The Energy Thread

feel like TOD could permanently hire someone whose only task would be to rebut Yergin

yergin get beat

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/business/energy-environment/in-north-dakota-wasted-natural-gas-flickers-against-the-sky.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

thank u fracking

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/business/us-says-some-chinese-subsidies-violate-trade-rules.html

God forbid a country spend money on supporting renewable energy.

this whole article is just ugh

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204226204576602524023932438.html

I can't even get through a WSJ article anymore, even when I navigate their expecting to be outraged. it's fucked up.

meanwhile, there's been some crazy news leaking out regarding the Keystone XL pipeline in recent weeks, in particular the way that Dept of State has been handling the hearings and environmental impact statement (EIS).

- it turns out that the company that conducted the EIS for the Dept of State, Cardno Entrix, works very closely with TransCanada, the fuckers that want to build the pipeline. In fact, TransCanada is one of Cardno Entrix's biggest clients. CONFLICT OF INTEREST
- in fact, it turns out that Dept of State let TransCanada manage the entire bidding process for the EIS, and TransCanada recommended Cardno Entrix for the contract! ENORMOUS CONFLICT OF INTEREST

McKibben:

In other words: The pipeline company recommended the firm they wanted to review them, a firm that listed the pipeline company as one of their major clients. Perhaps—just perhaps—that explains why the review found that Keystone XL would have “limited adverse environmental impacts,” a finding somewhat at odds with the conclusion of 20 of the nation’s top scientists who wrote the president this summer to say it would be an environmental disaster.

And perhaps it’s why the report notes only briefly in an addendum the disastrous spill of tar sands oil in the Kalamazoo River last year—35 miles of the river remains closed, and so far the taxpayers have shelled out $500 million to help clean up. Is there any way (besides reading the newspapers and talking to local officials) that Cardno Entrix could possibly have known about the Kalamazoo spill? Well yes. Cardno Entrix—get ready for it—was in fact hired by that pipeline company to assess the damage of that spill.

- Finally, Cardno Entrix administered the Dept of State hearings through the Midwest (every state that the pipeline passes through has an official hearing on the issue).

- Added to that is the long-known news that the primary lobbyist for TransCanada, Paul Elliot, was also a primary advisor for Hilary Clinton during her 2008 run for president. Now he's lobbying for her to grant the Keystone XL permit. What does the U.S. govt have to say about this?

this:

Kerri-Ann Jones, assistant secretary at the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, said following public hearings regarding the pipeline in Washington that the State Department was committed to an impartial and transparent review of the pipeline.

"Past relationships are not of importance," she said in response to queries about Elliot.

FUCK

Sorry, "McKibben" above should read "Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein", since I guess they co-wrote the article. Another quote:

This is quite possibly the biggest potential scandal of the Obama years. But there’s a danger that it will go ignored for three reasons

First, it’s so incredibly blatant that it’s hard to believe—neither of us are naifs, but we are still astonished that they’d show their industry bias this clearly. There were plenty of other signs, of course—emails released last week, for instance, showed Department officials cheerleading for the pipeline. But the Entrix connection is truly mind-boggling. It’s the kind of thing Dick Cheney might have done, on a particularly sloppy day.

not to mention that an oil leakage from a similar pipeline, that happened a year ago, is still being cleaned up and costing much more than they thought it would

http://www.freep.com/article/20111008/NEWS05/110080367/EPA-orders-Enbridge-do-more-oil-spill-cleanup-Kalamazoo-River

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-18/animal-fat-replaces-crude-oil-in-f16s-as-biofuels-head-to-war-commodities.html

The U.S. Air Force is set to certify all of its 40-plus aircraft models to burn fuels derived from waste oils and plants by 2013, three years ahead of target, Air Force Deputy Assistant Secretary Kevin Geiss said. The Army wants 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2025. The Navy and Marines aim to shift half their energy use from oil, gas and coal by 2020.
“Reliance on fossil fuels is simply too much of a vulnerability for a military organization to have,” U.S. Navy Secretary Raymond Mabus said in an interview. “We’ve been certifying aircraft on biofuels. We’re doing solar and wind, geothermal, hydrothermal, wave, things like that on our bases.”

What a bunch of hippies!

But yeah, I do think the military's embrace of clean energy is a powerful argument to make with a subset of people who don't gone a shit about the environment or the wellbeing of humanity but might care about the natl security significance

um now what

http://www.smu.edu/News/2011/geothermal-24oct2011.aspx

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/science/earth/inquiry-into-keystone-xl-pipeline-permit-process.html?ref=us

Obama's gonna wait to make this decision until it is most politically expedient

TV news screen in office elevator mentioned oil pipeline protest yesterday morn, I smiled a secret "ilxor in the news" smile.

the actual planned protest (circling the white house, we had about 13K people, awesome) went very well, but i was a little bummed that none of the coverage seemed to mention the spontaneous takeover of the streets that happened directly afterward with hundreds of people carrying a giant mock pipeline around various streets in downtown DC, walking up to the American Petroleum Institute and creating a ruckus. that was pretty much the most amazing and joyous part of the entire day, and it was so great to see various bystanders cheering us on, like the fire department, bus drivers, and so on.

http://i41.tinypic.com/73f3wl.jpg

World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns

http://www.threadbombing.com/data/media/31/OMFG.jpg

Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline delayed!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/10/us-usa-pipeline-idUSTRE7A64O920111110

would have preferred a denial of the permit rather than a delay, but still, this is fucking awesome

that's good... I guess? like I noted above about O making this decision when it's politically expedient, after he wins election he won't have anything to lose (politically anyway) by approving the pipeline. environmentalists will have zero leverage against him.

so I dunno.

yeah, definitely. with all of the momentum built up now in opposition, the landscape in early 2013 is bound to be more favorable for him, if he wants to please Big Oil. which, let's face it, he will.

but i think it's about the most favorable thing that was likely to happen right now. as much as i believe that he should reject it right now, it was exceedingly unlikely that he ever would.

A pair trade for the cynical:

short: TransCanada (Keystone XL pipeline to U.S.)
long: Enbridge (Northern Gateway pipeline to China)

good, long article by naomi klein at the nation.

This is where the intersection between hard-right ideology and climate denial gets truly dangerous. It’s not simply that these “cool dudes” deny climate science because it threatens to upend their dominance-based worldview. It is that their dominance-based worldview provides them with the intellectual tools to write off huge swaths of humanity in the developing world. Recognizing the threat posed by this empathy-exterminating mindset is a matter of great urgency, because climate change will test our moral character like little before. The US Chamber of Commerce, in its bid to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon emissions, argued in a petition that in the event of global warming, “populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, physiological, and technological adaptations.” These adaptations are what I worry about most.

How will we adapt to the people made homeless and jobless by increasingly intense and frequent natural disasters? How will we treat the climate refugees who arrive on our shores in leaky boats? Will we open our borders, recognizing that we created the crisis from which they are fleeing? Or will we build ever more high-tech fortresses and adopt ever more draconian antiimmigration laws? How will we deal with resource scarcity?

We know the answers already. The corporate quest for scarce resources will become more rapacious, more violent. Arable land in Africa will continue to be grabbed to provide food and fuel to wealthier nations. Drought and famine will continue to be used as a pretext to push genetically modified seeds, driving farmers further into debt. We will attempt to transcend peak oil and gas by using increasingly risky technologies to extract the last drops, turning ever larger swaths of our globe into sacrifice zones. We will fortress our borders and intervene in foreign conflicts over resources, or start those conflicts ourselves. “Free-market climate solutions,” as they are called, will be a magnet for speculation, fraud and crony capitalism, as we are already seeing with carbon trading and the use of forests as carbon offsets. And as climate change begins to affect not just the poor but the wealthy as well, we will increasingly look for techno-fixes to turn down the temperature, with massive and unknowable risks.

As the world warms, the reigning ideology that tells us it’s everyone for themselves, that victims deserve their fate, that we can master nature, will take us to a very cold place indeed. And it will only get colder, as theories of racial superiority, barely under the surface in parts of the denial movement, make a raging comeback. These theories are not optional: they are necessary to justify the hardening of hearts to the largely blameless victims of climate change in the global South, and in predominately African-American cities like New Orleans.

Heard about an optimistic film Carbon Nation via Jim Puplava's Financial Sense Newshour yesterday. Thought Z S and others here might be interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLs73KJI36w

thanks for sharing that, Sanpaku. i think it's sad that so many people don't understand the scientific method, but there are so many reasons to decarbonize the economy even if we lived in a world where climate change wasn't happening. those can be powerful arguments against people who invest 100% of their research time into reading denier garbage but 0% thinking about thinking about the benefits of moving on to the 21st century. i just hope those people can be directed to films like this.

At a Natural Resources Committee hearing Friday on oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) mistakenly addressed the professor as "Dr. Rice" while calling his testimony "garbage."

Brinkley interrupted, saying: "It's Dr. Brinkley, Rice is a university," and "I know you went to Yuba [Community College in California] and couldn't graduate — "

Then it was Young's turn to interrupt. "I'll call you anything I want to call you when you sit in that chair," he told the witness. "You just be quiet."

Brinkley countered: "You don't own me. I pay your salary. I work for the private sector and you work for the taxpayer."

Panel chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) intervened, asking Young to suspend and — after being interrupted several times by the witness — threatening to remove Brinkley from the panel unless he agreed to only speak when asked to reply to questions.

NRDC has been writing pretty solid commentary on Keystone. This piece takes on the economic argument that proponents have been using to gain support.

Cornell also did some interesting research on the likely impact the pipeline would have on job creation.

Brinkley countered: "You don't own me. I pay your salary. I work for the private sector and you work for the taxpayer."

ZINGGGG!

I dunno where to put this so

urine power!

Anyone on ilx work in energy or environment?

nope

Z S just made this thread for shits

and by "Z S" i mean "Ed" but w/e

i work at 3PA, but not nearly as much on env. policy issues as i want to. are you an enviro/energy guy, benjamin?

I work at Rocky Mountain Institute. It's a non profit founded by Amory Lovins.

RMI! Amory is the shit.

there is a picture of my company's founders meeting with Amory in our lunchroom.

I work for an energy consulting firm in San Francisco - we do a lot of energy efficiency program development and management, renewable generation projects, strategic energy planning, etc.

Anyone on ilx work in energy or environment?

Me - currently implementing the first US smartgrid distribution software system.

oh the RMI is great. I took a tour of the building, p dope. also credit "natural capital" for making me able to have conversations with my libertarian dad that at least felt a little productive

Anyone on ilx work in energy or environment?
I do, and I just saw that Obama declined the expansion of Keystone XXL, anyone have thoughts on this?

Does Obama's energy plan amount to tax credits for buying alternative-fuel vehicles, oil companies must drill on leases they already hold and attempting to make 80% of electricity be generated from clean sources by 2035?

I just saw that Obama declined the expansion of Keystone XXL, anyone have thoughts on this?

From what I understand, the GOP either shot itself in the foot with this one or intentionally created a situation where they could call Obama a jobs killer. They attached a rider to the payroll tax bill that would force a 60 day decision on the pipeline, after the State Department had already explicitly stated that they would need more time to do the environmental assessment. The State Dep't also said that, if forced to make a decision before the completion of the assessment, they would reject the project. GOP went forward with the rider.

I think this is how it worked. I assume TransCanada will come back with a new application for a revised route, as the main issue had to do with a particular portion of the pipeline going through environmentally sensitive areas of Nebraska and Oklahoma.

There is no energy plan.

Shakey, sounds interesting. I would love to see that picture. Can you say where you work? Just interested.

I worked on the section of the keystone pipeline that traveled through Kansas to Cushing OK. I was supposed to worked on the remaining portion that ended in Port Arthur,TX. I was laid off when the permits where put on hold two years ago. I never bring up my work around here because well one of the posters on this thread is involved with the protest against my work. But today came as huge blow to me because I was hoping to work in my home state on the last leg of the pipeline so I won't have to travel back to PA.

Jacob, I'm really sorry for the disappointment today's news brought you. I do, however, think the facts support delaying rather than fast-tracking this section of the pipeline. I worked on the TransCanada/PGT natural gas pipeline on the section that ran from just east of Blythe, CA down to Mexicali and over to Rosarito. A major section was pushed ahead before one last impact study was returned - the one that examined the huge influx of transient winter residents to the area just west of Yuma. Which was a serious and costly mistake. It's better to get all the details in up front, especially when messing around with an aquifer. (I've also done considerable work in potable water treatment operations and remediation.)

My understanding was the job was permitted down to Port Arthur and the branch to Houston as well when we finished in Cushing. The pipe for the project is sitting right now in Texas. The debate about the Nebraska section was what brought attention to this end of the project which then stalled everything. I agree that fast-tracking any major construction project is counterintuitive for long time goal of transportation of oil or any energy source. But there is also a lack of understanding from the general public about how pipelines are built and the regulations that are in fact enforced. There are accidents like Enbridge and that's very serious. But after working with numerous oil/lng companies like Exxon, Columbia Gas, Chevron, etc, TransCanada took environmental issues very serious as well as safety. As far as creating job and the misinformation that both parties are throwing at each other, I haven't heard any mention of the fact that any lack of new jobs the Keystone line would or would not create has much to do with keystone's view of unionized work. In Texas most union constractors have had to lower their bids to compete with non-union contractors. This lowers the once high pay scale of construction workers who build the pipelines. Most have left the south or have started working non union jobs. TransCanada does not want non union contractors building the pipelines due to their horrible track record with both safety and following specifications with welding, coating and general construction. What TransCanada plans to do then is split the work between a canadian contractor and two or three union contractors, although this was as of last year. Things might have changed since then.