"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Monday, August 05, 2019
Report: Just Ten Percent of Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies Would Completely Pay For a Global "Green Transition"
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Stephanie Kelton explaining what Ben Bernanke meant in 2009 when he said the Fed doesn't "spend tax money" when it transfers money to banks, but simply changes numbers in a computer. "To lend to a bank, we simply use a computer to mark up the size of the account they have with the Fed." Kelton: "It's exactly like putting points on the screen at a baseball game," and a scorekeeper can "never run out of points."
by Thomas Neuburger
I'm not a fan of the "how are you going to pay for it?" scam, since it's obvious the government never pays for anything it really wants in the sense of raising new revenue. It just spends the money. For proof, just look at the Iraq War, or any recent war, or any Republican tax cut plan. (See the video above for a slightly longer explanation of why governments that control their own currency never have to tax to spend.)
The fact is, a government that issues its own currency and whose economy is not ravaged by inflation can always write checks to buy anything it wants — and the idea that it "pays for" what it wants by selling bonds is a fiction, since every bond sale is a trade of an asset for an asset, not a loan. The Treasury market also gives rich people something safe to invest in. Neither of these goals is related to financing government spending.
But for those who do fetishize "paying for it," here's one for the books.
Everyone knows that at some point, the burning of fossil fuels will have to stop completely. In fact, it will stop completely; the only question is whether will be stopped voluntary, because we chose to stop — or involuntary, because there are so few of us left that it won't change atmospheric CO2 no matter what the survivors burn.
As a consequence, everyone also knows that in order to end fossil fuel use, global governments will have stop paying companies like Exxon to dig up more carbon to burn. In other words, global fossil fuel subsidies will have to go to zero.
Turns out that if fossil fuels subsidies did go to zero, enough money will be freed up to "pay for" a complete "green transition" — perhaps as many as ten of them.
Damian Carrington, writing at the Guardian, explains:
Just 10% of fossil fuel subsidy cash 'could pay for green transition'
Redirecting small portion of subsidies would unleash clean energy revolution, says report
Switching just some of the huge subsidies supporting fossil fuels to renewables would unleash a runaway clean energy revolution, according to a new report, significantly cutting the carbon emissions that are driving the climate crisis.
Coal, oil and gas get more than $370bn (£305bn) a year in support, compared with $100bn for renewables, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) report found. Just 10-30% of the fossil fuel subsidies would pay for a global transition to clean energy, the IISD said.
Ending fossil fuel subsidies has long been seen as vital to tackling the climate emergency, with the G20 nations pledging in 2009 to phase them out, but progress has been limited. In May, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, attacked subsidies, saying: “What we are doing is using taxpayers’ money – which means our money – to boost hurricanes, to spread droughts, to melt glaciers, to bleach corals. In one word: to destroy the world.”
As Richard Bridle, IISD Senior Policy Advisor, put it in the IISD press release, "Public money is far better spent delivering the clean
energy transition than propping up the fossil fuel industry." He's careful to point out that the "reform of subsidies alone is not enough to meet global emissions targets," but we knew that. Ending fossil fuel subsidies isn't the same as ending fossil fuel emissions, but it's a necessary first step.
I'll go one further than Bridle. Any U.S. presidential candidate who does not favor ending carbon fuel subsidies at the fastest possible rate is not serious about climate change, independent of any other words that emerge from her mouth.
In fact, any U.S. presidential candidate who does not run on ending carbon fuel subsidies is the enemy of everyone else on the planet.
In the long run, meaning in the lives of our grandchildren, will it matter if that candidate is marginally less bad than Trump? Our grandchildren, as they're cooking what they've killed over a fire in a neo-paleolithic cave, will still ask, "Who's Trump? I don't think he's the one who did this to us."
Trump's Vengeance Knows No Bounds And His Latest Target Is The Wind
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Trump was howling at the wind all week. He hates the wind. The wind has been attacking that thing on top of his head for decades and he's been battling it near his golf resort in Scotland for many years. On Wednesday he launched a salvo against wind from the safety of Sean Hannity's Fox show, calling it an unreliable energy source because it "only blows sometimes." And on Thursday, the wind was one of his many enemies to eviscerate during his standup comedy routine during his Grand Rapids, Michigan hate rally, telling an audienceful of morons that they would experience power outages when the wind doesn't blow. "If it doesn't blow, you can forget about television for that night. I know a lot about wind." He doesn't know anything about the wind except what it does to his weave.
Sure, California may have the largest single wind farm in America (at the Alta Wind Energy Center at the Tehachapi Pass in Kern County, generating enough electricity to power 450,000 homes in Kevin McCarthy's district) but the state that generates the most electricity from wind (15% of the state's capacity) is Texas. And the state generating the highest percentage of energy from wind power is Iowa. North Dakota, another Trump-lovin' state, has the most per capita wind generation in the U.S. Of the 10 biggest wind farms in America 4 are in Texas and one's in Indiana, Trump states. Fourteen states now have 10% or more of their generation coming from wind power. Most of these Trump states. These are the states where wind is keeping the most lights and TVs on: Iowa (36.6%), South Dakota (30.3%), Kansas (29.6%), Oklahoma (25.1%), North Dakota (21.5), Minnesota, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Maine, Vermont, Oregon and Idaho. The 5 states with the most wind capacity installed by early 2017 were:
So where were Senators Cornyn, Cruz, Grassley, Ernst, Inhofe, Lankford, Roberts and Moran, all Republicans, when Trump was mouthing off about what an ineffective waste developing wind energy is? Why weren't they defending their own states' immense wind energy investments and industries? Not even counting Alaska and Hawaii, which have immense potential for wind power electricity generation, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, estimates the contiguous United States has the potential for onshore wind generation that is nine times larger than current total U.S. electricity consumption. Offshore potential is almost half that again! Trump should read his own Department of Energy's Frequently Asked Questions. He might have found out a lot about wind energy before he made a fool of himself all week berating it:
• What Is Wind Energy?
Wind energy (or wind power) refers to the process by which wind turbines convert the movement of wind into electricity. Winds are caused by the uneven heating of the atmosphere by the sun, the irregularities of the earth's surface, and rotation of the earth. Humans use this wind flow for many purposes: sailing boats, pumping water, and also generating electricity. Wind turbines convert the kinetic energy of the moving wind into electricity.
• What Happens To The Electricity Supply When The Wind Isn't Blowing? Does Wind Need To Be "Backed Up" By Other Sources Of Power Generation?
The U.S. power grid consists of a huge number of interconnected transmission lines that connect a variety of generation sources to loads. The wind does not always blow and the sun doesn't always shine, which creates additional variability (due to the changing output of wind and solar) and uncertainty (due to the inability to perfectly forecast wind or solar output). But power grid operators have always had to deal with variability. Other forms of power generation, including traditional thermal generation, can unexpectedly trip off-line without notice; all forms of power generation may sometimes not operate when called upon. There is also uncertainty inherent in the system due to ever-changing load (energy demand) that cannot be predicted perfectly, which power grid operators have always had to manage. Grid operators use the interconnected power system to access other forms of generation when contingencies occur and continually turn generators on and off when needed to meet the overall grid demand. Adding variable renewable power to the grid does not inherently change how this process of balancing electricity supply and demand works. Studies have shown that the grid can accommodate large penetrations of variable renewable power without sacrificing reliability, and without the need for "backup" generation.
• Where Are Wind Turbines Manufactured?
Most of the components of wind turbines installed in the United States are manufactured here. There are 500 wind-related manufacturing facilities located across 41 states, and the U.S. wind industry currently employs more than 101,000 people.
• Where Are Wind Farms Located?
There are utility-scale wind farms in 41 U.S. states and distributed wind deployed in all 50 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam... Globally, the United States ranks second in both installed capacity and electricity generation from wind, behind China. Denmark, Portugal, and Ireland each get more than 20% of their nations’ electricity from wind.
• How Much Energy Comes From Wind In The U.S.?
Wind power supplies about 6% of total U.S. electricity generation with an installed capacity of over 80 gigawatts. That’s enough to power 24 million homes. Wind supplies more than 30% of electricity in Iowa and South Dakota, and more than 10% in twelve other states.
• Is Wind More Expensive Than Other Forms Of Energy?
The average levelized cost of wind power purchase agreements signed in recent years has been 2–3 cents per kilowatt hour, depending on the wind resource and the project’s financing. Because the electricity from wind farms is sold at a fixed price over a long period of time (e.g. 20 years) and its fuel is free, wind energy mitigates the price uncertainty that fuel costs add to traditional sources of energy. In windy areas like the Midwestern United States, wind energy is cost-competitive with building a new natural gas fired power plant, and continued research and development could cut the cost of wind energy in half by 2030, bringing the unsubsidized cost of wind energy below the projected cost of fuel for existing natural gas plants. Wind projects compare favorably with other forms of energy through 2040.
I've seen this report referenced several times, but none of those mentions is getting traction. So time to repeat. The idea that methane, so-called "clean natural gas" or "clean energy," is a bridge fuel that can make our climate problem better — is a lie.
Not only that, it's an obvious lie. If you want to eliminate dust and grit, say, from blowing through an open window into your home, you don't half-close the window that lets it in. You close it all the way. If you want to eliminate all carbon emissions from burning fossil fuel, you don't start burning a different fossil fuel. You stop burning all fossil fuels, including methane.
That's just common sense. It makes even more sense when you consider that the Big Oil barons who own the oil companies also own many of the methane companies. Of the ten top drillers of fracked gas in the U.S., the largest by far is:
1. Exxon Mobil
The biggest natural gas producer is also the country's biggest oil company and one of the most profitable corporations in the world. Exxon has operations in every continent but Antarctica. Its oil and gas operations range across several states, from Pennsylvania to Colorado, and it also has wells in the Gulf of Mexico and off the California coast.
With the purchase of XTO, Exxon produces nearly 50 percent more gas than its closest competitor. Earlier this year, Exxon began running ads touting natural gas as a safe, clean source of domestic energy. About two-thirds of the company's domestic reserves are now in natural gas, with the rest in oil.
Others on the top ten list include BP, ConocoPhillips and Chevron. So call the promotion of "clean natural gas" a profit protection plan for Big Oil as well.
Do we want Big Oil companies to be profitable? Only if they abandon carbon fuel extraction and go into an entirely different, entirely anodyne business, as makers of party balloons perhaps. Otherwise, they need to die and disappear as companies, the sooner the better.
(I suspect that most people don't realize this — that if we don't kill off the fossil fuel companies, they will kill us off. That's literally true. Exxon and its like really do have to fail and disappear, or be taken down, before anything resembling our smart-phone civilization can survive.)
The Bridge to Nowhere
The common sense wisdom that says "switching to methane fuel won't help" is backed by data. The latest report is nicely summarized by Joe Romm at ThinkProgress (h/t the smart climate site Faster Than Expected):
Natural gas has no climate benefit and may make things worse Methane leaks in New Mexico's oil and gas industry equal 12 coal-fired power plants.
The evidence is overwhelming that natural gas has no net climate benefit in any timescale that matters to humanity.
In fact, a shocking new study concludes that just the methane emissions escaping from New Mexico’s gas and oil industry are “equivalent to the climate impact of approximately 12 coal-fired power plants.” If the goal is to avoid catastrophic levels of warming, a recent report [pdf] by U.K. climate researchers finds “categorically no role” to play for new natural gas production.
Of course, the carbon lords get their say, even at the U.N. Note that the source is the IEA, which represents the prospects for the industry, not for the humans affected:
Sadly, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has just published a “Commentary” on “the environmental case for natural gas,” that ignores or downplays key reasons that greater use of natural gas is bad for the climate.
As the note in the Commentary says, "With concerns about air quality and climate change looming large,
natural gas offers many potential benefits if it displaces more
polluting fuels." Directly contradicted by the data, but when there's money on the table, seems even the U.N. helps its owners bend to pick it up.
The Problem With Methane
Part of the problem is that methane is subject to leaks all along its supply and production chain, and while short-lived in the atmosphere, it's incredibly potent as a greenhouse gas.
Atmospheric methane decays to carbon dioxide and water vapor in about 12 years, but note, carbon dioxide is itself a greenhouse gas, and also, prior to decay — that is, when first emitted — methane is more than a hundred times more potent that CO2. Over a 20-year span, the IPCC considers methane to be 84 times more powerful than CO2. If we keep refreshing the atmospheric supply of methane, as we're doing, we renew its global warming power each year, year after year.
In 15 years or less, global temperature will already have surpassed the dangerously generous "two degrees warming" the world is trying to avoid:
“The 2017 emissions data make it crystal clear that urgent and very serious emissions reductions are needed to stop global warming below 2° C, as was unanimously agreed in Paris,” Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said in an email. ...
Rahmstorf said there are currently about 600 billion remaining tons of carbon dioxide that can be emitted if the world is to have a good chance of keeping warming considerably below 2 degrees Celsius, and with some 40 billion tons of emissions each year, that leaves just 15 years.
Those fifteen years will shorten every year we keep increasing emissions, as we already know we will do in 2017. In 15 years, most of us will still be alive — and the world will be completely different in ways few can imagine.
The second problem with methane is that it doesn't just replace some coal, it replaces renewable energy sources as well. Call it the magic of the market. Romm:
Indeed, researchers confirmed in 2014 that — even if methane leakage were zero percent — “increased natural gas use for electricity will not substantially reduce US GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions, and by delaying deployment of renewable energy technologies, may actually exacerbate the climate change problem in the long term.” Exactly. In fact, a 2016 study found that natural gas and renewables are competing directly with each other to replace coal plants in this country.
Joe Romm's data comes from a study published in 2014 in the journal Science, which has just been reinforced by a new study (pdf) at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Among its conclusions are these (emphasis added):
By 2035 the substantial use of fossil fuels, including natural gas, within the EU’s energy system will be incompatible with the temperature commitments enshrined in the Paris Agreement.
1) The Paris commitment will be exceeded in under 18 years of current greenhouse gas emissions [actually, in 15 years or less according to the latest 2017 emissions data]
2) Non-OECD nations will “fairly” use up to 98% of the 2°C global carbon budget
3) It is highly unlikely that the Paris 1.5°C commitment is a viable mitigation objective
4) Current levels of emissions will use up the EU’s 2°C carbon budget in under nine years
5) To meet its Paris 2°C commitment the EU needs over 12% p.a. [per annum] mitigation, starting immediately
6) To deliver on the Paris commitments, policy makers need a balanced portfolio of CO2 mitigation scenarios with ‘negative emissions technologies’ only included in the exotic minority [i.e., no "Bill Gates and technology will save us" scenario]
7) Methane emissions and atmospheric concentrations are observed at the top end [i.e., worst case] of IPCC scenarios.
9) Carbon dioxide from combustion is the dominant contributor to the long-term climate change impact of natural gas. Methane has a much greater warming effect than carbon dioxide per unit of emissions released but its atmospheric lifetime is short, only about a decade. However, persistently high emissions [meaning leaks] of methane would replenish this loss and maintain this initial warming effect
9a) Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) transport increases the climate change impact of natural gas supply chains [consider that as both parties tout LNG sales — and transport — to Europe]
10) For stabilising at 2°C, reductions in methane emissions must be accompanied by CO2 reductions
And finally:
11) Fossil fuels (including natural gas) have no substantial role in an EU 2°C energy system beyond 2035
The study concludes that "there is categorically no role for bringing additional fossil fuel reserves, including gas, into production."
What to Note About This Report
Readers of these pages know by now what the rest of the country is just starting to discover — that climate change is already affecting American lives in large and tragic ways, and that the madness of burning fossil fuels to satisfy the greed and, yes, pathology of a small handful of billionaires (plus those they control), that madness must end before it ends us.
What seems new here is the absolute finality of statements in the latest climate reports. These are black-and-white conclusions. Again — "there is categorically no role for bringing additional fossil fuel reserves, including gas, into production." No wiggle room in a statement like that; no sugar at all to coat it with.
Once categorical statement like these make it into the insurance company estimates and reports (to name just one industry affected) — that is, once global warming start to affect billionaire money — you'll see a sudden increase in public awareness, to add to the gradual shifts in awareness we're seeing right now.
Not only will it be a wake-up call; it will look and act like a wake-up call.
Will wake-up call change the course of U.S. carbon emissions? Not while money buys politics and policy in the U.S. But it will introduce Sanders-like political chaos into the system. At that point the political battle will be visible, out in the open, with participants from all quarters joining in. Even the corporate news will report on it.
What will be the effect of a wide and visible public battle over fossil fuel use, as the billionaires dig in?
Can Making An Issue Of Renewable Energy Work For Progressives... In Oklahoma?
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Tom Guild (OK-05)
With the renewable energy sector already creating far more jobs-- and far better jobs-- than fossil fuel extraction, its difficult to understand why Republicans are so hysterically opposed to the thriving new industry. Difficult until you look at the Big Oil & Gas payroll for Congress. Last year alone, Big Oil and Gas rewarded their Republican congressional allies with $26,850,111 in legalistic bribes. (That was just one election cycle.) They also gave their Democratic allies $4,524,072. The industry's most subservient shills in the House from Oklahoma did especially well:
• Markwayne Mullin (R)- $127,900 • Tom Cole (R)- $113,500 • Frank Lucas (R)- $95,350 • Steven Russell (R)- $84,250 • James Bridenstine (R)- $62,300
Big Oil isn't a source of campaign funds progressive Democrat Tom Guild is expecting anything from. A Bernie Sanders endorser, he is getting grassroots money at this Act Blue page. Guild went beyond just the obvious, though, in explaining to Oklahoma City voters how he differs from Russell's slavish devotion to Big Oil.
On numerous occasions Rep. Clyde “Steve” Russell (R-Choctaw) has emphasized his disdain for clean energies like solar and wind power, vowing to remove their "government subsidies" to block their development, yet at the same time continuing to promote such subsidies for fossil fuels. Yet solar and wind power have huge job creation potential not only in sun and wind drenched Oklahoma, but across the United States. Right now Oklahoma is experiencing an economic slowdown, blamed by the Republican legislature and governor on "low prices of oil and natural gas." But the actual problem is lack of real job growth in other technology sectors, like wind and solar energy development, which create high-paying jobs. Texas is experiencing an energy and economic renaissance through their expansion of wind energy. In fact, like Russell, the Oklahoma Republican legislature and governor have gone out of their way to block solar and wind development by levying a large tax on roof top solar, blocking further wind development in the eastern half of the state. Russell believes hydraulic fracking should be conducted in a completely unregulated manner, disavowing the science that has demonstrated a direct connection between fracking waste water injection in old abandoned oil and gas wells in Oklahoma, and the precipitous rise of earthquakes in Oklahoma. Russell is in effect placing our families and property in direct earthquake danger. Even the Oklahoma Corporation Commission is beginning to heed this science and find ways to regulate fracking waste injection in Oklahoma. As your Representative I will promote an all-inclusive energy policy of fossil fuels, solar, wind, and geothermal to maximize job growth in Oklahoma as well as the other 49 states as opposed to regressive and economy shrinking policies like Rep. Russell’s inhibition of energy sources besides fossil fuels. I will always put the safety of your family and property first when it comes to ameliorating known dangers caused by unregulated fracking waste water injection and earthquakes.
That's how a progressive candidate, in the heart of Oil country, campaigns against a bought-and-paid-for oil industry shill like Steve Russell. If you can, please consider making a contribution to Tom's grassroots campaign.
Sunbelt State Republicans In A Bind Over Solar Power
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As we saw yesterday, the American conservative movement is a captive of-- and virtually inextricable from-- the self-sustaining, cash-soaked universe of Big Oil and Gas. Conservative politicians' careers have been financed by Big Oil and they will fight to the death for their corporate masters. Unfortunately, the death their fighting for is our death, our country's and our planet's death. As Bill McKibben mentioned in his sermon, tiny Bavaria in southern Germany (27,239 square miles-- smaller than South Carolina) now more solar panels functioning to create cheap, clean electricity than the entire United States (3.794 million square miles). Right-wing reactionaries and hatemongers accept that shilling for Big Oil is part of their job. When I woke up yesterday reactionary sociopath Bryan Fischer had just gratuitously tweeted:
Meanwhile, Juan Cole was pointing out that the rest of the world is sensibly forging ahead on the back of the incredibly shrinking cost of solar energy. Because the pace of technological innovation in the solar field has so rapidly accelerated, it is now as inexpensive to build a solar plant as a gas or coal one and in the Southwest solar is at grid parity, as it is in several European countries that have no oil, like Italy, Spain, Germany, Portugal.
By 2015, solar panels should have fallen to 42 cents per watt. Reneweconomy.com says that the best Chinese solar panels fell in cost by 50% between 2009 and 2012. That incredible achievement is what has driven so many solar companies bankrupt– if you have the older technology, your panels are suddenly expensive and you can’t compete. It is like no one wants a 4 year old computer. Conservatives shed no tears when better computers drive slower ones out of the market, but point to solar companies’ shake-out as somehow bad or unnatural. No wonder US solar installations jumped 76% in 2012. The reductions in cost over the next two years are expected to continue, at a slowing but still impressive 30% rate.
In the last election, the part of the Antelope Valley in CA-25, voted, for the first time, against the virulently anti-environmental Republican incumbent, Buck McKeon, and for environmental-friendly opponent, Lee Rogers. Had the rest of the district voted the way Antelope Valley did, McKeon would have lost and Rogers would be the congressman now. Both the congressmen from the Antelope Valley. McKeon and Kevin McCarthy, have taken considerable legalistic bribes from Big Oil and Gas, McCarthy $420,650 and McKeon $32,200 and now both are in an awkward situation back home. As Cole reports. the biggest solar plant in the world, the 579 megawatt Antelope Valley Solar Project is being built straddling their two districts. "It will provide electricity to 400,000 homes in the state (roughly 2 million people), and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 775,000 tons a year." McKeon and McCarthy, of course, both want to be seen leading the parade-- at least back home. Both their voting records in Washington are horrifically anti-environmental and pro-Big Oil. McCarthy's career-long ProgressivePunch score on crucial votes involving air pollution, biohazards, clean water, global warming, and renewable energy is a ZERO. McKeon's overall record on the environment is nearly as hideous, 3.68 (out of 100). McKeon's votes in favor of renewable energy have all been tied up in pork and kickbacks he can be on the receiving end of.
Important new research also shows that hybrid plants that have both solar panels and wind turbines dramatically increase efficiency and help with integration into the electrical grid. Earlier concerns that the turbines would cast shadows and so detract from the efficiency of the solar panels appear to have been overblown. Because in most places in the US there is more sun in the summer and more wind in the winter, a combined plant keeps the electricity feeding into the grid at a more constant rate all year round, which is more desirable than big spikes and fall-offs.
That Germany, then China, then the US are the world’s largest solar markets is no surprise. But that number 17 Japan will increase its solar installations by 120% in 2013 and so may be the second hottest solar market, just after China, this year, would mark a big change. Japan may well have 5 gigawatts of solar installed by the end of this year, even though the relatively new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is no particular friend of the renewables. In my own view, if Japan made the right governmental and private investments, it could overtake China in the solar field and reverse its long post-bubble stagnation.
ABB has been commissioned a large solar electricity generating plant on the edge of the Kalahari Desert near Cape Town, South Africa. It will supply the electricity needs of around 40,000 persons and reduce annual emissions by 50,000 tons of carbon dioxide. South Africa emits 500 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, and is third in the world for per capita emissions. (Still, it only emits a 10th as much over-all as the US). But they just need a thousand more plants like the Kalahari one, and voila! South Africa is also imposing a carbon tax, which will hurry things along. (At the moment, South Africa is far too dependent on dirty coal plants, which not only fuel climate change but also spew deadly toxins such as mercury into the atmosphere, whence it goes into human beings.
Because of South African and Israeli demand in particular, demand for solar panels in the Middle East and Africa has risen over 600% during the past year. Saudi Arabia’s announced plans to save its petroleum for export by going solar at home will add a great deal to regional demand if it sticks to those plans. (In most countries, petroleum isn’t used much for electricity generation as opposed to transportation, but in oil states such as Saudi Arabia it often is used in power plants; but that cuts down on foreign exchange earnings.)
The two Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan are emerging as the solar giants in India, with each having now passed half a gigawatt in solar electricity generation capacity. The two account for some 88% of all of India’s solar power. But Rajasthan may soon outstrip Gujarat, given the state’s solar-friendly commitments, its ample amounts of scorching sunlight, and its vast deserts.
Cornered like rats over the last few weeks, Republican congressmen who take legalistic bribes from Big Oil-- like John Boehner, Daniel Webster and Paul Ryan-- have publicly promised their constituents to make Big Oil pay their fair share. Given the opportunity to do just that by the Democrats in the House, they all danced away from their promises and voted for tens of billions in tax dollar subsidies to go to the most profitable corporations in history. Why? Simple, Big Oil cuts them in on the plunder. They pay "protection money" (billions) to Republican and Blue Dog politicians in return for our tax dollars flowing their way; it's the scam of the century.
Yesterday Greg Sargent reported on a CNN poll showing that the public overwhelmingly (61%) blames high gas prices on Big Oil. 59% of Americans blame Wall Street speculators "a great deal" and another 31% blame Wall Street speculators "somewhat." These are the Wall Street speculators that were enabled by a Republican filibuster in the Senate that would have brought they outrageous predatory activities under control.
You may not hear or read this in the American media-- which has interlocking directorships with Big Oil-- but yesterday's Guardian reported on a landmark study that shows efforts being willfully suppressed by Big Oil and their right-wing allies could give us a world in our lifetimes where clean energy meets 80% of our needs. If you follow DWT you already know what a believer I've become after installing solar panels that brought my monthly electric bill down from over $1,000 to exactly zero. All my electric is free and I produce more than I use and it goes back into the grid. (I get a credit in case we ever have 40 days of darkness.)
Renewable energy could account for almost 80% of the world's energy supply within four decades - but only if governments pursue the policies needed to promote green power, according to a landmark report published on Monday.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body of the world's leading climate scientists convened by the United Nations, said that if the full range of renewable technologies were deployed, the world could keep greenhouse gas concentrations to less than 450 parts per million, the level scientists have predicted will be the limit of safety beyond which climate change becomes catastrophic and irreversible.
Investing in renewables to the extent needed would cost only about 1% of global GDP annually, said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC. \ Renewable energy is already growing fast-- of the 300 gigawatts of new electricity generation capacity added globally between 2008 and 2009, about 140GW came from renewable sources, such as wind and solar power, according to the report.
The investment that will be needed to meet the greenhouse gas emissions targets demanded by scientists is likely to amount to about $5trn in the next decade, rising to $7trn from 2021 to 2030.
Ramon Pichs, co-chair of one of the key IPCC working groups, said: "The report shows that it is not the availability of [renewable] resources but the public policies that will either expand or constrain renewable energy development over the coming decades. Developing countries have an important stake in the future-- this is where most of the 1.4 billion people without access to electricity live yet also where some of the best conditions exist for renewable energy deployment."
Some of the big players in the House making sure our tax dollars keep flowing to Big Oil (with their direct bribes from Big Oil):
Joe Barton (R-TX)- $1,510,280 Steve Pearce (R-NM)- $1,188,092 Don Young (R-AK)- $1,000,913 Mike Conaway (R-TX)- $678,818 Pete Sessions (R-TX)- $677,164 Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)- $651,310 Kay Granger (R-TX)- $646,307 John Sullivan (R-OK)- $596,000 Ralph Hall (R-TX)- $549,426 Kevin Brady (R-TX)- $489,947 John Culberson (R-TX)- $456,761 Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)- $448,222 Charles Boustany II (R-LA)- $443,743 John Boehner (R-OH)- $346,700 Eric Cantor (R-VA)- $295,550 Fred Upton (R-MI)- $262,850 Paul Ryan (R-WI)- $207,650
That may help explain why Big Oil's congressional shills like Ryan are opposing government initiatives to boost clean energy development.
Within Ryan's fiscal 2012 budget resolution is a 70 percent cut to clean energy programs, compared to the president's plan, and deep reductions to U.S. EPA funding. By way of comparison, Ryan's goal is to spend about $1 billion a year on "basic science" research for energy, compared to more than $7 billion annually planned by President Obama.
He also supports eliminating renewable energy tax credits. Together, those reductions threaten the expansion of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources, according to businesses and advocates in the state, where manufacturing jobs in car plants, paper mills and machine shops continue to disappear. The plan also reduces research on alternative transportation fuels as Wisconsin is seeing gasoline prices steadily rise.
This is precisely what Big Oil paid him for-- and they paid him well. So well, in fact, that in his relatively short time in Congress, he's taken in over double the amount of direct bribes from Big Oil than any other politician in Wisconsin history, including all the state's senators.
The Future Belongs To... Germany? Non-Fossil Alternatives To Nuclear Energy
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It's been raining a lot in L.A. and today it's been drizzling on and off and has been pretty cloudy. I just checked the meter in my house that shows the output of solar energy from my new rooftop panels. It's producing more than I consume. It always produces more than I consume. My monthly bill went from around $1,000 to zero. Actually, the DWP owes me money, but they don't pay cash, they just give you credits-- like if we ever have 40 days of darkness, I'll still get free electricity from them.
On top of that, I have the satisfaction of knowing I'm not burning any fossil fuels to run computer that powers a blog that rails against Big Oil... and to know that when everyone in southern California turns into a mutant because of inevitable catastrophes at the Diablo Canyon and San Onofre nuclear plants, it won't be my fault.
If you follow DWT you may have noticed that there are a lot of things I don't like about Obama but one thing I'll always credit him for is taking the big step on solar power. Politicians are more likely to follow than lead but Obama used his earliest post-inaugural political capital to push a solar energy program that will-- if the GOP doesn't gut it (they're being paid very well to try)-- drag America into the 21st Century, something the Koched-up Big Oil & Gas powerhouses feel threatened by and oppose with all their might. If the U.S. catches up with Germany on solar power usage, the impact on oil profits could drop. Decisions like these are decisions societies make when they reach an historical crossroads that determines if they're going to continue to grow or dive onto the trash heap of history. Conservatives always choose the latter; it's in their DNA.
As for Germany-- you know, cloudy, rainy Germany-- solar production increased from 2009 to 2010 to 2% of total energy consumption, as they hurtle along towards their 2050 goal of 25%. This is from a Washington Post feature way back in 2007:
Last year, about half of the world's solar electricity was produced in the country. Of the 20 biggest photovoltaic plants, 15 are in Germany, even though it has only half as many sunny days as countries such as Portugal.
The reason is not a breakthrough in the economics or technology of solar power but a law adopted in 2000. It requires the country's huge old-line utility companies to subsidize the solar upstarts by buying their electricity at marked-up rates that make it easy for the newcomers to turn a profit. Their cleanly created power enters the utilities' grids for sale to consumers.
The law was part of a broader measure adopted by the German government to boost production of renewable energy sources, including wind power and biofuels. As the world's sixth-biggest producer of carbon-dioxide emissions, Germany is trying to slash its output of greenhouse gases and wants renewable sources to supply a quarter of its energy needs by 2020.
...Matthias Machnik, an undersecretary for the German ministry of the environment, said the country can't hope to compete in the long term with perpetually sunny ones in generating solar power. But it hopes to expand its exports of solar technology and become the leader in that field as well.
"Unless climate change accelerates, we only have a certain amount of available hours of sunshine," Machnik said in an interview. "For us, of course we will use solar power, but it is more important to secure the know-how for research and development."
Last year, German exports accounted for 15 percent of worldwide sales of solar panels and other photovoltaic equipment, according to industry officials. German companies hope to double their share of the global market, which amounted to $9.5 billion last year and is growing by about 20 percent annually, said Carsten Koernig, managing director of the German Solar Industry Association, a trade and lobbying group.
"It's been very important to create the necessary market in Germany," Koernig said. "We not only want to master the German market, but to conquer the world market as well."
Even before the catastrophe in Japan, Germany had started phasing out all nuclear plants (which produce 25% of its electricity currently), something they hope to complete by the end of the decade-- and Sunday's election results confirm that Germans want that done even sooner. They hope to replace the electricity generated by nuclear plants with solar and wind power and continue building the world's first major renewable energy economy. "Germany is accelerating its efforts to become the world's first industrial power to use 100 percent renewable energy-- and given current momentum, it could reach that green goal by 2050." Unlike Paul Ryan's roadmap to the decline of America, Germany has an energy roadmap to a bright sustainable future.
A new Roadmap published by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment sketches out the route the world's largest exporter plans to take to switch over completely to renewable energy, and add 800,000 to 900,000 new cleantech jobs by 2030 as it does so.
To overhaul key parts of the German economic juggernaut while it is hurtling down the highway, the roadmap lays out an integrated approach, involving measures for greater energy efficiency as well as a steady expansion of all types of renewable energy and a stronger focus on research and development into the next generation of green technologies.
"It's ambitious, but Germany can be running on renewable energy by 2050 if there is the political will," said David Wortmann, Director of Renewable Energy and Resources at Germany Trade and Invest, a government body supporting the country's renewable energy sector.
In 2008, the percentage of renewables in Germany's primary energy consumption was 7.3, but that figure is predicted to increase to 33 percent by 2020 as the country thunders on ahead of other European countries in renewable energy development.
According to the plan laid out in the roadmap, a raft of new energy efficiency measures, including the construction of a smart grid, should reduce the country's primary energy consumption by 28 percent in the next twenty years from 13,842 PJ (peta-joules) in 2007 to 12,000 PJ in 2020 and 10,000 PJ in 2030, slashing billions off the bill that the country has to pay for increasingly costly energy imports.
By 2020, 30 percent of the electricity consumed in Germany is set to be coming from renewable energy sources, with wind energy contributing the most at 15 percent, bioenergy second with 8 percent and hydropower third with 4 percent. By 2015, photovoltaics are expected to reach price parity and so become commercially viable.
Making optimal use of Germany's natural wind resources concentrated along the northern coastlines, huge offshore wind parks, placed in the North Sea, should have the capacity to generate as much as 10,000 MW, feeding electricity into a smart national grid able to transport the energy from the north and east of the country or from the south and west with optimal efficiency using high voltage direct current (HVDC).
The Roadmap estimates that by 2030, as much as 50 percent of Germany's electricity will be coming from renewable energy sources. In twenty years time, a smart grid interconnected with the entire European electricity grid will be in place.
Solar energy will be imported via Italy from the solar thermal plants operating in the sun drenched deserts of North Africa.
At a cost of €6 billion [US $8.12 billion] the national power grid comprising 60,000 kilometers will have been expanded by 850 kilometers and upgraded by around 2015.
It is estimated that introducing tighter energy efficiency measures will reduce total electricity demand in Germany by 10 percent to 550 TWh per year by 2020.
Electric powered cars will be racing down the country's Autobahns using batteries charged from renewable energy sources, slashing the need for oil and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Arizona doesn't have oil resources like its two neighbors, California and New Mexico, but it could be a solar energy powerhouse... if the state's politicians weren't putting every bit of their own energy into a battle over racism and political extremism. Yesterday the Yuma Sun wrote with a tinge of wistful envy about the progress Germany is making.
For Germany, the Japan experience hits a little closer to home than perhaps it does in some other parts of the world. The residents of that country started becoming wary of nuclear power after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union. Radioactivity from the Chernobyl accident - considered the worst nuclear power incident so far - drifted over Germany.
Germany sees itself as a potential model for other nations wanting to move away from nuclear power, according to an Associated Press report, perhaps including the United States which generates about the same percentage of electricity from nuclear plants.
Here in America, however, the government remains officially committed to nuclear power for now. In fact, nuclear power has been experiencing something of a renaissance here due to concerns about global warming and the desire to reduce use of carbon based fuels. Nuclear power in recent years has been seen as a companion to efforts to promote renewable energy sources like solar power and wind power.
That could change, however, if public concern grows about the safety of nuclear plants. And that is a distinct possibility if the situation worsens in Japan.
Already polling is showing some loss of support. One poll showed 70 percent of Americans are now concerned about nuclear power safety. Another showed fewer than half of Americans support new nuclear plant construction after Japan's crisis, a sharp drop from the 62 percent who were in favor last year.
Moving away from nuclear power in America-- or anyplace, for that matter-- would not be cheap.
True; switching to renewable energy is costly. But, it's what societies that have determined a course forward do to ensure a future. The Republican Party would rather see Americans all turn into mutants. Meanwhile Germany is just boogeying along and on February 7 of last year reached a renewable energy electricity penetration of more than 30%. Wind turbines, hydroelectric plants, solar cells, and biogas digesters now provide nearly 17% of Germany's electricity.
Germany uses an advanced system of feed-in tariffs to pay for renewable energy generation, and has an aggressive target of meeting 39% of its electricity supply with renewable energy by 2020. Its system of advanced renewable tariffs has enabled Germany to exceed its 2010 target of 12.5% by a wide margin.
...Doubling its previous record, the German solar PV industry installed 7,400 MW from nearly one-quarter million individual systems in 2010.
German homeowners, farmers, small businessmen and large industrial concerns are all installing solar energy at a rate far surpassing the sunny U.S.A., where half the political system is invested in wrecking the future of the nation because they're angry a colored guy with an Ivy League education was elected president. It's worth remembering that just last week, total power output of Germany's installed solar PV panels hit 12.1 GW-- greater than the total power output (10 GW) of Japan's entire 6-reactor nuclear power plant. Oh-- we forgot to mention how China is winning the future (while we cope with Koched-up, deranged teabaggers and blatant corporate whores like Brian Bilbray):
Another Wake-Up Call For The World’s Biggest Oil Junkie
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Ken and I have been grappling with the horror of the Horizon deepwater oil drilling rig disaster all week but I was lucky enough to run into renowned energy expert Chris Nelder and to somehow persuade him to help put the whole catastrophe into some kind of useful perspective. No ideologue, Chris' goal has long been to get America to understand the reality of its energy situation, based on the decade he's spent studying and writing about energy and related issues. He's written two acclaimed books on the topic, Profit From The Peak and Investing In Renewable Energy, not to mention nearly a thousand articles on energy and investing. And aside from consulting with government and business leaders on the future of energy, he runs his own blog at GetREALList.com. I asked Chris to give us a little tutorial on what makes last week's disaster so important and what we as a society need to do about it. Chris:
America Still Doesn’t Get It
OK, America, it’s time to get real about energy.
The explosion and destruction of the Horizon deepwater rig and the subsequent oil spill disaster are only the latest in a series of wake-up calls you’ve received. Are you listening now?
Your first warning came in 1956, with the publication of M. King Hubbert’s model of US oil production, which correctly predicted its peak in 1970. When Hubbert updated his model on camera in 1976, he also nailed the peak of worldwide conventional oil production in 2005.
Since then, production has remained flat at roughly 74 million barrels per day (mbpd), despite prices gyrating wildly from $40 to $147 to $33 and back to $86 today. High prices did not deliver more oil to market.
Very simply, the cheap and easy oil is gone. What’s left is smaller, harder to find, of lesser quality, and in much more challenging places-- under a mile of water and another five miles of rock, for example. It’s expensive, risky, and yes, dangerous.
American domestic oil production peaked in October, 1970 at just over 10 mbpd. It has been in a steadily declining trend ever since, and now stands at 5.5 mpbd.
Over 30 percent of domestic production is from offshore drilling, of which about three-quarters comes from the Gulf of Mexico. Deepwater oil production has only become possible in recent years with the development of cutting-edge technology. We do it not because it’s without risk, but because we need the oil-- badly. Only offshore is it still possible to find a field in North America that can deliver over 100,000 bpd. Just two of the Gulf fields, Thunder Horse and Atlantis, produce a combined 350,000 bpd.
By comparison, the remaining onshore resources in North America are now decidedly marginal. The days of gusher strikes onshore in the U.S. are long gone. About 1.2 mbpd, or over 20 percent of domestic production, comes from thousands of small “stripper wells” producing under 15 (yes, 15) barrels per day. Low-quality resources like tar sands and shale oil are vast but expensive, and so difficult to scale that they can’t reverse the long-term decline.
The U.S now imports 9.4 mbpd of crude. At $85 a barrel, that’s an $800 million-a-day hole in our pocket, or $292 billion a year. And our import dependency is only getting worse.
An oil export crisis has been developing for years, as oil producers consume more of their own output and Asia outbids the West for declining global exports.
Even so, as the world’s most dependent oil junkie, our demand for oil has held firm. The decline in U.S. oil demand from 21 mpbd in 2007 to 18.6 mbpd today was almost entirely due to lost industrial demand; gasoline demand remained virtually flat throughout the entire oil price spike and recession.
For every finger pointed at an oil company, three point back at us.
Like the whaling ships of the late 1800s that would sail to the ends of the earth in search of whale oil, deepwater drilling is proof that we are willing to pay enormous sums and go to extraordinary lengths and depths to get oil. We have chosen to accept the risks of environmental damage, the horror of oil wars, and the deaths of rig workers in exchange for a continuing supply of cheap, convenient fuel.
We built an entire economy and topography of civilization on the premise of endless, cheap fuel, and profited handsomely from the ever-increasing bounty of the Age of Oil. But having reached the point where it can no longer be increased, and the risks have grown intolerable, we whine and accuse and complain like teenagers, claim we were victimized, and act as though our demand for oil were an unfortunate accident we had no part in.
Isn’t it time ask ourselves how much more risk we’re willing to take, to accept the situation like adults, and plan accordingly?
Since Hubbert’s first warning, our wake-up calls have come ever faster: The Arab oil embargo of the early 1970s and the gasoline rationing that followed. Oil spills. Oil wars. Economically devastating oil price spikes driven by hurricanes and shrinking spare production capacity. And the increasingly frequent spectacle of sinking and spilling offshore rigs.
Yet somehow, this stark and deadly serious reality has escaped our notice. The eager search for a scapegoat in the wake of the Horizon disaster is a clear sign that America simply doesn’t get it.
After highly visible disasters like the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969, the Exxon Valdez spill, and now the Horizon spill, the public understands the risk of offshore oil production. What it doesn’t understand-- at all-- are the choices we now have to make.
Those calling for an end to offshore oil production in the U.S. apparently don’t understand that it accounts for over 30 percent of our domestic supply. They don’t understand that making offshore oil off-limits would be a double-whammy to our pocketbooks, both restricting our income and forcing us to import even more oil at ever-higher prices. They have an inkling that ethanol production is pressuring food supply, but have no concept that the non-food alternatives, like fuel from algae and cellulosic ethanol, are still puny, and a long way from being ready to scale up and replace oil.
Instead of having a rational discussion about how we’re going to manage our remaining offshore oil resources, we look to technology… as if deepwater drillships and blowout preventers and acoustic shutoff switches were the problem, rather than miraculous solutions only a dedicated junkie could love. These technologies don’t fall from the sky. Every safety measure ever invented came as the result of a lesson learned the hard way.
Instead of discussing how we’re going to break our addiction to oil, we turn to politics…as if yelling “Drill, Baby, Drill” or “Spill, Baby, Spill” even louder, or changing tack on our energy policy every four years, could amount to a solution.
All of our politically-driven energy approaches--carbon caps and trading schemes, offshore leases and moratoriums, short-term incentives for renewables, and so on-- are woefully incapable of addressing our long term problem.
It’s easy to vilify oil and its producers, and it’s politically popular to call for an end to drilling, but replacing oil is far more difficult and expensive than anyone seems to understand.
Here’s the real challenge.
Within two to three years, global oil production will begin a long decline. As a rough rule of thumb, the world will lose roughly 25% of its oil supply in 25 years, 50% in 50 years, and 100% in 100 years.
It’s likely that we will also see the peaks of natural gas and coal in the next 20 years. Hydropower and nuclear will do little more than hold their current market share.
By the end of the century, nearly everything will have to be powered by renewably-generated electricity, not liquids or gases.
But scaling up renewables to take over for fossil fuels, and transitioning all the infrastructure, is going to be mind-bogglingly expensive, difficult, and slow. Renewables like solar and wind currently make up less than two percent of the world’s primary energy supply. It will take decades of effort and trillions of dollars in investment to offset a mere 20 percent of global demand with renewables, and we’ll have to do it in an environment of declining fossil fuel supply and shrinking economies.
For another rule of thumb, consider this: To compensate for the decline of oil alone using renewables, the world would need to build the equivalent of all the world’s existing renewable energy capacity, every year. Since that is impossible, efficiency and a long transition to renewably powered infrastructure must make up the shortfall. This will take 50 years or more to achieve.
If we use it wisely, offshore domestic oil could provide a crucial portion of the fuel we’ll need in order to build that new infrastructure. But if we remain in ignorance of our energy reality, letting politics be our guide and scapegoating oil companies upon their every misfortune, we’ll go down in flames as surely as the Horizon did.
One more tool in the deepwater toolbox, be it an acoustic shutoff device or something not even invented yet, will not solve our problems. Scapegoating drillers while we continue to pump gasoline into our tanks is unproductive and hypocritical. Hyping the size of marginal resources like shale without acknowledging their low flow rates is disingenuous. And championing alternatives that can’t even meet half a percent of our needs, like non-food biofuels, while trying to shut down the 10 percent of our supply that deepwater production provides, betrays a suicidal ignorance of our reality.
It’s time to wake up, put politics aside, get a grip on the scale of the problem and its solutions, and develop a serious energy plan.
