After rebel forces swept into Libya’s capital, Tripoli, the country may be able to start to ramp oil production and exports again, which many analysts hope will bring down oil prices.
Libya claims Africa’s largest proven oil reserves, and was producing about 1.6 million barrels a day when the production suddenly dropped to near zero in February. Many analysts said it will take two to three years for Libya’s oil production to recover to previous levels, and by year’s end they may only be producing a quarter to a third as much as before.
Even before rebels had taken over Moammar Gadhafi’s compound, oil companies were preparing to return to the country, which they left months before.
So far, though, the price has been up and down, in part because of anticipation of the outcome of a summit this week, which may result in a new round of quantitative easing, which would likely drive down the value of the dollar.
Trading Leaks
To try to understand how much speculators are driving oil prices, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has been looking into “excessive speculation.” Earlier this year, five traders were charged with making $50 million off speculation.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, a long-time critic of oil speculation, became frustrated with the pace of investigations and leaked the records of many trades.
Unconventional Contention
While dozens were in jail in Washington, D.C., after protests to oppose the construction of another pipeline carrying tar sands products from Canada to the U.S., a New York Times editorial argued against the pipeline because of high greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands operations. Canadian officials, meanwhile, stepped up lobbying on its behalf.
Producing natural gas from shale deposits using hydraulic fracturing has also been under scrutiny for its greenhouse gas emissions, and now a new study argues Marcellus Shale natural gas has slightly higher emissions than conventional natural gas, but fewer emissions than coal.
West Virginia issued emergency rules to regulate horizontal drilling, which the governor hoped was a first step to more permanent regulations for this drilling.
Dark Days in America, Brighter Elsewhere
With budget woes, spending cuts, and more spending cuts scheduled to be made over the coming years, it appears renewable energy in the U.S. is entering “dark days,” reported GreenBiz.
But renewables are gaining increasing traction elsewhere. In Brazil, in a large power auction, wind emerged as the cheapest source of electricity, beating out natural gas and hydroelectric power. The contracts could lead to the construction of 1.9 gigawatts of new wind farms.
Japan is expected to pass a renewable energy bill that would introduce a feed-in tariff to make renewables more attractive, and set down in law the government’s target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent (compared with 1990 levels) by 2020. To cope with the Fukushima disaster, though, Japan has boosted its use of fossil fuels in the short term.
Germany’s national rail company, which is the country’s biggest electricity consumer, is also moving toward renewables, planning to quit fossil fuels by 2050.
The Billionth Car
The future is bright for electric cars, according to a forecast from Pike Research, which said worldwide sales are likely to grow to 5.2 million by 2017, more than 50 times this year’s estimated sales.
However, even then electric cars would make up a tiny fraction of all cars, with more than one billion on the road as of 2010, a new study said. About half of the recent growth in cars has been in China, which has higher efficiency standards than the U.S., but the country is showing little interest in hybrids and electric cars.
Scientists Scrutinized
Scientists working on climate change have been under scrutiny, with a polar bear researcher being suspended from his job for the U.S. government.
Another researcher came under fire after the “Climategate” leak of e-mails. He was cleared earlier this year in an investigation by his university, and now has been cleared in a second investigation by the National Science Foundation.
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
“Recent comments from top White House and congressional contenders suggest an awkward mix of outright hostility or, at best, ambivalence toward the widespread scientific consensus that humans are responsible for the warming planet,” reports Politico.
Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) blames his loss in the GOP primary to his public assertions that climate change is real. Only two Republican gubernatorial candidates running for election this November believe in action on climate change; both are running in states where their Democratic opponents feel the same.
In one race for the House in Virginia, a Democratic incumbent may lose his seat in part because of his vote for the House cap-and-trade bill.
Colorado’s tight race for U.S. Senate is turning into a referendum on the power of views on climate change to sway voters, at least in that state: Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) is attacking his opponent, Tea Party favorite and Republican Ken Buck, for saying climate change is a “hoax.” It’s a stance that earned a sharp rebuke from Colorado’s climate scientists (the state hosts one of the country’s premier centers for the study of climate change, the National Center for Atmospheric Research).
Despite support from some of his potential constituents — “Climate change doubt is Tea Party article of faith,” says the New York Times — Buck appears to be responding to the criticism by shifting his focus to the economy.
Green groups say they are pouring more money into this electoral season’s races than ever, especially in the fight to rescue incumbent Virginia Democratic freshman Tom Perriello, but their spending can’t match funds coming from fossil-fuel-related industries. Mother Jones says Alaska write-in candidate (and incumbent) Lisa Murkowski, in a dead heat with Tea Party favorite and Republican nominee Joe Miller, is a beneficiary of those funds.
On Tuesday, Jimmy Carter opined the Tea Party is backed by anti-green “hard-right oligarchs who want to prevent the oil companies and major corporations from having to pay their share of taxes or to comply with environmental laws.”
Which Will Characterize the Next Two Years on the Hill: Compromise or Gridlock?
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) told students at Utah State University to expect “two years of good old-fashioned gridlock” if the GOP wins the House in November, including, possibly, a shutdown of the federal government. Rep. Mike Pence (Ind.) declared there will be “no compromise” with President Barack Obama on major issues.
It’s possible energy will be spared the fate of, say, the health care bill, says Darren Samuelsohn of Politico, suggesting incentives for nuclear, clean coal and even renewables might be prime candidates for bipartisan legislation. Lindsey Graham, who once participated in the creation of the senate cap-and-trade bill, says the GOP should work with Obama on energy, perhaps in the incremental approach currently favored by the Obama administration.
The oil and gas industry is already depositing checks into the coffers of candidates likely to head influential House committees after November; the industry remains focused on emissions rules and what it contends are unrealistic expectations about the ascension of renewables.
A “technology-first” approach to tackling carbon emissions is gaining favor among think tanks.
Are We Getting Cap, but No Trade?
Stephen Spruiell at National Review argues emissions regulations issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will make emissions for certain industries expensive without letting them trade for those emissions, as they would have under cap-and-trade. He also argues it may be nearly impossible to prevent the EPA from regulating emissions in this way.
Outlets on the left agree with Spruiell and argue, more or less, “see, we told you this would happen.”
The regulations at issue include the EPA’s first-ever fuel efficiency standards for trucks and buses, which the trucking industry supports. Canada is issuing its own rules in harmony with U.S. regulations.
Emissions Regulations Will Knock Out up to 7 Percent of U.S. Generating Capacity, says Study
A huge debate has erupted over a North American Electric Reliability report arguing in a worst-case scenario, the shutdown of coal-fired power plants will, as a result of emissions regulations, significantly impact U.S. generating capacity.
In Texas, farms, cities and environmentalists say the state has insufficient water for more coal-fired plants.
And Now Some Good News …
A four-seater electric Audi with ample trunk space managed to travel 375 miles on a single charge. The non-partisan (even though so far all of its members seem to be partisan) Climate Hawk movement gained momentum.
GM just released its first ad for the Chevy Volt: “This is American, man.”
Spending money on greenhouse gas mitigation efforts in developing countries could make up the shortfall in domestic commitments to existing Copenhagen pledges, says a new paper.
Nissan just fired up production for the all-electric LEAF, Tesla is about to open a factory to produce its all-electric sedan and Mazda is releasing a gasoline-powered car in Japan that gets 70 mpg.
OxFam’s new ads aim to bring immediacy to the impacts of climate change.
The U.S. government just approved the world’s largest solar thermal project — big enough to double U.S. capacity for solar thermal all by itself. We’re $100 billion away from increasing the proportion of U.S. electricity from solar to 4.3 percent by 2020.
The U.S. may have the world’s second-largest emissions of greenhouse gases, but on a map of per capita emissions it’s easy to lose the U.S. among all the countries with higher emissions, and Amazon wants to shrink their carbon footprint even further by offering greener shipping options.
… But New Challenges to a Livable Climate Continue to Arise
China’s chronic dependence on coal is still a monumental problem, reports Scientific American, and Chicago’s two coal-fired power plants cost neighboring communities $127 million in health-related expenses.
Cellulosic ethanol may be the cold fusion of biofuels, and fundamentally unsustainable, to boot, argues Grist’s Tom Philpott. Your next bottle of bioplastic might be made from plants, but in a world where cheap ethanol comes from cleared Brazilian forests, the move away from oil may not be all good.
Economists think energy efficiency might lead to more emissions, not fewer.Trees are prevented from soaking up extra atmospheric carbon by limited supplies of nitrogen, and just 1,000 spaceflights a year would warm the planet as much as the entire airline industry currently does.
Andrew Revkin, the New York Times’s lead climate commentator, reports climate change is “boring.” Perhaps that’s why the lead researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory believes “climate change journalism has gotten worse [in recent years].”