Following up on this post concerning the North Dakota oil boom, oilman Harold Hamm's interview in the Saturday Wall Street Journal continues to attract comment. In particular, the part of the interview where Hamm presents President Obama with the prospect of a domestic oil and gas drilling boom and is met with a dismissive anecdote about Energy Sec. Chu and a 130 MPG battery is reverberating across the interwebs.
Edward Niedermeyer over at the Truth About Cars casts a skeptical eye on the 130 MPG claim. Noting the fact that batteries don't use gasoline, Neidermeyer writes,
"It’s one thing to say EV battery prices will drop by 70% between 2010 and 2015 (even when the CEO of LG Chem says his firm is targeting 50% improvement), or even to say that US battery manufacturing will go from 2% of the global total in 2010 to 40% in 2015… these, like the “one million plug-ins on the road” pledge are straightforward targets. But 130 MPG based on some mysterious battery?"
Mickey Kaus picks up the thread at the Daily Caller, writing,
"Obama is “data-driven,” his observant friends suggest. But how good is [are] the data that’s driving him? The possibilities here are a) he’s well-informed; b) he’s being fed wildly optimistic estimates of the sort he wants to hear; c) he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about at all; or d) he’s BS’ing."
Mickey picks "b" but I'm leaning toward "c".
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