Energy for Dummies: The GOP's Secret Weapon Is A Clueless Media

The six-word banner above the CNBC logo said it all.

"AMERICA"S OIL CRISIS: THE NUCLEAR OPTION," framed a bogus media narrative and a phony Republican talking point. A couple of clueless reporters pushed it further.

Enrin Burnett: "We do get nearly 20% of our power from nuclear, so in a sense we are more of a nuclear nation than many people realize."

CNBC Political Correspondent John Harwood: "We are, but I do think that policy is drifting in that direction now that people are paying $4 a gallon for gas and increasingly are concerned and aware that we have spent a whole lot of time spinning our wheels and not breaking that addiction to foreign oil. Obviously, the question especially for Democrats is what do you do about the waste. You've got the whole Yucca Mountain issue, which has been tied up for a long time."

Harwood alluded to the usual stereotypes: "pro-growth versus environmentalism" and "progress versus not-in-my-backyard." But "nuclear power versus imported oil" isn't a stereotype. It's a lie. If we built more nuclear power plants, the impact on our oil imports would be zero. Yes, nuclear reactors and oil are both types of energy, just as apples and vodka both types of calories. No one in the real world -- the oil business and the utility business -- considers one to be an economic substitute for the other.

I don't mean to come down harshly on CNBC and John Harwood, for whom I have great respect. This is meant as a wake-up call to all newsrooms across the country. Invest a few hours in a tutorial on the basics of how energy is produced and how the energy industry works. Whenever a politician suggests that nuclear energy will make a serious dent in our reliance on foreign oil, he's perpetrating a fraud. It's as much of a fraud as if he were suggesting there was a connection between Saddam and 9/11. And any journalist who reports those claims at face value is not doing his job.

If you read McCain's speeches closely, he never actually says that nuclear power can reduce oil imports. (Most of the time, White House speechwriters were careful to never actually say that Saddam was connected with 9/11.) But he clearly tries to conflate the two:

"Opponents of domestic production cling to their position even as the price of foreign oil has doubled and doubled again... The need for more production extends as well to another long-neglected source of energy, and that is nuclear power."

Elisabeth Bumiller at The New York Times did the same thing.

"In his third straight day of campaign speechmaking about energy and $4-a-gallon gasoline, Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, told the crowd at a town-hall-style meeting at Missouri State University that he saw nuclear power as a clean, safe alternative to traditional sources of energy that emit greenhouse gases."

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Perhaps unwittingly, Harwood and Bumiller use false stereotypes that promote a political agenda. They suggest that Republicans will build nuclear power plants so ordinary people don't have to pay $4 for gasoline, while Democrats tell everyone to buy a Prius.

Here are a few basics that reporters should remember whenever a politician invokes nuclear energy:

Nuclear Power Is For Electricity

Back to John Harwood's comments. Commercial nuclear power is used exclusively for generating electricity. Less than 2% of the electricity we generate is fueled by petroleum, and about 1% of the petroleum we consume is used to generate electricity.

Could nuclear power replace that 1% of oil we consume for electricity? Not really. Nuclear plants and petroleum plants serve different purposes. There are 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S. with an average nameplate capacity of about 1,000 megawatts each. In 2006, they operated at 88% capacity. There are 3,744 petroleum-based power plants with an average capacity of about 17 megawatts. In 2006, they operated at 12% of capacity. The smaller petroleum-based plants generally serve as backup for exceptional circumstances when no other source of power is available A nuclear plant is more like an 800-pound gorilla on the electric power grid.

Oil is for cars, trucks and planes, not electricity.

The Energy Information Administration explains that, "oil continues to account for more than 95 percent of all the energy used for transportation in the United States." (Electric railways and vehicles fueled by natural gas make up the remainder.) Transportation uses about 2/3 of the oil we consume, with most of the remainder used by heavy industry. Can the oil consumed by industry be turned into transportation fuel? Not easily, since there's an upward limit on the amount of "light product," or gasoline, that any refinery can produce from crude oil.

We have no shortage of domestic energy for delivering electricity.

We get about half of our electricity from coal, 20% from natural gas, 20% from nuclear, 7% from hydroelectric, and the remaining 3% from everything else. Contrary to popular myth, we generate 25% more nuclear power today than we did 10 years ago. (Source: Energy Information Administration.) We are the Saudi Arabia of coal, and "clean coal technology" is one of those catchall terms like "energy" that can mean a multitude of things. We produce about 86% of the natural gas that we consume, with the remainder imported from Canada.

Newt Gingrich and other crackpots have suggested that we will need nuclear plants to recharge all the new electric cars on the road. That's a pie-in-the-sky notion, not a real plan that has been worked out.

Mainstream media has also missed the boat in its coverage of T. Boone Pickens' proposal. But that's for another time.

Comments

[WilliamMook]

Please read the testimony I gave to the Ohio House of Representatives last February, it has an answer for all our needs.

http://www.ohiochamber.com/governmental/pdfs/William%20Mook_021308.pdf

We cover our old surface mines with low cost solar panels (which I've developed) and use those panels to create hydrogen from water. We pipe the hydrogen to our coal fired power plants and burn hydrogen there instead of coal, eliminating the bulk of our carbon emissions. We use the power plant's coal processing hardware to combine coal which still arrives at the power plant to liquid fuels using more hydrogen. We distribute the liquid fuels for sale to pay for the whole setup.

Can this work? Sure! If the capital cost of the panels installed and operating - is low enough. That's the goal. That's what I have achieved.

Here are the numbers. We consume 6.8 billion barrels of oil and produce domestically 1.6 billion barrels. We import 5.2 billion barrels. We produce and consume 1.1 billion tons of coal each year.

178 million tons of hydrogen delivered to our coal fired power plants provides exactly the same amount of heat as the coal. Another 122 million tons of hydrogen combined with the coal produces 7.2 billion barrels of liquid fuels - gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel - by DIRECT HYDROGENATION - combined with the 1.6 billion barrels of conventional fuels, this is 8.8 billion barrels - sufficient for the USA to EXPORT 2.0 billion

[progressiveconomist]

Dear David Fiderer,

You assert that electricity from nuclear power plants cannot feasibly be used to fuel cars. But you are only correct in the short term and only if there is no serious attempt to apply known and feasible technologies. The role of a carbon tax is to provide the needed economic motivation.

The use of petroleum in transport is about cars, since diesel fuels are listed as a separate category (distillates) in your data, and since there are non-nuclear substitutes for diesel (bio-diesel for instance).

The view of someone like Al Gore seems to be that cars can become mostly electric by a two-step procedure. First, improve the electrical grid so that it can transport large amounts of energy over long distances efficiently (the smart grid). Getting it will take time and cost money. But it can be done. Second, there is the conversion of cars from gasoline to electricity, either in whole or in part. Again, this takes time and a bunch of money but it can be done, provided that the carbon tax works properly.

What is the time line? Not ten years, because the auto fleet won"t be replaced so quickly. So one should consider maybe a 25-year time line.

Are you prepared to contemplate this kind of strategy? It"s costly, but less costly (in real, world climate terms) than that dreaded "business as usual."

[Clairvaux]

The MSM are not "clueless". They are politcal Prozac. They are a form of mind-control.

This is not a metaphor. They are a deliberate form of mind-control, insidious and all pervasive. Every time you turn on the tube, your brain is being massaged by this garbage.

It's amazing we can still walk, much less think.

Thank God for the internet.

[josephjsalas]

Clueless Media? MSM is owned by the corporations that comprise both the
fed and the IMF(IRS). huh! Then czeck out the Genepax car.

[patricklee5150]

About 8 percent of New York's electricity is generated with oil.

http://www.powerscorecard.org/tech_detail.cfm?resource_id=8

[patricklee5150]

You do realize that some of our electricity is generated from gas or diesel, right?

http://www.powerscorecard.org/tech_detail.cfm?resource_id=8

[Agent420]

Read the article and find out for your self.

[Nojo]

Where would plug in hybrids get their energy? 50% from coal, as you point out. You are right, the choice with nuclear power isn't between nuclear and oil, it is between nuclear and coal.
Coal production is way up, and so is coal consumption. Carbon capturing may never work, it may be always just out of reach, like fusion power, something that's been just around the corner since the 1950s.
The real nuclear question is what to do as the current plants go offline. Replacing them with coal would be cheapest. If left to purely the market, that's what we will get.
I believe we need more than one solution. Conservation, rewnewables, AND nuclear. Because when the lights go out and renewables can't solve everything short term, someone is going to mention a quick and dirty fix. Coal.

[Darkdonnie]

"the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, fly ash"a by-product from burning coal for power"contains up to 100 times more radiation than nuclear waste."

Nuclear Now! save the coal for fuel for my porsche!

[littlemike]

IMO, nuclear fission power is a boondoggle from an economic and Energy Returned On Energy Invested (EROEI) perspective. When you consider the energy and dollar costs expended in the mining, tailings disposal, refinement, plant construction, plant decommissioning, waste disposal, etc., nuclear fission is not pretty. We burn a lot of oil to get the uranium dressed up and ready for the party and then to put it to bed and treat the hangover the next morning. Only nations that want material for their nuclear weapons should seriously consider it because then it serves a dual purpose.

Read Richard Heinberg's "The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies".

Until we perfect nuclear fusion on earth (hydrogen into helium), the best source of energy from a cost and EROEI perspective is from the awesome fusion reactor in our sky called "the sun" via wind and various direct solar power conversion techniques. And the big sleeper is the tremendous potential of enhanced geothermal. The Navy's been doing this at China Lake and the results are reportedly AWESOME!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_dry_rock_geothermal_energy

[legalgirl]

The Grand Ole' Party IS the media. Have you watched it lately? Nothing but GOP spin. Anything remotely true is "balanced" by some untrue GOP talking point (e.g., the "fight" between Hillary supporters and Obama supporters). This wouldn't be news even if it were true. It would be opinion (e.g., it is the news person's opinion that some controversy exists -- there are no FACTS to support it). The "balance" struck is between what Democrats think and what Republicans think according to the news person -- not truth and not falsity. Why would one report a falsehood anyway? That's not fair and balanced reporting-- it's rumor-mongering. There is no TV "media." Just talking heads talking trash.

[norkas]

Republican news on almost every network what the hell do you think they will promote

[saltysea]

Want nuclear? Sign on the dotted line. We can put the first new plant in your neighborhood, and the first waste depository somewhere in the water table in your county! Be the first!

[mjt218]

The community I grew up in benefitted tremendously from a Nuclear Plant in the area. It has provided hundreds of jobs (in an area that's lost many manufacturing jobs), and the company has made a big effort to have a positive impact on education, the evironment and development in the area.

My family and many of my neighbors would welcome a government regulated expansion of the plant.

[gevan]

When the City of New York bans gasoline powered vehicles from Manhattan Island, notice will be taken and adjustments made by the manufacturers.

[dhassl]

but what if we make a serious push to create plug in vehicles and a network of substations to re-charge said vehicles on long distant trips? Wouldn;t that help us decrease our fuel consumption?

[fishsandwichesr2good]

Funny, when liberals babble about wind and solar power replacing our dependence on foreign oil, I don't read similar analyses. In any event, the relevance of nuclear energy and foreign oil does come together when talking about electric cars. Electric cars reduce our dependence on foreign oil, right? People seem to forget that the electricity to charge those batteries has to come from somewhere. That's where nuclear power comes into play on the foreign oil dependency front. I'd be very curious to see some analysis of the levels to which the demand to electricity will spike if and when we convert to battery powered cars. I'd love us to actually cut out the middle man and look into nuclear powered cars instead. Talk about horse power!

[MikeLee7125]

You'd need a master's degree to legally operate it

[Paralogos]

There's a balance-of-payments issue with importing oil. And there's a global warming issue with burning oil, coal and natural gas. It's superficially correct to say that increasing nuclear, wind, and hydroelectric electricity capacity won't reduce oil imports IF WE ASSUME NO CHANGE IN TRANSPORTATION TECHNOLOGY. But to the extent that gas and diesel-powered vehicles are replaced by the use of electric vehicles - trains, trams, and plug-in electrics, and if only for reasons of greenhouse gas emissions we need to make that transition anyway - the oil-dependence of the transportation sector will be reduced. And, imported or not, we need to reduce the contribution of fossil fuels to our overall energy mix.

The most important thing to do is to conserve energy - fewer, smaller, cleaner vehicles, more efficient home and industrial use.

The next most important thing to do is to exploit as much non-polluting, renewable energy as can be made practical. Wind, solar, hydro, et. al. won't cover even half of our electricity needs any time soon, but every percent we can manage is a Good Thing.

And the third most important thing to do is to develop and exploit nuclear technology. Nukes aren't cheap, and they bring a lot of waste and proliferation baggage, but they can be built in large numbers, reasonably safely (as the French have demonstrated), and don't emit greenhouse gasses.

[mjt218]

For the most part, Uranium is strip-mined. Strip-mining is a pretty machinery intensive business that relies on fossil fuel driven equipment.

Nuclear power plants also require tons of steel and concrete (among other things) to be built. The manufacturing of these materials is a big-time emissions producer.

Building new nuke plants is a lot like making a decision to build brand new sustainable homes. Even if they have limited carbon footprints while in use, there's still a pretty big footprint left from their building.

I'm not a nuclear energy alarmist myself, but it is important to look at the full lifecycle of a particular technology in making decisions about emissions impacts. Calling nuclear, an emissions free option probably is not a completely accurate statement.

[Paralogos]

Calling nuclear an emissions-free option would not be accurate. That's why I didn't call them any such thing. I merely said that the plants don't emit greenhouse gasses. Because they don't. They've still got a carbon footprint. As do hydroelectric and solar power sites, of course, though theirs are a bit smaller - which is why I put them in a more urgent category.

[FrustratedPhil]

i agree that the media is underinformed but then so are most people who should know better. FIRST there is no oil crisis. This whole thing was a carefully executed strategy by the vice president and the oil companies. Let's look at the facts:

1. Goon number 1 and goon number 2 are oil men in the pocket of big oil (remember Ken Lay).
2. Cheney developed the energy policy behind closed doors with the oil companies
3. W and the Saudi family are kissing buddies.
4. Oil prices are based on emotion. The more trouble there is in the middle east, the higher the prices.
5. Who, in Washington, has made sure that the trouble in the middle east is always at a high point? Here are some examples: Iraq, no serious effort to resolve the Israel/Arab issues, no serious effort to find Bin Ladin, volitility in Pakistan, etc. etc.
6. The oil companies and the Saudi's have been the beneficiaries of the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world (direct transfer from my pocket to their's).
7. When the price of gas goes up the cost to transport and process oil stays the same and the oil company profits go up.
8. There is no shortage of oil

If we want cheap gas, all we have to do is curb speculation and oil company profits and elect Barak Obama. We can then move forward on developing the technology to become responsibly energy independent.

[AzRealProgressive]

Obama does not appreciate cheap gas.

[BigMike75]

Bingo! Speculation has so inflated the price of Oil, yet the the average American doesn't realize it. Much of that speculation has been caused by the failed policies of this administration. So they have to go, preferrably on a small dingy and left in the middle of the south Pacific. But there has to be a comprehensive energy policy as well, and it has to be concerted effort. If we put as much effort into a comprehensive energy independance program, as we did into the origins of the space program, we could do wonders for this country. But we must get the speculators out of Washington, stabilize the Middle East, and be proactive in our energy independance efforts. For the most part this country has been a reactive one, and now we're suffering because of it.