This is a pretty comprehensive summary of the crisis we find ourselves in today. It also clearly shows why current cheap oil and gasoline prices are so dangerous for the United States. Cheap gasoline prevents good energy policy from being enacted.

I was reading an article by Seeking Alpha contributor John Peterson wherein he unveiled his “family reunion test” to evaluate cleantech investments. He boils his analysis down to a simple question: “How many of the people who attended our last family reunion is likely to buy this product or service at today’s price”? I grinned when reading this - it is very similar to my stress test with respect to proposed energy policy solutions to solve America’s peak oil crisis: “Will this policy allow me to pull my small Teardrop trailer to Colorado every summer for the rest of my life so that I can travel up and down the mountains and fly fish for trout in my favorite wilderness area waters”?

While America’s energy crisis cannot rely on any single solution natural gas transportation consistently passes my stress test while most other proposals fail to do so. Does this indicate a bad stress test or a bad policy? You decide.

Rather than regurgitate the facts and statistics of peak oil today I want to discuss the lack of an American energy policy. I was extremely critical of the Bush administration’s lack of a comprehensive energy policy and strongly supported Obama for President. To his credit Obama has made some important changes in both tone and action by increasing support and funding for wind solar and electric grid infrastructures. However with respect to the vital issue of reducing foreign oil imports Obama has been an extreme disappointment. He seldom misses an opportunity to mention “clean coal”. This is an oxymoron. Simply mining the coal degrades the environment. Burning coal emits twice the CO2 of natural gas. More importantly coal’s particulate emissions are very toxic whereas natural gas has 0 (zero) particulate emissions (natural gas or methane is simply CH4). Anyone who doubts the hazards of burning coal for electricity simply needs to Google “Kingston coal spill” and read about one of the worst environmental disasters in the history of the US. This didn’t happen in the 1960’s or 70s this happened in December of last year. “Clean coal”?

Pah-leeeeze. I thought Obama would be a bigger man than to support something like coal simply because his home state of Illinois is a major producer of coal. Apparently this is not the case. At the same time has anyone heard Obama even utter the words “natural gas transportation”? How can one explain such behavior and policy?

I still cannot fathom why oil company executives have not come out in strong support for natural gas transportation. Not one executive of a major oil company has publicly and strongly supported Boone Pickens’ efforts for robust natural gas transportation policies. However it’s not because they aren’t aware or don’t acknowledge peak oil. At last year’s World Economic Forum in Davos ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva said that worldwide oil demand will quite likely outstrip worldwide oil supply by 2015. Executives at Royal Dutch Shell and Amerada Hess have made similar statements. ConocoPhillip’s is one of the top 3 producers of US natural gas so why hasn’t Mulva come out and fully embraced US natural gas transportation policies? Following COP’s purchase of Burlington Resources and its huge US natural gas reserves and considering that huge shale supplies combined with an economic contraction have pushed natural gas prices below $4 on the NYMEX how can one explain Mulva’s silence on natural gas transportation policies?

Meanwhile Conoco and BP are apparently going full steam ahead with the Denali natural gas pipeline to bring Alaskan natural gas to the lower-48. Wouldn’t it seem logical that COP and BP executives would be pounding the table to support natural gas transportation in the US in order to insure demand and price support for their investments and their product? Yes of course these companies have large investments in oil exploration and gasoline refining however if they really believe worldwide oil supply won’t keep up with worldwide oil demand by 2015 they surely must understand the dire economic and social implications for the US a country which uses 25% of world’s oil supply and imports 65% of it.

I mean seriously these men may well put profits ahead of country but don’t these oil executives have children and friends living in the US? Do they have enough money to protect themselves in fortress behind barbed wire and security systems? What if they just want to go out and buy a pizza? Or do they simply have an “escape plan” when the peak oil crisis sinks the US into chaos? If so someone please tell me - where do they plan to move? Is it rational to think that the US with its huge military machine will go quietly into the night as we run out of oil to fuel our economy and our social institutions?