OIL AND GAS WARS

By Roy McAlister

Various “Gas Wars” have provided interesting milestones of the Industrial Revolution. In 1792, William Murdock launched what became known as “town gas” as a clean-coal fuel that was ash and soot free. Towngas was a pipeline-delivered mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide in a “gas war” that competed successfully with direct combustion of coal, coal oil, whale oil, and candles made of animal-fat.

World War I was largely fueled by gas and oil to manufacture and power the tools of hell that replaced horse-drawn weapons, some of which had 100 horsepower propellers and enabled dogfights. From about 1300 to the end of WW I, the Ottoman Empire controlled much of North Africa, adjoining areas of Asia, and at times considerable portions of Europe. Germany was after oil throughout the declining horse-drawn Ottoman Empire and armed the Ottomans and then tribal warlords to oppose colonial efforts of England, France, and others that were competing with German expansion. Following WWI, mandates by the League of Nations dismantled the Ottoman Empire and Winston Churchill managed to successfully lobby for award what became Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait to the United Kingdom. The French received Lebanon and Syria. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was insistently informed by an isolationist congress that the U.S. had plenty of oil and thus declined to join the League of Nations. Adolph Hitler re-armed Germany and launched WWII as another oil-powered and oil-grasping war to secure petroleum in Russia and areas now known as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iran.

Franklin Roosevelt subsidized natural gas in a gas war to deliver price-controlled natural gas that was being flared in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas to densely populated areas of eastern states. This gas war provided a federal price ceiling and replacement of virtually all of the town gas in U.S. pipelines with natural gas.

Another style of oil and gas war was developed and waged by “service station” competitors in the U.S. in which the local price of gasoline would be lowered as much as required to put upstarts out of business before they could expand sufficiently to transfer profits from “price fixed” areas to survive a gas war. Variations of this type of price war and successful lobbying by fossil fuel purveyors stymied renewable energy upstarts in the 1960’s, 1970’s, 1980’s 1990’s and please notice it again in 2008 in a gas war to undermine support for president-elect Obama’s suggestions for renewable energy independence.

To the dismay of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Libya, the U.S supported the Israeli military during the Yom Kippur War and the growing balance of trade deficit caused by our demand for foreign oil caused the U.S. to stop paying for imported oil with gold. In response, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) stopped exporting oil to the U.S. and the 1973 OIL CRISIS started on October 15, 1973. On November 7, 1973, President Richard Nixon said “Let us set our national goal, in the spirit of Apollo, with the determination of the Manhattan Project, that by the end of this decade we will have developed the potential to meet our own energy needs without depending on any foreign energy source.” However, oil interests prevailed against President Nixon’s national goal and U.S. subsidies to oil and coal companies were increased along with profits for depletion of these finite resources.

As it became apparent in 1991 that U.S. oil reserves were being rapidly expended, the U.S. launched the “Persian Gulf War” and subsequently has built fortresses to occupy Kuwait and Iraq -- at least until their oil reserves are controllably exported. It is indeed interesting that in 1922 Winston Churchill said, “When Iraq becomes strong enough in our opinion to stand alone, we shall be in a position to state that our task has been fulfilled, and that Iraq is an independent sovereign state. But this cannot be said while we are forced year after year to spend very large sums of money on helping the Iraqi government to defend itself and maintain order.”

Will T. Boon Pickens successfully launch another gas war to compete natural gas with oil? It could be a good start at overcoming our present economy of thieves that derives over 100 billion dollars per year as subsidies for depletable fuels and refuses to pay the replacement cost of energy. Or will the U.S. decide to lead the world with military expenses, more oil wars, and ultimately pay much more dearly in terms of economic inflation due to finite resource depletion, pollution-induced health costs, global climate changes, and protection against terrorism along with moral decay, loss of civil liberties and self respect?

The decisive U.S. gas war could use plentiful natural gas, biomethane, and methane hydrates as energy spring boards and carbon sources for reinforcing equipment to harness solar, wind, moving water, geothermal, and biomass resources in the Sustainable Prosperity Revolution to enable virtually full employment with out inflation as it provides a unifying purpose for every family and community on Earth.

Do you see a connection between war and oil? Tell us what you know.