I have much more to say about the recently published statistical review of global energy. But today, I will have to make a digression, albeit similar to the Review.
Presidential hopeful Mike Pence just released a new crusade ad on energy policy. You can watch the announcement here, and you can read all about Pence’s energy plans here. The ad is so misleading that it wants to be remedied.
Pence was widely ridiculed for some apparent problems in the video. It is not decided by a note. You don’t pay for gas. You can hear the sound of the pump beeping as you pretend to pump, but you don’t tighten the control at all. However, these are not the underlying problems.
The video begins with Pence asking, “Remember $2. 00 a gallon of gas?And then Joe Biden, president of the United States, presented his war on energy. Since then, gasoline costs have risen as much as 60%.
Let’s take this first. If you’re talking strictly about gasoline at $2. 00 a gallon, the only time his tenure as vice president happened was when the Covid-19 pandemic briefly crushed the economy in the first half of 2020. (Information on the value of gasoline can be found here).
When all domestic orders were implemented in 2020, gasoline demand plummeted, oil prices soon turned negative, and gasoline prices fell to around $2. 00 per gallon for two months. Thereafter, they began to rise sharply, and during the time Trump and Pence left office the following January, the price had risen to nearly $2. 50 per gallon.
If Pence speaks vaguely in the $2. 00 per gallon range, the average value of gasoline over Pence’s four years of vice president is $2. 57 per gallon. Prices rose sharply after Biden took office, but it wasn’t because of an energy war. More facts about this are discussed below.
Gasoline costs rose as the world began to emerge from the Covid pandemic, starting in mid-2020. This happened because a significant amount of oil production stopped in 2020 due to falling oil costs, but then demand began to recover faster than the source can just get together.
This situation was not unique to the United States; Every country in the world has experienced a significant increase in gas costs. Moreover, when Russia invaded Ukraine, costs skyrocketed again. Again, this impact has been observed in each and every country in the world.
None of this means that the Biden administration has pursued policies favorable to the oil and fuel industry. For the most part, management has been hostile. However, this is not the explanation for why fuel costs have gone up.
However, this is rarely Pence’s worst commercial. While we may have an interaction in a debate about why fuel costs are rising, some might argue that this was due to Biden’s energy policies. Even so, it would be rather odd that Biden’s energy policies could lead to higher fuel costs around the world.
In fact, in 2021, a Ugandan friend told me that gasoline costs had gone up 50% there. I asked him who the others blamed. ” Our president. “So it’s not unusual in all countries to blame political leaders for gasoline costs, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the genuine cause.
In the clip video, Pence went on to say that he had just unveiled a new energy plan “that will only put America back on the path to energy independence, but until 2040, we will resume America’s role as the world’s largest energy producer. “. “
That’s where it’s absolutely going off the rails. Someone has to ask Pence, “How do you describe the independence of power?”I’ve covered this before. See my previous article to dig deeper into this topic.
If independence from power is explained as “We import energy,” then we have been independent of power for at least 70 years. We’ve even been close, because we import a lot of oil that’s subtle and then re-export it as finished products.
But if Pence defines the word as “We produce more energy than we consume,” then we were more independent of power in 2022 than we have been in at least 70 years.
Second, his claim about recovering America’s role as a global energy manufacturer is very misleading and requires a lot of context.
Currently, the United States is the largest oil producer in the world. According to the 2023 statistical review, in 2022, the U. S. The U. S. produced 17. 8 million barrels of oil per day (bpd). This is the category of lease condensates and herbal fuel liquids (NGLs). , and I will consistently dive into this in the next article.
The timing and third-largest oil producer were Saudi Arabia (12. 1 million bpd) and Russia (11. 2 million bpd). China produced 4. 1 million bpd. You’ll see below why I’m adding China.
The United States is also the world’s largest manufacturer of herbal gas. In 2022, the United States produced an average of 94. 7 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d). Moment of Russia with 59. 8 bcf/d, Iran third with 25. 1 bcf/d and China in fourth place with 21. 5 bcf/d.
The United States is the world’s manufacturer of nuclear energy. We produced about 30% of the world’s nuclear force in 2022, about twice China’s production.
The domain in which China has a really wide advantage is coal production. Last year, China produced 4560 million tons of coal. The United States produced 539 million metric tons.
If you convert everything into the same units of energy, China tops the overall ranking, but because of its large coal production. However, the United States leads in the much larger categories of oil and herbal fuel production. We are generating more than four times China’s production of oil and herbal fuel.
Pence’s plan focuses almost exclusively on the production of oil and herbal fuel. Coal is discussed slightly in the plan, but large coal production is the explanation for why China is at the forefront of overall energy production.
In fact, that’s not what Pence is implying, which is why the announcement and his energy policy plan are so misleading. Pence hints that the U. S. is aware of Pence’s announcement.
USA. The U. S. set a new oil production record in 2022 (again, adding condensate and NGL). But if you forget the LGNs, the U. S. The U. S. remained the most sensible manufacturer and nearly set a new record in 2022 (and is on track to set a new record this year). For herbal gas, the U. S. The U. S. set new records in 2021 and 2022, after Covid caused a slight decline in 2020.
Here is the back line. On the one hand, the Biden administration’s energy policies have been favorable to the oil and fuel industry. However, the industry continues to set new production records. Moreover, the industry itself has made more money in two years under President Biden than it has in 4 years under Vice President Pence.
So it’s hard to argue that Biden’s power politics have wreaked havoc on the industry. Of course, the oil and fuel industry would like more user-friendly policies. But Pence doesn’t give an accurate picture of the current state of the U. S. U. S. fuel industry