The Energy Factor
Photo by Kandschwar, CC BY-SA 3.0
Let me say first off that I am among those who consider President Biden to be handling the Ukraine crisis admirably overall. His performance stands in stark contrast to the debacle in Afghanistan last August. Biden’s played a particularly effective role in fostering Western unity, which has been strengthening in heartening ways.
But Biden’s overall choice of policies to prioritize for focus is hampering his administration from being even more effective, particularly with regard to energy. While he is not a member of the rabidly left wing of his party, the fact is that the party has been aggressively moving left for decades. The likes of Joe Manchin are pariahs in their party in the same way that Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney are pariahs in theirs. And Joe Biden is a stalwart Democrat.
A Democrat need not sign on to the Green New Deal to make plain his or her basic concurrence with the underlying belief of the preponderance of his or her fellows – namely, that the planet is undergoing a climate crisis that requires an abrupt abandonment of the fuels that have catalyzed human advancement over the last 150 years.
The most glaring example so far in this crisis of how this plays out in administration priorities has been the pathetic remarks by John Kerry during a BBC interview in which he said he hoped that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would not affect Putin’s supposed interest in being part of the international effort to address climate change. He also jaw-droppingly lamented the increase in greenhouse gas emissions brought on by war.
When asked this morning about the possibility of reversing course on nixing the Keystone XL pipeline and opening up more land for oil and gas leases, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that even if such a reversal began today – and she added that Biden has myriad reasons for sticking with his position on the pipeline – it would be years before it bore fruit as a major contributor to America’s energy picture. She also said that energy companies are not “tapping into” areas for which they currently have leases.
Assuming she has a point on both counts, the rejoinder would be that going forward with the pipeline and making more leases available is better commenced today than tomorrow, and that there is significant value in the optics of the United States getting serious about pursuing energy independence.
The carve-outs for Russia allowing it to continue selling oil and gas on the world market, even as sanctions are imposed in other areas, does not serve to project an image of seriousness to the countries we want on board to counter Russia. It also makes petroleum products and natural gas more expensive for consumers. Still, we’re subjected to Chuck Schumer’s blather about oil-company price gouging at a moment of existential crisis.
The president has done a number of things right since last Thursday, but in this area, he has yet to demonstrate the requisite serious in a situation in which doom breathes down our necks.
This piece originally appeared at the author’s blog, Late In The Day
A Democrat need not sign on to the Green New Deal to make plain his or her basic concurrence with the underlying belief of the preponderance of his or her fellows – namely, that the planet is undergoing a climate crisis that requires an abrupt abandonment of the fuels that have catalyzed human advancement over the last 150 years.
Well, um, yeah, that’s because this appears to be actually true.Report
Interesting first piece. Welcome aboard.
A few counter thoughts:
1) On a good day, Biden and most of the Democratic Party politicians at the federal level are classic centerists, and the economic and energy policies they pursue (based on enacted legislation) are center to center right, in that they still prize corporate welfare and outcomes over labor. I am deeply thankful that the Progressive wing has gained traction, and continues to grow, but it is nowhere near in control yet.
2) The fact that we as a nation still talk about energy independence in regards to oil imports is a significant part of why we aren’t yet there. The Keystone XL pipeline is a prime example – increasing oil shale pumping capacity in the US doesn’t make us independent because we are still pumping that crude into the US from Canada. We would be a lot closer to actual energy independence if we were more invested in solar, wind and hydro as energy generation methods, and we could bridge the gap with small scale nuclear. Requiring us to pump all the crude oil we consume (while trying to drive ever higher consumption of petroleum products) will never make us energy independent.
3. Most Americans don’t see climate change as a crisis and aren’t savvy enough about how the energy sector of the economy actually works to connect oil prices to global warming. They just know that gas pump prices are going up, they hear narratives in the media (even the allegedly left leaning MSM) that connect that increase to Biden’s policies, and they secretly think they are one good decision away from joining the oil CEO’s as millionaires. So when oil companies price gouge in the name of short term profits – as their recent round of earnings calls quotes seems to indicate they are, it flies right by people primed by those same companies to ignore that news factoid. so Senator Schumer is, albeit ham handedly, trying to refocus them. It doesn’t take any focus off the global climate crisis however.
4. It would be great to see Putin sanctioned heavily in the energy sector, but the banking sanctions in place may well achieve the same effect as the banks are needed to transact oil sales. Plus a lot of folks not named the USA buy his oil, and so American sanctions would be of little use.Report
It would be great to see Putin sanctioned heavily in the energy sector…
That’s a decision that Biden is wisely leaving to the Europeans. Also, the banks that have been sanctioned seem to have been carefully chosen so that Gazprom is still getting paid promptly for the delivered natural gas. Cutting off Russia would be an inconvenience for us. In Western Europe the only question is how big a disaster it would be. Worst case, Germany’s chemical industry shuts down, with all the knock-on effects from that (eg, no ammonia-based fertilizer for the farmers in the spring, no plastics, etc).Report
Yeah, Europe has to be hating the position they’ve allowed themselves to get into.Report
They’ve already turned the greenhouses dark. Gas has been so high that industries that produce food are shutting down.
Famine is inevitable, in the usual places, now that the Ukraine is almost guaranteed a poor harvest. Bets on another Arab Spring?
Biden gets to blame Putin for our lack of fertilizer-at-reasonable prices. It was four times last year before Putin took one step into the Ukraine.
Get your food locked in now, it’s gonna cost a lot more later. Maybe buy a freezer.Report
Todays installment of “Respectable Republican, or crazed internet rando?”
Meat in the freezer.
Baby in the cradle.
Gun at the ready.
Bitcoin in cold storage.
They hate this.
Get your answer in now!Report
Famine in the US? We produce so much food that we toss half in the garbage and that’s not even including the farmers we’re paying to not grow.
Individual foods will increase in price and our overall mix will change. This happens every year because of fashion and the weather.Report
It shows that relying on petroleum as heavily as we do is not just an environmental risk, its a geopolitical one. Now of course some thing are easier to electrify than others (you can’t electrify the Haber process, and some industrial process heating is very inefficient with electric heating), but domestic heating is low-hanging fruit, and I understand there’s a lot of domestic gas heating in Germany.Report
Haber, and lots of other things, depend on millions of tons of hydrogen produced by steam-reforming methane. Plus process heat, as you say. ~10% of the electricity supply in total from Russian gas, more or less than that depending on the country. Turning off the gas spigot would be very painful for Europe.Report
As an Albertan who is annoyed with you about the approval and then cancelling of Keystone let me make this painfully clear.
Keystone has zero to do with American or North American energy independence. Its a bad faith talking point. At best, it aids North American oil exports, which is an entirely different concept. Keystone XL is a inland to Gulf Coast refineries and export ports project, its not intended to fuel America’s need for oil because there’s plenty of that already. Its mainly meant to provide to the Asian market. Increasing Canadian or American oil production is not a big priority for “energy independence” because North America is already a self-sufficient market in hydrocarbon energy.
The oil pipeline fuckery that may be a North American problem is what Michigan is doing on the Great Lakes.
Also, Europe doesn’t face much fundamental difficulty in doing without Russian oil exports, its sold on a global market and they can import it from elsewhere just fine. Nat gas is the finicky bit.
The other thing is that running totally roughshod over native objections to projects is a bad practice that will bite you in the butt going forward. They live out in remote areas and can do a heck of a lot of blockage if you keep pissing them off and they’re learning to use this leverage.Report
TransCanada could have built the XL inside the right-of-way for the existing Keystone pipeline and been up and running without any problems. But they wanted to “cut the corner” and build across tribal lands and the Nebraska Sandhills, for which Nebraskans have a peculiar attachment (I visited the Sandhills enough when I lived there to understand why).Report
I’ve been saying this for a LONG time . . . .Report