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Crash programs are all well and good, but no conceivable program would help Japan, because they have no exploitable sources of carbon that could be converted to liquid fuel. The only program that would be useful to them would involve transfer of liquid petroleum stocks from us (or our suuppliers) to them. This would be a “share the pain” program. If anything meaningful is to be done about Iran, it must come in a time frame that would render any crash programs ludicrously inadequate. Stopping Iran at the very least is going to cause severe economic disruption, even if none of our other suppliers decides to pile on. I predict (though I hope I am proven wrong) that nobody is willing to bite that bullet, and we will soon see a tense nuclear standoff between Iran and Israel, along with a huge increase in international troublemaking from the mullahs.

Roger,

In my view Curmudgeon has it exactly right.

But we have to ask ourselves whether the prospect of serious economic disruption now is outweighed by an almost certain catastrophe a bit further down the line.

I highly recommend Belmont Club’s posting on, and discusion of, Grappling with the Ayatollahs.

It was in the discussion there where I learned of this piece by the estimable Sir John Keegan: We Should Be Very Worried About Iran, which says, among other things:

…the ayatollahs are also known to favour the placing of nuclear warheads in target cities by terrorists travelling by car or public transport….

This last claim I had not heard stated so unequivocally before.

Jamie Irons

Try to pull the thing off, and it tightens its tail around the neck of the victim whom it feeds oxygen and in whom it is implanting its vile spawn.

http://www.markta.co.uk/alien/screens3/alien_063.JPG

As an image, it works even bigger-time with Saudi Arabia.

Sorry, that’s

http://www.markta.co.uk/alien/screens3/alien_063.JPG

Saudi Arabia can increase its production of oil to some extent. It’s the only country that can do this to such an extent that Iran could end up hurting itself by raising its oil price. So Iran might look to Venezuela for coordinated price increase, but still the Saudis could probably cause it to boomerang on them. So we will be pressuring the Saudis to do this in the event of an Iranian geopolitics-based price increase.

Roger certainly has a capital suggestion on developing alternative energy sources. I am not sure that any program can be quite crash enough to move the pieces around the board much in this particular game. As a long-term strategy, however, reducing oil dependence is a great idea from several standpoints, not least of which is national security. In the here and now, however, we and our allies need to buy Iran’s oil more than they need to sell it to us. Back in the early 50’s, when Mohammed Mossadegh was nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s infrastructure, a British diplomat approached a religious leader seeking support, telling him that Iranian oil exports could suffer severely. He angrily responded that, “It [the oil] can stay in the ground for all I care!” Does anyone think that much has changed in the last 50 years on that count? If it came between choosing oil profits and choosing national pride and perceived security, Iran would choose the latter. Ergo, sanctions would be a great way to shoot ourselves in the foot while doing nothing to stop the Iranian nuclear program. Then, of course, there are air strikes, which would make things pretty spicy in southern Iraq while they may or may not actually set them back much. Does it make sense to do something that is so high risk with such a large potential downside, bearing in mind, of course, that nuclear weapons, if they are the goal, are a long way off. Then, of course, there’s invasion, which nobody except the dumbest neocon types actually support. All in all, none of these solutions appear effective.

How about ANWR.

And please no excuses about how short term it is or whatever. It could ease the concerns of markets to know a major oil field will be coming on.

Of course nuclear power in the long term would help even more.

It would be nice if we could render middle eastern oil worthless. The wealth has done them no good and it has threatened the world.

How long now before Old Europe offically requests to join the Star Wars program?

Between the US,EU and Japan. There is 1.3 Billion Barrels of Oil in Strategic Petroleum Reserves. Irans net-exports are 2 million barrels per day. Acting alone, Iran can manage to bump the price of oil a bit. It would require a partner, say Venezuela to actually have any significant impact.

As far as alternative energy is concerned, according to the DOE, only 3% of US electricity comes from oil. The big problem is cars, oil has a very good (weight-bulk)/energy ratio, that makes it ideally suited to vehicles that must carry their own energy source. At $10/gallon, gas guzzling vehicles will become driveway ornaments.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pecss_diagram.html

Thermal depolymerization.

You can throw anything carbon-based into one end and get oil and water out the other end. Porcesses all waste except radioactive, including medical waste. 85% efficiency. Powers itself. Almost commercially viable here. Probably would be profitable in Japan right now.

Interesting Yehudit. I had read of this process some time ago but had seen no updates.

Using figures from the “answers” site, if we converted half the US waste each year we would have a net gain of approximately 3 and a half billion barrels per year over current use, as well as mitigating a host of other problems. Let’s hope it succeeds.

Ergo, sanctions would be a great way to shoot ourselves in the foot while doing nothing to stop the Iranian nuclear program

There is internal unrest in Iran over 25% unemployment – higher in the big demographic bulge of young adults. Economic sanctions, if carefully tied to the threats of the leaders, might well exacerbate that unemployment in ways that would increase that unrest.

ANWR. Nuclear power generation. Clean coal. Hybrid cards for local driving. All of these and more, along with polymerization plants etc. Yes, we can and should be moving to these quickly.