Get Energy Smart! NOW!

Amid a Polar Vortex slamming the central United States, Texas (and Texans) are facing an energy crisis — with greatly increased power (electricity demand) with lowered supplies (about 30 gigawatts of electricity production offline), massively peaking prices, and customers (users, homes … some four million or so) without power amid seriously cold weather (and thus potentially risking freezing due to lack of electricity heat).

Almost exactly the same thing occurred a decade ago.

The key points from a decade ago are true today:

1. The blackouts occurred due to cold-weather causing traditional power plants to go offline, starting with two of Texas’ largest coal power plants.  Water intakes froze, requiring the plants to shut down.  Natural gas lines faced risks due to moisture in pipelines, leading them to shut off.    …

2. Wind power production has met (and, it seems, actually exceed) its commitments to the Texas power grid — wind-power has been producing its promised electricity service, unlike coal and natural gas systems.  …

2. In line with Governor Perry’s dreams of secession, Texas’ electrical grid remains the most independent of the regional grids in the United States from the overall electrical system.  Other states’ power production [cannot] feed in to compensate for Texas’ inability to meet its own requirements and help keep Texans warm and out of the dark.

Today, just like a decade ago, fossil fools do not want people to understand what is really going on and are falsely blaming renewable energy and clean energy efforts for the outages. In Texas, today, natural gas power generation has gone down because of frozen pipes and other problems. There also gigawatts of coal and diesel generation that are offline. In addition, there are many wind turbines that are not producing power because of freezing frozen (perhaps 10-20 percent of the fleet) but the remaining turbines are outproducing the expected production and thus renewables are contributing more electricity than ERCOT had expected. The real story: fossil fuel systems are failing while renewables are delivering. Regrettably, that is unlikely to be the tweet you see or headline you read.

Click Bait Media At Play?

While much of this deception is due to fossil fuel propaganda and propagandists, there is an element of ‘click bait’ media culture at play. As Ketan Joshi makes clear in this twitter thread. (Update: broader Joshi article.)

It isn’t just about active fossil foolish propagandists but about passive and active collaborators — many either too lazy to get to the truth or too interested in clicks to care about it.

A decade later, the same conclusion

Now, the key takeaway from Polar Vortex Texas 2021 is exactly the same one from Polar Vortex Texas 2011:

While it will take awhile to track exactly what happened in Texas and why, the early honest lesson to identify is not a need to reject 21st century technology and double-down bets on an inadequate system but the importance of increased investment in American infrastructure, the need for intelligent interlinking of the national grid, and the value of a Smart Grid to help manage disasters — whether natural, man-made, or both.

Notes:

Painfully, those dealing with fossil-fuel propaganda have it easy in one way: the same falsehoods and misdirections are used time after time. Thus, debunkings don’t have to take a lot of energy to be modified to be accurate.

Regrettably, these falsehoods and truthiness talking points show up time after time because they work.

UPDATE Notes:

• There was also a 2014 event (here too) (and a somewhat similar event in January 2018) with fossil fuel thermal systems forced offline due to cold weather conditions — even as wind farms produced electricity. E.g., three major events in a decade with an eery similarity. Seems that Texas energy system (not uniquely) has a lot of resiliency investment required (including more anti-freezing investment in wind turbines as occurs in upper Midwest) in face of mounting climate-chaos challenges.

• After writing this piece, reports are out that wind fell below the production ERCOT planned for/relies on (while solar is overperforming). However, to be clear, ERCOT plans for thermal plants to meet about 90% of winter demand and wind for <10%. The thermal plant outages are far more serious than any wind production shortfalls. However, as per above, three severe weather events in a decade certainly indicate that Texas should be looking to ‘cold harden’ for resiliency its generating capacity (including wind turbines).

• An interesting public discourse overlap is to consider how Texas (Republican) politicians and conservative media pundits attacked California governance as a failure for electricity challenges in the face of massive climate-chaos driven wildfires but don’t have similar things to say about Texas’ governance as Texans risk freezing in their homes.

Compare that GOP and RWSM messaging with what you will hear from Democratic leadership.

4. Re ‘compare’, consider how Trump attacked California (Puerto Rico, …) when it faced climate-chaos worsened disasters and slow to no implementation of Federal Emergency with President Biden’s thoughtful words related to a rapid announcement of a Federal Emergency for Texas (Texans) and others suffering amid this massive cold blast. “Unity” isn’t about getting everyone to agree in Congress to weakened down legislation but having someone in the White House who works for all (ALL) Americans, whether or not they or their state voted for him/her.

5. For some good background discussion re ERCOT (and the huge price spiking going on), see Mark Sumner’s Messing with Texas: The Lone Star state’s power grid is working exactly as designed and (linked in discussion above) John Tinder’s Texas’ power grid crumples under the cold at Ars Technica. See also Brad Plummer’s A Glimpse of America’s Future: Climate Change Means Trouble for Power Grids, New York Times and, especially, Kate Aronoff‘s (typically) great Conservatives are Seriously Accusing Wind Turbines of Killing People at the New Republic.

6. The amount of (Republican) fossil-fueled hypocrisy and deceit (with implications for bad policy making) re what is going on with the Texas energy situation is hard to exaggerate.

Here are a few more examples:

• Senator John Cornyn – Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output, state’s electric grid operator says https://statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/14/historic-winter-storm-freezes-texas-wind-turbines-hampering-electric-generation/4483230001/

• Senator John Cornyn – Rolling blackouts in Texas and spiking gas and power prices amid a cold snap show the folly of eliminating natural gas—and coal. https://wsj.com/articles/a-deep-green-freeze-11613411002?reflink=desktopwebshare_twitter via @WSJ

• Sen. Kevin Cramer – Texas is a real-time example of why we need reliable sources of energy like coal, oil, nuclear, and natural gas. It’s a shame the Biden Administration appears hell-bent on weakening these industries, along with the safety, security, and economic benefits that come with them.

• Sen. Steve Daines – Texas is frozen solid as folks are left w/ no power to stay safe & warm.  This is a perfect example of the need for reliable energy sources like natural gas & coal.  These blackouts would be devastating to MT. No heat & no power simply are not options in the dead of winter.

• Rep. Lauren Boebert – Rolling blackouts from ND to TX have turned into lengthy power outages in freezing conditions. Biden needs to lift his oil & gas ban as we need reliable energy sources.  The Green New Deal was just proven unsustainable as renewables are clearly unreliable.

• Rep. Jeff Duncan – A true “Climate Czar” would be in Texas right now looking at the shortcomings of intermittent wind and solar power generation during a climatic event. Severe weather reiterates the need for an all-of-the-above energy strategy.

• Rep. Roger Williams – The blackouts caused by this extreme weather reinforces the need to maintain energy independence and increased Texas oil and gas production, not less.

• Rep. Guy Reschenthaler – Wind turbines throughout Texas are frozen and not producing the electricity needed to keep Texans safe and warm. This is a look into the future for all Americans if President Biden and radical environmentalists have their way.

For some reason, I suspect Brian was being just a little bit sarcastic here:

The Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) is about to release it’s annual energy outlook (AEO). AEO2021 provides forecasting about the U.S. energy and carbon emissions future in light of COVID19 impacts. Regrettably, as with so much of EIA’s forecasting, there is one thing with know with certainty before reading more than the promotional release statement: EIA is WRONG!

Now, first off, perfectly accurate forecasting really isn’t the relevant target but instead a reasonable objective is forecasting that helps decision-makers (of all natures and levels) understand factors influencing future developments and how they might shape or drive them. To a certain extent, EIA’s work has been useful in this fashion. Useful with, however, serious caveats. Through a rigorously consistent pessimism about future clean energy market penetration (always slower and smaller than what has actually occurred) and about prices (too slow decline, too high price), EIA has been telling decision-makers ‘don’t count on renewables to be economically viable competitors to fossil fuels for many years/decades to come (if ever). E.g., EIA’s highly pessimistic forecasting actually has been having (based on analytical discussions with government, private industry, and other strategic planners and decision-makers) a negative impact on the potential future deployment and price declines of renewable energy options. One might say: an effort to create a self-fulfilling prophecy?

In any event, as to AEO2021, what do we know is simply “wrong” based just on the announcement of its release?

• The baseline scenario has U.S. emissions increasing from 2035 through 2050. This will not happen.
• AEO2021 forecasts renewable energy to be 60 percent of the additions to the power (electricity) sector through 2050. This seriously understates what will occur.
  • Note: EIA forecasts wind and solar to be 70 percent of capacity additions to the grid in 2021. As renewables, with every passing day, gain price advantages over polluting energy sources, it is laughable to forecast that the share of renewables in new electricity generation will decline over time.
• Coal remains a meaningful portion of the U.S. power sector indefinitely. This will not be the case … likely with phase out of existing coal power plants essentially complete by 2035.

As has been discussed ad infinitum, there are many reasons for bad forecasting from EIA (and others) — some quite understandable and legitimate even as correctable and addressable. It is frustrating, however, to yet again be looking to open an EIA product with the accurate framing being “EIA is wrong”.

Notes

There is much good work out there related to faulty EIA (and IEA and …) forecasting. I would strongly recommend looking to Ramez Naam’s substantive and impassioned analyses, for example his May 2020 Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap. Ramez cites and links to many others (such as Auke Hoekstra) who have been fighting for better forecasting from the world’s energy analytical institutions.

Related posts here include:

• During #ClimateWeek, @EIAgov doubles down on forecasting climate catastrophe
• New EIA forecast subtitled: We are EFFed …
• Buried in @WhiteHouse staff report: Energy Information Administration planning for a 6C future
• Department of Energy’s “Annual Outlook 2015” is out: what do we know w/out reading it?
• .@WhiteHouse makes clear that @EIAgov does lousy fossil fuel forecasting, ignores that its #Solar and #Wind forecasting even worse
• When it comes to renewable energy forecasting, Japan’s forecasting follows world lead

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President Biden’s first two weeks have been busy, productive, and exciting. Mehdi Hasan is not alone in concluding that “Biden’s first days in office were way better than I expected.” So many impressive (capable, ethical, experienced, passionate) appointees. Fair, but firm, engagement as to calls for “bipartisan” to undermine progress (as opposed to unity for moving ahead with the best policies possible for Americans). And, substantive executive order after executive order after executive order. It has been (and likely will be) hard to keep up with how the Biden-Harris Administration is flooding the zone to right the nation post Trump’s occupation of the Oval Office and to Build Back Better amid/from five (COVID, Unemployment, Equity / Justice, Climate, AND Democracy) crises.

In terms of keeping up, while breathlessly moving from one significant action and statement to another, it can be difficult to step back to consider broader implications from an Executive Order. For example, very few Americans have even heard of what could turn out to be one of the most critical items within President Biden’s executive orders: changing the charter of the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’s) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). In a few words, OIRA has been the place for good things go to die — since the Reagan Administration. The first day in the Biden Presidency Modernizing Regulatory Review EO pretty much seeks to turn that on the head, to make OIRA a partner with the rest of the U.S. government with a “regulatory review process [structured to] promote public health and safety, economic growth, social welfare, racial justice, environmental stewardship, human dignity, equity, and the interests of future generations.” No longer backward-looking, inherently overly-conservative “cost-benefit analyses” to put breaks on good policy but developing ways to understand and foster multisolving as a tool to accelerate good policy and good program development and execution.

In a less obscure first day EO, President Biden revoked the Keystone XL pipeline’s permit. Putting aside the inevitable Republican fossil foolish lies and deceit about job implications, reading the justification for that EO makes clear that this isn’t about Keystone XL but, fundamentally, about the future of new (major) fossil fuel infrastructure projects across the country where Federal regulatory review is a (significant) part of the process. From that EO

the United States must prioritize the development of a clean energy economy, which will in turn create good jobs.  … the … pipeline would undermine U.S. climate leadership by undercutting the credibility and influence of the United States in urging other countries to take ambitious climate action.

(c)  Climate change has had a growing effect on the U.S. economy, with climate-related costs increasing over the last 4 years.  Extreme weather events and other climate-related effects have harmed the health, safety, and security of the American people and have increased the urgency for combatting climate change and accelerating the transition toward a clean energy economy.  The world must be put on a sustainable climate pathway to protect Americans and the domestic economy from harmful climate impacts, and to create well-paying union jobs as part of the climate solution. 

(d)  The Keystone XL pipeline disserves the U.S. national interest.  The United States and the world face a climate crisis.  That crisis must be met with action on a scale and at a speed commensurate with the need to avoid setting the world on a dangerous, potentially catastrophic, climate trajectory.  At home, we will combat the crisis with an ambitious plan to build back better, designed to both reduce harmful emissions and create good clean-energy jobs.  Our domestic efforts must go hand in hand with U.S. diplomatic engagement.  Because most greenhouse gas emissions originate beyond our borders, such engagement is more necessary and urgent than ever.  The United States must be in a position to exercise vigorous climate leadership in order to achieve a significant increase in global climate action and put the world on a sustainable climate pathway.  Leaving the Keystone XL pipeline permit in place would not be consistent with my Administration’s economic and climate imperatives.

The EO’s Section 6 is explicitly about the Keystone XL pipeline but actually is about so much more. With the exception of the referencing to the 2015 review of the pipeline advising against it, read those words and consider whether they would be relevant to essentially any other fossil fuel infrastructure project (pipeline, liquid methane (LNG) export terminal, gas power plant, …). The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) undercuts the ability for the U.S. to lead on climate change globally. Enbridge’s Line 3 is not “consistent with [the Biden] Administration’s economic and climate imperatives”. The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) “disserves the U.S. national interest.” Read the justification for revoking the Keystone XL pipeline’s permit makes clear that the game has changed for any and all fossil fuel projects that require Federal permitting for moving forward. While this doesn’t mean an end to all fossil fuel projects, it certainly makes clear that “interference” could put at risk (put an end to) many.

And, professionals are taking notice. For example, “Interference risks” to DAPL, Line 3, and MVP were raised by Fitch Ratings as having credit implications for involved firms. (E.g., investors and bankers take note!)

When it comes to Virginia, the MVP seems prime for the Keystone XL treatment.

• A questionable permit allowing carving through National Parks and forests (crossing the Appalachian Trail);
• Being built in difficult terrain where the risk — and reality — of accidents is high;
• Questionable business case justification, other than soaking up ratepayer payments for unnecessary infrastructure;
• Almost certain future stranded/minimally use asset status (as part of the pipeline bubble); and,
• Serious negative climate change implications.

All of the above were true about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which Dominion finally retreated from last June. Regrettably, the Virginia government — which has the legal authority to do so — has been stoic in supporting unnecessary and polluting gas pipelines. While these pipelines are at odds with implementation of any serious Virginia climate plan and path forward, the glaring absence of leadership from Richmond might be taken care of by Washington as the Biden Administration examines egregiously fossil foolish infrastructure projects and decides which merit The Keystone Treatment. When it comes to this, the MVP has to rank as an MVP (Most Viable Project) to lose its permits.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) is a true Climate Hawk and has one of the few national-level politicians with an extended record of forcefully speaking about the urgent necessity for serious climate action. One element of this record will close out later today with an impressive record: 279 #TimeToWakeUp speeches to draw attention to the climate crisis and call on corporate American and Republicans in Congress to act. Senator Whitehouse has dealt with science, with science denial, astroturfing, threats to his state and the nation, jobs opportunity, and, among other things, how climate action relates to paths and opportunities to improve the economy, society, and lives — internationally, nationally, and locally.

Senator Whitehouse is putting the extended “time to wake up” oratory to rest because Americans and American has woken up. Polls showing an ever-increasing understanding of climate risks and opportunities — even among (especially young) Republicans. Politicians are speaking more seriously and, at all levels of government, taking moves to address climate (mitigation and adaptation). And, to cap it off, we have moved in January 2021 from the most anti-science and ignorant corrupt fossil fool to ever occupy the Oval Office to science defending and promoting President Biden who has made his first week of governance truly a Climate Hawk track record.

In a decision to put to rest what might be the longest series of (numbered) speeches by a single Senator focused on one critical issue, Senator Whitehouse is making a clarion call that the time to wake up to the problem and opportunity is behind us as we now take on the challenge of mitigating and adapting to climate change to create a healthier, more resilient, wealthier, and more equitable United States of American.

NOTE:  The speech should be livestreamed on twitter (@SenWhitehouse) and Facebook (@SenatorWhitehouse).

The United States has been through a massive roller-coaster over the past month. The events of Four Wednesdays in January have been momentous:

• Wednesday, January 6th: Insurrection: At the instigation of Donald Trump, insurrectionists assaulted the Capitol and put the survival of U.S. Democracy on a knife’s edge.
  • Of course, that first Wednesday began with the terrific victories in Georgia moving from two incompetent, unethical crooks to two uber-competent, ethical, decent, substantive Georgia Senators and coming Democratic Party control of the Senate.
• Wednesday, January 13th: Impeachment: A week after seditious Donald incited insurrection, Trump became the first President to be impeached twice.
• Wednesday, January 20th: Inauguration: With a huge security presence to dissuade and deter another Cult 45 assault on the U.S. government, President Biden was sworn in as the 46th President.
• Wednesday, January 27th: Innovation+: President Biden is to, after a week of executive orders/actions related to climate and a raft of Climate Hawk appointments throughout the Biden-Harris Administration, add even more executive orders related to climate. Expected actions include
  • Directing government agencies to
    • Set down the path for banning new oil and natural gas leases on federal lands — and, potentially, reducing existing leases.
    • conserve 30 percent of all federal land and water by 2030,
    • create a task force to assemble a governmentwide action plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions;
  • Will create new offices, commissions, and positions for arenas like environmental justice and environmentally friendly job creation (with at least some focus on helping displaced coal communities), and,
  • Declare the climate crisis a national security priority
    • though not likely to declare (yet) the climate emergency that Senate Majority Leader Schumer has called for.

It has been a momentous month (so far) and, of course, the four Wednesdays, the 4 Is, only begin to touch the surface of what has happened / is happening over the month (from COVID19 to unemployment to …). However, consider the four and it does say much about the moment and the potential for positive action to come.

The Insurrection, that first Wednesday in January, represented the nadir of the truly horrific Trump regime as his words and actions sparked a murderous crowd to attack the Capitol. After months of illegal surreptitious and overt efforts to overthrown the election and establish a Trump autocracy, Trump and his cult followers took to the streets with violence and murderous intent.

With Impeachment, the second Wednesday in January, a path toward accountability was set even Senator McConnell refused to allow a trial to go forward to remove seditious Trump and the odds of a conviction of the former occupant of the Oval Office seem dim in the face of Republican Senators’ continued fear of crossing Trump and the Cult45 Republican base.

Inauguration, the third Wednesday in January, brought signs of relief and cries of joy across the nation and the globe. Competence, sanity, ethics, and decency returned to the White House. Sane Americans went to sleep more at ease (even with COVID19, the climate crisis, unemployment, the domestic terror threat) than had been possible for the previous four years.

Innovation, the fourth Wednesday of January, provides a signpost that government has again become part of the solution and that the President will be leveraging all tools of governance (with the sad constraints of continued climate denier power in Congress ready to fight to stymie action) to address the imperative for serious climate action (along with other serious problems and opportunities).

Four Wednesdays … a journey from

• the nadir of thugs assaulting the Capitol to
• the painful necessity for accountability to
• the joy of positive chain in government to
• the promise that government will be there for us (the U.S.),

And, reason for hope that President Biden will be the Climate Hawk that the U.S. and the rest of humanity requires.

Amid the momentous events of today, President Biden has plans to exhaust his hand signing executive orders (see note below re broken link. note: that is a broken link) to reverse some of Donald Trump’s worse excesses and to start the process of righting the ailing Ship of State.

Among these is an item that will likely get minimal press attention but which is a truly momentous item to set the Federal Government on the path for serious climate action.

Re-establishing the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) and directing the issuance of an interim social cost of GHG schedule to ensure that agencies account for the full costs of GHG emissions, including climate risk, environmental justice and intergenerational equity

Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (or, as more often called, a Social Cost of Carbon: SCC) has been described, in the past, “as the most important number you’ve never heard of“. The Interagency Working Group was established in the Obama-Biden Administration (in 2009) with a “commitment to ensure that the social cost of carbon estimates continue to reflect the best available science and methodologies”.

A SCC places a figure on the value of the economic impact of CO2 emissions to use in everything from regulation writing to discussions as to carbon legislation. Set the price too high and the economy could take a near-term hit in terms of lost opportunity costs for more sensible investment choices. Set the price too low and, well, the devastating impacts of catastrophic climate chaos could result as the economy under invests in climate mitigation and adaptation. The Obama Administration figure was $50 even as much analysis suggested that figure was (significantly) too low. The Trump Administration lowered it to $7 while, in fact, essentially eliminating it for decision-making (thus, functionally, a $0 value if not positive valuation for CO2 emissions). Watching glaciers melt, species go extinct, fires across the nation, allergy sufferers suffer more, and other climate crisis impacts clearly shows a $7 figure is too low.

As of later today, the U.S. government will (again) be pricing (even if inadequately) climate impacts into analysis, decision-making, and expenditures.

To be clear, this is both substantive and symbolic action.

• Substantive in influencing and driving decision-making and action across the Federal Government.
• Symbolic in that — as with the also planned rejoining of the Paris Agreement — President Biden, on his first day in office, is taking tangible steps to Act On Climate. This is a downpayment for more serious action to come.

Notes:

• See after fold for the actual language from the Executive Order re the Interagency Working Group on Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
• The first link in the post is to material that was published on the BuildBackBetter.gov web site. After this was written, that site transferred to WhiteHouse.gov with President Biden’s swearing in but the actual BBB material doesn’t seem to have yet transferred over (as of last check). Here is the White House Actions site with a plethora of 20 January 2021 items. For a summary of President Biden’s first day executive actions, see this CNN story.

With over 30,000 documented lies just in his Presidency and the Big Lie central to Trump’s political power, there is one that truly stands out. A single $100,000,000,000,000 ($1T) lie — a lie that isn’t just Trump’s but permeates the Republican Party and the extremist right wing sound machine (RWSM).

Trump’s Biggest Lie (that $100T lie) has shown up all over the place, including in the Presidential debates last fall.

[VP Biden]’s talking about the Green New Deal. And it’s not 2 billion or 20 billion as you said, it’s $100 trillion. 

Upfront (for a truth sandwich), a taste of Trump’s massive deceit in just a few words.

• The Biden-Harris Build Back Better is about $2T (not $100T) …
  • climate action is only a portion of this.
• The Biden-Harris program is not what was proposed in The Green New Deal legislation.
  • These are not the same things even if there are spaces of overlap.
• The Green New Deal proposals have far more than direct climate action but address social equity and resiliency (health care for all, job guarantees, and otherwise). Climate action is only a fraction of proposed Green New Deal investments.
  • And, the total Green New Deal investment requirement over 30 years would fall below $100T and, as per below, have outsized benefits. These expenditures would be investments with returns for the nation.
• For real understanding, analysis requires costs in total isolation to other issues:
  • What would costs be without the proposed investments?
    • Just in direct health care, the Green New Deal path would lower societal economic costs $16T over a ten year period.
  • What would benefits be beyond ‘business as usual’?
  • In other words, not just discussing and assessing “cost” but cost/benefit, investment/return analysis that might provide a picture for net costs or, more accurately, net benefits.

Okay, that’s a thick slide of bread for a truth sandwich.

Now, as with so much of Trump’s deceit, there is an open debate: ‘Is it a lie if he doesn’t know it isn’t the truth?’ There is much behind Trump’s Biggest Lie, including extensive Fox commentary promoting it. And, there is (sort of) research behind the lie — skewed, inaccurate, costs-only, deceptive reporting that has a ‘name’ behind it.

With The Green New Deal being deployed, conservative economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, formerly the head of the Congressional Budget Office, did a cursory analysis of “costs” for the Green New Deal that totaled $93T … that is $93T using solely the high-range cost estimates and so cursory that DHE’s warned that these “best thought of as estimating the order of magnitude” (e.g., a $5T “estimated cost” was best thought of as from $1-$9.9T). This is a very troubled effort since it didn’t deal with avoided costs and BAU outlays nor any look at resulting benefits from the expenditures. A truthful, fully-burdened assessment would have been discussing net benefits, in fact, rather than $93T in costs.

For example, “universal health care” is assessed at $260,000 of estimated cost per household over ten years or $26,000 per household. Wow. That is a big number. But, well, hold it a second for some context. U.S. medical costs were $11,582 per person in 2019 or about $46,000 per household of four. In essence, DHE’s analysis is thus asserting that the GND would lower average household costs by about $20,000 per year (without accounting for inflation, other ‘costs’ (time filling out paperwork, less business creation due to health insurance issues, better medical care, etc …). Hmm, does context provide a different feel for the situation

So, the basic analytical approach was essentially a back of the envelope penciling of only part of the overall financial (and other) implications and skews discussion by being without context.

This skewed and distorted analysis has been the basis for OPED after political comment after fossil foolish pontificator attack on moves to Act On Climate. That (not really) $93T (okay, Trump rounded up to $100T … one of his lesser exaggerations in his life) represents far more than the investment required for climate mitigation and adaptation called for in The Green New Deal and far more than the Biden-Harris Build Back Better plan.

Look at the DHE table. Well over $80T of the $93T is for guaranteed jobs, universal health care, and food security. As Trump attacks Biden re GND related to climate action, Trump is exaggerating the already misleading analysis by an order of magnitude.

However, consider the remaining climate-related elements of DHE’s table. All of these items represent investments that displace other costs that would occur (such as installing solar and wind with resources that would have built coal plants and mined coal) and that will deliver valuable services (electrons!) while doing so with lower costs (lower cost electricity, lowered pollution impacting health and environment).

In many ways, the RWSM’s screaming about the $93T Green New Deal is truly a classic case of The Big Lie. A pseudo-analytically based figure that has a plausibility ring to it that is complicated enough to understand and explain that most will hear and remember $93 trillion without realizing it was all one Big Lie.

And, when it comes to Trump’s unending whoppers, false assertions of Biden’s climate plan being “$100 trillion” is Trump’s Biggest Lie.

In the last weeks of the Trump Administration, the Department of Navy and the U.S. Navy have released multiple significant strategy documents and long-term strategies including a decades-long force structure (shipbuilding) plan, a tri-service (Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard) strategy, and, earlier this week, A Blue Arctic: A Strategic Blueprint for the Arctic.

Commentators, including some traditional quite conservative naval analysts, have been raising questions of the political timing of these documents and strategies. Putting aside (the m)any strengths (and/or weaknesses) of these documents, a simple question to consider: Does the open publication of strategies and long-term plans amid the most contentious transition of power in (modern?) U.S. history make these dead on arrival (DOA) since they have been done without any coordination with the incoming Administration team?

These “DOA” documents seem to represent part of a purposeful Trump Administration appointee effort (across the ‘Whole of Government’) to box in the incoming Biden Administration’s operating options and spaces, creating issue and issue where Biden appointees will need to spend time and energy ‘cleaning up’ after Trump appointees, and seeking to nail policies and concepts into the ground at odds with the Biden-Harris program. And, with the military services, like the career civil servants around the government, do these actions in the waning (dying) days of the Trump Administration have the potential to stain and strain relations between those who have been closest to Trump appointees and the incoming Biden Administration?

Blue Arctic serves a strong exemplar of this challenge. This document is filled with substantive discussion of Arctic issues and challenges for the Navy in confronting the changing Arctic.

While Blue Arctic has much of substance to digest and consider, even the quickest read makes clear red flags that suggest a deeper read looking for potential ticking time bombs might be merited. Here are three “climate change” red flags:

Climate Change absent

If you search the 28 page document of the Arctic for “climate change”, “global warming”, IPCC, and related terms you will get a “No matches were found” result. While the strategy highlights climate change impacts such “melting sea ice” and that “fish stocks are expected to move northward”, there is zero indication as to why.

In line with four years of Trump Administration efforts to wipe discussion of climate change (not actual climate change) from the U.S. government, climate change goes unmentioned in this Department of the Navy strategy document on the Arctic — an already climate-changed region that will be undergoing massive global warming driven change in the years ahead.

Inquiring minds wonder whether it might it be relevant why what was once ‘a white Arctic’ is becoming A Blue Arctic?

Science glossed over

One of the compelling data streams of the reality of global warming impacts comes from U.S. Navy submarine operations in the Arctic, with decades of high-quality data as to the extent and thickness of Arctic ice. With a paragraph on “science and technology”, one might say that the Navy’s role in advancing knowledge about Arctic climate impacts is implicitly covered but, to phrase it somewhat differently from above, failing to name and discuss a relevant (significant) issue is to belittle and deny its import. Both for its own operational requirements and to support broader requirements to understand, the Department of the Navy should explicitly discuss its role in climate science (data collection and analysis) while making explicit what it requires from others.

Arctic Oil and Gas (ONG) can’t be exploited

A Blue Arctic‘s opening paragraph of the “Challenges of a New Era” reads:

The coming decades will witness significant changes to the Arctic Region. Encompassing about six percent of the global surface, a Blue Arctic will have a disproportionate impact on the global economy given its abundance of natural resources and strategic location. The region holds and estimate 30% of the world’s undiscovered natural gas reserves, 13% of global conventional oil reserves, and one trillion dollars’ worth of rare earth minerals. Fish stocks are expected to continue to shift northward, attracting global fishing fleets and creating potential challenges to the current international prohibition on Arctic fishing.

While the cited facts are true, this is a very troubling paragraph for numerous reasons even putting aside ‘why’ questioning. (Such as: Why are fish stock shifting northward? Why will there be significant changes to the Arctic Region?)

Simply put, a focus on ONG is absurd.

• All with a robust understanding of climate science and the “carbon budget” to reduce climate crisis risks realize that significant exploitation of Arctic ONG reserves will bust through that budget.
• Additionally, the growing understanding of peak oil (peak oil demand) and depressed oil prices as alternatives begin to cannibalize demand are leading to oil majors walking away from plans to exploit these resources (as exemplified in recent days by the lack of bidding for new ANWR leases). There just isn’t a plausible business case for significant investment to extract high(er) cost ONG when the alternative energy options are simply beating them on price already and, without question, a decade (plus) from now when A Blue Arctic offshore ONG reserves might otherwise have been exploited.

A Blue Arctic‘s emphasis on ONG is directly in line with the Trump Administration’s devotional promotion of fossil fuels and at odds with climate action necessities and global energy system realities.

Blue Arctic:
at odds with incoming
Biden Administration

Of course, the contrast is night and day in terms of climate science and ONG between the Trump Administration and the incoming Biden-Harris team.

• Rather than unrealistic planning for unlimited continued fossil fuel usage, clean energy deployment and a transition off fossil fuels are core to the Biden-Harris team’s vision.
• Rather than Team Trump’s determined climate-science denial and sabotaging of efforts to reduce climate impacts, climate is central to the President-Elect Biden’s plans to Build Back Better and there is clarity that the Biden-Harris Administration will pay attention to and give visibility to climate (science) issues.

It is essentially impossible to consider that the Biden Administration would approve a 28 page Arctic Strategy document that put ONG exploitation as a (the) top-tier issue, failed to mention climate change, and failed to put the strategy within the context of climate change.

Following guidance for ‘truth sandwiches’, a simple truth upfront:

• Scientists have concluded, based on multiple strands of evidence, that carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels (including in aviation operations) “damages the climate” system. This is NOT about belief.

On the morning of New Year’s day, my heart went with excitement on turning to page A16 of The Washington Post print edition and seeing the article “Team develops process to turn CO2 into jet fuel“. As an energy/climate geek and activist, paths to net zero aviation are critically important for humanity’s future. In addition, in disclosure, this is a domain where I have had some professional exposure and thus awareness of the challenges and opportunities. My excitement quickly turned to frustration and dismay.

Beyond the absurdity of discussing a university study team’s work in (essentially) breathless tones in a field where significant resources have been spent over the past decade+ with multiple paths forward, let’s take a look at just one paragraph sentence by sentence:

[1] Environmentalists have long believed that commercial flying damages the climate with the massive amount of CO2 that passenger jets emit globally; air travel accounts for about 2.5 percent of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions.

As per the opening ‘truth’, climate science isn’t about “belief” but about scientific conclusions based on significant analysis of numerous data streams and elements. To write “environmentalists have long believed” is to downplay the science and foster an opening for doubt since “environmentalists” are biased advocates and what they have “long believed” can be discounted as advocacy positions.

For a context of the absurdity, when discussing the use of barriers on a skyscraper to inhibit suicide attempts, perhaps Post reporters should write “anti-suicide advocates have long believed that gravity contributes to health risks from jumping off high buildings.”

This sentence also has provides a good example of the article’s basic and sloppy errors: slipping from “passenger jets” to “air travel contributes”. When it comes to the 2.5% figure, that is all aviation of which passenger aviation is a (major) portion — not the entirety. Also,

[2] The problem is rooted in the burning of fossil fuels, a process that essentially takes carbon buried beneath the Earth’s surface and releases it into the atmosphere.

Seriously, are we in 1970 or an elementary school classroom with a need to explain in such basic terms that burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? Sadly, this isn’t the sole example of such shallowly pedantic material in the article. Either/or Post editors and journalists are themselves or think their readership so ignorant that they think “news” worth reporting.

And, by the way, it isn’t that “the problem is rooted in the burning of fossil fuels” but is the impact that burning fossil fuels has on the climate system.

[3] The process is thought to contribute to global warming.

Even worse than belief, here is a passive voice (who thinks this?) statement of uncertainty — that burning fossil fuels is “thought to contribute” rather than the truthful statement that burning fossil fuels does contribute to (even drive — perhaps 80% of CO2 emissions in past 50 years) global warming.

Sadly, the article’s faults aren’t limited to one abysmal paragraph:

• This article is about an interesting published academic paper about a path for leveraging renewable power and CO2 captured from the atmosphere to make synthetic fuel for aviation and thus displace fossil fuels (and enable ‘net zero’ aviation operations). Interesting and potentially even a serious breakthrough path, but an academic paper from “an experimental process” that is many steps from commercial application — if it ever gets there. As written awhile ago about the MIT press team’s skill at getting attention for press release’s about lab activity, “overhyping of items that might be years or decades from deployment (if ever to deploy) helps foster a ‘technology will solve everything’ (or ‘solution is just around the corner’) mentality (subconsciously, if not consciously) that undermines the ability to understand that we have things, in hand, to run with to help solve problems.”
• In terms of ‘breathless’, the article doesn’t provide any indication that there are many working on such CO2-to-fuel efforts and that they have been for quite awhile. As just a taste of what is out there, here are two U.S. government funded efforts: the Department of Energy’s Solar Fuels program and the Congressionally funded SEA FUELS (Securing Energy for our Armed Forces Using Engineering Leadership) program in the Department of Defense. Hype without context.
• In seeking to summarize the process, the article implies (even states) that the CO2 capture-to-fuel production would occur on aircraft. (“Essentially, a jet would extract the gas from the air while on the ground and reemit it via combustion while in flight.”) This Back-to-the-Future like concept might make a great science fiction device but isn’t in anyone’s playbook for the coming decades (if not centuries). Actually, it appears that the intent would be to have fuel manufacturing co-located with carbon capture activities at high-polluting facilities (such as steel plants).
• And, well, sigh …

Painful and problematic with a blockbuster finish:

The Oxford team wants within three years to complete a transatlantic trip based on its artificial fuel.

Wow, three years from producing a few vials in the laboratory to having fuel certified for aviation usage and producing (let’s say) 30,000 gallons for a single transatlantic flight. While it would be wonderful if such crash efforts were part and parcel of humanity’s efforts to address climate change, sadly this doesn’t comport with how governments, science, and business work. While it is a hopeful vision that the Oxford team is able to have clean fuel in production and certified for a 2024 flight, and that this lays the basis for displacing all fossil fuels from commercial aviation within a decade, that hopeful vision seems beyond far-fetched and ending with such a mistaken Silver Bullet suggestion caps off a highly problematic Washington Post commencement of its 2021 climate, energy, and technology reporting.

Pricing carbon — imposing a fee for polluting the global commons — is, as probably any economist would be glad to explain, the most straightforward, cost-effective, and efficient tool for effective climate action. Impose a price on anything and markets will respond — even if not as perfectly as a homo economicus‘ response.

This rational, efficient, and effective tool remains (indefinitely?) dead-on-arrival (DOA) within the U.S. political system — even as President-Elect Joe Biden will return respect for science and intent to lead serious moves to address the climate crisis. That DOA status seems not to be well understood by even well-informed players in climate economics based on a recent conversation with several European-based analysts who found, from what I could tell, astounding my comments that while I understand the power of carbon pricing, I just didn’t see it meriting top-billing on my agenda for analysis and time.

These serious and informed people had grounds for, from a distance, their impression that the U.S. was on the cusp of action for climate pricing.

• President-Elect Biden and the Democratic Party have major plans for climate action and pricing carbon would enable funding their program(s).
  • Response: Note that carbon fees (or, if you prefer with wrong framing, taxes) appear nowhere in the Biden-Harris Build Back Better plans and didn’t make an appearance in the Democratic Party platform.
• Aren’t there Republicans supportive of carbon pricing?
  • Response: Please show a significant Republican politician who is advocating, anywhere other than in back rooms anonymously, carbon pricing? No matter what they might believe and understand about climate science and the reality of the climate crisis, Republican politicians fear the wrath of their base in primaries and that base will punish them (with a frenzy whipped up by fossil-fuel funded disinformation efforts) for proposing any sort of carbon pricing. To the extent that there are Republicans promoting climate pricing, such as former Representative Bob Inglis, the conspiracy-theory driven Republican base views them as RINOs (Republicans In Name Only). And, Inglis is an excellent example of paying the price — his title is “former” due to a successful primary challenge from the right driven, significantly, due to Inglis calling for the GOP to take climate seriously.
• Corporations are increasingly onboard and proposing carbon pricing, such as Exxon Mobil.
  • Response: Exxon Mobil’s business model and strategy is to squeeze every last cent it can from exploiting fossil fuels for as long as possible. Exxon Mobil is a preeminent corporate strategy example of what Alex Steffen terms Predatory Delay. To the extent that Exxon Mobil gives lip service to carbon pricing, this is (a) for a price high enough to disrupt coal but not high enough to significantly dent their ONG (oil, fossil gas) revenue streams, (b) support predicated on trading off for reduced regulatory control and (even more importantly) a get-of-jail-free card for their decades of climate disinformation, and, (c) like their green-washing advertising announcements, far more public relations than substance. As an indicator of (c), try to find Exxon-Mobil lobbying expenditures making the case to (Republican) legislators about the critical importance of putting a serious price on pollution.

Somewhat reverse their logic chain … businesses will pressure Republicans to work with Democrats to move forward carbon pricing. In a rational world that makes just so much sense. However, let’s just consider “Democrats” in that equation.

• It isn’t just Build Back Better and the DNC platform where carbon fees don’t make a showing. None of the Democratic Party primary candidates had carbon pricing in their climate plans … not even the gold star plans from Governor Jay Inslee and Senator Elizabeth Warren. Many of the ‘technocrats’ involved in helping write these plans would agree that carbon pricing would be effective and efficient — they just don’t see the political support to do so and also see clearly the path for pursuing an expenditures (investment) strategy to set the United States on the road forward toward a net-zero economy with improved economic performance while addressing environmental and economic injustice.
• The most significant and aggressive vision from the progressive left, the Green New Deal, does not include carbon pricing. Many in the GND coalition view carbon pricing as regressive.
• There are significant Democratic Party politicians (starting, but not ending, with West Virginia’s Senator Joe Manchin) who will have to be brought kicking and screaming to the table for any carbon pricing. These are ‘all of the above’ Democrats who likely won’t be onboard without significant Republican and Corporate engagement, which doesn’t seem likely.
• Democratic Party politicians and political consultancy class view this as a suicidal third rail.
  • President Clinton’s Btu tax was central to GOP messaging in a massive 1994 Republican electoral gain.
  • The Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy Security (ACES) bill was a significant part of Tea Party messaging in the 2010 Republican electoral gain.
  • Attempts to price carbon have gone down to electoral defeat when proposed, such as two attempts in Washington State that failed to pass due to (a) serious disagreements between climate action supporting communities about how to do this and (b) heavy fossil-fuel interest investment in disinformation campaigns against these proposals.

In short, when it comes to the Democratic Party and pricing carbon, there is:

• nowhere near consensus within the Party (politicians, interest groups, grass roots), and
• fear that, no matter any merits, this is a losing electoral issue.

If one can’t see a path toward robust Democratic Party support for carbon pricing, why even fantasize about Republicans?

Now, with other nations around the world increasingly pricing carbon (such as Canada’s recent call for pricing that will reach $CAN170 by 2030), the reality that nations with carbon pricing will have border adjustment fees and policies that will impact countries without carbon pricing structures, and the continued understanding of the effectiveness of pricing as a (A) tool to accelerate climate action, one should expect continued interest in, promotion of, and discussion of the potential for U.S. carbon pricing. Within the U.S. political system, with the Democratic Party (at best) split and (extremely) lukewarm on the issue and the Republican Party entrenched in denialism, an actually executable road from here to there in the near-term seems to be outside reality and, thus, in the realm of fiction.

To be clear, no direct carbon pricing doesn’t mean inaction when it comes to climate. There will be actions like reducing (ending?) fossil-fuel subsidies, regulation and oversight of polluting industries, mandating clean power introduction, clean-energy innovation and production support, and many other non-(direct) carbon pricing measures that will drive down emissions — even if some might be less technically efficient than a carbon pricing structure.

UPDATE: Shortly after this posted, Dave Roberts put out Giving up on the economy-wide carbon pricing dream, a thoughtful interview with the authors of Making Climate Policy Work (Danny Cullenward and David Victor) which puts meat on the bones of the points made above about political challenges along with discussing inefficiencies of economy-wide pricing schemes.