices to be short-lived, while others see falling prices as a trend that will continue. They also comment on what the low prices mean for alternative energy sources and investment in improved efficiencies.
Bill Richardson, former secretary of energy and governor of New Mexico, notes that the demand side of the market has softened and will likely soften further. Increasing efficiency and the switch to alternative energy sources, he writes, could signal enduring changes in the oil markets.
However, Kate Gordon, vice president and director of the Energy & Climate Program at Next Generation, sees price swings as inevitable, and she advocates for an achievable bipartisan goal of getting consumers off oil and into cleaner and cheaper technologies.
Hal Harvey, CEO of Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology LLC, calls for us to “accelerate the nascent reinvention of the auto—and of trucks.” He continues, “Read the car journals today, and you will be amazed at the new engines, drivetrains, electronics, aerodynamics, light-weighting, and even tires that can keep us free of petro-ransom.”
In contrast, Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and senior adviser to the U.S. Energy Security Council, writes “…oil faces no competition in the sector that matters most to the global economy: transportation.”
Terry Lynn Karl, the Gildred professor of political science and Latin American studies at Stanford University, cautions, “Cheaper oil also weakens incentives to find alternatives to fossil fuels and dangerously pushes efforts to stop climate change into the future.” Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, warns that oil dependence holds us hostage to price spikes we can neither predict nor control and notes that the permanent fix to oil price shocks is to invest in efficiency and diversify energy supplies.
For his part, T. Boone Pickens, founder and chair of BP Capital, writes, “The key for America is that we shouldn’t let ourselves get distracted by falling oil prices when there is much more at stake. For decades, our dependence on OPEC oil has dictated our national security decisions and tied us up in the Middle East at an incredible price. We’ve spent more than $5 trillion and thousands of American soldiers have died securing Middle East oil. That long-term cost doesn’t get factored in to the price at the pump, so it is critical that we not let ourselves lose sight of the problem and continue expanding American energy production.”
And Bill McKibben, cofounder and president of 350.org, takes aim at the Keystone Pipeline: “The State Department—lobbied by TransCanada backers with ties to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—did everything it could to set the lowest possible bar for approving Keystone. But in a world of depressed oil prices, as the pressure on the fossil fuel industry builds, even that favoritism isn’t enough to skew the science or show that Keystone is worth building.”
Visit Politico here to read the complete series of comments. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/oil-prices-are-dropping-so-what-112607.html?ml=m_b7_1#.VGDQ2vnF-LU
