Red, Green, and Blue

[Editor's note: The following is a guest-post from Low Impact Living]
As our presidential campaign season draws towards a close and the attacks / counter-attacks reach a fever pitch, it’s almost impossible to separate fact from fiction. So many contradictory proposals, so many disparate numbers — I wouldn’t be surprised if someone says the sky is bright pink before we’re through.

The debate about energy policy is a case in point: the proposals so far have ranged from sound (invest in multiple forms of renewable energy) to questionable (clean coal, 45 new nuclear power plants) to the insultingly cynical and foolish (Drill Baby Drill!).

Read the rest of this entry »

California Propositions 7 and 10 mislead voters with words like “renewable energy” and “alternative fuel”.

I like to think of myself as an informed voter. I always read the California General Election Official Voter Information Guide, but I am a sucker for anything with “renewable energy” or “alternative fuel” in the title (or childrens’ hospitals and farm animals).  When I first read about Propositions 7 and 10, I thought they sounded like good ballot initiatives.  Who wouldn’t want all utilities to be required to provide 50% renewable energy by 2025? It was only after I discovered leading environmental groups opposed these propositions that I began to question these statutes. Read the rest of this entry »

In an interview that aired on CNN Tuesday night, Republican candidate for vice-president Sarah Palin seemed to stumble trying to recall the name of the Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission - a commission she chaired for two years, which according to John McCain, makes her one of the foremost energy experts in the nation.
Asked by CNN’s Drew Griffin what her role would be as vice-president, Palin said she would focus on government reform and energy independence. “That’s been my forte as the governor of an energy producing state and as a former chair of the… of the energy regulator… entity up there in Alaska.” Watch it:  Read the rest of this entry »

In one of a couple appearances on this week’s Saturday Night Live, Alaska governor and Republican candidate for vice-president, Sarah Palin joined Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler to do a bit on SNL’s mock-news program, Weekend Update.

After Palin told Myers she had decided against doing the original sketch they had worked out because of its impact on the campaign (obviously a nod to her remarks at the debate when she said she wouldn’t answer all of the questions the way they wanted her to), Amy Poehler “filled in” for Palin with a rather impressive satirical rap, occasionally reminiscent of Cypress Hill’s Insane in the Membrane, as Palin and Myers bopped along in approval. Among the enviro-themed lyrics were allusions to moose hunting and, of course, oil drilling; “When I see oil it’s drill, baby, drill-a,” sang the enthusiastic Poehler. Watch it below: Read the rest of this entry »

Leaders vow to maintain targets amid economic and political pressure from some member states to do otherwise.

On Thursday, European heads of state meeting in Brussels decided to stick to previously set climate action targets despite pressure from several member states to loosen the December target, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020.

Last week, a Polish-led group of eight poorer EU member states threatened to block any resolution that kept the existing targets in place, siting the current economic downturn and market turmoil as the primary obstacle.

>>More on European energy and environmental policy at RG&B Read the rest of this entry »

The Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) has outlined four easy steps to a thirty fold increase in the size of the US solar power industry between 2009 and 2016, leading to over $230 billion worth of investment and the creation of 440,000 permanent jobs.

The influential industry group laid out the plans at this week’s Solar Power International conference in San Diego. The four key recommendations to achieve this goal are as follows:

1. Utility Ownership of Solar Power Projects

“The utility and solar industries must collaborate to find program structures, such as utility ownership of distributed photovoltaics, that provide a winning scenario for both industries, as well as for customers at large. The solar industry can utilize this new market segment as a buffer until home and small business owners are back on more solid economic footing.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Writing Tuesday in the Huffington Post, Sierra Club president Carl Pope laid down a challenge to his readers to “catch McCain/Palin getting it right”.

Pope refers specifically to the ticket’s statements and record on energy and the environment. Pope is apparently frustrated enough with John McCain and Sarah Palin getting basic facts about these issues “wrong so consistently” that he’s offered a signed copy of his new book Strategic Ignorance to the first person that submits at least one “consequential energy or environmental statement that McCain and Palin have gotten right.”

To McCain and Palin’s credit, Pope identifies one accurate statement (and so this doesn’t count in the challenge): The Republican ticket is correct in asserting that John McCain stood up to the Senate’s GOP leadership, sponsoring, with Joe Lieberman, the Climate Stewardship Act that calls for a cap and trade system to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

That’s it?  Surely they’ve said something else about energy or the environment that isn’t wrong?

Find one statement and get a free book!

Read the rest of this entry »

Who Is Joe the Plumber?

If you watched last night’s debate, you heard the question: What will you do in your first term to reduce our dependence on foreign oil?

Did either candidate actually answer the question? Not really. But here’s why McCain’s answer of offshore-drilling-nuclear-power-wind-solar-geothermal-natural-gas is completely bogus:

1. Offshore drilling won’t do anything for 10 years. And then it still won’t do anything.

Even the Department of Energy says oil from those areas won’t arrive anytime soon. It projected last year that with the ban in place until 2012, new drilling would produce only 7% more oil in 2030, and the impact on oil prices would be “insignificant.”

Despite McCain’s adamant endorsement of offshore drilling as a solution, no new oil would be produced from new wells anytime soon. Even if we started drilling tomorrow, it would have zero effect on gas prices for the next 10 years, and then after that still probably wouldn’t affect them.

The proposal that offshore drilling is somehow a solution to foreign oil dependence is such crap, I’m almost convinced we should start drilling everywhere so we can prove definitively how little difference it’s going to make. Hell, let’s drill in ANWR too while we’re at it and maybe we can drop the price of a barrel of oil a few cents by 2025.

At least then we can prove how stupid even the Department of Energy thinks this entire proposition is:

Drilling in ANWR makes perfect sense, since it would supply 876,000 barrels of oil per day to a country that consumes 20,687,000 barrels of oil per day. To put that in perspective, 876,000 barrels is about 1 hour worth of oil, or over the course of a year amounts to about 15 days of US oil consumption.

Win/Lose?: LOSE

2. Nuclear power will not do anything to solve our dependence on foreign oil.

The first new nuclear power plant would not be finished until well after John McCain’s (God forbid) second term as president. Even if we started building new nukes tomorrow, the only way they could replace the 12,036,000 barrels/day of petroleum we import (NET) would be to turn it into electricity or hydrogen. Even if you think this is a good idea, you’d have to believe in black magic to think this in some way is going to power the millions upon millions of gasoline and diesel-powered trucks already on the road.

Win/Lose?: LOSE

3. Wind, Solar, and Geothermal Power will not do anything in the short term to solve our dependence on foreign oil. Natural Gas won’t either.

I don’t think electricity sources like wind/solar/geothermal not replacing liquid fuels needs no more explanation. I’ve written about natural gas and natural gas vehicles before:

Taking a look at data from the Energy Information Administration, the US uses about 21.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year, most of which is produced domestically (18.5 trillion cubic feet) with the difference being imported (4.2 trillion cubic feet). Proved natural gas reserves in the US amount to about 211 trillion cubic feet. If my math is correct, without taking into account any increase in demand, the US only has about 11.5 years of natural gas left. After that, we’re back to square one: importing natural gas from Russia, Qatar, Iran, and Saudi Arabia*

* If you have government/university data that contradicts it, please comment.

Even if natural gas vehicles are a good idea, they still aren’t going to replace all the cars and trucks already on the road.

Win/Lose?: LOSE

To sum this up: McCain’s plan as he stated it in the debates would do absolutely nothing to reduce our dependence on foreign oil or reduce gas prices at the pump. Sorry Joe.

The alternative: How do we really cut petroleum usage?

The only actual mention of options that have the near-term potential to reduce our dependence on any oil source came from Obama. The two things he mentioned beyond pandering to the drill-baby-drill crowd were a) biodiesel and b) rebuilding our auto industry to start building fuel efficient cars.

Let’s look at each of these:

1. Biodiesel

I’ve written extensively about biodiesel before. Optimistically, biodiesel can in fact replace a small percentage of our total petroleum usage. Unfortunately, how it’s grown and produced is key to how beneficial it is. What really needs to be incented are the advanced feedstock technologies that increase productivity and aren’t made from food crops, like biodiesel made from algae and other alternative feedstocks.

Win/Lose: Depends on how it’s implemented.

2. Fuel efficient cars

Boosting production of fuel efficient cars in a way that would create millions of new jobs and pump money into the US economy is a great idea. While this may not be something that has an immediate effect, it could be accomplished faster than any kind of transition to other fuels.  Obama wants to provide $7,000 tax credits for advanced fuel and efficient vehicles and put 1 Million Plug-In Hybrid Cars on the Road by 2015.

Win/Lose: WIN

What Both Candidates Missed Completely

If you want to pump money into the short term solutions for reducing our consumption of petroleum, there are only a few ways to do it:

Ultimately, We only have 3 options for reducing our dependence on foreign oil:

1. Reduce consumption.
2. Provide a direct replacement.
3. Develop technology that doesn’t need oil.

If we work hard, we might be able to cut 1/3 of our consumption with each.

Obama has already pledged to work towards these, but I don’t understand why he didn’t take the opportunity to seal the deal in these debates: tell the American people that we have already developed the technology to produce a $2 per gallon gasoline-replacement, we can grow it from sources that don’t affect food prices, and the money created goes back into the American economy.

It’s called cellulosic ethanol - WAIT! - the type not made from corn! The type that has about 15 potential technologies to produce it that are almost ready for primetime. The type that has the potential to replace 30% of our total petroleum usage! The type that could actually sequester carbon, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 95%! The type that Obama has already pledged to support:

Obama will invest federal resources, including tax incentives, cash prizes and government contracts into developing the most promising technologies with the goal of getting the first two billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol into the system by 2013.

2 billion gallons isn’t going to solve our oil addiction, but it’s a hell of a good start, and it’s really the only option for a directly replacing oil that we’ve got. Combined with drastically cutting consumption and rapidly implementing new technologies like plug-in hybrids, it’s our best bet to actually change the game now.

Win/Lose: WIN

>> More on Obama’s Energy Plan: Obama Campaign Seeks to Make Oil Prices Irrelevant

But don’t take it from us:

• Obama’s Energy Policies
• McCain’s Energy Policies

I’m sure at tonight’s presidential debate, we will hear more of John McCain’s energy policy.  I’ve recently read some enlightening information in The Bush League of Nations: The Coalition of the Unwilling, the Bullied, and the Bribed by James A. Swanson that proves “Drill, baby, drill” is not an energy policy, and it will never make us energy independent. US oil production peaked in 1970 at more than 11 million barrels a day, ironically just three years before the oil crisis.  Consider these statistics from Swanson’s book:

• By the end of 2005, US crude oil production had dropped to 4.86 million barrels per day, which is less than 45% of America’s peak production in 1970.
• By 2005, America was producing less oil than it did in 1950.
• The 1970 record oil production represented more than 40% of total world production, but it was still not enough to meet America’s appetite for oil-almost 15 million barrels per day in 1970.
• By the end of 2005, U.S. oil consumption had increased to about 21 million barrels per day, while U.S. production, as noted above, had dropped to 5 million barrels.  American now has to import more than 75% of the oil it consumes.
• By way of comparison, at the time of the 1973 oil crisis, during which Americans endured closed gas stations and gas lines blocks long, the United States imported less than one-third of its oil. Read the rest of this entry »

Barack Obama spoke in Toledo, Ohio on Monday about his economic plan, promising five million new, high wage jobs in renewable energy.

Everyone seems to be in agreement these days that green jobs are part of the key to solving the current financial crisis. Barack Obama outlined his ideas for how to accomplish this in yesterday’s speech. Here are some excerpts:

• “We’ll create 5 million new, high-wage jobs by investing in the renewable sources of energy that will eliminate the oil we currently import from the Middle East in 10 years, and we’ll create 2 million jobs by rebuilding our crumbling roads, schools, and bridges.”
• “It is time to protect the jobs we have and to create the jobs of tomorrow by unlocking the drive, and ingenuity, and innovation of the American people. And we should fast-track the loan guarantees we passed for our auto industry and provide more as needed so that they can build the energy-efficient cars America needs to end our dependence on foreign oil.”
• “I won’t pretend this will be easy or come without cost. We’ll have to set priorities as never before, and stick to them. That means pursuing investments in areas such as energy, education, and healthcare that bear directly on our economic future, while deferring other things we can afford to do without.”

John McCain is also interested in creating “green jobs” to help boost the economy.  How’s his plan different?  McCain’s talking about the nuclear sector, while Obama’s talking about the research and development of clean fuels and cars.

Read the transcript from Obama’s economic speech here.

Source:  nytimes
Photo:  Wikimedia Commons