高油价照进美国现实

高油价照进美国现实

墨西哥湾漏油事件发生以后，美国总统巴拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)借漏油事件呼吁发展清洁能源。如今，高油价的现实或许将改变美国的石油消费习惯，完成政策制定者所做不到的事情。

从汽车问世到上世纪70年代，油价始终徘徊在每桶15-20美元之间。到1979年，受伊朗等国的影响，油价暴涨至每桶80美元。但事实证明，油价能够重返低位。由于非欧佩克(Opec)产油国大举增产（增产规模超过沙特石油总产量），加之石油危机过后，经济衰退紧随而至，也令全球石油需求减少了一成，这些因素推动油价迅速回落至原有水平，且其后20年基本保持在这一水平。

今日的不同之处，在于油价不太可能下跌。石油需求受到了经济增长的推动。如今唱主角的是新兴经济体，尤其是中国。从2007年起，发达国家石油消耗量下降了7%, 而发展中国家则增长了10%。在过去10年内，中国石油需求翻了一番。因此，尽管全球经历了“大萧条”(Great Depression)以来最严重的经济衰退，油价却依然居高不下。

新增供应能并未带来多少喘息空间。在全球石油储量中，由欧佩克国家控制的份额越来越大。而它们不会为了让消费者歇口气而提高产量。鉴于新发现的陆上石油资源多数位于政局动荡的国家，国际能源机构(I E A)预测，未来20年内，非欧佩克国家新增的石油产量中，大部分将来自海上，其中很大部分位于深水水域。墨西哥湾漏油事件提供了一个真切的教训：Macondo深海油井的钻探反映出，人们很难找到其它成本较低、且易于实施的选择。

唯一有望缓解消费国未来痛苦的是：要戒掉“油瘾”，最终还得靠高油价。危机后油价依然高居不下的事实，消除了80年代油价暴跌所引发的顾虑，让企业和投资者有信心支持环保汽车和开发替代燃料。全球各大汽车制造商如今几乎都计划在两年内开发插电式混合动力车或全电动车。不久前，通用汽车(General Motors)推出了雪佛兰沃特(Chevy Volt)。如果油价为每桶20美元，这款车的用电成本会高于使用汽油的同等大小汽车。但在油价为每桶80美元的情况下，节省的油费就足以抵消高昂的车价。面对高油价，化工业正把目光转向天然气，而得益于页岩气激增，天然气供应日趋丰富。风险资本正押注于先进的生物燃料。

在美国没有完善能源政策的情况下，仅凭供应紧张的石油市场推动清洁能源的部署将较为缓慢、局限比较多，过程也会不那么愉快。而且，由于全球排放的温室气体中，只有四分之一来自石油，高油价在解决气候变化方面的作用将比不上美国国会目前搁置的“总量管制和排放交易”建议。不过，在当前石油市场形势下，在清洁能源研发上的公共投资会显得更加合意——美国与石油之间的关系也似乎终于有望得到改变。

High Oil Prices Encounters American Reality

After the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Barack Obama,US president, used the spill to call for a new push on clean energy. Now, the reality of a high oil price maybe about to change America's petroleum habits, even if policymakers cannot.

From the birth of the automobile until the1970s, oil cost between $15 and $20 per barrel in current prices.Then, in1979, the Iranian revolution saw prices shoot up to $80 per barrel. Cheap oil proved resilient,however, as countries outside the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries responded with extra production, adding more than the total output of Saudi Arabia to global supply. The recession that followed the oil shocks also cut global demand by a tenth.Prices soon fell to their old levels, where they stayed for two decades.

The difference today is that oil prices are unlikely to fall. Demand for oil is driven by economic growth.Today that means emerging economies, and China in particular. The developed world has seen oil-use drop by 7 per cent since2007, but demand in the developing world is up10 per cent. Chinese demand has doubled during the past decade. As a result, oil has stayed expensive, in spite of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

There is also little hope that new supply will bring much relief. Opec countries control an increasing share of global reserves and are not inclined to increase production just to give consumers a break.With most new onshore resources in politically unstable countries, the International Energy Agency predicts that over the next two decades the lion's share of new non-Opec production will occur offshore, much of it in deep water. The real lesson of the Gulf spill is that drilling the deep Macondo well reflected the reality that there are few cheap and easy options elsewhere.

The only silver lining on a painful future for consumers is that expensive oil is just what is needed finally to kick-start the petroleum detox. The fact that high oil prices survived the crisis excises the ghosts of the1980s, and gives entrepreneurs and investors confidence to support cleaner vehicles and develop alternative fuels. Nearly all of the world's largest vehicle manufacturers now plan plug-in hybrid or fully electric vehicles within two years, with General Motors rolling out the Chevy Volt last week. At $20 per barrel,powering the Volt with electricity costs more than filling a comparable car with gasoline. But at $80, Volt drivers save enough on fuel to offset the vehicle's high price. Faced with expensive oil, the chemicals industry is turning to natural gas, increasingly abundant thanks to the shale gas boom, and venture capitalists are betting on advanced biofuels.

Make no mistake, clean-energy deployment driven by a tight oil market will be slower, more limited,and less pleasant in the absence of good policy from Washington. And as oil accounts for only a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, high prices will do little to address climate change compared with the cap and trade proposals Congress put on hold. But today's oil markets make public investment in clean-energy research and development, just now returning to1970s levels, more palatable-and a change in America's relationship with petroleum seems possible at last.