With falling oil prices, and a worldwide recession looming, OPEC slashes output, and crude still retreats.

The decline in crude comes despite OPEC’s announcement it would cut production by 2.2 million barrels, on top of the two million barrels cut in September, for a total cut of 4.2 million barrels - its largest cut in its history. The cut brings the cartel’s daily supply target quota down to 24.85 million barrels a day.

Many people have become “complacent” since the price of oil has dropped more than 60% in the past 6 months, but smart businesses and people are using this time to develop alternative energy resources for their businesses and homes so they won’t feel the pain when the price rises again.

Global Markets Direct just came out with their Top Ten Global Energy Trends in 2009.

1. Capital expenditure on oil exploration and production will continue to stagnate in 2009
2. Oil price volatility to continue in the short term but likely to stabilize within a lower narrow band by the end of 2009
3. Clean energy projects will play a crucial role in the long term energy needs of the world although there will be reduced investment in 2009
4. New investments in unconventional oil and gas projects will decline in 2009
5. Coal will continue to be the highest consumed energy source in 2009 despite a shift towards nuclear and alternative sources
6. Nuclear energy will play an increasing role in meeting the global energy needs even though some new projects might be delayed in 2009
7. European countries’ will continue to increase efforts to reduce their dependence on Russian natural gas in 2009
8. Demand for natural gas to continue to increase in 2009
9. Electricity generation capacity to grow in 2009 while distribution and transmission would require further investments
10. Rise in construction costs will delay projects in the refining sector

You can purchase the complete report here

Google as come out with an energy plan that would reduce our dependence on fossil fuels by 2030. Google wants their Clean Energy 2030 proposal to “stimulate debate” so we can have a real conversation about how we are going to solve our energy needs for the future.

The Wall Street Journal says:

While requiring $4.4 trillion in expenditures, Google estimates that the plan would return a net savings of $1.0 trillion over its 22-year duration and create many new jobs. Work on the report was led by Jeffery Greenblatt, climate and energy technology manager for Google.org, the company’s nonprofit arm.

And the highlight of the plan is:

Greenblatt wrote that the “Clean Energy 2030″ plan would involve heavy investments in transmission capacity for wind and solar power in the “Great Plains and desert Southwest” to help cut 88% of fossil fuel use and 95% of carbon-dioxide emissions by 2030.

The Clean Energy 2030 plan covers these issues:

1. Reduce demand by doing more with less
2. Develop renewable energy that is cheaper than coal
3. Electrify transportation and re-invent our electric grid

It doesn’t surprise me that businesses and other prominent people are putting together energy plans. From the Pickens Plan, Google’s energy solution, and a number of other energy plans have been brought forth.

As I have said before, in today’s world it’s corporations and private companies, not government, that drive many big social changes. There is no time to wait on government plans because they would take too long and be inefficient. However, businesses with money on the line will find ways for clean energy to be profitable and available to everyone.

What are your thoughts on Google’s Clean Energy 2030 plan?

Geothermal Energy took a big move forward as Google announced it was investing $10.25 million dollars in an energy technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS).

The investments will go towards three institutions: AltaRock Energy, Potter Drilling, and the Southern Methodist University Geothermal Lab.

The funding will also go towards geothermal resource mapping, information tools, and a geothermal energy policy agenda according to CleanTechnica

A report by MIT says that geothermal energy can provide more than 2,500 the annual energy use of the United States. As the technology advances, it will be interesting to see how an infrastructure is set up to use the energy for our everyday needs.

Crude oil has been the center of the economy for the past 5 years with no immediate end in site. The battle over the control of oil has pushed the world into a state of “oil shock” as prices have risen worldwide.

Oil rich countries such as Russia, Venezuela, and Iran are using their control of oil to push their power around the rest of the world.

America will need to develop it’s own home-grown alternative fuel to become independent of these foreign nations and become the energy leader by example to countries around the world. The next president of the United States will need to develop and plan and execute their plan for this to succeed. I’ve already mentioned the two presidential candidates plans for energy. Both of the plans has pros and cons, but each of them will need to be revised for either one to succeed.

This plan will need to incorporate oil as a short term solution until the technologies of alternative energy are cost efficient and can be used by everyone which could still be 5-10 years down the road. We are at a critical point in the worlds history and unless the leaders take action, there will be an all out war against oil producing nations that will make the last 5 years of conflict seem like a children’s playground.

I believe we can do it! It will take effective leadership, strategic execution of an alternative energy plan, and a desire to change the future for the better.

Alternative energy is not about saving the planet, it is about saving ourselves. As George Carlin once said “The planet will be fine, it’s the people that are *&$#“. The planet has been around for billions of years, while humans have only been around for a hundred thousand years (give or take a couple thousand years). If we destroy ourselves, the planet will continue on without us, just like it always did before us.

World War III - The Energy War

Bill O’Reilly from Fox News wraps up some thoughts on his Talking Points:

Whether you like her or not, you have to appreciate the humor in the Paris Hilton Presidential Campaign’s video at FunnyOrDie.com. Even though she didn’t write the script, I have to agree (while I’m biting my lip) with what she says about energy.

We need to drill for new oil offshore while developing hybrid and electric cars. This would be included in the plan for a short term and a long term solution.

I love the satire in this video on how many people feel at the pump:

A common argument you will here from people against us blaming Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or a number of other countries for the high price of oil is that we import most of our oil from Canada. Yes, that is true, we do get most of our oil from Canada, here’s the chart that illustrates that:

However, what those same people fail to mention is that we get the majority of our oil from OPEC. OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) is a group of twelve states made up of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Algeria, Nigeria, Angola, Venezuela and Ecuador.

OPEC takes up 7 spots in the top 10 countries that we import oil from. Even though we import most of our oil from Canada, we import 5.2 million barrels of oil per day from OPEC. The total from the top 10 is 8.4 million barrels of oil a day.

According to this chart, the U.S. imports 12.2 million barrels of oil a day, so that means just under half of our oil comes from OPEC.

This is exactly the reason why people blame OPEC for the rising costs of oil. They’ve had a monopoly on the market for the last 30 years, and as the world demands more, OPEC has a direct effect on the cost of oil.

This is just the reason why we need to end our dependence on foreign oil and develop alternative energy technologies to fuel our energy consumption.

This video can be found at NozzleRage.com, and you can sign up to receive further videos that they produce.

Here’s a thought provoking video that illustrates the ripple effect from oil across the world’s economy.

Where do we go from here?

If you’ve seen T. Boone Pickens plan that he laid out earlier this week, then you have to be excited that he’s doing something to promote more alternative energy, specifically wind power, so we’re not dependent on foreign oil.

I’ve been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of. But if we create a new renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to foreign oil.

Pickens want’s to replace the 22% of energy that we use natural gas in our overall energy consumption and replace it with wind power. Pickens is already planning the world’s largest wind farm in Pampa, TX. Wind energy could supply 20 percent or more of the nation’s power.

Fueling these plants with wind power would then free up the natural gas historically used to power them, and would mean that natural gas could replace foreign oil as fuel for motor vehicles, he said.

As many people know, T. Boone Pickens has made his fortune in the oil and gas industry. He still has it in his best interest to sell oil and gas. This is why he wants to take the 22% of natural gas that would be removed out of the overall energy consumption and put it into transportation fuel. This is where his plan is wrong.

We do not want to replace one non-sustainable energy source with another. If we did, we would eventually have the same problems with natural gas that we have with oil today. Even though natural gas is less expensive than gasoline or diesel now, there would be a rise in demand pushing prices higher and we would be still incur times of shortages, price spikes, and all the other forces of economics.

From the Pickens website about the plan:

According to the California Energy Commission, critical greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas are 23% lower than diesel and 30% lower than gasoline.

That’s still not good enough. With more vehicles on the road every year, we need vehicles that are emissions free.

To put his plan in place, we would have to overhaul the infrastructure at gas stations so they could supply natural gas to vehicles. At this large of an expense and time, it would be much more wise to replace the pumps with electric outlets designed for electric cars to recharge.

I admire T. Boone Pickens and what he has done throughout his life. I appreciate how he is trying to position himself as “the man” to go through for anything in regards to energy and he has invested millions of dollars into alternative energy. It’s capitalism at it’s best, and I love it. But his plan to reduce our dependency on foreign oil is not the best one, but it’s getting people to talk about the issues and I think that’s great.

What we need to do is take the best part of his plan, which is building the wind farms to produce electricity for the overall energy consumption, and restructure the natural gas plan on how to build an infrastructure to provide electricity for plug in hybrids and electric vehicles. Since wind can only produce so much energy, we would need to get this extra energy for the vehicles from other alternative sources such as solar energy.

Pickens Plan

Bush urged congress to lift the offshore drilling ban that has been in effect since 1981 in his four point plan to reduce oil prices. Most people believe that there would be no immediate impact on oil prices.

Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for president, opposes lifting the ban on offshore drilling and says that allowing exploration now wouldn’t affect gasoline prices for at least five years.

But what happens in five years? If we haven’t done something, then we will have to wait another five before anything CAN happen. If we don’t do anything NOW, we will just continue to see oil prices rise. Something has to be done!

I do believe that it would have an immediate impact. One of the reasons why oil prices are so high right now is because of the speculators. If news came out that we were going to open up offshore drilling or even ANWR, from a psychological point of view, prices would start to drop because the speculators would have to start selling off their position because they know the prices wouldn’t be able to go much higher. I think we would start to see a decrease within weeks of an announcement.

Now at the same time, if they were to open up offshore rilling or ANWR, the environmental groups would need to be involved. I want to make sure the companies that are drilling are doing so responsibly! They can do it, it just has to be done right.

Something I wish I would have heard of more in the press conference was the integration of energy alternatives.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino told FOX News on Wednesday that while the country moves to energy alternatives, like battery-operated cars, fuel supply has to be increased somehow.

I want to see more mandates on the auto companies to produce a certain amount of flex fuel, battery-operated, or another form of alternative energy vehicles so we can start to see our dependence on oil reduced.

So, open up these areas for drilling will have an immediate psychological effect on people, a promise of new oil, and bring oil prices down while the speculators exit their positions. Then, start rolling out a plan to introduce more efficient vehicles into the market. This is the path to reduce our dependence on foreign oil!

Offshore Drilling Ban