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Our Lob(obotomized)bied Congress' Energy Bill Excludes Our Most Efficient, Cleanest, Newly Plentiful Energy Source: Natural Gas
It is a further example of the deep dysfunction of our government. Bad enough that Wall Street was bailed out while dragging down the economic standing of the nation together with trillions of its citizens' dollars, only now to find Wall Street blithely going back to fat bonuses and fatter salaries. This while home foreclosures continue on almost unabated and retirees have to go back to work because their nest eggs have been devastated. But Congress is shameless, ever genuflecting to special interests even when trying to do well.
On Friday the House passed legislation in the form of a 1200 page bill addressing the very real and urgent concerns of global warming. Here was an effort, difficult to navigate as it was, to deal with an the issue of profound long term consequences. It was focused on transforming the way the nation produces and uses energy to curb the heat trapping gases linked to climate change. Cap-and-trade is at its core, meant to limit the emissions of CO2 gases, gases that are rapidly building up in the atmosphere at unacceptable and existentially dangerous levels given their shelf life of up to 1,000 years, or in terms of the human experience, an infinity.
The legislation would impact a broad spectrum of industries and professions including electric power generation, manufacturing, agriculture, construction and architectural design. And yes their would be clear winners for those new or underutilized technologies that can become contributors to the new carbon economy- Wind, Solar, geothermal, would receive a big boost. The bill mandates that 20% of the nation's electricity come from such sources by 2020.
Here the focus is to support carbon free initiatives and to step away where possible from fossil fuels. Coal and oil derived products, i.e. gasoline, diesel, and heating oil, are in the line of fire and the coal industry is deeply concerned consumption will diminish drastically. Coal of course is loaded with carbon. The bill provides concessions for "clean" coal projects, an important plus for the coal industry and coal producing states. A classic example of entrenched interests protecting entrenched infrastructure.
Yet the bill has a glaring omission. There is practically no reference nor programmatic inclusion of natural gas in the bill. Given the fact that natural gas, though a fossil fuel, is vastly more efficient and cleaner burning than coal or petroleum based products, this is a glaring and inexcusable omission explained only by the malign power of vested industrial and political interests. Doubly so, in that with new drilling technology the natural gas reserves within the United States alone have literally exploded over the last half dozen years. In Louisiana the Haynesville Shale Basin is now considered to hold a store of BTU's equivalent to that of the North Slope. This while the huge Marcellus Basin encompassing much of Pennsylvania and New York State holds as much, and possibly much more. Our gas reserves have expanded by a factor of nearly five. And that may be just the beginning. And to point out the obvious, they are all on shore and all within the Continental United States. Not to speak of the clear benefits at hand to our balance of payments and security interests. Perhaps even more tellingly, these reserves lie under a massive nationwide distribution network of 2 ½ million miles of pipeline.
The Department of Energy today is a very different organization than under the Bush administration. Its focus is the well being of its fellow citizens and not the parochial interests of the oil industry and the energy field. It is staffed with people of scientific competence determined to deal with issues of green house warming in a decidedly pro-active way.
And yet the Department of Energy is not Congress. It is a Department that understands what needs be done and that science tells us we must move aggressively. Their pragmatism can best be summarized quoting their working credo: "are changes cost effective, materially significant, timely".
That should be the Energy Bill's watchword as well. Without a clear provision and mandate for natural gas the "American Clean Energy and Security Act" will be a failed bill, and if not, certainly something far less than it could have been.
May I close in recommending to you a video broadcast of an interview with former Senator Timothy Wirth of Colorado. Succinctly, without bombast he instructs us all on the fatal consequences of the omission of a great national resource at this time, at this moment of urgent action and government resolve.
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Dear Mr. Learsy - tell the folks in Cleburne/Keene, Texas that.
We are literally awash in Natural gas. Many producing wells in Ok. and Tx. have been shut in or choked down because the price of NG is so cheap. It is the cleanest of the fossil fuels and requires no refining. When it comes out of the ground it is ready to use. This is not a Dem or Repub thing this is reality folks. NG is here in the USA, we don't have to import it, and it should serve as a bridge to greener times regardless of what you think about Pickens.
So you want to burn through the only viable hydrocarbon reserves that your kids will have left to heat their homes... because?
Would the answer be somehow connected to limitless greed?
If my kids and grandkids have new viable sources of energy they won't care if NG supplies are depleted. like I said above - NG is a bridge to greener times.
That's why the retail price roughly doubles every winter?
That would simply be supply and demand.
Lobbyoptomized describes our Congress to perfection!
Corporatists control all aspects of our Government with their ill-gotten LOOT!
I also agree that "now to find Wall Street blithely going back to fat bonuses and fatter salaries" is criminal!
SKIMMING FAKE PROFITS into the Pockets of the EL1TES is NOT Capitalism it is "Mafiaism", but in the "OLD" Mafia you would get your hands lobbed off doing it and then sent to the bottom of the RIVER.
Instead the TAXPAYER and Main Street Suffers while they keep their employee status of CEO! Yes employees skimming off Profits and we are allowing it with NO PUNISHMENT!
Natural gas should be a small part of this conversion to a Green Economy! Emphasis on SMALL, but also relevant. We need almost pure GREEN in the long run, but why not use it for Trucks? We can not afford to subsidize it but encourage it! "Clean Coal" is another matter and will simply transfer the dirty to our water supply.
Currently, there is a great deal of hype surrounding the new shale gas plays, which supposedly hold enormous reserves that could make the U.S. energy independent from foreign imports. But no one has been able to show that it's economically feasible to tap these reserves, given current natural gas prices and the very complex recovery technology required. The recovery process requires the use of high pressure water and sand to fracture the shale beds, which also is strongly opposed by the EPA on grounds of polluting water sources. The second hoped for source is the trans-Alaska/Canadian gas pipeline, still in its planning stages, will probably take a decade or more to build, and where costs may run as high as the hundred billions. So far the only cheerleader is Pickens. According to published reports, Steven Chu, the Nobel prize winning physicist who heads the Energy Dept is quoted as "being anostic" on the issue of natural gas.
Thanks. I suspected the hype about nat gas was too good to be true. Even if these vast reserves do pan out, it's just a matter of time til they're played out and we're back where we started. We need to move on to wind and solar, maybe nuke if they can address safety and disposal issues.
By the same argument as for shale gas one can at least double the world's oil reserves... after we are done pumping it out of the ground, roughly half the oil is still left in the stone that simply won't come out because of capillary forces. But one can always dig a mine shaft, scoop the remaining "tar sands" out and cook the oil out. That, of course, takes more energy than is contained in the oil...
Chu is agnostic about natural gas, that explains the lack of attention to the subject by the Obama administration.
Raymond, one only need look at the 70's reports on NG submitted to congress that showed worst case scenario numbers to fully understand why NG is not a solution. It has its place, like other forms of limited supply fossil fuels. Expanding infrastructure and investment for a finite resource is hugely short sighted.
In that congressional report, (when lobbies were selling the NG infrastructure to America) they stated that even in the worst case scenario, prices would be around 7 dollars per 1000 cubic feet (The numbers went all the way to 2008). Last year, though demand was steady, and supply voluminous, we reached a price over 8 dollars. Had there been a real demand or supply issue, we would have seen prices double that of estimates, and instead of utility prices rising 25% (as they did) we would have seen 70% increases.
If the American taxpayer is footing the bill for this new energy economy, we are much better served by investing in wind, nuclear, solar, and non-food bio mass. It is bad enough that we must pay for this investment as a society, only to give the profits to private shareholders when the work is done. We should not go an extra step and give away profits, along with a coddling of the special interest NG industry, only to be thrust back into the same situation when NG supplies become too expensive to find, and we will have to pay to get out of this mess again.
Just where is all this natural gas that everyone is talking about? The EIA estimate is that we have natural gas reserves on the order of 237 trillion cubic feet. We use about 20 trillion cubic feet a year, if I am not mistaken. So the unambiguously identified reserves will last us 10-15 years, at best. Now, the industry right now adds about the same in discovery as it uses up, so the EIA estimate stays roughly the same, year over year. That's the very same situation that you have seen in Saudi Arabia with oil... it's non-disclosure of old reserve findings, which, after proper backdating lead to the conclusion that pretty much all of the oil there is has already been discovered. Once you do that you can see a delay between the discovery and the production curve... and when one peaks, it's game over for the other. While this is still a decade or two out for natural gas, the reserve situation is just as dire as with oil because we will, whether we want it or not, use some of our NG to replace oil in the very near term. And that alone will double the NG depletion in the US... And if we also want to shut down some coal fired power plants to combat GW... it gets even worse.
Hey, no natural gas, no nuclear, no China/India buy in......brilliant.
Yes it is. Rooftop solar at 3 cents per KWH and Waste conversion to BioFuels can supply ALL over our energy needs
Forever.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/research?action=profile
NICE job Obama.
Baaaarrrrack! Obama.
Finally heard the new term for "tax". Cap N trade is not a tax, it is a "cost pass through". Obama will not increase taxes, but hang on the other cost pass throughs to come. Change is in the thesaurus.
I never thought I would agree with Raymond Learsy on anything but here it is- BRAVO- spot on. Natural gas is the best fuel we have and the Obama adminsitration has totally ignored it. It is abundant, it is here at home and we sorely need it so of course, it is ignored. The price of natural gas is currently 1/20th the price of oil on a btu basis and yet we do nothing. I think the issue is it does not play into Obama's poitical agenda to get the price of crude up to where renewables statr to make economic sense. The use of natural gas would be throwing a wrench into his plans.
The “free” market brings forth innovations, efficiencies, wealth to a few and employment for many. It is not a solution to every problem. Natural gas is a good intermediate solution to many of our pressing problems both economic and environmental. Gas (CH4) produces 40% less CO2 compared to gasoline (-CH2-). I noted that when the price of gas fell below a certain level it made wind power “uneconomical”. This is solely based on “market” forces.
The “free” market exists to serve those within its sphere. People and the Earth do not exist to serve the “free” market. When a viable solution runs afoul the market the market must be changed to allow the solution to be implemented. One simple solution is to place a tax on gas used to generate electricity and industrial heating as a variable rate to yield an overall cost that makes wind power “competitive”. If market forces pushed gas up the tax would go down and vice versa. In that way investors would be assured of a return on their investments in wind power. The gas that is freed up could be used as transportation fuel replacing imported oil.
It would also be of great benefit economically to place a higher tax on automobile gasoline and diesel. This tax would not be levied on natural gas or biofuels. An 85% ethanol blend would escape 85% of the tax. Biodiesel would be untaxed. This would give biofuels a leg up on the competition.
It is a widely held misnomer that capitalism breeds innovation. However the fact is, it breeds complacency and freezes innovation to that which is profitable. If you look historically, it is the social programs (and WAR) that has fueled innovation, not capitalism.
Raymond, your first sentence cannot be argued with regardless of political persuasion: "It is a further example of the deep dysfunction of our government". Ya, it is just another example of National dysfunction that the clowns we elect cannot agree on the caliber of pistol we want to shoot ourselves in the foot with.
So? Your point is....?
Thereafter your piece seems Cornucopian, viewing our surfeit of NG as a means of maintaining business as usual.
I assume that BAU is what you are promoting for the fact that you make no suggestion as to how you would use this "abundant" resource or how Congress should address this..
So what is BAU right now?
As leduck said, "we are wasting natural gas to generate electricity."
I would add that NG is also used as the basic ammonia building block in nitrogen fertilizers and chemicals. Additionally it is used for processing "tar sands" to oil. And of course, we use it for winter heating.
Given our world population, an argument can be made that as a part of agriculture, it is (right now) essential. As to the other uses, it is a waste, IMHO.
Why not tell us what you think of T.Boone Pickens idea of NG as an interim liquid fuel?
Raymond, business as usual won't cut it for We the people, Congress, or the POTUS, yet this is all we get from any of the usual suspects.
I'm sorry, but congress has always followed green policies. The more green the better.
i seriously disagree
then why is there so much urban sprawl?
Green as in the color of money, darlin'. 8-]
The problem with clean coal is that it still pollutes air water and streams with mercury and lead.
The production and storage is dirty too.
Because Obama cant say no to corporations we all loose.
Obama must be protested at every appearence.
In terms of CO2 per unit of energy if natural gas is 1 then coal is 12. So the bill subsidizes coal and coal fired electric utilities on the premise that some fairy tail "clean coal" technology might come to pass. And we continue to blow off the tops of mountains in West Virginia and fill in wetlands and stream beds, while forbidding development of abundant US natural gas reserves that lie offshore the East Coast and California (and most of which could be developed so far out that you would not be able to see the wells from the shoreline). Wonder which one has a bigger environmental impact?
The great Democratic environmental champion from West Virginia, Congressman Nick Rahall (who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee), does all he can to promote coal and diminish every other form of energy (everything but burning wood is better than coal when it comes to climate change risks).
Of course, if you are worried about CO2 and climate and not for nukes, you have your head in an unfortunate cavity.
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