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What effect will the election results have on energy policy?- Open Thread
Posted by Gail the Actuary on November 5, 2008 - 9:51am
Senator Barack Obama won. Results are now becoming available on how representation in the House and Senate is changing. The Democrats have added seats in both houses.
What impact do you expect these changes to have on energy policy in the year ahead? What legislation do you expect to actually get passed?
“It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.”
—Theodore Roosevelt
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I expect more stirring speeches followed by no real action.
We in Australia elected a guy just like Obama, only a pasty-faced bland accountant sort of bloke (we have an aversion to political leaders with charisma), so I recognise the signs. Warm fuzzies, nothing changes.
Being on the other side of the world might mean that you are somewhat removed from the details. Obama has recently said that "we need to rethink how we use energy" and "we are going to have to tighten our belts", not normally something a politician wants to address before an election. We'll have to give him time; Rudd may not be moving at the speed you desire, but he's certainly much better than the person who preceded him.
Expect him to ramp up fuel economy for vehicles up to 10,000 lbs, as he proposed in legislation he sponsored, and other actions related to other legislation he proposed, though noting that the situation now is different in many respects than it was 2 years ago.
I'm well aware of the details of what he's said. Since Australia likes to crawl up the bum of the US, we follow US affairs closely here, they'll affect us a lot.
What they say doesn't mean much. After all, Dubya said "America is addicted to oil", and announced funding of research for "clean energy". Sounds impressive! Ah, of course, now the drop in US oil consumption is explained, it's not a recession it's just all that clean energy kicking in!
More than words, he has to take action, and he has to have the co-operation of the Congress.
Absolutely. Someone who does nothing is better than someone who does harm. But we should not confuse "nothing" with "good". In our relief to see the arsonist taken away, we should not mistake the man staring slack-jawed at the burning building with an actual fireman come to put out the fire.
I wouldn't confuse what Dubya didn't do with what Obama will likely do; two more different personalities could hardly be found. First, Obama is not beholden to the oil and coal industry. Second, he's onboard with no only PO, but shortcomings of industrial agriculture.
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2008/10/23/the_full_obama_interview/
If you are claiming that he will do nothing, you are simply making an unsupported pronouncement. Using Rudd as an example doesn't provide us with evidence of how Obama will tackle things. And unlike Clinton, Obama has a Democratic House and Senate. At least let him get into office and get a start before you criticize him for doing nothing.
I'm not criticising the moshiach Obama, I'm responding to the thread's question: "What impact do you expect these changes to have on energy policy in the year ahead? What legislation do you expect to actually get passed?"
My answer was "not much." This is nothing inherent in Obama himself, but in the political process, the media, the public will and so on - in democracy itself. Our elected representatives are followers, not leaders.
Thus my prediction that not much will be done. That's a response to the original question of the thread.
I realise that answering questions posed by people and speaking to the topic of an article sometimes distresses people, but I do try to do it from time to time.
I disagree, and that may be because I live here in the U.S. and have heard more of what he has to say.
In an interview during the summer with the late Tim Russert on Meet the Press, Tim Russert asked whether Barak Obama would release oil from the strategic oil reserve to lower fuel prices. What Barak Obama said is no, because "what do we do when gasoline prices are $8 per gallon." This suggests that he does understand the near future oil supply issue.
He has made reference to addressing climate change many times, so what I expect he will do is promote a policy that will address energy supply and climate change simulaneously.
He is also advocates conservation by speeding up the tightening of CAFE standards beyond what the Department of Transporation has proposed, which was published in a proposed rulemaking to increase CAFE standards to fulfill a requirement in a recent energy bill. I believe that Barak Obama has advocated that he would speed up the tightening of the CAFE standards to that proposed by the State of California, which would be roughly twice as fast as that proposed by the Department of Transporation.
One further note. One reason why none of this has happened before is that there has been gridlock in Washington DC. What Barak Obama proposes to do is take his proposed programs directly to the American people so that they convince their lawmakers to take the action that he advocates.
Retsel
The US 'Stategic' petroleum resrve is a joke -it's a good job Bernanke isn't in charge of it because it would already be just full of fumes...
Nick.
Obama supports ethanol which demonstrates he is clueless about energy.
Obama's Evolving Ethanol Rhetoric, Washington Post, June 23, 2008
But the article says that he only favors ethanol as a stopgap measure until ethanol can be sourced from other sources.
For example, Coskata's cellulosic ethanol process is significantly more energy efficient than corn ethanol processes. There is also a cellulosic diesel fuel process which will be demonstrated with a 20 million gallon per year plant starting up here in the U.S. this month which could prove to be a major breakthrough in energy efficiency.
The support for corn ethanol is really limited, and the support for cellulosic biofuels is enhanced, by the Renewable Fuels Standard which was required by the Energy Bill that was passed last year.
Retsel
Robert Rapier has written on this -extensively !
I suspect you are not impartial:"cellulosic ethanol process is significantly more energy efficient"
Hmmmm hope to hear from you when you have some hard production data.
He has made reference to addressing climate change many times, so what I expect he will do is promote a policy that will address energy supply and climate change simulaneously.
There's just one tiny issue with that ... there is no such policy.
Woa, how can you expect the guy to implement a climate change policy when he is not even in office yet!!!! The other guy has to pack up and leave first, you know, the climate change denier....
Retsel
Kiashu,
Considering that the previous government did nothing for 11 years, I would call signing Kyoto, commissioning the Garnaut report, treasury modeling of a carbon trading scheme, setting a target date to start; a good start for the first 11 months. Meanwhile the opposition is saying don't do anything, wait for everyone else to act first!
They haven't done anything.
- signing Kyoto - paper and words
- commissioning the Garnaut report - asking someone else for paper and words
- treasury modeling of a carbon trading scheme - more paper and words
- setting a target date to start - and more paper and words
Nothing has been done, only paper printed on and words spoken.
"Bugger all" is a great improvement on "doing harm". But it's not that impressive. A few years ago the National Australia Bank had a couple of currency arbitrage dealers get out of hand and lose the bank $400 million or so. I wrote a letter applying for their job. I said,
"I promise to do nothing. I will just surf the net and play games and gossip with my workmates all day. By doing nothing, I shall make NAB exactly $0. This will be a $400 million improvement on last financial year's performance."
Amazingly, they didn't reply and offer me the job, because though doing nothing is an improvement on doing harm, most of us are looking for someone who can do good.
Kiashu,
By your criteria, no government ever does anything, they just pass bills, issue directives on pieces of paper or speak words.
Last year the NAB made a profit of $AUD 4 billion, mind you, they didn't do anything to earn that, they just made loans shuffled electrons and pieces of paper. I guess the people they did hire did a lot more than nothing!
What happened to those real workers that used to lean on shovels and dig holes at the side of the road, or peasant farmers that hand dig and plant fields; replaced by bludgers pressing a few buttons or typing instructions on a key-board. Can't understand why our standard of living is higher than most African countries, where fewer can read pieces of paper.
Absolutely. But their currency arbitrage dealers lost $400 million, thus doing worse than nothing. I offered to improve on that, but they weren't interested.
Likewise, by doing nothing, Rudd has improved on Howard. But we're still not very interested.
Not at all. Making legislation or regulation to prohibit, discourage, encourage or mandate certain behaviour is action. Reducing taxes or spending revenue to subsidise what they want to encourage, or taxing and tariffing what they want to discourage, that also is action.
Signing treaties and commissioning studies and writing dates on calendars is not actually doing anything. It's just a vague promise to maybe do something sometime in the future, perhaps if nothing else comes up, maybe, I s'pose.
Our standard of living is high for two reasons: cheap fossil fuels, and cheap Third World labour.
Cheap fossil fuels let us have machinery run cheaply, which lets us produce a lot of food and raw materials cheaply - the $1 loaf of bread, the $2.50 slab of steak, the 10c brick. Cheap Third World labour lets us have cheap manufactured goods - the $5 t-shirt, the $20 pair of jeans, the $500 computer, the $50 DVD player. Because fossil fuels and Third World labour are cheap, our minimum wage goes a long way.
Give us $500/bbl oil, $1,500/tonne coal, and Chinese working for $150 a day instead of $150/month, and our minimum wage starts looking pretty crappy - even the accountant on $100,000 will have to start making some choices.
Our wealth has little or nothing to do with the amount of words we print on paper or speak.
First of all, congratulations to President-elect Obama. I think his election will go a long way toward healing rifts within the U.S., and around the world. I have told this story before, but my wife told me in 2004 that she had just seen a speech from a man who would be president. That was Obama's keynote speech at the 2004 DNC.
I have had some concerns over some of his energy policy proposals, and I will get into that as soon as I can. In the interim, Geoffrey Styles wrote a really nice critique here:
http://energyoutlook.blogspot.com/2008/10/candidates-energy-obama-revisi...
Thanks for the link I found it very interesting. The way I read it he also has some concerns over Obama's energy policy proposals. In general it looks bad for domestic production. I think one of the best quotes from the article is in the last paragraph:
“The benefits of cutting our energy imports and greenhouse gas emissions to a more sustainable level would be significant, though if we are serious about reducing our reliance on unstable foreign oil suppliers, it is counter-productive to pit solar, wind and biofuels against domestic oil & gas, which today contribute roughly 30 times as much net energy to the US economy, and could do more.”
The NYT has a good article on some reactions:
In Dubai:
In Caracas:
Now... if only that good will makes more oil come up out of the ground for our SUVs, we'll be all set. :)
Robert, since I always appreciate your critiques of my critiques, here it is: Obama Win Means A New Bull Market for Energy - A New Day Dawns For America, and Renewable Energy
I think the major bone to pick with Obama is over Ethanol. I think we can convince him.
My dream is that he starts to expand on the "we only have 3% of the world's oil reserves and consume 25% of the current production" theme and starts talking turkey about peak oil and the challenges of true scarcity in the future.
He's the first President born after the world discovery peak and came of age after the oil shocks of the 1970s. He lives in a Chicago - the first Urban candidate in over a generation.
I think he's about the best we could have hoped for under current political conditions. And I think we can really convince him with data, information and logic. Let's get to work
I worked with one of Obama's energy policy advisors for a little while and I asked him about the ethanol problem. He said that Obama gets it that ethanol is sort of a joke, but he had to make sure he was supporting that area of the country to get those votes. So... Ethanol probably won't go any further. If you noticed in his most recent speeches he stopped saying ethanol and started saying "next generation biofuels".
That's good to hear - it confirms what I've long thought, that he's a smart politician, but doesn't let politics alone rule his worldview and decisions.
His stand against both McCain and Clinton over the "gas tax holiday" really impressed me.
The fact that Obama soundly beat someone who's main energy message on the stump was drill baby drill gives him plenty of room to emphasize demand rather than supply based solutions.
With gas prices lower for the moment because of the recession/depression, there will not be as many public cries for short term fixes. And with credit all around hard to get, government will probably drive a lot of near term investments in the energy sector either through direct expenditures, low cost loans or tax credits. And the government will most likely lean toward alternatives over fossil fuels.
The big question mark remains nuclear policy.
" but he had to make sure he was supporting that area of the country to get those votes. So... "
So, it's basically the same old politics: empty promises to get votes for himself. No change whatsoever from what we have seen from other politicians in Washington.... Same old, same old.
"Same old, same old."
the political reality is that candidates have to say things to get elected. would it have been any different if........um...that one... had been elected. give obama a chance. as i see it, obama has the following going for him:
1) democratic congress. and this will be a plus for his policies, but not necessarily for the country or our energy future.
2) he seems to be the real article in terms of team building and coalition building, look at his campaign organization.
3) he seems to connect with people (well, with the exception of rural red neck types and particularly plumbers*). this will allow him to level with people and after 8 yrs like the last 8, this will be a welcome relief.
* and in my opinion, joe the plumber is just another "cut a big fat hog in the a$$ wannabe", thinking he will surely be rich one day, and dont want taxes on the rich increased, never mind that the deficit has doubled in the past 8yrs( they dont wanna hear that).
"the political reality is that candidates have to say things to get elected"
No surprise then that we have credit crises everywhere. Credit comes from the Latin "credere" = to believe, to trust.
If "the political reality" is that you're being lied to, then proceed lauding those politicians at your own peril....
You want to keep trusting liars?
In the PBS documentary "Heat" he was shown promoting ethanol as they explained his home state of Illinois was a large producer...getting votes. Later in the same show he spoke plainly about "his doubts" about the program (I'm paraphrasing)...willingness to risk votes based upon knowledge of the issue. He has said he will tell the truth. I'm going to give him the opportunity before I judge. There's a flaming bag of poo on the front porch of the White House - dozens of critical issues. He needs to lead and I think he will.
You want to keep trusting liars?
do we have a choice ? that is the tyrany of majority rule.
First on liars.
Not all truths are absolute. I live in the Midwest and am convinced that ethanol and biodiesel are good for the economies of those states. Simultaneously ethanol and biodiesel can not replace and should not be solutions for peak oil or the U.S. energy crisis. So in which case am I lying?
Different regions of the country will need to find different and unique solutions to our liquid fuels and overall energy crisis. This is not BAU for a populace used to a one size fossil fuel solution.
Lastly many people posting on TOD are involved in the oil business in some way. I hesitate to state this but if a major approach moving forward is to massively increase efficiency AND find alternative energy sources to fossil fuels than those people involved in fossil fuels are looking at a challenging business climate.
I do not expect oil, NG and coal use to go away over night but that is certainly a long term goal, no matter how unlikely a scenario today. Certainly the goal is to reduce consumption of those fuels. How many businesses and workers will feel confident about the future when the goal is to shrink their industry demand by design?
Competition always has winners and losers. Fossil fuels have had no real competition for decades. If transitions are done well the negative impacts can be minimized for the losers. This is my greatest hope for the new administration. That they understand that the transition post peak needs to take place over many years and needs to be managed for sustainable transition rather than reacting in a panicked way to constantly shifting market signals.
"he seems to connect with people (well, with the exception of rural red neck types and particularly plumbers*). "
After clinging to guns and religion out of fear comments about rural america, and saying to "JOE THE PLUMBER" he was going to spread the wealth around that my explain why he seems to have a problem. Politicians say what they need to say to get elected. I don't trust Obama but I want to be wrong. I will give him 4 years to prove his words through action.
matt
Matt, your going soft on us.
Actually, there was a group called Rednecks for Obama, in Missouri I believe. Plus, I have an old friend who admits being a racist, but says he's voting for Obama.
Obama's victory doesn't signify the end of racism here, but it does show there is a limit to it. It also shows that young people, who are not consciously anti-racist like some of us old 60s types, are not particularly racist either -- it's like, whatever. The infection just didn't get passed on to them. My wife always points out that in a few ways, the Bush admin prepared the ground for this. While Powell and Rice may not be be admirable characters from my point of view, there's no question that they raised the average IQ in the circles around the WH by 10 or 20 points.
If he doesnt play the game he wont get anywhere. I think most people accept that polititians cant keep all of the promises they make. Hes going to have to pull out of Iraq though.
Is it Scott Sklar from The Stella Group by any chance - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq8E_pVlVBg?
I agree. I did have some hope that Hillary had a better picture of the oil problem; Bill Clinton complained some years ago that he had never been briefed on peak oil, and Hillary initially opposed ethanol. But I think Obama understands the need for renewables, and he's got Al Gore to harp on that 100% renewable electricity in 10 years theme.
One further comment is Obama's take on the financial crisis. He described it as "the worst financial crisis in a century." Did I hear that right? This is 2008, so a century ago was 1908. So that means that this is a worse financial crisis than the Great Depression? Now he may have some subtle distinction to make about the difference between a "financial crisis" and a "depression," but still that's quite a statement. Actually, I agree with this statement, because what makes this crisis really bad is that we've essentially hit the limits to economic growth because of oil depletion. Is this why he thinks it's so bad? Maybe, maybe not, but it's something to think about.
Keith
I heard the same thing about the financial crisis. Some people have interpreted Greenspan as holding the same opinion. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1055736/Black-Monday-F...
The problem that we have now that we did not have in 1929 is that we are making more and more of the financial sector too-big-to-fail in response to the crisis. We need to broaden anti-trust policy to break up institutions which threaten economic stability by their very size.
Chris
I do not interpret Obama's commentabout the financial crisis being "the worst financial crisis in a century" as meant in the past tense.
At the risk of parsing words he did not say "economic crisis" (he may have at some point) as I think most of us believe that the "real economy" has not yet been fully impacted.
In fact - I will likeis ly be impacted by job loss in the next week or so!
IMHO - the difference between the real economy getting worse and much worse based in large part on what the Obama Administration does in the very short term.
Pete
ptoemmes,
Good luck with your "job loss". Please let us know how things are going, if you want.
If Obama appoints Al Gore as the Secretary of Energy, then we have a chance because Gore is aware of both peak oil and climate change.
Agreed.
Now is no time for celebration. The work has just begun.
Good luck in going up against the lobbyists who will be trying to convince him their agendas are right with the bonus of being backed up by big money.
What is significant about President-elect Obama is less about a young, relatively inexperienced Senator from Illinois than what it says about the United States of America.
As an aging Baby-boomer with adult children I have been guilty of writing off the Gen-xer's as disaffected and self-absorbed. Over the last year I have seen locally and nationally, impassioned young voters taking to the streets with a zeal that reminded me of the anti-war days of the sixties and early seventies before we all sold out for BMW's and McMansions. Early on we may have had principles but for the most part we had shrugged it off because "we had kids, mortgages and IRA's".
The baton has now been handed off and we have a grave responsibility to support this next generation. I can only hope that they make better choices than we did.
Joe
Check out the article in Salon:
"An Open Apology to boomers everywhere: A Gen X Response to Barack Obama"
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/11/07/havrilesky/index.html
Also, I would describe the impassioned young voters to whom you refer not as Gen X but as -- depending on your preference of nomenclature -- Gen Y or "Millennials."
Keith
It seems to me that the first effect will be that Senate Majority Leader Reid's well founded objections to Yucca Mountian as a nuclear waste dump will be bulldozed. Obama is very malleable when it comes to the nuclear power industry. It will take some real effort to protect Nevada from Obama now that his victory is so large.
Chris
To the overall question - very little change unless the 'small businesses' are somehow allowed 179 deductions for wind/solar to power their small businesses. About the only way I see THAT happening is if there are regular, spotty power outages happen.
(example of the outline of power outages http://www.whiskeyandgunpowder.com/Archives/2008/20081104.html )
I leave it to the sellers of solar/wind to point out how much renewable power the bailout money would have bought.
As for:
Obama is very malleable when it comes to the nuclear power industry
Then his legacy can be one of ashes over the deployment of fission.
I don't think that Barack Obama nor John McCain, if he had won, are in much of a position to affect Yucca Mountain. Bush was not able to get it opened in 8 years, it's all lawsuits and courts now. I suppose if he really wants to stop it, Obama could get DOE to start looking for a new site, but in doing so he will be running up tens of billions of dollars in expenses with no guarantee that the new site will be any better than Yucca Mountain.
The reason is that the federal government has signed a contract with the companies operating the power plants that they would have a waste facility open by 1998 and every year a facility doesn't open means the government pays more money. That itself could be about $35 billion if Yucca doesn't open at the new date, 2020. The second problem is the site itself has cost about $9 billion already and it will cost at least that much to find a new site, probably more.
Obama has called for more study. That means more time to cave to his nuclear power industry supporters: http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/02/nuclear-energy-company-backs-o.html
Edit: Of particular concern is his apparent openness to interim waste storage that would move waste from the reactors where is is produced.
Edit again: It is possible that Obama has learned from his previous tangle with the nuclear power industry and will now hold his ground. If he ends funding of Yucca Mountain, then that will show some progress.
Chris
I'm confused by the trend of the posts here.
Could someone clarify for me the "going" position on Yucca and spent nuclear fuel? eg. do those who oppose nuclear energy also oppose a permanent repository for the spent nuclear fuel that already exists? Why? If not Yucca, then where do you propose to store it (don't forget, it already exists).
I'm personally convinced that Yucca (as now envisioned) will never happen simply because all the industry players know that the "spent" fuel is simply too valuable as reprocessed fuel and as blanket material for breeders to just glassify and permanently bury. What's presently happening is that industry execs are simply attempting to collect a "non-performance" fee from the government for schedule failure. If they were ever asked to deliver the spent fuel, they'd very quickly come up with good reasons not to. Another scam.
I'm confused by the trend of the posts here.
You have the 'build nukes' and the 'bad plan them thar nukes'
Plenty of reasons not to build more nukes. The status of Yucca Mountain is one. But I have far more concern of man's inability to make machines that are failure-proof (and you only have to hit the Drumbeat of 3 days ago for comments about the lack of construction quality at a plant) or the 'My won't the nuke plants make fine asymmetric targets in a war' line of thinking.
The few plants that have been built have demonstrated man's inability to completely harness the atom. More plants will lead to more failures. And, in the non peaceful world we live in, more plants mean more targets.
What we need soon is a demonstration of accelerator driven reactor theory. The idea is that "waste" would be converted to short lived isotopes which would make Yucca unnecessary.
I am not recalling why the decision was made to not reprocess spent fuel rods - effectively recycling them and extracting the usable uranium for re-use.
Peak uranium would suggest that we will eventually want to do this, so I am not getting why just burying the things is considered a good idea.
No, the uranium is poisoned and is not reused. There is plutonium from reprocessing, but this is very easy to make into a bomb while providing little extra energy. So, the US does not reprocess.
Chris
You need a certain amount of U-235 to create a critical mass in light water reactors, so uranium fuel is enriched by an energy intensive methods. It takes about 10 pounds of natural uranium(.7% U-235) to make 1 pound of uranium fuel(3-4% U-235) plus a lot of processing energy.
Depleted uranium has about half the U-235 that natural uranium has in it plus some plutonium and other radioactive stuff. Obviously if you wanted to use used fuel rods to make reactor fuel you'd have to expend MUCH more energy.
So it is much cheaper to use natural uranium. If natural uranium prices rise, then reprocessing makes more sense, EXCEPT that the amount of energy required for reprocessing also rises at the same time.
It's a Catch-22.
No. Depleted uranium is left over natuaral uranium after enrichment. It is not spent reactor fuel. Spent reactor fuel is more enriched in U-235 than natural uranium, obviously, since you could use natural uranium as fuel without enrichment if its concentration were adequate. But, the unranium in spent fuel is poisoned with U-236 and needs to be enriched further to be reused. This is not done. Reprocessing really only goes after the plutonium.
Chris
Not in a light water reactor(which is the vast majority of nuclear reactors). It is correct that the concentration of U-235 in spent fuel prior to reenrichment is almost the same(.83%) than in natural uranium(.7%) but this is due to the burning of fuel enriched to 3-4% U-235.
The source of fission is U-235 in light water reactors.
You can use slightly enriched uranium in heavy water reactors where 1% U-235 or even natural .7% U-235 fuel is adequate to sustain a chain reaction.
Another less common source of DU is reprocessed spent nuclear reactor fuel, which can be distinguished from DU produced as a byproduct of uranium enrichment by the presence of U-236 produced in reactors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium
Spent fuel rods are 1% plutonium, .6% strontium 90, .7% cesium Cs-137.7% ,.83% U-235, .4% U-236, some actinides(Np, Am, etc), with the rest being U-238.
I don't see that U-236 is a 'poison' the way Pu-240 is; it's a nuissance from a reprocessing standpoint.
"A higher enrichment level will be required to compensate for the 236U which is lighter than 238U and therefore will concentrate in the enriched product."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-236
That means more energy is needed for reprocessing spent rods than with natural uranium.
The French do reprocess spent fuel rod material called Repu.
http://www.francenuc.org/en_mat/uranium4_e.htm
My point is that reprocessing requires a lot of energy and fuel rods are not recycled for mainly economic reasons. If the cost of natural uranium would rise, then then price of energy to reprocess would rise as well.
Marjorian,
Apologies for not having responded to you in another thread. Unfortunately the time and energy needed to check out information and formulate a response is not always available, and also to some extent one can reach a point in some of the threads where the various positions have been pretty well outlined and not much new is occurring, and so I sometimes drift away from them.
However, I would acknowledge that the point that you were making that considerable difficulties were occurring in running fast breeder reactors was a fair one.
That is far from saying that it can never be done though, but just the same the accuracy of your critique was greater than I realised until I looked into it further.
In the current discussion you state:
While this is of course true, the cost of the fuel and more particularly the raw uranium is such a small part of total costs that it is surely hardly relevant, and so as formulated may unintentionally mislead.
Hello DaveMart,
I cannot assert that fission breeders are impossible as this has been accomplished decades ago.
I do assert that they have not been proven as a method of producing commercial electricity.
I believe that we will run out of nuclear fuel(virgin uranium) for commercial nuke plants within 50 years and faster if we push reactor construction(and this would be a shame).
When that happens plutonium or thorium U-233 fuel will have to be bred on a large scale to feed those +60 year lifespan
LWR(as some at this forum have posted). This should be what the friends of nuclear power should be looking at. It is disturbing that very smart nuclear scientists and engineers haven't overcome these problems while promoters talk about Gen III, Gen IV reactors...etc.
The French reprocessing program is discussed below. They can reprocess uranium from fuel rods just 3 times and need to 'over-enrich' their fuel to 3.95% U-235 to make it work.
Of 26550 tons URT just 210 tons has actually put into fuel assemblies(<1%?)!
(Have the French lost their enthusiasm for nuclear power?!)
Toward the end of 2000, WISE-Paris calculated that the reprocessing of UNGG fuel and standard fuel for REP had furnished around 26,550 tons of URT (18,200 tons for France) of which 1565 tons had been sent to an enrichment plant. Of the 1565 tons, 210 tons had been transformed into URE, and had been put into the form of fuel assemblies. The rest was depleted uranium. “The rate of recycling of uranium from irradiated fuel [URT] attributed to France is on the order of 10%,” but “the rate of recycling of uranium contained in French fuel [irradiated, reprocessed or not] scarcely exceeds 5%,” WISE-Paris has indicated [WiseWeb 00].
http://www.francenuc.org/en_sources/sources_urepro_e.htm
The whole thing sounds uneconomic to me.
In the 70's France made the strategic decision to switch to nuclear power to ensure security of supply.
How relevant are the price levels over this past historical period to the forward situation of world lack of security of energy supply?
During the past 30years fossil fuel prices were low. Shortages mean that in the future they will either be high, or the lack of energy resources will cause major depression and lack of demand.
Therefore your historic price comparisons do not seem to be at all relevant, and nor do your comparisons for the cost of recycling, as not only is that comparison made in a period of low fossil fuel costs, but at a time when uranium is cheap and abundant.
One of the criticisms levelled against nuclear power is that there is not enough uranium, well, if that does prove to be the case, and it should be noted that a modest exploration effort recently has resulted in considerable nee resources being discovered, then the economics of recycling totally change.
In this context it is very important that the cost of fuel, recycled or not, is a minor part of nuclear energy costs, and so it is perfectly possible to both pay much more for uranium meaning that poorer grade ores can be used, and also to finance recycling.
The primary reason that more effort has not been put into improving recycling is exactly the same as the reason more effort has not been put into either building fast-breeder reactors or using other, more efficiently-burning reactors.
Uranium has been too cheap to make it worthwhile.
So either uranium will continue to be very cheap, or recycling, fast breeders etc will become much more attractive.
It does not seem reasonable to assume that both uranium will become scarce and expensive, and simultaneously that recycling will not be worth developing.
In those circumstances it seems the right call to me to develop the energy resources we can, nuclear and renewables alike.
It should be noted in passing though that the nuclear industry was competing against a coal industry which could release it's pollutants across the landscape, and that includes CO2.
French electricity prices are now some of the lowest in Europe, as are CO2 emissions, far lower per capita than, for instance, Germany, which in spite of efforts to introduce renewables larg4ely depends on coal burn, together with it's remaining nuclear plants.
There are good possibilities to greatly increase the efficiency of fuel burn in the nuclear industry. The regulatory authorities in the US have been as obstructive as it is possible to imagine to new designs, for instance charging the originators of new designs for their regulators to study them, at a rate of several hundred dollars per hour.
In those circumstances it is surprising that any progress at all has been made.
The case for nuclear power does not however rest on any success at all in perfecting recycling or the use of new fuel sources such as thorium.
If all of these were completely impossible it would still be the right move to build more plants to make use of the supplies we have,although in fact the progress that has to be made is much smaller than that to make many renewables viable.
The reason for this is that it provides some breathing space whilst renewables and the structures needed to employ them can be perfected, instead of using them as a Hail Mary play.
Finally, if you take two countries, Britain and France, which is in the better position in energy security?
Lack of fuel in the former will cause a collapse in production such as to put into true perspective the cost of not having nuclear power.
All the objections seem to me pretty theoretical, all the advantages practical.
Actually that isn't or more precisely doesn't have to be true. If you leave the fuel to be irradiated by neutrons, at first you are generating Pu239 (good stuff for bombs). The longer you leave it in the reactor, the more Pu239 atoms aborb an extra neutron, and become Pu240. The later isotope is poison with respect to the weapons capability of the Plutonium, and because it is chemocally nearly indistinquisable from the Pu239, it is too difficult to separate.
I think the decision not to reprocess, was partly to avoid public disaproval, and partly economic. The later concern requires that Uranium be cheap and plentiful, and high level waste disposal cheap. Change, either or both of those requirements, and reprocessing, or fourth generation reactors should become attractive.
France recycles their spent fuel and has been doing so for years, Japan is on track to recycle theirs. France has recycled fuel for other nations, too. What is left after all recycling in France can fit in a 10'x 10' room. They plan a Yucca mt. type solution. The waste after all possible recycling would be stored in Yucca Mountain.
The US does not recycle because it is "too dangerous." Somehow storing nuclear waste at every reactor site is believed to be not as dangerous. Rather than on site storage Yucca mountain was conceived. NIMBY, however has prevailed.
The US has enough spent rods, if recycled, that would power all the reactors for 12 years, I believe.
The US does not recycle because it is "too dangerous."
No, I believe the official line is about re purposing the Pu and creating weapons proliferation.
If fission plants become acceptable, then everyone will want 'em. And as other nation states the US of A doesn't like opt to want fission plants - how's that all gonna work out?
More plants mean more targets as humanity hasn't mastered the 'peace' part of the 'peaceful atom'.
An example - http://assembler.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode22/usc_sec_22_0000255...
So how's that goal setting working out Uncle?
I believe that he understands PO and related matters, such as large-scale monoculture farming. I've heard him say "we need to rethink how we are using energy" and "we are going to have to tighten our belts", so he's not been afraid to address these normally off-limit topics. I believe ethanol will take a back seat, and CAFE or related policy initiatives will be brought forward to make progress on high levels of oil consumption. Look for higher taxes on carbon-based energy to be cushioned by energy rebates, so that the highest carbon emitters are the only ones to lose out.
Will an ObamanNation pull back from Missle Defense BS?
"Russia threatens to deploy missiles"
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2008/11/2008115105254483843.html
Will they pull out of Iraq?
Will they dismantle 700 military bases around the world?
or..
Will an ObamaNation continue to insist that 4% of the population gets to consume over 25% of the worlds dwindling resources while the rest of the world eats cake (primary ingredient in cake- MUD).
IMO Obama was put inplace to give the rest of the world hope that the above CHANGEes will be made while Americans hope he can keep all the plates in the air & spinning, maybe with a few tweeks.
No cheer here.
I'm with you, Souperman. I expect absolutely no effort to change BAU. In fact, you can look at the language Obama has been using in these last few weeks when he talks about the economy for evidence. It is all about "growing the economy" and the usual bs about jobs, entrepreneurs, turnaround, etc. I would expect that his administration will spend its first term trying to put the pieces of an economic puzzle back together again. There will be no recognition that some of the pieces are missing.
Thanks for responding shaman.
I am a bit cranky as I have had recient setbacks in dealing with local gov.
There is simply zero possiblity of government at any level to entertain the possiblity of even thinking about talking about the growth issue.
Its grow or die for a them. Its what they exist for.
And depending on their personality they will even fight dirty to achieve it.
On the plus side, Democrats are better at dealing with issues of fair allocation/distribution.
On the minus side, no major party (or even minor ones?) discuss the elephant in the room...SCALE.
If allocation is improved but scale is not capped (or in our case reduced), then the situation gets better for a while until it gets a whole lot worse! This is because improvements in allocation increase efficiency of the growth system. When the system does crash it therefore crashes at a higher scale and with less resiliency.
SCALE
Thanks for the term, I have not used it in that context yet but it is very useful for giving perspective.
I think you are correct that the Democrat Party represents those portions of the economic elite that have used issues of fairness and wealth distribution as a means of gaining control of the state institutions.
I have to wonder, though, how long that will continue when it becomes clear that growth has ended. Or will they believe until the Party collapses that growth will someday return?
(This, of course, begs the question of whether or not this is the last recession/depression or whether the global capitalist system has one more business cycle before the end. Until recently I was pretty sure that there would be one more cycle ending around 2012-2015, but this current fiscal upset has been so poorly managed, I now have my doubts.)
“I have to wonder, though, how long that will continue when it becomes clear that growth has ended. Or will they believe until the Party collapses that growth will someday return?” Posted by Shaman
When it becomes clear, at least to a critical mass of the investor community that growth has ended, our current economic system will implode. Few will want to invest in the face of a long-term contracting economy. Loans will become non-existant.
When the world has come to grips with the fact that the era of more or less continuous economic “growth” is over, forever, so too it will be realized that also over is the era of “progress”, at least as it has generally been defined. In addition to physical shortages, all this will create an enormous dissonance in the collective consciousness of, at least, the Western, industrialized world, as fundamental assumptions held since the beginning of the industrial revolution collapse. Virtually all of the governmental, legal, and economic institutions created in the West over the past several centuries were both made possible, and based on the idea of continuing “growth”, and will likely become irrelevant and inoperable in the new reality facing us a year or so after we go off the edge of Hubbert’s Plateau.
Antoinetta III
I don't believe that long term economic contraction eliminates incentive to invest. What it could do is cause investors to more closely look at the specific businesses they invest in. Just because the economy contracts doesn't mean certain businesses won't grow. Those businesses which can make products more energy efficiently or from sustainable materials have a bright future. Like always innovation will prosper.
But the contraction will be vast,and such businesses also need the support of the overall expanding economy. Any such opportunities for investment will likely exist for a relatively short time; also such businesses will be so few in number that they will be swept aside by the general economic tsunami.
And this doesn't even begin to address how the psychological fallout of the awareness of the end of growth and "progress" will affect the investor community, let alone the population at large.
Antoinetta III
Hi Antoinetta III
This is an interesting point, and one, I believe (though I may be mistaken), Gail brought up in her discussions about economics.
Namely, will the knowledge of "end of growth" - (as we, collectively, face it) - in itself be a cause of less-than-optimal actions? (Or, the collapse of the finance system, for example?)
The other idea, though, is that most people, whether they are members of the investment community, or any other community for that matter, will have some version of the following outlook:
1) Simply not grasp the implications of the "limits to growth" or "end of growth" as an overall concept; and/or,
2) Will believe they are the exception.
Now, it's possible that there are exceptions, in the sense that if we take "to live is to grow" in some sense, then any individual/family/community/group/sector is growing in some way (if nothing else, by new births of humans) - so we could say, all continuation of human society involves growth in a sense, so long as it is continuing.
In any case, my point is that the psychological fallout may not arise as a result of the awareness of "end of growth".
The "psychological fallout" may arise as individuals/groups try to cope and react to their immediate perception of end of growth in their own situation(s).
Because there's a way in which, if people could look at the situation as a whole, then the transition options might become more clear. (The imagination for same, is what I mean.)
Agreed.
Now let us all pray to the almighty god of growth. Amen
HI Soup,
re: "...recient setbacks in dealing with local gov..."
I don't know if you could reveal more without revealing more than you want to...but I'd be interested.
Perhaps a write-up on TOD local? Assuming your setback relates to your efforts towards sustainability and peak oil awareness, etc.
and, once again...
re: "...recent setbacks in dealing with local gov..."
Well, I suppose we could have a TOD campaign called: "write/call/educate Soup's local officials!" :)
Anyway, if empathy helps, you have mine.
I made an effort the other evening (to speak to "someone in authority in public") about "the big picture", and, in return, I saw a look that said "I understand exactly what you are saying and there is absolutely nothing I can/(am) willing do about it."
Which was also a moment of empathy, actually, now that I think about it.
the real cheer is re the racial divide taking a back seat to change; but this isn't directly energy related.
with such a resounding win he will have some political capital. how he spends this early on will tell us his priorities.
the upcoming meetings , so called bretton woods 3 that were evidently demanded- they start 11/15;
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/business/economy/23bush.html
these meeting have potential to use any & all political capital.
i will welcome any focus on wind/solar; but i think until rail is given top priority denial is still the main process until our crisis is here.
Pres. elect Obama will possibly drive us faster towards the cliff by spending what we don't have ; leading to tensions that military conflicts are usually[not even necessarily us initiating] the attempted solution.
Rail is the real primary-first energy solution for america; alan from the big easy has been telling us this all along.
oh. the other cheer was deciding no fireworks-lets hope twas a little sign of things to come.
Carbon tax.
If Obama can't do this he's a worthless bag of @*#%.
To keep the promise of his rhetoric, he'll need to link a carbon tax with other initiatives that support renewables or innovative technology.
He can't just tax behavior we wish to discourage.
You pose that as if it were common knowledge, no backup required. Please explain, referring why every other country in the world does exactly that. eg. gasoline $ in Canada approx. 1.5x $ in US (depending on what day and exchange rate), cigarettes in Canada $8.00 / pkg, etc. etc.
There are oh so many other reasons to call a Senator such. Not introducing articles of impeachment would not have been one, but FISA and voting to introduce spending bills in the Senate by a Constitutional law scholar might be worthy of such.
Hi Eric,
I was troubled by Obama's FISA vote. (And by his DP vote, as well.)
I'm unfamiliar with the issue of "introducing spending bills in the Senate". Any chance you could give me a hint? (I know I'm lacking in education - i.e., sincerely would appreciate it.)
I expect some serious cap'n'trade taxes to be imposed quick. Not only have they be trailed as policy during the campaign, he also needs to make a more balanced budget and find a funding source for his programmes. Carbon taxes are the most socially acceptable of taxes he can raise.
However I also expect him to place similar 'carbon taxes' on imports, particularly from China. Will he set a carbon tax on oil itself? Either way exporters will scream and I expect some kind of trade war in the offing.
We'll be able to tell if he's a serious player if he OKs new nuclear power stations in the first 100 days.
Transportation - SAFETEA-LU is set to expire in September. The renewal provides an opportunity to link transportation and energy policy - not just infrastructure. The next bill could emphasize transit, bicycles and walking, as well as freight and passenger rail. Also, it could decrease the federal cost share for new infrastructure and increase the share for maintenance (could reduce sprawl).
Climate - The Bush Administrations conclusions are correct: the clean air act as it is now is not a good tool for regulating CO2 and other green house gasses. Obama could marry an overhaul of the CAA with adding a new title for Climate Change and get a lot of votes, I'd bet. Lock in the gains on the current criteria pollutants, add in consideration of economic impacts for new regulations of NOx, CO, Lead, SO2, VOC, and PM, and add in the Cap and Trade for Greenhouse gases.
Just as before the election there are numerous options to improve our energy policies. But it will require Sen. Obama to do what no other first term president has done in my life time: show minimal concern about his re-election for a second term. I think most here would agree that all options available will require some sacrifice by the public. Even in the best of economic times these options would not be an easy sell. Add that to the fact that Sen. Obama has inherited perhaps the worse economy in perhaps the last 60 years. Regardless of anyone’s current effort the economy still hasn’t found the floor yet IMO. More pain inevitably on the way. Through no failings of his own, Sen. Obama may be facing the re-election cycle in less than three years with economic conditions worse then today. And now we collective ask him to implement changes which will have, for the most part, immediate negative impacts on society even though these efforts could lead us to a long missing viable energy policy. That would seem to be asking much from a god let alone a single man.
I'm hoping that he will run for re-election on the basis of accomplishments, particularly those with bi-partisan support. That means getting practical stuff done, and linking Dem goals with Rep goals. It's the same formula that got Bill Clinton a second term.
Regarding the economy, I think such an approach can lead to better approaches than trillion dollar bailouts. I hope.
I agree and if he is to go against the "second term" political-survivor instict - and therefore do the right things - then he has to do so very early in the administration.
Obama sill start to create and own his past by 100 days in office.
He could say "It's worse than we think, it's worse than you (or I) have been told and therefore the work to be done will require more pain and sacrifice than you were lead to beleive".
Implied assignment of blame to the lying/stinkin' Bush regime. Only has legs for a short time.
Pete
Some things are definite:
- Military spending cuts
- Flat or higher taxes for those making over $80K, and likely reinstatement of the AMT
- Some social initiatives (can't cost much though).
- Continuing, worsening recession and large deficits -- this will take some spin, and he gets a year of "inheritance" at most.
As the first black president, he will be very conscious of his legacy, and he won't want to be "the black Jimmy Carter". He will strive mightily to do big things, like Clinton but on steroids.
The best we can hope for is that the big things he does are pro-alt energy. That's the only area I can see where he can do lasting good, as on all the rest of the areas (social programs, health, unions, education, taxation) his platforms lean toward socialism.
Obama is one of the most liberal of a very liberal current Democratic Party leadership, and he will have to be very savvy to keep his platform happy and not grow gov't and make our spending problems even worse.
It will be an interesting 4 years, but the next two months may be more interesting still.
If growing government is a liberal trip like you state, then George Bush was the most "liberal" President in US history.
And don't forget that the republican paragon, Reagan, continually called for a balanced budget amendment for the constitution, but never himself proposed a budget that was balanced.
And both Reagan and Bush (spent/undertaxed) their admis into recession leaving huge deficits for following.
Didn't Bush call such economics "VooDoo Economics" before he then flip-flopped and signed on?
i think voodoo economics was what bush the daddy called clinton's plan. but bush the daddy did raise taxes when the deficit got out of hand despite his "read my lips" claim in the campaign. all bush the neoCON boy has ever done is lower taxes for the rich and provide a reproduction tax credit as a means of buying votes while searching for wmds and double the national debt.
No, voodoo economics is what Bush Sr. called Reagan's policies when he ran against him.
well, i guess he was right.
regan's goof ball plan was to balance the budget by lowering taxes, stimulating growth by the majic of trickle down, same as bush the boy. it didnt work did it ?
and if lowering taxes is an effective means of stimulating the economy, why not eliminate taxes altogether. as mogambo says, this economic stuff is easy.
This was all due to an economic theory that relied on the Laffer curve. The Laffer curve was a plot of government tax revenue versus tax rate. At zero percent tax, there are no revenues. At 100% tax rate, there is no economic activity, and hence also zero revenues. Somewhere between 0% and 100% tax rate, the revenue is maximized. Supply side economics works if the tax rate is higher than the rate which produces the maximum revenue. The problem was that the US tax rate was never that high, so tax cuts have always reduced revenue. But libertarian desires for lower(no) taxes trump real world data every day. So this discredited policy prescription still has a considerable following.
Interestingly, Reagan raised taxes several times to reduce the growing deficits. It was only after Bush-1 was successfully denigrated for his small tax increase, which he did for the same reason (remember the "read my lips, no new taxes" promise), that it became absolutely impossible for any Republican to ever raise tax.
Only a hard left leaning Democrat would call George Bush a conservative. That said, don't for a minute assume that President Obama will do just the opposite. Remember that the slowest growth in gov't over the past 25 years was after the 1994 Republican landslide which firmly kept President Clinton in check. Single party control is dangerous no matter which party is in charge.
In the United States you have a condensed spectrum of political representation, compared to the rest of the world. On that sub-spectrum, Bush is close to the right, and Obama is close to the left. I know the "Political Compass" is old hat, but subject to its limitations it does add some global context (elsewhere they place Obama somewhere between about Rudd and Harper). Since I last looked they now have an interactive chart of all US states based on Senate voting records - click image then follow sidebar links if interested.
And if Bush isn't a conservative to you, then try the survey and see if you really can end up to his right.
Oh no, not the political compass again. They are completely intransparent about their methods, and without transparency, the results are worth about as much as "Which Desperate Housewife are you?".
This is a better survey.
http://politics.beasts.org/
Only a hard left leaning Democrat would call George Bush a conservative.
No. Idiots who have the idea that 'the Republican party' "represents Conservatives" are the ones who say such.
The party system smacks of sport team boosterism.
Second only to FDR and Lincoln. Bush just managed to spend more dollars doing his part.
And yes, I do think Bush is about as fiscally liberal as they come. No conservative really considers Bush or McCain "one of us". Only neocons do....and the neo's were actually ex-liberals to begin with.
Is it $80k today?
What's the track record here?
Obama (weeks ago) - Only higher taxes over $250,000.
Biden (shortly after Obama above) - Only higher taxes over $200,000.
Biden (last week) - Only higher taxes over $150,000.
Richardson (a possible cabinet appointee, last night) - Only higher taxes over $125,000.
Now I see someone saying the ceiling has been lowered again to $80,000?
At this rate, by January Obama will be promising to tax even the welfare recipients.
I suspect this is taken out of context. A tax increase that kicks in at $250K for couples, will kick in at a lower rate for a single taxpayer. This could all be confusion over the proper context. In any case Keysianism requires that we run a significantly large stimulatory deficit to break out of a slump. It is only after the economy is expanding again, that the burden of accumulated debt is supposed to be paid. The problem has been that huge temptation to indefinetly postpone the payback phase, and simply run the deficit up. In any case, if the theory is followed, I wouldn't expect tax increases for a couple of years.
It was clear in his acceptance speech what a considerable and formidable figure Obama is.
His intelligence has long been obvious, and in the campaign he demonstrated his organisational skills and political savvy, together with his great powers of self control to avoid gaffes almost, but not quite, entirely.
In his speech he switched gear entirely, and from his campaigning mode went into a very serious, very Presidential and somber confrontation of the difficult passage he or any other President would face.
I doubt that he needs much awakening to the magnitude of much of what he faces, although the measures being taken to bail out the banks and bankers may have fooled him - I would have a lot more confidence if Roubini was one of his advisers.
This may not be the case, as unlike us he has the much more difficult job of getting practical measures through, and letting the banks fail at the first time of asking would likely have simply ruled him out of the Presidential race, as he took all the blame for the collapse engendered by the previous Administration and Congress.
It is always the first job of a politician to attain power, or their views are of no interest.
In this way, much though I respect the analysis of Illargi and Stoneleigh, it is doubtful if just letting the banks go under in one hit would actually be possible - people just do not realise what a total mess they have made.
So, I feel that Obama is likely Peak Oil aware, and possibly also financial scam aware, but also knows the context he has to operate in.
However great his talents, and I think they show enormous promise, it is difficult to see a way through.
Many other considerable figures from history have failed, utterly and completely, and I can't see a game plan.
The greatest asset he needs is his political skills, or the blame for all this ensuing disaster will fall on him and his party, and we can look forward to welcoming President Palin to office in 2012.
The fact that a CNN survey released yesterday said that the majority of Americans, although thinking the current situation bad, expected it to improve!
This disconnect from reality is likely to be fatal to any energy plans he has, along with the rest of his program.
I think one of the difficulties in getting practical measures implemented is the condition of US finances. The amount we need to borrow is going up because of all the bail outs, at the same time other countries want to bail out their banks and other financial institutions. We can't all just print more money, and have more resources at our command. Somehow, this is likely to come home to roost, regardless of Obama's skills.
Dmitry Orlov mentioned something (he made up) "The Collapse Party"---in charge of overseeing a peaceful and well-managed localizing of the huge USA (Pieces are divided up in an organized thoughtful way so that things can be accomplished on a local level which is less costly). Gorbachev also oversaw the "collapse" of the Soviet Union, largely peaceful, at the cost of his own power. Maybe if Obama is peak oil aware, and if he reads TOD he'll realize that more and more centralization, complexity, etc. is too costly, that avoiding worse chaos down the line is the goal. In short "ELP"---he'll try to make the USA economize, localize ("no more empire for you!") and produce. I am very hopeful that he will be a good President. I think he has fantastic potential and is very intelligent. Especially if he creates a safety net of healthcare and public trans. then people will only need to worry about managing to put food on the table, instead of bankruptcy if they face an illness, for example. This is a great moment for the USA!
Dmitry Orlov mentioned something (he made up) "The Collapse Party"---in charge of overseeing a peaceful and well-managed localizing of the huge USA (Pieces are divided up in an organized thoughtful way so that things can be accomplished on a local level which is less costly). Gorbachev also oversaw the "collapse" of the Soviet Union, largely peaceful, at the cost of his own power. Maybe if Obama is peak oil aware, and if he reads TOD he'll realize that more and more centralization, complexity, etc. is too costly, that avoiding worse chaos down the line is the goal. In short "ELP"---he'll try to make the USA economize, localize ("no more empire for you!") and produce. I am very hopeful that he will be a good President. I think he has fantastic potential and is very intelligent. Especially if he creates a safety net of healthcare and public trans. then people will only need to worry about managing to put food on the table, instead of bankruptcy if they face an illness, for example. This is a great moment for the USA!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/he-won-ndash-but-can-ob...
This is a man who means business. And he has listed his priorities, with the economy at number one, and energy at number two.
The historical figure he most reminds me of is Wellington, with the unflappability, the air of slight detachment, and above all the ability to move on, rapidly and completely, and reveal that he has already been thinking about issues before others were aware they were going to arise.
In the battle of Waterloo, Wellington had already surveyed the land in detail, long before the battle, as it looked a favourable spot to him.
This was not coincidence but the result of a fixed habit of his of surveying all useful spots he came across for possible future use.
Unlike Wellington though, who took some time to acclimatise to politics and peers rather than subordinates after becoming Prime Minister and always found delegation difficult Obama would appear to be the master of both.
Like all great leaders, he gives the impression that all was provided for in his rise by the force of destiny, and that he is the man to master the moment.
Let us hope that we are not disappointed, as the challenges are extreme.
As long as the global (and national deleveraging) which acts as a financial black hole consumes as much or more money than the government is printing, I think we can, and should print money. I don't know how long the blackhole will continue to feed at a high rate. But policywise, I think it gives us a finite length window during which the printing og money might be a usable option. Of course the temptation to not stop the presses, once the blackhole feeding frenzy has run its course will be great. That is when the risk of hyperinflation comes in.
If Palin was the losing running mate of a sitting president she might have a future. Since WWII no losing running mate of a non president was ever again on the national ticket. Also no losing running mate since at least WWII has ever become president. Palin is finished as a national political figure.
darn-tootin' no snowmobilers in the white house!
anybody else notice how the gop "folks" post-humously kept remarking how they will "pray" for president-elect Obama? the cat's meow is after he scraps ethanol and clean coal, confirmation we just elected the first atheist.
Now THAT would be a TRUE watershed moment, when the 1st totally rational president is elected. ;)
I've erroneously overlooked Jefferson, Madison and Adams.
http://www.atheistempire.com/greatminds/index.php
Uhhg, I've overlooked the brothers of the long forgotten US constitution-Jefferson, Madison and Adams!
http://www.atheistempire.com/greatminds/index.php
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
from 'cremation of sam mcgee' by robert service.
yes, and how is palin going to get the experience to be anything other than governor of the most corrupt state in the union in the next 4 yrs ? watching non existant russian bombers overfly alaska ?
this is the state that will probably re-elect a recently convicted felon to a new term as senator. on the other hand, if stevens is sent to the joint, maybe she can appoint herself to fill his seat.
The time is now to start writing letter to your Congress People and to the new President-elect to positively influence energy policy.
Does TOD have a unified energy strategic plan to present? Should TOD create one?
Be aware that running around willy-nilly yelling for the abolishion of cars and people living in farming communes will simply guarantee we get two more oil men (or women) four years from now.
Solar and wind Production Tax credits, net metering, expanding California's million roof solar PV initiative to a national 100M roof initiative, raising the CAFE, targeted government investments in wind, solar, and electric vehicles are achievable initiatives. At the same time the administration should pursue 'Drill, baby, Drill' as a fig leave to tamp down the right-wing low-information voter fires.
The brass ring here is launching out and achieving a plan to eliminate our purchase of oil from the ME and the rest of the World. That way we stop sending tanker loads of money to people who hate us and wish to cause us harm.
As our reduced demand causes oil prices to fall, place a tax on oil to keep gasoline at a floor of $4.00/gallon and re-invest the tax profits into conservation initiatives and new, cleaner energy sources. The president should report to the country every month how much less oil we are importing. Keep that metric front-and-center in front of Joe Sixpack...an oil import scoreboard.
Now, smart people running TOD, move out and engage our leaders!
I have to go to work and listen to my two bosses (both retired military like me) sob in their coffees about how the US will become the USSA, and all the other right-wing reactionary nonsense propaganda...wait, maybe they will take today off to buy more guns and bury them in their yards!
yes.. and a politically expedient one at that or at least several difficulty tiers of politically feasable policies
Boris
London
Agreed. If no one in TOD High Command is in Obama's inner circle on energy issues, than a good authoritative paper (short, too - they'll get thousands of them) needs to be produced that lays out the policies that address energy depletion.
The issue needs to be linked to the policy goals he was elected to address, though: the economy, energy, and climate change. In that order.
I can probably do that, since the guy I worked with is an actual energy advisor to Obama. I'm good friends with him, and he would definitely consider it. However, he is really smart himself, and I'm sure he has already said a lot of good stuff to him. But if one of you dudes wants to write a paper, I will send it to him. btw, he is Prof. Dan Kammen at UC Berkeley of the Energy and Resources Group. I worked with him to develop resource databases to plug into models that create portfolio pathways that reduce net emissions. Some of the models take peak oil into account.
-Ashton
my email is whitcomba@gfacademy.org
What are Prof Kammen's attitudes towards Peak Oil, anyways? Just to include it in some of the models doesn't tell me much.
Prof Kammen understands peak oil and its consequences, and he thinks that it is still about five years away because of the new additions of tar sands and other unconventionals. I only had a brief conversation with him about peak oil, but I am sure he understands it extensively because he has given lectures on oil depletion. I think the key aspect about him is that he knows which fuels are BS and which ones have a chance, and he clearly has an incredible grasp on the minutia of energy economics. The important thing is that he wont be frazzled by a highly technical paper, and he will be able to translate it to Obama correctly. Again, I can't make any definite promises, but I can say that if it is legit, and well written, and you have lots of meaty info in there to show that you aren't just a bunch of solar nuts, then he will listen. He's well connected (writes for the IPCC), gives talks around the world, and advises a lot of different people. And above all, he knows what he's talking about.
-Ashton
I think the key aspect about him is that he knows which fuels are BS and which ones have a chance
But didn't he start out drinking the ethanol kool aid? If I recall correctly, he was fairly bullish in his 2006 appearance on 60 Minutes. I know that he has now adopted a more sober outlook on corn ethanol, but he seemed to think corn ethanol was a good idea at one time.
Well having spoken to him personally, I can safely say that he is not a fan of corn ethanol (as of july 2008). He said that Obama has a relatively good understanding of different fuels, but they were still "working on him" with the "ethanol thing". As in trying to get him to understand that ethanol is not a viable option.
All I am really saying is that I know Dr Kammen personally, and if you guys really want to write up a proposal, I will send it to him. Hopefully he will consider discussing with Obama. The problem is that from Obama's POV anything that comes out of Dan's mouth is essentially something that Dan supports. Because he is involved in many different organizations and projects, endorsing a program specifically designed to mitigate peak oil would put that on the table as something he is a part of, and as far as I know he isn't, even though he understands it.
From the statements that I have read by Obama, he has a sophisticated understanding and would be easily able to accept it is Peak oil were presented to hem without a personal endorsement by Dr Kammen, but as something which has enough weight to merit serious consideration as a possibility, with different scenarios possible.
In that respect from a institutional POV it would seem that it would be difficult to do much better than to present the report in the UK from Arup, which is backed by enough big players to command respect:
http://www.arup.com/_assets/_download/4D6FF5E5-19BB-316E-408B503DFB26ADD...
Additional substantiation may also arrive in the form of the IEA's report, when it eventually emerges, as if the initial draft in the FT bears any resemblance to the final report will indicate very clearly serious grounds for concern, at minimum in the possibility of channelling sufficient capital to develop the alleged new oil fields fast enough to ward off decline.
I was thinking the same thing. A paper written by a bunch of bloggers (smart ones nonetheless) is way less convincing than the IEA and some of the largest companies in the world.
OK, here's a template I just threw together. Lets have at it:
Declaration of a Global Energy Emergency
Whereas the evidence presented herein indicates a very high probability that in the immediate future the procurement and use of fossil energy will become the most important issue of our time, we herby present this Declaration of the Global Energy Emergency.
Whereas the procurement, use and depletion of fossil energy, now essential for all contemporary economic activity including, industry, trade, transportation, technological advances, educational and medical advances, food production and scientific discovery, and because the conflict between the finite nature of this resource and seemingly inexorable and perpetual requirement for our contemporary well being, has become a direct threat to human civilization and the biosphere.
Whereas failure to take strong and meaningful action now will result in severe and worsening economic, political and ecological consequences up to and including the long term viability of the Earth to sustain human civilization and sustain essential biodiversity it is recommended that the following actions be taken IMMEDIATELY at the international level:
1. [Fill in the blank]
2. [Fill in the blank]
3. [Fill in the blank]
Whereas failure to take strong and meaningful action now will result in severe and worsening economic, political and ecological consequences up to and including the long term viability of the Earth to sustain human civilization and sustain essential biodiversity it is recommended that the following actions be taken IMMEDIATELY at the national level:
1. [Fill in the blank]
2. [Fill in the blank]
3. [Fill in the blank]
Whereas failure to take strong and meaningful action now will result in severe and worsening economic, political and ecological consequences up to and including the long term viability of the Earth to sustain human civilization and sustain essential biodiversity it is recommended that the following actions be taken IMMEDIATELY at the local and regional levels:
1. [Fill in the blank]
2. [Fill in the blank]
3. [Fill in the blank]
Following is an executive summary of the assembled evidence, what we believe to be the implications and proposed action at all levels to combat the Energy Emergency:
[Executive summary]
Full Document – [lay it out clearly, systematically and scientifically]
Appendices: - Compendium of data, charts and references.
I like that. I think, however, that if we are really going to do this, we need to get all TheOilDrum admins in on it, as it will/should represent this blog to an extent. I am sure they would want to be involved.
-Ashton
Thanks for responding, Ashton. I have great respect for the TOD admins and this forum really stretches my thinking but I didn't really expect that post to stimulate any TOD policy statements. I'm sure they have enough to do to keep the discussion going and I doubt if TOD mission is that of activist. I just put some stuff out there looking for comments on the stated premises. Is energy depletion the greatest threat to civilization? If so, is there any agreement out here about best NEAR TERM actions, locally, nationally and globally?
There is a pretty broad spectrum of TOD contributors that includes people on one end who think PO's all bunk, to those that accept that peak oil is an eventual reality but think humans will mitigate, adapt and continue to grow and prosper and at the other end those that are absolutely certain that human civilization is toast.
Sterling925, Ashton et. al.
I for one think it's a terrific idea for TOD (whether the eds or a conglomerate of us proles) to issue a 'position paper'. I also think that at this point just delineating the predicament is enough. Suggested responses can come later. I have no illusions that Obama is our saviour in any way, but I am none-the-less pleased to learn that we have a possible avenue of connection. At the very least, the man seems intelligent and open to listening. I say we offer a document, and will commit to working on it with others here. What say you all?
Clifman,
How would we manage that?
Organizing any kind of proposal writing would need to be way more controlled than posting back and forth (scrolling down to this thread to reply is enough of a pain).
See DaveMart's post a few up. He definitely has a point that if the UK industry task force paper and the up and coming IEA report give a clear warning to the issue, the administration will (hopefully) listen. Maybe they have already read the draft and know all about it, and are biting their nails about how to admit to the citizens that they put off a solution for 30 years.
I would love to help.
aaron AT henandharvest D0T com
Found this "open letter" from Robert Rapier. It's good.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3915
I think any such plan should emphasis the overlapping benefits of individual strategies. For instance, more bicycle riding means a healthier population (lower sickcare costs) and lower transportation expenses for American families and the expansion of an industry which will create jobs. This way the plan is more likely to be included in other policy discussions within the Obama camp. These overlapping benefits are true of many of the strategies such a plan would likely include.
It might also help the Obama administration come up with more palatable ways to suggest these changes. It's one thing to just ask people to stop driving cars and start riding bikes. It's something else entirely to point out how much healthier they would be, how much money they would save and how many jobs such a shift would create.
I think we can take the election results as a repudiation of expanded drilling. McCain might not have lost so badly if he had steered clear of Alaska oil interests. He did carry Alaska and it looks like Senator Stevens will win re-election, but he lost in Ohio because he sounded like he did not know what he was doing.
It seems to me that TOD does much better pointing out the futility of considering more domestic supply as any significant part of an energy policy.
Chris
I disagree with you. The facts are that we will continue to burn oil and gas for years to come. Should we move to other energy sources? Yes! However, for now we are still reliant on oil and gas for way too much and this will not change quickly. Also, it seems to me that in general TOD thinks worldwide oil supply will continue to be a problem and prices will eventually become extremely high. Once this happens a strong domestic supply will be even more important than now.
Robert Rapier left a comment at the top of this thread where he linked to a critique by Geoffrey Styles. I commented on Robert’s post and included a quote from the article he linked to. I think this quote, and the entire critique for that matter, directly address your comment that domestic supply is insignificant. I would ask that you read and consider that critique.
Finally, I don’t think it was the expanded drilling that sunk McCain’s election chances. I think it was the last eight years of Bush’s presidency and the last month or so economic news. In fact, when oil prices were still really high it seems to me that McCain’s expanded drilling push was gaining him a lot of support. Of course that lost all of its momentum when oil prices dropped so steeply and suddenly.
The republicans' main coordinated campaigning was all that crap about drilling everwhere. People saw through that and the republicans lost badly. TOD opinion has mainly been that there are not enough rigs, there is not enough oil and most of it is expensive. The main action is in depletion elsewhere and ELM effects. New domestic oil is an expensive distraction and we should be saving what there is for a much later time in any case.
Chris
I wish I could believe that that was what happened. I think the stronger theory is that the financial tsunami, and sharp economic contraction changed the subject. Also the tremendous fall in oil prices, has taken the subject of oil off the voters minds. Once the price rebound gets into full swing, we will likely see the drill, baby, drill meme resurface with a vengence.
The tremendous sums invested in old oil consuming technology (think SUVs and subburbs) practically guarantee this. Even with an aggressive program to begin to replace this stuff, and to promote a gradual transition to a less resource intensive lifestyle, we will not want to sacrifice the past investment in this infrastructure.
We need to be thinking about the cost effectiveness of various proposals that will help the combination of energy, economy, and environment simultaneously. Things like electrification of rail, may not be sexy, but we need to make the benefit to cost ratio the primary determinant of policy.
Ok, BUT. The impression most of us get from the "drill drill" gang is that they want eg. to construct a whole lot of NEW drilling rigs and infrastructure for the purpose, and hire and train a lot more geologists, engineers and roughnecks. I think a far more rational approach is to expect to keep this sort of investment in exploration about stable over time, and accept the reducing production. Its the only approach which makes economic sense when we KNOW the continents resources are being rapidly enough depleted. IMHO anyway.
I disagree. The American people seem to really have short-term memory. The "drill here, drill now" campaign was really picking up steam when oil prices hit their peak, but the credit crisis, and the accompanying drop in oil, has really turned their focus to the economy.
I think if the economy hadn't slowed down quite so much and oil prices were still in triple digits, this election would have been much closer.
Obama supports expanded drilling using Paris Hilton's compromise plan, that is, drill, drill, drill with stringent environmental oversight. All environmentalists know that oversight will be ineffective.
oversight will be ineffective.
Oversite can be effective.
It is just chosen to NOT be effective is all.
Now, smart people running TOD, move out and engage our leaders!
I think we need to engage our neighbors.
Our neighbors need to understand why Cantarell is failing. Our neighbors need to understand why cars do not represent a secure future. Our neighbors need to question the infinite growth paradigm.
Our leaders know the score.
My experience is that people, even well read and environmentally conscious folks, don't know what Cantarell is or why it is important. They are always very surprised when I tell them how important it is to US energy supply and its rate of depletion.
I agree. We need to engage our neighbors. I think it is time for action at the individual house and local neighborhood level. We don't really have either time or money for big drawn-out national plans. We should be thinking about what we and our neighbors can do personally.
".. we need to engage our neighbors"
what if your neighbors are all red necked a$$ crack revealin' moen faucet installin' joe the plumber types ?
what if your neighbors are all red necked a$$ crack revealin' moen faucet installin' joe the plumber types ?
Then they cannot afford the bill of goods they've been sold by TV advertisers anymore.
Their credit cards and car loans and mortgage fees [if any] and utility bills are probably killing them.
They need to power down for the power outages arriving in Summer 2009.
So teach them to grow food together and then have a block party together.
Instead of a scrapbooking or tupperware party [or whatever they're selling from home these days], throw a party by inviting a Master Preserver to show how to safely make jams or spaghetti sauces etc.
Teach them to prep by having a campout for the kids.
Teach them to barter with a neighborhood 'freecycle' yard sale.
They don't need to have their bubble burst. They just need skills.
The current poor economy is a good enough reason.
Perhaps it is now time for people-powered politics to give rise to 'people-powered policy'. Energize America (www.ea2020.org) was a unique, grassroots effort sprung from the Daily Kos (largely fueled by Jerome a Paris' excellent energy diaries) in 2005/2006 that harnessed the collective energy, expertise and enthusiasm of thousands of ordinary folks to create a comprehensive and strategic 20-point plan to achieve US energy independence and reduce GHG emissions 50% by 2020. In a sense, it was the first known instance of an 'open source public policy' proposal. This fully transparent effort, unveiled with NM Governor Bill Richardson in 2006, came together from over 50,000 comments during the course of 9 months and 5 formal versions. EA2020 was praised by Bill McKibben in Sierra Magazine and included some, but not enough, discussion and input with TOD. We even made it to the halls of Congress, where we continue to work to introduce the 'Energy Smart Communities Act' (a community RE/EE bond program a la 'Vote Solar') and other pieces of strategic energy legislation.
To update and move forward with a grassroots-led strategic energy policy proposal we would simply need to broaden the 'core team' of participants to include TOD, RedState, and a handful of other non-profit organizations. The expansion beyond a progressive blog to a broad-spectrum of online communities is essential to give the plan balance and widespread input and support. Of course the pro-nuke and anti-nuke forces will gnash their teeth and hurl invectives at each other, just as pro-coal and anti-coal forces will. The key would be to get strategic direction from Obama and Energy Sec and tactical leadership from a group of 20 or so volunteer core team leaders would would be responsible for their respective communities. Once a specific strategy was set, the community could then be tasked with defining the best possible approach to achieve that strategy. It worked extremely well for the Energize America process, and could work even better now.
I can see it now, how impressed Obama's energy secretary would be attending a session where the Greenpeace faction and the WNA faction came to an agreement (ha ha) on the proper application of nuclear power.
My point was that if Obama's strategic policy called for, say, 3 new, next-gen nuclear plants to be approved and built in an accelerated fashion, then the community at large would debate and discuss which types should be built and where, for instance. That is why Energize America called for the fast-track deployment of 1-2 next-gen nuke plants as proof of concept -- the opponents were never going to agree to any, and the proponents wanted way, way more.
I think a series of posts by different TOD contributors is more our style. We are not a lobbying organization.
Also, I think that at this point, the US government does not have much money to fund big projects. It is probably just as important that TOD readers start outreach efforts to individuals and to local governments regarding what they can do.
we could become a lobbying organization...
I mean right now we are just preaching peak oil mantra to each other. I'm sure that some of you guys are involved in local or regional efforts, but TOD itself is not. I'm not saying that it should, its merely an observation.
Obama's energy policy is not well suited to addressing peak oil. There are a few good things and a few silly things. The current items in his ever changing energy policy, New Energy for America, are:
His energy plan does not contain one of the most important projects: the electrification of long distance rail. The plan posted a few months ago on TOD with the high voltage power lines running over the tracks and wind turbines installed on top of the towers is a path to Al Gore's plan to free the electric grid from fossil carbon emission by 2020. Gore proposes a long distance power grid interconnecting wind turbines which could be those high voltage power lines over the tracks. Electrifying rail would set us on the right path to eventually replace semi-trailer trucks for long distance freight transport. This plan would reduce CO2 emissions, transform long distance freight transport and address the storage problem for intermittent renewable electricity sources (wind and solar) all at once. A national feed in tariff allowing renewable sources of electricity to be attached to the power lines would be wise.
Obama's plan to "Develop and Deploy Clean Coal Technology" is unnecessary if we adopt Gore's plan to eliminate coal fired electric generators. He either has an incoherent energy plan or does not intend to eliminate coal fired generators.
Obama's plan to provide short-term relief is a disaster that promotes increased use of gasoline and diesel. While fuel prices are declining, he should increase the federal tax on gasoline to discourage its use. On a positive note, now that crude oil prices have declined, the relief is not needed. On the other hand it demonstrates the stupid, politically motivated, counterproductive ideas that he advocates.
We need to turn him away from ethanol.
A carbon tax of $100 per ton of carbon.
It's practically a panacea.
It would raise electricity(coal) rates by ~50% from 10 to 15 cents per kwh. It would raise natural gas prices by a third and it would add $15 to a barrel of oil.
It would raise about $400 billion bucks a year.
Return the money with energy credits for hybrid or high mpg cars,wind, solar, energy efficiency, etc. Fossil fuel producers get credits for CCS or efficiency measures.
It punishes energy wasters.
It would also 'punish' OPEC and Big Oil.
(Good.)
That's the ticket, let's start punishing people and companies. Anyone for waterboarding?
It's much better than educating, helping and encouraging.
Punish, punish, punish.
Education doesn't work.
Helping doesn't work.
Encouraging doesn't work.
"He who spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes" (Proverbs 13:24)
If the corporations set the standard there will be greenwashing-galore(BAU).
In the end the people will always have to pay(i.e. the myth of 'class warfare' and the'oppressed' corporations who actually run our political system is garbage).
I am willing to pay more for electricity, gas and oil IF it goes for a cleaner more sustainable world and so should you.
Do you really think paying for a cleaner, sustainable world is punishment?
(IOW, pollution and waste is your 'freedom').
Hey, I've got enough solar panels on my roof to generate more than enough power for myself.
Guess who helps me fund it? The local power company and the government. Is the power company being punished? No, they are being encouraged and educated by the government to help.
Here in Germany we don't waste our time quoting the bible, we get things done.
Very good!
So the government has made this happen for you (by high energy taxes).
Do you think the energy company wants to pay you for your triffling PV energy?
Not in a million years.
If Germany had as much coal, natural gas or oil as the US it would NEVER happen.
It is because Germany is much further into depletion that these things are happening, not because of your 'education' system or marvelous spirit of cooperation.
They want me to pay them for even less coal fired energy.
As I have already said, in Germany we get things done.
The Combined Power Plant: the first stage in providing 100 %
power from renewable energy
Speedy,
That sounds great. My brother and sister have both lived in Germany for many years so I know a bit about the German governments incentives for alternative energy. As an example my brother rents rooftop space for PV generation which he then sells back to the power company at a small profit. If the Combined Power Plant can work in Germany then I'm sure it could work in most parts of the USA (excepting the forces of contrary interests of course).
One has to wonder how many such plants a 700 billion dollar incentive package might have been able to finance.
Also imagine such plants combined with energy reduction and conservation measures. A really simple example of what could be done with very little money and a decent return on investment in a relatively short period of time would be a property tax rebate for installation of passive solar water heating systems in places such as my home state of Florida (The Sunshine State).
The labor could even be provided for free by work gangs of imprisoned Wall Street bankers and financiers serving out their sentences ;-)
Speedy - I think that Germany has a great deal to teach the rest of the world particularly the USA about "Natural Conservation" (...conservation of nature for natures sake) vs. "Utilitarian Conservation" (...conservation of nature for human use).
The Germans, who place a high on value walking in the forest, discovered in the last half century that burning coal (Germany has huge reserves of coal) was driving acid rain which were killing the forests. By dramatically cutting emissions from coal fired power plants the forests have been making a comeback. Snap!
We in the U.S. had a ray of sunshine in the last couple of days however. Senator John Sununu, a noted Global Warming skeptic lost his re-election bid and Michael Crichton, another outspoken critic of Climate Science, died yesterday.
Here is his web site: http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speech-ourenvironmentalfuture.html
Are they going to dismantle this fiction or did he will it to his heirs?
Joe
Hey, I've got enough solar panels on my roof to generate more than enough power for myself.
Guess who helps me fund it? The local municipally owned power company.
Here in the United States, the Lord helps those who help themselves.
Hello majorian, a carbon tax that is directed at efficiency and conservation efforts would indeed be very powerful strategy. But the political dimension of this "new tax" would be unpopular right now. There would have to be some "giveback" from the usual taxes to allow this program to get started. There would have to be positive results before the next election cycle. The American people would have to see that these new directions are necessary. A severe energy shortage or two may be needed to prompt action.
Some panacea, a tax of $400 billion would make taxpayers $400 billion a year poorer for openers. That will really help the economy.
"Return the money with energy credits for hybrid or high mpg cars.."
How much would the government take off the top to administer this? Of course there would be no pork at all involved when politicians start handing out subsidies to industries and constituents, right? Look who gets/got subsidies for hybrid cars, people who already could afford them. Take a hard look at the kind of cars poor people drive. In general large old fuel inefficient cars and ask yourself if they ever got a subsidy for a fuel efficient car? Do you believe the Toyota Prius cost less because it had a subsidy or more?
"It punishes energy wasters."
That would include everyone who happens to get electricity from coal; not necessarily energy wasters.
Finally do you believe the same people that gave us AMTRAK, The Post Office, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the current income tax code know how to pick market winners in the energy market?
I got a $3000 tax credit for my high mpdg hybrid car, it didn't take ANY special governmental program at all(other than me resisting the urge to defraud the government).
I don't think this will reduce the cost of cars like the Prius though I think it will reduce the price of fuel somewhat.
It will be tough on users of coal fired electricity from plants that emit CO2. Consumers would be offered limited credit for installing rooftop PV, high efficiency appliances,
insulation as compensations(the proof would be on their electric bills). The utilities would get loans to
install carbon capture and sequestration equipment on their stacks to become more cost competitive. Another method would be to suppliment fossil fuel plants with grid wind or solar farms(the utility can stop burning coal/gas/oil during the middle of a summers day or on windy winter nights).
I don't think the government needs to pick winners. The market will punish the losers; those who pay the most for carbon to make energy.
You don't believe that the government can do anything right, eh?
What about Social Security, the EPA, the TVA or NASA?
The fact is, many government programs are designed to fail by
people who are opposed to government programs on principle(deregulators) or are hopelessly corrupted by special interests(like the USDOE, Department of Interior, oil leases, etc.)
It is possible that a Peak Oil program could be corrupted by
subsidies for energy producers to increase energy production.
But a carbon tax seeks to reduce energy production so the 'profit motive', that Big Reward isn't there.
US domestic energy producers would be not be rewarded for producing energy but would be compensated for sequestering CO2.
A carbon tax is a rather dull, unsexy approach to Peak Oil but one which seeks to change our behavior rather than drill, drill, drill our way to plenty which is impossible on this finite planet.
Obama is pretty clueless (or at least is appearing to be) on the real energy issues we face. He still talks about clean coal and biofuels as if they are adequate solutions. I voted for him and I'm ecstatic that he won - as much because it's a historic milestone for our country as it's significance on the global political scene. But I have no illusions that he's going to work to implement real solutions for the economy, energy or the environment. Those solutions will have to be demanded by the people before any politician can push them through, and that ain't happening anytime soon, because "the people" are even more clueless than their leaders for the most part.
Well said, switters. Every time Obama and Biden said "clean coal" I wanted to scream. And their talk on biofuels isn't much better.
I voted for him too. Primarily because he is promising to end the Iraq war, he will (well, already has) improve the world's opinion of the US and because he has promised to end partisanship. We've heard that last one before and it never happens, but he NEEDS to reach out to the Republicans. Then when "the people" wake up to the real issues we face he will be able to act.
Don't forget that many of the hotly contested states in the election have economies that were traditionally dependent on coal production: COAL RESERVES IN THE US
The fact is, throwing some funding at clean coal research may not be a worthwhile idea, but it is something he probably felt (or was told) he had to say to take Ohio.
I'm not saying he necessarily understands the shortfalls of clean coal (non)technology, I'm just saying you shouldn't let it get to you too much. After all it is politics in the US.
Just maybe this time it will. I was impressed with the Rachel Madow interview. She asked him why he attacks Bush, and McCain, but not Republicans in general. It was his deliberate policy to leave the door open for collaboration with moderate Republicans. Demonizing the party would not serve that purpose. He really appears to have extraordinary powers of getting cooperation from people with opposing agendas. Of course there will be major reactionary forces that will make every attempt to trip him up. But with our support, I think he has a fighting chance.
Clueless is relative. He's clearly got more of a clue than damn near anyone else. I'd agree with the other posters that, assuming he does get *it*, if he were to just lay it out there it would either scare the bejeezus out of people or get people to think he is crazy. Either way it would have given us McBush/Palin last night. Yes, he bought votes with comments on coal and ethanol, but I agree that both of those have a role in the short to mid term future. I haven't seen his attitudes toward science and data-driven decision making, but it is a no-brainer to think he will be a huge improvement over the past few years.
I've referred friends to a statement he made during his talk with Rick Warren. He's got balls to have participated, and I think he proved his mettle there. With regard to this thread:
http://rickwarrennews.com/transcript/civil_forum_transcript-03.doc
(Do a search for "repercussions" to find this part)
Warren asks "WHAT WOULD YOU TELL THE AMERICAN PUBLIC IF YOU KNEW THERE WOULDN'T BE ANY REPERCUSSIONS?"
Obama replies with a statement about the ease (lack of) of future energy. Not group hugs, not the mortgage mess, not education...the first things was energy.
No literal mention of "Peak Oil", but I think he gets it.
-dr
While developing and implementing an effective energy policy should be a high priority of the new Obama administration, it is by no means the highest priority.
In my view, the first is to deal with the global economic meltdown in a way that attempts as best it can to alleviate the economic suffering of all the American people, not just Wall Street.
The second priority is to dismantle the Bush Regime's nascent police state and its imperialistic militaristic foreign policy. A nice start might include i) withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, ii) abolish the Department of Homeland Security, iii) quit spying on American citizens, and iv) shut down Guantanamo. Then let us not forget indictments for the many crimes of Bush, et al. Accountability must be restored.
No federal energy program is going to get very far as long as we are pissing away hundreds of billion dollars a year on our various foreign misadventures. There should also be far fewer toys in the Pentagon's 2009 Christmas stocking.
Like many of those here at TOD, Obama and his fellow Democrats think that government is the answer rather than part of the problem, so they will implement answers, just like Bush and his cronies implemented the ethanol disaster. Even though there are insufficient resources to maintain our present numbers, more will be squandered in the attempt to keep the shell game going. The middle class will be increasingly crushed, leaving poverty for the overwhelming majority; the privileged few will prosper.
Obama has already indicated his preference for a carbon tax which will transfer wealth from those producing and using energy into the hands of the government for its continued squandering of wealth. The sort of private solutions you might prefer for yourself will be crowded out, so those of you planning on using your wealth to relocate to a localized, human scale economy may well not ever make it, for example.
In the long run, it hardly matters because there is no force stronger than nature, certainly not man. The consequences of the end of the industrial age are certainly not going to be stopped by the most incompetent form of organization known, government. Baring some miraculous discovery of an as yet unknown energy source, the dieoff will proceed more or less on schedule. The miracle of compound growth will soon turn into the disaster of compound contraction, and the rug will be pulled out from under the feet of billions of lives, as the economic pie we depend upon for our survival is cut in half, and then cut in half again, and again, etc., etc., etc. Even Ludites will recognize the error of wishing for less as the grim reaper knocks on their own doors.
Obama will do some things the same as Bush. He will continue the American empire, squandering lives and resources in an attempt to rule the world. He will expand government in the health care arena, creating shortages as people who would have otherwise lived with minor problems, take advantage of the new free or near free health care. The financial crisis will deepen and the dollar will lose value at an accelerated pace. Tax cuts, like always will raise the tax burden on the population as a whole, while favoring some at the expense of others. The current predatory, debt based monetary system will continue, and the inflation tax will increase, weighing most heavily on the poor and middle classes. I don't expect civil liberties to be significantly restored or Guantanamo and similar facilities to be shut down.
It did not really matter what new puppet won the contest to fill the role of President, as will become increasingly evident as time passes. So if you are celebrating, party on before reality crushes your dream of salvation.
"the ethanol disaster"
What "ethanol disaster"?
The direction of significant precious resources into a technology that is marginal at best and has a negative return at worst. Even the most optimistic reports on corn ethanol only claim a 30% return as compared to the current 500% or better return for oil. Thirty delivery trucks run on ethanol is hardly a solution to replace running 500 delivery trucks on oil.
Explain how one ethanol manufacture, complete with subsidies, managed to work into bankruptcy if this is such a marvelous technology. Profits or losses, measured in dollars are an approximate indication of energy produced versus energy consumed, and bankruptcy is hardly an indication of a successful technology.
I take it the "significant precious resources" is the free sunshine making carbohydrates?
And why is 30 trucks on ethanol vs 500 trucks on oil not an improvement? Let alone as you put it: "a disaster"???
And once you will have run out of oil your 500 trucks won't deliver anything anymore. Then the "meager" 30% return will be fabulous!
What subsidies? The subsidies went all to the gas distributors. The bankruptcy of Verasun is mainly due to bad decision making: buying too high when sales price is low.
Of course as long as pumping crude oil and selling it at cheap prices goes on, any alternative will look more expensive. I would think that reliance on cheap oil is the real disaster.
It is a disaster because the US economy will fail without the other 470 equivalent trucks running. Without the equivalent 470 tractors running, there will not be enough corn to feed the millions, much less manufacture ethanol. The 30% return, if it even exist in theory, will not be fabulous, because it cannot exist without sufficient energy to keep the remainder of the economy operating.
It is a disaster, because resources were directed into this questionable technology that could have been directed elsewhere. It is like picking a 2% certificate of deposit when an equally safe (or equally unsafe in todays conditions) is available at 5%; it is a poor allocation of resources that would not have occurred without government mandates and involvement. It is a disaster to have something forced upon the market that no sane business man would have risked.
It is a disaster for people think that they have a solution when it is none. This does not even take into account the effect on the food supply of burning food as transportation fuel. And this does not take into account the danger of crop failure at the hands of fickle mother nature.
I do agree that reliance on oil is a real disaster also, but that is a mistake of the past. I don't think there is a substitute that will prevent the disaster that occurs as something we depend upon for life itself disappears. But, relying on corn ethanol to mitigate the disaster from foolish reliance on oil is equally foolish.
So, if I understand you correctly you're saying that 470 will keep running on oil indefinitely? If not, then YOU must come up with an alternative.
Nobody burns food as transportation fuel.
Where could "these resources" have been directed that are not so "disastrous"?
And why would it matter to anyone if the ethanol alternative is a non-working disaster if there is another inescapable disaster wiping out all life anyway?
Willem Verkerk: "Nobody burns food as transportation fuel."
Huh, but isn't that exactly what *corn* ethanol comes down to?
Nobody would want to eat that corn.
They might not want to, but they do. Same feed stock as HFCS, and that stuff is about as ubiquitous as it gets.
HFCS is some 3% of US corn. Not a big deal....
And then there's livestock feed...
We got a lot of that already. We're exporting quite a bit too.
Pigs and chickens would eat that corn. I like bacon and eggs.
Of course no one would hav eaten the extra corn grown to feed the ethanol plants. The fields would have been planted with other food crops. Or left fallow. In either case the demand for scarce fertilizer, and exhaustion of the soil would have been smaller. Making biofuels into a longterm sustainable solution, means solving the problems of depletion of soil, and fertilizer sources as well. Otherwise, it is just another attempt to maintain BAU a little longer whose ultimate effect is to further deplete critical resources.
This mantra has been repeated so often by the right wing of this country (especially talk radio) that it has been accepted as truth. Of course, if the Republicans really believed this they wouldn't be running for office. No, the truth is that both parties see the government as a means of implementing their particular vision of what the country should be like. Republicans are just as guilty of using the government to "implement answers" as the Democrats. It's just that those "answers" look a little different.
Don't believe me? Try imagining what our country would look like if their were no laws that allowed for the creation of a corporation. That's right, no fictional person, real people liable for the actions (and costs) of any enterprise they undertake.
He MIGHT NOT continue the American empire. He really seems like a peaceful person who doesn't like guns, for example. I am rather more hopeful than you that he will manage the problems at hand better that many others would have!
Change must come from within.
Change must come from within.
A little know vignette of history...
The grizzled old Captain stood on the bridge of the ship, gazing out at the dark endless horizon of the moonless night.
Passengers were wandering around on the deck below, amused and enchanted by some of the chunks of ice on the deck. Some young men were making a game like hockey with brooms and ice.
The Captain grimaced as he took in the enormity of the situation. The glow from the binnacle lamp illuminated his white beard. He turned to the young officer standing next to him and sighed. "I shall retire to my stateroom and do not wish to be disturbed" he stated, as his final command. "There is an old bottle of brandy awaiting me there. I relinquish command, the ship is yours, sir"
The young officer was briefly elated. For 13 years he had worked at sea, with the ambition of becoming a captain himself one day. Now he had just effectively become captain of the greatest ship in the world! But he had inherited some huge difficulties. After a moment he was overcome with doubt...
"But sir? What are we to do? We need your leadership!" The captain responded, "Our course is set, the die is cast! No amount of Leadership can save us now"
With that he turned and headed down the narrow passageway toward his room, disappearing in to the darkness. That was the last of Captain Smith, of the SS Titanic.
I quite agree.
I believe we came to the brink of new energy colonialism with Bush. We may well never know what the real situation has been or we won't know until some of the current generals retire. And we still have to suffer through several more months of a Bush presidency so we face the chance of getting embroiled in war until he leaves office.
The biggest thing I think Obama has to offer is forcing America to look inward at its own serious problems and while doing so treat the rest of the world is equals.
I honestly don't expect a whole lot of action and I expect a lot of mistakes but for the first time we are actually going to take a hard look at whats going on. Also I expect peak oil to become increasingly difficult to ignore over the coming years and Obama again offers the chance for a honest discussion.
I don't have high hopes but I see this is a chance for America to wind down its crazy consumption and start at least talking about building a sustainable society.
On the other side of the coin however we do have to recognize that the rest of the world is also facing its own tough decisions over the next few years. Having America back off from the military route is important but this does not ensure that other countries will make the same choice. At best we have ensured that America won't initiate another war.
So as the joy subsides one realizes that the hard problems have not gone away we just have a chance to try more enlighten and flexible answers.
The Obama website sums it up
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy
Obama will make the same mistake that most of America and most scientists will make: Acting without thinking, reading, and analyzing the problem.
Alternative energies waste precious fossil energy and give us electric energy, which does not help the liquid fuels and home heating problems we face. In the worsening recession, we will have spare electric power as factories, offices, and commercial plazas close. The scientific evidence for this is abundantly available, but most don't bother to read the scientific studies that are available on the Internet.
According to most independent scientific studies, global oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time demand will increase 14%.
This is equivalent to a 33% drop in 7 years. No one can reverse this trend, nor can we conserve our way out of this catastrophe. Because the demand for oil is so high, it will always exceed production levels; thus oil depletion will continue steadily until all recoverable oil is extracted.
Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment.
We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel trucks for maintenance of bridges, cleaning culverts to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables, all from far away. With the highways out, there will be no food coming in from "outside," and without the power grid virtually nothing works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated systems.
We should use the oil that we can still buy to prepare for a world without oil.
Cheers,
Cliff Wirth
"We should use the oil that we can still buy to prepare for a world without oil."
Buy! Has not Obama said we need more troops in Afghanistan. Use of war as a means of acquiring oil might be a more apt description of part of Obama's energy plan. And what about the explosive (pun intended) problems in neighboring Pakistan, where Obama will no doubt be unable to resist involvement to maintain control of the region.
I say watch the US troop levels in this entire sector from Iraq, to Afghanistan to Pakistan. I think you will soon recognize that he intends to continue the imperial policies of Bush as part of oil acquisition.
Hi Henry,
I agree, you forgot Iran. And in the the future, what will the USA do with all of the plutonium that is stored?
Call me naieve (or dial in my tin foil hat) but I cannot believe Obama, President Elect, Jr. Senator recently graduated from the Illinois state legislature has bought in to or been conscripted by the great American oil grab conspiracy.
Resource wars are a historical reality and in the future are unlikely to be all that subtle.
Hey Sterling925,
And when he sees that there will not enough oil to run tractors/combines/18 wheel trucks, and maintain the highways and power grid, as well as heat homes, he may have a different view. Miles Law -- where you stand (on an issue) depends on where you sit.
What would you do?
If Obama were savvy, he would form a commission and also have the National Academy of Sciences study the energy crisis and let them give the public the bad news, which would make things a lot easier for him. In this way, Obama could get off of his promise to fund so-called renewable energies, which are counterproductive, but demanded by the public and many so-called energy "experts" who masquerade as scientists.
Some people who contribute on TOD and some from ASPO-USA tried this with Congress and were dismissed. A supposedly savvy member of Congress said: no need for studies, and lots of oil and time and not to worry. Good grief, talking about the blind leading the blind.
Cheers,
Cliff Wirth
"...he would form a commission and also have the National Academy of Sciences study the energy crisis and let them give the public the bad news, which would make things a lot easier for him."
Hi Cliff,
I think this would be the abolutely correct thing to do - cold, hard facts. It might stimulate some action. If we could move past the question (Is there really a problem?) then we could argue about the answers ;-).
S
And Cliff:
That is an optimistic forecast. Add a couple negative Black Swans and it's "Good Night Chet ... Good Night David."
If you are not individually ready for prolonged bad times, it is your own fault. Don't blame Bush or Obama or any of TPTB.
In a couple years, McCain and Palin will think, "Whew, that was close." Just like Mr Gore probably thought on 9/12.
I have a copy of Richard Clarke's "Against all Enemies" on tape. He reads the book. I got a very strong impression that he felt that 9/11 could have been prevented if Clinton policies had continued. Now, it did happen while he was suppose to be getting things done so he might just have been looking for an excuse. But, from his tone of voice, it sure seems like he felt that Condi Rice was the most responsible person for dropping the ball.
I have not heard Al Gore comment on this sort of idea but I do get the impression that he does not have a very high opinion of the competence of the current president. I doubt that Gore felt relieved that Bush was selected as president on 9/12/01 though. More likely he felt concerned that the leadership would not be up to the circumstances.
Chris
Hey Lynford,
Yes, a little "event" in the strait of Hormuz would do it.
I'm ready for prolonged bad times, even if I live to be 100, which I doubt, the red wine and tequila will get to me first:)
As for blame, we all love oil and the good life it brings. I can still feel the acceleration and speed of my 1952 Jag XK 120 that I bought used when I was 17 years old for $550. Wish I still had it.
Time for another snort.
Cheers,
Cliff
"According to most independent scientific studies, global oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap."
Future Oil shortfall substituted by ethanol
74000000 barrels oil per day now
60000000 barrels oil per day in 2015
14000000 barrels oil per day shortfall
19.5 gallons gas per barrel oil
273000000 gallons gas shortfall per day
99,645,000,000 gallons gas shortfall per year
70% ethanol to gas equivalent
142,350,000,000 gallons ethanol to substitute shortfall
650 gallons per acre
219,000,000 acres required
This could certainly be done.
14000000 barrels oil per day shortfall
19.5 gallons gas per barrel oil
The first problem is that the rest of the (42 gallon) barrel has to be replaced as well.
142,350,000,000 gallons ethanol to substitute shortfall
So, we make less than 10 billion gallons of ethanol today, and will hit the limits of what we can do with corn at around 15 billion gallons. But we are going to make almost 10 times that? How? Where is the proven technology to do this? There isn't any. Further, consider the net energy. All of the biofuel processes use fossil fuel inputs of some kind. If you were to ramp up that much ethanol to try to make up for the shortfall, you are going to need a lot of fossil fuel inputs for the ramp up (and yet you have a shortfall trying to make up the rest of that 42 gallon barrel).
No free lunch. Not even a lunch special.
First off: If we lose 14 mbpd in 6 years, we're just, purely, SOL, Period. End a Story. However, I doubt if too many people, here, think that will happen.
In the more likely case of a less "egregious" decline, I think the U.S. might be able to muddle through. We're starting to see more fuel efficient engines come online; and we'll get some hybrids. Ethanol is, already, replacing about 8% (minus 1%, or so, for reduced efficiency in present engines) of our current gasoline usage, and we could, conceivable, see that rise to 12 - 13% (with a bullet) by 2015.
With Diesel still around $3.00, and palm/soy oils running around $0.35/lb we might see a heck of a surge in "bio" diesel production.
As for nat gas: If we're refining less oil we can just use some of that nat gas in the ethanol refining. Of course, by then, we'll, likely, be seeing a lot of ethanol refined using biomass (syrup, corn cobs, other waste.) It's going to be a "bumpy" road, but it looks like we might be okay.
Or chuck the corn in a digester and mix the output with the natural gas that you would have used to distil the ethanol. Then return the digestate to the soil.
Use the mix of gas on dual fuel diesel and natural gas engines (uses a small amount of diesel as the ignition source for the gas)
Exporting diesel to import more oil to make more gasoline seems a bit strange to Europeans.
There are diesel hybrids in the pipeline looking to deliver 80-90mpg using small turbo charged diesel engine on the front wheels with batteries and electric motor to power the rear. As battery technology improves making these vehicles into plug ins with 20-30 miles all electric range will be fairly straight forward. Replacing the steel chassis with aluminium and the steel panels with plant derived composites can help reduce the weight to compensate for the extra batteries.
Hydraulic hybrids are a fairy simple technology for larger vehicles effectively doubling mpg in cycles of frequent acceleration and braking.
Fossil fuelled combined heat and power systems deliver approximately twice as much useful energy as conventional power stations.
CSP, Large scale wind (5MW machines) & Concentrating PV represents huge capacity for growth and depending on your assumptions of future power prices they are already the cheapest option.
CO2 heat pumps have the potential to massively increase the efficiency of electric heating and could eventually be used as a working fluid in nuclear, coal and/or solar thermal
There is also bicycles and victory gardens.
Also a switch to less beef / pork and more rabbit, kangaroo, ostrich and other healthier / less polluting meats would help health care and emissions targets whilst providing farmers with income.
sounds interesting. Can you provide more details on what you mean?
A Supercritical
Carbon Dioxide Cycle
for Next Generation
Nuclear Reactors
pdf warning http://web.mit.edu/jessiek/MacData/afs.course.lockers/22/22.33/www/dosta...
Some clean coal stuff.
http://www2.ulg.ac.be/genienuc/pageco2.htm
The matiant cycle uses supercritical CO2 as the working fluid in a brayton cycle and claims thermal efficiencies around 50%
Oh, now it has to be free too? Sounds like you want a democratic hand-out?
The issue was liquid fuels. So, I took the most common in the US: gasoline.
You don't think we can come up with the 220 million acres in the US? By the way, the amount of crude oil (in the form of farmers diesel) going into corn production is about 7 or 8 gallons.
Here are some alternatives for you to consider: Corn - 525 gallons per acre; Sugarcane 750 gallons per acre; Sweet Sorghum 700 gallons per acre (2 cuts).
And yes, it is easy for anyone to shoot holes in a simplified presentation. I'll do that anytime to yours as well.... But the gist is of this that something could be (and will be) done, rather than the defeatest notion that nothing can be done: "alternatives can't even begin to fill the gap".
Oh, now it has to be free too? Sounds like you want a democratic hand-out?
Um, you aren't going to get within a million miles of what you have suggested above without enormous handouts.
You don't think we can come up with the 220 million acres in the US?
Is your grasp of the problem such that if I can identify 220 million acres, then you think we can economically make biofuels on it?
By the way, the amount of crude oil (in the form of farmers diesel) going into corn production is about 7 or 8 gallons.
Red herring.
Here are some alternatives for you to consider: Corn - 525 gallons per acre;
Oh, OK. Problem solved. Someone better tell the corn lobby, though, because they report less than 400. Or did you make the common mistake of taking a best result and treating it as an average result?
And yes, it is easy for anyone to shoot holes in a simplified presentation. I'll do that anytime to yours as well
Talk is cheap. Fire away.
But the gist is of this that something could be (and will be) done, rather than the defeatest notion that nothing can be done
Well, that wasn't your position. There is a position that nothing can be done. There is also a position - which you seemed to take - that suggests that solutions are easily had. They aren't. Something can be done, but those who are promising easy solutions are usually the ones who don't grasp the magnitude of the problem.
"Well, that wasn't your position. There is a position that nothing can be done. There is also a position - which you seemed to take - that suggests that solutions are easily had. They aren't. Something can be done, but those who are promising easy solutions are usually the ones who don't grasp the magnitude of the problem."
Well it was (and is) my position. I never said it would be easy, or that it (oil depletion) was a small problem. To put words like that in my mouth is simple misrepresentation. I didn't even say it would be "cheap"....
And yes, I took the optimistic corn yields. But we're told that corn yields will keep increasing. So, it's not that far fetched, I'd think.
If oil is sufficiently expensive, hand-outs are not necessary.
If oil is sufficiently expensive, hand-outs are not necessary.
Again, misses the big picture on net energy. If this was true, why were ethanol companies going bankrupt when oil prices were at record highs?
The corn ethanol companies were not going bankrupt because of high oil prices.
2 things:
1. Some came into difficulty because of high corn prices. (that is not the same as high oil prices)
2. Some came into difficulty because of low oil prices. (the contrary of what you allege)
The corn ethanol companies were not going bankrupt because of high oil prices.
Many came into difficulty during the time of record high prices, which is contradictory to your claim that if oil prices were sufficiently high, ethanol would be OK:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2041459/posts
Is $140 oil not high enough? No, because the situation is a lot more complex than just whether oil prices are high. High oil prices go hand in hand with high natural gas prices, and ethanol plants use a lot of natural gas. So high oil prices are only a recipe for competitive ethanol if the ethanol is being produced with minimal fossil fuel inputs.
Bottom line is that the problem can't be distilled down to simple, sound bite solutions.
The article doesn't mention high oil prices as a cause for the bankruptcies of ethanol producers.
The article does however confirm my point:
More ethanol producers will continue to file bankruptcy, he said, because of high feedstock costs and a "limited upside flexibility in terms of how much you can sell ethanol for."
Natural gas could be replaced by plant material.
The article doesn't mention high oil prices as a cause for the bankruptcies of ethanol producers.
Look at the date of the article. Ethanol bankrupcties, while oil prices were at record highs. That's the point I am trying to make to you. The problem is more complex than "if oil prices are high, ethanol will be OK." I give you the counter example where oil prices were at record highs, and plants were failing.
because of high feedstock costs and a "limited upside flexibility in terms of how much you can sell ethanol for."
If you have ever seen the ethanol plant models, natural gas is a significant input. This is why high oil prices don't necessarily help.
Natural gas could be replaced by plant material.
And I could probably use a rocket pack to go to work every day. But there are reasons for things. There are reasons that plant material is not a great choice as a natural gas replacement. Otherwise, why do you think it hasn't displaced all of the natural gas in ethanol plants already?
It is very easy to say "you could do this or that", but if you dig a little deeper you will see that the situation is more complex.
The article specifically mentions high feedstock (=corn) costs and not high oil at all. And that's the point of that article.
And due to contract marketing (ethanol futures) the higher costs could not always be passed on ("limited upside flexibility"). The high ocrn prices were due to flooding, not to the high price of oil.
I said natgas "could" be replaced to indicate the possibility. I can also say it will: like in sugarcane ethanol for instance you don't need natgas, but will use the bagasse. Economics will dictate whether what happens. If natgas is cheap, it won't happen. If it would stay at $14 natgas replacement would most certainly happen in corn ethanol as well, I think.
The article specifically mentions high feedstock (=corn) costs and not high oil at all. And that's the point of that article.
Yet you suggested that high oil prices would mean ethanol could compete without handouts. The article contradicts that, as we were saying lots of failures despite record oil prices. And that's the 3rd time I have pointed that out. So I think we can safely conclude that high oil prices won't necessarily help ethanol compete.
"Yet you suggested that high oil prices would mean ethanol could compete without handouts. The article contradicts that, as we were saying lots of failures despite record oil prices. And that's the 3rd time I have pointed that out. So I think we can safely conclude that high oil prices won't necessarily help ethanol compete."
Apparently we can't get it through your head that the article you, adduced does not speak about high oil prices at all. The article cites two economic reasons: a. high feedstock and b. not being able to pass on the higher costs and a third management issue about not knowing process industries and restructuring finance etc..
Why you are linking this article to high oil prices is beyond me: the article doesn't make any mention of it.....
Now, to say that this article coincided with a period of high oil prices and that therefore high oil prices do not make a better case for ethanol is just ignoring what the article says. It says that they did not have the flexibility to adjust selling prices.
High oil and gas prices will make alternative energy more competitive. Do you want to argue "safely" that this is not true?
Now, to say that this article coincided with a period of high oil prices and that therefore high oil prices do not make a better case for ethanol is just ignoring what the article says.
For the 4th time now, I am focused on what you said. The article was published at a time of record high oil prices, and yet ethanol companies were failing. You said record high oil prices would mean ethanol companies wouldn't need handouts. I have provided a counter-example, so you were wrong. Q.E.D.
Unfortunately, no - you are focused on what you thought he said. What he actually said was:
You appear to have interpreted this as a comment on this summer, rather than a hypothetical:
This is not something he ever said; you're committing a strawman fallacy here. In particular, the dollar value of "sufficiently expensive" was not defined, so you cannot possibly have a counter-example. The situation is more complex than that.
As a general rule of thumb, if you're repeating yourself in an argument, there's a good chance you're mis-speaking or mis-hearing something, neither of which are likely to be fixed by another repetition. It's almost always more productive to rephrase than repeat.
***
You have a very good point that the price of oil affects the price of natural gas, which is an important feedstock to corn ethanol plants; however, that does not change the basic fact that you're arguing against a position that nobody is taking. The claim was never that this summer's oil prices were high enough that corn ethanol would necessarily be profitable; the claim was simply that "sufficiently expensive" oil would make handouts (subsidies) unnecessary for corn ethanol. The original claim is not precise enough for this summer to provide a counter-example.
Valid lessons that can be drawn from this summer, however, are:
One could reasonably argue that it is fairly likely that these two points make large-scale corn ethanol production with current technology unprofitable for any oil price which will be sustainable in the near future.
This is essentially the same argument as you're making, but the key difference is that it's not an absolute. The troubles sustained by corn ethanol concerns this year are not proof that the original claim was wrong, but simply evidence that it was probably wrong. Overclaiming and overconfidence in uncertain results is always a problem, even when I personally believe those results to be correct, since it provides false information regarding the degree of certainty of knowledge, and hence can poison reasoning that is derived from it.
Scientists don't hem and haw to be modest; correct information regarding the level of uncertainty is vital to properly accumulating, analyzing, and exploiting knowledge.
I'm not sure you can even go that far. The article says that small and mid-size players are in trouble. But that is as it should be in an industry that is moving to scale. The large players may be profitable under a whole range of conditions. Some level of production should be profitable as long as there is a mandate for US ethanol.
In fact, because the market is rigged, profitability might not be te best measure to understand what is going on.
Chris
Ah, come on Robert. You know why Verasun failed while Poet and all the rest were doing okay. The Guy "shorted" corn all the way to the top (I guess he thought he was a big enough player to affect the price,) and then he bought for the future "At The Top."
He blew, evidently, close to $100 Million speculating on corn futures.
More than a few people around here were talking about buying ethanol futures at the very top. Remember? I, also, think there was someone (who got a lot of down arrows, by the way) that questioned whether it was a good time to buy ethanol futures when corn was at the highest level in history.
Anyhoo, Chippewa Valley, and Corn plus are, already, into the biomass to process energy game, and Poet, of course, is getting into it in a Big way.
And, again, we're not going to do all that much more "Corn" ethanol, anyway. The play from here on out, if there is one, is in cellulosic, and biodiesel.
Don't you think?
You know why Verasun failed while Poet and all the rest were doing okay.
Did you read the article? I am not talking about Verasun. They were discussing a number of ethanol companies that were in trouble, despite record high oil prices. The assertion was the high oil prices would mean that ethanol wouldn't need handouts.
The play from here on out, if there is one, is in cellulosic, and biodiesel.
Tell me when I can find some cellulosic ethanol being produced at scale (without massive handouts making the enterprise possible).
I said, "if there is one," did I not?
I guess KL Process Design Group qualifies. They're producing 1.5 Million Gpy, and I suppose they're profitable, in as much as they're looking to expand.
As to whether they're getting more handouts than the Oil Companies? Well, another time, another debate, I suppose.
As to whether they're getting more handouts than the Oil Companies? Well, another time, another debate, I suppose.
Just to clarify, we are talking about the same oil companies that currently pay over $100 billion/year in taxes? Do you really want to get into such a comparison with the ethanol companies?
They pay a lot in taxes; but, they don't pay That much. The $100 Billion number includes "Taxes Collected." Collecting taxes isn't the same as "paying taxes."
And, sure, I want to get into that. The ethanol companies pay taxes, also. Sales taxes, Payroll taxes, property taxes, corporate taxes, etc.
And, while we're at it, how do you charge off the $160 BILLION, or so, Annually, that we spend in the Middle East, or the Thousands of lives lost, there?
They pay a lot in taxes; but, they don't pay That much.
But do they give more back than they get? I think we know the answer to that. The tax rate for oil companies is extremely high relative to the average S&P 500 company. For all of the grief about their profits, ExxonMobil alone paid about $30 billion in taxes last year. Not taxes collected; taxes paid. That seems like a lot to me; you obviously don't think it's that much. How about the ethanol companies? I think we also know the answer to that one.
And, while we're at it, how do you charge off the $160 BILLION, or so, Annually, that we spend in the Middle East, or the Thousands of lives lost, there?
I don't know, how does the farmer justify putting that Middle Eastern diesel in his tractor?
Personally I charge this off to misguided policies that were aimed at keeping the oil flowing to consumers. Are you suggesting that Iraq was invaded on behalf of the oil companies? If so, please show any evidence of an oil company that advocated an invasion.
Your logic continues to amaze me. Why is the tax rate different for one company to another? Ethanol companies will pay as much as the oil companies.
Why would you want to go the route of "justification" for what diesel farmers use? If you want to talk "justification" we will be in for a long debate. What are you burning in your car?
Your logic continues to amaze me.
Why thank you. But please hold your applause until the end.
Why is the tax rate different for one company to another? Ethanol companies will pay as much as the oil companies.
Patently false. Oil companies pay all sorts of taxes that ethanol companies don't pay. They also operate in many countries with much higher tax rates, and that pushes their average tax rate higher. You will be hard pressed to find any industry (perhaps tobacco) that is taxed at a higher rate than oil.
Aren't you amazed? Or are you confused? Or maybe you finally see that my logic is amazing because your understanding was shallow?
Why would you want to go the route of "justification" for what diesel farmers use?
Quite simple. The argument being proposed is that we could get away from this blood for oil game if we only switched everything over to ethanol. But farmers run their trucks and tractors on fossil fuels. Again, we are being offered simplistic sound bites to a more complex situation.
What are you burning in your car?
Do you mean my bicycle? I don't own a car.
"Patently false"? Federal income tax is exactly the same for all companies. Maybe you're now talking about other taxes, which may apply because of special burdens oil (and other companies) would present to society. But the same principle applies: all companies would be taxed similarly for similar reasons. Or give us some example where one company doing the exact same thing as another would be taxed differently.
You like to throw in extremes I see. Red herring abounding everywhere. Because I don't think anyone said something like this: "if we only switched everything over to ethanol". Can you keep a serious argument?
And your bicycle doesn't have any oil products?
"Patently false"? Federal income tax is exactly the same for all companies.
No it is not.
Your claim is wrong.
Oh I see....
Can you care to elaborate why I could possibly be wrong?
WV,
I think you may be factually correct.
Federal corporate 'income tax' is basically FLAT over $100000 in company PROFITS at ~35%.
Thanks to smart tax lawyers, US corporations have 'gamed the system' with writeoffs/tax credits so much that 2/3 of them pay no corporate income tax at all!
Corporations with less than a profit of $100000 are taxed less as they are doing rather poorly( a company making only $100000 is small potatoes.
State corporation tax rates are FLAT also and deductable.
Corporations must also figure an AMT at a FLAT rate of 20% in an attempt to make them pay something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_tax_in_the_United_State
Most Companies in US Avoid Federal Income Taxes
Report Says Most Corporations Pay No Federal Income Taxes; Lawmakers Blame Loopholes
By JENNIFER C. KERR Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON August 12, 2008 (AP) The Associated Press
Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress.
The study by the Government Accountability Office, expected to be released Tuesday, said about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.
Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales, according to GAO's estimate.
"It's shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who asked for the GAO study with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.
An outside tax expert, Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, said increasing numbers of limited liability corporations and so-called "S" corporations pay taxes under individual tax codes.
"Half of all business income in the United States now ends up going through the individual tax code," Edwards said.
The GAO study did not investigate why corporations weren't paying federal income taxes or corporate taxes and it did not identify any corporations by name. It said companies may escape paying such taxes due to operating losses or because of tax credits.
More than 38,000 foreign corporations had no tax liability in 2005 and 1.2 million U.S. companies paid no income tax, the GAO said. Combined, the companies had $2.5 trillion in sales. About 25 percent of the U.S. corporations not paying corporate taxes were considered large corporations, meaning they had at least $250 million in assets or $50 million in receipts.
The GAO said it analyzed data from the Internal Revenue Service, examining samples of corporate returns for the years 1998 through 2005. For 2005, for example, it reviewed 110,003 tax returns from among more than 1.2 million corporations doing business in the U.S.
Dorgan and Levin have complained about companies abusing transfer prices — amounts charged on transactions between companies in a group, such as a parent and subsidiary. In some cases, multinational companies can manipulate transfer prices to shift income from higher to lower tax jurisdictions, cutting their tax liabilities. The GAO did not suggest which companies might be doing this.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=5561455
What you're missing is that 1/3 of corporations can't take advantage of the special write-offs to reduce their corporate tax to zero!
(I want to CRY!)
Those corporation's tax advisers are incompetent!
Please help this chronically disadvantaged minority.
End all corporate taxes in the name of FAIRNESS.
(Oh, the humanity!)
Federal income tax is exactly the same for all companies.
As Eric points out, this is wrong. There are tax brackets just like for individuals, and there are all sorts of tax offsets that change the effective tax rates.
But the same principle applies: all companies would be taxed similarly for similar reasons.
This is simply wrong. Oil companies pay severance taxes that ethanol companies don't pay. They pay windfall profits taxes in various locations that are specific to the oil industry. They aren't allowed to take the same sorts of tax deductions as ethanol companies. The list is long. The fact that you don't know these things, yet continue to feel the need to argue about it should give you pause. Maybe you should spend more time asking questions and less time making claims.
And your bicycle doesn't have any oil products?
You are really reaching. You asked what I am burning in my car. I told you.
"As Eric points out, this is wrong. There are tax brackets just like for individuals, and there are all sorts of tax offsets that change the effective tax rates."
Again, you beautifully confirm my point. Tax brackets apply to all alike. And the IRS code specifies what "offsets" you can claim; again for all alike. (that's why it's called tax-code)... All income is taxed the same, because the tax brackets are the same.
You talk about deductions and other stuff. But that is before income is determined and a different matter altogether.
Again, you beautifully confirm my point. Tax brackets apply to all alike.
Egads, man! I guess I need to state the obvious, that everyone isn't in the same bracket, hence everyone doesn't pay taxes at the same rate (which was your claim).
Here was your claim, in response to my comment that oil companies are heavily taxed relative to other companies:
Why is the tax rate different for one company to another? Ethanol companies will pay as much as the oil companies.
As I have pointed out, oil companies pay many taxes that ethanol companies don't pay, including windfall profits taxes in certain areas. They also operate in foreign countries with much higher tax rates. Overall, the taxes they pay relative to what they earn are far higher than for ethanol companies. This is directly contrary to your claim, yet somehow "beautifully confirms" your point?
At this point I have to conclude that you aren't being serious and that I am wasting my time.
Have you talked to the farmers about these increased yields? Fertilizer prices have tripled this year.
I know farmers who are opting to disc their fields only once this year before planting (not even removing the stubble from the last crop), and hoping they can find something, anything to harvest next year. Others are skipping fertilizer and pesticides partially or entirely.
This shouldn't fill one with optimism...
And fertilizer has come down again too. Discing less or using less chemicals may certainly help. But in the end it has to make economic sense of course.
Would continuing to use the same qty of crude oil make sense to you?
It's not easy for farmers to determine what they should do. They have unfortunately not much control over the markets, (input or output), whereas hedgers and gamblers can quickly (with a few computer strokes) get in and out doing a lot of damage for everyone. And this applies to almost any crop regardless of biofuels.
considering that there are approximately 400 million total arable acres in the US, I do think it might be a bit of a problem coming up with 220 million.
Why is that a problem? If you have 400 then you have more than 220 already.... It all depends what you want to do with those acres. (by the way there are almost 1000 classified as farm land; including pastures, etc.)
If you don't understand why that's a problem, there isn't much I can do.
Not that you mentioned it, but you probably think that we would be running out of food acres.
If 1 person needs .76 acres for food, and if we have 300 million people, we would need 228 million acres. So, together with the 220 we might just make it.
And don't forget: The acres that produce corn ethanol produce also DDGS, a feed.
Current typical US diet requires a few acres per person. But yes, it is possible to get down to 0.76 acres per person or so. No margin for error in production, no exports, very little meat and dairy. Hey, we might be healthier eating lower on the food chain a bit I guess.
All so we can keep on trukin'
Great plan man!
I left the meat out figuring y'all opponents of ethanol fuel would be vegetarians anyway....
And because meat can be produced from pasture too.
And no, you don't have to keep on trucking. You're free to hike if you like.
It all depends on what you want.
Let me see...
640 acres/square mile. 220,000,000 acres required to produce the etanol for 2015. 220,000,000 / 640 = 343,750 square miles. I'm no math whiz but that's about the size of Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Oklahoma and South Dakota combined.
It will be a lot more difficult moving all the residents this time than it was moving the Indians. We have better weapons now.
All kidding aside, that is absurd.
Do the math: just 5 states out of 50 is just 10%. What's so absurd? And no, we don't have to move anyone: we have the farmland already. And there is a whole lot more non-farmland out there too.
The area of the USA is 2,075,000 square miles not including alaska so 356,200 sqaure miles is 17% of the total area, not 10% 50/5. Also, much of the west is desert and mountains and much of the east is too rough. The 5 states I mentioned are in the "breadbasket" and probably represent 25% or more of "industrial ag" land.
What do you see as the objective for a massive biofuels revolution anyway? Preservation of the status quo? Assuming we could preserve BAU for a while, at what cost to water, native ecosystems, plants animals, air, soil?
Someone here said: "alternatives can't even begin to fill the gap".
I think just one alterative (ethanol) could begin to fill the gap of liquid fuels. And that's why I quickly threw some numbers together to show something significant could be done. And there are other alternatives.
Feel free to come up with your own alternatives and share them with us. Maybe you have better alternatives?
Everyone knows that ethanol is an energy sink, except you.
You ever stop to think about where gas prices might be without the 700,000 bpd of ethanol we're, currently, blending?
Hint: If you add back in the $0.51 blender's tax credit, Diesel is still about 50% higher than E85.
Anyways, it's all kind of a moot question. Law says we can't go over 15 Billion gal from corn ethanol, and it looks like we'll probably top out at about 14 bil gallons. That means we'll use another 5 million acres for corn, tops. And, as William pointed out: Don't overlook rapidly increasing yields. It's a reality, and the impact will be large.
Again, keep an eye on Diesel. The demand doesn't seem to be quite as "elastic" as the demand for gasoine; and every year the need for an alternative will become greater.
Kdolliso,
And what would natural gas, coal, and corn prices be without wasting them on corn ethanol, and how much cleaner would the air and water be, and how many fewer people would go into poverty and starve to death???
Corn ethanol is an energy sink and death trap.
Diesel costs more due to competition and energy content.
Please peddle your corn ethanol somewhere else, you have few buyers here, unless you're selling white lightening or moonshine :)
how much cleaner would the air and water be,
As opposed to, for example, This? The Tar Sands
And, and how many fewer people would go into poverty and starve to death???
On the off-chance that this is a "serious" question, why don't you answer it. With a few solid numbers if you don't mind. (You might want to keep in mind that corn has fallen from $8.70/bu to $3.90/bu with no effect on "food prices," whatsoever.)
You have, absolutely, NO idea how many "buyers" I have here.
Hey kdolliso,
Tar sands wins, as it is not an energy sink. Corn ethanol yields no energy. Due to the fact that corn ethanol is an energy sink, few support it.
The Union of Concerned Scientists concluded that:
“Even if we used all of our corn to make ethanol, with nothing left for food or animal feed, we could only displace perhaps 1.5 million barrels per day of this demand [U.S. consumption is 21 million barrels per day]. Ethanol is currently transported mainly by tanker truck or rail cars because it cannot be shipped in existing gasoline pipelines. The potential capacity for ethanol production from corn is fairly limited. In addition to concerns about feedstock limitations, corn ethanol derives much of its energy from fossil fuel inputs.”
Review of studies by the National Resources Defense Council and Argonne National Laboratory regarding the net energy gain from the production of corn ethanol, reveal that some studies indicate some gain and one study indicates a net loss of energy. None of these studies, however, considers all of the energy inputs in all of the processes required to produce ethanol (mining and transport of ores, parts, equipment, heating of factories, all employees’ transportation and salaries/dividends (oil consumed in spending salaries), and maintenance, etc.), nor do the studies consider the opportunity costs of not using corn for food (sales). More important, ethanol cannot be transported by the existing pipeline network that covers the U.S., and transport by trains and trucks is very expensive and consumes much energy as well.
A 2007 study by the U.S. Congressional Research Service, “Ethanol and Biofuels: Agriculture, Infrastructure and Market Constraints Related to Expanded Production” concluded:
“While recent proposals have set the goal of significantly expanding biofuel supply in the coming decades, questions remain about the ability of the U.S. biofuel industry to meet rapidly increasing demand. Current U.S. biofuel supply relies almost exclusively on ethanol produced from Midwest corn. In 2006, 17% of the U.S. corn crop was used for ethanol production. To meet some of the higher ethanol production goals would require more corn than the United States currently produces, if all of the envisioned ethanol was made from corn. Due to the concerns with significant expansion in corn-based ethanol supply, interest has grown in expanding the market for biodiesel produced from soybeans and other oil crops. However, a significant increase in U.S. biofuels would likely require a movement away from food and grain crops. Other biofuel feedstock sources, including cellulosic biomass, are promising, but technological barriers make their future uncertain. Issues facing the U.S. biofuels industry include potential agricultural “feedstock” supplies, and the associated market and environmental effects of a major shift in U.S. agricultural production; the energy supply needed to grow feedstocks and process them into fuel; and barriers to expanded infrastructure needed to deliver more and more biofuels to the market….There are limits to the amount of biofuels that can be produced and questions about the net energy and environmental benefits they would provide. Further, rapid expansion of biofuel production may have many unintended and undesirable consequences for agricultural commodity costs, fossil energy use, and environmental degradation. As policies are implemented to promote ever-increasing use of biofuels, the goal of replacing petroleum use with agricultural products must be weighed against these other potential consequences.”
"According to most independent scientific studies, global oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time demand will increase 14%."
Do you really believe demand will increase this amount? This must be some sort of insane extrapolation of BAU while at the same time you assume BAU is impossible.
Dad,
You are right, the IEA is revising demand downward, but also they have revised supply downward with the 9.1 decline rate for existing oil fields.
But the IEA revision downward is not so much
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ca2b5254-ab6a-11dd-b9e1-000077b07658.html?ncli...
BAU in the oil production countries, and stimulus packages, mortgage bailouts, unemployment checks, and public works in the developed world.
Cliff Wirth
Obama supports PHEV's which would increase electric and decrease liquid fuel consumption. For home heating problems install solar thermal systems and heat pumps. Convert the fossil fuel consumption to electric consumption which can be provided by renewable sources.
Alternative energies do not waste fossil energy unless you are referring to ethanol.
Hi Cliff,
So, highways - lack of upkeep leads to power-grid failure. (Somehow I'd missed the exact chain of events.)
Q: Is it fair to say your argument is that we should not invest in alternatives and/or re-newables? Is this part of the "use the oil that we can still buy to prepare for a world without oil" argument?
I say this because I keep putting it out (for feedback) to people I know and saying it's the argument you are making. (I'd better double check.)
Q: So, what is your idea for a ("we"/i.e., collective, national) plan to prepare? (What is your idea for such a plan that does not involve construction of new and/or renewable energy technologies?)
Do you have a list and if so, could you please write it up?
(For one thing, I'd like a chance to contribute to this discussion, if possible.:))
Hi Aniya,
Idea for a national plan is (knowing none of this will ever happen)
1. policy analysis research to see if alternatives will function when oil is scarce. I've done that but the National Academy of Sciences needs to redo the 1977 study. Little has changed since then -- we have no solution to the liquid fuels problem and we don't have good batteries.
2. inform the public about the coming catastrophe, which would throw the nation into economic recession and reduce spending on non-essentials.
3. focus on how best to provide water, food, sanitation, and heating without fossil fuels.
4. massive education of the public on what life will be like after the last power blackout, as there will be no real federal, state, or local government.
5. contingency planning at the state and local level.
6. studies on what policies are needed to limit population growth.
I could go into lots more detail, but will do that elsewhere
Hi Aniya,
Here goes the power grad. Peak Oil means that the U.S. lacks the energy necessary to provide for transportation, food production, industry, manufacturing, residential heating, and the production of energy. Oil shortages and natural gas shortages will generate multiple crises for the nation: (1) Shortages in gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel will limit travel to work for oil rig/platform workers and technicians, coal miners, highway maintenance personnel, and maintenance workers for electric power generation stations and power lines. (2) Without truck and air transport, spare parts for virtually everything in the economy won’t be delivered, including parts needed for highway maintenance and energy production equipment. Simmons notes that 50,000 unique parts are necessary to create a working oil field. Many more parts are necessary for ultra deep water drilling operations, including a variety of high tech ships, remotely operated underwater vehicles, seismic survey equipment, helicopters, and technologically complex platforms (see The New York Times and click on Multimedia Graphic). Thousands of corporations around the globe manufacture these parts, and many of these corporations will fail in the Peak Oil crisis. (3) States governments will lack funds for maintaining the Interstate Highway System, including snow plowing, bridge repair, surface repair, cleaning of culverts (necessary to avoid road washouts), and clearing of rock slides. A failure in one section of the Interstate highway will cut off transportation for that highway and everything it carries: food, emergency supplies, medicine, medical equipment, and spare parts necessary for energy production. (4) The power grid for most of North American will fail due to a lack of spare parts and maintenance for the 257,000 kilometers of electric power transmission lines, hundreds of thousands of pylons (which are transported on the highways), and hundreds of power generating plants and substations, as well as from shortages in the supply of coal, natural gas, or oil used in generating electric power. Power failures could also result from the residential use of electric stoves and space heaters when there are shortages of oil and natural gas for home heating. This would overload the power grid, causing its failure. The nation depends on electric power for: industry; manufacturing; auto, truck, rail, and air transportation (electric motors pump diesel fuel, gasoline, and jet fuel); oil and natural gas heating systems; lighting; elevators; computers; broadcasting stations; radios; TVs; automated building systems; electric doors; telephone and cell phone services; water purification; water distribution; waste water treatment systems; government offices; hospitals; airports; and police and fire services, etc. Phillip Schewe, author of “The Grid: A Journey Through the Heart of Our Electrified World,” writes that the nation’s power infrastructure is “the most complex machine ever made.” In “Lights Out: The Electricity Crisis, the Global Economy, and What It Means To You,” author Jason Makansi emphasizes that “very few people on this planet truly appreciate how difficult it is to control the flow of electricity.” A 2007 report of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) concluded that peak power demand in the U.S. would increase 18% over the next decade and that planned new power supply sources would not meet that demand. NERC also noted concerns with natural gas disruptions and supplies, insufficient capacity for peak power demand during hot summers (due to air conditioning), incapacity in the transmission infrastructure, and a 40% loss of engineers and supervisors in 2009 due to retirements. According to Railton Frith and Paul H. Gilbert (National Research Council scientist testifying before Congress), power failures currently have the potential of paralyzing the nation for weeks or months. In an era of multiple crises and resource constraints, power failures will last longer and then become permanent. When power failures occur in winter, millions of people in the U.S. and Canada will die of exposure. There are not enough shelters for entire populations, and shelters will lack heat, adequate food and water, and sanitation. (5) Water purification and water distribution systems will fail, leaving millions of metropolitan residents without water. (6) Waste water treatment systems will fail, resulting in untreated sewage that will contaminate the drinking water for millions of residents who consume river water downstream. (7) Transportation and communications failures will cripple federal, state and local governments -- leaving and residents without emergency services, emergency shelters, police and fire protection, water supplies, and sanitation etc. (8) Mechanized farming will cease, and harvested crops won’t be transported more than a few miles. (9) Food won’t be transported from the Midwest, California, Florida, and Mexico to the U.S. population. (10) Fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides won’t be produced. (11) Due to limited farm acreage near cities (much of it destroyed by suburbanization), most cities and towns will be unable to support their populations with sufficient food from local farming (see Paul Chefurka and Paul Chefurka). (12) Homes across the U.S. will lack heating and air conditioning. Even if homes are retrofitted with wood stoves, local biomass is insufficient to provide for home heating, and it will not be possible to cut, split, and move wood in sufficient quantities.
In the coming years, the U.S. faces multiple energy crises. Each crisis will generate delays in handling other crises, thus making it more and more difficult to address multiplying problems. The worse things get, the worse they will get. A grid lock of crises will paralyze the nation.
Because the global demand for oil is high, conservation in the U.S. alone will not slow global oil depletion. Any oil conserved in U.S. would be consumed by other nations. The rational policy for the nation to follow, therefore, is to shift away from consumerism and economic stimulus programs (which waste oil) and use the available oil to prepare for Peak Oil risk management planning.
In terms of energy legislation we might expect next year, renewable electricity standards might get passed: http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/15by2020-0070.html
Chris
The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it.
I'm a newbie contributor but a long-time reader.
That said, I am reminded of a classic remark: "Opinions are like a**holes. Everybody's got one."
As a really mature male (AKA old), I have the right to be curmudgeonly from time to time.
ElBogart
What effect will the election results have on energy policy?
Give me a bit, I can't seem to find my crystal ball.
It'll be good for ethanol. Flexfuel cars will be mandated. Probably some money for the car companies to help pay the $35.00 - $100.00 cost of going flexfuel.
Wind will benefit. So will Solar. Probably some tax breaks for companies that build wind turbines, and solar cells. Also, some tax breaks for "cellulosic" companies.
Just guessing.
Simply put...
"Much better than Bush"
He has a large support for renewable and developing them. That is the first step toward a %100 sustainable society.
My worry for Obama is that the pace of change dictated by external forces is
going to outstrip the goodwill.
What I hear Americans saying in the media is that they don't specifically want
change - what they actually want is for the situation to 'change' back to the way
it was a few years ago ..... and then get better and better ... for all.
This is clearly not going to happen if, as I understand it, we are already
looking at a global decline rate of 4. something percent providing investment
is available to the tune of some $350 + billion .... a year!.
Certainly a vision is needed, but I think it's the Virgin Mary variety.
I am enjoying a brief break from cynicism, and that is saying something for a Peak Oil believer and a founding member of the Cynicratic Party (rimshot, please!).
With respect to governance, I can't see how things can't improve with Obama - especially when you contrast the past 8 years of Bush/Cheney casino laizez faire economics, energy denial, divisive partisanship, and imperialist resource wars masquerading as a crusade for democracy. Hey folks, there's no where to go but up!
I do agree that Obama is not as progressive as I would like and he does have ties to big moneyed interests. He is a politician, but at least he's an adult with some intellectual curiosity. And I was relieved to actually hear him say we are facing great crises and are going to have to work hard and sacrifice. Imagine THAT! I am hoping he will tell everyone the truth of how serious our energy problems are.
Will Obama be able to lead the US to a post-carbon economy? That remains to be seen. It may well be too late for us to meaningfully prepare for energy decline disasters - but I do have confidence that he will serve as an authentic and inspirational leader who will bring people together to deal with adversity. And community organizing - his forte - will be critical to adapting to post-Peak relocalizing and shrinkage of the world economy.
So I feel good about the future - like I have not felt in some time. YIPEEE!
IMO, that is about as good as you can hope for from politics.
I actually supported another candidate but I do think there is something important about this election that has nothing to do with energy, or only in the sense that the war is about oil. I wrote this earlier: http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/11/05/opinion/05wed1....
Chris
Who is Barack Obama?
a great video plus a list of things he can do ......
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/468.html
A year from now expect to be disappointed. There were similar hopes for overdue change in Australia when Kevin Rudd defeated Bush buddy John Howard. There's a lot of talk of plans like carbon trading but nothing has happened so far despite being a key election promise. On the other hand it took only a few days to bring in protection for the banking industry. Since the 2007 election I believe the rate of wind farm building has slowed dramatically. The uptake of solar panels has increased due to initiatives (feed-in tariffs) by state governments, whereas the federal government actually made the rebates harder to get.
Therefore I think the President will most likely be preoccupied with issues like war and welfare. Reform on energy issues will come from state governments.
Rudd's government doubled the number of rebates that were available under the previous regime, and then means-tested them at a household income of $100k. Despite the $100k cap, demand is thirty times what they budgeted, and they are going to have to restrict the rebate more or can it completely. I'd say the rebate has clearly achieved what it was originally intended to achieve and could now be allowed to wither, although I'd have to say hearing the Liberal Party talk about an Australian "solar industry" is a sick joke. After several world-leading solar research groups were driven offshore under the Howard Administration (now forming important parts of at least three of the world's biggest solar players, in Germany, China and the USA), and the CSIRO were leaned on by their minister to discontinue all work on photovoltaic tech, a bunch of sparkies bolting imported panels onto suburban roofs is somehow an "industry?"
http://news.theage.com.au/national/fears-solar-rebate-may-be-axed-200810...
Does Barack now have to pay royalties to these guys?
Barack the Builder, Nice ring to it
Neven
This link provides a very different perspective on the man. The success of his energy policy will largely depend upon the amount of funding he is prepared to divert away from things like social security and into R&D, new vehicle infrastructure and nuclear newbuild. All this will need to be undertaken at a time when 'his' people face higher unemployment and deprivation than at any time since the 1930s. On the basis of what is written here, I am not hopeful.
Obama — The Expected Victory
http://bnp.org.uk/2008/11/obama-the-expected-victory/
Nick Griffin assesses the significance of Obama’s Presidential victory. — An outgoing Republican President leaves behind him an American economy in free fall, and a Democrat wins the race to replace him. No surprise in the USA then.
Obama’s inevitable victory was against a liberal puppet of the plutocrats whose greed has wrecked the economy not just of America but of the entire world. This is not the result of some zeitgeist change in the USA that heralds a bright new leftist dawn of peace and harmony under a brilliant new leader who will heal ills just by touching the afflicted.
Obama was elected because McCain represented the party which Americans blame for turning the cash withdrawal machines they called houses into giant millstones of ever increasing debt and despair. While Obama’s undeniable charisma and brilliant Internet campaign played an important role in his victory, in the end this was not so much about the Democrats winning as it was a matter of the Republicans losing.
McCain’s poll ratings tracked the Dow Jones stock market index and he was doomed when he stated that the fundamentals of the American economy were sound on the very day that Bear Sterns collapsed. That’s all there is to it. The Obama halo is relative to his opponent, and within weeks of his not having an opponent that halo will begin to lose its lustre.
And so it should. Because, unnoticed by Americans — or rather, unreported by the liberal-left media — Barak Obama played a key role in the creation of the sub-prime disaster that has propelled him to power. The disaster started when a ‘community organizer’ in Chicago named Madeline Talbott began to use the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act to build her political influence among the city’s black community.
The CRA itself was a piece of bankster greed dressed up as PC folly. The politicians who passed it thought they were voting to make it easier for poor people — minorities especially — to get mortgages despite having bad credit ratings. The banksters who wanted it passed wanted to be relieved of the inconvenient shackles of prudence that prevented them from getting another huge tranche of US society into unrepayable and hence highly profitable debt.
Talbott made a lucrative career out of suing or threatening institutions over real or perceived ‘discrimination’ against blacks, and the CRA gave her the opportunity to take them to the cleaners. She set up a direct action campaign group, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and set about intimidating various banks into giving loans to poor blacks — and out of court settlement payouts to her.
She was greatly helped in this when she hooked up with a slick and highly capable young community activist in Chicago, who she hired to train her ACORN agitators. Her new friend, one Barak Obama, taught them confrontational tactics learned from various 1960s Black Power activists he idolised (his favourite was Malcolm X), and secured campaign money from the left-philanthropic Woods Fund.
This helped ACORN secure its greatest triumph, when Talbott in 1993 persuaded US mortgage giant Fannie Mae to roll out a $55 million national pilot programme to give mortgages to people with “troubled credit histories”. The rest, as they say, is history — except for the suffering yet to be endured by untold millions whose lives are going to be savaged by the Second Great Depression caused when the banksters/black agitators’ boom went bust.
Still, the McCain camp were too PC, and too heavily implicated in the disaster themselves, to raise these facts as a campaign issue. Obama’s role in its genesis is now academic, as will be his handling of it now that he’s in charge, because the ‘US century’ is over in any case. The American economy has been gutted and destroyed by decades of free trade suicide, and there is nothing in Obama’s policy pronouncements to suggest he can change this.
The place that took over from Birmingham and Britain as the high tech workshop of the world now has an economic profile more akin to a Third World country, with the export of minerals, food and other raw materials being more important than the export of finished manufactured goods. For a decade now, the USA has racked up enormous debts and sold off vital assets in order to finance a lifestyle its increasingly unproductive population enjoyed as the world’s ‘consumers of last resort’.
As a direct result of this free trade lunacy, the economic leadership of the world has been handed on a plate to the Far East, and the United States is now an economic basket case.
At the same time, imperial over-reach in Iraq and Afghanistan has involved the USA in wars it cannot afford, which it cannot win, but withdrawal from which (as promised by Obama, and rightly so) will be a national humiliation.
Add to this the fact that mass Mexican and Third World migration has set the USA on course to having its European-American founders become a minority in their own country by 2040, and it is clear that, on top of seeing the end of the American century, we are in fact witnessing the death of America as anything other than a geographical expression.
The election of Barak Obama certainly will in all probability speed this process up to some extent, but the long-term historical trend was set years ago, and the question of who is in charge of rearranging the deckchairs on the US Titanic is actually of very little significance.
There is only one possibility of this analysis proving wrong: Operation Apollo. This is Obama’s proposal to spend vast sums of money in a crash programme to end America’s (and hence the West’s) deadly dependence on oil in general and Middle Eastern oil in particular.
If he actually has the stamina and political skill to stand up to the vested interests that will oppose this (namely the oil companies and haulage lobbies who will not want this change, the banks which will want to finance things with faster returns, and the liberal welfare parasites whose living comes from overseeing hand-outs to the mainly black underclass), then Obama could actually make a difference and become a significant historical figure for good.
Unfortunately, he is far more likely to end up increasing handouts to those he sees as ‘his people’, and to blow the last American capital on alleviating the symptoms of America’s energy-starved decline than on addressing the problem itself.
If he does so, Obama’s Presidency will end up as much of a disappointment as Tony Blair’s leadership did in Britain.
Far from marking the end of race as a factor in American politics, that will end up polarising the place as never before. Not that that is likely to benefit any white nationalist party in America, as there is none, nor is there one upon the horizon. The place is a political disaster zone of self-indulgent juvenile extremism and lack of self-discipline.
Hence, when Obama does disappoint, the reaction will not produce anything worthwhile, but simply crude racist ugliness. At its worst, a string of white supremacist nuts and disgruntled ex-jarheads will be arrested plotting to assassinate him, and one will succeed, sparking not just pogroms but the legalised dispossession of a white America paralysed by fear and guilt.
For at the very heart of Barak Obama there is a deep-seated anti-white racism. Of course he disguised it during his brilliant campaign, but it oozes from between the lines of his autobiography, Dreams from My Father. In this he tells how he deliberately turned his back against his own multi-racial identity in order to give himself a 100% black persona.
He lives with a ‘nightmare vision’ of black powerlessness. He seethes over injustices and prejudices that he never encountered. He detests his own white grandmother when she is frightened by an aggressive black beggar. He is, in short, a true racist bigot.
“Black people have reason to hate,” says Obama. He is, outwardly, a handsome man, but a deep and abiding ugliness lurks within. He is an articulate man, but the problem is not how the leader of a dying superpower sounds, nor even what he says; it’s what he does. We must of course wait to find out, but find out we will.
too heavily implicated in the disaster themselves, to raise these facts as a campaign issue.
Almost every disaster that has the governments fingerprints on it shares the above feature.
It would be great if we had a liberal-left media. Pacific Radio is the closest thing I know of, and how widely are they heard? Not because I am particularly fond of the liberal-left, but because a balanced media presence would be nice.
The media is private-corporate owned. Corporate is generally rich, powerful and conservative. The media looks after its owners and prime advertisers first.
>McCain’s poll ratings tracked the Dow Jones stock market index and he was doomed when he stated that the fundamentals of the American economy were sound on the very day that Bear Sterns collapsed. That’s all there is to it. The Obama halo is relative to his opponent, and within weeks of his not having an opponent that halo will begin to lose its lustre.
That should be Lehman brothers. Other than that it's a true statement.
Blacks used to complain about being denied access to credit. Now they complain about being targetted for credit products. Be careful what you wish for, for wishes come true. In an ideal world skin color wouldn't matter of course.
Antius,
The fallacy of racism, and the reason you should endeavor to recognize and eradicate it in yourself, is that racism introduces a straight-up falsehood into one's thinking.
The good and bad acts of all individuals are either good or bad solely and only by dint of the goodness or badness of the acts... not by dint of some NEUTRAL attribute like eye color or shoe size.
It is logically irrelevant whether an "aggressive beggar" is white black rich poor conservative or liberal (whatever) because the only pertinent fact is 'aggressive beggar.' Specifying the beggar's race is as pointless as mentioning their taste in music or the mascot of their high school football team.
That you make such an association (between race and behavior) suggests that to your way of thinking the action itself is different because the perpetrator's race is different. Plainly that just ain't so.
Example:
Napolean was a violent megalomaniac. Napoleon was short. Therefore shortness makes people megalomaniac and all shorties have a Napoleon Complex.
See how screwed up it can get?
So, stick to the RELEVANT facts, and beware the racist mythology.
Coming from the BNP that's almost satire.
You forgot to add
http://www.stoptheaclu.org/
Well if the clearly lunatic "Stop the ACLU" is calling it a day can I suggest the racist BNP (British
NaziNational Party) in the UK does the same?Antius: I thought you wrote a pretty insightful post until you started channelling David Duke. IMO your theories on Obama are ridiculous-look at who the guy hangs with-Robert Rubin et al. He was top of his class at Harvard Law-nice guy, but anyone who thinks this guy is Che Guevara is an idiot.
BrianT-Personally, I'd think we would be better off if Obama was what some of the right thinks he is. The old Fascist ruling class has its best Trojan show horse and decoy yet. A person of color that amounts to hardly more than a smooth hollywood actor groomed to pretend to lead a nation ruled under the kind of tyrants that Martin Luther King and Ghandi gave their lives to openly defy and condemn.
"It is absurd to claim that a progressive "movement" with a potential for profound social change can coalesce behind a candidate who repeatedly and reflexively aligns with the worst corporate malefactors on the planet, the very same individuals who brought about the current catastrophe."
Glen Ford (executive editor Black Agenda Report for the journal of African American political thought and action. October 15, 2008)
“Our lives begin to end, the day we become silent about things that matter.”
“The greatest purveyor of violence on earth is my own government.”
Martin Luther King ((assassinated American civil rights leader. 1929-1968)
All US politicians are in favor of immigration. So the good news is that for the USA the situation stays positive no matter who is in office - help in solving the dilemma of a precious declining fossil fuel resource is on the way. A million legal and a million illegal new minds each year. With all that fresh thinking a solution has got to be close at hand.
Many people prone to a superficial analysis will come to a quick conclusion that more is less - more people means less resource for each person. But a faithless analysis always comes up short versus a deeper faith-based analysis. More is clearly more in this case. More people means more solutions are to come!!!
"What effect will the election results have on energy policy?"
No offense intended to anyone, but I'll bet this is part of the reason George Carlin thought that voting in elections was a waste of time.
The very process of voting entails giving away your ability to self-direct. And, as a result, we are now asking the question, "now that we have given away to someone else our ability to act and choose, what are they going to do with that ability?"
Which, of course, prevents us from asking more important questions like, "Well, with a new administration, what can we do?"
And, "Do energy policies exist that can be implemented at the government level which address peak oil, peak exports, resource depletion, overpopulation, and the problems of growth on a finite planet?"
And, "If they exist, what are they?" And, "If they don't exist, can they be created?"
And, "Do we have the time available to tinker with the cancer, by addressing governmental policy, before it kills the system to which we're all attached?"
A new government doesn't mean that you have lost your ability think, feel, and act. Not yet it doesn't, anyway.
In other words (if I might paraphrase..)
"Regardless of who is in the Oval Office, what is each of OUR Energy Policies? What directions are WE taking to inform, to prepare, and to further Understand the situation as the ground shifts under our feet from day to day?"
"Are we keeping our direction consistent, or is it getting blown around by all the shifting winds?"
My personal policy is to identify the energy sources I use (and what is redundant/wasted), to understand which activities actually use more power, like cooking, driving and home-heating; and which are more valuable even in smaller wattages, like Phones, Clocks, Lights.. and to find substitutes, efficiencies and replacements for whatever energy I buy today. I also write to representatives to share my preferences for public Energy policy directions at Local and National scales.
..FWIW
Bob
So Far, Obama is largely a hopeful but unknown quantity.
The last 8 years of one lie after another, corruption al a carte, followed last night by Obama winning, feels like we as a country may finally be moving to a better place.
Good grief. If I hear one more made up reason for Bush's pre-emptive invasion of a soverign nation that cost the lives of 60-100 thousand civilians and 600 billion dollars so far, I'll lose my lunch.
If I hear that reducing taxes creates revenue, in the face of going 5 trillion dollars farther into debt (by partly stealing it from social security), while claiming its unsolvent so we must turn it into a crapshoot, I'll move to New Foundland and never complain about the cold.
Bush being in office was a sick perversion. He was completely unable to ever utter a single truth. It was as if he had a program in his head to speak lies. I don't care if a meteor will kill us all tomorrow, just tell me the truth! I think Obama will do that.
I suspect Obama will attempt to reign in lobbying in DC, change healthcare for the better, develop a new energy policy utilizing renewable energy amongst other sources, and re-establish positive, non-arrogant ties with foreign nations.
My fear with McCain was that he would start another war. He lived, breathed and talked all the time about war. What else could we have expected. And the worse case scenario would have been a nuclear war with Russia, which he blustered about on numerous occasions. We don't need a steely eyed, angry, warmonger that was tortured in war. I think we all missed a bullet by losing McCain.
I'm certain Obama will be a great president.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/the-president-and-the-plan...
One of the things that investment banks used to do pretty well was to grow viable renewable energy. Wind and solar were growing at 50% a year or so often through funding brought together by investment banks. These are no longer with us as a result of the financial crisis. Those that did not collapse are becoming commercial banks. One of Obama's proposals has been an infrastructure bank, funded at the $60 billion level. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aDgBc23FM_WQ
Presumably this is doing the bond market with treasury bonds. With the destruction of of the investment banking sector, perhaps the Obama proposal can be widened to cover energy infrastructure investments. The formulae are pretty easy. The equipment is the collateral and the power purchase agreements are the revenue streams.
On the other hand, nationalized energy, like nationalized highways could be something that is part of promoting the general welfare (see the Constitution). In any case, nationalized banks seem to be too nervous to do the job that they used to do unless they are given a little more direction. So, there seems to be room for some new approaches.
Chris
Greetings from Australia, Congratulations, Barack Obama is one big step in the right direction.
I'm jumping for joy. We have HOPE again, take a moment to let it flush your belly and breast.
President Obama - "The power to transform in a practical way" was very obvious guidance at a glance.
We all know the "Superman" archetype is a bit of a delusion but this gentleman comes close.
Change and Nation Building - Surely recession is a delusion of numbers on paper when there is so much positive stuff to do. The New Age - Aquarius - GREAT FOR SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGIES. All of you clever engineers and mathematicians are going to be real busy - smile.
Healing, I've forgiven the USA for eveything they did to The World and it's Incarnate Ones over the past 8 years and expect that sentiment to be very widespread. I'm going to buy a Tom Anderson guitar from California to celebrate, it will be safe to play music again.
Yes, we have a few long term challenges but for the short term we have enough resources to MOVE IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.
"Much optimism, many good things, always increasing" the Dalai Lama's voice is happily saying in my head.
Children in the White House soon. They always cheer up a party.
i expect to see a windfall profits tax on oil. and i expect a federal gasoline tax.
I think a windfall profits tax is an OK way to discourage investment in new supplies of oil, but we really ought to go much farther, discouraging it worldwide. A stiff gasoline tax could help to bring the price of oil down to a level where new investment pretty much stops. But, we'd need to make it higher and higher to continue to reduce consumption ahead of depletion. A way to assure that poeple see the benefit of the lower oil price that their reduced consumption causes is to ration. This is something that Obama can to on his own since the rationing plan is already in place as a stand-by plan.
http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2008/06/oil-is-too-expensive.html
Chris
Probably what TOD can best bring to the picture is to document the scale, and speed of the coming oil supply/demand crunch. (I am using demand in a generic fixed price sense, as price will rise to constrain demand...) The real issue with oil, -or more generally with portable fuels, is the race between alteratives (higher efficency fleet, lifestyle changes etc.) and decrease in supply. If this decrease is greater than a few percent per annum, this will present serious challenges. And any shortfall not made up by planned alternatives, will be met with decreased economic activity.
A good starting point could be the upcoming IEA report, due next week IIRC. It is the urgency that is created by the declining supply, that will ultimately drive the transition to alternatives (including perhaps less transportation and shipping). Getting the policy ahead of the curve, rather than reacting only after the problem becomes obvious even to the most recalcitrant cornucopians (our traditional way of doing things), is the key. That is where TOD can contribute the most to this process.
Thanks for the questions, Gail.
I found two items of interest in Ralph Nader's comments (DemocracyNow!, Weds. Nov. 5).
1) The first was Nader's take on "corporate supremacists", and if one takes corporations (laws, structure and ability to go around the potential counterweights of government environmental and economic "regulations, for eg.) - as pivotal actors in the growth paradigm, then addressing the legal existence of corporations is...necessary.
(I would like to propose this as an argument to be discussed.)
Nader gives Obama short shrift on this point.
To quote: "So, you will know in the next few days, by his choices, Barack Obama’s choices, that this is going to be a very traditional corporate-indentured Democratic Party. That’s a very sorry spectacle."
My bringing it up is to inquire about the proposition that it's necessary to change the role (power, legal power, ability) of corporations in order to successfully address our run-up against limits (in general) and the devastating impacts of oil decline. Question mark?
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/5/independent_presidential_candidate...
To quote:
"But the precursor to his election has not been very encouraging, and he has repeatedly taken up the positions of the corporate supremacists, not just his latest vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, but a whole string of votes and policy positions."
How this relates to energy is WRT to your comment on finances, Gail, among other things.
2) The second thing I thought was interesting is Nader's strategy for how to get Congress to act. It looks - like one that could work, if people back it.
"Well, first of all, we’ve got a website called november5.org, which is designed to test whether there’s support in this country to build strong Congress action groups in every congressional district."
3) When I looked at Nader's list, I saw a distinct lack of "peak oil" understanding, per se.
However, I thought the strategy was still interesting and something to look at.
Aniya,
Ralph is an old has-been who knew how to rattle the Corporate cage. Politics has different weaknesses.
Obama is the brightest (President) I have heard over the years but he is trapped on a treadmill of cultural decadence.
He will be brainwashed by the best Corporate Lobbyists and will soon doubt his own thoughts.
From this point on Obama will be isolated from reality by an all encompassing cocoon of false constructs. Nobody can resist these forces.
The dumb Presidents did far better in such circumstances than Obama will. Their thoughts are not complex enough to actually understand the problems so they are only too happy to be given simple solutions.
I think this will be the US's last call. If they stifle Obama's intellect they will pay a bitter price.
Graham
Reindeer;
"Has Been"
That's a sloppy use of language. I think the 'same-old' behavior of the Corporatized Parties is the 'Old Has Been'.. Ralph 'has been' and still is actively thinking, working and speaking very consciously about these issues. If you see a person whose eyes are open today, you'd best not shrug him off.
Right after 9/11, I saw Pete Seeger at a benefit, old and quite stooped.. and I kind of expected a 'best of' performance of innocuous favorites.. but No, he was writing new songs, talking about today and more importantly 'Tomorrow'.. he was right with us in the here and now, as opposed to the Platitudes and Glazed-over generalities of almost every other Candidate, Pundit and 'Reporter'.
Obama is smart and clearly talented, but remember it's not just the Prez, but all the weight, momentum and character of the Party he belongs to. It's also the fires he has to put out on a daily basis as President, which distract him and us from the longer-range goals and ideals.
You listen to that old has-been Ralphie! He'll set it straight. .. or at least please show me how he doesn't.
Bob
.. Handwritten sign seen in a Chinese Bakery/ Eatery in NYC
"Please do not bring in outside food. Thank you for your Corporation!"
Aniya;
Thanks for bringing up Nader here. It's no accident that he's not heard by our people through the Corporate controlled media. (Which puts on the old 'Smile/Frown' Drama mask to look liberal to the R's and conservative to the D's.. Divide, Misinform and Conquer!
I asked him personally when he spoke in Maine last month about the Cicero line he uses, "Liberty is Participation in Power" .. and suggested he apply that to 'Power' in the energy sense instead of Political, or more specifically, 'Do we have more Political Liberty if we Participate in supplying more of our own personal power supplies, ie, food, solar, wind at the home scale. It was a leading question, so I basically just got a 'yes'.. while he did go on to elaborate about how Massachusetts used to provide 80% of it's own food, and now only produces about 20%. I don't doubt he's well aware of the energy cliff we face, but it seems he will continue to take his battle to the role of Corporations in our society, and the level of Civic activism that our people need to enact in order to bring our government back into balance.
Here's his basic Energy statement .. http://www.votenader.org/issues/energy/
Yours,
Bob
Nader also called Obama an "Uncle Tom" on election night. What a tool! He should clap his trap before he destroys what's left of his well-earned credibility. Color me disgusted!
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=24&entry_id=32372
Hi Chris,
Thanks for replying. I wish we could have threads that last over several days, in that this is now getting "old" by TOD standards.
Anyway, I didn't say I like Nader, nor agree with him (one way or the other).
I simply wanted to give proper attribution to the ideas, not that the question of the role and status of corporations is even original with him.
To me, this is an important question - the exact role of corporations and the question of what different structures might be possible and/or likely.
This seems relevant, given that it seems much of the discussion here on TOD - (home, sweet, home as far as I'm concerned) - ends with a conclusion that the changes we need are cultural and structural (organizational), i.e., that "the problematique' *can* be solved technically, but not "humanly."
Well, perhaps looking at corporate structure and roles is important.
I also thought the idea of locally organizing on specific issues in order to influence Congress was interesting.
"Peak" was not on his list, per se. I personally see this as a flaw, in that the type of immediate positive changes (the emergency or contingency planning Cliff refers to, for example), involve *much* more than simply new or alternative energy technologies.
CNN had this interview with Cornel West:
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/politics/2008/11/05/vassileva.cornel.we...
where he talks about the importance of the symbolism of this election and how it marks the end of the "economics of greed", the "culture of indifference to the poor" and the "politics of fear".
But the most moving was this:
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/politics/2008/11/05/ec.brown.ron.clark....
Inspiration never takes voice more effectively than it does from the mouths of children.
Also posted on the DB - sorry if that is not kosher, but there's been talk here about ways to communciate to Obama on policy, etc, anyway...
Heard/saw on CNN that the Obama-Biden transition team has a new web site up: change.gov
There's a place to submit your thoughts, ideas, etc and (can't find it now), but a place to submit a job application.
A blog too...not sure it's really up and running though.
Pete