Senate Democrats voted to keep gasoline prices high, and McCain resurrects a bad idea
The legislation to lift a moratorium on oil shale development has been stonewalled by Senate Democrats, led by Ken Salazar from Colorado.
You'd think this would be oil shale's moment.You'd think with gas prices topping $4 and consumers crying uncle, Congress would be moving fast to spur development of a domestic oil resource so vast - 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming alone - it could eventually rival the oil fields of Saudi Arabia.
You'd think politicians would be tripping over themselves to arrange photo-ops with Harold Vinegar (whom I profiled in Fortune last November), the brilliant, Brooklyn-born chief scientist at Royal Dutch Shell whose research cracked the code on how to efficiently and cleanly convert oil shale - a rock-like fossil fuel known to geologists as kerogen - into light crude oil.
You'd think all of this, but you'd be wrong.
Last month, the U.S. Senate's Appropriations Committee voted 15-14 to kill a bill that would have ended a one-year moratorium on enacting rules for oil shale development on federal lands (which is where the best oil shale is located). Most maddening of all - at least to someone like myself not steeped in the wacky ways of Washington - the swing vote on the appropriations committee, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., voted with the majority even though she actually opposes the moratorium.
"Sen. Salazar asked me to vote no. I did so at his request," Landrieu told The Rocky Mountain News. A Landrieu staffer contacted by Fortune doesn't dispute this, but notes that Landrieu did propose a compromise which Republicans rejected.
So it was the Republicans' fault that they didn't agree to Landrieu's compromise. Right. More on Salazar's obstructionism:
Salazar's efforts have essentially pulled the rug out from under Shell (RDSA) and other oil companies which have invested many, many millions into oil shale research since the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which established the original framework for commercial leasing of oil shale lands. (Last year, oil shale represented Shell's single biggest R&D expenditure.)Salazar says he's simply trying to slow things down in order to ensure environmental considerations don't get trampled in the rush to turn western Colorado into a new Prudhoe Bay. But, ironically, his bid to extend the moratorium comes at a time when his fellow Senate Democrats have been blasting Big Oil for not reinvesting enough of their profits into developing new sources of energy.
So the question is, how soon is Salazar going to stop slowing things down? If Obama gets elected, it would be politically advantageous for Salazar to lift the moratorium right after January 20, 2009. The effect of such a move would be an immediate lowering of oil prices, making Obama and fellow Democrats look good. Is it possible that Salazar is holding Americans hostage at the gas pumps in order to get Democrats elected? It sounds plausible, but I can't read his mind.
Another thing. The technological advances on oil shale development are extensive. Shell, which has spent 28 years and $200 million on oil shale R&D, would be able to extract huge amounts of high-quality crude. There are environmental impacts, particularly with water usage and CO2 emissions, but those are issues which can be addressed over time. Shell could pay environmental mitigation fees, for example, or devise ways to reduce CO2. There are plenty of avenues out there.
The reserves are estimated at 800 billion barrels, triple the reserves of Saudi Arabia. When put into production, Shell could produce over one million barrels per day and possible up to five million per day. We currently consume 21 million barrels per day and import another 10 million barrels. Oil shale would not bring us to energy indendence but it would provide for a more stable oil supply and ease the bite on prices. The oil sands in Canada also have huge reserves.
With gas prices still skyrocketing, we should be pressing Democrats like Salazar to open the way for oil shale development. We could also appeal to Democrats (and Charles Grassley) to lift the $0.54 per gallon tariff on sugar-based Brazilian ethanol, which is a piece of inflationary flatulence embedded in the latest farm bill.
So where does John McCain come into the picture? Once again, he is flogging the intellectually bankrupt idea of a gas tax holiday, which will provide scant beneficial effects. If McCain really wanted to give Americans a break on prices, he'd haranguing fellow Senate colleagues like Ken Salazar to lift the oil shale moratorium and Charles Grassley to get rid of ethanol subsidies and tariffs on Brazilian ethanol. That would be a real message of change in Washington.
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The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left -- Ecclesiastes 10:2
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"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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. . .had approached the space program the way modern Democrats have dealt with domestic energy production, we'd have seen something like this:
"Forty billion dollars and ten years and we might not even reach the Moon before the Soviets? Screw that! Bobby, tell Congress I'm pulling the funding on NASA--we'll sink the money into soybean futures. Hold my calls--Marilyn is waiting in the hot tub for me."
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)If triple the reserves of Saudi Arabia are under there, why do *I* need to foot the bill so that oil execs can be even more filthy rich in the future?
Seems like a problem that the market will solve when it's financially viable to do so.
--Steven Palmer Peterson
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| parent )The financial markets are short-term; resource discovery and development is a long-term process. Why put speculative dollars into US resource development when you can simply resell Saudi or Venezuelan oil and let them worry about those issues?
The markets don't give a flying fig about US security, not propping up corrupt dictatorships, or other off-balance sheet trivia like human rights. If this issue is studied at all by them, multinational oil companies likely would conclude that US energy independence is not in their best interests because it will result in a significant decrease in domestic fossil fuel consumption, a definite one-way street.
Regardless of their level of motivation, the markets can't exploit what liberal politicians, greenies and zero-growthers won't allow them access to. Any more than the nuclear power industry can.
I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to wait and rely on Morgan Stanley to act in my best interests instead of theirs. Besides, what if they go bankrupt in the interim?
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )Or is tomsyl somehow after 6 months of comoderating now able to read my thoughts?
In the spirit of being each others' sock puppets, let me say that price controls & minimum wages are also absurd solutions to throw at this kind of problem, and what we really need is some fairly visionary market planning, the like of which has never been seen in this country.
We could begin with across-the-board mandates for energy efficiency. At the same time, we could start investing in promising alternative energies. I'll pitch in with oil shale in that category, if it proves to come in at better than 1:1 total energy profit (off-balance sheet expenses included).
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )but what else?
From a von Braunian perspective Apollo was a HUGE success but where are the 2001 passenger liners?
For that we need to close a business case and all von Braun really knew how to do was spend tax dollars.
Being a "progressive" (thus pragmatic about the proper role of government - sometimes "yes" and sometimes "no") I am supportive of expending tax revenue on van Braun-ian and Sagan-ite space adventures however O'Neill-ian space ventures need to close a business case and be sustainable without inflows from Uncle Sam Sugar.
Energy policy needs a similar attitude.
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent )I'd say we agree that renewable energy generation should not be subsidized indefinitely, or at least not any more than any other energy subsidy, such as oil and gas subsidies.
But big technology requires big bucks. Boeing has an airliner business that has been profitable for decades, but it took about 20 years of easy government money in the form of cost-plus Air Force contracts for long-range subsonic bomber development (an airliner is basically a bomber, from a technical standpoint). The money went not just to Boeing but also to engine manufacturers, avionics developers, and a whole constellation of industries.
The Internet is the same, with ARPANET and so on. Personal Computers (technically "microcomputers", meaning microprocessor-based computers) also, as compact computing power was required for missile guidance systems, to lower the CEP.
Yes, stupid old big guvmint gave us the tools of the modern world. Conservatives base their economic theories on plainly ignoring this fact.
Let's spend the big money on renewables, fusion, and even space-based solar. Some investment will bear no fruit, big money means big risk. A lot of concepts developed and tested in the 1950's went nowhere, because in technology it's hard to pre-pick the winners. But those investments that do bear fruit will create whole new industries that will power our economy for decades.
If we don't do it, somebody else will. Do we want to set us up to be importers of tomorrow's big technology? I don't think so.
--Of course not!
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| parent )however the numbers just do not work.
This June 9th essay by Dwayne Day hits the target well, IMHO:
If I could give one piece of advice to space advocates it would be: Avoid over-promising
"The space economy" (Can we make money in space? If so, how?) is likely to be my next space policy essay topic.
= = =
Seed money for technology demonstrators? Well sure, if kept in moderation. Fusion research deserves seed money (IMHO) and+ for example.
Concentrated photo-voltaic however could win the prize. The challenge is to transfer heat away from the PV cells fast enough so they do not melt. Do that and we can mount fresnel lens above the PV cell and greater increase power output.
Then, these can be distributed locally as needed.
IBM has a new technology on this point:
= = =
Spread seed money around, I am all for that.
But lets not bet the farm or invest large amounts of money in any one project (or simply ignore the externalities as in the Colorado Green River oil shale case) due to over-promising by the promoters.
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent )Wikipedia link
Looks like Orrin Hatch is calling for additional federal hand outs while short circuiting the due diligence process.
Colorado can legitimately require adequate assurances concerning who pays for the new roads and other infrastructure needed to access the site and who pays if Shell later changes their mind about the project.
In addition to a careful study of where all the necessary water will come from and what potential (and as of yet unforeseen) externalities might arise.
Given all that, this new Shell technology does deserve further study.
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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)and it is not very helpful:
The oil shale projects in the early 80s failed because the high price of oil collapsed after just peaking in like 1981.
The shale was longer profitable after barrels prices went down sharply. That is simple fact.
Now looking ahead, the shale look profitable because oil prices are well above the threshold of shale profitability.
Now, they could start going after that shale but if oil prices collapsed like they did in the early 80s (unlikely...but you never know), the shale would be unprofitable again...at least for a while. Like any other technology, it gets cheaper as time goes on. According to those studies, it could become very competitive with regular crude, WITH TIME, so long as barrel prices don't go back to $10-15 dollars per barrel.
Bottom line, oil companies are probably wary of market volatility and want some sweeteners before investing with capital in oil shale. But I wouldn't give it to them. They should be able to do it on their own if they want to get the process in motion so costs can start dropping over time.
On the other hand, I am concerned about oil shale processing becoming a vested and entrenched interest whereby keeping oil barrel prices high becomes an objective in order to keep shale profitable. I'm not sure how they would do this but that's partly why they have lobbyists:
To make the markets as friendly and predictable as possible
One way or another, I see something getting mishandled and corrupted by politicians as they chase after potential problems provoked by poor legislation.
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| parent )If the government spends billions and billions of dollars to deploy solar power satellites there would be much embarrassment if a cheaper source of power came on-line just after those satellites did.
Exactly right, IMHO. This analysis applies to ANY form of energy production and I agree it is a powerful concern.
Shell Oil's new technology offers promise but it is NOT carbon neutral (by a wide wide margin) and the "energy in / energy out" equation should be judged by the private sector WITHOUT significant governmental concessions.
That means holding Shell Oil's feet to the fire on adequate safeguards to mitigate the externalities and taking a close hard look to make sure we have identified all of the externalities.
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent )I can talk myself out of almost any initiative. ;)
I don't trust the knowledge Congress has...or any individual for that matter....at any given moment to make any broad initiative "a policy".
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| parent )IMHO
Good for ConAgra or ADM but not good policy overall.
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent ). . .than the practically unlimited solar energy in interplanetary space comes around, we'll be too happy to care about the false starts--which should also provide a pleasing number of spinoff technologies. On the other hand, getting the private sector to spend that money via tax credits rather than having the government spend it directly would be a good idea.
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| parent )But be wary of encouraging them into doing something like ethanol where the numbers don't add up and we then we're stuck with a problem where the ethanol interests will scream bloody murder if we change the conditions and leave them with a bill.
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| parent )ventures to operate out of tax haven jurisdictions. Thus, no tax issues to be concerned about.
Isle of Man is actively seeking to attract space business. Flag your operation there and build all the space solar satellites you want. ;-)
Tax credits and net-operating-loss carry-forward schemes however encourage big companies to do kabuki space activities to garner the credits for their other business divisions.
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent )"Isle of Man is actively seeking to attract space business."
Not that I'm hoping you don't have one, I'm interested.
--The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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| parent )Still rudimentary (flashy web page, but . . .)
Here is the link:
http://www.spaceisle.com/
I would quote passages but "right click" has been disabled at that site.
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent )They clearly ripped that first shot off from an Audio Slave album cover.
--The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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| parent )I gotta look into this . . .
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent )It does look similar, though.
--The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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| parent )There are environmental impacts, particularly with water usage and CO2 emissions, but those are issues which can be addressed over time. Shell could pay environmental mitigation fees, for example, or devise ways to reduce CO2. There are plenty of avenues out there.
Why addressed over time?
Sorry, this is a non-starter. Address the impacts now, not "over time". That's just a fart in stiff wind.
And for what? So people keep buying the SUVs even GM has figured out it should no longer be making? I don't think so.
There are plenty of avenues, and all the good ones lead away from oil and towards renewable energy technologies that do not require "environmental mitigation fees".
I don't want to give today's Americans a break on gas prices. I want to give tomorrow's Americans a planet worth living on.
--Of course not!
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)I know it's wiki but it's pretty informative with lots of foot notes.
See Oil Shale and oil shale economics.
Here's a good chunk:
It also says it's good only for mid-range distillates like Kerosene and diesel and jet fuel...which isn't bad considering that those uses are a huge portion of oil use.
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)that Shell, which realized a $27 Billion profit last year invested a relatively minuscule $200 Million on oil shale R&D.
According to my napkin scribbles, think that works out to about 60 hours worth of their total annual profit, though they spread it out over 28 years.
EDIT: Stupid napkin...had to change "6" to "60" hours.
--Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. - W. Somerset Maugham
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| parent )if oil shale is only profitable under circumstances of high oil prices...especially in the developmental phase, it's perfectly normal that they would be wary about investing too much in it with oil prices being dirt cheap over most of that time period.
They know the numbers. If oil needs to be at least $75 per barrel during the 10 year start up window to not lose money, what do think they would do when oil was less than $10 per barrel?
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| parent )via putting that cited $200 Million R&D effort into perspective.
--Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. - W. Somerset Maugham
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| parent ). . .the efforts of the environmentalists and their minions in Congress and the media to keep all of these nasty technologies "ten years in the future."
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| parent )simply is a variety of theft.
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent )If we're going to leave aside silly moral issues, it basically boils down to recognized and enforced rights, with the enforcement ultimately having recourse to the monopoly on violence. This holds true for my property and assets, as it does for your right to clean air or what have you. The only thing that doesn't make taxes theft, for instance, is the sovereign monopoly on force backing the taxes. That is to say, the only folks you can practically and legitimately appeal to for protection against them are the folks imposing them on you. :^)
This poses problems for your statement, though. To begin with, all sorts of things can be classed as "externalities". If I had the ability to stop everything that I find to be a burden imposed on me by my neighbors, the vast majority of you would have trouble living within 500 miles of me. More to the point, the right to not be imposed on implicit in your statement only counts if it's recognized and legitimized by the monopoly on force, which in many cases is not so.
--The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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| parent ). . .preventing landowners who have endangered animals on their property from fully using it? Glass houses, Bill.
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| parent )You can't build a strip club or liquor store anywhere you want either. Property rights are not absolute, nor should they be. We must have regulations and limits if we are all to coexist peacefully.
-----
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.
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| parent )....to Bill's statement that implicitly sets out a rather broad and (in the statement) unlimited NIMBY "property right", a right to block externalities that affect you. By your argument, that right must also be limited if we are to "co-exist peacefully."
So suck it up, 'cause I'm strip-mining right next to your pool. :^)
--The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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| parent )That wasn't hard to say. :)
As said elswhere in this thread: sensible regulation is good, poor regulations are bad. Nimbism must be limited to some extent, otherwise nothing would ever get built.
Never the less, heavy industry has had a very poor track record where it comes to the environmental costs of their operations.
-----
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.
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| parent )property" thereby breeding drug resistant germs? Merely to increase profits by a tiny percentage?
New research points to hog farming practices as a possible source for new MRSA strains which medical science cannot kill.
Good regulations are good, bad regulations are bad, telling which are which can be difficult.
However until very recently the trend has been to dump externalities on other people without consequence and today there are too many of us on this planet to continue doing that.
Therefore, the occasional silly regulation does not invalidate the core concept.
Also bio-diversity simply is an essential part of a robust eco-system.
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent ). . ."the externalities I like are OK."
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| parent )We'll make a Guerrerist out of Bill yet! :^)
--The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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| parent )I do not claim the unilateral right to impose my preferred management of externalities on humanity, except to the extent I can be persuasive in my arguments and win allies.
And that is called politics.
= = =
PS -- I already am a Guerrerist. I simply believe I have a more expansive and sophisticated sense of where my true self interest lies. ;-)
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent ). . .as long as we're dealing with vapid descriptions of concepts that have been part of civilization for thousands of years, Bill. You can't have it both ways.
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| parent ).....and then note that it means his NIMBY rights are also limited in precisely the same way. Double-edged sword, so to speak.
--The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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| parent )Property is theft. Up, up with people. Opium is the religion of the masses. Etc.
Have you ever read Tom Bethell's The Noblest Triumph - Property and Prosperity Through the Ages? He ties private property rights to the development of Western civilization beginning with ancient Greece. A worthy read for the open-minded.
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )And that is called politics.
Too true. "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax the fellow 'hind yonder tree." As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. :^)
And welcome to the club!
--The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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| parent )Turns out the Senate moratorium is on allowing the Bureau of Land Use to go ahead and grant commercial leases to begin development: this years before any of the technologies have been proven, years before adequate safeguards can be placed in the land use agreements, or indeed even imagined.
Just so it's clear what we're arguing about here: Senate Republicans are agitating to lock the government into mineral leases with Royal Dutch Shell before it's clear what impact any new technologies will have on the Green River area. Vinegar and others don't even expect to have test wells and impact reports ready for two years or more.
So why all the huzzah? Does it have anything with lowering energy prices? Of course it doesn't.
The moratorium expires in October of this year. That's right, this is about Shell and a few other companies calling dibs to protect a sweet investment, especially if no remediation is written into the leases. Let's call it what it is folks. We're here today arguing land use, but the only issue in front of us is how big a federally-sanctioned head start Shell is going to get in the oil shale race.
Green River Basin oil shale will not affect gasoline prices *at all* and will not even begin large scale production until 2020. Hence there's no reason not to wait until impact studies are complete before signing away mineral rights.
Thank you.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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)Loosening restrictions on shale oil development is not going to change oil prices. This is as nonsensical as the same predictions made about drilling in ANWAR.
From your link and your post, the US uses 21 million barrels a day, and the oil shales are hoped to produce 2 million a day by 2020 and 3 million by 2040. Salazar's action has zero impact on current oil prices, and this reserve will have little impact on oil prices even if it is practical to develop it. It is still a highly speculative venture.
And a little lesson about water and aquifers. There are no giant unused aquifers in the West that can magically be tapped for oil shales. Existing aquifers are fully exploited unless you opt to destroy them by "mining" them -- which means drawing out more water than is recharged every year. Aquifers are finite things that are rapidly depleted if more water is pulled out than is replenished. And most in the West have a low rate of replenishment.
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)Supply uncertainty, Hugo Chavez, Ahmadinejad, demand, the big find in Brazil, opened up resources in Colorado, commodities traders, etc.
BTW, re water, reading the link helps. Quote:
Senator Hatch mentioned the following: "It is, but remember the oil companies are going to use and recycle the water." You could take Hatch with a grain of salt, but negotiating these provisions as part of the lifting of the moratorium seems like a common sense answer.
--"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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| parent )Please. The price of oil drilled in the US is based on price fixing by OPEC. The price does not drop in the US because a little more supply becomes available here.
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| parent )It's about supply and demand, both current and anticipated. When Chavez and Ahmadinejad say or do whack-a-doodle things, oil markets get nervous and futures prices increase. When Brazil discovers huge reserves off its shores, prices slip downward.
Oh, and OPEC doesn't price-fix, they supply-fix, Einstein.
--"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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| parent )The Einstein comment was unprovoked + a posting rules violation.
BD, c'mon, you're creating work here for mods where none should be necessary.
IIRC Jordan was just having a word last week. This is getting old.
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| parent )aren't you?
If you are so smart, you should know how to follow them.
Good thing I'm not a triumvir these days.
--Of course not!
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| parent )Which were, to reiterate, that any increased supply from this is decades away and small in size, meanwhile 50 million cars a year are being sold in China, this is a drop in the bucket 20 years from now, environmental concerns are worth considering for the marginal effect this will have.
In addition to those, I mean, I'm taking Hatch with a huuuuuuuge grain of salt, and your blockquote too. These things always come through 200 pages long and the oil companies have a ton of lawyers and lobbyists. If it were the democrats saying this was a good idea, I'd assume that the public would be hosed with an underpriced license to screw up the whole area. The republicans? Heh.
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| parent )Not at all. The expected increase in production is simply not enough to have an impact on oil prices. To claim that gasoline prices would be lower if we just allowed more drilling in the US is ignorant demagoguery of the kind politicians love to make.
This, BTW, does not mean we should not drill more. I have no opinion on that topic.I am simply pointing out that the title of your diary is simply wrong.
--This place is my vacation.
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| parent )There you go again.
--"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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| parent ).
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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| parent )Politicians' stock-in-trade, of course, but when you dispute that "gasoline prices would be lower if we just allowed more drilling in the US" are you speaking about all forms of drilling, or just the oil shale issue? Because if you meant the former, your numbers don't add up w/r/t supply/demand rules, even without factoring in state and fed governments' ability to control the sale and ban the export of resources harvested from government lands.
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )Let's say we had significant reserves outside of ANWR and wacky stuff like oil shale that weren't tapped.. sure, tap them, make the money if there's a reasonable timeline and extraction price, but it doesn't matter as far as lowering gas prices. How many Chinese and Indian people bought their first car this year?
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| parent )China and then India will go through the exact consumption and painful learning curve that we've been through. They haven't learned anything by watching us, and neither country has any significant oil reserves themselves. In ten years they will be completely in thrall to the Saudis and the Russians, and we'll be - where? What have we learned ourselves? Essentially, the effect of having had no long-range energy generation and use strategy since WWII.
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )Is it so much to ask that people post about things they have some acquaintance with?
We can argue whether we should develop more oil in the US but the idea that this will have a measurable impact on US gasoline prices is wrong.
--This place is my vacation.
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| parent )I am generally on the side of development of resources but you have a point about water in the west.
A further lesson from a ground water hydrologist: in the west most aquifers are "confined" aquifers, meaning generally that they are deep and overlain by clay type materials. There is no such thing as a "renewable resource" when dealing with this type of aquifer. They give up water by COMPACTION of pore space and not drainage (pores that can be refillable). For confined aquifers there is no refilling... no recharge... no resupply... because there is never much "UNCOMPACTION." What is done is done.
Here is an example from the San Juaquin valley, CA:
--Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please --Mark Twain
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| parent )Democrats have been saying for a dozen years that new oil fields in Alaska would take a decade to start flowing even if we started "now." Meaning that we'd have had access to that oil for two years and running by now. Time to nip their attempt to do the same thing with shale oil in the bud. The Republican minority in Congress has its issue for the fall election, if they have the wits and the nerve to use it.
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)Didn't think so. Royal Dutch Shell's trying to stiff-arm its way into a largely unvetted land-use agreement before the election, but the truth is Wyoming, Colorado & Utah are going to take a much harder look at this proposal than Congress has.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )because environmentalists and libs don't like the answer they get.
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )If local public opinion starts meaning something in this sort of thing, it's really going to inconvenience the green folks.
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| parent )Salazar and Ritter are both subject to the Colorado voters.
If they say no and remain in office your point is without merit.
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent )Swimming in petrodollars. Its pouring in faster than they can spend it. Maybe we should ask Alaskans about the state's $37 Billion rainy day fund and why its controlled by the state lege and not them at the same time we ask them about drilling in ANWR.
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| parent )How about this: only politicians, greenie lobbyists, etc. who've actually been there get to express an opinion on the subject of whether drilling will affect the ecology? That will dramatically cut down on the chatter from pseudo-experts. (Not talking about you, but about the politicos.
--)
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )And whose chatter would you rather listen to, the oil industry paid guns? They will say anything. They already have.
--Of course not!
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| parent )You're a tech guy IRRC - what do you see as a realistic solution to gas prices and a way to at least partial energy independence within the next two presidential terms?
AFA the oil industry, history shows that they have to =be watched very carefully - after all, they created Saudi Arabia and took what were essentially religiously fanatical desert rabble and gave them the enormous power they have today - over their own people even more than us. So no illusions on that score. But can we also finger zero-growthers and enviro-extremists (a major lobbyist force themselves) for the fact that we have no new nuclear plants while France approached energy independence, and the Chinese have something like 40 under construction? Can't blame the oil companies for that.
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )I'm not a zero growth advocate. I have no problem with consumption so long as the production - consumption cycle is closed, a concept also known as "cradle to cradle" design.
I do understand some environmentalists want us to go back to the woods and live barefoot. That's not me. I just want us to grow up, to do a phase change akin to industrialization itself. There are two reasons for this: one is that the barefoot in the woods model cannot possibly work with six billion people. We are way too far gone to abandon technology.
The other reason is that I happen to like technology and consider it's development an inherent human trait since the invention of fire. We can't help doing it. We might as well do it right.
We can finger a lot of people for the nuclear plant freeze, starting with the nuclear power industry and it's strong-arm tactics dealing with legitimate concerns. Nuke industry people were molded in the 1950's on a cold-war model; they never felt they had to answer to anybody about anything. They did not adjust well to a consumer service culture, and made the job of the anti-nuclear activists quite easy.
Anyway, on to your question: what's my plan?
First, I don't see a need for a solution to gas prices, realistic or otherwise, because I don't see $4 gas as a problem. GM's decision to manufacture the Volt and cut output of SUVs tells me that $4 gas is at the threshold required to change our automotive technology base.
Now, I'd much rather have had an oil or carbon tax 10 or 5 years ago, with $3 a gallon gas and the extra money going towards our government rather than the Arabs or Chavez. If that had happened we'd have less debt and a more efficient automotive fleet, so there would have been no $135 oil today. But if $4 gas is what it takes to get us to shift our technologies, so be it. It's a price point Europe has lived with for 20 years. Didn't kill them and it won't kill us.
Much of our energy goes into building heating and cooling, and electricity. In fact our main energy use is as follows:
Electricity
Transportation
Buildings (Heating and Cooling, a.k.a. HVAC for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning)
For electricity we should accelerate the construction of large-scale solar plants, particularly solar-thermal, such as Nevada Solar One. A large scale, sustained building pace would reduce costs through economies of scale and by encouraging investment in production facilities.
Another great and underused technology is geothermal. Unlike Solar or wind, it provides baseline (24 x 7) power. According to an MIT study, we can vastly increase our geothermal generation using, ironically, modern deep-drilling technology from the oil and gas industry.
Of course wind will play an important role, as can wave power (another baseline technology not to be confused with tidal power).
Our buildings are pathetic in comparison to what they could be with a bit of intelligence. Google "LEED Certification" to see what I mean. For example, I've seen people turn on the A/C in mid-winter, when it was 40 degrees outside, due to the heat generated by computer equipment and the sun, while in the same building people had the heat on on the shadow side. Smart buildings manage these energy balances by moving heat around or bringing cooling air from the outside, rather than using compressors or fuel. Once a building handles energy intelligently, you can power more of it with solar.
Basically, we waste at least half our generated energy, and over 80% of the energy content in gasoline. And don't get me started on IT. A typical IT department does not pay the electricity bill except for large data centers. Some simple software configuration would save a lot of wasted power from machines left on 24 x 7 (172 hours a week), though they are actually used by workers at best 60 of those hours. Incredibly, Windows XP, still the corporate standard, does not support hibernation by default; you have to select an obscure check box. I have no idea how this was set up in Vista.
So my plan is to use now mature renewable technologies on a much larger scale while using energy more efficiently, and to do it in a highly visible way. That alone will put downward pressure on oil prices.
If right about now you are asking where the money should come from, the answer is simple, from oil and gas subsidies worth over $100 billion. These simply have no reason to exist with oil past $100 a barrel.
--Of course not!
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| parent )Just the kind of stuff I was hoping for from you, but will take a bit for me to absorb and respond. Some of the issues (impracticalities of large-scale solar direct heating/photovoltaics and new DC grid, e.g.) have been discussed here before but not with a resolution.
In the mean time, have you looked at the energy plan recently unveiled by Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana? Fascinating, with some twists I haven't seen before. It's been in the works for a while, with a pretty impressive list of participants. Here's more detail on the plan, including the coal-to-liquid aspects. (If the Republicans in the Montana State State Senate block Schweitzer's attempts to implement this, I say run them over with one of those little electric cars.)
I wonder which presidential candidate will be the first to pirate parts of Schweitzer's plan?
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )I mentioned solar thermal because it has many advantages for utility-scale plants:
o Solar thermal heats water to make steam to drive a turbine, so solar thermal plants can be built to switch to gas if the sun don't shine.
o Solar thermal collects heat using oil running through pipes, or by direct heating in the case of tower systems. Either way, you collect heat and then use it to make steam. This means solar thermal has energy inertia, so if heat storage is added, for example with phase-change salts, a solar-thermal plant can collect excess heat during the day for use at night.
o Since it drives turbines it generates regular AC power in a manner utilities understand well and can use directly.
o It's cheaper than PV.
o It requires clear or nearly clear skies. It's suitable for places like Nevada and a good match for the West. On the East coast, not so good.
PV is not as good for utilites, but it's good for direct power at the building, especially in building with significant daytime power needs.
o Local PV power has no transmision loss issues, and is available if the grid is down. It's good as an "assist", for emergencies, and for smoothing peak summer demand.
o PV works with a wider range of weather conditions, it does not require direct sunlight.
o Since it's not subject to grid disruption, we should have been installing PV all over Iraq, in villages and public buildings. They have plenty of sun.
o Utilities don't have much interest in PV, because it minimizes their role with current regulatory frameworks. We need to redefine the utility profit model (something like "grid services" rather than mere power providers). Today, utility profits go up with power use, by regulatory design. Instead, profits should rise with quality of service, flexibility, or other criteria.
I'll look at Schweitzer's energy plan. Thanks!
--Of course not!
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| parent )and thus much more likely to be realized than the huge, economy-bending, forty-year plan that was proposed a few months ago in Scientific American. That one, of course, involved night-time storage of heat as melted salt in underground caves, a new DC power grid, hundreds of thousands of acres of Western land, and huge government subsidies. Your plan works within the existing system instead of requiring a paradigm change to even get off the ground.
Everyone seems to realize that it's past time for talking, and time to be actually doing something about energy conservation and independence. Even an imperfect plan is better than none at all. Is it inertia, oil company manipulation, or sheer unwillingness to make any form of commitment at the personal level? I sure can't figure it out but then, I can't figure out why CFLs aren't selling like hotcakes, either.
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )...but it's more organic, rather than Ze Big Central Plan.
--Of course not!
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| parent )for some people it's an emotional issue, they just don't want to admit that the damn environmentalists were right about anything.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )What were the environmentalists (of which I'm one - you more or less have to be here) right about? Certainly not solar - the plans, development concepts and proposed distribution schemes aren't coming from them, they're coming from peoplo in the energy fields. Manny practices favored by the traditionalist environmentalist theories don't help, and some even hurt carbon reduction goals.
The environmentalist movement has a great deal to answer for w/r/t its simplistic, atavistic and fanatical opposition to nuclear power plants, which has hurt the country more than any other single aspect of the issue because 26% of carbon emissions come from power generation, vs, 9% from cars. Greens even sabotaged the Kyoto Protocol to prevent developing economies from getting carbon credits for clean fuel development if they used nuclear. Surely the greenies responsible for all of this will shortly have their sorry a$$es hauled before Congress so Henry Waxman can assess their effect on gas prices. Not.
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )If you read Cradle to Cradle, or Break Through, just to name two notable examples, you will see committed environmentalists proposing a pro-growth agenda rather than a limits, regulation based approach.
Like any movement, it has factions. You are concentrating on a particular, rather loud, faction. The other faction is not as loud, but it speaks through its work. It's behind a lot of the large projects, technologies, electric cars, and new building design principles that we will all use should we choose a rational route.
--Of course not!
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| parent )which IMO has done tremendous damage to the country in terms of energy independence based on irrational fears that verge on the animistically religious (Don't poison Gaia!). Somehow they even got the Kyoto Protocol written in such a way that it penalizes developing countries for using this form of clean power over coal-burning plants.
Some of the fanatics responsible for this anti-growth, Luddite groupthink have quietly admitted they were wrong, but most of them have yet to be called to account for the effects of thirty years of lobbying against nuclear power plants. I wouldn't be surprised if a prayer is offered to them at the beginning of each meeting of the OPEC ministers.
If you want to see the difference in carbon footprint between nuclear and coal, compare Vermont, whose thirty-five year old Yankee Three plant provides 80% of the electricity used by that state, with any other state of your choosing in the Lower 55.
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )Insurance companies will not insure new nuclear power stations. The problem of waste disposal is yet to be resolved.
http://www.wptz.com/news/16495906/detail.html?rss=pla&psp=news
Nuclear power does better in command economies like China where reactors are at the moment under construction. In free market democracies, nuclear power suffers various disadvantages. Lack of investment in nuclear power can be seen in this light.
I'd like to ask about anti-growth. Is growth a good in itself to be pursued? To me, a curious notion. I have advocated policies like education of young girls as a way of curbing future population growth. I've yet to see anyone counter these arguments.
--Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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| parent )Ask that question in any developing country, and people will wonder what planet you come from. Every single one of them is pursuing growth.
We are talking about economic growth. Population growth is not a good thing. But you don't attack population growth by telling poor people not to have children. You attack it by making poor people middle-class; then they decide to limit how many children they have. It has worked that way in every country and culture. It works so well that in the wealthiest countries population growth is negative, and that is a problem in itself.
We need to grow economic output while reducing resource consumption, and eventually bring it down to zero net consumption. We have the technology to go about 90% towards that goal, and should have the technology to close the loop completely sometime during this century. The sooner we do it, the more resources we will have circulating through that loop. The more we wait, the poorer we will be.
--Of course not!
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| parent )I understand that less wealthy nations are keen on pursuing economic growth. As much as I am open to learning from examples set there, it would be a mistake look there for leadership on such issues. I was curious about growth in wealthier nations. I figure most cities in North America have pro-growth policies - both economic and population growth.
The most productive agricultural region in the world, the US corn belt, is suffering from soil depletion. The drive to promote economic growth to higher and higher levels will only exacerbate that sort of problem, and many more besides. Fortunes will undoubtedly be made, and sure, the economy will grow. It grew when the Exxon Valdez ran aground and it grew further with every subsequent disaster. But we have to realize that no matter what the economy does, the world is and will remain finite. That is a fundamental nobody is going to change.
I am happy to promote policies that lead to more freedom, creativity and solidarity in the world. I don't see pursuit of growth in GDP as a way forward. The constant appeal to the most juvenile aspects of the human psyche in the form of advertsing attests to the alien nature of this idea.
--Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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| parent )(which I assume from the allusion to the Exxon Valdez), that is only true w/r/t nonrenewable energy sources. The energy part of the growth equation (as opposed to the food and housing parts) could be provided almost indefinitely from sun, waves, hydro, geothermal and other non-consumable (awkward word, but more accurate than saying sunlight is "renewable") sources.
AFA promoting policies that lead to more freedom, don't you think that in many, if not most parts of the world, freedom as you use the term here is inversely related to population, such that countries with limited, say, agricultural resources that don't control their populations will have to rigidly control their people if they are to survive without outside help? And that reliance on outside help to survive inevitably reduces freedom?
Advertising is an appeal to the subconscious as much as to the juvenile in everyone. I think there's more to blame an the part of the very shrewd people that come up with the really effective forms of adverts (and entirely new methods like viral marketing) than on its targeted victims.
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.