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The Frenetic End of Oil

General Economic Imagery From North Dakota Ahead Of The Republican CaucusParis talks but clean energy patents fly, it seems.  This Bloomberg feature on the boom and bust of the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota has the look of a high speed news reel that is, maybe, not quite how we imagined it. But once the process shows itself from beginning to end so quickly in this way, you can imagine happening over and over again. The pollution, the waste, the overbuilding, the exodus:

The discovery last decade that fossil fuels could be tapped from deep beneath the windswept prairies of North Dakota acted like a magnet on American working people. By the thousands they came, from as far as Texas and California, fortune-seekers in a modern-day Gold Rush. Together with visionary companies like Continental Resources and industry behemoths ExxonMobil and Norway’s Statoil, they exploited a new technology called fracking — blasting the underground Bakken rock formation with sand and water and slurping up the crude that was hiding there for millennia — to increase oil output in the region 12-fold from 2006 to 2014. The bonanza helped drive the U.S. closer to energy self-sufficiency than it’s been since the 1980s.

The frenzied production exacted a price — oversupply was one reason the U.S. crude price took a nosedive, losing more than half its value from a June 2014 peak. The number of rigs pumping crude from the Bakken plummeted to about 70 from a high of 200, and the tide of workers began to ebb.

Meanwhile, clean energy patents are at their all time high, which may also be a frenzied if inelegant prologue to the next age that is also not as previously imagined. In what remains of the capitalist economy, money still rushes in first, not pretty, sometimes not even choosy. But at least we can be a little more sanguine about what’s left to choose from, that the new ideas are exploding with quiet steam instead of smokey emissions, that maybe growth now will be slow and visible like the gentle oscillation of giant windmills. I know, poetry is sometimes like the explicit sunset in the image: not sure whether it’s rising or setting unless we understand the direction we’re facing.

 Image: David Acker/Bloomberg, fishing in the frozen Missouri River.

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Green Opposition

Keystone-PipelineIt is enough to say that economics and environmental opposition have made building the Keystone XL Pipeline impractical. What this outcome may portend for the fates of other fossil fuels as the economics change may bare a little more fleshing out:

The company behind the Keystone XL pipeline has asked the US government to put its review of the controversial project on hold.

TransCanada says the pause is necessary while it negotiates with Nebraska over the pipeline’s route through the state.

The move came as a surprise as TransCanada executives have pushed hard to get approval.

Environmental groups oppose the 1,179-mile (1,897km) pipeline, saying it will increase greenhouse gas emissions.

Maybe they’re pulling it until President Carson can approve the travesty project. But perhaps the reckoning is that neither version of green opposition is sufficient to turn the tide against an legacy energy source – that the power of both and maybe every meaning of green is necessary to make the difference

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Capacity Factor

That’s the percentage of a power plant’s maximum potential actually achieved over time. And Bloomberg reports that wide spread adoption of renewables is lowering the hitherto incomparable capacity factor for fossil fuels. This begins the virtuous cycle.

wind_provence

That’s because once a solar or wind project is built, the marginal cost of the electricity it produces is pretty much zero—free electricity—while coal and gas plants require more fuel for every new watt produced. If you’re a power company with a choice, you choose the free stuff every time.

It’s a self-reinforcing cycle. As more renewables are installed, coal and natural gas plants are used less. As coal and gas are used less, the cost of using them to generate electricity goes up. As the cost of coal and gas power rises, more renewables will be installed.

Again, no use getting all Pollyannish about any of this. But the business news only reports the business view and it doesn’t really care if renewables are more profitable than fossil. Business only cares about that middle part – the profit.

So, BFD.

Image: author photo, near Valreas, France.

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Sum Zero

Guardian_KXLdepotThis reads like a cartoon manual for an evil PR firm:

The company behind the Keystone XL project is engaged in a “perpetual campaign” that would involve putting “intelligent” pressure on opponents and mobilising public support for an entirely Canadian alternative, bypassing Barack Obama and pipeline opposition in the US.

Hours before a Senate vote to force US approval of the Keystone pipeline, the industry playbook to squash opposition to the alternative has been exposed in documents made available to the Guardian.

Strategy documents drafted by the public relations giant Edelman for TransCanada Corporation – which is behind both Keystone and the proposed alternative – offer a rare inside glimpse of the extensive public relations, lobbying, and online and on-the-ground efforts undertaken for pipeline projects. The plans call, among other things, for mobilising 35,000 supporters.

So, in the face of the Senate vote, TransCanada is mobilising [sic] support for an alternate route for the pipeline. They’re going to play offense, strike first, and ‘neutralize risk before it is leveled.’ I’m not even sure I want to know what that means. But this whole thing has been catapulted far beyond merely Green issues, environmental concerns or even energy independence rhetoric – those are just for window dressing at this point. Can corporations do what they want, damn the consequences, or not? That the is principle on which this rests. Even political support in the U.S. for the pipelines seems to rest not on its benefits but on one party’s ability to jam something unwanted down the country’s throat most important aquifer.

And this is nice, from further down in the article:

They advise: “Add layers of difficulty for our opponents, distracting them from their mission and causing them to redirect their resources,” and warn: “We cannot allow our opponents to have a free pass. They will use every piece of information they can find to attack TransCanada and this project.”

Recruiting allies to deliver the pro-pipeline message is critical, Edelman says in the documents. “Third-party voices must also be identified, recruited and heard to build an echo chamber of aligned voices.”

Most certainly! Echo chambers are just darling this time of year.

Image: A depot used to store pipes for Transcanada Corp’s planned Keystone XL oil pipeline is seen in Gascoyne, North Dakota, last week. Photograph: Andrew Cullen/Reuters, via theguardian.com

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Conservative government cuts coal

berlinGermany is looking to do to coal what it is also doing to nuclear energy – use less of it. And it’s all the work of its conservative government listening to its citizens and what they say they want. And responding:

“The conservative government of Chancellor Angela Merkel last week issued a discussion paper proposing to implement the strictest controls on coal fired generation yet to be seen in Europe, and to redesign its energy system around renewables, which will account for around two thirds of supply within two decades,” Giles Parkinson reports.

Currently about 45% of Germany’s electricity comes from burning coal. However, it was reported recently that new coal plants will not be financed there. About 24% came from solar and wind last year, but that amount could expand to 45% by 2025, if targets are met.

Leading utility Vattenfall is examining the possibility of dropping its lignite-powered plants in Eastern Germany. About 10% of Germany’s electricity is generated by this handful of coal plants, which also produce an estimated 60 million tons of CO2 annually.

They’re not alone, but Germany’s is a curious case to consider in light of our own political experience. Whatever it is American conservatives value and cherish, it does not seem to relate to the majority will of its fellow citizens, much less the ‘good of the country’ much less the benefit of the planet. No, it’s something else,  and they’ve well-learned how to denigrate these other considerations. But note that they are plainly out of step with conservatives in other developed countries.

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Climate change denial is a political strategy

NileBasinInitiativeThat it will come as news to exactly no one is not a reason that the disingenuous origins of climate change denial-ism should be woven into the general culture fabric. They do not belong, and they have nothing to do with climate change or science or Michael Mann, or hockey sticks, or warming/cooling trends. Denial-ism was a last gasp fruit from a poison tree that has achieved beyond Luntz’s wildest dreams. Who’s Luntz? This is Luntz:

a confidential party memo warned that it is the domestic issue on which George Bush is most vulnerable.

The memo, by the leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz, concedes the party has “lost the environmental communications battle” and urges its politicians to encourage the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases.

“The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science,” Mr Luntz writes in the memo, obtained by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based campaigning organisation.

“Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly.

“Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.”

The phrase “global warming” should be abandoned in favour of “climate change”, Mr Luntz says, and the party should describe its policies as “conservationist” instead of “environmentalist”, because “most people” think environmentalists are “extremists” who indulge in “some pretty bizarre behaviour… that turns off many voters”.

Words such as “common sense” should be used, with pro-business arguments avoided wherever possible.

Way to go, C-Plus. It is disgusting that so many people cop to this ‘controversy’ that never was, but that has so many plain consequences for them/us. There is no them, remember. Even these duplicitous charlatans are us.

Image: A river in Egypt

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The Way We Transport the Stuff is Not the Problem

It’s, well, amusing is not the right word but, fatuous how some might think that since trains have accidents and barges can spill oil into large rivers, that it somehow recommends a pipeline as the best way to transport crude oil:

The spill occurred on Saturday when a barge carrying oil crashed into a tugboat between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Authorities closed the stretch of river on Sunday and still can’t say exactly how much oil was spilled, though a light sheen of oil is being reported. No injuries were reported from the crash.

In St. Charles Parish, public drinking water intakes along the Mississippi were closed as a precaution, but a news release Sunday assured the public that the water supply “remains safe” in the parish. As of Sunday night, the closure was stalling 16 vessels waiting to go downriver and 10 waiting to go upriver.

Keystone XL lurks as an epic, grand scale, Spielberg-meets-Ridley-Scott-on-the-steppes-featuring-Russell-Crowe-As-Tom-Hanks environmental disaster waiting to happen. TransCanada’s track record is already a Spotify favorite. Yes, that’s right.

As always, it’s the problem that’s the problem.

 

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Around to See It

Whether it’s color, cash, inexperience or the ins and outs of renewable energy development in general, I often find myself tacking away from the original intent of the meaning of the essence of this site. But then some new article comes out to bring it all back around:

Another conclave of the global great and good is looking at what should be done in the much trickier area of climate change. The premise of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate is that nothing will be done unless finance ministers are convinced of the need for action, especially given the damage caused by a deep recession and sluggish recovery.

Instead of preaching to the choir the plan is to show how to achieve key economic objectives – growth, investment, secure public finances, fairer distribution of income – while at the same time protecting the planet.

The author provides us the Kennedy space-race analogy as an illustration of the kind of efforts and leadership needed to curtail the effects of climate change, which is fine and well-meaning enough. But then he drops the second Pop-Tart® by suggesting that we need first to show/guarantee business the long-term benefits of greening the economy. I have one: how about you get to still have an economy?

That’s what the whole question is about: do we have enough greed to stifle the impulse toward self-preservation?

Okay – no one can use Enough Greed as a band name or an album title, because I just thought of it and realized its multitudes. Individual songs are fine as long as WDGM is ID’d in the bridge someplace.

 

 

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Operation Free

lavender_windmillIt’s the best use of either word I’ve seen or heard in a while:

Ohio’s clean energy law has come under attack by a lawmaker affiliated with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the group funded by fossil fuel companies, corporate interests and the ultra-conservative billionaire Koch brothers — but local vets are taking a stand.

…

Despite failing in its previous effort to repeal any state renewable energy standards, ALEC convened for its 40th annual meeting in late July and leaked documents show the organization has no intention of backing down from its attacks on popular clean energy laws.

But in Ohio, a group of 2,000 veterans, military family members and supporters is pushing back against Seitz’s effort and other bills aimed at weakening Ohio’s renewable energy standard. Zach Roberts, a National Guard veteran and the Ohio director of Operation Free, a national campaign that gathers veterans and national security experts to advocate for clean energy policies, told Climate Progress that S.B. 58 would, “radically change the state’s clean energy standard,” and it ultimately “weakens Ohio’s energy security.”

The law in question, passed in 2008, requires Ohio to generate 25% of its electrical supply through alternative energy sources by 2025. Half of that must be from renewables and 0.5 percent specifically from solar. Is that too much? What are goals, enforced by law in this case, designed to achieve? A perfunctory ratio would have been 5%; a quarter is going to cause some pain but show people (and companies) how to move forward. Freedom, indeedom.

Image: Author photo, not from Ohio but just a bit east of that.