Josh Mogerman's Blog: Moving Beyond Oil

Beaver Tails and Tar Sands: climate security talks are not going to stay this sweet

2009-02-20T01:00:07Z

It was a sweet day for President Obama in Canada.

As he savored a "beaver tail" in Ottawa, security seemed the farthest issue from his mind. No, this is not an endangered species post...apparently there is a rockin' bakery in the Canadian capital that offers flat fried pastry with a funny name. The President delighted our neighbors to the north and likely irked his secret service detail by making a quick stop to satisfy his sweet tooth (and maybe curiosity...beaver tail, really?).

But security issues seemed to be at the heart of most everything Mr. Obama talked about with Prime Minister Harper on his first international trip. Border security. Afghanistan and International security. Economic and trade security.

Climate security.

And energy security.

How amazing and refreshing it was to hear the President of the United States elevating those last two to the top of the agenda?

However, there's an ugly side to that. There is one issue that is central to the bilateral discussion of climate and energy: the tar sands.

Quick review: tar sands oil is mined in Alberta where sludgy sand is heated and agitated to yield ultra-low quality petroleum. In the process of digging up two tons of Earth for every barrel of "oil" produced, incredible amounts of water are used spoiled and dumped into toxic lakes while huge tracts of the Boreal forest are ripped to the ground. The result? Goop that is piped into the US for refining into a fuel that emits three times the global warming emissions of standard petroleum. It's a lose-lose for everybody and clearly has no place in the low-carbon future that the Mr. Obama is already charting.

But there are a lot of security hawks out there that love the stuff. Afterall, Canada is our friend. They won't turn off the tap. They won't use the money against us as many of our Middleastern suppliers are doing. These folks contend that we should be taking more and more of Alberta's goo to alleviate those issues.

But relying on dirtier and dirtier oil (like tar sands) simply substitutes one problem with a far bigger one. Weaning ourselves from Middleastern oil does little good if we remain addicted to fuels that speed the impacts of global warming. Particularly when these dirtier fuels also impact our shared fresh water treasure---the Great Lakes. The problems that arise from global warming are way worse than the ones we are grappling with now---and plenty of folks in the defense and intelligence communities agree:

I've blogged already on General Zinni's comments and report.
And on former CIA Director Woolsey's take.
And this week, the former Dutch defense minister Joris Voorhoeve echoed those sentiments in an Op Ed that appeared in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

But there is another option. We can move away from Middleastern AND tar sands oil to the most secure of all energy sources in the US.

Renewables. Nobody can turn off the tap on wind and solar. Nobody can use the savings from energy efficiency programs for ill.

This was not lost on Obama and Harper today. We've started a clean energy dialog. It will center on broader engagement in renewables---and investigating technologies to secure our climate from carbon. This week's stimulus plan makes me confident we will be able to do this in America... Canada? No technologies in the pipeline to fix the ugliness in Alberta.

Our clean energy dialog is going to need to become a quick discussion as Obama and Harper are clearly working towards creating a North American position (with President Calderon of Mexico) for the upcoming climate talks in Copenhagen. This is a huge change for the U.S. Though the signals that Canada has given around protections for the tar sands makes me wonder if we will find a common stance...

The comments today were great to hear. Talk about change...it was amazing to see the President elevate climate change...or climate security...to such a significant issue on his first international trip.

Obama surely scored points with the Canadian public (he has an even higher approval rating up north than in the US) with some of his comments---and especially the Beaver Tail stop. But I fear that the discussions with our neighbor to the north is going to be a lot less sweet than the pastry from here on out.

Photo courtesy of Honus on Flickr.

Better Place? Better Model! Concepts We All Understand for Clean Energy Infrastructure

2008-09-19T20:51:06Z

I finally got around to reading last month's Wired magazine, which included a feature story on the electric car company, Better Place. While I was struck by the incredible aspirations of this company, as a communicator, I was even more impressed by the way their business model helps to tear down the walls to an expanding green economy.

Over and over again we hear about how the infrastructure hurdles prevent some of the wholesale changes necessary in the energy sector. But Better Place's business concepts remind us that the changes aren't so daunting by connecting with a pair of technologies that have emerged, completely new, in recent decades.

You've probably used them today.

Got a mobile phone in your pocket?

Did you get cash out of an ATM this week?

Before you listen to the green energy doubters shouting about infrastructure limitations, think about how quickly those technologies emerged in the last two decades. They move to ubiquity in a very short period of time---even without government subsidies---through the rapid development of new infrastructure.

We've gone from executive brick phones to ubiquitous clam shells and Blackberries in no time.

And there's an ATM on every block here in downtown Chicago. Heck, I've used them on four continents!

In both cases, infrastructure was developed from scratch. Think about mobile phones. With the proper market signal, corporate players managed to get cell phone towers in place quickly all over the world. In two decades, the mobile phone companies have even changed out the technology infrastructure already----we don't even have cell phones anymore, all the carriers have shifted over to digital networks.

And that is where Better Place comes into play. Their business model assumes that batteries will take the place of the gas tank in your current car. Instead of paying at the pump---you'd enter into a recharging contract kind of like you your current mobile phone agreement (but using miles instead of minutes). You'd pull up to their charging centers to freshen or change out batteries. GM's Volt would be your Motorola RAZR; Better Place would be Sprint or US Cellular...

Sounds aggressive? No way they can build this out? They are starting now with contracts to build in Israel and Denmark. And they are in discussion with the state of Hawaii.

Small places no doubt, but if this works expect the business model of using cell phone-like plans to help reduce higher up front costs of green technologies to spread like wildfire.

Competition will sprout up and rather than thinking about whether we can build out the electric car infrastructure---you are going to have to worry about whether you want to pay the surcharge to juice up at one of Better Place's competitor's stations... The same mental math you probably make at the ATM.

So, is Better Place for real? Beats me. There are doubters out there. So I'll leave it up to Roland, Luke, or Deron in the Vehicles program to decide the merits on that front. But I do love its implications for messaging and conceptualizing quick action on the electric car front and getting people's heads around that issue is almost as important these days.

Chuck D Would Probably Hate Oil Shale

2008-07-23T20:43:23Z

I hit the Pitchfork Music festival this weekend in Chicago. A blissful weekend of indie rock that included a stellar live performance from Public Enemy.

Chuck D, Flava Flav, Terminator X, and the S1Ws ripped through their classic album “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” which includes a song that would be the perfect sound track for the Department of the Interior this week…

"Night of the Living Baseheads,” was PE’s angry reaction to the impacts crack cocaine had on their community in the early 90’s. Nothing good comes from burning rocks.

The connection? Tuesday the Department of the Interior announces their intention to draft regulations for a commercial oil shale industry on 2 million acres of public lands out west.

Not familiar with the weird, hair-brained scheme that is oil shale? Let’s review.

Apparently, there are chunks of the countryside where the rocks have some petroleum in them. The idea is that if you heat these rocks, literally, for years at a time…eventually they will ooze a low-grade oil that might be refined into gasoline.

I am not kidding. That’s the new Bush administration energy policy: slow-cook rocks. We will literally melt some of our most picturesque landscapes for gasoline. It sounds more sci-fi than Soylent Green, but that is the state of our oil addiction.

We don’t even know if this is even a viable option---but we do know it is very bad one for the environment.

How bad? Four times the climate changing emissions of standard petroleum products. And it really sucks up water…which is problematic considering the rocks in question sit in the thirsty states of Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. Water is actually more valuable than oil in that region. State leaders in Colorado and Wyoming have their reservations about moving forward with this until the environmental impacts are assessed and mitigated. Hopefully, they will recognize that there has to be a better way to deal with the energy crunch than swapping the water for oil (incidentally, it is estimated that a commercial oil shale industry would use well over twice the amount of water as the population of Denver every year---yikes!).

There is a better way. We can use the resources we already have more efficiently, such as doubling the fuel economy performance of our vehicles which would be the same as cutting gas prices in half. And let’s get away from this false choice of dirty oil or dirtier oil. As we say again and again, it is time to invest in clean, renewable energy.

Because nothing good comes from cooking rocks. Chuck D’s words hold true whether you are talking about crack or oil shale:

“How low can you go?”

Want High Gas Prices? Invest in Tar Sands!

2008-06-18T21:32:46Z

Prices at the pump are hitting us all pretty hard. Everyone is looking for a quick fix. And everyone is looking for someone to blame.

NRDC’s recent win against the ConocoPhillips Wood River Refinery air permits gave a target to some folks with a troubling agenda.

Last week a U.S. EPA appeals board sided with NRDC and the American Bottom Conservancy, effectively rejecting permits that were too lax. The decision probably set a precedent that other refinery expansions will need to live up to from here on out to keep more dangerous pollutants out of the air in nearby communities. While we have a lot of problems with the stuff that this facility will be refining, the case was all about forcing this $4 billion expansion project to live up to the rule of law. At a time of record oil company profits, we really should not ask kids in East St. Louis to pay the refinery's environmental costs with asthma and the folks in Alton deserve the same environmental protections enjoyed by Californians. The law says best available technology is required---and that is where you will find it.

But some knee jerk reactionaries kept trying to link this to gas prices even though this refinery is years away from its planned completion. They said it was an effort to keep gas prices high… Or to make Americans drive ox carts to work… Huh?

Our challenges have done absolutely nothing to affect the current price of gas, but there certainly is a connection between prices at the pump and Midwestern refineries. Throughout the region, oil companies are undertaking huge expansion projects to refine more and more oil from Canadian tar sands. An investment in tar sands is an investment in high gas prices since the stuff is only profitable when a barrel of oil trades at the insanely high prices we have seen only recently. That is because tar sands oil is exactly what it sounds like, oil boiled from sand. Besides the frighteningly high environmental costs (in CO2 emitted, forests ripped to the ground, and water-intensive production), the stuff comes from one of the most expensive ways to extract oil there is…it ain’t cheap to squeeze goo from pebbles and sand.

Adding a dirty fuel source will hasten climate change, but it won’t fix the problem at the pump.

Tar sands will not make it easier for folks to fill their tanks right now. Unfortunately, very little will in the short term aside from tuning our engines, inflating our tires, and focusing on conservation. Only an embrace of efficient technologies can move us out of this hole---we cannot dig our way out of this mess.

NRDC is pushing for clean and renewable energy sources that will help stimulate the economy, create jobs, and help to ward of global disaster.

And the oil sands folks, what are they pushing for? I mean besides oil profits?

Ill-informed in Indiana

2008-06-02T22:29:27Z

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels was in Benton County last week to kick off construction of a new wind farm with BP executives. That embrace of alternative energy is something to celebrate, right?

I was pretty excited by the news about the huge project in the Northwest Indiana Times…until I came to this section of the article:

Daniels also used the moment to comment on the larger theme of energy independence. And he thanked U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., for not joining those who oppose the expansion of BP's Whiting refinery.

"The ill-informed, I'll be charitable, who would stop, first of all, the biggest single investment, thousands of construction jobs and countless jobs beyond, but forget that, a refinery that will contribute to the end of $4 per gallon gas," Daniels said in a bold forecast and swipe at critics.

The Natural Resources Defense Council has said it plans to sue BP in federal court for alleged Clean Air Act violations at the refinery. Environmental groups also have challenged the state air permit for the expanded BP refinery.

Are you kidding me? Let’s review—that man speaking was the Governor of Indiana, not a BP spokesperson, right?

The expansion project that Daniels is heralding to end $4 gas is just the opposite---it is a sign that the oil companies are pretty confident that high prices are here to stay.

BP is making a $4 billion bet that high gas prices continue with that refinery. It will be the largest tar sands refining facility in the U.S. and tar sands can only be profitable when oil prices are high. To get the stuff out of the ground in Canada, they have to rip up the ancient carbon-eating forests, dig out sands by the ton, boil it to extract the bits of bitumen, and then go through additional refining processes just to get something like more typical petroleum products. With all of that, it was too expensive to use the stuff broadly until oil prices went through the roof. (Deron Lovaas has had some really strong postings about current gas prices.)

Besides, the refinery won’t be online until 2011, so it would have had no impact on current prices at the pump. The NRDC challenge to BP’s air and water permits will not stop this expansion---while we have real concerns about the environmental impact of tar sands, this is not an effort to stop the refinery. It is an effort to force the state to meet the standard of the law. Indiana’s regulators are not forcing BP to adequately protecting its citizens, Lake Michigan, or the surrounding communities...That is why we are fighting. I have no idea what the state is fighting for, though some in the local media have some thoughts (second item in link).

And as long as I am splitting hairs with the top dog in the Hoosier state, what is up with the “countless jobs” reference? He has been swapping talking points with BP on this project and knows very well how many jobs will be created---which is not many after the construction is complete. This is a $4 billion project that will create less than 100 permanent jobs. Yes, they are needed in northwest Indiana, but everyone in the region is going to be paying an inordinately high price for a handful of new positions if the state continues to stonewall NRDC’s efforts or the Illinois Congressional delegation does not convince the USEPA to fix the air permits.

Look, this is deep stuff. There are far better voices on this blog than me to talk about the energy crossroads we find ourselves at in this moment---but I am pretty comfortable pointing out that this was a wasted opportunity. Instead of tossing short-sighted blame-game-bombs, I wish the governor could have used the unique combination of windmills and oil execs to talk about big picture energy policies for the state of Indiana and the United States.

I could go on, but I think I’ll be charitable and hold off on pointing out the other ways that Governor Daniels is ill-informed.