Why Can’t We Have an Energy Policy?
Frequent contributor Cameron Atwood writes: (The ever-growing affordability of renewable energy) is one reason why Obama’s “all of the above” (energy policy) is a failure in my estimation. If it were “all of the above ground” it would make more sense. The only government help fossil energy needs is out the door.
I certainly agree with the basic intent here, but because replacing fossil fuels takes careful deliberation, I would but this slightly differently, starting with this: The most egregious aspect to our energy policy is that we actually don’t have one.
What’s the problem with telling the world:
The U.S. as a country, and a heck of an impressive one at that, is proving its moral goodness by phasing out fossil fuels at the maximum practical pace. We’re doing this largely because we’ve become aware of the huge externalities associated with coal, oil, and natural gas vis-a-vis health and the environment. We have different strategies for each of the three, and we’ll be most aggressive with coal since it’s the most harmful. As we make our way through these processes, we’re going to do what we can to help other countries achieve the same benefits, prioritizing those with huge carbon footprints.
To the degree we’re unwilling to do this, we’re not behaving decently and responsibly; we’re merely demonstrating what is so sadly obvious: our Congress is essentially owned by the oil companies.
The fossil fuel industry actually saved the biosphere – from deforestation, and saved the whales too.
Now, it’s time for advanced nuclear to save the biosphere from excess co2. That would be the IMSR. Look it up, it’s exciting technology. Most importantly, it can be load following, to deal with a future of large scale intermittency.
the integral molten salt reactor creates 6x less wastes which can be dealt with by being scientific.
It’s a shame that the government subsidies $20 solar parking garages for schools but won’t (also) seriously subsidize the safest possible nuclear needed to phase out fossil fuels entirely.
In general, I agree. I also see nuclear power as indispensable. However, I see it as a bit too soon to be certain which nuclear technology or technologies will turn out to be the best. Therefore, I would favor doing R & D on more then one nuclear technology at present. And, until we do have a better nuclear technology, it would be less risky to put more PWRs into operation despite their well recognized shortcoming. At least the more recent PWRs are more reliable than the first ones and have passive emergency cooling.
I see one of two things happening:
1) We will do little or nothing until the problem becomes to severe to ignore, or
2) We will expand wind and solar systems until it become clear that they are unable to provide adequately for the power requirements of large prosperous countries by which time we will have spend $billions without solving the CO2 emissions problems.
I am not totally knocking renewables. They have a rôle to play in areas where connecting to a grid is not practical or where hydro power, because of an inadequate water supply, falls slightly short of being able to do the job in which case renewables could reduce the water consumption of the hydro systems enough to ensure continuous CO2-free power.
“Humanity has pushed the world’s climate system to the brink, leaving itself only scant time to act. We are at about five minutes before midnight.”
— Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2013
If you’re like me, you are feeling a strong sense of responsibility to empower a big fix for the global warming issue before it is too late, a fix on the scale of the Marshal Plan that enabled the rebuilding of Europe after World War Two. Scientists now report that we only have a few years left to transform our society to a renewable energy (zero-carbon) economy if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change. So what should our role be in creating this all-important transformation? And who among us can deny this need?
It’s clear we can’t move anyway near fast enough to nuclear and clean renewable energy to avoid wide spread global catastrophe (and our own extinction) because we are currently so dependent on coal, oil and natural gas unless we quickly adopt novel new technologies that can power all our energy related needs through massive extraction of carbon from the earth’s atmosphere. Years ago I asked God to show me how this could be done and thankfully HE did so stating in 1979. Now I need a few people to help me demonstrate my system. Just a small group of supporters to help find the corporate support needed. They don’t need to fund this endeavor out of their own pockets any more than they are able and willing to do so. So far I’ve invested over $750,000 in time and money and I’m not in the least sorry for doing it.
Will we be swept along, or will we unite behind a future that preserves human dignity and reflects the aspirations of global citizens? Together we have an important role to play in reclaiming control of our destiny, but it starts with a global conversation. While mapping the future is a risky undertaking, perhaps the only thing riskier is doing nothing.
Al Gore
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
— Margaret Mead
More about Les Blevins and his 3E technology development project.
Les Blevins was born and raised in Kansas. His background is in the mechanical trades. He has developed and is continuing the development of a novel mechanized concept to address very difficult energy, economic and environmental problems, (the so called 3E Trifecta). He believes that solving the difficult problems of induced climate change, rural rejuvenation and water pollution are feasible if we include improving waste management, improving energy efficiency and energy independence. He believes society can handily accomplish all this with practicality and economy through improved waste management and providing a secure community energy supply.
Blevins believes humans and the environment are on a collision course as our activities are inflicting harsh and irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. Many of humanity’s current practices are putting at serious risk the future that we wish for all future human society.
Fundamental changes are urgent this decade if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about. Our bad practices are so altering the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner we now know ever again if we do not change course.
Also we’re importing around 65% of our petroleum needs, and the Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that by 2025 we will be importing 71% of our petroleum. This is a tenuous situation, and it is exacerbated by the fact that two-thirds of the world’s known oil reserves are located in the volatile Middle East. The nexus of this instability, as well as production slowdowns in Nigeria and Venezuela, and a virtual halt to energy exploration in the United States, have resulted in a trend that is keeping the price of oil at an all-time high.
Blevins believes advancements in energy generation and conservation can play a major role in solving the problem. And he favors developing improved combustion, pyrolysis and gasification methods, and in implementing these new concept systems in distributed and On-site installations as the best means to better utilize very diverse biomass sources, better manage solid, liquid and gaseous wastes, and produce from these a new source of heat, power, liquid biofuels such as ethanol and biodeisel along with methane and hydrogen gasses.
Current production of ethanol is about 3.4 billion gallons per year in the United States, but that total could reach 80 billion gallons or more according to scientists.
Blevins decided to look at what he could do to advance the scope of human knowledge into how humanity could address these complex issues. He subsequently decided to look into the possibility that he could add to this knowledge by researching fuels conversion systems designed to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, by instead utilizing diverse low value and widely available carbon containing biomass and waste streams as fuel.
This led to the development of a new concept furnace, gasifier and pyrolysis reactor capable of converting bulky biomass fuel forms such as small square and large round baled fuels of the various agricultural byproducts such as straws, stems, stalks, husks and leaves as well as various dedicated biomass fuel crops such as giant grasses like elephant and switchgrass, miscanthus, canes, bagasse etc. The Blevins furnace, gasifier and reactor is designed to be capable of using several processes in the conversion of these into heat, power, liquid fuels, gaseous fuels and carbon char for use as a soil enhancement.
Advanced Alternative Energy is developing the AAEC advanced system technology for utilizing a wider range of renewable biomass forms in space heating, heating industrial processes, for use in power generation, and in production of other valuable products to help achieve sustainability in a distributed “community supported energy” approach.
This approach offers multiple benefits to society such as reduced demand for finite fossil fuels and in turn lower market prices for such fuels, reduced emissions of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, additional cash crops for farmers and rural landowners which would in turn benefit the farm sector and assist rural areas maintain economic viability.
Les Blevins, seeing increased government dedication to using the technological approach to addressing the nations ‘Addiction to oil’, and seeing the recently completed Oak Ridge National Laboratory report outlining a national bioenergy strategy, indicating one billion dry tons of biomass, meaning organic matter that is currently available on a recurring and sustainable basis, for displacement of up to 30 % of our nation’s petroleum consumption as transportation fuel, plans to seek funding from the government and from investors for comprehensive testing and validation of the AAEC patented fuels conversion system.
These funding sources combined with the technology validation process are expected to transform Advanced Alternative Energy Co., from a purely R&D organization to a viable commercial business entity.
AAEC success in finding funding would insure AAEC is able to play a role in enabling an increase in ethanol and other liquid fuels production that would see US transportation fuels from biomass increase to 20 percent in 2030. In fact, depending on several factors, if the company is able to commercialize its renewable biomass conversion technology, AAEC could help insure that US produced ethanol and other bio-fuels could be supplying as much as 15 percent of the nation’s transportation energy by 2030 and be providing a similar amount of bioenergy in developing countries.
Why We Don’t Have a U.S. Energy Policy is Because Big Oil and Far Too Many Others Are Benefiting from the Status Quo, and it’s Clear It Will Take Salvation That Comes From Both the People and From a Higher Power
A Warning on Climate: Worst Is Yet to Come
By JUSTIN GILLIS
Greenland’¬s immense ice sheet is melting as a result of climate change. Credit Kadir van Lohuizen for The New York Times
YOKOHAMA, Japan — Climate change is already having sweeping effects on every continent and throughout the world’s oceans, scientists have warned us that the problem is likely to grow substantially worse unless greenhouse emissions are brought under control.
The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations group that periodically summarizes climate science, concluded that ice caps are melting, sea ice in the Arctic is collapsing, water supplies are coming under stress, heat waves strong storms and heavy rains are intensifying, coral reefs are dying, and fish and many other creatures are migrating toward the poles or in some cases going extinct.
The oceans are rising at a pace that threatens coastal communities and are becoming more acidic as they absorb some of the carbon dioxide given off by cars and power plants, which is killing some creatures or stunting their growth, the report found.
Organic matter frozen in Arctic soils since before civilization began is now melting, allowing it to decay into greenhouse gases that will cause further warming, the scientists said.
AS THE CLIMATE BEGINS TO TURN AGAINST US COMES A WARNING AGAINST BLENDING IN
In Ezekiel 7:3-4 God declared,
“The end is now upon you and I will unleash my anger upon you. I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices. I will not look upon you with pity or spare you; I will surely repay you for your conduct and the detestable practices among you. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”
If we continue to conform to the patterns of the world, we are behaving in a way that is detestable to our Lord. He will surely be angry with us and judge us for our actions and attitudes. He loves us but he detests it when we are so compromising. He gave us dominion over the earth, and It is time we realize and understand our responsibilities to future generations, and that we will be held accountable for our actions in the end.
We know that God tells us that there will be a difference in the outcome between those who serve him and those who do not.
It is very easy to give in to the patterns of the world – to blend in without noticing the compromise we are making at the time. For example we have become more complacent about what we watch on our TVs and what policies we follow and what we spend our time and money on.
When Jesus calls on us to follow him, he warns us how difficult it will be to choose the righteous way to eternal salvation. God knows the patterns and demands of the world we face, and He knows how very difficult it is not to blend in and do as the world does. Jesus warns us, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to our destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to eternal life, and only a few find it.” (Mathew 7:13-14)
THE RIGHTEOUS WAY IS TO JOIN TOGETHER RATHER THAN TO BLEND IN – THERE IS A DIFFERENCE..
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
~ Anne Frank
“We have tomorrow bright before us like a flame.”
~ LANGSTON HUGHES
“Insanity is repeating the same behavior over and over and
expecting different results”
~Albert Einstein
To put it another way; it’s insanity to believe we can solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
~Les Blevins
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
– R. Buckmister Fuller
“There are risks and costs to any program of action, but they can be far less than the long range risks and costs of inaction”
– President John F. Kennedy
–
“It is in our vital interest to diversify America’s energy supply — and the way forward is through technology.”
– President George W. Bush, 2007 State of the Union Address
“Biofuels will play an important role in America’s clean energy portfolio,” “These projects will allow us to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, support the growth of the biofuels industry and create jobs here at home.”
~ Energy Secretary Steven Chu
“It is critical that we do everything we can to reduce our dependence on petroleum based fuels. Turning waste products into energy is good for the economy, local job creation and our environment.”
~ Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
“Basically, the technology for disposing of waste hasn’t caught up with the technology of producing it.”
~ Senator Al Gore 1992 ‘Earth In The Balance’ pg. 148
“The country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable
energy will lead the 21st century.”
~ President Barack Obama
“A fundamental rule in technology says that whatever can be done
will be done”
~ Andy Grove, Co-founder of Intel
Why Biorefining?
The United States and world economies depend on fossil oil, a finite and nonrenewable energy and chemical feedstock source. Though the exact timing of fossil oil running out is debated, it is inevitable that supplies of fossil oil will decline in the future and will become more expensive. This puts tremendous pressure on already existing shortages and rising retail prices of energy sources, growing interest in national energy security, and concern about the diversity, health, and sustainability of our global ecosystems. We must find alternative energy and chemical feedstock sources to supplement the fossil oil supply in order to maintain sustainable economic growth and reduce our dependence on imported fossil oil.
One viable option is to derive energy, materials, and chemicals from biomass – an infinite and renewable source. A new concept “Biorefinery,” which is equivalent to a petroleum or oil refinery, is being widely accepted throughout the world. This concept suggests that a wide range of products such as fuels, materials, chemicals, etc., which are traditionally derived from fossil oil, can also be produced from biological resources.
Benefits of a Biobased Industry
The benefits of biobased products and bioenergy are summarized as follows according to “The Biobased Products and Bioenergy Roadmap” created in December 2002 by the USDA and DOE Biomass R&D Technical Advisory Committee:
• Enhanced national energy security
• Improved environmental protection
• Rural economic growth
• U.S. leadership in global markets
In addition, promoting the non-food area of agriculture biorefining will boost a new, diversified biobased economy where ever the concept is adopted.
Is it feasible?
Trends supporting the emergence of biobased products and bioenergy are identified as:
• Rapid progress in biotechnology
• Increasing potential of biobased products and bioenergy
• Growing interest in distributed production
• Emerging technologies for efficient biorefineries.
In the past two decades, tremendous efforts have been made to produce biological substitutes for petrochemical feedstocks. Some technically feasible approaches are available to convert biomass to fuels and biopolymers. However, no large-scale commercial facility is operating to date. This situation can be attributed to a combination of the following three factors: technical inadequacy, economic noncompetitiveness, and lack of understanding of the industrial need. Biobased production, or biorefining, is still largely unexplored territory where there are many business and research opportunities.
“We may need to solve some problems not by removing the cause but by designing the way forward even if the cause remains in place.”
~ Edward de Bono
de Bono points out that the term “problem solving” implies that there is a single problem to respond to, and that it can be resolved. That doesn’t take into account situations where there is really no problem at all, where a large and/or complex problem exists that cannot be completely resolved no matter what is done (like global warming and climate change) and situations where many problems exist that could all be dealt with at once, but many still perceive themselves to be benefitting from the old order.
Les,
Craig is a very capable professional in assisting people with good ideas to get off the ground. He’s very patient, and has a wide network of professionals, who are used to dealing with hobbyists, and people with limited business experience.
He’s a very sincere and nice guy.
I’m not so patient. My client’s expect results, so I don’t have time to invest in being gentle. As a tribute to Craig, I’m going to give you some advice. It’s free, so you can reject or use it at your will.
If you want to be in business, you must concentrate all efforts on the promotion of your business. You can’t waste time on long philosophic/political dissertations. Neither your customers, or your investors want to listen to how you will put the world right.
Neither investors, nor customers are interested in esoteric claims, or complex unsubstantiated speculation. They want a simple, comprehensive business plan, that answers their questions. Expect due diligence.
Be patient, moderate and respectful in your presentation.
Do not talk about your self in the third person. (Unless you are royalty). Careful of quoting others, especially controversial advocates. (Those who doubt them, will automatically doubt you).
Be tolerant of criticism. Keep in mind that for every one person who openly expresses criticism, there nine who just think it. keep an open mind, each critic may be really helping gain useful insight.
If you have no academic or professional qualifications, pay to have your concept “peer reviewed” by at least two highly qualified, and respected, ‘experts’. (I’m afraid Ezekiel, doesn’t count ).
Avoid religious references, (unless your audience is religious). It doesn’t add credibility, just gives the impression of being mentally erratic.
Keep your presentation simple, and factual. Any hyperbole, should be reserved for descriptions of benefits to the customer/investor. Pay careful attention to preparing legal agreements. Engaging a good lawyer, and CPA are essential steps to acquiring credibility.
You are attempting to seek investment at a late stage in the “green boom”. Most customers and investors have experienced considerable disappointment with “green” projects.
Be prepared to answer two questions, ” Why this Project ” and “Why You” ? You need to prepare short, modest, factual answers to these questions. It’s important to remember that it’s not about what they can do for you, but what you can do for them.
Practice your presentation, until your delivery exudes, relaxed confidence and sincerity.
I hope the above is of some assistance, Good Luck.
This is really good, and applies very nicely to me. Perhaps that’s not a coincidence. 🙂
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things for the reformer has enemies in all who profit from the old order.”
–Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513
The cause of deadly inaction is liability. The fossil fuel companies would invest in molten salt reactors if the silly liability costs weren’t so darn high. These costs actually jepordize the safety of the machines because actual material is displaced by greedy liability processes. Thus the machine costs so much more to be safe. This is what the anti nuclear people don’t seem to want to grasp. Safer, meltdown proof reactors could be scaled up to beyond global proportions just as the great post WW2 build up of fossil fueled processes.
We will need all the energy we can muster in order to reliably power many billions of people at high standards.
We only need diesel to power the excess co2 removal process via crushing and distributing OLIVINE. It’ll sequester fully 20x what it would emit!
Eventually, the high heat from the molten salt reactors will make fuel from air and water, but will also be used to make all the RE parts as well and electric cars and batteries.
It will also be used to build and power thousands of desalination plants, vital for greening a desert.
Liability is the cause of deadly inaction.
I have developed a protocol for giving the poorest of the poor unending energy which is cheap and environmentally sound in it’s production. Using in part technologies that are hundreds and in some parts thousands of years old. Part of the problem is you are waiting for technology to fix your problems with something NEW. The technology has been with us for a long long time. I have thought out a practical application which will give you energy, clean water and the opportunity to re-green the places desertified by human misuse. re-green Africa quickly, like within 5 years. Get me to the floor of the U.N. so I may address you all and I will give you the plans to redirect military from murder to protector, remove much of the trash from the oceans and provide cheap clean electricity and all the water a thirsty planet could hope for. I have been developing political and practical working solutions since childhood, a long time ago. Instead of hoping for inventions to come along, help me fix this planet now. The people are ready, and your mother earthship suffers while you place your trust in the hands of scientists who thus far have served tyranny, pollution and greed. Evolve already! I will help you but you must reach out to me and ask for the help. This message leaves an email trail to my desk. Use it and ask.
Well, you have big dreams; I certainly like that. Please see my email.
Sadly our energy policy are tainted with big money like the Koch and the oil industry who do not care about the future and only do a little to make them look good.
Yes, it’s sad indeed.
Thanks for the shout out, Craig. 🙂
Here’s my take on political corruption. Want improvement? Ban bribery in all its forms. That’s the most important and central issue that controls all others. As long as cash reigns as king, we’ll be slaves to greed and cowardice.
How bad is it? …Pretty bad indeed…
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9354310
You mean “expand the definition of bribery to include lobbying, etc.” We already have a ban on bribery as it’s currently defined. Not to split hairs…. 🙂
Yes, Craig, and the ‘etc.’ is necessarily quite a long list – as the definition of bribery is currently rather useless in its narrowness (and the bribers and the bribed are quite inventive and persistent).
“True that,” as my kids would say.
Craig,
The US may possess a wonderfully worded Constitution, but it’s a nation that thrives on hypocrisy, and revisionist history.
Since the inception of the US, high flown rhetoric has always been a hallmark of US politics. Since the time of the founding fathers, lobby and special interest groups have always plagued US politicians.
They’re not a corruption of “representative democracy ” they’re one of the corner stones ! Campaign funding has always been a test of the electoral strength and commitment for supporters of a candidate.
By saying, “these particular organizations shouldn’t be allowed to participate in the political process”. You are really saying, ” those I dislike, shouldn’t be allowed to participate ” !
(My granddady would have agreed with you, but his idea of democracy was somewhat limited ! He believed in one man, one vote, as long as he was the only man with a vote! )
Corporations, Unions, Charities, Sierra Club, Community Special Interest groups, Motoring organizations, Religions, Environmentalists, Chambers of Commerce,American Medical Association, Women’s Associations, NAACP, ACLU, Farmers, Veterans, and hundreds others, all employ lobbyists. All raise money, organize support etc.
Candidates have always been chosen and elected by the influential in the community. If money alone could by votes, Mitt Romney and Barry Goldwater would have romped in !
Losers often cry “foul” ! In the US, that often means they just can’t accept the fact that the majority of people didn’t like their views (or them).
Incomprehensible dissertations by academic pundits, are completely irrelevant to the robust reality of the political dynamics of representative democracies. US Democracy isn’t perfect. But it’s not meant to be, it’s meant to accommodate imperfect human beings, and human society.
It thrives on as few restrictions as possible.
And holy cow is that essay you linked above abstruse!
Agreed – its best paragraph seems to be as follows:
“Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.”
Yes. That one I understood. 🙂
Craig, you ask “What’s the problem with telling the world “… followed by a short manifesto.
Well, I guess there are definitely some who would support your manifesto. Why not it’s a very “mom and apple pie ” idealistic manifesto.
It’s also never going to happen ! Not because of any “evil oil companies owning the US Congress “, but because, despite all evidence to the contrary, the US congress isn’t that suicidal or irresponsible !
Let’s do the maths. The US economy, like all industrialized economies, is totally dependent on the generation of energy on demand. The US economy is also inextricably reliant upon the over 350,000 non-fuels products produced from oil. This is not to mention the huge US exports of high value manufactured goods and services to many oil rich nations, in return for oil imports, which in turn are processed in the US and re-exported.
So, as I say, let’s do the electoral math.
The fossil fuel industry is pretty near 30 % of the total US economy.
Employing, directly or indirectly, 40 % of the US workforce.
The US retirement superannuation industry is reliant on Oil industry profits.
The Oil industry is the largest (and most valuable) revenue source the US government(s).
So, in a nation where less than 39% turn out to vote, and has a national debt of nearly twenty trillion dollars, you are going to ask the US electorate to impoverish itself, for an unrealistic high-minded principle ?
Well, then again the US voted for the Volstead Act, so nothing’s impossible ! (although that didn’t work out so well).
Craig, politicians like Pres. Obama and others, love making high-minded, visionary, principled speeches. With experience, they know that no one really expect them to attempt to implement such sentiments.
But here’s the thing. The US is in no position to help any country ! Currently, the US itself needs help ! The US is getting it’s brains beaten out by it’s trade competitors. The only redeeming feature of the US economy, has been the rise of energy independence due to North American fossil fuel production.
And you want to kill the US economy’s only Golden Goose ?
Good luck trying to explain that to all those voters about to lose their livelihoods. good luck selling it to America’s 40 million retirees, whose incomes are dependent on the oil industry. ( older citizens actually turn out to vote, making up 31 million, of the 126 million voters in the 2012 Presidential election ).
It doesn’t take much mathematical ability to understand that over 50% of US voters have a deep personal adversity to your manifesto. Another 20-30% would vote against it from fear of economic loss. (It just takes someone to articulate the economic risks). The consequence of adopting a radical or extreme environmental election platform is that when you lose, reactionary opponents will seize the opportunity to reduce, or rescind, existing environmental programs and incentives.
A more practical plan, might be to promote.
1) Abolition of US corn-ethanol. This is a very environmentally harmful practice, as well as creating third world hunger.
2) Abolition of Marine grade No 6 fuel. (Bunker oil ) Economically beneficial to US domestic manufacturing, and trade competition. Removal of the largest single source of global pollution emissions.
3) Increase in gasoline/diesel Tax at the pump. Use the funds to retire national debt, and fund green tech incentives.
4) Support an International Agency (UN) to control all Nuclear Power Plants, with international licensing and Inspection.
5) Tax incentives for Thorium Technology investment.
6) Federal incentives for Carbon Sequestration Technology.
7) Incentives for lower emission technology for Fossil fuels.
9) US environmental tariffs on imported goods.
10) Support the creation of an International Bank for Reforestation Projects.
Those are just some of my suggestions, for a more electorally acceptable manifesto.
marcopolo, I’d support 9 out of 10 on your list (particularly 3b) – though I think we’d have difficulty especially with getting #4 passed globally, and i understand there are serious doubts about the efficacy of the tech available for #6.
I’ll also point out that Craig’s little “What’s the problem” paragraph in the original post states “…phasing out fossil fuels at the maximum practical pace.”
Note the words, “maximum practical pace” – and therein lay the devilish details where the debate resides.
Neither Craig nor I believe that this transition either will or should be anything like instantaneous. That said, it’s both inevitable and desirable.
Further – given the finite nature of fossil energy and the toxicity associated with it’s extraction and use – the longer we delay the transition, the more difficult, painful and disruptive it will be.
Best to get started and proceed apace while there’s still some reasonably-priced fossil energy available, and before the worst of the impacts of fossil energy extraction and use are locked in and arriving.
Cameron,
Correct me if I’m wrong, but your argument appears to be, there is a global environmental crisis of such urgency that we need to drastic political action against the fossil fuel industry, before it’s too late. strong positive action needs to be taken ! Militant action must be taken against the evil enemy, the fossil fuel industry.
Have I got it right ?
So far, so good. Hmmm….but here’s where all the passion and sanctimonious rhetoric starts to get a bit vague.
It’s all very well hating the Oil Companies, and individuals like the Koch Bros, but if you have no realistic alternatives, is just so much hot air !
You seem to justify your position by defining what you’re against, rather than what you support !
If I have understood you correctly, your ” call to arms “, assumes :-
1) A Global environmental crisis exists.
2) Remedies exist, but are not being pursued, because of actions by the fossil fuel industry.
As for saying, “phasing out fossil fuels at the maximum practical pace.”
That’s a nice sentiment, but it’s about as substantial as a beauty contest announcing she want’s “World Peace” !
1) Whether a global environmental crisis is likely to occur, the nature, timing and consequences of such an event if it did occur, is a matter of considerable debate and speculation.
The general public are growing tired of massive public expenditures on failed projects, and economic disruption, for something that they were assured was an emergency, but the certainty of that emergency seems to be receding, and subject into more and more complex justifications. Joe Public is losing faith.
2) What makes you think that huge effort haven’t, and a not continuing to develop alternate energy, and improvements in technology ? What makes you believe that no ( or inadequate ) efforts are being undertaken to introduce transitional l technology ? ( Elon Musk would disagree with you).
Without being able to present a creditable alternative(s) to effect your “transition”, it’s all just hot air and sermonizing.
They might not be the nicest people, but the elderly and narrow minded Koch Bros, can point to the fact that they directly provide employment for 150,000 American families, and indirectly, livelihoods for millions more. The can also argue their industries make a huge contribution to the US economy.
All Americans enjoy the benefits of industries owned by the Charles and David Koch. Without providing a viable alternative, it seems hypocritical to ostracize and vilify the Koch’s while accepting the benefits they provide.
By fantasizing technologies and solutions exist, capable of economically replacing fossil fuels, you cause fledgling alternate power industries, lose credibility.
Just as you advanced the mistaken belief that a 25 ton diesel fire engine, can be replaced by a battery powered model.
My frustration with ” mom and apple Pie ” environmental statements, is my suspicion that the authors have no real interest in the environment, but are using environmental rhetoric to advance old, failed socialist political ideology.
Well, I kind of appreciate this “exchange” between marcopolo and Cameron.
Only that, with the complex issues surrounding global warming, climate change, world carbon resource depletion, “Old Order” economic infrastructures, green economics, etc-etc. . . every minuscule angle one chooses to reflect on immediately presents multiples of at once compelling and befuddling perspectives so much so that the unwary observer (or commentator) sometimes unintentionally gets caught in an “ugly” maze.
Yes, I too begin to warm to the “maximum practical pace” principle (as extrapolated above). My not-so-simple analogy is that the “economy” is an old dog. And we know what happens with old dogs and new tricks, don’t we?
If there is any one point the hotly contending shades of the carbon asphyxiation debate somewhat agree on, it is that at no time has the march of humanity’s future faced any period of impending total doom than this very moment in which we live and breathe. And yet the clock continues to tick unwaveringly to the final hour.
Personally, the point is not to cease carbon EXPLOITATION (and therefore POLLUTION) altogether. Even the most stalwart defender of Koch Inc would quietly confide that that (I mean “ceasing carbon exploitation altogether”) exactly is the incontrovertible reality just in a couple decades (recall the global data on oil resource depletion and so forth).
Tomes of historical records show similar top-notch industrial “structures” got abandoned and swept aside as novel forms came on to fulfill even more advanced demands of civilizations. Isn’t it a misfortune how some are apparently advocating that lots of these now-redundant industrial structures did not, while they enjoyed high point in the wider economic machinery, finance the operations of society and culture by providing mass employment and loads of donations for the political power complex?
If the current reality is that Oil (or for the sake of this contribution: Carbon) is powering the industrial/commercial machinery of modern man and highly contributing to his (in relative terms) higher living standards and wellbeing, just how “effective” is this reality amidst the imbroglio of CO2 indictment?
But wait a minute: Did I hear you say the “indictment” itself is the product of pseudo-science and therefore needs not be bothered about?
My answer to the above is the experience of those who refuse or hesitate to heed to evacuation warnings at the approach of super storms! (Being no psychologist, my answer is No Answer.)
Now, let’s retrace to the basis of the conversation: The “greening” of the industrial/commercial machinery of modern man would unleash a whole new raft of progress and hope and opportunities never before imagined by generations before and now. As its ramifications go, it would as well help emanate bold new stewardship for other lifeforms on the earth and beyond. Without any shade of reasonable doubt, this is the exact next big frontier of civilization indeed.
What are the prospects of the reverse of the above proposition? (ie., if we stuck to Oil and stubbornly battered every opposing argument out of existence?)
Aren’t we at this unseemly finality already?. . . Mass Extinctions! Contamination of Water Resources! Depletion of Marine Life! Weather Systems gone Haywire! Erosions on the Loose! Smogs! Cancers!. . .
And need I add the dim throes of those economies not privileged to have oil under their creeks?
Here’s my parting word: Humanity’s Future Is All Green!
Good luck.
Unfortunately, like many earnest ‘green’ advocates, you make a great many incorrect generalized assumptions. These assumptions allow you to gambol off on an ideological Unicorn, without actually doing anything constructive to assist the environment.
Maybe I’m being a little harsh, but the doomsday predictions never seem to occur.
” The Stork will pass the Plough in !977″
” Peak Oil ” Has already occurred in 2002, and will never get more plentiful ”
” Fracking will have created widespread irreversible environmental damage by 2017 ”
” Global Warming will be catastrophic by 2015, …no wait, it’s um …’climate change”, and will be a disaster ,real soon…”
All these doomsday predictions, were agreed by a ‘consensus’, of eminent scientists and other experts.
So far, none have actually occurred ! For the last 40 years the world population has gone on expanding, yet not famine, but obesity is becoming a problem ! The world is awash with Oil, and will be for many, many, decades to come. The recent intensive 4 year EPA study into the consequences of fracking, revealed no widespread, or irreversible damage. The science of ”Carbon induced climate change” , is becoming increasingly uncertain, and far less reliable.
In truth, after a decade of unprecedented investment in green technology, it would appear that 95% of the funding, both public and private, was wasted on failed or uneconomic projects.
In most of the developed nations, huge government departments were created, at vast expense to resolve problems that didn’t exist. Academics, advocates, politicians, scientists, spent decades like high priests, building up a vast body of work, to support flawed theories.
” Green’ became a new religion.
The actual environment was forgotten in a welter of ideology.
The failures are colossal in scale ! The US corn ethanol industry has created the same,or more, environmental damage, than the fossil fuel industry. But the main difference is that while the US receives enormous economic rewards from Oil and gas, corn ethanol needs massive taxpayer funding, to stay in existence.
Both solar and Wind remain promising, but remain uneconomic on an industrial scale.
The worst aspect of all this wastage, is that simple, effective environmental action has been ignored. All this high flown, utopian, self indulgence, has meant that the most urgent priorities have been neglected.
It’s time to focus less on the hatred of ‘evil corporations, ideology, “deniers” etc, and start selecting environmental priorities, that can be achieved.
I enjoyed reading the comments. I feel compelled to add that I really agree with Marco polo (and have already suggested before) that we should tariff cheap goods made with coal energy and that the proceeds should be used to develop and scale the molten salt reactor (it doesn’t have to be thorium).
OTEC is another potential mitigation process which diverts warmed surface waters to the deep, prolonging our even reversing ice melting.
Of course there’s the olivine solution mentioned above that would actually sequester excess co2. Another is greening a desert with MSR powered desal plants. This would probably more than pay for itself many times over by sales of farmed goods, and eventually, entire new cities. The sheer weight of the soil would temporarily sequester a lot of the excess, until we did so via enhanced weathering or direct air capture.
The most important thing to me is to scale up a well informed populous and the integral molten salt reactor (and that tariff on us who buy from China).
Olivine, OTEC , preventing (and even reclaiming deserts), thorium, Molten Salt reactors, and a myriad other specialized sequestration technologies, will emerge over the coming decades.
These technologies will develop to meet circumstances, as the needs arise, and they become economic.
Since the beginning of the Human Species, we have been motivated by technology. The discovery and management of fire, put humans in charge of their environment. Mankind was free of the vagaries of nature, and could build his own environment. He was free to evolve on a different path from all other living creatures.
To meet the challenges of the future, we need to balance the need to encourage new environmental policies, and technologies, with the need to maintain a strong, healthy, and competitive economy.
Maryland and New York, have both banned fracking. That’s a prerogative of those states, and their voters. But both States turn up every year begging for Federal subsidies, and hand outs.
New York boasts some of the nations highest energy prices mainly due to its regulatory policies. The state has oil and gas resources, including the Marcellus shale. However, New York elects to ban hydraulic fracturing, preferring to import the majority of its oil and gas requirements from other states, Canada, and overseas.
Maryland imports more than four-fifths of energy. Coal and nuclear power supply more than three-fourths of Maryland’s net electricity generation. Natural gas and hydroelectric generators make up most of the balance, with renewable energy sources supplying less than 1% of generation.
So these states are not really saying ” we don’t want the benefits of fracking, we just want others to frack, and we get the benefit paid for by the Feds !”.
Environmental policies work best when they are non-disruptive, affordable, and create real economic wealth. Targeting sensible priorities than can be achieved, rather than vague, feel good targets, based on ideology and required the expenditure of vast amounts of taxpayer funding.
Maryland would be better allowing fracking, and investing the royalties and tax income to build a series of small, molten salt or thorium reactors to terminate it’s reliance on imported coal.
Reblogged this on Energy post.