Cognitive Coup

[NOTE: The correct spelling of camolina is camelina and is misspelled by the NPC transcript]

I am one of those people who was a conservative but have become disillusioned with the deterioration of personal liberties – what I feel is more commonly a result of Republicans. I believe that we have a right to a clean environment though not to the detriment of our national economy. Part of why I started this blog is because we can make the goals of environmentalism fit into a strong economy; our obstacles are poor legislation, and a subconscious understanding that the environment, people’s health, the lives of their family, and the survival of wild species is subordinate to profit. This is simply not true.

The manifestation of this unconscious belief is seen everywhere. As I type this we have roughly 150,000 troops in Iraq and while we are planning to reduce troop levels to between 130,000 and 140,000 we still have at least 130,000 troops in Iraq (Boston Globe; May 30, 2008). Since the beginning of the war there have been 4,090 confirmed deaths. While some may look at this and see it as an acceptable price for securing oil — our economy’s bloodline — many of us see this as a reason for change.

There is some hope available. Montana’s Governor Brian Schweitzer has proposed an interesting energy plan that has been getting attention and contributed greatly to his high approval rating. The governor’s plan can easily be criticized on its main point, coal gasification, but it’s the other aspects that are valuable.

According to Governor Schweitzer, the United States uses approximately 6.5 billion barrels of oil every year. His approach begins with conservation, to the tune of 1 billion barrels annually; a 16% reduction in the total. It is accompanied by “tax credits for anybody across America that demonstrates their ability to decrease consumption.”

“We did it in the ’70s. We can do it again. If we make conservation cool and we challenge the ingenuity of American scientists and consumers and marketers, we can reduce our consumption by 1 billion barrels. Now we have a 3 billion barrel addiction” (National Press Club, Oct. 13, 2006).

His plan continues with biofuels. Historically, farmers had to use a portion of their fields to feed the horses, or what Gov. Schweitzer calls planting for horsepower. The same can be done today with the production of biofuels:

“I think this country needs to regain our energy independence starting in the farm country, where farmers produce their own fuels for their own communities and stop paying the freight both ways — grain out, oil back. This — and I’ve done the math — could produce a billion barrels, or about 17% of the total.”

This means that instead of exporting food to the third world and having them ship us oil we would be using those crops for energy production, which would require the production of “hundreds of thousands of jobs in rural America.” He believes camolina oil is the best means to do this:

“We can grow it from 10 inches of precipitation all the way up to 40; from 2,000 feet of elevation all the way up to 6,500; 75-day growing period; and you can grow 50 to 125 gallons of diesel on every acre.”

Schweitzer continues by saying that “The USDA ought to be active in every community with guaranteed loans for farmers to build their own fuel plants.” This, combined with a floor price of $1.20 ($38 per barrel) will give the market certainty and allow for more investment.

That leaves 2 million barrels.

The next step is coal gasification. When coal is pressurized it releases natural gas and carbon dioxide (CO2). The CO2 is split from the gas and the gas burned to produce electricity. The heat from this burning turns water to steam which itself runs a turbine. You can also pump the gas into another pressurized chamber and turn it into liquid, or coal-to-diesel. Gov. Schweitzer has a Dodge pickup with a Cummins engine that runs on this without modification. The last step is to take the CO2 from the initial phase and pump it into a geological structure that will hold it for a thousand years (and turn it into the very rock it’s pumped into) or into an oil field, which has further benefits for oil production.

Each ton of coal makes 2 barrels oil equivalent. So Montana’s 120 billion tons plus the other states allows us the energy we need to gain independence.

Schweitzer claims the result is that we no longer depend on foreign oil. The best result is that we no longer need war to secure our energy supply. This would allow for fewer military bases worldwide and allow the U.S. to begin moving to a non-interventionist foreign policy.

This is all to be used along with solar, wind, and nuclear power. The long-term goal is to “evolve to hydrogen or cold fusion.”

Ideally, the technology — the best energy solutions in the world — will be exported to other nations further improving the global environment and yielding profits that can be used to make alternative energy solutions even clearer.

The main criticisms of the Governor’s plan are that he is calling the politicians in Washington D.C. elitists and “big shots.” This uncouth verbal treatment is making him unpopular amongst federal politicians and that has allegedly created a barrier to getting the approximately $1.5 billion that is needed for a coal gasification plant in Montana (however, there was to be no public funding for Bull Mountain, it was a lack of private funding and other obstacles that caused this proposed plant in Roundup, MT to fail). Another barrier is from a small, misguided environmental group in Montana that believes we should wait for something cleaner instead of weaning the country from foreign oil.

My personal criticism of his plan is that he claimed in the speech I have referred to that there are 400 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken Formation, when the United States Geological Survey estimates between 3.5 and 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil. This is the difference between 60 years of energy independence, and 1 year. What Governor Schweitzer didn’t mention is that there are also “1.85 trillion cubic feet of associated/dissolved natural gas, and 148 million barrels of natural gas liquids in the Bakken Formation” (USGS).

Scientific American’s criticisms of coal gasification are that “the production process creates almost a ton of carbon dioxide for every barrel of liquid fuel” and that carbon capture and sequestration is unproven and therefore we shouldn’t rely on such incipient technology. Further, they cite studies that “indicate that liquid coal would still release 4 to 8 percent more global warming than regular gasoline.” Lastly, “researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimate it will cost $70 billion to build enough plants to replace 10 percent of American gasoline consumption” (Scientific American). This means that to replace 4/6.5 billion barrels (60%) we need $420 billion.

Still, Governor Schweitzer believes we can create, “We can produce hundreds of thousands of engineering jobs in producing new technologies that we ship around the world.” The evidence is a coal gasification plant in eastern Idaho which will provide electricity for 500,000 homes; railroad jobs to move 7,000 tons of coal a day; employ 150 permanent employees at the plant; create 1,000 construction jobs; and cause economic rejuvenation (Casper Star-Tribune). Keep in mind this is only one plant for one technology in a nascent energy movement.

Responding to criticisms Schweitzer says he will only support building plants if they are required by law to sequester their carbon dioxide. As for the technologies certainty:

“Schweitzer responds that none of these facilities will be online for at least seven years, and by then we’ll have a federal carbon law that will give coal companies the incentives they need to get it done” (Adams).

Whether this is a case of environmentalists using the cornucopian trick of questioning science remains to be seen. It’s possible but until we know it would prudent to develop other alternatives, specifically, wind where Montana is not meeting it’s potential.

Much Brian Schweitzer information is from a speech given October 13, 2006 at the National Press Club that you can purchase for $5 (I think). It’s a good speech. If you have access to LexisNexis (perhaps through a university library) you can search for “Brian Schweitzer” “National Press Club” and by selecting all boxes on the search page find this for free. It’s roughly 8,965 words.