is a column you absolutely should read
Let me offer the conclusion at the start:
The Obama administration is spending $2.4 billion from the stimulus package on carbon capture and storage projects -- a mere down payment. Imagine what that money could do if it were spent on solar, wind and other renewable energy sources. Imagine if we actually tried to solve the problem rather than bury it.
and the beginning:
President Obama should be applauded for taking climate change seriously, recognizing that the phenomenon can be traced to the burning of fossil fuels and intensifying the search for viable solutions. In one of its centerpiece initiatives, however, the administration may be digging a very expensive dry hole.
Now, go read the rest, and then we can talk.
Let me now leave Eugene Robinson, who clearly can speak for himself, and offer one statement I think is indisputable:
There is no such thing as clean coal. There is only less dirty coal.
The burning of coal is inherently dirty. But that is only part of the problem. The mining of coal is inherently destructive of the environment. The "cheapest" way of mining, mountaintop removal, is incredibly destructive, and just because we do not apply to the mining to costs of that destruction does not mean they do not exist. We need to consider, perhaps calculate and apply, those additional costs, and add them to what Robinson notes:
But it is expensive -- a power plant capable of carbon capture would cost up to 50 percent more to build than a conventional plant, and that doesn't take into account the cost of the massive infrastructure needed to transport the carbon to storage sites and pump it underground.
It seems that our approach to energy is too much like our approach to medical insurance - we seem determined to keep in place corporations whose continued operation imposes on the rest of us costs that should be unacceptable. In the case medcal coverage it is the for-profit insurance companies and in energy it is not only the coal operators but also much of the petroleum industry.
Robinson argues that the money being spent to research so-called clean coal would be better spent researching truly clean energy production sources like wind, solar and geothermal. I am not opposed to the research per se, because perhaps we will find a break-through which could allow us to change our perspective. But the real breakthrough would have to be to find a less destructive but still acceptable in cost method of extracting the coal in the first place. No one seems to be addressing that.
I claim no expertise in either energy production nor the science of burning any kind of hydrocarbon. I think I am astute enough to note that far too often we do not apply downstream costs to actions we wish to take, thereby improperly pricing them, allowing huge profits to be made by some while ultimately the rest of us have to absorb the costs that eventually are identified, the damages that must be addressed. In our desire to become energy independent I hope - and pray - that we will not repeat the pattern we have seen in far too many cases.
I am not criticizing Robinson for failing to address these additional issues - there is only so much one can address in the brief space of a single column, and he does superbly in what he offers today. That is a start, but it is only part of the problem.
Man has long dreamed of things like perpetual motion machines. We similarly look for cheap, reliable sources of energy that can operate on large scale. In the case of energy we have gone down several paths
- large-scale hydroelectric
- cheap supply of petroleum and natural gas
- fission production of nuclear energy
- the pursuit of controllable fusion
To date, we have yet to come up with something that meets all of our criteria: cheap, reliable, can operate on a large scale. There are problems and costs of extracting the raw materials, transportation of those materials for use in power production close to power consumption, transmission of the electricity that is produced, handling of the waste and by-products of the actual power production.
And still we keep ramping up our use of energy in wasteful fashions.
What if we put as much money into the research of retrofitting our many wasteful uses of the energy we have? How much would it cost to be making our residences and places of learning and work far less wasteful? What are the comparative costs between that approach and continuing to find ways we believe will justify our continued expansion of hydrocarbons as the source of the various kinds of power we need?
I have often mentioned the Orthodox monk who during the early 1940s prayed that the less evil side might win, because the fighting of a war is inherently evil and we need to recognize that as we try to minimize the evil we cause even in the most righteous of wars. Similarly, there is ultimately no such thing as totally clean energy, only means of production that when all the costs are accounted for are less dirty.
We cannot solve our various energy problems by focusing on one narrow portion, such as cleaner burning of coal. Go ahead with the research, but be sure that research includes all of the costs incurred by the use of coal. Do not pick and choose among methods - research the other methods to which Robinson refers.
But also research and address how much we can reduce demand by conservation, insulation, public transportation, possible rethinking how and when we work, travel, etc.
We have a crisis. It is not just ours, it is worldwide. The impact of any decision we make is environmental as well as economic, and neither of those can be limited to local effects.
If we have to choose, I would put the greatest effort on conservation, on minimizing the growth of energy demand, because otherwise all of our other efforts will be for naught as we destroy our planet.
We have already fought too many wars over energy. Our use of energy may cause us to fight wars over edible food and potable water if we are not more careful.
In any case, the title of Robinson's piece is quite appropriate, because to believe that the narrow focus on "clean coal" and on carbon capture will truly address our massive crises is a pipe dream. The problem is it is a pipe of a different kind - you know, one where we put it in a pipe and smoke it. Perhaps we will temporarily get distracted from our real problems, but when we smoke it matter not whether it is the addiction of tobacco or the sedation of cannabis, in neither case have we done anything except allowed the crisis to continue to worsen.
Too many wars already. Remember that.
Peace.