I hope my readers aren't growing tired of hearing about it, but the Heritage Foundation recently released a Backgrounder report calling for a near dismantling of energy innovation programs at the Department of Energy, going as far as to suggest that "elimination of the entire department" might be called for. I took issue with this report right out of the gates. Subsequently, three organizations I proudly associate myself with (Breakthrough, ITIF, and AEL) released a counterpoint memo (PDF), systematically deconstructing Heritage's error-prone arguments. A new rebuttal report that I co-authored was released yesterday and is available at ITIF. In it, we challenge the fundamental misconceptions and false assumptions adopted by the Heritage Foundation in their call for such dramatic cuts to DOE. We identify three chief misconceptions that lead Heritage to propose such dangerous and irrational cuts. - The proposal fails to meaningfully reduce the budget deficit now or in the future.
- Heritage fails to understand where technological innovations come from.
- The proposal ignores the immediacy and enormity of US energy challenges.
The DOE programs that Heritage recommends pruning or outright eliminating are key sectors for energy technology innovation, which will be key for American energy security, economic competitiveness, and fiscal health. The errors and misconceptions riddling the Heritage report bespeak the failure of neoliberal ideology to address the challenges presented by energy infrastructure and decarbonization. Americans for Energy Leadership and the Breakthrough Institute each have excellent coverage of the new report. - Download the report, "All About the Fundamentals: Three Misconceptions of the Heritage Foundation's Deficit/Energy Proposal" here (PDF)
Climate scientists have been weighing in on the indeterminate culpability of anthropogenic carbon emissions on the tragic storms in the Southern United States. It is worth remembering that, while we can and should expect an increasing frequency of extreme weather events as climate change intensifies, we have yet to fully predict in advance or attribute in retrospect any direct 1:1 causality between emissions and discrete weather events. Climate scientist Gavin Schmidt puts it very well:
It is a truism to say that everything has been affected by climate change so far and therefore this latest outbreak must in some sense have been affected, but attribution is hard and the further down the chain the causality is supposed to go, the harder this is. For heat waves it is easier, for statistics on precipitation intensity it easier – there are multiple levels of good modelling, theory and observations to back it up. But we have much less to go on with tornadoes.
Last week, I reported briefly on a policy report released recently by the Heritage Foundation calling for what I believe to be drastic and dangerous cuts to the Department of Energy. Today, my colleagues and I produced an expanded and thorough response to Heritage (PDF), combating their claims that private enterprise can most effectively operate in the energy sector without much or any government support.We argue that the Heritage report contains numerous inconsistencies and inaccuracies, such as:- Heritage cites several ventures as evidence of independent private sector efforts to develop next generation energy technologies that in fact each received public support.
- The report wrongly suggests that DOE budget expenditures are prime targets for substantial deficit reduction.
- The report uses out-of-context figures to exaggerate the relative magnitude of DOE’s budget.
- The report is inconsistent in its support and understanding of the DOE’s role in enhancing energy security.
- The report assumes a zero-sum competition between government and private investors rather than acknowledging the long and successful history of public-private partnerships.
- Selective and prejudicial history is applied to suggest that government research has little to no commercial aim or value.
- The report relies on the unfounded assumption that the private sector is, and should be, largely responsible for energy research, commerce, and infrastructure.
- Heritage acknowledges the role of government in advancing a national interest not met by the private sector, yet claims that the government is not equipped to do so.
- Heritage is inconsistent in applying their support or opposition to federal programs supporting clean energy innovation.
- Heritage wrongly suggests that the private sector invests sufficiently in energy innovation.
The rebuttal has been published by ITIF, the Breakthrough Institute, and Americans for Energy Leadership. Check it out.
...the more they stay the same. In the year since I started this blog, we've witnessed many substantial changes, events, and progressions on the energy/climate frontier. And yet, on the whole, it seems American policy hasn't evolved much at all. Three examples illustrate this frustrating truth*.- As you may have heard, this week is the one-year anniversary of the blowout at the BP's Macando well in the Gulf of Mexico. Described (accurately) as the worst environmental disaster in American history, the months-long fiasco spilled tens of millions of gallons, endangered local enterprise, public health, and demonstrated the terrifying and disproportionate disaster potential of our fossil fuel addiction. However, a year later, and Congress has yet to react to the Gulf catastrophe with any kind of legislation. Not only did we fail to come close to passing a cap-and-trade bill, but we couldn't even pass policy changes increasing the liability of oil companies in damages caused by accidents from $75 million to a more reasonable figure or widening the purview of regulators to oversee offshore oil drilling. For perhaps the most-reported non-nuclear energy accident in history, its legacy in American policy will apparently be shockingly empty.
- Last April, energy and environmental advocates cheered the Interior Department's approval of Cape Wind, the nation's first offshore wind farm. The victory came after a decade-long battle (the project was first proposed in 2001) against NIMBYism and obstructionist tactics to block construction. This past week, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement approved the project's construction plans. While technically good news, the Cape Wind saga demonstrates the unacceptable time frames with which we measure success in the Energy Quest, and as Alexis Madrigal pointed out, it is unclear how we will overcome these infrastructural challenges.
- Finally, we return to cap-and-trade. As I mentioned, last summer witnessed the upsetting (but not super surprising) failure of the American Power Act, which was originally Senators Kerry and Lieberman's cap-and-trade legislation. Californians, on the other hand, celebrated the defeat of Proposition 23 in November, whose backers sought to block AB 32, the state's own cap-and-trade policy ... until a coalition of environmental groups, the Association of Irritated Residents, blocked AB 32 in court. Keep in mind that these environmental groups were instrumental in campaigning against Prop 23, and proceeded with an about-face to reject the environmental policy on the grounds that it would concentrate non-uniformly mixed pollutants like NOx and sulfur dioxides in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Dave Roberts explains why this probably isn't true. From a big picture perspective, this example illustrates the difficulty of advancing energy and climate policy, even in California, "America's laboratory."
These and other distressing stalls and defeats show plainly that standard operating procedure in American energy policy is not working quickly enough. Tackling the problems of our fossil fuel addiction, national recession, increasingly violent resource wars, and climate change will require a change in dynamics. The sooner we transition to a policy agenda based on technological innovation, workforce and STEM education, and cohesive infrastructural progress, the better. ______________________________________________________*Yes, I'm cherry-picking. Please, PLEASE give me examples of why I'm wrong!
The Heritage Foundation just released a report providing opportunity and rationalization for $6 billion in cuts to the Department of Energy (H/T Teryn Norris). Here's the abstract of the report, titled "Department of Energy Spending Cuts: A Guide to Trimming President Obama’s 2012 Budget Request."Government spending has been spiraling upward in nearly all areas—and spending by most government agencies can, and should, be cut. President Obama recently submitted his 2012 budget request to Congress, providing fertile ground for spending cuts. One of the fastest-growing federal agencies, the Department of Energy (DOE), with its numerous research, development, and grant programs, offers many opportunities for savings. While there is an important role for DOE in energy security and environmental management, many DOE projects fall outside its mission, supporting everything from commercialization of technologies to non-critical research—which can be conducted, usually much more efficiently, by the private sector.
Three things.One, and I'm sure there are plenty at the Heritage Foundation who would agree with me on this, but cutting $6 billion from the federal budget will have approximately zero effect on "Alleviating the huge debt burden that the government is placing on future generations," as the report calls for. When someone calls for deficit reduction without addressing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and/or revenue increases, I instinctively ignore them. I realize these are program-specific cut recommendations, but the idea that cutting back on investing in our future will relieve the burden of our irresponsibility from future generations is more than a tad suspect to me.Two, the report claims that "Energy production is a viable commercial enterprise, so the U.S. does not need a government agency dedicated to advancing this activity." This is simply incorrect. Few to no commercial scale energy production technologies would benefit from economies of scale and distribution without implicit and explicit government support. Coal and oil receive tens of billions of federal dollars in subsidies annually, and the continued deployment of energy production technology depends also on government insurance and liability policies, since material extraction, energy production and transmission are such high-risk enterprises. As Mark Hertsgaard reports in his account* of the 1950s budding nuclear power industry, "the industry ... preferred an arrangement whereby the government would help cover the costs of commercialization but still allow the corporations to control and profit from it." Three, the report is founded upon the unsupported assertion that the private sector is the more effective laboratory for energy technologies. "Many government programs included in Presidents’ annual DOE budgets evolved from basic research and development to attempts at commercialization better left to the private sector." The report continues by questioning need for government funding or operations in R&D. On the contrary, publicly-funded research and development are essential factors in the advancement of energy technology. There are two key reasons for this. One is the so-called "Valley of Death" in technological development that exists between the basic research stage and the commercialization stage, in which risk, uncertainty and deployment challenges combine to dissuade private capital from advancing project. The second reason is the spillover effect; private enterprise will be less likely to finance energy technology R&D since they will be ultimately unable to capture the full benefits of production. We obviously, but maybe not imminently, need to have a serious national discussion about the debt/deficit problems. But targeting relatively small federal programs, particularly ones like DOE technology innovation programs with a clear national mission and a big bang for their buck, is not the right way to go about it. _____________________________________________________*Nuclear Inc.:The Men and Money Behind Nuclear Power by Mark Hertsgaard. 1983. pp. 33.
I'm reminded recently of Daffy Duck fighting with Bugs Bunny, the duck demanding that it's Rabbit-Hunting Season and Bugs refuting that it's Duck Season. In this cartoonish analogy, President Obama is both Bugs and Daffy, in a shouting match with himself. It's either Investment Season or Election Season. It apparently can't be both.There's a reason Energetics' subline is "A blog on climate, energy and politics." As frustrating as it sometimes is, the pursuit and achievement of goals on the path towards decarbonization and a clean energy future depend heavily on the institutional intricacies set up by our political landscape. The political infrastructure in place establishes the ability of our nation to invest in our future. President Obama's speech at George Washington University yesterday illustrated this notion, and his stump speech that ostensibly kicked off his 2012 campaign was often inspiring in its liberalism and rhetorical embrace of innovation economics.The America I know is generous and compassionate. It’s a land of opportunity and optimism. Yes, we take responsibility for ourselves, but we also take responsibility for each other; for the country we want and the future we share.
...
I will not sacrifice the core investments we need to grow and create jobs.
In place of "jobs," the President could have easily said "a national infrastructure renovation" or "a clean energy economy." All three are true, but the politics of the game will probably guarantee that jobs are the key focus of his speeches from now until at least November 2012. Like Bugs vs. Daffy though, there is some trickery at play. The President is calling this moment Investment Season when it's shaping out to be anything but. The sweeping and not entirely insincere verbiage dedicated by the President to investing in a "future we want" is undercut by the recent budget debacle, where we see funds for innovation, science and research cut across the board. The Breakthrough Institute crunches the thoroughly uninspiring numbers, and while investments levels for FY2012 aren't quite as low as they would be if Congressional Republicans had their way, more often not the President and his allies came away on the losing end of the draw. I believe the President would be better served by a more ambitious agenda, one that aims to significantly increase investments in our nation's transportation grid, energy infrastructure, education and technological robustness. Indeed, I wish Obama would act exactly like he said he would in his 2011 State of the Union address. Instead, we have conflicting messaging coming from his podium. "Invest in our future" is sidelined by "live within our means" and calls for the government to tighten its belt like millions of families across the country. Economists agree this is a red herring -- now is not the time to worry about the deficit, but instead a time to rebuild a nation whose citizens, infrastructure and resources will guide it out of debt in the future. The President is going to win next year. But a victory without a bold agenda will ill-serve the needs of an American economy desperately crying for the investments it's been robbed of for decades. Obama need not fret whether it's Investment Season or Election Season. It's both. Investing in America's future is good politics, and Obama's characteristically hopeful and progressive political rhetoric needs a policy backbone that seriously invests in the future we want.
All your riveting climate/energy news in one convenient place.- Greentech Media recaps this weekend's Berkeley-Stanford Cleantech Conference, featuring keynote speaker Steven Chu (see my Twitter timeline for overly detailed liveblogging).
- Chu stuck around after the weekend to attend a bill signing by Jerry Brown at a SunPower manufacturing plant in Milpitas. The legislation will require California utilities to get 33% of their power (an increase from 20%) from alternative energy technologies by 2020.
- Grist's Dave Roberts explains why environmentalists blocking CARB's implementation of AB 32 (featuring California's cap-and-trade program) are a little misguided.
- This (long-ish) post by Barry Brook is one of the best reactions pieces I've seen to the Fukushima nuclear accident.
- Big cuts are expected as the latest CR to fund the government unfolds -- high-speed rail is just one of the many unfortunate choices taking hits.
I started this blog about one year ago (actually, Energetics had its inaugural post on March 22, 2010). Since then, I've posted 116 entries, averaging somewhere between 5-15 per month (with the exception of April 2010, which had 47 separate posts, a pace which I apparently could not sustain). Energetics has had, as of this writing, 3,851 pageviews, not including my own. The vast majority of those originate in the US, not surprisingly. Canada, Russia, South Korea and the Netherlands pitched in about 150 a piece last year (thanks!). My most viewed post was "Chunks: A(nother) New Approach to Energy Policy?"This blog has brought me tremendous personal and professional satisfaction. I greatly enjoy writing for it, and I enjoy the conversations with friends and acquaintances about energy/climate issues and blogging in general. Energetics has given me a channel through which to focus my academic and professional research and advocacy, and I imagine my opinions and knowledge would be significantly weaker without it. Paired with my Twitter (@atrembath), it has also been an excellent venue to make connections with other bloggers and professionals interested and working in energy policy. As I wrote in my first post on Energetics, "The most efficient and productive utility for sites like Facebook and Twitter are, in my opinion, the new forms of media dissemination and filtration that they offer." This has proved more true than I could have predicted. Since I started this blog, I have begun to post regularly at Americans for Energy Leadership, The Energy Collective, and WattHead - Energy News and Commentary. I can't imagine these doors would have been opened for me if not for Energetics. It's an honor and a joy to write for these publications, and I look forward to continuing in the future. Energetics will always be my personal home base, but I can't express how much I enjoy sharing the stage with the other exceptional bloggers who publish at those sites. I can't overemphasize the value of my Twitter in promoting and complementing my blog. The degree to which I can share my content, and find content to share and discuss, via Twitter is enormous, and I don't expect I'll find a better combination of social networking tools to explore the energy policy arena. Google Reader, the RSS reader I use to aggregate over 60 choice blogs, is similarly indispensable. I plan on continuing to blog at Energetics for the foreseeable future. I plan on enjoying it and discussing it with all of you. Thanks so much for reading this past year, and I look forward to the next!
Tomorrow, I'll be attending the 7th Berkeley-Stanford Cleantech Conference at PG&E Auditorium in San Francisco. The conference is billed as "BSCC: Sputnik 2.0? The Pursuit of Green Jobs in China and the U.S." The subtitle is referring to a warning from the Obama Administration that China has thrown down the gauntlet in the cleantech arena in a manner reminiscent of the Soviets upon launching the satellite Sputnik. President Obama made the comparison himself in this year's State of the Union, following Secretary Chu, who is keynoting the conference tomorrow. Panel discussions include "Clean Technologies: Job Creation or Destruction" and "What is the Role of Policy in Green Job Creation in the U.S. and China?" The latter is moderated by Teryn Norris, my colleague and founder of Americans for Energy Leadership.
I feel very fortunate (again) to be a student at UC Berkeley, which allows me to attend the conference at a considerable discount. For those interested, I'll be live-tweeting the event @atrembath. Should make for a very interesting day.
Observation via Robert Cruickshank at the California High-Speed Rail Blog:
There are two kinds of environmentalism out there. The older kind is a 20th century environmentalism that believes the automobile society is perfectly fine – the problem is when it encroaches on open space. This kind of environmentalist looks at you quizzically when you talk about carbon emissions or sustainable transportation, but gets very worked up about a proposal to convert open space to some kind of use. This kind of environmentalist is willing to oppose solar and wind power because of its effect on open space. They don’t ever really stop to consider the big picture, because they believe everything is just fine if we never build on open space ever again.
The newer kind of environmentalism is a 21st century environmentalism that understands the huge crisis we have placed our planet in because of our burning of fossil fuels. This kind of environmentalist knows that the status quo is killing species left and right – that even if we never built another thing on any existing open space, we’d still be fucked because we’re burning carbon like it’s going out of style (which it actually is). This kind of environmentalist knows that it’s worth trading some open space for sustainability, because it won’t do us or other species much good if we preserve open space and yet keep on burning carbon.
I tend to agree with Mr. Cruickshank, and am personally very excited for the opportunity to ride in style in HSR (as opposed to the 16 hours I spent on I-5 this past week). However, I always get a little skeptical when sentences begin "there are two kinds of [blank] out there." I for one enjoy open space and would not like to see the Grand Canyon or the forests near my house developed, but I also don't react "quizzically" when others talk about carbon emissions or sustainability. Indeed, readers of this blog will have to look hard to find a post about "open space," but I do still consider myself a conservationist.
And yet, I fall squarely into Mr. Cruickshank's second category of environmentalism as well, in that I grew concerned when NIMBYs stalled progress on Cape Wind in Nantucket, when a coalition of environmentalists sued to halt AB 32 in California, and when the German and Chinese governments pulled back on plans for advancing nuclear power generation. The non-trivial environmental challenges represented by alternative energy technologies must be weighed against the consequences of a sustained carbon economy, and anyone suspecting a negligible environmental impact by 21st century industrialism is fooling themselves.
So there is overlap in Mr. Cruickshank's simplistic analysis (i.e., me), and indeed, there are missing categories. I doubt very much, for instance, that many "open space" environmentalists would strongly identify with the Monkey Wrench Gang, Edward Abbey's fictional eco-terrorists, or their real-life counterparts. The point Mr. Cruickshank intends to transmit comes across perfectly well -- we should not block progress on environmental goals for the sake of small potatoes, NIMBYism or BANANA logic ("build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything"). But environmentalists of all stripes should stop short of polarizing each other. Disagreements may become far more bridgeable if opponents are friends, not enemies, and taking a complex system of overlapping and sometimes competing ideas and turning it into a two-sided coin weakens the debate, and it will weaken the outcomes.
Incidentally, Mr. Cruickshank argues that the welfare of desert ecosystems probably needs to take a backseat to the HSR train currently in the planning stage, because climate change is ultimately the larger threat to species and biomes. "Environmentalists need to keep perspective," he says, and I agree. But he needs to keep perspective as well (we all do). High-speed rail runs on electricity, and roughly 60% of California electricity comes from burning fossil fuels (46.5% natural gas, 15.5% coal in 2009). Almost all of the state's transportation sector is fueled by petroleum, so switching some vehicle miles from cars to the train would certainly be a step in the right direction. But HSR will be a stall at best in mitigating carbon emissions until alternative energy technology is competitive with the fossil fuels we need it to displace.
In the end, there are only two kinds of people in the world: people who believe the world can be divided cleanly into two groups, and people who don't.
