Republicans try to force the military to use dirty energy it doesn’t want

By David Roberts

The U.S. military recognizes that dependence on fossil fuels is a threat to U.S. strategic influence and its own operational effectiveness. With that in mind, it’s trying to make itself lighter and leaner, reducing energy consumption at bases and on the battlefield while working to develop fuel alternatives for its ship and plane fleets. Republicans have been quietly grumbling about this for a while; now they are openly opposing it. The GOP wastes no opportunity to boast of “supporting the troops,” but that support apparently ends where Big Oil contributions begin.

 Let’s look at a few examples, shall we? GOP tries to block use of cleaner fuels Last week, the Republican-led House Armed Services Committee proposed a new Pentagon budget. Tucked away inside it was a provision that would prohibit the Department of Defense from buying any alternative fuels that cost more than conventional fossil fuels. TPM has the story.

 Slate’s Fred Kaplan laments that this provision would kill the $12 million “Green Strike Group” program the Navy is running, which would field a strike group running entirely on biofuels (and a nuclear-powered carrier) for a naval exercise in June. The Navy hopes to have an entire “Great Green Fleet” in the water by 2016. But the language is far broader than that. It would effectively prohibit military field-testing ofany non-fossil fuel. After all, if alternatives were already cheaper than fossil fuels, they wouldn’t be alternatives.

 The Air Force couldn’t experiment with fuel blends for its jets. The Army couldn’t fuel its “Green Warrior Convoy.” This provision would explicitly ban the military from being an instrument of energy innovation. GOP tries to push use of dirtier fuel But wait!

There is one expensive alternative fuel that congressional Republicans support. You see, Section 526 of 2007′s Energy Independence and Security Act prohibits the military from buying fuel that is more carbon-intensive than crude oil. Earlier this month, Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas) offered an amendment to an appropriations bill, later passed by the House, that would bar the military from enforcing Sec. 526.

 Why, you ask? “Placing limits on federal agencies’ fuel choices,” says Flores, “is an unacceptable precedent to set in regard to America’s energy policy and independence.” Yes, I’ll let that irony sink in a moment. Why are Republicans so keen to get rid of Sec. 526? Are there dirtier-but-cheaper fuels the military could be using?

 Well, no. Instead, Republicans have seized on the idea of using the Fischer-Tropsch process to convert coal to liquid fuel (a technology made famous by Hitler — don’t tell the Heartland Institute). Building a plant to do this requires enormous capital investment, running one requires enormous operational and maintenance investments, and the result is … fuel more expensive than oil. This is to say nothing of the fact that it requires mining and transporting coal on the front end and releases up to 2.5 times as much CO2 as oil when burned. So, let’s pause and review.

The Republican position on military fuel choices is as follows: Congressional restrictions are an “unacceptable precedent” when they prohibit dirtier fuels, but necessary when they prohibit cleaner fuels. Also, it is unacceptable for the military to pay more for cleaner fuels, but necessary for it to pay more for dirtier fuel.

 If you were cynical, you’d almost think that the issue had nothing to do with Congress’s relationship with the military, or with costs. You’d almost think Republicans just support fossil fuels and oppose clean energy, no matter the context.

Fukushima Meltdown Hastens Decline of Nuclear Power

J. Matthew Roney 

On May 5, 2012, Japan shut down its Tomari 3 nuclear reactor on the northern island of Hokkaido for inspection, marking the first time in over 40 years that the country had not a single nuclear power plant generating electricity. The March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown shattered public confidence in atomic energy, thus far making it politically impossible to restart any of the reactors taken offline. And the disaster’s legacy has spread far beyond Japan. Some European countries have decided to phase out their nuclear programs entirely. In other countries, nuclear plans are proceeding with caution. But with the world’s fleet of reactors aging, and with new plants suffering construction delays and cost increases, it is possible that world nuclear electricity generation has peaked and begun a long-term decline. Prior to the Fukushima crisis, Japan had 54 reactors providing close to 30 percent of its electricity, with plans to increase this share to more than 50 percent by 2030. But nuclear power dropped to just 18 percent of Japan’s electricity over the course of 2011. When the quake and tsunami hit, 16 reactors had already been temporarily shut down for inspections or maintenance; another 13 underwent emergency shutoffs, including the four Fukushima Daiichi reactors now permanently shut down. Others were subsequently closed due to earthquake vulnerability or for regular inspection. Now that Tomari 3 is offline, all 44,200 megawatts of Japan’s nuclear capacity that are listed as “operational” by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are in fact idle with no set date for restart. Next to Japan, the most dramatic shift in nuclear energy policy following Fukushima occurred in Germany. Within days of the disaster, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that Germany’s seven oldest reactors, all built before 1980, would shut down immediately. And in May 2011, the government declared that Germany would phase out nuclear entirely by 2022. Nuclear power generated 18 percent of the country’s electricity in 2011, down from 24 percent in recent years and well below the peak in 1997 of 31 percent. Across the Arab world, grain production is stagnating, yet grain demand is growing rapidly as population expands. Since 1960, the region’s population has nearly quadrupled to 360 million. By 2050 the region is projected to add another 260 million people, dramatically increasing pressure on already stressed land and water resources. Just before Germany’s phaseout decision, Switzerland abandoned plans for three new reactors that were going through the approval process. The government also announced that all five of the country’s reactors—which for years had provided some 40 percent of its electricity—will close permanently as their operating licenses expire over the next 22 years. Italy, which had discontinued its nuclear program after the infamous 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine, had in 2010 decided to restart it. But in a June 2011 referendum, more than 90 percent of Italian voters chose to ban nuclear power. Later in 2011, Belgium announced plans to phase out the seven reactors that provide more than half of the country’s electricity. Even in France, with a world-leading 77 percent of its electricity coming from nuclear power, newly elected President François Hollande has said he intends to reduce this share to roughly 50 percent by 2025. According to IAEA data, 13 reactors with a combined 11,400 megawatts were permanently shut down in Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom in 2011. Seven new reactors totaling 4,000 megawatts were connected to the grid—three in China and one each in India, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia—with less than 1,000 megawatts added through increasing, or “uprating,” existing nuclear plant capacities. As of May 2012, after two new reactor connections in South Korea and two permanent U.K. shutdowns, the world’s 435 operational nuclear reactors total 370,000 megawatts of capacity. Actual nuclear electricity generation in 2011 fell to 2,520 terawatt-hours, 5 percent below the 2006 peak. The growth in nuclear generating capacity had slowed to a crawl well before the Fukushima disaster. From 1970 to 1986, cumulative capacity grew at a brisk 19 percent annual rate. Even after Chernobyl, nuclear power capacity grew at 4 percent a year until 1990. But since then the annual growth rate has been just 0.7 percent. (See data) In contrast to the backlash in places like Japan and Germany, a number of countries reaffirmed their commitment to nuclear power, while indicating that safety would be a priority. This includes the three countries building the most new reactors: China (with 26 reactors under construction), Russia (11), and India (7). Immediately after the Fukushima incident, China suspended its reactor approval process to review the safety of existing plants, but the government has since indicated that the 26,600 megawatts under construction will move forward. Russia still intends to double its nuclear generating capacity by 2020, and India plans to increase its capacity 14-fold to 63,000 megawatts by 2032. Of the 62 reactors the IAEA lists as under construction, only 15 have a projected date for connecting to the grid. (Not one of China’s 26 units under construction does.) Some of these reactors have been listed this way for more than 20 years. A prime example is the only U.S. reactor under construction, the Watts Bar 2 unit in Tennessee, which started construction in 1972. In April 2012, the startup date was moved from August 2012 to sometime in 2015, as the estimated cost rose 68 percent. The United States, home to roughly one quarter of the world’s nuclear generating capacity, gets 19 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. The last new U.S. reactor to connect to the grid was Watts Bar 1 in 1996. In early 2012, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved construction permits for four 1,100-megawatt reactors at two existing nuclear plants in the southeastern states of Georgia and South Carolina, the first permits for new plants since 1978. In that region, utilities are allowed to increase their customers’ rates to defray the cost of nuclear plants even before construction begins. Despite this advantage, the four permitted reactors may well see the kind of delays and cost escalation that have become typical for the industry. For example, in May 2012, Progress Energy announced that grid connection for the first unit of its planned two-reactor project in Florida would be pushed back three years to 2024. With this delay, the estimated total cost jumped from $17 billion to as high as $24 billion. Indeed, unlike other energy technologies such as wind turbines and solar panels, where increasing deployment generally leads to economies of scale and falling costs, nuclear power has seen the opposite trend. Even the most recently completed plant in France cost more than three times as much to build and took twice as long to finish as the first plant did. Nuclear costs would be even more prohibitive if the damages for which nuclear utilities were liable in case of a meltdown were in line with realistic estimates of potential harm. In the United States, nuclear plant operators pay into a $12-billion fund that would be used in case of an accident. But an estimate from Sandia National Laboratory indicates that a worst-case incident could cost more than $700 billion. The poor economic case for nuclear power helps explain why most new nuclear construction is happening in countries with government-controlled electricity markets: private investors are leery of the risks. New nuclear capacity additions over the long term are unlikely to make up for shutdowns as the world’s reactors, already averaging 27 years in operation, age further. Nearly 180 reactors have reached age 30 or higher. The 140 reactors already permanently shut down averaged 23 years of service at the time of closure. While some reactors have been granted lifetime extensions beyond the typical 40 years—many U.S. units have, for example—these may not be as readily approved after the demise of the four Fukushima reactors, which averaged 37 years old when disaster struck. Whether or not nuclear generation has truly peaked will depend on a number of factors, including how many Japanese reactors resume operation, how many licenses are extended for aging reactors worldwide, and the pace and magnitude of uprating existing units. But regardless of whether the peak has already come or will do so soon, poor economics and sluggish new construction indicate that nuclear power is on a decline path. Rather than replacing this energy source with fossil fuels, thus boosting carbon emissions and encouraging runaway climate change, the world can use this opportunity to pursue a much safer electricity sector powered largely by wind, solar, and geothermal energy. We know that the potential is there: leading carbon-emitting countries—including China, the United States, India, Russia, and Japan—could meet their electricity needs with wind alone.

BASTARDO!

Dominion Power is positioning itself to control how and when wind energy is developed off the Virginia coast, and a fair number of environmentalists, local officials and would-be competitors are nervous about that. Few contest that Dominion, the state's largest electricity utility, is a prime candidate to build and operate the first offshore wind farm in Virginia, given its money, political clout and experience. Critics, though, question its commitment to being a clean-energy pioneer. "Signs suggest that it may be more interested in preventing others from developing" offshore wind "than in doing so itself in a timely manner," Glen Besa, state director of the Sierra Club, said in a letter this week to federal regulators. Dominion told the same regulators at the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management this week that it wants to lease all 112,799 acres of space designated for wind turbines off the coast, an area due east of Virginia Beach, between 23.5 and 36.5 nautical miles from shore. At the same time, the utility is requesting that the government leave out Virginia when considering a giant backbone cable proposed along much of the Atlantic Seaboard. Investors, including Google, the Internet giant, hope to build the billion-dollar cable known as the Atlantic Wind Connection to help carry wind-generated electricity to land for a fee. Presumably, Dominion wants to construct and manage its own delivery lines. Furthermore, advocacy groups note, offshore wind is not listed by Dominion in its 15-year plan for meeting the electricity demands of its customers. These groups worry that if Dominion gains control of wind resources and infrastructure, the utility could keep competitors at bay and bide its time in constructing turbines until market conditions are ripe - perhaps over the next 25 years. Instead, the groups want Virginia and other Atlantic states to fast-track offshore wind farms so they are up and running within five or six years, regardless of the economics, in order to speed the transition from a fossil-fueled economy to one with more emphasis on clean energy sources. To that end, environmental groups last week delivered a 10,000-signature petition to Dominion urging quick wind action. They also plan a demonstration today in which activists are to encircle Dominion's headquarters in Richmond in a human chain. "We have real concerns about Dominion's attempts to monopolize the process," said Beth Kemler, state director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. "They want to hold all the cards. And if history is any guide, they usually get what they want in Virginia." A wind farm in the Atlantic area approved by the federal government off Virginia Beach is estimated to cost between $1 billion and $3 billion. Almost all Atlantic states north of Virginia are pursuing wind energy as well. But because of differing regulations there, utilities in those states would buy the resulting electricity and let other companies build the farms. North Carolina still is waiting to hear where the federal government wants to designate offshore wind activity. Dominion declined to comment or take questions about its ambitions, but in public statements and published reports, the utility calls offshore wind a tremendous opportunity. "The potential of wind energy blows us away," the company says on its website. Its director of alternative energy programs, Mary Dos-well, has said Dominion is interested in erecting as many as 400 ocean turbines off the Virginia coast, a network capable of generating enough electricity to power 500,000 homes. She has not offered a timeline. The high cost to produce wind energy today, compared with traditional sources such as coal, natural gas and nuclear power, all staples of Dominion's portfolio, is the biggest concern, Doswell has said. "This is a long-term project," she said in a statement posted on the website. "The challenge remains the high cost of building this generation and bringing it to customers." There are no offshore wind farms operating today in the United States. Dozens are up and running in Europe, almost all with substantial government subsidies, and others are being built off China. The U.S. government under President Barack Obama is eager to get moving and has adopted programs such as "Smart from the Start" to hasten permitting requirements, which still can take years to complete. Gov. Bob McDonnell, who has close ties to Dominion and its CEO, Thomas Farrell, a former school roommate, campaigned for offshore wind as a dynamic source of domestic energy and new jobs, especially in maritime-rich Hampton Roads. Conrad Spangler III, McDonnell's appointed director of the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy, supports the idea favored by Dominion that a single entity should develop all designated wind areas off the coast - a position few other states have endorsed. The administration also favors bypassing the Atlantic backbone cable project. In a letter to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is overseeing offshore wind permitting, Spangler wrote that the lone-developer approach would stretch construction out in phases, cut costs and avoid a "boom, then bust" effect of multiple companies rushing to build their farms as quickly as possible. "Phased development of a single, large lease could ensure a steady market demand for turbines, foundation support structures and array cables," Spangler wrote. Maureen Matsen, McDonnell's senior energy adviser, said the administration is not playing favorites with Dominion but, like the utility, is focused on seeing costs contained and a sober business approach. "We don't see much good in rushing out there just to say we did it first," Matsen said. "We are working to support development of this important resource in a way that will be cost-effective." The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management set a deadline of March 19 for accepting bids from interested offshore-wind developers in Virginia. A spokesperson said this week that a list will be posted soon on its website. At least one other company is known to have applied for offshore leases - Apex Offshore Wind, a start-up enterprise, based in Charlottesville. Apex already is working with shipping giant Maersk Line Ltd. on a project to develop utility-size offshore-wind facilities and is part of another group building a wind farm in Oklahoma, said president Tim Ryan. Ryan said that "it's really bizarre" to be competing with a conglomerate like Dominion for the rights to offshore wind in Virginia. He added, however, that a single-developer idea "makes sense," noting that Apex, too, is asking the government for most, but not all, of the available leases. "We are highly motivated to move as quickly as we can," Ryan said. Environmental groups and some local officials also are edgy over how a new state panel, the Virginia Offshore Wind Development Authority, is doing business. They complain that working documents are not shared with the public and that citizens and industry representatives not on the board of directors are often left in the dark. The authority was created in 2010 and has been meeting to hasten offshore wind since then. Furthermore, activists who attend the meetings say, the deck is stacked in favor of Dominion, which has a seat on the board. "Nothing is passed unless Dominion goes along with it," said Eileen Levandow-ski, Hampton Roads director of the Sierra Club. Bob Matthias, an assistant city manager from Virginia Beach who sits on the board, said he was uncomfortable with how the authority tried to recently push through a letter supporting Dominion's position on the Atlantic Wind Connection project with little debate. He described Dominion's presence on the board as "very aggressive." The Sierra Club complained last month that working conditions at the authority "are untenable," and that board members should be encouraged, not discouraged, to discuss questions and policy options with anyone they choose. The authority was created with the support of "developers, supply chain businesses, utilities, local government and the environmental community," the Sierra Club wrote. "It cannot possibly represent all of these interested parties, as well as the public at large, if it operates under a cloak of secrecy." By Scott Harper, 757-446-2340 , scott.harper@pilotonline.com

U.S. Coal Generation Drops 19 Percent In One Year, Leaving Coal With 36 Percent Share Of Electricity

By Stephen Lacey Power generation from coal is falling quickly. According to new figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, coal made up 36 percent of U.S. electricity in the first quarter of 2012 — down from 44.6 percent in the first quarter of 2011. That stunning drop, which represented almost a 20 percent decline in coal generation over the last year, was primarily due to low natural gas prices. As EIA explains, natural gas generation will climb steadily this year, while coal will see a double-digit drop by the end of 2012: Natural‐gas‐fired generation continues to expand its share of total generation at the expense of coal‐fired generation. During the first quarter of 2012, natural gas accounted for 28.7 percent of total generation compared with 20.7 percent during the same quarter last year. In contrast, coal’s share of total generation declined from 44.6 percent to 36.0 percent over the same period. Prices for natural gas delivered to the electric power industry fell by 7.5 percent in 2011, which contributed to a significant increase in the share of natural‐gas‐fired generation. EIA expects this trend to continue in 2012, with electric power sector coal consumption falling by 14 percent. Natural gas in the electric power sector grows by almost 21 percent in 2012, primarily driven by the increasing relative cost advantages of natural gas over coal for power generation in some regions. EIA also projects that coal production at mines will fall by more than 10 percent this year. However, with prices falling due to an increase in secondary inventories, the agency predicts that domestic consumption may rise by just over 1 percent next year. The U.S. coal industry if facing major headwinds. The current drop in generation is mostly due to competition from natural gas. But there are other factors that will assist in pushing coal out of the electricity mix: An aging fleet of plants, cost-competitive renewables, new clean air regulations, and a strong anti-coal movement are working together to reduce the attractiveness of coal. Since 2010, plant operators have announced 106 retirements of coal facilities — representing 13 percent of the U.S. fleet, according to the Sierra Club. The continued decline in domestic coal generation is good news for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions from the fossil fuel sector are expected to decline by almost 3 percent this year — continuing the 1.9 percent decrease seen in 2011. Emissions from natural gas will rise by 5.5 percent, while emissions from coal will fall by almost 12 percent.

From Bernie Sanders

In the United States today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income since the 1920s.  Today, the wealthiest 400 individuals own more wealth than the bottom half of America -- 150 million people.  Today, the top one percent own forty percent of all wealth, while the bottom sixty percent owns less than two percent.  Incredibly, the bottom forty percent of all Americans own just 3/10 of one percent of the wealth of the country.


The distribution of income is even worse.  If you can believe it, the last study on this subject showed that in 2010, 93 percent of all new income created in the previous year went to the top one percent, while the bottom 99 percent of people had the privilege of enjoying the remaining seven percent.  In other words, the rich are getting much richer while almost everyone else is falling behind.


Not only is this inequality of wealth and income morally grotesque, it is bad economic policy.  If working families are deeply in debt, and have little or no income to spend on goods and services, how can we expand the economy and create the millions of jobs we desperately need?  There is a limit as to how many yachts, mansions, limos and fancy jewels the super-rich can buy.  We need to put income into the hands of working families.

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Wrong Side of History