Obama's energy policies..

Great Debates
1

FTR: I’m an Obama supporter and I plan to vote for him this election cycle.

That said, I’m really not liking his energy policies. I just don’t understand what the hell he is thinking.

I know there is very little he can do to control gas prices. That’s not my problem. My problem is with his strangle hold on the coal industry. And his apparent mentality of: “Let’s let it all ride on green enrgy.”

Sure we should continue research on green energy. But not to the point where the american people have to suffer. And let’s face it, green energy isn’t going to save us anytime soon.

Until that day comes, we need a short term fix.

2

The basic fact is this. The human race as a whole is cooking the planet by burning so much fossil fuel. There have already been painful consequences to this for many people, and there will be worse consequences for more people unless something is done to stop the trend. Electricity generation is the biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions. Something needs to be done.

We’ve tried holding international conferences to hammer out a worldwide agreement on reducing emissions. That didn’t succeed. We’ve tried negotiating with industry and the Republican Party to reach a national agreement on reducing emissions. That didn’t succeed either. So Obama is doing what he can to reduce emissions with the tools he has available.

Saying that the American people should not have to suffer is useless. We need to emit less carbon dioxide. If cutbacks in coal-burning power plants constitute suffering then so be it. It’s still better then cooking the entire planet.

3

I, for one, would like a cite that he has a strangle hold on the coal industry. I have been hearing lots of right wing chatter that he is responsible for gas prices because he has stifled drilling when the fact is US oil and gas production is at all time highs and he has granted more permits than President Bush did in his first term.

4

Obama was/is pushing “green” energy because he thought it would [list=a][li][]create lots of clean, affordable energy []create lots of well-paying jobs []fix AGW []as long as we threw a lot of money at it[/list]Unfortunately[ul]That’s not how it works[/ul]It is not the case that you can always solve a problem, especially a technical problem, by throwing money at it. [/li]
Bush’s idea, earlier in his administration, was that we could switch to a hydrogen economy, and that we could get the hydrogen by splitting water, and we could get the energy to split the water from nuclear energy. Whenever someone mentions nuclear energy, the looney Left immediately divides into two groups, one of which begins screaming hysterically and the other repeats '“windandsolarwindandsolarwindandsolarwindandsolarwindandsolar” like a mantra. And Obama, who has no experience with business or technology, fell for it.

The problem, as ever, is that it calls for hard decisions, not easy, popular ones. Obama apparently was able to convince himself that unproven (and therefore popular) technologies like solar energy were better than proven technologies that cause the Birkenstock-wearers in his own party to lose bladder control.

Maybe, if he gets re-elected, he might wise up and actually do something about AGW and energy policy, but I doubt it.

Regards,
Shodan

5

Horseshit. It’s ridiculous to say that the US needs to suffer and that by our suffering alone it will some how avert the planet being cooked. Not only is that wrong bit it’s a stupid plan that will not fix a gods damned thing. China is already emitting more CO2 than the US, and that will continue to rise unless their economy goes completely tits up. India isn’t far behind. The absolute worst thing we could do at this point is to hobble our industry and innovation just to inflict some pain on the American people because a few loons think we deserve some pain, oh and the US needs to be put in it’s place…or whatever the rational is for this kind of thinking.

-XT

6

I do not agree that Obama is responsible for high gas prices. Gas prices will rise / have risen as the global economy improves. Having said that, you are guilty of the same type of simplistic thinking as the other side here. Leaving aside the fact that production is no where near all time highs (perhaps you mean recent highs), you are ignoring the difference between production on Federal lands and production on private lands. Production on private lands is increasing. Production on Federal lands (most notably the Gulf of Mexico) is declining. There are numerous reasons for this. One of the contributing reasons would be the moratorium put in place by Obama.

7

The problem with this line of reasoning is that in the history of mankind there’s been quite a few such “short term fixes”, and they’ve all gone terrible because once they were enacted the problems were considered solved for the time being, all money and brain-power was focused on the next issue, and the long term fix was never really brought up again.
Until the quick fix blows up in everyone’s faces because it really never was meant to last that long.

This is of course even more self-evident an issue when the people devising the fixes only stay in power in the short term.

8

The short term fix is to fast track nuclear, natural gas and modern coal power plants (with co2 scrubbers). Add to that a modernization of the power grid for more efficient transfer of electricity so we can take advantage of solar (heat) power plants out in the desert.

For cars the best thing to do is to fast track bio diesel fuels for the short term gains in fuel efficiency and roll back diesel regulations to 1996 levels. This puts real cars on the road without having to reinvent the wheel. When batteries catch up we’ll have the electrical grid to feed them.

This is all easy to accomplish and doable without anybody suffering.

9

Um, a short term fix for what exactly? Heating and electricity prices have been steady or declining over the last few years. If you’re excluding transportation fuel prices, it seems like energy policy is pretty much a non-issue right now.

10

GreasyJack is thinking along the same lines I am - what energy policy? Abundant natural gas has driven down electricity. Cap and trade was stillborn, and will likely remain so until it’s too late to do anything. The EPA has made some noise, but beyond that I’m a bit of a loss as to how Obama has hamstrung coal - as I understand it natural gas prices are what is hurting coal miners. Hell, new nuclear reactors were approved this year for the first time in 30 years.

Throwing a bit of money at solar and wind doesn’t seem like a particularly bad investment, all things considered.

11

Natural gas production has grown so much that we are running out of places to store it.

Nuclear power plants take 10+ years to set up and get running. Plus they are extremely expensive.

Is there a shortage of grid energy?

12

What? I thought President Obama was pro (or at least not anti) nuclear power. I remember in the time after Fukishima when Germany was giving up nuclear power, he said that it would remain a piece of our energy future and he saw no reason to take Germany’s route (to the chagrin of many on the left).

This thread is big on rhetoric, but short on facts. My take is that Obama has not done anything to curb oil or coal and so far no one in this thread has been able to point to any policy of Obama’s that has done so. I am not trying to be difficult here, from my independent center left view point, Obama is relatively energy industry friendly. Can you or ITR or Longhorn Dave or one of the other Obama haters on the is board point out actual policy decisions of Obama’s that have hamstrung coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear power?

The only two that I can think of are the XL, which probably would have been approved if it didn’t become the political football of the day. Hell, reroute it around Nebraska and he would probably approve it today if you can believe what he said. And the temporary moratorium on new wells in the gulf which was lifted last year. Neither of these to me is the sign of a super anti-establishment energy policy.

13

Dude, just go to youtube and type in “Obama coal policy” and you can hear it straight from the man’s mouth himself. He plans to charge coal companies such large ‘fines’ as to make it unprofitable for coal companies.

He then plans to use those billions of dollars and throw it at green energy. As if that is somehow going to make Green Energy suddenly viable.

14

Well, there was when Enron was at the helm, but I believe that’s sorted out now :stuck_out_tongue:

15

So let me understand what you’re saying… he plans to shut down Big Coal by issuing punitive fines they won’t be able to pay (having shut down out of unprofitability concerns), *and *he counts on those fines as a long term fund raiser ?
Does any part of this purported strategy strike you as paradoxical ?

16

Coal is facing a “perfect storm” (grey-eyed Athena, how I hate that term) of several environmental regulations, a sagging economy, and cheap shale gas from fracking. And to a lesser extent, in some markets milder winters and summers.

But how much of it is Obama’s fault? Sure, Obama could have halted several environmental regulations, especially the Big 4 which are slamming coal: Coal Combustion Residues, Air Toxics, CSAPR, and 316(b). But all of these were in development since before he decided to run for President. Yes, even the evil, hated Bush Administration was moving some of these along (some under different titles), just not exceedingly quickly.

But all of those factors combined, according to the 2011 NERC report, would not have been responsible for 1/2 the coal plant closings we have had in the last year. Cheap gas has devastated coal, and combined with the impacts of the aforementioned environmental legislation, we may be facing a permanent 10-20% shift (absolute value) from coal to gas, and the possibility that within 5 years coal will be well behind gas in terms of electricity production.

A lot of my clients are closing their small coal plants (“small” meaning under 250MW, which actually is somewhat large) because they would have to add an FGD scrubber, SCR, ACI+FF, or worse onto their plants to keep them running, and when you find the net present value of those costs and compare it to switching to gas…there’s no competition.

Of course, when gas returns to $8 or higher an MBTU, people are going to see electric bills skyrocket. And gas bills too, duh.

What is Obama’s fault is the banning of all new coal plants via his ruling of no more than 1,000 lbm CO2 per MW*hr of electricity generation. The only coal plants which could meet this - in theory, mind you - are CCS equipped plants, which except for some tiny test-bed plants, don’t exist. He doesn’t even give any credit for biomass unless it’s nearly a complete coal-biomass conversion.

I don’t have a lot to criticize with Obama’s energy policy because…well, there really doesn’t seem to be one. Aside from his new coal plant ban and the usual EPA legislation focused on coal which continues to evolve over time, from all appearances he seems to be mostly stepping back and letting the free market work.

17

Yep, we have an ace in the hole.

right now, they represent the cleanest energy we can produce. The cost is very prohibitive when you don’t build many of them and then screw up the ones attempted. We had one go so over budget because of shoddy construction that they abandon it and built a coal plant instead. We need to stop dicking around and certify a good design and then build a bunch of them. It really is a matter of national security that we secure our energy needs.

There’s about to be. A lot of aging coal plants are about to be shut down. In my area they tear them down when they’re deactivated so the interim solution will be probably be to build a bunch of peak use gas generators and pretend they’re power plants like they did in California.

18

either CCS is viable or it’s not. Do you have any cites that give the cost of doing this and is there a critical facility size necessary to make it work?

19

Thanks Una, for your contribution. This about matches the little tracking I do of the energy industry; he has been mostly hands off with it. He certainly has not been a model of environmental leadership regardless of all the hype around green energy and his mostly failed stimulus in this area.

Shakes, ITR, LD, Shodan, etc… Do you guys have a view that contradicts Una’s take? I know that now in an election year it is all the rage to lay the ills of the world and the President’s feet, but I remain unconvinced that he has done damage here… in fact, I support modest investment in renewable energy, if only to remain competive in thus field, and I appreciated him going against the populist sentiments around nuclear after Fukishima… I think foreign policy and energy policy are some of Obama’s strengths. Why am I wrong?

20

CCS is probably a pipe dream at the current time, it is too expensive. I think Una commented on this before with some good numbers, but searching on my phone is difficult. Regardless, it is probably moot with the cost of gas these days and I think it fair to try to pay for some of the coal negative externalities though I know most Republicans don’t agree. There needs to be a rational attempt to address the tragedy of the commons in a modern market economy, and this is one good way. I am sure as the cost of energy rises, as it must being mostly from finite resources, coal will make a comeback someday.

Anyway, CCS was talked about during Bush’s term and would probably be implemented soon no matter who was president. YMMV.

I do agree with everything you say about nuclear, we should really up our game with this technology and now would be a good time to get started. Wait a decade or so for people to evaluate the continuing costs of climate change and I bet you will see some movement here.