Agreeing with Shell Oil

I was slightly surprised to find myself agreeing with John Hofmeister, the former President of the Shell Oil Company in the US, who uses much of his book Why we hate the oil companies - straight talk from an energy insider to label environmentalists as extremists.

To be fair he also labels those who oppose action on the environment as extremists, particularly lambasting the Sarah Palin ideology of "drill, baby, drill" regardless of environmental impact. He also uses his book to bemoan the state of politics in the US, suggesting that the fundamental ideological divisions between republicans and democrats make it impossible to have a coherent long-term energy policy. 

He points out that even though in 1973 President Nixon set the US the goal of energy independence, the country is more dependent on energy imports than ever before (a very risky strategy when you read a good analysis of what is going on in the Middle East). He blames "the left" for this because it has successfully opposed development of new nuclear plants, oil and coal extraction, and the use of unconventional fossil fuels such as tar sands.

He says that the US needs to produce more oil, coal (with carbon capture and storage), gas, and nuclear power because energy consumption is only going to increase. He sees only a limited role for renewable power.

Not surprisingly I disagree with this conclusion.

But what I do agree with is his main recommendation for the future.

He says short-term political cycles and constantly changing energy policy make it impossible to safely invest in energy projects that take many years to come to fruition and need to operate for decades. He says the US needs to create an independent Federal Energy Resources Board populated by energy, environmental and economic experts that recommend how the US gets the energy it needs whilst safeguarding the environment.

In the UK we already have such a body as the result of Friends of the Earth's campaigning. The Committee on Climate Change makes recommendations on how much carbon the UK should emit and provides advice on how to produce the energy we need within this carbon limit. 

John Hofmeister's book is a good read and a great insight into the thinking of the oil industry, even if he does wrongly label us as extremists.