Monday, November 28, 2011

Newt Gingrich: Total Ignorance or Dangerous Demagogue?

The Oil Drum discusses Newt Gingrich's absurd views on oil, below:

During the CNN Republican presidential debate Tuesday, November 23, Newt Gingrich made statements about U.S. potential oil supply that reveal either total ignorance of energy or supremely dangerous demagoguery. He stated that the United States could discover and produce enough oil in 2012 to cause a worldwide oil price collapse.

GINGRICH: But let me make a deeper point. There's a core thing that's wrong with this whole city. You said earlier that it would take too long to open up American oil. We defeated Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan in three years and eight months because we thought we were serious.
If we were serious, we would open up enough oil fields in the next year that the price of oil worldwide would collapse. Now, that's what we would do if we were a serious country. If we were serious...
(http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2011/11/cnn_republican_debate_nov_22_2.html

Earlier in the debate, when discussing the impact on Europe and the global price of oil of stopping Iranian exports through sanctioning its central bank, Gingrich said that would not be a problem. The United States would simply provide an additional 4 million barrels of oil per day to Europe to cover the Iranian shortfall.
BLITZER: The argument, Speaker Gingrich -- and I know you've studied this, and I want you to weigh in -- on the sanctioning of the Iranian Central Bank, because if you do that, for all practical purposes, it cuts off Iranian oil exports, 4 million barrels a day.
The Europeans get a lot of that oil. They think their economy, if the price of gasoline skyrocketed, which it would, would be disastrous. That's why the pressure is on the U.S. to not impose those sanctions. What say you?
GINGRICH: Well, I say you -- the question you just asked is perfect, because the fact is we ought to have a massive all-sources energy program in the United States designed to, once again, create a surplus of energy here, so we could say to the Europeans pretty cheerfully, that all the various sources of oil we have in the United States, we could literally replace the Iranian oil.
Now that's how we won World War II.
(http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2011/11/cnn_republican_debate_nov_22_2.html)

It seems absurd to have to rebut these preposterous statements, but here are the facts.

During the week ending November 18, 2011, the US used 14.8 million barrels (Mbopd) of crude oil as input to refineries. This included 5.9 Mbopd of domestic crude oil production and 8.3 Mbopd of net crude oil imports. From this input, 18.6 Mbopd of petroleum products were produced and consumed (Exhibit 1).





The U.S. would have to increase field production by more than double current production to become oil independent by increasing domestic production to 14.8 Mbopd.

Read the rest here.

11 comments:

  1. I choose "Dangerous Demagogue".

    Isn't it also the case that the U.S. has gasoline refinery capacity below current U.S. consumption? Don't forget to throw up some new refineries in the next year or you'll have to export the oil, anyway.

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  2. The Blitzer / Gingrich component of the Presidential debate seemed like it was a set up question to 'take out' Ron Paul. Blitzer, outside of the normal rules, returned to Gingrich, after Paul commented on the rule of law and the Timothy McVeigh case. Gingrich seemed pre-prepared with a one liner response that was out of character for the normally wordy Gingrich. It was probably set up with CNN. It would be interesting to know what pre-show preps were made before the debate and whether the whole McVeigh angle was discussed with Paul before the debate.

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  3. @Tom,
    US refiners currently operate at about 50% of capacity because there is a bottleneck in the pipeline system getting crude to the Gulf coast. Hence the Keystone XL...

    Productive capacity is also scheduled to double in the near future (I actually work designing electrical/instrumentation systems for those refineries, and business is booming in SE TX/SW LA).

    That leaves out the natural gas conversion option(the Pickens Plan). The US can be energy independent, but no way in 1 year, or even 10 (or ever), under government managers. And not on crude oil/gasoline/diesel alone.

    New/known sources of crude are available that would not-quite-double supply capacity, but the federal government owns/manages those fields, and also restricts new refining permits (0 new plants in the last 20 years).

    The key is to get government out of the way. Supply and reserve would increase, productive capacity will balloon, and energy prices would plummet. The reason this isn't happening is because, under the president's plan, "energy costs would necessarily skyrocket."

    I also have it on good authority that if the US ever really opened its exploration, really started pumping crude out of the ground, that OPEC would cease to price oil in dollars. Maybe Wenzel wouldn't mind explaining the effect of that strategy on our economy. I'm not near enough an Austrian scholar to attempt it, but I suspect it would be bad in the short run.

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  4. "Total Ignorance or Dangerous Demagogue?"

    Uh, both.

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  5. "GINGRICH: But let me make a deeper point. There's a core thing that's wrong with this whole city. You said earlier that it would take too long to open up American oil. We defeated Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan in three years and eight months because we thought we were serious.
    If we were serious, we would open up enough oil fields in the next year that the price of oil worldwide would collapse. Now, that's what we would do if we were a serious country. If we were serious..."


    I think what everyone misses here is that Gingrich is just another big-government technocrat. The comment "If we were serious..." smacks of central planning. He compares it to the other great 20th century centrally-planned event -- WWII.

    What makes Gingrich truly dangerous is not demagogy or ignorance. What makes Gingrich dangerous is that he truly believes deep down in his soul that government can be used as a force for good.

    You can see this all over the place from his Heritage Foundation pre-Obamnycare proposals, to his Global Warming commercials with Nancy Pelosi to his proposals for spending $1 Billion on Alzheimer's research; Gingrich is a big-government technocrat. He's that most dangerous of animals -- an intelligent, engineering-oriented "public servant."

    Gingrich = e^(Hoover + Carter) -- he's an exponential disaster waiting to happen. Both Hoover and Carter were very smart "engineering types." They were disasters because they fundamentally believed they could engineer social good. Newt Gingrich is cut from the same cloth. He'd be an absolute disaster as president.

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  6. Am I to assume that Blood Thirsty Thugservative was taken?

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  7. Anon 5:07,

    BRILLIANT analysis!
    Thank you!
    That's EXACTLY why he's so dangerous.
    So, doesn't Bernanke fit that description as well?
    Oh, wait, he's got a "secret set of tools". Nevermind :)

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  8. I don't think any of us EPJ readers think we are serious enough for Newt.

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  9. it is interesting to see that Newt has essentially been endorsed by Clinton
    See here.

    Birds of a feather!

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  10. Ok, so let's take take a look under the hood.

    Newt (President "NEWT"??? - GIVE ME A F*UCKING BREAK!!! - sorry, I digress...) is an insider's insider. He is probably the "chosen" one by the PTB for our next "freely elected" president. Problem is he is just more of the same old, same old.

    They initially floated all the pretty boys (Romney, Perry, et al), and girls (Palin, etc.), and, one by one, they have shown how vacuous, ignorant, and totally unprepared they are for even the most rudimentary leadership position.

    Now they have dug down deep into the political septic tank, brushed aside the big pieces, and dredged up this amphibian. The same shining example of virtue, honor and truth who resigned from his seat as Speaker of the House, who left his wife when he found out she had cancer, who was disciplined for ethical wrongdoing and accused of using tax-deductible charitable donations to fund a non-charitable college course that he taught, and of giving false information about this to the House Ethics Committee. Gingrich was among the 450 members of the House who engaged in check kiting; he had overdrafts on twenty-two checks, including a $9,463 check to the Internal Revenue Service in 1990. Oh yes! Can't wait to line up to vote for this one...

    Newty is going to self destruct like the others, because he is unfit to lead this county. There are truly great Americans ready to step forward and clean up this mess, but you will not see them showcased on any of the MSM outlets. They are being well paid or threatened to tow the line. One must "look under the hood". The truth is out there.

    As a man who has fought and nearly died for my beloved county, when they call me "a sheeple", "tin foil hat wearer", "lunatic", "fanatic" or "domestic terrorist", it is a badge of honor and I wear it with pride.

    I, am Spartacus

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  11. I find it humorous that liberals find Gingrich to be "dangerous", when THEY are the ones who are responsible for electing the MOST UNQUALIFIED nominee in history to the U.S. Presidency. SOLELY because of the failed policies of Obama/Pelosi/Pelosi, we are now in a position (15 trillion debt/1.5 trillion annual deficits/14 trillion GDP) from which we CANNOT grow our way out!

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