The Fusion Solution - and Opus 500

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, polemics, opinion, education

All our oil imports come from hostile Islamic nations, right? I thought so until I looked it up. I got the motivation to look it up from Glenn Beck, upon reading his new book An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems. If you can't stand the suspense, look at the bottom of this post for an eye-opening table. The conclusion is that about half our total petroleum imports come from Canada plus Mexico plus Venezuela plus a few other South American nations. That is, from the Western Hemisphere. Saudi Arabia is the second-biggest supplier, after Canada. Surprised?

Inconvenient puts energy matters in the middle of a 22-chapter volume that offers information, commentary, and realistic solutions to everything from boosting our memory of names to political correctness, which underlies many of our most thorny issues.

Beck calls his radio and television programs "the fusion of entertainment with enlightenment", and that is certainly a fair description of this book. I must certainly agree with Beck when he advocates the elimination of tipping. In Japan, for instance, offering a tip is considered an insult. It is just a way to get overly hopeful wait staff to accept wages below the "minimum" (another item Beck prefers we abolish)...and has become some kind of institutionalized bribery scam. Now we get "tip advice" from the newspaper deliverer (not a paperboy any more)!

I also agree that professorial tenure ought to be abolished. It just perpetuates mediocre instructing. And I agree that the human component of global warming is likely to do more good than harm. In fact, I find it hard to disagree with Glenn Beck. He is fast with a quip on his live programs, but his basic facts are always well researched, including an analysis in chapter 22 of this question: Why has no administration done more than pay lip service to border security? His conclusions are scary.

Beck is fond of saying that some things "cause blood to shoot from my eyes." Whether you like and enjoy him, or shoot blood from your eyes, this book has plenty of food for thought.

Based on statements in Beck's seventh chapter, I copied the following tables from the U.S. Energy Information Administration:

Crude Oil Imports (Top 15 Countries) (Thousand Barrels per Day)
Country	May-08	Apr-08	YTD 2008	May-07	YTD 2007
CANADA	1,840	1,952	1,889	1,821	1,841
SAUDI ARABIA	1,579	1,453	1,531	1,574	1,402
MEXICO	1,116	1,259	1,207	1,461	1,469
VENEZUELA	1,030	1,019	998	1,232	1,103
NIGERIA	851	1,115	1,053	882	1,047
IRAQ	583	679	670	341	458
ANGOLA	464	579	468	680	581
ALGERIA	440	393	329	496	495
BRAZIL	318	201	209	152	170
KUWAIT	263	176	227	162	182
COLOMBIA	245	149	184	104	101
ECUADOR	162	160	194	201	200
RUSSIA	119	106	86	232	156
LIBYA	96	85	73	33	51
EQUATORIAL GUINEA	93	40	58	0	52

Total Imports of Petroleum (Top 15 Countries) (Thousand Barrels per Day)
Country	May-08	Apr-08	YTD 2008	May-07	YTD 2007
CANADA	2,265	2,534	2,478	2,462	2,432
SAUDI ARABIA	1,604	1,462	1,547	1,614	1,427
MEXICO	1,209	1,364	1,313	1,617	1,604
VENEZUELA	1,166	1,189	1,162	1,520	1,354
NIGERIA	909	1,221	1,104	964	1,100
ALGERIA	611	632	542	744	723
IRAQ	583	679	670	341	458
ANGOLA	476	591	478	692	596
RUSSIA	407	402	410	499	421
VIRGIN ISLANDS	336	340	339	287	340
BRAZIL	332	234	232	203	218
COLOMBIA	278	169	210	122	114
KUWAIT	263	181	230	168	190
UNITED KINGDOM	218	229	207	390	306
NORWAY	176	137	116	234	167