I am currently reading James Howard Kunstler's book "The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century." My reading comes on the heels of rethinking the viability of ethanol, specifically domestic corn ethanol, as an alternative energy source given the criticism that comes from some scientists. Al Gore and those worried about climate change may be focusing on what we can do in the next hundred years, but I'm worried about our oil supplies running out in the next thirty to forty. With this framework, I wanted to turn to our 2008 Democratic hopefuls and look at their energy policies as outlined on their websites.
Senator Hillary Clinton:
Alright, so her page doesn't really have an "Issues" section. But I can find information on her energy policies online through the Washington Post:
Clinton said she plans to introduce legislation to create a strategic energy fund, largely paid for by an excess profits tax on big oil companies, who she noted earned a combined $113 billion in profits last year.
She estimated that the profits tax and a repeal of other tax breaks for the oil industry could pump $50 billion into the energy fund over two years and pay for an array of tax incentives and for $9 billion in new research initiatives for wind, solar and other alternative energy resources. Oil companies could escape the tax if they reinvested profits into similar programs.
To speed the shift from foreign oil, Clinton proposed incentives for hybrid cars, improving household energy efficiency, accelerating development of ethanol made from plant wastes and installing ethanol pumps at gas stations.
I think that Clinton is going off in the wrong direction by mentioning ethanol, but repealing tax breaks for the oil industry is the right way to go. I am also interested by her opposition to nuclear energy and somehow seeing a tension between higher fuel efficiency standards and the idea that such policies would drive U.S. automakers to move production to other countries. Some high level environmentalists have flipped on nuclear energy and it's enough to put me on the fence. I also fail to see how increasing fuel efficiency standards would hurt our auto makers.
Senator Barack Obama:
The resulting Obama-Lugar-Biden bill would establish concrete targets for annual CAFE increases while giving industry the flexibility to meet those targets. The Obama-Lugar-Biden Fuel Economy Reform Act has gained the support of Senators who had never supported CAFE increases before, and the basic concept of the legislation was endorsed by President Bush in his 2007 State of the Union address.
. . .
Senator Obama introduced legislation encouraging automakers to make fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles by helping the companies shoulder the health care costs of their retirees. Domestic automakers would get health care assistance in exchange for their investing 50 percent of the savings into technology to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles.
. . .
Senator Obama introduced legislation with Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) to require 2 billion gallons of alternative diesels, such as biodiesel, to be produced domestically by 2015. Obama also sponsored legislation requiring oil companies, that made at least $1 billion in profits in the first quarter of 2006 to invest at least 1 percent of the their total reported first quarter 2006 profits into installing E85 pumps.
. . .
Obama is an original cosponsor of legislation to establish limits on greenhouse gas emissions. To remain below these limits, the bill encourages the market to determine how best to reduce greenhouse gases, rewarding cost-effective approaches through a system of tradeable allowances. Revenues generated from this program will be directed to helping industries and individuals most affected by the limits, and also to fund research and development of new, more efficient, energy technologies.
Points for having an issues section dealing with energy. Obama is also drinking the ethanol kool-aid, but does talk about specific proposals to increase fuel efficiencies, invest in renewable energy sources, and limit greenhouse gas emissions. No mention of nuclear, either for or against. He does mention clean coal.
former Senator John Edwards:
A specific section to deal with reducing personal carbon emissions? Kudos Senator. Now to your specific proposals:
- Halt global warming by capping and reducing greenhouse gas pollution and leading the world to a new global climate change treaty.
- Create a new energy economy and 1 million new jobs by investing in clean, renewable energy, sparking innovation, a new era in American industry, and life in family farms.
- Meet the demand for new electricity through efficiency for the next decade, instead of producing more power.
Capping emissions, check. Investing in renewable energy, however, mentions specifics like clean coal and ethanol that I'm skeptical of. His specifics include raising efficiency standards for cars. I actually would give Edwards very high marks for discussing specifically energy efficiency and meeting new demand through conversation instead of new production. This is a reality that too few Americans, including politicians, are willing to accept.
Governor Bill Richardson:
Our goal should be bold—to reduce oil imports by 40% AND replace one quarter of liquid fuels with bio-fuels by 2025, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 75% by 2050.
- Conservation and Efficiency programs
Opportunities for efficiencies abound – from the fuel consumed in the vehicles we drive to the energy used to power our homes, appliances, factories, and office buildings.
We know that our economy is about half as energy –efficient as Japan or Western Europe’s.
Indeed, improving efficiency is the single-most important way to cut our oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
. . .
for its distribution by, for example, helping gas stations convert at least one pump to handle E 85 or other bio-fuels.
The federal government also should use its vast purchasing power to transform the energy marketplace by, for example, purchasing more hybrid and flex fuel cars for its own use – providing a huge guaranteed market for efficient vehicles.
Finally, we should significantly ramp up federal investments in research and development and dramatically improve its effectiveness, starting with some kind of funding certainty over time to make the government more attractive and reliable to its industry research partners.
Kudos to Richardson for leading his proposals with energy conservation. He wants to tackle climate change. Like most other candidates he's on the ethanol bandwagon though.
Senator Chris Dodd:
There are a number of steps that can and should be taken to move America forward. One is to improve our efforts to conserve energy. Every barrel of oil saved by a smarter, more careful, more efficient use of energy is one less barrel we have to import from an unstable region of the world, or take from drilling in an environmentally sensitive area of our own country. America’s consumers and businesses have already started to conserve energy in the last few years. In fact, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute, the United States today used 47% less energy per dollar of economic output than it did three decades ago. That has lowered energy costs for America’s businesses and consumers by about $1 billion per day. It has also saved America from having to import millions of barrels of oil, and saved the planet from hundreds of thousands of tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
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Chris Dodd also believes our nation needs to lead the way in expanding our investment and use of renewable sources of energy. By increasing our use of wind energy, solar energy, hydrogen, and biofuels like ethanol, we can make huge strides toward creating good jobs, a cleaner environment, and reduced dependency on imported energy. To achieve greater use of renewable fuels, Dodd supports a national renewable portfolio standard requiring that 20% or more of our electricity needs come from renewable sources. This should not be too difficult a standard to meet; indeed, at least 22 states already require their electric utilities to meet some form of renewable portfolio standard. The states have been laboratories of innovation in this area. It’s time for the federal government to learn from them and build on their beneficial policies.
One of the biggest impediments to the use of ethanol in our vehicles is the shortage of filling stations that sell it. Currently, only a small fraction of filling stations in the country offer fuels containing ethanol or biodiesel. Sen. Dodd supports tax incentives that will encourage filling stations to convert at least some of their pumps to provide biofuels like E85. He also supports giving retailers a tax credit on the sale of biofuels. In addition, he believes the federal government should invest in expanding the number and capacity of refineries that make biofuels.
Dodd places far too much of an emphasis on ethanol in my opinion, but I'm accepting that all Democrats seem to be on the wrong side of this issue. Overall he doesn't seem that different from the rest of the pack.
Senator Joe Biden:
Joe Biden believes that domestic energy policy is at the center of our foreign policy and economic policy. Most of the world's oil is concentrated in nations that are either hostile to American interests or vulnerable to political upheaval and terrorism. Our oil dependence undercuts the advance of freedom and limits our options and influence around the world because oil rich countries pursuing policies we oppose can stand up to us and undermine the resolve of our allies. Profits from the sale of oil help fuel the fundamentalism we are fighting. High energy prices hurt business' bottom line.
Joe Biden's first priority is energy security. He believes we can strengthen security by reducing our oil consumption by increasing fuel efficiency, transitioning to farm-grown fuels like ethanol and biodiesel, and expanding the use of renewable energy. But we cannot stop there. Joe Biden would make a substantial national commitment by dramatically increasing investment in energy and climate change research and technology so that that United States becomes the world leader in developing and exporting alternative energy.
A very short summary that seems generic.
Just to be fair I'm including Dennis and Gravel.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich:
Thanks to advances in renewables, there are fewer technical obstacles to energy independence for our country. There are many political obstacles -- but the oil, auto and electric utility corporations should not be directing energy policy. We must work to spur research and investment in "alternative" energy sources such as hydrogen, solar, wind and ocean, and make them mainstream. Clean energy technologies will produce new jobs. We can and must double our energy from renewable sources by 2010. And we can very soon have hybrid and fuel cell cars dominating the market.
As a peace advocate, I hope to launch a major renewables effort so that Middle East oil fields will not loom so large as strategic or military targets. There has to be a renewable energy portfolio of at least 20% by 2010. And that means introducing wind, solar, hydrogen, geothermal, biomass, and all of the options that must be available and need incentivizing. That also means withdrawing incentives for the production of nonrenewable energy. I'm not talking about building new hydro dams; I'm not talking about damming up more rivers and streams. We need to subsidize the development of new energy technologies. And I'm willing to do that through NASA, which has been of singular importance to our economy by developing technologies for propulsion, for aerospace, for materials, for medicines, and for communication. We need to fund NASA in, among other areas, a mission to planet Earth.
former Senator Mike Gravel:
Global climate change must be made an issue of national security. We must act swiftly to reduce America's carbon footprint in the world by passing legislation that caps emissions. However, any legislation will have little impact on the global environment if we do not work together with other global polluters. Fighting global warming can only be effective if it is a collective global effort. As President, Senator Gravel will see that the U.S. launches and leads a massive global scientific effort to end energy dependence on oil and integrate the world's scientific community to this task. A national public works program to rewire the country towards new energy technologies would create tens of thousands of new American jobs.
So overall I'm not finding much disagreement among Democrats on the issue of energy. Which is actually sad as I don't find that anyone is calling out ethanol for being the false hope that it is. Nor do I see any candidate seriously discussing the short term possibility of peak oil. I'm worried that we're not going to be able to scale up renewable energy sources to meet our energy needs. We need a much greater emphasis on conservation and efficiency, far more than what any candidate here seems to be talking about.