Articles by Joseph Romm

A gas tax holiday would be cynical and indefensible

(I write this post with some sadness. I would not have expected a major progressive politician who obviously cares about global warming to propose a gas tax holiday, which has no public benefits whatsoever and at the same time undermines the entire rationale behind a national climate strategy that includes, as it must, a pricing mechanism for greenhouse gases. Kudos to Sen. Obama for opposing this absurd proposal -- double kudos because it might cost him a few votes.)

The gas tax holiday proposed by McCain and Clinton is indefensible. That, of course, is why just about every independent observer has criticized it. The Washington Post and, separately, Huffington Post have catalogued an impressive list of serious critiques, starting with the rather obvious point that in a demand-driven price shock, a gas tax holiday probably won't even save consumers a penny -- it will just enrich the poor, suffering oil companies:

Existing technology is faster and far more practical than hypothetical new inventions

This post will explain why some sort of massive government Apollo program or Manhattan project to develop new breakthrough technologies is not a priority component of the effort to stabilize at 450 ppm.

Put more quantitatively, the question is, what are the chances that multiple (4 to 8+) carbon-free technologies that do not exist today can each deliver the equivalent of 350 gigawatts baseload power (about 2.8 billion megawatt-hours a year) and/or 160 billion gallons of gasoline cost-effectively by 2050? (Note: that is about half of a stabilization wedge.) For the record, the U.S. consumed about 3.7 billion mwh in 2005 and about 140 billion gallons of motor gasoline.

Put that way, the answer to the question is painfully obvious: "two chances -- slim and none." Indeed, I have repeatedly challenged readers and listeners over the years to name even a single technology breakthrough with such an impact in the past three decades, after the huge surge in energy funding that followed the energy shocks of the 1970s. Nobody has ever named one that has even come close.

Yet somehow the government is not just going to invent one TILT (Terrific Imaginary Low-carbon Technology) in the next few years, we are going to invent several TILTs. Seriously. Hot fusion? No. Cold fusion? As if. Space solar power? Come on, how could that ever compete with CSP? Hydrogen? It ain't even an energy source, and after billions of dollars of public and private research in the past 15 years -- including several years running of being the single biggest focus of the DOE office on climate solutions I once ran -- it still has actually no chance whatsoever of delivering a major cost-effective climate solution by mid century (see "This just in: Hydrogen fuel cell cars are still dead").

I don't know why the breakthrough crowd can't see the obvious, so I will elaborate here. I will also discuss a major study that explains why deployment programs are so much more important than R&D at this point. Let's keep this simple:

Note to Bush, media: Opening ANWR cuts gas prices one cent in 2025

Bush blames Congress' failure to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for high gasoline prices. The administration's own Energy Information Administration found otherwise in a 2004 Congressional-requested "Analysis of Oil and Gas Production in ANWR" (PDF):

It is expected that the price impact of ANWR coastal plain production might reduce world oil prices by as much as 30 to 50 cents per barrel [in 2025].

Don't spend it all in one place, American public! (Note to Bush: There are 42 gallons in a barrel.) EIA continues:

Assuming that world oil markets continue to work as they do today, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries could countermand any potential price impact of ANWR coastal plain production by reducing its exports by an equal amount.

Curses, foiled again!

Bush’s energy/food strategy unsurprisingly underwhelming

Bush had a press conference yesterday morning to blame Congress for soaring energy and food prices: "Unfortunately, on many of these issues, all [Americans] are getting is delay."

What does non-delayer Bush propose? Well, of course, new technology -- what else is new old? Heck, he even said the long-term answer was hydrogen. (Not!)

Oh, but he did offer some "short-term" solutions. His answer to rising electricity prices: Nukes!