lizbb’s Recent Comments

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  Tar sands don't fit

  The press piece Joe so rightly criticizes says the President "won't say dirty oil" - but this is what he said "What we know is that oilsands creates a big carbon footprint" - sounds like dirty oil to me! The great thing is that the "dirty oil" moment has arrived and the light is shining on the devastation that is being done in the otherwise pristine boreal forest of Alberta to feed our overconsumption of oil.  

  We hope the President will focus on the big picture and say to the Canadians - "let's work together to move our economy to a clean economy". Energy security is in clean energy not a massive new infrastructure of pipelines and refineries feeding tar sands oil into our backyards. The good news is that the stimulus package includes nearly $77 billion for renewables and efficiency.  Joe's point is right that CCS for liquid fuels is not the same as CCS in the power sector - 'taint going to work and is not the "free pass" Canada is looking for to expand the tar sands. We need to move to alternatives for our transportation sector and fast. No room for tar sands in the atmosphere. (For full disclosure, I work on this issue for NRDC and you can see my blogs on the trip at http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/lizbb/)
  

  Liz Barratt-Brown

  On Memo to Obama: CCS won't make tar sands clean. Memo to all: They ain't 'oil sands.' posted 9 months, 2 weeks ago 2 Responses

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  Tar sands don't fit

  One great thing about the CBC interview above is that the "dirty oil" question was at the top of the list - even before Afganistan. A year ago, this would not have been the case so the critique of the high carbon and massively destructive Canadian tar sands -that it doesn't fit in a clean energy economy - is finally out there to be debated at the highest levels. Note the framing the President did in the interview - his first line was "What we know is that oilsands creates a big carbon footprint" and then pointed to  solutions in his stimulus package on clean energy development - which by the way were $77 billion for renewables and efficiency and $3 B for CCS (for full disclosure, I work on this issue for NRDC and you can see my blogs on the trip at http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/lizbb/)

  Liz Barratt-Brown

  On Obama says tar-sands oil has 'big carbon footprint,' but doesn't rule out its use posted 9 months, 2 weeks ago 3 Responses

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  responding to David Robert's blog on aviation

  This is a bit late and endangers the cease fire that David seems to have won with his "cool it" yesterday but I only saw this comment string this evening and want to clarify a few things.

  As the author of the Switchboard blog at issue, I want to say emphatically that we are "busting our butts" to borrow again from David to fight the tar sands and other dirty fuels and all the subsidies that are going or might have gone to support them. Go to our dirty oil page - www.stopdirtyfuels.org - for the latest. This fall we fended of a repeal of Section 526 of the new energy bill of 2007 and numerous other dirty fuels amendments. Sadly, a nearly billion dollar subsidy for expanding tar sands and oil shale refineries got through as part of the tax extenders package that was hitched to the bailout bill.

  But we ARE there - that is the main focus of our  work. That said, we are also putting energy into creating alternatives. I totally agree that there can be a serious debate about air travel but the reality is there is going to be air travel and the sector is growing so we should do what we can.  

  Please do read through the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users group pledge, which you can see on my Switchboard blog (switchboard.nrdc.org/archive_bydate.php?ym=200809 - 36k), which lays out the criteria for these next generation fuels. Oil - and tar sands oil especially - would flunk out right out of the gates. It would be pretty amazing to see a fuel come onto the market that could meet all the criteria laid out by SAFUG and the RSB.  

  And we better keep an eagle eye on aviation. The Air Force is really pushing these dirty fuels - especially liquid coal - and the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuel Initiative (CAAFI) is trying to certify a mixture of coal and biomass.       We want to see a strong alternative out there. Hopefully, SAFUG (inspiring acronym, eh?) can do it.

  Thanks all. It was fun reading your posts. Just glad my colleague Ian Wilker caught the back and forth about NRDC's work in this area so I could dive in.  

  Liz Barratt-Brown

  On Corporate foot soldiers fired up to kick environmental butt posted 1 year, 1 month ago 17 Responses