Human prosperity requires an "energy revolution"
World's energy paradigm "unsustainable""It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to a low-carbon, efficient, and environmentally benign system of energy supply. What is needed is nothing short of an energy revolution," reports the IEA.
Automakers are in trouble. The US economy is tanking. Is it just me, or isn't it obvious that this needed "energy revolution" is the key to both automakers and the US economy?
Labels: energy independence
posted by Dahcredyns at
1:16 PM
18 Comments:
Yes, and thank god Obama ran his campaign on exactly that notion.
Cheney wasted at least 5 years since it has been obvious we needed a new energy infrastructure in the US, but at least we now have a president who has a national mandate for a Big Bang investment program. Even if the Bush admin wanted to invest, they would have had no mandate before the 2008 election. Let's just hope the voters aren't too late in finally supporting this program.
The voters who ignored the need for this type of national energy policy and voted for McCain/Palin are...not wise people. Not wise people at all. < /clenched teeth> So, yeah, voters have to take the blame, too, not just SUV drivers.
Thank god our national nightmare of being held hostage by stupid ass GOP voters is now over. < sigh>
PS I'm not blaming the GOP voters, per se. They can vote for whomever they want, and have every right to do so. The times have changed, and the Bush admin may have been right at the time, and it is good that we have a new admin that is right for this time.
alcatholic -
in the past you've been pretty open to the bankruptcy of GM, something i've been pretty open to as well, although i've changed my mind to some extent. ultimately, i think it's time to use GM and the big 3 to help develop this "energy revolution" whether they like or not.
and, obama did make it clear during his campaign that saving the automakers was very important, so an intelligent bailout is also part of his mandate, in my opinion.
isn't it time to stop focusing on everything that GM did wrong - an extensive list - and to figure out how to craft a bailout that helps make GM and Detroit part of the solution and not part of the problem?
that's where i see obama going and i'm ready to support such a plan. yes we can have a smart energy policy.
Don't hold your collective breaths regarding Obama changing anything...particularly as far as energy and middle east issues are concerned.
It's already very clear who he is picking to be in his cabinet....people like Rahm Emanuel who is a dual Israeli/US Citizen, was a member of the IDF, had training in intelligence services by the Mossad, and has a family history any terrorist would be proud of.
It's quite clear that Obama as president is a changing of the front gate guard and nothing more. It's all about giving people the "perception" that things are changing and they have influence...nothing more.
Let me ask people here...how does someone like Rahm Emanuel....with past his affiliations, clear connection to secret intelligence, and a family history that would have had Obama hung by the whites in this country...HOW does someone like that get into the white house....TWICE no less?
Who's the running this country? And who are we sweating blood and toil for?
Human prosperity will need more than energy change...it'll need philosophical change.
well, i would argue that is the history of the democratic party - all talk and no action. can this time be different? only time will tell.
rahm was picked because he's an a-hole and doesn't take any shit, and that is the kind of attitude needed for his position.
no doubt, however, that change is by no means guaranteed. while we blame politicians and automakers, etc., too many of "the people" have been pretty irresponsible. the people need to change. yet, i have far more hope in a company like gm changing versus the people.
Dahc:
I'm not concerned with Rahm's personal behavior and demeanor..I'm concerned with his affiliations, his bias, his clear connection with terrorist pasts, severely tainted family history (which in this case because he's Jewish gives him a pass that others would clearly be hunted down for), and frankly think given all this, I very much doubt he can be trusted (in the WHITE HOUSE of all places) and his allegiance will not lie here.
I doubt Obama picked him without coercion anyway. The Jewish lobby raised alot of money for Obama...and they want to make sure their members are firmly entrenched for the next war with Iran.
I have predictions I've made but won't say them here. At least not yet. If you're interested, let me know and then I'll list them for you.
I only know that not all Democrats were happy about Rahm because he has a history of being very partisan. It would be shocking if Obama led the US into a war into Iran, considering he was elected on his ant-Iraq stance.
BTW - Feel free to post your predictions.
Dahc:
It's not Obama who will lead us into a war...it's not really up to him. Ala JFK...his resistant to enter the Vietnam war lead to what?
Besides, it would be FAR more beneficial to have Biden in power over Obama because Biden is literally...and I mean this..literally their bitch. Google Biden Zionist and watch the video on Youtube.
MY PREDICTIONS:
A) I think within 4 years, we'll be at war with Iran. Israel wants to weaken every powerful country in that area for its own agendas...regardless of life lost or culture destroyed.
Two ways this will happen.
- Israel will covertly attack Iran with US backing of course.
- The US will cause another fiasco such as WMDs and what not, imminent danger, etc...to scare the sheep living here. It'll then attack like it has before.
B) I really truly believe Obama is a good guy...he has a heart and knows the burden of suffering and prejudice...perhaps that's why he relates to the Palestinians. But let's not fool ourselves...he'll be taken out faster than you can imagine if he doesn't sign off on a war he doesn't want. It's not going to be his call...but any resistance and it'll be liquidation time would bet.
His choice for Emanuel didn't seem logical to me. Anyone with a history like Emmanuel should belong in jail, not in the white house...
Look at the HUGE fiasco people here were making about Obama's middle name HUSSEIN...yet Emmanuel has an actual tainted past...and not a word.
3) The domestic affairs of this country will remain largely unchanged. It's easy to control a bunch of people who are going through hardship and are down in the dumps. Energy policy may change course but I guarantee you it'll take a back seat to anything Israel wants to do via the US.
For all practical purposes, we go duped. The choice for Obama, IMO, was more of a "look we have the power" trick than anything else...it's all about perception. It was time to give people the perception of hope and control...and what better way to put a black man in office in a country full of racists bigots?
And there's also no stronger weapon than taking away that hope from weak minded people just when they believe they have regained control again.
Maybe I've got a warped sense of reality...but I do think this is what's going on.
well, if that happens, i don't think much matters for decades as we will head into a disastrous third world war.
i can only hope that obama can bring the change he campaigned on, and if something were to happen to him, that the people would revolt.
your third point is very relevant, but i have a sense that people have decided they no longer trust rich people, corporations, politicians - any of the powers that be. despite financial problems getting duped again won't be easy.
dahc,
About GM and my willingness to see their bankruptcy, I think I called it creative destruction, well the Volt saved them in my book!
Ford can go take a flying leap if they don't get with the program.
But yeah I totally support bailouts with very strong concessions. Although...
I just read a very cool market based approach to get Detroit on the right track:
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2008/11/12/evslin
Tom Evslin wrote:
"The US government should order a complete replacement for its vehicle fleet to be delivered over the next four years. The new vehicles must be either plugin electric hybrid, pure electric, or possibly natural gas. Obviously retooling both at the manufacturers and suppliers is required to deliver this order so the government should be willing to prepay a significant part of it as it does for new weapons systems. That gets money into the system fast and creates/saves jobs almost immediately. It lets the suppliers retool as well as the final assemblers."
Now why didn't we think of that?!
we've covered that on this blog before!!!
the numbers for such a fleet, however, are not really that shocking. helpful, but not shocking.
i think jim cramer's idea is more meaty.
let's force US automakers to convert most new vehicles to natural gas. this is something that technologically and cost-effectively can be done today. plus, you could begin a conversion program as well to help service departments.
likewise, you could demand that a certain percent of these natural gas vehicles be plug-in hybrid vehicles.
finally, you threaten oil companies with tax policy to get natural gas into their gas stations ASAP.
ultimately, there is no reason the Volt, prius, or plug-in prius can't be natural gas vehicles.
Dahc,
They can't threaten the same people they are in bed with....it'll never happen.
You're making a HUGE assumption that the automakers, oil companies, and energy policy makers aren't shaking hands behind the scenes.
THIS is why we are in the mess we are in...because we've never had the power to make these decisions...they have. It'll never change until people get involved fully and stop becoming such stupid and gullible consumers.
i'm not making that assumption. i'm not saying that i believe that congress will do this, i'm quite confident that Congress will craft some huge clusterf_ck.
i'm just saying that i think such a plan is a pretty good idea, and a fairly simple idea, which means it has no chance. simple plans don't have enough loopholes.
What I like about the Evslin plan is not the numbers for the govt purchase, it's the prepayment and retooling investments.
Once the infrastructure is in place to support however many government sales (and, btw, let California and other states join this program), there is no further investment needed to sell to consumers and to make long term bets on battery powered vehicles.
At that point, government ALSO raises CAFE standards AND starts regulating CO2, so that it is too expensive to NOT sell battery powered vehicles.
To me the Evslin plan is key as a catalyst that can't be vetoed by the Oil companies, as Noz pointed out. I don't want to rely on the oil companies cooperation at all. I would rather make them irrelevant!
BTW, natural gas vehicles get less MPG along with fewer emissions per gallon. But, it is my understanding that you have equivalent pollution per MILE, albeit of slightly different composition. Am I off base on that notion?
the government has already committed 25 billion to such a program, and obama has stated that he'd like to add at least another $25 billion to the program - that's not bailout money, that's money for new production lines that achieve at least a 25 percent increase in fuel economy.
the money for the future is already there. it's today and the near term that is the problem.
more important, it'll probably take a decade before the entire battery industry has produced enough battery packs for 1,000,000 EVs, and economic tension in South American or China - since just a few countries will control the lithium market - could make any battery production impossible - at least for the US market.
moreover, using an enerdel battery pack, for instance, you could make 45,000 PHEVs or 450,000 hybrids. that's how battery intensive EVs will be.
so the government committing the money, i'd say isn't anything more than a loan because of manufacturing constraints. and it accomplishes little today or in the next several years.
450,000 hybrids, on the other hand, doesn't require government buying, it just requires consumer tax credits. priced correctly. with consumer credits, you could sell at least a million hybrid cars in america per year in just the next few years.
again, that only takes consumer incentives.
likewise, in terms of PHEVs, it will take several hundred billion to build the smart grid required for plug-in technology - that is where states and feds should be focusing a lot of their investment. not on cars. cars should be for consumers, in my opinion.
even if auto sales in the US tank, we'll still sell 10 million vehicles per year, and it takes 12 years to recycle that year's fleet out. so, if we made only PHEVs today, it would still be 12 years, at least, before nothing but PHEVs were on the road. yet, we're well over a decade from 10 million phevs per year. 10 million evs per year is probably several several decades away.
natural gas, on the other hand, is about one thing, ending foreign oil dependency as fast as possible.
a conversion plan to natural gas also gives the Big 3 the ability to make massive changes to vehicles that can start selling today. theoretically, you could convert the entire US fleet to natural gas today, packaged in cars that today's consumers can afford, and you could quickly end foreign oil dependency - that would easily cover the bailout, the smart grid, and tax incentives for electrification., and we can make it happen far quicker than any other solution.
more important, this program can be coordinated with hybrid and PHEV technology. natural gas doesn't have to slow the electrification of the auto at all - it's a cost-effective stop gap.
for example, next week, at the LA Auto Show, Toyota will be showing off a CNG Camry hybrid.
in terms of oil companies, oil companies can still make money on natural gas. it would just be less money, plus there would still be many gas vehicles on the road for a long time. in fact, most us oil companies have access to little oil any more as reserves are quite low.
more important, oil companies, especially when gas prices drop, are very dependent upon tax incentives. congress could easily use that to get their way.
sure, oil companies would lobby against such a move, but if congress mandated it, they'll go along or sell to others that will, and there would be plenty of takers.
on a side note, then you could push ethanol and biofuels towards home heating, an application for which biofuels are far more efficient.
dahc,
very good and thorough argument for Natural Gas and the limitations of battery vehicles. Thanks, and you should make that into a post! ;)
PS On a more serious note, long and thoughtful explanations are the competitive advantage of blogs. You are an expert and highly motivated to dig into the nitty gritty of these issues. Very few other journalists or bloggers take the time to argue this stuff cogently. Keep up the good work, especially on the long form arguments. I learn alot from your perspective.
Thanks, but take some credit as well. You're pushing me. That's the other great thing about blogs is that it can become a collaborative effort. Cheers.
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