Construction of the $2 billion 120 megawatt Longleaf power plant was blocked yesterday by Fulton County Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore, overturning a ruling that would have allowed the first coal plant to be built in Georgia in 20 years.

Environmentalists cite Moore’s ruling as the first time a judge has applied the April 2007 ruling from the Supreme Court stating the greenhouse gas emissions are a pollutant and must be regulated.

I just posted more on the ruling, reactions from both the plants developers and environmentalists, as well as what this could mean for future coal-fired plants in the planning stages – for the full story go to my post at TriplePundit.com.

Carbon Emissions Climate Change and Business Energy Non Renewable energy policy Environmental News GovernmentCarbon Emissions Climate Change and Business Energy Non Renewable energy policy Environmental News Government

 

Some 230 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions can be avoided between now and 2050 - bringing atmospheric CO2 concentrations down 20 parts per million - if carbon capture and storage (CCS) development is pursued aggressively and put into use, according to Shell International’s Unconventional and Enhanced Oil Recovery team. 

While the resources devoted to developing renewable energy resources will continue to grow, hydrocarbon fuels will continue be the world’s predominant fuel and power sources during coming decades, according to Shell’s Blueprint and Scramble global energy scenarios for the 21st century. 

The pressing need to better manage and reduce overall carbon footprints across societies and countries around the world that rely on hydrocarbons - be it oil, gas or coal - for transportation, power generation and heating and cooling makes CCS an all the more attractive and feasible technology, but only if more is done in short order in the way of multi-stakeholder demonstration and pilot tests, carbon prices increase and CCS projects qualify for carbon emissions reduction credits - such as those issued as part of the EU ETS and UN-Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) - and the necessary legal and regulatory parts are put into place, according to John Barry and his team, who spoke with more than 70 participants from around the world June 19 during the second installment of Shell Dialogues.   Convincing the broad public that  CCS  can be used widely  yet safely and responsibly will be one of  the  biggest and most important hurdles, he added.

Shell’s Enhanced Oil and Uncoventional Energy team took the webcast podium and devoted about an hour to outlining and discussing Shell’s own, as well as broader public-private partnerships, aimed at kick-starting CCS project development.  “While it won’t solve society’s energy and environmental problems on its own, it will allow us to continue to make use of the abundant fossil fuels that are needed in the energy mix and provide a bridge to the eventual longer term lower carbon energy future,” Barry, vice president in charge of the Shell team, said.

Here’s a link to the webcast video and transcripts of Shell Dialgoues 2 in its entirety.

carbon+capture+storage Carbon Emissions CCS CO2+emissions Energy Non Renewable Peak Oil Shell Shell+Dialogues Solutionscarbon+capture+storage Carbon Emissions CCS CO2+emissions Energy Non Renewable Peak Oil Shell Shell+Dialogues Solutions

Strong language perhaps, but this is no time to mince words. 

When Dick Cheney claims that the only impediment to increased domestic oil and natural gas production is the refusal of Congress to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, he isn’t telling you the truth.

When Wall Street Journal writer Daniel Henninger publishes an article using phrases like “environmental moralisms” for a reality he fails to comprehend, instead invoking fear (“Nikita Khrushchev said, ‘We will bury you.’ Forget that. We’ll do it ourselves”) and political dogma for his false argument that the only thing blocking the United States to Drill! Drill! Drill! is Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, he is either ignorant of or simply does not care about the truth.

Dick Cheney’s time is long past (not too many people believe what he says anyway). The Wall Street Journal doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Stuck in reverse with the thought that the key to our energy needs lay in the “moonscape” of the Arctic Reserve (as Henninger, who likely has never even been to Alaska, let alone ANWR, puts it) Dick Cheney and  Daniel Henninger do us all a grave disservice.

This is, or course, the sort of non-leadership, vision-less tripe we expect from Cheney and the Journal. It isn’t the first time they’ve lied to us, and it sadly won’t be the last.

But let’s imagine for a moment that the vice president and Henninger actually told us the truth:

Imagine that they told you the hard truth that increased domestic drilling does not, in fact, correlate into lower gas prices.  

Since the 1990’s, the federal government has consistently encouraged the development of its oil and gas resources and the amount of drilling on federal lands has steadily increased during this time. The number of drilling permits has exploded in recent years, going from 3,802 five years ago to 7,561 in 2007.

Between 1999 and 2007, the number of drilling permits issued for development of public lands increased by more than 361%, yet gasoline prices have risen dramatically contradicting the argument that more drilling means lower gasoline prices. There is simply no correlation between the two” (emphasis mine)

And what if they told you that oil and gas companies aren’t using a significant portion of federal lands already open to energy development?

Even if increased domestic drilling activity could affect the price of gasoline, there is yet no justification to open additional federal lands because
oil and gas companies have shown that they cannot keep pace with the rate of drilling permits that the federal government is handing out.

In the last four years, the Bureau of Land Management has issued 28,776 permits to drill on public land; yet, in that same time, 18,954 wells were actually drilled. That means that companies have stockpiled nearly 10,000 extra permits to drill that they are not using to increase domestic production.”

These are the some of the conclusion from the House Natural Resources staff committee report The Truth About America’s Energy: Big Oil Stockpiles Supplies and Pockets Profits (pdf). 

Representative Nick Rahall of West Virginia, chairman of the Natural Resources committee introduced the Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act of 2008 that would force Big Oils hand – “use it or lose it” as David Sassoon characterizes it in his article at SolveClimate.com.

The bill would impose the same requirements that coal has had with their 20–year leases – show that they are “diligently developing” resources with them.

As it is now oil and gas companies are sitting on leases and 68 million acres already leased for energy extraction go undeveloped.

It makes you wonder why Cheney and Henninger aren’t telling us the truth.

 

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In a rare showing of bipartisan support, The Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 (H.R. 6049) overwhelmingly passed the House on May 21^st with a vote of 263–160.

As we reported on May 19^th, the bill would have extended tax credits for wind, solar, and other renewable and alternative energy development projects.

All that was needed to help insure a path for commercial scale renewable energy development was that same spirit of bipartisanship from the Senate acting in the interest of the people.

A Republican filibuster and failed cloture vote today to stop it made sure that didn’t happen.

Renewable energy development stands poised to help move the country move toward a sustainable energy future. Wind energy grew 45% last year. The Department of Energy reported last month that wind could provide up to 20% of the nation’s energy needs by 2030. But with a start-stop strategy of lukewarm support (at best) from government, renewable energy development finds it difficult to find an economic footing in the face of well established subsidies for fossil fuel.

And that wasn’t enough for one day. Republicans also blocked debate on the Consumer-First Energy Act of 2008 (S.3044) with another rejected cloture motion that would have ended a filibuster.

The Consumer-First Energy Act is aimed at curbing price gouging, would deny large oil companies (those that produce at least 500,000 barrels of oil per day) the manufacturing tax deduction, impose a windfall profits tax, and collect new tax revenues for an energy independence and security trust fund. The bill would also limit commodities speculation by effectively raising margins for futures contracts.

That’s two filibusters this week and one last week.

The Senate is 0 for 3.

Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club said in a statement, in part, that 

The Senate Republican Leadership has now proved it has no interest whatsoever in even discussing the solutions to our mounting energy and economic crises”.

By blocking debate on these two critical issues, the Senate has once again failed to show the vision and leadership required of it as we move into a changing energy future.

We can embrace that change, or find it as a very rude awakening, kicking and screaming the whole way. It appears that the Senate has been kicking and screaming a lot lately, with little to show for it.

 

Sources and Further Reading
Oil & Gas Journal
SolveClimate.com

 

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The price of oil shot up nearly $11 to close at $138.54 a barrel on Friday.

The sharp increase came as U.S. stocks plunged on news of a four-year high in unemployment. The Dow Jones Index fell 394 points.

Ole Slorer, an analyst for Morgan Stanley, reports that oil could rise to $150 a barrel by July 4^th. Other analysts suggest that oil may go as high as $200 a barrel within the next 18 months.

Tensions in the Middle East have helped fuel the sharp rise, including a threat of strike by workers at Chevron’s facilities in Nigeria that would disrupt production and access to oil.

Sources:
ABC News
Forbes
BBC

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U.S. light crude for July delivery closed on Wednesday at $133.17 a barrel, up $4.19.

The large spike is due in part to a government report indicating stockpiles had decreased last week, instead of the increase analysts expected.

Over the last four days, the price of oil has risen more than $9 a barrel.

Stephen Schork, publisher of industry newsletter The Schork Report said

 There is a tremendous amount of fear and greed driving this market. This is a runaway train. I don’t think the fundamentals justify the runup."

Some analysts expect a sell-off in the futures market after the Memorial Day weekend, though few are certain what to expect as oil climbs higher into uncharted territory.

Other factors in in the price of oil include rising demand, especially for diesel fuel in China, India, South America, and the Middle East, as well as the weakening dollar.

Source:
CNN Money

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If We’ve Told You Once We’ve Told You a Thousand Times: NO!

Just a couple weeks ago president Bush chided congress for not opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to “environmentally sensitive” oil exploration, asserting that was a big reason why gas prices are currently so high. It’s the same old song and dance.

Heading their master’s call,  Senators Mitch McConnel of Kentucky and Pete Domenici of New Mexico attempted to tack on their Domestic Energy Production Act to a flood relief bill. The move was rejected yesterday by a vote of 42 to 56 (60 votes are needed for approval).

In a vote of 97–1 the senate agreed to halt any further additions to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for the time being. (An interesting analysis of the move and how the Reserve works is offered today in Salon.)

The measure proposed by McConnel and Domenici would open up oil exploration in ANWR and coastal waters off western states, as well as promote the use of expensive, dirty, and dangerous “unconventional” fuels produced from liquid coal and oil shale. 

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid introduced the Consumer-First Energy Act of 2008 last week as an alternative measure to the Republican Domestic Energy Production Act.

Sierra Club president Carl Pope applauded the vote in the senate saying in a press release:

The answer to our oil addiction is not to search for a bigger fix. Drilling our coasts and national treasures like the Arctic Refuge and spending billions on dirty and expensive boondoggles like liquid coal and oil shale won’t help hardworking Americans cope with gas prices. It will only add to the tens of billions of dollars the oil industry is already making.

Even at peak production, which could take twenty years, the Arctic Refuge would provide roughly a year’s worth of oil and would reduce gas prices at most by one or two cents a gallon.

Under the leadership of President Bush and his allies in Congress, gas prices have more than doubled, Big Oil has made more than half a trillion dollars in profits over the past five years, and the United States has become even more dangerously addicted to fossil fuels.

Hardworking Americans need real relief instead of the recycled rhetoric and disastrous energy policies that the president and his allies in Congress have pushed for the past seven years. Thankfully the leadership in the Senate has put forward a plan that will actually protect consumers, put America on the path toward a clean energy future, and finally put the brakes on the taxpayer-funded giveaways that have been helping fuel Big Oil’s record profits.

Instead of searching for more ways to pad Big Oil’s bottom line, the Consumer-First Energy Act offers Senators a chance to stop writing a blank check to Big Oil and instead protect consumers and invest in clean energy.

These are the kind of answers we need—solutions that will bring energy costs under control, combat global warming, and leave America’s last wild places intact.”

 

Sources and Further Reading
Energy Outlook
Sierra Club

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That’s apparently what he’d like the voters of Kentucky to believe. But it’s unclear what good it will do for Kentucky.

With Hillary taking some much deserved flak over the blatant pandering in her call for a “gas tax holiday”, Obama has been focusing his campaign in Kentucky on his support for clean coal technologies.

Clean coal is generally considered coal burned in Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle plants and combined with carbon sequestration.

Barrack did co-sponsor a budget provision with Kentucky senator Jim Burning (R) for $200 million to develop clean coal, but none of that is in Kentucky. There is only dirty coal in Kentucky, and the one proposed IGCC plant in the state hasn’t yet broken ground.

Even then, many believe that such technologies – the very idea of “clean coal” – is not an answer to our climate and energy problems

At best, most experts say that wide-scale sequestration systems are at least a decade away and may not offer much in the way of an overall solution – a study by MIT called The Future of Coal: Options for a Carbon-Constrained World (pdf) should make some excellent bedtime reading in the issue. 

Despite Obama’s claim of support for Kentucky clean coal, his own energy and climate advisor has said that

…[Obama] is confident … that his carbon cap program … will make it absolutely ludicrous to even contemplate any type of coal, new coal, that is not 100 percent sequestered. … if he is unable to get that carbon policy in place quickly, that he will do whatever is necessary to prevent the siting of a new generation of pulverized coal facilities, including setting [emission] standards that would be essentially a moratorium …

If sequestration is still a decade away at best, and  there will be no dirty plants built on his watch, where does this leave Kentucky in the meantime? It won’t be pretty, that’s for sure, dirty coal has already taken a devastating toll.

Of course, Obama isn’t alone on the campaign trail (the never-ending campaign trail I might add). I’m just picking on him today.

Last Friday Hillary told a crowd in Louisville “We’re sitting on a huge natural resource” pledging to invest more federal dollars in carbon sequestration.

On Monday John McCain toured a wind turbine plant in Oregon and made his pledge to curb greenhouse gas emissions and lead the international community in fighting climate change.

It won’t be hard to improve upon U.S. leadership thus far in energy development and climate change – the bar has been awfully low these past eight years. So low, in fact, as to be, well, sequestered.

Candidates Statements on Energy and Climate: 
Barrack Obama
Hillary Clinton
John McCain

Sources and Further Reading
Sustainable Business.com
Grist
Reuters