The House is poised to debate and pass an Energy Bill this week...get your thoughts in...UPDATED
Posted by Prof. Goose on August 1, 2007 - 9:15am
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: corporate average fuel economy, energy bill, house of representatives, House Rules Committee, HR 2776, HR 3221, HR 6, oil, peak oil [list all tags]
UPDATE: Text of the bill H.R. 969 -- T.Udall-Platts RPS can be downloaded using the search engine on the House website: www.house.gov. There is a deadline of 5pm 8/1 for Members to submit amendments to the Rules Committee for the Energy Bill. Any amendment filed MAY differ from the text of bills as introduced.
Amendments to the Energy bill have to be approved by the Rules Committee for floor votes (9 to 5 ratio of Speaker-appointed Democratic to Republican members). It will meet on Thursday. Links to approved amendments will be posted at the Rules Committee website. It can be accessed through the House home page at www.house.gov .
Oil Drum readers are encouraged to peruse recent coverage by CQ Today and EandENews (included below the fold) concerning the contents and status of elements in the bill and voice their reactions to, and analysis of, the legislation in this thread.
Under the fold are links to the actual text of the two bills - an energy bill and a tax bill. These two bills may well be combined into one bill by the House Rules Committee for debate and consideration this Friday.
I can promise you that there will be congressional staffers reading this thread. Therefore please keep it on point, off topic comments will be deleted. I have received emails from staffers who were impressed with our last effort, by the way.
Readers are also encouraged to inform their Members about their recommendations for voting for or against the bill. Two issues of continuing controversy and vote counting are raising CAFÉ standards and adopting a national Renewable Portfolio Standard. The Capitol Hill Switchboard is 202-225-3121--it is a good idea to know your Member's name or your zip code (all nine digits) when calling--Members only want to hear from their constituents.
Links to Bill Text
House Energy Bill, HR 3221 - text of the bill.
http://www.rules.house.gov/announcement_details.aspx?NewsID=2822
House Renewable Energy Tax Bill, HR 2776 - text
http://www.rules.house.gov/announcement_details.aspx?NewsID=2821
Other Notes
It is a matter of continuing debate and vote counting whether a CAFÉ amendment will be offered. The deadline for Members to submit amendments to the House Rules Committee is COB Wednesday, August 1.
Rep. Markey may offer a revised version of his CAFÉ bill, H.R. 1506. Rep. Baron Hill is planning to introduce an alternate CAFÉ amendment, HR 2927.
It remains to be seen if Rep. Tom Udall will introduce his bill, H.R. 969, or a variation of it to establish a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) mandate for generating electricity from renewable sources.
The Senate earlier approved a separate Energy bill, H.R. 6 as amended which is attached.
Articles for Your Information
CQ TODAY
July 31, 2007 - 1:45 p.m.
Deal Clears Way For Friday House Vote on Energy Package by Jeff Tollefson, CQ StaffHouse leaders have brokered a compromise with energy-state Democrats on a few key provisions of a broad energy package, paving the way for a potential floor vote Friday.
The new energy package (HR 3221) is an amalgam of energy bills produced by 11 committees that Democrats say would steer the nation in a new direction on energy policy, increasing efficiency, spurring research and investment in new technologies, and better regulating the oil and gas industry.
Leadership aides say the 786-page bill will come to the floor Friday, along with a $16 billion tax package (HR 2776) produced by the Ways and Means Committee. The bills will be joined in a single rule Thursday but debated and voted on separately on the floor, according to a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Responding to pressure from Democrats representing energy-producing states, Pelosi and Natural Resources Chairman Nick J. Rahall II, D-W.Va., D-Calif., agreed to drop or amend several provisions from a bill (HR 2337) Rahall's panel approved June 13. That measure, as approved by Natural Resources, would tighten environmental regulations for new energy projects, address alternative fuels development and energy efficiency, greenhouse gas capture and storage, the impact of climate change on fish and wildlife, and other topics.
With those negotiations settled, the biggest remaining issues are potential amendments to set new fuel efficiency standards for automobiles and a federal mandate for renewable electricity. Advocates of the "renewable portfolio standard" expressed confidence in a strong vote, although the outcome of a potential amendment on fuel efficiency standards remains uncertain.
The new bill drops language that would have all but ended the "royalty in kind" program, which allows companies to pay their royalties in oil and gas rather than cash. The bill also drops language eliminating deadlines for implementing a federal program established in the 2005 energy law (PL 109-58) to designate national energy corridors in an effort to expedite construction of electric transmission lines.
The Bureau of Land Management would have 45 days to process oil and gas drilling permits, instead of 90 days under the previous language; the 2005 law set a 30-day deadline as part of a broader effort to hasten production on federal lands.
The changes are unlikely to satisfy Republicans or the oil and gas industry - and possibly some Democrats - who have said the bill would hamper domestic production. But supporters say the revised bill represents a workable compromise.
Although he still supports the original provisions, Rahall said the new version would help ensure "responsible and honest management" of federal oil and gas resources.
"Any time you compile such a far-reaching piece of legislation, compromises are an inherent part of the process," he said.
Rep. Gene Green, a Texas Democrat who led the negotiations, said the compromise was a significant step forward, but he added that at least four or five of the 25 or so energy-state Democrats he has been talking to plan to vote against the bill anyway.
Tax Bill Still Targeted
Although Pelosi has so far resisted any concessions on the tax package, Green said she did agree to hold a separate vote on the package, allowing members of his group who generally oppose the tax package to vote for the energy bill but against the tax provisions.
"As long as we keep the tax title separate, I think we can pass the underlying legislation," he said. "People say the energy industry is making all kinds of money and they are, but if you keep hitting them with taxes . . . they are not going to be able to reinvest to make sure that we can get energy."
Green said there might yet be hope for a compromise, pointing out that Pelosi has called for another meeting with the group.
A Democratic leadership aide countered Green's assessment of the negotiations over the tax provisions, saying a separate vote was always planned on the tax package.
The bill also includes language intended to recoup billions of dollars in royalties being lost on faulty leases in the Gulf of Mexico. The leases suspended royalties in the late 1990s to spur production when prices were low, but a technical error has allowed many companies to continue producing oil and gas without paying royalties despite a huge increase in prices over the past few years.
The bill would require companies either to renegotiate their leases or to pay a new conservation fee if they want to bid on future leases. Several versions of this language have appeared in various bills in both chambers over the past two years, including the farm bill (HR 2419) passed last week and the energy bill passed by the House in January (HR 6).
Democrats also added language on behalf of Colorado Democrats that would block surface occupancy for potential drilling operations on the Roan Plateau in Colorado.
and this from E&ENews
1. ENERGY POLICY: No 'green light' from Pelosi on CAFE amendment just yet (07/31/2007)
Alex Kaplun, E&ENews PM reporterHouse Democratic leaders appear unlikely to press for a vote on vehicle fuel efficiency this week, even as they refuse to close the door on other members who might pursue such a move on their own.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters this afternoon no lawmaker has informed her of an intention to offer a corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) amendment to the energy bill later this week.
"I am not aware of any intention to bring up such legislation," Pelosi said. "I read about that in the paper and that people would like to see certain things happen, but as to whether [lawmakers] would bring their amendments to the Rules Committee, I am not aware of that at this time."
The Rules Committee is scheduled to meet Thursday to determine which amendments it will allow to the energy package. The underlying bill is expected on the floor Friday.
When pressed by reporters on whether she would back CAFE or renewable portfolio standard amendments, Pelosi responded that she has no intention of preventing members from offering amendments to the bill.
"I have not prohibited anyone from bringing a CAFE standard or an electrical standard amendments to the floor," she said. "They may bring them. They may not. I haven't seen them come forward yet."
She later added, "I am not prohibiting it from happening, the Rules Committee will work its will, but they cannot act on an amendment that has not been proposed."
While Pelosi has said she supports boosting CAFE to 35 miles per gallon, several lobbyists think she has not been personally involved in whipping votes for that legislation, leaving that up to Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and his allies.
A spokeswoman for Markey said this afternoon the lawmaker has still not made a decision on whether he will ask the Rules Committee to allow a vote on his amendment that would boost CAFE to 35 mpg by 2019.
"The determination [on whether to offer the amendment] is what we think is going to be neccessary to get that strong standard in the final bill," said Markey spokeswoman Jessica Schafer. "We are going to continue to work with the speaker to put together the strategy that ensures that the final bill is going to get a CAFE standard."
Environmental groups are still trying to build support for the 35 mpg mandate, and several have said in recent days that Markey and his supporters are waiting for a green light from Pelosi before deciding whether to offer the bill.
"Markey isn't stupid and neither is [Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John] Dingell. They're not going to offer their amendment until they get a signal that she will allow a vote on the amendment," said one environmentalist this afternoon.
Dingell (D-Mich.) has thrown his support behind a competing CAFE proposal offered by Reps. Baron Hill (D-Ind.) and Lee Terry (R-Neb.) that would set a CAFE standard of no less than 32 mpg and no greater than 35 mpg by 2022.
An aide for Hill said today the congressman intends to ask the Rules Committee to allow a vote on his legislation.
For his part, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) took a more definitive stance than Pelosi, telling reporters that he did not expect CAFE to be part of the House bill, though he maintained that it could emerge out of a conference with the Senate.
"I think you are going to see the energy package that was announced is the energy package we will try to pass," Hoyer said.
As little as I like politics, this is ultimately why we spend time on this site, ciphering and deciphering, debating and discovering - so that we can impact policy, micro or macro.
As I discussed in my recent post, saving energy via strong CAFE standards, lower speed limits, etc. is just like having a new oil find, especially domestically - when we are worried about energy security.
The bill is 800 odd pages long, which shows me how distanced real people are from real policy - how to accessibly persuade our congress to take meaningful changes in bite sized palatable enough increments is a tall task - especially when our constituents are still largely of the mindset that low prices and growth are our ordained right.
I hope Speaker Pelosi and other courageous public representatives can put forward as aggressive changes to the Energy Policy act as possible.
Regarding Rep Udalls potential Renewable Portfolio Standard for electricity, we CAN actually get electricity from renewables - the other 'Renewable' policy on the books is very much a misnomer - via the EPA, the Renewable Fuel Standard is anything but. Its defined as:
We all know that corn ethanol, currently the 'renewable' fuel of choice, is made entirely with fossil fuel inputs, with the exception of the sun growing the corn. A tiny energy gain remains after accounting for: natural gas that provides the fertilizer, diesel fuels for the tractors and farm machinery, natural gas and coal for steam the solution and gasoline that distributes the fuel. Almost entirely fossil fuel but it's termed 'renewable' because plant matter is involved. I can't seem to upload Rep Udall's proposed bill but one hopes this addresses this issue on the electricity front. Tidal, wind, solar, batteries etc all are much more renewable than biofuels, and deserve to be part of this bill. (If anyone can find link to Udalls HR 969 amendment - if anyone has a link please post it)
CAFE may be too little too late by standards of people familiar with whats ahead, but this is the process. Baby steps can make a difference. With the credit swoon upon us, policymakers will be wont to be too aggressive on measures hurting the economy. But the amendment boosting CAFE to 35 by SOONER than 2019 will get those bright minds in Michigan and Silicon Valley working hard before the energy crisis doesn't offer us any time.
For those who aren't afraid to step out of the box a bit, try calling your congressional rep tomorrow and share your information, even if you only get a staffer. They are quite tuned in.
We all know, from the June 20 UNEP/SEFI report (http://www.sefi.unep.org/)and so on, that renewables (not bioethanol) are a rapidly growing market. Renewable Portfolio Standards at the state level in the US have encouraged an accelerating flow of investment into wind, wave, solar, geothermal and other technologies. The EU countries are also big champions of renewables, and enjoy a continent-wide market to scale up technologies, seek solutions to intermittent supply problems (eg, via storing wind-generated energy), and so on. The US has been able to ignore the Bush-Cheney fossil-neck at the federal level, because California and other technologically advanced states have tough standards that are working (not perfectly, but that's another matter).
The question is whether to continue as is, betting on the advanced states and letting the laggards (ie, the South) be, or federalize some minimal target that Bush-Cheney and those who side with them will accept.
One potent economic reason for the US, at the federal level, to enact an RPS is that the Japanese are beginning to catch on. Sunday's electoral thrashing of the long-ruling Liberal Democrats by the Democratic Party of Japan included a proposal by the latter for 10% of electricity to be generated via renewables by 2020. This isn't a lot, but beats the LDP's target of 1.63% by 2014. The LDP is in thrall to the accident-prone nuclear industry (who are opportunistic peak-oilers, by the way) as well as unimaginative business leaders who see RPS as vaguely socialist. Their kind of thinking has seen Japan lose its lead in solar, do zip on geothermal (in spite of being so impressively tectonic), and otherwise squander a host of green-tech opportunities (domestically as well as overseas) stemming from the energy-environmental crisis.
Japan is a unitary state, so doesn't have RPS at the local level. When it does get a target at the central-state level, America will have another potent competitor. You people have already lost leadership in the car industry to the Japanese, so maybe you want to get serious on renewables.
Re: We all know that corn ethanol...is made entirely from fossil fuel inputs with exception of the sun growing the corn.
This is the crux of the error's being made here at TOD. How is it that fossil fuel is only a small fraction of the costs for me to produce corn as compared to land, seed and labor and surely is a small fraction of the cost for ethanol producers compared to the purchased corn, labor, plant, finance and management costs? Yet here at TOD this all gets ignored and changed into "ethanol is made entirely from fossil fuel inputs" with the sun's inputs almost dismissed. The bias is breathtaking.
The whole point of ethanol is not that there is a big energy gain but that liquid transport fuel (expensive) is made from corn and mostly natural gas which are cheap. Making something expensive out of something cheaper is the whole idea behind production. This is the fallacy behind EROEI which is a near religion at TOD. I have posted on this before, but maybe I should use westexas's technique and repeat the same idea over and over again. At least he seems to get somewhere repeating stuff. Or maybe his ideas are better. The idea that forms of energy can be changed from the less usable with the current infrastructure to the more usable seams to me to be dismissed here. Why? Energy is not finite. Fossil fuels are finite. A new supply of energy arrives from the sun every day. Transforming that energy into liquid transport fuel is a valid strategy for mitigating peak oil. Those that only want conservation (usually described in mandatory terms) should do the conserving. Go ahead do it. Those who can add to the supply of liquid transport fuel should do if they can.
Trying to stop those who are attempting to mitigate peal oil because their method doesn't suit the EROEI religion is a dead end. If you want conservation, fight for it and do it. I have no problem with that.
Corn ethanol have some problems even if you consider them just a energy conversion. Besides, converting natural gas and oil into ethanol isn't that usefull, is it? Both can be used for transportation near the same way.
But your main problem is that you didn't say where the energy that we transform into ethanol comes from. That is the bigest problem, not how to make liquid fuels.
"How is it that fossil fuel is only a small fraction of the costs for me to produce corn as compared to land, seed and labor and surely is a small fraction of the cost for ethanol producers compared to the purchased corn, labor, plant, finance and management costs?"
One, because Fossil fuels are artificially cheap here, so your measurement of ROI based on Dollar Inputs is skewed to Oil and NG's clear advantage.
Two, 'Surely a small fraction of the cost for ethanol producers' - are you sure? The energy required for processing, drying and refining that corn into ethanol is where the greatest energy inputs are required, right?
Still, your argument that this is simply creating a value-added product is my main concern. While we do need Transport Liquids, this uses gas and diesel to produce an LTF that is un-pipable, subject to water contamination, and complicates our Transp fuel reliance towards products that hinge on Harvest Times, Weather and Irrigation conditions, and compete with crop space (and aquifer reserves) for food crops. Every expansion of this industry will make that competition more intense, and I don't see how it would be a healthy contest for the country.
ps, is the .50 subsidy on Ethanol basically providing the profit-margin that makes this seem like a value-added product?
Bob
Ethanol from corn has huge problems. Read my article:
Corn-Based Ethanol: Is This a Solution?
This is the crux of the error's being made here at TOD. How is it that fossil fuel is only a small fraction of the costs for me to produce corn as compared to land, seed and labor and surely is a small fraction of the cost for ethanol producers compared to the purchased corn, labor, plant, finance and management costs? Yet here at TOD this all gets ignored and changed into "ethanol is made entirely from fossil fuel inputs" with the sun's inputs almost dismissed. The bias is breathtaking.
1) your fertilizer costs might be in units of fossil fuel
2) corn isn't ethanol, and turning it into ethanol requires substantial additional energy, most of which is fossil fueled.
What is the power and transportation costs for an ethanol plant?
Practical, I won't sidetrack this thread with arguments on EROI and ethanol other than to say I agree with you that EROI is not a panacea and said as much in my recent post. More important than the energy return of an alternative technology is the energy return of what its replacing, which gets back to demand, CAFE, speed limit, carpooling, electric train arguments, etc.
Also, my reply to you there, shows that ethanol DOES use a huge amount of non-renewable inputs. Natural gas this summer is cheap but the forward markets 2009 and beyond are making all time highs this week. If you have to pay triple for seed and fertilizer in a few years, how good of idea will ethanol be? Or what if you can't buy fertilizer at all?
By developing low energy gain renewable energy that has a majority component that is fossil, we are squandering opportunities using existing fossil reserves to develop high energy gain renewable systems. This is why ethanol is a bad idea. We will switch from one perceived bottleneck (oil) to another one (natural gas, or greenhouse gas emissions from more coal). If all the energy inputs (and NON-ENERGY inputs, like soil and water), were abundant, then I totally agree that the energy return of ethanol wouldn't be as relevant. But thats not the case with bio-ethanol.
I will put up a separate post on this issue in the next week or so and we can debate this until we come to some agreement, if possible.
It's a "near religion" because it is the crux of the biscuit. If I spend $200 to get to my job where I earn $200 per day, I have nothing at the end of the day. Ethanol is not much better than this scenario.
Robert posted an excellent look at the "solar" gain of ethanol here http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2812#more.
It's not that the method doesn't suit a "religion", it's that it Just. Doesn't. Work. in any meaningful way for mitigation of oil. There have been countless computations on what the potential mitigation is, and has been shown countless times that it is a drop in the bucket. I'd love to see anything that shows otherwise.
If I spend $200 to get to my job where I earn $200 per day, I have nothing at the end of the day.
Ahhh, but the Tax man made something.
I am a constituent of Rep Jack Wamp, Tennessee 3rd Congressional district, who is a co-chair of the House Renewable and Energy Efficiency Caucus. While I disagree with him on many(if not most) things, I have met him on several occasions when he has had 'listening' sessions for voters in his district and I believe that he is sincere in trying to do what is best for his district. The problem becomes one of convincing him of the best path forward. I just sent him an email:
Thanks for bringing this up, PG. It's been coming up this week, and I'm in a quandary..
I got emails from MoveOn and Greenpeace about energy legislation over the last couple days, but didn't get any specifics with their messages vying for us to call and advocate or oppose more 'mystery amendments'..
Udall's HR 969, with the 20% renewable standard mandate for utilities was what MoveOn wanted me to cheer for, but I want to hear what TOD has to say. I don't feel that this is as clear or effective a policy direction as the oft-touted 'carbon tax'.
I'm doing some searches of past TOD discussions, but to just lay it out there, what are the Pros/Cons with a carbon tax.. appreciating already that 'Political Feasibility' might be all that's required to kill it. But is it a good idea? What are your other proposals for useful energy-policy riders that could/should carry us in the right direction? X-prizes for Tide and Wave solutions? Better Batteries? For Cities/States that reach new transit-improvement goals akin to Alan Drake's improvements possible with Electric Rail Freight, etc. ?
Bob Fiske
http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/gas_tax
We had a lot of discussions over a year ago about a) whether or not a gas tax was a good idea, and b) whether or not it is a regressive tax (i.e., it hurts the poor more than the rich). Political feasibility aside, public opinion and logic is on the side of a gas tax if you believe the world is at plateau.
Of course, they don't all know this yet, unless you tell them to read theoildrum and the rest of the po blogosphere.
Consumption taxes are a lot less regressive than a dead planet.
Since this is discussion of the energy bill, I agree that a fuel tax should be considered to some degree, but better handled at the state level for exemptions and rebates for farming, etc, since most states already have a system for that. However, as consumption taxes go, it is regressive. After considering how it hurts the poor, then perhaps they can start considering The Fair Tax, which prebates the poor end amount to everyone so that low consumers don't pay any tax. To do this with the energy tax would be cumbersome and invasive. To do it on a consumption-wide basis means you only need an address or a bank account and a name, and since everyone gets the same amount, there is no need for major monitoring systems.
After all, oil is being consumed by all consumption, not just transportation. Transport costs get transferred to the end products anyway, so why not just tax the end products and reduce overall demand for CWDN ('stuff' we don't need)?
Sorry for the ramble.
It's less and less obvious to me that consumption taxes affect the poor more than the wealthy. So they drive the poor into an underground economy. Or they barter time for vegetables, work in a community garden or swap. Those are options not really open to the wealthy. [They pay their lawyers or politicians for tax breaks instead.]
Another way to think about that is how much can be swapped and bartered or self-produced vs how much must be purchased in coin-of-the-realm. That gets you into the "Two Income Trap" where women earning a wage find themselves worse off than some of those not earning a wage but home-producing otherwise.
If people can get off the consumption treadmill, then the consumption tax is less of an issue. The caveat, though, is that it becomes a "sin" tax; we need to encourage what we do not want to generate revenue.
cfm in Gray, ME
CFM;
So what is the upshot on 'Sin taxes'? Are they less effective because the government becomes dependent on the revenues, and may be less vigilant in eradicating the 'sin'? ( I guess that's what you were saying there.. it took me a second to unravel it) The heavy taxing on cigarettes, for example. Is it worth it? Is it also just taking cruel advantage of Addiction, instead of working to cure it? (Whether for Nicotiene or Gasotiene)
What about a scaled tax reward system for Utilities that are investing in distributed RE technologies?
Do we want better Gov't programs for helping to create and enhance the development of US-owned RE businesses?
I'm not really policy Savvy, (I don't think I can even SPELL savvy!) but then again, some of the policies I hear coming out of DC convince me I'm not that far behind the Senate, either way! So can you see past programs that have really been good examples of the kind of public planning that we could model current efforts on?
Thanks,
Bob Fiske
I'm sorry if this may digress, but this issue needs to be fleshed out more in discussions.
High parking fees are a "sin" tax on having too many cars in the city, set at a 'price point' which maintains flow of revenue.
What about raising someone's insurance premiums just enough to keep them as a customer, but not enough to lose the income?
We do this stuff all the time. We just have to apply it properly from the long-term picture of humans as a species.
Conservatives get scared when you start reducing their profit revenue POTENTIAL, and Liberals get scared if you reduce the potential of future government revenue. It's time we reduced it all and be conservative about how much government we really need in the future. Jack up taxes until people actually stop doing stupid things, then get rid of the overhead we created to WATCH them do stupid things instead of STOPPING them from doing stupid things.
What are our grandchildren getting for all the oil we are burning up? If we don't make ourselves pay the true costs, THEY will simply have to pay much more in the long run.
Changing some economic paradigms now is better than trying to survive on a planet full of plastic McDonald's toys and Roundup-flavored Cheez Doodles.
If the world is at plateau, logic dictates conservation not taxation.
Not one pro tax argument on this site has clearly shown demand destruction from price increases, tax based or otherwise.
IF the House is serious about reducing fossil fuel consumption pass the bill with the strictest CAFE standards, limit the speed to 100kph on the Interstates, mandate higher efficiencies from household appliances and extend fuel efficiency ratings to personal watercraft, motorcycles and gasoline powered yard machines etc..
"Price point" and education/public buy-in are important. People don't stop speeding until the price of a ticket gets high enough. Until that point is reached, there is no deterrence, only revenue generation for local government. If the price is raised too much, the problem becomes one where you can't afford to pay for the police you no longer need when people stop speeding. It's a matter of whether we are going to give ourselves enough credit that once we learn to behave, we won't need the government constantly around to tell us how to behave. Imagine that. It used to be called "growing up".
Another thing, a biggie too.
Establish fuel economy standards for commercial vehicles as well.
Thanks musashi!
To drop in one set arguments for Carbon Tax from April:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2473#comment-181772
"1. You need a carbon tax, not just a gas tax. The carbon tax base is large enough to off-set the payroll tax cuts that have to come unless you want a working-middle-class revolution or worse (ballets, bullets or begging...)
The carbon tax punishes coal for electricity on an equal CO2
impact basis with other fuels/processes. If, as you propose, you give other tax relief to rail that electrifies, rail can handle the carbon tax and will feel the same pressures as others to economize (design of rail cars to handle more riders on a user-friendly basis, etc.)
A carbon tax will likely hit the airlines more than what you have on the table. E.g., cross-country flights will start re-fueling mid-country for further fuel efficiency, carriers will increase pressure on the builders to make more efficient planes and engines, and more short-haul flights will be cut due to electric ground transport competition.
2. The national economy that exploded on the back of cheap oil after WWII scattered family members to the four winds.
As a partial remedy for raising the cost of air travel, provide regulatory and financial incentives to expand, and enhance the quality of, video telephone and video-conferencing. Video can make families stay connected with less travel.
3. Ensure that the expanded electric grid can be fully responsive to both supply- and demand-side load management. Provide incentives (regs + $$) for residential and commercial user-friendly real-time demand management of their electricity use. Implement IPv6 and put the grid on the Web. Don't overlook solar.
Short versions:
Stress conservation over everything else (CAFE, speed limits, mass transit, no tax breaks for any vehicles that aren't buses or trains).
"A penny saved is a barrel of oil" or something like that.
Ethanol or cheap food; make the choice and if it is for ethanol, then make sure the high price for food is paid to organic farms for conserving energy and creating jobs (even if it is only for one small farmer).
You can't go very wrong with wind and solar power.
You CAN go very wrong with nuclear power.
Electrification: building infrastructure will put the housing bubble unemployed back to work in their home towns.
Reduce, reuse, recycle.
Auntie,
This is NOT "your grandfather's nuclear power".
Try to give the nukers a teensy weensy break, please.
Nukes have come a long long way.
You still can go wrong with it.
Not to say that it shouldn't be done, just that one must be carefull.
Sure, lots of things have created 'safety' systems and double safety systems with dead man switches, etc. (Remember the Simpson's episode when he uses the drinking bird toy to keep hitting the dead man key?)
As Douglas Adams put it, "Any engineer that thinks he can design something to be completely foolproof has never met a complete fool."
I'm a great fan of nuclear power because I hate people. More seriously, though, I really am a fan of clean nuclear power that doesn't contaminate the vessels it is produced in and doesn't require thousands of years of police-state storage. Got any of that handy? Got any police-states that have lasted for thousands of years?
Nuclear power needs to be rethought and restarted from square one. If you have to refine it with massive quantities of fluoride, it isn't sustainable or safe. If it takes 10 years to build a power plant, it isn't a practical source of power.
Something like this http://www.emc2fusion.org/ I can get behind with wholehearted enthusiasm, but nuclear plants built with brute force and concrete on volcanic, earthquake-prone islands isn't what my grandfather would have built, no. His energy usage was solar, grown in fields and value-added through horses, which also grew in fields.
Technology is great, as long as it provides a sustainable Net Creativity to the complete community (including the environment). If it only provides a short-term economic profit at the cost of long-term cleanup by Somebody Else, then it's time to think about living without it and powering down.
You can't go very wrong with wind and solar power.
You CAN go very wrong with nuclear power.
Maybe, but you can't go very far with just wind and solar power,
and in the real world,
no nukes + wind and solar == tons more coal.
And that is going to be so much very very wronger.
I'll put on my cynical scientist hat---by 2070 or so GW will probably be bad enough that it would be "worth" trading off a whole Chernobyl every few years. (how much earth will GW make uninhabitable?) Of course a new Chernobyl is very unlikely to happen with new nukes.
I want as much solar and wind as is feasible---and nukes too.
Most of the traveling around that people are doing right now is simply to go places they don't really need to go, or going there by using 4000 lbs of steel and cupholders to transport 120 lbs of flesh-tone seat cover.
Fear of Slowing The Economy is killing us. How much data do we really need to realize that if we don't come up with a Descent Plan, Nature is going to do it for us?
Is radioactive food better than no food at all (Let's ask the Iraqis)? Is a damaged genetic pool going to be a sustainable life form? Maybe we'll invent a Star Trek Hypo spray that cures radiation sickness.
...and most of the places we go are within a distance to allow electrical power for propulsion.
Fact: An internal combustion engine wastes 75% of the energy fed to it (25% efficiency). 75% flushed down the toilet! Electric motors with batteries are about 88% efficient. Switch to electricity and you've immediatey cut your energy requirements by better than 2/3rds.
Fact: the vast infrastructure required to deliver electricity as the end-user product already exists.
Fact: Electricity can be produced by many different sources, including wind, solar, hydro, and yes, nuclear. Talk about "flex-fuel". Feed the grid with what works best, transparent to the end-user.
Fact: Advances are required for battery storage and/or recharge times to make electricity a viable and sellable sole energy source for long distance travel. The technology exists today for plug-in hybrids, that use an ICE only when battery power is sufficiently depleted.
Fact: the technology exists today to use electricity for the energy required for the majority of round trips taken in vehicles.
This is where our focus needs to be: Change the end-use energy product to electricity, and invest in improving all of the upstream components.
From page 99
This is an excellent idea - National Academy will give the straight skinny, presumably with some scientists using a systems approach to look at environmental externalities of scaling biofuels.
I would add that this request should include a net energy analysis - not so much to debate whether corn and cellulosic ethanol are net energy losers or winners compared to other biofuels, but looking at how dramatic an energy loss they have compared to the average energy gain we currently get from the imported/domestic petroleum energy gain. If we scale something that has a tiny energy gain, that has to be accompanied by demand destruction (or efficiency) in other areas.
So, 7) a net energy analysis, to determine what kind of economic and social repercussions arise from replacing high energy gain petroleum with low energy gain biofuels...Or some such.
This has precedence in the 1970s -
I would add another amendment to this section:
17. An analysis of shortfall risk.
We can't compare pulling oil out of the ground with an annual crop. There are vagaries of drought, floods, etc. that can and do dramatically impact supply of grain based fuel inputs. Oil depletes, but roughly within a predictable band. If a certain % of our annual energy is produced from biomass/biofuels, we have to consider standard deviation and shortfall risk when making the rules. One need look no further than the dust bowls of the 1930s, when, if one digs, one can find quotes from the government 'soil is our one inexhaustible resource', which turned out not to be the case.
Heck - a MUCH better idea is to expand section 402 to be an overall 'second opinion' of the National Petroleum Council report. Secretary Bodman could repeat the request to analyze the status of petroleum resources, societal impacts, etc. from the National Academy of Sciences, which also could have been done 2 years ago... addended note: the National Research Council's reports are created by panels that can be loaded with particular interests--and have been. So, oversight of the NAS panel appointments is needed. No one should assume that because the NRC is an arm of the NAS that the reports will be objective science, though many, if not most, are.
This certainly has been delayed. I was asked to be a reviewer of this report, and accepted. Net energy analysis, soil and water impacts, and flow analysis are areas I plan to be particularly critical about.
if you are so inclined...here's a reddit link.
http://reddit.com/info/2b83q/comments
RE: HR 2776
A 50 cent subsidy for cellulosic ethanol production is not likely to bring much ethanol into the market anytime soon. The technology is immatu