How beneficial this will be still needs to be answered, but it's good to see new energy efforts being explored in the US. Tidal energy has been implemented in Europe and there have been some positive results in terms of generating new forms of energy. The issue of underwater damage is always going to be there so minimizing that impact is critical for the success of any of these programs.
Maine's Ocean Renewable Power Co. has started generating electricity for the power grid from its tidal energy turbine on the bottom of Cobscook Bay near Lubec, in easternmost Maine. It is the first commercial tidal energy project to do so in North America, beating larger rivals who have tested or plan to test devices of their own in the Bay of Fundy region.
Company spokeswoman Susy Kist confirmed Thursday that the turbine has been generating power for the grid.
She said power started flowing nearly two weeks ago, but the company had been waiting to announce the milestone until local utility Bangor Hydro had an opportunity to confirm it. The turbine can generate 180 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power 30 homes, according to The New York Times.
Mitt Romney has just announced his energy plan, a "bold" scheme to make the US self-sufficient in oil by 2020 by increasing domestic production and building the XL pipeline. There will mean even bigger subsidies for the oil industry, while tax credits for wind power will end.
There is only one small problem with Romney's plan, it can't possibly work because the US doesn't have enough oil reserves to meet demand:
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that’s the question. We are drilling at a record pace but we’re doing so in a way that protects the health and safety and the natural resources of the American people. (Applause.)
So that’s point number one. If you start hearing this “drill, baby, drill; drill, drill, drill” -- if you start hearing that again, just remember you’ve got the facts -- we’re doing that. Tell me something new. (Applause.) That’s problem number one.
Here’s the second problem with what some of these politicians are talking about. There’s a problem with a strategy that only relies on drilling and that is, America uses more than 20 percent of the world’s oil. If we drilled every square inch of this country -- so we went to your house and we went to the National Mall and we put up those rigs everywhere -- we’d still have only 2 percent of the world’s known oil reserves. Let’s say we miss something -- maybe it’s 3 percent instead of 2. We’re using 20; we have 2.
If Romney's plan for energy independence were possible we would be doing it already. George W. Bush was in the oil business. The GOP had eight years to implement the Romney plan for self-sufficiency. They invaded Iraq instead.
That Keystone XL pipeline isn't the answer to 'North American' oil self sufficiency either. The real point of extending the pipeline through to Texas is so that Canada can then have the option of loading the crude onto tankers and selling it to China. It is a good move for Canada and for oil speculators but a terrible one for US consumers. At present, Canada can only sell the oil shale to refiners in Cushing Oklahoma, and they have to accept the market price there. With the XL expansion, Canada will be able to charge the US refiners what China would have paid for the oil, meaning "more."
This is the sort of business detail that slick money men like Mitt Romney make their fortunes from. For the rest of us, it means higher energy prices.
During the Iraq war, Atrios satirized this type of thinking as 'wishing for a magic pony'. Romney has expanded the Bush approach to turn it into a complete theory of government, a general theory of magic ponies. Per Romney, all the US need do to become self sufficient in energy is to believe that the oil reserves exist and they will miraculously appear out of thin air (like WMD in Iraq).
Belief in that type of thinking is perfectly fine for authors of trash self-help books and religious types. But we tried eight years of the Magic Pony approach to governance under the last Republican President, and we are still cleaning up the mess that pony left behind.
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Anyone want to take a guess why America's energy system is a mess? Maybe a Republican can explain about how efficient private industry is compared to government run organizations? Anyone? From the Chicago Trib:
The decision by the 18-person Duke board, with 11 legacy Duke directors and seven Progress directors, to install Rogers as chief executive officer was "the most blatant example of corporate deceit that I have witnessed," Mullin wrote.
Duke declined to comment on Friday. Earlier in the week, the company and its lead director, Ann Maynard Gray, declined to give any further details about Johnson's resignation.
Under a non-disparage clause in the separation agreement, Johnson and Duke are not allowed to make statements that cast the other "in a critical or unfavorable light.
This is exactly the type of cronyism and corruption that is killing American business and equality. The corporate world needs as much reform as Wall Street but with election campaigns costing as much as they do, reform is not on the agenda.
How much do middle class workers make during such transitions? Just a guess, but it's probably less than the abusive $44 million.
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Timing is everything, Mitt. The day after Romney blasted Obama for the Solyndra collapse, Romney's own Solyndra filed for bankruptcy. Does this now mean that Mitt Romney is also a complete failure because one of his state loan investments went under? Boston Herald:
Lowell-based Konarka Technologies announced late yesterday that it filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and will cease operations, lay off its 85 workers and liquidate.
“Konarka has been unable to obtain additional financing, and given its current financial condition, it is unable to continue operations,” CEO Howard Berke said in a statement. “This is a tragedy for Konarka’s shareholders and employees and for the development of alternative energy in the United States.”
The demise of Konarka could become a hot topic on the campaign trail because Romney personally doled out a $1.5 million renewable energy subsidy to the Lowell startup in 2003, shortly after taking office on Beacon Hill.
Since the Republicans were criticizing Obama for high oil prices when they were climbing, shouldn't they now congratulate Obama on the lower prices? No?
U.S. July crude fell to $87.95 at 2:30 p.m. Singapore time (6.30 a.m. GMT), 20.6 percent lower than the year’s high of $110.85 hit on February 24. Front-month crude prices are headed for a loss of about 17 percent for May, the biggest monthly drop since December 2008.
Analysts say there could more declines for oil amid uncertainty over the global economy and on selling by speculators who had hoped that prices would go higher because of a supply disruption in the Middle East.
Andrew Su, CEO of Compass Global Markets, who has been ‘short’ oil since it was at $102.50 per barrel, said he expected it to fall to $78 at the end of September.
Obama may not have had much to do with the price declines but he had very little to do with the prices increases as well. Even with lower prices, it's still critical for the US to move forward with alternative energies. The challenge of increasing oil prices is not going to ever go away permanently so to whether it's solar, wind, sea or whatever, we still need investments for the long run.
While Solyndra was nothing short of a failure, it doesn't mean the entire program should be scrapped. The GOP ignores the billions in handouts that taxpayers give to Big Oil (who then screw consumers) each year. Shouldn't we be putting at least the same amount of subsidies into new energy development as we do for Big Oil?
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It's too bad that so many other states are willing to ignore the high costs of fracking and only look at the financial benefits to Big Energy. The only explanation for ignoring the financial costs (such as polluted water and earthquakes) is that too many politicians are also won over by the lobbying efforts and campaign contributions.
Good for Vermont for caring more about its people and environment than Big Energy.
With a 103-36 vote in the House of Representatives, Vermont on Friday became the first state to ban hydraulic fracturing to extract oil or natural gas. The bill passed the Senate earlier this week.
It's an improvement, but it doesn't go far enough and it's not even in the books yet. This probably means Big Energy will have time to water down the already watered down rules. The proposed new rules include publishing a list of the chemicals being used for the public but there are of course, loopholes.
Interior Secretary Salazar claims that the requirement for using the loopholes are going to be limited but if history tells us anything about this industry and their relationship with governments, the loopholes will be miles wide and abused early and often.
The other problem is that the new rules will not force the fracking companies to publish the chemicals before drilling, so there could be many unpleasant surprises for local communities with their drinking water.
For this new proposal to work, it's going to require some tough minded people to hold Big Energy accountable and there's very little history that suggests we will see that. Even if it passes "as is" the next administration could easily lower the bar for Big Energy and ignore complaints about polluted water sources and side with Big Energy. More on the proposed changes at Nature.com.
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A few few years ago - before Fukushima - nuclear energy appeared to be making a comeback in the US. The protests against nuclear energy had gone quiet for years and as energy prices increased, many thought that it might be the future. US nuclear power plants had been pressing for extensions to their contracts, hoping to extend the contracts without the previously required safety checks. Fukushima changed everything.
The nuclear energy industry no longer looks like the lock that it was pre-Fukushima. In Japan, the future of nuclear energy is even more obvious now that the last nuclear reactor is being taken offline this weekend. Replacing 54 reactors won't be easy, but living with their problems is even more painful. Reuters:
Japan shuts down its last working nuclear power reactor this weekend just over a year after a tsunami scarred the nation and if it survives the summer without major electricity shortages, producers fear the plants will stay offline for good.
The shutdown leaves Japan without nuclear power for the first time since 1970 and has put electricity producers on the defensive. Public opposition to nuclear power could become more deeply entrenched if non-nuclear generation proves enough to meet Japan's needs in the peak-demand summer months.
"Can it be the end of nuclear power? It could be," said Andrew DeWit, a professor at Rikkyo University in Tokyo who studies energy policy. "That's one reason why people are fighting it to the death."
This is an interesting new addition that could solve a lot of problems in many parts of the world. It may not generate substantial water everywhere, but even if it's only for some regions this could make a big difference. Single purpose products seem so outdated. CNN:
"This technology could enable rural areas to become self-sufficient in terms of water supply," says Thibault Janin, director of marketing at Eole Water.
"As the design and capabilities develop, the next step will be to create turbines that can provide water for small cities or areas with denser populations," he adds.
Eole Water is currently displaying a working prototype of the 24 meter tall WMS1000 in the desert near Abu Dhabi that has been able to produce 62 liters of water an hour, says Janin.
Only on CNBC's Kudlow Report can you get such priceless discussions that completely ignore the problem of earthquakes and polluted water sources. In the fantasy land known as The Kudlow Report, it's all about the wet dreams of Big Energy including the usual demands for scrapping pesky regulation, as in the already anemic regulation that is supposed to protect people.
Forget if you can that ever so small problem of cities like Youngstown, Ohio purchasing earthquake insurance or the EPA study that linked fracking to water pollution. Clean drinking water is probably overrated anyway, right?
What is missing (again) from this pro-fracking love fest on CNBC is a debate about why it's OK for business to pass on costs of fracking to everyone else. If Big Energy wants to destroy the environment to make a few bucks, why shouldn't they also be responsible for funding the cleanup and after effects of their destructive practices? With the economy still weak and Americans wondering about job security, how is it fair to push these costs onto others rather than asking the always profitable energy industry to foot the bill?
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The province of Quebec has moved from a de facto ban on shale gas development to a "complete and total moratorium," lamented Calgary oilpatch executive Michael Binnion on Tuesday, following news that a review on hydraulic fracturing won't include any demonstrations in the province.
A committee named by Quebec Environment Minister Pierre Arcand to determine whether shale gas can be extracted while respecting the environment released plans Tuesday for further study and recommended the minister not authorize hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, even for research purposes during an ongoing halt in development.
Arcand, in announcing the strategic environmental assessment last May, had said fracking would be allowed for research purposes. Committee chair Robert Joly said in his report that Quebec could rely on laboratory experiments on fracking.
I want to add to your list of replacement phrases — substitution words that make right-wing statements make sense. For example, when a right-wing politician says something he wants is going to increase "jobs" he really means "profits" — try it yourself; works every time.
Your new replacement phrase — "natural gas" means "fracking". Thus:
"We need more natural gas" = "We need more fracking"
"I favor natural gas production" = "I favor fracking"
"I'm a natural gas company"= "I'm a fracking company"
See how simple? Every word a true one.
I'm seeing a glut of "natural gas" commercials, an absolute flood. "Natural gas is clean" they say. Yes, true of the gas as it burns, relative to other carbon-based products. But what about its production? (Remember your replacement phrase, which hides the truth.)
In the U.S. today, much new natural gas comes from western states where homesteading farmers were prevented by the government (per the Stockraising Homestead Act of 1916) from owning the mineral rights to their own property. This is the meaning of the term "split estate." Western homesteaders after 1916 owned only the surface.
In the east, you own your mineral rights (unless you or your ancestors had sold them). In the west, you don't — the government did and does.
This is what those BLM auctions, by the way, the ones that Tim DeChristopher disrupted and publicized, are all about — natural gas (fracking) leases.
To produce new natural gas from anywhere in the country almost always requires fracking. The perniciousness of western fracking is that the government can give away (sorry, lease) the fracking rights to fracking companies (see, substitution at work) without the landowner's consent.
Do you want to see how widespread fracking is in the U.S.? Click here for the map (it opens in a new tab).
And for a definition of all these terms — fracking, fracking fluid, and so on — go here, a great, bookmarkable resource.
So two points:
■ "Natural gas" means "fracking" and "Increasing natural gas production" means "Increasing fracking."
This is the carefully hidden fact behind all those music-sweetened, "jobs"-dangling, mixed-race–friendly commercials that some highly professional PR firm has created to confuse you. (Stay in school, soulless right-wing kids; you too can be paid for such work.)
■ Watch this trailer for the excellent film Split Estate. A great entry point into this little pocket of evil in the world.
And remember, the more we "succeed" at carbon production, the more we fail, since everything we "produce" goes into the air. A time-bomb of our own making, and why you should care.
Pennsylvania goes from bad to worse with fracking. Besides the earthquake risk, besides the flammable tap water, besides the tax free business of fracking and besides the dangerous impact of chemicals being pumped into the ground with costs left for taxpayers to cover, Pennsylvania is now blocking medical doctors from having honest discussions with patients about the impact of fracking chemicals on their patients. Is there any question as to what industry owns the political class of Pennsylvania? The Atlantic:
Under a new law, doctors in Pennsylvania can access information about chemicals used in natural gas extraction -- but they won't be able to share it with their patients. A provision buried in a law passed last month is drawing scrutiny from the public health and environmental community, who argue that it will "gag" doctors who want to raise concerns related to oil and gas extraction with the people they treat and the general public.
Pennsylvania is at the forefront in the debate over "fracking," the process by which a high-pressure mixture of chemicals, sand, and water are blasted into rock to tap into the gas. Recent discoveries of great reserves in the Marcellus Shale region of the state prompted a rush to development, as have advancements in fracking technologies. But with those changes have come a number of concerns from citizens about potential environmental and health impacts from natural gas drilling.
There is good reason to be curious about exactly what's in those fluids. A 2010 congressional investigation revealed that Halliburton and other fracking companies had used 32 million gallons of diesel products, which include toxic chemicals like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, in the fluids they inject into the ground. Low levels of exposure to those chemicals can trigger acute effects like headaches, dizziness, and drowsiness, while higher levels of exposure can cause cancer.
And to think the Republicans are worked into a frenzy about health care coverage rather than doctors having an honest discussion with their patients. Interesting.
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Japan had used a lot of nuclear energy until the Fukushima disaster, but that changed everything. The transition from nuclear to other energy sources (fossil fuel, in this case) has been rapid and likely expensive, though there was a heavy cost to nuclear energy. BBC News:
Japan has shut down another nuclear power station, bringing it a step closer to suspending atomic energy, following the Fukushima disaster.
Only one of the 54 nuclear reactors remains in operation, and it is due to be switched off in May.
Residents have demanded reactors not be turned back on after routine maintenance due to safety fears.
In the US, nuclear looked like an increasingly popular option in certain circles before Fukushima but that has slowed significantly. Many of the US reactors are aging and need maintenance but we still desperately also need an alternative plan for the future.
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AP's own analysis, confirmed by an outside expert, found no link between increased drilling and lower prices. This means that, yet again, the Republicans are proposing solutions (more oil production) to serious national problems (high gas prices), and the solutions have nothing to do with the problem at hand. They're simply proposals to pander to big business, which is what the GOP always does.
It's really quite scary that we have a party so bought off by big business. The Democratic party has its problems as well in this area - Big Pharma owns both parties, and Wall Street runs a pretty close second - but the Republicans raise pandering to an art form. They consistently propose sometimes-convincing-sounding solutions to problems, and the solutions have zero in common with solving the actual problem.
Abstinence education and banning birth control come to mind as ridiculous examples of ways to "decrease abortions." Uh, no, quite the opposite in fact. But it doesn't matter to the GOP if their solutions solve our problems as there's always an ulterior motive of sucking up to some fringe constituency.
When you put the inflation-adjusted price of gas on the same chart as U.S. oil production since 1976, the numbers sometimes go in the same direction, sometimes in opposite directions. If drilling for more oil meant lower prices, the lines on the chart would consistently go in opposite directions. A basic statistical measure of correlation found no link between the two, and outside statistical experts confirmed those calculations.
This sounded awfully familiar to me, so I searched around our archives, and voila. The Republicans made a similar argument about federal regulations hurting the employment numbers, and how if we just get rid of the regulations, the jobs will come streaming back. The Associated Press says no:
Is regulation strangling the American entrepreneur? Several Republican presidential candidates say so. The numbers don't.
THE FACTS: Labor Department data show that only a tiny percentage of companies that experience large layoffs cite government regulation as the reason. Since Barack Obama took office, just two-tenths of 1 percent of layoffs have been due to government regulation, the data show.
Always remember, the Republicans aren't about solving problems for the the average American. They're about solving problems for the average corporate CEO.
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This is good. It's a larger theme the Democrats should be pushing more broadly - namely, that the GOP is anti-science, and anti-facts. Oh, and they basically lie.
“Lately, we’ve heard a lot of professional politicians, lot of folks running for certain office, they’ve been talking down new sources of energy,” Obama said. Later he added: “Why would someone who wants to lead the country ignore the facts?”
This is a lot of money, but it's still small compared to the tax credits that Big Oil receives every year. One would think that after a hundred years or so, Big Oil could figure out the business model and no longer need handouts but somehow they keep coming. The Guardian:
Another week, another car talk. Barack Obama stopped by a North Carolina truck factory on Wednesday to announce $1bn in tax credits and grants for alternative-energy cars and trucks. It was Obama's third speech on cars and fuel in an election battleground state in three weeks. The president has travelled from New Hampshire to Florida and now North Carolina to insulate himself from Republican attacks on rising gas prices and the on-again, off-again Keystone XL tar sand pipeline ahead of the general election. "We can't just keep on relying on the old ways of doing business. We can't just rely on fossil fuels from the last century. We've got to continually develop new sources of energy," Obama said in his speech at the Daimler truck plant in Mount Holly North Carolina.
If we're going to try to get the man fired, could it at least be for a question he actually was asked, and answered, rather than one a reporter made up? From Media Matters:
A Politico story fueling misguided attacks on Energy Secretary Steven Chu is not borne out by what actually occurred. The article titled, "Chu: DOE working to wean U.S. off oil, not lower prices," claimed:
The Energy Department isn't working to lower gasoline prices directly, Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday after a Republican lawmaker scolded him for his now-infamous 2008 comment that gas prices in the U.S. should be as high as in Europe.
But this report is based on an assumption made by Politico reporter Alex Guillen about how Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R-MS) was going to finish a question. If that wasn't bad enough, Politico doubled down with another article today about Newt Gingrich -- who cited Guillen's story -- calling for Chu to be fired for the remarks.
Here's what actually happened in the hearing (fuller video and transcript below):
REP. NUNNELEE: But is the overall goal to get our price--
CHU: No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil to -- to build and strengthen our economy and to decrease our dependency on oil.
But here's Politico's version of what happened:
"But is the overall goal to get our price" of gasoline down, asked Nunnelee.
"No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy," Chu replied.
Guillen built his story on what he assumed Nunnelee was asking and gave no indication that the question was, in fact, ambiguous. There is good reason to believe that Chu thought Nunnelee was actually asking, "Is the overall goal to get our price up to European levels," since this was Nunnelee's previous question:
NUNNELEE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Secretary for being here. Before you were nominated, you were quoted as saying, quote, "Somehow, we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." I can't look at motivations. I have to look at results. And under this administration, the price of gasoline is doubled. While bumping $4 a gallon in North Mississippi, today the price of gasoline in Europe is about $8 a gallon, and the people of North Mississippi can't be here.
So, I have to be here and be their voice for them. And I have to tell you that $8 a gallon gasoline makes them afraid. It's a cruel tax on the people of North Mississippi as they try to go back and forth to work. It's a cloud hanging over economic development and job creation, and it appears to me this administration continues to drag its feet on oil exploration on fossil fuel development and recovery. How do you respond to that?
It's an innocent mistake, and I do think it's innocent - even I read that first quote and said "come on, of course he was gonna say "get our price down". Then I read the rest of the story and saw that the Congressman was asking more generally about whether it was true the administration was trying to raise gasoline prices. Knowing that, Media Matters is right - the reporter got this wrong by assuming what the question was, and by assuming the secretary thought the question was. Politico should correct this.
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Include your pet's photo in our rotating archive by sending it to photos@americablog.com. Make sure you put "pet" in the subject line, and tell us something about your pet (goofy, touching, whatever you like), and we just might write a post about it too!
