Arctic Will Be Opened To Drilling

Among the reasons: Russia, Canada and Norway will drill, so we should also.  This from a “Democratic” administration.  This development is the result of increasing  corporate control over a government.  When people voted for “Hope and Change” in 2008, did they really think that any part of Obama’s administration would stand up to fossil fuel drilling in the most sensitive areas left on Earth?  In Colorado, policy allows natural gas drill pads physically closer to elementary schools than are marijuana dispensaries.  All this is occurring just two years after one of the worst oil spills in world history – how short is our memory?  Maybe people figure as long as the oil only destroys an Arctic ecosystem instead of an ecosystem which Americans might personally experience, then it’s alright.

Shell will receive approval for drilling later this year, according to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.  The article also includes a couple of reassurances that any potential spills in the future will be dealt with quickly because sufficient technologies will be in place already.  Once a spill occurs (as they always do), every politician and corporate executive interviewed will lament that nobody could possibly have foreseen an oil spill in the Arctic.

Solar panels and wind farms don’t explode or leak, to say nothing of the lack of carbon emissions from their energy generation.  The resources utilized are also common resources (nobody owns the sun or air – yet), so they directly threaten the obscene profits realized by a handful of corporations who now  have more rights than American citizens.

Didn’t Environmentalists Cheer the Demise of the Keystone XL Pipeline?

Yes, yes environmentalists did cheer the demise of the Keystone XL pipeline.  By stopping a Republican amendment earlier this year, the decision on whether to build the pipeline from Canada through the central US was left in President Obama’s hands, which was “rejected“.

It turns out that both the “rejection” wasn’t really a rejection and the cheerleading probably happened too soon.  I say that because today, Obama pushed for the southern branch of the pipeline to be finished faster than originally projected.  Many of the same environmentalists who cheered the original “decision” (read: delay) are the same ones who are now decrying this latest call.

I would put more stock into those complaints if those environmentalists hadn’t spent so much time and energy earlier this year trying to convince me that Obama’s “decision” was really and truly final and Keystone wouldn’t get built.  I argued then, and was proven correct today, that Obama’s “decision” really was a delay – it was enough action to get the topic out of the headlines in an election year when he can’t afford to piss off elements of his base too much.

The pipeline was always going to be and in fact will be built in the US.  The part that people should be paying attention to is this: the fossil fuels the pipeline delivers will not be sold in the US – it will be sold overseas because it can fetch a higher price that way.  In return, the “environmentally conscious” President who “cares about the economy” will gladly oversee an increase in deliverable fossil fuels to a largely unregulated, subsidized marketplace which will result in higher fuel prices for every American.  Those fossil fuels will be burned faster than they otherwise would have been and the resultant global warming forcing will be left to future generations to deal with.

But please vote for President Obama in November because who knows what would have happened to the Keystone pipeline if a Republican was in office – it might have gotten built or something horrible like that!  It will be better to get just a little tiny bit of what you want instead of more of what you want if you stop voting for politicians who take your interests for granted.

Keystone XL: Obama Plays His “Base” Like A Fiddle

There’s lots of cheerleading going on from the environmental sidelines over this:

There will be a “supplemental” environmental impact statement — presumably one that isn’t rigged. It “could be completed as early as the first quarter of 2013.”

A SEIS completed in 2013.  Hmm, what about that date might be important?  Oh, I know – it’s the quarter after the 2012 general election.  After Obama wins because environmentalists and others vote for him, convinced that he’s playing 11th-dimensional chess after all of his stunning successes in his first term.  Or after he loses because the Teabaggers remain more motivated than the trod-upon Democratic base.

Either way, I fully expect the Keystone XL project to more forward starting in 2013.  Bill McKibben can bluff all he wants: “The president should know that If this pipeline proposal somehow reemerges from the review process we will use every tool at our disposal to keep it from ever being built”.  What leverage will McKibben or any other environmentalist have on Obama or his Republican Teabagger replacement in 2013?

A delay is not a victory, Bill & Joe.  But keep cheering.  I just know that will make all the difference in 2013 since climate change is one of Obama’s highest priorities.

Gulf Coast Oil Spill: Worse and Worse and Worse

In light of the fact that BP was not sufficiently prepared to be doing the kind of work they were doing (at immense and obscene profits), the news yesterday that the rate at which oil is leaking from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico where BP was drilling has likely increased day by day for 10 days now is shocking and damning.

Instead of the original 1,000 barrels per day (42,000 gallons) of oil leaking, pro-environmental groups examining satellite data helped convince the government and BP to revise that estimate upwards dramatically – to 5,000 barrels per day (~200,000 gallons).  Further examination indicates that a worst-case scenario is developing that far outpaces that 5,000 barrel per day estimate.

A Florida State University professor has come out with an 8 million to 9 million gallons of oil already leaked estimate.  The Exxon Valdez oil spill back in 1989 totaled 11 million gallons of oil.  This newest spill could easily become the largest oil spill disaster in American history.  That well head isn’t expected to be capped for weeks to months.  How much environmental damage will occur in the meantime as oil sloshes around the Gulf of Mexico?  How many small businesses will be shut down that depend on Gulf wildlife in their jobs?

Oil is dirty.  Oil drilling is dirty.  It’s that simple.  Instead of expanding off-shore drilling, as President Obama outlined earlier this year, drilling should have been placed under more common-sense regulations and problems that have been festering for years should have been taken care of.  As I wrote above, the oil industry’s profits are obscene.  It’s not like they don’t have the money to invest in a little safety.

As I wrote yesterday, wind and solar energy are called “clean” for good reasons.  Oil, coal and natural gas are called “dirty” for good reasons.  Note the dirty energy industry’s attempts to relabel itself as “clean” on dozens of commercials per day.  They’re spending a lot of money in a re-brand attempt.  We need to end our addiction to dirty energy.  Clean energy resources exist in such abundance that the world’s energy needs today are dwarfed by the supply.  We don’t need to suffer through mine explosions, oil spills and environmental disasters that grow worse by the year.

Off-Shore Drilling Rig Exposion Leads To Growing Environmental Disaster

If this happened under the Bush Regime, you could have filed this under, “Nobody ever could have foreseen …”.  Iraq, Katrina, Great Depression II are all examples of disasters that received that ridiculous verbal hand-waving in pointless attempts to deflect responsibility.  The Deep Horizon oil well disaster would have fit in perfectly.  Everybody knows that the Dirty Energy industry is called “dirty” for very good reasons.  Oil spills happen more when people drill for that dirty fluid.  It’s going to happen.  The only question is, how often and how much?

In the immediate aftermath of the Deep Horizon oil well explosion last Tuesday, the giant dirty energy corporation BP assured everyone that they were going to cap the well at the bottom of the ocean and the threat to the environment would be minimized.  Because drilling is much cleaner than the stupid public has been led to believe?  Hardly, as it turns out.  As events have unfolded, it appears that the well head at the ocean bottom is leaking out at the rate of 42,000 gallons per day.  And if you think that volume isn’t noteworthy, I challenge you to dump 42,000 gallons of oil on your front yard and tell me what you think afterward.

In reality, the oil spill stretches across more than 1,800 square miles of Gulf of Mexico waters.  As a result, the Coast Guard is trying to come up with plans to protect shorelines (if they can) and clean the oil slick up with BP’s help.  BP is planning on lowering a dome to capture the oil on the ocean bottom.  Unsurprisingly, it’s never been tested for the depth at which the leak is occurring – 5,000ft below the sea surface.  Haven’t we all heard the virtues of mega-corporations, who altruistically ensure all their operations are completely safe?

Why would corporations need restrictive things like regulations, after all?  In another unsurprising piece of news, BP was among a list of corporations that vigorously attacked a proposed rule issued by the Interior Department’s Minerals and Management Service that would have changed, get this, voluntary safety program audits to required audits once every three years.  Gasp!  The horror that a safety audit every three years might be drastically imposed on the poor, suffering drilling industry!  What kind of socialists would even dream up such a business-killing proposition anyway?

The same folks who have noted that “there were 41 deaths and 302 injuries out of 1,443 incidents from 2001 to 2007″.  The same folks who “issued 150 reports over incidents of non-compliant production and drilling operations and determined there was ‘no discernible improvement by industry over the past 7 years.’”  Yeah, voluntary safety audits are sure taking care of all the problems, aren’t they?

Who’s going to get to pay the bill for this containment and clean up effort?  Financially, the U.S. taxpayers, followed by local small businesses and tourism; physically, the environment.  Wildlife Refuges, barrier islands and other coastal locations are under direct threat of this disaster.  Ads run by BP continue to tout their “clean” way of conducting business.

Some Thoughts On the Carbon 9

As the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) of 2009 continues its way through the House now that it has been voted out of the Energy and Commerce Committee, a number of groups are examining who the potential supporters and opponents of the bill might be.  An obvious (perhaps too obvious) choice are the folks “in the middle” – folks who might vote either way on the bill.  Or the way I view things – folks who are going to hold critical legislation hostage until their special interest masters get what they want out of bill negotiations and amendments.  The real issue is who will have their operations restricted the most?  Again, an obvious answer is available: those who pollute the most.  As devilstower wrote 10 or so days ago, the U.S. isn’t carbon flat.  What that means is that there are some locations in this country that overwhelmingly contribute to greenhouse gas pollution.  Those locations will, of course, face the most necessary action to come into line with future pollution limits.  A recently published paper examines the distribution of carbon emissions across the U.S.  Here is one of their findings:

The variation in intensity of carbon emissions is extreme. Across 1,559 counties with at least 25,000 residents in 2002, the average carbon emissions per capita was 7.66 tons but with a median of 3.28 tons and a standard deviation of 16.9 tons.

For those not intimately familiar with statistical measurements, the standard deviation of a variable isn’t supposed to be five times as large as the median value.  One standard deviation away from the median yields a range of -13.62 to 20.18 tons.  That tells us that while there are plenty of low emitters, there are also a large number of very large emitters.  There are very, very large carbon emitters if you consider the 2nd deviation value of 37.08 tons.  That’s about five times the average – which in the large picture isn’t good news.  Those emitters need to reduce those emission rates.  Which is where we get to the ‘Carbon 9′ – a group of 9 Representatives in the House whose votes on ACES might or might not affect its ultimate passage in the House.

Quick Hit: Shell Oil Buying Water Rights in Colorado

Shell Oil put forth a water claim on 15 billion gallons of water, as this article details.  I think this is in addition to the 7.2 million acre-feet of senior water rights that Shell and others bought last week, as I covered here.  The older article that I’m just now getting to says the Yampa River water rights are junior rights.  The end use of the water would likely be the same: drilling for oil in shale formations.  That’s why I’m not sure if the articles are actually about the same purchase or not.  If not, Shell is putting down a lot of money in what is likely to be a very bad investment.  If all the claims make their way past regulators and the court system (no guarantee in itself), it would take another decade before the first drilling could occur (if the technology is ready, another thing not guaranteed).  So in 10 plus years, Shell might be ready to drill for oil in formations.  What do you think our energy portfolio and infrastructure will look like by then?  Does anyone seriously think that oil and gas will be viewed as the best sources of energy in 10 more years?  Of course not – they’re not today and that won’t improve with time.  (The fact that absent massive corporate welfare, oil and gas are even worse sources than they are commonly viewed today seems to escape most peoples’ notice.)  For the sake of our environment and our economy, renewable energy sources are where the smart money is.

Once again, as gas prices inch back up toward $2 per gallon this spring (and likely to go higher again this summer), this is what Shell and other fossil fuel corporations are doing with a great deal of their money: securing water rights so that dozens of gallons of water can be wasted to produce one gallon of oil 10+ years from now.  They’re not incresing refining capacity, which would help lower the price of gas for all of us.  They’re planning to start boondoggle projects.  In too many people’s eyes, it’s alright if Shell and other corporations do so because they’re infallible.  It disgusts me.

Update: The Colorado Independent’s David Williams has an article up on this.

News Pieces 1/30/09: Cassini, GDP, Exxon and Winter Storms

NASA’s Cassini mission managers want to extend the mission another 7 years.  Doing so would allow them to investigate the Saturnian system for 1/2 of a Saturn year.  I hope they get the go-ahead.

The economy shrank at a 3.8% annual rate in the last quarter.  That’s a preliminary reading – one which is expected to get worse as the numbers are looked at in more depth.  That number won’t get better any time soon.  Millions are losing their jobs and their houses.  Millions more have lost access to credit, which was the economy’s driving force for the past twenty years.  Americans are going to realize they aren’t being paid enough when their credit lines are shut down as the recession deepens and lasts longer than most people are estimating right now.  All these things are the direct results of Con-servative policies being implemented (exactly as Cons wanted them to be, by the way) in the U.S.  It’s happened to every other country in the world where America tried to export “capitalistic democracy”.  The Cons finally got their chance to implement their policies to their fullest extenet here in America.  We’re living with the consequences now.  What are Cons doing in Congress? Pushing the same failed policies that got us here.  Thankfully, voters made better choices in this last election.

Did you hear that even poor ol’ Exxon Mobil is huring – just like the rest of us – in the recent economic downturn?  Okay, maybe not just like the rest of us.  After all, their 2008 profits were only $45,200,000,000.  Only $45.2 Billion.  Does anybody remember $4.50 gas last summer?  Guess where it went.  Autocratic regimes in the Middle East and mega-corporations like Exxon Mobil.  That’s correct – that disgusting number is only the profits of one corporation.  Keep those numbers in mind when you see their advertising claiming they’re doing all  kinds of critical research, developing better things for tomorrow.  In the face of the worst economic downturn since the last Republican Great Depression, in the face of record energy prices, the mega-fossil fuel corporations are making billions in profits and distributing millions more to executive bonuses.  When will their new technologies and “cleaner” fuels be available?  Eh, just keep buying gas for a few more decades.  Maybe after another $500 Billion or so in profits, they’ll actually come up with something.  Or Americans can continue to play the sucker in the relationship and continue buying their fossil fuels and never expect more out of them.

I heard about this last night on the radio.  Plenty of people in the eastern half of the U.S. are without power from … an average January winter storm.  The excellent questions raised were the following.  How many billions of dollars is the Dept. of “Homeland Security” sucking down every year?  The purpose of DHS is to protect the “homeland”, correct?  What kind of target do you think terrorists would like to strike?  Maybe power plants or power infrastructure more generically?  Our economy would certainly suffer even more if extensive power outages occurred.  Do you think DHS is doing its job protecting the homeland if a common, well-forecasted winter storm puts millions of people into the dark and cold?  I certainly don’t.  Given these circumstances, I have no faith in DHS to protect any American from a terrorist attack.  There are plenty of problems with our current infrastructure.  This kind of problem should receive some attention in the recovery package making its way through Congress now.