Great Article - "The Fake Energy Solution" - Rolling Stone

[hatrack]

When President Bush unveiled his "Advanced Energy Initiative" during his State of the Union address, it was heartening to hear him admit that America is "addicted to oil" from the Middle East. It was also a sign of progress that he did not use the words "FreedomCAR" or "FutureGen" in the speech, two ideas from his initiative that sound more like rides at Disney World than promising research projects. Now if someone would just explain to the president that technology is not the same thing as magic, we might someday see the United States adopt an intelligent energy policy.

Unfortunately, the president's initiative is all about touting the miracle of technology. According to Bush, America's energy problems have nothing to do with consumer gluttony, corrupt politics or the lobbying influence of Big Oil. No, the energy crisis is the result of not coughing up enough of our hard-earned tax dollars to help companies like ExxonMobil, with its paltry $36 billion in profits last year, fund basic research. Bush wants to give government scientists just shy of $1 billion next year to pursue their brilliant ideas in two areas: how we power our homes and businesses, and how we power our cars. But a closer look reveals that the president's proposal is a fake solution that does almost nothing to decrease our dependence on oil from the Middle East -- and actually encourages Americans to continue burning coal and blasting around in SUVs for another fifteen years, until technology arrives to save the day. Consider the president's efforts in three key areas:

Coal Much of Bush's plan focuses on the energy we use at home and work. But such power comes primarily from electricity, which has virtually nothing to do with our dependence on oil. About half of America's electricity is generated by burning coal -- and the largest recipient of money under the president's initiative is Big Coal. The president earmarks $281 million for "clean coal" technologies that help power plants reduce pollution. Cleaning up coal is a laudable goal, but Bush could accomplish that simply by enforcing existing clean-air laws. Instead, he has rolled them back, allowing aging coal plants to keep operating without penalty and weakening proposed rules for mercury emissions.

The president also calls for spending $54 million for FutureGen, his much-hyped public-private partnership to build a zero-emission coal plant fifteen years down the road. Better known in the industry as "NeverGen," the project is a boondoggle disguised as a Dr. Strangelove-type effort to transform dirty coal into clean energy. FutureGen may make sense as basic research, but as a solution to America's current energy problems, it's a joke. The technology already exists to build near-zero-emission coal plants -- it's called coal gasification with carbon capture and storage. But if Bush were to tout gasification, Big Coal would have to change its fossil-hardened ways and actually build some of these new plants instead of just talking about them -- a task they are loath to take on.

EDIT

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/9257647/the_fake_energy_solution?rnd=1139615577015&has-player=false

[slor]

1. Thanks for posting n/t

[fasttense]

2. Not to mention the US will no longer have the scientist to save the day.

College tuition has risen so high most middle class kids can't afford to go without help. Since bush* has cut education funds and plans on cutting more, where are all the scientists going to come from? Some of these technologies are thirty or more years away. The top 1% of this country does not provide any real scientists and they are the only ones who have the money for good colleges anymore.

Not to mention, which of course I will mention, that most of the US R&D facilities are being built outside of the country in India, Communist China, and Japan. So if a middle class kid is able to work their butts off and make it through a good college, where are they going to get a job? Are you going to ship all the US scientists to India, Communist China or Japan?

Oh I know, they are going to use Japanese, Communist Chinese and Indian scientists. Hmmm, I wonder if a well respected Japanese scientist would really quit his Japanese job to work on something for the US? I wonder if his government wont want to keep him on projects for his own country and offer him incentives, unlike the US.

Well, good luck you repukes in getting those scientific break-throughs you were counting on. I think I'll get my son, who is studying Chemical Engineering at a local college, his passport on Monday. He speaks Japanese well.

[brokensymmetry]

6. Absolutely true.

I think I'll get my son, who is studying Chemical Engineering at a local college, his passport on Monday. He speaks Japanese well.

Good idea. The U.S. is getting rid of tech jobs at an amazing rate. Take a look at the faculty of major research universities - we're not turning out scientists and engineers because the students realize that they're putting in lots of money and effort and have the prospect of being rejected by WalMart due to over-qualification.

Scientific breakthroughs may occur - but they'll be created by Chinese scientists. Too bad we won't be able to afford them.

[ochazuke]

3. Hatrack...

You are a constant conduit of copious environmental enlightenment.

[hatrack]

4. Arigatou gozaimasu!!

Nice alliteration to boot! :toast:

[Strelnikov_]

5. "(Man or Monkey) Is Doing Nothing To Prepare Americans For The Hard Times

we will soon face when the oil runs dry".

A slight correction, Mr. Goodell, we will face the hard times within two or three years of slipping off the backside of the peak oil plateau we are now on.

Without competent leadership, all the brilliance of our Engineers and Scientists will be of little help. Past collapses, and the coming petrocollapse, were primarily failures of leadership.

As our fifth strand, we have to wonder why the kings and nobles failed to recognize and solve these seemingly obvious problems undermining their society. Their attention was evidently focused on their short-term concerns of enriching themselves, waging wars, erecting monuments, competing with each other, and extracting enough food from the human peasants to support all those activities. Like most leaders throughout human history, the Maya kings and nobles did not heed long-term problems, insofar as they perceived them.

. . .

Like Easter Island chiefs erecting ever larger statues, eventually crowned by pukao, and like Anasazi elites treating themselves to necklaces of 2000 turquoise beads, Maya kings sought to outdo each other with more and more impressive temples, covered with thicker and thicker plaster, reminiscent in turn of the extravagant conspicuous consumption by modern American CEO's. The passivity of Easter chiefs and Maya kings in the face of the real big threats to their societies completes our list of disquieting parallels.

From Chapt. 5, 'The Maya Collapses', from 'Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed’ by Jared Diamond

[Wisconsin Larry]

7. Help the NDRC Push for a Real Energy Plan -- Here's Redford's latest email

Dear NRDC Earth Activist,

Let's look beneath the fog of spin. In last week's State of the Union address,
President Bush finally owned up to America's destructive addiction to oil.

But the speech was barely over before Vice President Cheney was calling for oil
drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And the President's newly
proposed budget does the same.

Instead of making America truly energy-efficient -- the fastest way to meet our
energy needs and lower oil prices -- the Bush Administration is still promoting
corporate raids on our natural heritage.

Five years of coddling oil companies has produced higher gas prices and left us
more vulnerable than ever to oil shortages -- not to mention oil spills, air
pollution, despoiled public lands and catastrophic global warming.

The American people want a better way. Poll after poll shows that the vast
majority now rejects the President's "drill-it-all" mentality. They're angry at
the White House and Congress for putting oil company interests ahead of the
public interest. And they're demanding energy policies that will reduce our
destructive reliance on oil.

I know you're among that majority. That's why I'm asking you to join me today
in signing the Pledge to MOVE AMERICA BEYOND OIL at
http://www.nrdcactionfund.org/beyondoil/action.asp?step=2&item=53292

The NRDC Action Fund is circulating this Pledge nationwide as part of a bold
new campaign to break Big Oil's stranglehold on America's energy policy. Your
signed Pledge will help advance legislation that would cut America's dependence
on oil by 2.5 million barrels a day within 10 years -- more than we now import
every day from the Persian Gulf!

Don't let anyone tell you it's not possible. We've already lined up key support
in Congress -- from both the progressive left and the conservative right -- for
this visionary bill that would set America on a new course toward a clean
energy future.

Best of all, we can turn this dream into reality right now -- even with George
Bush in the White House. All it will take is a powerful and sustained campaign -
- a campaign that harnesses America's anger at Big Oil and channels it into
effective political pressure for new and smart solutions to our oil addiction
problem. A campaign that puts us, the American people, in the picture of a
sustainable future.

Please sign the Pledge to MOVE AMERICA BEYOND OIL right now at
http://www.nrdcactionfund.org/beyondoil/action.asp?step=2&item=53292
While you're at our website you can find out more about the oil-busting
legislation we're advancing. And you can even spread the word about this
campaign to your friends and family.

Let's face it: unless millions of Americans demand a cleaner energy future
right now, the oil lobby will continue to dictate the Bush Administration's
policies, and we will continue to pay the price -- at the gas pump and with a
blighted environment. And this administration is not going to change its
thinking nor its ways -- just continue to hide them.

Please join me in opposing Big Oil's latest land grabs and charting a saner,
more sustainable energy path that future generations will be grateful for. Sign
the Pledge to MOVE AMERICA BEYOND OIL today.

Sincerely,

Robert Redford
NRDC Action Fund

[Dogmudgeon]

8. What? A Rolling Stone article angry about "consumer gluttony"?

Although I agree with the article, I never cease to be amazed by the ironies generated by the angry critics of American energy policy. Rolling Stone is part-and-parcel of that same "gluttony", made manifest in the form of the Music Industry.

James Kunstler is immoderately affluent, too, having made his money as an art critic -- and a critic of American gluttony. I actually like his writing quite a bit -- and I wonder whether he ponders the painfully ironic situation he must find himself in.

--p!
Brother, can you spare $79.99
for Dylan's new 6 CD boxed set
in which he excoriates
our greedy society?

[NNadir]

9. Hey!

Brother, can you spare $79.99
for Dylan's new 6 CD boxed set
in which he excoriates
our greedy society?

That sounds like music to play in an entertainment room with 500 watts of amplification, you know, to hear the subtle things.