Robert Maguire's Library tagged fossilfuels →  View Popular

In his excellent piece on the truth behind the climate change conspiracy, Adam pulls out some statistics on exactly who is lobbying law makers on climate legislation. The numbers are pretty stark:




• 65.6% of climate change lobbyists are working for energy producers and consumers. This includes manufacturers, utilities, power companies, oil and gas companies, the transportation industry, mining and coal companies, and alternative energy producers. (Those dastardly solar companies out to ruin the world have about half the lobbying muscle of oil and gas companies, and a quarter of those employed by the power utilities.)
• 13.5% represent advocacy groups, a catch-all for environmental organizations, unions, and the mysterious "other." (Presumably including climate 'skeptic' organizations.)
• 21% is a mix of waste management , universities, building contractors, etc.
• 4.4% is the figure given for Wall Street and the financial industry. That is, as Adam tells us, "just below the alternative energy crowd and just ahead of city, county and public agencies."




Of course numbers don't always equal influence, but please don't tell me that oil, coal and gas lobbyists are a weak lobbying group.

50,000 gallons of crude oil and produced water expected to be released from the spill will still have the potential to be very destructive. Here's how the spill occurred, according to ADN:

Officials say massive ice plugs had formed inside the pipe, which caused BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. to stop operating it a few weeks ago. Pressure then built up until the pipeline ruptured, according to BP. "It looks like it was caused by overpressure in the pipe, which we think was linked to ice forming -- the plugs that have formed on either side of the release site," BP spokesman Steve Rinehart said.

Oil demand is projected to grow by 1% per year on average, from 85 million barrels per day in 2008 to 105 mb/d in 2030. All the growth comes from non-OECD countries; OECD demand falls.

Unfortunately the IEA does not present this oil situation in a figure, however the one below for total primary energy demand gives us a good impression. China, India and the rest of the non-OECD world keep growing their consumption (IEA forecast, not mine!), while OECD is all but flatlining.

Instead, let’s just think about the business benefits of changing our products and processes to reduce carbon emissions, regardless of the atmospheric benefits. How will changing to a lower-carbon economy help companies? Well, there’s real money involved here — energy and other resources are getting fundamentally more expensive over time as demand around the world rises and supply gets harder to find. Oddly, the SuperFreakonomics authors acknowledge this Econ 101 supply problem in passing with the statement: “In just a few centuries, we will have burned up most of the fossil fuel that took 300 million years…to make.” So why wouldn’t we want to move away from a declining resource?

Put really simply, it saves money to reduce greenhouse emissions. It makes businesses more competitive to use less energy and to help customers do the same. It also creates jobs in a wide range of industries that help build a low-carbon economy — from the obvious solar panel builders and installers to the less sexy home weatherizers, electric vehicle manufacturers and mechanics, and building efficiency consultants and experts.

Witness the letter 16 House and Senate Republicans sent to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar protesting his secretarial order creating a Climate Change Response Council that is designed to coordinate efforts among Interior agencies like the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to cope with the impacts of climate change. The new council, the lawmakers said, represents an end-run around Congress and could be used to stifle oil and gas development and other activities on western lands on behalf of “special interest groups with narrow agendas”:

Businesses in the West are worried about potential court challenges and administrative action. These new rules will allow special interest groups with narrow agendas to block all existing and future activities on federal lands in the name of climate change.

A new report from the National Research Council examines and, when possible, estimates "hidden" costs of energy production and use -- such as the damage air pollution imposes on human health -- that are not reflected in market prices of coal, oil, other energy sources, or the electricity and gasoline produced from them.  The report estimates dollar values for several major components of these costs.  The damages the committee was able to quantify were an estimated $120 billion in the U.S. in 2005, a number that reflects primarily health damages from air pollution associated with electricity generation and motor vehicle transportation.  The figure does not include damages from climate change, harm to ecosystems, effects of some air pollutants such as mercury, and risks to national security, which the report examines but does not monetize.