The Days of Energy Malaise Are Over

Wednesday, July 15th, marks the 30th anniversary of President Jimmy Carter's famous "malaise" speech.

As with many historic events, this speech was very different from the disaster that we now remember. First, Carter didn't use the word "malaise" even once in the speech. Second, his ratings in the public opinion polls went up after the speech. Third, it was largely about the energy crisis of the summer of '79 when Iran held U.S. hostages, OPEC restricted our oil supplies, and Americans were waiting in long lines at the gas stations.

Carter deserves credit for calling for decreasing our dependence on imported oil. As Americans learned when gasoline prices skyrocketed last summer -- and as we're reminded whenever Hugo Chavez or the Iranian ayatollahs threaten our petroleum supplies -- it is still costly and risky to rely on oil imported from unstable countries with unfriendly governments.

"Malaise" is better than denial. When Carter addressed the nation 30 years ago, he warned that "almost half the oil we use comes from foreign countries, at prices that are going through the roof." Now, nearly two-thirds of our oil is imported, at prices that are riding a roller coaster.

So when are we going to wake up to the fact that our dependence on imported oil is worse than in the days of malaise? And what are we going to do about it?

For all his courage in calling attention to the problem, some of Carter's prescriptions now seem just as dated as disco, pet rocks, and mood rings.

Back in 1979, Carter called for the country to "switch to other fuels, especially coal, our most abundant energy source." But now, as the Congress debates energy and climate change legislation, most policymakers see coal's carbon emissions as a major contributor to carbon emissions and global warming.

More prophetically, Carter also called for "twenty percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000." That is still a worthy goal. But, while solar, wind, and geothermal energy can generate electrical power, it would be costly and cumbersome for these energy sources to produce the electricity that would then power a significant share of the nation's cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles.

That leaves an energy source that Carter didn't mention, but supported, that was emerging in the late '70's -- biofuels, especially ethanol produced from corn and other grains. During the final year of the Carter Administration, the new domestic ethanol industry produced only 175 million gallons.

Last year, the U.S. ethanol industry produced more than 9 billion gallons of fuel, reducing oil imports by 321.4 million barrels. This year, we will produce more than 10 billion gallons. That's bad news for OPEC and good news for the USA.

Creating good-paying jobs is just as much of a concern now as it was during the economic stagnation of the late '70's and early '80's. From a handful of factories employing a few hundred workers, the U.S. ethanol industry has grown to nearly 200 biorefineries that support almost half a million jobs.

Not only in terms of energy independence and economic growth but also environmentally, ethanol is a success story. Academic studies show that ethanol produces far fewer carbon emissions than petroleum products, and ethanol production is reducing its own consumption of water, electricity and other energy sources and natural resources.

Thirty years after the grain ethanol industry emerged, the U.S. ethanol industry is beginning to produce fuels from "cellulosic" (non-grain) feedstocks, including grasses, woodchips, and even garbage. As our new President Barack Obama has explained, grain ethanol is still essential because the "transition to [the next generation] will be successful only if the first-generation biofuels industry remains viable in the near term."

Maybe if President Carter -- and all Americans 30 years ago -- had foreseen this promising part of the energy future, no one would have talked about "malaise." If we keep producing more and better biofuels, Americans thirty years from now will look back on today's Americans with gratitude, not grief.

Follow Bob Dinneen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ethanolbob

Comments

[BrianJDonovan]

The issue, for advanced biofuel, is whether the proper development of an advanced biofuel industry in the United States is even feasible when: (a) independent ethanol producers in the U.S. are at the mercy of volatile commodities markets for feedstock; and (b) the price of ethanol is controlled by the oil companies.

Read "Independent U.S. Ethanol Producers Will Not Survive as Price Takers" on the following page: http://renergieadvancedbiofuel.blogspot.com/

[Biodiversivist]

In the above article, Dinneen says: "… the summer of '79 when Iran held U.S. hostages, OPEC restricted our oil supplies, and Americans were waiting in long lines at the gas stations

….As Americans learned when gasoline prices skyrocketed last summer -- and as we're reminded whenever Hugo Chavez or the Iranian ayatollahs threaten our petroleum supplies -- it is still costly and risky to rely on oil imported from unstable countries with unfriendly government­s…."

He is using an event that occurred three decades ago to fan the flames of nationalism (or is it xenophobia) to hawk corn ethanol. In 1979 U.S. military sales to the Saudis was 5 times higher than that for Israel. We haven't imported oil from Iran since 1979. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were our allies in our last two wars (they paid for over half of the cost of the Gulf war).

Gas price spikes last summer were the result of speculation, a normal artifact of capitalism. He failed to mention that biodiesel was selling for $6.00 a gallon and that the price of corn thanks to corn ethanol spiked at $8 a bushel from a historic norm of $2. In other words, it has been proven that biofuels won't stop price spikes because they follow the price of oil. In fact, if we become too dependent on food crops for fuel, we will see more frequent and severe price swings because we can't control weather induced crop failure.

[KillTheMessenger]

O Brother... a biofuels shill hiding behind national security.

Yawn. What else is new?

[classicalgeek]

We don't need grain ethanol. We could simply remove the surtax on sugar cane ethanol and grow sugar cane once more along the Gulf coast, as we used to, to revitalize the region and make more efficient ethanol. Local conversion plants will reduce even further the carbon footprint of sugar cane ethanol.

[drkazmd65]

Good article,..­. but I still don't understand why our first concern - before ramping up to producing more ethanol, methanol and biodiesel (for example - throwing money at the algae-desiel ideas) - isn't simply pushing for energy efficiency?

Give people real incentives for replacing or updating old, non-efficient appliances. Give people real incentives to weatherproof their homes. Give people real alternatives to their automobile commute (I, for one, could probably easily get away with telecomuting at least once per week). Do the little things that add up first.

Once you have got those underway - THEN focus on the production end.

[ReedYoung]

I think efficiency without alternative *sources* of energy seems pretty futile. Besides which, the longer we pussyfoot about what to "prioritize" the worse the outcome will be. We must do all of it, immediately, as rapidly as humanly possible.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/26/us-geological-survey-clim_n_153581.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/15/climate-change-models-pre_n_167045.html

[research]

Rooftop solar panels have dropped in price 4x this year to an astounding 3 cents per KWH over 30 years, or 2$ per peak watt large commercial roofs installed.

1.85 per peak watt! retail!
http://www.atensolar.com/14.html
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm

SOLAR IS THE CHEAPEST ELECTRICITY SOURCE YOU CAN BUY!

STOP SAYING solar IS "COSTLY".

Corn Ethanol and any other BioFuel that grows crops Just to use them for fuel, is a terrible idea, leading to starvation.

WASTE Biofuels, on the other hand, dramatically reduce our waste management problems, and allow 100% of our organic materials to be efficiently converted into energy and fuel. BioChar is a great system, possibly FT and several other systems.

see my profile for more details, proof and links.

So yes, Our energy Malaise is over!

[ReedYoung]

That is the best profile ever! My favorite part:

[
Automatic cleaning systems are already 30 cents per peak watt. 2.3$ per peak watt raises the cost per KWH to 3.6 cents per KWH.

http://earth2tech.com/2008/11/03/are-dirty-solar-panels-a-big-problem/

Here are the prices for the latest installed generation of power systems cents per KWH:

Coal Supercritical: 10.554
Coal Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC): 11.481
Coal IGCC with Carbon Capture & Storage (IGCC with CCS): 17.317
Alternatives:
Biogas: 8.552
Wind: 8.910
Gas Combined Cycle: 9.382
Geothermal: 10.182
Hydroelectric: 10.527
Concentrating solar thermal (CSP): 12.653
Nuclear: 15.316
Biomass: 16.485
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Comparative_electrical_generation_costs
]

[research]

Thanks!

[convit]

From the post: "Third, it was largely about the energy crisis of the summer of '79 when Iran held U.S. hostages..­."

I'm afraid that's factually incorrect. The American hostage crisis didn't begin until November of '79. ( You can look it up, or just do the math: We all recall that it lasted 444 days, and ended on the day of Reagan's inauguration - January 20, 1981.)

[ReedYoung]

Don't be afraid. I guess the phrasing could have been better, but it's not very important. The Iran hostage crisis is obviously "related" to petroleum by its motivation in U.S. interference in Iranian politics, which is motivated by petroleum. But for such a brief post, intended more to link clean environment to self-sufficiency via the general topic "energy" than to get deep into geopolitics, I might have left out the Iran hostage crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//Iran_hostage_crisis] altogether. Anyway, it's a trivial error, which can be corrected either by cutting "Iran held U.S. hostages," from the sentence or by changing the word "when" to "the year that" or by the reader just understanding the word "when" to mean the year '79, not the entire clause "summer of '79" in which case the entire sentence is already perfectly correct. I recommend the latter.