UC Davis study suggests lots of work ahead to bring renewables to market

Cross-posted at WattHead - Energy News and Commentary.

A recent study from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at U.C. Davis builds a pricing model that relies on resource availability and market capitalization to determine that global supplies of oil are likely to run dry roughly 100 years before renewable technologies are capable of replacing them. The paper, from authors Nataliya Malyshkina and Deb Niemeier and published in Environmental Science and Technology, uses IEA estimates of petroleum estimates and cumulative financial data for major oil and alternative energy companies, including market capitalization, share number, share price, and net income per share. Unlike typical technological projections based on learning curves or Hotelling predictions, the study develops its own method for determining the path forward for resource availability based on three market-expectation-based steps:

1. Identify traded securities, whose future cash flows strongly depend on the appearance of a new technology of interest (e.g., a viable replacement of crude oil, or a technology for reducing CO₂ emissions).
2. Specify a model for pricing these securities.
3. Collect historical and current market data on the securities (e.g., share price, number of shares outstanding, dividends paid, etc.).

The model they created gives the value T ≈ 131, where T is the time horizon "until the appearance or adoption of new technologies related to important sustainability problems." With a base year of 2009, this predicts 2140 as the year we can economically expect renewables to become suitable replacements for traditional fossil energy. Malyshkina and Niemeier also rely on IEA estimates of peak oil, which suggest that the rate of global oil production will begin to decline in some distinct time between 2010 and 2030. Put it all together, and we get a world tapped out of oil a full century before replacement technologies can meet expected demand.

Specific observations on the market for clean technology are similarly stark. For instance, the paper makes the point that even the most successful clean tech companies fall short in their own market to fossil fuel giants with relatively minor budgets for renewables.

In a recent article analyzing when renewable energy companies might occupy significant market share, it was pointed out that Exxon Mobil's current market capitalization was 28 times that of First Solar and 26 times that of Vesta Wind Systems, both among the largest renewable companies. Even for major corporations like General Electric, with a large stake in wind power, stock prices are driven by other parts of the company.

All in all, the Davis paper combines econometric, financial, geophysical and policy-oriented data to create a compelling, if alarming, model for resource replacement. Their work confirms the narrative offered by a new report called "Post-Partisan Power", which makes the claim that "America will make little sustained progress in transforming the U.S. energy economy or fully capturing the economic opportunities in new clean energy export markets until alternatives to conventional fossil fuels become cheaper." These two reports, in addition to a growing consensus following the demise of cap-and-trade this summer, at least implicitly identify the large price gap between renewable technologies and fossil fuel resources as the single largest obstacle to a fully decarbonized economy.

The pricing model and theory proposed by Malyshkina and Niemeier employs the concept of path dependency--where we have been matters for where we are going. After over a century of development on our modern carbon infrastructure, the momentum of the global economy will not shift course towards more sustainable technology easily. However, the difficulty is not a reason not to pursue smart and aggressive policy, according to the authors.

If policy interventions such as new major investments in the alternative-energy sector are made, then we would expect that the alternative-energy companies market capitalization would increase, with the net effect that the estimated value of T would decrease.

The next step, of course, is identifying those policy interventions and employing them effectively.

Chunks: A(nother) New Approach to Energy Policy?

Cross-posted at WattHead - Energy News and Commentary and the Americans for Energy Leadership Blog.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, President Obama addressed the failed climate/energy attempt of this summer, promising to move forward with a reinvigorated agenda in 2011. However, any such action will likely bear little resemblance to previous attempts. Mr. Obama conceded that "we may have to end up having to do it in chunks, as opposed to some sort of comprehensive legislation." If this is indeed going to be the form of a new course of action on climate/energy for Mr. Obama, commentators are beginning to wonder exactly what those "chunks" will be.

Never mind the fact that the most recent attempts at energy reform have been piece-meal to begin with--that's more or less inevitable with so many regulations, markets, fuels, interest groups and players at stake. Before its total dismantling, the American Power Act (formerly Kerry-Graham-Lieberman) was a hodge-podge of cap-and-trade, tax incentives and subsidies for renewables and clean coal technology, loan guarantees for next-generation nuclear power production, and a slew of regulatory reforms to preempt state action of GHGs and promote energy efficiency. Of course that bill never came close to a floor vote in the Senate, but my point stands: a "comprehensive" bill would have to be built one brick at a time anyway, so maybe Obama's explicit "chunks" approach will get the job done.

So what's on the table this time around? And, more importantly, what can pass a divided Congress?

Glenn Hurowitz at Grist proposes his favorite chunks in his "Peanut Butter Plan." He advocates a combination of tax credits for carbon capture; regulations to reduce black carbon pollution; intensifying regulations banning HFCs; and international finance to help LDCs adapt to climate change. Hurowitz refers to these four as "low-hanging fruit" solutions, and believes that if combined properly they could achieve greater emissions reductions than more comprehensive legislation.

Andrew Revkin kick-started a similar discussion over at DotEarth, putting forward a couple of his favorite policy chunks to replace a larger bill. He credits Hurowitz's list, and adds making the R&D tax credit permanent and the RE-ENERGYSE program to the list. If anything, Mr. Revkin's recommendations are more comprehensive than "chunky," as he puts it. Rather than approaching certain piece-meal aspects of climate/energy one at a time, Revkin's suggestions create policy infrastructure for energy innovation and energy education at large. Instead of writing different legislation for solar, wind, CCS, nuclear, EE, carbon finance, and emissions regulations (to name a few), funding for innovation and education create the foundations of a workable and flexible industrial policy on energy.

I'm a fan of piece-meal, and I'm a fan of big picture. But the problems will arise, as usual, with the politics. As Senator Jay Rockefeller said, "We [the Senate] tend not to be very good at chunks, but then you could argue that we tend not to be very good at big things either." Bonus points for honesty. However, a recent piece in Politico might forecast some political leeway for the President as he moves forward with a chunks approach. The article cites Senators Brown (R-MA), Alexander (R-TN), and Snowe (R-ME) as potential allies on a chunky approach, in addition to Democrats like Rockefeller, John Kerry and Dick Durbin.

A quick aside on the politics. Much has been said that, if Republicans have been so unwilling to cooperate thusfar with the Obama Administration, what makes us think that the chances for climate/energy legislation will be higher in 2011, when Republicans will certainly have more seats in both Houses? To the naysayers, I offer my cautious optimism that Republicans will accept their increased share in political power as an opportunity to shake off the still trenchant "Party of No" vision that many voters have adopted for them. Beating Democrats in Midterms is one thing; beating a still reasonably popular President in 2012 without a legitimate Republican frontrunner will take more than straight obstruction. Time will tell.

But I digress. What would I add to the chunky climate agenda? Well, I appreciate the efforts of individual members of Congress to promote clean coal, nuclear, renewables, energy efficiency, biofuels and other fuel-focused policies. However, I would add my name Mr. Revkin's endorsement of research and innovation before partitioning climate/energy policy into too many segments. In addition to increasing cleantech R&D funding to at least $15 billion annually and re-investing in science and engineering education, we should expand the scope of DoE's ARPA-E, the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy, and create public private partnerships with similar goals of targeting and funding specific energy technology projects for demonstration and deployment.

Like extending the research tax credit and RE-ENERGYSE, these proposals are less chunky and have received proportionately lower attention in Congress. However, policy and business leaders from the Brookings Institution and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation to the American Energy Innovation Council and the Breakthrough Institute have all advocated similar approaches to our energy challenges. I've consistently added my voice to these calls to actions here and with Americans for Energy Leadership, who have done excellent work on the RE-ENERGYSE proposal in particular.

At the end of the day, we need a strong energy agenda, one way or another. But looking past the chunks, we must keep pushing for a policy infrastructure built on education, research and innovation, without which such piece-meal approaches may not be able to form an effective climate/energy agenda.

Energetics Cliff Notes - Tuesday Edition

A note to my readers: some of you may have noticed my recent contributions to WattHead - Energy News and Commentary and the Americans for Energy Leadership Blog. For those interested, be sure to follow my future posts on these excellent new sites, and check out what other authors have to say. Now on to the news...

• Elizabeth McGowan thinks that GOP victories in November could actually benefit climate/energy policy, if a newly balanced Washington power structure moves past cap-and-trade.
• Despite global temperatures and increasing extreme weather, 2010 is a banner year for climate skepticism.
• The Solar on the White House campaign was officially defeated this week, with Secret Service concerns about rooftop installations trumping climate symbolism.
• PG&E's market capitalization fell by $1.2 billion following the San Bruno natural gas explosion.
• A new study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) says offshore wind resources have the potential to quadruple US energy needs.
• Dan Froomkin presents a case of industry capture of federal inspectors by the oil industry.
• Dan Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at UC Berkeley, is joining the World Bank as its Chief Technical Specialist for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency.
• The AGs from Nebraska, Alabama, Texas and North Dakota are preparing lawsuits challenging California's AB 32 on the premise that it violates the Interstate Commerce stipulations of the U.S. Constitution.
• Today is the 40th anniversary of the Clean Air Act and the 50th anniversary of OPEC.
• This is one of the more ridiculous things I've seen lately.

Cleantech, China, and the WTO

There's a pretty fascinating saga unfolding following some intrepid reporting by the New York Times on Wednesday. To make a long story short, the United States Steelworkers Union has petitioned the Obama Administration to sue China in the WTO for violating trade regulations, specifically by implicitly and explicitly subsidizing clean tech manufacturing; blocking the export of rare-earth minerals and other raw materials necessary for batteries and solar panels; and discriminating against foreign goods and firms.

This drama shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with the clean energy race, and the growing threat to U.S. competitiveness from Asian nations like China, Japan, and South Korea. In the seminal report "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant," co-authors at the Breakthrough Institute and ITIF called attention to the billions of dollars in cleantech investment and the myriad of policies to encourage R&D, deployment, manufacturing and exports of clean technology. These investments and direct action on clean energy far surpass any efforts taken in the United States, where a decade-long focus on the politically toxic cap-and-trade has poisoned the well for anyone laboring to bring clean tech industrial policy to America.

The question is, should we be spending the bulk of our energy condemning China for its vigorous pursuit of a guaranteed-growth industry, or should we take a leaf out of their book? I would obviously not support the use of illegal trade policies to promote clean tech development in the United States, but perhaps this conflict will serve as the inspiration for the creation of a new American industrial policy. Government investment as a response to international forces were responsible for the propagation of nuclear energy, the space race, and tertiary effects of these investments like the personal computer and the Internet. Cleantech will be the next game-changing industry, and China obviously isn't afraid to get a little skin in the game. Are we?

Here's a round-up of reactions to the China-WTO story:

• Kate Sheppard (Mother Jones): "We can ask China to knock off the subsidies, but unless the US ramps up its own policies, we're probably still going to keep handing our lunch money over to China."
• John Whitehead (Environmental Economics): "The dynamic effects are not so clear. If the export subsidies trigger some sort of positive spillover effects (e.g., learning by doing that leads to a reduction in production cost), then the exporting country might benefit."
• Teryn Norris and Daniel Goldfarb (Americans for Energy Leadership): "Not only could China's practices end up suppressing innovation from both domestic and foreign firms, they could also discourage other countries from deploying clean energy."
• Brad Plumer (The New Republic): "So how should the United States respond? One possibility would be to retaliate and set up new trade barriers. But that runs the risk of making various renewable technologies more expensive, which would only deepen the world's reliance one cheaper and dirtier energy sources like coal."
• Michael Levi (Council on Foreign Relations): "This dynamic is no different from happens in many other sectors. China assembles computers that used to be made in the United States. Does anyone think that this means America is losing from the computer and IT revolutions? Of course not: the United States is making its contributions primarily in fields that yield far greater profits, while cheap Chinese computer assembly is enlarging the market for everything computer and IT-related."
• Randy Rieland (Grist): "Multinational companies have shied away from formally challenging the practice because they're afraid they'll be shut out of the alluring Chinese market."

Fire in San Bruno

My thoughts and prayers are with the 6 dead and hundreds displaced citizens of San Bruno, just a short drive away from my home. I was briefly terrified last night when I first read reports of an explosion in San Bruno, and the ensuing fire, and was soberly comforted when I discovered no friends of mine were seriously affected. 53 homes were destroyed, another 120 damaged, following the 1000-foot fireball. The cause is expected to have been a blown gas main. PG&E provides natural gas service to the city, the "cleanest" of the major fossil fuel sources for electricity.

I doubt many will compare this terrible accident to the Gulf Oil Disaster, but they should. For the most part, our carbon infrastructure doesn't fail on a regular basis (intrinsic side-effects aside, such as carbon emissions, higher cancer and asthma rates, armed conflicts over oil, etc.). But when just one link in the chain fails, it yields disproportionate consequences in environmental and mortal terms (see earlier post on "carbon deaths"). Chalk it up to one more highly visceral reason to decarbonize our energy infrastructure.

The New Supply and Demand of Energy Innovation

Originally posted on the Americans for Energy Leadership Blog.

Most of us are familiar with the basic economic principle of supply-and-demand. Economists tend to envision the intersection of the supply and demand of goods and services as the “equilibrium point,” where consumer need for a product meets the ability of producers to provide it. That point is what governs fundamental economic indicators and attributes, especially price and market quantity.

Recently, however, a new supply-versus-demand debate has begun to take shape in the minds of activists and policy-makers alike. Put simply, this new paradigm concerns the supply and demand of clean energy technology.

Conventional wisdom, as it has evolved among global warming activists, tells us that society already has the requisite technology supply to decarbonize the economy. Al Gore has said that “we have all the tools we need to solve three or four climate crises,” and influential climate blogger Joe Romm maintains that “we have all the technologies we need and just lack the political will.” This would suggest that the current supply of clean energy technological is sufficient, and that “political will” should come in the form of demand-side, deployment policies.


But this notion has been increasingly challenged. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate, has called for a “second industrial revolution” in clean energy technology, contradicting the perception that political will is the only missing factor on the path to a clean energy future. Chu’s message has become a siren call for many clean energy advocates, but it has not completely dulled the chorus of climate activists who still believe that the technology will materialize once we have fostered adequate demand.

Many of these climate activists have promoted a cap on carbon emissions as their policy-of-choice, ostensibly a mandate that energy companies considerably scale down the burning of carbon sources for energy in favor of cleaner alternatives like solar or nuclear power. However, most governments lack the political will to impose a serious, or “hard”, cap, ending up with a “soft” cap at best, one that allows energy companies to pass on the modestly higher cost of producing carbon energy onto consumers. The theoretical effect of this cap would be to shift consumer energy demand towards cleaner alternatives.

Climate activists point to a similar cap program on chlorofluorocarbons in the early 1990s. But the technological innovations that were required to fix the CFC problem were child’s play next to the mind-boggling challenges of redesigning and deploying entirely new systems for generating, converting, transporting, storing and using energy. In addition, a politically palatable carbon price, like one that would be established by a U.S. cap-and-trade program, would have the approximate effect of increasing the per-gallon price of gas by approximately 10-30 cents—hardly the economic impetus to create a new world.

Subsequently, advocates are now beginning to question the political feasibility of even a soft cap on carbon emissions, following the failure of such a policy to pass the U.S. Senate earlier this summer (the fourth such failure in a decade). A European carbon cap, now in its fifth year of operation, has yet to abate emissions to any considerable degree. Carbon trading schemes are also in the works regionally in the U.S, with the Western Climate Initiative and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, but these are a far cry from the once yearned-after global cap on carbon emissions. Effort after effort has revealed that nations are unwilling to increase the price of dirty energy, despite IEA projections of a 40% increase in global emissions by 2030. Thus, we see that the chief demand-side effort to reform consumer behavior has met with little success. What, then, is the best path to a clean energy future?

For a more effective and comprehensive solution to our energy problems, we must turn to “supply-side” policies with technological innovation at the forefront. Perhaps the primary obstacle between the status quo and a global clean energy economy is the price gap between clean and dirty energy technology, and a politically palatable price on carbon emissions will do little to bridge that divide. The workable solutions stem from making clean energy cheap, in unsubsidized terms, and available to consumers worldwide.

We can achieve these goals through various supply-side “technology push” policies, such as major public financing of energy RD&D; making the R&D tax credit permanent; and the creation of new public-private partnerships and institutions whose explicit goals are to develop clean technology. These measures must be significant and sustained, and they must complement demand-side industrial policy of which cap-and-trade may be only a small part.

Supply-side innovation policy can be traced to the origins of the Internet, the jet engine, biotechnology, the Manhattan and Apollo projects, and the personal computer. In these and other game-changing technologies, governments played a central role in the initial RD&D processes, to the point where the private sector was able to take full advantage of a technologically transformed economy. We cannot trust the creation of a brand new global energy infrastructure to demand-side policies alone, nor to the assumption that we have all the technologies we need. Partial solutions like cap-and-trade will keep failing until we effectively combine supply and demand approaches towards an innovative mission to build a clean, safe, and sustainable energy future.

Mixed signals from the White House on clean energy investment

Cross-posted on WattHead - Energy News and Commentary

President Obama has been touring the nation, touting his administration's efforts to expand federal investment in clean tech manufacturing. At each stop, clean energy jobs are the major topic of discussion, with international economic competition and environmental goals somewhere on the edges of his stump speech.

At ZBB Energy in Wisconsin, a battery and renewables storage producer, Obama heralded the $1.3 million in federal stimulus dollars invested in the company while calling for 800,000 new clean energy jobs by 2012. On a fundraising trek for Governor Ted Strickland through Toldeo, Ohio, the President applauded local renewables manufacturing, saying, "There is a whole series of huge potential manufacturing industries in which we end up being world leaders and, as a bonus, end up creating a more energy-efficient economy that is also good for the environment." And, at a DCCC fundraiser in Hollywood, the President recounted the imperative of reducing carbon emissions "because we want those clean energy jobs built here in the United States, not in China, not in Germany."

In the meantime, however, critics are taking note of disturbing signals from the White House on clean energy investment. Jesse Jenkins of WattHead and the Breakthrough Institute pointed out yesterday that "a number of (as yet unfulfilled) energy and environmental policy pledges have been removed from the WhiteHouse.gov page in recent weeks." Among the dropped pledges is the President's commitment to invest $150 billion over ten years in clean tech R&D. This follows months of inaction from the President on a comprehensive climate and energy bill, the American Power Act. What remains of that bill is now floundering in Congress without the inclusion of any cap on carbon emissions, environmentalists' dream policy goal for creating a clean energy economy that was thoroughly demolished during the summer.

As Andrew Revkin points out, the recently missing $150 billion in clean tech R&D may be the result of the failure of cap-and-trade to pass the Senate, leaving the White House's assumed funding source for the investment dead in the water. But the source shouldn't matter as much as the policy goal itself; expert energy organizations from the IEA to the AEIC and dozens of Nobel Laureates have called for significant increases in energy technology R&D, on the order of $15-30 billion annually to keep pace with the required rate of decarbonization and to compete with other nations on similar paths.

We can only hope that such mixed signals on energy policy do not become standard operating procedure for the Obama White House. The President's recent (and encouraging) repeated calls for clean tech manufacturing investment may be signs of his attempt to make amends for relative idleness on the climate bill. And perhaps some leeway may be given in anticipation of the November midterm elections, which by many accounts will be some degree of devastating to the President's party. But, fingers-crossed, by the new year the President needs to have developed a powerful and sustained message for decarbonization and clean tech, and the time for broken promises and mixed signals will be over.

As part of a non-emotional response to the BP oil spill, and in anticipation of a $600 billion clean energy industry projected for 2020, Obama must direct the power of his office towards energy competitiveness the way he did with health care last year. Some Republicans have already indicated a willingness to work with Democrats on clean tech, and this effort could mark the first time in his presidency that Obama can successfully unite the parties towards a common policy. But, politics aside, the United States can't afford to sit on the bench any longer.

Energy poverty

Currently watching: "Syriana" (2005).

Bryan Woodman: What are they thinking? They're thinking that it's running out. It's running out, and 90% of what's left is in the Middle East. Look at the progression: Versailles, Suez, 1973, Gulf War 1, Gulf War 2. This is a fight to the death. So what are they thinking? 'Great!' They're thinking 'keep playing, keep buying yourself new toys, keep spending $50,000 a night on your hotel room, but don't invest in your infrastructure, don't build a real economy.' So that when you finally wake up, they will have sucked you dry, and you will have squandered the greatest natural resource in history.

Much of the goings-on in this still-prescient film concern the poverty in the Middle East, which, the film implicitly claims, fosters religious zealotry, extremism and cultural animosity towards the West. This is just one very specific kind of energy poverty, the kind where the US spends $1 billion daily on Middle Eastern oil, and that money doesn't go to building governments and societies, but goes to the petro-dictators for their own consumption. While the West frets over future, and legitimate, dangers of rising sea levels and prolonged droughts due to global warming, citizens of these petro-dictatorships are already suffering the full list of symptoms of the global carbon addiction.

But that's not the only type of energy poverty. Teryn Norris, president of Americans for Energy Leadership, recently reported:

Nearly 1.6 billion of our fellow human beings have no access to electricity, and around 2.4 billion people -- over one third of global population -- meet their basic cooking and heating needs by burning biomass, such as wood, crop waste, and dung. "Without access to modern, commercial energy, poor countries can be trapped in a vicious circle of poverty, social instability, and underdevelopment," concludes the International Energy Agency.

This type of unacceptable poverty exists in countries with and without the cursed luxury of global oil deposits. While rich countries in the West (and the East) can afford to pay a little more for cleaner energy, poor nations must resort to only the most primitive energy sources for their energy needs. This is a problem that will not be fixed solely by individual countries pricing carbon and deploying more clean energy infrastructure. There must also be a sustained global effort in buying down the cost of clean energy, so that it does not become another luxury of the rich world when we run out of oil.

The benefits of clean energy technology are numerous. It can foster economic development in poor nations and provide alternatives to dirty, inefficient biomass sources for heating and cooking. But not yet. The ability of cleantech to help lift billions of people out of poverty, and to put an end to the clout of petro-dictators, must be a part of the conversation

Playing with fire in an open range

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has some excellent analysis of, among other things, the BP oil spill:

Here's the real outrage: In the wake of the BP spill, essentially no laws have been changed -- not even a ridiculously low cap on damages private parties can collect from oil companies. Senate Republican leaders said Wednesday they wouldn't support a bill retroactively removing the liability cap; and not even Democrats Mary Landrieu (D-La) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska) will support it.

But more than providing a scathing recap of Congress's (read: the Senate's) utter incompetence and gridlock, Reich paints the BP fiasco in the broader portrait of corporate malfeasance:

Corporations aren't people. They have no brains, no consciousness, no capacity for intent or guilt. Every one of their moveable parts can be replaced, just like BP's former CEO Tony Hayward was replaced. Corporate accountability and corporate responsibility are meaningless concept. Corporations exist for only one purpose: to make money.

It would do well for us to remember this lesson. Without downplaying the tragedy of the Gulf oil spill, nor vindicating the irresponsible parties, we have to make sure that our response, you know, makes sense. The last 100 days of activism have been directed at a not-quite-strawman "BP," as though massive oil companies hatched a plan to poison the Gulf and destroy livelihoods. In the wake of outrage directed at BP, actual scumbags like Tony Hayward get let off the hook. Anyone celebrating his expulsion from BP is mostly fooling themselves, if you ask me. Immediate $900,000 pension and a reprieve from the scandal-ridden spotlight? Yes please.

No, the real cause of this disaster was not evil, nor was it really MMS, or Tony Hayward's or any other underlings at BP's fault. What's to blame is not a person, persons or "BP." Instead, we should be pointing our fingers at the system we've set up. Reich:

If we want corporations to act differently, we have to force them to do so through laws that are fully-enforced and through penalties that are higher than the economic benefits of thwarting the laws.

Reich parallels the BP story with that of the Citizens United Case and the recently defeated DISCLOSE Act. Our representatives are selling the system to lobbyists and corporate money, confusing the tasks of government with the tasks of contributors. The era of big government being over and all, we have come to accept that any regulation or limit on corporate activity stifles innovation and is generally the enemy of freedom. But what we've created instead are the biggest Principle Agent problems our society has recently encountered. Companies like BP and Goldman Sachs operate within the constraints of (fully enforced) laws to make a buck. The risks associated with their activities -- oil spills, derivatives exploding, etc -- can be mostly ignored in the costs of doing business, as we've seen with the Crash of 2008 and the Spill. The federal government (AKA, you and me) will pick up the tab. Teabaggers horrified at the bailouts probably don't realize the spill is the exact same problem: people playing with fire in an open range, and then walking away when it burns everything down.

Brad Plumer put it well in his column this week at The New Republic.

...but it's a little ironic to see that Republicans are basically proposing a socialized insurance system for oil companies, while Democrats want to leave them to the not-so-tender mercies of the free market. Funny how that works.

Brad has it spot on. With health care, Republicans (and plenty of Democrats) are vehemently against government footing the bill, but not so with oil companies. Why? Because that's the way the health insurance and oil companies want it. Without liability, and without regulation, corporations will do what they are designed to do: make money. BP is not in the interest of providing much-needed energy to society; they do so because there's good money in it. And there's nothing wrong with that. Until there is.

Or, we could just start the clean tech revolution already. After all, when's the last time you heard of a wind spill?

Energetics Cliff Notes - Tuesday Edition

• The New Republic reports on a new study showing that solar energy has become cheaper than nuclear - will the market it take it from here?
• Governor Brad Henry of Oklahoma has signed into law the Energy Security Act, an RES of 15% by 2015.
• Tera-Gen Power just received $1.2 billion in financing to expand their Kern County wind farm to 3000MW, making it the biggest wind farm in the country.
• Here we go again - another oil leak is spewing oil 20 feet into the air in the Gulf.
• Chevy announced the pricing plans for its anticipated Volt: $41,000 before tax breaks, or $350/month lease.
• Daily Kos points out that BP hasn't put any of its $20 billion in Gulf reparations in escrow yet.
• Paul Krugman weighs in on the death of the climate bill, lending his considerable column to the blame game.
• Remember how bringing a comprehensive climate/energy bill to Copenhagen was supposed to show the world how serious the US is about fighting climate change? Well, after missing that deadline, Michael Levi at CFR discusses how the latest failure will affect US climate diplomacy.
• Here are some key recommendations from the report Powering America's Economy: Energy Innovation at the Crossroads of National Security Challenges.