Hofmeister

Interestingly enough Shell Oil President John Hofmeister is questioning even the need for new refineries.

Think Progress » Right-Wing House Twists Arms, Thwarts Democracy To Pass Oil Industy Windfall 2005

Hofmeister argues that four decades of massive under-investment in the entire infrastructure of the energy system -- power plants, coal, gas and oil fields, transmission, pipelines, mass transit, highways, railroads -- will produce a crisis not of fuel prices, but of absolute supply shortages.

Carl Pope: The Conversation We Should Be Having Carl Pope 2011

Hofmeister wants an energy equivalent of the Fed, something he calls the Federal Energy Reserve Board FERB, to which Congress would delegate most of its authority over the energy sector, and which would develop the short, medium, and long-term plans needed to move America from its present "energy abyss" to a sustainable and affordable energy system.

Carl Pope: The Conversation We Should Be Having Carl Pope 2011

At the Clean-Tech Investor Summit, Hofmeister was greeted with understandable skepticism as to whether his vision could happen.

Carl Pope: The Conversation We Should Be Having Carl Pope 2011

Hofmeister compares today's energy situation to the lack of a solid banking sector in 1900, and points out that the United States had to default not once, but twice, on its debt before Congress finally created the Federal Reserve Bank.

Carl Pope: The Conversation We Should Be Having Carl Pope 2011

Hofmeister wants an energy equivalent of the Fed, something he calls the Federal Energy Reserve Board FERB, to which Congress would delegate most of its authority over the energy sector, and which would develop the short, medium, and long-term plans needed to move America from its present "energy abyss" to a sustainable and affordable energy system.

Carl Pope: The Conversation We Should Be Having Carl Pope 2011

Hofmeister says the damage from the moratorium and other actions by the Obama administration that have slowed domestic oil production will cause a doubling in the price of fuel in the United States by 2012.

US Gulf States, Energy Companies Applaud Lifting of Deepwater Drilling Moratorium 2010

Hofmeister argues that we hate the oil companies because politicians find them a convenient scapegoat for their failure to establish rational, long-term energy policy and plans for America, and because the oil companies have been willing to accept that role as long as the profits rolled in.

Carl Pope: The Conversation We Should Be Having Carl Pope 2011

One energy expert in Houston with a strong opinion in the subject is former Shell Oil President John Hofmeister, who now runs the private organization Citizens for Affordable Energy.

US Gulf States, Energy Companies Applaud Lifting of Deepwater Drilling Moratorium 2010

But what's most striking and most un-Shell like is how Hofmeister proposes that we get there.

Carl Pope: The Conversation We Should Be Having Carl Pope 2011