The Energy Thread

I’m holding out hope that things appear worse than they are. Because the key isn’t how much offshore drilling is allowed. The crucial issue is whether oil and gas companies decide it’s worth their money to go out, find, and retreive the stuff. And things could be brighter on that front, because, as Joe Romm explains, the payoff in these reserves may not be worth the trouble. (Nobody knows precisely how much oil and gas are in these places.) GOP politicians like John McCain and Sarah Palin have used offshore drilling as a rallying cry, but energy companies need to keep clear heads, crunch the numbers, and decide if a given project pays.

how likely is it that oil companies will decide its cost-effective to go drilling off of the carolinas?

The situation strikes me as another example of American leadership providing misleading statements about oil that serve to further promote energy security populism which in turn creates some flawed assumptions regarding how we frame our relationship with oil.

Fundamentally you can't assume that you can achieve energy security by increasing domestic production in order to offset / reduce foreign imports - oil is almost a perfect model of basic global supply / demand pool from which all participants purchase the same product. Using the term "foreign" oil versus "domestic" oil implies that you're creating a two price supply and demand structure which isn't really possible - on an textbook economics level it's going to seek equilibrium.
So really the policy is not buying any sort of domestic energy security, it's just increasing the global supply by a marginal amount.

With regards to gas it's different because there are pretty significant logistical challenges and the markets are regional, not global - I assume most of this potential future gas will get piped to the Henry Hub region in the southern states and contribute to the perceived oversupply; but that's hard to say given that we don't know yet how much actual production will come out the exploration / development / exploitation process. In other words, more numbers required. It does seem to be a high political cost for little gain at this time?

I'd say not the vast majority won't be profitable until oil is back up at 2007/08 prices ($120+), although i'd be curious to get Ed's take on it. As Romm points out in the link in the quote you just posted, oil companies already have access to billions of barrels of offshore that they aren't developing, presumably because drilling deep into ocean floors and building pipeline infrastructure dozens of miles out into the ocean is incredibly expensive.

Regardless, due to the time lag (around a decade) between oil exploration and actually obtaining the resources, let alone the fact that a lot of this oil wouldn't even go to the US (oil companies are, of course, multinationals), most of the stuff I've read suggests that the best case scenario is that this will lower the price of gas maybe several cents about a decade from now.

Even with this giveaway, when the price of oil is sky high in a few years I'm assuming that conservatives will pull a Boehner and blame it all on Obama for not opening up the most environmentally sensitive locations of all.

when can we have a gas tax

Dammit, iPhone just lost a huge post I was working on. Trust me, it was awesome.

politically this was stupid - squanders political capital w/his base and sure to gain no votes on the Republican side. economically, the amt of oil involved is probably tiny so yeah it's open for debate as to how much drilling oil companies will actually find cost-effective, but this isn't going to contribute to America's energy independence one iota. ecologically, offshore oil drilling is fraught with potential disasters, so probably not a good idea.

on the plus side, glad it's not any of my beaches cuz California would NOT stand for this shit.

many more reactions here

Prediction: This will pick up exactly zero Republican votes for climate legislation, and it may end up costing votes on the left. Remember, it was only about a week ago that 10 Democratic Senators warned Senator Kerry that they’ll oppose climate legislation that greatly expands offshore drilling. Obama’s announcement today virtually ensures that the emerging Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill will include provisions those Senators will have a hard time swallowing.

When it comes to energy, conservatives are crazy about two things: nuclear power and offshore drilling. Now Obama has agreed to both. But does he seriously think this will "help win political support for comprehensive energy and climate legislation"? Wouldn't he be better off holding this stuff in reserve and negotiating it away in return for actual support, not just hoped-for support? What am I missing here?

Exactly. srsly, WTF

you would think the failure of this kind of strategy would have been one of the major lessons from the HCR legislation

xp: Is there anybody not crazy about nuclear energy? That's not partisan is it?

California has effectively banned nuclear energy in the state for like the last 30 years

(well, we have two existing nuke plants - but no one wants to build any new ones was my point)

also have you seen what the insane start-up/insurance costs are for nuke plants, nobody has the money to cover that kind of capital outlay - which is why the industry is clamoring for subsidies and relaxed restrictions, etc.

Yep, nuclear's economic viability is heavily dependent on subsidies.

Don't worry guys, this awesome offshore drilling plan will save us 3 cents a gallon on gasoline by 2030!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Hm. I'd better look into this issue. I've just been running around thinking that everybody was cpool with nukes. Thanks for a jumping-off point.

the irony here is obvious - right-wing pro-nuke guys demanding a gov't handout. Free market would've killed off nuclear power in this country a generation ago.

haven't even touched on the waste problem, which is gigantic and my one real gripe with the pro-nuke crowd. get back to me when you have a viable solution for getting the waste off of the earth and into the sun or something. cuz there's no way to store it down here.

Since the licensing was withdrawn from Yucca Mountain, there's no plan for nuclear waste disposal either. (xpost)

I was never sold on the Yucca Mtn plan to begin with - stuff would've easily contaminated the water table for future generations

Okay. This is the first I've heard about delicensing Yucca Mountain. What are we going to do with our giant hole in the ground???

bury Harry Reid in it

Drill it for oil

We should also make sure to blow the top of it for coal while we're at it. I <3 this dang country, go USA

Since all the work at Hanford was done specifically to meet the requirements at Yucca Mountain, it looks like everything done for containment over the past 10 years (including the vitrification plant which is hugely over-run on budget) will have to be completely reworked. In the meantime, there's like 7 million gallons of nuclear and chemical crap in leaking rusty 60 year old underground tanks buried at the edge of the Columbia river. And the plan is to just leave it there until things get settled.

and then the CHUDs come after us

Stuff like this (http://www.powermag.com) "NJ uses millions of climate fund $$ for budget deficit" is really starting to get to me. I hated the creation of a new commodity initially, and now the money isn't being used for its stated purpose. All these giant backward steps in energy and environmental policy. Just sucks.

I can't post the full url for that article btw, probably because it has hyphens in it and ILXcode chokes. It's in the news section, from March 24 or so.

http://www.350.org/dont-drill

Take 30 seconds to sign it for pete's sake

done

for all the good it'll do btw. this party knows it has its constituents by the hair - what're you gonna do, not vote for them? you'll vote for them. I'll vote for them. it doesn't matter what they do. they get the vote anyway. they do not care about how anybody thinks about this stuff imo.

Yep, I know it's pointless. Last night my gf was laboring over a revision in one of the paragraphs in that 350 petition, I suppose in the hopes that Obama or one of our senators would actually read the thing. We'd be lucky if they even notice that tens of thousands of people in their base are vehemently opposed.

In my weaker moments I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be part of a party with leadership that pander to the base as much as the GOP does.

i am pining right along with you guys but pandering to the base has gotten the GOP into the smallest minority any party has had in decades

One of the great conservative leaders on energy issues, according to Newt, Sarah Palin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSxz4mTzSI0

PALIN: We should create a competitive climate for investment in renewables and alternatives … none of this snake oil science stuff that is based on this global warming, Gore-gate stuff that came down where there was revelation that these scientists, some of these scientists were playing some political games. I sued the Feds over this, I sued the Feds over this as Governor for some bogus listing on the ESA, just about got run out of town, of course, by the environmentalists. But now we feel a little bit vindicated because we’re realizing through Gore-gate that there was some snake oil science involved in the data collection there.… We invented the Internet, unless that was just another Gore-gate thing too.

"that alternative, when it's discovered, it will be here, and it will be Americans who find it, America will invent this next source."

If only there were viable alternatives that were available NOW! Oh well, I guess we'll just have to continue to burn coal until we find it, whoopdeedoodah yay!

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Solar? CSP what the doodle?

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Air that moves? What the heck I don't get it

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Geothermal? I tell you this, America - no energy can come from deep in the earth, because that's where the devil lives

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Energy efficiency? The "smart grid"? If it was so smart why would I be telling you to continue to concentrate on drilling oil and to forget about finally moving a coherent energy policy reform until Americans "invent" some new alternative? Well?

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yeah but yr biologically wrong

Graham Says Energy Bill Is ‘Impossible’ for Now

Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the chief sponsors of a nascent plan to address energy and climate change in the Senate, said Friday that the proposal had no chance of passage in the near term and called for a “pause” in consideration of the issue.

Mr. Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico had heightened concern about expanded offshore drilling, which he considers a central component of any energy legislation. Mr. Graham also said that Democratic insistence on taking up immigration policy before energy had chilled his enthusiasm for any global warming measure.

How unfortunate that the ONLY Republican senator willing to work across the aisle on energy/climate is also an illogical madman. "Let us wait until everyone starts to forget about the horrific consequences of offshore drilling, so that we can ensure that offshore drilling will be included in the legislation, yaywoo!"

yeah this is pretty disgusting

exhibit A in how not to learn lesson from biggest oil spill disaster in history

*off the US coast

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills

ah of course the Gulf War dwarfs all

As far as the political implications of the BP disaster, only in today's U.S. political climate would an environmental disaster of this magnitude have ambiguous consequences for energy/climate legislation. In the wake of numerous environmental disasters of the 1960s and early 70s, we had the first Earth Day, the establishment of EPA, the Clean Air and Water acts, etc. Exxon Valdez in 1989 killed the political momentum for drilling in ANWR.

And today? It's not like we were lacking for reasons to pass the climate bill, or FINALLY pass some good energy legislation. - We're still overwhelmingly dependent on 19th Century energy sources, and we've been warned repeatedly for 20+ years that our backwards "energy policy" is dangerous. So you'd think this would be the straw that breaks the camel's back. But no, instead we get more waffling, and zero leadership. We get politicans in both parties defending Big Oil.

goddammit

In the wake of the Gulf oil spill, the benefits of clean sources of energy are clearer than ever. What's so infuriating about the Washington response so far is that there's no indication the disaster has prompted Obama or anyone else to reconsider his position. In the past, major disasters shifted the terms of debate. This time, nobody is budging. But the support for offshore drilling that the White House was willing to trade for reductions in carbon emissions -- the crucial achievement in any climate bill -- is no longer feasible. As Florida Senator Bill Nelson put it, any bill that includes drilling is "dead on arrival.''

Perversely, the Gulf disaster has had the short-term effect of weakening the already tepid support for a Senate climate bill. That may change as Louisiana's coastline is subsumed by oil. Washington eventually responds to public outrage. (Just ask Goldman Sachs.) But for now, energy can join the long list of issues on which Washington leadership has vanished.

Kerry and Droopy moving introduce bill anyway

Senate once again fucking up things the House got (more or less) right a year ago

And like health care, their proposed legislation is already compromised, watered down and aimed at attracting GOP support that will never be there anyway.

Well, I take that back, I suppose it will probably have at least some GOP support. At least, it looked that way a month ago. I'm just in a tizzy due to the insanity of being forced to compromise on an issue that is so important.

Fuck Lindsey Graham. I don't know what else to say. Jesus fucking Christ, that guy, and to think that he stood out as the one republican who was potentially not batshit insane.

Wow, weird, virtually zero mention in the press about how NASA's data shows that this is by far the hottest spring on record, man, so surprising, jeez

fukkin scientists

Obama's Climate Complacency: Blame Rahm?

Great article (actually an excerpt from Eric Pooley's new book, which I plan on reading soon) with lots of insidery details about ignored memos, and it sounds like Axelrod has had a large (non)role too.

When corporate and environmental leaders from the US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) went to the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing for a late spring 2009 meeting with Emanuel, they could see that he didn't much care about climate change. What he cared about was winning—acquiring and maintaining presidential power over an eight-year arc. Climate and energy were agenda items to him, pieces on a legislative chessboard; he was only willing to play them in ways that enhanced Obama's larger objectives. He saw no point in squandering capital on a lost cause. The White House could claim victory if Congress passed a beefy energy bill without a cap—never mind that doing so could torpedo Copenhagen and delay serious green house gas reductions, perhaps for many years. At the USCAP meeting, Emanuel made his views clear: "We want to do this climate bill, but success breeds success," he said. "We need to put points on the board. We only want to do things that are going to be successful. If the climate bill bogs down, we move on. We've got health care"

Ezra Klein OTM in his criticism of Obama's speech:

To expand a bit on a point I made on Rachel Maddow’s show, I’m just not sure how you do a response to climate change if you can’t really say the words “climate change.”...

...Rachel said that no one wants to hear about climate change. The operative emotion here has to be inspiration, not fear. And she’s right about that. The polling certainly backs her up. But that strikes me as depressing evidence of how unlikely we are to succeed. I simply don’t believe you could’ve passed health care if you couldn’t have talked about covering the uninsured, and I don’t think stimulus would’ve worked without the spur of the unemployed. It’s not that people wanted to hear about either subject all day, but they got both problems on a visceral enough level that the action being taken at least made a sort of sense.