Rollbacks . . . Renewable Energy Edition

As I was traveling to work today on the subway, I audibly groaned as the NPR podcast I was listening to informed me of Ohio's decision to put on hold its regulations requiring that utility providers get at least 12.5% of their energy from renewable sources. The guise for this temporary hold? To give customers relief on their utility bills because renewable energy costs more. The republican lawmaker that sponsored this bill in the Ohio State Senate said the regulations were unnecessarily driving up costs for utility providers which then got passed onto the consumer. Other republican lawmakers claim that now that there is a shale gas energy boom spreading across the nation there is a no longer a need for investment in renewable energy. The juicy, but unnerving truth is that the bill's sponsor, Senator Bill Seitz, and other lawmakers are closely tied to the utility and fossil fuel industries. In fact, Senator Seitz's cover was blown when Ohio's major utility providers came out both in favor of his more draconian bill which would have completely eliminated the standards as well as the weaker bill which passed, putting the standards on hold for two years. Beyond the roll back in the renewable energy standards, Ohio also promptly abandoned $2.5 billion worth of wind turbine investments.

The NPR podcast enlightened me on the darker side of this deal. As usual, if you follow the money trail long enough, you get to the stinky source. It turns out that the American Legislative Executive Council (ALEC) - the same organization that pushed states to pass Stand your Ground laws, like the one that George Zimmerman used to defend himself in Trayvon Martin's slaying - has decided it now wants to push for all states to abandon their renewable energy standards. ALEC has even teamed up with the Heartland Institute to convince states across the country to get rid of their energy mandates. They claim that they are only thinking of the consumer, dismissing the fact that both of these groups receive sizable donations from the fossil fuel industry. If they are only thinking of consumers, why do they not also push to get rid of the government subsidies that are given to the fossil fuel companies? Or why do they not advocate for lawmakers to pass regulations that ensure utility companies accept the costs incurred by renewable energy investment - like they are supposed to - instead of passing off those costs to their consumers? I thought these conservative "institutes" were all for investment and free-markets. The standards that Ohio had and most other states still have, encourage investment as well as free-market growth. It is apparent that these groups are only in favor of their principles when it directly relates to their rate of return on shares their members have invested in.

As usual, it is up to us to fight back. We cannot allow groups that receive large donations from the fossil fuel industry and climate denialists to dictate policy on renewable energy. Groups like ALEC and the Heartland Institute are most effective when they are able to lay below our radar, using donations from interested persons and corporations to get their work done. We cannot allow that to continue. Just as the spotlight was put on corporations that contributed to ALEC when Trayvon Martin was killed, we must put the spotlight on these groups that only have the best interest of their wallets and the fossil fuel industry at heart. We must be the eye that always watches and the voice that always speaks up.

Crossing the Bridge

In my last post, I discussed hydraulic fracturing for natural gas. Many within the oil & gas industry, as well as some scientists, have pointed to natural gas as a "bridge fuel" that can help transition our dependence on dirtier fossil fuels (such as coal and oil) to clean, renewable energy (solar, wind, etc.). This is because natural gas burns in a way that puts less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than oil and coal do.

Taken at face value, that statement makes natural gas a shoe-in for a cleaner energy future.
As is usually the case, the issue is far more complex than that. Natural gas has a high level of methane, which is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Bringing natural gas to the surface for energy consumption opens up the chances for methane to leak into the atmosphere and become a major contributor to global warming. While burning natural gas may prevent methane from getting into the atmosphere, it still emits the by-product of carbon dioxide. There may be less carbon dioxide percentage-wise than burning an equivalent amount of coal, but it is still putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Recent studies have highlighted the risks of methane leaks from the natural gas infrastructure in America. Additionally, researchers have found that the process of obtaining natural gas, in particular "shale gas", is very energy intensive, and may actually decrease the overall "clean" benefits of natural gas. For example, hydraulic fracturing uses millions of gallons of water per instance of fracking, and a single well may be fracked many times. Water must be obtained and is usually trucked in from an off-site source. To construct a well, obtain water & chemicals for fracking, pump the water, and then remove the wastewater that is produced requires over 13,000 round-trip tractor-trailer truck visits. Most of these trucks use conventional diesel fuel, which is a dirty fuel, so local emissions of greenhouse gases rise when shale gas productions begins.

I want to re-iterate that I am not completely opposed to hydraulic fracturing, nor am I opposed to the use of natural gas. It's use is far better than that of regular gasoline or diesel fuel in vehicles and much cleaner than coal-fired power plants. My goal in writing this post is to make the general public aware of the faults that shale gas has. It is not completely clean and it is certainly not renewable. While it's likely that natural gas will be a major bridge fuel for the foreseeable future, I don't think we need to fall for industry claims that natural gas is our savior in the energy realm. We as consumers should be pressing for more viable options and for the continued expansion of the truly clean renewables, not settling for the least bad fossil fuel.