Hungary plans to focus on energy while it holds the rotating EU Presidency in the first half of 2011. After the Feb. 4 Summit, EU Energy ministers will meet on Feb. 28 with plans to adopt joint conclusions on two energy documents issued by the EU Commission in late 2010, according to EuroActiv: one outlining its energy priorities toward 2020 and beyond, including reaching a 20 percent renewable energy contribution by 2020, and the other on infrastructure priorities. Hungary will also press for agreement on the EU’s updated Energy Efficiency Action Plan to be presented by the Commission in early March, which the EU hopes will be endorsed at the second formal meeting of energy ministers in June, EuroActiv also reported.

Some independent assessments say the EU will easily meet the 2020 goal, such as an analysis released by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) in January of the 27 National Renewable Energy Action Plans submitted to the EU Commission. According to the EWEA, the EU as a whole will easily surpass the 2020 renewables goal — meeting 20 percent of aggregate energy consumption with renewables and 34 percent of electricity use with renewables. The biggest component will come from wind (14 percent), followed by hydropower at 10.5 percent, biomass at 6.6 percent, 2.9 percent from solar projects and 0.3 percent from geothermal energy.

An even more optimistic report from PriceWaterHouseCoopers in March 2010 had said Europe could get all its electricity from renewables by 2050 — without the expansion of nuclear energy.

The EU released its “Energy 2020: A strategy for competitive, sustainable and secure energy” on Nov. 10, 2010, stressing the linkage between energy policy and carbon emissions mitigation and the EU’s goal of reducing its carbon output by 85-90 percent by 2050. It also stresses the importance of integrating the EU energy market in order to remain competitive and calls for nearly two thirds of the EU’s electricity to come from low carbon sources by the early 2020′s (the current level is 45 percent). This was followed by an infrastructure priorities report on Nov. 17, 2010, as well as a communication on the common energy market on Dec. 13, 2010, highlighting the tools in place (and others needed) to prohibit market misconduct.

But, there’s some skepticism on the EU’s energy priorities as set forth so far.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a study in September 2008  which concluded that as a whole the EU’s renewable energy and efficiency  goals for 2020 were unlikely to be met. “Oil, gas and coal production in the EU is set to decline significantly by 2030 and be only partially offset by increases in renewable sources of energy.” The report continues: “…under currently implemented policies, the renewables share in final energy demand rises by 4 percentage points between 2005 and 2020, reaching 12.5% in 2020.”

The IEA report did show that the electricity contribution from renewables would exceed the target. But, to attain its broad renewable goals, the report suggested that the EU needed to enact more stringent enforcement of the targets and substantially increase R&D in renewables — a reallocation from nuclear power given that 40 percent of funding targets nuclear fusion, a technology only expected to contribute after 2050.

Environmental advocates and Green Party MEPs have criticized the plans for a lack of specifics measures and point out that the EU is already lagging behind its 2020 goals for energy efficiency by half. EU Parliament Green MEP Claude Turmes (Luxembourg) has pointed to the lack of efficiency targets mandates, which have also been sought by builders, EuroActiv reported. Indeed, the EU hopes by 2020 to save about one-fifth of energy in comparison to 1990, but most member states aren’t nearly ready for the strict measures required, the German Press Agency (DPA) reported.

In order to meet even the more modest 2020 goal, the EU needs new transmission and storage infrastructure, which will require €1 trillion in investment by 2020 (about €200 billion in transportation infrastructure alone) to meet energy and climate goals, most of which will come from market sources.

The plans outlined in the Nov. 17 report include creating an integrated energy network and a new transmission grid (see the “electricity highway” below), as well as smart grids (which help consumers reduce consumption), gas and oil pipelines, and carbon capture and storage infrastructure. EuroActiv reported Nov. 18, 2010 that by 2020 the EU hopes to commission the first “electricity highway” to transport renewable electricity (such as solar in the South and wind in the North Sea) to consumption hubs.

Upon the release of the EU infrastructure priorities, the Renewables Grid Initiative (RGI), a coalition of businesses and NGOs promoting 100 percent grid integration of renewable energy, criticized the lack of clear directions for investors or how it will meet the 2020 targets. RGI’s Executive Director Antonella Battaglini criticized the report for lacking a differentiated approach and legal follow-up as well as for not building sufficient public support for infrastructure development.

Johannes Teyssen, Chief Executive Officer of EON (a major German electricity provider), urged more integration of European energy markets in a Jan. 19 speech in Berlin ahead of the Feb. 4 Summit, warning that otherwise, Europe would fall behind in competitiveness to countries such as China, UPI reported. This market integration requires harmonization at many levels, including regulation of transmission system operators and legislative support for renewable energy sources. Germany, in particular, has been reticent to abandon or reduce the above-market prices for renewables mandated by its Renewable Energy Law (EEG), which has led to the country’s strong solar industry.

Assuming the EU reaches consensus on its energy plans in the coming months, aggressive action on infrastructure development, R&D and energy efficiency — alongside the drive for energy market integration — will be necessary to achieve its dual goals of renewable energy growth and carbon mitigation in 2020 and beyond.

Photo of the Hungarian Parliament by Adam Jones, Ph.D.

The post Energy Watchdogs Cast Doubt on EU Renewable Goals appeared first on The Faster Times.

I witnessed the phenomenon at JFK a few years ago when flying to the U.S. with some very stuffed bags after several years living in Europe. While waiting for my bags in the pre-customs baggage claim area, I observed the throng looking through their purses and wallets for U.S. dollars in order to rent a luggage cart. I had the required $3 (now $5), but I wondered what others would do who didn’t have any U.S. currency considering there was nowhere to exchange currency and the dispenser machine was out of order, precluding the use of plastic. Instead, employees were taking the cash in exchange for carts.

Soon thereafter, I searched online for “JFK luggage carts” and came across a discussion thread dedicated to the topic (no longer available) in which many voiced their ire about the carts policy. Most argued this was an inconvenience found hardly anywhere else in the world, while a few dissenters accused the rest of laziness and simply lugging around too much stuff.

I took up the subject again recently in order to satisfy my curiosity with an even-handed evaluation of what may be behind the policy. I wanted to know why a few U.S. airports don’t offer free carts for the international arrivals area (let alone in the rest of the airport), while the majority do provide this complimentary service in the international arrivals area. The latter group of airports includes Los Angeles, Chicago O’Hare, Miami-Dade, Seattle, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Phoenix, San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego, Washington Dulles, Boston, San Diego, Minneapolis St. Paul, Detroit, Atlanta and Honolulu. The airports which charge a fee for carts also in the international arrivals area are Philadelphia, Denver, JFK, Newark, and Fort Lauderdale, according to Smarte Carte’s Marketing Director Arthur Spring.

Spring noted in an email to the Faster Times that several airports are expected to start charging for these carts in the next couple of years and others are considering doing so. St. Paul, Minnesota-based Smarte Carte is the company that provides luggage carts to the great majority of U.S. airports.

The way the contracts work, airports pay a negotiated rate (for most from $0.69-$1.20) to Smarte Carte for each cart in the pre-customs international arrivals area. The airport in turn receives a portion of the revenues for luggage cart rentals in the pre-boarding area, but Spring said this hardly covers the costs of  providing the free carts because usage rates are high. “The costs to U.S. airports which offer these complimentary carts is enormous,” he wrote.

I wondered if airports cover these costs in their landing fees and if that explains how many airports in the world can afford to offer free carts. Smarte Carte’s Spring affirmed this perception: “It’s buried in the landing or other charges to airlines, so the cost ends up in the ticket price even if you don’t see it.”

But, I got a different answer from Germany’s Frankfurt Airport. Frankfurt’s two terminals are home to a fleet of specially-designed luggage carts that can be taken on the escalators and have special safety features. In addition to these landside carts for check-in baggage, FRA provides smaller carts in airside/transit areas for carry-on luggage and duty-free purchases, according to Robert Payne, International Spokesman for Fraport AG, the company that manages the airport. The system includes approximately 4,600 landside carts at an original cost of about €500 per unit and 750 airside carts at about half the price per unit of the larger carts. Figures for the annual operating costs (logistics, maintenance, etc.) were not available, Payne said in an email.

Payne told the Faster Times in a phone interview the costs for the carts aren’t covered in the landing fee per se, but the airport like others globally is able to absorb the costs because of a different revenue base that makes use of multiple revenue streams — in contrast to American airports, which typically are run by public entities and are cash strapped. He added that the service is something Frankfurt has traditionally provided and it’s important for keeping passenger flow moving.

Travel Daily News reported in 2008 that non-aeronautical business activity in and around airports is increasingly important component of revenues. The article cites retail as the largest contributor to the non-aeronautical category, closely followed by car parking and property management.

But, even at a cost to themselves, many U.S. airports choose to offer free carts. Spring puts it to “a perception that foreign travelers might not have U.S. cash or credit cards,” a perception that he said “lingers, but is gradually fading.”  He added that the company’s on-site employees are available to change currencies if needed.

For Spring, offering carts is simply a question of habit and custom. “Offering free carts is extremely expensive — anywhere from $2-$7 million per year for major international airports.” For large airports this also requires over 100 employees, he added.  “Add the need for repairs and replacement after their 5-10 year life expectancy — all without any revenue generation associated with the passengers’ use of the trolleys.”

According to Travel and Leisure, European airports have historically absorbed the cost of free carts because of high revenues from air ticket sales, but as revenues were declining, European airports were beginning to impose a minimal fee and Smarte Carte believed at the time (2005) that many European airports were on the verge of signing contracts with the company. Spring said Smarte Carte had expected that for many years, but free cart systems have largely remained for three reasons.

First, customer resistence to pay systems leads to “skittishness on the part of airport management and staff.” “The passengers complain in very small numbers, but the airports are very sensitive to it.”

Second, “converting from free to pay results in job loss: a cart operator simply doesn’t need as many employees to run a pay-based system because fewer people use them.” And layoffs can be politically untenable for a unionized airport.  Last, he said that airport staff often fight hard to preserve their personal responsibility for cart systems. “Moving to pay usually means outsourcing the service.”

Already, however, several European airports require a €1 deposit to obtain a cart from special zones in the airports, which is refundable upon return of the cart.  Frankfurt Airport will be implementing a coin-deposit system for its luggage carts in 2011 — not as a revenue-generating mechanism, but simply to provide an incentive to prevent carts from being left near stairs, escalators, doorways and in front of the terminals, which “disrupts passenger flow especially at key traffic junctions”, Fraport’s Payne wrote in an email to the Faster Times. For passengers without coins, EC or credit card will be accepted by the cart dispenser, he added.

I obtained figures for one major U.S. airport about its complimentary carts program. The Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) Board of Airport Commissioners agreed in early October 2010 to renew the contract with Smarte Carte for four years with an increase in the per cart fee paid to Smarte Carte from $0.68 to $1.51, according to a Board of Commissioners report issued prior to the Oct. 4 meeting. An LAWA spokesperson confirmed that LAWA decided to continue providing free carts in the international arrivals area at its two airports (Los Angeles International and LA/ Ontario International) at an annual cost of nearly $1.7 million to LAWA, which will be slightly offset by an increase in rental revenues from vendors in the airport totalling about $58,181.

Prior to the recent contract renewal decision, LAWA staff conducted a survey of U.S. airports noted that several airports have adopted a user-pay system due to these high costs and that passengers are carrying less baggage because of the imposition of checked bag fees, which results in a much lower usage rate for pay-to-use carts.

I inquired of JFK International Air Terminal (JFKIAT), which runs the International Terminal 4, whether free luggage carts have been considered and the rationale for charging for carts even in the international arrivals area. I wondered too if complimentary carts might be in Terminal 4′s future, considering that Schiphol USA, a subsidiary of the Schiphol Group, owns the Terminal. I was referred to the Port Authority for New York and New Jersey, which runs the Smarte Carte program for all JFK terminals, but did not receive a reply in time for this article.

Looking at some major airports around the world, free carts are still the norm.

Europe’s major airports, including Charles de Gaulle,  Amsterdam and Heathrow, provide free carts throughout the airport. Some smaller ones, such as the one in Pisa, Italy and London Luton, charge a fee for cart usage. London Gatwick and Stansted require a refundable coin deposit (either a one-euro coin, a one-pound coin or a U.S. quarter) and Germany’s Hamburg and Munich aiports require a €1 coin refundable deposit.

Istanbul Ataturk Airport charges for carts, but they are free at the city’s other airport, Sabina Gocken International Airport. Sharm el Sheik Airport, Egypt’s second busiest, charges a nominal fee for carts. Johannesburg Airport in South Africa has free carts.

Free carts are standard for Asia, available for both domestic and international arrivals in Tokyo’s Narita airport, Seoul Incheon International Airport and Beijing’s Capital International Airport and New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Airport, among others.

Sydney International Airport charges $4 (Australian) for carts for departing passengers on departure roadway and in the car park, but provides them free for international arrivals area. Meanwhile, Brisbane Airport, Australia’s third busiest, offers free carts throughout the aiport.

In the Western Hemisphere, most Canadian airports offer complimentary carts throughout the airport, including Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal, while Toronto Pearson charges $2 CAD. Mexico City’s airport offers carts for free in the international arrivals baggage claim area. Rio de Janiero’s Galeão International Airport offers free carts as does São Paulo-Guarulhos International, a South American hub and the busiest airport in Brazil.

Regardless of whether free carts will become an increasing rarity, I will be especially grateful for each opportunity to use one on the house and will have more understanding for those few airports that do not provide complimentary carts. In the case of JFK, I can only hope international visitors will be equally understanding when searching their wallets for U.S. currency at the baggage claim.

Passenger with Cart Photo by paul david (busy running!); Luggage Carts Photo by Bill Wards Brickpile

The post Annoyed by Fees for Airport Luggage Carts? TFT Investigates appeared first on The Faster Times.

Media reports in 2008 told how solar subsidies in Europe, which commonly take the form of a feed-in-tariff (FiT) which guarantees an above-market price for renewable energy to producers, led to an overheating of the market and subsequently to supply bottlenecks in that industry, to oversupply of solar parts and a concomitant drop in prices or to oversupply of energy.

In 2008, the solar market was overheating in Europe, particularly in Spain. At the time, Jim Jubak, a market analyst for MSN Money, argued that, driven by FiTs elsewhere, solar did fine in the U.S. in spite of unstable incentives. He does, however, emphasize the need for state supports to achieve the economies of scale that will move solar toward parity with traditional energy sources. Similarly, The Wall Street Journal reported that the expectancy of credits expiring drove up orders and prices, but acknowledged the need for stable incentives to assign resources to the U.S. market in the long run. 

Solar boomed especially in Germany, the world leader in PV, because of its generous FiT. In 2009, all renewables, including solar, passed the 10% mark of Germany’s energy mix and German Environment Minister Dr. Norbert Röttgen announced in August 2010 that renewables will contribute 20 percent by 2020. Solar contributed 2% in 2010, but is predicted to generate 10% of German’s energy mix by 2020, according to statistics from the German industry association for solar, the Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft (BSW).  

The European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) projects that PV could provide up to 12% of the EU electricity demand by 2020 “provided specific boundary conditions are met, and be competitive with other electricity sources in as much as 76% of the EU electricity market by 2020″ without external price supports or subsidies. Globally about 23 GW (16 GW in Europe and 1.6 GW in the U.S.) were installed at the end of 2009 which produce about 25 TWh of electricity annually, according to May 2010 figures provided by the EPIA. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that in 2009, renewable sources of energy accounted for about 7.7% of total U.S. energy consumption.

Review of FiTs in Europe The most profound challenge to the FiT scheme has happened in Germany, where the famed Renewable Energy Sources Law (EEG) is being reduced in two stages in 2010, a move that was pushed through by the center-right coalition government led by Angela Merkel. By July 1, the payment rate for PV will be reduced from 8-13%, depending on the type of PV installation (13% for rooftop installations) and an additional 3% reduction will be applied by October 1 to all types of PV installations.

The main arguments to reduce the FiT came from the Christian Democrats and their coalition partners, the Free Democrats, that the EEG discourages technological advances and lowers the acceptance of solar with the public because of higher consumer prıces for energy, UPI reported. But Social Democrats, especially long-time supporters of the EEG, say that lowering rates will endanger jobs in the renewable energy sector and set back efforts to increase the contribution of renewable energies.  

Ronald Upmann, a spokesman for solar industry group BSW, emphasized in an email to The Faster Times that the EEG is not a form of state-assistance, but a law that ensures a certain pay rate for each KWh of solar energy delivered. It’s not paid by the state, but by all electricity customers as part of their electricity bill. Asked when this instrument, which is intended to be temporary, should be phased out, he wrote “when the industry succeeds in reducing the costs of solar energy.” The law also aims for this by annually reducing the tariff rates for PV electricity. “This year, for example, there was a reduction since the price for solar electricity systems fell so much that the lawmakers saw the necessity of adjusting the rates again to the price development.”

According to the EPIA 2009 Industry Outlook, Germany is still the world leader in PV, but the reduction in the EEG will have a dampening effect on the market.

Alexander Leinhos, Director of Corporate Communications for the German solar components producer Conergy AG,  told the Faster Times in an email: “The whole solar energy industry has opposed the reduction in the EEG since the beginning seeing it as too harsh and not helpful for the consistent and needed future growth of the German solar market.” 

Leinhos noted that Conergy is particularly well-equipped to cope with the decrease in prices and volume that may ensue because of its excellent setup. “In recent history we were able to decrease our production costs and will continue to do so in the future to handle market price decreases even better.” Furthermore, he expects sustained customer demand because of Conergy’s premium quality products. Leinhos also emphasized Conergy’s research into new and innovative solar trends and the fact that  they already offer the technologies for these trends.

While the new EEG will affect Conergy in Germany, Leinhos points to the company’s global presence. “We are the German solar company with the highest turnover outside Germany. We are present in 16 countries and therefore all major solar markets around the world. This helps us to balance potential market changes in single countries.”

Asked about whether an FiT should be put on hold during overheating, Upmann replied that it would “certainly be a false and fatal signal leading to a market collapse.” The best example is Spain, he wrote, where after such an overheating the supports were radically reduced, which in turn led to a collapse of the market. The formerly very attractive Spanish market hasn’t yet recovered.

As Greenwire reported, the FiT Spain launched in 2007 made that country the world’s top solar market, but it had to be revised in 2008. The FiT guaranteed rates of up to €0.44 per KWh for new solar panel installations by September 2008. This created an artificial market and, unlike Germany, Spain had no system to reduce tariff rates if its capacity targets were exceeded. In reaction, the government increased its target, which led to a rush by developers to meet the deadline before the rate went down by 30 percent. Demand from Italy and France, which also have FiTs, provided a market for some of the excess supply resulting from the Spanish collapse.

The Czech Republic has also taken steps to adjust its FiT. Dow Jones reported that the Czech Parliament voted in March 2010 to allow the Energy Regulatory Offıce (ERO) to lower the FiT, which had been limited to a 5% reduction annually on new solar installations. The move came after an oversupply of electricity from solar threatened to overload the electricity grid while leading to a potential increase in end-user power prices.

Among several other European countries with an FiT,  Belgium’s generous FiTs helped drive significant growth in PV, but are slated for reduction in 2010. Meanwhile, Greece has one of Europe’s most favorable FiT schemes and the UK introduced one in 2010, according to the EPIA publication Global Market Outlook for Photovoltaics Until 2014.

U.S. Subsidies for Solar FiTs are not present in the U.S. except for state initiatives such as in California, but the U.S. has had solar incentives in the form of an Investment Tax Credit (ITC) since 2005, which had been renewed on an annual basis until it got an eight-year extension as part of the the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. In a news release from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), SEIA’s President and CEO Rhone Resch praised the legislation for delivering policy certainty and said that by 2016 solar is expected to be the cheapest source of energy.

Considering U.S. incentives, Leinhos of Conergy said the ITC — an upfront federal incentive which rewards investors after year one, rather than over 20 years — is inferior to an FiT, but is the best the federal government can do (since federal energy legislation is quite difficult to implement in the USA). “If one figures the economics of a large FiT versus the ITC, the FiT is a much bigger financial subsidy and makes doing solar simple. The toughest part of solar in the USA is having to find someone to buy the power and then negotiate what this ‘green power’ is worth.”

The Bottom Line for FiTs: A report released from the EPIA following the 25th European Photovoltaic Energy Conference and Exhibition in Valencia, Spain Sept. 6-10 concludes that FiTs are the unilateral support of choice, but in order to avoid stagnation or overheat, they “must be adapted on a regular basis to integrate the dynamic evolution of technological progress and increasing cost competitiveness of PV systems.” PV still requires supports to be competitive with traditional energy sources and to help refine these policy instruments, the EPIA emphasizes. To that end, its newly launched European Photovoltaic Observatory (a set of ongoing recommendations) will analyze grid connections and their ability to transmit electricity as well as legal requirements and financial incentives to advise governments on successful implementation of support policies.

At least when it comes to the EEG, supporters urged caution when making adjustments. ”In our estimation the EEG is so successful because it is a steady, household-dependent support instrument which gives planning certainty to investors, by guaranteeing payments for 20 years for a PV installation,” BSW’s Upmann said. He added that inspection and adjustment of the pay rate can be a sensible instrument for regulation, but it should always be taken in proper proportion and should not overburden the industry.

And Conergy’s Leinhos noted: “Solar in Germany became a success story thanks to the EEG. Major changes or even a phase out on a short-term basis endanger the sector.”

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography

The post Solar Feed-in-Tariffs Still Revered in Europe Despite Revisions appeared first on The Faster Times.

For proponents of a carbon-capping mechanism, the bill represents a missed opportunity to turn the BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico into a pivot moment for a clean energy future.

“The climate bill will be substantially gutted and therefore won’t address the key issues of our day — getting off fossil fuels — which requires a massive injection of incentives to give renewable energy the level playing field they need to really blossom,” Ross Macfarlane, Senior Advisor for Business Partnerships with Climate Solutions, a non-profit in Olympia, Washington, told the Faster Times in a phone interview July 23.

Macfarlane added: “There’s definitely value in individual pieces. We’re tremendously disappointed by the Senate in not addressing our addiction to oil and other fossil fuels. That being said, there are some good points. We’ve always supported HomeStar (a bipartisan energy efficiency program). We’re supportive of efforts to reduce the risk of future oil spills and increase the possiblity of oil spill liability.”

The bill’s key components include provisions that hold BP accountable for oil damage in the Gulf of Mexico and prevent future offshore blowouts, create jobs in the clean-energy sector, and invest in the manufacturing of natural gas vehicles and the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Speaking July 22 after a Democratic Caucus meeting on energy, Senator Reid emphasized, “We are not putting forth this bill in place of a comprehensive bill.” He said, however, that the Senate still had a good opportunity “to hold BP accountable, lessen our dependence on oil, create good paying American jobs and protect the environment.” While expressing disappointment in Senate Republicans, he urged compromise to pass a comprehensive energy bill.

Asked how proponents might move forward on getting carbon-capping climate legislation passed, Macfarlane said:

“We need to move toward a comprehensive policy on climate, increase our efficiency and break the iron grip that fossil fuels have on our political process. We’re just going to keep working toward what we know needs to get done.”

During the climate bill debate, voices from the business community had also urged the need to establish a carbon price.

In a July 26 email to The Faster Times, Scott Thomasson, Director of Economic and Domestic Policy for the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) in Washington, D.C., wrote: “Entire sectors of our economy have waited years for Washington to take clear and decisive action on greenhouse-gas regulation, but instead we keep stumbling sideways on the issue and failing to offer the kind of regulatory certainty needed to produce real incentives for innovation and investment in low-carbon energy resources.”

PPI has endorsed a carbon-capping mechanism for many years, without insisting on a particular version. Thomasson said that while Senate Democrats presented several workable approaches in recent weeks, the Republican response was “a complete absence of cooperation and knee-jerk recitals of ‘cap-and-tax’ rhetoric.” He emphasized that while Senate Republicans have refused to discuss compromises, “industry groups themselves have supported specific proposals and have been actively engaged in negotiations to move a bill forward.”

Thomasson further pointed out that resistance to carbon taxes in the name of the poor economic climate is misplaced since these costs wouldn’t have been imposed for several years, while investment in clean energy jobs would have been immediate.

For information about which Senators were pushed off the fence onto the No side, we will defer to The Green Grok which ran a series this summer on the 14 “fence-sitting” Senators, examining their motivations for not supporting a tough-on-carbon climate bill.

In a June 3 media teleconference, representatives of corporate members of two coalitions — the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (CAP), a coalition of corporations and public interest organizations, and the Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP), formed by consumer-facing businesses — urged the Senate to pass legislation with a carbon-pricing mechanism.

In a July 27 email to the Faster Times, Anthony Chavez, Public Affairs Manager for Weyerhauser, a member of USCAP, said: “We continue to believe that the best solution to addressing climate change is economy-wide, comprehensive federal legislation that uses market mechanisms to move toward a low carbon economy and recognizes the value of forests in addressing climate mitigation.”

For the 2009 climate bill, the website Price of Oil reported that over $20 million was spent by three oil companies (Exxon, Chevron and BP) in the first quarter to derail that attempt at a carbon-capping bill. And the site says Big Coal persuaded the federal government “to give away carbon emissions ‘allowances’ that likely will eventually be worth billions of dollars, and will slow the switch to a low carbon economy.”

Grist reported that in the first quarter of 2008, Big Coal’s front group, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, spent a record-breaking $1.9 million in federal lobbying expenses.

Asked about some specific lobbying efforts against this year’s climate bill, Macfarlane cited first “the amount of disinformation that has been contantly spewed forth — around the fact that we’re facing a crisis of global proportions around climate change.” He added that the ‘climate gate strategy’, cooked up by fossil fuels and think-tanks, pursued the same tactics as tobacco companies by saying “if we can’t win on science, let’s win on doubt.”

Macfarlane also pointed to the hundreds of millions that have been spent trying to convince people that the costs of moving away from fossil fuels are just too high when it’s clear that Americans want to end their reliance on fossil fuels.

“The carbon emission cap was a big target, but there have also been efforts to derail efforts to increase efficiency and to reduce the enormous amount that the taxpayers pay out to the oil, gas and coal industries,” Macfarlane said.

According to information at the Price of Oil, Fossil fuels received approximately $72 billion between 2002-8 compared to about $29 billion for renewable fuels. More than half the subsidies for renewables — $16.8 billion — went to corn-based ethanol, the climate effects of which are hotly disputed. Of the fossil fuel subsidies, $70.2 billion went to traditional sources, such as coal and oil, and $2.3 billion went to carbon capture and storage.

“One thing that ought to outrage taxpayers is that the most profitable industries are still the recipients of tax dollars — oil, gas and coal,” Macfarlane said, adding that taxpayer concern about energy subsidies fails to consider which industries are receiving the most money with which they are able to buy enormous access for lobbying.

The Role of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in regulating carbon as a pollutant was upheld June 10 when the Senate failed to pass a resolution to stop it from doing so, which had been introduced by Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).

MacFarlane said Climate Solutions is “very supportive of the EPA’s action to help in areas like beginning to pass standards for motor vehicles and starting to address the whole area of carbon pollution,” and will support the EPA in these endeavors.

Thomasson pointed out, however, that the EPA’s traditional command-and-control regime under the Clean Air Act “has proved to be a dysfunctional and inefficient way to encourage investment and innovation in clean technologies, because never-ending litigation and uncertainty paralyze decision making and investment in new projects.”

Photo by net_efekt

The post Does the Weakened Climate Bill Have a Silver Lining appeared first on The Faster Times.

While many inventors who have submitted technical suggestions on how to stop the oil leak or contain the oil in the Gulf of Mexico are frustrated about not yet getting a response, BP has expressed gratitude for the flood of ideas, which the company says are being evaluated and have helped their team of experts to consider things in new ways.

In a May 25 article, The Faster Times reported on the feasibility of several ideas that have been mentioned in the media and asked a BP representative about the process for evaluating technical ideas that are submitted. The article generated a lot of feedback — mainly from inventors who submitted ideas and not yet received any word back from BP.

Perhaps the most disturbing media report: a former Shell executive suggested to BP that it could take up most of the oil using its supertankers, an idea BP hasn’t pursued. John Hofmeister, Founder and CEO of Citizens for Affordable Energy, had speculated that BP does not want to tie up its tankers. BP spokesman Mark Proegler told The Faster Times Tuesday that BP had considered the supertanker idea, but determined it wasn’t suitable for the environment in the Gulf of Mexico or the conditions of the spill. We were unable to reach Hofmeister for further comment. Proegler told us that as of June 4, BP had received 53,500 technical suggestions and that 247 of them are now in an advanced evaluation stage. During a technical briefing on June 7, Kent Wells, BP’s Vice President for exploration and production, responded to a question from CNN about the value of technical submissions:

“We’ve had an enormous amount of ideas. There are a number that have been very similar to what the scientists and engineers are already working on. We’ve also had some really good ideas that just don’t work at 5,000 ft. There are others you wish you could use, but they’d take six months to construct. People are really genuinely interested in trying to help. They’ve helped us rethink things; they’ve helped us tweek things. Can I say that something has come in and revolutionized what we’re doing? No, but certainly they’ve been helpful.”

Dr. Dennis Spence, a facial surgeon in Tyler, Texas who has invented medical devices and points to the past sharing of technology across disciplines, wrote in several emails and posts to The Faster Times that ideas from the outside could help the situation: “Just as the medical community borrowed from the oil industry ideas to clean out pipes and applied them to clean out arteries, so could the oil industry take from our book on how to control things in a relative high pressure, difficult environment.”

But, many ideas are being overlooked. Spence contacted BP two days after the incident about a simple two-stage device he developed using proven medical and space technology which could be constructed and accurately deployed on site in 48 hours. The device could also be placed on all offshore rigs as an emergency containment device and, he wrote, would work well with the Kevin Costner’s centrifuge oil separators on the surface.

“The real tragedy is that ideas that come from outside the oil industry are not considered in a timely fashion unless one has a name like Kevin Costner.”

Although he realizes that other ideas may be just as good or better than his, Spence feels that rapid construction with readily available components is the key to getting something on site quickly. But, his main point is that simple ideas can often solve complex problems and the engineering team working on the leak may be experiencing myopia. Spence also lamented BP’s failure to consider readily available equipment, such as old space shuttle and rocket parts at graveyards from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Such parts, he said, could be adapted to the specifications of the mile-deep wellhead environment.

Spence thinks about 50 percent of ideas are duplicates of existing strategies and fewer than 10 percent of suggestions “have any practical application for stopping the flow.”

In conversation with The Faster Times, Spence argued that BP could tap into our collective brain power by publishing guidelines for inventors, such as those on the website for the Environmental Protection Agency that provide different categories for suggestions, including stopping/ controlling the flow vs. cleanup of the spill. He anticipates that lessons learned from the mishandling of the situation will lead to guidelines for a future gathering of useful and practical information and ideas that are available from outside the oil industry.

Spence also predicted that the “top kill” effort would fail since BP engineers “seemed to have failed to consider the brittle nature of the pipe and other materials at that depth.” He also fears that the capping plan will be impossible to complete. He likened the attempt to “hanging a weighted bucket upside down from a two-story building and placing it on a broken fire hydrant.”

Meanwhile, the Interagency Alternative Technology Assessment Program (IATAP) workgroup, newly established by the National Incident Commander for the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, announced on June 4 a new effort to collect and review oil spill response solutions. Scientists and vendors with IATAP and the Coast Guard Research and Development Center will work together to screen and triage submissions based on technical feasibility, efficacy and deployability.

Proegler told The Faster Times that this is separate from BP’s invitation for ideas and is designed for the longer term.

Update on Costner’s Centrifuge Oil Separators:

Well, actually, the centrifuge oil separators don’t belong to Kevin Costner — solely, that is. Costner bought the patent rights for the centrifuge device from the Department of Energy in 1993 and over a 15-year period invested about $24 million (figures gleaned from news reports) trying to refine the device for the oil business, a representative of CINC Industries (formerly Costner Industries Nevada Corporation) to whom Costner sold the centrifuge separators, told The Faster Times. But, still, he is the public face of newly formed Ocean Therapy Solutions. (OTS)

Six of the centrifuge separators were scheduled to be tested by BP and the Coast Guard in May. The massive stainless steel devices separate oil from water and return clean water to the sea. The largest is able to clean water at a rate of 200 gallons a minute – faster than the well is leaking, Costner’s co-founder of OTS, John Houghtaling, told the New York Daily News.

The Faster Times asked BP’s Proegler Tuesday for an update on the testing of the centrifuge oil separators, but he referred us to OTS.

We could not make phone contact before publishing this story, but were referred via email to the OTS website. According to this news report and information at the company website, the devices were first deployed to a staging area on May 18 for onshore testing and testing on the oil slick began May 29. OTS has been preparing the machines and barges for maximal performance in the deep waters of the Gulf. Two large V20s, each weighing 5 tons, were installed on barges for deployment to the deepest waters of the Gulf June 7 and for testing June 8.

Note: Since this story was published, Dennis Spence has created a website, Sea Oil Salvage, to gather technical suggestions related to the BP blowout.

Photos by Deepwater Horizon Response

The post Is BP Ignoring Good Advice on How to Stop the Oil Spill? appeared first on The Faster Times.

“It’s a real mix,” Spokesman Graham MacEwen said of the suggestions BP receives. “A lot are coming from people who are in the industry and have expertise. We’re getting ideas from everyone — even stars,” he said.

Actor and environmentalist Kevin Costner, who invested in developing an oil-separation technology after the Exxon Valdez spill, has been in touch with BP and his company’s technology is under evaluation, MacEwen told The Faster Times Monday by telephone. According to this May 20 article, BP hoped to start testing six of Costner’s oil separators in the water as soon as late last week. MacEwen said skimmers are the best techology at the moment for removing oil from the surface.

As for the evaluation of technical suggestions, MacEwen said BP first checks that they’re  not already being used because that’s the case 50 percent of the time. If not, BP looks at the feasibility. Then, if it’s practical and not being used, the idea is discussed with the person concerned.

“Everyone gets a response,” MacEwen said, “but we ask people to be patient. We’re getting thousands of suggestions, but everyone will get a response in due course.”

A demonstration video of hay’s ability to absorb oil from two Florida contractors has received ample web attention and, as a result, several media outlets have covered the story. The contractors said they’ve received offers from people eager to donate bales of hay and they emphasize that the hay they advocate using is wheat straw and not for cows. BP’s MacEwen said he hadn’t heard of this specific idea, but he had heard of hay being used in oil response before, so their technique may well be under consideration.

In a media email response to the hay idea, Myron Sullivan II, who has industry expertise on oil spill responses, wrote “it would have good, but limited applications … only if huge amounts of hay were immediately available at the source of the oil spill disaster… and only for relatively small oil spills. The current BP Deep Horizon oil spill disaster is far, far too big and way beyond control.”

Sullivan, who developed the AEROS system and started Global Response Group (GRG) based in Vancouver, Canada, further explained that there are other technical drawbacks to hay as a routine solution to offshore oil accidents, such as the infeasibility of storing enormous volumes of hay near all of the 800 or so offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil spill response system GRG has patented (but not yet built), the AEROS System, would be delivered quickly by plane from response bases and parachuted to the oil spill location. This system was briefly discussed in a prior article and The Faster Times promised to follow-up with more details on technical assessments of the system.

At this point, we can report that a GRG prospectus provides the names of two engineering companies,  Trident Engineering Ltd of Texas and Cyclotech Ltd in the UK, which have positively assessed the  technology and produced a 350-page feasibility study. The prospectus also states that GRG is contracting with China to build the first AEROS system as the result of  GRG winning a competition in August 2009 held by the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation.

The GRG prospectus emphasizes that many existing oil spill response solutions could be used in combination with its technology to contain and remove oil spills. And Sullivan said in his email that hay could be a good complement to the AEROS system.

The hair booms that made news soon after the oil slick began to encroach on Gulf coastal areas were declared inferior to regular sorbent booms after a technical evaluation and won’t be used, BP said. The company wrote:  “In a February 2010 side-by-side field test conducted during an oil spill in Texas, commercial sorbent boom absorbed more oil and much less water than hair boom, making it the better operational choice.” BP further explained that commercial sorbent boom is readily available, scientifically designed and tested for oil containment and absorption on the water, and response teams know how to use it. Moreover, a source in this article said the hair booms might break apart causing more pollution.

So, individuals should stop collecting hair, BP says, but suggestions on alternative response methods are welcome via BP’s Deepwater Horizon Response website or its technical advice hotline.

MacEwen said he wasn’t sure of the origin of the hair boom idea or why it spread so rapidly when it wasn’t approved for use. “We found that these would not be effective in this case. People are obviously frustrated and want to help in any way they can. What we want to do is ensure that what we put in place is as effective as possible and in that case it unfortunately wasn’t,” he said.

Marine Biologist and Exxon Valdez expert Riki Ott said in a media teleconference earlier this month that the oil industry is basically using the same response technologies as it did 40 years ago.

BP’s MacEwen said in response:  “I think it’s not true to say that we haven’t updated the technology.” He said that the types of dispersants currently in use are far less dangerous to the enviroment than in the past and that several methods used in the Deepwater Horizon response are new.

While research and development has been ongoing, it is fair to say that the kind of high-tech innovative oil clean up methods discussed in this article have yet to be widely developed.

Lessons in cleanup were taken from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, especially that removing bulk oil and providing exposure to air maximizes oil degradation from natural agents, obviating the need for additional chemical products, according to the NOAA website.

Advice Photo by laughlin; Hay Photo by Special; Oil Boom Photo by Massachusetts Dept. of Environmental Protection

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“The bottom line is it’s past time for the Senate to be addressing this in a comprehensive way,” Ross Macfarlane of Climate Solutions, a non-profit in Olympia, Washington, told The Faster Times. Macfarlane said that analysis of some amendments will continue, but that he is pleased with the state veto option on offshore, adding that the offshore drilling provisions are still in process and “don’t reflect the change of public opinion from the recent accident.”

Uproar over expanding offshore drilling arose after the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico last month, but the bill’s offshore provisions are viewed as a necessary evil by environmental advocates eager to see a price put on carbon through a cap and trade mechanism — which they believe will act as a trigger to launch a transition to a clean energy economy.

The current legislation contains provisions to levy taxes on imports from non-carbon taxing countries, but this breaks World Trade Organization rules, critics warn. Further, free market proponents, such as the Cato Institute’s Will Wilkerson, argue that cap and trade will result in higher costs to consumers and significant reduction in GDP growth, according to this article from October 7, 2009.

Joshua Freed, Director of the Clean Energy Initiative at The Third Way, a progressive think tank in Washington, D.C., told The Faster Times in a phone interview that a climate change bill is needed now if the U.S. wants to stay competitive. He notes that China is likely to put a price on carbon within the next five years.

“The mechanism is less important than putting a real cost on carbon pollution,” Freed said. “This is a very good first step. We need to take into account its ability to reduce pollution and to make sure it doesn’t have an adverse impact on consumers and the economy. They’ve set two really ambitious and realistic targets: 17 percent (reduction on greenhouse gases below 2005 levels by 2020) and 80 percent (below 2005 levels by 2050).”

The mechanism itself is likely to undergo negotiations in order to get 60 votes. Freed told The Faster Times that between 10 and 15 Senators are on the fence, with concerns ranging from the impact on the coal and natural gas industries to how offshore drilling might affect tourism.

As for the bill’s chances of passing, Freed said it depends on how willing those senators are to make deals. “I think you may see some concessions around natural gas, which is critically important from a job creation perspective and also as a domestic energy source,” Freed said. “And you could see additional movement around how money generated from the (carbon permit) auction is distributed. I think the issue of offshore drilling is going to become more and more tricky.”

“Let’s be realistic — time and the politics of the moment are against us, but there ‘s an urgency to this — an economic and a national security urgency and a climate urgency to do this now,” Freed continued. “I think it made sense for Senators Lieberman and Kerry to move forward with it.”

For offshore to be included in the bill, a full audit of existing rigs is needed, according to Brent Budowski, a former Congressional aide who blogs at The Hill.

“What needs to be done today is a complete safety audit … and a comprehensive check on the status of safety requirements on all pending operations to ensure there are no more waivers or escapes or excuses from any required permit,” Budowski told The Faster Times. Budowski referred to today’s lead story in the NY Times that suggests President Obama systematically waived permit requirements for oil companies. He added that it’s necessary to find out the status of all rigs operating offshore that may have a faulty blowout preventer or less than stellar rate of success “so we know the magnitude of the danger before any more offshore is considered.”

An op-ed in the Los Angeles Times today from Peter Van Doren and Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute argues against knee-jerk reactions to the oil spill, however, and points out that regulation may not be the answer.

Budowski blames the situation in the Gulf on both political parties and calls it “a bipartisan Katrina.” He thinks the climate bill is a good first step, but decries the lack of vision among the political leadership. “The problem that we have in the US and in Europe and Asian democracies is an inability to think big — a mediocrity of policy in relation to the problem,” Budowski said.

For his part, Budowski is calling for a massive effort for conservation and efficiency as well as a 100 mpg efficiency standard for cars. He notes that the latest poll shows 60 percent approval of more offshore drilling, but said there will be lengthy negotiations over all aspects of this bill. “The moving target is what happens with this oil spill that we’ve got,” Budowski said. “The probability is that we are just at the beginning of it.”

While Budowski thinks a vote won’t occur until after the election or early next year, Freed suggested a vote could happen anytime before Congress goes out of session essentially in October, depending on the votes.

Budowski’s 100 mpg idea may seem far-fetched considering that Congress raised the efficiency standard to 35 mpg (a fleetwide average by 2020) in 2007. But by providing the right tax incentives, it would pay for itself and create an army of jobs, he asserts. He’s been suggesting the idea in Washington for three years. “Maybe some guy in Paris is whispering in the ear of (President Nicolas) Sarkozy or (Angela) Merkel or (David) Cameron just like I’m doing here. The first nation that comes out and does this would have a competitive advantage and that would invite other nations to join in.”

Photo by kevindooley

The post Does the Climate Bill Have a Shot? appeared first on The Faster Times.

The Marine biologist and activist was supposed to be spending time at home in Alaska on break from a speaking tour, but, after the oil spill, she decided to visit the Gulf Coast instead. She and her assistant, a fellow commercial fisherman who experienced the Exxon Valdez spill, are offering advice and encouragement to locals “frustrated by the lack of information and not knowing what’s going to happen.”

“There are many parallels to Exxon Valdez,” Ott told The Faster Times. Among the commonalities, she said, is BP trying to limit its liability at every turn.  ”It’s as if they’re playing off Exxon’s game sheet,” she said.

One example: the liability caps in the contracts for those recruited to help with the clean-up.  Ott said that while several challenges in court had resulted in a federal judge striking down those caps, those who had already signed contracts had waived their rights.

BP spokesman Robert Wine told The Faster Times in a phone interview on Friday that this clause was designed to indemnify BP from certain contracts. “It wasn’t intended for an oil spill. We apologized to the fishermen. It was a slip; it was unintentional.  It’s one of those funny things that pop up and takes everyone by surprise, but it was absolutely unintentional.”

Ott’s book on the Exxon Valdez spill, Sound Truth and Corporate Myths, details the long-term environmental and health repercussions of a major oil spill.

Riki Ott

Ott noted in Friday’s phone interview that Exxon refused to cover costs associated with “Valdez crud” because the Occupational Safety and Hazards Act (OSHA) has an exception for colds and flus. This is a problem because the symptoms of chemical poisoning can mimic those of colds and flus, she said.

“Exxon … fought workers who sued, claiming their respiratory illnesses and other sicknesses were chemical poisoning,” Ott wrote in a September 29, 2009 post at the Huffington Post. Ott also noted that sickness resulted from workers being told that clean-up products weren’t toxic and from the lack of adequate protective gear.

Asked by The Faster Times how she would advise clean-up workers to prepare for the Gulf spill, she said that they should take a full 40-hour Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER) training course on oil spill clean up and wear protective gear at a minimum. BP is providing training courses to those involved in the response, according to websites dedicated to the oil spill.

Response was too little, too late Ott said of the response:  “It’s inexcusable to me that we’re experimenting. The oil industry shouldn’t be allowed to drill if it can’t control the technology it’s using.”

Jonathan Henderson with the Gulf Restoration Network (GRN) reacted similarly to BP’s response in a phone interview with The Faster Times on Friday.

Referring to the containment dome currently being guided to cover the leaking pipe, Henderson said: “How come there aren’t a hundred of these ready to go in case of an accident like this?”

BP’s spokesman Wine told The Faster Times Friday that the containment dome was constructed according to the exact specifications of the site. “It’s not something that’s ever been tried or considered before,” Wine said. “To go from a blank piece of paper and now on site and all the engineering and to work out any challenge that we’re going to face on this…it’s been fairly quick.”

Another “glaring example of massive failure of the response” according to Henderson is that there wasn’t nearly enough boom available. “There’s just miles and miles and miles of precious wetlands that are critical spawning ground of much of the habitat — wildlife that are completely exposed and vulnerable.”

Henderson said that at one point they ran out of boom and more wasn’t available in the U.S. And he noted that the boom is rather ineffective since it’s designed for two feet of wave action and water is lapping right over it.

Henderson also said that the media had falsely reported that oil had reached the shore of Louisiana’s Chandeleur islands on Friday. He said that GRN overflights had seen oil there on May 5 and as early as the previous week they found oil impacting the Delta Natural Wildlife Refuge near the Louisiana coastline.

“I can’t tell you what BP should have been doing. Everything they’re doing they should have been doing faster. There should be a massive response capability in place already. I’m confident that they are trying everything they can. But, I’m perplexed at how slow they’ve been responding. The opportunity to mitigate against this has already passed. That’s a tragic implication for the whole Gulf Coast,” Henderson said.

Henderson continued: “It’s excruciatingly painful for us — and we’re continuing our oil accountability campaign that we’ve had for years and acting as an independent watchdog over the cleanup. We’re very concerned about the marine life.”

Wine said that BP is also not happy with the reaction time. “We’re doing everything we can to deal with an unprecedented incident. There’s never been an instance where the blowout preventer has failed so completely.”

He added that there is a very large response in place to protect the shoreline. The BP Deepwater Response website includes daily updated details of the response (as of May 8, 2010), including 12 staging stations, 1.3 million feet of boom available, 2.1 million gallons of oily water recovered, and 10,000 personnel and 2,500 trained volunteers.

“All of this happens because there’s a plan. You can’t do this if you’re struggling to react,” Wine said.

Ott also said the dispersants will have a serious environmental impact, especially because it’s  spawning season.

“BP is completely misguiding the public. Dispersed oil is more bio available, meaning it is more easily absorbed by fish. By breaking up the oil, it increases the volume in water,” Ott said, adding that this year’s white shrimp, which should be ready in four months, are dying. This will not only affect shrimp, but other ecosystems as well because shrimp is food for such marine life as red snappers.

Ott said that the damage can’t be assessed until the leak is capped and all the oil is out. And the full impact won’t be known for years.

“BP is maintaining that we’re winning, but the oil is in the water column at an incredibly sensitive time in the year,” Ott said. “In Exxon Valdez, there was a delayed ecosystem collapse four years later. Those who grew up couldn’t reproduce. You might not see the full implications this year. You still see the herring population not fully recovered 21 years later.”

Ott is organizing a day of solidarity to support the proposed increase on liability for oil spill damage from $75 million to $10 billion, which legislation introduced in Congress last week would do. But, as the Hill reported, a spokesman wrote on the White House blog that in the case of gross negligence, the $75 million cap on damages under the Oil Pollution Act would not apply.

Bayou Photo by Tony the Misfit

Photo of Riki Ott used by permission from Hotshot977 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/hotshot977/)

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As about 5,000 barrels per day of leaking oil from the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig continue flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, the approximately 2,233 square mile oil slick reportedly made contact with Louisiana’s coastal islands late Thursday. President Obama called it a spill of “national significance” and deployed federal resources to assist in the response effort. This morning, the Obama administration announced that no new offshore drilling will be allowed until an investigation into the tragedy is completed.

“We have an interesting novel unfolding here. I’m worried that going forward this is turning into a tragedy on a level we haven’t seen on this planet before,” Richard Charter, Senior Policy Advisor for Marine Programs with Defenders of Wildlife, told me in a phone interview on Thursday.

The oil rig accident came at a politically unfortunate time for President Obama–about a month after his announcement on March 31 that he would allow more offshore drilling and in the midst of a controversial climate bill currently on the Congressional agenda.

Aaron Viles, Campaign Director with the Gulf Restoration Network, said Obama definitely got a lot of attention when he announced his support for offshore drilling.

“I was hoping it was April Fool’s Day,” he said. “There’s a long history of supporting oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico. For any politician who continues to support offshore drilling, we need to look at their investments and campaign contributions. It’s dangerous and dirty business: 11 workers lost their lives in this tragedy.”

Charter said it has been a surprise to a lot of people who thought Obama “had an environmental ethic.”

“I’ve been doing a lot of talk radio and a number of people are calling in and asking ‘What’s with Obama?’“

During the Democratic primaries in 2008, several stories ran on Obama’s campaign contributions from oil company executives or their spouses. Various sources report these total contributions to his campaign as ranging from$128,000 to $213,000, which is smaller than that reported for Hillary Clinton and John McCain, but still significant.

“Almost every elected official gets some money from oil and gas. It’s the nature of the beast. They’re just more powerful than most Third world countries, ” Charter said.

The common wisdom has been that Obama was trading offshore concessions for Republican support on the climate bill, but Charter said it wasn’t so straight forward because the bipartisan bill being crafted by Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Joseph Liebermann (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had increasingly become an offshore bill. He added that Cap and Trade provisions were thrown out a week ago.

“The Climate Bill is constructed in such a way to open up every coastal state to drilling by bribing states with money–revenue sharing. These days with the poor economic climate that will be very difficult for a Governor to resist.”

Obama’s “Lifting” of the Ban a Misnomer

President Obama’s decision to allow new drilling for oil and natural gas off much of the U.S. Coastline would include several states on the Atlantic seaboard and on the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Several areas would still be protected, McClatchy reported, including Alaska’s Bristol Bay. But other sensitive and controversial areas would be up for consideration. McClatchy also reported that no expanded drilling is being considered off the West Coast below Canada.

Obama calls his policy “responsible drilling as part of a larger transition toward less dependence on foreign oil and more on clean energy and greater energy efficiency.” But, mentioning one example, Charter said that by opening up the outer banks of North Carolina, “you could easily have oil from New England to Florida because of the Gulf Stream if something went wrong.”

It’s important to note that saying Obama lifted the ban is a misnomer since it was actually President George W. Bush who lifted the executive ban in July 2008. Then Congress let the legislative ban (which required annual renewal) expire on September 30, 2008 because Bush had threatened to veto an appropriations bill for government operations if it included any restrictions on offshore drilling. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) pointed this out on Thursday, saying that Obama was narrowing rather than expanding drilling.

There has been little mention of this fact in the media that I have seen until this week–or previously from bloggers trying to clarify that Obama doesn’t deserve credit for expanding offshore access.

Charter agreed the parlance shouldn’t be characterized as Obama deciding to lift the offshore ban. “It is true that President Obama took advantage of that opening and said I’m going to open several states up to 3 miles from shore for drilling and I’m going to renege on a bill that he had voted on that would protect Florida’s gulf coast out to 200 miles out of Tampa Bay,” Charter said. “That was the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act which was signed into law by Bush and stays until 2022 unless rescinded.”

Charter also said that Bush could not have actually announced offshore drilling because of the common perception that he worked for the oil companies.

According to Charter, Obama also approved the first exploratory drilling in the Arctic that will start this summer. Charter said an accident like the current one off the Louisiana coast would be much worse because no one could try to clean it up.

While multi-faceted, the debate on expanding offshore drilling centers around safety and the amount of oil that can be recovered from coastal areas. Estimates range from about 2-3 years of domestic consumption, which environmental groups say is not worth the safety and environmental risks. They also point out that limited refining capacity and global oil supplies would mean very limited impact on gas prices. And no new offshore drilling would begin for several years.

According to figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, about 57 percent of U.S. crude oil is imported, while U.S. domestic production accounts for about 43 percent. Offshore activity, primarily in the Gulf of Mexico, represents about 30% of domestic production.

“There is a pattern of big oil blowouts–small spills and fatalities, but the oil companies are good at covering it up,” Charter said. “They spend millions convincing the public that offshore drilling is safe and clean.”

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Following last week’s explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the Louisiana coast, underwater robots have been deployed to try to shut off the leaking valve and a response team is working to collect oil from the water’s surface. Response crews are also preparing for what now seems to be inevitable contact of the oil spill with the delicate coastal wetlands and the possibility of a 2-3 month operation if relief drills are required to stop the leak.

Estimates from this past weekend were that approximately 1,000 barrels (or 42,000 gallons) of oil per day are leaking from the source near the seabed.

“This is a manageable amount,” BP spokesman Robert Wine told me Monday in a phone interview: “You can think of it in terms of a couple of oil trucks delivering to a petrol station; it’s not like a huge oil tanker.”

“There is hope that the oil spill can be kept away from the coast, but preparations are being made for that case,” Wine said. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 3-day forecast for winds and tides offers a favorable outlook, he said.

But, the latest news reports from today have indicated that the oil spill is headed toward the coast.

BP has launched a strong response to the oil spill, and I asked Wine if there are ample resources in the Gulf of Mexico to manage the response in case more is needed. He said that there are — because it’s the most well-sourced oil production region in the world aside from the Middle East.

As for oil on the water’s surface, the Marine Spill Response Corporation, one of the global-scale consortia that assists in oil spill response, had retrieved 1,052 barrels of oily water over the weekend, according to a report by the Associated Press.

Wine explained that the oil is separated by skimmer boats and sent to a refinery as waste oil. The water goes through thorough testing and is put back in the ocean.

“Everything is highly regulated,” he said.

Paul Horsman, an International Climate Campaigner with Greenpeace International, said that the Gulf of Mexico tends to be a hot spot for oil spills from vessels probably because of the amount of traffic. For that reason, it’s also well-equipped to deal with spills, he agreed. “Fortunately, offshore rig accidents aren’t that common,” he added. The biggest one — and the second biggest oil spill on record — is the Ixtoc I oil well accident which released 140 mil gallons (ca. 3 million barrels) into the Gulf of Mexico in 1979 before the well was capped more than 9 months later.

Having heard of a start-up innovative environmental disaster response company last summer while visiting Vancouver, Canada, I contacted the CEO to ask whether the company’s patented AEROS oil-spill response technology would handle the current spill in the Gulf of Mexico more effectively.

“It’s the only solution for that disaster,” President and CEO Myron Sullivan II said, “but it’s not built yet.”

Sullivan, who has an engineering degree, got the idea for the technology after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. The system involves GPS-guided vehicles that are parachuted into the affected sea area and encircle the oil spill, rapidly collecting the oil and separating the oil for recycling.

Sullivan said the system has been tested and his company, Global Response Group (GRG), will carry out trials in Canada in the near future.

China has expressed interest in GRG’s AEROS system, which features a range of GPS-deployable response technologies for such disasters as mega-fires and oil spills. The Chinese government sponsored an engineering competition for an oil spill response system in 2009-10, which GRG won, Sullivan said. GRG has secured a small contract and is in negotiations for an $800 million deal to build the first AEROS base in Tianjin in Northeastern China on the Bohai Gulf.

I didn’t have time before posting this article to consult an independent environmental engineering source to evaluate the technology or to find out more about GRG’s AEROS contracts in China, but will follow up on both of these in a future article.

I did, however, ask Greenpeace’s Horsman whether advanced innovative technologies generically speaking would make a significant difference in oil spill response. He was skeptical.

“This occurs to me every time I get quoted. I get emails from all kinds of people who claim to have the cutting edge technology on cleaning up oil spills.”

“It’s always a glorified brush and shovel and vacuum cleaner operation,” he continued. The necessary tools include booms, which are deployed from vessels and look like large sausages. They float on the surface and have a cable beneath to corral the oil. Then, there is a whole range of different skimmers.

“Thirty or forty years of oil spills — if they’ve taught us anything — it’s that you can’t clean it up once it’s gone into the environment.” Horsman said you can try to mitigate the damage, but “fundamentally you’re relying on nature to undertake the breakdown process itself.”

What’s more, some cleaning technologies can actually create more problems. He said many lessons on what not to do were taken from the Exxon Valdez spill.

“You can go to beaches in Prince William Sound and find Exxon Valdez oil buried in the beaches. That’s also a result of some of the aggressive technologies tried. Exxon was desperate to try to remove visible signs of oil on the beaches.”

The best response to a spill, according to Horsman, is to help nature recover through removal of oil and protection of sensitive areas. But, removal is usually not so successful. Even in the best circumstances only 15-20 percent of the oil on the water’s surface is recovered. Environmental management requires making judgments about what to focus on, such as protecting bird colonies or preventing oil from getting onto a wetland, which is incredibly difficult to clean.

Horsman emphasizes that accidents are inevitable especially when operating at the frontier and the oil industry “should be acknowledging that as climate change starts to bite, we should be shifting our resources to renewables and not desperately trying to search for oil reserves in ever more difficult areas like deep water.”

Photo by mark i geo

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