Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Is Opposition to the Nuclear Renaissance Unwittingly Assisting Al Qaeda?

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Daniel Yergin is one of the most informed and perceptive energy analysts in the world. His recently released book titled The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World is a densely packed political and economic history lesson. It is a worthy follow-on to one of the most dogeared and frequently reread books on my library shelves The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power. Yergin wrote that volume in 1991, at the time of the first Gulf War. The book earned the Pulitzer Prize and was made into a PBS miniseries.

Page 289-290 of The Quest contains a disturbing story worth sharing widely. In 2004, following a long period in which the official policy of Al Qaeda discouraged attacks on energy systems, a new strategy was published. Titled “The Laws of Targeting Petroleum-Related Interests and a Review of the Laws Pertaining to Economic Jihad”, the strategy officially encouraged operations that would drive up the price of oil.

Several months later, Bin Laden, embracing this new doctrine, urged attacks on oil targets as part of an economic jihad against the United States. He cited the war in Afghanistan, which had “bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw from Afghanistan in defeat” and called for the same kind of policy “to make the US bleed profusely to the point of bankruptcy.” He later declared that the West sought to dominate the Middle East in order to steal oil and urged his adherents “to give everything you can to stop the greatest theft of oil in history.” He called for terror attacks that would drive oil to $100 a barrel with the aim of bankrupting the United States. In 2005 Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s deputy declared that the mujahedeen should “focus their attacks on the stolen oil of the Muslims,” in order to “save this resource” for the time when an Al Qaeda caliphate would rule the Arabian Peninsula.

A raid in September 2005 on a safe house near the largest Saudi oil field discovered the practical tools for this new doctrine: charts and maps for the oil infrastructure not only of Saudi Arabia but of the other Gulf Arab oil producing as well. The Saudis were taken aback by how detailed the information was.

I know there are people who are certain that a portion of the motivation for antinuclear activity is a suicidal desire to push the US back into an era of energy starvation. What I am trying to point out here is that there is an organized group of attackers who have openly declared their intention to attack the means of energy production and allow the resulting high energy prices to destroy the US economy.

While many do not recognize the interwoven nature of energy and do not believe that nuclear energy is a fungible replacement for petroleum, that is simply not true. The behavior of the world’s LNG and diesel fuel markets in the six months since an irrational, media-motivated response to the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami substantially reduced the world’s nuclear energy output should be evidence enough that oil consumption, liquified natural gas consumption and nuclear energy output are closely related.

There is little doubt that the decision makers in the continuing battle against the United States and its allies recognize that it is just as effective to attack energy production facilities via negative news media stories and political action as it is to attack them with more physical weapons.

It also happens to be less risky and easier to organize because they recognize the existence of unwitting allies who stand ready to provide their full support when the energy production means under attack use uranium fission instead of petroleum or natural gas combustion. As history continues to show, our enemies are quite skillful at using of weapons of opportunity.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Rod- I couldn’t agree with you more. In recent years I have come to understand the power of propaganda spread via mass media to mold and steer public opinion. I have also learned how much of it we are subjected to in the “free” world to maintain policies friendly to very powerful interests, and how little J.Q. Public understands this. What better weapon for interests hostile to the people than one that is largely invisible to its targets.

    The manipulation of public opinion by deceitful means in matters of nuclear power in particular and energy supply in general, the lifeblood of the economy, is indeed a matter of national security.

  2. From the quote within the blog post:

    “Several months later, Bin Laden, embracing this new doctrine, urged attacks on oil targets as part of an economic jihad against the United States. He cited the war in Afghanistan, which had “bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw from Afghanistan in defeat” and called for the same kind of policy “to make the US bleed profusely to the point of bankruptcy.”

    Isn’t this what is happening now…bleeding the U.S. (as opposed to Russia) over war for 10 years???

    This seems to me to be the bigger point as opposed to the oil issue.

    Note the U.S. only imports about 12% of its oil from Saudia Arabia, though obviously any interruption anywhere affects the global marketplace.

    • Unfortunately an interruption of oil supplies from the Mid East would only mean a shift to more expensive supplies like tar sands and oil shale, rather than nuclear.

    • “Isn’t this what is happening now…bleeding the U.S. (as opposed to Russia) over war for 10 years???”

      Yes. It wasn’t even an “open secret”; he openly declared his intention to bog you down in Afghanistan.

      The 9/11 attacks cost millions of dollars and tens of lives to perform.

      The damage of the 9/11 attacks cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives.

      The response cost trillions of dollars and somewhere around a million lives(do brownish coloured people count?).

      So, the asinine response gave him about 1000 000:1 leverage instead of 1000:1 leverage. Who’d have thunk it?

  3. Western economies are also currently hobbled by the fact that Western currencies are massively overvalued compared to the currencies of poorer countries such as China and India.

    Western countries really need to lower the value of their currencies in order to become competitive again, but they cannot reasonably do this for as long as they are dependent on imported fossil fuels.

    (It’s sort of like a debt-laden country paying off its debt by printing money — reasonable if the debt is denominated in the country’s own currency, but suicidal if the debt is denominated in foreign currency.)

    • Hold on. The currency problem of the western world is linked with China’s unfair currency’s manipulation. Of course, China’s unfair practice has the benefit of curbing inflation worldwide as it ships out low cost products.

      • What about other Asian countries? Or do those countries also manipulate their currencies for fear of losing export trade to China?

      • Russia too has a regulated currency. But other avenues exist to improve the state of the greenback. For one we ought to open economic trade with Cuba. For deuce, stopping 80% of the funding for the sake of the war on drugs would put a lot of money on more creative avenues for the world economies.

      • Russia too has a regulated currency. But other avenues exist to improve the state of the greenback. For one we ought to open economic trade with Cuba. For deuce, stopping 80% of the funding for the sake of the war on drugs would put a lot of money on more creative avenues for the world economies.

        Many asian countries use the US $ to trade.

    • There is no need to devalue the currency or manipulate exchange rates. Import certificates can balance the trade. The same result can be achieved by tariffs in proportion to the the trade deficit with the exporting country – zero deficit means zero tariff, the ultimate free trade! There are other methods too, but there isn’t political will to do it… In fact, the push for unbalanced trade (aka globalization and austerity) has purely political aims.

      BTW there was a bill in Congress – The Balanced Trade Restoration Act of 2006 (I think) which proposed import certificates – supported by Dorgan and Feingold and nobody else… both of them are now out of politics…

      • Isn’t the argument for devaluation that it wouldn’t piss off the WTO, as more over protectionist measures such as tariffs or quotas would?

      • Import certificates aren’t against the WTO rules. Tariffs are also allowed in conditions of large imbalances – especially proportional tariffs, there are studies and books on that topic. It’s OK.

        As I said, there are also other methods, there are many ways – the current situation is the worst choice.

      • Import certificates does not make for an efficient and liquid market. There is no place for arbitrage and speculators to correct the market inequalities with regards to the Chinese currency.

        When one’s currency can’t support PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) among nations, it cannot support fair commerce.

      • Depends what import certificates you are talking about… there are many different types, some of them are perfectly good, sound, absolutely market-friendly and well within the WTO rules.

        The more important point is that debasing the currency creates unsound money WITHOUT fixing anything – it leads to Currency Wars, and they have been raging for the past two years. While Bernanke was trying to devalue the dollar, EVERYONE including China, was doing the same to their currency. The trick is that it’s hardest for the US to do it because of the reserve status thing… IT DOESN’T WORK AND IT RUINS THE MONEY – THE FOUNDATION OF TRADE.

        What “efficiency” and “liquidity”? – you are recommending to burn down the house in order to get rid of the dust on the carpet!

        PP
        You said: “When one’s currency can’t support PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) among nations, it cannot support fair commerce.”

        You’ll have to learn more about sound money, trade and economics. “Currency” is not what you think it is, it’s not supposed to support anything, on the contrary – it must be supported.

      • The US is not stuck with a ‘reserve status thing’ as this is a credit instrument that a government imposes on the banking system to manage the creation of credit.

        The US is stuck with Euro dollars, a topic that eludes the most sophisticated analysts.

        But a nation’s most liquid asset is its currency and weather you like it or not, a lot of information is trapped into its value.

      • @ Sam B

        Your statement: You’ll have to learn more about sound money, trade and economics. “Currency” is not what you think it is, it’s not supposed to support anything, on the contrary – it must be supported.

        So if I understand you correctly, the futures market is here to support the free world currencies? Funny. Soros would eat you alive tomorrow morning.

      • My statment meant only one thing – that balanced trade is necessary for sound currency! You keep putting the cart before the horse. Yes, the markets are the horse that is supposed to support the soundenss of money! Keynes propsed an international trade system which put very large penalties for unbalanced trade – he was overruled by politicians and we got the ridiculous Bretton Woods.

        You got your economic (mis)education from the media – exclusively cherry-picked and perverted information. You are not alone, but your insistence on demonstrating your lack of understanding is kind of rare.

        Foreign countries recycle the bad money through the the US government as debt… besides being a HUGE conflict of interest – it RUINS the markets and the currency. That should not be allowed either… but you have to get your research done in order to grasp it.

        Economics has been plagued by fallacies from day one… the energy field is only a recent victim.

  4. We’ve drifted to currency manipulation now. China is under no obligation to do anything against it’s national interest. I defend China’s right to do what it deems necessary to develop it’s economy within the context of just human rights and economic sense (the former of which is questionable…but has nothing to do with it’s currency).

    The US, not China, created this situation by allowing the offshoring of trillions of dollars of capital. The US, not China, shutdown it’s steel industry and allowed cheap imports to come to US shores. China allowed the importation of vast amounts of US and Euro capital. That’s not it’s fault, its the fault of EVERY country that allowed the elimination of fixed exchange rate by the Nixon Admintration in 1972 at Bretton-Woods. There WERE no “money markets” prior to this and thus no currency fluctuation. There was also not free trade and EVERY US administration since Nixon has been committed to free-everything since then. So we need to clean up our own houses before we cast stones at a country with an actual national mission, unlike the US which only cares, as a *national policy* to seculative “finance industry” profits. We haven’t had a national mission for *the nation* since JFK. After him, it’s all about the money and we’re paying for this every step of the way. I say to the Chinese “Right on!”…because they simply get it. We don’t.

  5. Not so fast David. China has all the interest and motivation in the world to let its currency float.

    Doing so would help the US dollar and propel the US bonds that they own and that are sinking in value drastically.

    It just does not make sense.

  6. This just out. All 3 reactors Fukushima below 100 degrees:

    The temperature of another troubled reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has fallen below 100 degrees Celsius for the first time since the nuclear disaster in March.

    Tokyo Electric Power Company or TEPCO says the temperature in the lower area of the Number 2 reactor stood at 99.4 degrees at 5 PM on Wednesday.

    Temperatures at the Number 1 and 3 reactors have been maintained below 100 degrees Celsius since August.

    The utility says its cooling efforts have achieved results although it is too early to say that it has attained a state of cold shutdown for all 3 troubled reactors.

    Cold shutdown is a state where temperatures below 100 Celsius are sustained and the situation remains stable.

    The utility now says it is important to ensure a reliable cooling system to achieve cold shutdown.

    • What a world of difference from “recovering” (in every way) from another major accident at Bhopal!

      James Greenidge
      Queens NY