Carbon Nation

It is fortunate that Project Drawdown left CO2 capture and storage (CCS) out of their solution set, because the IPCC left us with a mixed bag by including it as a key element among their recommended approaches*. Environmentally-minded organizations such as the Post-Carbon Institute (PCI) are all too happy to explain that CCS doesn't pencil out when you consider such fixed costs as a network of pipelines in the U.S. equal to that of the entire oil industry. As implied by their name, however, the Post-Carbon Institute discounts the value of all of the extra tight oil that might be recovered and burned by enhanced oil recovery using all the captured CO2. Considering how polluting coal and other industrial combustion processes can be, it makes sense if you can exchange the CO2 output for a more clean-burning petroleum product, but the extra pipelines and other CCS components required really does cause it to look like CCS would be a net economic loss (until oil prices rise). The fact that the energy industry is begging for more subsidies to jumpstart CCS does not help their case.

Stanford Prof. Mark Jacobson, whose transition to renewables plan is embraced as the mainstay of the Green (Party) New Deal, also excludes CCS. Richard Heinberg of PCI nonetheless criticizes Jacobson's reliance on underground heat storage technologies unproven at scales needed for his plan. Both Jacobson's and CCS's scaling problems are constrained by access to storage deep underground and, in the case of CCS, sometimes hundreds of miles from the source.

Photo by Eden, Janine and Jim

It is typical of our disconnection from nature that a less brutal means of sequestering captured carbon wouldn't attract more interest. Biochar can be a coproduct of electricity production when using biomass as an input. Rather than pipe it deep into the ground, burying biochar a few inches below the surface of farmland would be all that is needed to sequester the carbon. Unlike CCS, biochar is scalable up or down, befitting the feedstock availability and soil characteristics in a locale. While not a stand-alone replacement for current fossil fuel electricity, biochar-producing power plants should be pursued before the riskier CCS plants that have already wasted billions of dollars in pilot programs and never captured any carbon. Further investments or subsidies in CCS power plants would quite likely fall short, leading to expansion of more carbon spewing fossil-fueled electricity, with the carbon capture piece set aside as too expensive or difficult to complete.

*According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, the overall cost of a global climate mitigation strategy without CCS is higher than a strategy with CCS in every scenario, and many models cannot limit likely warming to below 2 °C without CCS. (U.S. DOE Report, Jan. 2017, pg. 7)

Stepping Up

All of the foot dragging and civil disturbance by environmentalists over development of fossil fuel infrastructure comes down to one basic demand: stop heating up the planet. Clean air, earth, and water are also quite important, but the issue that has most of our attention is the catastrophic future of our climate. Local and tribal objections are, in a strategic sense, wedges to enable and attract climate warriors to stand in the breach.

A friend of mine, +David Hardy, took the bold step of being arrested for joining a protest which blocked the steps of the county courthouse when the Cove Point Plant expansion approval was still undecided. He may not know it, but I admire his conviction and sacrifice. I wasn't then willing to risk such a fate, but now that I am retired, my old excuse of having to show up at work is pretty flimsy.

If I had a choice, being arrested would be a collateral risk of a bold or daring act, but not one that would place myself or others in mortal danger. For instance, one would not want to make law enforcement think there is a hostile threat to them or the public. Civil disobedience must be evidently peaceful enough that onlookers and police see it as an act of expression rather than aggression. The action should be planned to offer maximum public exposure. If possible, it should be prolonged enough to give the press a chance to film it. David's arrest got plenty of local press coverage. A tip off to the press could be the best way to ensure this.

The Greenpeace crane climbers near the White House did not have to tip their hand, but they were the epitome of a public and media spectacle. One of the climbers was a true inspiration. Sixty-two years old and afraid to even climb a ladder at home, she had never participated in any such stunts before, but volunteered to scale the crane and stay up there from pre-dawn into the nighttime because she saw the urgency of the changing mood and direction wrought by the new administration. Arrest after crane climbing is a pretty sure bet, unfortunately, but it would be nice to come up with a stunt that would garner as much attention while also affording a chance of escape.

One way to improve chances of escape, either from arrest or prosecution, would be to overwhelm law enforcement with more protesters than they are willing to take in. Provided everyone involved is contributing to the civil disobedience objective (like delaying critical work on infrastructure construction), then even if the police arrest a token few, there may be some safety in numbers. I suppose they could photograph a crowd and track down people to arrest later. Perhaps masks would be advisable in such situations.

There are offers available to subject oneself to being arrested - not the kind of thing you typically go shopping for on the web, but these are not typical times. I'll try to find one close by. Meanwhile, it would probably do me good to read up on carrying out civil disobedience.

"Strength" by Keoni Cabral

Battles Aplenty

Not only was it surprising to see so many turn out for the Women's March on Washington, D.C., but the numbers in other cities across the U.S. were astonishing, too. Many cities then rallied protesters last night over the President's decision to green light two big oil pipeline projects, one of which (Dakota Access) is 90% complete. Then, today Greenpeace acrobats hung a big "Resist!" banner off a crane near the White House. Widespread protests look like they will be a distinguishing characteristic of the Trump era.

There are actually numerous pipeline resistance movements ongoing across the country, some over oil, others over gas pipelines. Aside from these projects' failure to address indigenous peoples' concerns, adding fossil fuel infrastructure would rarely be worth the environmental cost at this point in Earth's feverish condition. If, however, there is an either/or choice between burning coal or natural gas, the decision would be more nuanced. Since 2006, the United States alone has averaged more than 300 pipeline spills a year, and technology to predict and monitor leaks is notoriously unreliable. Pipelines and roads also break up wild habitat. Keystone XL comes with the even more detrimental problem of transporting tar sand.

The fact that pipelines (and roads under tRump's infrastructure strategy) are owned privately violates the rights of landowners when eminent domain is applied. It is the continuous, linear nature of pipelines that makes them the most politically, as well as physically, vulnerable subsystem of fuel extraction. On the other hand, if the industry has sunk investment into drilling, storing, and refining, there may be more sympathy by government to help the companies involved link everything up. While there may be holdouts one any given route, there are many possible routes to take. Therefore, pipelines are unlikely to be a complete show stopper for fuel extraction.

Ideally, infrastructure projects will be shut down well before pipes are being laid. From the standpoint of reducing buy-in by government entities, preventing construction of high value subsystems, e.g. refineries, would be better than blocking a pipeline. We found that to be too hard with the Cove Point LNG Plant expansion, but local efforts elsewhere have succeeded in preventing LNG export facilities from going forward. An even more widespread intervention would be to legislate against activities that cause excessive environmental damage. If you live in my state, perhaps the most effective action against expanding fossil fuel infrastructure would be Don't Frack Maryland. There are many subsystems to target in infrastructure intervention campaigns and many external factors that can be influenced. We have plenty of battlefields to choose from. Let us choose our battles wisely.

The Fracking Gamble

+Gail Tverberg 's theory about the deflationary spiral of oil prices (she thinks we are locked in to a price slide that will bottom out around $20/barrel) also applies to natural gas.  The fact that Chesapeake Energy (the U.S.'s second largest natural gas producer) is headed toward junk status supports this corollary.  A lot of Chesapeake's problem stems from land speculation with the intention of drilling and fracking.  These land deals were conducted with money from bright-eyed investors who never understood the economics of fracking and are now realizing how little real value most of the shale plays held.  Chesapeake's co-founder, Aubrey McClendon, seemed to know when to leave the party, as he departed the company in 2013.

He chose the name for the company out of a liking for the Chesapeake Bay area, despite the company's Oklahoma roots.  From Oklahoma, Chesapeake Energy's gas pipelines grew toward the Chesapeake Bay like a mycelium seeking humid climes to sprout its mushrooms.  After the fracking potential of the Marcellus Shale became known, the company surged further, to Pennsylvania. The pipeline assets were spun off years ago and now belong to Williams.

With the current demise of fracking due to the inability of the market to support the infrastructure and loss of investor interest, many natural gas companies will go under.  The price of natural gas should rise, however, once the markets have sloughed off the non-performing suppliers.  As coal is replaced by natural gas electricity generation, demand for gas should continue to grow.  The long-term damage to prices that Tverberg expects for oil may not apply to natural gas.

While the Chesapeake Bay region may have been the divining rod for Aubrey McClendon's vision of where Chesapeake Energy should go, it is there that he met the greatest opposition over the environmental repercussions of fracking.  Fracking has emboldened the U.S. to rescind laws against oil exporting and to build natural gas export facilities, such as the Cove Point Plant expansion underway a few miles from my home.  Aside from the public outcry against fracking, there are geological limits, climate considerations for which we are now internationally accountable, and the impending economic recession wrought largely by the same commercial ennui that brought about the energy price slump.  Fracking may never come back.  Cove Point may never export any liquefied natural gas.