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Dept of Energy Report Says Vehicle Fuel Should Be the Priority, Not Electricity
Matthew L. Wald, Green (blog), New York Times
Research on solar and wind power is all well and good, but a self-assessment by the Department of Energy has found that in the great scheme of energy needs, the government is not investing enough in transportation energy, an area in which those renewable power sources do not play a role.
“Reliance on oil is the greatest immediate threat to U.S. economic and national security, and also contributes to the long-term threat of climate change,’’ its analysis, released on Tuesday morning, states.
The report emphasizes the need to replace oil rather than fuels like coal and natural gas, which are supplanted by electricity-generating solar and wind power. (There is very little oil used to generate electricity in the United States.)
And in the quest to replace oil, work on electric vehicles should be prioritized over alternative fuels, the study said.
The report is the first of what are intended to be quadrennial reviews of the department’s research work.
(27 September 2011)
Suggested by reader K Clark. -BA
DOE Report on the First Quadrennial Technology Revew (168-0page PDF)
by US Department of Energy
… [page ix of “Executive Summary”] As a result of this Review, we find that DOE is underinvested in the transportation sector relative to the stationary sector (energy efficiency, grid, and electric power). Yet, reliance on oil is the greatest immediate threat to U.S. economic and national security, and also contributes to the long-term threat of climate change. Vehicle efficiency has the greatest short- to mid-term impact on oil consumption. Electrification will play a growing role in both efficiency and fuel diversification. DOE has particular capabilities in these areas. Within our transportation activities, we conclude that DOE should gradually increase its effort on vehicle efficiency and electrification relative to alternative fuels.
… [page x of “Executive Summary”] As a result of this Review, we find that DOE is underinvested in activities supporting modernization of the grid and increasing building and industrial efficiency relative to those supporting the development of clean electricity. DOE has a unique role as a systems integrator and convener, giving it particularly high leverage in these information-poor and fragmented sectors. DOE will focus on accelerating innovation in currently deployed technologies to maximize its impact on national energy goals.
(September 2011)
Suggested by reader K Clark. -BA
EU Climate Chief ‘Shocked’ at US Debate
Ben Geman, The Hill
European Union climate chief Connie Hedegaard is disposing of diplomatic niceties when describing U.S. political battles over climate change.
“I’m shocked that the political debate in the U.S. is so far away from the scientific facts,” she said, according to The Copenhagen Post. [ ©European Parliament/Pietro Naj-Oleari)] “It’s hard for a European to understand how it has become so fashionable to be anti-science in the U.S.,” Hedegaard said. (photo: ©European Parliament/Pietro Naj-Oleari)
“When more than 90 percent of researchers in the field are saying that we have to take [climate change] seriously, it is incredibly irresponsible to ignore it. It’s hard for a European to understand how it has become so fashionable to be anti-science in the U.S.,” Hedegaard said in the Post account, which reprints comments she made to the Danish paper Politiken.
“And when you hear American presidential candidates denying climate change, it’s difficult to take,” she said.
(27 September 2011)
Super Weeds Pose Growing Threat to U.S. Crops
Carey Gillam, Reuters
PAOLA, Kansas – Farmer Mark Nelson bends down and yanks a four-foot-tall weed from his northeast Kansas soybean field. The “waterhemp” towers above his beans, sucking up the soil moisture and nutrients his beans need to grow well and reducing the ultimate yield. As he crumples the flowering end of the weed in his hand, Nelson grimaces.
“We are at a disturbing juncture,” said Margaret Mellon, director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The use of toxic chemicals in agriculture is skyrocketing. This is not the path to sustainability.” “When we harvest this field, these waterhemp seeds will spread all over kingdom come,” he said.
Nelson’s struggle to control crop-choking weeds is being repeated all over America’s farmland. An estimated 11 million acres are infested with “super weeds,” some of which grow several inches in a day and defy even multiple dousings of the world’s top-selling herbicide, Roundup, whose active ingredient is glyphosate.
The problem’s gradual emergence has masked its growing menace. Now, however, it is becoming too big to ignore. The super weeds boost costs and cut crop yields for U.S. farmers starting their fall harvest this month. And their use of more herbicides to fight the weeds is sparking environmental concerns.
(20 September 2011)
Congressman Roscoe Bartlett Reacts to EIA Study about Energy Subsidies
Roscoe Bartlett’, US Representative (R-MD)
Ethanol VEETC Credit Taints Subsidies for All Renewables; Open Fuel Standard Bill Needed to Break Monopoly of Petroleum in American Transportation
Washington – Congressman Roscoe Bartlett released a statement today concerning an Energy Information Administration (EIA) study about federal government subsidies of energy sources released on August 1, 2011 that he had requested.
“I requested that the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Information Administration (EIA) update its 2007 report concerning federal subsidies of energy sources because as a scientist, I believe that public policy should be informed by facts. I wish this 2010 report focused more on energy sources for transportation rather than electricity. The United States has many energy sources to generate electricity. A shortage of affordable supplies of liquid fuels for transportation, particularly petroleum, is an urgent under-reported energy and economic crisis hurting Americans. Oil price shocks are a key factor in our weak economy and high unemployment rate because our transportation is 95% dependent upon petroleum.
“Most Americans have no idea that world conventional oil production has been virtually flat since 2004, while demand soared from China and other rapidly growing countries, such as India. The International Energy Agency (IEA’s) 2010 World Energy Outlook (WEO) report documented that world conventional petroleum production peaked in 2007. OPEC governments control nearly 80% of world-wide conventional reserves. The U.S. share is only 2-3%. Since the 1973 Arab Oil embargo, the OPEC cartel has manipulated petroleum production and the prices paid by Americans at the pump. OPEC’s influence over the world oil market is growing every year. IEA’s projections for rapid declines in conventional oil production are grim. I believe that the IEA and EIA’s projections for dramatic increases in production from oil fields discovered, but currently too expensive to pump and undiscovered fields are fantasies unsupported by facts. Nor is the combination of all current alternatives commercial at the scale to replace projected declines from existing oil fields. The great recession of 2008 ensued after oil soared to $150/barrel and more than $4/gal at the pump. Our economy slowed in the 2nd Quarter of this year after another run-up in oil prices. The disappointing lack of job creation during the past three years bears out the 2004 DOE NETL’s “Hirsch Report” by Robert Hirsch, Roger Bezdek and Robert Wendling. The Hirsch Report concluded that the free market cannot respond fast enough to global peak oil with substitutes for petroleum without horrific economic distress for a decade or more.
“Corn ethanol is inefficient, uneconomical and woefully incapable of the volume Americans need to substitute for petroleum. That is why it’s so unfortunate that the $5.7 billion Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC) subsidy for ethanol taints attitudes by some people against all subsidies for renewable sources of energy. Our national security and economic security is so threatened by our dependence upon petroleum that I believe that Americans should support taxpayer funded research by the federal government into more energy efficient next-gen biofuels and other substitutes for petroleum.
“That is also why I encourage my colleagues in the Congress to join me and support approval of the bipartisan Open Fuel Standard, H.R. 1687 introduced by Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) with Reps. Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Steve Israel (D-NY). I believe federal government action is needed to give Americans the power to break the monopoly of petroleum with options to fill their tanks with alternatives at the pump. The OFS is supported by the United States Energy Security Council (USESC) which announced on July 20, 2011 “that new cars sold in the U.S. and throughout the world ought no longer to be captive exclusively to oil but are equipped and warrantied to operate on non-petroleum fuels whether liquid, gaseous or electricity in addition to or instead of petroleum based fuels.”
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*USESC is a bipartisan group of 20 former cabinet level officials, retired senators and prominent business leaders including former Sec. of State George Shultz, former Secs. of Defense Harold Brown and William Perry, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, former Sec. of the Interior Judge William Clark, former Secs. of Navy William Ball and John Lehman, former Sec. of Transportation Mary Peters, former Sec. of Agriculture John Block, former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane, former director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey as well as former Senators Bennett Johnston and Gary Hart, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Prof. George Olah, former White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray, Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, former president of Shell Oil North America John Hofmeister, former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, former Kraft Foods CEO Geoffrey Bible and president of Las Vegas Sands Michael Leven.
EXCERPT from the EIA study:
“The Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC) is related to the Alcohol Fuel Credit. VEETC is not directed at ethanol producers but rather to facilities that blend ethanol with gasoline. At $5.7 billion, it is estimated to be the largest energy-related tax provision in FY 2010. In FY 2007, VEETC’s had a value estimated at $3.5 billion and was also the largest energy-related revenue reduction in that year. Historically, alcohol fuels have received the greatest amount of federal financial support in the way of energy tax expenditures.”
(4 August 2011)
Just brought to our attention by Piyush. -BA
