A very good summary of the critical points of the arguments. I think (hope) the most optimistic assessment of the situation is that both parties are intentionally hiding their true thoughts/plans. All we’ll hear until pre-election is appeasement without substance and probably with little or no concrete action. Post-election is another matter. I doubt it would happen in much less than a year time frame but I would expect to see serious (both logical and foolish) policies being enacted at that point. How serious/quickly will probably be a function of fuel price/availability. The political leadership may be swayed heavily by self interest, but they are not stupid (at least collectively). As soon as this election cycle ends they’ll be positioning themselves for the next. Upon that there can be little doubt.

I’m not a doomer by any means, but between the Pelosi/Obama’s positions and McCain’s repeated use of the foolish phrase “energy independence” it’s difficult to believe we’re close to serious constructive political discussions. Unfortunately, looking towards DC these days for "guts" is akin to searching for chastity in a whorehouse: even if you find it I doubt it would survive very long.

Robert,

The reason that there is no contradiction is that the oil in the SPR is already out of the ground, and the oil in presently exploited fields will almost surely be burned. In so far as climate activists are not insisting on shutting currently productive oil wells, how the oil is arranged does not make a difference.

This is probably a mistake. Conceding that the reamining easy oil is going to be used seems like a pretty sure fire way to get tarsands into huge levels of production. We would do better to leave the oil in the soil as the Green Party presidential candidate says. It looks fairly certain that we will have to pay for current and some past oil use with carbon sequestration. But, I'm pretty sure that before we stop buring oil, the oil in the SPR will be used rather than pumped back into the ground.

Chris

While Pelosi's position makes little sense given the conflicting goal of addressing global warming, all these crazy positions, including McCain's and Obama's, come back to the requirement that politicians must be perceived as doing something about gas prices, regardless of the consequences.

The fundamental problem is that Americans cannot handle the truth. Is this a case of the chicken and the egg? Can they not handle the truth because they are never told it? Or do politicians not tell the truth because the people cannot handle it?

A politician who tells the full truth will be a former office holder or a person who chooses to run for office without the intention of being elected.

To find the truth, the people will have to go elsewhere. While Pickens, for example, probably doesn't tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, those on the right will listen to him. When he says we can't drill our way out of this mess, conservatives, especially Texans, will sit up and listen.

While we're at it, why don't we just drain the whole damn SPR and allow unlimited drilling. After that fails, maybe we can start getting down to the business of proposing and implementing approaches that actually have some chance of doing some good.

But can anyone explain to me why championing action on global warming while also championing tapping the SPR is not blatantly contradictory? Anyone? Or why nobody in the Democratic Party seems to have the guts to speak out on this contradiction?

Tactics and Strategy are two different things. The police have the strategy of protecting the lives of the citizens. Would you call them hypocritical if they shoot a man to death who is firing an assault rifle on a crowd of people?

Politicians must work inside public perception. That is the game board. You don't like that game board? Then you must change public perception.

The public believes what the oil companies are saying (they would not lie before congress would they?). Limitless supplies of non-conventional oil. Prices due to oil speculators. So why not tap the SPR? Why not wipe out all the long positions? Why not refill the SPR later with limitless unconventional oil?

If price is a momentary pain, why not ease it while planning the transition to a low carbon economy via non-market mechanisms? California leads the nation in efficiency and it did it without using the market driven price lever.

The tapping of the SPR is more in line with Caesar and returning armies throwing out goodies to the crowds. It's beyond pandering. More along the lines of "let them eat cake". The thin crust of american society that makes up the political class are not touched by our energy situation. They are only interested in exploiting whatever they can to maximize their own return. EROI on a personal level. Our political party represents business only. Textbook fascism.

Every "solution" from the powers that be will make matters worse. Nothing short of a major paradigm shift will suffice and by definition the "powers that be" cannot even consider real solutions because that would negate their power base.

Much of the structure we built during our growth phase is now counterproductive and must be torn down. As long as it stays in place - Pelosi being an example - the longer and farther we go in the wrong direction. Chaos and destruction are necessary for rebirth. Gaia dances with Shiva.

I think there is some intuitive understanding of that. Cindy Sheehan is on the ballot opposing Pelosi. The Democrats have funded (probably via Schumer) a long legal battle to keep a similar independent off the Senate ballot in Maine - an independent that supports impeachment, single payer health care, out now, cuts to military, yadda yadda - all of which the Democrat does not support. All of which a low energy future would require. We need a Collapse party - like Dmitry Orlov discusses - and it is not the Democrats; they are old and in the way.

cfm in Gray, ME

It all makes me wish I could cry.

Incidentally, has anyone else seen this presentation from July 15, 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAPP7o6uG8Y
"Steven Koonin, the chief scientist for BP and former provost of CalTech, describes the energy challenges facing the world and suggests the development of advanced biofuels and a new generation of nuclear power as alternatives to fossil fuels."
More here, including PDF from presentation:
http://clients.mediaondemand.net/bp/

Mr. Koonin follows idea that there's plenty of fossil fuels left, conventional and otherwise, and the argument we'll (eventually) have peak oil by above ground limitation. I don't think he offered any clear defense how we can maintain current flow rates of oil past the peak production of conventional oil. Anyway, still worth watching as a good comprehensive summary of "the other side", including considerations of carbon taxes and their affect on which fuels we "choose".

He showed one graph of fuel costs with progressively higher carbon taxes, showing $20/ton as a standard crossing point, the lower limit that is needed to make any difference at all in fuel choices. He also said something quite surprising, that a $20/ton carbon tax would only add about $0.30/gallon for gasoline. Something like that, and surprising since it's clear that price increase would appear to have no affect at all on curbing consumption.

He gave good examples, comparing our improved efficiency, but offset by expanded capacity - larger refrigerators, larger cars, etc.

Oh, thinking of all that, I just feel pity for Pelosi.

She's standing on a cliff, dreaming of wonderful things she could do, playing a chess game of contradictory demands, and so the "inconvenient truth" of our limited real choices must be too much to bear except through denial. Politicians are motivated by power, a belief in solutions. How do they admit there are no acceptable solutions?

California Attorney General Jerry Brown was published today in the Op-Ed section of the Wall Street Journal with an article explaining the need for the United States to reduce foreign energy dependence. In a 800-word article, Jerry Brown explains his answer to the question of "what would you do with $10 billion to help improve the status of the world?"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121841566182528579.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Excellent commentary.

My question and this applies (I think) equally well to other high level politicians in the rest of the world when it comes to energy decisions:

Are these politicians:

1) Using the erroneous data and as such do not see the potential gravity of the situation, therefor allowing themselves to get lost in political logrolling and popularity contents of minor importance

OR

2) Fully aware of the probability of the situation getting very serious and their current proposals having minuscule effect, and as such acting as if nothing is wrong, but perhaps doing some other preparations behind the scenes?

OR

something else 3) What exactly?

So are the proposals due to ignorance, smoke-screening or due something else completely?

Actually I think Pelosi pretty much got it right.

1. On SPR--it is certainly more likely that opening the SPR will bring down prices than drilling offshore 10 years in the future.
The GOP Congressmen are claiming THEY brought down oil prices by just talking about drilling oil in a few million acres 10 years from now.

A better proposal is to fill the SPR with much cheaper heavy oil, which most US refineries can process.

Why Bush continued to fill the SPR with +$100 oil is a mystery unless you subscribe to the outlandish notion that the GOP is in Big Oil's pocket.

2. Another 'mystery' is why Big Oil isn't drilling on leases in GOM, which amount to 75% of the likely offshore sites per EIA unless you realize
that there's is probably nothing in them. Still more 'reserves' is better for oil company bottom lines.

3. I think #3--legislation punishing excessive speculation, is why oil prices have been dropping. Or does anyone think that the oil supply gap has been 'closed'(in 2 months)?

4. Big Oil hasn't been investing and is buying up stock, why reward that?
Oil has been pouring into their coffers for 4 years and they keep shrinking
production. Better windfall, 'em and give the money to consumers to offset the price or better still to buy hybrid cars.

5. Using natural gas to make ethanol actually makes MORE sense than for NG cars.

Ethanol can be used in cars now up to 15% ethanol without alteration and with $1000 worth of alterations up to 85% using E85.

If you add up ALL farm fossil fuel expenditures (mainly fertilizer) at 18875 btu per gal. and ALL ethanol processing fossil fuel expenditures at 47116 btu per gal. you end up with 65991 btu per gal. Consider all these expenditures to be natural gas and you end up with 66 scf of natural gas per gallon of ethanol or 3 pounds of natural gas per gallon.

http://www.usda.gov/oce/reports/energy/net_energy_balance.pdf

5.6 pounds of CNG gas is equal to 1 GGE.
1.56 gallons of ethanol equals 1 GGE or 1.56 x 3#=4.69 pounds of CNG via ethanol.

So it takes 20% more natural gas (5.6# versus 4.7#) to fuel the CNG car than the ethanol car.

CNG is actually quite dangerous.

http://www.firetrainingresources.net/items/CNGAutoFire-FIREFIGHTERNEARMI...

The amount of miles per tank is as bad as pure ethanol--170 miles in the Honda GSX versus ~+210 miles in an E85 vehicle.

On the other hand CNG is cheap $2.5 per GGE. But that could change.

The only positive is that natural gas NOW 'appears' to be abundant(infinite?). Ironically, Pickens was advising only a couple years ago that massive LNG terminals would be required due to peaking North American NG supplies per David Hughes and others.

Since you SAVE natural gas by producing ethanol, it makes no sense to run off building a vast NG infrastructure for CNG cars people don't want or need.

I've been doing some digging lately into who is advising the candidates on technically-relevant policy issues. McCain's people - forget about it. But here is what I find as I dig more into Obama's people. And, as it turns out, some threads have led me into other environmental policy groups. Guess what educational background is most represented among so-called science advisers and policy developers?

If you guessed scientists you'd be way off. It appears to be (by my anecdotal evidence) lawyers form the largest contingent of advisers and policy developers. Now, you might think that makes sense since policies have to be politically tested. But consider this. There are on-the-ground technical facts behind these issues, like peak oil, like global climate change, like declining water supplies, like food production, etc. You would think that scientists who study these phenomena, or engineers who have to come up with solutions would play a stronger role in advice and policy construction. In fact, as one lawyer-trained science adviser to a prominent West Coast governor (years ago) once told me, "... we just ask the scientists for details when we think we need to. They generally get in the way of real policy work." Or something to that effect (the occasion was when the then governor took a tour of a solar energy project I was working on. Incidentally, the adviser did all the talking to the governor and got most of his facts wrong!)

Where do a lot of advisers get their 'scientific' information when tackling policy development? I suspect (know of a few cases personally) they get most of it from the popular media! They read something like a science-based story in the NYT and voila, they have their facts. I have several liberal, politically active, friends who are forever e-mailing me links to media stories about that next great innovation in solar energy. I've given up trying to explain the process of taking a newly discovered phenomenon on a lab bench to a fully deployed, scaled technology. They have no real-life experience but I have to give them credit for enthusiasm.

Most of the scientists I know are working stiffs. They do science. They have little interest in policy development because they (rightly) perceive that it is the domain of those who would like to believe they know enough and never do. The fundamental problem that I see with this arrangement is that lawyers are trained to win arguments almost regardless of any underlying facts. To many lawyers it is about winning cases, and careers hinge on doing so. It is their cultural milieu. Couple that with the idea that lawyers rarely have the scientific or engineering (except in the field of, say, patent law) higher education/experience, have not learned the very different method of thinking and reasoning, and you have a prescription for disaster.

Ideally scientists would be more integrated into policy development roles than just as advisers to the advisers. But unfortunately there seems to be a latent disrespect of each group for the other that may be hard to overcome. Given that more and more issues have a scientific and/or engineering component to them it seems like a fundamental flaw to leave policy to the politicians and their current crop of policy advisers (if my cursory exploration proves to be correct).

Question Everything

George

She'll give you a convaluded short term, long term problem/answer, and at the end of it you'll be trying to wake up and remember the question.

I saw her on CSPAN and she gave the longest, most involved answers to questions I've ever heard from any politician. Many answers included a trip down early US history with documents like the Magna Carta. This is why the Dems fail to connect with the masses as well as the Repubs, because the latter have discovered how to dummy down answers to one liners, sometimes one word or phrase. Think about where slippery slope, or fuzzy math came from. They are masters at connecting with the lesser educated, easily led group.

When the Dems answer a question like yours this way, you'll know they are trying to connect with the masses: "Carbon emmissions are a slippery slope of fuzzy science that our opponents use to sell out the American people. What we're talking about here is cheaper oil for the people. That's my kind of America!"

I have lived most of my life within 30 miles of San Francisco and find Pelosi's comment not unusual given the Fru-Fru "leadership" that the daft citizens of San Francisco have elected over the years.

Rest assured that Pelosi, my current congressperson, and my two past congresspersons, are completely detached from the petroleum crises. They don't get "it" and will not get "it" until, as with December 8, 1941, we awaken -- literally and figuratively -- to a new day. My biggest concern is what they decide that we, as a nation, must do beginning on December 8.

Could the letter "S" (=Strategic) in SPR be the clue? Think Iran.

Perhaps Pelosi and Obama may think that it's clever to take the easy populist line, if it could, as a side effect, act as a smokescreen for pre-empting further foolishness in the Middle East.

As an observer on a distant continent (but, alas, the same planet) I wish that they would have the guts and integrity to stop this nonsense and spell things out with less spurious cleverness and a great deal more honesty.

Robert Rapier:Excellent question you posed and also
great feign at surprise it wasnt answered.Nancy Pelosi
(like every politician)has been vetted or wouldnt be
in a position of power.
Waiting for a savior to rise from the streets of DC
has got to be up there with pigs flying.The only thing
more frightening then P.O. is the level of corruption
and deceit of American political leaders.
Might as well of asked when egalitarian measures would
be instituted to save society.
Robert,you knew before asking, the question wouldnt be
addressed...Why would you poke the beast?
Iam starting too like you.

Use wind and CSP to displace natural gas from electricity generation.

Move coal's role to load following with IGCC and replace the baseload with as much nuke as you can.

Reduce nat gas use in housing with improved insulation, heat recovery ventialtion and solar water heating.

Use anaerobic digestion for O-NPK recycling for fertilizer substitute and to create biogas which can be distributed through the same infrastructure as the nat gas.

Expand and electrify rail capacity, encourage production of PHEV with CNG range extenders which are easily removable to act as CHP units when not required as range extenders.

Reduce income tax and shift the taxation burden to consumption specifically as a carbon/import tax.

Step away from hydrogen, shift the funding to battery / super capacitor technologies.

Abandon geological CCS, IMO is never going to happen, instead consider vertical farms growing biomass from the CO2 produced from the power plant with an aim that the biomass be gasified and fed back into the power plant with the char used to rebuild soil quality. Or algae to bio diesel if it ever happens.

Robert, you and I obviously share a pet peeve. Only, since the fate of the Earth is in the balance it is not a trite issue.

I have had many similar experiences to yours. On a local level, for example, we have strong policy on climate change. In my neighboring county a non-profit group led by a climate change activist named Ann Hancock got every single elected politician in the county, that's nine city councils and one county council, to agree to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The local paper, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, has applauded the "greening" of Sonoma County. The local tourism board loves to promote tourism because of the "clean environment."

But guess where people put their public money? Building more roads, widening freeways, repaving old roads, etc. The same is true in my county, where public policy says reduce emissions but public spending tends to increase them.

Now to the national level. I had a long private meeting with my local congressman, Mike Thompson, about climate change. Mike expressed true anxiety over climate change. Said if we don't solve this nothing else matters. He said he has sat with other scientists and believe policy discussions are way too conservative, that much more agressive measures need to happen...but...he also believes he is ahead of the curve and isn't the kind of politician to get out in front of an issue, even one this grave! I implored him to be a leader, to educate with his position and not just follow safe public opinion.

I saw him sometime later at a Rotary Club meeting. After a lot of talk about Iraq, somebody asked him about climate change, he expressed his concern and mentioned some bills he is cosponsoring. I then got a comment in: "American's are finally driving less because of higher fuel prices. I am worried that the Democratic Party is trying to have it both ways: lower fuel prices but tackle climate change. This is contradictory. If the only thing keeping emissions from growing are high prices and we need to keep them high but use our revenue wisely to fund transportation options that don't rely on fossil fuels."

I haven't seen this yet. In a recent op ed published in my local paper, the Willits News, he basically laid out what seems to be the Democratic Party line. All the contradictions you revealed are there. I will see him next week at a local "sustainability" fair called SolFest where he will speak on climate change and I will lead a panel discussion afterwards. I am going to call him on this and hope others in the crowd do so as well.

why championing action on global warming while also championing tapping the SPR is not blatantly contradictory? Anyone?

As I understand the proposal, it is to sell some of the light sweet crude and replace it with cheaper heavy sour crude and use the proceeds for sustainable energy & conservation.

Since our refineries are being adapted to more heavy sour oil, I would find such a strategy wise. I am NOT sure if that is Pelosi's public stance though.

The SPR has little value in a post-Peak Oil world. It is designed for a short-term "acute" oil shortage, and we face a long term "chronic" problem.

Pneumonia should be treated as an acute illness, hospitalization, heavy medication if effective, etc.

Diabetes is a chronic condition and the first treatment of choice is a change in lifestyle.

Alan

The contradiction described arises because Pelosi's primary job as a politician is to make sure that the economy stays 'healthy', which is a coded way of saying that the stock market needs to keep on rising. If there is a conflict between a worsening recession and reducing carbon emissions I think we all know which priority will carry the day.

Personally I like the idea of taxing gasoline use in excess of a specified allowance per person. Ration coupons would be issued which would allow the receiver to buy gasoline at the going market rate. Any gasoline purchased without such a coupon would be heavily taxed. Such a scheme would help keep demand low without regressively punishing poor people with high fuel costs. The taxes could be used for funding public transportation, rail expansion, etc. You can at least sell this idea as a way of creating new infrastructure as opposed to the merely negative goal of reducing carbon emissions.

Pelosi is speaking at Dominican University in San Rafael tomorrow night. I will be there demonstrating with a appropriate sign.
Any Ideas?

there already is a 'use it or lose it' provision in the law

Obviously, it’s not a strong enough provision, as they haven’t used it, and they haven’t lost it.

oil companies should not be entitled to the same sorts of tax deductions afforded every other industry

EVERY other industry? You are misinformed. Big Oil receives tax free and low interest construction bonds, 100% subsidized R&D programs, Government-assumed legal risk of exploration and capital investments, subsidized loan rates, income tax subsidies, sales tax subsidies, The SPR itself is a subsidy – a taxpayer financed managed bank of a resource – helping keep it more scarce and helping to keep society more dependent, highway building is, in the end, a subsidy – as it has made us dependent, lax pollution regulations and contamination clean up requirements, and far cheaper royalties than any other nation. Oh, and then there’s the latest trillion dollar war we all just paid for so Big Oil could get in on the development of Iraq’s infrastructure.

But can anyone explain to me why championing action on global warming while also championing tapping the SPR is not blatantly contradictory? Anyone?

Opposing Chinese-style single child laws could also be seen as blatantly contradictory to global warming action. How many children do you have Robert? The fact is, the Democrats have long been one of the only voices for lower income people in America too. High gas prices are affecting the poor disproportionally and there are people that are truly suffering. Do you also oppose subsidizing the upcoming oil heating bills for those on the east coast and letting those kids freeze?

The plain fact is, if not for GOP opposition, it would be very likely that there would have been much higher CAFÉ standards adopted years ago, much more renewable energy already developed, more trains, and less pollution.

I’m tentatively a Democrat. If they ever again obtain a strong majority in both houses and fail on the above, I’ll be the first one to jump ship. But right now, they are the only realistic shot we have. If tossing out a few nonsense ideas prevent them from losing the slim majority they are clinging to (or to electing McInsane) I really could care less - that's politics. You're not naive enough to believe in a puritanical always-truthful-politico that only speaks to the educated class (a huge minority btw)? No. If you want to win in America, you have to appease Joe Sixpack. Period.

A question in re. Pelosi's 1st point: use the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR):

The SPR contains approx. 700 million barrels of oil. Can someone tell me how much that would increase the atmospheric concentration of CO2 if that were all burned in the space of a few years? It seems to me it might not make much of a difference to the eventual state of the global warming problem.

I know that she is not suggesting that it all be used, all at once. But that is the outer limit to how much bad would come of using some of it. Or am I missing something?

While not from US myself, we have a similar reserve ourselves where I live.

This reserve just as SPR is dedicated for emergency uses, like a severe supply disruption.

Granted, SPR has been used for other situations before, but the last time I checked, two wrongs don't make it right.

As such, the main question I would ask about tapping the SPR is this:

Is the situation now an emergency of such a magnitude that US really needs to tap into the SPR?

If so, then may good fortune help us all, because we're surely going to need that luck if/when things get a bit more iffy.

To me emergency means emergency - not discomfort and cyclical economical downturn. Just by observing from a couch, US is still far away from an emergency. Hurting? Yes. In a state of emergency? Surely not.

There's plenty of more money in other parts of the US budget where to get money for alternative energy systems, infrastructure upgrades and other wise investments. The first place I'd look into is the defense budget as it is pretty much bottomless. Even the value of SPR pales in comparison.

The SPR exists to9 support the military in war time, and maybe then to support those industries deemed most essential to keep the military going.

The SPR is all about keeping on killing until there is no more "enemy" or no more "us."

This whole discussion is a kind of blasphemy -- as though Pelosi or any other politician actually cares enough to know or knows enough to care.

I don't know many people in the USA who care enough to know.

I don't think that I know very many people who know enough to care.

Politicians are especially fond of Intentional Ignorance, as this is the essence of Corporatist propaganda.

The SPR does not matter, except as a purely militaristic resource, and so it will be talked about as if it does matter in environmental or economic terms.

Are there any other topics we can discuss that do not actually matter, but which can take up time and energy so that we can avoid topics which do matter? We can list them and present them to the Military-Industrial Complex as our contribution to The War Effort.

I am not an American so it really is none of my business butisn't the Strategic Petroleum Reserve supposed to be a source of last resort in a wartime situation? It wouldseem to me that anyone who advocates tapping that reserve is committing an anti-patriotic act. Next it will be a call to dismantle the nuclear weapons to get the urnaium out to keep Vegas going, whilethe world goes to hell with Russia strangling Europe and Iran obliterating Israel! You guys do know what to do come November...don't you?

I really think it's futile to expect our so-called "leaders" to do anything but reflect the public's biases, prejudices, and ignorance. Those who expect our leaders to magically come up with some backbone and an effective message to persuade the US public that higher gas prices are desirable or necessary are forgetting the political history of the last 30 years and engaging in wishful thinking, IMO.

Normally I would argue against wasting the SPR to lower the price of gas for the SUV goof-squad of yuppies and soccer moms. But since it is highly likely that the SPR is going to end up being used by each successively more despotic regime to crush the population into submission... yeah, we may as well just go ahead and use it all up right now.