Oil Isn't the Answer for the Trump Administration

Fracking technology changed the world's energy prospects. The Hilbert curve was reset decades ahead to the future. American oil fields got a new lease on life, the price of oil dropped nearly to pre-Arab oil embargo levels. With the prospect of most of the world's depleted oil fields eventually returning to on-line status-such as the heavily used Baku and Iranian fields as well as fields damaged by war in Iraq, the price of oil per barrel should remain low for a couple of decades unless adequate taxation is added to discourage consumption to limit global warming gases.

In the United States many productive wells were and are being capped and exploration slowed or halted because of the surfeit of oil on the market. Saudi Arabia's fields that are not even half empty can be fracked when the time is right to keep the flow going. Plainly the prospect for creating a lot of lasting jobs in an industry already saturated with over-supply isn't good. A better place for investors to look, and for the Trump administration to support in order to create good-paying new American jobs is alternative energy and energy efficient technology like room temperature super-conductors for power lines.

The rise of the era of fuel cells for cities and homes, business and industry is on the rise. New battery technologies for automobiles and homes that don't require expensive materials are being developed. Missouri Wind turbines have brought the cost of quality, 1700 watt wind generators for homes down to an entry cost minus extras such as charge controllers, wires and staff, down to as little as 348 dollars on Ebay. Solar voltaic technology continues to surge ahead. For the future American homes increasingly will be their own energy suppliers rather than public utilities.

Alaska's great budget deficit for the state government of more than 4 billion dollars is an example of what the consequences of disregarding alternative energy and over-reliance on fossil fuels may be. Many government people still look to oil as the necessary way to finance big government and disregard alternative energy and the market facts of life.

The trans-Alaska oil pipeline operates below capacity because the field is substantially depleted. Obviously it might be fracked with some possible long-term damage to the warming, thawing permafrost potentially-even increasing earthquake frequency in the already seismically unstable state, yet one must ask if there is any market utility in doing that? Wouldn't another large contribution of supply to the global oil market drive down prices even further?

The state of Alaska could just reduce the size of its government while increasing its efficiency and innovate new ways to serve the interests of the people. The Trump administration could learn from their mistakes and introduce legislation to keep alternative energy investments growing as well as to require all public utilities to purchase or offset homeowner costs for home energy production spliced into the grid. Public utilities might better serve as distributors of home-produced energy supplies rather than energy suppliers down the road.