Tim, Cowan,

there is a very obvious generation gap and indeed your respective views are reflecting that..

My major concern on this issue is the oil industry itself. Now that crude oil prices have retreated to the levels, where record profits are not possible every quarter there is definitely no will to invest money into alternative energy sources.

And now that BP is "back to petroleum" rather then "beyond petroleum" , and as recently as last autumn, Rockefeller family wrote to Exxon management : "Exxon Mobil needs to reconnect with the forward-looking and entrepreneurial vision of my great-grandfather," Neva Rockefeller Goodwin, a Tufts University economist, said in a statement. "The truth is that Exxon Mobil is profiting in the short term from investments and decisions made many years ago, and by focusing on a narrow path that ignores the rapidly shifting energy landscape around the world."
David Rockefeller, retired chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank and patriarch of the family, issued a statement saying, "I support my family's efforts to sharpen Exxon Mobil's focus on the environmental crisis facing all of us."

Yet nothing is being done... GM had an electric car in 1981, but they stopped its development and actually mass produced cars with lower fuel efficiency then in 1980s...
That was followed by two decades of cheap oil and further concentration of power in hands of oil majors.

Yet "the green agenda" can turn political and have more sinister goals then just protecting the planet from the evils of global warming.

We could see WTO, IMF and World Bank supported by the gun-ship diplomacy of the US, standing shoulder to shoulder against new axis of evil, CO2, SOx and NOx might as well result in "carbon neutral fries" with your burger....

Cowan,

I do not think there is destruction of the industry. But I have not bought off on man made global warming either. I know the co2 cycle of the oceans and more important the magnetic cycles of the sun. I am very much interested and learning about tankers and how and where they run. I think the changes in the cycle will create great opportunity in the business of moving liquid, energy and finished products. There does not exist for developing countries anything you can carry in a five gallon bucket that will do the amount of work as hydrocarbons.

The US has some unique events happening. Things sound easy as you type your beliefs on the blackberry and hit send. We need to do things differently and we are probably close to not burning anything to move around. Funny to me we are into electric fuel but as of today it is the dirtiest because it is coal based. Diesel will not go away, it does a lot of work and can be done vary cleanly.

I think the tanker industry is changing and I want to be in on it.
Instead of putting petroleum in our tanks, we will be building our cars with it as well. We already do to a large degree. If you are thinking a 3 blade wind mill is the threat to the industry, relax. Much better things exist and will have more impact. It seems the industry runs on tradition more than most. I really think the tanker of the future is here. It will continue to play its noble role, it just looks a little different.

You know a glut in this business is one barrel more than you have storage. Fill up everything that floats, you will have a day or two of world demand. The industry of tankers will morph and continue to be key in the world's well being. Isolation of our neighbour is the biggest threat. The largest energy user is the Government......change is here but how fast is the driver.

I think it is different this time. Not from a top down mandate will it change. The new laws certainly help... the thing I notice is a change in me and my peers in the industry. After forty six years in the domestic energy business I notice a real resolve of the know how, can do people, to escape the stress of fighting the cycle of the industry. It seems technology has caught up and mind set to create a domestic source of clean energy has settled in the mind of the wealthy and working people of the oil and gas industry. Fifty per cent of my peers are "all in" on things that look to have real impact on import energy. The reality of how we grow our food, the amount of oil to do so, how we build our homes, novel ways to create energy from domestic sources seem profound. It will not be quick, but from what I see on the near horizon......faster than I could dream a few month ago. The steam engine had a real impact. It will happen about the same speed. The amount of new tech in the neighbor's garage across this country is astounding. It looks as though it is going to get used this time.

With a view for sustainability I really do wish for it to be different this time.

Obama's energy policies manifested in full would bring about benefits not just for the environment and the stability of the US economy, they could also lead to an unprecedented status quo in recent geopolitics wherein fossil fuel resources will no longer be the driver and play hostage for conflicts between producers, resource owners, consumers and everyone else along the petroleum chain of supply.

However, from a tanker owner's perspective, a complete demand destruction for crude oil would be a massive blow, to say the least, for a market already beginning to suffer the effects of tonnage oversupply and yearning for more longer haul route requirements like voyages from the Middle East Gulf to the US.

Aside from that, I do agree with you that a top down mandate is not enough to change US energy consumption fundamentals.

But as it seems, the recession, for all the hardship it is causing at present, is turning out to be the catalyst needed for such a fundamental change.

A significant chunk of Obama's stimulus plan is driven towards job creation, in the millions, for the clean energy sector.

That could close the deal Tim, for the other 50% of your peers to be "all in" on things that look to have real impact on import energy, to quote you.