U.S. politicians focus primarily on renewables, ignoring the continuing importance fossil fuels have to the global economy.

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

The first proof positive of trouble to come: it is clear that for all three potential U.S. presidential candidates, Senators John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, the primary sources, which provide 87 percent of U.S. energy (oil, gas, and coal) are of no consequence – other than popular notions like freedom from the “tyranny of oil.” Their lack of interest is breathtaking, considering that whoever gets elected will probably be confronted with $120-a-barrel oil.

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

The second and even more daunting proof positive, is that all candidates have been Gored, accepting as facts the most outlandish and easily discountable environmental gobbledygook and alarmism. And all have promised “solutions” to global climate change such as carbon dioxide emission reductions, and the clearly whimsical concept of 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 for the profoundly changing one dominated by China, India, and other developing countries.

The next four decades are good for a dozen recessions if it’s business as usual, or for a constant downturn, if American politicos actually apply what they have been saying. 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 who rode to victory in 1992 with the line, “It’s the economy, stupid”?

The worst energy predicament for the U.S. today, what no one dares talk about, is this: the world’s reigning superpower has come under economic seige from energy-militant countries such as Venezuela, Iran, and Russia. Importing more than 60 percent of its oil consumption, with its national debate invariably dominated by upper-middle-class ideologues, fanatically averse to exploiting America’s own natural 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 U.S. exactly where they want it. And those same countries can also cause devastating supply disruptions.

Oil supply and demand is a margin business, where half a percent of over- or under-supply can generate havoc on the market. There is ample historical evidence that such a small discrepancy has caused huge fluctuations in oil prices, perhaps 30 percent or more. Imagine if the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge were already online, producing 10 percent of U.S. oil imports. This would have a huge impact on the price of oil, regulating and dampening foreign influences, and to my reckoning, causing a minimum $25 reduction in current oil prices.

The blame for the U.S. predicament surely must also fall on the current administration. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, to both friends and foes, were supposed to comprise the “energy presidency.” They were the ones who could act on the importance that energy has in our economy and to our lifestyle. Instead, mired in Iraq and other misadventures, they failed exactly where 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 Big Oil has been rendered largely impotent, shut out of reserves by militant nations and lacking the support of a government that is weak and without focus.

Their most visible energy act was a Frankenstein of an “energy bill” that showcased biofuels and included mandates for non-existent cellulosic ethanol. Lately, biofuels are finally getting the negative publicity they deserve, most likely to be relegated to the trash heap of similar, ill-fated experimentations.

The energy industry and the energy world are inundated with alarms over peak oil and global warming, ideas that are in many ways philosophical, and perhaps even proxies for religion. The real alarm should be over whether, in the very near future, our lights will be on and our transportation ready to go. Every indication is 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 more likely, prove to be the hapless Chauncey Gardener in a much more serious energy crisis.