(All-electric Tesla S sedan. Slick car for only $105,000. Photo NY Times).

I am at an intersection this morning, metaphorically, anyway, and in keeping with that line of thought, am hobbling across it on my mental crutches and trying to deal with a minor case of gas.

It took a placid day yesterday to get there. I hope to finish editing the magazine issue that is a month overdue to the printer today. The stack of action items next to the lap-top is actually getting shorter. I am actually reading a book a day- granted, they are mental bubble-gum detective novels and I need to up my game to something mentally challenging.

But what the hell, this is only Day 31 of the 84-day program.

It was a nice day, all and all, but I felt a little lost and a more than a little blue late yesterday after breaking a sweat in the bright sun on the balcony. Maybe my vitamin D was down- the sun helped.

In the growing darkness, I dozed and looked at the iPad on an off. Bad news. The canyons around some of my pals out west are in flames. There is a lack of snow-pack this summer, and the arid brush is nothing more than tinder. There are rumors that we have a firebug on the loose. It is a terrifying prospect, and the winds are expected to pick up again tomorrow.

Crap. When I woke too early, I clicked into the New York Times, a habit I am trying unsuccessfully to kick. Nick Kristoff had a column on modern Iran this morning. He is there with his daughters, for reasons best known to himself, but it is a provocative story. His argument is that Iran is much more nuanced and complex than the cartoon version we use as a convenient foil for all that is evil in the world.

Personally, I like the cartoon version, since it comports with my experience of Shia adventurism overseas, but Persia is an ancient land its is waters run deep. But it got me thinking about world oil prices, overheated campaign rhetoric and who is actually running the price of gas at the pump.

One thing for sure is that it is not the President of the United States.

A pal of mine did an analysis on the effects of the cost of a barrel of crude- West Texas or Brent, take you pick. According to his study, there is a price-point for mischief by state actors, of which Iran is just one. I won’t try to do justice to whole analytic process, but it seems quite reasonable and I will gist it here:

“The twelve OPEC oil cartelists supply 40% of the world’s oil. They are producing 1.6 million barrels in excess of the agreed daily quota of 30 million barrels. As a result, U.S. benchmark crude oil prices are now closer to $80 per barrel than to the $110 they reached only four months ago.”

That is good, and it reflects the unfairness of trying to pin prices on the pump directly on the occupant of the Oval Office. Of course the President can influence the future by decisions on energy extraction policy, but it is slow motion, rather than a direct cause-and-effect that remains the prerogative of the Saudis. He continued:

“OPEC’s hawks – Venezuela, Iran and Nigeria among them – want Saudi Arabia to rein in output. They need much more than $80 to cover their sole-source economies. Non-member but fellow-traveler Russia needs closer to $90 to avoid problems for its still fragile economy.” 

“So, what is it that the Saudis think? They feel they can finance their welfare state, the royal princeling’s extravagant lifestyle and the export of a virulent Wahabbi version of Islam at $80 a barrel.”

“So that’s the new floor – unless the Saudis decide U.S. production is becoming so great a threat that they cut prices to levels higher-cost American producers cannot meet. For now, the Saudis have several reasons for feeling that $80 oil suits their purposes – no lower, no higher. A collapse of the West does not meet the desert kingdom’s longer term goals, and they will probably boost production if the European embargo on Iranian oil takes effect on the first of July as scheduled.”

Fine. There are supposed to be about 600 years of oil and gas in the shale under the Square States, if the companies are permitted to extract it.

I am not going to get into the carbon mantra- I think the sun’s output of energy has got a lot more to do with our climate than CO2 concentration, and the last twelve years seem to bear that out. But it is Sunday and I won’t mess with religious issues.

Instead, I just want to note a major event in the history of sustainable energy, just as everything is aligning for stable and fairly low oil prices: click here for more.

The link is a gee-whizz article on the production of the new Tesla S sedan, a handsome vehicle with $44K batteries packed into a $55K car- or, a little over a hundred grand to roll out the door (before government rebates) for the early adopters.

I am a car guy- and I gotta say the Tesla S is one slick car- truly beautiful. The last one I recall looking this good was the Bricklin- or maybe the DeLorean.

I can’t possibly take advantage of the new Tesla. My building does not support charging an electric car. There are ways I might be able to change that- start a personal campaign and a petition and put in endless appearances before the Condo Board to get the money to rewire the garage, extend power to a charging station in the outside parking lot..and and and…

Not worth my time on a cost-benefit basis. If the Saudis believe that $80 a barrel is “sustainable” and meets their political goals (damn that pesky export Wahabbism), I will take it. And I will keep driving the Bluesmobile, even if it give me a case of the gas.

(Back to the future with the classic- and doomed- Delorean.)

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com