"Since taking office on January 20, President Joseph Biden has taken direct aim at the fossil fuel industry. By Executive Order, Biden already has placed a moratorium on issuing new oil and gas drilling permits on federal land, and he has canceled permits needed to complete the Keystone XL Pipeline.
These likely are only first steps.
The question is how far will the President go in acting against the industry?
Despite repeating endlessly that he would not ban “fracking” during the Presidential election campaign, many believe Biden intends to do just that.
Such a move would have enormous consequences in terms of national energy production, self-sufficiency, and security – both economic and military.
Biden started implementing his “Green” Agenda on his first day in office.
One of his first acts was to rejoin the Paris Climate Accords.
This pleased the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
However, the President’s initial moves won’t go nearly far enough for those who insist upon the “Green New Deal.”
President Biden needs to remember, however, that all of his decisions come with a price.
... Environmental extremists want fossil fuel use eliminated in the short term.
Moderates will accept a phased implementation of “renewable energy” projects, but they also want to see fossil fuel use ended, or at least limited substantially.
The goals of producing a cleaner world and fighting climate change certainly are vital, but the new President must take care not to make things worse unintentionally.
... Within the energy context, some pushing President Biden leftward claim that unless nearly all fossil fuel use ends within twelve years, the Earth’s climate will be damaged irreparably.
Despite limited scientific support, this school of thought has succeeded in delaying or killing much oil and gas pipeline infrastructure construction, halting oil and gas development on Federal land, and getting building codes passed in cities like San Francisco and Seattle forbidding the use of natural gas in new structures.
... despite claims to the contrary, there currently is no scientifically-proven way to generate sufficient “renewable” energy to power our world, store that energy, and transport it to where it needs to go when it needs to get there.
Despite this ... many today demand we plunge forward into the maelstrom of energy extremism without a clear understanding of the real word ramifications.
Fortunately, we have a test case.
In 2010, Germany embarked on an ambitious project called “Energiewende” (roughly “energy transformation”).
The basic concept was to cease approving any new energy project in Germany that was not from renewable sources and to otherwise incentivize “Green” energy development.
A decade after it began, it would be hard to call the German program a success.
Germany’s carbon emissions have decreased in recent years (although much is due to the Coronavirus slowdown and in some cases over the last decade Germany’s carbon emissions actually increased).
However, the program actually made Germany more reliant on natural gas than before.
In so doing it has made Germany more dependent on Russian natural gas, so much so that the two countries are building a controversial pipeline called “Nord Stream 2” in the Baltic Sea.
... Nord Stream 2 ties Germany more to Russia both economically and politically.
It also increases German demand for Russian natural gas.
... Russia drills for natural gas in the environmentally-sensitive Arctic region.
Russian gas drilling uses few if any environmental safeguards, thereby further contributing to world environmental damage.
In truth, it can be argued that Germany’s well-intentioned “Energiewende” has produced the opposite of what it intended.
... The United States should ramp up renewable energy programs, improve our energy conveyance and storage infrastructure to help make cleaner energy more efficient and better able to get from the point of generation to the point of consumption, continue research into cleaner types of energy, and retain if not strengthen incentive programs for solar, wind, and other renewable forms of energy (full disclosure, much of my energy law practice centers around solar and wind energy).
We also should search for and encourage other ways to clean our environment.
... We must be mindful that, like “Energiewende”, those actions can have the opposite effect if we are not careful.
Let’s use the Paris Climate Accords as an example and focus on China.
China is the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gasses.
Its emissions exceed those of the United States and the European Union combined.
According to China’s national commitment to the Paris Climate Accords, until 2030 China can continue to increase its CO2 emissions at its current rate.
Thus, not only will the Paris Climate Accords not produce drastic climate improvement within the next twelve years, they will not even prevent the world’s largest emitter of CO2 from increasing its emissions.
... President Biden’s termination of the permits needed to finish construction of the Keystone XL pipeline also isolates us.
The Keystone XL Pipeline is owned partially by the government of the Canadian Province of Alberta.
Coming soon after the State of Michigan rejected permits for Enbridge’s Line 5 Pipeline, our relations with our largest trading partner are frayed.
This attack on infrastructure construction also portends dire consequences.
During the polar vortex in 2018, New York and New England were forced to import natural gas from Russia.
This was the case despite the fact that an immense supply of natural gas was (and still is) available four hours away in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Due to the fight against natural gas pipelines, gas produced in Pennsylvania has been left with no way to reach New York City.
Astoundingly, New York called on Vladimir Putin’s allies for help importing the very same fossil fuel that it snubbed from neighboring Pennsylvania.
That American natural gas could not be moved only a few hundred miles from Pennsylvania to New York shows we are sacrificing our economic, political and, yes, environmental interests in order to chase an environmental ideal.
This ... amounts almost to unilateral surrender of our own environmental, political and military security.
... Almost all of the Personal Protective Equipment used by our front line responders, and much of the equipment in Intensive Care Units, is made with fossil fuel ingredients.
Were we to ban the use of fossil fuel sources we would forfeit our front line personnel’s safety and security and make it nearly impossible to fight the virus, all in the name of environmental idealism.
None of this makes sense.
Much is based on wishful thinking.
The buck stops with President Biden."
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Friday, March 5, 2021
"Fossil Fuel Use and Lessons for Today"
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