I know people – Page 17

September 22, 2009

A Female Deer (reprise)

We’re the world’s biggest polluter who has no idea what to do about it – can’t use less, absolutely cannot tax ourselves more. Meanwhile, our best and brightest have been working nights and weekends:

The Justice Department is investigating whether former Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton illegally used her position to benefit Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the company that later hired her, according to officials in federal law enforcement and the Interior Department.

The criminal investigation centers on the Interior Department’s 2006 decision to award three lucrative oil shale leases on federal land in Colorado to a Shell subsidiary. Over the years it would take to extract the oil, according to calculations from Shell and a Rand Corp. expert, the deal could net the company hundreds of billions of dollars.

…

Norton, 55, was President Bush’s first Interior secretary. She had worked as an Interior Department attorney before being elected Colorado’s attorney general. Later, as a private lawyer, she represented mining, timber and oil companies.

As Interior secretary, she embraced an industry-friendly approach to environmental regulation that she called “cooperative conservation” and pushed the department to open more public land for energy production.

I hear people say, quite frequently, that corruption in the US isn’t as bad as it is in Europe and elsewhere. If that’s somehow true, it must be a comment on the failings of our system of government. And media. And embarrassment. Norton’s alleged traverse is all too common, and when that’s the case, who needs other forms of corruption? We seem to have found the sweet spot. The revolving door that lets foxes traipse into and out of the hen house with impunity, all the while castigating government as ineffective and ‘the problem’ would be the height of contempt were it not for the self-lubricating irony with which we find no bounds to our amusement (nor depths of silent admiration for these guileful players and their cunning stunts), even as we free ourselves from all possible insult. And this is not to single out literary critics for special abuse. In medicine, they induce this kind of insentience with anesthesia.

And what will it take for this to be reported with the relentless scorn given to ACORN, Van Jones or Henry Louis Gates yelling at that cop not to arrest him in his own house? Wait… those stories had black people in them! Wait… there’s a black guy in the White House!

This Norton thing hardly compares.

September 16, 2009

Industrial Solar

Oh, man. In a stopped-clock-is-right-twice-day sort of way, I give you the Moustache of Understanding:

China now understands that. It no longer believes it can pollute its way to prosperity because it would choke to death. That is the most important shift in the world in the last 18 months. China has decided that clean-tech is going to be the next great global industry and is now creating a massive domestic market for solar and wind, which will give it a great export platform.

In October, Applied will be opening the world’s largest solar research center — in Xian, China. Gotta go where the customers are. So, if you like importing oil from Saudi Arabia, you’re going to love importing solar panels from China.

Maybe when our dimmer bulbs are spouting the bullfrog-obvious, it’s a sign of some sort of back-handed momentum that, while not the same as regular momentum, is also not the same thing your usual kind of hope. Wow. That… doesn’t sound so great either.

August 26, 2009

Are We There Yet?

When we realize that something is not sustainable, part of that is knowing that it is, not would be but is, impossible to make it so. So, instead of trying to make our fossil fuel use more sustainable, we transition to a form of energy on which we can rely. Neat.

How long will this take? Everyone wants to know, and to the extent we set about reducing our dependence on the unsustainable, we set in motion all sorts of other activities which in turn effect the overall duration of the transition. With lifestyle changes and altering the modes of transportation in service of the former, we induce, and thus shorten, the latter. To the extent that halfway there may begin to resemble being there, simply because of what else can be sensed, seen or acknowledged from certain vantage points, the transition will appear to have become increasingly easier or less difficult from some points along the way, when in fact it may have always been so. It’s just at the beginning, from here – this point of realizing the unsustainability of our position – the whole idea of doing/living/powering/growing any other way seems so daunting and impossible. When, really, the impossible thing is to continue in this way.

Now, one might think that there would be a distinctly non-ideological flavor to this whole discussion. And one would of course be wrong. Because the transition to other energy sources [on which we can rely] is somehow liberal socialist and must be opposed by the other side. Who is the other side? The suppliers? Well, that makes sense. But so much of the opposition to change comes from those who would ostensibly benefit from the transition, who are, effectively, home grown; what’s their angle, beyond the unsustainable status quo?

In a kind of truth, not having to worry about how long the transition will take, how much it will cost and how much it might disrupt the way things are is a great and wonderful luxury, for as long as it lasts, which is also its major downfall, which is really the point of the conversation. From here, any change looks like the downfall of western society, and will until we begin the transition, which is the only thing that will make the view different. The Saudis know it and also know our transition will destroy their economy. That’s why they counsel against it, even though they know it makes no sense [for us] whatsoever. The strains on all the rationales are showing. Maybe that’s what the beginning of the transition looks like.

June 22, 2009

Keep ’em Coming

In the same way that having Insurance company executives testify on camera before Congress about what their companies do is be the best way to guarantee passage of universal health coverage, Republican opposition to climate legislation written by the coal lobby will likely be its best friend, as well.

House Republicans are circulating a PowerPoint document that purports to show the regional breakdown of costs for energy consumers under the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill (ACES). The header: “Most States Lose Under the Pending Climate Bill.”

The catch? It appears to have been authored by the coal giant Peabody Energy. [Note: It was actually authored by the National Mining Assocation; see updates below.]

The document was discussed on a conference call held by the “Rural America Solutions Group” within the GOP caucus on Thursday, hosted by group co-chairs Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), Sam Graves (R-Mo.), and Doc Hastings (R-Wash.). According to a press release, the call was meant to “highlight how the Democrats’ National Energy Tax will make it more expensive for rural Americans to fertilize the crops, put fuel in the tractor and food on the table.”

It isn’t that this is anything more than run-of-the-mill skulduggery, which it is, by and large. The interesting point about it is just how out-to-lunch this approach is to governing, in terms of using government to enact solutions to massive problems that require a centralized organization. Like a government. Industry shills and bought-and-paid for politicos are our connection to the Gilded Age proper. If you’re a romantic and wonder what it was like, this is what is was like.

Its excesses and corruption were its undoing and eventually led to reforms. Our excesses being a little more poisonous in terms of waste and emissions, and our corruptions enlarged to include the intellectual, our undoing is likely to be far more jarring than a matter of a few reforms.

So it is enlightening, in its way, to have chief polluters and fiscal looters advocate and agitate for the policies that have enshrined their advantageous positions. They’re as likely as any of us to be perfectly frank about their successes and points of view. Not always truthful, but you’d be amazed.

These strategies keep our refusals to change right in front of us, which is where they need to be. The longer we/they keep people right out in front spouting nonsense about the how costs of staying healthy or using less energy are too great to bear, the more effective measures to protect health and save energy can be.

May 18, 2009

So You Don’t Have To

Clamoring for a worldwide tracking survey on consumer choice and the environment? National Geographic sort’ve answers the bell with their Greendex. This kind of fix offers the needed splitting of the hair that at once tells who is ‘out front’ on being green and makes a mockery out of the entire endeavor. The more Going Green plays itself out, the more it looks like an utter construct of the planetary forces of pillage.

This is to say that, despite the colorful graphics and trappings of informing us, sustainability issues are better laid out between the lines. Because as a matter of scorecards that presuppose how we can/will maintain what we are doing with little tweaks here and there, the issue is a non-starter. Because we can’t.

Take, for example this article from Harper’s, on the life of an oil fixer. When you realize the energy conundrum as a puzzle the key to which is hiding or losing a few integral pieces, then the puzzle can come to make some sense.

Africa has remained the main focus of Calil’s operations, but he now does business around the globe. In addition to operations in Russia and the Middle East, he owned a Houston-based firm called Nautilus, which obtained oil and gas concessions in South America and Central Asia. He sold Nautilus to Ocean Energy, which subsequently was bought by Devon Energy, now the largest U.S.-based independent oil and gas producer. Calil also won a gas concession in Brazil, which he later sold to Enron. “When buying and selling oil concessions, you’re dependent on your skills and knowledge, but you’re also very much dependent on the goodwill of the local government, from presidents to ministers,” Calil told me. “You end up building a political network to a) build up the business and b) protect it.”

But this isn’t about accrued personal wealth, conspiracy theories or geo-political middlemen. It’s primarily about a $2 trillion dollar-a-year industry that has a few good years left in it, that fully expects us all to play out the string right up until then end. The place that we’re left then is really of no concern to the countries, companies and individuals involved. They know we’re afraid of the dark, much less walking in it and God forbid bumping into each other, and so don’t need to do much to frighten us – just offer a bit of increasingly expensive relief from perceived oppressions upon our time, livelihoods and general ability to move about freely. These sacred activities uninfringed is precisely where we have agreed the bar should be set.

Just try to eat well or lower your carbon footprint within that set of constraints. And one odd thing: with consuming personal space set as your idea of freedom, anything else will feel like prison. To think/act otherwise, you’d need to being playing by a completely different set of rules, with a different ball, even.

And if/when you hear any mishigas about who killed the electric car or canned the trolley, just remember the suspects are playing a completely different game than anyone concerned about a sustainable, blue planet.

May 5, 2009

Museum-ready

Years ago, when I was doing construction work and learning much about rehabbing old houses, we installed some enormous Photo Voltaic (PV) panels atop one Victorian-era manse that, if I’m not mistaken, were able to power a refrigerator of sufficient dimension for, I think, one frozen pizza. No lie. We all stood back and were like, man this is crazy. Talk about giving enlightenment a bad name – it was the hat trick – expensive, giant and ineffective.

Yesterday, an Israeli start-up unveiled PV technology at a kibbutz in Ashdod capable of harnessing 75 per cent of incoming sunlight. It looks like a modified parabolic trough but is actually a PV arrangement that uses mirrors to reduce the number of PV cells needed and has a water cooling system that increases efficiency and produces thermal energy.

The Monitor story also has a link to a video of a student project at MIT that concentrated the sun’s rays so intensely it was able to light a wooden 2 x 4 on fire.

The prospect of free energy in a region, or planet, dominated by the despotism of fossil fuel interests is quite a hopeful scenario – though it’s important to point out that we can become captives of hope just like anything else. Developing devices that track the sun, that work in shade, the abide by absolute requirements (clean, low cost, durable) we should demand of our energy technology at this point has nothing to do with hope. These are mere capabilities we should surround, master and set aside, and leave the old PV technology for museums that document the era of swell intentions and token investments in energy innovation and imagination.

An era already in the rear-view.

April 27, 2009

Recycled Oil Rigs

So as the Obama administration delays a Bush faux-solution to expand torture drilling, the Interior department is focused on developing offshore wind power. Coincidental to this, researchers report that one “unexpected quirk” of climate change is that wind speed is picking up off the coast of England.

Based on information taken from Nasa satellite images, the research found that average annual wind speed in the southern part of the North Sea had increased from about 7.5 metres per second in 1990 to 8.5 metres in 2008. In contrast, wind speeds in the northern part of the North Sea, off the coast of Scotland, have remained constant during this period.

If these trends continue, in a decade the south could be windier all year round than northern areas and double the power generated by wind farms off the coast of East Anglia and Essex.

For those poised to make a buck, why not jump in where you can make three? Apparently the sites off the Nantucket Sound are attractive not only because of significant sustained winds, but the shallow waters keep installation costs down. A major cost of installing the turbines is the offshore foundations themselves, such that the British government just launched a £20 million competition to accelerate a 30% cut in costs for deep water foundations. But, wait – we just read that

Until now, developers have relied on wind-speed levels taken on oil and gas installations or have used meteorological masts planted offshore. The Met Office has only limited satellite data to track offshore wind speeds in the North Sea but is working with wind-farm developers to produce a comprehensive set of data of the last 30 years. A spokeswoman admitted it would take two years to develop.

Duncan Ayling, head of offshore renewables at the British Wind Energy Association, said: “There have been wind-speed measurements on oil and gas installations that give some localised historic data, but a lot of the rest of it is extrapolation. If this technology provides an accurate measurement, it would be very exciting. More wind equals more money for projects. It would enable wind-farm developers to more accurately forecast revenues and have more certainty about the expected return on their investment.”

Emphasis mine. Oil and gas installations that are… already out there in the windy North Sea, in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of California and elsewhere. Many of these are abandoned or likely to be tapped out soon. What happens to them when the spigot from down below runs dry? Can’t they be topped with a wind turbine, gigantic and lovely? Doesn’t fix everything or end the discussion, though we stipulate that neither of these is the point; also, far superior to highly-stylized schools of thought centered around 1) doing the same things and expecting different results and 2) Let’s Do Nothing!

Plus reuse is PR gold so this fulfills the implicit double entendre requirement for what green means. Please make checks payable to the editor.

April 27, 2009

Recycled Oil Rigs

Based on information taken from Nasa satellite images, the research found that average annual wind speed in the southern part of the North Sea had increased from about 7.5 metres per second in 1990 to 8.5 metres in 2008. In contrast, wind speeds in the northern part of the North Sea, off the coast of Scotland, have remained constant during this period.

If these trends continue, in a decade the south could be windier all year round than northern areas and double the power generated by wind farms off the coast of East Anglia and Essex.

Until now, developers have relied on wind-speed levels taken on oil and gas installations or have used meteorological masts planted offshore. The Met Office has only limited satellite data to track offshore wind speeds in the North Sea but is working with wind-farm developers to produce a comprehensive set of data of the last 30 years. A spokeswoman admitted it would take two years to develop.

Duncan Ayling, head of offshore renewables at the British Wind Energy Association, said: “There have been wind-speed measurements on oil and gas installations that give some localised historic data, but a lot of the rest of it is extrapolation. If this technology provides an accurate measurement, it would be very exciting. More wind equals more money for projects. It would enable wind-farm developers to more accurately forecast revenues and have more certainty about the expected return on their investment.”

Plus reuse is PR gold so this fulfills the implicit double entendre requirement for what green means. Please make checks payable to the editor.