In part the first I made four points about political context:
- Obama's no ordinary candidate -- given his considerable political liabilities, he is at unique pains to appear reasonable and post-partisan and unexotic.
- The American people are all-of-the-above on energy -- saying no to particular sources or technologies is perceived as vaguely ideological and interest-groupy.
- Obama's effort to capture a few key red states means that he needs the votes of working class whites -- he won't get them bashing coal.
- Greens have nowhere else to go -- Obama's job in the campaign is to pull in swing voters, not blow kisses at loyal factions.
Now, I won't try to talk enviros out of protesting Obama's frequent nods to dirty energy. That's their job. But it's important that they heed what he's actually saying. Listen closely and you can hear a fairly radical message, hidden right under the nation's nose, as it were.
You can see the same pattern at work with nuclear and coal. He acknowledges they should be part of the mix:
- In the July 2007 primary debate: "We should explore nuclear power as part of the energy mix. There are no silver bullets ... we're going to have to try a whole series of approaches ..."
- In Ohio, March 2008: "Clean-coal technology should be part of that [energy] mix. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal."
But he's careful to insist that they meet certain performance standards:
- In his energy plan, he says "there is no future for expanded nuclear without first addressing four key issues: public right-to-know, security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage, and proliferation." In an Oct. 2007 speech he said, "There should be no short cuts or regulatory loopholes -- period."
- Obama's climate plan says that he "will use whatever policy tools are necessary, including standards that ban new traditional coal facilities, to ensure that we move quickly to commercialize and deploy low carbon coal technology."
He also supports supplementary measures that would make life difficult for them:
- Obama opposes storing waste in Yucca Mountain.
- He opposes mountaintop-removal mining (anything that curtails MTR will substantially raise the price of coal)
So you can see, rhetorically this gives Obama great range. He can tell enviros, as he did at a Dec. 2007 town hall event: "I start off with the premise that nuclear energy is not optimal. I am not a nuclear energy proponent." He can tell the Sentinel that he is "agnostic on nuclear power." And on his campaign's fact-checking site, his campaign can boast, "Obama Has Supported Nuclear Power."
Some folks will call this politiciany double-talk and weasel words. Me, I think it's smart. Obama supports nuclear power in that he has no objections to it being a prominent part of the energy mix if it can solve its waste and proliferation problems. That conditional phrase is everything. Nuclear proponents think nuclear can solve those problems (or already has); nuclear opponents think it can't. But can either disagree with the conditional phrase itself? Would anyone oppose nuclear if it really did solve all those problems?
Same with coal. Obama "supports" coal -- liquid coal and coal-with-sequestration-- if it can meet high GHG emission standards. Liquid coal has to meet the standards of his low-carbon fuel standard. "Clean coal" has to show that it can safely sequester its emissions (and Obama's willing to fund several demonstration projects to find out).
Now, I -- who think coal is the enemy of the human race -- don't think liquid coal can meet a low-carbon fuel standard. I don't think coal plants ever will be able to cost-effectively sequester all their emissions. So Obama's position is just a restatement of mine, in more politically anodyne terms.
The offshore drilling business is an even easier case. The offshore drilling provisions Obama's been willing to give ground on are unlikely to result in much actual drilling. Given that, if he can gain some political advantage by saying he "supports offshore drilling," what's the harm?
The only place where this defense breaks down is on the subject of ethanol, where Obama's support seems to be genuine and to involve many billions of public subsidies, and McCain's position is substantively correct. On this Obama deserves all the lumps he takes.
Originally this was intended to be one short post, and now it's two long ones. So I'll do one one more, attempting to tidily summarize all the above rambling.
Another coal plant bites the dust
Blowing up our clean energy future
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GRLCowan Posted 5:42 am
19 Oct 2008
So he should be elected if he can solve his problems with, um, things that an unprincipled opponent might allege him to have problems with.
That conditional phrase is everything. Nuclear proponents think nuclear can solve those problems (or already has); nuclear opponents think it can't.
They claim to think that. I don't offhand know of a walk-versus-talk test that tests those things the way boarding nuclear boats tests a professed belief in nuclear danger.
But can either disagree with the conditional phrase itself? Would anyone oppose nuclear if it really did solve all those problems?
They sure as hell would. They do. There is money involved.
--- G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996
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josullivan58 Posted 7:32 am
19 Oct 2008
Energy along with health care and Iraq are Obama's three big issues. Energy and environment are so closely intertwined that if energy is at the top the environment is at the top.
David is right about Obama being our best and only choice. Enviros should protest when Obama he isn't making better choices but should realize what is truly possible and shouldn't be self-destructive.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:46 am
19 Oct 2008
That's for the most part the root of honest dissagreement about who has the best techology solution.
Lobbyists run with that, skewing the facts to make their case for their industry.
Politicians promote these projects with second hand information, mostly disinformation.
But the proof is in the results of R and D and test projects. Barack will fund that, then choose the ones to subsidize and mass produce.
This is why he wants to give nuclear and CCS and biofuel a chance. I don't think they will be competitive with conservation, renewables, and renewable smart grid technology.
But give the honest scientists and engineers a chance to do their work. Human creativity and innovation might lead to a whole new path no one though of yet.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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mogmaar Posted 10:22 pm
19 Oct 2008
Yes we need R and D for lots of technologies, (please don't deny 'advanced' coal some R and D, but we have enough evidence to show that its not a great bet for a lot of our money, even as powerful lobbies would convince us otherwise.)
Lyndon Johnson didn't sign the civil rights act without a massive national movement, people getting killed and beaten, and years (generations?) of struggle. We are the ones who, if we believe the pages of Grist, need to be out there creating the political will for the right solutions, not trusting that Obama will somehow chart the right course in the post-election party.
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ehsdirector Posted 11:25 pm
20 Oct 2008
The big stuff
Clean coal? More drilling & nuclear plants... this is what my father heard during presidential debates when I was a baby.
New nuke & Clean Coal plants would take over a decade to come online and we are still in debt from the ones installed over two decades ago.
The price of all resources and operating costs in these industry's are nearly 3 times more than any other. And no one seems to have a longterm viable solution to how the get rid of the long term waste from either....
More debt and longer time-lines are not sustainable energy options... the longer we wait, the longer we push ourselves into financial, energy (*4 trillion debt) and ecological debt (*5 trillion debt).
Lets put aside the trillion dollar safety, health and environmental issues that proponents of clean coal nuclear energy leave out... these options may bankrupt a bankrupted nation.
The small stuff
The "best" proposed scenarios by candidates Energy Plans for nuke and off shore drilling could only supply 3% -5% of our energy demands.
Not likely... but what of we prosper during this time? The 3% -5% would barely keep up with growth in the next two decades while these "no plans" dig use further in debt.
Current vehicles on the road and coal plants will not be phased out for decades. If these are the "primary sources" of our problem, how do any of the "proposed plans" address this? And growing Asian and Indonesian environmental and energy problems will make the current U.S. situation look insignificant by then.
WHERE DOES THIS ALL LEAVE US IN 2020, 30 40?
As we elect our next president... we can not continue to erode our future with the same answers for energy that have left us in the dark for decades.
Regardless of who we want to win... it's politics, they will not change unless we demand it.
At this point, it should be abundantly obvious to all.
Rant-
Have we learned nothing about politics or energy? When we leave the destiny of our future in the hands of others, we hand off our own opportunities.
The only way we can ultimately protect our future is for everyone to have a "vested interest in it".
We can stop more than 30% of our waste and 76% of our electricity energy needs that create 48% of our greenhouse gases. In less than a decade we have hope of eliminating the need for volatile foreign energy commodities that erode the safety, security and economy of our country.
*Current EIA & DOE . gov facts we choose to ignore... detailed on the oildrum and a dozen other sites.
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