The Risks of Plan B
Filed Under Policy | 5 Comments
By Rob Content
Program Manager, Community Solutions
The details are still under intense discussion in Democratic Party power centers like Chicago and New York. But there is good reason to expect that within the coming weeks and months the Obama administration will announce a broad set of policy initiatives, likely including a heavy dose of executive orders. These policies will be designed first and foremost to address the deepening economic collapse by reassuring bankers, autoworkers, and road crews across the United States that they will still have work-sites to go to. Many of the jobs the government will try to save will involve energy and transportation, such as the construction and maintenance of today’s low-mileage car models, and the repair of roads and bridges on which fleets of commercial trucks deliver consumer goods to retail shelves.
Efforts such as these can be seen as attempts to extend business as usual, or “Plan A.” Plan A, to which the Bush-Cheney administration closely hewed, consists of encouraging the fossil fuel industry to extend its traditional dominance of the nation’s energy supply operations. This includes mining and drilling, refining and transporting, and, more generally, defining and shaping public understanding of where electricity, transport and heating fuels, and fertilizers and pesticides/herbicides all come from. Plan A may have suffered a bit of a dirty face the last eight years at the hands of the Iraq War, expanded public concern over global warming, and spikes in prices at the pump and in utility bills. Nevertheless, it remains hugely profitable, deeply entrenched in the nation’s infrastructure, and responsible for supplying the lion’s share of the energy on which the consumer/commuter’s daily lifestyle utterly depends.
But the Obama administration’s policies on energy and the environment are also likely to include some key elements that differ significantly from those of the departing Bush administration. As such, they will deserve to be recognized as the opening stage of a distinct “Plan B.” Current indications are that we will see pages borrowed from Jimmy Carter’s conservation playbook – surely a good thing, and one to be welcomed by most in the peak oil and climate change community. Also likely to win general endorsement would be an effort to publicize and extend the “greener cities” approach spearheaded by Richard M. Daley in Chicago. And many among us will likewise be pleased to see a more prominent place at the table for the wind and solar industries.
Unlike Plan A, Plan B will emphasize waste reduction, the development of alternative energy sources (especially renewable ones), and investment in higher efficiency technological innovations. We should not underestimate the space still available for Plan B to be fully explored, and then deeply embraced, by American consumers. Acceptance of the hybrid car has been steady but also slow; nearly a decade passed before the first million vehicles were on the roads. By and large, Americans still “want” gas-guzzlers – even if many breadwinners can no longer find the credit to purchase them or always afford to fill their gas tanks. Our home insulation efforts lag behind our generally low awareness of their affordable benefits. Only a tiny fraction of Americans purchase carbon-offsets for their airplane trips or electricity consumption. The experience of long-distance travel by air or car, for business or for pleasure, remains a fixture of “the good life,” one to which many are eager to return just as soon as the government delivers its solutions to our current problems. For these reasons (and many more), a shift in our national discussion of energy issues in which Plan B finds its voice alongside Plan A should probably be acknowledged as a profound – even perhaps a revolutionary – change.
And there’s the rub.
For many in the Peak Oil community – and certainly for us at Community Solutions – the success of Plan B is a long shot. Any administration, however well-advised and civic-minded, that commits itself and our remaining resources to Plan B is gambling. The success of Plan B depends upon a series of technological breakthroughs which in turn will depend upon the availability of massive financial resources to sustain technological research over at least several decades; even more massive resources would then be required to implement the results. Committing so much to such an uncertain approach indicates to us a limited understanding of how dire our energy predicament has already become.
Those of us who see the brightest prospects for a secure and sustainable culture in widespread voluntary curtailment of energy consumption – what we call “Plan C” – therefore harbor a set of serious reservations about Plan B. We begin with mixed feelings at best about fresh infusions of research funds for carbon capture and sequestration, so-called “advanced” bio-fuels, and carbon nuclear fusion. We are concerned that political speeches and policy goals contain so few acknowledgements that these unproven technologies may in fact turn out to be unprovable. In addition, we will find it hard to swallow endorsements by the new Administration of such pale green approaches as LEED standard building construction, intensive new public subway or trolley developments, and “green” consumerism. (Our Executive Director Pat Murphy has also now developed a highly critical evaluation of the pluggable hybrid car – which, as he argues, should more credibly be called “the coal car” since its batteries would be recharged with electricity generated mostly by coal-burning power plants.)
At Community Solutions, we therefore advocate instead a set of much deeper green approaches. (We have discussed labeling them “red” to signal our sense of urgency.) We support Passive House building construction standards – particularly as they may be used to retrofit existing homes, a Smart Jitney approach to mass ride-sharing using the existing vehicle fleet, and a significant curtailment of the consumer economy in favor of a simpler, healthier, non-affluent style of life. What the elements of Plan C have in common – and so what distinguishes them from the bulk of Plan B approaches – is that they require no technological breakthroughs, can be implemented starting immediately, and would be far less time and resource-intensive to complete.
No doubt others involved in Peak Oil discussions would change a point here or there in their own assessment of Plan C’s advantages over Plan B. Strenuous disagreement over certain points would expected and respected as well. But my aim here is to draw attention to a larger dynamic – and the potential consequences of failing to understand that dynamic in advance.
The dynamic is this: An energy transition from Bush’s Plan A to Obama’s Plan B is likely to be felt as a major and decisive shift in U.S. national consciousness, as well as in policy detail. This shift of plans may be as wrenching and controversial a change in national character as has been achieved since the gradual awakenings of the civil rights era. It should be no surprise that a shift of this magnitude would contain some risk of failure, and the possibility that Plan B might fail therefore merits open and serious discussion. We should be talking about whether Plan B is really a risk worth taking – and even if so, whether some investment should simultaneously be made in the low-risk, high-reward Plan C.
As a contribution to this discussion, we suggest a challenge to policy planners in the new administration: Invite the public to articulate its greatest concerns about how and why Plan B might fail. We believe there will be many concerns along these lines. Our own top three are the following:
• The scale of financial investment in the electrical grid, as well as the power plant infrastructure, that would be required to meet national energy needs through wind and solar generation (and the fossil fuel supply required to back them up during periods of intermittency).
• The time-scale to replace 100%, or even 50%, of the electricity supplied by today’s conventional coal-burning plants with electricity generated from alternative energy sources, either nuclear or renewable.
• The additional demand on the national electricity supply if 20 million Americans, or even 10 million, purchase cars that are recharged by plugging in to the grid (and so at best achieve carbon dioxide emission reductions no better than those of today’s non-pluggable hybrids).
As the Inauguration of Barack Obama approaches, we find ourselves waiting, like many of our fellow citizens, to see what a charismatic, talented, and credentialed new generation of leaders will offer us. And we find ourselves concerned that they will come up short. Any version of Plan B based upon the core elements outlined above will be in our estimation too little, too late.
The new President’s program on energy and the environment will also be, on deeper analysis, his approach to the declining availability of fossil fuels and to global climate change. As such, it will represent our nation’s best chance to address these fundamental challenges at their roots. Should this opportunity be missed, we will all experience the consequences of further delay in making the deep changes that are required – the kind of realistic, practical changes that characterize Plan C.
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5 Comments so far
There could be no better investment in America than to invest in America becoming energy independent! We need to utilize everything in out power to reduce our dependence on foreign oil including using our own natural resources. Create cheap clean energy, new badly needed green jobs, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. OPEC will continue to cut production until they achieve their desired 80-100. per barrel. The high cost of fuel this past year seriously damaged our economy and society. Oil is finite. We are using oil globally at the rate of 2X faster than new oil is being discovered. We need to take some of these billions in bail out bucks and bail ourselves out of our dependence on foreign oil. Jeff Wilson has a really good new book out called The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence Now. He explores our uses of oil besides gasoline, our depletion, out reserves and stores as well as viable options to replace oil.Oil is finite, it will run out in the not too distant future. WE need to take some of these billions in bail out bucks and bail America out of it’s dependence on foreign oil. The historic high price of gas this past year did serious damage to our economy and society. WE should never allow others to have that much power over our economy again. I wish every member of congress would read this book too.
http://www.themanhattanprojectof2009.com
Plans B and C will not work.
Global crude oil production peaked in 2008.
The media, governments, world leaders, and public should focus on this issue.
Global crude oil production had been rising briskly until 2004, then plateaued for four years. Because oil producers were extracting at maximum effort to profit from high oil prices, this plateau is a clear indication of Peak Oil.
Then in August and September of 2008 while oil prices were still very high, global crude oil production fell nearly one million barrels per day, clear evidence of Peak Oil (See Rembrandt Koppelaar, Editor of “Oil Watch Monthly,” December 2008, page 1) http://www.peakoil.nl/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/2008_december_oilwatch_monthly.pdf.
Peak Oil is now.
Credit for accurate Peak Oil predictions (within a few years) goes to the following (projected year for peak given in parentheses):
* Association for the Study of Peak Oil (2007)
* Rembrandt Koppelaar, Editor of “Oil Watch Monthly” (2008)
* Tony Eriksen, Oil stock analyst; Samuel Foucher, oil analyst; and Stuart Staniford, Physicist [Wikipedia Oil Megaprojects] (2008)
* Matthew Simmons, Energy investment banker, (2007)
* T. Boone Pickens, Oil and gas investor (2007)
* U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (2005)
* Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Princeton professor and retired shell geologist (2005)
* Sam Sam Bakhtiari, Retired Iranian National Oil Company geologist (2005)
* Chris Skrebowski, Editor of “Petroleum Review” (2010)
* Sadad Al Husseini, former head of production and exploration, Saudi Aramco (2008)
* Energy Watch Group in Germany (2006)
* Fredrik Robelius, Oil analyst and author of “Giant Oil Fields” (2008 to 2018)
Oil production will now begin to decline terminally.
Within a year or two, it is likely that oil prices will skyrocket as supply falls below demand. OPEC cuts could exacerbate the gap between supply and demand and drive prices even higher.
Independent studies indicate that global crude oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time, demand will increase. Oil supplies will be even tighter for the U.S. As oil producing nations consume more and more oil domestically they will export less and less. Because demand is high in China, India, the Middle East, and other oil producing nations, once global oil production begins to decline, demand will always be higher than supply. And since the U.S. represents one fourth of global oil demand, whatever oil we conserve will be consumed elsewhere. Thus, conservation in the U.S. will not slow oil depletion rates significantly.
Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. There is no plan nor capital for a so-called electric economy. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment. The independent scientists of the Energy Watch Group conclude in a 2007 report titled: “Peak Oil Could Trigger Meltdown of Society:”
“By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. This will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame.”
With increasing costs for gasoline and diesel, along with declining taxes and declining gasoline tax revenues, states and local governments will eventually have to cut staff and curtail highway maintenance. Eventually, gasoline stations will close, and state and local highway workers won’t be able to get to work. We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel and gasoline powered trucks for bridge maintenance, culvert cleaning to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, and roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, large transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables from great distances. With the highways out, there will be no food coming from far away, and without the power grid virtually nothing modern works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated building systems.
Documented here:
http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html
http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/
Right on, Rob.
Plan C is clearly the best choice, although unfortunately I think will not be considered seriously until plan B fails.
Regarding the additional demand of electricity if electric cars were to be widely used: according to your very own Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, “the idle capacity of the U.S. grid could supply 73% of the energy needs of today’s cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, and vans, without adding generation or transmission, if vehicles are charged off peak”.
Additionally, regarding the possible emission reductions of electric vehicles: the tank-to-wheel efficiency of a typical internal combustion engine (ICE) is around 15%. Compare that with the worst case scenario, that an electric vehicles is charged strictly with off peak baseload coal power. Let’s assume a coal power plant efficiency of 40% – which, by today’s standards is pretty low. Further, let’s assume a loss of 10% during transmission and distribution – that is, 36% efficiency when the electricity reaches the battery. The battery-to-wheel efficiency of an electric car is 99%, giving a total efficiency of over 35%. Now, the EV is more than twice as efficient as the ICE. And since the CO2 emissions of coal (per unit of output) are less than twice the emissions of gasoline, therefore an EV will decrease emissions overall, even if it is charged strictly on coal power.
I agree with Plan C – C for Curtailment and C for Community.
One concept I don’t see discussed often by Peak Oilers and those concerned about Climate Change is that the solutions will probably end up being local in origin and implementation.
Cheap and plentiful petroleum has made us think and act globally – the opposite situation will probably force us to re-localize out thoughts and activities.
We once lived in a world where people in different places looked different, dressed differently, ate different food, made different music, lived in different-looking houses,etc. We had adapted using local ingenuity to the availability of local resources.
I think it is unlikely that there is one Plan that will “save” the entire country, continent, or planet.
If things go well, there will be many local, creative, community-based efforts, some of which will be successful, and some won’t. Community – exactly where you live, with whom, and how successfully the community adapts – will again become key to your survival and prosperity.