We’ll take a look at some of the biggest newsmakers around the world, from the European Union’s dire state, to the escalating conflicts in Syria, to the changing strategy of the United States as power shifts around the globe. Here are the top five stories in geopolitics this last week.
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This is part of the INFLUENCE series “The Politicization of Energy in the US” [PEUS]. For other related topics, follow the associated tag and stay tuned for the development of this series’ page.
The article (Oil Drilling Advocates Drive Presidential Debate With Ads- Bloomberg) starts: “While polls show the economy as the top concern of voters, a review of political attack ads suggests a different issue dominates: energy” – and I think to myself, what a great way to speak about this ‘mysterious connection’ between energy and politics.
Americans for Prosperity, an organization backed by oil interests, last week began airing its third television commercial since November, a campaign worth $6.1 million, attacking Obama’s green energy policies.
The latest round brings the group’s total ad buys to $12.5 million this year, compared with a combined $5.7 million total spent on ads of all sorts by Obama and Priorities USA Action, a Washington-based super political action committee supporting him. Priorities on April 24 teamed with the League of Conservation Voters to begin a $1 million commercial run that accuses presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, of being a protector of the oil industry.
It should be no surprise that different groups are going to support different candidates based off of their affiliations. But this intense political effort and campaigning dominates most mainstream discussion of energy. Continue reading
Recently on The Energy Collective, Trillant Executive Sonita Lontoh wrote about the outlook of the energy industry. In her post, The 21st Century Energy Transformation will be an Evolution, not a Revolution, she shares insights on how energy will move forward. The opening paragraph is below, followed by my commentary:
In any given month these days, you could find a smart energy conference to go to, and you wouldn’t have to look that hard. There is no shortage of discussion on the smart energy revolution, whether it’s at a conference, at school, in the office, or online. But for all the talk about revolutionizing the traditional energy industry into a more modernized, low-carbon industry – when the discussion begins with all the futuristic cool applications drawing from the analogy of the Internet or the iPhone apps, as it often does, that discussion misses the point. For many reasons, the 21stcentury energy transformation will most likely be an evolution rather than a revolution, or face the risk of the transformation causing catastrophic reliability issues in the process. [Continued at The Energy Collective]
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A very important takeaway: “Unlike the industrial revolution of the 19th century, or the internet revolution of the 20th century, the 21st century energy evolution needs long-term vision and strategic focus and resolve of many stakeholders: innovators, incumbent utilities, consumers, regulators, and the government.” Continue reading
Recently on The Energy Collective, the latest in the Keystone XL oil pipeline saga was discussed by Rocky Kistner from the perspective of Nebraskan’s who are against the pipeline. The article starts:
TransCanada’s latest Keystone XL tar sands pipeline plan filed with the U.S. State Department has done nothing to quell local Nebraska opposition to the controversial project to pipe tar sands oil all the way to the Gulf for export. Nebraska residents say the massive pipeline plan still jeopardizes the world’s largest fresh drinking water source, the Ogallala Aquifer, risking the livelihoods of farmers and ranchers across country’s breadbasket. Jane Kleeb, director of Bold Nebraska, a local grassroots group of farmers, ranchers and concerned citizens, immediately blasted the plan and said they will continue to fight it.
Check out my article, featured exclusively on The Energy Collective. It addresses what Michael Spence, a Nobel Laureate, referred to when he mentioned “A substantial failure” in education about America’s energy situation. Hopefully the US can start moving towards energy reality, and soberly determine the best path forward.
It is a curious thing when a mindset develops. Thoughts, data interpretation, reactions, and behaviors become solidified into expectations about what is normal and what is to come as that sense of normal changes. It’s an important process of human development, and it is a particularly interesting thing to look at on a national scale — and when it comes to American perspectives on energy, attempting to sort out the present situation requires looking at what ‘we’, the collective USA, have been telling ourselves.
Earlier this week, Michale Spence exclaimed:
A substantial failure of education about non-renewable natural resources lies in the background of current public sentiment. And now, having underinvested in energy efficiency and security when the costs of doing so were lower, America is poorly positioned to face the prospect of rising real prices. - “The Energy Deficit” by Michael Spence | Project Syndicate
I agree on both counts; the failure in education and the allusion to difficulties because of a lack of foresight about energy.
Preemptive lawsuit?
This will be interesting to watch…
WASHINGTON — The oil giant Shell filed suit in federal court in Alaska last week against a dozen environmental groups, employing a rare — and rarely successful — legal gambit in an effort to pre-empt anticipated legal challenges to its plans to begin exploration in the Arctic Ocean this summer.
Was the unusual maneuver an act of bravado, even desperation, by a company fearful that it might be thwarted again in its efforts to begin drilling in the seabed off Alaska’s North Slope?
Or was it, as Shell contends, a mark of confidence that the company had finally put in place a plan that could satisfy all the legal, regulatory and environmental requirements to start exploiting one of the last great untapped oil and gas reservoirs in North America?
Marvin E. Odum, Shell’s president for the United States, said in an interview that he was “highly confident” that the company’s plan for preventing and responding to an oil spill would survive any legal scrutiny. He said the company had filed the suit in the hopes of speeding up the judicial review of the plan that will come if and when the environmental groups — who have challenged Shell at every step of the process — file suit.
I am saddened much by this. But not surprised.
GLEICK: … My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, and by the lack of transparency of the organizations involved.
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The broader tragedy is that his decision to go to such extremes in his fight with Heartland has greatly set back any prospects of the country having the “rational public debate” that he wrote — correctly — is so desperately needed.
