Power
Book Review: Gusher of Lies
While politicians, pundits, greens, neocons and farmers spout nonsense about “energy independence,” it’s worthwhile for a truth-teller who has no skin in the game to appear on the scene. That describes Robert Bryce’s new book “Gusher of Lies, The Dangerous Delusions of ‘Energy Independence'” €“ which correctly describes why the notion of U.S. energy autarky is bogus, a con, a sham, and the property of political and media charlatans on the right and left.
I’ve covered energy business and energy politics since 1973; I long ago concluded that “energy independence” is worthless, even dangerous, jive. So, too, is “energy policy,” although Bryce, managing editor of Energy Tribune, a worthy publication out of Austin, Texas, doesn’t get very far into that energy thicket.
Bryce is pretty much a Texas lefty who has written earlier, critical books on the Enron debacle and the Bush administration’s ties to the oil industry. He says he came into his analysis of global energy issues from a conventional standpoint, including arguing for a “Manhattan Project” for U.S. energy. That’s about the same position espoused by New York Times columnist Tom Friedman (an early and avid supporter of the U.S. invasion of Iraq). But Bryce soon picked up on the facts, and the facts set him free. “Each time Congress or the White House gets too involved in the energy business, supplies get tighter or prices increase, or both,” he observes correctly.
The most powerful part of Bryce’s book is his section on what he describes as “false promises” of energy independence. He debunks a number of myths about what energy independence would mean, if it were possible (and it’s not even remotely possible). Energy independence would not allow the U.S. to pull its military assets out of the Persian Gulf. It would not reduce or eliminate terrorism. Renewables can’t lead to independence; cellulosic ethanol, he writes, “is like the tooth fairy, an entity that many people believe in but no one ever actually sees.” Energy independence won’t lead to reform in the Arab world (this the Friedman fallacy).
Bryce is tellingly critical of the renewables chimera. Biofuels, he argues, are worse than gasoline, a con game run by agricultural interests to extract even more dollars from U.S. taxpayers for a segment of society that already gets mammoth subsidies. Solar, he argues, has some virtues (his Austin house has a large photovoltaic rooftop array, heavily subsidized by the Austin municipal utility) but is still a niche opportunity.
Bryce does a particularly nice job trashing wind. “Wind power,” he writes, “is the electricity sector’s equivalent of ethanol: The hype has lost all connection with reality.” He notes that in July 2006, “wind turbines in California produced power at only about 10 percent of their capacity.” In Texas, now the leader in U.S. wind capacity, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, only about 9 percent of wind capacity is dependable during peak demand periods. The book was written before the episode last month when ERCOT had to implement emergency procedures because West Texas wind production failed as the statewide grid was seeing peak demand.
What to do about energy? Bryce has several ideas, some of them sensible. These include: “Get the government the hell out of the energy business.” Amen, brother. Also, accept that energy use will increase and we can adapt to climate change, if it is real. Accept that we live in an economically-connected world. Independence is neither possible nor desirable. All on the money.
But there is one area where Bryce is off base. He wants a billion-dollar competitive race — to the winner goes the prize, provided by taxpayers — to develop better batteries. There is no question that better batteries could revolutionize how we make, store, and distribute electricity. But Bryce’s competition idea doesn’t hold water. There are plenty of incentives for new batteries in the market. It doesn’t take a big prize to provide the oomph for new battery technologies. The first person or company that comes up with a “superbattery” will make Bill Gates look like the proprietor of a mom-and-pop grocery store.
Bryce seems unaware that the U.S. government in 1991, along with the electricity industry and the U.S. automakers, launched a major effort to develop “superbatteries.” It was the advanced battery consortium (ABC), run out of the Energy Department. After some eight years of effort, and about $300 million in funding, the ABC earned a technological F.
But Bryce’s book is well worth reading. With all the ignorance, slight-of-hand, and self-interest surrounding energy this election year, a dose of facts is welcome and bracing.
Original text here: http://www.powermag.com/ExportedSite/BlogArticles/94.htm
