The Hydrovolts Turbine - II

In my last post on the Hydrovolts Flipwing Turbine I was deliberately vague about exactly how we've managed to make a cross-axis rotor ("paddlewheel") spin when entirely submerged. Well, the patent is filed so here's an explanation.

The animation shows the patent-pending Hydrovolts Flipwing Turbine in action. The view is end-on with the water flow coming from the right. At the 12 o'clock position, one of the four flipwing blades is pinned against the central axle, providing drag resistance to the current, which pushes on it causing the turbine to rotate counter-clockwise. As the flipwing blade moves past the 9 o'clock position the current pushes the blade open, and it flips backwards from the hinge on the outer edge so the blade is parallel to the current. It remains in the open position through the 3 o'clock position, where it again becomes pinned to the central axle, catching the water current and forcing the turbine to rotate.

Stern Words in Seattle

Addressing climate change "is not all sack cloth and ashes."

So said Professor Lord Nicholas Stern, who was in Seattle this past Thursday, where I was fortunate to be able to meet him at a private breakfast gathering in the Mayflower Park Hotel. Stern, best known for his eponymous report, is on a tour promoting his book, The Global Deal: Climate Change and the Creation of a New Era of Progress and Prosperity. Stern is the former chief economist at the World Bank and has held a variety of senior economic policy positions in the UK government and has taught and researched at MIT, Ecole Polytechnique, the Indian Statistical Institute and People's University of China.

Stern spoke extemporaneously for about 30 minutes and took questions for nearly another 30. As one might expect from a professor at the esteemed London School of Economics, his tone was measured but purposeful with the power of his presentation coming from the force of his words rather than the style of its delivery. He's very soft-spoken and only once betrayed a flicker of emotion, when asked about the role the media has played and needs to play in educating people about climate change. He seemed a touch exasperated as he termed "insane" the media's relentless need to provide (faux) "balance" by always pairing a climate change denier with reality-based scientists.

Early on Stern declared that addressing climate change was "all about economics" but later said (accurately) that "the problem comes down to political will." Both matter of course, but I was struck by how much his remarks focused on the politics of addressing climate change and the educational challenges. Some of the questioners suggested it was more than just political will but also social pressures and and the selfish behaviors that are the Tragedy of the Commons.

Stern hit the large themes of his book, which in turn is based on his earlier paper "Key Elements of a Global Deal" [pdf] first published on the LSE website a year ago to the day. The following are combined notes, as best as I could take them, from both his talk and the Q&A, organized loosely by topic. Any errors are assuredly mine, not his.

On the global extent of the problem
Stern started by stressing the global nature of the problem: contributions of greenhouse gases (GHG) to the atmosphere from anywhere increases the incidence and likelihood of bad consequences everywhere. Climate change is quite obviously a global problem, and storms and extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and intensity. He also briefly alluded to the increasing occurrence of anomalous weather: flooding, droughts, signs of desertification.

On the science of climate change
He did not spend much time summarizing the state of the science. I knew about a quarter of the attendees, and if they were representative of the room as a whole, everyone present was already well aware of the salient climate change facts. (I suspect too that they were also largely united in favor of action rather than delay.) He noted the core problem: If we change nothing about what we do, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide will reach 700-800ppm by 2100 and lead to an average increase in global temperature of 5°C, and "we haven't a clue how to cope with that." Humankind has survived a drop of 5°C in global average temperature in the past but never a rise of that amount. Anticipating a standard denier argument he added, "of course there have been fluctuations in human history, but nothing like this." The core "science is 200 years old" starting with Fourier, and "all the time evidence is coming in to support the theory of GHG-caused climate change." The state of the science on climate change? It's settled. "Delay is very dangerous."

On developed vs. developing world
Stern's key point: "Rich countries have to take the lead; it cannot work by rich countries pointing fingers and lecturing other countries." The perception abroad of what the US can do and be has changed in the aftermath of the Bush era; US leadership now is both more possible and more expected. Currently US per capita carbon emissions are 20 tons annually. Europe is 10-12 tons. China is 5. By 2050 the per capita figure needs to be down to 2 tons as a global average. This is "a big ask." China, Brazil and others have their own carbon plans today. These plans could be more aggressive, but that will only be possible if the rich countries take a position of leadership on setting and working towards more aggressive goals themselves. The politics going into this fall's global meeting in Copenhagen will entail a lot of "hard bargaining" from India, China and other developing countries over emissions targets. The strategy from the industrialized countries should be one of obtaining "a commitment to commit" from the developing countries, which will require the US and Europe to take the first large steps. The developing countries will follow this lead because "they know they are vulnerable" should inaction on climate change continue. On a practical level, richer countries must engage in "technology sharing" with poorer ones to mitigate the growth in per capita carbon emissions in those countries. Such sharing would also provide political support for the leaders of developing countries to forgo the dirty carbon growth path and its promise of economic bounty that the rich countries took in their day but which now must be replaced with a new way.

On how to regulate carbon
There's no significant economic reason to pick between a carbon tax and some form of cap-and-trade system; both put a price on carbon emissions as a way of providing an economic incentive towards their reduction. Stern wryly noted the "lack of total sincerity" of some advocates and that some were pushing the tax precisely because having a "tax" makes for an easier target politically. However structured, a cost of $50/ton for CO2 by 2020 would be a powerful incentive for technological progress of the right kind.

On transportation
It's pointless for any policy to be based on the idea that people will give up their own personal transportation (cars.) The policy has to find a way to make that indispensable part of modern industrial life possible in a way that is compatible with a sensible carbon policy. Electricity will need to be the power source for cars.

On coal
"Coal is a problem." Coal has been promoted as a solution to energy security, but it is the only source that fails to pair energy security with climate change mitigation. About 50% of the world's electricity comes from coal, and we cannot suddenly stop using it, so we need to deal with that reality. It took "much too long" but at least, at long last, in the UK there is now a policy that no new coal plants will be built unless they have a full carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) system. We need to devote greater effort to finding a viable CCS approach, as well as greater plant efficiency, for now, as we work to replacing coal with renewable sources.

On what doesn't work
"If you ask for things that can't be done you just marginalize yourself." He cited the calls by some to immediately shut down coal plants as an example of this. We must be practical and realistic in what we choose. The current approach to global development, especially by the large institutions like the World Bank is "a disaster" because it lacks the relevant big picture context on promoting growth of the right kind. It proceeds "project by project" treating each in isolation rather than as part of a coherent whole with interlocking and cumulative impacts. Most dangerous would be trying to reinflate the bubble economy. The seeds of the bubble just burst were sown right after the "madness" of the dot-com bubble. "Rekindling the old growth story is rekindling the past."

On growth
"Low carbon growth is the only growth option." Carbon growth will no longer be possible or sustainable due to its rising cost and environmental consequences. "Clean tech will be the big driver of growth" just as other transforming technologies of yesteryear (autos, computers, etc.) were the engines of growth in their day.

On the role of government
Need "real investment" and "real policy" that focuses on clean tech as the initial leader and ongoing catalyst of economic growth. Our society is a "dynamic creature" that needs only the right kind of public policy guidance. The government cannot be completely neutral on technology choices but it can and should set broad policy to restore economic vitality via growth of the right kind. "The linkage between public policy and private sector response is very powerful." An example of this is French government support for high speed rail, which resulted in the best such in the world, the TGV.

On educating and communicating
It is "very important that people understand the risk" posed by climate change, but motivating an "unengaged" populace will require a "steady calm explanation of how dangerous delay is." "How do we persuade people and get them to come together on this? Quite a lot of progress comes from good communication." Need to employ the right kind of methods, "get the argument right" and be creative. Stern cited Yann Arthus-Bertrand's book Earth from Above being used in French schools as an example of what is needed. Stern expressed encouragement that the pace of growing awareness has really picked up, and noted that business leaders generally and the heads of large companies in particular have become aware to the danger to a much greater degree in the last 2-3 years. This is starting to really shift the attitudes of politicians, who lag in their understanding compared to the public.

On what we must do
"We need a collaborative response to a very clear human danger" like the global community was able to do in response to past crises. Solving the climate change challenge "will be the largest collaboration the world has ever seen" but not unprecedented, as the world collaborated before on smallpox eradication, for example. Much of this will need to come from collaboration amongst political leaders and their countries. "There's a tremendous amount we can do" including zero-carbon transportation, efficiency (which saves money and doesn't cost much), stopping deforestation, and especially planting more trees (to which he referred several times) as this has a "carbon-negative" benefit that is quite strong.

Stern stated flatly that 2010-2020 are the "crucial" years for the pace of adoption by the developing world of measures to address climate change. While the "political dynamics are strongly in the right direction" and current signs are "strongly encouraging" it is nonetheless "very worrying how far we have to get." Ours is "the first generation that can destroy humans' relationship to the planet."

"If we fail our problems are enormous" but "we have to be extremely positive about what we can do...you can see what we have to do."

The Hydrovolts Turbine

I've been spending a lot of time on posts about some of my passions--renewable energy, climate change, energy politics, and other things--I haven't spent nearly enough time on Hydrovolts technology. So, let's talk turbines.

First, some terminology:

• A turbine is the complete device, containing all parts that turn moving water into electricity, and especially the rotor, the generator, and the power electronics.
• A rotor is the part that spins in the current. For most turbines this looks like a propeller made of several blades, often similar to those used in modern wind turbines (but smaller and proportionally thicker.)
• The generator converts the mechanical energy (typically of a rotating shaft) into electricity through the use of magnets and wire windings.
• Power electronics take many forms but for turbines are necessary to both transform the electricity produced by the generator into the right form (e.g. AC or DC) and to condition the power by smoothing out voltage spikes, reducing line noise, etc.
• One important kind of power electronics is the inverter, which changes direct current (DC) into alternating current (AC). AC is used in the electrical grid, the wires in our homes and many large appliances. DC is used in cars, consumer electronics and most battery devices.
• A power cable brings generated and conditioned electricity to where it is used or to a point of transmission.
• Deployment hardware provides a way to position the turbine in service. This hardware varies widely with the size of the turbine, its type, and details of the site.

Hydrovolts is building small in-stream hydrokinetic turbines to create clean, renewable energy. The initial prototype is meeting all development objectives.

A key element of the Hydrovolts turbine is its unique rotor design. Most hydrokinetic turbines use a horizontal axis design where the axis of rotation, the shaft, is positioned parallel to the current flow. The moving current presses on two or more blades mounted radially from the shaft, causing it to rotate. Examples include the design from Marine Current Turbines:
Verdant Power has a 3-bladed design they have been testing in New York's East River (actually a tidal flow rather than a true river.) The mounting pylon is designed to rotate, allowing the turbine to capture power both on the incoming and outgoing tides:

The Clean Current turbine has several blades and differs from the previous two by placing the spinning blades in a cowling. This both allows a venturi effect to increase the speed of the water flow and somewhat shields marine life from the fast-moving blade tips:

These three designs all use horizontal axis rotors as part of their hydrokinetic turbine designs, but these companies are pursuing a different business from Hydrovolts. All primarily target utility scale power generation in tidal flows rather than small scale generation in freshwater flows. Hydrovolts business grew out of founder Burt Hamner's successful effort directing a study for Tacoma Power to assess the feasibility of tidal energy in the Tacoma Narrows. The study concluded and Tacoma Power agreed

that tidal generation will not be feasible in the Tacoma Narrows waterway for at least eight to 10 years and that other renewable resources, like wind power, are more economically feasible at this time.

Burt realized that, although feasible tidal power remained a distant prospect, the same kind of hydrokinetic technology could be shrunk down and deployed in many other places in a way that would have near-term feasibility.

Some other companies have had a similar idea.

Hydro Green Energy intends to place utility-scale devices using a horizontal axis design in permanent installations adjacent to existing hydroelectric dams. They installed their first 100kW unit in Hastings, MN a few months ago:

Free Flow Power has aggressively pursued Federal Regulatory Energy Commission (FERC) permits in the Mississippi River to place arrays of horizontal axis turbines, each with 7 blades:

Unlike these others, Canada's New Energy Corporation (EnCurrent) uses a vertical axis design. The rotating shaft extends from the rotor blades in the current flow up through a deploying raft to the generator and electronics above the surface:

The Hydrovolts rotor design is different from all of these, as it uses a cross-axis design where the rotating shaft is perpendicular to the water flow and parallel to the water surface. The design is similar to a paddlewheel or old-fashioned water wheel with one very significant difference: the Hydrovolts design is fully submerged. It is like a paddlewheel that can spin entirely under water:


The Hydrovolts cross-axis design has several significant advantages over competing designs:

• Simple: The flipwing blades are flat sheets rather than more complicated propeller blade designs. Flat blades can be made in many places and of many materials without expensive machinery or costly tooling.
• Robust: Because the blades are simple the turbine suffers little loss of efficiency if they are damaged, e.g. by denting or warping. Foil designs will be more severely impacted.
• Safe: The Flipwing turns at the speed of the current and has no tips or edges that could slice marine life, e.g. fish.
• Low fouling: Initial tests show that water-borne debris rolls over the top of the Flipwing, unlike with horizontal axis turbines which become easily entrained with material that wraps around the shaft.
• Adaptable: Almost all competing designs have a swept area (the working cross-section of the current) that is circular, so non-circular channel geometries cannot be efficiently harnessed. The Hydrovolts Flipwing is rectangular, and can be built to exactly match water flows of different dimensions, such as those that are wide and shallow.
• Scalable: The Hydrovolts Flipwing design can be manufactured to fit watercourses of almost any size both by scaling the individual device and by ganging together multiple turbines to maximize the swept area of an available channel.
• Easy Deployment: The Hydrovolts turbine is fully submersible and floats in the current. No watercourse modification (dams, penstocks, pilings, poured concrete) is needed. The turbine can literally be tossed in and held in place with deployment hardware as simple as two chains anchoring the turbine to each bank. (Other deployment hardware and options are available.)
• Low Cost: Simple rotor design, easy installation, and a compact design keep manufacturing and deployment costs low, resulting in much faster capital ROI for buyers.

Initial in-water tests like that in the video above demonstrate that the device spins when entirely under water at a speed that matches the flow of the current. Subsequent testing using a custom-designed raft produced RPM, torque, and power numbers in line with theoretical predictions. The rotor was fixed in the water below the raft, and a chain drive was used to bring the rotational characteristics above the waterline to the monitoring and test equipment:

The raft was placed in the water and towed behind a research vessel at carefully calibrated speed, simulating the current flow of a stationary turbine in a flow of the same speed:

The Hydrovolts team used these and other results to improve the prototype design and to attach an initial generator design:

Company founder and Flipwing inventor Burt Hamner has continued to lead the Hydrovolts effort to produce a new generation of improved hydropower devices:

Further in-water tests using the boat-tow method continue to yield good results:

Recent lab test results validate the power output Hydrovolts expects its production units to make. Additional prototyping work is ongoing. While there are various design and optimization issues still to be finalized, we are pleased with the excellent results and the rapidity of our current progress. Based on the prototyping success, Hydrovolts is building the first of several demonstration units:

This unit will be placed in service within the next 3 months, with others to follow based on the needs of our development effort and based on feedback and interest from our customers.

Those interested in learning more or hosting a demonstration unit are invited to contact us.

Power from water^TM. The light bulb is on!

Awakening to Monsters

It's hard to think clearly when you're sleepy. It's harder still when listening to someone who is not talking sense.

In 2007 MIT Professor John Reilly co-authored a study [pdf] estimating costs of addressing climate change. John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and other blundering elephants in the GOP recently seized on the study, took some numbers out of context, used some facile math, and trumpeted their alarming news that addressing climate change would cost every American household a "tax" of more than $3,100 per year. Professor Reilly wrote them a letter [pdf]:

It has come to my attention that an analysis we conducted examining proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Report No., 146, Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals, has been misrepresented in recent press releases distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee. The press release claims our report estimates an average cost per family of a carbon cap and trade program that would meet targets now being discussed in Congress to be over $3,000, but that is nearly 10 times the correct estimate which is approximately $340. [...] Our Report 160 shows that the costs on lower and middle income households can be completely offset by returning allowance revenue to these households.

Despite his efforts to explain their error and get a correction, the GOP just likes the scary tax meme too much. Many have criticized the GOP for knowingly lying about this, and yesterday their motive was called out (via):

Few except special interests and politicians who do their bidding would argue that limiting emissions that put human health and the environment at risk puts a burdensome “tax” on American families and businesses.

OK, I know what you're thinking--this must be a rant from one of the usual suspects, but no--surprise! It's in a press release from the Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP). Who?

Turns out the REP has been around since 1995 and their web site features the sensible tag line: "Conservation is conservative." I couldn't say it better myself. A quick perusal of their web site shows an interesting mix of positions, predictably supporting John McCain in last year's election, but also nakedly heretical positions on such subjects as conservative scepticism on climate change, the need to stop mountain-top destruction for coal, hope for less party lockstep with the fossil industry, and even how drilling in ANWR won't lower fuel prices.

The REP states they are "not affiliated" with the national or any state GOP entity, and, unsurprisingly, they get no financial support from any GOP entity either. Yet how refreshing to find that there is a reality-based faction of the GOP (via):

Conservatives, of all people, should not ignore basic principles of economics. Such tactics, which are designed to score political points and gain headlines, are a disservice to American citizens, who urgently need Congress to debate the climate issue constructively. Voters are counting on their elected representatives to work together across party lines to develop balanced legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower America’s dangerous dependence on oil, and help us move more quickly to a more diversified, robust energy economy.

A blog entry by REP's policy director Jim DiPeso details the errors pointed out by Reilly to Boehner's willful distortions:

Mistake No. 1: Boehner and company confused the revenue raised by selling emissions allowances with the cost of reducing emissions, which are different concepts.

Mistake No. 2: The price of emissions allowances reflects the marginal cost of avoiding the last ton of emissions, but there are ways to reduce emissions that cost less than cutting out that last ton.

Mistake No. 3: The average cost of emissions reductions per household would depend mightily on how allowance revenues would be used. Would they be spent on residential energy efficiency incentives? Workforce retraining in coal country? Rebates for low-income households? Dividend checks for every legal resident? Those are only a few of the ideas on the table. Each individual option and combination of options would yield a different cost outcome. And Congress isn’t close to settling on an answer.

Mistake No. 4: This is the truly embarrassing one. An economics major who made a boneheaded slip-up like this would get a red “F” on his term paper. I’ll let Reilly explain the error: “The costs are borne over time and it is wrong to produce a simple average of such costs as that does not take into account the time value of money.”

This manifestly mendacious manipulation of the truth by GOP leaders was so egregious that the St. Petersburg Times gave them it a "Pants on Fire" rating on the PolitiFacts Truth-o-Meter saying:

If Boehner and McConnell had simply misstated the results of the MIT study, the Truth-O-Meter would have been content giving this one a False. But for them to keep repeating the claim after the author of the study told them it was wrong means we have to set the meter ablaze. Pants on Fire.

So, we have the Congressional GOP leadership misrepresenting a scholarly study to support a willfully ignorant and scientifically bankrupt position, using sophomoric economic analysis to frighten people, and refusing to back down in the face of proof of their falsehoods, even when exposed by conservative Republicans. All of this rather begs the question: What does it mean to be a conservative? Some political blogs have been remarking for a while that there is a growing divergence between "Republicans" and "conservatives" and some better-known conservatives who were not part of the GOP leadership stood on the sidelines in the last election following the clearly unconservative reign of George Bush. Bush and Dick "Deficits don't matter" Cheney have completed a 30-year long Republican co-opting of conservatives into a deeply radical agenda of (among other things) faith-based policy-making. The unifying intellectual framework of these Republicans has been a hostility to science that encourages violence to the truth. At long last conservatives awake from their sleep of reason to behold the monsters.

Time for a new pragmatism:

The American public is interested in leaders who recognize and operate in reality. The American public is interested and desires leaders. The American public is tired of outright deceit from politicians. And, as long as the Republican Party leadership is intent on rejecting reality, intent on pandering truthiness, and in obstructing, rather than leading, it won’t have an electoral future.

Wrote TulipFarmer in the comments:

There was a time when conservatives believed in good science and engineering - they called it "Yankee ingenuity". It was Yankee ingenuity that built bridges, sky scrapers, and won world wars. It grew food, and gave Americans the longest life span in the world. Climate change is like gravity, it is not something to debate, it is something to measure. And, it has been measured. We should measure it again, but debating it is not going to change those measurements. (We should also keep going out and getting better measurements of gravity.) What is worth debating is what to do about global warming. We need to be very smart about what we [do] with respect to global warming. There is no left and right, no Republican and Democrat, there is no "them and us", there is only smart and dumb.

Like in the old adage about cutting the Easter ham in half, conservatives have been allied with the Republicans for so long they hardly seem to remember the original reason why. An honest and lucid reappraisal would be timely if only to freshen conservative ideas and separate them from their use as shallow slogans to dress meaningless rituals to further the Republican quest of power for its own sake. If conservatives can truly awake and throw of the torpor of their suicide pact with the Republican party they may find political relevance for themselves and their ideas. Such an awakening would be good and welcome, and perhaps even lead, shall we say, to morning in America.

Focus The Nation

From the Focus The Nation web site:

On Jan. 31, 2008, Focus the Nation's inaugural Civic Engagment campaign organized the largest teach-in in US history—educating nearly 1 million people on climate change at 1900 institutions—landing significant press in all major outlets including TIME, New York Times, Newsweek, MSNBC, CNN.com, NPR and major dailies in each state. Youth organizers were rock stars. They created partnerships with academic and business leaders who helped them grab the reins of their future and connect their campus with more than 64 members of Congress and hundreds of state and city officials.

In addition to forging thousands of intergenerational partnerships in congressional districts across the country on the issue of climate change, we heard loud and clear from our key organizers in every state that they were ready to build the clean energy future. The clean energy economy is here. And Focus the Nation can help you join it. This year's Civic Engagement campaign is the Nationwide Town Hall on America's Clean Energy Future, occuring in Congressional Districts across the country on April 18th, 2009.

Get involved. Congress is starting to turn the long-overdue idea of addressing carbon emissions with a first draft of an actual plan using a cap-and-trade system. Educating as many people as possible about the reality of climate change, the role humans play in it, and the damage we are doing are critical to building support for addressing it. And address it we must. As the mechanic in the old oil filter ad said, "you can pay me now or you can pay me later." Paying now would be very affordable according to a thorough McKinsey study:

The macroeconomic costs of this carbon revolution are likely to be manageable, being in the order of 0.6–1.4 percent of global GDP by 2030. To put this figure in perspective, if one were to view this spending as a form of insurance against potential damage due to climate change, it might be relevant to compare it to global spending on insurance, which was 3.3 percent of GDP in 2005. Borrowing could potentially finance many of the costs, thereby effectively limiting the impact on near-term GDP growth. In fact, depending on how new low-carbon infrastructure is financed, the transition to a low-carbon economy may increase annual GDP growth in many countries.

Paying later? Not such a good deal, either in money, or in lives.

"But This Ship Can't Sink!"

Climate Progress is, without exception, the best source for factual information on the science and politics of climate change.

However, Joe Romm, the former Department of Energy official who largely is Climate Progress, says we shouldn't call it "climate change" anymore, since that is too unalarming a euphemism for the dire future that will arrive later this century:

• Staggeringly high temperature rise, especially over land — some 15°F over much of the United States
• Sea level rise of 5 feet, rising some 6 to 12 inches (or more) each decade thereafter
• Widespread desertification — as much as one-third of the land
• Massive species loss on land and sea — 50% or more of all life
• Unexpected impacts — the fearsome “unknown unknowns”
• More severe hurricanes — especially in the Gulf

Read the post. It's an excellent and succinct summary, with references. The consequences of not stabilizing atmospheric carbon levels are growing more severe. The costs of mitigation are today still relatively modest, but increasing; the costs of adapting in later decades to a changed world and coping with multiple failures of economic systems, the environment, and public health will be substantial.

Now if only the scientific community and environmentalists and progressives could start articulating this reality cogently.

If only.

The problem is that the timescales are enormously long compared to the attention spans or even the planning horizons of most people. We live in times that emphasize the short-term in everything. Quarterly earnings reports. This year's model. Spring fashions. Low teaser rates. 90 days, no interest. How do you galvanize people to respond to an emergency they can't see and which takes decades to wreak its havoc? I am reminded of a scene from the movie Titanic, after the iceberg has struck and gashed the hull: the naval architect, Thomas Andrews, breaks the bad news to Captain Edward J. Smith and Cunard Line honcho J. Bruce Ismay:

Thomas Andrews: ...As she goes down by the head, the water will spill over the tops of the bulkheads at E deck from one to the next. Back and back. There's no stopping it.

Smith: The pumps... if we opened the doors...

Thomas Andrews: [interrupting] The pumps buy you time, but minutes only. From this moment, no matter what we do, Titanic will founder.

Ismay: [incredulously] But this ship can't sink!

Thomas Andrews: She's made of iron, sir! I assure you, she can... and she will. It is a mathematical certainty.

Meanwhile the passengers continue on, unaware that their current experience is not their future--the ship is doomed. The lights are still on, the music is still playing; to them, the ship looks just the same. The fleeting concern of the moneyed and comfortable is quickly allayed by those for whom reassurance is their job. Steward: "I shouldn't worry ma'am. We've likely thrown a propeller blade, that's the shudder you felt. May I bring you anything?" While it is yet level, anyone hurtling about the deck screaming that the ship is sinking would be ignored or dismissed out of hand (as Ismay does: "This ship can't sink!")

This Titanic scene is a parable for us passengers on the Earth. For the most part, everything looks OK, but we are taking on water. People with expertise, who are knowledgeable on the particulars, are sounding the alarm, and urging response and preparation. Others, who may be experts in their own fields, insist that nothing is amiss. Maybe in our case we can buy enough time with the pumps, and the repairs, and the ship needn't sink. Denial and delay, however, ensures a steep plunge, and an ugly lifeboat exercise where none of money, status or morality will hold much sway.

Ismay's incredulous outburst, "But this ship can't sink!" comes from his belief, not his expertise. He lacks the understanding of engineering and physics to make such a statement of fact; instead it is a desperate attempt to arrest the vanishing permanence of a state of mind: too much would change or be lost were it to happen, so the ship can't be allowed to sink. But of course, it can, and it does.

The biggest impediment to acceptance of, and action upon climate change, the sinking of our ship, is the inchoate belief that it is unsinkable.

Why We Are Going Quietly Nuts

Ken Ward:

If we accept the worst, or precautionary assessment, then U.S. environmentalists have perhaps a year to avert cataclysm, and nothing we are doing now will work. We are dealing with this terrible situation in a very ordinary and human way: by denying it.

Our denial comes in a variety of forms: we believe that President Obama can and will solve the problem; we ignore Jim Hansen's assessment and timeline; we concentrate on our jobs and organization agendas and pass over the big picture; we focus on the molehill of climate policy rather than tackle the mountain of climate politics; we assess our efforts by looking back on how far we have come and do not measure the distance still to be traveled; we scrupulously avoid criticizing each other, lacking conviction in our own courses of action and not wishing to invite criticism in turn; and we are irrationally committed to antique approaches that are self-evidently inadequate.

In our hearts we know that what we are doing is futile, but we do not know what else we should or could be doing. The constraints within which we work feel so intractable and out of human scale that we cannot imagine how to break them. Despite our best efforts, Americans just don't seem to get it or they don't care, and we are at a loss to explain this. Unable to influence our own nation, we are further dismayed by the far vaster challenge of altering the trajectory of China, India, Brazil, and the rest of the world.

Nothing we now confront should be a surprise. We have known for more than thirty years that the world was bound to reach this state (with twenty years specific warning on climate). The purpose of environmentalism was to alter the self-destructive parabola of growth by introducing new values and sensibilities, which, as has been clear for some time, we have manifestly failed to do.

<snip>

If we continue down our present road, we will leap from foggy thinking into pure madness, there being no other means of keeping reality at bay.

OK, back to work.

The Fiction of Michael Crichton

I remember reading The Andromeda Strain as a teenager and finding it both engrossing and morbidly enjoyable. The original film (haven't seen the remake) was good too, and of course, Jurassic Park has become a modern Hollywood classic.

Thus it was disappointing for me to discover that Michael Crichton's enormous talent for fiction was not confined to his novels. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing and the damage done is magnified through celebrity and a media that shirks its most noble purpose if not its basic duty [pdf]. Instead of questioning what it is told it slavishly parrots discredited viewpoints, creating a faux equivalence between credentialed experts and peer-reviewed science on one hand, and a legion of poseurs, cranks and industry shills on the other. The result is to foster a "controversy" not to provide a forum for a debate on the merits, but out of laziness, naivete and simple commercialism:

Of course we must not forget that the bottom line with media is sales, not truth (or accuracy). Stories of scientific certainty are only interesting once, controversy is eternally newsworthy.

Until George Will's recent, error-filled and much-ridiculed column denying the reality of climate change, Crichton was the poster boy for the deniers. The points Crichton makes have been repeatedly debunked as they have been made many times before. Crichton merely reiterates shopworn mendacity.

The argument that climate change is unproven because there is no "scientific consensus" is both grossly inaccurate and betrays a fundamental ignorance about the scientific method. There are others who complain of the limitations and warn of the dangers of relying on scientific consensus, repeating endlessly that such things are "unproven" because the "consensus" is not 100%. Creationists casting doubt on evolution are of this ilk, as are the deniers of everything from moon landings to the Holocaust.

Crichton is correct in that "consensus" can have a political slant, and that the existence of a consensus on a scientific theory does not constitute proof of that theory. He says instead that proof simply

...requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

This is a pretty pinched view especially when he and others smugly note that no climate change theory lends itself to reproducible results because the only global experiment we have available is the Earth we live on. Reproducible results must be done on different scales and in a different manner, using proxies and building on the edifice of broader science to extrapolate to the testing of such hypotheses. There's nothing wrong or manipulative in this; scientists perforce do similarly in astronomy, human genetics, and other areas where direct experimentation is impossible, impractical, or unethical.

Climate scientists do not dogmatically cling to theories; they are testing hypotheses about climate change, and as a result the theories are constantly evolving. The broad outlines, however, are quite clear and largely settled. Greenhouse gases are concentrating in the atmosphere with a rapidity and to an extent that will cause changes to the climate, and these changes include many very negative effects for humankind, including rising sea levels, desertification, famine, habitat destruction, and likely mass ecomigration. While experiments and data collection continue, and theories are always subject to revision according to observations, the core elements of climatology in this regard are well-established.

Crichton decries the politicization of climate change questions and attacks a misguided emphasis on consensus as the culprit. However, the few climate change deniers and the vanishingly small number of sceptical climatologists don't propose credible alternative hypotheses that withstand scientific scrutiny. The fact that they trot out discredited studies, quibble about the edges of the data, savage the same strawmen and finally complain about politics for their intellectual failure shows a clear lack of scientific honesty.

I mean really, now. How much proof is needed before we act?

It's not as if the implications of responding to the reality of climate change are so terrible. The costs are actually rather modest. As I've argued before, picking between the environment and the economy is a bogus choice. The only reason to resist doing something about climate change is the disruption to the status quo, and to the vested interests that profit from it, particularly the fossil industry, which must forever deny recognition of climate change as an external cost of their business. Reluctance to act is also psychological, stemming from the a priori belief that we can despoil the environment for temporal ends because it is our birthright as homo colossus.

Great scientists, incidentally, are not great because they "broke with consensus" but because they followed their observations and revised their hypotheses diligently wherever they led without regard for the preconceptions of themselves or others. Often this did put them in a lonely place against the orthodoxy of the times. Right now, the brave adherence to wherever the facts lead is not the province of the deniers but of those warning of the impending and irreversible effects of climate change. The orthodoxy to be overcome is not the fact that the climate is changing but a contrary belief that we need do nothing as nature is cyclic, we needn't worry, and we can merrily go on changing nothing about our lives or ecohostile habits.

Nature has other ideas.

As a fellow alumnus, I regret that Crichton's evident erudition and relentless wrong-headedness reinforce the oft-told gibe: "you can always tell a Harvard man, but you can't tell him much." I loved most of your fiction, Michael Crichton. RIP.

Curiouser and Curiouser

Said Alice, in Wonderland:

It would be so nice if something made sense for a change.

Alice could just as easily have said this listening to any of Exxon's climate change deniers, which the oil giant, despite repeated promises to stop, continues to fund. The latest? An Ivy professor claims we are suffering from a carbon "famine". You can't make this stuff up.

Dr. William Happer of Princeton University testified last Wednesday before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last week. He had an utterly novel take on atmospheric CO2 levels, saying that today represents a CO2 "famine" compared to levels of "80 million" years ago. Incredibly, Happer stated that higher CO2 levels would be beneficial to humankind. More CO2, a little warming--it's really all "fine". You really have to watch the video to get the full measure of his glib fatuousity:

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the committee was nonplussed at the specious comparison, but had the good sense to note afterwards that Happer is chair of the George C. Marshall Institute, which receives a large part of its funding from Exxon Mobil. Exxon is well known for its greenwashing, spin and self-serving PR. It is really laughable what that funding can buy!

Happer provided another weird equivalence: carbon restrictions and Prohibition:

Prohibition [of liquor] was a mistake and our country has probably still not fully recovered from the damage it did... Institutions like organized crime got their start in that era. Drastic limitations on CO2 are likely to damage our country in analogous ways.

Yes, I can see it now. Illicit gasoline using homemade refining techniques in backwoods stills. Carbon revenuers chasing them down. Speakeasies filled with furtive patrons giddy from the use of oil lamps. A black market for plastic packaging clamshells. Will organized crime be smuggling petrochemical fertilizers to the family farm? What "analogous ways" is Happer imagining?

What's really ridiculous about this pathetic attempt at fear-mongering is that carbon crime is already happening repeatedly.

Happer also warns about the supposedly ruinous costs of carbon restraint, again without any evidence. The costs of not dealing with the problem, including desertification, rising sea levels, etc. are not considered. In comparison, the cost of a carbon regimen seem modest.

Happer, like many denialists, has no degree or other evident credentials in climatology; instead Happer is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett "I am not a climatologist" Professor of Physics at Princeton University. In his testimony he is literally hand-waving as he throws out wild numbers of alleged CO2 concentrations of "a thousand" and "3 or 4 times" what they are today. He states without attribution that, while there has been warming historically, it has "ceased" in "the past ten years," a fabrication at odds with the data. His grasp of geologic time periods is equally reality-free. After derisively dismissing "propaganda" in children's books about climate change one wonders where he gets his information--perhaps a book showing cheerful cave dwellers gamboling about in a tropical idyll with their pet dinosaurs? Treehugger provides a snarky summary on what those times were really like. Happer's prepared text [pdf] cites Orwell and Voltaire as authorities, attacks the usual strawmen like "inaccuracies" in Al Gore's slide show, and rehashes long discredited denier talking points as if they were fresh insights. Nothing new here.

Increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHG) and especially carbon dioxide (CO2) alarm respected researchers because they believe, based on their broad, inclusive and peer-reviewed scientific assessment, that the resulting temperature increases will produce tipping point events that will be very damaging to humankind and will not be easily mitigated or reversed for many generations. There is a broad scientific consensus on climate change.

However, there will always be sceptics for whom no amount of scientific vetting will ever be enough. For these people, climate change remains and will forever remain an "unproven theory", a "hypothesis", etc. One wonders if they understand the scientific method, the way in which scientists create systems for understanding natural phenomena based on observation, hypothesis and experimental verification. If they applied the same level of scepticism to other areas of science they would be equally unconvinced by such "theories" as gravity, the roundness of the earth, or evolution. (Well, that last one is also a favorite of the "unproven!" crowd.)

Beyond the unscientific sceptics, for whom there is never enough evidence, there are also the anecdotal sceptics, for whom irrelevant data has exalted meaning. However, my favorite are the fantasy sceptics, for whom fictional data, whether derived from literature, cranks, or sheer conjecture of their own febrile imaginations ("what if!") has enough import to doubt anything.
Some of these people even get to rave to Congress as "experts". Imagine.

The George C Marshall Institution (GMI), which provides Happer's soapbox, says on its home page:

Our mission is to improve the use of science in making public policy about important issues for which science and technology are major considerations.

They go on in a very high-minded fashion about the importance of unbiased, impartial, accurate scientific fact to guide and inform policy decisions:

Where science is misused and distorted to promote special interests, GMI works to improve the situation:

• by communicating scientific information clearly,
• by identifying key linkages between science and policy issues,
• and by providing balanced and accurate assessments on specific science-based
  policy issues.

The Institute's accurate and impartial analyses are designed to help policy makers distinguish between opinion and scientific fact so that decisions on public policy issues can be based on solid, factual information, rather than opinion or unproven hypotheses.

Says the George C Marshall Foundation of the former General, Cabinet Secretary and Nobel Laureate for which it is named:

His principles of honesty and truth gained the trust of millions of Americans and the respect of world leaders throughout his years of service.

Truthfully, one wonders what George C Marshall the man would make of his namesake Institute's current Chair and his bizarre claims. Honestly.

Update: Just to clarify, the George C Marshall Foundation seeks to "promote the values and beliefs that encompass George Marshall's legacy for the benefit of future generations". The George C Marshall Institute is not affiliated with the Foundation and claims to "conduct technical assessments of scientific issues with an impact on public policy."

(h/t the future is green)

It Begins With Energy

President Obama addressed the country before a joint session of Congress tonight. It was not technically a State of the Union address, which was just as well, as it relieved Obama from the unpleasant chore of finding an suitably precipitous adjective too replace that used in the shopworn bromide, "The state of our Union is strong." Instead he said that

[The] day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here.

It was, even by his standards, an excellent speech. He deftly balanced alarm at where we are as a nation, conveyed the urgency of taking bold action, drew on relevant history and quietly reassured that American determination gives us confidence of prevailing.

Read the whole thing. Excerpts on energy:

The fact is, our economy did not fall into decline overnight. Nor did all of our problems begin when the housing market collapsed or the stock market sank. We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before.

Yes, but will we have the will to finally act? Can Obama bring the country and the Congress with him on this?

It begins with energy.

We know the country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century. And yet, it is China that has launched the largest effort in history to make their economy energy efficient. We invented solar technology, but we've fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it. New plug-in hybrids roll off our assembly lines, but they will run on batteries made in Korea.

Well I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders - and I know you don't either. It is time for America to lead again. Thanks to our recovery plan, we will double this nation's supply of renewable energy in the next three years. We have also made the largest investment in basic research funding in American history - an investment that will spur not only new
discoveries in energy, but breakthroughs in medicine, science, and technology. We will soon lay down thousands of miles of power lines that can carry new energy to cities and towns across this country. And we will put Americans to work making our homes and buildings more efficient so that we can save billions of dollars on our energy bills.

But to truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy. So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America. And to support that innovation, we will invest fifteen billion dollars a year to develop technologies like wind power and solar power; advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more fuel-efficient cars and trucks built right here in America.

As for our auto industry, everyone recognizes that years of bad decision-making and a global recession have pushed our automakers to the brink. We should not, and will not, protect them from their own bad practices. But we are committed to the goal of a re-tooled, re-imagined auto industry that can compete and win. Millions of jobs depend on it. Scores of communities depend on it. And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.

None of this will come without cost, nor will it be easy. But this is America. We don't do what's easy. We do what is necessary to move this country forward.

I don't buy into the fiction of clean coal, but otherwise this is a no-nonsense call to bold, direct, specific action. It's true leadership into the face of difficulty and the teeth of adversity. It's a refreshing and much needed change, and a stark contrast to everything the GOP has said and continues to say.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal gave the Republican response. He attempted to use his personal story, a folksy delivery and a selective recounting of how he was doing things better in his state to reiterate core Republican concepts of less spending, more tax cuts, and limited government. Not only is the message completely out of step with the times and the mood of the country, but his presentation came across as mawkish, stilted, even canned, as if he had recorded it earlier in the day. He didn't really respond to what Obama said at all. On energy all he had to say was:

To strengthen our economy, we need urgent action to keep energy prices down. All of us remember what it felt like to pay $4 at the pump. And unless we act now, those prices will return.

To stop that from happening, we need to increase conservation, increase energy efficiency, increase the use of alternative and renewable fuels, increase our use of nuclear power, and increase drilling for oil and gas here at home.

We believe that Americans can do anything. And if we unleash the innovative spirit of our citizens, we can achieve energy independence.

The idea that we can somehow prevent gas prices from going back up is astonishingly naive. He is either woefully ignorant of the price drivers or is shamelessly pandering to his political base. Prices are low now, temporarily, because of the enormous demand destruction attending our cratering financial situation. They will stay low only in a global deflationary environment.

Increasing conservation and efficiency are excellent ideas; Jindal should focus on convincing his own party to support concrete measures to do so. "Alternative and renewable fuels"? That could mean anything from algae, possibly useful but years away to ethanol, a boondoggle that cause way more harm than help. Nuclear power? There are so many reasons why nuclear is not the answer. Lastly, there's the that old favorite, more drilling, which is a false hope.

Missing entirely from Jindal's retreads is any mention of renewable energy. No wind. No solar. No hydrokinetic generation of any kind. Only the vague "unleash the innovative spirit", a hollow piece of flattery that he probably imagines would occur through the magic of more tax cuts, which is not what we need.

The Republican idea that Jindal is a rising star and potential 2012 nominee shows both the party's intellectual bankruptcy and how frighteningly clueless they are about the deepest existential crisis the country has experienced in a generation--maybe ever--a crisis created by the same discredited policies they blithely suggest we continue.

Salazar's Oil

The appointment of former US Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) as Interior Secretary provoked some ambivalence in both environmental and industry circles. A strong-willed and outspoken westerner, Salazar is seen as industry-friendly while still being environmentally concerned, although just not enough so to completely please either side. In office, his early actions appear consistent with his reputation. For his part, the Secretary has neither fully charmed nor alarmed. Is he a centrist such as President Obama believes will further his so-called post-partisan approach to governing?

Oil Shale

Today Salazar breathed new life into development of oil shale in the mountain west:

Salazar, who halted leases for oil and gas development on some federal lands in Utah earlier this month, said that while the administration will focus on energy efficiency and renewable sources, there is still room for conventional fuels. Oil shale, he added, still has "great potential," and he may revise rules on harvesting that energy source "in the near term." "We intend to move forward with a comprehensive energy plan," Salazar told a bipartisan group of Western governors huddled in Washington for a national summit. "You should take away from this conference in Washington that the Obama administration is not against developing any of those resources. … Let's put everything on the table."

Last November Salazar's predecessor as Secretary, Dirk Kempthorne, rushed through regulations under the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to encourage oil shale development in the so-called Green River Formation, a two million acre tract of federal land straddling Colorado, Utah and Wyoming that optimists in the Fossil Industry think may contain perhaps 800 billion barrels of "recoverable" oil. As I noted at the time, Salazar was strongly opposed, concerned about scarring the land of his home state and calling the projected royalties to the government "a pittance."

He further criticized the hastiness of the decision in light of the failure by BLM to analyze the potential environmental impacts, and the additional and enormous resource contention that would ensue over dwindling water supplies:

These regulations are premature and flawed. The Bush Administration has fallen into the trap of allowing political timelines to trump sound policy. Over and over again the Administration has admitted that it has no idea how much of Colorado’s water supply would be required to develop oil shale on a commercial scale, no idea where the power would come from, and no idea whether the technology is even viable on a commercial scale.

Now he blandly calls the Bush attempt to ramrod rules merely "misplaced" and seeks simply to assess the "legal options" the Interior Department has available to it and to make his own decisions over the course of the next 6 months. Shale shills are pleased to agree: "It's foolish to dismiss any options at this point," says Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

Offshore Oil

While giving encouragement to one oil faction, Salazar has disappointed another. Two weeks ago he put the brakes on the offshore oil and gas leasing rules promulgated by the Bush administration on its last day in office:

At a news conference in Washington, Salazar said he will move to slow the "headlong rush" to "drill, drill, drill." Salazar said Bush's midnight five year plan, which covers the years from 2013 through 2017, accelerated by two years the regular process for creating a new plan for the outer continental shelf. It "was a process rigged to force hurried decisions based on bad information," he said. "It was a process tilted toward the usual energy players while renewable energy companies and the interests of American consumers and taxpayers were overlooked." "It opened up the possibility for oil and gas leasing along the entire eastern seaboard, portions of offshore California, and the far eastern Gulf of Mexico - with almost no consideration of state, industry, and community input and, in the case of the Atlantic coast, with very limited information about the nature of offshore resources," the secretary said. Despite the sweeping proposal to open up as many as 300 million acres to new offshore oil and gas leasing, the Bush administration's notice called for the completion of scoping meetings and public hearings on the new plan for the outer continental shelf by March 23 - less than 45 days from today.

As with the oil shale, Salazar also wants a 180-day fact-finding period to reconsider the Bush decisions and intends to re-open the decision to additional comments.

Salazar:

The Bush administration was so intent on opening new areas for oil and gas offshore that it torpedoed offshore renewable energy efforts... This rulemaking will allow us to move from the oil and gas only approach of the previous administration to the comprehensive energy plan that we need.

Notwithstanding the intention to continue the current leasing plan, and to not reinstate any offshore drilling ban, American Petroleum Institute (API) President Jack Gerard whined:

The accelerated Outer Continental Shelf five-year plan process, which the secretary placed on hold today, was designed to address the critical energy concerns facing Americans. The draft plan already received a record 120,000 comments from states, environmental groups, industry, labor groups and members of the public - with 87,000 of those comments supporting expanded and expeditious development... Secretary Salazar's announcement means that development of our offshore resources could be stalled indefinitely.

It's not easy to please Gerard or the API. After 8 years of being given everything they wanted, their response to being told "no" is akin to a toddler denied a 9th consecutive treat. The tantrum is about not getting it right now, rather than tomorrow, as a more responsible parent might do (if he behaves!) Gerard's fear-mongering about the urgent need for energy ignore both the reduced demand at present and the inability of offshore oil to ever amount to more than the proverbial drop in the bucket. It's drill now, ask questions later.

But environmentalists are pleased with the Obama administration's new approach to offshore energy resources. Wesley Warren, director of programs for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, "By committing to a thorough review, Salazar is demonstrating bold leadership that will offer America a new energy future that provides clean domestic energy and cuts our dependence on foreign oil."

Centrism?

The simple reading that API and others make on these developments is that the Obama Administration is hostile to oil and gas and is using review in the manner that the Bush Administration did: study and delay, doing nothing for as long as possible while greenlighting the activities of preferred industries and friendly businesses.

It's possible that the same plan is underway here, only with the sides reversed, but the approach is already too different for this interpretation. Salazar says his Department of the Interior is acting to fulfill President Barack Obama's commitment to "a government that is open and inclusive and that makes decisions based on sound science and the public interest." Salazar shows a strong preference for deliberate decision-making based on collecting all available information and using the facts to guide an even-handed application of law and policy, a significant departure from the practices of the past 8 years.

In not banning offshore oil outright, and in holding out the prospect of oil shale development, the Obama Administration goes against its supposed joined-at-the-hip environmental allies and offers the Fossil Industry a fair hearing on the merits. They may not have merit (I believe) but there will be an honest appraisal based on science rather than ideological cant. It's refreshing.

Indeed, after more review, there will likely be further offshore drilling. Said Obama:

Offshore drilling as part of a comprehensive energy strategy may make sense. In isolation, it's short-sighted. I hold out for a more comprehensive strategy before I sign off on whole-hog drilling offshore.

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, long-aligned with Salazar on oil shale says its development should be considered but

...we should just be prudent in how we develop it. It's heartening to me that [Salazar is] going to be thoughtful and that he'll only allow oil shale to be developed when the technology is such that we can also protect our air and our water and our wildlife.

Whether all this amounts to merely a symbolic break with the secretive and science-hostile Bush Administration or a genuine and good-faith open-mindedness remains to be seen. We'll know for sure in much less than the six month period of review.

Incentivizing Distraction

In an economic environment dominated by fear incentives are needed to spur action. Creating the right incentives is critical to spurring the right actions.

Most everyone is happy that oil and gas are relatively cheap right now. Following the gyrations of oil prices and the oil market is exhausting; trying to predict them with any accuracy is nearly impossible, even for the experts and industry insiders. Now that the price appears to have stabilized at a modest level, the tendency is to exhale and relax and return to "normal." However, if you're an oil company, you never relax from the siege mentality.

Oh to be a benighted oil company, struggling against restrictive government policies and burdensome taxation. If only lawmakers would come to their senses! Why, Big Oil is heroically undertaking extraordinary financial risks to deliver fuel to thirsty consumers, and doing so in the face of pointless restrictions, crippling regulation and unfair taxation! If something isn't done, they darkly warn, exploration will atrophy, production will shrink, and the oil supply will become scarce and costly. There's really lots of oil in the US if only we could be allowed to drill it. It's an old story. Antipathy to Big Oil goes back at least to the trust-busting era, through the OPEC Oil Embargo and to the present day.

The industry is not the source of all the country’s energy problems nor is it solely to blame for the rising cost of energy.... But the companies have only themselves to thank for the low esteem in which the public presently holds them.

That was written in 1976, as Congress debated breaking up the vertical integration of the oil companies. That never happened, but Big Oil has since done little to build the public's trust, nor have they helped their image by clumsy greenwashing.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), the Grand Oil Party and others have been in high dudgeon over what they perceive as an insufficient emphasis on domestic oil exploration. Their voluble irritation has increased since the November election, and has been little mollified by signs that the Obama Administration will not return to a complete offshore drilling ban. Industry groups such as the API have long fought to preserve and expand their special-interest tax treatment, even arguing against the payment of loophole-avoided taxes because it would reduce the incentive for them "to search for new energy supplies."

To hear the flacks tell it, Big Oil is only barely making it with their marginal incentives (e.g. depletion allowances and expensing intangible drilling costs); any restrictions or reductions in their favorable tax treatment could have dramatically negative consequences. API head Jack Gerard frets that such things as a windfall profits tax will leave the industry no incentive to invest in new supply:

It creates a double disincentive. It takes [away] the potential for us to invest in the future, and it also tells us that now we have to look overseas because we have to go look at more competitive opportunities than we have here in the U.S.

That's right, give us what we want or we'll leave. However, the API may have failed to brief their members on these extraordinary risks, because Big Oil is keeping the pedal down on investment in new production. Exxon, the most profitable company in history is unequivocal:

“We intend to continue to invest at these record levels at least over the next five years,” Ken Cohen, Irving-based Exxon Mobil's vice president of public affairs, told reporters recently. The company's $26.1 billion in capital spending last year was 25 percent more than in 2007.

Chevron says nothing different:

Dave O'Reilly, Chevron's chairman and chief executive, told analysts that the San Ramon, Calif.-based company also will maintain spending levels of nearly $23 billion, focused on completing projects that have long been in the works.

Further:

Exxon Mobil and Chevron both said that while they'll keep spending on projects they had in their queues, they intend to chase every cost savings they can, including pushing oil field services providers to bring their prices in line with the fall in commodities. “Through these investments we continued to demonstrate our long-term focus throughout the business cycle,” Exxon Mobil Chairman and Chief Executive Rex Tillerson said in a statement.

And why not? Exxon has continued to set records for its quarterly earnings and the last quarter of 2008 earned $7.8B, a huge sum, but actually quite a drop from its usually lofty results. They've got the money to invest: Exxon has some $31.4B and Chevron some $9.4B in cash. It's not as if they need more taxpayer handouts to produce oil and gas; they seem to be doing very well already and there is no sign that they are poised to throw some kind of hissy fit and stop over the level of "incentives:"

Analysts largely view Exxon Mobil and Chevron as the strongest among the world's largest publicly traded oil companies, each with healthy cash on hand, low debt, a steady stream of project startups and the ability to acquire assets, including distressed companies, amid the recession.

Another area of continued investment and historically high returns their fat coffers allow is lobbying:

API began spending tens of millions of dollar a year in advertising not long after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005 to deflect calls for a windfall-profits tax on oil companies and proposals to end billions of dollars in tax breaks for oil producers. Mr. Obama advocated a windfall-profits tax, saying he would like to subsidize renewable-energy sources with the extra revenue collected.

Mr. Gerard said he planned to continue spending significant amounts on issue advertising, but declined not give a specific number. "I think we'll play offense where we can. We'll play defense where we have to," he said.

With oil prices low right now there is worry that Big Oil has insufficient incentives to drill and produce; but apparently this is a misplaced concern since their actual investment continues apace. The reasons are not hard to discern.

Oil futures are trading much higher than today's spot price around $35 per barrel. Much higher. There are several reasons, including steadily reduced production from existing fields, oil exporters hoarding supply as they await higher prices, and a growing realization that Peak Oil is upon us:

Goldman Sachs oil analyst Jeffrey Currie issued a report yesterday predicting a, “swift and violent rise” in oil prices in the second half of 2009. Currie told a conference in London that, “Thirty dollar oil reflects the same imbalances that got us to $147 oil. The problems haven’t gone away. We still believe the day of reckoning is to come.” What problems? There are still major infrastructure bottlenecks in the global oil network. Currie says that despite the big fall off in demand, “This is not 1982-1983 all over again. The supply picture’s radically different…the demand picture’s radically different. The key difference is that today there are no large-scale next generation projects that are going to save the world. Commodity demand is exponentially higher than it was.”

There is also a lot of oil arbitrage,

...where supply is stockpiled offshore, and thus withheld from refiners, allowing existing gasoline inventories to be worked down. Then in six to twelve months time, when crude prices have moved higher, you simply park your ship at the terminal and cash in on the difference between what you paid six months ago (today) and the new market price. It is normal for the oil futures to be in cotango, where spot prices are lower than futures prices. What’s less normal is the amount of oil being stockpiled offshore. “Frontline Ltd., the world’s biggest owner of supertankers, said Jan. 14 about 80 million barrels of crude oil are being stored in tankers, the most in 20 years.”

API's Gerard says flatly that demand for oil will remain robust notwithstanding any push to reduce consumption. International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka foresees a "crunch" in oil supply with recovering demand as early as 2010 unless investments are made now. The IEA suggests that while demand destruction may already have caused oil demand to have peaked, much more oil would be needed even in a scenario of no growth in oil demand--as much as 45 million barrels per day of new oil production by 2030. The cotango says clearly that oil is going to get much more expensive again, and the amount of oil sitting in storage represents the speculators' confidence that buying now and paying for storage will yield nice profits against the locked-in future price. In this environment is it any wonder that Big Oil continues to both produce and aggressively invest in new capacity?

Contrast this with the grim mood in the orders-of-magnitude smaller renewable energy industry. Investment capital has dried up and companies have nothing close to the kind of cash on hand or profitable cash flows of Big Oil. At last week's Offshore Wind Financing Conference in San Diego the only deals getting done were for projects in the final stages with permits in hand, supply chain commitments, and signed power purchase agreements. Anything in any earlier stage cannot get funded in this investment climate.

IEA's Tanaka also noted the urgent need to invest in renewables:

Unfortunately we are seeing a deceleration occurring in the switch to renewables... While the economic slowdown itself serves to reduce CO2 emissions, if we don't invest now we will have serious problems in the future.

How much investment is needed? Jack Gerard:

"Oil and gas is the backbone of the American economy. It has been for many years; it will continue to be for many more years," said Mr. Gerard, who has been at API for just a few weeks. "We could quadruple what we're talking about in the area of alternatives and renewables that were doing today, and what would that give us? About 3 percent of our energy production."

Gerard is right. 3% just isn't very much. Finding massive new oil fields to sustain even current consumption is highly unlikely; the future belongs to renewables. Clearly investment in renewable sources will be needed on a much more massive scale than is even now being discussed. Government needs to play at least as strong role there as it has done throughout the history of the creation and nurture of the oil industry.

The bold and smart move is to take advantage of today's temporarily cheap oil to build the future energy economy as quickly as possible. Incentives are urgently needed, not by Big Oil, which already has all they need, but by renewable energy, which is critical to our future but lacks the broad infrastructure that allows rapid monetizing of its capital investment.