The good
news yesterday was that gas prices fell for the second day in a row by a
national average of three-tenths of a cent. Who knows how much longer that
trend will keep up though, especially with oil
climbing $5 dollars per barrel yesterday to a price of $136.68 on the heels
of news of a potential strike in Nigeria.
Oil troubles are America’s troubles though and so American politicians could
be heard putting their two cents in on the topic.
President Bush
is calling for Congress to lift the ban on off-shore drilling and
continuing to lobby for drilling in protected Alaskan land. Senator McCain and President Bush agree
somewhat on this one as he too has called for a lift of the ban. McCain
also pushed for building more nuclear plants and acquiring clean-coal
technology. Senator McCain advocated the
building of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030.
No new reactors have been built in more than 30 years. Senator Barack
Obama went the other way on the issue, saying that he wants to put $15 Billion
into renewable energy each year for the next ten years. Funding for this would come from a topic
which we discuss in a previous
ResearchWatch entry. While opinions
abound on either side of the issue, experts
do say that additional drilling would only add to the current output by
about 2 million barrels a day, or 20% of domestic oil production and 2% of
worldwide production. They also point
out that getting the offshore rigs operation would take some time.
This news comes out at the same time as a report from Clean Edge, a clean energy research firm,
which states in conjunction with Co-op America that the US could potentially
get up to 10% of
its electricity from solar power by 2025.
If the circumstances were right that is.
Alliance
Bernstein also chimed in on the renewable energy topic, saying that hybrid
vehicles are already cheaper to own overall than the gas powered models of
old. Due to a number of regulatory
factors and a changing economic landscape in general in the cost of using
fossil fuels, Bernstein went on to predict double digit growth for wind power
in the next decade. All this adds up, in
Bernstein’s opinion, to more market share for hybrids in the future.
No matter what the politicians in Washington ultimately
decide to do, alternative research firms such as Clean Edge in renewables and Ross Smith Energy Group in oil (as well as many
others) can definitely help to assess the impact these changes will make in the
market. Integrity Research has a database
of over 1700 research firms, 60 of which specialize in the energy sector. About 15 of these specialists focus on
renewable energy. The debate rages as to
whether increased drilling or alternative energy sources is the answer to
ending America’s energy woes, but no matter what, independent research firms
will have some interesting things to say.
Posted at 11:55 am by Nathan Bragg
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