MSDI 2008 Oil DA

MSDI 2008 1
Louie/Oz Oil Disadvantage
Oil Disadvantage
***1nc’s***....................................................................................................................................................................3
Oil Prices 1nc..................................................................................................................................................................4
Renewables 1nc...............................................................................................................................................................5
***Links***....................................................................................................................................................................6
Reduce Demand Reduces Prices.....................................................................................................................................7
US Consumption Key.....................................................................................................................................................8
Small Change Hurts Economy........................................................................................................................................9
Perception Key to Prices...............................................................................................................................................10
US Key OPEC..............................................................................................................................................................11
US Key World Production.............................................................................................................................................12
***Russian Oil***........................................................................................................................................................13
Russian Economy Good................................................................................................................................................14
High Oil Prices Key Economy......................................................................................................................................15
Decrease Oil Prices Collapses Russian Economy.........................................................................................................16
Oil Key Russian Economy............................................................................................................................................17
High Prices Key Stability..............................................................................................................................................18
US-Russian Relations Impact Module.........................................................................................................................19
Nationalism Impact Module..........................................................................................................................................20
Russian Collapse Impact...............................................................................................................................................21
A2: Russia Has No Oil..................................................................................................................................................22
***Renewables***.......................................................................................................................................................23
Low Oil Dooms Renewables........................................................................................................................................24
US Modeled..................................................................................................................................................................25
US Action Jumpstarts Political Will..............................................................................................................................26
A2: China Alternative Causality...................................................................................................................................27
US Key..........................................................................................................................................................................28
***Affirmative Answers***.........................................................................................................................................29
***Oil Generics***......................................................................................................................................................31
No Internal: Price Volatility..........................................................................................................................................32
Oil 2ac...........................................................................................................................................................................33
Oil 2ac...........................................................................................................................................................................34
Oil 2ac...........................................................................................................................................................................35
Extend: Peak Oil...........................................................................................................................................................36
Extend: Global Demand................................................................................................................................................37
Extend: Commodity Exchange.....................................................................................................................................38
Extend: OPEC...............................................................................................................................................................39
Extend: China................................................................................................................................................................40
High Prices Inevitable – Terrorism...............................................................................................................................41
***Russian Oil***........................................................................................................................................................42
Russia 2ac.....................................................................................................................................................................43
Russia 2ac.....................................................................................................................................................................44
A2: Russian Economy...................................................................................................................................................45
A2: Russian Oil Price DA: Defense..............................................................................................................................46
A2: Russian oil price DA: Econ bounce back...............................................................................................................47
A2: Russian oil price DA: Numerous Checks..............................................................................................................48
Low oil prices good: Russian Economic Reform 1ar...................................................................................................49
High oil prices bad: Hurt Russian Economy ................................................................................................................50
***Renewables***.......................................................................................................................................................51
Renewables 2ac.............................................................................................................................................................52
A2: Warming.................................................................................................................................................................53
Renewbles Now Bad.....................................................................................................................................................54
Renewables Now bad: Not Enough Info.......................................................................................................................55
Now Not Key................................................................................................................................................................56
Renewables Fail............................................................................................................................................................57
Renewables Fail ...........................................................................................................................................................58
MSDI 2008 2
Renewables Fail: Dependability...................................................................................................................................59

Renewables Fail: Dispatchability..................................................................................................................................60
Renewables Fail: Power Density..................................................................................................................................61
Renewables Fail: Not Competitive...............................................................................................................................62
Renewables Not Solve..................................................................................................................................................65
Renewables Not Solve Climate.....................................................................................................................................66
Renewables Not Solve Climate: 3rd World..................................................................................................................67
MSDI 2008 3
***1nc’s***
MSDI 2008 4
Oil Prices 1nc

Uniqueness: Oil Prices are high
(Insert some evidence here that says oil prices are stabilizing at a high amount)
Small changes to US consumption are key to international oil markets, mere perception of
U.S. oil use decrease will collapse prices
Paul Roberts, energy expert and writer for Harpers,2004, The End of Oil, pg. 95
Within the oil world, no decision of any significance is made without reference to the U.S. market, nor is anything left to
chance. Indeed, the world’s oil players watch the American oil market as attentively as palace physicians once attended the royal
bowels: every hour of every day, every oil state and company in the world keeps an unblinking watch on the United
States and strains to find a sign of anything — from a shift in energy policy to a trend toward smaller cars to an unusually mild
winter —that might affect the colossal U.S. consumption. For this reason, the most important day of the week for oil traders
anywhere in the world is Wednesday, when the U.S. Department of Energy releases its weekly figures on American oil use, and when, as one
analyst puts it, “the market makes up its mind whether to be bearish or bullish.”
High oil prices are key to the Russian economy, price decrease will collapse the Russian
ecconomy
The National Interest, Summer 2003
The improved appearance of Moscow (although not the rest of the country) is indisputable, but it is mainly a product of the
high price of oil. Every dollar difference in the price of oil translates into roughly $1 billion in budget revenue; a
high price for oil has therefore become the key to the government's ability to balance the budget, pay state employees and repay
Russia's foreign debt. If the price should fall significantly and stay relatively low, as it did in much of the 1980s and 1990s, Russia
will be plunged into a severe economic crisis.
The fragile Russian economy is the only thing holding back a Russian civil war and a
worldwide nuclear war.
Steven David (Prof. of political science at Johns Hopkins) 1999, Foreign Affairs
If internal war does strike Russia, economic deterioration will be a prime cause. From 1989 to the present, the GDP has fallen by 50 percent. In a society
where, ten years ago, unemployment scarcely existed, it reached 9.5 percent in 1997 with many economists declaring the true figure to be much higher. Twenty-two percent of Russians live below the official poverty line (earning
less than $ 70 a month). Modern Russia can neither collect taxes (it gathers only half the revenue it is due) nor significantly cut spending. Reformers tout privatization as the country's cure-all, but in a land without well-defined
property rights or contract law and where subsidies remain a way of life, the prospects for transition to an American-style capitalist economy look remote at best. As the massive devaluation of the ruble and the current political
crisis show, Russia's condition is even worse than most analysts feared. If conditions get worse, even the stoic Russian people will soon run out of patience. A future conflict would quickly draw in Russia's military. In the Soviet
days civilian rule kept the powerful armed forces in check. But with the Communist Party out of office, what little civilian control remains relies on an exceedingly fragile foundation -- personal friendships between government
leaders and military commanders. Meanwhile, the morale of Russian soldiers has fallen to a dangerous low. Drastic cuts in spending mean inadequate pay, housing, and medical care. A new emphasis on domestic missions has
created an ideological split between the old and new guard in the military leadership, increasing the risk that disgruntled generals may enter the political fray and feeding the resentment of soldiers who dislike being used as a
national police force. Newly enhanced ties between military units and local authorities pose another danger. Soldiers grow ever more dependent on local governments for housing, food, and wages. Draftees serve closer to home,
and new laws have increased local control over the armed forces. Were a conflict to emerge between a regional power and Moscow, it is not at all clear which side the military would support. Divining the military's allegiance is
crucial, however, since the structure of the Russian Federation makes it virtually certain that regional conflicts will continue to erupt. Russia's 89 republics, krais, and oblasts grow ever more independent in a system that does little
to keep them together. As the central government finds itself unable to force its will beyond Moscow (if even that far), power devolves to the periphery. With the economy collapsing, republics feel less and less incentive to pay
taxes to Moscow when they receive so little in return. Three-quarters of them already have their own constitutions, nearly all of which make some claim to sovereignty. Strong ethnic bonds promoted by shortsighted Soviet policies
may motivate non-Russians to secede from the Federation. Chechnya's successful revolt against Russian control inspired similar movements for autonomy and independence throughout the country. If these rebellions spread and
the consequences for the United States and Europe will be severe. A
Moscow responds with force, civil war is likely. Should Russia succumb to internal war,
An embattled Russian Federation might provoke opportunistic attacks from

major power like Russia -- even though in decline -- does not suffer civil war quietly or alone.
enemies such as China. Massive flows of refugees would pour into central and western Europe. Armed struggles in Russia could easily spill into its
neighbors. Damage from the fighting, particularly attacks on nuclear plants, would poison the environment of much of Europe and Asia. Within Russia, the consequences would be
even worse. Just as the sheer brutality of the last Russian civil war laid the basis for the privations of Soviet communism, a second civil war might produce another horrific regime. Most
alarming is the real possibility that the violent disintegration of Russia could lead to loss of control over its nuclear arsenal . No nuclear
state has ever fallen victim to civil war, but even without a clear precedent the grim consequences can be foreseen. Russia retains some 20,000 nuclear weapons and the raw material for tens of
thousands more, in scores of sites scattered throughout the country. So far, the government has managed to prevent the loss of any weapons or much material. If war erupts, however,
making weapons and supplies available to a wide range of anti-American
Moscow's already weak grip on nuclear sites will slacken,
groups and states. Such dispersal of nuclear weapons represents the greatest physical threat America now faces. And it is hard to think of
anything that would increase this threat more than the chaos that would follow a Russian civil war. Lack of attention to the threat of civil wars by U.S. policymakers and academics has meant a lack of response and policy options.
This does not mean, however, that Washington can or should do nothing at all. As a first measure, American policymakers should work with governments of threatened states to prevent domestic conflict from erupting. Though the
inadvertent side effects of internal conflicts cannot be deterred, the outbreak of civil war itself may be discouraged. Doing so may require unambiguous and generous American support for a regime that finds itself under assault. Or
it may require Washington to ease out unsustainable leaders (the Philippines' Marcos or Indonesia's Suharto) once their time has clearly passed. Either way, the difficulties of preventing internal war pale in comparison to the
problems of coping with its effects. The United States should take action now to prepare itself for civil war in key states. To respond to conflict in Mexico, Washington will need feasible evacuation plans for hundreds of thousands
of Americans in that country. Contingency plans for closing the Mexican-American border should be considered. And the possibility of a Mexican civil war raises the issue of American intervention. How and where the United
States would enter the fray would of course be determined by circumstances, but it is not premature to give serious thought to the prospect. To guard against a conflict in Saudi Arabia, the United States should lead the effort to
reduce Western dependence on Saudi oil. This will require a mixed strategy, including the expansion of U.S. strategic oil reserves (which could be done now, while Saudi oil is cheap and available), locating new suppliers (such as
the Central Asian republics), and reviving moribund efforts to find oil alternatives. None of this will be easy, especially in an era of dollar-a-gallon gasoline, but it makes more sense than continuing to rely on an energy source so
civil conflict there will unleash nuclear weapons against the United
vulnerable to the ravages of civil war. For Russia, America must reduce the chances that
States. First, Washington must do more to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons and fissionable material that could be lost, stolen, or used in the chaos of civil war. The Nunn-Lugar program, under which the United States
buys Russian nuclear material to use and store in America, is a good start, but it must be accelerated. America should not worry about making a profit on the plutonium and enriched uranium it buys, but just get the goods out of
Russia as fast as possible. Second, arms control initiatives that may have been unpalatable during the Cold War should now be reconsidered, given the risk of accidental or unauthorized launchings. American policymakers should
contemplate agreements to reduce the total number of Russian (and American) nuclear weapons, to deprive the Russians of the ability to quickly launch a nuclear strike (for example, by contracting to store warheads away from
missiles), and should intensify efforts to develop an effective defense against missile attacks.
MSDI 2008 5
Renewables 1nc
Low oil prices undercut investments in renewables
Leonardo Maugeri, ENI SPA's senior vice-president of corporate strategies and international relations, senior
fellow at the World Economic Laboratory at MIT, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Association, and a member
of the executive council of the Center for Social Investment Studies, degree in petroleum economics and a PhD in
international political economy,, 12/15/2003, Oil & Gas Journal
Hysteria aside, cheap oil has always been and remains a curse for industrialized countries and the most elusive enemy of oil
security. It hampers any possibility of dealing with new energy alternatives to oil -- which are all very expensive -- or with the
development of new oil regions. It maintains Western habits -- and particular those of the US -- of not promoting any form of energy-saving.
Finally, it increases consumer dependence on a limited group of countries with the lowest production costs, which today still are those in
the Persian Gulf. However, cheap oil is a curse for them too.
Consumers will only turn to renewables if it is apparent that high oil prices are permanent
Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 4/20, 2002
Oil prices have steadily risen since the start of this year, at one point even going beyond 28 dollars per barrel, and while this is
worrisome to most people, one sector of German industry is expectantly rubbing its hands: the renewable energy
companies. "An increased use of regenerative energies and a change in consumer behaviour...will first set in when the 30 dollar (per barrel)
mark is exceeded," says Norbert Allnoch, director of the International Economic Forum for Regenerative Energy (IWR). Only when the
expectation sets in that "over the long term will there be higher oil prices" can a change in consumers' habits be
expected, adds Allnoch of the Muenster-based think tank. Regenerative energy is a grab-bag term to cover a wide range of
alternatives to fossil or nuclear fuels, including solar cells, hydroelectricity, wind power and bio-gas.
Shift to renewables or extinction

James Reynolds June 18 2003 “EARTH 'IS HEADING FOR MASS EXTINCTION IN JUST A CENTURY”,
The Scotsman
THE worst mass extinction in the history of the planet could be replicated in as little as a century if global
warming continues, according to new evidence. Researchers at Bristol University have discovered that a six-degree increase in the global temperature was enough to annihilate
up to 95 per cent of species which were alive on Earth at the end of the Permian period, 251 million years ago. Up to six degrees of warming is now predicted for the next century by United
Nations scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) if nothing is done about emissions of the greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide, which cause global
The end-Permian mass extinction is now thought to have been caused by gigantic volcanic eruptions, which
warming.
triggered a "runaway greenhouse effect" and nearly put an end to life on Earth. Conditions in what geologists have
termed this "post-apocalyptic greenhouse" were so severe that only one large land animal was left alive, and it
took 100 million years for species diversity to return to former levels. The new finding is revealed in a book by Professor Michael Benton, the
head of Earth sciences at Bristol University. Prof Benton said: "The end-Permian crisis nearly marked the end of life. It's estimated that fewer than one in ten species survived. "Geologists are
only now coming to appreciate the severity of this global catastrophe and to understand how and why so many species died out so quickly." Tropical latitudes were the first areas of the Earth
to feel the effect of the warming, and loss of species diversity spread out from there. Reduction of vegetation, soil erosion and the effects of massively increased rainfall wiped out the lush
"The end-
diverse habitats of the tropics, which would today lead to the loss of animals such as hippos, elephants and all of the primates, according to Prof Benton. He added:
Permian extinction event is a good model for what might happen in the future because it was fairly non-specific.
"The sequence of what happened then is different from today because then the carbon dioxide came from massive
volcanic eruptions, whereas today it is coming from industrial activity. However, it doesn't matter where this gas comes from; the fact is that if
it is pumped into the atmosphere in high volumes, then that gives us the greenhouse effect and leads to the warming with all the other consequences." Modern predictions of the apocalyptic
consequences of global warming and climate change due to increases in carbon dioxide first began to circulate in the early 1980s. Carbon dioxide is, like oxygen, translucent to sunlight but
opaque to infra -red radiation. After the sun's rays have warmed the Earth and sea, the heat produced can therefore not be re-radiated back into space. When the industrial revolution began
about 200 years ago, there were roughly 280 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Today, there are 350ppm. More carbon dioxide is being pumped into the atmosphere
as the human population grows and turns to heavy industry, and less is being removed by the rest of nature because, possibly due to human activity, global vegetation which removes the
damaging gas is in retreat. In the mid-1980s, scientists first started to predict that temperatures would increase somewhere in the order of between four and six degrees by 2080. Sea levels
were also predicted to rise 20cm by 2030, and 45cm by 2070. In the light of modern records, these estimates were a little overstated. Dr Ian Brown, a senior researcher with the Tyndall
Climate Research Centre at the University of East Anglia, said: "More or less every year now we have a temperature which is higher than the previous year and the Met Office has predicted
this year that there is a 50 per cent chance it will be the warmest on record. "Each year is now pretty much an exceptional one by previous standards. "Sea-level rise is more complicated
because we have a shorter record. At the moment, in global terms, it is probably in the order of about one and a half millimetres per year. "By the end of the century, the rise in sea level could
then be a lot more than five or even ten centimetres. "Certainly in the past two decades we have now recorded rises in sea levels in the region of one or two millimetres a year which are
measured by tide gauges at various sites. "These instruments are quite precise and show that predictions of the consequences of global warming are certainly observable." He added: "Much
Climate experts and
land has in the past been reclaimed from the sea, such as in the Forth estuary, and those areas are now looking increasingly vulnerable."
environmentalists said yesterday they were appalled that a disaster of such magnitude could be repeated within this
century because of human activities. Mark Lynas, an author who has written extensively on global warming and recently travelled
around the world cataloguing impacts of climate change, said the findings must be a wake-up call for politicians and citizens alike. "This is a
global emergency," he said. "We are heading for disaster and yet the world is still on fossil fuel autopilot. There
needs to be an immediate phase-out of coal, oil and gas, and a phase-in of clean energy sources. "People can no
longer ignore this looming catastrophe."
MSDI 2008 6
***Links***
MSDI 2008 7
Reduce Demand Reduces Prices

Fluctuations in US energy demand send oil prices into a tailspin
Paul Roberts, energy expert and writer for Harpers,2004, The End of Oil, p 14-15
In writing this book, I have focused on all aspects of the energy economy — the past and present of energy, the technology and business of
energy, and the major players. I’ve studied the big energy producers, like Saudi Arabia and Russia, who control most of the world’s oil reserves
and who will play a critical role in the transition to a post-oil economy. I’ve looked in depth at China and India, two energy paupers whose
enormous populations and growing economies will nonetheless make them the biggest energy players of the twenty-first century. I have
examined Japan and Germany, countries that, lacking their own domestic oil supplies, have adopted energy-efficient policies and have fostered
a culture that accepts if not embraces a low-energy way of life. But by necessity, much of this book will focus on the United States. For all that
the new energy economy is an international issue, no nation will play a greater role in the evolution of that economy than ours. Americans are
the most profligate users of energy in the history of the world: a country with less than 5 percent of the world’s population burns through 25
percent of the world’s total energy. Some of this discrepancy is owing to the American economy, which is bigger than
anyone else’s and therefore uses more energy. But it is also true that the American lifestyle is twice as energy-intensive as that in
Europe and Japan, and about ten times the global average. The United States is thus the most important of all energy players: its enormous
demand makes it an essential customer for the big energy states like Saudi Arabia and Russia. Its large imports
hold the global energy market in thrall. (Indeed, the tiniest change in the U.S. energy economy — a colder winter,
an increase in driving, a change in tax law —can send world markets into a tailspin.) And because American power flows
from its dominance over a global economy that in turn depends mainly on oil and other fossil fuels, the United States sees itself as having no
choice but to defend the global energy infrastructure from any threat and by nearly any means available — economic, diplomatic, even military.
Decreased US demand decreases oil prices and bankrupts states like Mexico and Algeria
The last time the United States got really serious about energy efficiency after the 1974 oil price shocks U.S. oil
— —
use fell so low that OPEC was nearly wiped out. A more permanent reduction — even if partly offset by rising
demand in the fast-growing Asian economies —would completely change the global oil order. As oil prices fell to —
as low as fifteen dollars a barrel, some analysts say many big oil states would see their geopolitical status tumble.
—
Some, like Russia, Venezuela, Iran, and Qatar, which have enormous gas reserves, could compensate by stepping
up efforts to sell gas, especially to gas-hungry markets like China, India, and the United States. Other petrostates
— like Mexico and Algeria, for instance might be pushed into bankruptcy and would then require a massive, and
—
inevitably United States—led, bailout.
Reducing demand would cause prices to plummet

John Carey, writer for Business Week, 2/24/2003, http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/oil/722.html.pf
Yet reducing oil use has to be done judiciously. A drastic or abrupt drop in demand could even be
counterproductive. Why? Because even a very small change in capacity or demand "can bring big swings in
price," explains Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State University's
Robinson College of Business. For instance, the slowdown in Asia in the mid-1990s reduced demand only by
about 1.5 million bbl. a day, but it caused oil prices to plunge to near $10 a barrel. So today, if the U.S. succeeded
in abruptly curbing demand for oil, prices would plummet. Higher-cost producers such as Russia and the U.S.
would either have to sell oil at a big loss or stand on the sidelines. The effect would be to concentrate power--you
guessed it--in the hands of Middle Eastern nations, the lowest-cost producers and holders of two-thirds of the
known oil reserves. That's why flawed energy policies, such as trying to override market forces by rushing to
expand supplies or mandating big fuel efficiency gains, could do harm.
MSDI 2008 8
US Consumption Key
US consumption shapes world demand
The geopolitics of oil are vast, complex, and ever-changing, but three elements are of absolute importance. The first is
the preponderant
role of the United States. Since the earliest days of the oil industry, the country has been the dominant figure, first
as the world’s largest producer of oil and other energy and now as its largest consumer. Today, one out of every
four barrels of oil produced in the world is burned in America, and this enormous, apparently limitless appetite
exerts a ceaseless pull on the rest of the world’s oil players and on the shape of the world political order.
Surging US demand is the key driver of OPEC and global oil markets
Joe Barnes, research fellow at the Baker Institute for Public Police at Rice, Amy Jaffe, Fellow for Energy Studies
at the Baker Institute, and. Edward L. Morse, Executive Adviser at Hess Energy Trading Company and was
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Energy Policy in 1979–81, Winter 2003/2004, originally
printed in National Interest, http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/newsletter2004/saudi-relations-interest-01-06.html
Missing from this discussion are any serious measures to address the demand side of our reliance on Middle East
oil. Current U.S. oil demand is about 20 million bpd, of which only 40 percent is produced domestically. Indeed,
the consistent growth in U.S. oil imports is an overwhelming factor in global oil markets-one, which official
Washington refuses to recognize despite criticism from allies in Europe and Japan. U.S. net imports rose from 6.79
million bpd in 1991 to 10.2 million bpd in 2000. Global oil trade, that is the amount of oil that is exported from
one country to another, rose from 33.3 million bpd to 42.6 million bpd over that same period. This means that
America's rising oil imports alone have represented over one third of the increase in oil traded worldwide over the
past ten years-and over 50 percent of OPEC's output gains between the years 1991 to 2000 wound up in the United
States.
MSDI 2008 9
Small Change Hurts Economy

Small changes in oil prices cause massive economic disruptions
The obsessive focus on oil is hardly surprising, given the stakes. In the fast-moving world of oil politics, oil is not
simply a source of world power, but a medium for that power as well, a substance whose huge importance
enmeshes companies, communities, and entire nations in a taut global web that is sensitive to the smallest of
vibrations. A single oil “event” — a pipeline explosion in Iraq, political unrest in Venezuela, a bellicose exchange
between the Russian and Saudi oil ministers — sends shockwaves through the world energy order, pushes prices
up or down, and sets off tectonic shifts in global wealth and power. Each day that the Saudi-Russian spat kept oil
supplies high and prices low, the big oil exporters were losing hundreds of millions of dollars and, perhaps,
moving closer to financial and political disaster — while the big consuming nations enjoyed what amounted to a
massive tax break. Yet in the volatile world of oil, the tide could quickly turn. A few months later, as anxieties over
a second Iraq war drove prices up to forty dollars, the oil tide abruptly changed directions, transferring tens of
billions of dollars from the economies of the United States, Japan, and Europe to the national banks in Riyadh,
Caracas, Kuwait City, and Baghdad, and threatening to strangle whatever was left of the global economic
recovery.
MSDI 2008 10
Perception Key to Prices

Perception is key in energy policy—nations carefully monitor oil price volatility
Paul Roberts, energy expert and writer for Harpers,2004, The End of Oil, pg. 93-4
So embedded has oil become in today’s political and economic spheres that the big industrial governments now
watch the oil markets as closely as they once watched the spread of communism — and with good reason: six of
the last seven global recessions have been preceded by spikes in the price of oil, and fear is growing among
economists and policymakers that, in today’s growth-dependent, energy-intensive global economy, oil price
volatility itself may eventually pose more risk to prosperity and stability and simple survival than terrorism or
even war. In this bleak context, it becomes easier to understand why nations as powerful and technologically
advanced as Japan, Britain, and the United States have such abysmal records when it comes to long-term energy
planning or alternative energy. Indeed, when the major nations speak of energy policy today, about energy for the
future, or about the much-touted energy security,” they are not talking about depletion curves, or fuel cells, or a
hydrogen economy. They are not talking about fuel efficiency, or solar power, or any of the potentially significant
but speculative sources of energy. Rather, when nations discuss energy security today, what they are really talking
about is the geopolitics of energy — and specifically, the actions, money, and alliances necessary to keep oil
flowing steadily and cheaply through the next fiscal quarter.
MSDI 2008 11
US Key OPEC
Surging US demand is the key driver of OPEC and global oil markets
Missing from this discussion are any serious measures to address the demand side of our reliance on Middle East
oil. Current U.S. oil demand is about 20 million bpd, of which only 40 percent is produced domestically. Indeed,
the consistent growth in U.S. oil imports is an overwhelming factor in global oil markets-one, which official
Washington refuses to recognize despite criticism from allies in Europe and Japan. U.S. net imports rose from 6.79
million bpd in 1991 to 10.2 million bpd in 2000. Global oil trade, that is the amount of oil that is exported from
one country to another, rose from 33.3 million bpd to 42.6 million bpd over that same period. This means that
America's rising oil imports alone have represented over one third of the increase in oil traded worldwide over the
past ten years-and over 50 percent of OPEC's output gains between the years 1991 to 2000 wound up in the United
States.
MSDI 2008 12
US Key World Production

US demand for oil determines world production
Edward L. Morse, Executive Adviser at Hess Energy Trading Company and Deputy Asst. Sec. of State for Intl
Energy Policy (79-81), and James Richard, portfolio manager at Firebird Management, an investment fund
active in eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, March/April 2002, Foreign Affairs
It would be more accurate, in sum, to see the common interests of Washington and Riyadh as the intersection of
two large and unwieldy sets of goals. In both countries, the size and value of that connection have been undergoing
serious review since September 11. To the degree that Washington decides to take action to reduce the U.S.
economy's dependence on oil, it can greatly affect the scale of increased oil production over the next few decades.
It is because of that opportunity that the Russian challenge to Saudi Arabia has become tremendously important.
MSDI 2008 13
***Russian Oil***
MSDI 2008 14
Russian Economy Good

High oil prices have fueled a boom in the russian economy
MSNBC News 3/21/2007 http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6063583/
the Russian economy is booming. Oil
From the oil towns of Siberia to the streets of St. Petersburg to the new malls of Moscow,
flows out of the country and dollars flow in. Consumers are spending and cash registers are ringing. “Today is my
birthday, and 14 years ago I would not have been able to celebrate it,” said 21-year-old Dimitri Toropov. “My parents and I would not have had
the resources to afford it. Today, the number of people living in those dire circumstances has greatly decreased.” The numbers seem to back up
Toropov's assessment. The Russian economy is growing at nearly eight percent, adjusted for inflation. With a rising
middle class, retail sales have been growing about 20 percent a year. Inflation, still at 11 percent annually, has been
halved in the past four years.
Oil Prices Fueling Russian Economic Growth

And Russia is now one of the world's fastest growing economies. Moscow now has more billionaires than any city in
the world, according to Forbes magazine. The real estate market is on fire. “Right now, you're talking you need at least $1 million ... up to
$2 million ... to find something decent in that area, is how the price has gone up,” said Irina Zharova-Wright, a real estate broker for Intermark
Group. Food stores are brimming and crowds of premium western shops line streets choked with European luxury cars. The fuel for this
economic fire is oil. Russia has huge reserves, and exports 6 million barrels a day, second only to Saudi Arabia.
MSDI 2008 15
High Oil Prices Key Economy

Russia needs high prices for oil
The Russia Journal 8/19/2004 http://www.russiajournal.com/news/cnews-article.shtml?nd=45104
due to instability on the global oil market caused by the situation in Iraq and some other factors, international
According to Mr. Gref,
organizations forecast oil prices in the range from $22 to $46 per barrel. This allows the Russian Economy
Minister to choose the optimal price for Urals oil - $28 per barrel - on which the forecast for the country’s
economic development in 2005 will be based.
Russian growth is dependant on oil income (A2: Oil Prevents Real growth)
Another big concern: How much the country's economic boom is tied to high oil prices. Russia is expected to
export nearly $76 billion in oil this year, just under half of all exports. “There's this inherent instability that will
always be existing as long as the economy depends excessively on one or two products,” said Christof Ruhl of World Bank,
Russia. The Russian economy has never grown by more than five percent if oil prices are not rising. So, despite and
expanding middle class, a rise in consumerism and a more diverse economy, the fate of Russia remains closely tied to
the outlook for oil.
High prices fuel russian economic growth

BBC News 2/3/2004 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3455417.stm
The Russian economy grew by 7.3% last year, beating even the most optimistic official forecasts. Sustained high prices for
oil, Russia's main export earner, have given the economy a lift. The figure is one of the strongest performances in
five years of recovery from Russia's 1998 economic crisis. The rapid end to that crisis has been one of the main factors
underpinning the popularity of President Vladimir Putin, who came to power in 1999.
Every 1 dollar prices go down costs Russia 2 Billion $.

Fiona Hill (Fellow at Brookings) 2002 Brookings Review, Spring,
http://www.brookings.org/press/review/spring2002/hill.htm
Gas and oil have been the mainstay of the Soviet and now Russian economy for decades. Energy accounts for about half
of Russian export earnings. According to Brookings economist Clifford Gaddy, "Every dollar's increase in the price of a barrel of
petroleum translates into roughly $1.5-$2.0 billion of additional yearly export revenues." During 1999-2000, energy
exports accounted for some 90 percent of Russia's growth in GDP. Thanks to high oil prices, at the end of 2001 the
economy had enjoyed its best three-year performance since 1966-69.
Oil revenues key to russian development

Magueri (VP at Eni Italian Oil Company) July/Aug 2003 Foreign Affairs
Ironically, new investments in non-OPEC areas, where oil costs are higher, are made possible by OPEC's production ceilings, which sustain oil
prices. If oil prices were below $18 per barrel, the output of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Russia would be
partially displaced. In Russia's case, a recovery in the price of oil and natural gas has boosted oil output and revenues. This in turn has led some
observers to envisage Russia as a future main supplier of Western oil needs, displacing Saudi Arabia. However, considering that the Russian
Federation has only one-fifth the oil reserves of the Saudis and that old Soviet techniques have damaged many oil fields, it is reasonable to
assume that current Russian oil production is inflated by specific circumstances that cannot last forever. Russia's own consumption, for
instance, will recover and will absorb a growing part of domestic production. Overall, a return to low oil prices
would dampen any major leap forward by the Russian oil sector and thwart needed investments in its export
infrastructure. Thus, although Russia remains an excellent long-term opportunity for oil and gas companies, particularly once the current
inflated outlook vanishes and legislation improves, it is misleading to compare its potential role in the world oil market with that of the Saudis.
MSDI 2008 16
Decrease Oil Prices Collapses Russian Economy

Decrease in prices derails the russian economy
The Daily times (Pakistan) 9/23/2004
The debate about what to do with the oil bonanza goes to the heart of the dilemma facing Russian policy makers.
With the economy heavily dependent on oil exports, Russia is vulnerable to an oil price slump, which would derail
ambitious government plans to double the size of the economy in 10 years
Loss of oil revenues devastates the Russian economy—20 percent of GDP/majority of

revenues
Analyst Wire 2004 “FINANCIAL FLASH”, August 3, 2004
Exactly. Well, Russia has oil reserves that are about 60 billion barrels. And its production, actually, puts it just about the level of Saudi Arabia.
It s the second largest exporter of oil in the world. HAYS: So very, very important supplier. And, of course, not surprising, it s not just the world
reliance on Russia, which I understand has actually had a lot to do with meeting the increasing demand from China, because China s
consumption has been growing so rapidly and Russian oils has had a lot to do with feeding that. MAASS: Right. Well, Russia and China, of
course, share a border. And China has increasingly become one of Russia s larger clients. And Russia s even been considering building a
pipeline so that it can directly funnel oil to China through the pipeline rather than through rail shipments. HAYS: And, of course, the more
somebody helps satisfy Chinese demand, the more we can consumer in this gas guzzling nation and it helps take a little bit of pressure off
prices. But I guess that s the issue because Russian oil is so important to the Russian economy that it has become quite a
political football. MAASS: Well, Russia s almost become something of a oil state. Oil revenues account for about 20
percent of the Russian GDP and the vast majority of its revenues overall. So, basically, if you take oil out of the
Russian economy, you re almost devastating the economy.
MSDI 2008 17
Oil Key Russian Economy

Russian Growth Dependant on Oil Revenues
World Bank Economic Report August 2003
http://www.worldbank.org.ru/ECA/Russia.nsf/0/F90DB9754A7A53D6C3256DA9004BE05C
Q: Has the Russian economy been always so dependent on oil and gas prices? Christof Ruehl: If one looks backwards over
the last three to four years and asks the same question, we observe an interesting fact: since the crisis, Russia's economy has only
grown faster than 5 percent when the oil price was increasing at the same time. This leads to the believe that,
given the way in which Russia's economy is currently organized, growth rates of above 5 percent will require
either an additional increase in the oil price, which in the long term is unlikely, or additional structural changes and changes in the
economy. In other words, the data indicate that currently it will be possible to maintain this rate of growth only if oil price continues to rise
(which has happened in the last six months due to evident geopolitical developments), or if the productivity of the non-oil sectors goes up,
which requires that structural reforms continue. The economy is growing and it's developing in the right direction, but
domestic demand is not yet high enough to ensure self sustained growth at current rates (higher than 5 percent) if
the oil price stays constant.
MSDI 2008 18
High Prices Key Stability

High russian oil prices are key to political and economic stability
AME Middle East financial Network, 2/24/2004 http://www.ameinfo.com/news/Detailed/35292.html)
By controlling both oil production and exports, Russia can strongly influence international oil prices. Maintaining high
international oil prices is critically important to economic restructuring in Russia and long-term political and social
stability. Ongoing political centralization in Russia will prevent any significant decline of international oil prices 2004, underpinning Russian
asset values. President Putin's centralization project has tamed the country's oligarchs and extended the government's power over Russia's
media, law enforcement agencies, electoral commissions and the judicial system. Moscow's increasingly autocratic tilt has not gone unnoticed
in Washington
MSDI 2008 19
US-Russian Relations Impact Module

High prices key to U.S.-Russian relations
David Victor (Analyst at CFR) 2003 Foreign Affairs
Ever since the Iron Curtain came crashing down, American and Russian diplomats have been searching for a special
relationship between their countries to replace Cold War animosity. Security matters have not yielded much. On
issues such as the expansion of NATO, stabilizing Yugoslavia, and the war in Chechnya, Washington and Moscow
have sought each other's tolerance more than cooperation. Nor have the two nations developed much economic interaction, as a
result of Russia's weak institutions and faltering economy. Thus, by default, "energy" has become the new special topic in
Russian-American relations. At a Kremlin summit in May 2002, Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin
pledged to work together to reduce volatility in global energy markets and promote investment in Russia's oil
industry. Soon after, at the first-ever summit of U.S. and Russian oil executives in Houston, Russia's energy minister, Igor Yusufov, reiterated
this goal. The two governments have created a special working group on energy cooperation, and Russia will host the next
commercial energy summit in 2003. In Moscow, especially, the potential of new oil ties has attracted extensive media coverage and political
speculation. For instance, Grigory Yavlinsky, head of Yabloko, one of Russia's leading opposition parties, has suggested that the United States
and Russia could sideline the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as the arbiter of world oil prices. This enthusiasm is
misplaced, however. A collapse of oil prices in the aftermath of an invasion of Iraq may soon lay bare Washington's
and Moscow's divergent interests. Russia needs high oil prices to keep its economy afloat, whereas U.S. policy
would be largely unaffected by falling energy costs. Moreover, cheerleaders of a new Russian-American oil partnership fail to
understand that there is not much that the two governments can do to influence the global energy market or even investment in Russia's oil
sector.
Relations are critical to prevent the spread of infectious disease

Sestanovich 2006 (Stephen- Senior fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies, “Russia's Wrong Direction: What
the United States Can and Should Do”, Council on Foreign Relations, March,
http://www.cfr.org/publication/9997/)
U.S.-Russian cooperation can help the United States to handle some of the most difficult challenges it faces: terrorism, the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, tight energy markets, climate change, the drug trade, infectious diseases, and human
trafficking. These problems are more manageable when the United States has Russia on its side rather than aligned
against it.
Infections disease spread risks global extinction

Steinbruner 1998 (John D- Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution, “Biological weapons: A plague upon all
houses,” Foreign Policy)
It is a considerable comfort and undoubtedly a key to our survival that, so far, the main lines of defense against this threat have not
depended on explicit policies or organized efforts. In the long course of evolution, the human body has developed physical barriers
and a biochemical immune system whose sophistication and effectiveness exceed anything we could design or as yet
even fully understand. But evolution is a sword that cuts both ways: New diseases emerge, while old diseases mutate
and adapt. Throughout history, there have been epidemics during which human immunity has broken down on an
epic scale. An infectious agent believed to have been the plague bacterium killed an estimated 20 million people over a four-year period in
the fourteenth century, including nearly one-quarter of Western Europe's population at the time. Since its recognized appearance in 1981, some
20 variations of the HIVvirus have infected an estimated 29.4 million worldwide, with 1.5 million people currently dying of aids each year.
Malaria, tuberculosis, and cholera-once thought to be under control-are now making a comeback. As we enter the twenty-first century,
changing conditions have enhanced the potential for widespread contagion. The rapid growth rate of the total world
population, the unprecedented freedom of movement across international borders, and scientific advances that expand the
capability for the deliberate manipulation of pathogens are all cause for worry that the problem might be greater in the future
than it has ever been in the past. The threat of infectious pathogens is not just an issue of public health, but a fundamental
security problem for the species as a whole.
MSDI 2008 20
Nationalism Impact Module

Low prices risks authoritarianism and nuclear prolif- the impact is nuclear terrorism
Oil and Gas Journal 3/8/1999
Russia is very dependent on petroleum exports and is now in the depths of a terrible depression that could well return it to
a totalitarian government. Low oil prices have cut Russia's hard currency income to starvation levels; the people are
left with only abundant nuclear devices to sell in order to survive. The primary purchasers for these goods are
various Middle Eastern and other unfriendly countries that sponsor terrorism. They sponsor terrorism in vengeful
retaliation, primarily because our aggressive, militaristic foreign policy towards them (with a military budget 1600 times that of all our
"enemies" combined) leaves only this response available to them. Cheap oil is literally promoting terrorism against this country.
Terrorism ensures extinction

Alexander 2003 (Yonah prof and dir. of Inter-University for Terrorism Studies, Washington Times, August 28)
Last week's brutal suicide bombings in Baghdad and Jerusalem have once again illustrated dramatically that the international
community failed, thus far at least, to understand the magnitude and implications of the terrorist threats to the very
survival of civilization itself. Even the United States and Israel have for decades tended to regard terrorism as a mere tactical nuisance or
irritant rather than a critical strategic challenge to their national security concerns. It is not surprising, therefore, that on September 11, 2001,
Americans were stunned by the unprecedented tragedy of 19 al Qaeda terrorists striking a devastating blow at the center of the nation's
commercial and military powers. Likewise, Israel and its citizens, despite the collapse of the Oslo Agreements of 1993 and numerous acts of
terrorism triggered by the second intifada that began almost three years ago, are still "shocked" by each suicide attack at a time of intensive
diplomatic efforts to revive the moribund peace process through the now revoked cease-fire arrangements [hudna]. Why are the United States
and Israel, as well as scores of other countries affected by the universal nightmare of modern terrorism surprised by new terrorist "surprises"?
There are many reasons, including misunderstanding of the manifold specific factors that contribute to terrorism's expansion, such as lack of a
universal definition of terrorism, the religionization of politics, double standards of morality, weak punishment of terrorists, and the
exploitation of the media by terrorist propaganda and psychological warfare. Unlike their historical counterparts, contemporary terrorists have
introduced a new scale of violence in terms of conventional and unconventional threats and impact. The internationalization and
brutalization of current and future terrorism make it clear we have entered an Age of Super Terrorism [e.g. biological,
chemical, radiological, nuclear and cyber] with its serious implications concerning national, regional and global security
concerns.
MSDI 2008 21
Russian Collapse Impact

Russian collapse causes nuclear conflict
Mandelbaum (Professor of Political Science at John Hopkins) 4/5/1993 Newsday, l/n
Russia is in the midst of three enormous, difficult, painful transitions: from multinational empire to nation-state;
from totalitarian to democratic rule; and from a centrally planned to a free-market economic system. The three are
closely linked. Peaceful Russian relations with what used to be its provinces and are now independent neighbors
depend on the maintenance of a tolerant regime in Moscow. That in turn depends on a successful economic
transition. But that transition is going badly. If it collapses, it could plunge Russia into the chaos that has overtaken
the Balkans. But two important differences distinguish the former Soviet Union from the former Yugoslavia. The
Balkan carnage is the work of what are, by the standards of the late 20th Century, rudimentary instruments of
destruction. By contrast, the former Soviet Union is the site of thousands of nuclear weapons. And the Balkan
horrors have thus far been contained; aside from the grim spectacle they present on television and the refugees
they have generated, they have had only a modest impact on the rest of Europe. By contrast, the West could not
shield itself from similar developments in the vast Eurasian territory stretching from Ukraine to the Pacific Ocean,
with its 300 million people. It must therefore be the highest priority of American foreign policy to do whatever is
possible to keep the three great Russian transitions on course. The best strategy for doing so is to support the
forces of moderation, of westernization, of free markets and of democracy in Russia. All are represented in the
government of Boris Yeltsin. Support for democracy in Russia means support for Yeltsin, and support for Yeltsin
means western assistance in addressing the problem that has strengthened his political adversaries: the growing
Russian economic catastrophe. The Russian economy deserves urgent western attention and substantial western
resources.
MSDI 2008 22
A2: Russia Has No Oil

Russian reserves will double or triple within the next decade
CNBC News 9/20/2004 http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/CNBCTV/Articles/TVReports/P94992.asp
Some 1,200 miles east of Moscow, across the tundra of western Siberia, lies the secret behind Russia's return to the ranks of oil superpowers.
The Priobskoye field, a 400,000 barrel a day gusher, is the largest field tapped in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. It has helped the
country push oil output above 9 million barrels a day, from just 7 million in 2001. Russia now rivals Saudi Arabia for the title of the world's
No. 1 producer. "Without the increase in output from Russia over the last three or four years, probably a couple of million barrels a day, we'd
have had definitely a much tighter supply situation, leading to higher prices," says Stephen O'Sullivan, an oil expert at United Financial Group.
In Russia, prosperity is spelled O-I-L. It's oil from places like Priobskoye that's fueling the economic revolution back in Moscow. And
it may only have just begun. Analysts think untapped Russian oil reserves may be much larger than current estimates.
"The reserve numbers are being revised upwards," says Paul Collison, an oil analyst at Brunswick UBS. "We
believe that over the next 10 or 15 years a double or triple (in reserve estimates) is feasible."
MSDI 2008 23
***Renewables***
MSDI 2008 24
Low Oil Dooms Renewables

Low oil prices guarantee increased use of fossil fuels
Yet as we have seen with the United States and other developed nations, such mitigating factors run up against a powerful array of economic
and political forces — countervailing influences that steadily push up energy demand and favor expediency at the expense of fuel efficiency.
Oil prices, for example, could just as easily fall, at least in the short term, especially if countries with enormous reserves but little current
production, such as Iraq and Iran, obtain the investment they need and start adding supplies to the world market. As we have seen, low prices
discourage conservation and fuel efficiency, as well as reliance on alternatives like natural gas or hydrogen, or renewable
energy, such as solar or wind. By one estimate, if oil prices fall to fifteen dollars a barrel and stay there until 2020 (a scenario
fervently desired by the Bush administration), world oil demand will surge to 124 million barrels a day by 2020 — around 20
million barrels more than in average, or “business-as-usual’ forecasts. Such an increase would put an enormous strain on oil
producers, not to mention add significantly to pollution and other oil-related problems — among them, more cars, greater suburban sprawl,
and a far slower emergence of even such conventional alternative technologies as gasoline-electric hybrids. According to one study, a
scenario in which prices averaged twenty-three dollars a barrel would encourage so much additional energy use
that U.S. CO2 emissions would jump 50 percent by 2035, effectively destroying any chance at meeting a carbon target.
MSDI 2008 25
US Modeled
Even small US energy legislation is modeled globally
Paul Roberts (energy expert and writer for Harpers) 2004, The End of Oil, pg. 288
Last and certainly not least on the map of energy politics is the United States. As we have seen, American prowess
in both energy consumption and CO2 emissions is second to none, and the U.S. role as self-appointed policeman
of global energy markets is beyond dispute. What matters equally, however, is the enormous ability the United
States has to influence change in the global energy system. The giant U.S. car market, for example, could be a
catalyst for a cleaner auto industry. Likewise, even a small move by the United States toward improved energy
efficiency in the American power sector could set off a revolution that would utterly remake global energy politics.
Undoubtedly, with its unrivaled economic muscle and technological capabilities, the United States could anchor
any international initiative to reduce CO2 emissions, while using its vast political and diplomatic influence to help
ensure that other nations stuck to their reduction goals.
US action causes a domino effect

It is important to note that the impact of an American bridging strategy would go well beyond the U.S. energy
economy. Because the United States is so large a market for world energy products, a U.S. energy revolution
would function as a catalyst in the transformation of the global energy economy, initiating a “domino effect” in
energy that could ultimately change everything from emissions and energy use in the developing world to our oil-
dominated geopolitical order.
MSDI 2008 26
US Action Jumpstarts Political Will

A US energy policy would force producers to change and would give us the political clout to
succeed where Kyoto failed
Politically, a new U.S. energy policy would send a powerful message to the rest of the players in the global energy
economy. Just as a carbon tax would signal the markets that a new competition had begun, so a progressive,
aggressive American energy policy would give a warning to international businesses, many of which now regard
the United States as a lucrative dumping ground for older high-carbon technology. It would signal energy
producers companies and states that they would need to start making investments for a new energy business,
— —
with differing demands and product requirements. Above all, a progressive energy policy would not only show
trade partners in Japan and Europe that the United States is serious about climate but would give the United States
the leverage it needs to force much-needed changes in the Kyoto treaty. With a carbon program and a serious
commitment to improve efficiency and develop clean-energy technologies, says one U.S. climate expert, “the
United States could really shape a global climate policy. We could basically say to Europe, ‘Here is an American
answer to climate that is far better than Kyoto. Here are the practical steps we’re going to take to reduce emissions,
far more effectively than your cockamamie Kyoto protocol.”’
MSDI 2008 27
A2: China Alternative Causality

US action increases pressure on China to address climate issues
Similarly, the United States would finally have the moral credibility to win promises of cooperation from India and
China. As James MacKenzie, the former White House energy analyst who now works on climate issues for the
Washington-based World Resources Institute, told me, Chinese climate researchers and policymakers know
precisely what China must do to begin to deal with emissions but have thus far been able to use U.S. intran sigence
as an excuse for their own inaction. “Whenever you bring up the question of what the Chinese should be doing
about climate, they just smile. They ask, ‘Why should we in China listen to the United States and take all these
steps to protect the climate, when the United States won’t take the same steps itself?”
Western support causes a Chinese energy transition

With a nudge from the United States, argues Chris Flavin, the renewables optimist at World Watch Institute, China
could move away from its “destiny” as a dirty coal energy economy. Indeed, given China’s urgent air quality
problems, a growing middle class that will demand environmental quality, and a strategic desire to become a high-
tech economy, Flavin says, Beijing is essentially already under great domestic pressure to look beyond coal and is
already turning toward alternatives — gas, which is in short supply, but also renewables, especially wind, a
resource China has in abundance. Once China’s growing expertise in technology and manufacturing and its cheap
labor costs are factored in, Flavin says, it has the basis for a large-scale wind industry — something the right push
from the West could set in motion. “As China moves forward,” asks Flavin, “is it really likely to do something that
no other country has ever done: run a modern, hightech, postindustrial economy on a hundred-year-old energy
source?” Flavin, for one, thinks not. During a visit two years ago to lobby reluctant Chinese government officials
to invest in renewable energy, Flavin was pleasantly surprised to find in his hotel parking lot a truck owned by
NEG Micon, a Danish company that is one of the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturers. Flavin was elated:
“At least one leading renewable-energy company, located halfway around the world, is confident enough of its
business prospects in China that it now has its own vehicles in Beijing.”
MSDI 2008 28
US Key
International climate change solutions are useless without the US
The more the United States resists a coherent climate policy, the more it becomes clear that the one country that
could make the biggest difference —in reducing emissions but also, and perhaps more important, in using its
wealth and technology to lead the way to a postcarbon energy order — has become the biggest obstacle to any
meaningful progress. Europeans have grown tired of waiting for Washington to join in and have begun imple-
menting Kyoto without the United States. Countries like Germany and England have carbon budgets and are
implementing carbon “caps,” or limits for various industrial sectors, such as utilities and manufacturers. Yet
everyone understands that the programs are of limited value without U.S. participation. America is not only the
biggest CO2 emitter but probably is the only party capable of bankrolling the programs — or persuading China
and India, or holdouts like Russia, to join the process.
MSDI 2008 29
***Affirmative Answers***
MSDI 2008 30
MSDI 2008 31
***Oil Generics***
MSDI 2008 32
No Internal: Price Volatility

You will not be able to win a threshold to your internal link- Oil prices are so high right
now that even the price drop of 30 dollars/barrel will just bring oil prices to the level your
link cards are saying oil prices are.
High oil prices mean daily volatility is over 2 dollars/barrel

Daily Estimate 11/13/2007 “Goldman says oil market seeking new equilibrium”,
http://www.dailyestimate.com/article.asp?id=12123
Oil prices have traded range bound around $95/bbl in the past two weeks with a few short-lived attempts to rise to
the $100/bbl mark and to fall below $90/bbl. Despite the limited change in levels, price volatility has been
extremely high with average daily price moves of over $2.00/bbl, resulting from the combination of a mixed
fundamental picture, high seasonal volatility and some “negative gamma” effects. Long-dated oil prices have
increased considerably in recent weeks driving the rally in spot prices. The move in long-dated oil suggests the
market has once again focused its attention on escalating costs and the need to expand investment in the oil
industry. The potential for long-dated oil prices to remain at current levels or higher, as further cost inflation gets
priced in, presents upside risk to our current forecast. As a consequence, daily volatility has been at its some of its
highest levels in the past few years and the intra-day volatility has been considerable.
MSDI 2008 33
Oil 2ac
Oil producers will keep prices high regardless—increased supply won’t depress prices
Seeking Alpha 12-30-2007, (Jim Kingsdale), http://seekingalpha.com/article/58567-what-the-fundamentals-say-
about-future-oil-prices
All this looks right on paper and it may well happen, but I wouldn’t bet on it. I would bet that if prices do fall
sometime soon, maybe after the peak winter demand season, exporters will cut back fairly quickly to try to keep
the price above $80 or so. Further, when prices eventually begin to rise again, perhaps in the Spring or Fall of
2008, exporters will then be slow to raise production, having just experienced lower prices. So I think a possible
reduction in the oil price next year would be shallow and would likely be followed by a counter trend leg up that
will probably bring the price well above $100. My thesis is based in part on the hoarding mindset that now
dominates the oil market and is hardly ever discussed. Exporters (read OPEC, particularly KSA, UAE, Kuwait,
and Venezuela) are now addicted to high and rising oil prices. Their ever increasing cash flows from oil have led to
their making huge future capital commitments; they are not willing to see falling oil prices endanger those
commitments. They also know that due to tight global supplies relatively minor production cuts are sufficient to
raise prices. Finally they now believe that oil in the out years will only get more expensive. Thus near term
production cuts will also be rewarded because the oil not sold now can be sold later for more money. In summary,
exporters today have their hands on a hair-trigger for raising the oil price and they will not hesitate to pull it if the
price falls much below $85. I summarize this series of attitudes on the part of oil exporters as the “hoarding
mindset.” Meanwhile global oil production is now at an historically high level but still does not seem to be able to
satisfy demand. The Saudis and the Iraqis have both managed to increase production by roughly 500,000 b/d
helping to cause the 85 mb/d global production plateau that has existed for nearly two years to be eclipsed during
the past few months; production now seems to be running in excess of 87 mb/d as shown in this chart: Yet the
price of oil refuses to sink. Each time oil goes into the high $80s it seems to bounce right back in the face of tight
inventories. U.S. crude oil inventories keep sinking – they are now the lowest in nearly three years. This is a chart
that indicates the tightness of U.S. oil supplies measured in days of inventory:
Prices Won’t Fall:
(A) Peak Oil

Financial Times. "Peak No Evil" 3 Jan. 2008. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/1/7e1b5d1e-b99e-11dc-bb66-
0000779fd2ac.html
As millenarian prophecies go, "the peak is nigh" does not pack the same doom-laden punch as a promised "end". Except, that is, in oil
circles. Oil resources are finite. "Peak oil" theorists posit that about half of all the world's crude has been used and that
output will soon peak prior to an irreversible decline. Such thinking has helped propel crude to the $100 per barrel
level it touched yesterday. Conventional oil fields are like champagne bottles: once "opened", pressure forces out some of the contents.
Eventually field pressure drops and, barring using such techniques as re-injecting gas, output inevitably declines. Back in the 1950s,
Marion King Hubbert, a US geoscientist, correctly forecast - to within a few years - when output in the US's lower 48
states would peak (it was 1970). The "Hubbert curve" is a totem of peak oil theorists.
MSDI 2008 34
Oil 2ac
(B) Global Demand
Jad Mouawad. "Rising Demand For Oil Provokes New Energy Crisis." The New York TImes. 9 Nov. 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/business/worldbusiness/09oil.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
This is the world’s first demand-led energy shock,” said Lawrence Goldstein, an economist at the Energy Policy Research Foundation of Washington. Forecasts of
future oil prices range widely. Some analysts see them falling next year to $75, or even lower, while a few project $120 oil. Virtually no one foresees a return to the $20
oil of a decade ago, meaning consumers should brace for an era of significantly higher fuel costs. At the root of the stunning rise in
the price of oil, up 56 percent this year and 365 percent in a decade, is a positive development: an unprecedented boom in the world economy. Demand from
China and India alone is expected to double in the next two decades as their economies continue to expand, with people there buying more cars and moving to cities to seek a way of life long taken for granted in the West. But as
prices rise, the global economy is entering uncharted territory. The increase so far does not appear to be hurting economic growth, but many economists wonder how long that will last. “These prices are too high and will end up
hurting everybody, producers and consumers alike,” said Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency. Oil futures closed at $95.46 on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday, down nearly 1 percent from the
day before. But the price has become volatile, and many analysts expect the psychologically important $100-a-barrel threshold to be breached sometime in the next few weeks. “Today’s markets feel like the crowds standing up in the
final minutes of a football game shouting: ‘Go! Go! Go!,’” said Daniel Yergin, an oil historian and the chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm. “People seem almost more relaxed about $100 than they
were about $60 or $70 oil.” Oil is not far from its historic inflation-adjusted high, reached in April 1980 in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution. At the time, oil jumped to the equivalent of $101.70 a barrel in today’s
money. For most of the 20th century, as it transformed the modern world, oil was cheap and abundant. Throughout the 1990s oil prices averaged $20 a barrel.
, for example,
Even at today’s highs, oil is cheaper than imported bottled water, which would cost $180 a barrel, or milk, at $150 a barrel. “The concern today is over how will the energy sector meet the anticipated growth in demand over the longer
“Energy demand is increasing at a rate we’ve not seen before. On the

term,” said Linda Z. Cook, a board member of Royal Dutch Shell, the big oil company.
supply side, we’re seeing it is struggling to keep up. That’s the energy challenge.” More than any other country, China represents the scope of that
challenge. As it turned into a global economic behemoth over the last decade, China also became a major energy user. Its economy has grown at a furious pace of about 10 percent a year since the 1990s, lifting nearly 300 million
people out of poverty. But rapid industrialization has come at a price: oil demand has more than tripled since 1980, turning a country that was once self-sufficient into a net oil importer.
India and China are home to about a third of humanity. People there are demanding access to electricity, cars, and consumer goods and can increasingly afford to compete with the West for access to resources. In doing so, the two
Asian giants are profoundly transforming the world’s energy balance. Today, China consumes only a third as much oil as the United States, which burns a quarter of the world’s oil each day. By 2030, India and China together will
While demand is growing fastest abroad, Americans’ appetite for big cars and large
import as much oil as the United States and Japan do today.
houses has pushed up oil demand steadily in this country, too. Europe has managed to rein in oil consumption through a combination of high gasoline taxes, small cars and
efficient public transportation, but Americans have not. Oil consumption in the United States, where gasoline is far cheaper than in Europe, has jumped to 21 million barrels a day this year, from about 17 million barrels in the early
1990s. If the Chinese and Indians consumed as much oil for each person as Americans do, the world’s oil consumption would be more than 200 million barrels a day, instead of the 85 million barrels it is today. No expert regards that
global demand is expected to rise to about 115 million barrels a day by 2030, a level that
level of production as conceivable. More realistically,
is likely to tax the world’s ability to pump more oil out of the ground. Already, the world is running on a limited cushion
of spare capacity; any interruption in supplies, whether from hurricanes or armed conflict, causes prices to spike.
“We don’t have any shock absorbers,” Mr. Goldstein said. For oil companies, high prices have set off a frenzied search for new sources around the world. After a long lull in investments through
most of the 1990s because of low prices, major oil companies have invested billions of dollars to bring in more supplies. The trouble is that these big new developments take a long time, and companies have been hobbled by higher
costs. The cost of drilling rigs, for example, the basic tool of the trade, has doubled in recent years. Analysts say it will take time, but new supplies will eventually work their way to market. Supplies have also been hampered by
political tension in the Persian Gulf, the war in Iraq, devastating hurricanes in the oil-producing Gulf of Mexico, production difficulties in Venezuela and violence in Nigeria’s oil-rich province. Many of these geopolitical factors have
Recently, in just nine weeks, oil jumped from $75 to $95 a barrel for little
contributed to a political risk premium variously estimated at $25 to $50 a barrel.
apparent reason. “Fifty-dollar-a-barrel oil seems so far away at this point,” said Thomas Bentz, a senior energy analyst at BNP Paribas in New York, citing a
figure that seemed an impossibly high price for oil only a few years ago. “Oil will stop rising when we see demand destruction. We haven’t seen that
yet.”
(C) Commodity Exchange

Marti Ouimette."Repeat After Me: Oil Price Rises are not a tax increase." Essay and Effluvia. 24 Oct. 2003.
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/2003/10/repeat_after_me.html
Of course oil prices are fixed and manipulated. But not by OPEC. In the mid-eighties oil prices began to be determined
by the commodities Exchanges. There are a couple around the world but the most important one is in the US, the
Nynex Commodities Exchange. The Nynex unregulated commodities exchange is the force that determines oil prices. By hook or by
crook, I might add, because it is an unregulated exchange. Thoughts of Enron and those futures traders saying "burn baby burn" comes
to mind. Does it ring a bell to anyone? Of course oil prices are manipulated just like the stock exchanges were before the 1929 market crash.
Even the stock exchanges continue to be manipulated to a degree. Changes in the price of oil work this way, investors (I prefer to call many onf
them manipulators) buying oil futures contracts make the price of oil go up and selling oil futures contracts make the price go down. (Since the
exchange is unregulated it is a perfect place to laundry money.)Pretty simple, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out.The
way oil companies fix/manipulate oil prices is that they ban together as a group and excessively buy oil futures
contracts. This makes oil price futures go up and as a result, the higher oil prices are used as an excuse to raise
prices at the pump or home heating oil levels. How convenient.
(D) OPEC
David Francis. "If Saudis Pump More Oil, Will Gasoline Prices Fall?" The Christain Science Monitor. 3 Jun.
2004. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0603/p17s01-wogi.html
Why? Because governments crave stability in energy prices. And OPEC has become a welcome though imperfect
regulator of world oil prices. By turning the spigot on and off, the cartel tries to manipulate prices. For example: In
1986 George H. W. Bush, then vice president, asked Saudi Arabia to raise the price of oil, according to Yamani. At the
time, low prices were devastating oil-producing areas in the US, such as Texas. Even in the oil business, few want a
truly free market. They prefer price stability, rather than the volatile prices associated with unmanaged output of a commodity. Major
OPEC producers don't want a price so high it encourages non-OPEC production and real conservation.
MSDI 2008 35
Oil 2ac
(E) China
CNN. "China Factor Driving Oil Prices." 24 May 2004.
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/05/24/china.oil.demand/index.html
Surging Chinese demand is underpinning the recent spike in the price of oil, figures from the International Energy
Agency (IEA) show. This "China factor" has more bearing on oil prices than the "risk factor" coming from global
tensions, some experts say. While speculative buying on heightened tension in the Middle East is seen as the reason oil
futures touched a 21-year high of $41.85 a barrel in New York earlier this month, oil experts insist the price rises are
driven primarily by demand growth -- about half of which is coming from China. An energy exporter until just a
few years ago, China is now the world's fastest growing major importer of oil.
MSDI 2008 36
Extend: Peak Oil

Peak Oil is driving up prices
Pepe Escobar. "Oil's Slippery Slope." The Asia Times. 24, Aug. 2004.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/FH24Dj01.html
According to HSBC, oil is now 136% - and counting - more expensive than before September 11, 2001. The United States -
with 5% of the world's population - gobbles up no less than 26% of the world's oil production. The world currently consumes 81.2 million
barrels of oil a day (1 barrel = 159 liters), according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the energy forum for 26 industrialized consumer
nations. But the really alarming figure is 84 million barrels of oil a day: according to the IEA, this will be the global demand by 2005. A few
months ago, the same IEA was saying that demand in 2005 would be of only 82.6 million barrels a day. And more than a year ago, the IEA said
we would reach 84 million barrels a day only by 2007 or 2008. This is leading analysts in Dubai to predict that demand - on a very optimistic
scenario - will reach 120 million barrels a day in 2020. Additionally, this should mean that if demand continues to grow at the
current frenetic level, all proven oil reserves in the world - at the best-estimate level - will be extinguished by 2054.
Way before that happens, of course, we will reach what experts define as "peak oil". The oil-supply bell curve
inexorably will be going down - with no return in sight - while the price curve will be going up, toward $100 a barrel and
beyond. Colin Campbell makes no bones about it: for him, peak oil is already here, or around the corner in 2005. For years, Campbell - a PhD
in geology at Oxford University in England and former chief executive for BP, Texaco, Amoco and Fina - has been a lonely voice contradicting
the supremely powerful oil lobby, according to whom high technology and the invisible hand of the market must guarantee discovery and
exploitation of reserves virtually forever. Already in 2000, Campbell was charging that "oil giants are fooling the planet" and that
everybody was myopic - especially producing countries. He was saying that "we only find a new barrel of oil for each four we produce". He is
sure that the world has already consumed half of its proven oil reserves, and he is sure that the Middle East will again
manipulate oil prices. It turns out that Campbell might have been wrong by a margin of only a few months: he was betting on a new oil shock
by 2005, "when production will start to fall and reserves will begin to dwindle at a rate of 3% a year".
The oil peak has hit.

Robert Bolman. (Founding Director of the Maitreya EcoVillage in Eugene). "Peak Oil Is Here." The Register
Guard. 2 Jan. 2008.
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=43204&sid=5&fid=1
With oil nearing $100 a barrel, I’m writing to announce that the all-time peak of global petroleum production is behind
us. It happened in 2006. Once on the downhill slope of the oil production bell curve, supplies will decline about 3
percent annually. Sustainability analyst Lester Brown released an update recently that ran through the figures:
“After climbing from 82.9 million barrels per day in 2004 to 84.15 million barrels per day in 2005, output only increased to 84.8 million barrels
per day in 2006 and then declined to 84.62 million barrels per day during the first 10 months of 2007.” Unless some new production
comes online soon, the numbers indicate that the peak indeed occurred in 2006. If 2008 sees 84.2 million barrels
per day in oil production and 2009 sees 83.5 million barrels, the peak oil bell curve will be well established. Much
of modern industrialized civilization has been built upon cheap, abundant oil. The food we eat, the products we buy and our
transportation are all heavily dependent on oil. The ramifications of a 3 percent annual decline in production are staggering.
MSDI 2008 37
Extend: Global Demand

Prices won’t fall unless demand does.
Supplies have also been hampered by political tension in the Persian Gulf, the war in Iraq, devastating hurricanes
in the oil-producing Gulf of Mexico, production difficulties in Venezuela and violence in Nigeria’s oil-rich
province. Many of these geopolitical factors have contributed to a political risk premium variously estimated at
$25 to $50 a barrel. Recently, in just nine weeks, oil jumped from $75 to $95 a barrel for little apparent
reason.“Fifty-dollar-a-barrel oil seems so far away at this point,” said Thomas Bentz, a senior energy analyst at
BNP Paribas in New York, citing a figure that seemed an impossibly high price for oil only a few years ago. “Oil
will stop rising when we see demand destruction. We haven’t seen that yet.”
MSDI 2008 38
Extend: Commodity Exchange

Oil traders will ensure that the price of oil does not fall.
Coyote Blog. "Wither Supply and Demand, In Favor of the Oil Trading Cabal?" Dispatches from a small
business. June 2007. http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2007/06/wither_supply_a.html
Oil prices are set at the whim of oil traders in London and New York, who are controlled by US oil companies.
The natural price of oil today should be $30 or $40, but oil traders keep it up at $60. While players upstream and
downstream may have limited market shares, these traders act as a choke point that controls the whole market. All
commodity markets are manipulated, or at least manipulatable, in this manner Oil supply and demand is nearly
perfectly inelastic. If there really was a supply and demand reason for oil prices to shoot up to $60, then why
aren't we seeing any shortages? Oil prices only rise when Texas Republicans are in office. They will fall back to $30 as soon as there
is a Democratic president. On the day oil executives were called to testify in front of the Democratic Congress recently,
oil prices fell from $60 to $45 on that day, and then went right back up.
MSDI 2008 39
Extend: OPEC
OPEC will keep consumer stocks tight no matter what – this prevents price collapse.
Antoine Halff. (Principal Analyst for the Oil Industry and Market Division of the International Energy
Agency)"Instability in the Gulf and the Threat to Oil Stability." Jerusalem Issue Brief. Institute for Contemporary
Affairs. Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. 20 Oct. 2004. http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief004-6.htm
However, while Middle East producers may have buried the oil hatchet in a political sense, it is clear that OPEC, led
by Saudi Arabia, has embarked on an oil policy designed to maximize export revenues by keeping consumer stocks as
tight as possible, thereby fostering price volatility and global oil market instability. Although Gulf regimes may
have renounced using oil as a political weapon, in an economic sense, Gulf oil policy may have become a greater
source of market instability than in the past.
OPEC policy will keep prices high.

Antoine Halff. (Principal Analyst for the Oil Industry and Market Division of the International Energy Agency)
"Instability in the Gulf and the Threat to Oil Stability." Jerusalem Issue Brief. Institute for Contemporary Affairs.
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. 20 Oct. 2004. http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief004-6.htm
OPEC policy alone cannot be blamed for single-handedly causing the current high prices, but it is a key contributing factor. Oil
prices have recently hit highs that we hadn't seen since the first Iraq war. Much of the increase reflects surging demand from
China and elsewhere, combined with endemic infrastructure capacity constraints and persistent fears of supply
disruptions. But those factors would not have caused prices to surge if OPEC policy had not helped deplete the
market's safety cushion - just as OPEC's price ambitions would not have been met without those external
developments.
MSDI 2008 40
Extend: China
Chinese and Indian demand will continue to drive up global oil prices.
With oil prices approaching the symbolic threshold of $100 a barrel, the world is headed toward its third energy
shock in a generation. But today’s surge is fundamentally different from the previous oil crises, with broad and longer-lasting global
implications. Skip to next paragraph Enlarge This Image Hiroke Masuike for The New York Times Traders at the New York Mercantile
Exchange Thursday, where the price for a barrel of crude oil settled at $95.46. Related Times Topics: Oil and Gasoline Just as in the
energy crises of the 1970s and ’80s, today’s high prices are causing anxiety and pain for consumers, and igniting
wider fears about the impact on the economy. Unlike past oil shocks, which were caused by sudden interruptions in
exports from the Middle East, this time prices have been rising steadily as demand for gasoline grows in developed
countries, as hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians climb out of poverty and as other developing economies
grow at a sizzling pace. “This is the world’s first demand-led energy shock,” said Lawrence Goldstein, an
economist at the Energy Policy Research Foundation of Washington. Forecasts of future oil prices range widely.
Some analysts see them falling next year to $75, or even lower, while a few project $120 oil. Virtually no one foresees a return to the $20
oil of a decade ago, meaning consumers should brace for an era of significantly higher fuel costs. At the root of the stunning rise in
the price of oil, up 56 percent this year and 365 percent in a decade, is a positive development: an unprecedented boom
in the world economy. Demand from China and India alone is expected to double in the next two decades as their
economies continue to expand, with people there buying more cars and moving to cities to seek a way of life long
taken for granted in the West.
Chinese Demand is driving oil prices.

More than any other country, China represents the scope of that challenge. As it turned into a global economic
behemoth over the last decade, China also became a major energy user. Its economy has grown at a furious pace of
about 10 percent a year since the 1990s, lifting nearly 300 million people out of poverty. But rapid
industrialization has come at a price: oil demand has more than tripled since 1980, turning a country that was once
self-sufficient into a net oil importer. India and China are home to about a third of humanity. People there are
demanding access to electricity, cars, and consumer goods and can increasingly afford to compete with the West
for access to resources. In doing so, the two Asian giants are profoundly transforming the world’s energy balance.
Today, China consumes only a third as much oil as the United States, which burns a quarter of the world’s oil each
day. By 2030, India and China together will import as much oil as the United States and Japan do today.
MSDI 2008 41
High Prices Inevitable – Terrorism

Terrorists will attack oil infrastructure which makes high oil prices inevitable.
Gal Luft. "Ending America's Dependence on Middle East Oil." Middle East Forum. 27 Oct. 2004
http://www.meforum.org/article/653
The steeply rising demand for oil today means that the disruption of petroleum production causes oil prices to rise.
America's Islamist foes are aware of this reality and view it as America' Achilles' heel. According to an al-Qaeda spokesman, the s
October 2002 attack on a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen was a victory against the "Crusader nations." After
the terrorist attack against oil employees in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, al-Qaeda leaders bragged that the consequent rise in oil prices caused
Americans to suffer.
Threat of terrorist attack on pipelines keeps prices up.

Gal Luft. "The World Oil Crisis: Implications for Global Security and the Midle East." 16 Oct. 2005.
http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief005-7.htm
This environment of very strong demand and very little spare capacity offers a huge opportunity to the radical
jihadists. The terrorists believe that the best way to hurt the global Western economy is to go after its oil, to blow up
pipelines, refineries, pumping stations, tankers, and take them off the market. They realize that when they blow up a pipeline in
Iraq or in Sudan or anywhere in the world, this translates immediately into a price rise in all the markets. It is much
easier for terrorists to blow up an oil facility or take out a tanker somewhere in the world than to infiltrate into the United States and blow up
the World Trade Center.
MSDI 2008 42
***Russian Oil***
MSDI 2008 43
Russia 2ac
1.) Russian Growth Effects a small few- Every sector other the oil is doing miserably
MSNBC News 9/20/2004 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6056060/
Russia has huge reserves, and exports 6 million barrels a day, second only to Saudi Arabia. But many observers question what
strength the country has beyond natural resources. “The agricultural sector is in bad shape, the industrial sector is
in a bad shape, with the exception of two major cities — Moscow and St. Petersburg — much of the country is still in a mess,”
said Zbigniew Brzezinski of CSIS. In fact, nothing defines Russia now better than the gulf between the haves and the have-
nots. “If you travel 20 miles outside Moscow — with all the Moscow fancy cars an boutiques and all this stuff —
you'll find people are living in the houses without running water, without gas and with problems with the
electricity” said Belyaninov. Not surprisingly, some long for the stability of a Soviet past.
2.) Their David evidence is empirically denied: The Russian economy went through half a
decade of drudgery with no impact
3.) Putin is failing on reforms now- his authoritarianism is preventing effective rule
Russian Independent Internet Digest 9/21/2004 http://putinru.com/news/item/30311.html
But theworrying signs don't stop there. Since Putin's reelection in March, hardly anything has been done to push
promised liberal economic reforms, such as measures to help small businesses by cutting back on red tape. Such moves are
badly needed to diversify and strengthen the Russian economy. "The reforms haven't happened, and there's no
evidence they're about to happen," says Chris Weafer, head of research at Russia's Alfa Bank. To promote liberalizing reforms,
Putin would need the support of private business lobbies to push back against the bureaucrats. But following the attack
on Yukos, business is cowed and its political influence weakened, argues Carnegie's Aslund. He says Putin is becoming ever more dependent
on the security services and their allies at the large state companies and banks.
4.) Russia’s economy has diversified: no impact

Journal of Commerce 4/26/2004
Although Russia's remoteness from the U.S. - and its proximity to the huge European market - limits its potential as an economic partner,
Russian companies in such sectors as information technology, telecommunications and aerospace are becoming
competitive, Marshall said. Even Russia's agriculture sector is becoming viable. Last year, Russia became a net exporter of
grain, which is "mind-boggling" to Marshall, who remembers the ineptitude of the Soviet era. "Yes, they are still heavily dependent
on energy, but not completely. Sure, the foreign reserves of $85 billion - because of high energy prices - has helped. But it's not just
that."
5.) Low prices prevent ruble appreciation making russian producers more successful
Michael Leylved 2000 http://www.zeromillion.com/econ/lower-prices.html
Also speaking on 29 January, President Vladimir Putin's economic adviser Andrei Illarionov
defied the conventional wisdom that
Russia's continued recovery depends on keeping oil prices high. Instead, Illarionov argued that low oil prices
would now benefit the economy more, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported. Although oil revenues have helped Russia
to pump up its revenues and Central Bank reserves, they have also strengthened the ruble in real terms, posing a
risk for Russian manufacturers and exports. The argument may be hard for Russian consumers to understand, but it is likely to have
a profound effect on their economy this year. While reports have focused on the ruble's falling value in exchange with the
dollar since the start of last year, it has actually risen in comparative value when inflation is taken into account.
6.) Russian economic trouble is inevitable because of EU expansion

Journal of Commerce 4/26/2004
The darkest cloud on Russia's economic horizon is the European Union's expansion on May 1, when 10 Eastern European
countries will join the bloc. These 10 former allies of the Soviet Union will be bound by EU rules that currently restrict
the entry of some Russian-made products. "The EU's eastward expansion is quite bad for Russia" in the short term,
Aslund said. Currently, 35 percent of Russia's exports go to the EU - the same percentage as in 1989. Another 15 percent of Russia's exports are
destined for the 10 new EU member-states. The EU's expansion means that Russian steel and chemicals exports to the new
EU members will be blocked, Aslund said. Still, the EU's expansion also could benefit Russia over the long term as manufacturing
costs rise in those Eastern European countries (See article, Page 20).
MSDI 2008 44
Russia 2ac
7.) Turn- lowering prices key to Russian economy- its the only way to solve inflation
St. Petersberg Times 10/23/2001
THE world's biggest problem at the moment is terrorism, and Russia's is falling oil prices. At least this is the impression one gets from reading
the Russian and international press. Russian media and politicians continue to fret about the impact of a global slowdown on oil prices. Worse,
even financial markets have started to worry and the RTS has recently been falling in parallel with the oil price,
mainly amid worries about Russia's ability to meet future debt repayments. This does not reflect much
consideration of the longer term. While high world energy prices such as were experienced in 2000 may be good
for Russian oil majors and natural-gas monopoly Gazprom, in the longer term they are clearly bad for the rest of
Russia. The explanation is simple. At prices around $26 for a barrel of Urals blend, Russia ran a current-account surplus
of around $46 billion (roughly 18 percent of GDP) in 2000. Such an imbalance is huge by any standards and either
induces a rapidly appreciating real exchange rate or forces the Central Bank to print money on a large scale to buy
up the incoming dollars. The former is poison for Russia's recovering industry and the latter leads to sizeable inflation. Choosing
between these two evils, the Central Bank has so far rightly chosen a small dose of the former, and a good dose of the latter. It will, however,
not be able to maintain this course indefinitely without creating a major inflation problem. Hence, lower oil prices would be a great boon for
the Russian economy.
MSDI 2008 45
A2: Russian Economy

The Russian economy is resilient.
Harry Cohen. "THe Russian Economy Under President Putin." NATO Parliamentary Assembly." 5 Nov. 2004.
http://www.nato-pa.int/default.asp?SHORTCUT=361
Despite these serious problems, Russia is now better placed than it ever has been to deepen its economic
development by embracing the global market economy from which it had long excluded itself. President Putin is
evidently set on making the Russian economy more resilient and growth more sustainable. He is doing this not
simply to placate the international lending community but also to restore Russia's place in the global order. A key
question, though, is whether growth will improve the material conditions of enough Russian people to give them a
solid sense of ownership in the transition process and the many tough decisions that still need to be made to
advance this process.
The Russian economy is resilient.

Bruce Stokes. "Don't Ignore the Russian Bear." Council on Foreign Relations. 2008.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/3225/dont_ignore_the_russian_bear.html
A little less than a year ago, August 17 to be precise, the post-Cold War Russian economic experiment imploded. The ruble
collapsed and debt payments to foreigners were frozen. Wall Street lost billions of dollars. Long Term Capital Management, one of the world's
biggest hedge funds, had to be taken over by its bankers. Once burned, international investors yanked their capital out of all emerging markets
— from Latin America to East Asia— causing world interest rates to spike. The global economy teetered on the edge of
depression. But, much to the surprise of most economic pundits, international markets quickly righted
themselves. The Russian economy proved far more resilient than anticipated. And, in retrospect, the events of August,
1998 were little more than a very large bump in the road. The lessons of this "crisis that wasn't" are now clear: Russia is not
too big to fail (the volume of its debts do not dictate special treatment by its creditors); the financial world can cope with such
failure; and the Russian economy can bounce back without much overt help from the West. But the impending $4.5
billion loan to Russia by the International Monetary Fund— reflecting Washington's gratitude for Moscow's help in Kosovo, continued fear of
Russian nuclear proliferation and concern about Russia's internal political stability— demonstrates that Russia still remains too
important for the world to ignore. This contradiction— not too big to fail, but still too big to flounder— highlights the friction
inherent when economic policy is used to further geo-political goals. Up until a year ago, the Clinton Administration argued that aid to Russia
was needed, in part, to avoid global economic collapse. August, 1998 exposed that rationale as a charade. Now American support for assistance
to Russia can only be justified for two reasons: to reinforce Russia's transition to a market economy or as ransom in Moscow's continued
strategic blackmail of the West. Evidence to justify the former is dubious. Its time to own up to the latter. Last summer's fleeting economic
fright reflected Russia's staggering economic collapse. The ruble fell by more than 70 per cent in a couple of weeks. The
economy shrank by 4.3 per cent. Real wages fell 41 per cent. But the crisis was cathartic. "The shock accomplished what
reform was intended to achieve," said Anders Aslund, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in
Washington. The banking system now functions better. Barter is declining. Most important, there has been no reversion to
central planning, government-directed lending, industrial subsidies or government reliance on simply printing money.
MSDI 2008 46
A2: Russian Oil Price DA: Defense

Russia can weather a price decline as long as prices are above $25 a barrel
A number of Russian observers believe that their oil industry can weather such a price war. This is easy to say with
prices above $25 per barrel. Should prices fall precipitously say, to below $15 per barrel, Russia will be faced with
both plummeting revenues and declining investment. Moscow will be sorely tempted to cooperate on production
levels with Riyadh, as it did in 1999-2000, in order to raise prices. Whether this is the reason that Moscow and
Riyadh recently signed an agreement to cooperative on oil price stability is an open question.
Russian state budget is calculated assuming oil prices at 23 dollars per barrel
Lutz Kleveman, free-lance journalist (has worked for CNN, Daily Telegraph, Newsweek) and book author, 2003,
The New Great Game, pg. 262-3
Oil interests also partly accounted for the antiwar positions of France, China, and particularly Russia. Energy
companies from all three countries had concluded with the Hussein regime a number of multibillion-dollar oil
contracts, which they feared a new Iraqi government indebted to Washington would declare null and void, only to
offer them to U.S. companies. More strategically, the Russian government abhorred the thought that a “liberated”
Iraq would flood the world market with cheap oil, reducing the market share for Siberian oil. The Russian state
budget, which is financed almost entirely through oil and gas export revenues, has been calculated in expectation
of an oil price of twenty-three dollars per barrel. To make matters worse, high production costs in Siberia could
cause Western oil corporations (whose capital Russia tries to attract) to invest in a reopened Iraq instead. “Our
budget would collapse,” Aleksei Arbatov, deputy chairman of the Duma’s defense committee, described the
consequences.
Russia could survive dramatically lower oil prices

Laza Kekic, director for Central and Eastern Europe at the Economist Intelligence Unit, August 06, 2004, St.
Petersburg Times
Another argument invoked to support a policy that favors the natural resources sector is the threat of a balance-of-
payments constraint. Export growth will depend on growth in energy and metals exports over the medium term.
Import growth projections depend in part, however, on assumed strong real appreciation. Second, even at much
lower oil prices, and assuming only modest export growth, it would be some years before Russia's current account
surplus disappears. And it would take even longer for any balance-of-payments crunch to occur, given reduced
external debt service and increasing levels of foreign direct investment.
Russia’s economy is self-sufficient. Only 20% of Russian businesses are connected to oil.
UPI, October 29, 2001.
Though many link the growth of Russia's economy with high oil prices in the world market, Illarionov maintains
that potential drops in oil prices will not affect Russia's performance.
"Only 20 percent of Russia's businesses are connected to the oil sector. For 80 percent of the firms that are in no
way dependent on the export of oil, better conditions will be created," said Illarionov.
MSDI 2008 47
A2: Russian oil price DA: Econ bounce back

There’s no impact to oil price drops—the Russian economy will bounce back.
The St. Petersburg Times, October 23, 2001.
Even if oil prices were to fall to historic lows and stay there for a prolonged period - something that is unlikely to
happen - a moderate depreciation of the ruble should be enough to keep the current account sufficiently in surplus.
The second concern, that lower oil prices will have a negative impact on economic growth, is equally unfounded.
The share of the Russian oil- and-gas industry in GDP is not very large in real terms. Moreover, a rapidly
appreciating exchange rate or fast-increasing inflation would have a negative impact on the whole economy. A
full-scale macroeconomic model of the Russian economy, developed for the Economic Development and Trade
Ministry, confirms that decreases in oil prices have no negative impact on real GDP growth. Third is the concern
that with lower oil prices the Russian government will be unable to collect enough revenue to meet its budget
obligations, and in particular to pay back its debt. Here, at least, there is a grain of truth. Falling oil prices decrease
government revenues from oil and gas exports, by an estimated one fourth of a percentage point of GDP per dollar.
However, as long as a fall in oil prices is not extreme, the negative impact on government revenues should not be
too large and the necessary adjustment should be easy to make. If there were a sharp drop in oil prices, the
adjustment could be painful, but - provided the political will was there - would be economically feasible.
MSDI 2008 48
A2: Russian oil price DA: Numerous Checks

Numerous checks prevent damage to Russia from low oil prices
Edward L. Morse, Executive Adviser at Hess Energy Trading Company and Deputy Asst. Sec. of State for Intl
Energy Policy (79-81), and James Richard, portfolio manager at Firebird Management, an investment fund
active in eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, March/April 2002, Foreign Affairs
The cost structure of the Russian energy industry is a significant factor in the equation. As long as costs are largely
ruble-denominated and the ruble is stable, Russian industry is protected from low oil prices, while capital
investment flows are sheltered from price volatility. For the Russian government, the situation is more complex,
but Russia is also more sheltered from low oil prices than are other exporting countries. Like OPEC exporters, it
depends on revenues from export taxes. But unlike OPEC countries, it also takes in significant revenue from
domestic sales and from taxes on huge natural gas exports to Europe. Thus the major question is whether Saudi
Arabia can afford a sustained price war to block Russian and CIS oil development. That feat might require oil at $
10 a barrel for two years or more -- a situation as frightening for Riyadh as it is for other OPEC countries.
MSDI 2008 49
Low oil prices good: Russian Economic Reform 1ar

Russia could survive a serious drop in oil prices; lower oil prices would even yield healthy
long-term growth
Erin E. Arvedlund, January 7, 2004, The New York Times Section W; Column 3; Business/Financial Desk
Oil helped Russia set an export record of $134.4 billion, up 25 percent from 2002. Energy products accounted for virtually
the entire surplus. Hydrocarbons and oil products accounted for $74 billion of that, crude oil exports $39.7 billion and natural gas $20.1
billion. Another positive factor was that less money is leaving Russia, signaling that investors have more confidence in the
economy. Despite the arrest last fall of Russia's richest man, the oil magnate Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the country's net capital flight
slowed to $2.9 billion for all of 2003, from $8.1 billion in 2002, central bank officials said on Monday. In 2001, $14.8 billion left Russia, and
$20 billion a year reportedly was sent abroad in the 1990's amid the post-Soviet economic collapse. Russia also continued building its foreign
currency and gold reserves, which totaled $77.8 billion as of Dec. 26, up from $74.5 billion the previous week, according to the latest data.
However, Oleg Vyugin, first deputy chairman of Russia's central bank, was cautious about the record high reserves, attributing the numbers to
"hot money." Analysts say only one thing could push Russia off its cloud: a plummet in oil prices. How low the prices would have to go is
debatable, but some analysts said that Russia could withstand a serious crisis as long as oil remained above $13.50,
according to one economist. Russia's economy could still grow a healthy 5.5 percent even if the price of Brent crude fell
to $23 a barrel this year, one analyst said. "That could maintain growth in 2004 and create the basis for a sustainable long-term
growth trend, without threatening public finances or risking overheating in the economy," notes Vladislav Oreshkin, an
economist with the UFG investment bank in Moscow. Russia has a budget surplus, and would still have balanced accounts even if the price of
oil fell to $21 a barrel, he added. With oil at $16 a barrel or less, Mr. Oreshkin said, "Russia may face a balance-of-payments deficit for the first
time since 1998; moreover, the ruble would probably then devalue in real terms." Only if the average Brent price collapsed, falling below
$13.50 a barrel, would Russia's economy deteriorate in 2004, he added.
Even if high oil prices help in the short term, it’s clear that low oil prices are the best long
term way to save the Russian economy.
The St. Petersburg Times, October 23, 2001
THE world's biggest problem at the moment is terrorism, and Russia's is falling oil prices. At least this is the impression one gets from reading
the Russian and international press. Russian media and politicians continue to fret about the impact of a global slowdown
on oil prices. Worse, even financial markets have started to worry and the RTS has recently been falling in parallel with the oil price, mainly
amid worries about Russia's ability to meet future debt repayments. This does not reflect much consideration of the longer term.
While high world energy prices such as were experienced in 2000 may be good for Russian oil majors and natural-gas
monopoly Gazprom, in the longer term they are clearly bad for the rest of Russia.The explanation is simple. At prices around
$26 for a barrel of Urals blend, Russia ran a current-account surplus of around $46 billion (roughly 18 percent of GDP)
in 2000. Such an imbalance is huge by any standards and either induces a rapidly appreciating real exchange rate or
forces the Central Bank to print money on a large scale to buy up the incoming dollars. The former is poison for
Russia's recovering industry and the latter leads to sizeable inflation. Choosing between these two evils, the Central Bank has
so far rightly chosen a small dose of the former, and a good dose of the latter. It will, however, not be able to maintain this course indefinitely
without creating a major inflation problem. Hence, lower oil prices would be a great boon for the Russian economy.
MSDI 2008 50
High oil prices bad: Hurt Russian Economy

Sustained high oil prices would turn Russia into a petro-state, rife with poverty, corruption,
and an inevitably collapsing economy
Moises Naim (Editor) Jan/Feb 2004 Foreign Policy
Russia's future will be defined as much by the geology of its subsoil as by the ideology of its leaders. Unfortunately,
whereas policymakers can choose their ideology, they don't have much leeway when it comes to geology. Russia has a lot of oil, and
this inescapable geological fact will determine many of the policy choices available to its leaders. Oil and gas now
account for roughly 20 percent of Russia's economy, 55 percent of its export earnings, and 40 percent of its total
tax revenues. Russia is the world's second largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia, and its subsoil contains 33 percent of the world's gas
reserves. It already supplies 30 percent of Europe's gas needs. In the future, Russia's oil and gas industry will become even
more important, as no other sector can be as internationally competitive, grow as rapidly, or be as profitable. Thus, Russia risks
becoming, and in many respects may already be, a "petro-state." The arrest of oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky sparked a debate over
what kind of country Russia will be. In this discussion, Russia's characteristics as a petro-state deserve as much attention as its factional
struggles. Petro-states are oil-rich countries plagued by weak institutions, a poorly functioning public sector, and a
high concentration of power and wealth. Their population is chronically frustrated by the lack of proportion between their nation's oil
wealth and their widespread poverty. Nigeria and Venezucla are good examples. That Russia has lots of oil is old news. What's new is the
dramatically enhanced role that changes in Russian politics, oil technology, and energy markets have given to its
petrolcum sector. Throughout the 1990s, privatization in Russia and innovations in exploration and drilling technologies brought into
production oil fields that had hitherto been underperforming or completely off-limits. To energy companies worried about growing domestic
instability among the major oil exporters of the Middle East, Russia became an even more attractive hedge. Regardless of its political
turmoil, Russia will continue to appeal to oil companies, which know how to operate profitably in countries with weak property
rights and unstable politics. Thus, while the Khodorkovsky affair may temporarily scare away some investors, Russia's beguiling geology will
eventually attract energy companies that cannot afford to be left out of some of the world's richest oil reservoirs. But when oil revenues
flood a nation with a fragile system of democratic checks and balances, dysfunctional politics and economics
ensue, and a petro-state emerges. A strong democracy and an effective public sector explain why oil has not distorted the United States
or Norway as it has Nigeria and Venezuela. A lot of oil combined with weak public institutions produces poverty,
inequality, and corruption. It also undermines democracy. No petro-state has succeeded in converting oil into
prosperity for the majority of the population. An economy that relies mostly on oil exports inevitably ends up with
an exchange rate that makes imported goods less expensive and exports more costly. This overvalued exchange
rate makes other sectors--agriculture, manufacturing, tourism--less internationally competitive and hinders their
growth. Petro-states also have jobless, volatile economic growth. Oil generates export revenues and taxes for the state, but it creates few jobs.
Despite its economic heft, Russia's oil and gas industry employs only around 2 million workers out of a total workforce of 67 million. Also,
because the international price of oil is volatile, petro-states suffer constant and debilitating economic boombust cycles. The
busts lead to banking crises and public budget cuts that hurt the poor who critically depend on government programs. Russia
already experienced this effect in 1998 when the drop in oil prices sparked a financial crash. If oil prices fall below $20 a barrel, Russia will
surely face another bout of painful economic instability. Petro-states also suffer from a narrow tax base, with the bulk of government revenues
coming from just a few large taxpayers. In Russia, the 10 largest companies account for more than half of total tax revenues. Weak
governmental accountability is a typical side effect of this dependency, as the link between the electorate and government spending is indirect
and tenuous. The political consequences are also corrosive. Thanks to the inevitable concentration of the oil industry into a few
large firms, owners and managers acquire enormous political clout. In turn, corruption often thrives, as a handful of politicians and
government regulators make decisions that are worth millions to these companies. Nationalizing the oil industry fails to solve these problems:
State-owned oil companies quickly become relatively independent political actors that are rife with corruption, inefficiency, and politicization,
and can dominate other weak public institutions. Privatizing the industry without strong and independent regulatory and tax
agencies is also not a solution, as unbridled private monopolists can be as predatory as public ones. In petro-states, bitter fights over the
control and distribution of the nation's oil rents become the gravitational center of political life. It is no accident that the current crisis in Russia
hinges on control of the country's largest oil company and the political uses of its profits. But Russia is not Nigeria and has yet to become a
full-fledged petro-state. It is a large, complex country with a highly educated population, a relatively strong technological base, and a still
somewhat diversified economy. A strong democracy could help Russia compensate for the economic and political
weaknesses that plague all countries dominated by oil. Russia is still struggling to overcome the crippling effects of its ideological
past. Let's hope it will also be able to avoid the crippling effects of its geological present.
MSDI 2008 51
***Renewables***
MSDI 2008 52
Renewables 2ac
Security concerns drive renewable development
Gal Luft, executive director of Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, 7-5-07,
http://www.iags.org/n050707.htm
To insulate the U.S. further, President Bush seeks to double the size of the American oil reserve in the coming
years. The President also seeks to reduce America's oil dependence through increased efficiency and to shift to
alternative fuels. Applied in unison, these tactics advance the strategic goals of reducing global energy prices,
protecting the West against supply disruptions, and limiting the flow of petrodollars to Tehran. This increased
pressure on the Iranian regime could, over time, generate a much desired regime change. If Washington executes
this strategy with expediency and determination, this outcome could be achieved before Iran becomes a nuclear
power.
Renewable development is not dependent on high oil prices

Environment News Service, 6-21-07, http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2007/2007-06-21-04.asp
While the report finds that high oil prices have driven investors into the renewable energy market, UNEP
Executive Director Achim Steiner says many investors are choosing renewables regardless of oil prices. "One of
the new and fundamental messages of this report is that renewable energies are no longer subject to the vagaries of
rising and falling oil prices - they are becoming generating systems of choice for increasing numbers of power
companies, communities and countries irrespective of the costs of fossil fuels, said UNEP Executive Director
Achim Steiner, introducing the report Wednesday.
Prices will not fuel the transition.

Ian Bremmer. "Prices Transform Oil Into A Weapon." International Herald Tribune. 27 Aug. 2005.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/26/news/edbremmer.php
Second, petro-states are rethinking their assumptions about the elasticity of global demand for oil. When oil sold
for $30 a barrel, they accepted the conventional view that substantial price hikes might lower demand - and hurt
their bottom lines - as importing states actively looked for new sources of oil, energy alternatives and other ways
to cut fossile-fuel consumption. Now that oil sells for well above $60 a barrel, without (so far) a sharp drop in
demand, energy-exporting states are changing their minds. Some now believe they can push the price still further
and increase profits without a drop in demand.
MSDI 2008 53
A2: Warming
Warming is inevitable – renewable transition cant solve.
Mark Hertsgaard. "It's much too lake to sweat global warming." The San Francisco Chronicle. 13 Feb. 2005.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/02/13/INGP4B7GC91.DTL
At the core of the global warming dilemma is a fact neither side of the debate likes to talk about: It is already too late to prevent
global warming and the climate change it sets off. Environmentalists won't say this for fear of sounding alarmist or defeatist.
Politicians won't say it because then they'd have to do something about it. The world's top climate scientists have been sending
this message, however, with increasing urgency for many years. Since 1988, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, comprised of more than 2,000 scientific and technical experts from around the world, has conducted the most extensive peer-
reviewed scientific inquiry in history. In its 2001 report, the panel said that human-caused global warming had already
begun, and much sooner than expected. What's more, the problem is bound to get worse, perhaps a lot worse, before it gets better.
Last month, the climate change panel's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, upped the ante. Although Pachauri was installed after the
Bush administration forced out his predecessor, Robert Watson, for pushing too hard for action, the accumulation of evidence led Pachauri to
embrace apocalyptic language: "We are risking the ability of the human race to survive," he said. Until now, most public discussion
about global warming has focused on how to prevent it -- for example, by implementing the Kyoto Protocol, which comes into
force internationally (but without U.S. participation) on Wednesday. But prevention is no longer a sufficient option. No matter
how many "green" cars and solar panels Kyoto eventually calls into existence, the hard fact is that a certain amount
of global warming is inevitable.
Even if we stopped pumping all carbon dioxide tomorrow – we would not see change for
100 years.
Mark Hertsgaard. "It's much too lake to sweat global warming." The San Francisco Chronicle. 13 Feb. 2005.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/02/13/INGP4B7GC91.DTL
Contrary to the impression given by some news reports, global warming is not like a light switch that can be
turned off if we simply stop burning so much oil, coal and gas. There is a lag effect of about 50 to 100 years.
That's how long carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, remains in the atmosphere after it is emitted from
auto tailpipes, home furnaces and industrial smokestacks. So even if humanity stopped burning fossil fuels
tomorrow, the planet would continue warming for decades.
MSDI 2008 54
Renewbles Now Bad

Lack of knowledge prevents solvency and means we’ll have to change our policies down the
road – action now risks counterproductive policies and saps our ability to take corrective
action in the future
In short, we have a little room to breathe, which is handy, because at present we have very little sense of what the
ultimate climate solution will be. Not only are we depending on energy technologies yet to be invented, but our
understanding of climate change and its costs — and therefore our certainty about the “best” solution — will
surely continue to evolve. Whatever course of action we choose today will need to be modified, perhaps
substantially, within the decade, or even sooner. In this sense, climate policy is a kind of gamble: ten years from
now, the climate crisis will be considerably more dire, but we will also know vastly more about the severity of the
problem and our options for solving it. “These conditions pose a dilemma for policy makers~’ notes Bill
Lahneman, head of the Washington-based National Intelligence Council, which advises intelligence agencies on
energy and other U.S. security threats. “Some sort of strategy is required to combat climate change, but any
comprehensive strategy would be quite expensive to implement. What if such strategies turned out to be
inappropriate because global warming phenomena were misunderstood at the time the strategies were devised and
implemented? The world would have devoted large amounts of scarce capital [to] the wrong fixes, leaving [fewer]
resources available to combat global warming effectively once the process became better understood.” Climate
policy, says Lahneman, “must be a hedging strategy because, if the world’s nations devote too much wealth to
large-scale, multinational efforts to reverse climate change and it turns out these steps have been ineffective, then
it will be difficult to recover and begin to take the proper measures.”
MSDI 2008 55
Renewables Now bad: Not Enough Info

Long-term nature of emissions impacts makes short-term changes dangerous and
unnecessary
R. Glenn Hubbard, Chairperson Council Of Economic Advisers, July 11, 2002, Federal Document
Clearinghouse Congressional Testimony
A distinguishing characteristic of climate change is that any successful effort to address the potential risk of
climate change from most greenhouse gases will stem from cumulative efforts over decades, not just a few years.
In 2000, for example, global C02 emissions contributed to an increase in atmospheric concentrations of less than
0.5 percent, 2 a small increase compared to the 20 percent to 200 percent increase in concentrations that
researchers often propose as a possible long- term stabilization goal. As substantial changes in concentration only
result from cumulative emissions over a period of decades, the future benefits of efforts to reduce emissions will
be nearly the same whether the reductions, ton for ton, occur today or years in the future. The uncertainty
surrounding the ultimate consequences of climate change and the necessity of a long-term effort to address it
combine to suggest that severe and costly near-term measures to reduce emissions are not warranted. Instead, a
serious but measured first step is in order. A helpful analogy is posed by M.I.T. economist Richard Schmalensee
and his colleagues: If you smell smoke in your house, it would be silly to do nothing until you actually see flames,
but you also should not hose down the house after one whiff of what might be smoke.
It’s too early to have this debate—there’s no good science available

Charls E. Walker,Chairman, Mark A. Bloomfield, President, and Margo Thorning
Senior Vice President and Director of Research, “Book Introduction Climate Change Policy, Risk Prioritization, and
U.S. Economic Growth,” June 1997, http://www.accf.org/697int.htm, accessed 8/26/02
In his remarks, Senator Thomas observed that in his view, "It is too early to enter into new agreements on climate
change because we do not have good science to back up the agreements and because we do not know what impact
the agreements might have." He added that it is not fair to penalize the United States relative to other countries.
MSDI 2008 56
Now Not Key

We can wait to act on warming
William F. O’Keefe, Executive Vice President of the American Petroleum Institute, 1997 Global Warming
Opposing Viewpoints, pg. 118
To expect the citizens of this nation, or any nation, to implement actions that disrupt their economies without solid
answers to the most pressing questions ignores the limits of what is at best a forced consensus among a well-
organized and vocal minority. Especially when there will not be a serious penalty for waiting until we know more.
The U.S. Congress’s Office of Technology Assessment concludes that “initial delays of ten or 20 years in
implementing emission stabilization will have little effect on ultimate atmospheric carbon concentrations.”
Industry has often been accused of wanting to delay all action until the scientific questions are answered, but that’s
not true. The prestigious Marshall Institute recently released a report unambiguously stating that “no scientific
justification now exists for economically punishing policies aimed at global reductions in the emission of carbon
dioxide.” The report went on to state that “There is time for climatological research in coming years to provide a
firmer basis for the consideration of global strategies.” These conclusions mirror those of leading academics at in-
stitutions like MIT who have been pursuing the climate issue in a rigorous and scholarly manner. The irony is that
emerging scientific information has so far reduced the magnitude of the threat, although considerable uncertainties
remain.
MSDI 2008 57
Renewables Fail
Renewables won’t catch on – 4 reasons
(wind; solar) (fossil fuels are getting cheaper, vulnerable to price swings, politically vulnerable, skittish investors)
Other problems become more apparent when we look more closely at cost. Although wind and solar are getting
cheaper, proponents often overlook the fact that their competitors are also getting cheaper and will continue to do
so. Just as fuel cells must compete with a constantly improving internal-combustion engine, wind and solar will
have to battle with gas- and coal-fired technologies that will grow more efficient and less expensive and less
polluting by the year. Renewables are also extremely vulnerable to energy price swings: if gas prices were to come
down, for example, wind and solar power would lose much of their cost advantage. Renewables are politically
vulnerable, as well: if wind or solar were to lose their government subsidies, the current boom in new installations
would come to a screeching halt: the mere threat of such a loss has many potential investors looking elsewhere.
Renewables can’t compete

But there are other reasons for the slow rise of alternative energy —reasons that go beyond the greed and duplicity
of individuals or an entrenched system. For all their huge potential, most alternative technologies really aren’t
ready for prime time. Despite decades of (R&D)research and development — and despite recent growth rates that
rival that of computers and cell phones — nearly every major alternative technology still suffers from serious
engineering or economic drawbacks. Automotive fuel cells are still many times more expensive than even a
vintage gasoline engine, and they may require decades of work to be competitive. Solar power, even after nearly
thirty years and many billions of dollars in R & D, still costs five times as much as coal-fired power. Beyond
questions of cost, these technol ogies may still face inherent limits in the quality of the energy they produce, and
where and when they can be used, that could keep them from assuming a dominant share of the future energy mix.
Despite considerable development, renewables will not significantly contribute to energy

production
Glenn Schleede, president of Energy Market and Policy Analysis, July 16, 2002, Federal Document
Clearinghouse Congressional Testimony
Renewables. Many people like the sound of getting energy from "renewable" energy but, again, it is necessary to be realistic and look at the facts. a. Hydropower is
the only significant source of economical renewable energy. Advocates of "renewable" energy do not like hydropower despite the fact that it is the one "renewable"
energy source that is providing a significant contribution; in fact, over 7% of the nation's electricity. They favor only the non- hydro "renewables." Furthermore, the
potential for an increased contribution from hydropower is limited because few sites are available, there is opposition to expansion and the very real possibility that
the contribution from hydropower could be reduced in the future. Reductions could come from diversion of water around dams to serve other needs (e.g., fish,
recreation), breaching dams in some areas, and the slow pace of re-licensing of existing hydropower projects. b.
Non-hydro "renewables" will
provide little usable energy. The non-hydro renewables - wind, solar, geothermal, biomass (including wood and
wood wastes) and municipal solid wastes (5) are, essentially, niche technologies that are not likely to ever make a
significant contribution towards supplying US energy requirements. DOE has spent hundreds of millions in tax
dollars on renewable energy R&D during the last 20 years. The small role that non-hydro renewable energy
sources can be expected to play in supplying our energy and electricity requirements during the next 20 years is
demonstrated clearly in the two tables, based on EIA data, shown on the next page. For example, the tables show
that all non-hydro renewables combined (wind, solar, wood, wood, waste, biomass, geothermal, and municipal
solid wastes) supplied only: - 3.67% of US overall energy requirements in 2000 and may reach only a 4.57%
contribution by 2020. - 2.13% of US electricity generation in 2000 and are not expected to reach a 3% contribution
by 2020. These small but realistic forecasts by EIA take into account the enormous federal and state subsidies now
being provided some renewables such as "wind energy." Furthermore, it is important to recognize that all the
generous subsidies now being provided for "renewable" energy -- and others being contemplated such as federal
"renewable portfolio standards" -- merely shift costs from renewable energy developers to consumers and
taxpayers - and hide those costs in tax bills and monthly electric bills. Some of these technologies have negative
environmental implications that are only now being recognized, such as the significant scenic impairment cause by
windmills in some areas - even though the huge structures produce very little electricity.
MSDI 2008 58
Renewables Fail
Renewable energy sources don’t work well
Robert L. Bradley Jr., president of the Institute for Energy Research, August 27, 1997,
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-280.html
Wind power is currently the environmentalists' favorite source of renewable energy and is thought be the most
likely renewable energy source to replace fossil fuel in the generation of electricity in the 21st century.
Hydropower has lost favor with environmentalists because of the damage it has done to river habitats and
freshwater fish populations. Solar power, at least when relied on for central-station or grid electricity generation, is
not environmentally benign on a total fuel cycle basis and is highly uneconomic, land intensive, and thus a fringe
electric power source for the foreseeable future. Geothermal has turned out to be "depletable," with limited
capacity, falling output, and modest new investment. Biomass is also uneconomic and an air-pollution-intensive
renewable.
Renewable energies are expensive and ineffective

Jerry Taylor, director of natural resource studies at the Cato Institute and adjunct scholar at the Institute for Energy
Research, and Peter VanDoren, editor of Regulation magazine, Journal of International Affairs, Fall 1999, p.
226-227
To soft energy advocates, heavy corporate investment in renewable energy technologies is evidence of the
potential competitiveness of alternative fuels in the near future. But some perspective is necessary Total private-
sector investment in solar, wind and biomass in 1995, the most recent year in which data are available, was less
than 1 percent of total world energy investments. Shell’s highly-publicized plan to spend $500 million over five
years on renewable energy, for instance, is only half its budget for developing three deepwater off-shore oil rigs in
the Gulf of Mexico. Most renewable energies have similar common denominators: extremely high capital costs,
spotty power output, environmental complications, serious NIMBY opposition (the Not In My Back Yard”
phenomenon) and struggling economics. Indeed, even the most cost-effective soft energy sources are three times
more expensive on the spot market than the least-costly fossil fuels, even before adjusting for government
subsidies. Most importantly, renewable energy is competing against continuously plunging fossil fuel prices and
rapidly advancing technologies—primarily natural gas turbines—that result in electricity costs of 2 to 3 cents per
kilowatt-hour if the waste heat from the natural gas turbines is also used for heating and cooling. According to
projections by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, almost all the growth in new electricity capacity over
the next 15 years will come from natural gas turbines.
MSDI 2008 59
Renewables Fail: Dependability

Renewables fail – dependability
(solar; wind)
And these, it turns out, are the easy challenges. One of the main reasons that utilities prefer coal, gas, nuclear
power, or hydropower is that these power sources are dependable. A coal- or gas-fired power plant designed to
deliver 1,200 megawatts will, over the course of a year, deliver an average of 90 percent of its listed capacity. A
nuclear power plant delivers 80 percent. Such year-round, day-and-night dependability is why utilities tend to rely
on gas, coal, nuclear energy, and hydropower for their constant, or “base load,” requirements — the steady demand
for power that exists twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. By contrast, both solar and wind suffer from
intermittency: they are not available twenty-four hours a day, nor do they always deliver their maximum power. A
1-megawatt wind turbine, for example, actually delivers i megawatt only during high winds; its average production
will be considerably lower, because average wind speeds are lower. Factoring in this variability, a wind farm’s
average production, or “capacity,” may be just 45 percent in high-wind regions like Spain or in Wyoming, but
generally closer to 33 percent — or about a third the capacity of a gas-fired power plant. Thus, if a utility wants to
add 100 megawatts of wind capacity to its portfolio, it actually needs to install closer to 250 megawatts in new
turbines: a huge additional expense. Solar power has an even lower capacity — around 20 percent — meaning that
to produce a steady 100 megawatts of solar power actually requires the installation of 500 megawatts of PV cells.
This extra capacity is called overbuild, and it poses a huge problem for energy advocates — especially in an era of
deregulated power sectors, where utilities are no longer required to carry so much surplus generating capacity.
MSDI 2008 60
Renewables Fail: Dispatchability

Renewables fail – dispatchability
Here we begin to see the first cracks in the rosy renewables scenario. Even if utilities were willing to overbuild, to
cure renewables’ many weaknesses would take more than building more wind turbines or PV arrays to compensate
for this lower capacity. Both solar and wind power also lack a quality known as dispatchability: unlike a coal-fired
plant, which can be called upon for power day or night, regardless of weather, neither wind nor solar is so reliable.
Solar is simply unavailable at night or on cloudy days. Wind is even less dependable. Although meteorologists are
getting better at forecasting the average amount of wind on a given day in a given region, “we still can’t guarantee
that it will blow at io:oo A.M. tomorrow~’ says Tom Osborn, a renewables expert with the Bonneville Power
Administration (BPA), a federal power supplier in the Pacific Northwest.
MSDI 2008 61
Renewables Fail: Power Density

Renewables fail – power density
Even if money were no object, the sheer physical scale of the enterprise would be daunting. While a six-hundred-
megawatt coal-fired power plant requires a few dozen acres, a three-hundred-megawatt wind farm like Stateline
may cover as much as seventy square miles. This is because wind technology has a far lower “power density” —
that is, power produced per square foot of facility — than coal technology. Power density is, ultimately, one of the
greatest weaknesses of renewables like solar and wind. With a power-dense fuel — coal, for example — you can
generate an enormous amount of power quickly, in relatively small, centralized power plants, and then distribute it
to urban consumers. By contrast, trying to power a large city with renewables would require huge tracts of land: a
moderate-size city of a million homes would need as much as a thousand square miles of wind farms. And, as
Vaclav Smil, an expert in energy economics at the University of Manitoba, points out, most of the world’s
population will live in urban areas of ten million or more, most often in high rises and densely packed housing.
“Supplying those buildings from locally generated renewable energies is either impractical or impossible’ Smil
writes. The “power density mismatch is simply too large.” Solar is even worse. MacKenzie, with the World
Resources Institute, has calculated that on the basis of current PV technology, a solar-powered hydrogen economy
in the United States alone would require the construction of tens of thousands of square miles of PV panels — at
an astonomical cost — while the new electrolyzers would increase water demand nationally by 10 percent. “We
could do it,” MacKenzie told me, “but it would be expensive.”
MSDI 2008 62
Renewables Fail: Not Competitive

Renewables will never be a large market. If it becomes a relevant market, the US can free-
ride on others innovations
Robert Bradley (president of the Institute for Energy Research, adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute) August 27
1997 Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not “Green,” Cato Policy Analysis No. 280, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-
280.html
A jobs-creation rationale for wind power is marshaled by supporters, almost as a last line of defense. The
American Wind Energy Association trumpets the fact that about $3.5 billion is invested in the U.S. [wind- power]
industry, where watt-for-watt, dollar-for-dollar, that investment creates more jobs than any other utility-scale
energy source. In 1994, wind turbine and component manufacturers contributed directly to the economies of 44
states, creating thousands of jobs for American communities. The high-cost propensity of wind power is a
negative, not a positive, aspect of the industry. Prices reflect relative scarcity, and the price of wind-power energy
is substantially higher than the price of electricity from other sources. Resources devoted to wind power are thus
wasted in an economy where wants are greater than the resources available to meet them, and better alternatives
are forgone. Without subsidies, less renewable energy infrastructure would have been built and consumers would
have had lower cost electricity. The saved resources (land, labor, and capital) would have gone to a more
competitive source of electricity or, more likely, given electricity-generation overcapacity, to a different endeavor
entirely. Electricity consumers, in turn, would have incremental savings to spend elsewhere in the economy. The
result of wind-power investments in California is the existence of an uneconomic renewable energy industry and
an underused natural gas infrastructure. Consequently, it has contributed to artificially high rates and a substantial
ratepayer surcharge for stranded cost recovery (jargon for generation facilities and third-party contracts incapable
of delivering power at competitive prices in a restructured market; utility companies argue that the public should
compensate them for those now uneconomic investments) in the restructuring period. Subsidizing renewable
energy for its own sake is akin to "creating" jobs by digging holes and filling them back up. The fundamental law
of economic efficiency--"employ[ing] the available means in such a way that no want more urgently felt should
remain unsatisfied because the means suitable for its attainment were employed for the attainment of a want less
urgently felt" --is violated. Proponents of renewable subsidies argue that if the subsidies do not continue, U.S.
firms will lose out to foreign firms whose governments will continue to subsidize them. Tax incentives and
government grants are sparking new wind-power capacity in a variety of countries. The subsidies have resulted in
"many strong European and Japanese competitors in the market place . . . actively marketing products
internationally." Concluded the Yergin task force, Continued cost reductions fostered by [DOE's] strategic
research, development, and deployment activities can ensure the United States a place in an emerging multibillion-
dollar clean energy market. The establishment of footholds by U.S.-based firms in international sales activity is
clearly vital. Warnings that foreign companies will replace U.S. renewable energy companies just when
commercialization is in sight have been heard since the 1980s --another argument that is wearing thin. Not
surprisingly, however, U.S. companies are finding the best markets abroad where electricity is more scarce and the
cost of new power is higher. Whereas almost 80 percent of the world's wind-power capacity was based in the
United States in 1990, less than 50 percent is in the United States today. If U.S. subsidies contract, the wind-power
industry will likely be a foreign-subsidized experiment rather than a U.S.-subsidized experiment as in the past.
Today's renewable export industry is a very small portion of total U.S. energy-related export activities. A $500
million annual renewable export industry accounts for under 1/10 of 1 percent of the total U.S. export market.
Unwise and uneconomic subsidies abroad do not justify unwise and uneconomic investments at home. Should
foreign subsidies result in major technological breakthroughs to make wind power economically and
environmentally viable in niche markets, the United States can "free ride" by importing the technology or
equipment, or both. U.S. ratepayers and taxpayers would be spared, and, in fact, U.S. consumers would have been
advantageously subsidized by foreign taxpayers or ratepayers.
MSDI 2008 63

Traditional energy generation methods will stay ahead of renewables in the long-term
Robert Bradley, president of the Institute for Energy Research, adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute, Renewable
Energy: Not Cheap, Not “Green,” Cato Policy Analysis No. 280, August 27, 1997, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-
280.html
It is erroneous to conclude that even if wind is not competitive now, it soon will be. Wind is competing against
improving technologies and the increasing abundance of natural resources. The cost of gas-fired combined-cycle
plants--the most economical electricity-generation capacity for central-station power at present--has fallen in the
last decade because of improving technology and a 50 percent drop in delivered gas prices adjusted for inflation.
[36] The energy-efficiency factors of gas turbines have increased from just above 40 percent in the early 1980s to
nearly 60 percent today. Forecasts by the DOE and other sources expect continued efficiency improvements in the
years 2000 through 2015 for gas-fired generation. One forecast is that new gas-fired generation of virtually any
capacity will cost from $200 to $450 per kW, generating power at 2 cents per kWh. To illustrate the point, compare
the most recent nominal levelized prices of advanced wind technologies operating in prime wind areas with new-
generation gas turbines. Long-term fixed-price wind contracts are available at about 3 cents per kWh (nominal) in
prime areas, translating into an all-inclusive price of 5 to 6 cents per kWh (a price that factors in the tax
preferences and other implicit costs, as discussed). The price of combined-cycle gas turbines in 1996-97 also has
reached new lows, between $400 and $500 per kW, bringing electricity below 3 cents per kWh and even below 2.5
cents per kWh in select regions such as the Pacific Northwest, where natural gas prices are the lowest. That
suggests that the historic delivered-price discrepancy still holds and may continue to hold. Indeed, technological
change can be congruent between different energy technologies, and falling gas prices and electricity prices from
gas-fired generation are lowering wind turbine costs as well. But even if the gap were cut in half, a 50 percent
premium for new wind capacity is substantial.
Renewable energy empirically can’t compete in free markets

Global Warming Information Page, March 13, 2000, http://www.globalwarming.org/econup/econ3-12-00.html
Is alternative energy the panacea that will save us from global warming at no cost? Not according to the
Department of Energy. Tom Sarkus, a director at the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, says that the
DOE has received a scanty $1.5 million return on a $1.8 billion investment since the mid-1980s on 40
experimental power projects. He estimates that "one-third of the projects have failed and others just redefined
existing technologies or spawned other ideas that do not show up on the DOE’s return" (Greenwire, March 8,
2000). In Europe, alternative energy has not been able to compete since the European Union deregulated
electricity markets, leading to a thirty percent decrease in electricity prices. Cogeneration plants – which combine
heat and power plants – are under "serious threat of closure" in the Netherlands, according to the World Wildlife
Fund. In Germany, 9 cogeneration plants have closed and more are in danger of closure, notes Greenwire.
MSDI 2008 64

Renewables are uncompetitive and unuseful
Robert Bradley, president of the Institute for Energy Research, adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute, Renewable
Energy: Not Cheap, Not “Green,” Cato Policy Analysis No. 280, August 27, 1997, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-
280.html
A multi-billion-dollar government crusade to promote renewable energy for electricity generation, now in its third
decade, has resulted in major economic costs and unintended environmental consequences. Even improved new
generation renewable capacity is, on average, twice as expensive as new capacity from the most economical fossil-
fuel alternative and triple the cost of surplus electricity. Solar power for bulk generation is substantially more
uneconomic than the average; biomass, hydroelectric power, and geothermal projects are less uneconomic. Wind
power is the closest to the double-triple rule. The uncompetitiveness of renewable generation explains the
emphasis pro-renewable energy lobbyists on both the state and federal levels put on quota requirements, as well as
continued or expanded subsidies. Yet every major renewable energy source has drawn criticism from leading
environmental groups: hydro for river habitat destruction, wind for avian mortality, solar for desert
overdevelopment, biomass for air emissions, and geothermal for depletion and toxic discharges. Current state and
federal efforts to restructure the electricity industry are being politicized to foist a new round of involuntary
commitments on ratepayers and taxpayers for politically favored renewables, particularly wind and solar. Yet new
government subsidies for favored renewable technologies are likely to create few environmental benefits; increase
electricity-generation overcapacity in most regions of the United States; raise electricity rates; and create new
"environmental pressures," given the extra land and materials (compared with those needed for traditional
technologies) it would take to significantly increase the capacity of wind and solar generation.
MSDI 2008 65
Renewables Not Solve

Only massive, massive drops in global emissions will be sufficient to halt warming
Paul Baer, Ph.D. candidate in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley, and Tom Athanasiou,
journalist and businessman, Dead Heat: Global Justice and Global Warming, 2002, p.
These are good questions, some of the best, actually, and we’re going to take a stab at answering them. For the
moment, though, know that the Kyoto Protocol—bitterly hard fought though it’s been, and suffering still a deeply
uncertain future—is nevertheless only a small preliminary step. Peel away millions of words of criticism and
commentary, and this fact remains: Kyoto only imposes emissions caps on the industrialized countries, and these
are entirely inadequate to the scale of the problem. Most all the scientists agree: In order to prevent devastating
climate shifts worldwide, total global greenhouse gas emissions must soon drop to 60 to 80 percent below their
1990 levels.
The entire world would have to abandon fossil fuels to solve warming
Jerry Taylor, director of natural resource studies at the Cato Institute, “CLOUDS OVER KYOTO
THE DEBATE OVER GLOBAL WARMING,” Winter 1998, http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv21n1/21-
1f6.pdf, accessed 9/10/02
The reason is that, according to all observers, actually stopping any further global warming—assuming the median
predictions of present climate models—would require a 70 percent reduction of present emissions, roughly the
equivalent of completely abandoning the use of fossil fuels. That, according to Jerry Mahlman, director of the
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton, “might take another thirty Kyotos over the next century.”
Indeed, environmentalists are frequently quoted as saying that, ultimately, society will need to be completely
restructured around the objective of energy efficiency and sustainability, the economic and political costs of which
we can only imagine. Unless the American people are prepared to see that journey to its completion, there is little
point in even bothering to sign the Kyoto agreement because, in and of itself, it will make virtually no difference
to our planetary climate.
MSDI 2008 66
Renewables Not Solve Climate

Changes that don’t totally and globally end reliance on fossil fuels don’t bring atmospheric
C02 levels below the necessary 550 ppm
In short, our energy technology is being outpaced by the very economic success it engendered, and the
ramifications are alarming. As we’ve seen, according to IPCC forecasts, even with enormous improvements to
existing fossil fuel energy technology — including steady improvements in energy efficiency and a gradual shift
toward nonfossil fuels in the power sector — the resulting emission reductions will still not be sufficient to sta-
bilize atmospheric CO2 at 550ppm by midcentury. Instead, says Stokes, the somewhat pessimistic director of the
U.S. Joint Global Change Research Institute, we re going to need a set of energy-related technologies that ba-
sically emit nothing into the atmosphere” — technologies that, Stokes and his colleagues readily admit, are
nowhere near becoming feasible and to all intents and purposes haven’t even been imagined.
MSDI 2008 67
Renewables Not Solve Climate: 3rd World

Emissions will continue regardless of their policy as the 3rd world increases development
In a terrifying way, this is the good news. For if poor nations do find ways to obtain adequate energy — by which I
mean simply raising their energy standards to today’s global average, or the equivalent of France’s in the 1960s —
the results for the world would be staggering. Nearly three billion people in effect live outside the modern energy
system: they subsist on wood and other biomass and have little influence on the global dynamics of supply and
demand. To begin to bring even a fraction of these people up to modern energy standards — by providing them
with coal-fired power plants, for example, or steady supplies of diesel or stove fuel — would add enormous stress
to the global energy system. To bring all of them along would change the world in ways we have trouble
imagining. Not only is the population of the developing world growing rapidly, but people there have the furthest
to go to reach even a modest living standard — a fact with two disheartening implications. First, even achieving an
adequate energy standard for the existing population of the developing world would require more energy than our
current system, or any easily constructed system, could produce. Second, even if population levels off or begins to
decline, world energy demand — driven mainly by growth in the third world — will continue to climb inexorably,
as all the poor continue to push for a twentieth-century energy existence. In a strange way, energy security is
analogous to the climate problem: just as CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere will continue to rise for decades,
even after we stabilize emissions, demand for energy services will probably climb until the end of this century,
regardless of what happens with population or energy technology, as the developing world “catches up” to the
industrialized West.

MSDI 2008 Oil DA

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MSDI 2008 1

Louie/Oz Oil Disadvantage

Renewables Fail: Dependability...................................................................................................................................59

Oil Prices 1nc

An embattled Russian Federation might provoke opportunistic attacks from

Shift to renewables or extinction

Reduce Demand Reduces Prices

inevitably United States—led, bailout.

Reducing demand would cause prices to plummet

Small Change Hurts Economy

Perception Key to Prices

US Key World Production

Russian Economy Good

Oil Prices Fueling Russian Economic Growth

High Oil Prices Key Economy

High prices fuel russian economic growth

Every 1 dollar prices go down costs Russia 2 Billion $.

Oil revenues key to russian development

Decrease Oil Prices Collapses Russian Economy

Loss of oil revenues devastates the Russian economy—20 percent of GDP/majority of

Oil Key Russian Economy

High Prices Key Stability

US-Russian Relations Impact Module

Relations are critical to prevent the spread of infectious disease

Infections disease spread risks global extinction

Nationalism Impact Module

Terrorism ensures extinction

Russian Collapse Impact

A2: Russia Has No Oil

Low Oil Dooms Renewables

US action causes a domino effect

US Action Jumpstarts Political Will

A2: China Alternative Causality

Western support causes a Chinese energy transition

No Internal: Price Volatility

High oil prices mean daily volatility is over 2 dollars/barrel

Prices Won’t Fall:

(A) Peak Oil

“Energy demand is increasing at a rate we’ve not seen before. On the

(C) Commodity Exchange

Extend: Peak Oil

The oil peak has hit.

Extend: Global Demand

Extend: Commodity Exchange

OPEC policy will keep prices high.

Chinese Demand is driving oil prices.

High Prices Inevitable – Terrorism

Threat of terrorist attack on pipelines keeps prices up.

4.) Russia’s economy has diversified: no impact

6.) Russian economic trouble is inevitable because of EU expansion

A2: Russian Economy

The Russian economy is resilient.

A2: Russian Oil Price DA: Defense

Russia could survive dramatically lower oil prices

A2: Russian oil price DA: Econ bounce back

A2: Russian oil price DA: Numerous Checks

Low oil prices good: Russian Economic Reform 1ar

High oil prices bad: Hurt Russian Economy

Renewable development is not dependent on high oil prices

Prices will not fuel the transition.

Renewbles Now Bad

Renewables Now bad: Not Enough Info