Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence | Robert Bryce

Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence | Robert Bryce | A Powerful Indictment of US Energy Policy

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Gusher of Lies: Th...

	Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence Robert Bryce PublicAffairs, 2008 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 41 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Energy Independence Should Not be the Goal

Gusher of Lies is dead on when it comes to the current state of not only the energy realities in the U.S. but the world as well. The global infrastructure was designed to run on fossil fuels and not on ethanol or alternative forms of energy. While the world's energy use could and must certainly become more efficient, it is a farce to believe that oil will become less important in the decades to come, especially with the enormous amounts of fossil fuels still available and being discovered each year. Not to mention the energy demands that China and other growing economies will require in the years to come as developing countries become more prosperous. Robert Bryce also debunks the idea that the U.S. can become energy independent. Not only is the world's energy industry one of the largest and most critical around the globe, it is also one of the most interconnected. Energy independence in the U.S. is no more a reality than is completely transitioning away from fossil fuels. That is not to say, however, that alternative energy should not be emphasized and increased. Alternative means of energy are essential and should be a focus. But with the current technology that we have, creating alternative energy platforms requires huge amounts of resources itself with the result being energy output that hardly begins to meet the growing energy needs of any country, let alone the U.S. or China. Well researched and written, this is an eye-opening book.

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A Powerful Indictment of US Energy Policy

Robert Bryce does a great job of skewering various alternative energy special interest groups and the psuedo-science they use. A little more editorial restraint would have helped, however, as some of the positions he takes are so lopsided as to be unreasonable.

Also, some of his facts are dicey or plain wrong - "the electric power industry is a huge water consumer, using about 39 percent of all freshwater in the U.S." The next paragraph in the DOE report that this quote comes from makes it clear that the water is used to cool power plants and is returned back to the lake or river that it comes from.

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Some interesting facts, but the reader must be wary indeed

Had Robert Bryce confined himself to reciting and explaining indisputable facts about the fallacy of "energy independence", "Gusher Of Lies" could have been a valuable resource.

Instead Bryce takes a relatively few facts - many of which are well-researched and documented - and surrounds them with legions of distortions, selective information, omissions and the occasional outright falsehood, all to support his favored political solutions, which read like a script from the left-wing media.

Bryce begins with a declaration of his political neutrality, an assertion quickly belied by his own rhetoric.

His basic contention that the idea of the United States becoming "energy independent" is a fallacy is a distortion in itself to a large extent. He interprets the idea of "energy independence" as being totally independent of all forms of imported energy, an obviously impossible goal. But the left-wing, to advance its political agenda, twists the phrase in order to demean their opponents and make them appear ridiculous. In fact, the term "energy independence" means not being reliant on energy imports from unstable or hostile governments who might use their energy resources as a means to extort, blackmail or dominate. Energy independence also means fully developing energy resources available within the United States, even if it means displeasing so-called environmentalists. (I wish I had "Gusher Of Lies in electronic format so I could count how many times Bryce uses the word "neocon". Easily the count would be in the hundreds: neocon is Bryce's favored bogeyman - everything he objects to or finds wanting is the fault of neocons. Anyone who actually knows what neocon means will laugh the first few times he sees Bryce using the term.)

Bryce does provide some interesting factual information about the history of the oil industry, some of the political and economic factors. As long you have the ability to isolate these nuggets, the book is worthwhile.

The problem is that Bryce buries these nuggets under loads of disinformation. For example, Bryce cites the widely discredited Lancet "study" alleging massive Iraqi civilian casualties.

Seductively, Bryce tries simplified logic in an attempt to make imported oil seem different than, say, imported semiconductors. He points out that the US imports up to 100% of many other natural resources, compared to 7% of its oil. Why doesn't the US deploy its troops to protect our supplies of bauxite? Appealing logic, but false. Bauxite isn't oil. Bauxite in most cases doesn't come from political regimes that promote terrorism and a brand of religious fundamentalism that demands the destruction of a nation (Israel) and a people (Jews) as well as the submission of all infidels (the rest of us). A stoppage in the flow of bauxite would not, as would the interruption of oil flow, cause tremendous damage to the world's economies and billions of people.

In short, Bryce doesn't get it.

"Gusher Of Lies" is filled with falsehoods, distortions, omissions and logical fallacies. For example, Bryce gushes (pun intended) over China. China, he tells us, gets all the oil it wants without, in his term, "militarizing" the Middle East. Bryce also paints the First Iraq War as being exclusively an America effort, with no mention of the dozens of nations - including China - that authorized the use of military force. In other words, China didn't have to send its soldiers to into Iraq in order to free Kuwait: it instead allowed its surrogates, the United States and dozens of other nations, to do it for them.

Bryce also has nothing to say about China's rapidly increasing military expenditures over the past several decades. If China is so peaceful, why does it need to spend more on its military than any other nation aside from the United States? If China is spending only to defend its own shores, why does it feel it needs a "blue ocean" navy, including aircraft carriers?

As with the discredited Lancet study, his promiscuous use of neocon, Bryce uses other distortions. For example, he mentions the Three Mile Island incident as a reason why nuclear power development faces hard sledding without ever mentioning that Three Mile Island was mostly hype: no one was injured, no one killed and experts have said that the miniscule release of radioactive gas is unlikely to result in any increased incidence of cancer.

Bryce is of the "kumbiya" school of diplomacy. If only we talk, talk, talk, nations like North Korea and Iran will become tractable neighbors in the world community. Bryce tells us that we must "engage the Arab and Islamic worlds". Yet he says nothing of, for example, the Danish cartoon riots that killed innocents across the Muslim world, fed demands for the suppression of free speech and the threats of murder against those who exercised their right to free speech. Instead Bryce pokes fun at the idea of Western culture being endangered by a "dishdash-wearing jihadist" making bombs. Ignored are the thousands of incidents where jihadists and fundamentalists have murdered in the name of Islam in such places as Denmark. Bryce, in short, ignores reality.

Bryce argues that the world is now and will become more interdependent in the future. He is correct, though he seems unaware that in advancing this argument, he undoes his initial claim that the US seeks complete "energy independence". In short, Bryce says whatever he needs to at any given moment to advance his own argument, regardless of consistency.

I wish I had the time and the interest to classify every one of Bryce's logical fallacies. There are many, most of them gross and readily apparent to the thinking reader, but many quite subtle.

Ultimately Bryce undoes himself in his conclusion, the first line of which is "[e]nergy is the most important commodity in the global economy". In that one line, Bryce explains why the United States has been called upon to protect with its military strength the flow of oil from the Middle East to the rest of the world - but Bryce refuses to acknowledge the undoing of his own fallacious claims.

In all, if you read very carefully to screen out the distortions, omissions and falsehoods, "Gusher Of Lies" has a substantial quantity about the nature of the energy markets and the world's increasing need for energy. But, in reality, "Gusher Of Lies" accurately describes this book's contents. Approach it with great care.

Jerry

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