"A Special Report on the Future of Energy" by Mother Jones
by Richard T. Stuebi
I’ve never been a fan of the periodical Mother Jones – it's always seemed a bit too “alternative” for me. That said, I was recently given a copy of the May/June 2008 issue – a special report on the future of energy – and was surprised by the quality and balance of the articles.
I particularly found “The Seven Myths of Energy Independence” by Paul Roberts (author of The End of Oil) to be a compelling read. To him, the seven myths are:
1. Energy Independence Is Good
2. Ethanol Will Set Us Free
3. Conservation Is a “Personal Virtue”
4. We Can Go It Alone
5. Some Geek in Silicon Valley Will Fix the Problem
6. Cut Demand and the Rest Will Follow
7. Once Bush Is Gone, Change Will Come
I think many advocates are well-advised to really reflect on #7. Bush is unquestionably the bête-noire of all things environmental, but he’s only a part of the problem – and arguably not even the biggest part. Congress and the entrenched interests completely stymie good energy/environmental policy. A new President will help, but won’t be a simple cure-all, for what ails us in the energy and environmental arenas.
Which brings me to another article in the issue: “Congress' Top 10 Fossil Fools” by Chris Mooney, profiling the “foes and thwarters of renewable energy”. In his list, they are:
1. Senator Pete Dominici (R-NM)
2. The Southern Company (NYSE: SO)
3. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
4. Representative Joe Barton (R-TX)
5. Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) and “Coal-State Dems”
6. Representative John Dingell (D-MI)
7. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
8. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA)
9. Senator John Thune (R-SD)
10. Senator John McCain (R-AZ)
Probably no surprise that there are more R's than D's on the list, but I was really surprised at the omission of Senator James Imhofe (R-OK), and by the inclusion of McCain. Apparently, the League of Conservation Voters gave the impending Republican Presidential nominee a rating of 0 (that's right, zero) last year “because McCain missed every single environmentally relevant vote”, including ones in which he could have been the tie-breaker to overcome a filibuster on the 2007 clean-energy bill. Alas, what could have been...
Other good articles in the issue include:
“The Greenback Effect” by Bill McKibben on why markets aren’t necessarily antithetical to the environment, but can be the driving force for environmental solutions.
“Breaking the Gridlock” by Jennifer Kahn on how the smart-grid could be the major enabler for energy efficiency.
“The Nuclear Option” by Judith Lewis – a reasonably fair and balanced view of the pros and cons of nuclear energy, without the expected hyperbole.
“Tar Wars” by Josh Harkinson, which paints a not-at-all pretty picture of what’s happening to the landscape in Northern Alberta as the tar sands are mined to make oil.
“Put a Tyrant in Your Tank” by Joshua Kurlantzick, profiling the bad guys leading many of the major oil producing nations – who are financed every time you fill up at the pump.
Lots of interesting nuggets to be found in the sidebar boxes too. For instance, did you know that 30% of the electricity supply at the infamous Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is provided by wind turbines?
Well worth spending $5.95 at the newsstand, pick up the May/June 2008 Mother Jones.
Richard T. Stuebi is the BP Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at The Cleveland Foundation, and is also the Founder and President of NextWave Energy, Inc.
Labels: energy efficiency, energy policy, nuclear, oil, peak oil, smart grid, tar sands, wind energy
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What's Up with ConocoPhillips?
by Richard T. StuebiOn the clean-tech front,
ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) seems to be striving to take the lead among U.S. oil companies. In just the last two few weeks, COP has made two announcements of significance.
ConocoPhillips is not yet in the league of
Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and
General Electric (NYSE: GE) as major players that are driving environmental improvement on a mass-scale through the aggressive pursuit of capitalism across their core businesses.
But at least COP has gotten off the dime: they aren't denying the existence of climate change as a real issue, and are recognizing that they need to start shifting their perspective if they want to continue to be a relevant energy company in the future.
Its peers among U.S. oil majors,
ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) and
Chevron (NYSE: CVX), have also begun making strides on the green-front.
The contrast between the three of them and the major U.S. automakers --
General Motors (NYSE: GM) and
Ford (NYSE: F) -- is stark. The auto companies are stuck with tenuous competitive positions due in large part to their strategies for focusing on high profit gas guzzlers (e.g., SUVs and performance cars), and as a result they are fighting Federal pressures to tighten auto fuel efficiency standards. In general, they don't want to hear about climate change.
The historical solidarity between the companies involved in oil supply and in oil demand seems to be breaking down.
Presumably, it's at least partly because the oil companies are in better shape than the auto companies: with huge profits, the oil majors have more degrees of freedom to think more proactively. However, I think it's also because the oil companies are increasingly coming to the view that reduced oil demand is unavoidable in the future -- not just for environmental reasons, but simply because supplies will be challenging to obtain. COP, XOM and CVX are probably beginning to plan what they will look like as companies in a post-oil world, and that plan is consistent anyway with carbon limitations.
Interestingly, most of the independent U.S. oil producers and refiners -- many of which are enormous companies in their own right -- are laggards on the environmental front, alongside the U.S. automakers. What will it take for the U.S. oil independents to begin to see the light? Do they not see a future for them beyond oil?
Richard Stuebi is the BP Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at The Cleveland Foundation, and is also the Founder and President of NextWave Energy, Inc.Labels: autos, biodiesel, cleantech, Cleantech Blog, climate change, energy, green tech, greentech, oil, peak oil
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Crude Impact
by Richard T. StuebiA few weeks ago at the
Cleveland International Film Festival, I had the opportunity to serve on a discussion panel for a recently-released documentary entitled
Crude Impact.
Crude Impact aims to portray all of the various social ills -- political instability in the Middle East, corruption and poverty in the developing world, air pollution and environmental degradation, sprawl and traffic -- associated with modern society's reliance on oil. After establishing all of the disturbing challenges associated with oil,
Crude Impact closes with a somewhat perversely optimistic punchline: "peak oil" -- the maximum rate of extraction from our planet for the finite stock of oil that was left from pre-history -- is surely coming, and no matter what economic or geopolitical crises that phenomenon will precipitate, at least the decline of oil will put an end to all of the miseries that oil underlies.
On balance, I give
Crude Impact a "thumbs-up". Without falling into despair, it clearly tells a number of stories related to petroleum through various lenses, and weaves these stories together to paint an overall damning picture of oil in a compelling manner.
I might suggest double-billing
Crude Impact with
An Inconvenient Truth, which focuses on the planetary impacts of global climate change without spending much time on the primary culprit: our seemingly insatiable desire to consume fossil fuels.
Crude Impact seizes unflinchingly on this root cause, and is effective in reinforcing a sense of urgency to further commit to reducing our use of energy generally, and oil in particular.
The one criticism I have of the film is that it places a lot of blame for propagating oil demand on a variety of social segments -- governments in the U.S. and worldwide, oil companies, auto manufacturers, the media -- without fingering the ultimate precipitator: the consumers who have been completely complicit all along the way in creating our energy and environmental crises. The makers of
Crude Impact tend to shun ascribing responsibility to the viewer, the average citizen, for any of the planetary woes we face due to society's oil addiction.
If we are to have impact in changing the world for the better, we can't fall prey to the passive negativity of laying all of the fault on other bigger parties that are supposedly more powerful than the individual. We have to own up to our role in causing our current problems, by being undemanding and unquestioning consumers. Once we see vividly our integral part in the drama, we lose the sense of being hopeless victims, and can act with much deeper resolve towards changing our path forward to a more hopeful future.
Richard Stuebi is the BP Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at The Cleveland Foundation, and is also the Founder and President of NextWave Energy, Inc.Labels: cleantech, Cleantech Blog, climate change, energy, green tech, greentech, oil, peak oil
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