38 thoughts on “PBS: How to Overcome Obstacles to Climate Action”
An excellent little chat that covered a lot of ground but gave few actionable answers as to how to “overcome obstacles to climate action”. Maura is a sweet young thing who is naive if she thinks that the youth of America are going to save us—-they’re too busy shopping and texting (or trying to find a job).
The Koch brothers $$$, the power of the gerrymandered red states, and the mindless destructiveness of the conservatives and free-marketers are not going to be overcome by young voters anytime soon. Turning out every four years and voting big for president will NOT get rid of the crazies in the House or in the state governments.
I was glad to see the “old man” speak from a base of reality. The real problem remains China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, etc, and NOT the U.S. We must of course set the example and take the lead (and perhaps we do owe “reparations”) if we want to have any hope of convincing the developing world to “do the right thing”. I hate to be cynical, but until the U.S. gets its house in order by electing a Democratic President and Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, we are going to continue to spin our wheels and CO2 will continue its inexorable rise.
Maura seems to think that the climate will be changed by voting and protesting. I doubt that any of her education did the slightest bit to disabuse her of such notions. In that, she’s as blind as Anthony Watts.
K-12 should include annual recitals of “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”, with references to current events.
Hmm. We’re largely on track, but I disagree strongly with two points here.
“The real problem remains China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, etc, and NOT the U.S.”
I really don’t know how you could say that. This is very much a problem of our making in a variety of ways. 1) We have led in blocking international climate change accords for 2+ decades, 2) much of the financing for economic expansion in the developing world has come from the West, especially the U.S., 3) we provide the consumer demand that drives economic expansion in the developing world, 4) we provide the lifestyle model that the rest of the world is trying to adopt, and 5) as an acknowledged top world power, the developing world will not act if we do not (you did mention this point).
The fact that emissions are rising fastest in the developing world is a moot point in a globalized economy. A lot of those emissions are directly related to us.
“I hate to be cynical, but until the U.S. gets its house in order by electing a Democratic President and Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, we are going to continue to spin our wheels and CO2 will continue its inexorable rise.”
You’re not cynical enough. Unfortunately, we’ve passed the point where we could hope a full Democratic majority would do much of anything. We had that for two years after 2008 and we did nothing. Obama in 2008 ran on the ‘clean coal’ delusion.
The real problem is threefold, but it relates to money: 1) campaign finance is seriously out of whack, and has gotten dramatically worse the past few years (and this effects Democrats as well as Republicans), 2) opinion in the American public is greatly affected by the media, which is corporate-controlled, and therefore reflects the interests of the most powerful businesses, and 3) the American people would refuse any drop in lifestyle or material affluence, anyway.
You can see this reflected in Democrats all the time. Obama is completely in the pocket of Wall Street, he’s stated many times that he wouldn’t accept a drop in economic growth while addressing environmental issues, and he himself has helped promote the “100 year supply” meme of natural gas. President Clinton, while he gave lip service to Kyoto, mentioned that he was especially fond of the “free market approach”, and we can see how that’s doing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibl63YlTtI4
“we are going to continue to spin our wheels and CO2 will continue its inexorable rise” until we accept our own responsibility, willingly accept sacrifices to bring about real change, completely reform campaign finance and lobbying, somehow change the media to lessen corporate control, and we have to do these things worldwide simultaneously. In other words, probably never.
We are not in disagreement at all—you need to look at the demographics to see the point I’m making. Those countries hold nearly half the world’s population, and are going to try to raise their standard of living to match the U.S. That means they will use more energy, and that means more CO2, and their present per capita carbon footprint is only 20% of ours. Can you see where that leads?
Your numbered points are all true and now mostly irrelevant—the capitalists have done their dirty work and there’s no going back. Those countries are now to the point that their internal consumer demand is driving their expansion as much as (if not more than) we are (China in particular).
I think you overreach a bit with “The fact that emissions are rising fastest in the developing world is a moot point in a globalized economy. A lot of those emissions are directly related to us”. As I just said, not so true anymore—we DID provide the model, but we are not in the driver’s seat anymore—if emissions are rising, it’s NOT moot—-it’s a fait accompli that we are losing influence over..
I have pushed the books “Winner Take All Politics” and “The Death of the Liberal Class” several times on Crock. Everything you said leading up to “In other words, probably never” and much more is laid out clearly there..
“If I’m wrong, great”. To which I say, “No, you’re not wrong, too bad”.
It’s like this, say someone in Florida buys a shirt. The cotton, say, was grown in Texas, but it was processed in Georgia and sent to New York for assembly. In that supply chain, emissions happened at each stage, but relatively few emissions actually happened in Florida.
So, the Floridian could say he didn’t create many emissions, which is technically true if you just look at him actually buying the shirt, but realistically, the statement is false. He’s in charge of the emissions that happened all along the line, because without his demand (and the demand from those like him), the emissions don’t happen.
Looking at the United States in this case, we could total the emissions and say they came from the United States.
But, we don’t live in that world anymore. Most of the products we consume have multiple supply chains spanning the globe. The emissions at each spot are counted at each locality, but in reality they are create by the demand within a highly interconnected global economy. We take part in creating the emissions, no matter if they were actually created in China or India.
No demand, no emissions – which is what Paul Jay is referring to. It’s not defeatism so much as realism. But I disagree with the notion that we are free to easily change our behaviors. Much of our consumer culture is self-reinforcing. To exist, you usually have to have a job. For most jobs, you need a car and clean clothes. To do these things, you need to spend. You also need to eat, in which case you can spend to buy land and all the materials to grow your own food, or you can go to a store and by something wrapped in plastic multiple times. You could move to a city and go to a farmer’s market, in which case you really need a job, and a rather high paying one.
In addition, we’re constantly bombarded with messages that we need to spend, spend, spend – and if we don’t, we’re somehow a failure. Our government amplifies those behaviors that benefit the highest spenders (corporations) in our campaign cycles by enacting laws that support them.
We’re trapped to a large degree. It’s a sort of existential nightmare to those who dwell on it.
Yup. No real argument on any of that except that 300+ million Americans do NOT drive things the way you would have us believe, and certainly will not do so in the future. The BRIC nations and the rest of the undeveloped world are coming on strong. They do not need us to be buying their products once their internal demand rises high enough. That is already happening with electronics in China—most of their phones, computers, and TV’s are now being made for Chinese.
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PS Forgot to say that “existential nightmares” can be fun if your sense of humor is warped enough and your cynicism level is high.
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As of 2011, Western Europe and North America accounted for 60% of global consumption. China and India accounted for 20%: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/810
No doubt it will rise in the developing world as time passes. But they got their model for consumer consumption from us, and many of their economies were kicked off by investment from Western companies. Sorry I’m pressing this, but I don’t want to let us off the hook.
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Who says we’re off the hook or ever will be? Western Europe and The U.S. ARE responsible for ALL of it, from industrialization to the uncontrolled exploitation of fossil fuels to developing the rapacious capitalism/free market system and exporting it to Asia. China and India were two of the most successful societies ever seen on this planet when they were feudal states, and we are leading them to destruction.
You don’t need to be pushing this to me—-who are you arguing with?.
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Cool, cool. My concern is that some use the “it’s now China’s fault” bit to excuse our own actions. I’m not saying you are. I just don’t like a lack of clarity on the issue.
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Anyone who doesn’t have “clarity” of understanding re: the “white man” being at the root of it all is probably muddy on a lot of other things as well. Like whether the sun revolves around the earth or vice-versa.
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The idea that Obama had 2 years of an unassailable majority is wrongheaded;
it only existed for a cumulative total of 1 month before the 2010 midterm elections.
When I hear these debates, it’s always governments who have to do things. The problem isn’t governments, it’s us. We over consume, always burning something, and that is the lifestyle we were sold.
There’s no use stopping the keystone pipeline unless millions of people leave their cars parked and their houses slightly less comfortable and consciously stop using fossil fuels. Otherwise the oil will find it’s way to customers, at whatever cost to the environment. There are lifestyle choices that have to be made, by us, not our government.
For a well-researched outline of how this will all turn out, I highly recommend “The Great Disruption” by Paul Gilding. As a science-based environmentalist who has worked with major international corporations, he’s above all a realist. In his opinion, nothing will change until the world economy crashes, which won’t be too long as we are already 20% – 30% over the Earth’s carrying capacity. What I saw in the first hour of Cameron’s epic just confirmed that.
Gilding believes that we will come out the other side of the crash sadder, wiser and fewer, but more appreciative of the environment that sustains us. But don’t expect any 1st world country to do anything significant until the crash sobers us up.
I am saying that spending any time, energy, or paper on the assertion that nothing good is going to happen until “the economy crashes” is time, energy, or paper that would be better spent trying to avoid that outcome.
Billions dying is not a plan of action. It is fatalism.
To accomplish what needs to be accomplished is going to take commitment on many levels, one of which is a commitment to acting with some unison to change the conversation we are having as a nation. That is the first step – deciding how and what and why to change the conversation TO.
That is why I keep repeating myself here, because the conversation we keep having in the country and the blogoshpere is not about the correct ideas.
We need to stop arguing with morons about the science.
We need to start talking about how to actually accomplish a switch to 100% renewables. About whether i should be a private or public sector solution. About logistics. About costs. About strategies. About financing. About ROI.
We need to know what can be done by Executive Order, and what can be done only be Act of Congress.
We need to move the Overton window. I think a good way to do that is to keep talking about nationalization of the carbon fuel industry; keep talking about prosecuting the Koch brothers for civil damages or crimes against humanity.
We are in this whole mess because fifty years ago, a shattered Republican party realized that THEY needed to redirect the national conversation, move the Overton window. They keep making strategic decisions about what to talk about, how to say it, and how to maintain one consistent message year after year. We don’t do that.
Instead, we splinter into a thousand factions, aimless and alone, in frustration. And one of those factions is the Dom & Gloom faction – misdirecting energy into telling us how we will fail. That it can’t work until civilization ends. Etc. etc, etc
In fifty years, the Republican party completely overturned what being a good American meant. They have one half of Americans thinking that voting to support issues and candidates that help only millionaires and corporations is patriotic and intelligent.
But all we have to do is build some f*****g renewable energy infrastructure. Compared to what the Republicans accomplished, that is really small potatoes. So, yeah, when I hear another Doom and Gloomer telling me we need to wait for the end of civilization to accomplish our goal, I do get rather ticked off.
Get out of the way, or please just shut up – nihilism is not helping anybody.
Whose purposes are served by the additional restriction (which is, I must note, specifically opposed by none other than Hansen and Mann)?
We used to have a “100% renewable” economy, before coal became a substantial source of energy. Despite much lower populations than today, the renewable sources of energy were scarce and left people in what we would consider dire circumstances. Given a choice between a return to such dire circumstances and continuing to burn coal and gas, most people would stick with coal and gas. The insistence on “100% renewable or bust” is a grave mistake, and I hope it’s corrected before it becomes fatal.
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An eloquent and passionate statement that is hard to argue with. Except for the fact that it also displays “positivity delusionalism”, motivated reasoning and cognitive dissonance.
Fatalism, nihilism, cynicism, and acceptance of the fact that massive economic and ecological catastrophes are becoming ever more likely (AND may be the key to survival IF we come out the other side) grow out of rational analysis of the situation on the planet. They may not be “helpful” in your eyes, but neither is it helpful to be engaging in wishful thinking about how easy it is to “move the Overton window” and “all we have to do is build some freaking renewable infrastructure” (which is NOT small potatoes considering the opposition and delaying tactics of the FF interests).
YOU pointed out that the Repugnants are the ones who have successfully moved the Overton window and how long they have worked at it—-do we have enough time?. The Koch brothers are closer to owning the government after Citizens United and McCutcheon, and you think we will ever prosecute them? Need I remind you of how few on Wall Street were prosecuted after nearly destroying the country?
I share your frustration and anger, but it’s going to be pretty much business as usual until some very bad things happen that will allow a substantial move of the “window”. If that’s fatalism, so be it—-it’s also realism.. A serious carbon tax IS needed, and nationalization of the FF industry is a great but a “don’t hold your breath” idea as long as Repugnants are able to say NO to any rational actions.
You say “Get out of the way, or please just shut up – nihilism is not helping anybody”? I will say in return, wake up and smell the denial in that statement.
PS I will again say COAL COAL COAL COAL COAL, and remind everyone that worldwide it is going to be a BIGGER, not smaller, problem. A recent take on that at
The FF interests intend to use every last bit of the stuff if they can, and coal will likely remain economical in some places for a long time. I get really fatalistic when I see how they are actually hoping for the arctic to become ice-free and the Greenland ice sheet to melt back so that they can go in there and drill and dig.
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DOG,
So, I take it you are not interested in, or willing to make a commitment to changing the national conversation?
You agree that the Republicans have showed us a way to move public opinion, but we just don’t have enough time to even try to exploit this information?
It’s all too impossible, too complicated, too tough.
Wonderful. Very inspiring.
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Actually, drummer boy, what’s NOT “Wonderful and Very Inspiring” is watching you climb up on your high horse and rant. Work a bit harder at it and you may be able to become the poster boy for Positivity Delusionalism. I have complimented you on your passion and eloquence, but am sorry to see that you are still practicing some motivated reasoning and displaying some youthful naivete about the state of the world and the possible futures of humanity.
BTW, in terms of degrees of separation, we have some things in common. My daughter is a bit older than you and was finishing up at William and Mary as you entered. My son is about your age and graduated from George Mason with a BA in photography. There is a connection through Woodson HS as well. There is even a chance that we were physically within sight of each other at some points more than once way back then.
What we do NOT have in common is the same life experiences. I was born in 1940 and grew up in an America that was largely gone by the time you became mature enough and educated enough to even begin to try to understand it. I was born into a world that had fewer than 3 billion people, and the human population has more than doubled in my lifetime. The population of the U.S. has grown 2-1/2 times bigger in that time. I was born into a world that was just beginning to break out into “modern” technology, and have watched as it has both cursed and blessed us.
In actuality, I have been “interested in and willing to make a commitment to changing the national conversation” since high school in the 1950’s, and have continued to be so committed through college and my entire professional career AND perhaps even more since my retirement—-a span of nearly 60 years. I speak of politics and government, human rights, education, and concern for the environment going back to before Earth Day, with more emphasis on AGW as it has worsened over the past 20 years, and on politics as the right wing has nearly wrecked the country over the past 30 years. I support more “movements” and groups than I can remember with money and personal effort. Do you contribute $$$ to the support of Dark Snow, the Climate Scientist LDF, climate blogs like this, environmental groups, and various political groups who are fighting the Repugnants? I do, and I need a spreadsheet to keep track of it all.
You need to stop lecturing me and ranting in your frustration. Understand that it is ALMOST “too impossible, too complicated, too tough”, and that those of us who have a far better understanding of the totality of the problem than you ARE of the opinion that it may be too late. That doesn’t mean we have quit trying, but the plutocrats, Repugnants, and unfettered capitalism may have already done too much damage for the forces of reason to overcome them.
PS I’ve just gotten The Great Disruption and Bright-Sided from the library. A quick glance indicates they are both going to be good reads. Also just watched the first disc of The Men Who Built America (Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie)—-highly informative as to how America was “built” but is really being destroyed in the long term.
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“. A serious carbon tax IS needed, and nationalization of the FF industry is a great but a “don’t hold your breath” idea as long as Repugnants are able to say NO to any rational actions.”
You are not reading, or I am not communicating, with enough comprehension. It’s not important to nationalize the FF industry. It IS important to start talking about it. Do you see the difference in intent?
The best way to defeat the FF industry is to make them obsolete. The best way to do that is to have (imho) a national Renewable Energy Utility – an infrastructure building project, that will produce electricity at such an inexpensive final price as to make every consumer ditch their FF suppliers and stampede to retrofit electric into their homes and businesses. What could be a better way to get people to demand (vote) that their government provide this?
And the best way to get the FF companies from torpedoing such an endeavor is to start talking about nationalizing the FF industry, and all the populist fury against the FF empire that will engender. This is strategy, not policy.
People DO vote their pocketbooks. We have a duty, I believe, to move the national energy conversation to include this topic. You do that by intending to do that. Maybe you have a better idea or a better way to accomplish that?
Something better than waiting for catastrophe to somehow allow us to make huge investments in infrastructure?
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The best way to defeat the FF industry is to make them obsolete. The best way to do that is to have (imho) a national Renewable Energy Utility – an infrastructure building project, that will produce electricity at such an inexpensive final price as to make every consumer ditch their FF suppliers and stampede to retrofit electric into their homes and businesses.
You are making a very big assumption: that it is possible to actually achieve the avowed goal of such a utility, instead of winding up as the institutional equivalent of Head Start (huge employment program showing near-zero results) or Solyndra.
More below, where the columns are wide enough to make them readable.
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Why does E-Pot insist on so often destroying his credibility with idiotic racist and/or political “irrelevant asides” statements? ‘Tis a wonder. (More where there is “more room” perhaps, if I find time)
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Do you think any of this will get better by nihilism and cynicism? Is that a plan? We may fail or something unforeseen may happen. Either way negativity leads nowhere. EVs are the the solution for transportation, the biggest carbon source in the US. Coal is the problem in China. Problem? Nothing has ever kept FF in the ground. On the contrary. What will happen? No one can make guarantees. We do know what will happen if we do nothing.
On is nihilism and cynicism a solution, of course it is not. But I’d say they are a sane reaction to problems without easy solutions, or solutions at all. Honestly, I don’t see EVs and more solar farms as a solution – I see them as a partial but very incomplete answer to much larger and complex problems.
Nihilism requires that a person thinks government and society SHOULD be overturned. If this society could be fixed, I’d be all for doing so. I don’t want to see collapse or societal breakdown, and despite my fairly radical beliefs regarding the United States of America, I’ve always been proud of our better characteristics (and we have those as well) and I love the people here – all of them, regardless of what they believe. I happen to know many people who are idiots about politics and the environment, but they’re often very good people with big hearts in other ways.
I don’t want to see us fail, but I think it’s inevitable – largely because we can’t even grasp the real nature of the problem, even if we did there are major systemic obstacles in our way, and even if we solved them I am highly doubtful we really have the will and wisdom to enact the necessary changes.
Now, I gave my solution at the end of my first comment above. The fact that everyone, including the people here, completely ignore that answer forms a majority share of my cynicism. You can’t fix a corrupt system without addressing the root of the corruption, and you have address that problem before tackling larger problems that require actions that are anathema to our current way of life – the very same altruistic and collective answers that Roger hopes for. It won’t happen unless other things change first, and wishing or wanting to be inspiring won’t make it so.
I’d like to say one other thing. We’re all different people, with different experiences, biases, knowledge, and intellects. We’re going to have different beliefs and thought processes. One person telling another person that they should just “move out of the way” or “shut up” is a two-way street. I could say the same thing to other people here, but I happen to think we all have a right to express our opinions.
Those opinions may be wrong, and horribly so, in which case the discussion should center on exactly how it’s wrong.
Roger wants a national discussion on energy policy, but I’d say the fatalists who don’t shut up ARE participating in the national discussion on these matters. We don’t think the proposed answers are answers at all. They’re just band-aids. More radical approaches like yours, Roger, won’t get off the ground without addressing other issues first, and even then I don’t see a Renewable Utility as a complete, or even majority, answer. It wouldn’t hurt by any stretch, but it just shifts FF use into other sectors and developing countries.
We don’t WANT lower energy prices. We want much, much HIGHER energy prices, across the board, and we have to mandate that harmful environmental practices STOP.
But, on your ideas, I say go for it. I won’t stand in the way. People like me aren’t the problem. We’re just observers who perhaps know how and why those ideas don’t have a shot. Perhaps rather than telling us to shut up, our observations could be used by people who desire to be movers and shakers in this world to form more effective approaches to the problems we face.
BTW, I’ve already read both Gilding’s book and “Death of the Liberal Class”. I agree and disagree with things in both. For the record, Gilding doesn’t want society to collapse, an essential element of a nihilist. He’d have to be a sociopath who doesn’t care for his five children to want it. He’s worked for decades in both the corporate sector and in Greenpeace to effect change, but he hasn’t seen it happen. He thinks a collapse is inevitable, and his “silver lining” is that humanity can change after getting their asses handed to them. I think that’s rather naïve, ha ha, but whatever.
Replying to Gingerbaker (comment-page-1/#comment-56933) above, reparented for readability:
The best way to defeat the FF industry is to make them obsolete. The best way to do that is to have (imho) a national Renewable Energy Utility – an infrastructure building project, that will produce electricity at such an inexpensive final price as to make every consumer ditch their FF suppliers and stampede to retrofit electric into their homes and businesses.
You are making a very big assumption: that it is possible to actually achieve the avowed goal of such a utility, instead of winding up as the institutional equivalent of Head Start (huge employment program showing near-zero results) or Solyndra.
The executive summary of NREL’s success-oriented 2012 study says, and I quote:
First, this study focuses on renewable-specific technology pathways and does not explore the full portfolio of clean technologies that could contribute to future electricity supply. Second, the analysis does not attempt a full reliability analysis of the power system that includes addressing sub-hourly, transient, and distribution system requirements. Third, although RE Futures describes the system characteristics needed to accommodate high levels of renewable generation, it does not address the institutional, market, and regulatory changes that may be needed to facilitate such a transformation. Fourth, a full cost-benefit analysis was not conducted to comprehensively evaluate the relative impacts of renewable and non-renewable electricity generation options.
In other words, the full list of options wasn’t considered, including those which might do better… such as the ones which have already exceeded NREL’s 80% target in the real world. The actual requirements of meeting total system needs were not considered. The depth of changes required were simply glossed over, as were their consequences. Last, nobody considered whether the money would be well-spent. This is a recipe for disaster.
Suppose you did have a program for a government-owned and -run all-RE utility in the USA. If it cost too much for ratepayers to finance, and nobody would buy bonds to finance it, you couldn’t build it. However technically possible it might be, in practice it could never achieve the goals set for it. Once you couldn’t borrow any more money the only way you could get electric power is to pay the owners of existing plants out of current income. Those plants would burn fossil fuel.
Let’s look at an example of RE in the real world. Aruba consumed 0.84 TWh in 2010. As of 2009, Aruba’s Vander Piet wind-power project was projected to produce 18 MW average, or 0.158 TWh per year. For an island situated in the trade winds, this is a pathetically small RE contribution. I cannot find news of any efforts beyond the first Vander Piet wind farm.
Aruba essentially runs on imported petroleum. It’s both a windy and sunny location; RE should pay off famously there. Tourist revenue should supply plenty of money for RE to substitute for oil. Yet despite this, I’m unable to find figures on solar-electric generation in Aruba. I find no generation figures for the Vander Piet wind farm either. Shouldn’t this be a raging success story, trumpeted to the world? Yet I hear no trumpets. What’s wrong?
Gingerbaker, I submit to you that this is “the dog that did not bark in the night”. Something is being hidden, from me and from you. The rosy projections have had no proportionate triumphs. If RE isn’t doing what it should in Aruba, how can we expect it to meet expectations in Alabama, let alone Minnesota?
Consider that carbon-free but “non-renewable” energy might be the only way we can do what needs to be done.
Head Start is an excellent program that does exactly what it’s supposed to. The problem is not with Head Start it’s that we follow it up with abandonment of the children who got a good start. We project and over-focus and allow right wing ideologues to stop us from providing what all people need. You’re trying to argue that government programs are not good. By cherry picking one solar company out of thousands that are succeeding, and ignoring the hundreds of fossil fuel companies, toothpick companies, tech companies and others that have also failed, you’re trying to say the same thing.
Your Aruba argument is that because fossil fuel companies are powerful, and fossil fuels have been the dominant source of energy, and because the world hasn’t switched to solar and wind in a week, it can’t work. That’s a nonsensical argument. Lies, lobbying, denying delayalism, bribery, and corruption–all by the fossil fuel industry–have tremendously slowed development of the only energy sources that will avoid climate catastrophe: efficiency, wind, solar, (PV, solar thermal, solar cooking, passive solar heating and cooling, etc.) micro-hydro, geothermal, wave, tidal, and other smaller but locally-important sources. We need life changes. We need education in ecological science.
Aruba is a highly unequal society, dominated by its oil industry, with a few very rich people and many very poor ones. The rich, so far, can afford fossil fuels and it’s easier for them to stick with the familiar (and believe corporate lies) and not go against the powerful and corrupt oil industry than switch. The poor, barely hanging on, can’t afford the upfront costs of changing. That inequality is typical of oil-rich countries, by the way.
Head Start is an excellent program that does exactly what it’s supposed to.
Do you seriously believe that? Head Start didn’t even require its employees to have teaching credentials until recently (minimum numbers for BAs and associates degrees came into effect only last year). Its major products are employment for people with few real job skills and free daycare (largely for the children of women who have no jobs and could take care of their own children for free).
The problem is not with Head Start it’s that we follow it up with abandonment of the children who got a good start.
Forty years of failure and you refuse to even consider that the premises of the program might be wrong. As part of this, you ignore what’s different about those who succeed without any such interventions.
Head Start isn’t what I want to concentrate on, but the pattern: you have your prescribed solution, and your first reaction to failure is to double down saying “we’re not trying hard enough”. You never stop to consider that you might be trying the wrong thing, that your prescription rests on a faulty diagnosis. When the diagnosis is essentially an element of faith and deviation considered heresy, you’re in a bit of a pickle.
Your Aruba argument is that because fossil fuel companies are powerful, and fossil fuels have been the dominant source of energy, and because the world hasn’t switched to solar and wind in a week, it can’t work.
You can stop fighting that straw man; I’m over here. I never mentioned fossil fuel companies. I happened to be privileged to have an inside track on info about the Vander Piet wind farm itself. Jerome Guillet, then of Dexia bank, had a hand in negotiating the vendor financing of that farm when the credit system was locked up in 2008. It was quite a coup, which he related to the staff mailing list of The Oil Drum in almost real time.
Aruba seems to have no reason not to build more wind capacity, if they can finance it. The problem is that the country stats don’t seem to show any effect from Vander Piet. Oil consumption hardly seems changed. They imported about 3200 barrels a day in 2012, but there’s no obvious change in net imports around the Dec. 2009 date when the farm went live. Net installed capacity jumped from 150 MW to 320 MW over the next few years (Vander Piet was 30 MW of that), but that wasn’t accompanied by any great trend in generation or consumption. Neither did CO2 emissions drop substantially.
The wind farm was expected to average about 18 MW output. This was about 16% of Aruba’s 2012 electric consumption. I don’t see it in the data.
You say this is how to save the planet. Where’s the beef? Or is your answer “do it again, HARDER this time” without understanding what’s going on?
I’m willing to entertain the idea that I’m wrong. So, show me. Show me ONE electric grid of substantial size (say, 10 GW average load or more), anywhere, which has been de-carbonized by the addition of wind and solar. For “de-carbonized” I’ll take 10% of the emissions of conventional coal; call it 95 gCO2/kWh.
Lies, lobbying, denying delayalism, bribery, and corruption–all by the fossil fuel industry–have tremendously slowed development of the only energy sources that will avoid climate catastrophe: efficiency, wind, solar, (PV, solar thermal, solar cooking, passive solar heating and cooling, etc.) micro-hydro, geothermal, wave, tidal
You go out of your way to RULE OUT the only plentiful, scalable source of energy which can actually do what you claim needs to be done. You really would rather that the planet burn than break with Green dogma.
Hansen has taken quite a bit of flak for his position, because it is heresy to Greens. However, he has the facts on his side, and we have a climactic freight train coming at us that will take years to brake to a stop. Dogmatic Green posturing like yours will only further delay action we need to take immediately*, and help fry the planet. Just stop it.
* This is action that SHOULD have been taken decades ago, and WOULD have if it wasn’t for “environmentalists” providing cover for the coal lobby. Coal interests were lobbying JFK to hobble nuclear power as early as the run-up to the 1960 election, and until they got control of the regulatory apparatus with the establishment of the NRC, nuclear plants were actually cheaper to build than coal-fired plants. See Chapter 9 of Bernard L. Cohen’s book, “Cost of nuclear power plants – What went wrong?” at www phyast pitt edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html
I’m going to guess that Aruba’s grid is both so small and is set up in such a manner that adding a large amount of ‘not-the-latest-and-greatest’ turbines would destabilize their grid. Otherwise, why would General Electric’s latest turbine model literature boast that it has been designed with features that reduce the chance that it would destabilize small grids?
How about that Aruba is an inconsequential flyspeck and E-Pot is laughing about how he got you to bite. It’s a tiny island right off the coast of Venezuela that at one time had the world’s biggest oil refinery, and still refines a lot of oil. Add in what j4z says, and it’s hardly the example E-Pot would make of it.
Vander Piet was completed in December 2009. It should have been running for the last 4 years, and the EIA country stats for 2010-2012 should reflect its effects.
I did hear rumor that a phase 2 was already in the planning stages by the time Vander Piet was finished, but now I can’t find anything. Again, why?
Check Aruba’s country stats and tell me if you see any change corresponding to the December 2009 activation of the Vander Piet wind farm.
Aruba’s average electric consumption is about 110 MW. Vander Piet, at 30 MW nameplate and sitting in the trade winds allowing something like 60% capacity factor, should have had a major impact on Aruba’s grid. I don’t see it. Petroleum consumption and carbon emissions track downward slightly over the last few years, while electric power consumption goes up a little bit. If wind was the miracle worker everyone claims it is, we should have seen some substantial changes.
My calculation is that 18 megawatts, replacing oil consumed at 30% efficiency, should displace about 850 barrels a day. That is about 25% of Aruba’s net imports. That would show up plainly in the stats; why aren’t we seeing it? If you don’t know why, there is no reason to expect that doing it HARDER will have any greater effect than the first time.
Looks like to me their electrical generation went from 0.899 to 0.984 billion KWh from ’09 to ’10. If that increase could be wholly attributed to the turbines with other sources of power holding equal, it looks like the turbines would only be kicking out 0.085 billion KWh, or in other words, 85GWh for the year, so they would only be running about 32% of nameplate. There is lukewarm evidence for this on the site:
…where they estimate annual production to be 69GWh for the 10 Vestas v90/3000 turbines.
However, if the turbines were running at the 60% level then half of that production would be going to the measured increase in generation and the other half would be going to offsetting power from their other plants. Under that scenario, fossil gen would be going from 0.899 to roughly 0.81 or 0.82 billion KWh. Assuming this fossil gen is oil and it can scale back without variance in efficiency, that would mean oil was being scaled back around 9%. Looking at their oil consumption graph (if you mind the possible glitch where ’09 and ’10 have the selfsame number out 4 decimal places and use ’11 as the substitute for ’10) oil consumption goes down from ’09 to ’11 by approx. 9% (which agrees rather well with the 60% of nameplate call).
Just looking at their electrical consumption from the same two years, they’re going from 0.84 to 0.92 billion KWh. So they’re using 0.08 more billion KWh than they were before the install; with all of the new generation presumed to be from the turbines. So they probably put up a few more crappy 5 star hotels or the equivalent, or their apparent demand was actually less than their inherent demand (some type of supply constrained scenario).
Either way, they are using more electricity than before the turbines, they’re using less oil, and they’re producing more CO2 than they did before, and there in lies the mystery. There is a puzzle piece happening in the ‘total primary energy production’ metric which goes from 0 in ’08, to 0.0003 quadrillion btu’s in 09′, to 0.001 quadrillion btu’s in ’10. Could it be that new industrial activity/extraction is afoot? It almost seems as though some unreported consumption of a fossil fuel is happening here.
Yes, it’s strange. Aruba appears to produce nothing; its “oil production” seems to be from refinery processing gains (cracking heavier oils to less-dense products, causing an increase in barrels though not energy).
2010 consumption is the same as 2009, running along that graph. 2011 drops about 700 bbl/d and 2012 a bit more, but that could be due to a simultaneous efficiency program; this piece mentions “RECIP” engines. If new high-efficiency engines were added and the old ones kept in reserve, that would also explain the large gain in generating capacity.
Diesel-powered generation should be the easiest to displace with wind. If we’re not seeing the cuts in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions that we ought to see, we need to find the problem and fix it before spending more money.
NB: Aruba would be perfect for a quartet or so of NuScale reactors. You could follow the daily load curve by dumping steam to run multi-stage flash distillers at night, killing two birds with one stone. You might even supply process steam for the local refinery.
An excellent little chat that covered a lot of ground but gave few actionable answers as to how to “overcome obstacles to climate action”. Maura is a sweet young thing who is naive if she thinks that the youth of America are going to save us—-they’re too busy shopping and texting (or trying to find a job).
The Koch brothers $$$, the power of the gerrymandered red states, and the mindless destructiveness of the conservatives and free-marketers are not going to be overcome by young voters anytime soon. Turning out every four years and voting big for president will NOT get rid of the crazies in the House or in the state governments.
I was glad to see the “old man” speak from a base of reality. The real problem remains China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, etc, and NOT the U.S. We must of course set the example and take the lead (and perhaps we do owe “reparations”) if we want to have any hope of convincing the developing world to “do the right thing”. I hate to be cynical, but until the U.S. gets its house in order by electing a Democratic President and Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, we are going to continue to spin our wheels and CO2 will continue its inexorable rise.
Maura seems to think that the climate will be changed by voting and protesting. I doubt that any of her education did the slightest bit to disabuse her of such notions. In that, she’s as blind as Anthony Watts.
K-12 should include annual recitals of “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”, with references to current events.
Hmm. We’re largely on track, but I disagree strongly with two points here.
“The real problem remains China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, etc, and NOT the U.S.”
I really don’t know how you could say that. This is very much a problem of our making in a variety of ways. 1) We have led in blocking international climate change accords for 2+ decades, 2) much of the financing for economic expansion in the developing world has come from the West, especially the U.S., 3) we provide the consumer demand that drives economic expansion in the developing world, 4) we provide the lifestyle model that the rest of the world is trying to adopt, and 5) as an acknowledged top world power, the developing world will not act if we do not (you did mention this point).
The fact that emissions are rising fastest in the developing world is a moot point in a globalized economy. A lot of those emissions are directly related to us.
“I hate to be cynical, but until the U.S. gets its house in order by electing a Democratic President and Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, we are going to continue to spin our wheels and CO2 will continue its inexorable rise.”
You’re not cynical enough. Unfortunately, we’ve passed the point where we could hope a full Democratic majority would do much of anything. We had that for two years after 2008 and we did nothing. Obama in 2008 ran on the ‘clean coal’ delusion.
The real problem is threefold, but it relates to money: 1) campaign finance is seriously out of whack, and has gotten dramatically worse the past few years (and this effects Democrats as well as Republicans), 2) opinion in the American public is greatly affected by the media, which is corporate-controlled, and therefore reflects the interests of the most powerful businesses, and 3) the American people would refuse any drop in lifestyle or material affluence, anyway.
You can see this reflected in Democrats all the time. Obama is completely in the pocket of Wall Street, he’s stated many times that he wouldn’t accept a drop in economic growth while addressing environmental issues, and he himself has helped promote the “100 year supply” meme of natural gas. President Clinton, while he gave lip service to Kyoto, mentioned that he was especially fond of the “free market approach”, and we can see how that’s doing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibl63YlTtI4
“we are going to continue to spin our wheels and CO2 will continue its inexorable rise” until we accept our own responsibility, willingly accept sacrifices to bring about real change, completely reform campaign finance and lobbying, somehow change the media to lessen corporate control, and we have to do these things worldwide simultaneously. In other words, probably never.
If I’m wrong, great.
We are not in disagreement at all—you need to look at the demographics to see the point I’m making. Those countries hold nearly half the world’s population, and are going to try to raise their standard of living to match the U.S. That means they will use more energy, and that means more CO2, and their present per capita carbon footprint is only 20% of ours. Can you see where that leads?
Your numbered points are all true and now mostly irrelevant—the capitalists have done their dirty work and there’s no going back. Those countries are now to the point that their internal consumer demand is driving their expansion as much as (if not more than) we are (China in particular).
I think you overreach a bit with “The fact that emissions are rising fastest in the developing world is a moot point in a globalized economy. A lot of those emissions are directly related to us”. As I just said, not so true anymore—we DID provide the model, but we are not in the driver’s seat anymore—if emissions are rising, it’s NOT moot—-it’s a fait accompli that we are losing influence over..
I have pushed the books “Winner Take All Politics” and “The Death of the Liberal Class” several times on Crock. Everything you said leading up to “In other words, probably never” and much more is laid out clearly there..
“If I’m wrong, great”. To which I say, “No, you’re not wrong, too bad”.
It’s like this, say someone in Florida buys a shirt. The cotton, say, was grown in Texas, but it was processed in Georgia and sent to New York for assembly. In that supply chain, emissions happened at each stage, but relatively few emissions actually happened in Florida.
So, the Floridian could say he didn’t create many emissions, which is technically true if you just look at him actually buying the shirt, but realistically, the statement is false. He’s in charge of the emissions that happened all along the line, because without his demand (and the demand from those like him), the emissions don’t happen.
Looking at the United States in this case, we could total the emissions and say they came from the United States.
But, we don’t live in that world anymore. Most of the products we consume have multiple supply chains spanning the globe. The emissions at each spot are counted at each locality, but in reality they are create by the demand within a highly interconnected global economy. We take part in creating the emissions, no matter if they were actually created in China or India.
No demand, no emissions – which is what Paul Jay is referring to. It’s not defeatism so much as realism. But I disagree with the notion that we are free to easily change our behaviors. Much of our consumer culture is self-reinforcing. To exist, you usually have to have a job. For most jobs, you need a car and clean clothes. To do these things, you need to spend. You also need to eat, in which case you can spend to buy land and all the materials to grow your own food, or you can go to a store and by something wrapped in plastic multiple times. You could move to a city and go to a farmer’s market, in which case you really need a job, and a rather high paying one.
In addition, we’re constantly bombarded with messages that we need to spend, spend, spend – and if we don’t, we’re somehow a failure. Our government amplifies those behaviors that benefit the highest spenders (corporations) in our campaign cycles by enacting laws that support them.
We’re trapped to a large degree. It’s a sort of existential nightmare to those who dwell on it.
Yup. No real argument on any of that except that 300+ million Americans do NOT drive things the way you would have us believe, and certainly will not do so in the future. The BRIC nations and the rest of the undeveloped world are coming on strong. They do not need us to be buying their products once their internal demand rises high enough. That is already happening with electronics in China—most of their phones, computers, and TV’s are now being made for Chinese.
PS Forgot to say that “existential nightmares” can be fun if your sense of humor is warped enough and your cynicism level is high.
As of 2011, Western Europe and North America accounted for 60% of global consumption. China and India accounted for 20%:
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/810
No doubt it will rise in the developing world as time passes. But they got their model for consumer consumption from us, and many of their economies were kicked off by investment from Western companies. Sorry I’m pressing this, but I don’t want to let us off the hook.
Who says we’re off the hook or ever will be? Western Europe and The U.S. ARE responsible for ALL of it, from industrialization to the uncontrolled exploitation of fossil fuels to developing the rapacious capitalism/free market system and exporting it to Asia. China and India were two of the most successful societies ever seen on this planet when they were feudal states, and we are leading them to destruction.
You don’t need to be pushing this to me—-who are you arguing with?.
Cool, cool. My concern is that some use the “it’s now China’s fault” bit to excuse our own actions. I’m not saying you are. I just don’t like a lack of clarity on the issue.
Anyone who doesn’t have “clarity” of understanding re: the “white man” being at the root of it all is probably muddy on a lot of other things as well. Like whether the sun revolves around the earth or vice-versa.
The idea that Obama had 2 years of an unassailable majority is wrongheaded;
it only existed for a cumulative total of 1 month before the 2010 midterm elections.
http://factleft.com/2012/01/31/the-myth-of-democratic-super-majority/
And while I personally think Obama has been much too slow & hesitant about taking action on climate, there were other priorities.
When I hear these debates, it’s always governments who have to do things. The problem isn’t governments, it’s us. We over consume, always burning something, and that is the lifestyle we were sold.
There’s no use stopping the keystone pipeline unless millions of people leave their cars parked and their houses slightly less comfortable and consciously stop using fossil fuels. Otherwise the oil will find it’s way to customers, at whatever cost to the environment. There are lifestyle choices that have to be made, by us, not our government.
Exactly what is it that you have against government, that you think solving AGW is not part of its mandate?
For a well-researched outline of how this will all turn out, I highly recommend “The Great Disruption” by Paul Gilding. As a science-based environmentalist who has worked with major international corporations, he’s above all a realist. In his opinion, nothing will change until the world economy crashes, which won’t be too long as we are already 20% – 30% over the Earth’s carrying capacity. What I saw in the first hour of Cameron’s epic just confirmed that.
Gilding believes that we will come out the other side of the crash sadder, wiser and fewer, but more appreciative of the environment that sustains us. But don’t expect any 1st world country to do anything significant until the crash sobers us up.
I love the smell of nihilism in the morning! It smells like…. defeat!
Are you saying we’re NOT losing? Are you saying we’re not “drunk”?
I am saying that spending any time, energy, or paper on the assertion that nothing good is going to happen until “the economy crashes” is time, energy, or paper that would be better spent trying to avoid that outcome.
Billions dying is not a plan of action. It is fatalism.
To accomplish what needs to be accomplished is going to take commitment on many levels, one of which is a commitment to acting with some unison to change the conversation we are having as a nation. That is the first step – deciding how and what and why to change the conversation TO.
That is why I keep repeating myself here, because the conversation we keep having in the country and the blogoshpere is not about the correct ideas.
We need to stop arguing with morons about the science.
We need to start talking about how to actually accomplish a switch to 100% renewables. About whether i should be a private or public sector solution. About logistics. About costs. About strategies. About financing. About ROI.
We need to know what can be done by Executive Order, and what can be done only be Act of Congress.
We need to move the Overton window. I think a good way to do that is to keep talking about nationalization of the carbon fuel industry; keep talking about prosecuting the Koch brothers for civil damages or crimes against humanity.
We are in this whole mess because fifty years ago, a shattered Republican party realized that THEY needed to redirect the national conversation, move the Overton window. They keep making strategic decisions about what to talk about, how to say it, and how to maintain one consistent message year after year. We don’t do that.
Instead, we splinter into a thousand factions, aimless and alone, in frustration. And one of those factions is the Dom & Gloom faction – misdirecting energy into telling us how we will fail. That it can’t work until civilization ends. Etc. etc, etc
In fifty years, the Republican party completely overturned what being a good American meant. They have one half of Americans thinking that voting to support issues and candidates that help only millionaires and corporations is patriotic and intelligent.
But all we have to do is build some f*****g renewable energy infrastructure. Compared to what the Republicans accomplished, that is really small potatoes. So, yeah, when I hear another Doom and Gloomer telling me we need to wait for the end of civilization to accomplish our goal, I do get rather ticked off.
Get out of the way, or please just shut up – nihilism is not helping anybody.
Why “100% renewables”, specifically? Isn’t “carbon-free” sufficient?
Whose purposes are served by the additional restriction (which is, I must note, specifically opposed by none other than Hansen and Mann)?
We used to have a “100% renewable” economy, before coal became a substantial source of energy. Despite much lower populations than today, the renewable sources of energy were scarce and left people in what we would consider dire circumstances. Given a choice between a return to such dire circumstances and continuing to burn coal and gas, most people would stick with coal and gas. The insistence on “100% renewable or bust” is a grave mistake, and I hope it’s corrected before it becomes fatal.
An eloquent and passionate statement that is hard to argue with. Except for the fact that it also displays “positivity delusionalism”, motivated reasoning and cognitive dissonance.
Fatalism, nihilism, cynicism, and acceptance of the fact that massive economic and ecological catastrophes are becoming ever more likely (AND may be the key to survival IF we come out the other side) grow out of rational analysis of the situation on the planet. They may not be “helpful” in your eyes, but neither is it helpful to be engaging in wishful thinking about how easy it is to “move the Overton window” and “all we have to do is build some freaking renewable infrastructure” (which is NOT small potatoes considering the opposition and delaying tactics of the FF interests).
YOU pointed out that the Repugnants are the ones who have successfully moved the Overton window and how long they have worked at it—-do we have enough time?. The Koch brothers are closer to owning the government after Citizens United and McCutcheon, and you think we will ever prosecute them? Need I remind you of how few on Wall Street were prosecuted after nearly destroying the country?
I share your frustration and anger, but it’s going to be pretty much business as usual until some very bad things happen that will allow a substantial move of the “window”. If that’s fatalism, so be it—-it’s also realism.. A serious carbon tax IS needed, and nationalization of the FF industry is a great but a “don’t hold your breath” idea as long as Repugnants are able to say NO to any rational actions.
You say “Get out of the way, or please just shut up – nihilism is not helping anybody”? I will say in return, wake up and smell the denial in that statement.
PS I will again say COAL COAL COAL COAL COAL, and remind everyone that worldwide it is going to be a BIGGER, not smaller, problem. A recent take on that at
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/04/17/224755/old-school-coal-is-making-a-comeback.html
The FF interests intend to use every last bit of the stuff if they can, and coal will likely remain economical in some places for a long time. I get really fatalistic when I see how they are actually hoping for the arctic to become ice-free and the Greenland ice sheet to melt back so that they can go in there and drill and dig.
DOG,
So, I take it you are not interested in, or willing to make a commitment to changing the national conversation?
You agree that the Republicans have showed us a way to move public opinion, but we just don’t have enough time to even try to exploit this information?
It’s all too impossible, too complicated, too tough.
Wonderful. Very inspiring.
Actually, drummer boy, what’s NOT “Wonderful and Very Inspiring” is watching you climb up on your high horse and rant. Work a bit harder at it and you may be able to become the poster boy for Positivity Delusionalism. I have complimented you on your passion and eloquence, but am sorry to see that you are still practicing some motivated reasoning and displaying some youthful naivete about the state of the world and the possible futures of humanity.
BTW, in terms of degrees of separation, we have some things in common. My daughter is a bit older than you and was finishing up at William and Mary as you entered. My son is about your age and graduated from George Mason with a BA in photography. There is a connection through Woodson HS as well. There is even a chance that we were physically within sight of each other at some points more than once way back then.
What we do NOT have in common is the same life experiences. I was born in 1940 and grew up in an America that was largely gone by the time you became mature enough and educated enough to even begin to try to understand it. I was born into a world that had fewer than 3 billion people, and the human population has more than doubled in my lifetime. The population of the U.S. has grown 2-1/2 times bigger in that time. I was born into a world that was just beginning to break out into “modern” technology, and have watched as it has both cursed and blessed us.
In actuality, I have been “interested in and willing to make a commitment to changing the national conversation” since high school in the 1950’s, and have continued to be so committed through college and my entire professional career AND perhaps even more since my retirement—-a span of nearly 60 years. I speak of politics and government, human rights, education, and concern for the environment going back to before Earth Day, with more emphasis on AGW as it has worsened over the past 20 years, and on politics as the right wing has nearly wrecked the country over the past 30 years. I support more “movements” and groups than I can remember with money and personal effort. Do you contribute $$$ to the support of Dark Snow, the Climate Scientist LDF, climate blogs like this, environmental groups, and various political groups who are fighting the Repugnants? I do, and I need a spreadsheet to keep track of it all.
You need to stop lecturing me and ranting in your frustration. Understand that it is ALMOST “too impossible, too complicated, too tough”, and that those of us who have a far better understanding of the totality of the problem than you ARE of the opinion that it may be too late. That doesn’t mean we have quit trying, but the plutocrats, Repugnants, and unfettered capitalism may have already done too much damage for the forces of reason to overcome them.
PS I’ve just gotten The Great Disruption and Bright-Sided from the library. A quick glance indicates they are both going to be good reads. Also just watched the first disc of The Men Who Built America (Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie)—-highly informative as to how America was “built” but is really being destroyed in the long term.
“. A serious carbon tax IS needed, and nationalization of the FF industry is a great but a “don’t hold your breath” idea as long as Repugnants are able to say NO to any rational actions.”
You are not reading, or I am not communicating, with enough comprehension. It’s not important to nationalize the FF industry. It IS important to start talking about it. Do you see the difference in intent?
The best way to defeat the FF industry is to make them obsolete. The best way to do that is to have (imho) a national Renewable Energy Utility – an infrastructure building project, that will produce electricity at such an inexpensive final price as to make every consumer ditch their FF suppliers and stampede to retrofit electric into their homes and businesses. What could be a better way to get people to demand (vote) that their government provide this?
And the best way to get the FF companies from torpedoing such an endeavor is to start talking about nationalizing the FF industry, and all the populist fury against the FF empire that will engender. This is strategy, not policy.
People DO vote their pocketbooks. We have a duty, I believe, to move the national energy conversation to include this topic. You do that by intending to do that. Maybe you have a better idea or a better way to accomplish that?
Something better than waiting for catastrophe to somehow allow us to make huge investments in infrastructure?
You are making a very big assumption: that it is possible to actually achieve the avowed goal of such a utility, instead of winding up as the institutional equivalent of Head Start (huge employment program showing near-zero results) or Solyndra.
More below, where the columns are wide enough to make them readable.
Why does E-Pot insist on so often destroying his credibility with idiotic racist and/or political “irrelevant asides” statements? ‘Tis a wonder. (More where there is “more room” perhaps, if I find time)
Do you think any of this will get better by nihilism and cynicism? Is that a plan? We may fail or something unforeseen may happen. Either way negativity leads nowhere. EVs are the the solution for transportation, the biggest carbon source in the US. Coal is the problem in China. Problem? Nothing has ever kept FF in the ground. On the contrary. What will happen? No one can make guarantees. We do know what will happen if we do nothing.
On is nihilism and cynicism a solution, of course it is not. But I’d say they are a sane reaction to problems without easy solutions, or solutions at all. Honestly, I don’t see EVs and more solar farms as a solution – I see them as a partial but very incomplete answer to much larger and complex problems.
Nihilism requires that a person thinks government and society SHOULD be overturned. If this society could be fixed, I’d be all for doing so. I don’t want to see collapse or societal breakdown, and despite my fairly radical beliefs regarding the United States of America, I’ve always been proud of our better characteristics (and we have those as well) and I love the people here – all of them, regardless of what they believe. I happen to know many people who are idiots about politics and the environment, but they’re often very good people with big hearts in other ways.
I don’t want to see us fail, but I think it’s inevitable – largely because we can’t even grasp the real nature of the problem, even if we did there are major systemic obstacles in our way, and even if we solved them I am highly doubtful we really have the will and wisdom to enact the necessary changes.
Now, I gave my solution at the end of my first comment above. The fact that everyone, including the people here, completely ignore that answer forms a majority share of my cynicism. You can’t fix a corrupt system without addressing the root of the corruption, and you have address that problem before tackling larger problems that require actions that are anathema to our current way of life – the very same altruistic and collective answers that Roger hopes for. It won’t happen unless other things change first, and wishing or wanting to be inspiring won’t make it so.
I’d like to say one other thing. We’re all different people, with different experiences, biases, knowledge, and intellects. We’re going to have different beliefs and thought processes. One person telling another person that they should just “move out of the way” or “shut up” is a two-way street. I could say the same thing to other people here, but I happen to think we all have a right to express our opinions.
Those opinions may be wrong, and horribly so, in which case the discussion should center on exactly how it’s wrong.
Roger wants a national discussion on energy policy, but I’d say the fatalists who don’t shut up ARE participating in the national discussion on these matters. We don’t think the proposed answers are answers at all. They’re just band-aids. More radical approaches like yours, Roger, won’t get off the ground without addressing other issues first, and even then I don’t see a Renewable Utility as a complete, or even majority, answer. It wouldn’t hurt by any stretch, but it just shifts FF use into other sectors and developing countries.
We don’t WANT lower energy prices. We want much, much HIGHER energy prices, across the board, and we have to mandate that harmful environmental practices STOP.
But, on your ideas, I say go for it. I won’t stand in the way. People like me aren’t the problem. We’re just observers who perhaps know how and why those ideas don’t have a shot. Perhaps rather than telling us to shut up, our observations could be used by people who desire to be movers and shakers in this world to form more effective approaches to the problems we face.
BTW, I’ve already read both Gilding’s book and “Death of the Liberal Class”. I agree and disagree with things in both. For the record, Gilding doesn’t want society to collapse, an essential element of a nihilist. He’d have to be a sociopath who doesn’t care for his five children to want it. He’s worked for decades in both the corporate sector and in Greenpeace to effect change, but he hasn’t seen it happen. He thinks a collapse is inevitable, and his “silver lining” is that humanity can change after getting their asses handed to them. I think that’s rather naïve, ha ha, but whatever.
Related to the overall discussion:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/15/government-wealthy-study_n_5154879.html
Replying to Gingerbaker (comment-page-1/#comment-56933) above, reparented for readability:
You are making a very big assumption: that it is possible to actually achieve the avowed goal of such a utility, instead of winding up as the institutional equivalent of Head Start (huge employment program showing near-zero results) or Solyndra.
The executive summary of NREL’s success-oriented 2012 study says, and I quote:
In other words, the full list of options wasn’t considered, including those which might do better… such as the ones which have already exceeded NREL’s 80% target in the real world. The actual requirements of meeting total system needs were not considered. The depth of changes required were simply glossed over, as were their consequences. Last, nobody considered whether the money would be well-spent. This is a recipe for disaster.
Suppose you did have a program for a government-owned and -run all-RE utility in the USA. If it cost too much for ratepayers to finance, and nobody would buy bonds to finance it, you couldn’t build it. However technically possible it might be, in practice it could never achieve the goals set for it. Once you couldn’t borrow any more money the only way you could get electric power is to pay the owners of existing plants out of current income. Those plants would burn fossil fuel.
Let’s look at an example of RE in the real world. Aruba consumed 0.84 TWh in 2010. As of 2009, Aruba’s Vander Piet wind-power project was projected to produce 18 MW average, or 0.158 TWh per year. For an island situated in the trade winds, this is a pathetically small RE contribution. I cannot find news of any efforts beyond the first Vander Piet wind farm.
Aruba essentially runs on imported petroleum. It’s both a windy and sunny location; RE should pay off famously there. Tourist revenue should supply plenty of money for RE to substitute for oil. Yet despite this, I’m unable to find figures on solar-electric generation in Aruba. I find no generation figures for the Vander Piet wind farm either. Shouldn’t this be a raging success story, trumpeted to the world? Yet I hear no trumpets. What’s wrong?
Gingerbaker, I submit to you that this is “the dog that did not bark in the night”. Something is being hidden, from me and from you. The rosy projections have had no proportionate triumphs. If RE isn’t doing what it should in Aruba, how can we expect it to meet expectations in Alabama, let alone Minnesota?
Consider that carbon-free but “non-renewable” energy might be the only way we can do what needs to be done.
Head Start is an excellent program that does exactly what it’s supposed to. The problem is not with Head Start it’s that we follow it up with abandonment of the children who got a good start. We project and over-focus and allow right wing ideologues to stop us from providing what all people need. You’re trying to argue that government programs are not good. By cherry picking one solar company out of thousands that are succeeding, and ignoring the hundreds of fossil fuel companies, toothpick companies, tech companies and others that have also failed, you’re trying to say the same thing.
Your Aruba argument is that because fossil fuel companies are powerful, and fossil fuels have been the dominant source of energy, and because the world hasn’t switched to solar and wind in a week, it can’t work. That’s a nonsensical argument. Lies, lobbying, denying delayalism, bribery, and corruption–all by the fossil fuel industry–have tremendously slowed development of the only energy sources that will avoid climate catastrophe: efficiency, wind, solar, (PV, solar thermal, solar cooking, passive solar heating and cooling, etc.) micro-hydro, geothermal, wave, tidal, and other smaller but locally-important sources. We need life changes. We need education in ecological science.
Aruba is a highly unequal society, dominated by its oil industry, with a few very rich people and many very poor ones. The rich, so far, can afford fossil fuels and it’s easier for them to stick with the familiar (and believe corporate lies) and not go against the powerful and corrupt oil industry than switch. The poor, barely hanging on, can’t afford the upfront costs of changing. That inequality is typical of oil-rich countries, by the way.
Do you seriously believe that? Head Start didn’t even require its employees to have teaching credentials until recently (minimum numbers for BAs and associates degrees came into effect only last year). Its major products are employment for people with few real job skills and free daycare (largely for the children of women who have no jobs and could take care of their own children for free).
Forty years of failure and you refuse to even consider that the premises of the program might be wrong. As part of this, you ignore what’s different about those who succeed without any such interventions.
Head Start isn’t what I want to concentrate on, but the pattern: you have your prescribed solution, and your first reaction to failure is to double down saying “we’re not trying hard enough”. You never stop to consider that you might be trying the wrong thing, that your prescription rests on a faulty diagnosis. When the diagnosis is essentially an element of faith and deviation considered heresy, you’re in a bit of a pickle.
You can stop fighting that straw man; I’m over here. I never mentioned fossil fuel companies. I happened to be privileged to have an inside track on info about the Vander Piet wind farm itself. Jerome Guillet, then of Dexia bank, had a hand in negotiating the vendor financing of that farm when the credit system was locked up in 2008. It was quite a coup, which he related to the staff mailing list of The Oil Drum in almost real time.
Aruba seems to have no reason not to build more wind capacity, if they can finance it. The problem is that the country stats don’t seem to show any effect from Vander Piet. Oil consumption hardly seems changed. They imported about 3200 barrels a day in 2012, but there’s no obvious change in net imports around the Dec. 2009 date when the farm went live. Net installed capacity jumped from 150 MW to 320 MW over the next few years (Vander Piet was 30 MW of that), but that wasn’t accompanied by any great trend in generation or consumption. Neither did CO2 emissions drop substantially.
The wind farm was expected to average about 18 MW output. This was about 16% of Aruba’s 2012 electric consumption. I don’t see it in the data.
You say this is how to save the planet. Where’s the beef? Or is your answer “do it again, HARDER this time” without understanding what’s going on?
I’m willing to entertain the idea that I’m wrong. So, show me. Show me ONE electric grid of substantial size (say, 10 GW average load or more), anywhere, which has been de-carbonized by the addition of wind and solar. For “de-carbonized” I’ll take 10% of the emissions of conventional coal; call it 95 gCO2/kWh.
You specifically omit nuclear. Meanwhile, climate scientist James Hansen goes out of his way to make it plain that nuclear is one of only two technologies which have actually de-carbonized electricity supply.
You go out of your way to RULE OUT the only plentiful, scalable source of energy which can actually do what you claim needs to be done. You really would rather that the planet burn than break with Green dogma.
Hansen has taken quite a bit of flak for his position, because it is heresy to Greens. However, he has the facts on his side, and we have a climactic freight train coming at us that will take years to brake to a stop. Dogmatic Green posturing like yours will only further delay action we need to take immediately*, and help fry the planet. Just stop it.
* This is action that SHOULD have been taken decades ago, and WOULD have if it wasn’t for “environmentalists” providing cover for the coal lobby. Coal interests were lobbying JFK to hobble nuclear power as early as the run-up to the 1960 election, and until they got control of the regulatory apparatus with the establishment of the NRC, nuclear plants were actually cheaper to build than coal-fired plants. See Chapter 9 of Bernard L. Cohen’s book, “Cost of nuclear power plants – What went wrong?” at www phyast pitt edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html
I’m going to guess that Aruba’s grid is both so small and is set up in such a manner that adding a large amount of ‘not-the-latest-and-greatest’ turbines would destabilize their grid. Otherwise, why would General Electric’s latest turbine model literature boast that it has been designed with features that reduce the chance that it would destabilize small grids?
Or that they’re just getting started on adding RE onto their grid, and are not yet finished. Or that they’re not politically interested.
How about that Aruba is an inconsequential flyspeck and E-Pot is laughing about how he got you to bite. It’s a tiny island right off the coast of Venezuela that at one time had the world’s biggest oil refinery, and still refines a lot of oil. Add in what j4z says, and it’s hardly the example E-Pot would make of it.
Vander Piet was completed in December 2009. It should have been running for the last 4 years, and the EIA country stats for 2010-2012 should reflect its effects.
I did hear rumor that a phase 2 was already in the planning stages by the time Vander Piet was finished, but now I can’t find anything. Again, why?
Check Aruba’s country stats and tell me if you see any change corresponding to the December 2009 activation of the Vander Piet wind farm.
Aruba’s average electric consumption is about 110 MW. Vander Piet, at 30 MW nameplate and sitting in the trade winds allowing something like 60% capacity factor, should have had a major impact on Aruba’s grid. I don’t see it. Petroleum consumption and carbon emissions track downward slightly over the last few years, while electric power consumption goes up a little bit. If wind was the miracle worker everyone claims it is, we should have seen some substantial changes.
My calculation is that 18 megawatts, replacing oil consumed at 30% efficiency, should displace about 850 barrels a day. That is about 25% of Aruba’s net imports. That would show up plainly in the stats; why aren’t we seeing it? If you don’t know why, there is no reason to expect that doing it HARDER will have any greater effect than the first time.
Looks like to me their electrical generation went from 0.899 to 0.984 billion KWh from ’09 to ’10. If that increase could be wholly attributed to the turbines with other sources of power holding equal, it looks like the turbines would only be kicking out 0.085 billion KWh, or in other words, 85GWh for the year, so they would only be running about 32% of nameplate. There is lukewarm evidence for this on the site:
http://www.thewindpower.net/windfarm_en_15255_aruba.php
…where they estimate annual production to be 69GWh for the 10 Vestas v90/3000 turbines.
However, if the turbines were running at the 60% level then half of that production would be going to the measured increase in generation and the other half would be going to offsetting power from their other plants. Under that scenario, fossil gen would be going from 0.899 to roughly 0.81 or 0.82 billion KWh. Assuming this fossil gen is oil and it can scale back without variance in efficiency, that would mean oil was being scaled back around 9%. Looking at their oil consumption graph (if you mind the possible glitch where ’09 and ’10 have the selfsame number out 4 decimal places and use ’11 as the substitute for ’10) oil consumption goes down from ’09 to ’11 by approx. 9% (which agrees rather well with the 60% of nameplate call).
Just looking at their electrical consumption from the same two years, they’re going from 0.84 to 0.92 billion KWh. So they’re using 0.08 more billion KWh than they were before the install; with all of the new generation presumed to be from the turbines. So they probably put up a few more crappy 5 star hotels or the equivalent, or their apparent demand was actually less than their inherent demand (some type of supply constrained scenario).
Either way, they are using more electricity than before the turbines, they’re using less oil, and they’re producing more CO2 than they did before, and there in lies the mystery. There is a puzzle piece happening in the ‘total primary energy production’ metric which goes from 0 in ’08, to 0.0003 quadrillion btu’s in 09′, to 0.001 quadrillion btu’s in ’10. Could it be that new industrial activity/extraction is afoot? It almost seems as though some unreported consumption of a fossil fuel is happening here.
Yes, it’s strange. Aruba appears to produce nothing; its “oil production” seems to be from refinery processing gains (cracking heavier oils to less-dense products, causing an increase in barrels though not energy).
2010 consumption is the same as 2009, running along that graph. 2011 drops about 700 bbl/d and 2012 a bit more, but that could be due to a simultaneous efficiency program; this piece mentions “RECIP” engines. If new high-efficiency engines were added and the old ones kept in reserve, that would also explain the large gain in generating capacity.
Diesel-powered generation should be the easiest to displace with wind. If we’re not seeing the cuts in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions that we ought to see, we need to find the problem and fix it before spending more money.
NB: Aruba would be perfect for a quartet or so of NuScale reactors. You could follow the daily load curve by dumping steam to run multi-stage flash distillers at night, killing two birds with one stone. You might even supply process steam for the local refinery.