Recent Polls Show Energy Now Top Concern for Americans

Energy is the top concern for Americans by a wide margin over any other issue, according to recent polls.

A Rasmussen poll Aug. 6 showed that 64 percent of Americans want offshore drilling for domestic oil and natural gas as a way to lower gas prices. Fifty-five percent think the nation should build more nuclear plants. A similar poll at the end of July by CNN/Opinion Research Corporation also reported strong support, at 64 percent, for offshore drilling.

The Rasmussen poll found that 81 percent of Americans think that developing new sources of energy is an urgent priority, and 65 percent of Americans think that finding new sources of energy is more important than reducing energy consumption. Twenty-eight percent thought conservation was more important.

In a separate Rasmussen poll, 57 percent of voters, opposed to 26 percent, believe that high gas prices do more to reduce U.S. energy consumption than do governmental regulations. This issue is divided along party lines, with a majority of Republicans, 67 percent, and unaffiliated voters, 58 percent, seeing high gas prices as having the biggest effect on reducing energy consumption. Only 33 percent of Democrats agree.

Despite strong citizen support for drilling and finding new sources of energy, congressional leaders adjourned at the end of July without voting on a number of proposed bills that would increase domestically produced energy resources.

Oil prices just hit a three-month low and gasoline prices at the pump have dropped well under $4 a gallon. Seasonally, oil prices decline at this time of the year but slowing economies in Europe and in developing nations such as China and India also have contributed to lower demand and lower prices as market forces take effect.

Since the oil embargo in 1973, this cycle of energy spikes and declines has been repeated, including 2005, 2001, 1991, the 1980s, and twice in the 1970s. Three years ago, after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Americans were thankful when gas prices dropped to about $2 a gallon. Analysts are concerned that Congress will once again fail to enact a long-term energy strategy.

Philosophical Divide

Many N.C. Republican members of Congress support offshore drilling, whereas most Democrats do not. Rep. Sue Myrick, R-9th; Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th; and Sens. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., and Richard Burr, R-N.C., for example, voted not to adjourn and joined other Republicans in urging President Bush to call Congress back into session to deal with the energy issue.

Some of the bills cosponsored or supported by most of the N.C. Republican delegation support drilling off the Outer Continental Shelf and in the Arctic coastal plain, building new refineries, increasing nuclear energy, and developing America’s shale oil resources. One bill supports greater use of clean-coal technologies, such as gassification, and hydrogen, wind, solar, and biofuels that do not use food sources.

Reps. Bob Etheridge, D-7th; Brad Miller, D-13th; David Price, D-4th; and Walter Jones, R-3rd, support drilling, but not offshore drilling. Rather, they want oil companies to drill on the 68 million acres of public lands and waters already under lease.

The problem, experts say, is these 68 million acres do not contain enough recoverable oil to make it economically feasible to drill. More than 60 percent of the exploratory wells in those areas have produced no oil or natural gas.

In contrast, 94 percent of federal lands — more than 658 million acres — and 97 percent of federal offshore properties — 1.7 billion acres — have known reserves of recoverable oil but remain off-limits to exploration and drilling. The American Petroleum Institute reported that these lands and offshore properties hold enough natural gas to fuel 60 million households for another 160 years and hold at least enough oil to fuel 65 million cars and 3.2 million homes for 60 years.

Democratic proposals would increase governmental regulations to force conservation and curb consumption while providing billions of dollars in additional subsidies to energy research and development. These programs emphasize wind, solar, smart-grid technology, carbon capture and storage, and biomass fuels. One bill would also release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves, a plan many experts agree would not lower gas prices but would leave Americans vulnerable to a major supply interruption.

Energy Myths

In 2004, The Royal Academy of Engineering in Britain reported that fossil fuels, even after accounting for costs in mitigating carbon dioxide emissions to comply with the Kyoto Protocol, were the cheapest, most-efficient forms of energy at less than half the cost of renewable energy sources. Taxpayer subsidies and market manipulation for a desired outcome hides the true cost of electrical power generation from renewable sources.

The report also found that fluctuations in solar and wind energy sources limit the output of power generation available from these technologies, thus fast response, additional standby power generation and energy storage is needed to provide secure energy and that adds to the cost. Even with increased subsidies, extra investment in renewables is unlikely because they are not economically competitive.

Science Daily reported May 10, 2006 that researchers at Sandia National Laboratories who have been studying ways to provide hydrogen as a future fuel source have found that coal remains the most cost-effective way to produce hydrogen.

Not only do many alternative and renewable forms of energy require fossil fuels in their generation or storage, but these technologies create other problems. Analysts say that the ethanol mandate has led to a huge increase in the price of food and other commodities, hurting lower-income families also affected by rising fuel and home energy costs.

The rhetoric about energy is highly emotional because the issue has become tightly coupled to environmental concerns, according to analysts. Environmentalists think that conventional and some unconventional sources of energy, such as shale oil, pollute the environment and increase global warming. Thus, Americans are led to believe their only choice to save the planet is to accept major lifestyle changes and higher taxes.

In an article in Dailycamera on Sept. 28, 2007 Michael Brownlee, the head of Boulder Valley Relocalization in Colorado, advocated “a reduction of energy consumption of about 80 percent” to reduce gridlock on U.S. 36 in Boulder County. Boulder County was the first in the nation to pass a carbon tax.

Brownlee and other sustainability advocates encourage people to live in smaller homes, drive smaller vehicles, use mass transit, and walk or bike to work. They think individuals should grow their own food. The benefits of such changes would be “a richer sense of community, a de-emphasis on globalization, perhaps even a reduction in obesity rates as people walk and bike more.”

Ironically, environmentalists have complained and, in some cases, filed lawsuits to mitigate negative environmental impacts caused by the very technologies they promote. Some complain that wind turbines are killing birds and other important wildlife, while others complain about the noise. Even Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., has objected to wind farms because they detract from the natural beauty of the coastline. Batteries for hybrid vehicles and solar energy cells, for example, might also pollute the environment.

A report submitted to the Oil & Gas Journal in February 2003 warned of a coming energy crisis because oil production in the United States and world excess capacity are at record lows. No new refinery has been built in the United States in more than 25 years. “All warning signs that existed prior to the energy crises of 1973 and 1979 exist today,” the authors reported.

With most of the excess capacity in a few OPEC countries, many of them politically unstable, the United States is vulnerable to severe supply disruption. The only time since 1973 that U.S. dependence on foreign oil imports declined in a sustained way was in late 1978 when oil from Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay came into production.

More supply equals lower prices. While few people would dispute the need for alternative and renewable energy resources as part of the energy solution, these technologies remain far in the future as major sources of viable, cost-effective energy, as opposed to domestic supplies of oil and natural gas. Also lost in the debate is that most of the major oil companies have been and continue to invest in hydrogen, wind, solar, and other alternative energy sources.

Karen McMahan is a contributing editor of Carolina Journal.