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How We Can Survive the Age of Energy Anxiety
Peter Teague and Jeff Navin, The American Prospect
..Environmentalists point to California’s new regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, signed into law by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, as a sign that federal action on global warming is inevitable. But, last November, California voters offered us another lesson about what it will take to craft politically sustainable solutions to global warming. This lesson has largely been ignored, but is arguably more important.
Proposition 87 would have imposed a tax on oil production in California to support $4 billion in expenditures to develop and promote alternative energy technologies. The ballot initiative, which began with strong approval ratings, and whose proponents spent almost $50 million to secure passage, was defeated by a ten-point margin.
Why? Oil companies succeeded in convincing voters that it would increase gas prices. ..
Prior to the 2004 presidential election, the Apollo Alliance asked voters in Pennsylvania what they thought of the proposal to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to speed the transition to a clean energy economy. The results were surprising — 74 percent approved, and among white, non-college educated males, classic “Reagan Democrats,” the approval rating was 81 percent. In fact, the higher the dollar figure, the more these voters liked the idea. These were the very people who were thought to have bought the conservatives’ anti-tax, anti-spending, anti-government message lock, stock, and barrel.
These results were confirmed and our understanding deepened by American Environics’ recent review of public opinion data. The analysis revealed that, while the public sees global warming as a threat, they see many other issues as a higher priority.
Among those high-priority concerns are the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, jobs, and energy costs. Fortunately, these concerns — combined with concern about global warming — create an appetite for the kinds of investments experts agree will be necessary. A policy with enough investment to credibly claim to lead to increased energy independence, reduced energy costs, and job creation will generate the widespread public support necessary for sustained, serious action to solve global warming.
Many proponents of global warming legislation have convinced themselves that a solution containing substantial public investment is not politically viable. But this fear of proposing serious investments backs them into a reliance on regulatory policies that will drive up both energy costs and voter anger.
The public opinion data and California’s experience with Prop. 87 suggest that it will be better for proponents to risk conservative name-calling, stand up for spending commensurate with the threats and opportunities, and adapt Mayor Bloomberg’s vision to the national stage: They should become the champions of a Greener, Greater America.
Peter Teague is Director of the Environment Program at the Nathan Cummings Foundation [which part-funds the Apollo Alliance] and former environmental advisor to Senator Barbara Boxer. Jeff Navin is Managing Director of American Environics Strategies and former Research Director for Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle.
(3 July 2007)
A burst of energy
Editorial, Hindustan Times
When oil prices suddenly shot up in 2004 from the earlier $ 20 a barrel to $ 50 and then $ 65, it did not take long for the world to realise that the era of cheap oil had ended, that global oil production would peak at the latest by the middle of the next decade while demand continued to rise, and that 80 per cent of the oil in the earth’s crust would be exhausted by 2040. It could no longer, therefore, postpone the shift to other energy sources.
What makes the impending shift far more difficult than the two that have preceded it — from wind and water power to coal, and from coal to oil — is that there is no single cleaner and more concentrated energy source to shift to. The world is, therefore, rife with experiments and each country is looking for solutions that best suit its natural endowment and needs. ..
The huge power of the farm lobby in the West, and our dependence on it for ideas and technology, may be the reason for the resounding silence that surrounds that other clean transport fuel, methanol. While the technology for producing ethanol from non-food plant cellulose (e.g. wood, leaves, bagasse or straw) has still to be developed and proved economically viable, the technology for producing methanol from wood is more than two centuries old.
In recent decades, it has been adapted in pilot and semi-commercial plants to use a wide variety of biomass fuels at extraordinarily high levels of efficiency. These have brought down the cost of producing methanol to well below the cost of an equivalent quantity of gasoline. ..
Often the strongest argument against doing something is that others are doing something different. But this is not applicable to the search for new sources of energy. Other countries are exploring other paths because they face a different set of constraints.
The West, for instance, is placing its short-term bets on ethanol because it has a surplus of productive capacity in agriculture. It is placing its long-term bets on hydrogen fuel cells because it knows that it cannot grow enough biomass to meet the whole of its transport fuel needs when the oil runs out. We, however, will not get to that point for several decades. We also face the challenges of rural poverty and environmental degradation that they have largely overcome. We need to find our own path.
(4 July 2007)
Germany’s Merkel presses energy efficiency, emission targets
Associated Press
Published:, International Herald Tribure
German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed the case for increasing energy efficiency and reducing carbon dioxide emissions as she met Tuesday with industry leaders, saying that ambitious targets must be fulfilled.
Merkel’s government aims to boost energy efficiency by 3 percent annually and is targeting a reduction of up to 40 percent in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared with 1990 levels.
Some energy industry representatives have criticized the energy efficiency target as unrealistic, arguing that there is little room to improve it by more than the current 0.9 percent annually.
“There are doubts among some whether the targets are too high,” Merkel told reporters. “But I say it again that, if we take climate protection seriously as a factor, then in some places we have no option but must implement the reduction targets.” ..
Many industry figures and members of Merkel’s conservative party have called for a plan to phase out nuclear energy in Germany to be reconsidered. However, the phase-out — agreed under Germany’s previous center-left government — has been defended fiercely by the Social Democrats, who led that administration and now form half of Merkel’s left-right “grand coalition.” ..
(3 July 2007)
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Warning over Ireland’s oil dependence
Ireland.com
Ireland’s over-dependence on supplies of oil poses a significant burden to the economy and a threat to future energy security, a major international report published today revealed.
The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Irish review analysed the energy challenges facing the country and outlined a number of alternatives to improve efficiency, including the importance of developing an all-Ireland energy market, due to come into force in November.
Though praising the Government’s White Paper on Energy, the report called for an end to the country’s over-reliance on oil and more use of renewable energy sources. It also found improvements in energy efficiency were possible but the Government needed to focus its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and traffic congestion, particularly in Dublin.
(3 July 2007)
China to impose tariff on energy-guzzling products
Shangguan Zhoudong (chinadaily.com.cn)
China will impose an export tariff on highly energy-consuming products as part of an effort to deflate the ballooning trade surplus and improve the safety of the nation’s export products, Wei Jianguo, vice commerce minister, said yesterday.
He said that China will restrict exporting contaminated and energy-intensive products and encourage exports of high-tech equipment and consumer goods.
Although China launched some favorable policies to boost exports, the nation will use more preferential policies to expand imports, Wei said.
The vice minister also said that decelerating the growth of the trade surplus is the Chinese government’s major mission and long-term task.
The government decided to eliminate or cut tax rebates for more than 2,800 export items from July 1, in the boldest move yet to rein in exports since it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, according to an announcement released by the Ministry of Finance in late July.
Export tax rebates for 553 “highly energy-consuming and resource-intensive” products, such as cement, fertilizer and non-ferrous metals, will be eliminated, the ministry said.
(4 July 2007)
