What Next?: Gulf oil spill legacy signals need for new energy paradigm

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the unwanted gift that keeps on giving. I awoke this morning to televised news reports of tar balls being found in the Florida Keys. While not totally unique to this area, these tar balls will be sent to labs for analysis to determine whether they are from the current Gulf oil spill. If so, it represents evidence of the oil reaching the Loop Current that could ultimately deposit oil as far away as the Atlantic Ocean coastline off the Carolinas.

Several scientific and tracking organizations, like SkyTruth, have reported that the oil spill will enter the Loop Current - which runs from the mid-Gulf, around Florida and up the east coast - if not now, then eventually. This current not only adds another later of complexity to the catastrophe in the Gulf, but it also reminds us of the consequences of our age-old attitude regarding the oceans: that it is a vast open resource - a source of limitless bounty and capable of handling endless abuse. Such thinking is total folly.

To the media and much of the general public, the biggest concern is what we can see: oil splashing up on the shore, oozing into the marshlands, and coating shorebirds - these are the visible signs that something has invaded our backyard. Unfortunately, if these events do not occur, or at least not in great magnitude, then we have a tendency to think we dodged the bullet.

Initially, weather played a role in delaying or keeping the oil at bay, far offshore. And the interplay of the onshore/offshore winds even got some people to wonder where the oil was or whether the spill was as disastrous as claimed. But there is close to 6 million gallons of oil (a conservative figure; other estimates run into the hundreds of thousands) that has leaked into the Gulf and it has to be somewhere.

I have to admit, when I first heard about the Loop Current, I imagined a current hugging the coastline around the eastern Gulf of Mexico. As it turns out, the current starts in the middle of the Gulf - behind, or south, of the site of the spill - then proceeds towards the tip of Florida, where it whips around the tip then stays close to the east coast shoreline. So, if we breathe a sigh of relief that the oil has, to a large extant, stayed offshore, it's ironic that any movement away from shore means it is heading directly into the current to spread an even wider and unexpected path of pollution.

There have been some reports of a large swath of oil moving below the surface, relatively undetected. These reports have been questioned by some government agencies and so further investigation continues, but it would not surprise me if there is a political media person somewhere saying that the longer the oil goes missing, the better. Again, out of sight, out of mind.

But there's no escaping the fact that we are talking about millions of gallons of oil.

• Oil that has settled on the bottom? That would be disastrous for marine life as the oil would work its way into the fundamental base food chain that impacts a variety of shellfish and other bottom feeders.
• Oil that has dissipated or spread itself into a thin micro-globular layer? There it can be ingested by plankton, spread across sensitive coral, or enter the atmosphere through evaporation.
• Or how about broken down by hundreds of thousands of gallons of dispersant (a toxic brew unto itself) to be eaten by hungry microbes which, in turn, would consume oxygen in the process, thereby degrading water quality.

There is no getting around it - whether we can see it or not, oil and water (in this case, sea water) don't mix.

My growing concern and question is: What will the decision-makers learn from this? What will the oil companies? And perhaps most importantly, what will we learn from this?

If anything, the Gulf oil spill highlights the complexity and multi-disastrous impact such an event can have on marine ecosystems near and far. What will it take to finally make definitive steps away from fossil fuel - our national, in fact global, addiction? As a society we are definitely in the throes of an addiction. We know that it is bad for us, we know that it harms the environment, we know that it produces lopsided economic dependencies - but we do nothing of any lasting consequence. That's textbook addiction.

Hopefully, British Petroleum will contain and stop the oil leak soon. We will have to live with degraded marine environments throughout the Gulf and perhaps along the southeast coast. And seafood commercial fisheries will be cut off from the stocks that they have plundered for years to meet demand. Tourism will suffer and seafood prices will rise. Gasoline prices too, perhaps.

But what will we do next? It has been said that the drug addict, regardless of his or her past bad experiences, must decide that they have now hit rock bottom before they can change their lives. Are we there yet?

U.S. Energy Policy: CA governor to assess President's first-year accomplishments

The Los Angeles Times' Greenspace environmental blog reported today on an interesting web cast taking place on Tuesday, January 19th at 7:00pm Pacific Standard Time. California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will assess President Obama's first year accomplishments in energy policy as part of an Energy Task Force conference panel.

Why listen in? Well, for one thing, it would be interesting to hear a conservative with a less-than-conservative approach when it comes to the environment, discuss the energy track record of a so-called liberal who has been criticized by many environmental groups for not following through on campaign promises - quite an odd blend of positions and attitudes. And for another, it's important to know what direction our decision-makers seem to be heading, regardless of how maddening listening to political verbosity can be.

Here's Margot Roosevelt's post from the Los Angeles Times:

On Tuesday night, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will join a panel, along with former Secretary of State George Shultz, to talk about President Obama's first-year record on energy policy. The moderated question-and-answer session is part of an Energy Task Force conference at Stanford's Hoover Institution, a conservative think-tank.

It will be webcast live at 7 p.m. Pacific at www.gov.ca.gov.

Schwarzenegger frequently boasts that California leads the nation in environmental and energy policy. The state enacted a law to curb global warming emissions in 2006, and it is on the verge of adopting regulations to implement a roughly 15% cut in greenhouse gases below today's level. Meanwhile, Obama has also pressed ahead on climate issues, pushing for congressional legislation. He has backed the Environmental Protection Agency's recent declaration that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health, and can thus be controlled under the existing Clean Air Act if Congress fails to adopt a climate-specific law.

The Schwarzenegger and Obama administrations cooperated on mileage standards for new cars, after the Golden State passed the country's first rules to control greenhouse gases from vehicles. Last week, California adopted a first-in-the-nation mandatory green building code.

U.S. Point Man for Global Warming: there's a scientist in the White House

Pop quiz: Who is the current U.S. Secretary of the Department of Energy? Yeah, I couldn't remember either. Shame on the both of us.

It's Steven Chu. And what makes him so note-worthy is that besides being a Nobel Prize winner for physics, he is a true scientist in the political arena (as opposed to a politician in the science arena, whose eyes glaze over when you talk data) who understands that the most important issue facing the nation today is the establishment of a forward-thinking energy policy that recognizes the global warming threat but also recognizes how to effectively and realistically solve it.

There is an interesting profile in this week's TIME magazine on Secretary Chu. He just recently returned from a trip to China where he laid out the facts for the Chinese scientists at Tsinghua University, the "MIT of China." While the growth of China has placed it near the top of world CO2 emitters, there also seems to be a greater desire to deal with it than is found in the U.S.

"He acknowledged that the developed nations that made the mess can't tell the developing nations not to develop, but he also warned that China is on track to emit more carbon in the next three decades than the U.S. has emitted in its history; that business as usual would intensify floods, droughts and heat waves in both countries; that greenhouse gases respect no borders.

[Americans] ranked global warming last in a national survey of 20 top priorities; in a global poll, only 44% of them wanted action to be taken on the issue, vs. 94% of Chinese."

Secretary Chu seems to be the right man for the job but he is strapped with a formidable task: getting Americans to recognize the significance of climate change, what can and should be done about it; and realizing that it is a long-term strategy, perhaps a painful one in the short-term. But it must be dealt with and it will be science and technology that will ultimately provide the answers with the help of the political structure - not the other way around.

Read the entire article in TIME.

American Clean Energy and Security Act: is it strong enough?

In an attempt to trim governmental bureaucracy, lawmakers will, from time to time, try to consolidate regulations, agencies, or laws. Oil czars, Homeland Security, etc. - all are understandable and well-intended steps to a more streamlined approach. And it can be effective as long as the the strengths of the consolidated components are retained - and sometimes that is not always the case.

On June 26th, a vote is scheduled in the U.S. Congress on the American Clean Energy and Security Act. While on the surface it would appear to be a worthwhile attempt at defining a single overarching strategy, the act is receiving considerable criticism from NGOs and scientific experts because it does not go far enough in properly addressing C02 emission standards and also limits the use of the current Clean Air Act in regulating or enforcing emission standards. The Clean Air Act has been successfully used for 40 years to reduce air pollution. If it's not broke, why fix it?

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, " Leading scientists such as NASA's James Hansen warn that the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere must be reduced to no more than 350 parts per million. The American Clean Energy and Security Act sets a goal of allowing greenhouse gas concentrations to increase to more than 450 parts per million. At that level, scientists say there is a 50/50 chance that global warming will cause catastrophic impacts to humans and other species.

Any new global warming solution bill should work together with the Clean Air Act to preserve the lives and health of our children and fellow species. The American Clean Energy and Security Act instead repeals the Clean Air Act's ability to regulate critical polluters, instead allowing numerous coal-fired power plants to be built without any additional emissions-reduction requirements for more than a decade into the future. The world's top climate scientists call this approach 'reckless.' "

If you would like to voice your concern to your congressperson regarding the need for strengthening the American Clean Energy and Security Act, click here.

Wind Turbines: part of rethinking energy policy

Wind turbines off U.S. coastlines could potentially supply more than enough electricity to meet the nation's current demand. A conclusion drawn by a pro-wind environmental group or wind turbine lobby? No, it comes from the U.S. Interior Department in a recent report on wind turbine potential. (Read Los Angeles Times article.)

The report cited that wind turbines in the shallow waters off the eastern coast could produce up to 1,000 gigawatts of electricity - enough to handle 25% of the nation's demand. But it's not all a bed of roses. West coast wind turbine potential is hampered by the underwater terrain - primarily deeper waters that make the placement of turbines more difficult.

The report also touched on a sensitive issue with many environmental groups: offshore oil reserves and the possibility of more offshore oil drilling. This points to the need for a comprehensive and cohesive energy policy - no easy task and one that has eluded us to date because it was always easier to just keep drilling for more oil.

My thoughts . . .

A national energy policy is faced with having to address several important issues: the economic/political ramifications of our dependence on oil, particularly foreign oil; the need to develop a wide range of alternatives - some of which may not be as cost effective but may benefit the environment; the need to address the environmental safety issues in developing any and all forms of energy; and the reliance on objective science to determine the impacts of any new or existing form of energy. It's a mouthful any way you look at it.

The "drill, baby, drill" contingent that would like to see offshore and Arctic drilling resume or begin in earnest are opposed by many in the environmental movement. But a middle ground may have to be found here. I sense that germ of compromise in many of the comments from eco groups stating that objective scientific research is needed to determine the impacts of drilling (in other words, they are not entirely opposed to the idea as long as we don't repeat the oil spill disasters and environmental mistakes of the past). That holds true for many other forms of energy development. We need to focus our technological capabilities toward ensuring the highest degree of environmental safety for every form of energy under consideration - wind, solar, and yes, even nuclear and oil.

I'm not sure that our society can beat its addiction to oil by going cold turkey; we'll need to ween ourselves off of it. But if any new drilling does take place, it can't be for the purpose of returning to the status quo. Whatever oil is used, it must be done more efficiently - it becomes a two-fold issue: where we get it and how we use it. The underlying goal being to eliminate as much use of carbon/CO2 producing energy sources as possible.

Science and technology must play a massively critical role in all of this, in both developing the technologies that will provide efficient energy use that is economically reasonable while also determining what is safe for the environment. The two go hand in hand - with one caveat: to sacrifice the environment for the sake of expediency or the dollar would lead to irreparable damage. We are at that critical ecological tipping point.

Invent Now! - the new mantra for the Energy Age

In the United States, both presidential candidates are saying that our energy policy (or lack of one) needs to be addressed for the sake of both our daily energy needs and to address the issue of global warming. All well and good.

But I am concerned with the attention put on immediate drilling, particularly in heretofore protected areas like the Arctic regions. We have all heard the arguments that it will take 10 to 15 years to realize any fuel from such exploration, but that's the case whether we drill in the Arctic or in any of the currently approved areas, 80% of which has been untouched.

No, my concern is with catch phrases like "Drill now! Drill now!" - as if drilling will be the silver bullet panacea, after which we can all go back to driving our SUV's. Having grown up watching this nation's commitment to science and invention that ultimately put men on the moon, I ask why not "Invent now! Invent now!" We are faced with a massive scientific and social undertaking - to develop multiple technologies that will allow us to shift from a centuries-long dependence on fossil fuel. There's no getting around it - no single solution will fix it all.

Before we commit to more drilling, more status quo, let's harness the same inventive energy that took man into the Industrial Age, and then the Space Age, and the Computer Age - and let's dedicate ourselves to the Energy Age, to finding new solutions rather than recycle the old solutions and continue to destroy the planet one carbon ton at a time.

Here's some more information from the Ocean Conservancy.