What is John Hofmeister Telling America? | Brussels Blog

What is John Hofmeister Telling America?

posted by on 3rd Aug 2010
3rd,Aug

Today, (the 27th July 2010), I watched John Hofmeister being interviewed on the BBC’s “Hardtalk”. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mg2m/episodes/player?page=1

Mr Hofmeister is a former head of the Royal Dutch Shell Oil company in the USA. Now, he presents himself as a hard talking maverick insider from the oil industry and has in this role recently written a book, the title of which apparently, says it all; “Why We Hate the Oil Companies”

Mr Hofmeister’s pitch was this. There was plenty of oil but, for the sake of the environment, we had to start making a transition to other, cleaner fuels. We were under an obligation to leave the air, land and water in better shape for our descendants than it had been when we received it. This transition from oil had to take place within the next fifty years and we had to use all available means to make it happen. To this end a national body should be set up in the U.S.A. akin to the Federal Reserve Bank but concerned with energy supply and security.

It all sounded very reasonable.

It was Mr Hofmeister’s reply to a single question that made me question his bona fides as a born-again environmentalist. It was put to him that Shell under his leadership in the U.S. was involved in the extraction of oil from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada. This form of oil production is, for many reasons, an environmental disaster and as the interviewer pointed out, in Alberta it creates more CO2 than the entire nation of Denmark. In reply, Mr Hofmeister simply said that Canada was a sovereign nation, by implication meaning that they could do what they liked.

After the programme I looked at Mr Hofmeister’s website, “Citizens For Affordable Energy”. http://www.citizensforaffordableenergy.org/more-energy.htm

Now, that title does say it all, because the primary concern expressed in the website is that the USA should continue to have access to plentiful cheap energy and to this end should exploit all available resources. Bear in mind that with around 3% of the world’s population, the USA uses approximately 25% of the total global consumption of oil. The factor that allows it to be so profligate in its use of energy is that the consumer pays very little for petrol. As Mr Hofmeister pointed out during the programme, if the price at the pump went up to $8 a gallon there would be rioting on the streets. America, he noted, is used to cheap gasoline and has very little in the way of public transport.

Putting together what he said on “Hardtalk” and the gist of his website, the key points in his argument are;

  1. The USA needs to revitalize the physical and legal infrastructure that it uses to produce and deliver energy.
  2. All sources should be used to create energy including oil shale and coal so that the USA can become self-sufficient
  3. Technologies should be developed for burying gaseous waste (i.e. CO2)
  4. Energy should be used more efficiently.

What is apparent from all this is that Mr Hofmeister is aware that in the not too distant future the USA will wake up to the fact that it has a problem; an acute shortage of energy. He pays lip service to a few “green” credentials but his main concern is not sustainability. If it were, he would not be talking ambien about producing oil from oil shale and exploiting coal. Extracting oil from shale is inevitably dirty, polluting and expensive. Clean coal technology is much talked about but remains a distant hope. In fact, if he were truly concerned about the condition of the planet Mr Hofmeister might start by suggesting that Americans reduce by a large margin the amount of energy that they consume.

His real concern is the knowledge that in the near future Americans will feel the effect of a shortage of energy and in particular, of oil. As an oil-man he knows very well that there is a looming problem. America is dependent on an energy source that comes from what, to its eyes, must appear to be some of the most unfriendly and unstable parts of the globe. It is a fact that the Middle Eastern states, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran still have the bulk of the world’s resources of cheap, easily exploitable oil. Other significant sources include Venezuela and a number of countries in Africa which are not noted for their political stability. And of course, China increasingly can challenge The US for access to these supplies. It has the money and the political influence.

At present the world uses approximately three barrels of oil for each one it finds. Clearly, this can’t go on indefinitely. The time frame that John Hofmeister gives of fifty years dovetails neatly with the BP assessment that there are around five decades of oil remaining. We all have a problem but for the US, the most oil addicted nation on earth, it is seemingly intractable.

In an article for the Houston Chronicle written on the 13th March 2010 http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6912043.html Mr Hofmeister makes it plain that his primary concern is not in saving the environment but with avoiding the adverse effect that a diminution in the energy supply will have upon the USA. What he is advocating is energy self-sufficiency which if all resources are tapped (however polluting they may be) can ensure that the US will be independent of the vagaries of world supply.

What he says is true; on the horizon there is a huge problem for the USA and indeed for the world in general. His solution for the USA is a retreat into isolationism but that in itself is a temporary solution. The oil shale and coal will not last forever and exploiting them will come at a high environmental price.

However, the real question for me is this. Should we not turn this crisis to our advantage and view it as an opportunity to reshape radically our society. John Hofmeister and other proponents of similar views want business as usual, that is an economic model predicated on the notion of growth. Why not face the fact that the resources that we should be relying on are those that are of infinite rather than finite duration. If we concentrated on that goal and limited our ambitions to renewal rather than growth then we might have a chance of preventing the damage to our weather and eco systems which daily becomes more apparent. If we don’t then we are merely postponing the problem.

Robert Urquhart Collins

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