A federal energy policy: can it happen here?
Posted by Prof. Goose on August 4, 2007 - 12:12pm
This is a guest post by Michael Vickerman of RENEW Wisconsin. The original post can be found here and the coverage on the post at EB can be found here. This article is reprinted with the permission of Mr Vickerman.
Petroleum and Natural Gas Watch
by Michael Vickerman, RENEW Wisconsin
July 27, 2007, Vol. 6, Number 9Of all the issue areas that Congress dives into from time to time, none reveals the inability of our legislative branch to fashion an internally consistent national policy quite like energy. The usual items in an energy bill--tax credit extensions, fuel subsidies, fresh regulatory requirements (and loopholes), new rules on offshore drilling, etc.—are designed to reward specific industries and influential constituencies. This year’s energy bill promises to follow that timeworn path left by Congresses of yesteryear.
But an energy bill has to be more than the sum of its subsidies to constitute effective policy. This is especially true as we enter a time of growing resource and environmental limits that threaten to bite us in the collective behind if we don’t curb our profligate consumption of energy.
Now is not the time to continue subsidizing every form of energy that can be produced in the United States, as the current Congress seems intent on doing. In previous bills, Congress has taken great pains to make sure that every energy constituency—coal, oil, nuclear or renewables--gets its fair share of the federal pie, regardless of need or environmental impact. This is the cheap energy paradigm at work—promoting economic growth by artificially lowering energy prices.
But while this paradigm may have been defensible before U.S. oil output reached its maximum in 1970, it has no place in today’s energy-constrained world. Artificially lowering the cost of all energy sources will not only encourage waste and overconsumption, it will hasten the arrival of that traumatic day when the flow of cheap oil and natural gas cannot meet the demands of a hypermobile society.
It’s no secret that Congress lacks the stomach for offending powerful energy lobbies like Big Coal. But it’s simply not possible to institute policy changes, especially those intended to reduce carbon dioxide discharges into the atmosphere, without picking a fight with the coal industry, the electric utilities, and what’s left of the U.S. automotive industry. Therefore, if Big Coal pronounces itself satisfied with the energy bill’s contents when it is passed, you can be certain that Congress declined to incorporate any provisions that would cause coal’s share of the energy pie to shrink, such as a carbon tax or renewable feed-in tariffs.
What makes the United States singularly incapable of producing a coherent energy policy aimed at cutting energy consumption and using low-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels? I believe there are three factors explaining this lamentable state of affairs. The first is that your average American citizen has the energy IQ of beach sand, and, in this regard, your average Member of Congress is the mirror image of his or her constituents. For proof, I would direct your attention to Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who regularly appears on news programs to suggest that gasoline is overpriced at $3.00 per gallon and that motorists are being fleeced by dastardly oil companies.
Actually, at that price gasoline is a steal, and it would be so even at $4.00—the amount Canadians pay--or $5.00. Packing 125,000 Btu’s of energy, a gallon of gas will power the average car 25 miles, yet it costs less on a volumetric basis than milk, apple juice, Evian, coffee from Starbucks, Mountain Dew, Listerine, and Red Bull. Try getting that performance with a gallon of Gatorade in your tank. It will set you back $10 and you still wouldn’t be able to back your car out of the garage.
It should be noted that retail gasoline prices in Germany are the equivalent of $7.00 per gallon, yet its economy remains healthy. Why is that? Because Germany, unlike the underachieving U.S., has a national energy policy designed to transition the nation smoothly into a post-fossil fuel energy environment. By taxing fossil energy and providing long-term price support for wind and solar electricity production, the Germans are plowing today’s wealth into building up a sustainable energy system that can withstand the future economic dislocations resulting from Peak Oil and climate change.
Indeed, no other country has made as much progress as Germany in building up a renewable energy infrastructure for delivering low-carbon electricity to homes, businesses, and rail networks. But other countries that lack domestic supplies of fossil energy, like Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, are also moving aggressively to harness their renewable resource base. They too are light years ahead of the United States in this regard.
A second problem confronting policymakers is the unequal distribution of energy resources across this vast country of ours. A handful of coal-producing states—West Virginia and Wyoming come to mind--are net fossil energy exporters, and will view with hostility any policy proposal that will place limits on energy extraction within their borders. Their power is magnified by the markets they serve, which include large swaths of the Midwest and South.
On the other side of the coin are the West Coast states, Florida and New England, which are populous regions that which have no domestic coal interests to protect. Nor does the automotive industry have a big presence in these states. Not having to appease Big Coal or Big Auto enables state governments in these regions to plot a more aggressive course toward achieving emissions reductions and fuel diversity goals, as is being done in California and Florida.
One would expect members of Congress to promote the principal energy industries in their region. This predisposes them to enter into strategic alliances with other members representing different energy interests, usually of the “I’ll watch your back if you’ll watch mine” variety. Though these alliances are necessary for lubricating the deal-cutting and building support for the entire package, often it comes at the expense of public policy objectives.
Indeed Congress is institutionally incapable to pass a comprehensive energy bill that attempts to diversify the nation’s energy resource base and scale back its carbon footprint unless it contains elements that work in the opposite direction (e.g., gasifying coal and expanding offshore drilling).
Further complicating matters is the very nature of the U.S. Senate itself, a body organized to magnify the power of individual states to block “national interest” initiatives from changing the status quo. Each state is equally represented in the Senate, no matter how populous. And Senate tradition grants committee chairpersons enormous deference to bottle up or water down legislation that might impose unwanted changes on the states they represent.
Another Senate tradition, the right of unlimited debate, is enforced by a rule that expressly allows a minority of senators to thwart the will of the majority. To shut off debate on a measure, especially one in which powerful economic forces and regional interests are pitted against each other, bill proponents have to line up not 51 but 60 votes. Under the rule, debate continues even if 59 senators vote in favor of ending it and only one votes against the motion.
The energy bill passed by the Senate in June came tantalizingly close to incorporating a 10-year tax package that would have raised $29 billion, mostly from oil and gas companies and redirected it toward renewable energy development. The tax package was designed to be self-supporting; that is, it would not have trigged additional borrowing to underwrite the pro-renewable energy incentives.
Would such a tax package raise prices at the pump? A little. But remember too that $29 billion equates to about nine months’ profit for Exxon Mobil alone. And, from a social equity perspective, it’s always better to base energy subsidies and incentives on a real-time transfer of wealth than to saddle future taxpayers with even greater levels of indebtedness.
Nonetheless, the oil and gas companies objected to the closing of their favored tax loopholes, and they called upon their senatorial friends in the Oil Patch states to kill off this measure. To accomplish this, these senators made common cause with their counterparts from the Southeast and Rocky Mountain states, where Big Coal is very strong. Thought this minority bloc was outvoted 57-36, they managed to prevent the tax package from being attached to the larger energy package. In any other legislative venue, losing a vote by a margin of 21 would be considered a stinging defeat, but on the floor of the U.S. Senate, it counts as a win.
In his most recent installment of Lyndon Johnson’s biography, author Robert Caro points out that there have been only a few periods in the nation’s history where the Senate lowered the floodgates and allowed legislation reflecting the popular will to come washing through its portals. Those rare instances resulted from significant political realignments that put one party with an activist agenda firmly in power.
The closest the United States came to a coherent national energy policy was during the mid-to-late 1970’s. During that period there was a prevailing sense of anxiety over the nation’s energy security, and both the legislative and the executive branches responded to the national mood with decisive actions. In a five-year period Congress passed laws creating automobile fuel efficiency standards, prohibiting new gas-fired power plants, and requiring utilities to purchase electricity generated by independent entities. By the debased standards of current governance, those were amazingly productive years.
However, once the price oil dropped in the 1980’s, the urgency of the previous decade evaporated, and successive administrations began dismantling the policy initiatives adopted in the Ford and Carter years. When the Reagan Administration lowered fuel efficiency standards in 1986, Chrysler Corporation chairman Lee Iacocca said: “We are about to put up a tombstone ‘Here lies America’s energy policy.’”
It would take nothing short of a sea change to overcome Congressional inertia and recover the ground lost in the last 25 years or so. But though the prospects for a truly coherent national energy policy are improving -- and the need has never been greater -- both the citizenry and the current Congress are far too complacent to entertain changes that might involve belt-tightening and discipline. Given the current political dynamic, it would be unrealistic to expect this Congress, with its narrow majorities, to be the one that jump-starts the federal government into meaningful action.
Yes, we will see some progress on the energy front this year and next, but they will represent the sum of state government initiatives undertaken to counter the policy vacuum that persists at the federal level.
----
Sources:
Caro, Robert A., Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, 2002, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York.National Environmental Trust: History of Fuel Standards, One Decade of Innovation, Two Decades of Inaction. URL: http://www.net.org/documents/cafe_history.pdf
RENEW Wisconsin is a nonprofit organization that acts as a catalyst to advance a sustainable energy future through public policy and private sector initiatives. Michael Vickerman’s commentaries also posted on RENEW’s Web site, RENEW’s blog, and Madison Peak Oil Group’s blog.
Contributed by Ed Blume
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Government behaves in re petroleum and natural gas as a principal rent-taker, with power to punish thrift, would be expected to behave. Vickerman talks as if he didn't understand that the rent taken through consumption taxes greatly exceeds the subsidies, and subsidies to token renewables are window-dressing for this.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/Paper_for_11th_CHC.html :
oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
Here's your federal energy policy:
DOE's proposed budget for nuclear bombs: $15.6 billion
DOE's proposed budget for renewable energy: $1.2 billion*
War in Iraq: $300 million per DAY
National Renewable Energy Lab: $230 million per YEAR.**
Global budget for oil: about $1.8 trillion
Global budget for narcotics: $1-to-$2.5 trillion
Global budget for defense (war) spending: $1.2 trillion
Global budget for renewable energy: several hundred billion
. . . but hey kiddies, keep on writing your congressmen. Maybe one of their staffers will incorporate what you wrote into a soundbite for the next televised speech. That should be good for some dopamine and maybe a bit of social fitness at the next letter-writing meeting. =) "Woohoo!
While you write letters and discuss "policy", the elite and high level mil-gov are building their families off-grid bunkers and buying property in South America.
*Source: http://www.alternet.org/story/51368/?page=3
**Source: my memory, easily confirmed via a google search
Chomsky explains:
Terrorism Works – Terrorism is not the Weapon of the Weak
That is the culture in which we live and it reveals several facts. One is the fact that terrorism works. It doesn’t fail. It works. Violence usually works. That’s world history. Secondly, it’s a very serious analytic error to say, as is commonly done, that terrorism is the weapon of the weak. Like other means of violence, it’s primarily a weapon of the strong, overwhelmingly, in fact. It is held to be a weapon of the weak because the strong also control the doctrinal systems and their terror doesn’t count as terror. Now that’s close to universal.
The U.S. government budget is overwhelmingly focused on violence, oil, and drugs, because they work. They efficiently concentrate power in the hands of a minority, which is the function of government.
Unfortunately, Chomsky, and the entire far left, including my brother the blogger, are unable to discuss overpopulation or resource depletion frankly.
This can be explained by Chomsky's own "propaganda model". The far left perceives the people to be allies, and the state to be the enemy. Therefore, discussion of state crimes is encouraged, and discussion of the people's crimes is taboo.
It is taboo for them to say that modern standards of living and current population depend on state terror and environmental destruction, because that would expose the crimes of the people, who are allies.
This is all that Chomsky has ever had to say about peak oil, and is representative of the far left media in general:
Host Steve Scher: So you see a silver lining?
Chomsky: There is, because the major threat is the effect we're having on the environment, and that's mostly through hydrocarbons.
If you thought Madeleine Albright was monstrous for saying that 500,000 dead Iraqi children are "worth it," what do you think about Chomsky saying that 5,000,000,000 deaths have a "silver lining?"
Bryan
Hi Bryan,
I'm a little confused about your Chomsky quote, when I look at the context, namely:
Chomsky:
"As to when you get a peak for OPEC, that's farther off - decades, but it's certainly real.
There's another side to this, there's a sense in which it's advantageous if the oil peak is earlier. The reason why is it will compel the world, primarily the U.S. here, to move toward something like sustainable energy.
If there's unbounded amounts of hydrocarbons, we're just going to destroy the environment for human life or most biological life, so the earlier the peak is, in some respects - yes, it could be catastrophic, it could also be beneficial."
I get three things from this:
1) Chomsky believes "the peak" for OPEC is "decades off".
2) It seems he has an unspoken premise that "sustainable energy" is possible, and
3) that "peak" will "compel the world, primarily the U.S. here" to move toward this..."sustainable energy".
So, I don't see in this a conclusion that finds a "silver lining" in mega-deaths.
I have different premises, and this isn't an argument I'd make. Still, given that they are his, I don't see a particular rejoicing here. Chomsky does have a kind of edge about him, in general - don't know that I can put my finger on it.
From the last sentence (in the above excerpt) I took away the conclusion that he "gets" that infinite growth is not possible.
re: "Therefore, discussion of state crimes is encouraged, and discussion of the people's crimes is taboo."
My recent experience convinces me, more than ever, that people are simply (and often) quite unaware of the impact of their "lifestyle", which after all, most people are born into, and by this I mean, psychologically, as well as materially.
I'm also more convinced than ever, at least my experience with "young persons" is - they care a lot, they are brave and willing and want to change once they become more aware.
People/we don't know they/we are "criminals", in other words.
And once they know, they/we want to change.
Of course, one (they/we) has to have an emotional basis that makes the experience of becoming aware a tolerable one. And this includes the emotional capacity (imagination) to change (IMHO).
Aniya,
You are right that I had cherry-picked my Chomsky quote a bit. He is not openly advocating mass death per se. One point for you.
But, and I think there's little argument here, he and the rest of the left-wing media wax very euphemistic when it comes to the imminent end of fossil fuels.
They want to phrase it in terms that make the state look bad, and make the people look good, but the truth is not so clear, because it's the people who burn the majority of the fuels, and enjoy doing so.
The left generally refuses to discuss any future discontinuity in modern services for regular folks. of course they never discuss how 5/6 of humanity cann't survive the switchover from fossil to organic farming.
These things are taboo. Mention them at a left-wing party, and you aren't invited to the next one, so it's as if your idea never existed.
Bryan
Bryan:
The Daily Kos, which is a site that is about as "left wing" as you can get, is in total denial of peak oil, so is Moveon.org.
What I don't think you realise about peak oil is that its a scientific issue, a geological issue, and not a left or right wing issue. But there are ideologues on this issue who try to politicise the issue and the solutions. We also have groups who are alligned with the peak oil issue who are adopting the issue because they think that it will move their agenda along. That includes environmentalists, the global warming sorts, and the limits to growth people.
I'm what you would consider left wing. Bbut i'm a realist, and I don't want to argue politics. OK, thats BS, I do like to argue politics. But, I don't want my personal politics to contaminate working towards a solution. Its just too important.
The left's worst mistake in this is to confuse the truths about the real state of the oil industry. National oil companies, or socialised oil companies control 87% of the production in the world, and virtually all of the remaining places to wildcat. Even in the United States, the best remaining places are all federally controlled lands-the offshore areas and the national forests in the western United States. So when the left is hating on the big oil companies, they're looking at the wrong people.
The right's biggest mistake is to think that because a group is being opposed by the left, that are their natural allies and can therefore do no wrong.
What everbody needs to remember in the United States is that we all love our country. Anybody that is concerned about politics and cares enough to participate wants the best for the people of the United States and the people of the world. Only a fool refuses to recognise that the other side is occasionally right and has good ideas, and that looking at all sides to an issue helps everybody get a better perspective. I believe this is a real, unrecognised value in America. Its why most people split their votes and are happiest when no one group totally dominates our government.
The same is true for the rest of the world. All the decent citizens want everyone to be prosperous, to be happy, to be free and have secure societies. We all disagree about the best method, and so engage in the insanity of war, mostly to promote our crazy ideologies.
So, Bryan, lighten up! Give everyone a fair hearing, and we'll do the same for you.
Bob Ebersole
Bob,
The mainstream and right-wing media are far less honest than the left-wing. I singled out the left-wing because they are especially prone to congratulate themselves for their lack of bias and taboo. In fact, they have a bias toward the people, and taboos against overshoot and depletion.
Overshoot and depletion are taboo in all media, not because they are technical, but because there is no way to tell them as a story that makes the audience look good, and makes others look bad.
Fundamental to all media - more fundamental than the facts - is the notion of good guys and bad guys.
It's so fundamental that Chomsky, a genius who's spent decades studying media and writing books bout how media works, has his own set of "good guys and bad guys" that is not subject to his own analysis: the people are good and the state is bad.
The problem with telling the "peak oil" story is that every single person on Earth, except maybe the hunter-gatherers, plays a bad guy in this story. You can't tell the story without offending the listener!
And if you tell it to a hunter-gatherer, he'll say "yeah, that's what we told you guys in the first place!"
:)
Bryan
Ahh ... thoughtful, really thoughtful, comments on a dead thread.
I recommend reading Paul Bloom of Yale, recently in Science and The Atlantic Monthly. He writes of children, and how they learn. Chomsky might listen.
Oilman--
Kos and MoveOn are supporters of Democrats, and are toward the political center, at best. Bonddad, who is Kos's economic blogger, is pro market capitalists, and would be considered on the Right in Western Europe.
These are hardly "Left Wing" perspectives---
But agreed-- The "Left" in the USA is very anti-scientific (people like Steven Pinker drive them crazy, with the exposure of the fallacy of the Blank Slate)--
That said, the Right is living in a economic fantasy land, in which thermodynamics is Satan, and delusion is a badge of honor--
They love the Suicide Economy, and want nothing to do with reality--
For some "Left Wing" perspectives, check Monthly Review or Daily Bleed---
Or, for a conservative Marxist perspective, check the RCP---
Adorno:
"If voting could change things , it would be illegal"
HI there, Chimp,
Thanks for the list - the contrasts are stark.
(BTW, where did you get the numbers for global oil, narc, and war? I believe them, just curious.)
War: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/11/1807/
Narcotics: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=91 (estimated at 2-to-5% of global GDP which equates to about $1-to-2 trillion)
(Fitts says the US alone has over $500 billion in drug money flowing in, that was about 5 years ago. It's probably way more now.)
Oil: 30 billion barrels per year x $60 perbarrel = $1.8 trillion per year
That's not to mention the $2 trillion that the Pentagon has "lost."
Matt,
Thanks for the list. Its sickening to see the crazy waste in the world, and helps put it all in perspective.
Bob Ebersole
Right on the head.
Read this article: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8QQAG2O1.htm
"A study released this year by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said if 40 percent of the heat under the United States could be tapped, it would meet demand 56,000 times over. It said an investment of $800 million to $1 billion could produce more than 100 gigawatts of electricity by 2050, equaling the combined output of all 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S."
So, lemme get this straight - Even if overruns triple the estimated costs (likely), it's still less than what we spend on a lousy 10 days worth of operations in Iraq. Plus it has the potential to provide 20% of US electricity? Likely more if we invest more heavily in it. Sounds like a screaming bargain to me.
Granted, there are potential problems, like the earthquake mentioned in CH. However, I'd think one of the big coal states, Wyoming, where the Earth's crust is relatively thin in spots, would be all over it.
Yet, with such massive potential upside, the Los Alamos project ran out of money? Such action (by the DOE?) are not just plain dumb, they border on treasonous.
Correct me if the numbers are off, but I can't believe that something like this is being virtually ignored is colossally stupid.
The 100 GW per year that the MIT people hope to get from geothermal is less than we get right now from nuclear and way less than we get from coal.
Sure, if we can lower the cost of geothermal that would be great. But it would not solve our energy problems.
Our energy problem is an energy storage problem. Oil is not just an energy source. Oil is also a very convenient form of energy storage for transportation purposes. We need much better batteries so we can turn electricity into a useful transportation energy source.
We need much better batteries so we can turn electricity into a useful transportation energy source
Not Really
Well, in some European countries (which have much higher population densities than we do) gasoline costs more than twice as much as in the United States. Yet I've read that the percentage of travel by public transport is declining in some (all? European countries. People want to go from where they want to start to where they want to finish. They do not want to take rail that goes only along fixed routes.
Would you rather take rail or take a motorcycle? My guess is that at $10 per gallon gasoline we'll see small diesel hybrid cars and more motorcycles but not a lot more rail.
Check out Peter Schaeffer's numbers on population densities in some European and American cities. He dug out those numbers in the context of a debate about a Paul Krugman NYTimes column about high speed internet connection availability in Europe and America. But the same argument he makes on broadband connections is applicable to mass transit as well.
To increase US population density to European levels to make mass transit a lot more appealing would require massive apartment building construction programs lasting decades and moves by tens or hundreds of millions of people. I'm guessing that's not going to happen. We will shift to lighter and more fuel efficient vehicles (diesel and electric motorcycles in the extreme) before bunching together into high rises.
Of course if regular TOD contributors start reporting they are moving to live next to light or heavy rail stations I'll reconsider my views. Maybe once world oil production starts declining 5% per year that'll happen.
If people do abandon many small towns for densely populated cities then I'm going to find a way to move to one of the ghost towns and live in an enormous mansion (I might have to walk a long way to get there). I'm expecting mdsolar Chris will sell me a roof apparatus to keep my home office powered. Though I might need to hitch up a horse and wagon to go pick it up along a rail line.
It will come installed, no need for the horse and wagon. But, it is not for sale just for rent. The idea is to make solar easy. There will be do it yourself kits coming later for barns and workshops that will be for sale. Might want you rig for that.
Chris
Perhaps as the other responder suggested we can have overhead wires almost everywhere. I tnink by "100 GW per year" FuturePundit meant just 100 GW.
To get much better than, say, Li-ion, batteries will need to take their oxygen from air. If they are much better and the oxygen is already in them, they are bombs. They can retain the zero-local-emission characteristic of today's batteries if they take air oxygen, oxidize something, but don't emit it. They can have combustion-like power-to-weight ratio and durability if their energy release is in fact combustion, not a pair of electrode processes.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/Paper_for_11th_CHC.html :
oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
If overhead wires could work for cars then I could see their utility. But I'm guessing it makes more sense to just have payable electric plugs in every parking lot and have a few thousand dollars worth of batteries in all cars.
Why do more than a very few need cars larger than
And Urban Rail of all types in towns as small as 50,000 people ?
Not much Suburbia & Exurbia though,
Best Hopes,
Alan
Think of it this way: Precisely because we are driving around in cars much bigger than we need them to be we have a large amount of room for adjustment. This large amount of room for adjustment (and not just in car sizes) plus the march of technology are why I'm optimistic about our ability to adjust to Peak Oil.
I agree on this to a point. There is even more room for reduction than that, when you consider that much of our economy is based on 'creating markets' for goods that are unnecessary to a decent quality of life. Most of us could lose the dishwashers, the ice-in-door refrigerators, the multiple TVs, the incandescent lights, the air conditioning, and the 12 trips per day to soccer games / 7-11 / Wal-Mart / Home Depot.
Many could drop the extra job that goes to pay for the jetskis, the Harleys, the landscaping contractor (get a goat), and the car to drive to the extra job.
Most of the justification for our wars are based upon our fear of losing energy 'security', which is necessary only for unnecessary things. The necessary things (food, clothing, shelter, education) can be supported with the coal, oil, gas, and nukes we already have in house, (I'm guessing). Especially if we take all those people that were 'relieved' of their jobs by machines and chemicals on farms and put them back on the land where they are needed to keep an eye on things.
Most of our transportation fuels aren't transporting cargo, they are transporting transport. Not to mention how much is transported in and out of countries just to play the accounting games. (milk shipped to Canada to be turned into cheese and shipped back, etc.)
"If you want Change, keep it in your pocket."
Auntiegrav, Dishwashers use less water and energy than washing dishes by hand. I'm guessing the same is true for clothes washers versus hand washing.
Air conditioning: without it my productivity as a software developer would go down.
As for getting everyone to drop their desire for consumer goods: Not going to happen. People really like having gadgets to do things for them. Personally, I want more: Robots to clean would be great.
If all you are doing is running around town, a car shaped like a large egg might be just fine. But people go other places than around town and if they buy a car, they want it to meet all their needs.
Take the train in most cases (see several other nations) or do not go in the not-to-distant future.
Alan
Somewhere I saw a picture of a smart car (or something like it) with a pickup box that attaches to the back and adds another axle. Could just as well be a van body.
GRL:
Too true. Very few people realize that all the energy-exporting states (there's roughly ten net exporters) have been sticking together very effectively for many decades, but the energy importing states haven't taken much concerted action in their own common interest.
The result is that citizens of energy-importer states have subsidized things like the Alaska Permanent Fund and the huge endowment fund that makes higher education so inexpensive in Texas, etc.
Every time you pay your gas bill, electric bill, or buy motor fuel, you help to pay royalty fees and severance taxes that are charged against extracted energy from coal, gas and oil that are passed along to the consumer. The state severance taxes help to pay for state government operating expenses, and help politicians in those states to avoid raising local taxes. Why should they? Their state's operating budgets are subsidized by citizens in the energy-importing states, who don't even realize it.
Why can't the energy -importing states get their act together and work for efficiency and conservation that reduces these subsidies to energy-exporting states? I think it's partly because they (or more accurately, their constituents) don't realize they are subsidizing governments in other states.
For example, in Alaska, less than 20% of state operating expenses are paid by taxes levied directly on Alaskan citizens.
Almost every time there is a genuine possibility of energy importing states banding together to do something that makes sense for themselves, the corn ethanol issue gets trotted out as a way to get votes (from energy-importing states!)
needed to defeat serious renewables, efficiency, and conservation efforts.
But this is slowly changing, as energy-importing states enact their own RPS and attempt to follow California's lead on "vehicle CO2 emissions".
I'm not optimistic about what will come from Congress.
Which state will be the first to enact a carbon tax? Or are there some already?
Les Lambert
Bend OR
Why can't the energy -importing states get their act together and work for efficiency and conservation that reduces these subsidies to energy-exporting states?
They can't get their act together because they're mostly run by enviromentalist and neo-socialists as we've seen in California.
California is a text-book case in how NOT to run a state.
Look at the damage the enviromentalists have done:
A. LNG terminal was to be opened 11 miles off of Malibu. That's right, clean-burning LNG shipped in from Australia from BP. Sorry, it was an "eye-sore" to the Hollywood celebrities. Killed by the libs.
B. Ban on off-shore oil-drilling. Well how many billions of tax dollars did the State miss out on by not using that resource? Tens of billions.
C. The enviromentialists killed a Nuclear power-plant in the late eighties. Gee, they state could have used that plant during the energy crisis of 2000/2001.
D. Hostility to on-shore drilling. More tax dollars lost to Texas.
E. Enviromentalists have also waged a war against any new highway construction since the 2006 bond initiatives. So more people will sit in more traffic jams wasting gas and oil.
I think it's partly because they (or more accurately, their constituents) don't realize they are subsidizing governments in other states.
No, its mostly because they are stupid.
New Mexico, where I now live, can provide cheap higher education-almost free-because of huge roylaties the state collects from the oil and NG companies.
Stupid is as stupid does and that is what the socialists have wrought on California.
I can't believe that environmentalists are as powerful as you claim. Can you name one environmentalist in all of history who is a household name? I can't. Without thinking I can name a few oilmen who are household names: Rockefeller, Getty, Hughes.
This is because power flows from oil (& violence & drugs,) not from environmentalism. There's no money in environmentalism.
If they're saying that the LNG terminal was killed by environmentalists, that's just a fig leaf over the truth, which is that America doesn't need the LNG yet, because NG from CA and MX is still relatively cheap. Japan has no choice but to import LNG, because it's an island with no natgas.
If they're saying that the offshore drilling was killed by environmentalists, that's just a fig leaf over the truth, which is that offshore oil is to serve as America's "strategic petroleum reserve" for when things get really, really bad.
As for nuclear power plants, it's unclear whether the conservative designs we implement today are net exporters of energy. Historically, America's nuclear plants have served as a cover for weapons development. It's possible that riskier designs are net exporters of energy. So far, the risk has outweighed the anticipated reward.
As for new highway construction, it's now well understood that highway expansion *creates traffic*. The powers that be may have decided for any number of reasons that they would not like to create more traffic right now.
Bryan
If they're saying that the LNG terminal was killed by environmentalists, that's just a fig leaf over the truth, which is that America doesn't need the LNG yet, because NG from CA and MX is still relatively cheap. Japan has no choice but to import LNG, because it's an island with no natgas.
If they're saying that the offshore drilling was killed by environmentalists, that's just a fig leaf over the truth, which is that offshore oil is to serve as America's "strategic petroleum reserve" for when things get really, really bad.
As for nuclear power plants, it's unclear whether the conservative designs we implement today are net exporters of energy. Historically, America's nuclear plants have served as a cover for weapons development. It's possible that riskier designs are net exporters of energy. So far, the risk has outweighed the anticipated reward.
And this my friends is why our energy problem will never be resolved. Denial. This man, I'm sure he's well meaning and a great guy, is in denial about the root cause of our energy problem. He is like many, many Americans and westerners. They are blind to the real problem.
In 1982 the Reagan administration proposed the building of 200 NEW nuclear power plants to wean ourselves off of mid-East oil.
Guess who killed that idea? Sure wasn't a fig-leaf. ;->
Please, please, please provide links. I Googled every which combination of "Reagan" "1982" "nuclear" "reactor" without any result that matched what you're talking about.
Please, also be explicit about "the problem". What is the problem? Fear of nuclear power? Who opposes it? Democrats? Liberals? Average Joes? I'm none of those.
I've done a lot of webbing, and I'm still not convinced that conventional nuclear reactors are an energy source. If you consider all the energy it takes to explore, discover, and mine uranium, there may not actually be an energy profit in conventional reactors.
Bryan
I don't know what to tell you about your failure to find anyting on Reagan's proposal. 1982 was well before the internet and something as mild as a proposal. His proposal was dead-on-arrival in the enviromentally controlled House.
The "problem" is ludite enviromentalists.
Conventional nuclear reactors are not an energy source?
I guess someone should tell the US Navy that!
You misunderstand. Nuclear reactors do produce energy, but only after plenty of conventional fuels were spent exploring, discovering, mining, refining, and enriching the uranium. As the energy cost of producing conventional fuels grows, there will come a day when the conventional fuel energy spent creating nuclear fuel is more than the nuclear energy it produces.
This does not mean that nuclear energy is useless. But it does mean that it may not be an energy source. It may act more like a kind of "battery" where, effectively, fossil fuels have been converted to a form that requires no combustion.
Which is why nuclear reactors are so nifty in submarines. Because submarines are underwater.
Upon what do you base this assertion from bmcnett? All of the reading I have done on this subject indicates that whilst the energy requirements for manufacturing reactor fuel (and the construction of nuclear powerplants of course) are substantial, the energy returns are orders of magnitude greater than the input.
I am always on the look out for info that challenges my current understanding however, so if you have some sources you can point me towards I would appreciate it.
Regards
--
Luke Silburn
Please don't forget that I was talking about conventional reactors. Fast-breeder reactors are awesome energy sources. Even M. King Hubbert said so, in his famous 1956 paper that introduced the world to peak oil.
For explaining why conventional reactors suck, I defer to Depletion Scotland!
The problem with fast-breeder reactors - the reason why we don't have any - is that they happen to produce weapons-grade plutonium, and for this and other reasons are quite unsafe to scale up for mass market consumption.
"America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the settlers, before the Indians. The evil is there waiting." William S. Burroughs
In 1982 the Reagan administration proposed the building of 200 NEW nuclear power plants to wean ourselves off of mid-East oil
HARDLY !
VERY little oil is used to generate electricity, and what is burned is in Hawaii (no nukes planned for Maui AFAIK), Puerto Rico and for rare peaking in extreme cases.
Electricity has a small bit of overlap with oil for home heating, but that is about it.
Reagan DID kill an effective program to get off of oil though. Carter approved plans to build Rapid Rail (subways) in Atlanta, Miami and Baltimore. Reagan kept these from expanding and new ones in new cities. THAT is a way to use electricity to replace oil. In fact we could reduce US Oil use by -10% (-15% for transportation) by using non-R means:
http://www.lightrailnow.org/features/f_lrt_2006-05a.htm
Best Hopes for Electrification of Transportation,
Alan
Reagan DID kill an effective program to get off of oil though. Carter approved plans to build Rapid Rail (subways) in Atlanta, Miami and Baltimore. Reagan kept these from expanding and new ones in new cities. THAT is a way to use electricity to replace oil. In fact we could reduce US Oil use by -10% (-15% for transportation) by using non-R means:
And Reagan also poured billions into L.A. failed metro rail.
In hindsight he should have not let a penny go into metrorail. Thus it is wise that he didn't fund Atlanta, Miami and Baltimore's.
If these were such good ideas, how come they could only go forward on Federal money????
Obviously they weren't.
Your premises are wrong, so your conclusions are wrong as well.
LA Metro is an aborted stub of a line (and I do blame Rep. Waxman and the Beverly Hill liberals for that), yet it carries about 130,000/weekday. Extend it to UCLA and past to the sea and ridership should be about a 500,000 EVEN WITHOUT POST-PEAK OIL. Add Peak Oil and they may need white gloved pushers to get everyone aboard a "Subway to the Sea"(see Japan).
Miami has passed a half cent sales tax to build a Elevated Rail System of 103 miles. 90% of the people within 3 miles, half within 2 miles.
http://www.miamidade.gov/citt//RailMap.htm
Medium brown lines are post-2016 due to federal funding cutbacks under GWB.
The "free market" Republicans voted for 90% federal funding to build Interstate highways.
Why not 90% fed funding to create a non-oil transportation system ? We will DESPERATELY need a non-oil transportation alternative post-Peak Oil (and the Germans, Swiss and Japanese have one and the French are building one).
Since Urban Rail is a more vital national strategic interest than interstate highways EVER were, and Interstate Highways "deserved" 90% fed funding (per R logic), lets fund truly essential Urban Rail at 95% fed funding !
And not to forget, electrify and expand our freight railroads (as close to a free market transportation as we have in the USA). Fund it by exempting them from property taxes (just like public roads).
We can fund it all off tolls (not taxes) on Interstate highways. Just a user fee, not a tax. If you use an interstate to commute to work $2 if just a couple of miles; $25 if it is a long way seems reasonable. If I do not use Interstates (very rarely) I may pay a few $/year.
NO NEW TAXES !! :-)
Alan
I completely agree with your opening statement, especially if you expand it to include powerful "King Coal" and natural gas industry leaders.
However, when you speak about nuclear power plants, your logic fails due to a lack of information about nuclear power and a resulting inability to connect the dots.
As you say, typical environmentalists are not particularly powerful people. As organized groups they have some influence, especially if they have powerful donors and supporters. If their mission is a popular one anyway - saving Yellowstone or the Chesapeake Bay, for instance - they can be quite successful and influential.
Powerful and wealthy fossil fuel related people and countries realized this sometime in the late 1960s. As they realized that they would soon be losing market share to the upstart uranium fueled power plants that were beginning to come on line and operate reliably, they looked around to find a way to slow the process.
They recognized groups of activists (Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and others) that had garnered attention through work against hydroelectric dams in pristine areas and through work against an unpopular war. They studied those groups and the individuals in the groups and figured out ways to encourage them to fight against their commercial rivals in the nuclear power business.
Using carefully crafted messages produced by people like Amory Lovins, they spread Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) about their competition through these groups. They did it so well that many people have been able to embrace marketing terms like "clean natural gas" or "clean coal" when they cannot accept the reality that nuclear fission is clean enough to run inside a sealed submarine and has been doing so continuously since January 17, 1955 when the USS Nautilus went to sea.
The 104 operating nuclear plants in the US, despite all of the opposition, produce more electricity every year than ALL of the electrical power plants that were operating in the US did in 1960. They essentially succeeded in replacing oil as an electrical power fuel and made inroads into the market share of natural gas. They also provided much of the power required by the growth in demand during the 1980s and 1990s.
If the opposition had been less well endowed with political and economic friendships from the fossil fuel industry, nuclear power would probably have a 50% or more electricity market share instead of a 20% share. We would have kept building plants, including the 150 or so that we cancelled to try to protect the domestic coal and gas industries.
Of course, instead of burning 1.3 BILLION tons of coal each year and transporting that at great profit for railroads and coal mining companies, we would be moving a few thousand tons of uranium each year. We would have perhaps a few hundred thousand tons of carefully stored, partially used fuel that would be cooled down and ready for an effective recycling program that could make better use of the 95-97% of the initial potential energy of mined uranium that our current, first generation, once through nuclear fuel cycle leaves behind.
Rod Adams
Editor, Atomic Insights
Rod,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, I've never heard about this fight between big oil/coal and nuclear, but it sounds like there's some truth in it. I'll go do some reading, thanks again.
In your opinion, how much oil, coal, and methane consumption could be reasonably replaced by nuclear power in America? If we replaced as much as we could, given 2% yearly growth in energy consumption, about when would nuclear fuel production peak and enter terminal decline?
What I keep hearing from the peak oil doomers, is that "peak uranium" will already happen in my lifetime, even at current rates of nuclear fuel consumption.
Bryan
Bryan:
environmentalists that are household names:
Henry David Thoreau
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Charles Darwin
Audubon
Teddy Roosevelt
Ralph Nader
Al Gore
Of course, I'm only talking about educated households.
Jesus Christ, with his concept that we need to be God's stewards in all creation
The Buddah, with his idea of compassion for all life
And I'm only talking about spiritually seeking households
Yeah, you're right about them being household names. I should've said "I can't think of any who were famously powerful" because with the exception of Roosevelt, aren't any on that list I know who had the power to do much about the environment.
As for Jesus, well, his father wasn't such an environmentalist.
"Go forth and multiply" (Gen. 24:2).
Your list of environmentalists must be a joke? James Audubon was an environmentalist? He killed more birds than a windmill.
To wit:
To draw or paint the birds, he shot them first, using fine shot to prevent them from being torn to pieces. He then used fixed wires to prop them up, restoring a natural position. His paintings of birds are set true-to-life in their natural habitat. This was in stark contrast with the stiff representations of birds by his contemporaries, such as Alexander Wilson. Audubon once wrote: "I call birds few when I shoot less than one hundred per day." One of his biographers, Duff Hart-Davis, reveals, "The rarer the bird, the more eagerly he pursued it, never apparently worrying that by killing it he might hasten the extinction of its kind."
"America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the settlers, before the Indians. The evil is there waiting." William S. Burroughs
B. Ban on off-shore oil-drilling. Well how many billions of tax dollars did the State miss out on by not using that resource? Tens of billions
D. Hostility to on-shore drilling. More tax dollars lost to Texas
SUPERB Decisions !!!
Texas and Louisiana have been the stupid ones !
We get a few % of a low price (zero from far offshore except environmental destruction in spades, see lost wetlands due to canals for NG pipelines).
When California feels like it they will get Hundreds of Billions, not tens (perhaps a Trillion $+). A much higher % of a MUCH higher price.
Meanwhile, while minimally exploiting their own oil resources, saving them for the future (unlike spendthrift TX & LA, so VERY Republican to be spendthrifts and to not worry about the future, let the kids be damned), California had higher per capita incomes. California was richer (the essence of virtue for Republicans) so they MUST be better than Texas and Louisiana ! Right ?
And the states get half of the federal royalties from NEW (but not existing) federal offshore royalties. So LA & TX get zero for most of their offshore oil, CA will get half. Sounds like CA did the right thing !
A Republican from age 19 till GWB & the new Republican Party cured me,
Alan
BTW, Texas does not produce enough oil to take care of the sprawl in Houston, Dallas, Ft. Worth, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, Corpus Christi, Lubbock, Amarillo, et al. Yep, Texas is AN OIL IMPORTER ! They cannot produce enough to take care of themselves.
Alan, get your facts straight. The state of Louisiana owns the land under its marshes and for three miles offshore, and thats where the environmentally destructive dredging has taken place in the past. And the dredging is the problem on salt water incursion. Also, don't pretend that drillers wanted to destroy the marshes. Most of the damage is from canals over 35 years old, before environmental awareness. I'm not excusing them from the obligation tohelp fix the problem, I just want you to admit it was inadverdently caused, not maliciously.
And, if you want to say the state gets zero from deepwater offshore, go poke around Lake Charles, New Iberia and Moron City, I mean Morgan City. There is a huge amount of jobs and equipment manufacture in the Louisiana area. I don't know the proportion of severance taxes,state income taxes and state ad valorem taxes in Louisiana finances but I suspect its very high.
Bob Ebersole
The recent budget surplus for the State of Louisiana was fueled almost entirely by increased oil & gas related revenues.
However, we would have been well served by drilling less in the past (like CA) and waiting for the future.
The only recent canals (and there has been some controversy, not enough IMHO) have been for natural gas pipelines from deep offshore. In one case it went along an existing canal/pipeline that would have otherwise shut down in a half dozen years and started to heal.
Federal waters production goes back to the 1960s in Louisiana and we have yet to see the first dollar in royalty from those waters (new leases the state will get half, the feds half, old leases 100% feds).
As for the economic development serving the offshore industry, years ago the oil industry brought down some New Englanders to show them that offshore drilling wasn't so bad. One look at Morgan City and they were more convinced than ever that they did NOT want offshore drilling !
But, like you, I do engage in a bit of hyperbole on occasion, especially when R baiting ! (Ever notice that ex-smokers are more virulently anti-smoking than non-smokers ?)
Best Hopes,
Alan
Get consistent, and get accurate. California is the third largest oil producing state. They have severance taxes on both oil and natural gas.
The offshore drilling ban is by the US Congress. The offshore lands belong to the federal government, after the first three miles from the vegetation line. So if you want to change the drilling ban, talk to your congressman. And its the same with Florida. In both places its those famously socialist real estate developers(sarcanol alert*) who stop offshore drilling, they claim it will hurt tourism, the other communist industry.
Bob Ebersole
* new people to The Oil Drum, sarcanol is the mythical substance that powers sarcasm, a rhetorical device that's often misunderstood on the internet. Its an inside joke around here, so welcome to the insiders group!
In 1990 California, not the feds, voted to ban any on-shore oil drilling within a 1000 yards of the coastline.
It sounds like you're the one who needs to get consistent and get accurate.
No charge for the California history lesson.
That's true, and that's state waters. If you'll reread my comment, I said offshore drilling more than 3 miles offshore, in other words, federal waters, not state waters.
I'm a Texan, not a citizen of California. What their state government wants to do with their property is their decision, not mine or anyone else out of state. But, I'd like to note that drilling has changed in the last 25 years. We can now directionally drill 3 miles, and have up to 48 wells or maybe more from one platform. California might want to reconsider, and perhaps just have stringent requirements on production and drilling. Bob Ebersole
I've done what I could for the Energy Bill. I offered several comments, and both called and wrote my congressman, Ron Paul.
I suspect its wasted effort. Ron Paul is more interested in posturing than in any type of legislative success. I haven't recieved any acknowledgement for my emailsor phone calls.
The Energy Bill and Tax Bill are sure vetos by Bush. If he can't construct a coherent energy policy, he darn sure won't let the Democrats do it. So I predict another year of doing nothing.
The Democrats aren't any better. They are counting on no energy policy to be a dead albatros around the neck of the Republicans next year.
We're truly falling off a cliff in the US. Venezuela is saying no more oil exports in two years, the Mexicans in seven years. We've lost the war in iraq, and troop withdrawel means we will not have any bases inthe Middle East if Saudi wants to sell us any oil. Its Jeffry-Khebab's-Ace's export/import land models in action.
Meanwhile, the financial sector is imploding-Jim Cramer predicted yesterday that 7 million Americans will loose their homes through foreclosure, thats the number with escalating interest rates. The hedge fund crisis looks like its going to bankrupt all the pension funds, banks, college endowment funds in the country.
Bob Ebersole
Oh come on now Bob, isn't that a bit of hyperbole?
"All the pension funds"?
Funny how Wall Street doesn't agree with you.
Lets see how it plays out. But, pension funds are the largest purchasers of fixed income securities, and some of the largest purchasers of hedge funds. The Hedge funds are apparently over-leveraged. But, to be perfectly honest, I am a little prone to rhetorical hyperbole. We aren't going to know the total extent for a couple of months.
Have you checked out Stoneleigh's round up on TOD Canada? She does a truly fine job of covering the financial press and the housing price balloon.
Bob Ebersole
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1649918,00.html
Iraq is going back to the stone age. Those silly Iraqis. Why don't they write their congressmen?
Hi Chimp,
Thanks for posting this (horrible as it is). I'll pass it along. (It certainly is an awful illustration of the dependence of water supply on energy.)
The Author admits congress can't fix this problem
Time to just let the free-market fix the problem with higher prices. If the prices escalate the public will use less.
There, that wasn't so hard now was it?
Unfortunately, the free-market is not very effective at solving problems where consumers have no viable alternatives.
The price elasticity of gasoline is incredibly low. Using data from the last 4 years, a 100% increase in price causes a tiny 2.5% decrease in gasoline usage.
Gasoline prices will need to triple ($8.00-$9.00) to just cause a small 10% reduction in fuel usage.
The same reduction could be caused by increasing the CAFE standard by 2 MPG at a negligible cost to society. (Tripling the price of gasoline will push low income workers out of the economy, but selling high MPG cars does not).
Because the elasticity is so low, people only cut back as a last resort. And so we are seeing other sectors take the economic hit first, such as Retail. I would not like to explain to the board of Walmart that my solution to reduced gasoline supplies is $8.00 gasoline and a multi billion dollar loss for Walmart.
Here is an introduction to elasticity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_demand
Why retail will take gas prices on the chin:
http://www.consumerpsychologist.com/gasoline_prices.htm
Studies of elasticity and gasoline:
http://economics.about.com/od/priceelasticityofdemand/a/gasoline_elast.htm
Sadly, hoping the free-market will solve our problems will just result in huge costs, lost revenue in other sectors, and unemployment. But your right, it is the easy do nothing "solution", so will probably be taken.
Jon Freise
Analyze Not Fantasize -D. Meadows
Unfortunately, the free-market is not very effective at solving problems where consumers have no viable alternatives.
And whom do you think can solve the energy crisis if not the free-market? The government?????? They've done such a good job at education and health-care, sure why not just have the government bring us back to the days of gas rationing and lines like in the 1970s.
And "viable" alternatives will arise with the increased cost of oil and NG. Its called the free market and it works every time its tried.
The price elasticity of gasoline is incredibly low. Using data from the last 4 years, a 100% increase in price causes a tiny 2.5% decrease in gasoline usage.
If its incredibly low, and I do agree with you on that, its because that is how it should be, not as some pandering politician says it should be.
Gasoline prices will need to triple ($8.00-$9.00) to just cause a small 10% reduction in fuel usage.
Your source for this?
Ah, I see. I thought we were having a discussion of the science of economics, but I seem to have wandered into the theology department by mistake. (Having argued with enough anti-evolutionists, I should know better then wasting another breath, but WTH).
The whole point is that when the elasticity gets very low, you don't really have a free market because the consumer cannot shift choices with any ease. Instead you have a monopoly of sorts. And it is the job of the government to either regulate monopolies or break them up.
What the government can do:
Mandate higher MPG vehicles to reduce demand at far lower cost than equivalent price increases.
Create transportation substitutes such as subways, high speed trains, etc, that allow the consumer a choice that they cannot afford to provide for themselves (I would love to replace my car with a 600 MPG subway, but I don't have an extra $100 million lying around).
Create alternate fuel choices, such as requiring electric vehicles be sold, that allow the consumer to switch fuels once prices begin to rise.
The last two actions would raise the elasticity function by giving consumers choices they can take when the price of gasoline rises. Those choices are necessary for the market to have the effect you desire at a price that is not lethal.
The triple price was calculated from current EIA data for fuel usage and prices. Details related here:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2789#comment-216345
Jon Freise
Analyze Not Fantasize -D. Meadows
What the government can do:
Mandate higher MPG vehicles to reduce demand at far lower cost than equivalent price increases.
Not needed. People are flocking to Hybrids.
Hybrids have a much, much higher MPG figure than the fleet average. There, again and as always, is your free-market beating government mandates.
Create transportation substitutes such as subways, high speed trains, etc, that allow the consumer a choice that they cannot afford to provide for themselves (I would love to replace my car with a 600 MPG subway, but I don't have an extra $100 million lying around).
Been there, done that, didn't work. All one has to do is look at how horrid municipal governments have failed to enact these "substitutes". I give you the failure of Los Angeles' "Metro Rail." No one rides it. Back in 1982 the city got the approval of proposition AA in the November election. If the government of Los Angeles, under Mayor Tom Bradley, had put the funds in Light-rail it would have made a large impact on the pollution/traffic/energy problem that to this day perplexes Los Angeles.
But no, they changed their mind and went underground. A complete and total waste of money. Essentially no on rides it.
How many ten's of billions of dollars have been wasted on another failed "government substitute" is anyone's guess.
Seattle recently has wanted to build a rail system that comes out to over $1 BILLION per mile. What a joke!
Funny how the people at Disney Land, you know those guys who are part of the free-market, have had a light-rail at their Anahiem Park since 1959. Yet the "government" can't seem to duplicate their success.
Create alternate fuel choices, such as requiring electric vehicles be sold, that allow the consumer to switch fuels once prices begin to rise.
They have, and its called "Ethanol" and it is a complete and utter waste of energy and goverment funds. The enviromentalists are touting that as the solution to our energy problem. Too bad the science doesn't support their wacky ideas.
The last two actions would raise the elasticity function by giving consumers choices they can take when the price of gasoline rises. Those choices are necessary for the market to have the effect you desire at a price that is not lethal.
As I've shown you, the government is the last entity you or anyone else should want to "solve" this problem. Their track-record speaks volumes in testimony to their failures.
I give you the failure of Los Angeles' "Metro Rail." No one rides it
You quite frankly do not know what you are talking about, except it REALLY is the liberals fault this time.
Rep. Waxman and the Beverly Hills liberals stopped the Red Line subway from even finishing the proposed starter line. Passed a law about going into the "methane zone".
The aborted stub of a line still carries over 120,000 riders/weekday. And a significant amount of TOD was developed around most of the stations.
I have friends that rarely ride the subway, but they wanted a walkable neighborhood, so they moved in a couple of blocks from a Red Line station. One car for two working adults, and a tank of gas every two to four weeks. Gas savings that does not show up in ridership stats.
If the Red Line was extended to UCLA it should become the second busiest subway in the USA (behind only the Lexington Avenue subway in NYC).
NO MORE HIGHWAYS !! They only encourage more driving, more sprawl, more oil use.
Everywhere demolishing highways has been tried, it has been beneficial for the urban areas. We should build Urban Rail, and then demolish the freeway in the same corridor instead of spending $$$ rebuilding & repairing it.
The old ways of driving everywhere will not work post-Peak Oil,
Alan
Oh, Washington DC Metro is *SUCH* a failure !
In 1970, 4% took the public bus to work. Today, 40% take public transit. More would ride if Bush et al was not "going slow" on federal funding to Tyson's Corner-Dulles.
Best Hopes for REAL Solutions,
Alan
If you insist on the "free market" solution, then stop subsidising road construction and repair. Let toll road companies own every street outside your driveway, then whine that nothing gets built. Its no different to build light rail than to widen a US Highway or an Interstate. What we're talking about is changing the subsidy from one that is destroying the country to one that will enable the US to survive without foreign fuel, a national security issue. Only an arab-loving traitor wants more roads!(sarcanol alert) Bob Ebersole
Hi Jon,
I just wanted to say I appreciate your two comments - it helps me to see things explained in different ways. Thank you.
And "viable" alternatives will arise with the increased cost of oil and NG. Its called the free market and it works every time its tried
How do you know ?
There has never been a free market (British Hong Kong came close).
The massive growth of suburbia WAS NOT FREE MARKET !
Post-WW II VA loans went to new construction, very difficult to get one for an established neighborhood. The Interstate and other highways and road building. Desegregation and white flight was not a "free market". Drawing school districts boundaries and giving one school system twice as much/student as another was not free market. Putting suburbs in different taxing jurisdictions was not free market, etc. etc.
Our use of oil is NOT FREE MARKET either.
Best Hopes for Opening Your Eyes,
Alan
Inelasticity of gasoline demand operates over a range and beyond that range behavior changes radically. If the average person is driving 12,000 miles per year with 20 mpg and using 600 gallons of gasoline a year they can probably do that at $2, $3, and maybe even $4 per gallon. But suppose prices go up to $8 per gallon. Is the average person going to spend $4800 per year on gasoline? Or change their behavior?
At some point gasoline costs become too large a percentage of total income and money spent on gasoline takes away far too much money from other things people want or need to buy.
We already see a big shift of buying behavior for new cars. SUV, pick-up truck, and big car sales have declined dramatically. The most popular cars have 4 cylinder engines. As prices go still higher people will change their behavior even more drastically. They'll move, change jobs, buy smaller cars, take shorter vacation trips, go to stores less often.
People will not continue with their same behaviors.
The "free market" solution to not enough oil to go around is a decades long DEPRESSION (see 1929 to 1941 but probably worse this time).
The quickest and "easiest" way to reduce oil consumption is to reduce economic activity. Unemployed people drive less. Closed factories also use less. Unemployed people evicted from their homes and their cars repossessed use almost no oil at all. That is the free market solution.
-5% less oil, year after year after year (and it may be more than -5% less, see Export Land Model) WITHOUT A NON-OIL TRANSPORTATION ALTERNATIVE, means a serious decline of E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G in the USA. Living standards, economic activity, life span (male life expectancy dropped 10 years as the Soviet Union > Russia, expect the same here), value of US dollar, US influence world-wide (we will do a Great Britain and simply pull out of most of the world), morale and more.
IF YOU WANT SOCIALISM (real, hard militant socialism) keep the USA addicted to oil and without a non-oil alternative.
As the USA tries to deal with -5% less oil one year, -8% the next and then -2% the year after (it will not be a smooth decline) and keep minimal industry and farming going, the French will be cruising around on 180 mph trains, bicycling in Paris (10,000 rent-a-bikes today, 10,000 more next year) and taking trams in their smaller cities and towns (France has just 5 towns of more than 100,000 without a tram or plans for one. Two towns of less than 100,000 with a tram_.
Mulhouse France, population 112,000, got it's first tram line (think Light Rail) in 2006 and plans to have three by 2012. One new line will be an inter-urban line to the new TGV of the East in Strasbourg (also under construction).
Walk out your front door in a remote corner of France (where Germany & Switzerland meet) and walk 2 or 4 blocks and 4 hours later you are in Paris ! And you used 2 drops of lubricating oil to get there.
The French take 3 to 4 years and 20 to 25 million euros/km to go from "We want a tram line from here to there and here is the check" to ribbon cutting.
But, of course, those are the "Can Do" "Get it Done" French I have seen in New Orleans (Merci Beaucoup France :-) and we are the GWB FEMA types.
Best Hopes for a Non-Republican (and non-militant Socialist) future,
Alan
The quickest and "easiest" way to reduce oil consumption is to reduce economic activity. Unemployed people drive less. Closed factories also use less. Unemployed people evicted from their homes and their cars repossessed use almost no oil at all. That is the free market solution.
-5% less oil, year after year after year (and it may be more than -5% less, see Export Land Model) WITHOUT A NON-OIL TRANSPORTATION ALTERNATIVE, means a serious decline of E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G in the USA. Living standards, economic activity, life span (male life expectancy dropped 10 years as the Soviet Union > Russia, expect the same here), value of US dollar, US influence world-wide (we will do a Great Britain and simply pull out of most of the world), morale and more.
Had we listned to Reagan back in 1982 we would even need to contemplate your draconian solution.
And just *HOW* would 200 nukes have reduced our oil dependence ? (I will grant you 3% to 5% less oil used).
BTW, that draconian solution is *NOT* mine (I have another one that is a little easier, if you read the links) but the "free market" solution that you advocate.
Also, I was wondering how was President Reagan (a gov't official) going to influence the "free market" to build 200 nukes ? Isn't that socialism ? Or Fascism ?
Reagan did not just say "build more nukes, as many as you want" *BUT* gave a specific number ! H'mmm
Alan
Heard on the radio just now that RPS passed. CNN confirms. No nukes or hydro, 4% of the 15% by 2020 can come from efficiency measures. This could leave little room for other forms of new generation.
Chris
That's great news, if Bush doesn't veto. it means that virtually all of the new electric power will come from solar and wind. Can't say that I agree to exclude nuclear and hydro, their both low CO2, and my personal position is that we need both to provide a base load for the grid.
As far as a "free market" solution, most states don't have a free market. They have regulated monoplies.
There's an interesting company in Texas called Green Mountain Energy. In the deregulated areas of the state they provide a choice for wind and hydro. They purchase clean energy from wind farm owners and put it in the grid, and sell retail and commercial electric accounts to use that energy, its sort of like the trade system that this amendment allows. Its a win for everyone, the clean generating companies get a market for their wind and hydro energy and the customer knows his dollars aren't going to build new coal plants. Their what's known as a Retail Electric Provider in the deregulated parts of the state.
They're not public, unfortunately for investors, but are owned 20% by BP, and 20% by a Dutch utility, and 60% by the Wylie family, and old oil and gas clan. I'm guessing that BP and the Dutch utility get the carbon credits and thats's why they invest as well as profits.
Texas is really big on wind. The turbines provide a very nice royalty-I've heard about $4,000 bucks per turbine per year, so the landowner's love 'em. They're a nice big taxable improvement for the schools and counties, and the jobs working on the Wind Turbines pay excellent wages, which are scarce in the rural areas of West Texas.
The state owns most of the mountain tops, and they are providing excellent royalties for the Permanent School Fund, replacing the depleting oil royalties. And there's room for thousands of turbines to be built.
Bob Ebersole
You know, Texas wind blew away a customer of mine. I sell contracts to rent a solar power system for your home for what you payed your utility in 2005. It is a nice deal because you can keep that offered rate for up to 25 years. I'll plug it here: Watch the video, read the FAQ under the Education tab, and check for your utility using the map at the bottom of the page.
But, my customer, who is a solar enthusiast, decided the deal was not good enough. The reason? His wind contract was cheaper than our rate by a good bit. I'm happy to lose a customer to another renewable. We don't compete well with hydro in the Northwest either, though there we just don't list the utilites that are selling below $0.07/kWh. With Texas wind the situation is a little different since we are matching the regular utility rate so we do do business there.
The take away: renewables are cheaper.
Chris
How well do you compete in the following states ?
1 Nebraska
2 Tennessee
3 Louisiana
Thanks in advance.
Flaws
in EM Theory
Nebraska and Tennessee don't have net metering so we don't do business there. These are the states in white on the map. In Louisiana, we have 104 homes registered since about December 06. We've got about 30 utilities listed there. If you don't find yours, let me know and I'll add it to the list of missing utilities. This is a start up so it is only just starting to do beta test systems to shake out the billing software and it is not yet fabricating panels. You can see the registrations by state on the flash map here. (Click on the state.)
Thanks for asking,
Chris
PS Rural electrification worked very well and people are pretty happy with their coops so it has been hard to get net metering going in TVA territory. In West Virginia, where net metering just came in and power plants are close to the mines, it looks like we will be able to match the rate of the third largest utility, but not those of the two largest.
Hello Chris,
How are you financing this? I was looking at putting something like this together awhile ago. My plan was basically equivalent to a solar mortgage. Create loans to purchase the solar system where the monthly payment on the loan was comparable to the monthly electric bill, convert the solar mortgages to solar bonds, sell the bonds and repeat. The company takes care of all the details so the end consumer is paying the same monthly rate, but with solar panels on the roof. After the fed started raising interest rates the numbers fell apart.
I live in Albuquerque, NM one of the most fertile places in the country for solar, but I either needed lower interest rates or better price per watt for total system.
First question, how did you solve the recurrent financing problem? Yen carry trade, dollar a watt, big investor?
Second question, assuming the answer to the first question is satisfactory, can I buy stock?
Best of luck,
and thanks in advance,
Tim
Tim,
I think that in New Mexico, you could get away with lower efficiency panels in rooftop applications and since utilities only pay avoided cost for net excess, you don't want systems that are too powerful. Aten Solar sells at $3.00/watt retail with a 25 year warranty so I would think you could work with that. You could certainly beat us with TriCounty Electric Coop if we don't have a typo. Our offered rate is $0.344/kWh. Youch! Installers here like Evergreen which is on the high side on $/W but they do well on efficiency making systems fit better.
You can't invest yet and may not be able to for some time. The financing is pretty much what you were thinking of, but the institutions involoved have not been announced yet. You can imagine that there is a market out there for collateral that retains value. Lender are getting nervous as real estate values fall below the notes they hold. Solar panels financed over 25 years still have 80% production at the end of the finance term so reposessing means there is still value there throughout the finance period. The market is going to be pretty fast over the next five to ten years and the company wants to avoid some of the strings that go along with VC and IPOs to be able to be nimble.
The main thing the company is doing that you won't be doing is vertical integration. That, together with large scale puts it in its competitive position.
A number of people doing sales for the company are also doing their own installation business. This is not a conflict of interest because rental works for some people while purchase works for others. If you get your thing up and running, don't miss the opportunity to help both kinds.
Regards,
Chris
Yeah, but Green Mountain won't give me a 25 year no escalation contract. Send me some info, my emails on the user data page. They charge the same as the retail electric provider "price to beat".
Bob Ebersole
CitizenRe is a relatively new multi-level-marketing company. It was thoroughly debated on www.RenewableEnergyAccess.com a few times and shown to be a scam (here’s one of the threads - http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=47453). While renting people'home owner's roofs to put PV on them sounds like a great idea, it doesn't work financially.
Check out what Sun Edison is doing - http://www.sunedison.com/.
____________________
myspace
Actually it is the other way around. People rent the equipment rather than the company renting the roof.
CR is a start up vertically integrated solar power company. It uses network marketing as just about the only way to sell 100,000 units a year from the first plant. You need an exponential sales method to handle exponential growth.
As to the numbers working out, the cost to produce panels will be $1.53/Watt so there is not problem meeting $0.07/kWh. The SunEdison model is quite similar except that it is done for commercial buildings. They apply lifting equipment to speed installation keeping this cost down as will CR. Companies save money with solar power that SunEdison installs. So, pretty clearly, the numbers do work out. To make it go in the residential market takes a bit more thinking but I am pretty confident the plant capacity will get on roofs and not sit in a warehouse. And, it is the residential market that has the largest roof resource.
If you have questions that I can answer I'll be happy to try to address them.
Chris
Interesting concept. I was thinking that PVs were going to be several years away for me, this looks like a possible way to get them up sooner.
Could you answer a few questions for me?
1) I know there was a lot of discussion and debate regarding their manufacturing facility last winter. Time has now elapsed, where are they with that now?
2) I was going to do some more energy efficiency measures first before going with PV panels. If I were to put this system in now, and then was able to achieve some further savings later that put me well below installed capacity, does the net metering mean that the surplus flows to the power company? Who gets the benefit of that: myself, or CitizenRE?
3) On the other hand, I will probably also eventually get an NEV. If I were to need to increase capacity so that I had enough power to recharge daily, how would that be handled?
4) I'm probably going to have to re-roof in about 8-10 years. Will CitizenRE work with me on that as far as temporarilly removing and reinstalling their system? Will there be an extra charge for that?
5) Have any CitizenRE systems actually been installed yet? If not yet, when will they start?
6) What happens if CitizenRE goes belly-up?
That last one I gather is the big concern with most people.
Thanks for the questions.
The original schedule slipped when a state asked to be considered for the plant location rather than the original state. Their offer was good enough than the plan for the plant location was changed. I don't know either state, and the plant location won't be announced until the completion of a transportation study underway now. What the company is saying that is at all specific is that the plant will be in the Northeast. As far as I know, the production schedule is now to start having panels produced in the first quarter of '08 with production ramping up over the next 4 quarters to full production (100,000 units (500 MWp)/year). The first beta systems will start being istalled this month. These will not use CR panels but will use the rest of the electronics and will help to shake out the performance monitoring and billing software.
The aim of the company is to cover 100% of your power use over a year but no more. You pay for what the system produces rather than what you use so the company wants to avoid overages in case your utility confiscates them as many do. If your use goes down, because of efficiency or another reason, the company will remove panels to keep below the 100% level. Similarly, if your use goes up, the company will add more panels. There is currently a upper limit of 10kWp on system size though.
In the 25 year contracts, you get either a free move or a free deinstall-reinstall for reroofing but not both. If you move, you get the rate offered in the new area that was offered when you signed up.
If the company fails, you should still get your bill because the billing company will be a seperate entity. But, you could run into problems with service, such as the deinstall-reinstall service. In that case, you should have recourse to have the system removed owing to breach of contract. The company has been doing some interesting work on the reliability of inverters (Rob Wills is the CTO) and it may well be that a good portion of systems will run without any problems for 25 years. Inverters are usually good for at least 15 years now.
Hope this helps,
Chris
IMO Vickerman is pretty close, I suppose he has to formulate it as he does out of political correctness.
You have to go no further then reading our own TOD, many of the opinions are colored by personal career investment, at least.
When you have a society as demographically fractured, devoid of personal reponsibility and entitlement oriented as ours there probably is nothing that will work. The basic underlying condition of good faith before personal profit can no longer be met, it's law of the jungle now.
So, in a way the sooner the whole system collapses, the sooner it can be rebuilt.
You could say that we are are way past Peak Good Faith.
Just ask family farmers (here and in Iraq) whether Cheap Food and Expensive Oil will help anything at all......
The sooner the system collapses, the fewer resources will be wasted trying to save it.
"If you want Change, keep it in your pocket. Your money is your only real vote."
mushashi,
Any opinion is always based on personal experience and beliefs, so your reasoning about others opinions is BS. And, hold up a mirror before you talk of anyone else being "devoid of personal responsibility".
Its a value of all religions and systems of ethical belief that we all need to be personally responsible for our actions. And, if you're honest, we all fail a lot of the time.
Bob Ebersole
You can bullshit some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.
We need to understand why our society is not taking action to address peak oil, and this article is a step forward.
To summarize, just for my own understanding:
1. The structure of the congress gives extra leverage to an interested minority.
2. There are a handful of special interests that are very dependent on energy revenue. The gain is strongly concentrated. They are highly motivated.
3. There are a large number of people paying for that revenue. The pain is thinly spread. They tend to be complacent.
I think parts 2 and 3 form an essential piece of why we are not taking action. Energy production concentrates profits in the hands of a few. They gain the ability to exert influence on their own behalf. They have the funds to lobby government and to run full page advertisements, etc.
Efficiency improvements have the ability to save society from a peak oil collapse, but they don’t concentrate profits in the hands of the few. The gain is spread very thinly. They cannot generate influence.
I think this is the underlying reason for why CAFÉ standards failed to pass, but Ethanol has widespread support.
I also think this is why there is so much focus on the supply side and not the demand side.
It may be that a society cannot solve a demand side problem because the power always concentrates on the supply side.
Jon Freise
Analyze Not Fantasize -D. Meadows
Only somewhat concentrated, I think, but agree the
motivation is strong.
If one decides not to skip work today lest it
cause one's income to be curtailed, is that an instance
of one's lobbying oneself?
If it is, then the talk of lobbying government is
insightful. Energy production concentrates profits
and tax revenues, which are like guaranteed
profits, in the hands of a few. Government personnel
are the vast bulk of that few. Or anyway, to me
that seems powerfully explanatory of their behaviour.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/Paper_for_11th_CHC.html :
oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
We have a federal energy policy in the United States. In fact we have many federal energy policies.
Should the federal energy policy be internally consistent? No. You heard me. NO!
Why shouldn't a federal energy policy be internally consistent? Most likely if it was internally consistent it would be wrong. It would be shaped based on some set of assumptions and the odds are those assumptions would be at least partially wrong.
A federal energy policy with many components driving at many goals is more likely to have at least one component aiming at a useful goal. We are better off with separate pieces of policy promoting solar, nuclear, wind, and other energy sources. Within each policy area we are better off with different initiatives aimed at promoting policies in different ways. Design more than one kind of new nuclear reactor, more than one kind of photovoltaic material, and so on.
We have very imperfect information. Our policies should reflect this.
An interesting concept !
Alan
You're making the assumption (which you are wont to do) that the role of government is to subsidize and add preferences. Within that limitation, you are correct.
Outside that limitation, you are wrong. If the government taxed carbon emissions and foreign oil, every competing system would receive a relative boost. If the government slaps a $2/gallon tax on motor fuel, drivers can gain an economic advantage through any or all of electric propulsion, more efficient powerplants, more streamlined vehicles, driving slower and arranging trips to drive less.
The concept people have trouble grasping is that we don't need to move toward any particular thing, we only need to move away from energy which is imported, polluting or carbon-emitting. Any direction will do so long as it's away.
EP,
High gasoline taxes aren't going to happen in the US. Make your peace with this fact. If the Peak Oilers are correct we don't need high gasoline taxes to get high gasoline prices anyway.
Subsidies and preferences: No, those are not the only roles I see for government. For example, I'm a strong supporter of regulatory changes that boost building and appliance efficiency.
Government can tax behavior it doesn't like, provide tax rebates/payments for behavior it does like (anywhere from cash foir growing corn to cash for research to prize money), ban behavior it doesn't like, and provide easier regulatory paths for behavior it does like. I disfavor the tax approach because I disfavor anything that gives governments more money. I also think it is a less efficient way to achieve the goal of moving beyond fossil fuels. Plus, it is politically unpopular.
The federal energy policy I would like to see is for the federal government to get the &*#@ out of the way and let the states and localities and people get on with pursuing those non-one-size-fits-all solutions that they will need for their particular circumstances.
N.B.: That does NOT necessarilly mean total, hyperlibertarian fantasy free market solutions everywhere. There will certainly be some of those for some things in some places, where appropriate. It will also require soft socialism and maybe even hard socialism for some other things in some other places. It just means that I don't think that either one-size-fits all federal hypercapitalism or hypersocialism will work very well.