Thoroughly Modern Mastodons
by Devilstower
Sun Jul 27, 2008 at 08:28:54 AM PDT
This is adapted from my portion of the Energize America presentation at Netroots Nation, and I'd hoped to provide some expanded notes to go along with the video of that talk. Unfortunately, it appears that only a few minutes of the overall presentation was recorded (darn it). We'll soldier on sans streaming video.
The Believers
Before we can have any serious discussion of energy, it's important that we cut through the some of the myths that surround the subject -- myths that often find their way into the media and into political debates. I want to start off by discussion three men: Thomas Jefferson, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dr. Thomas Gold. What can these three men possibly have in common? They are The Believers
Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, third president of these United States, statesman, inventor, author, philosopher and all around smart guy. In 1803, Jefferson purchased a slice of land from Napoleon. How much land? Honestly, neither the French nor Jefferson really knew. And neither knew what that land contained.
To begin the long task of finding out, Jefferson dispatched Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their long expedition across the west. And while Jefferson was unsure of how far they'd be going, or what wonders they might find, there was one thing he had hopes they would see. Mastodons. A large mammal, covered in shaggy fur, ten feet tall at the shoulder, and a rather close relative of the modern elephant.
Why would a man as smart as Thomas Jefferson expect to find a fur-coated elephant still hiding in the parts of America that were not then well know? Because he'd seen the bones of mastodons and other large ice age creatures, and in his day, most people, no matter how bright, did not believe that it was possible for an Animal to go extinct. If mastodons were not to be found in the parts of the country settled by Europeans, then they must be somewhere else. Even several decades later many people did not accept the idea of extinction.
Extinction threatened the "great chain of being," which could not tolerate missing links. Like the inhabitants of Easter Island who cut down the the last tree in confidence that there had to be more trees, you know, somewhere, the people of Jefferson's America knew that mastodons were still our there. They were merely hiding.
Donald Rumsfeld. By any measure, not as smart as Thomas Jefferson, but nonetheless until recently the Secretary of Defense and one of those who organized our rather large expedition into a place called Iraq. As he sent US forces in from the south, Rumsfeld told us exactly what he expected to find: weapons of mass destruction. And he told us where he expected to find them: west, north, and east of Baghdad and Tikrit.
Why should Rumsfeld expect to find something that diligent searches by UN inspectors had not uncovered, and about which our own best intelligence sources were, to say the least, dubious? Because by the time US forces spilled over the Iraqi border, the neocons had bet everything that the WMDs were there, and would provide justification for our invasion. It was a matter of faith.
Dr. Cornell Gold, research professor at Cornell University, respected astronomer, and the man who ferreted out the nature of pulsars. However, what draws Gold into this conversation is something he postulated much closer to home. In 1992, Gold published a paper in which he postulated that both oil and coal were not fossil fuels at all, but where generated by abiogenic processes that occur deep underground.
Gold's theory appeared ludicrous on the face of it, but after careful examination proved totally absurd. Just looking at the coal side of the equation, we have peat bogs, lignite fields, sub-bituminous fields, bituminous, and anthracite coal. We understand every step of how plant material becomes coal, and that plant material is so well preserved within the coal that grains of pollen remain to identify the sources of coal back to the species. Oil's nature is just as easily demonstrated.
Despite this, Gold's theory gained currency far out of proportion to its credibility. His ideas offered a way out of the limits placed on oil by nasty old reality, and Gold became the patron saint of those who believe that peak oil will never come. It is an article of faith.
The Truth About US Oil Production
Right now, we're having debates on drilling for oil on the outer continental shelves and in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. This debate seems curiously detached from the real situation of oil production in the United States.
Significant US oil production began around the turn of the 20th Century, and by 1950 production was approaching 5 million barrels a day. By 1960 production had jumped to more than 7 million barrels a day, and by 1970 production topped 9 million barrels a day.
Between 1970 and 1980, the OAPEC embargo hit. For the first time, the nation woke to our dangerous dependence on imported oil. Following the embargo, the price of oil traded sharply higher. Oil that went for just over a dollar a barrel in 1970, fetched twenty-six dollars a decade later. During that decade, the Trans-Alaskan pipeline was completed, bringing into production the enormous Prudhoe Bay field.
We had a vital natural interest in increasing US oil production. Oil companies had an enormous monetary interest in increasing US oil production. Exploration was at a peak. New fields were coming on line. There was no federal restriction on offshore drilling.
So what happened? Production went down. It was down again between 1980 and 1990, down again in 2000. And despite all the price increases of the last seven years, despite the 18 billion dollars a year provided in tax breaks aimed at exploration, by 2010 US oil production will be approximately where it was in 1950.
Anyone telling you that we can find relief for the problem of imported oil by simply looking beneath a few overlooked rocks is searching for modern mastodons. Are there new oil fields out there? Certainly. Will they reverse the trend of our declining production. Certainly not.
But then, perhaps all our mastodons are merely congregating elsewhere. Our imports of oil from outside the US have grown steadily. The oil shock that occurred in 1973 happened at a time when imports were a fraction of what they were today, and yet by the end of that decade imports were higher. Today, we're importing about twice as much oil as we're producing.
There are 98 oil producing countries in the world, which makes it seem as if we should have a lot of choices in our sources. However, 68 of those countries have, like the United States, passed peak production. 60 of them are in terminal decline. That means that the remaining 30 will have more, and more, and more control every single day that we continue to use oil. If we want to reduce our demand for foreign oil, there is exactly one way in which it can be done: use less oil.
Any other step -- including deluding ourselves in discussions of drilling our way out of this crisis -- is a step toward more control of our economy, our national security, and our future by the countries still capable of producing significant oil for export. That means that every day King Abdullah, Hugo Chavez, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have more control over your lives every single time you take your car to the pump.
War by Bumpersticker
These are two bumperstickers spotted on the backs of cars: "Hungry? Eat an Environmentalist!" and "Ban Mining / Let The Bastards Freeze in the Dark." These may sound like they were created in response to the fight against global warming or mountaintop removal, but they actually date back to 1970.
They were created in response to the push for the Clean Air Act, which among other things set limits on Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) emissions from coal-fired power plants. They didn't spontaneously appear, but were created by the PR departments of industries fighting against the legislation. They were the "Obama is a Muslim" chain emails of their day.
Industry predicted that the changes would destroy the economy, would puts tens of thousands out of work, and would drive the cost of electricity so high that average families would be back to studying by firelight. Obviously, they were wrong. Their cost estimates were off not just by a factor of two, or ten, or even a hundred. They also predicted that the SO2 reductions could not be met. They were wrong about that, too.
In 1990, the Clean Air Act was revised to add more limitations and introduce a cap and trade system in SO2 certificates. Again industry stood ready with dire warnings.
They predicted that the 1990 Act would cost fifty thousand jobs in mining alone. The EPA under George H. W. Bush took a look and predicted something like eleven to fifteen thousand jobs. But when they checked in years after the Act had been fully implemented, actually job losses were less than 5,000. Not only that, 95% of the losses in mining were due to "higher productivity techniques," such as mountaintop removal mining, not to changes caused by the legislation.
On costs, industry's numbers indicated tens of billions a year to be invested in cleanup. The EPA estimate was much more modest at around four billion dollars a year. Actual costs? Around one billion -- which is reflected in the price of the SO2 certificates, which after full implementation are still selling for about a quarter to a third of what the EPA predicted they would cost after just the first phase.
Industry was also ready with more warnings about electrical cost, predicting a significant rise in home electric rates. Again, the EPA was more modest, and again reality showed even that estimate was way over. In fact, electrical costs to the consumer fell during the time in which the legislation was being implemented.
So What's the Point?
The point is that our energy debate is too often driven by predictions and numbers that have no relation to reality.
- We are forty years past peak oil in the United States
- Drilling will not reverse the trend of increasing dependence on imported oil
- That oil is increasingly in the hands of nations who are not our friends
- Those nations will have more and more to say about every facet of our lives and security
- When it comes to making changes, you can't trust the huge cost estimates
- Even supposedly neutral organizations overestimate the cost of change
What do we do from here? We use less oil. Equally important, we have to entangle our oil-based transportation system with our electrical grid through introducing plug-in hybrid and pure electrical vehicles.
If we don't, then we may soon be joining the mastodons.
Daily Kos has been deeply involved in energy issues from the beginning, and produced Energize America as a result of the many discussions and proposals put forth in diaries and comments. Energize America has never been more important than it is today.
Over the next few weeks, we'll be revisiting Energize America to update our proposals in the face of changing issues, and to support Energy Smart candidates.
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