The Gulf Oil Spill and Its Impact on Renewables

June 3, 2010

PhotobucketMany of my friends have asked my opinion on the likely impact of the Gulf oil spill on the trajectory for renewable energy. And although one might think that I’d be in a reasonably good position to answer a question like that directly and accurately, in truth, it really is hard for me –- or anyone, I believe — to predict the effect of this catastrophe on the world’s energy policy going forward.  I offer a few points for discussion:

Many people suggest that, as horrific as the spill is, it comes with a “silver lining,” i.e., accelerating the demand for a replacement for oil as our predominant energy supply, brought about by an increased awareness of the many dangers of oil. Oh really? So the general public — normally fast asleep — has awakened? So a large flock of sheep had an epiphany on the dangers of oil and created a firestorm of outrage at the oil companies? So what? The same political forces that have continued to grant oil companies enormous subsidies through the last half century and made gasoline/diesel 98+% of our transportation fuel – even when we became aware of the dangers many decades ago — are still in place. And now those forces are working harder than ever. Do you think the corporate powers and (by far) the biggest lobby on the planet are updating their résumés and looking for new careers because of a lousy oil spill?

In addition to the big politics and big money, there legitimately are technology issues. Of course, these issues would have been largely mitigated, or eliminated entirely, if we had done what we should have been doing since the oil embargoes of the 1970s: running 1000 miles per hour toward electric transportation and various forms of renewables. Now, our oil addiction is so severe that the consequences of moving away from it are, like withdrawing from any addiction, quite unpleasant.

And consider global climate change. Some people say that the oil spill negates any point that the “deniers” may have had — i.e., now the validity of the global climate change theory no longer matters. Of course, that’s been the case for a long time as well.  If you’re looking for a reason to break our oil addiction, the argument about global warming has been moot for many years; it’s been obvious to most of us that there are five or six different equally compelling reasons. I know there are people who disbelieve the climate change theory; I run into them all the time. But are there people who don’t believe in terrorism? In the consequences of a ballooning national debt? In lung cancer? In the dangers of weak national security? In ocean acidification? The spill is certain to weaken the position of the oil zealots (and whatever forces control them) — who try so hard to sell us on the idea that “oil business as usual” is a reasonable path towards a sustainable civilization.

So I suppose that there really is a silver lining here. It is precisely that now, anyone and everyone (you don’t have to be a clean energy editor/business analyst) can see the truth for what it is. There is one and only one winner in oil, namely the oil companies themselves. Recall the tobacco companies of the 20th Century, and their product — the only legal one that when used as directed causes death. At a certain point we all realized that cigarettes were very good for Philip Morris investors and executives – but that they were very bad for literally everyone else on the Earth. The issue is the same here. The oil companies are the sole beneficiary of oil. And now, finally, it’s clear to everyone.

Let’s acknowledge that we made a grievous mistake in the 1970s/1980s — and move on. And let’s keep our eye on the ball this time. Dropping the ball once is not license to drop it again. Use this as a litmus test for our leaders: an elected official who is really on your side (if there actually is such a thing) will take whatever political risks may come his way to stay the course in the development of clean energy solutions.

But it’s up to you and me to insist that our leaders do that. In case you haven’t noticed, they don’t do things because they’re right; they do them because they’re forced.

By Craig Shields | Posted in Renewables - Politics | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (16)

Paul Scott Speaks on the Big Oil Companies

May 29, 2010

Here’s another in a series of interview snipets that I conducted with Paul Scott, vice president and co-founder of Plug-In America. Here, we discuss the concept that the big oil companies will fight electric transportation to the death.

Full 30-minute show on electric transportation here.

By Craig Shields | Posted in Electric Vehicles | Tagged , , , , , | Comment (1)

Say Adios to Campaign Finance Reform

January 21, 2010

PhotobucketI have to laugh. Yesterday I happened to mention campaign finance reform, hoping, in my boyish naivete, for a miracle that would somehow enable our leaders to push for legislature that favors people, rather than corporate interests. But what happened today? We received news of the precise opposite.

The US Supreme Court announced this morning that it has found major provisions of campaign finance reform to be unconstitutional, paving the way for corporate and union money to mute the voices of individual citizens like you and me.

Corporations, defined under law as “fictitious persons,” are given enormous power to achieve their only goal: making profit. Human beings on the other hand, i.e., voters, are given no special powers outside of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and have a multitude of interests and duties. We’ve now granted corporations, on which the law has conferred these unnatural profit-making powers, the right to exert extreme pressure on the political process — at the expense of human voters.

ExxonMobil made $85 billion last year. I wonder if they’ll be able to use some of that money to influence legislation in a way that further tilts the playing field in the direction of fossil fuels. Hmmm. Let me think about that one….

By Craig Shields | Posted in Renewables - Politics | Tagged , , | Comments (3)

Crude – The Movie

September 18, 2009

PhotobucketI was fortunate enough to have been invited to the Los Angeles premier screening of the movie “Crude” by filmmaker Joe Berlinger (pictured at left with Miss California) last night in Hollywood. It was a great honor being part of a cause so honest, and to be given the opportunity to meet people like Amazon Watch’s Atossa Soltani (below) – a fierce but kind fireball of passion and energy for the cause of the Ecuadorian people.

For those who may not know the story, Crude is a documentary – quite fair-minded in comparison to most – covering the history of one of the world’s most terrible tragedies – tragic mostly insofar as it did not have to happen. In brief, Texaco began its exploration for oil in Ecuador in 1964 and pursued that effort for decades, with processes so impure that they would have landed anyone associated with them in jail had they been performed in the US. The company knowingly ravaged the rainforest, and caused the sickness and death of tens of thousands innocent people living in the area. Now, Chevron, who acquired Texaco in 2001, is working hard to evade responsibility for the crimes of the company it owns. Those wishing to learn more can do so at Amazon Watch.

In any case, this film is truly a story of power, mystery, beauty, and evil – all presented in a straightforward manner that respects the intelligence of its audience.

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I won’t give away the ending – in fact, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. There is no reason to believe that this litigation will ever end, as Chevron continues to astound the world, finding inventive new ways to postpone justice and fairness. If you think I’m exaggerating, I urge you to consider the case of the Exxon Valdez. No one at ExxonMobil disputes sole resonsibility for the disaster, yet they were successful in delaying paying off the damages until just this year — more than 20 years after the incident (and at the last minute prevailed upon a judge to reduce those damages by 80%). To me, it’s hard to guess when we could reach a conclusion in the case of Chevron.

But speaking of conclusions, one that I personally find obvious is that white people have treated people of color very badly all around the globe for many hundreds of years. This fine film is a reminder that there is precious little evidence that this pathology has slowed – or that it ever will.

By Craig Shields | Posted in Renewables - Politics | Tagged , , , , , , | Comment (1)

Bill Moyers and Renewable Energy

September 5, 2009

PhotobucketI don’t want to appear as if I don’t have a life outside of 2GreenEnergy, but each Friday night, I try to watch Bill Moyers’ Journal on PBS. Occasionally the content directly or indirectly affects the renewable energy debate, and last night was a good example. Two extremely senior constitutional attorneys took on a question that one of the two will be arguing in front of the US Supreme Court this week: does the right to free speech guaranteed under the First Amendment (including the right to exert pressure over the electoral process) extend to corporations?

Of course, this issue is central to the growing debate over where our democracy is headed and whether, as some say, it’s been abrogated so many times and so thoroughly that we no longer have a democracy in any meaningful sense of the word. As a citizen concerned that ordinary people are losing too much power to corporate giants, my immediate reaction was to favor restricting the rights of corporations to influence the political process in their own favor. Yes, there are campaign contribution limits, but the corporations, with their extensive legal support, exploit the many loopholes in the form of political action committees, etc. And, as someone pointed out on tonight’s show, the ultimate work-around is for the corporation simply to run a political campaign at its own expense, to elect representatives known to favor its positions. At first glance, this seemed to work against the ideals of our society — if only the idea of one person, one vote. 

Yet I must say that I was swayed by the first speaker, whose claim was that the First Amendment does not identify who does and who does not have the right to free speech. He freely acknowledged that free speech isn’t free at all, that wealthy people can own television networks and newspaper chains, and thus enjoy hundreds – or probably millions — of times more “free speech” than you or I could possibly dream of affording.  But we don’t restrict rich people’s freedom; and by extension, the fact that a corporation is big or wealthy does not mean that it must not communicate.

I must say that I was flummoxed on this issue and, as a fair-minded guy, I was about to give up hope and turn on Jeopardy! when the second speaker came on. But I’m happy to report that at the end, I think he won the day.  He pointed out that corporations, defined under law as “fictitious persons” are given enormous power to achieve their one and only goal: to make a profit. Human beings, i.e., voters, are not fictitious, but real people. Unlike these fictitious persons, we get sick, we die, we are given no special powers outside of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and we have a multitude of interests: familial, religious, social, etc. If we now grant corporations, who have by force of law unnatural profit-making powers the right to communicate without restriction about matters of their one concern (profit), they will use that profit to exert extreme pressure on the political process — potentially at the expense of human voters.

He went on to point out that ExxonMobil made $85 billion last year, and, if left unrestricted, could ensure the election of only those who would work against global warming mitigation.  He also mentioned that the coal and nuclear lobbies, funded similarly, could make it impossible for these industries ever to be brought down — even by fair competition from renewables.  This, for what it’s worth, is *exactly* what is happening now as I see it.

It will certainly be interesting to see on what side the Supreme Court comes down.

In any case, for those readers who may be new, this blog follows three different courses within the issues that surround renewable energy: the scientific, business, and political/philosophical issues.  I argue that anyone serious about pursuing a clean energy business needs to have a solid understanding of all three “legs of the stool,” so to speak. And to that end,  I’ve recently begun working on bringing on contributing authors to augment each of these three discussion threads. If any of you wish to make such contributions, please contact me.

By Craig Shields | Posted in Renewables - Politics | Tagged , , | Comments (4)

Conversation with Jake Stewart – Commitment to Renewable Energy

July 27, 2009

Austin-Energy-LogoI just spoke with a fantastic young man by the name of Jake Stewart. Not to devaluate anyone’s commitment and importance in the movement, but no credentials are required to be an advocate of renewable energy. By contrast, Jake brings a level of sophistication that really makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

Stewart currently directs the ground-breaking Austin Climate Protection Program at Austin Energy, where he is active in integrated distributed generation innovation, smart grid deployment and carbon reduction strategy development. He has been involved with the renewable energy and renewable fuels industries for almost a decade and was formerly an international renewable energy consultant and Executive Vice President at Organic Fuels International, Inc. He has received international recognition for his contributions to the broader renewable energy industry. Stewart is widely known for his development of world’s first renewably powered biofuel production facility—the first time a municipality had embarked on such an effort to produce its own fuel from waste and has garnered international attention as a decentralized renewable energy model.

With his dizzying array of patents, awards, degrees and his advanced background in R.E. technologies including bioenergy, distributed solar, biogas, 2nd generation biofuels, fuel cells, micro-wind, algae oil development and renewable hydrogen production, Stewart is a real joy to talk with.

Perhaps Stewart’s area of deepest passion at this point is the PR that entrenched interests are bringing to bear to create doubt about the reality of global warming. Here’s an except from the conversation:

Craig Shields: I know you’re aware of my position on renewable energy, i.e., that the gating factors are more political than they are technologicial. Do you agree?

Jake Stewart: 100%. I particularly liked your recent post on ‘RE versus its powerful competitors.’ Do you know, they say sunshine is the best disinfectant and fossilized carbon interests are putting out a very steady flow of shady but effective propaganda. The junk must be constantly illuminated. Kudos for you for opening such a streamlined and informed forum for that.

CS: Thanks for the kind words. But please tell me specifically where and how you see this so-called ‘junk.’

JS: We are dealing with a lot of this in the climate change arena where the ‘climate skeptic’ campaign has managed to garner a remarkable (and sad) amount of public penetration — predominately on AM radio and the likes, of course. In any case, I’m hopeful that science and truth will ultimately come out on top thanks to efforts like yours focused on getting accurate and palatable information out through the smoke.

CS: To be sure. And I’ll try to make sure this blog is a never-ending source of truth in this space. But can you recommend other good sources?

JS: Some of your readers may not have come across something that came out a couple years ago; the CBC did a fantastic piece on the inner-workings of this effort. It’s very worth watching. It’s a brilliant piece that pulls back the curtain on the makings of the ‘counter climate’ campaign, which, of course, was funded by our friends in the oil and coal industries, a sample of which includes:

‘ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer,” said Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Director of Strategy & Policy. “A modest but effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay government action just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years.’

CS: Yes, good point. Coinicidentally, I’ve mentioned that exact piece in a recent article I’m publishing on cold fusion as part of me “Three Brass Tacks of Renewable Energy” series.

JS: Great. On the topic of simplifying the complexity of climate change and bringing it to the masses, another piece that your readers will want to watch is one that ABC did a couple months ago called ‘Earth 2100.’ They interviewed the world’s top climate/energy minds and generated an artist’s rendition of what it might be like for a child born today based on the latest modeling. They follow the fictional character through her life in dealing with the effects that are now underway. It’s in two parts — and fairly heavy at times — but it’s based in the latest projections/trajectory and leaves the viewer with a sense of empowerment to make a better future. I was impressed by what they produced; your readers might also find it interesting.

CS: Thanks so much, Jake. You’re one of the good guys.

JS: I was glad to.

By Craig Shields | Posted in Renewables - Politics | Tagged , , , , | Comment (1)