Note: I wrote this in April 2008, before the price shock of $150 which happened the subsequent July. At the time John McCain was the presumptive Republican candidate. It was still unclear if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton would gain the Democratic nod. How prophetic was that writing?

It is certain that the United States is in for an energy price and, especially, energy supply shock the likes of which have never been experienced or imagined. While high prices, to a reasonable extent can be tolerated, hell will break loose if massive supply disruptions emerge. We are much closer to them than people think and not because of peak oil clamor, still decades away. Those who think that we can conserve ourselves to energy independence need not read any further. They are way wrong and it is pointless to try to show them otherwise.

First proof positive of trouble to come: It is clear that for all three viable US presidential candidates, Senators John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, oil, gas and coal, the primary sources that provide 87% of US energy, have barely drawn their attention other than popular but not very serious negative connotations such as freeing us from the “tyranny of oil”. Their luck of interest is breathtaking considering that whoever gets elected will probably be confronted with $120 oil.

The candidates have mentioned energy occasionally and my own anthology of their preciously rare pronouncements contain only the trite mantras of conservation (something that has never played any major role in US total energy demand), the most unrealistic “alternatives” such as solar and wind and the negative-energy-balance biofuels. They have talked about technology and used allegories of sending a man to the moon, but no one showed how technology, admirable as it may be, can supplant basic laws of thermodynamics. Energy cannot be generated from nothing.

Second proof positive and even more daunting is that all candidates have been Gored, accepting the most outlandish and easily discountable environmental gobbledygook and alarmism as facts and all have promised “solutions” to global climate change, carbon dioxide emissions reduction and the clearly whimsical carbon trading. The most radical and preposterous environmentalist ideologies of yesteryear have become mainstream with neckties and pantsuits.

Even if for the moment one accepts the most ridiculous environmentalist slogans, any substantial transition away from fossil fuels will take four to five decades, at least, and this would be for a steady state world, not the profoundly changing one dominated by China, India and other developing countries.

The next four decades are good for a dozen recessions, if things were business as usual or a constant downturn if American politicos actually apply what they have been saying and, especially, what they seem not to worry about during this election season. I used to have a secret hope that in a Hillary Clinton administration, rhetoric aside, some pragmatism would be provided by her husband until he kicked sanity away by actually saying recently “We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions.” Really and really? Is this the guy of “it’s the economy stupid?”

The worst energy predicament for the US today and the thing that no one dares to talk about is this: The world’s reigning superpower has come under the control of a situation generated by energy militant countries such as Venezuela, Iran and Russia. Importing more than 60% of its oil consumption while the national debate is dominated by invariably upper middle class ideologues who are fanatically averse to exploit the US own resources, the country has become dangerously vulnerable to prices that cannot be rationalized by any economic model. Except of course the irrational geopolitical components fomented by countries that have the United States exactly where they want it to be. Those same countries also can cause the far more devastating to our economy supply disruptions.

Oil supply and demand is a margin business where 0.5% of over or under supply can generate havoc on the market and there is ample historical evidence that such small discrepancy has caused huge fluctuations in the oil price, perhaps 30% or more. Imagine if ANWAR were already on line, producing as much as 10% of US oil imports. It would have a huge impact on the price of oil, regulating and dampening foreign influences and, in my reckoning, causing at least a $25 reduction in the current oil price.

The blame for the US predicament surely must also fall on the current administration. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to both friends and foes were supposed to be the energy presidency. They were the ones who could explain to the American people the importance that energy plays on our economy and our life style. Instead, mired in Iraq and other misadventures, they failed in exactly the area they were supposed to shine. Instead they allowed themselves to be painted as stooges of big oil. I only wish that big oil had the sway it is accused of. The truth is that they have been rendered largely impotent, shut out of reserves by militant nations and non-supported by a weak government that has lost focus.

The most visible act was Frankenstein of an “energy bill” that showcased biofuels, including the mandating of non-existent cellulosic ethanol. As of late biofuels received the notice they deserve, most likely to be relegated to the trash heap of similar experimentations.

The energy industry and the energy world are inundated with alarmisms such as peak oil and global warming, things that are in many ways philosophical, perhaps even proxies for religion. The real alarm should be whether in the very near future we can have our lights on and our transportation in place. Every indication shows that our next president will either be reduced to a happy-go-lucky comic figure on the way to the magic land of energy utopia or most likely prove to be the hapless Chauncey Gardener of a much more serious energy crisis.