Something we hear a lot is “It’d be nice if America could use more alternative fuels that are cleaner and American-made, but they’re just not affordable compared to oil.” It’s time to put that myth to bed. Read more →
It seems like every week another major automaker announces it will “electrify” its vehicle lineup. In just the past few months, Mercedez-Benz, Ford, Audi, Maserati, Jaguar Land Rover, BMW, Lincoln, Volkswagen, GM, Aston Martin, and more have committed to electrification by adding more electric vehicle (EV) options to their fleet. Read more →
When it comes to lighting our homes and powering our electronic devices, we’re so used to having a full menu of American-made resources, we’ve come to take it for granted. It’s about time we demand all-American fuel to power our vehicles. Read more →
Seriously, if we made all our fuel in America we could create not just thousands, but potentially millions of jobs. What gives? Read more →
As a foundation whose primary goal is ending our oil addiction both in the United States and internationally, you might think we’d be celebrating a rise in electric vehicle (EV) usage in the most populous country on Earth. Read more →
14 dollars and 81 cents.
That’s how much I’ve spent on gasoline since I leased a 2016 Chevy Volt near the end of November. Read more →
I have great sympathy for the coal miners of this nation. Their job in supplying this nation with coal is among the toughest in the world. Their historical contribution to the nation’s economic well-being is well established. They were, and many remain, beset with long hours, moderate pay (currently $22,000 to $64,000 per year), negative health and safety problems, and, at times, an unsavory public and private sector bureaucracy.
The glory years for coal appear to be over. Increasingly, the public and environmental experts and policy leaders view coal as a dirty fuel. Succinctly, coal emits significant amounts of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Most analysts believe the future of the coal industry is dim.
Clearly, in the past decade, market forces, not public policy, have forced many electric utilities to substitute natural gas for coal, and the competition with coal to date suggests coal will be the economic loser. The cost differential between the two, generally, has favored natural gas.
Without a bipartisan commitment to find transitional pathways for miners and/or successful economic development options for their communities, present-day miners will regrettably become part of America’s throwaway society — consumed and discarded by technological change and the fear of global warming. Congress, the White House and the American public have a moral — if not an economic, social and political– obligation to look hard at training and mobility initiatives for miners, as well as economic development strategies in their places of residence and work.
Regrettably, the conservative American Energy Alliance (AEA) has put its muscle behind a frontal attack on the president’s effort to substitute alternative fuels for coal to power utility plants instead of a well-defined effort to define workable strategies to help miners find other than declining mining positions. If a coalition cannot be built to find feasible solutions to expand job opportunities for miners, many miners, whose experience is often limited, will find themselves locked in place and will face a life of poverty or near-poverty — even when the economy returns to health and unemployment decreases. The structure of the American economy has changed, and the change does not favor mining.
Surprisingly, given its history in opposing social welfare initiatives, AEA indicates that the EPA’s recently announced Clean Power Plan, which requires the states to cut back significantly on GHG emissions, is “justice denied” to millions of minorities and low-income households. While analyses of the impact of the Clean Power Plan on different demographic and income groups are not yet precise, the AEA statement does not acknowledge the fact that alternative fuels, like natural gas, have been on a per-dollar kilowatt-hour cost cheaper than coal. The AEA also fails to note the potential savings in health and other societal costs (for low-income families in particular) resulting from lower GHG emissions and other pollutants. A disproportionate number of low-income people live near utilities, refineries and coal mines because of the absence of affordable housing and cheap transportation. Until relatively recently, gasoline prices limited the ability of many low-income households to travel from decent housing to their current or potential jobs. Several respected economists view the current drop in oil and gasoline prices as a relatively short- to intermediate-term phenomenon (1-2 years), and that the norm, once the world economy improves, will much higher than it is today.
The American Energy Alliance is pro-oil and pro-coal. That’s okay — this is its right. But in this context, its support of both fuels should mute its legitimacy as a research organization or the research of many of the organizations it supports or its supporters support. The AEA is, plain and simple, an advocacy group whose causes are predetermined by the self-interest and ideology of its donors.
Unfortunately but understandably, the AEA is unlikely to ever support the considered use of high-octane alternative fuels or their independent study, whether for utilities or transportation. Placing alternative before fuels, even though it could mean improved choices and lower costs for low-income consumers, improved environmental conditions, less GHG emissions and greater overall economic benefits is and will not be in AEA’s lexicon. In this context, AEA seems to have hijacked the term or phrase “justice denied” in a manner that does not fit the intent of some of the original users — Martin Luther King, Jr., William Gladstone, and Frederick Douglass. Their respective purposes in using the term were to expand choices, to redress societal inequities and to lessen the burdens of the disadvantaged. It is time we consider alternatives to weaning the nation and the world off of oil and coal, and acknowledge the fact that justice denied diminishes justice everywhere, and in the ethicist John Rawls’s words, hurts the least advantaged among us.
“Twenty-five years [lots more years for me] and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination”
Combine the lyrics from 4 Non Blondes with the personal frustration suggested by the “it’s a puzzlement” comment from the King of Siam in “The King and I,” expressed when he was perplexed by a changing world, and you will understand why many are confused by three relatively recent actions that limit or impede the growth of alternative fuels.
Most advocates of consumer choice at the pump and the end of Big Oil’s near-monopoly concerning transportation fuel praised the president’s State of the Union address a couple of years ago. He proposed that the nation wean itself off of oil. Wow, some fuel choice advocates were thrilled, almost orgiastic. Just think, in a couple of years customers might search for fuel stations selling a range of lower-cost alternative fuels, instead of only gasoline. Environmentalists welcomed the president’s comments. Less pollution and fewer GHG emissions! Most economists were pleased. They saw more jobs and further GNP growth. Servicemen were happy. They would be asked to fight fewer wars for oil.
In this context, there was hope that the cheaper cost of oil, and its derivative, gasoline — both of which are now rising in cost — juxtaposed with the regulations resulting from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Shell’s failure to use its original drilling permit to drill successfully and the availability of less expensive competitive fuels, would end the prospect of drilling in the pristine Arctic Circle off of Alaska’s coast. It would be just too costly. Good news! We can dream, can’t we!?
Similarly, some of my colleagues and friends who support fuel choice and a better shake for consumers than gasoline (concerning costs and GHG emissions), were hoping that improved technology, lower prices, and inventions like Elon Musk’s just-announced solar storage unit, could soon generate an increased ability for solar energy to power many coal-fired utilities, homes and even vehicles. In the aggregate, the U.S. would produce significantly fewer emissions and pollutants. What a welcome, possible, short-term happening! Musk for president!
The increased popularity of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) from Tesla (among those who can afford them) and the emergence of cheaper battery-powered vehicles from Detroit have also lent hope to those who are fuel agnostic or favor a long-term, robust renewable fuel market and more consumer choices at the pump. While electric cars offer a vision of the future, their broad acceptance by the public depends on design and technology improvements to both end the fear of running out of battery power while on the road, and provide more internal space — both at costs most Americans can afford. Both problems seem to be on the way to resolution, based on the pronouncements from Tesla and Detroit. We can only hope!
But despite the optimism gene internal to most Americans, the great “big hill of hope” has recently become even bigger to climb. While alternative fuel advocates remain relatively quiet and often unable to speak with one effective voice, federal and state policies and regulations have been changed to limit the ability of alternative fuels to secure significant market penetration. Despite large subsidies to the oil industry, neither the administration nor Congress has been willing to seriously try to weaken the ability of Big Oil to restrict alternative fuel sales at local gas stations. Indeed, several attempts to enact open fuels legislation have failed to even get out of Congressional committees.
Although the country seems awash in oil, just this week, the president gave conditional approval to Shell to drill in the Chukchi Sea off of Alaska, despite the company’s mismanagement of earlier attempts to do the same, and despite the objections of many environmental groups and Alaskan natives. Both industry and critics of the permits note that drilling will be risky, given very high waves, icy seas, strong winds, bitter cold weather and the need to protect the routes of migration and feeding areas for marine mammals. As The New York Times indicated this week, the permit is a “major victory for the petroleum industry and a devastating blow to environmentalists,” and for consumers, I would add. Estimates of the oil in the Chukchi Sea range all over the place. However, if oil companies are able to overcome high drilling costs and secure a significant flow of oil, even for a relatively short time, they will increase their ability to limit sales of alternative fuels among their franchises and through differential pricing, the sales of alternative fuels by independent retailers.
It doesn’t get any better. Just as opportunities to secure and store solar power — power that could be used to power homes, autos and utilities — seem almost ready for prime time, many of America’s utility companies — another great supporter of competition (excuse the cynicism) — have begun to seek legislative relief to impede solar’s growth. Their argument deserves discussion. If solar power grows, it could well be at the expense of improvements in the grid. But the use of their political power with state legislatures to seek ad-hoc remedies, different in each state, is not in the public interest. Legislative efforts to lower the price solar users secure from utilities when they put excess power on the grid may or may not be good policy or practice. Shouldn’t we know before such policies are enacted by states? Similarly, putting up regulatory impediments impeding the sale of solar units, including storage units, would likely really hurt what is now a risky start-up industry. The net result of poorly conceived state-by-state initiatives to protect the utility industry would be to limit the capacity of solar energy to substitute for coal in powering utilities and to reduce options to produce cleaner electric cars with almost zero GHG emissions. Similarly, restricting the storage of solar energy would end up slowing down the development of another alternative fuel — one based on solar-derived power.
Finally, the continuing efforts by several states to change Tesla’s business model have and will reduce competition for fuels and the use of electricity as a fuel. Why? Several state legislatures, under political pressure from auto dealers, have banned its direct-sales approach. If Tesla wants to sell its electric-powered cars in Texas, for example, it must sell through an auto dealer. Remember, some Texans recently wanted to secede from the union in order to free the state from “federal dictatorship” and, ostensibly, extend personal freedom and its corollary market competition! (I thought of signing the petition that was floating around to let Texas go.) Passing laws to protect one kind of business from another is un-American…almost like sending the Texas National Guard to monitor the training of U.S. soldiers to be sure they are not digging tunnels under Walmart and engaging in other nefarious activities contrary to the interest of the good citizens of Texas. Davy Crockett would be offended. The bottom line is that Texas and other states with similar regulations are limiting fuel choice by placing a Berlin Wall around their boundaries and not letting Tesla and its electric vehicles in. Ah. Freedom!
So, supporters have some big hills to climb and sometimes it may be a puzzlement to the climbers. But, as the singer Billy Ocean once vocalized, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Building a coalition among the willing supporters of alternative fuels should not be difficult. They share goals concerning the need for increased consumer choices and the value of open fuel markets. If they reach out to include, rather than define boundaries to exclude; if they acknowledge that absolute wisdom concerning strategies does not exist; if they are willing to work toward consensus and bring their respective constituencies along with them; and if they recognize that time is of the essence concerning achievement of key public interest and quality of American life objectives, following Robert Frost, they will travel the road less traveled, and will likely soon begin to see light at the end of their travails and travels.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
I just finished a recent Forbes article by Jude Clemente, “Canada is North America’s Great Oil Security Blanket.” Gosh, it’s good to know that Canada can supply 10 million barrels a day for the next 675 years. Just think of the biblical proportions of Canada’s reserves. Methuselah lived only 969 years! I feel safer already.
I am (fairly) comfortable that the French won’t take over Quebec and act out residual imperial desires and that the British won’t try to recapture their former colonies. So, sleep easy and leave a note in the morning to your children, their children and their children’s children, ad nauseam. Future generations of U.S. residents won’t have to worry about the definitions of peak oil or real oil shortages, and we will always have fossil fuel in our future. Our very valued friend to the north can and will produce whatever oil the U.S. requires for centuries.
Aren’t we lucky?! Our decedents will be able to depend on what the author calls “ethical Canadian oil.” Why? He argues that “Canada is a democracy and a free market sought by investors that desire less risk.” Wow…freedom to choose and capitalism; John Rawls and Adam Smith. I am crying with joy. But my emotional high lasts for only a few minutes.
Do we need to substitute Middle East imports for Canadian imports, even though Canada is a trusted ally? Are Canadian oil reserves a real, long-term, strategic benefit to the U.S. and are they ethical (a funny term used in the context of big oil’s historical behavior, speculation with respect to investment in oil and the perils of surface mining)? According to many analysts, oil from tar sands is among the most polluting and GHG emission causing oil in the ground. Aren’t you happy? In light of reserves, we can tether ourselves to fossil fuels for hundreds of years and a range of environmental problems, including, but not limited to, air pollution, landscape destruction, toxic water resulting from tailing ponds and excessive water use. Many scientists warn of increased rates of cancer and other diseases. While the tar sand industry, to its credit, has tried to limit the problems, according to the Scientific American article by David Biello, “tar sands may be among the least climate- [and health-] friendly oil produced at present.” By the way, conversion to gasoline will likely result in higher prices for the least advantaged among us, not exactly Rawlsian ethics.
We are in a difficult position, policy wise. Sure, we can establish long-term institutional relationships with Canada and its provinces that will assure U.S. on-demand access for Canadian oil sands. To do this would be comforting to vested interests and some leaders who still believe that oil is the key to America’s economic future. But business, academic, nonprofit, community as well as government leaders are increasingly searching for alternatives that will be better for the economy, the environment and national security. Weaning the U.S. off of oil, as the president has sought, will require, at least for the transportation sector, substituting a “drill, baby, drill” mentality for a strategy that includes increased use of alternative fuels, open fuel markets and flex-fuel vehicles.
Alternative fuels are not perfect, but for the most part, they are much better than gasoline in light of national energy and fuel objectives. Many replacement fuels, like natural gas and natural gas-based ethanol, cannot compete easily because of government regulations (e.g., RFS, etc.) and oil company efforts, despite large subsidies to limit their purchase by consumers (e.g., lobbying against open competitive markets, franchise agreements, price setting, etc.). Most alternatives appear to have sufficient reserves to provide the consumer with cheaper and better fuel than gasoline for a long time. For example, natural gas seems to have more than a proven 100-year supply, and that’s without further exploration.
The policy framework is easier to define than implement given America’s interest group politics. It would go something like this: As soon as they are ready for prime time and reflect competitive prices, design and miles per tank, increasing numbers of electric and perhaps hydrogen-fueled cars will appeal to a much wider band of U.S. consumers than they do now. The nation should support initiatives to improve marketability of both thorough research and development. Until then, the good or the better should not be frustrated by the perfect or an unreal idealization of the perfect. Please remember that even electric cars spew greenhouse gas emissions when they are powered by utilities that are fired up by coal, and that the most immediately available source of hydrogen-based fuel is natural gas. Currently, there are no defined predictable supply chains for hydrogen fuel. Perhaps, more important, neither electricity nor hydrogen fuel cells can be used in the 300,000,000 existing cars and their internal combustion engines.
So what’s a country to do, particularly one like the U.S., which is assumedly interested in reducing GHG emissions, protecting the environment, growing the economy and decreasing dependence on foreign oil? Paraphrasing, the poet Robert Frost, let’s take the road less traveled. Let’s develop and implement a strategic, alternative-fuels approach that incorporates expanding consumer choices regarding corn and natural gas-based ethanol, a range of bio fuels and more electric and hydrogen fuel cars. Let’s match alternative fuels with initiatives to increase Detroit’s production of new FFVs and the capacity (through software adjustments and conversion kits) for consumers to convert their existing cars to FFVs. To succeed, we should take a collective Alka-Seltzer and build a diverse strong fuels coalition that will encourage the U.S. to develop a comprehensive, alternative fuel strategy. The coalition, once formed, should place its bet on faith in the public interest and good analysis to gain citizen and congressional support. I bet the nation is ready for success — just remember how Linus of the famous Peanuts comic strip ultimately gave up his security blanket.
Photo Credit: http://priceofoil.org/
Elon Musk’s bet that he can sell 50,000 versions of the Model 3, the $35,000 version of the Tesla, due out in 2017, still seems like a long shot, given the somewhat limited market for electric cars.
But he might have one more card up his sleeve. The development of solar energy for home use offers an alternative market for his batteries that could be enough to save Tesla from a market collapse.
Musk is unveiling a new home storage unit that will allow homeowners to move their electrical consumption from expensive peak rates to the rock-bottom rates of overnight power. If nothing else, this will create a secondary market for the millions of lithium-ion batteries that Tesla will be cranking out from its $5 billion Gigafactory in Nevada, which is scheduled to be operational in 2017.
Early indications are that the demand for batteries to power the mid-priced roadster might be thinner than anticipated. Musk was counting on big demand from China, and already there are indications that it’s a much tougher market than he realized. As reported here last week, China already has 100 manufacturers turning out 400,000 undersized vehicles a year that can reach 48 miles an hour. They certainly wouldn’t sell in the United States, but for a million Chinese, it’s just what they need to putter around their small villages and cities. China also has 90 million electric scooters on the road and 120 million electric bicycles — an entire electric-vehicle market that doesn’t exist in this country. Making a dent in this market with a $35,000 scaled-down version of a luxury vehicle is not going to be easy, which is why Musk cut his China effort in half only a few weeks ago.
But there’s an out here in the burgeoning market for home electric storage that is taking shape in the United States, particularly in California. The Golden State has established a goal of getting 33 percent of its electricity from renewable resources by 2020, and 50 percent by 2030. Now powering with renewables isn’t just a matter of putting up solar collectors and windmills. You have to store that electricity for a time when it’s needed. Otherwise, most of it is wasted. And that’s where Musk’s plan to power electric vehicles with large complements of relatively small lithium-ion batteries enters in, because such a system also will be ideal for storing electricity in household-sized units.
Without any fanfare, Tesla already has installed such a system in more than 100 homes in California. It also has a deal with Walmart to install it on a commercial scale. “Tesla has been able to install more than 100 projects, really without anyone noticing,” Andrea James, a Dougherty & Co. analyst, told Bloomberg. She also estimated that the home-storage business could add $70 to Tesla’s stock, about one-third of its current value.
The effort already has paid off for Tesla in that it has collected $65 million in state incentives under the advanced storage technology portion of California’s Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP), which rewards users for coming up with ways of generating their own power. With household units running anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000, they’re going to need plenty of help from the government.
Tesla is not the only company working on battery storage. Bosch, General Electric and Samsung all have experimental systems going. There are also research projects being conducted at Harvard, MIT and other universities.
In Notrees, Texas, Duke Energy Renewables, with the help of the Department of Energy, has built a project that is using thousands of lead-acid batteries to store the electricity from a large wind farm. The lead-acid batteries are more expensive, however, and require frequent repair. Also, Duke has found that there is not as much of a market for their product as it had anticipated, mainly due to the costs. “There was little interest from customers willing to pay for that,” said Greg Wolf, president of Duke Energy Renewables, according to The New York Times. “That has not evolved as much as some folks, including ourselves, thought.”
But there are other opportunities that could enhance Tesla’s overall business model. One is that when lithium-ion batteries begin to lose their power so that they are no longer capable of driving a car, they still remain strong enough to power a home storage system. That could mean there will be a secondary market for Tesla’s car batteries.
Another dream that has always been in the back of people’s minds is that the electric vehicles themselves could serve as storage for utility power, drawing on cheap nighttime power and then reselling it to utilities during the day. This would involve an elaborate infrastructure, however, and this would mean the cars would not be available for a good part of the day if their stored power was being fed to the grid.
Altogether, however, the storage potential of the batteries means that Tesla will have an alternative means of income in addition to the electric cars. This means the company could diversify enough so that it will not depend entirely on the success of the Model 3. In the long run, this might mean that the company can survive long enough to make the electric vehicle a standard item for the American consumer.
