Category Archives: energy

Obama Energy Promises–Cheap Magic Energy for Everyone!

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Barak Obama, and to only a slightly lesser extent, John McCain, are on the campaign trail promising cheap, magic energy for all. From the National Post:

Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed he would break America’s addiction to “dirty, dwindling, and dangerously expensive” oil if he is elected U.S. president — and one of his first targets might well be Canada’s oil sands.

A senior adviser to Mr. Obama’s campaign told reporters it’s an “open question” whether oil produced from northern Alberta’s oilsands fits with the Democratic candidate’s plan to shift the U.S. sharply away from consumption of carbon-intensive fossil fuels.

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“The possibilities of renewable energy are limitless,” Mr. Obama said in an energy policy speech Tuesday in Las Vegas. “We’ve heard promises about it in every State of the Union [speech] for the last three decades. But each and every year, we become more, not less, addicted to oil — a 19th-century fossil fuel that is dirty, dwindling, and dangerously expensive.”

While it’s true that there is less oil today than yesterday, it is not dwindling. There are more oil resources in North America, in the form of oil sands and oil shale, than there is in Saudi Arabia. We also have vast supplies of oil and natural gas on the outer continental shelf, but Mr. Obama and his friends have fought to restrict access to those domestic resources. Unsurprisingly after years of constraining our supply, we now have tight supply and high prices. Thank you Mr. Obama. The policies you support are the very ones driving up the price of energy.

Oil might be dirtier than natural gas, but it is also less expensive for personal transportation. Does Obama not support personal transportation? Oil emits less greenhouse gases than current biofuel technology, so you can argue that it is cleaner than biofuel. And oil is cheaper than biofuel, allowing lower income people to afford to buy and use it.

In opposition to oil, but does Obama support?  Biofuel of course. Unsurprisingly the NY Times reports that Obama is in the pocket of Big Ethanol. If Obama were thoughtful, if Obama were for real change, he would be concerned about the outcomes of the policies he supports. Some people rightly call biofuel a “crime against humanity.” Others say that it is increasing poverty.

The possibilities of renewable energy, like the possibilities of absolutely anything are limitless. When I want to drive my car I don’t want it to be a mere possibility the the station will have gas. I want there to be a high probability the station will have gas.

Someday renewables might make sense, but today we are throwing money away and making people poorer as a result. When will Obama support real change and end this tragic waste?

Would you pay $600 a month to lease a Honda?

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That’s what it costs to lease Honda’s new hydrogen-powered FCX Clarity. Honda only is leasing the car to people who live near Torrance, Santa Monica, and Irvine, California where there are hydrogen filling stations.

It seems like a cool car, but it’s a bit silly to call it a zero-emission vehicle. The burning of hydrogen doesn’t release greenhouse gas emissions (other than water vapor which quickly precipitates out of the air), but making the hydrogen is energy intensive and releases a good amount of greenhouse gases.

Oh my goodness, McCain actually talks sense on energy

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Today, John McCain actually called for lifting the federal moratorium on oil exploration and development on the outer continental shelf. This is a shock that McCain can be so reasonable. If he is going to call for more domestic energy, it makes sense to call for energy that exists instead of trying on future technologies to lower energy prices.

Obama on the other hand only spouts nonsense about energy.

Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the Obama campaign said that Mr. McCain’s plan amounted to “the same misguided approach backed by President Bush that has failed our families for too long and only serves to benefit the big oil companies.”

Apparently there’s no problem with $4 a gallon gasoline and the American people should stop whining.

If McCain can protray Obama as being out of touch with the average American, McCain will win. Obama’s problem is that he and his handlers are apparently out of touch on energy issues.

Bill O’Reilly doesn’t understand that nuclear power plants make electricity, not oil

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I try to avoid Bill O’Reilly. I prefer rationality to O’Reilly’s daily spew. But for some reason I watched this video of O’Reilly and even I was shocked at O’Reilly’s failure to understand the issues.

O’Reilly believes that nuclear energy will help us get off of oil. With current technology, nuclear energy has nothing to do with energy independence. Nuclear energy produce electricity and only a tiny percentage of the fuel we use to make electricity comes from foreign countries (oil is only used to produce 2% of our electricity).

Maybe O’Reilly is thinking of plug-in hybrids as a way of getting off oil. I don’t know if that’s what O’Reilly is talking about because he doesn’t pause from his spewing long enough to think about the words leaving his mouth.

Plug-in hybrids may be the future but even with $4 a gallon gasoline they aren’t cost effective. They may be soon. Is so, they might create increased electricity demand which would necessitate building new nuclear power plants, but not until then.

For O’Reilly’s benefit I’ll put the take away lesson in nice, easy-to-understand bullets points. That way, even he might be able to understand them:

  • Nuclear power has nothing to do with energy security
  • This is because nuclear power plants produce electricity, not oil
  • If plug-in hybrids and electric cars become economical, maybe nuclear power plants will help, but not until then

Will it cost $45 trillion or $545 trillion to cut CO2 levels in half?

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Last week, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report which estimated that cutting CO2 levels in half by 2050 would cost $45 trillion. According to Roger Pielke Jr., these estimates are very dependent on the “spontaneous decarbonization” of economic activity. There is obviously some “spontaneous decarbonization” that occurs in economies. Energy efficiency means that less energy (and carbon dioxide emissions) are required to produce the same amount of work. For example, from 1990 through 2000, the the US used 1.6% less carbon dioxide per dollar of GDP per year. That’s a pretty impressive improvement.

If you don’t assume this kind of spontaneous decarbonization, reducing CO2 concentrations in half will cost between $255 trillion and $545 (far more than IEA’s estimate of $45 trillion). What will it cost to reduce CO2 levels in half? Who knows, but these estimate tells us that that IEA’s projections are very sensitive to these assumptions. This pretty sobering when we are talking about trillions of dollars of cost.

Only $45 TRILLION Need to Combat Global Warming

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The AP reports:

The world needs to invest $45 trillion in energy in coming decades, build some 1,400 nuclear power plants and vastly expand wind power in order to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to an energy study released Friday.

The report by the Paris-based International Energy Agency envisions a “energy revolution” that would greatly reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels while maintaining steady economic growth.

“Meeting this target of 50 percent cut in emissions represents a formidable challenge, and we would require immediate policy action and technological transition on an unprecedented scale,” IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said.

Why Don’t Environmentalists Have the Strength of Their Convictions?

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The San Francisco Bay Area Air Quality Management District is set to charge a carbon tax for carbon dioxide emissions from business in the Bay Area.

The modest fee — 4.4 cents per ton of carbon dioxide — probably won’t be enough to force companies to reduce their emissions, but backers say it sets an important precedent in combating climate change and could serve as a model for regional air districts nationwide.

“It doesn’t solve global warming, but it gets us thinking in the right terms,” said Daniel Kammen, a renewable energy expert at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s not enough of a cost to change behavior, but it tells us where things are headed. You have to think not just in financial terms, but in carbon terms.”

This type of policy is typical of environmentalist thinking. Results do not matter. What matters is addressing the problem, not actual results. If results mattered and they wanted to actually reduce emission, then they would charge a tax high enough to change behavior.

Because this tax isn’t designed to charge behavior, the entire point is to raise revenue. I wish people like Daniel Kammen were honest about that. The point is to create a fund to pay for pet projects. The story reports that “If approved, the fees are expected to generate $1.1 million in its first year to help pay for programs to measure the region’s emissions and develop ways to reduce them.”

If the Bay Area Air Quality Management District wanted to reduce emissions, they wouldn’t need a $1.1 million fund to pay their favorite consultants or to do pet projects. They would just increase the tax. If they increase it high enough then emissions will fall. Easy enough.

If the environmentalists that control the Bay Area Air Quality Management District truly believed in the their actions and the dangers of increasing carbon dioxide levels, they would levy a high enough tax to create behavior. Obviously this isn’t about changing behavior. It is about making a statement. Don’t these guys care about the environment?

Why Do the Democrats and many Repubilicans Only Grandstand about Energy?

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This news story is both funny and sad. The Housevoted 324-84 to allow the Justice Department to sue OPEC over limited oil supplies:

“This bill guarantees that oil prices will reflect supply and demand economic rules, instead of wildly speculative and perhaps illegal activities,” said Democratic Rep. Steve Kagen of Wisconsin, who sponsored the legislation.

The lawmaker said Americans “are at the mercy” of OPEC for how much they pay for gasoline, which this week hit a record average of $3.79 a gallon.

No, actually Americans are at the mercy of the federal government for how much they pay for gasoline. For years we have tried to open ANWR in Alaska for oil production and Democrats along with some Republicans stopped the plan. President Clinton vetoed a bill that would have opened ANWR to oil production. That was 10 years ago. It should would be nice to have that oil now.

Let’s get serious about the price of oil and open up all of American’s outer continential shelf for oil exploration along with ANWR and allow for the extration of oil shale in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Unless of course, you aren’t actually serious about the high price of oil…

The Outlook for Biofuel Gets Even Worse

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Now people are concerned about the second-generation of biofuel crops–the crops that would be used to create cellulosic ethanol. Here’s what the NY Times says:

In the past year, as the diversion of food crops like corn and palm to make biofuels has helped to drive up food prices, investors and politicians have begun promoting newer, so-called second-generation biofuels as the next wave of green energy. These, made from non-food crops like reeds and wild grasses, would offer fuel without the risk of taking food off the table, they said.

But now, biologists and botanists are warning that they, too, may bring serious unintended consequences. Most of these newer crops are what scientists label invasive species — that is, weeds — that have an extraordinarily high potential to escape biofuel plantations, overrun adjacent farms and natural land, and create economic and ecological havoc in the process, they now say.

At a United Nations meeting in Bonn, Germany, on Tuesday, scientists from the Global Invasive Species Program, the Nature Conservancy and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, as well as other groups, presented a paper with a warning about invasive species.

“Some of the most commonly recommended species for biofuels production are also major invasive alien species,” the paper says, adding that these crops should be studied more thoroughly before being cultivated in new areas.

Controlling the spread of such plants could prove difficult, the experts said, producing “greater financial losses than gains.” The International Union for Conservation of Nature encapsulated the message like this: “Don’t let invasive biofuel crops attack your country.”

Disinformation about Wind Power from T. Boone Pickens

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When the media or wind adovcates talk about wind energy they write things like, “Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens is sinking billions of dollars into a new wind farm in Texas. It is likely to become the biggest in the world, producing enough power for the equivalent of 1.3 million homes.”

Wrong, unless you only want your lights in those houses on 30% of the time. Wind cannot power the equivalent of 1.3 million homes because you can’t plan when the wind will blow with the degree of accuracy needed. As a result, when you build a 4 gigawatt wind energy plant, like Pickens wants to, you have to build at least 3.2 gigawatts of backup generation for the wind turbines. That backup power will most likely be natural gas, much of which will be imported.

Here’s more silliness:

Pickens: The Department of Energy came out with a study in April of ’07 that said we could generate 20 percent of our electricity from wind. And the wind power is — you know, it’s clean, it’s renewable. It’s — you know, it’s everything you want. And it’s a stable supply of energy.

Wrong. Wind is not everything you want because wind is not a stable supply of energy.  The truth about wind is this–you can only produce electricity from wind when the wind is blowing (and not blowing too hard). That’s about 30% of the time. Electricity that only works 30% of the time is not “everything you want.” As an investor seeking to scam Texas ratepayers–who will be forces to buy your expensive electricty it is everything you want, but as a consumer who wants the electricity to work whenever you flip a switch, it is not “everything you want.”

Pickens ends the story with this piece of nonsense, ” But we are going to have to do something different in America. You can’t keep paying out $600 billion a year for oil.” Uh, okay. But electricity and oil have very little to do with each other. Only about 2% of the electricity in the US is generated from petroleum. That’s it. 98% of the electricity in America does not come from petroleum, so talking about how we pay $600 billion a year for oil when talking about wind makes little sense (unless you are talking about electric cars, but that don’t current exist).

There could be some decent reasons to build wind but from all appearances T. Boone Pickens just wants to scam ratepayers. I may be cynical, but he hasn’t made a case that he understands the downsides to wind energy.