Posts Tagged by oil
Tough Realities – An Apt Description of the Migration to Renewable Energy
| July 7, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Business |
I friend of mine noticed that the concept of “Tough Realities” (as in the title of my report: Tough Realities for Renewable Energy Businesses) resonates with people. I agree. That’s the reason that I’ve subtitled my book (“Renewable Energy — Facts and Fastasies”) as follows: “The Tough Realities as Revealed in Interviews with 25 Subject Matter Experts.”
For pretty-much everyone associated with this industry — and certainly for me — it’s clear that there are indeed Tough Realities faced by those working to drive the migration to clean energy. Nobody who studies this with any level of depth could possibly see this as a walk in the park, where the key players in energy are saying to one another, “May the best man win.” This is a complex story of big money, back-room politics, secrecy, and betrayal. You don’t find multi-trillion dollar industries unfolding without a heavy dose of the worst of cheesey human misbehavior. Now add in the disruptive element, i.e., the fact that “new energy” is a direct threat to “old energy.” For every kiloWatt-hour of solar, we need one fewer kiloWatt-hour from oil and coal.
Hold on to your hats. Sorry to say it, but we haven’t even begun to see the tough realities hit those battling it out in the energy industry.
US Policy on Clean Energy – The Road Not Taken?
| June 29, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
A friend from the UK asked for my take on a new Swiss movie on Jimmy Carter’s efforts to reduce the United States’ dependence on oil at the end of the 1970s. He points out, “I am sure it will not be well known in the States. Perhaps it should be.”
The movie in question, “The Road Not Taken,” is a documentary centering around President Jimmy Carter’s having a series of solar panels installed on the roof of the White House. At the time, he told the crowd gathered to mark the installation of the new units:
“A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people – harnessing the power of the sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil.”
A few years later, President Ronald Reagan famously had the solar panels removed.
I wrote back:
In my mind, there is no doubt that the conversation, mute as it is in the US, has already added luster to Carter’s star and, I suppose, some tarnish to Reagan’s. But I’m more interested to know what this means in terms of the future. We’re still subsidizing fossil fuels. There are still 7000 lobbyists cruising around the Beltway influencing lawmakers to ensure that that oil, coal, and gas remain at the core of our energy future until the last drop of crude is sucked out of the Earth, we’ve ripped the top off the last mountain, and fracked the planet’s crust to smithereens.
Having said that, there are hundreds of lively discussions in the blogosphere every day about the R&D for clean energy. Bill Gates’ 2010 TED talk is getting some very good distribution. Perhaps this stark dichotomy between these two US presidents and the concept of the “road not taken” will be viewed as an iconic piece of US history — and perhaps it can be spun into the idea that “it’s not too late to get back on the right road.”
We can hope.
From Ammonia-as-Fuel Advocate Greg Vezina
| June 22, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Business |
Author and ammonia-as-fuel advocate Greg Vezina writes:
As part of the research for my upcoming book, I include a complete analysis of the subsidies to all forms of energy. This took a lot of work. In today’s Globe, there is an editorial page article about the subsidies to coal, oil and gas which is now over a half trillion dollars each year. Four international organizations – the International Energy Agency, the OECD, the WTO, and, remarkably, OPEC – are collaborating on a study of these subsidies to be presented at the G20.
No wonder most alternative energy and conservation solutions have a hard time entering the marketplace in controlled or supposed free market economies.
In the specific case of NH3, with equal treatment, it would be less than 35% the price of hydrocarbons, including all applicable taxes.
With full cost accounting principles applied, if Environmental, Health and Trade costs were included and a carbon tax or Cap amd Trade, then NH3 would be less than 20%. The research also shows that using domestic feedstocks to make NH3 would create 5 times the net employment and tax revenue to governements.
Talk about a global solution. Food, energy, jobs and opportunity for all. Only a dream you might think, not so, in the next few months we will release definite proof for all.
Keep the faith people, the solution is coming soon.
Thanks, Greg. Your thoughts and echoed here, to be sure, where we ceaselessly repeat our demand for a level playing field for renewables. As suggested in my article linked above, I see this as inextricably linked to campaign finance reform and getting a grip on the bloat and corruption that permeates our governement.
Thanks for raising your voice so eloquently, and good luck on your book project. Please let us know when it becomes available.
Moore's Law and Renewable Energy
| November 30, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Business |
My colleague Bill Moore of EV World wrote an excellent article on the likely trajectory for the price of cars and trucks. In it, he speculated that the prices of electric vehicles (once they are introduced in production quantities) may actually fall steadily, much like the price of consumer electronics — and that this will represent a first-ever event in automotive history.
I agree. In fact, I’m quite certain that we’ll see this effect, as it’s essentially guaranteed by Moore’s Law – (named for Intel co-founder Gordon Moore — no relation to Bill — the idea that the sophistication of technology rises and its price falls exponentially over time).
I’m also sure we’ll see this same phenomenon at work driving down in the price of renewable energy. The cost of energy from the burning of fossil fuels is rooted in its ever-shrinking supply, producing prices increases. On the other hand, the price of renewables is all about technology: semiconductors, advanced materials science, nanotechnology, etc. — all areas that can only improve as the years go by.
All we have to do is get over the hump associated with ushering oil and coal off the stage. What do you think it will take to accomplish that, do you suppose?
The COP-15 Summit — An Irresistible Force?
| October 29, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? This paradox is most often discussed in the context of God’s omnipotence (“Can God create a stone so heavy it cannot be lifted, not even by God Himself?”).
I’m reminded of this ancient philosophic conundrum when I contemplate the future of the energy industry. The “Conference of Parties” (COP-15) summit is now only a little more than a month away. . . and world-renowned economists are calling for it to create a market worth $1 trillion. . . per year. . . for decades. And to me, trillion dollar markets call to mind the notion of an force that is certainly very large indeed, if not irresistible.
Yet if there were ever an immovable object, it would be the traditional energy industry, dominated as it is by oil and coal.
I presume there are at least a few truly progressive, independent and honest people in Washington who are trying to stand up on our behalf against the force of the fossil fuel industries. Yet they are utterly powerless to defend us from the atrocities of these corporate giants. Want proof? We just came through eight years of an administration that consistently voted against funding of the development of lithium-ion batteries, against fuel efficiency standards, against mandates on renewable portfolios, against enhanced geothermal, and against the extension of tax credits for renewables. Looking for an immovable object? You just found one.
I know that sounds pessimistic, though my aim is not to depress readers. I don’t think of myself as a cynic; I think of myself as a pragmatist. And it’s that spirit of pragmatism that provides the motivation by which I write on this blog every day and spend a few hours on my book on renewables; it’s really all I can do to inform and, I hope, to inspire readers to get involved themselves.
In any case, I suppose we’re all about to see what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object.
The Politics of Oil and Renewables
| October 5, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
As I’ve noted in numerous posts, it is clear to me that the political aspects of renewable energy are far more important than the science in actually making this happen. I just had a phone conversation with a friend in which I discussed how my viewpoint on the subject has changed over time. 
15 years ago, I was a libertarian: I saw nothing but corruption in government, and I didn’t see many activities that the private sector couldn’t perform better and more efficiently than the public sector. I remember taking my five-year-old son to the polls. He sat on my shoulders, looking down as I voted, announcing to the room, “Libertarian! Libertarian! Libertarian!” I hated to curb his enthusiasm for the democratic process, but I had to give him a big “shhh!”
But look around you. The government has probably not gotten any less corrupt. But if we don’t have some power that is forceful enough and honest enough to rein in corporate malfeasance and greed, it’s very clear where we’re going. Do you think Chevron will voluntarily stop pumping oil until the last drop is sucked out of the earth? Do you think BP is going to leave a trillion barrels of profit down there unless they’re forced to? It’s just simply not going to happen.
I know we’re all worried about moving in the direction of socialism – a concern that I share. But, like most things in life, it’s just not that easy — regardless of what Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck tell us. Unless one has the same lack of regard for the health and safety of the 6.8 billion people who live on this planet as the oil companies most obviously do, it’s clear: we need a solution that looks beyond unbridled free-market capitalism.
Readers of this blog – and all others who are trying to pay attention — are reminded of this pickle several times a day. And we who are enjoying the PBS special on the National Parks are realizing that the reckless over-industrialization of America is a traditional that has continued unabated since the 19th century.
But can’t we see the reason? For every John Muir, who, for whatever reason, was not that enamored of money, there were thousands of people who didn’t see it that way, and either led the charge for industrialization, or profited from it less directly and looked the other way at the human and environmental devastation it wreaked. Then, as now, there was no equalizing force, restraining the greed of powerful, ruthless people.
Again, we need a solution. May we work together to find one. As always, I welcome comments.
Terrorism and Oil
| September 6, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
I happened to run into one of the most interesting people I could have hoped to meet at a chili cook-off I attended over the weekend: a university professor whose focus is hosting seminars on terrorism for graduate students. I spoke with him for over 30 minutes, hanging on every word. Here I bring you the basic ideas he communicated:
Terrorism, of course, is a tactic. It makes no sense to say you’re waging a “war on terrorism” any more that one would say you’re waging a “war on hand-grenades.” This use of language to pander to the masses represents the depths to which the US has fallen in the integrity with which it thinks and communicates.
One can’t fully address the terrorism that we see from Muslim Fundamentalists with a war of ideas. Yes, we can make the situation worse with the missteps of the warmongerish Bush Administration that has fostered Al Qaeda recruitment by creating intense hatred for the West. The Muslim world itself must iron out its own differences, and history has shown that this is a monumentally difficult thing to do. In any case, the challenge is not amenable to something like an advertising campaign from the West.
The real issue is the fanaticism of certain people who have risen to lofty places, having become highly respected by certain groups of disenfranchised Muslims. Extremist movements that have any chance of success almost always are derived from alienated people from privileged backgrounds. Peasant movements are normally squashed immediately, because they are the product of poor, uneducated people rising up in spontaneous anger with no real planning and foresight, and thus are usually crushed immediately by those in power. The privileged few, by contrast, have the education, as well as the time on their hands, to think through exactly what they are doing, what they feel their ideals ought to be, how they should recruit, raise funds, promote, operate, etc. This is the case with Al Qaeda.
I asked why this extremism isn’t attached to all monotheistic religions – why it doesn’t arise anyplace in which one group of people has the belief that “their God is better than someone else’s God.” He told me that indeed there are extremist Christians, trying to establish a theocratic United States, for example, but they’re generally regarded as the lunatic fringe, and they gain no traction.
When I asked why theocratic Christians fail, where Muslims succeed, he offered two explanations that I found fascinating:
a) Like the Old Testament and the New Testament in the Bible, the Koran has a new and an old part. However, unlike the Bible, where the angry, vengeful God of the Old Testament is replaced by the loving God of the New Testament, the case with the Koran is the reverse. During Mohammed’s life, his early followers were first at Mecca, and, though they were oppressed, things were generally hopeful, and thus the tenor of the religious scripture was one of peace and tolerance. Ten years later, they were forced to fight, and wound up at Medina. They survived the fight, and thus took away a kind of “bring it on” mentality. As a consequence, the writings that found their way into the Koran were generally bellicose and intolerant of “infidels.” And today, the interpretation of the Koran includes this idea: where there appears to be a contradiction between the old and the new, the new is to take precedence.
b) The Western world had its Age of Enlightenment, its French Revolution, and its US Constitution, all serving to divide church and state. And even our Bible contains passages that serve to tell us to separate religious from public matters, e.g., Matthew 22:21 in which Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” There are no analogies in the Muslim world. The idea of a theocracy is an intrinsic part of the way Muslims think. While it’s true that certain Muslim nations tend to be stricter about the way Islam is imposed on all aspect of its citizens’ lives, the idea of a secular government really has no legs on which to stand.
You may be wondering why all this history has made it into a blog on renewable energy. Here’s your answer:
I asked, “Well let me ask you about the money that forms the power to make this all happen in the first place. I suppose this is really about oil. It would seem to me that, if it weren’t for the unfortunate geologic accident that these countries happen to be sitting on a large portion of the world’s oil reserves, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. They would be even more completely marginalized, and no one would care.” He believes that this is precisely correct. The only force making any of this relevant in today’s world is oil.
He wonders why a US government that is concerned about its own security is not doing everything it can to move away from oil. To him, it’s a complete mystery. I’m out of answers there too.
Making a Change in Energy Policy
| September 3, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
One hears a great deal about the cyclical rebound in many of the phenomena we come across in our lives – especially political and financial. I’m always amused by the consultants who urge us to invest in blue chip stocks like General Electric and so forth, on the basis that they’ve taken a momentary downturn, but they always come back. Hey, don’t panic, kid — it’s business as usual — it’s feast and famine. But stop and think. Do you know the normal consequence of famine in nature? It’s Death. It’s Extinction.
My point is not to depress you. I don’t think of myself as a cynic; I think of myself as a pragmatist. I’m here to point to what’s real. And that reality is that we are all directly and systematically oppressed. We are all being deliberately lied to and confused by the energy industry.
OK, but what’s new here? Hasn’t the common man been on the receiving end of the deceit of the super-rich pretty much throughout recorded history? As far as I can tell, the answer is yes. But a hundred years ago when we suffered under the exploitation of the great robber barons, the consequences of those lies by the powerful and ruthless people of the day were monopolies and economic depressions. But now, the consequences are the ruination of our oceans, our atmosphere, and the generally hospitable climate on the only planet we have.
So here’s my point. Don’t expect a miracle. In fact, I have a prediction: There will be no miracle. If there is a chance for us, it will come from you and me with our sleeves rolled up, working hard to expose the facts, and make big changes — fast. We live under tyranny – a tyranny of corporatocracy and corruption, where the huge interests of the energy industry are determined to do everything they can to defeat renewables. Why? Why are money and power so alluring to some people who live on the same dying planet with you and me? I don’t know. That’s beyond me. Ask them if you get a chance and let me know. All I’m trying to say that this: if you and I don’t create a huge impact on our way of life right now, we will not get another chance.
Henry Kissinger said not too long ago that if it weren’t for the opposition of the common American to the war in Vietnam, we’d still be there. That’s amazing, isn’t it? An admission of the truth: By the early 1970s, the war had become so unpopular that our leaders in Washington were forced to take a different course.
The situation now is the same. The great oil, coal, and nuclear energy companies and the lobbies that own the congressmen who create the policy at their behest will turn this planet into a wasteland in which only the super rich will have any real quality of life – unless we do something.
Over the coming weeks, you’ll see more functionality here on 2GreenEnergy that will enable us all to become more vocal and more active in making a real change in world energy policy. Let’s hope there’s still time.
Environmental Stewardship – A Note from Belgium
| August 13, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
Martin van Wunnik of Belgium writes:
….And as for all those guys & gals of the coal, oil, nuclear and auto industries who have been delaying it all for years/decades, I wonder if they can look proudly into the eyes of their innocent kids…
First, thanks for writing, and let me say that I love Belgium. I used to consult to Philips in Eindhoven; I’d fly into Brussels and drive out that incredible road past the fields and beautiful little towns.
This also reminds me to note that we sent “Brass Tack #1″ to people in 22 different countries. My sincere thanks to everyone internationally for their interest.
To your point, as I have written elsewhere, I agree with you 100%. There are thousands of people who will have to explain to Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates that their life’s work consisted to befouling a planet and damaging the health and safety of 6.8 billion innocent people. I’m certainly glad I’m not one of them.
