President Obama tonight called for a major transition from “dirty” fossil fuels to “clean” energy sources, and claimed that the Waxman-Markey bill was a major step in that direction. He claimed that such a change would help to prevent future oil spills such as that experienced over the last two months in the Gulf of Mexico. So his new argument is not that cap and trade/tax would reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, which he never mentioned. Instead, his argument is that cap and trade/tax would prevent future major oil spills and other adverse environmental effects of using “dirty” fossil fuels.
This argument is weak to say the least. Conversion to his particular favored energy sources would take many years and prove exceedingly expensive, as the experiences of Spain, Denmark, and Germany with wind/solar energy illustrate. These favored sources each have their own environmental problems. In the meantime fossil fuel use will have to be expanded substantially to meet public and industry demand since the only way to prevent this would be to have a permanent and deepening recession. Finally, it does not really matter whether the proposed conversion starts now (as he said he wants) or many years from now since the alleged reduced risk of oil spills would not be realized for many years, if ever.
Realistic Alternatives to Reduce Dependence on Oil
If the purpose is to reduce major offshore oil spills, the obvious way to do that other than effective regulation (which the Obama Administration has clearly not done) is to prohibit specified types of “risky” offshore drilling until it can be made safe and encourage (not require) and at least not prohibit the development and use of other economical energy sources that will not lead to major offshore oil spills. Such oil-substitutes exist in abundance in the United States, and include land-based heavy oil and oil sands and oil shale and the conversion of coal to oil (for which technology has long existed). It may also prove economical to convert more large vehicle fleets to natural gas, given its falling price. All of these could be accomplished within a few years and with comparatively little cost to US energy users and would actually reduce our dependence on conventional oil and therefore reduce the demand for risky offshore drilling.
The President’s vague call for a change to “clean” energy and praise for the House cap and trade/tax bill as a way to avoid future major offshore oil spills is little more than pie-in-the-sky intended to promote his real aim, which still appears to be reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This is illustrated by his proposal recently to substantially expand off-shore oil drilling apparently as a way to buy votes for cap and trade/tax. Somehow the environmental risks of expanding off-shore drilling did not play any significant role when it came to promoting cap and trade/tax just a few months ago.
Unfortunately, his appeal tonight may result in passage of laws that provide preferences for his favored “clean” fuel sources. Since both coal and oil are currently out of favor, that presumably means solar, wind, and possibly (although he did not specify last night) nuclear. Each of these sources have their own environmental problems and share the common problem of being very expensive. Their use will inevitably lead to much higher energy prices. These problems will not go away by giving them national preferences. Preferences will primarily result in increased energy costs for industry and consumers and increasing non-competitiveness of the US economy in world markets.
Federal Preferences for Particular Energy Sources Would Be a Huge Waste of Resources Needed Elsewhere
So although preferences may be politically “popular,” they are nothing more than gigantic wastes of money which the United States needs for other much more useful purposes. Preferences will not make the technology develop significantly faster and will result in fewer, not more jobs, as shown by studies of the Spanish and Danish experiences with wind/solar energy. Other than providing a few limited incentives for economical alternative sources to oil such as described above, the best course of action for Congress is to keep the Federal Government out of the choice of energy sources (as described in an earlier post), and limit its involvement to effective regulaton of existing health, safety, and environmental laws. Increased concentration on this last but legitimate role for government should more than occupy the Government’s limited resources over the next few years.
oil spills are always bad for the environment, we should avoid them as much as possible. “
Oil spills are very damaging to the environment. I just hope that the oil companies gets more responsible and create some more safety measures when transferring oil on oil tankers and oil rigs. :“”, Kind regards
This is bad especially when Obama is in the process of trying to get offshore drilling approved.
We need a comment from the Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry. Landry’s done this before—she oversaw the 2003 spill in Buzzards Bay, Massachussets . Then, as now, her initial reports of the spill total were way off. Landry, a Coast Guard rear admiral, has gone from taking reporters’ questions at the White House to giving reporters tours of the damage, but there are also reports that the Coast Guard is keeping reporters and photographers from getting a full picture – and doing so at the behest of BP. (The Coast Guard says they are accommodating as many media requests as they can; Landry hasn’t commented). We have got to ask how the response to the Gulf of Mexico spill compares to the 2003 Bouchard B 120 oil spill in Buzzards Bay,Massaacusetts? Two things come to mind. First the U.S.Court of appeals never allowed the state of Massachusetts to enforce the Massachusetts Oil Spill Prevention Act of 2004. The Coast Guard appealed the rules because of an intercoastal turf war leaving the state with no new laws to protect the bay. Second the residential property claims of thousands of residents have been tied up in the Massachusetts court system for the past eight years. How will residential property owners around the gulf have to wait? On April 27, 2003, eight years ago the Bouchard Barge B-120 hit an obstacle in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts creating a 12-foot rupture in its hull and discharging an estimated 100,000 gallons of No. 6 oil.
I’m Kim Feil, a mother, musician, wife and in the middle of Arlington TX’s boom to have embraced $$$$ Urban drilling for natural gas. The Texas Railroad Commission has set thresholds of 25 tons of emissions per well per year before mandating Vapor Recovery Systems. I am worried that the air quality is given a back seat to maximizing profits as these Vapor Recovery Systems cost $60K-$100K to invest as an initial investment. We are being told that these are cost prohibitive and are not necessary-that the air quality is not affected with this industry in the back yards of our homes, schools and parks. I do not know what emissions come from natural gas drilling activities, but the new hydraulic fracing process with it’s secret recipe for unregulated chemicals that are used in the fracing fluid make me worried that Vapor Recovery Systems are needed just for that in itself. At least 15 Cattle died last year from drinking 1% frac fluid after a storm water runoff event in Cado Parish LA and then just recetnly on June 2, 15 more cattle died after a rain storm in Palo Pinto County TX. They say the natural gas/methane is a “dry gas” here in the Barnett Shale here (vaporless) in Tarrant County so we would not need Vapor Recovery Systems. Some also say the C02 is good for the plant life that there is no such thing as man made global warming and so the Vapor Recovery Systems are not needed and that the EPA is wrong for calling CO2 a pollutant-that CO2 is not harmful to us. I hope you can help me feel better about the fact that I am downwind from UTArlington who has leased their university land for almost three years now to Carizzo gas drillers who have drilled 20 wells so far and have 8 more planned and are fracing as I email you today. Here is a 2 min infrated emissions video from last August at UTA – what are those emissions of? youtube under the name of “2BCarrizoUTAFacilityVentStackEmis”. Our City owned leased land has brought them $59 million so far and UTA has received millions too. They say that the best tax value use of our land at this point per acre is worth $1.7 million if it is used for gas drilling, and so our City Council permits this industry in close proximity to us without doing independant air studies. Ft Worth has double the wells we have, and Dallas is just getting on board with this too! Is methane emissions unchecked safe (aside from their explosive nature)? Does fracing the earth pollute the ground water as the move “Gasland” shows? Help me please
Signed Kim Feil, 817 274-7257 youtube Environmental rapper at City Council meeting
Just a thought…
Perhaps he is moving onto the next UN way of restricting ecnomic growth and technological progress? It’s now all about the loss of the environment and species. Global warming is far too difficult now since it’s increasingly shown to be a lot of well not as hot air as it was some time ago?
This entire disaster with BP is idiocy. The total amount of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico sprung up by 1000’s of barrels Wednesday right after an subaquatic robot ostensibly hit the containment cap that has been getting oil from BP’s Macondo well. I wonder how much devastation this entire oil spill is going to cost the ocean when it’s all said and done
The Prez smoked dope in college. Now he seems wacked out about clean energy, preaching fantasy nonsense to the deeply clueless.
He needs a new agenda. Maybe his genuine gameplan is to encourage a Republican takeover of Congress, so he can swing toward the center to campaign in 2012. If so, I admire his cynicism.
If CO2 is not considered a pollutant, there are many ways we can safely, environmentally friendly, and economically feasible, solve our energy needs problem.