America First Energy Policy

[Rick 67]

Royreader8812

Big oil is short term.

Solar is very rapidly becoming the most cost effective form of energy.

Coal, oil, gas and nuclear are all going up in price. Solar is going down rapidly.

As electric cars become mainstream and solar cells continue to fall in price a lot faster than what was predicted...

We get a shift from oil that will affect our society much more than anyone is willing to acknowledge.

Oil will always be, but from next year you can get a car for $35k that will drive you further than a tank of gas and be charged from the sun at your house overnight. Yes by the sun overnight via your captured energy in batteries, why then would you pay the same amount for a car that you have to waste time and money at a gas station?

The shift to renewables is going to be massive because it is not about being a hippy or a geek anymore, it is about saving money.

It is an American company driving this change faster too.

How much to set up a system to capture the power from the sun?? (Not being negative just curious.)

You can't be drunk all day if you don't start early!

[brenthutch 444]

"SolveClimate News: Can you explain why you have said it's "game over" on the climate front if the Keystone XL pipeline is built?

James Hansen: President George W. Bush said that the U.S. was addicted to oil. So what will the U.S. response to this situation be? Will it entail phasing out fossil fuels and moving to clean energy or borrowing the dirtiest needle from a fellow addict? That is the question facing President Obama.

If he chooses the dirty needle it is game over because it will confirm that Obama was just greenwashing, like the other well-oiled coal-fired politicians with no real intention of solving the addiction.

SolveClimate News: Can you give three reasons why the president should follow your advice and reject the request to build Keystone XL?

James Hansen: Our children and grandchildren; the other species on the planet; and creation"

There you have it, if KeystoneXL is approved it is "game over" for creation. And that is from leading climate scientists.

Boom! Mic dropped

[gowlerk 2,277]

This question is for you Brent. The article says:

Quote

the world’s governments are forcing the public to subsidize fossil fuels with hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

I keep hearing claims like this all the time. But they never give examples of these subsidies. Are there any, or is this just pure bullshit?

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[brenthutch 444]

gowlerk

This question is for you Brent. The article says:

Quote

the world’s governments are forcing the public to subsidize fossil fuels with hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

I keep hearing claims like this all the time. But they never give examples of these subsidies. Are there any, or is this just pure bullshit?

I gave three examples earlier in this thread.

[gowlerk 2,277]

I saw that. But I don't consider any of them to be subsidies designed to promote or support the petroleum industry. They all have other, larger aims. And they are all US examples, so they don't fit the "world's government" claims.

So if you don't have examples, I'll ask if anyone else here does. I suspect that there are no real subsidies at all. Just perceived ones. In reality this industry is a huge source of government revenue through a myriad of taxes and royalties.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[ryoder 1,590]

gowlerk

I saw that. But I don't consider any of them to be subsidies designed to promote or support the petroleum industry. They all have other, larger aims. And they are all US examples, so they don't fit the "world's government" claims.

So if you don't have examples, I'll ask if anyone else here does. I suspect that there are no real subsidies at all. Just perceived ones. In reality this industry is a huge source of government revenue through a myriad of taxes and royalties.

2013 analysis for US: https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[brenthutch 444]

The fuel tax raised $35.2 billion in 2014 for the Federal government alone.

[Royreader8812 0]

Quote

How much to set up a system to capture the power from the sun?? (Not being negative just curious.)

How much to set up, well that depends on how you go about it.

You can get solar city to install the solar panels for free, but then you still have to buy the power that comes from them, which will save you money.

But the better long term plan is to install them yourself get a couple of power wall 2's and you ROI should not be too far away if you can afford a plug in electric car as well. No power bill and no gas bill.

It is still relatively expensive in the short term but no so much in the long term.

https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

Consider this, right now there are something like 150 solar panels being installed every minute in the USA. These panels are typically guaranteed for 20-25 years. In just 5 years however, these will be obsolete in a retail sense, but still good for another 15-20+ years.

The panels being produced in 5 years will be significantly better and less expensive than those being produced today. New house builds will have the solar panels installed as tiles such as the new solar city products that were released along with Powerwall 2.

When you consider that the first Powerwall was only 6kWh and $3000 (no inverter) and just less than a year later the Powerwall 2 was 14kWh and $5500 with built in inverter taking the same amount of space... you see how fast this technology is going.

Right this minute you might doubt it's worth, but in 5 years you will be stupid to not install this tech in a new build. Within 10 years (probably sooner) you will be stupid to buy a combustion engine vehicle for financial reasons.

This whole energy storage thing has vehicle companies, electronics companies and of course major energy companies in a frenzy...

Interesting times...

[DJL 235]

brenthutch

"SolveClimate News: Can you explain why you have said it's "game over" on the climate front if the Keystone XL pipeline is built?

James Hansen: President George W. Bush said that the U.S. was addicted to oil. So what will the U.S. response to this situation be? Will it entail phasing out fossil fuels and moving to clean energy or borrowing the dirtiest needle from a fellow addict? That is the question facing President Obama.

If he chooses the dirty needle it is game over because it will confirm that Obama was just greenwashing, like the other well-oiled coal-fired politicians with no real intention of solving the addiction.

SolveClimate News: Can you give three reasons why the president should follow your advice and reject the request to build Keystone XL?

James Hansen: Our children and grandchildren; the other species on the planet; and creation"

There you have it, if KeystoneXL is approved it is "game over" for creation. And that is from leading climate scientists.

Boom! Mic dropped

I'm sorry, the first quote you posted was from the article I posted, the second was from a different interiew. There's some correlation because he asks why it's "game over" but he seems to answer that it shows that Obama has no intention of stopping oil dependence and the result will be to the detriment of future generations.

I don't have a dog in this race, just not sure what you're trying so hard to prove about with this guy. Maybe we're splitting hairs but I don't think he means that the increase in fuel used that's routed through the pipeline will literally cause that world devastation but that if we continue on the trend he described in the first article then we will.

Anyway, I think he has his point but this is also someone who thinks that money made by the oil industry from American oil should be given directly to Americans and that it will bolster the economy and somehow that will cause them to need less oil and the pipelines will be superfluous. It doesn't sound like someone who has really sat down to the math.

Edit: I think we all understand that further oil usage obviously leads to the effect on our environment caused by oil usage and that's just another component of this pipeline issue. As oil vs the environment relates to an American First Energy Policy we need to understand that the only reason many countries around the world are willing to take steps to clean up is that they see everyone else doing it and not taking an unfair advantage. India, China and developing nations will just say "fuck it" to international environment pacts and we'll be back to pollution on par with the Industrial Revolution.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[JerryBaumchen 1,468]

Hi guys,

brenthutch wrote:

Quote

That is the question facing President Obama.

DJL wrote:

Quote

Obama has no intention of stopping oil dependence

Uh, we just an election and a new guy is in the White House.

Jerry Baumchen

[billvon 3,120]

>There you have it, if KeystoneXL is approved it is "game over" for creation.
>And that is from leading climate scientists.

Your dishonest use of hyperbole makes you progressively less credible each time you use it.

[brenthutch 444]

billvon

>There you have it, if KeystoneXL is approved it is "game over" for creation.
>And that is from leading climate scientists.

Your dishonest use of hyperbole makes you progressively less credible each time you use it.

Says this guy,

"If Trump really works at it, maybe we can have another river catch fire before he leaves office!"

BillV

[quade 4]

brenthutch

***>There you have it, if KeystoneXL is approved it is "game over" for creation.
>And that is from leading climate scientists.

Your dishonest use of hyperbole makes you progressively less credible each time you use it.

Says this guy,

"If Trump really works at it, maybe we can have another river catch fire before he leaves office!"

BillV

Did you want to place a futures bet that between today and Jan 20, 2020 there is or isn't going to be a river fire in the US?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Phil1111 1,183]

ryoder

2013 analysis for US: https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/

A subsidy that helps the end user, i.e. the American consumer is nothing less than what every other segment of the economy gets. It like saying federal funding of airports subsidizes airlines and air travelers. Sure it does but its merely part of the whole picture of government support for commerce.

IMO there is a subsidy of big oil in the guarantees of oil security, oil supplies by the US military support of Gulf states. i.e. propping up the gulf emirates and the Saudi governments. Green energy and independent oil supply would, or could lead the US away from such support and expense. trumps isolationist ideologies would tend to lead to this. But i personally think big oil and the military-industrial complex is too tied to this policy.

The further you dig the more subsidies anyone can come up with. Its sort of like trumps hair. You know there must be a human under it. Its just that nobody has ever looked there before. Or if they've looked, never found a soul which would be identified with a human.

[brenthutch 444]

A river fire caused by Trump? You bet!

[quade 4]

brenthutch

A river fire caused by Trump? You bet!

Not by Trump personally, but his policies of deregulating environmental law.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[JerryBaumchen 1,468]

Hi Paul,

Quote

deregulating environmental law

The movie:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Civil_Action_(film)

And the book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Civil_Action

Jerry Baumchen

[brenthutch 444]

You guys seem to think that Trump is going to sign an executive order authorizing fracking waste water to be dumped into our lakes and rivers. That special kind of stupid makes me sad.

[quade 4]

brenthutch

You guys seem to think that Trump is going to sign an executive order authorizing fracking waste water to be dumped into our lakes and rivers. That special kind of stupid makes me sad.

Nope. We think he will do as he recently said he'd do and eliminate 75% of all regulations on businesses which will leave them free to do whatever they want.

See, that's how laws in the US work; if something isn't specifically outlawed, then it is allowed.

He doesn't need to "sign an executive order authorizing fracking waste water to be dumped into our lakes and rivers." All he has to do is eliminate the ones which currently make it against the law.

Some companies have shown time and time again that even if something is completely illegal, they'll try to get away with it anyway. If there is no law whatsoever, they'll almost always take advantage of it.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[gowlerk 2,277]

brenthutch

You guys seem to think that Trump is going to sign an executive order authorizing fracking waste water to be dumped into our lakes and rivers. That special kind of stupid makes me sad.

And you seem to think that he will magically turn the energy and economic scene around by slashing regulations. Only positives and no negatives.

That is how we each perceive the other. Trump will play us against each other.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[Phil1111 1,183]

"In North Dakota’s Bakken region, the fracking boom has generated nearly 10,000 wells for unconventional oil and gas production—and along with them, almost 4,000 reported wastewater spills resulting from the activity. A new study shows that these spills have left surface waters in the area carrying radium, selenium, thallium, lead, and other toxic chemicals that can persist for years at unsafe levels (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2016, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5b06349). Soils and sediments at spill sites also harbored long-lasting radium contamination, the study found."
http://cen.acs.org/articles/94/web/2016/05/Toxic-chemicals-fracking-wastewater-spills.html

" The downside is waste — lots of it. Companies produce millions of gallons of salty, chemical-infused wastewater, known as brine, as part of drilling and fracking each well. Drillers are supposed to inject this material thousands of feet underground into disposal wells, but some of it isn't making it that far.

According to data obtained by ProPublica, oil companies in North Dakota reported more than 1,000 accidental releases of oil, drilling wastewater or other fluids in 2011, about as many as in the previous two years combined. Many more illicit releases went unreported, state regulators acknowledge, when companies dumped truckloads of toxic fluid along the road or drained waste pits illegally. ...

Compounding such problems, state regulators have often been unable — or unwilling — to compel energy companies to clean up their mess, our reporting showed.

Under North Dakota regulations, the agencies that oversee drilling and water safety can sanction companies that dump or spill waste, but they seldom do: They have issued fewer than 50 disciplinary actions for all types of drilling violations, including spills, over the past three years.

Keller has filed several complaints with the state during this time span after observing trucks dumping wastewater and spotting evidence of a spill in a field near his home. He was rebuffed or ignored every time, he said. "
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-other-fracking-north-dakotas-oil-boom-brings-damage-along-with-prosperi

"A Louisiana trucking company believed to have illegally dumped radioactive waste in an Eastern Montana landfill for nearly two years has been ordered to stop by state officials.

Dual Trucking and Transport, of Houma, La., has been ordered by the Department of Environmental Quality to cease all operations near the Bakken community of Bainville.

DEQ officials, who began inspecting more than a year ago, say that as early as July 2012, and without a permit, Dual Trucking and Transport began accumulating mildly radioactive soil and oil filter socks, as well as other Bakken waste at the site.

The waste site is a couple hundred yards upwind from a housing development in a sandy-soiled region where the water the table is high enough to produce wetlands.

Dual was warned in Sept. 2012 to stop operations until it was licensed by DEQ’s Solid Waste Program. At that time, it also ordered to hire a qualified consultant to develop a cleanup plan and begin removing waste.

Dual eventually started the permit process, but then declined state requests for further information, later informing DEQ the company was no longer processing oilfield waste and didn’t need a permit.

However, earlier this month, DEQ inspected the site again and found Dual still managing solid waste without a permit.

Contacted by the Gazette, Dual did not respond to questions about the closure.

The DEQ action comes amid rising reports of illegally disposed Bakken oilfield waste, namely filter socks, used to trap naturally occurring radioactive silt driven above ground during hydraulic fracturing. Garbage bags full of the filters have been discovered abandoned in a shuttered North Dakota gas station and on a flatbed trailer near a landfill in that state."
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/company-suspected-of-dumping-radioactive-waste-in-montana-ordered-to/article_e63b89ac-cdc2-11e3-b909-0019bb2963f4.html

Unfortunately the entire attitude of oil field workers and the smaller companies. Is cut corners, dump, do it at night in places where nobody is around and shut up. Big oil companies have records of disposal of filter socks, etc. The small companies contract with the cheapest subcontractor and the second its off the well site, its problem over.

When the owner of a small drilling company is faced with layoffs and repossession of homes. Its get it done regardless of costs and if there not caught its not like there isn't a 1000 square miles of land to dilute any consequences of pollution. Its just a dirty little secret of the industry.

"America’s dirtiest secret

How billions of barrels of toxic oil and gas waste are falling through regulatory cracks
By Jefferson Dodge and Joel Dyer -
March 13, 2014

The oil and gas industry has a dirty little secret, make that a dirty big secret … no, make that one of the biggest, dirtiest secrets in U.S. history.

What is no secret these days is that the potential for negative environmental and health impacts as a result of oil and gas exploration and production activity is very real.

Concern over fracking, with its toxic cocktail composed of some combination of between 300 and 750 chemicals, 70 percent of which are known to be harmful to humans because they are carcinogenic or endocrine disruptors, etc., gets most of our collective attention these days. But this industry practice is not the only or largest contamination problem our nation faces as the result of oil and gas development.

In fact, the oil and gas industry’s other contamination problems are so large, they have literally been deemed impossible to prevent or even clean up by both industry and government. As a result, an unimaginable tonnage of contamination is being placed into our environment every year thanks to the near total lack of regulations over oil and gas exploration and production wastes.

The story behind this unregulated onslaught of contamination is so bizarre as to seem impossible, but it isn’t.

We often hear of the “Halliburton loophole,” a name used to describe a regulatory exemption that was created for the industry in 2005 to relieve fracking fluid of the burden of the Safe Drinking Water Act. But the Halliburton loophole is just one small exemption to federal regulations for the oil and gas industry. There are many others.

The mother of all oil and gas waste exemptions had its beginnings in 1978 when the EPA proposed reduced requirements for a couple of types of large-volume wastes associated with the oil and gas industry, namely produced water and drilling muds.

Today, the federal government and the oil and gas industry seem to have created a revisionist history of this early exemption process that gutted the requirements of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976 — an act created specifically to guarantee that there was cradle-to-grave oversight and enforcement for all hazardous wastes under RCRA’s Subtitle C.

The modern version of the Subtitle C exemption fictitiously purports that the reason for reducing requirements for oil and gas waste was because these large-volume wastes were deemed to be “lower in toxicity” and therefore not as much of a threat to human health and the environment as other wastes being regulated under Subtitle C. You can find such statements throughout the websites and literature of local, state and federal government regulators of toxic waste and in industry marketing materials.

But it is simply not true, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Go back and research the records of the exemption process and you will find a far different rationale for the largest exemption of toxic wastes in U.S. history.

In the late 1970s, the EPA had decided to study the idea of removing large volume oil and gas exploration and production wastes from RCRA’s Subtitle C. The study was barely off the ground when Ronald Reagan took office was elected in 1980 and government once again started tinkering with RCRA.

According to a 2002 EPA report on the RCRA oil and gas exemption, “The oil and gas exemption was expanded in the 1980 legislative amendments to RCRA to include “drilling fluids, produced water, and other wastes associated with the exploration, development, or production of crude oil or natural gas. . . .”

By the time they had finished defining “other wastes,” every single ounce of toxic waste generated by the process of exploring for and/or producing oil and gas had been removed from RCRA’s hazardous waste oversight.
http://www.boulderweekly.com/news/americarsquos-dirtiest-secret/

"State Senate Minority Leader Mac Schneider, D-Grand Forks, said Democrats are working on legislation that would either make clear that the oil well reclamation fund could be used for cleaning up oil waste or would establish another fund to “rapidly address” future incidents.

The proposal also will attempt to create a “meaningful” way to track oil field waste, he said.

“The fact that we have been humming and hawing on who is supposed to pay for this cleanup demonstrates a total failure,” Schneider said. “It’s not acceptable to just let this radioactive waste sit there and fester. That’s not something a responsible state government does.”
http://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/environment-and-safety/north-dakota-pay-cleanup-illegal-radioactive-oil-waste-135824/

What these stories don't discuss is that in N. Dakota all the way to Texas. Is that cash, jobs and oil are more important than the environment. Everybody excepting the major oil companies accept it including local state regulators that are always too busy to forward complaints to prosecutors. To order investigations.

Then its the farmers, ranchers and landowners that may receive royalties. Or may not. That are left holding the bag.

[jakee 1,596]

brenthutch

You guys seem to think that Trump is going to sign an executive order authorizing fracking waste water to be dumped into our lakes and rivers. That special kind of stupid makes me sad.

Only a couple of weeks ago you said that all deregulation was that easy.

You said that Trump would get rid of swathes of overregulation at the stroke of a pen, and that you were happy about it.

Why were you lying?

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[brenthutch 444]

jakee

***You guys seem to think that Trump is going to sign an executive order authorizing fracking waste water to be dumped into our lakes and rivers. That special kind of stupid makes me sad.

Only a couple of weeks ago you said that all deregulation was that easy.

You said that Trump would get rid of swathes of overregulation at the stroke of a pen, and that you were happy about it.

Why were you lying?

Obviously the subtle distinctions of regulation and overregulation elude you. I said roll back the billions of dollars of Obama's regulations. I did not say let's go back to 1800's Great Britain.

[Rick 67]

Very interesting. It is awesome to see how fast this technology is moving. And I agree in a few years it would not make sense to build a new house without some type of solar power system. Especially here in Central Florida where we have on average 236 days a year with sunshine.

You can't be drunk all day if you don't start early!

[gowlerk 2,277]

Rick

Very interesting. It is awesome to see how fast this technology is moving. And I agree in a few years it would not make sense to build a new house without some type of solar power system. Especially here in Central Florida where we have on average 236 days a year with sunshine.

Yes, somewhat less excited here in Winnipeg though. Our largest energy use days come in the winter season when the days are short and the sun angle is low. We do see a lot of hours of daylight, but not when we need it most.

But we do have a lot of hydro power and some of the cheapest electric power rates anywhere. We've been trying to sell some into the northern states. But natural gas generation is getting harder to compete against on price when the capitol and transmission costs are added in.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.