Working in the gas energy sector my company has a weird relationship with oil politics.
On one hand gas/oil bad which should make us favor Republicans, but on the other hand... renewables and restrictions on Coal have really helped my company out. Gas turbines are really the only practical sources of peak demand with renewables. Yes I know in 30-years or so, we will be out of business unless there is a break through with Hydrogen. (New gas turbines are designed with the potential to run hydrogen)
I work maintenance on gas power plants, and we are struggling to hire enough technicians to work our outages. This October we are at 120% demand (jobs to personnel). Next spring will be our busiest year ever.
Anyway, if anyone knows young kids who want to go into blue collar technical work... there are high paying jobs!
Combustion is a heck of a technology. The *source* of some of the hydrocarbons we're burning can be troublesome, but darn if it wouldn't be wild to engineer some yeast to eat biomass and fart out ethanol, or whatever.
The energy per mass and per volume just can't yet be beat (and because you don't need to bring your oxidizer or equivalent with you, I'm skeptical that batteries of any type will ever match it).
Batteries will never match it, but electric motors are so vastly more efficient than combustion engines that they fortunately don't have to come anywhere close for ground transport.
Air, we've discussed before. Closed-cycle synthetic fuel or CCS, all the way.
"Yes I know in 30-years or so, we will be out of business unless there is a break through with Hydrogen."
Not sure it'll be quite that fast, but in any case I wouldn't be so sure hydrogen breakthroughs are a good thing for O&G on that time scale or longer. Better CCS would be, for sure, but more efficient hydrogen usage and storage don't favor blue over green or vice versa. The biggest potential for not-yet-realized breakthroughs are lower capex for electrolysis and more efficient CCU to make synthetic fuels (jet, diesel, marine, aka the harder-to-decarbonize transportation sectors). There are already places in the world where solar power is closing in on 2 cents/kWh. That works out to somewhere on the order of $3 of electricity to make the hydrogen energy equivalent of a gallon of gas, but capex is still very high as well and in most places the energy costs are much higher than that.
I am curious, too, how decarbonization of some sectors (say, passenger vehicle electrification) will affect the price of oil, if it will significantly change relative demand for different fractions.
To me, this is all a reminder that we should not be picking and choosing the "winning" technologies as a matter of law and policy and silver bullets--we should be identifying the outcome we actually care about (say, net grams of CO2 per lifecycle passenger-mile, or whatever) and we'll find out what technology or combination of technologies achieves it.
Maybe, maybe not, but I'm still confused about lots of details and regularly disagree with others about this in all kinds of ways!
I *do* see lots of places starting to invest in co-firing hydrogen and natural gas, and in blue hydrogen production, but I see that as more of a stop-gap for the next decade or so as other tech matures.
The nice thing about hydrogen mix is it significantly reduces emissions while eliminating a lot of the hydrogen storage and transportation issues (if pipes are updated). Maybe its a dead end technology, maybe not. Hard to predict technology.
Agreed, and I'll be thrilled as long as some sufficient subset of relevant technologies scales well enough to push us to full decarbonization within my lifetime.
I work in the Gulf South with pipeline / salt cavern storage. The issue with "cavern homogeneity" the Employ America piece lays out is a real concern.
While salt cavern wells can / do get deinventoried and have products swapped...product contamination is always huge concern and one of the pathways for contamination here is the "brine" utilized to empty / fill the well.
Typically in a salt cavern, you have to keep *something* in the well when it is not full of oil...and that thing is brine (salt saturated water). This keeps well from leaching out (less than saturated water from eating away at salt walls of wells in an unpredictable way). If you are storing sour crude in these wells, it's not unlikely that some sulfur contamination will contaminate your brine source / storage. Since the brine for multiple wells is typically consolidated across multiple wells, you risk contaminating a "sweet" well that is utilizing the same brine as a sour well. To manage two types of wells without risk of contamination, you likely need two segregated brine systems to reduce these odds. My educated prior is it would be easier to swap one of the four "hubs" completely over to sweet crude rather than try to swap a handful of the wells at each site.
Another additional question I had which the Employ America piece does not address. Given the historical nature of the SPR only servicing "sour crude" to refineries utilizing sour crude, it's an open question whether the pipeline connections / pathways exist such that the sweet crude can get to the reserve from all potential customers who might sell to the SPR, etc. If suddenly the hub nearest to your refinery doesn't service "sour" crude anymore, only sweet...you suddenly provide no value to the sour crude folks in the region.
You posted this while I was posting mine. Where did you get 40%? I'm surprised it's that low but I expected a <100% number to be sure. That clashes with what I gathered from the article (but matches my expectations)
Update: This paper says the actual storage of that plant is 53%. (Specifically for the McIntosh plant)
But also, natural gas plants have their own efficiency issues:
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A simple cycle natural gas power plant efficiency rate tends to be the lower, ranging from 33% to 43%. On the other hand, a combined cycle power plant's efficiency can reach upwards of 60% (from 2023)
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So is McIntosh getting 53% of 60%? Or 53% of 100%?
I suspect when they say they're compared to a "conventional combustion turbine" they're factoring in that they use waste heat (like a combined cycle) and so they get to say they are more efficient at 53% than those are at (low end) 33%. Although that still doesn't mean "one-third of the pollutants".
I listened to a lecture series a few years ago that went into different energy storage methods, and they specifically went into the McIntosh plant as the compressed air example.
I thought the compression phase was 80%, and then the expansion was ~50%, for a total cycle of ~40%.
But maybe they have made improvements over the years?
Yeah I found an older paper that claimed 36% final result. Earlier than your lecture, vs the new paper which is higher.
Edit: Incidentally, them using an 80% efficiency compression (20% loss) and comparing that to a 40% simple cycle plant(60% loss) would give a total of "1/3 the pollutants"(for the compression phase) as a quote while still being misleading since that's before expansion/storage losses (and I don't think new plants are simple-cycle)
"The McIntosh Power Plant’s CAES unit burns roughly one-third of the natural gas per kilowatt-hour of output compared to a conventional combustion turbine, thus producing only about one-third of the pollutants."
This seems odd, I've have expected the storage to be _less_ efficient than direct output, since you have to compress it (slightly lossy on energy) and then get it back on decompression.
Am I misunderstanding their post?
Or because it can store power slowly, does it gain efficiency by running at "low power mode" for a long time, then briefly doing more at high power? The way a hybrid-electric vehicle gets better gas mileage by being able to run on a more efficient (albeit smaller) engine?
In either case, I always love seeing energy storage solutions I haven't seen yet. Thanks.
I would imagine we're talking about something analogous to a hybrid, where I can optimize the hell out of the combustion because the battery smooths the power curve when needed?
How many left wing voters would stay home or vote for a third party if Biden becomes out and proud about encouraging oil drilling? In a normal cycle, I would worry that environmental activists are the kind of feckless idealists who would happily throw away their votes. This year, Trump’s authoritarian tendencies should unite the left. Soccer moms who think Trump is icky but need cheap gas for their SUVs are a bigger constituency than neo-pastoralists who would heighten the contradictions to destroy the economy.
I am a liberal. Of freaking course I will vote for Biden even if he’s 100% for “drill baby drill,” because the alternative is horrific. I will crawl over broken glass to vote for Biden and against Agent Orange.
At the same time, climate change is, to use a Bidenism, a big f**king deal, and it scares me. British Columbia is on fire, this past summer we had unprecedented heat waves over large parts of the US, I have an 8-year-old and I don’t want him to grow up in a world damaged by climate change.
I want us to work hard on reducing CO2 emissions, not cater to soccer moms who are upset about paying more to fill up their goddamn 18 MPG SUVs.
Are those ideas in conflict? We can work hard at reducing CO2 emissions, but we're still going to need a lot of petroleum into the foreseeable future. It seems to me that while we work hard at the former we simultaneously need to strategically supply ourselves so that our fate is in our own hands and not subject to the whims of the worst actors on the planet. That means we have to get passed the idea that any oil removed from the ground is bad and should be opposed. Canceling leases that we can legally get out of in Alaska and other public lands is good. Thinking we're not going to continue the shale projects and pipelines in the lower 48 seems foolish.
We need a both/and strategy: both expand renewable energy sources AND reduce the overall amount of energy we use.
Please don't misunderstand me. I never said "any oil removed from the ground is bad and should be opposed," and I'm not some kind of pastoral anti-modernist who thinks we should wind back the clock to the 1500s. I love modern technology and recognize the enormous improvements in quality of life made possible by fossil fuels!
Just, the typical middle-class American lifestyle is horrendously energy intensive, and could be made much more eco-friendly without destroying people's quality of life.
Here is what I would do, if I could (I realize this would be super unpopular, which is why I will never run for public office):
- a lot fewer sprawling, car-dependent suburbs; a lot more walkable, public transit-friendly, mixed-use neighborhoods where you can get around (go to/from work, school, child's daycare, run errands other than heavy-duty shopping, entertainment, meeting with friends, going to the doctor) on foot, by bicycle, or by public transit. Cars exist, but are used occasionally, mainly for weekly grocery shopping and weekend trips out of the city.
-The cars that do exist are smaller and more fuel-efficient, except when needed (like, if your job requires you to haul a pickup truck's worth of tools/equipment with you).
-A lot less meat consumption - meat is much worse in terms of CO2 emissions than plant-based foods.
-Go easy on air conditioning! When you go inside a building on a hot summer day, the sensation should be "this is a pleasant respite from the heat outside," not "OMG it's freaking freezing in here, where's my sweater?"
I'm sure I could think of others, but that would be a great start. (Also impossible, I know, but one can dream.)
Matt recently commented on Twitter that he lives does most of what you recommend (not sure about the meat consumption or AC), but his CO2 consumption is still wildly higher than most Indians. Americans are already consuming less CO2 and probably will over time, but all of that will be dwarfed as billions of poor people become wealthier and consume more. That has to be solved with technology.
I mean, you're absolutely right about how even Matt Y's relatively low-CO2 lifestyle (by American standards) is still super high-CO2 relative to rural India and such.
On the other hand, we live in a democracy, not an eco-dictatorship, and hence we must consider people like David Abbott here, who are like "IDGAF about polar bears, I'm not giving up my cheap electricity and gasoline and you can't make me."
It's the tragedy of the human condition!
You're right that we need technological fixes, just, we don't have anything that will scale up quickly enough, so we should simultaneously push for technological advances *and* try to reduce our energy use in relatively painless ways as much as the David Abbotts of the US electorate will allow.
I think what you're missing is that opposition to (essentially) living a poorer lifestyle is not just 'the David Abbotts of the US electorate'. It is most humans in all countries everywhere, all over the globe. Preaching a voluntary kind of asceticism is just not realistic on a multi-billion person scale. Either way we find a technological deus ex machina magic solution or we're screwed. But 'IDGAF about polar bears, I'm not giving up my cheap electricity and gasoline and you can't make me' describes literally over 90% of the human race
I disagree with David on a great many things, but in this case he is correct; the entire course of human history and certainly the entire course of "economic development" and human flourishing have been the story of how we've commanded ever more energy to do the things we need.
The various technological paradigms which have enabled us to do so have *never* come in time to avoid environmental and social costs spilling over from the last paradigm, but never before has anyone ever asked us to simply stop using the last paradigm before the new one decisively outcompetes it.
If you look back far enough, the first major paradigm shift was from wood and charcoal to peat and coal; this came too late to prevent forest cover in Britain from dipping below 5% and China below 13%. Germany and France weren't much better, likely no higher than 15%. The use of coal and steam prevented this crisis from getting worse and created the conditions for the ongoing reforestation we see today in the developed world and China.
The transition from coal and animal power to oil and natural gas saved the day in a similar manner, from the grave health burdens imposed by widespread use of coal and from the unsustainable sanitation issues presented by horses in urban centers, but again, not in time to prevent serious damage to humanity and the natural environment which has largely since been rolled back.
If we take these transitions as the model, and we should and indeed must because no one is ever going to listen to you, then we will first cause a significant degree of anthropocentric climate change before successfully transitioning away from an energy paradigm which requires it; in so doing, we will make energy sufficiently abundant to start reversing the damage we've caused without ruinous cost to people's standard of living.
"Conservation" is simply *not* going to happen, and the people who are immiserated by that fact need to better understand the history behind all this and stop panicking about it.
I do think there's another element you're missing, which is that all the choices individual people make still don't add up to very much.
Even if every person ate less meat, had a more efficient car that they used less, and used less AC, you'd still have all the emissions from industry, trucking, other agriculture, etc. that aren't impacted.
Specific stats on this seem hard to come by from IPCC data, but a quick search suggests that in Canada, residential consumption of electricity (and that's all electricity, not just heat and AC) accounts for just 4% of the country's GHG emissions.
Trying to reduce our energy use in painless ways is of course a good idea -- although I'd argue what you're suggesting isn't truly painless -- but in any case it really won't get us very far.
"could be made much more eco-friendly without destroying people's quality of life"
"Here is what I would do, if I could (I realize this would be super unpopular, which is why I will never run for public office)"
This seems like the real contradiction to me. Different people have different definitions of "quality of life". To you it's not a downgrade to live in a more dense walkable neighborhood where you rarely drive - in fact it's probably an upgrade. But to many, being forced to downsize their house and house/yard and share transportation with a lot of other people will be a downgrade in quality of life.
Also I think the other problem with trying to sell this proposition is that people can look to Europe, where people already do live this lower carbon lifestyle, and... if anything the calls that "we must change our lifestyles to save the climate" are even louder than in the US. Basically, even if David Abbott were happy to live like a European, I don't think he would trust that climate activists who succeed at getting America to be like Europe will stop there.
The point is not to SUBSIDIZE our space- and energy-maximizing ways. Car-centric and expansive suburban design has been favored by policies, so we should stop doing that and favor denser, less car-dependent design. (Which is more affordable in the long run if done right.) People can make choices, but a lot of families might not have to afford two cars or buy an expensive detached house.
You are correct, and I probably didn't phrase my original comment correctly.
What I should have said, there is a difference between "discomfort/inconvenience" on one hand and "deprivation/suffering" on the other. Would switching to a denser lifestyle and giving up their backyard be a downgrade/uncomfortable/inconvenient for some Americans? Sure. Would it constitute suffering or "destruction" of one's quality of life? I would argue no. I'm not telling people to live in a shack with an outhouse and a water well to reduce their eco impact.
In any case, I do recognize that many Americans wouldn't like it, which I was trying to get at with my "would be super unpopular" comment.
I don't have good answers here. The whole clash of short-term self-interest and long-term wellbeing is depressing.
"I realize this would be super unpopular." Yeah, climate is personally my number 1 issue, but I realize that the only way we seemingly can make any progress on climate in most cases is electing Democrats (as we saw with the IRA passing, or with state-level governmental actions in places like Washington or Minnesota)--which means at all costs Democrats need to be popular! And that means rigorously balancing on climate-related issues--thinking carefully about what's actually worth pursuing to reduce carbon/methane emissions given the potential reactionary blowback (and the result of Dems being voted out). That's why the tech positive outlook of Biden's approach--subsidies for green tech like your electric car or heat pump, subsidies for green industries, more jobs jobs jobs--is the best way forward.
Just tax carbon and lean into housing libertarianism/YIMBYism. Let people decide where they want to economize on carbon. If someone wants to live in a studio apartment and e-bike everywhere so they can afford multiple international flights per year, so be it. If someone wants to keep their house at 70F by never flying, so be it.
I think this line of discussion leads back to a carbon tax, with market forces driving consumers and businesses to find the optimal carbon reduction solutions - preferable to regulatory micromanagement that inevitably gets squeezed through the political sausage factory.
I simply can't see it, from a historical perspective. Our entire history, prehistory too, has been about commanding increasing amounts of energy to do useful work, more easily and more swiftly, for more people.
That's it.
Fuck "reduce, reuse, recycle." We need to fight our way into the next energy paradigm and ensure that everyone on the globe can leave their 2,000 sq. ft. house at 68 in the winter and 73 in the summer at trivial cost financially and environmentally by the time we die.
I _really_ hate feeling too hot inside in winter or too cold inside in summer. It's uncomfortable AND wasteful.
I will say at a large office/shopping area this is tricky because we don't all agree, at my home office thankfully it is set to "nice when the A/C is blowing air, a touch uncomfortable when not, but that's what a fan is for"
As an HVAC engineer, one thing a lot of people don't realize is that cold temps in commercial buildings often *aren't* because of the setpoints being turned too low.
Basically, every room needs a minimum supply of outdoor air at all times for air quality. This outdoor air is generally cooled in the summer to remove the humidity. This can cause the room temperature to fall below the cooling setpoint, and keep dropping until the heat comes on (yes, in the middle of the summer) - which will feel cold for most people.
The thing though is that for a lot of complicated reasons relating to obsolete control technology, this minimum airflow has traditionally been set way higher than it needs to be. One piece of low hanging fruit is to reduce these minimum airflow setpoints, which can save tons of energy while also increasing comfort.
"Basically, every room needs a minimum supply of outdoor air at all times for air quality"
"obsolete control technology, this minimum airflow has traditionally been set way higher than it needs to be."
I get that these are probably too high from a tech standpoint, but of course from an infectious disease standpoint having good flow is nice - would you reduce the setpoint but increase filtration?
I mean, what is it we expect people facing expensive gasoline to do? Living in a walkable or transit-served neighborhood is already so in demand that it stretches the means of the professional class. EV transition is going as fast as manufacturing allows for. Maybe smaller cars? Seems like fixing the perverse incentives in CAFE would be a better place to start there than squeezing consumers. Less air travel? That’s more about institutional capacity to build and operate railways. Average consumer facing high gas prices is not in a position to solve these problems. They are however in a position to support Republicans who will make them worse in the guise of protecting/restoring a way of life.
"Average consumer facing high gas prices is not in a position to solve these problems."
Absolutely! I'm not trying to beat up on the average American for not moving to a walkable neighborhood when such neighborhoods are unavailable/unaffordable.
Just, this is a choice that we, Americans, made collectively as a society over *multiple decades.* We could have, should have built more walkable neighborhoods. Anyway, walkable neighborhoods are like trees: "The best time to plant a tree/build a walkable neighborhood, was 20 years ago; the second best time is now."
FWIW, the massive heat wave we are seeing this year (and maybe for the next couple years) is likely more related to the volcano that erupted last year in Tonga than to climate change in general:
That’s an interesting thread but it quite explicitly claims that the biggest factors are man-made greenhouse gases and El Niño, and that the eruption _may_ be adding to it. It’s nowhere near as strong a claim as your comment implies.
I'm not claiming that global temperatures aren't getting higher without the effects of this eruption, because they are (caused by climate change and El Nino). I'm claiming that the few incredible extremes we have seen this are also related to the eruption, and not just climate change.
I'm not making a claim about anything climate related, I am just pointing out that the _thread_ was explicit about _not_ claiming that recent weather is more related to the eruption than climate change. I have no idea if or to what extent the eruption drove the heatwave (seems likely that a massive eruption would have near term weather impacts!), I do know what that thread argues though.
Cooling happens when ash is spewed into the atmosphere and then reflects sunlight back into space. This was an underwater eruption, so didn't get that effect.
"Most of these particles fall out of the atmosphere within rain a few hours or days after an eruption. But the smallest particles of dust get into the stratosphere and are able to travel vast distances, often worldwide. These tiny particles are so light that they can stay in the stratosphere for months, blocking sunlight and causing cooling over large areas of the Earth."
I am a pragmatist. I think that cold kills more people than heat, that most of the human harms from climate change can be mitigated through sea walls and air conditioning, and I don’t particularly care about polar bears.
I also know voters aren’t willing to sacrifice to achieve the kinds of quick reductions y’all liberals want.
I’m happy to invest 1% of gdp in developing and subsidizing clean energy technologies, but that’s it. Most people care more about their power and gas bills today than the weather after they die.
So? I'm not proposing trying to make the Earth extra cold. We can provide adequate heat to people in cold climates AND strive to reduce our overall energy use/switch to less CO2-intensive energy.
"most of the human harms from climate change can be mitigated through sea walls and air conditioning"
If temperatures get too high, we're going to get crop failures, because most of our staple crops are adapted to current temperatures. Likewise, a lot of the world's population depends on their food for irrigation from mountain glaciers (e.g. in the Himalayas), and as temperature rises, those glaciers go bye-bye.
How are you going to mitigate massive food shortages in poor countries and all the knock-on effects (social unrest, possibly war, massive flows of desperate refugees, etc.) with "sea walls and air conditioning"?
Here are a few other fun effects of climate change that can't be mitigated with sea walls and AC:
-more wildfires; a major insurance company just told me and my husband that they will no longer insure our house, because we're considered too high a fire risk (we're in SoCal)
-more tropical diseases spreading north (e.g., mosquito-borne diseases)
-evergreen trees being devastated by pine borers that survive and multiply much better in warm climates (and if you DGAF about forests as such, consider where lumber and paper come from)
I'm sure I can think of more, but I have to go back to work now.
Edited to add: I have great respect for this commentariat, which consists mostly of thoughtful, reasonable people, and any exceptions are swiftly ejected *cough*spiky*cough*.
And here I am, gently suggesting slightly lower energy use in exchange for lower CO2 emissions, and multiple people have told me (accurately, no doubt) that it will never work, forget it, Jake, it's human nature.
Cold fusion better get ready for prime time *fast,* is all I have to say.
Basically, you're asking me to lower my standard of living in exchange for improving some future person's standard. But I reject the premise for a few reasons, including (1) I don't know that future person so what do I owe them, (2) I don't know for sure that climate change will negatively impact them, and (3) technology will hopefully make it all a moot point anyway (it essentially will have to at this point), in which case my sacrifice is meaningless.
That being said, I, for example, drive a hybrid car. Not because I especially care about the environment (I do on some level of course), or even saving on gas, but because it was the best option in the lineup I was looking at. Make climate-conscious choices competitive and people will get on board without issue. We haven't lowered our emissions in the US to levels last seen a century ago just because everyone started caring about it.
Your 8 year old son can move plenty of places that will have great weather if the earth gets several degrees warmer: Maine, vermont, upstate ny, michigan. Alaska would still be too cold, but western canada isn’t that hard to emigrate to
Yes, but how many of those voters are in swing states? I feel like your mostly likely to lose voters in CA, NY etc and gain voters in Ohio, Florida, AZ so a win in presidential politics.
I mean on net. Yes all big cities are blue. But being blue isn't enough here (black, union and even some Bernie voters probably like this). And for all Madison has a hippie vibe it is ultimately in the Midwest and having spent time at schools in Berkeley and Madison it's no Berkeley. So yah you'll lose some votes there but will it be a net loss?
As I said, I suspect it does, but all three of the Blue Wall have major areas with lots of high-propensity voters who are very, very left-leaning on this particular issue, so it's not without costs.
You're right that it will hurt more *statewide* in places like CA or MA, but it's not terribly clear-cut that it helps in the blue-tinted swing states that we generally win.
I can't speak for Ann Arbor or Philly, but the People's Republic of Madison is more pragmatic than you give it credit for. Big vibes of "vote now, vote every election, vote like your life depends on it".
But Philly is mainly black and they are more into pocket book issues than climate. I also think energy abundance pencils out electorally, but it would be great having data. The best I can come up with is this, but it doesn’t ask about expanding drilling. It just tells us 68% of voters don’t want to phase out fossil fuels.
Yes, but my point is that Greater Philly has about as many serious environmentalist voters in absolute terms as the other two, and that number in all three cases is well in excess of the margin of victory in those states.
Luckily there's some serious overlap between those folks and the pro-choice demographic that's been highly energized so as I said I suspect it pencils out. It's just not completely obvious that it does so.
Pittsburgh proper is tiny compared to Philadelphia proper, which is the whole county.
The entirety of Allegheny County does occasionally, in off-year elections, have a sufficient turnout differential that its raw vote totals are larger than Philadelphia County's, as in 2022's gubernatorial race. But almost never in presidential election years, and Allegheny County makes up a much larger fraction of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area (1.3 million of 2.5 million) than Philadelphia County does of the Delaware Valley (1.6 million of 4.8 million) even if we limit our consideration to the portions thereof in PA.
Long-ass way of saying "no, absolutely not." Not at the city, county, or metropolitan level.
I'm not sure the loud and proud for drilling is necessary. The pocket book swing voters aren't dogmatic, they aren't in favor of drilling for the sake of drilling. What they do care about is gas prices, inflation, and predictability. I think saying we're going to manage AMERICAN OIL for the American people works better. We're going to make sure that while we make this transition the price at the pump stays reasonable, that means dictators don't dictate our prices, oil companies don't get windfall profits, and we invest in the infrastructure necessary for American oil to supply our needs while we continue to make the smartest use of it.
At the furthest edge the leave it all in the ground folks will always be mad. But people who care about climate change can be kept happy by emphasizing the change taking place, while Joe from Scranton doesn't have to go to the gas pump and see his car drinking one of his six packs.
It’s a speech on American Energy Abundance. The first energy transformation is the boost that Biden has given to domestic oil and gas, SPR, etc. Take all the credit back from Obama. Be shameless. The second energy transformation needs more explanation bc we are switching fuels. Explain the realistic scale and timeline for this part (i.e. gas car sale bans do not end gasoline pumps). Celebrate the IRA. Explain why the 1st does not interfere with the 2nd.
Close with a comment about how other countries underperforming USA on the 2nd transformation will buy our oil. No idea if that is true, but it sounds like it could be true.
Some enviros may be pissy, but most will get it. As is it, Extinction Rebellion folks already dismiss the IRA as a half measure.
I think he was right to do the latter. It's one thing to brag about high levels of production; it's another to open the door to long-term production in the Arctic.
But in the end, I don't think pounding his chest about high levels of oil production is a political winner for Biden and he should only keep it in reserve as a response to Republican criticisms rather than "bragging" about it. Americans care about the price of gas (and heating oil), and telling them it's never been better for oil production when they can see that gas prices remain really high, certainly compared to the Trump years, is not going to win them over (https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=emm_epm0_pte_nus_dpg&f=m). Instead, they'll just think you're out of touch.
Republicans are pounding their chests saying oil prices are high because Biden is decimating the American oil industry. This makes intuitive sense to a lot of people--prices go up because we can't drill for oil here anymore--but it's a fantasy. Biden needs to be able to forcibly respond--highest level of production ever, energy independence, two-pronged approach on energy (both roll out green tech (jobs! savings for your family!) and support continued oil drilling allowing for a smooth transition). I don't think he can "keep it in reserve as a response to Republican criticisms"--those criticisms are happening *right now*, creating a damaging out-of-touch reputation for Biden *right now*, and need to be countered right now--forcibly and repeatedly through November 2024.
It's an interesting conjecture, Dave, but given the Republicans want to get rid of the IRA I wonder if environmentalists would consider it's still worth voting for Democrats. Alas this is an empirical question and I wonder if the research would ever be done.
Interesting to read this after reading yesterday that the "Biden Administration to Bar Drilling on Millions of Acres in Alaska drilling in Alaska" including canceling leases signed by Trump. It's very possible that those leases were a bad idea and blocking further exploration there is good. But the messaging contrast between what is advocated in this article and that NYT article is strong.
the unspoken truth here is that literally since the Obama administration all the big O&G companies, while still wanting to push for these leases as a sort of moral victory, also quietly understand them to be rather long shot opportunities that are not worth the investment they would take to significantly expand production. Mostly what gets done is incrementally expanding drilling in places where drilling has been done (and production declining) for decades.
Production from the Arctic is a fraction of what it was in the 1980s (when Alaska alone produced 3% of world supply) and on the whole the entire Arctic production is a fraction of what Alaska produced then (and 90% of that is Russian production).
I could understand the impulse to take an easy win with environmentalists and ban drilling/production where its unlikely to happen anyway. However, its probably going to reinforce the normie perspective that Democrats care more about the environment than they do your pocketbook.
Instead they could trumpet that they're for more oil production, including ANWR and talk about how much more oil we're producing now. If nobody takes them up on ANWR because it wasn't economically feasible, they would make environmentalists mad about the messaging, but it would probably win them more votes with the swing voters they need without actually being bad for the environment.
I think the only reason Biden / Obama and others even consider these incremental Arctic drilling leases is that their main concern is keeping some minimal footprint and jobs in that region sustainable. Basically I see this as a jobs program more than anything else...because once these companies leave...they aint gonna go back. It's cheaper to just keep the lights on.
It would be good to have a vocal leader on the left who had the charisma and rhetorical chops to essentially tell the keep-it-in-the-ground crowd that they live in fantasyland.
Just about everything around you in modern society is based on petroleum products, inside your home, your car, the planes you fly on, the electronics you rely on (Matt’s short list left off biggies like plastics and chemicals). If an influential president could prompt the Thunbergian left to grow up a little bit maybe future presidents wouldn’t have to play this rhetorical shell game.
That's the thing that drives me nuts on both sides of the equation...
We need oil for shit that is soooo much more valuable than torching it in a car that it's not even funny, and most of those use cases cannot be replaced with any existing or emergent technology.
So pretending that we won't always be drilling it is delusional. But acting like we should continue using it as a combustion fuel in everything once the technology exists not to is also delusional. We need to align the incentives structure for various uses to conserve it for shit we cannot yet replace as technologies mature. In most cases the technologies in question maturing will do most of the work, as they did in power generation, for example, but there may be instances where we have no choice but to enact a tax.
True enough - and I suspect the crowd wanting to continue burning it in every possible engine is not as big nor is that belief as deeply held as that of the keep-it-buried crowd. It’s more like a reaction to environmental hysterics. Put an EV truck in their driveway that’s just as powerful/fast and they’ll quickly forget their love of combustion...which, as you point out, is what makes incentivizing that direction so important.
I imagine they're both quite niche pursuits, though I'd not care to wager which side is larger or more rabid about it.
The EV transition is going to look like every other technological paradigm shift: slow, then fast.
We're on the cusp of fast.
And once we've proven that it can be done here it'll set people to taking all the foundational infrastructure transition problems seriously, and get the public thinking it can be done without hurting them.
As an EV owner, if they can just standardize the damn public charging the fast would come a whole lot faster. It's still amateur hour even in urban and suburban California.
Sadly Biden is at war with Elon and Tesla is the obvious standard. Interesting that the competition is moving faster to adopt it (i.e., Honda just announced today).
I have a CCS charger but it's only leased (because of the charger nonsense). Presumably things will be settled in about 3 years when I turn it in (without CCS becoming obsolete either).
Setting up a competing network using NACS/Tesla would "own" Elon plenty. Tesla made it an open standard unless they're still keeping some key tech piece proprietary.
I think at this point the auto manufacturers are quite aware that fucking Electrify America is worthless, VW should have been expelled from the country and fined the entire value of its assets here, and they need to form their own consortium to take this problem seriously. They're obviously going to adopt Tesla's standard as their own, they just need to start building their own charging stations along those lines and make sure they're ready for 800V architecture on the charger side as well.
Working in the gas energy sector my company has a weird relationship with oil politics.
On one hand gas/oil bad which should make us favor Republicans, but on the other hand... renewables and restrictions on Coal have really helped my company out. Gas turbines are really the only practical sources of peak demand with renewables. Yes I know in 30-years or so, we will be out of business unless there is a break through with Hydrogen. (New gas turbines are designed with the potential to run hydrogen)
I work maintenance on gas power plants, and we are struggling to hire enough technicians to work our outages. This October we are at 120% demand (jobs to personnel). Next spring will be our busiest year ever.
Anyway, if anyone knows young kids who want to go into blue collar technical work... there are high paying jobs!
Combustion is a heck of a technology. The *source* of some of the hydrocarbons we're burning can be troublesome, but darn if it wouldn't be wild to engineer some yeast to eat biomass and fart out ethanol, or whatever.
The energy per mass and per volume just can't yet be beat (and because you don't need to bring your oxidizer or equivalent with you, I'm skeptical that batteries of any type will ever match it).
Biogas. We have units that burn it. The big thing these days is syngas which is synthetic. We also burn hydrogen/gas mixes.
Are we doing coal gasification here in the US?
I am not sure.
Batteries will never match it, but electric motors are so vastly more efficient than combustion engines that they fortunately don't have to come anywhere close for ground transport.
Air, we've discussed before. Closed-cycle synthetic fuel or CCS, all the way.
"Yes I know in 30-years or so, we will be out of business unless there is a break through with Hydrogen."
Not sure it'll be quite that fast, but in any case I wouldn't be so sure hydrogen breakthroughs are a good thing for O&G on that time scale or longer. Better CCS would be, for sure, but more efficient hydrogen usage and storage don't favor blue over green or vice versa. The biggest potential for not-yet-realized breakthroughs are lower capex for electrolysis and more efficient CCU to make synthetic fuels (jet, diesel, marine, aka the harder-to-decarbonize transportation sectors). There are already places in the world where solar power is closing in on 2 cents/kWh. That works out to somewhere on the order of $3 of electricity to make the hydrogen energy equivalent of a gallon of gas, but capex is still very high as well and in most places the energy costs are much higher than that.
I am curious, too, how decarbonization of some sectors (say, passenger vehicle electrification) will affect the price of oil, if it will significantly change relative demand for different fractions.
To me, this is all a reminder that we should not be picking and choosing the "winning" technologies as a matter of law and policy and silver bullets--we should be identifying the outcome we actually care about (say, net grams of CO2 per lifecycle passenger-mile, or whatever) and we'll find out what technology or combination of technologies achieves it.
You are smarter than I am!
Maybe, maybe not, but I'm still confused about lots of details and regularly disagree with others about this in all kinds of ways!
I *do* see lots of places starting to invest in co-firing hydrogen and natural gas, and in blue hydrogen production, but I see that as more of a stop-gap for the next decade or so as other tech matures.
The nice thing about hydrogen mix is it significantly reduces emissions while eliminating a lot of the hydrogen storage and transportation issues (if pipes are updated). Maybe its a dead end technology, maybe not. Hard to predict technology.
My company is invested in/building the first solar powered hydrogen electrolysis paired with turbine generation plant project. https://www.siemens-energy.com/mea/en/company/megaprojects/dewa-green-hydrogen-project.html
Agreed, and I'll be thrilled as long as some sufficient subset of relevant technologies scales well enough to push us to full decarbonization within my lifetime.
I work in the Gulf South with pipeline / salt cavern storage. The issue with "cavern homogeneity" the Employ America piece lays out is a real concern.
While salt cavern wells can / do get deinventoried and have products swapped...product contamination is always huge concern and one of the pathways for contamination here is the "brine" utilized to empty / fill the well.
Typically in a salt cavern, you have to keep *something* in the well when it is not full of oil...and that thing is brine (salt saturated water). This keeps well from leaching out (less than saturated water from eating away at salt walls of wells in an unpredictable way). If you are storing sour crude in these wells, it's not unlikely that some sulfur contamination will contaminate your brine source / storage. Since the brine for multiple wells is typically consolidated across multiple wells, you risk contaminating a "sweet" well that is utilizing the same brine as a sour well. To manage two types of wells without risk of contamination, you likely need two segregated brine systems to reduce these odds. My educated prior is it would be easier to swap one of the four "hubs" completely over to sweet crude rather than try to swap a handful of the wells at each site.
Another additional question I had which the Employ America piece does not address. Given the historical nature of the SPR only servicing "sour crude" to refineries utilizing sour crude, it's an open question whether the pipeline connections / pathways exist such that the sweet crude can get to the reserve from all potential customers who might sell to the SPR, etc. If suddenly the hub nearest to your refinery doesn't service "sour" crude anymore, only sweet...you suddenly provide no value to the sour crude folks in the region.
One of our customers plants in Alabama uses salt caverns to store compressed air and then release it for stored power. They use the gas turbines to power the compressors. https://www.baldwinemc.com/compressed-air-energy-storage-technology-generating-electricity-out-of-thin-air/
I should be all rah-rah for Alabama, but IIRC, that project is
only ~40% efficiency for storage purposes.
You posted this while I was posting mine. Where did you get 40%? I'm surprised it's that low but I expected a <100% number to be sure. That clashes with what I gathered from the article (but matches my expectations)
Update: This paper says the actual storage of that plant is 53%. (Specifically for the McIntosh plant)
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7264/3/1/8
But also, natural gas plants have their own efficiency issues:
=====
A simple cycle natural gas power plant efficiency rate tends to be the lower, ranging from 33% to 43%. On the other hand, a combined cycle power plant's efficiency can reach upwards of 60% (from 2023)
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So is McIntosh getting 53% of 60%? Or 53% of 100%?
I suspect when they say they're compared to a "conventional combustion turbine" they're factoring in that they use waste heat (like a combined cycle) and so they get to say they are more efficient at 53% than those are at (low end) 33%. Although that still doesn't mean "one-third of the pollutants".
I listened to a lecture series a few years ago that went into different energy storage methods, and they specifically went into the McIntosh plant as the compressed air example.
I thought the compression phase was 80%, and then the expansion was ~50%, for a total cycle of ~40%.
But maybe they have made improvements over the years?
Yeah I found an older paper that claimed 36% final result. Earlier than your lecture, vs the new paper which is higher.
Edit: Incidentally, them using an 80% efficiency compression (20% loss) and comparing that to a 40% simple cycle plant(60% loss) would give a total of "1/3 the pollutants"(for the compression phase) as a quote while still being misleading since that's before expansion/storage losses (and I don't think new plants are simple-cycle)
"The McIntosh Power Plant’s CAES unit burns roughly one-third of the natural gas per kilowatt-hour of output compared to a conventional combustion turbine, thus producing only about one-third of the pollutants."
This seems odd, I've have expected the storage to be _less_ efficient than direct output, since you have to compress it (slightly lossy on energy) and then get it back on decompression.
Am I misunderstanding their post?
Or because it can store power slowly, does it gain efficiency by running at "low power mode" for a long time, then briefly doing more at high power? The way a hybrid-electric vehicle gets better gas mileage by being able to run on a more efficient (albeit smaller) engine?
In either case, I always love seeing energy storage solutions I haven't seen yet. Thanks.
I would imagine we're talking about something analogous to a hybrid, where I can optimize the hell out of the combustion because the battery smooths the power curve when needed?
How many left wing voters would stay home or vote for a third party if Biden becomes out and proud about encouraging oil drilling? In a normal cycle, I would worry that environmental activists are the kind of feckless idealists who would happily throw away their votes. This year, Trump’s authoritarian tendencies should unite the left. Soccer moms who think Trump is icky but need cheap gas for their SUVs are a bigger constituency than neo-pastoralists who would heighten the contradictions to destroy the economy.
See, this makes me terribly sad.
I am a liberal. Of freaking course I will vote for Biden even if he’s 100% for “drill baby drill,” because the alternative is horrific. I will crawl over broken glass to vote for Biden and against Agent Orange.
At the same time, climate change is, to use a Bidenism, a big f**king deal, and it scares me. British Columbia is on fire, this past summer we had unprecedented heat waves over large parts of the US, I have an 8-year-old and I don’t want him to grow up in a world damaged by climate change.
I want us to work hard on reducing CO2 emissions, not cater to soccer moms who are upset about paying more to fill up their goddamn 18 MPG SUVs.
Are those ideas in conflict? We can work hard at reducing CO2 emissions, but we're still going to need a lot of petroleum into the foreseeable future. It seems to me that while we work hard at the former we simultaneously need to strategically supply ourselves so that our fate is in our own hands and not subject to the whims of the worst actors on the planet. That means we have to get passed the idea that any oil removed from the ground is bad and should be opposed. Canceling leases that we can legally get out of in Alaska and other public lands is good. Thinking we're not going to continue the shale projects and pipelines in the lower 48 seems foolish.
We need a both/and strategy: both expand renewable energy sources AND reduce the overall amount of energy we use.
Please don't misunderstand me. I never said "any oil removed from the ground is bad and should be opposed," and I'm not some kind of pastoral anti-modernist who thinks we should wind back the clock to the 1500s. I love modern technology and recognize the enormous improvements in quality of life made possible by fossil fuels!
Just, the typical middle-class American lifestyle is horrendously energy intensive, and could be made much more eco-friendly without destroying people's quality of life.
Here is what I would do, if I could (I realize this would be super unpopular, which is why I will never run for public office):
- a lot fewer sprawling, car-dependent suburbs; a lot more walkable, public transit-friendly, mixed-use neighborhoods where you can get around (go to/from work, school, child's daycare, run errands other than heavy-duty shopping, entertainment, meeting with friends, going to the doctor) on foot, by bicycle, or by public transit. Cars exist, but are used occasionally, mainly for weekly grocery shopping and weekend trips out of the city.
-The cars that do exist are smaller and more fuel-efficient, except when needed (like, if your job requires you to haul a pickup truck's worth of tools/equipment with you).
-A lot less meat consumption - meat is much worse in terms of CO2 emissions than plant-based foods.
-Go easy on air conditioning! When you go inside a building on a hot summer day, the sensation should be "this is a pleasant respite from the heat outside," not "OMG it's freaking freezing in here, where's my sweater?"
I'm sure I could think of others, but that would be a great start. (Also impossible, I know, but one can dream.)
Matt recently commented on Twitter that he lives does most of what you recommend (not sure about the meat consumption or AC), but his CO2 consumption is still wildly higher than most Indians. Americans are already consuming less CO2 and probably will over time, but all of that will be dwarfed as billions of poor people become wealthier and consume more. That has to be solved with technology.
I mean, you're absolutely right about how even Matt Y's relatively low-CO2 lifestyle (by American standards) is still super high-CO2 relative to rural India and such.
On the other hand, we live in a democracy, not an eco-dictatorship, and hence we must consider people like David Abbott here, who are like "IDGAF about polar bears, I'm not giving up my cheap electricity and gasoline and you can't make me."
It's the tragedy of the human condition!
You're right that we need technological fixes, just, we don't have anything that will scale up quickly enough, so we should simultaneously push for technological advances *and* try to reduce our energy use in relatively painless ways as much as the David Abbotts of the US electorate will allow.
I think what you're missing is that opposition to (essentially) living a poorer lifestyle is not just 'the David Abbotts of the US electorate'. It is most humans in all countries everywhere, all over the globe. Preaching a voluntary kind of asceticism is just not realistic on a multi-billion person scale. Either way we find a technological deus ex machina magic solution or we're screwed. But 'IDGAF about polar bears, I'm not giving up my cheap electricity and gasoline and you can't make me' describes literally over 90% of the human race
I disagree with David on a great many things, but in this case he is correct; the entire course of human history and certainly the entire course of "economic development" and human flourishing have been the story of how we've commanded ever more energy to do the things we need.
The various technological paradigms which have enabled us to do so have *never* come in time to avoid environmental and social costs spilling over from the last paradigm, but never before has anyone ever asked us to simply stop using the last paradigm before the new one decisively outcompetes it.
If you look back far enough, the first major paradigm shift was from wood and charcoal to peat and coal; this came too late to prevent forest cover in Britain from dipping below 5% and China below 13%. Germany and France weren't much better, likely no higher than 15%. The use of coal and steam prevented this crisis from getting worse and created the conditions for the ongoing reforestation we see today in the developed world and China.
The transition from coal and animal power to oil and natural gas saved the day in a similar manner, from the grave health burdens imposed by widespread use of coal and from the unsustainable sanitation issues presented by horses in urban centers, but again, not in time to prevent serious damage to humanity and the natural environment which has largely since been rolled back.
If we take these transitions as the model, and we should and indeed must because no one is ever going to listen to you, then we will first cause a significant degree of anthropocentric climate change before successfully transitioning away from an energy paradigm which requires it; in so doing, we will make energy sufficiently abundant to start reversing the damage we've caused without ruinous cost to people's standard of living.
"Conservation" is simply *not* going to happen, and the people who are immiserated by that fact need to better understand the history behind all this and stop panicking about it.
I do think there's another element you're missing, which is that all the choices individual people make still don't add up to very much.
Even if every person ate less meat, had a more efficient car that they used less, and used less AC, you'd still have all the emissions from industry, trucking, other agriculture, etc. that aren't impacted.
Specific stats on this seem hard to come by from IPCC data, but a quick search suggests that in Canada, residential consumption of electricity (and that's all electricity, not just heat and AC) accounts for just 4% of the country's GHG emissions.
Trying to reduce our energy use in painless ways is of course a good idea -- although I'd argue what you're suggesting isn't truly painless -- but in any case it really won't get us very far.
"could be made much more eco-friendly without destroying people's quality of life"
"Here is what I would do, if I could (I realize this would be super unpopular, which is why I will never run for public office)"
This seems like the real contradiction to me. Different people have different definitions of "quality of life". To you it's not a downgrade to live in a more dense walkable neighborhood where you rarely drive - in fact it's probably an upgrade. But to many, being forced to downsize their house and house/yard and share transportation with a lot of other people will be a downgrade in quality of life.
Also I think the other problem with trying to sell this proposition is that people can look to Europe, where people already do live this lower carbon lifestyle, and... if anything the calls that "we must change our lifestyles to save the climate" are even louder than in the US. Basically, even if David Abbott were happy to live like a European, I don't think he would trust that climate activists who succeed at getting America to be like Europe will stop there.
The point is not to SUBSIDIZE our space- and energy-maximizing ways. Car-centric and expansive suburban design has been favored by policies, so we should stop doing that and favor denser, less car-dependent design. (Which is more affordable in the long run if done right.) People can make choices, but a lot of families might not have to afford two cars or buy an expensive detached house.
You are correct, and I probably didn't phrase my original comment correctly.
What I should have said, there is a difference between "discomfort/inconvenience" on one hand and "deprivation/suffering" on the other. Would switching to a denser lifestyle and giving up their backyard be a downgrade/uncomfortable/inconvenient for some Americans? Sure. Would it constitute suffering or "destruction" of one's quality of life? I would argue no. I'm not telling people to live in a shack with an outhouse and a water well to reduce their eco impact.
In any case, I do recognize that many Americans wouldn't like it, which I was trying to get at with my "would be super unpopular" comment.
I don't have good answers here. The whole clash of short-term self-interest and long-term wellbeing is depressing.
"I realize this would be super unpopular." Yeah, climate is personally my number 1 issue, but I realize that the only way we seemingly can make any progress on climate in most cases is electing Democrats (as we saw with the IRA passing, or with state-level governmental actions in places like Washington or Minnesota)--which means at all costs Democrats need to be popular! And that means rigorously balancing on climate-related issues--thinking carefully about what's actually worth pursuing to reduce carbon/methane emissions given the potential reactionary blowback (and the result of Dems being voted out). That's why the tech positive outlook of Biden's approach--subsidies for green tech like your electric car or heat pump, subsidies for green industries, more jobs jobs jobs--is the best way forward.
Just tax carbon and lean into housing libertarianism/YIMBYism. Let people decide where they want to economize on carbon. If someone wants to live in a studio apartment and e-bike everywhere so they can afford multiple international flights per year, so be it. If someone wants to keep their house at 70F by never flying, so be it.
I agree with you on the merits, but unfortunately, CO2 tax is politically toxic, even in supposedly "green" states like Washington.
I think this line of discussion leads back to a carbon tax, with market forces driving consumers and businesses to find the optimal carbon reduction solutions - preferable to regulatory micromanagement that inevitably gets squeezed through the political sausage factory.
I simply can't see it, from a historical perspective. Our entire history, prehistory too, has been about commanding increasing amounts of energy to do useful work, more easily and more swiftly, for more people.
That's it.
Fuck "reduce, reuse, recycle." We need to fight our way into the next energy paradigm and ensure that everyone on the globe can leave their 2,000 sq. ft. house at 68 in the winter and 73 in the summer at trivial cost financially and environmentally by the time we die.
There's nothing more to it.
I _really_ hate feeling too hot inside in winter or too cold inside in summer. It's uncomfortable AND wasteful.
I will say at a large office/shopping area this is tricky because we don't all agree, at my home office thankfully it is set to "nice when the A/C is blowing air, a touch uncomfortable when not, but that's what a fan is for"
As an HVAC engineer, one thing a lot of people don't realize is that cold temps in commercial buildings often *aren't* because of the setpoints being turned too low.
Basically, every room needs a minimum supply of outdoor air at all times for air quality. This outdoor air is generally cooled in the summer to remove the humidity. This can cause the room temperature to fall below the cooling setpoint, and keep dropping until the heat comes on (yes, in the middle of the summer) - which will feel cold for most people.
The thing though is that for a lot of complicated reasons relating to obsolete control technology, this minimum airflow has traditionally been set way higher than it needs to be. One piece of low hanging fruit is to reduce these minimum airflow setpoints, which can save tons of energy while also increasing comfort.
Interesting! Thank you.
One question:
"Basically, every room needs a minimum supply of outdoor air at all times for air quality"
"obsolete control technology, this minimum airflow has traditionally been set way higher than it needs to be."
I get that these are probably too high from a tech standpoint, but of course from an infectious disease standpoint having good flow is nice - would you reduce the setpoint but increase filtration?
I mean, what is it we expect people facing expensive gasoline to do? Living in a walkable or transit-served neighborhood is already so in demand that it stretches the means of the professional class. EV transition is going as fast as manufacturing allows for. Maybe smaller cars? Seems like fixing the perverse incentives in CAFE would be a better place to start there than squeezing consumers. Less air travel? That’s more about institutional capacity to build and operate railways. Average consumer facing high gas prices is not in a position to solve these problems. They are however in a position to support Republicans who will make them worse in the guise of protecting/restoring a way of life.
"Average consumer facing high gas prices is not in a position to solve these problems."
Absolutely! I'm not trying to beat up on the average American for not moving to a walkable neighborhood when such neighborhoods are unavailable/unaffordable.
Just, this is a choice that we, Americans, made collectively as a society over *multiple decades.* We could have, should have built more walkable neighborhoods. Anyway, walkable neighborhoods are like trees: "The best time to plant a tree/build a walkable neighborhood, was 20 years ago; the second best time is now."
FWIW, the massive heat wave we are seeing this year (and maybe for the next couple years) is likely more related to the volcano that erupted last year in Tonga than to climate change in general:
https://twitter.com/RARohde/status/1685971656198545408?s=20
That’s an interesting thread but it quite explicitly claims that the biggest factors are man-made greenhouse gases and El Niño, and that the eruption _may_ be adding to it. It’s nowhere near as strong a claim as your comment implies.
I'm not claiming that global temperatures aren't getting higher without the effects of this eruption, because they are (caused by climate change and El Nino). I'm claiming that the few incredible extremes we have seen this are also related to the eruption, and not just climate change.
I'm not making a claim about anything climate related, I am just pointing out that the _thread_ was explicit about _not_ claiming that recent weather is more related to the eruption than climate change. I have no idea if or to what extent the eruption drove the heatwave (seems likely that a massive eruption would have near term weather impacts!), I do know what that thread argues though.
"...the _thread_ was explicit about _not_ claiming that recent weather is more related to the eruption than climate change"
Someone's really gotta punch up that prose. That's no way to earn click throughs.
Cooling happens when ash is spewed into the atmosphere and then reflects sunlight back into space. This was an underwater eruption, so didn't get that effect.
Cooling happens when *sulfur* gets spewed into the atmosphere and reflects sunlight. Ash doesn't stay in the atmosphere long enough to do anything.
<insert meme: why can't it be both>
"Most of these particles fall out of the atmosphere within rain a few hours or days after an eruption. But the smallest particles of dust get into the stratosphere and are able to travel vast distances, often worldwide. These tiny particles are so light that they can stay in the stratosphere for months, blocking sunlight and causing cooling over large areas of the Earth."
I've not read anything about sulfur regulations, but less sulfur in the atmosphere means less sunlight is reflected.
I am a pragmatist. I think that cold kills more people than heat, that most of the human harms from climate change can be mitigated through sea walls and air conditioning, and I don’t particularly care about polar bears.
I also know voters aren’t willing to sacrifice to achieve the kinds of quick reductions y’all liberals want.
I’m happy to invest 1% of gdp in developing and subsidizing clean energy technologies, but that’s it. Most people care more about their power and gas bills today than the weather after they die.
"cold kills more people than heat"
So? I'm not proposing trying to make the Earth extra cold. We can provide adequate heat to people in cold climates AND strive to reduce our overall energy use/switch to less CO2-intensive energy.
"most of the human harms from climate change can be mitigated through sea walls and air conditioning"
If temperatures get too high, we're going to get crop failures, because most of our staple crops are adapted to current temperatures. Likewise, a lot of the world's population depends on their food for irrigation from mountain glaciers (e.g. in the Himalayas), and as temperature rises, those glaciers go bye-bye.
How are you going to mitigate massive food shortages in poor countries and all the knock-on effects (social unrest, possibly war, massive flows of desperate refugees, etc.) with "sea walls and air conditioning"?
Here are a few other fun effects of climate change that can't be mitigated with sea walls and AC:
-more wildfires; a major insurance company just told me and my husband that they will no longer insure our house, because we're considered too high a fire risk (we're in SoCal)
-more tropical diseases spreading north (e.g., mosquito-borne diseases)
-evergreen trees being devastated by pine borers that survive and multiply much better in warm climates (and if you DGAF about forests as such, consider where lumber and paper come from)
I'm sure I can think of more, but I have to go back to work now.
the growing season is constructed by cold throughout canada and siberia and much of the upper midwest. higher temps mean greater ag yields
Edited to add: I have great respect for this commentariat, which consists mostly of thoughtful, reasonable people, and any exceptions are swiftly ejected *cough*spiky*cough*.
And here I am, gently suggesting slightly lower energy use in exchange for lower CO2 emissions, and multiple people have told me (accurately, no doubt) that it will never work, forget it, Jake, it's human nature.
Cold fusion better get ready for prime time *fast,* is all I have to say.
Basically, you're asking me to lower my standard of living in exchange for improving some future person's standard. But I reject the premise for a few reasons, including (1) I don't know that future person so what do I owe them, (2) I don't know for sure that climate change will negatively impact them, and (3) technology will hopefully make it all a moot point anyway (it essentially will have to at this point), in which case my sacrifice is meaningless.
That being said, I, for example, drive a hybrid car. Not because I especially care about the environment (I do on some level of course), or even saving on gas, but because it was the best option in the lineup I was looking at. Make climate-conscious choices competitive and people will get on board without issue. We haven't lowered our emissions in the US to levels last seen a century ago just because everyone started caring about it.
"Basically, you're asking me to lower my standard of living in exchange for improving some future person's standard."
In my case, "some future person" includes my eight-year-old son, whom I love above anyone else in the world, so... kinda... yeah?
I don't know what else to say. That's all I've got. Yes, of course people value their present well-being over some random future person.
Come on, cold fusion researchers, get on it!
Your 8 year old son can move plenty of places that will have great weather if the earth gets several degrees warmer: Maine, vermont, upstate ny, michigan. Alaska would still be too cold, but western canada isn’t that hard to emigrate to
Switching from conventional farming to regenerative farming will absorb that extra C02
Yes, but how many of those voters are in swing states? I feel like your mostly likely to lose voters in CA, NY etc and gain voters in Ohio, Florida, AZ so a win in presidential politics.
I'd be with you except for three words: Madison, Ann Arbor, Philadelphia.
Those are sapphire blue oases with a lot of the sorts of people we're discussing.
But it might still pencil out; I personally suspect it does.
I mean on net. Yes all big cities are blue. But being blue isn't enough here (black, union and even some Bernie voters probably like this). And for all Madison has a hippie vibe it is ultimately in the Midwest and having spent time at schools in Berkeley and Madison it's no Berkeley. So yah you'll lose some votes there but will it be a net loss?
As I said, I suspect it does, but all three of the Blue Wall have major areas with lots of high-propensity voters who are very, very left-leaning on this particular issue, so it's not without costs.
You're right that it will hurt more *statewide* in places like CA or MA, but it's not terribly clear-cut that it helps in the blue-tinted swing states that we generally win.
Energy abundance is a major win in GA. Also, isn’t fracking a thing in PA?
Absolutely, in places which are so ruby red that I don't think there's too much juice to squeeze from talking it up.
Partisan water-on-the-brain means Biden isn't even getting much credit for IRA investments in the NW where battery and EV plants are getting built.
I can't speak for Ann Arbor or Philly, but the People's Republic of Madison is more pragmatic than you give it credit for. Big vibes of "vote now, vote every election, vote like your life depends on it".
I think you're looking for Eugene!
Fair enough. My experiences in Ann Arbor when there for work and Philly have definitely left me with a bit of worry about the youngin's.
But Philly is mainly black and they are more into pocket book issues than climate. I also think energy abundance pencils out electorally, but it would be great having data. The best I can come up with is this, but it doesn’t ask about expanding drilling. It just tells us 68% of voters don’t want to phase out fossil fuels.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/09/what-the-data-says-about-americans-views-of-climate-change/
Yes, but my point is that Greater Philly has about as many serious environmentalist voters in absolute terms as the other two, and that number in all three cases is well in excess of the margin of victory in those states.
Luckily there's some serious overlap between those folks and the pro-choice demographic that's been highly energized so as I said I suspect it pencils out. It's just not completely obvious that it does so.
Isn't Pittsburgh more important for presidential elections in PA than Philly?
Pittsburgh proper is tiny compared to Philadelphia proper, which is the whole county.
The entirety of Allegheny County does occasionally, in off-year elections, have a sufficient turnout differential that its raw vote totals are larger than Philadelphia County's, as in 2022's gubernatorial race. But almost never in presidential election years, and Allegheny County makes up a much larger fraction of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area (1.3 million of 2.5 million) than Philadelphia County does of the Delaware Valley (1.6 million of 4.8 million) even if we limit our consideration to the portions thereof in PA.
Long-ass way of saying "no, absolutely not." Not at the city, county, or metropolitan level.
PA has a lot of oil and gas production, it's hard to say if Biden touting energy production would be a net good or bad for him
I'm not sure the loud and proud for drilling is necessary. The pocket book swing voters aren't dogmatic, they aren't in favor of drilling for the sake of drilling. What they do care about is gas prices, inflation, and predictability. I think saying we're going to manage AMERICAN OIL for the American people works better. We're going to make sure that while we make this transition the price at the pump stays reasonable, that means dictators don't dictate our prices, oil companies don't get windfall profits, and we invest in the infrastructure necessary for American oil to supply our needs while we continue to make the smartest use of it.
At the furthest edge the leave it all in the ground folks will always be mad. But people who care about climate change can be kept happy by emphasizing the change taking place, while Joe from Scranton doesn't have to go to the gas pump and see his car drinking one of his six packs.
"we're going to manage AMERICAN OIL for the American people"
As political mendacity, that ain't bad.
It’s a speech on American Energy Abundance. The first energy transformation is the boost that Biden has given to domestic oil and gas, SPR, etc. Take all the credit back from Obama. Be shameless. The second energy transformation needs more explanation bc we are switching fuels. Explain the realistic scale and timeline for this part (i.e. gas car sale bans do not end gasoline pumps). Celebrate the IRA. Explain why the 1st does not interfere with the 2nd.
Close with a comment about how other countries underperforming USA on the 2nd transformation will buy our oil. No idea if that is true, but it sounds like it could be true.
Some enviros may be pissy, but most will get it. As is it, Extinction Rebellion folks already dismiss the IRA as a half measure.
I think it's hard for Biden to tell a consistent story here. He can say oil production is historically high, but he also blocked the Willow project and just canceled 10m acres of oil drilling leases in the ANWR (https://apnews.com/article/alaska-arctic-refuge-oil-gas-leases-interior-318dcc3f2d5b104a800bf3ba48e764b7).
I think he was right to do the latter. It's one thing to brag about high levels of production; it's another to open the door to long-term production in the Arctic.
But in the end, I don't think pounding his chest about high levels of oil production is a political winner for Biden and he should only keep it in reserve as a response to Republican criticisms rather than "bragging" about it. Americans care about the price of gas (and heating oil), and telling them it's never been better for oil production when they can see that gas prices remain really high, certainly compared to the Trump years, is not going to win them over (https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=emm_epm0_pte_nus_dpg&f=m). Instead, they'll just think you're out of touch.
Republicans are pounding their chests saying oil prices are high because Biden is decimating the American oil industry. This makes intuitive sense to a lot of people--prices go up because we can't drill for oil here anymore--but it's a fantasy. Biden needs to be able to forcibly respond--highest level of production ever, energy independence, two-pronged approach on energy (both roll out green tech (jobs! savings for your family!) and support continued oil drilling allowing for a smooth transition). I don't think he can "keep it in reserve as a response to Republican criticisms"--those criticisms are happening *right now*, creating a damaging out-of-touch reputation for Biden *right now*, and need to be countered right now--forcibly and repeatedly through November 2024.
The arctic is the first place we should produce oil. Very few human beings are able to access that land. There aren’t even hiking trails.
I thought Biden approved the Willow project, not blocked it.
It's an interesting conjecture, Dave, but given the Republicans want to get rid of the IRA I wonder if environmentalists would consider it's still worth voting for Democrats. Alas this is an empirical question and I wonder if the research would ever be done.
Interesting to read this after reading yesterday that the "Biden Administration to Bar Drilling on Millions of Acres in Alaska drilling in Alaska" including canceling leases signed by Trump. It's very possible that those leases were a bad idea and blocking further exploration there is good. But the messaging contrast between what is advocated in this article and that NYT article is strong.
the unspoken truth here is that literally since the Obama administration all the big O&G companies, while still wanting to push for these leases as a sort of moral victory, also quietly understand them to be rather long shot opportunities that are not worth the investment they would take to significantly expand production. Mostly what gets done is incrementally expanding drilling in places where drilling has been done (and production declining) for decades.
Production from the Arctic is a fraction of what it was in the 1980s (when Alaska alone produced 3% of world supply) and on the whole the entire Arctic production is a fraction of what Alaska produced then (and 90% of that is Russian production).
I could understand the impulse to take an easy win with environmentalists and ban drilling/production where its unlikely to happen anyway. However, its probably going to reinforce the normie perspective that Democrats care more about the environment than they do your pocketbook.
Instead they could trumpet that they're for more oil production, including ANWR and talk about how much more oil we're producing now. If nobody takes them up on ANWR because it wasn't economically feasible, they would make environmentalists mad about the messaging, but it would probably win them more votes with the swing voters they need without actually being bad for the environment.
I think the only reason Biden / Obama and others even consider these incremental Arctic drilling leases is that their main concern is keeping some minimal footprint and jobs in that region sustainable. Basically I see this as a jobs program more than anything else...because once these companies leave...they aint gonna go back. It's cheaper to just keep the lights on.
It would be good to have a vocal leader on the left who had the charisma and rhetorical chops to essentially tell the keep-it-in-the-ground crowd that they live in fantasyland.
Just about everything around you in modern society is based on petroleum products, inside your home, your car, the planes you fly on, the electronics you rely on (Matt’s short list left off biggies like plastics and chemicals). If an influential president could prompt the Thunbergian left to grow up a little bit maybe future presidents wouldn’t have to play this rhetorical shell game.
That's the thing that drives me nuts on both sides of the equation...
We need oil for shit that is soooo much more valuable than torching it in a car that it's not even funny, and most of those use cases cannot be replaced with any existing or emergent technology.
So pretending that we won't always be drilling it is delusional. But acting like we should continue using it as a combustion fuel in everything once the technology exists not to is also delusional. We need to align the incentives structure for various uses to conserve it for shit we cannot yet replace as technologies mature. In most cases the technologies in question maturing will do most of the work, as they did in power generation, for example, but there may be instances where we have no choice but to enact a tax.
True enough - and I suspect the crowd wanting to continue burning it in every possible engine is not as big nor is that belief as deeply held as that of the keep-it-buried crowd. It’s more like a reaction to environmental hysterics. Put an EV truck in their driveway that’s just as powerful/fast and they’ll quickly forget their love of combustion...which, as you point out, is what makes incentivizing that direction so important.
I imagine they're both quite niche pursuits, though I'd not care to wager which side is larger or more rabid about it.
The EV transition is going to look like every other technological paradigm shift: slow, then fast.
We're on the cusp of fast.
And once we've proven that it can be done here it'll set people to taking all the foundational infrastructure transition problems seriously, and get the public thinking it can be done without hurting them.
As an EV owner, if they can just standardize the damn public charging the fast would come a whole lot faster. It's still amateur hour even in urban and suburban California.
Sadly Biden is at war with Elon and Tesla is the obvious standard. Interesting that the competition is moving faster to adopt it (i.e., Honda just announced today).
I have a CCS charger but it's only leased (because of the charger nonsense). Presumably things will be settled in about 3 years when I turn it in (without CCS becoming obsolete either).
Setting up a competing network using NACS/Tesla would "own" Elon plenty. Tesla made it an open standard unless they're still keeping some key tech piece proprietary.
I think at this point the auto manufacturers are quite aware that fucking Electrify America is worthless, VW should have been expelled from the country and fined the entire value of its assets here, and they need to form their own consortium to take this problem seriously. They're obviously going to adopt Tesla's standard as their own, they just need to start building their own charging stations along those lines and make sure they're ready for 800V architecture on the charger side as well.