US military subsidy of Mid-East oil

> This is quite misleading...

No, it's not really. You just don't agree with my points so you
don't address them. And you'll note, I didn't draw a conclusion, I
just presented some some issues for consideration. Now on to my
rebuttal.

>> >
> >The US government pays the tab for protecting the world's oil
supply
> >but only relies on Mid-East oil for 30% of its domestic
consumption.
> >
> [...]
>
> >Meanwhile, Asia is a huge importer
> >
> >http://www.iht.com/articles/1745.html
> >
> >"Asia, led by its four largest economies Japan, China, South
Korea
> >and India imports 60 percent of its oil. The International
Energy
> >Agency in Paris expects this figure to rise to almost 90 percent
in
> >2020, ``with a corresponding increase in Asian vulnerability to
any
> >oil supply interruption."

> >
> The US also currently imports about 60 percent of its oil - it's
just
> that only half of those imports come from the Middle East, the
others
> come from slightly more friendly countries like Russia, Venezuela,
> Colombia, etc.

This doesn't dispute my point about 30% of imports coming from the
volatile Middle East. Also, when you write "slightly more friendly
countries . . ." why don't you mention Canada and Mexico?

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/northamerica/engsupp.htm

START QUOTE

In 2000, about 36 percent of total U.S. net energy imports came from
Canada (27 percent) and Mexico (9 percent).

Canada provided almost all United States net natural gas imports in
2000. These imports accounted for about 15 percent of U.S. gas
consumption in 2000.

U.S. net oil imports from Canada and Mexico accounted for about 26
percent of U.S. net oil imports, and about 15 percent of total U.S.
oil consumption in 2000.

The United States exported a small amount of natural gas and refined
petroleum products to Mexico.

The United States electricity net imports meet about 1 percent of
its electricity demand. Almost all electricity imports come from
Canada. Mexico and the United States trade relatively small
quantities of electricity. The United States is a net exporter of
electricity to Mexico.

END QUOTE

Also, take a look at this graph.

http://www.ott.doe.gov/facts/archives/fotw192.shtml

>US imports could well rise just as high in 20 years,
> since US recoverable oil is far less than what can be recovered in
the
> Middle East.

Yeah, so what? Your creating a strawman here. US imports could do
many things in the next 20 years. So could other nations' imports. I
didn't mislead you to this conjecture. While you're at it, why not
consider the exploding demand for oil products in the Asian Tiger
countries, China (with its huge potential middle class), India, and
eastern Europe. With increased disposable income will come the same
wasteful energy habits as found in North America. I'll let you argue
this point because it's not what I wanted to address.

And because the US as a whole uses so much energy (about 25
> % of the world's energy use if I recall correctly) and that such a
large
> fraction of that goes to power vehicles (requiring oil) compared
to most
> other countries, US oil consumption is an even higher percentage
of the
> world total.

So what? I never said otherwise. Another strawman you're creating.
Again, I never wrote anything to indicate otherwise nor anything
misleading on this issue. Look below to my questiion about
population density for a possible reason why the US may use a large
part of its oil consumption for motor vehicle travel.

> >
> >So, US citizens pay and the benefits accrue mainly to Europe and
> >Asia.
> >
> As far as Europe goes, at least for now, that is simply false -
remember
> Britain and Norway are net exporters of oil?

No, it's not false. Get your facts straight before you fire off your
accusations. Being a net exporter of oil means that you have to meet
one criterion, namely export more oil than you import. You don't say
how much oil they export. Is it enough to satisfy the markets of the
rest of Europe? How you jump from this definition to the assumption
that because these two countries are net exporters of oil that
Europe doesn't benefit from the security of supply provided, in
large part, by the US military.

Russia, which is both in
> Europe and in Asia has enormous oil reserves.

Yes it does. Much of those reserves are untapped though. Again, I
never said otherwise. You're bringing up points that I never
disputed.

France gets a huge
> fraction of its energy needs from nuclear power, and cannot be
> classified as oil dependent either.

True enough about France's nuclear strategy, but you've lost me on
how you jumped to your conclusion. One doesn't follow the other.

Some light reading for you, direct from the European Union dated
Sept 11, 2002.

http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guestfr.ksh?
p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/02/1288|0|RAPID&lg=EN&display=

START QUOTE

Over 70% of our oil consumption and 40% of our natural gas
consumption is at present imported. Projections indicate that these
figures could rise to 90% and 70% respectively in 2020. Given its
dependence on imported energy, the EU is increasingly exposed to the
risk of economic disruption of supply as a result of the volatility
both of oil prices and of gas prices which are still indexed to oil
prices. Between 1998 and 2000, while world oil supply fell by only
3%, crude oil prices increased from $10/barrel to, at times,
$37/barrel. Over a year, a price rise of this magnitude would result
in an increase of some 100 billion in the EU's oil bill.

END QUOTE

Further reading, this time directly about France.

http://www.ita.doc.gov/td/energy/france.htm

"Of the 2 million barrels per day of oil consumed in France, 1.9
million barrels per day are imported."

Now to compare apples to apples, please consider the following:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/northamerica/engdemd.htm#_VPID_1

"North America consumed about 23 million barrels per day (MMbbl/d)
of oil in 2000, or about 31 percent of estimated world oil demand.
Canada consumed 1.7 MMbbl/d, Mexico consumed 1.7 MMbbl/d, and the
United States consumed about 19.7 MMbbl/d."

So France imports 1.9 million barrels a day, that's 95% dependency
on imported oil, which you'll note is greater than the 70% average
for the European Union as a whole.

Now the US, in 2001, imported 11,619,000 barrels a day and 23.5% of
that was from the Persion Gulf states.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0504.html

And using the same source for information, the US consumed
19,593,000 barrels per day.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0511.html

The way I calculate it, the US has a 59% dependency on foreign oil
and a 14% dependency on Persion Gulf Oil. Compare that to France's
95% and the EU's 70% dependency on imported oil.

One final point on this issue. You'll note from the statistics that
55% of US consumption is attributed to aphalt oil, aviation gas, jet
fuel, Kerosene, and Motor Gasoline. What I suspect is used for power
generation is Distillate Fuel Oil, comprising 19.5% of US daily
consumption.

Now to have a little fun, how should we compare these statistics
between the US and France?

By population: France (59,765,983) vs. US (280,562,489). The French
only consume 48% per capita of US oil consumption. So each US
citizen consumes more oil per capita. Hmmm. Why is that?

How about GDP? France ($1.51 trillion) vs. US ($10.082 trillion)
Here the French use only 68% of the oil the US uses to achieve the
same adjusted level of GDP. How can the French use less oil to
generate their GDP?

How about by land area? France (547,030 sq. km) vs. US (9,629,091
sq. km). Here the French use 80% more oil per sq. km. than do the
Americans. Hmmm. The US has a population density of 29.1 per sq. km
compared to the French, at 109.3 per sq. km. I wonder what the
implications of this would be for oil consumption? If the US had the
same population density as France, ceteris paribus, what would the
implications be for US oil consumption?

There are more sources of comparison to be found at

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html

Sorry about the digression. Back to my rebuttal.

>
> The benefits of Middle East interventionism, such as they are,
actually
> do accrue mainly to US citizens.

Make your case. I disagree with you. The US citizen does not get the
main benefit. International corporate interests who profit from
worldwide economic stability are the main beneficiaries. But even
here for you to draw the conclusion that the benefit is primarily to
US citizens, you'd have to show a linkage between international
economic activity, the US corporate share of that activity, and US
investment in that US corporate activity. From this we may be able
to infer benefit by way of jobs, stock appreciation, stock
dividends, pension benefits, taxes paid to US gov't, etc.

And the critical dependency on foreign
> oil is here, not elsewhere.

No, the critical dependency on oil is here, not foreign oil. And
again my point was about Middle Eastern oil and the heavy
military "tax" that is paid by the US taxpayer. I don't think that a
heavy US military presence is required in Canada to insure stability
of supply, and from which the US imports as much oil as from Saudi
Arabia. Nor from Norway and the UK, which together supply about 40%
of what Canada or Saudi Arabia individually export to the US.

Ask yourself why the US has a dependency on oil? Why does it consume
such a large share of world resources? What if the rest of the world
lived at US standards? What would the implications be for oil
consumption?

Give this a read. It's a very informative document.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/oil.html

The Kyoto accords, which most of the world
> has signed on to, actually lead toward reducing dependence on oil,
but
> that's apparently not in the cards for the US.

Again, I didn't raise Kyoto at all. You're setting it up as an issue
to rebut my points about military tax and Bush Doctrine but not
making the connection clear enough for me to understand. If you're
criticising the Bush Administration's position on Kyoto, well, I've
got no dog in that hunt.

>
> As far as long-term energy issues and the level of funding needed
(and
> yes the R&D required would be considerably less than even one
year's US
> military budget) I wrote an essay reviewing the recent study
published
> in Science magazine, which received quite a few comments:
>
> http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/11/11/83056/403

Terrific. I appluad your effort. I too am a proponent of SPS.

>
> Space solar power actually seems to be getting quite a bit of
> credibility - a 23% vote in the completely non-scientific poll
there. So
> there's hope!

Yes, there is hope, but the entrenched interests are very difficult
to dislodge, a secondary point to my post was that the way things
are today is the result of many intertwining interests, both
economic and political, finding common cause to maintain the status
quo. The reason I posted my musings was because of the "L-5 by '95"
post started by Xenophile. The realpolitik of the world versus the
ideal situation we would like to see with respect to SPS and the
High Frontier.

I still stand by my point that the majority of the security benefit
derived from a strong US military presence in the Middle East goes
to Europe and Asia. If the US had secure supply from stable
countries, then the military "tax" wouldn't have to be paid. Whether
the US gov't would reduce its military in this situation is another
question altogether. Tangential to the issue is foreign policy
towards Israel.

Now think about SPS as a secure supply. What are the implications
for US military spending? How would that impact on the Bush
Doctrine? America's role in the world?

TangoMan