The Energy Thread

If this was 1902, the GOP would be attacking the idea that automobiles would ever gain traction and pushing for more investment in stagecoaches instead.

this newfangled contraption is going to completely decimate the horseshoe industry!

Watching this House debate on C-SPAN is absolutely tearing my stomach up. Take me to the hospital, fuck.

Livebloggin' the appearance of Boehner's awesome chart at the ACES debate

http://i43.tinypic.com/nx0qxt.jpg

he is a complete douchebag.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24232.html

so irritated at the Republicans' refusing to satisfy my twisted, radical environmentalist desires

Can anyone explain what exactly they are voting on?

I don't think most of the people voting could even explain it

I mean, I can guess it is a bad thing judging by how the votes are breaking down, however the text on the CSPAN screen is barely a coherent sentence.

ON PASSAGE means the final vote, right?

hurrah?

I was out for the last few hours, just got back. Passed 219-212? What are these "Special Order Speeches" going on at C-SPAN right now then? Souder (R-Indiana) is going on about how democrats must have been smoking "marijuana cigarettes" when they came up with ACES.

Man, some serious sour grapes and imbecility there.

Energy thread peeps,

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2708219489770693816

Mr. Shirky seems to believe that there is a yet-unmodeled economic force, what he calls a "social lubricant" in this keynote, which is required by the human phenotype at large whenever a massive transformation takes place (apparently by way of general-purpose-technologies) in how the most developed economies accomplish work.

What, if anything, do you think might be the "social lubricant" for sustainable (ok semi-sustainable) energy? It seems clear to me that there is no fucking way on the whole of goddamned earth that we will make any kind of switch to non-carboniferous power in the near term, but if we do, how is the pop going to deal? What is the interstitial soiled-pants solution for all the human beings who are going to be taken by surprise?

I'm thinking it's nintendo games. I'm not even sure if I'm joking, which is a pretty good indication that I'm so right it hurts.

I think you are not far off the mark, El T. We'd adapt voluntarily for something that pleases or amuses or delights us. Except of course then the religious zealots will start yammering about how whatever-it-is is perniciously destroying family values/etc, so we'll have to put up with that too.

That was a cool video, and I kind of want to read Shirky's book now.

I think before you can begin to answer what sort of social lubricant will accompany sustainable energy systems, you have to guess at how much lube will be needed in the first place (lol). The shock created from the transition to clean energy depends on the nature of the new system, along with the way we view our present system, right? Currently, at least in the West, we plug appliances into outlets, water magically comes out of the faucet, gasoline flows out of pumps, etc. If you choose to you can think about the crazy process it takes to get these materials into your hands, but you certainly don't have to. Energy and water is easily and readily available, and incredibly cheap at that. And so we take it for granted.

The ease of access to energy in the future depends on whose vision you believe the most. First, take the optimistic outlook. If wind, CSP and solar PV, geothermal, etc are ramped up quickly enough, there's a possibility that not that much would change from the perspective of the consumer. You'd still have outlets, with the only difference being the supply of electricity in the first place, far out of sight, along with improved transmission lines. With energy efficiency, if utility profits were decoupled electricity consumption so that they had an incentive to save energy, utilities could actually come to houses and put up much of the front end investment for homeowners, like new windows, insulation, and so on. So on that end, things could end up looking the same as well. From the perspective of the consumer, they would just have a more efficient house and an extra section on the utility bill that states how much money was saved from efficiency, how much of that savings goes to the utility, and how much of it goes in their pocket.

I'm not sure if that kind of smooth transition is possible in the near term, and even if it was, it would only apply to the industrialized West. If we had meaningfully committed to clean energy and efficiency a decade ago or earlier, it certainly would have been easier. But I'm trying to force myself not to be such a cynical pessimistic bastard all of the time, so I'm acknowledging that there is a possibility of a transition more smooth than bumpy.

I think it's much more likely that there is going to be a serious wake up call very soon. I hate to pinpoint 2012 for my doomsday prediction, but it would not surprise me. That was the year that the IEA, traditionally very conservative and optimistic (and RONG) with their oil predictions, highlighted as the likely year of the energy crunch. If and when the global economy recovers and begins to move back into the heavy positive growth of the mid-00's, we'll be butting our heads against the resource constraints that we were dealing with before the recession. The oil crises in the 70s were caused by embargos, wars and revolutions. Wars still pose a threat to our oil supplies, obviously, but the main driver of price increases are supply and demand. Demand was dampened by the global economic fiasco, but supply hasn't increased, and it won't significantly increase.

Somehow I got off on a tangent there. I think we face similar problems with electricity. Regardless of the idiotic GOP arguments I witnessed last night during the "debate", I think eventually the U.S. will wake up and realize that we probably shouldn't be powering half of our country with coal. A price on carbon will maybe help push that realization a few years ahead, along with the conspicuous absence of the North Pole (or maybe not). The question is if clean energies can be ramped up quickly enough to match the decrease that is needed from coal. If we would have started years ago, maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it now. Rather than voluntarily changing our energy consumption habits, we're about to be forced by constraints. Oops!

What is the social lubricant? Well, I've put myself back into pessimistic mode now so I'm just going to roll with it. The lubricants that Shirky talked about in his lecture (gin during the industrial revolution, tv during the 20th century) were responses to seemingly positive changes (reliable food supply, better health, more free time, etc). For much of the population, the lubricant for widespread negative change is fingerpointing, denial, and violence. I don't doubt that there will be tons and tons of people working as hard as they can to peacefully complete the transition to clean energy, but I also don't doubt that the people who did everything they could to delay a response to climate change will continue to fuck up the world. When there are millions of environmental refugees floating across boundaries, I don't see James Inhofe, Joe Barton and Dick Cheney opening up their arms. I see them in a grab for the remaining energy supplies (ie, power).

Uuuugh, I disgust myself sometimes. What the hell, I'll just agree and say nintendo games. We're all going to play nintendo games.

tl;dr

I also don't doubt that the people who did everything they could to delay a response to climate change will continue to fuck up the world

Well, it's ego, isn't it. Admitting they were wrong = self-worth gone.

David Kurtz wrote a little bit about that TPM last night:

Is it going to be like the opposition to civil rights was, where the same people who opposed it to begin with were the first to declare, without any irony, that racism is abated and then raise the cry of reverse racism? Are we facing, as we did with civil rights, a decades long running battle of constant resistance where the enemies of progress work to undermine every step forward -- even as they enjoy the benefits of the very thing they are fighting?

We hear a lot from global warming deniers about the "high cost" of carbon emission regulation. Of course, in absolute terms they are right. It will be expensive. But what price are the deniers willing to pay personally for the high cost of being on the wrong side of science and history? Many of today's deniers will be long dead by the time the worst effects of inaction are realized. Those who do live long enough will more than likely be insulated from the most extreme effects by their relative wealth and prosperity, compared to Bangladeshis, for instance. And in any event, there is no justice -- no democratic justice -- in punishing fools for being fools.

Reminds me of the response of Limbaugh et al. on Bush criticism. I caught part of his show on a drive to Missouri last week, and he was going on and on about how annoying it was to hear people continue to complain about Bush, even after his presidency has ended. That Democrats should "quit whining and move on". I'm not sure how you move from unreserved support for 8 years of morally indefensible Bush policies to "quit whining and move on" without some stage of coming to terms with the reality of what happened, but I guess that's how some people deal with it.

Nintendo game isn't that wide of the mark, I don't think. Look at the hohm announcement earlier in the week. A little bit of price visibility, a little social shame and some blinnking lights and we're half way there. Actually consumer exposure to the true cost of electricity is key, the rest is sugar coating. When people find out that it is costing them dollars an hour to run their AC on a sunny august afternoon, that's the real game changer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-_U1Z0vezw

A memo from the American Petroleum Institute API has leaked which "reveals a plan to create astroturf rallies at which industry employees posing as 'citizens' will urge Congress to oppose climate change legislation."

One of the most frightening aspects of the ongoing health care "debate" debacle has been the growing certainty that this is the kind of shit that's going to drag down the climate bill in a few months. And worse, the knowledge that an industry-funded lobby is already making plans to sabotage the legislative process likely won't make much of a difference in public perception. I won't go as far as saying this is a "new era" of widespread disregard for facts, but I do think that there is a stronger tendency these days to just pick your team and oppose the other, no matter what.

This is going to be an ugly, ugly year.

a good encapsulation of what California is up to

I read that whole thing and sent it to my dad. Very interesting.

Also, am I just paying more attention, or is the NYT energy-crazy lately?

any thoughts on this proposal?

I was excitedly* reading through those, some good projects, not too many not so good, no outright wacky ones such as those funded by ARPA-E last week.

*Excited because I though this was the pot of money we were in for but that is probably not due for a couple of weeks yet.

The company I'm contracting to is involved in 9 of those smart grid projects.

The new big thing I keep hearing about for carbon sequestration: biochar. Which, of course, is ancient tech, just made more efficient and spun up with current buzzwords. But still interesting and with demonstrable potential for good things (in particular soil remediation).

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/12/04/global-warming-emails-followup/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BadAstronomyBlog+%28Bad+Astronomy%29

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne-X_vFWMlw

“Ben Wessel: [of the Sustain US youth delegation] First of all my name is Ben [sticks his hand out to shake].

Monckton: No, no. I’m not going to shake the hand of Hitler Youth. I’m sorry.

Wessel: Sir, as a Jew I’m not really sure how I should take that.

Monckton: I’ll tell you how you should take it. You should take it.

Wessel: My grandparents escaped the Nazis growing up in Germany.

Monckton: Because of the biofuel scam, world food prices have doubled. That it because of the global warming scare, which you won’t look at the science of. As a result of that, millions are dying in third world countries because food prices have doubled because of the biofuel scam, because of the global warming scare.

And you people don’t care. And until you start caring I will call you Hitler Youth if you ever again interrupt any meeting at which I am present, where we are trying to have a private conversation.”

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck want to STRANGLE HIM

I am becoming increasingly angry with Michael Mann and the CRU folks and all those who have inflicted bad science on us because despite the overwhelming evidence their ineptitude has handed a great stick to fucknuts like the noble lord there.

hello energy professionals and experts

i am seeking your opinions regarding the obama administrations recent announcement regarding offshore drilling

thank you in advance

I'll add more when I get home and off my iPhone, but this was a huge mistake both on environmental and political grounds. It wasn't a surprise that Obama was going to do it - he repeatedly described his intentions during the campaign. But why NOW?What was gained in return for this huge concession/slap in the face to environmentalists?? This could have been a huge bargaining chip in the inevitable watering down of the climate/energy bill that's forthcoming.

I mean, shit, Boehner has ALREADY released a statement attacking Obama's move because he says it doesn't go far enough!

This was a decision that isn't likely to win any republican votes (just like the concessions to hcr), will add only marginal resources to the US energy portfolio, and alienates much of Obama's progressive base that hoped that he realized that it isnt wise to compromise on the environment.

…imo

Sorry it's just me responding so far but Grist sums it up here.

no zach you were the person i was thinking of when i asked, thanks

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