Category: Energy

TransCanada Decides to Wait for a Republican President

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They just requested that the State Department suspend its review of the Keystone XL pipeline:

The company seeking to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline asked the Obama administration on Monday to suspend its yearslong review of the project, potentially bringing an abrupt halt to a politically charged debate that had become part of a broader struggle over President Obama’s environmental policies.

It was not immediately clear whether the administration would grant the request, which was swiftly denounced by environmental activists as a bid to dodge a near-certain rejection of the pipeline. Allowing the delay would push off a decision until after the 2016 presidential election.

The company’s request introduced a new element of uncertainty into the administration’s decision-making process, offering the potential to free Mr. Obama from a politically difficult choice that has hung over much of his presidency. But if anything, it appeared to intensify pressure on him from crucial Democratic constituencies to reject the pipeline or risk being blamed for punting to another president. A delay would keep the issue alive in the presidential campaign.

TransCanada, the Alberta company seeking to build the 1,179-mile pipeline, made its request in a letter to the State Department, which must approve cross-border projects and had been reviewing its application for a presidential permit.

This is not a victory for the people, like me, who oppose the pipeline.

This is a tactical move to push any decision to the next administration, which the ratf%$#s at TransCanada is hoping that this will be a Republican, whose party has made approval of the transit of bitumen through the Ogallala Aquiferan article of faith.

My Wife Refuses to Appreciate My Beautiful Mind

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I was talking to my Sharon* and noted that she would never guess the latest place where the consequences of fracking.

She declined to guess, and I told her that it was Oklahoma, where they are freaking out over a 300 fold increase in the number of earthquakes brought on by rejecting waste water into deep wells.

This generated a blank look from my wife, and I said that pumping the water deep under ground causes earthquakes.

I got another blank look, and I explained how the water, when injected deep underground, lubricates between faults, and that the lubrication translates into more motion, Kind of Like Sex.

I got a “what the f%$# are you talking about?” look from her, so I further explained that proper lubrication allows for more motion.

And then I got That look from her.

If you have ever been married, you know the look that I’m talking about, the one that has you worrying about her sharp knives ……… and then you start to worry about her dull knives.

*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

TransCanada Loses Again

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They just gave up on a lawsuit in Nebraska over their attempt to assert extraordinary eminent domain rights:

TransCanada announced on Tuesday that the company will pull out of the lawsuit filed by over 100 Nebraska landowners challenging their right to use eminent domain to seize land for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

Facing mounting legal expenses and a likely loss in court, the company will instead go through the Public Service Commission (PSC) review process it had originally hoped to avoid.

“We believe that going through the PSC process is the clearest path to achieving route certainty for the Keystone XL Project in Nebraska. It ultimately saves time, reduces conflict with those who oppose the project and sets clear rules for approval of the route,” said a representative of the company in a statement.

The PSC process will take at least a year, and cannot move forward if and when President Obama rejects the federal permit for the pipeline.

………

“TransCanada realizes that LB 1161 is unconstitutional,” added Art Tanderup, a farmer whose land is on the proposed pipeline route. “This is a victory for landowners standing up to prevent a foreign corporation from taking their land for corporate greed through eminent domain. TransCanada pushed LB1161 through the legislature to avoid using the Public Service Commission procedure that they now want to follow. We believe that the PSC will not allow Keystone XL to be placed in the Sand Hills or over the Ogallala Aquifer but are confident President Obama will reject the pipeline before the PSC even has a chance to conduct a review.”

So, TransCanada, the company that ignores regulations, and leans on lawmakers to exempt them from regulations, and then has their pipelines blow up, has decided that their latest attempt to subvert the regulatory prices isn’t going to work.

They lose, and the rest of us win.

I can live with that.

One of the Facts of Running a Local Government Is That Making Your Government “Business Friendly” Never Pays

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Of course, what I mean by “Business Friendly” is using tax abatements, creating dedicated infrastructure, or building stadiums.

When you pay companies to locate in your town, you always lose, and the latest case is the oil boom towns in North Dakota, which have discovered that by not making drillers pay their way, they raise costs for everyone else:

While the massive Bakken oil boom drew hordes of job seekers and international attention to the remote prairies of North Dakota and Montana in recent years, it’s turned into a money loser for most cities and counties in the region.

 Crime in Dunn County, N.D., in the heart of the nation’s oil boom, skyrocketed 60 percent in just three years, and the road maintenance budget soared from $1.5 million to $25 million.

 The local government couldn’t keep up, with demand for services outpacing the growth in tax revenue by as much as 40 percent. The problem continues as the drop in oil prices in the past year means increasingly less money for the county to spend on projects – while drilling, the truck traffic that eats up the roads, and demand for community services haven’t stopped.

 “The gap between revenues and needs is still fairly large,” Daryl Dukart, a Dunn County commissioner, said in an interview. “It will take many years to balance out.”

 Dunn County is far from alone. Analysis from researchers at Duke University found that “most local governments in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken region have experienced net negative fiscal effects” from the shale drilling boom.

The answer here is fairly simple: Make the newcomers pay their own way.

When thousands of very trucks tear up your local roads, charge tolls on them.

When their water demands require the construction of new sewer and water infrastructure, charge them for that too.

The oil is where the oil is. If drilling drops by 10% because the energy companies have to pay their own way, it’s a net plus.

The idea that in the long term it will sort itself out, a sentiment expressed by a Dickinson, North Dakota City Manager Shawn Kessel, is a pipe dream.

In the long term, the oil boom goes bust, and you still have to pay for the infrastructure that is now sitting unused, as well as the mountains of toxic waste that will start showing up.

I learned a little bit by being raised by a city planner, and one of the lessons that stuck is that if you subsidize industries to locate in your town, it will be a net tax loser.

The 2nd lesson is that most of the money in real estate is made through explicit and implicit subsidies that come from the local government in the form of tax abatements, zoning changes, and unpaid for infrastructure upgrades.

TransCanada Appears to be the Washington Generals of Pipeline Construction

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Clearly, there was an Earth Shattering Kaboom

Yes, another one of their pipelines has demonstrated that it functions better as a pyrotechnic display than they are as transmission device for fossil fuels:

The cause of a natural-gas pipeline rupture near Emerson which forced two Manitoba families to evacuate their home remains under investigation.

 A spokeswoman with TransCanada, which operates the pipeline just south of the Canada-U.S. border in Kittson County, Minn., said Monday the company continues to conduct “a detailed investigation to determine the cause of the incident.”

 The rupture occurred Saturday night around 8:30 p.m., sending flames shooting up into the air.

 The nearby local volunteer fire department in Emerson was called out to the fire, said Emerson fire chief Jeff French.

 “You could see it from miles away,” French said, describing flames six to 10 metres high and three to five metres wide near the site of the explosion.

 Two homes on the Canadian side of the border were evacuated and residents were allowed back inside by 11 p.m. Saturday.

Yep, another pipeline blew up.

Of particular interest is the sidebar for the article, which details a pattern of problematic safety failures:

1. Otterburne, January 25, 2014

 A natural gas pipeline operated by TransCanada ruptured, sending a massive fireball into the sky during the winter of 2014 in Otterburne, a small community about 60 kilometres outside of Winnipeg. The explosion would force Manitoba Hydro to shut down natural gas flows to thousands of customers in the area, leaving some residents without heat for day. A pre-existing crack present for over 50 years was the culprit in a gas line explosion, a Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigation found.

 2. Brookdale, April 14, 2002

 A TransCanada Pipelines gas line ruptured, exploded and caught fire two kilometres west of the village of Brookdale, northeast of Brandon. The explosion created two craters — one at each end of the ruptured section of pipe — and burned for nearly four hours.

 About 100 people were evacuated within a four-kilometre radius of the blast, but there were no injuries.

 The investigation found that, similar to the Rapid City blast, stress corrosion cracking was found to have caused the explosion. It was unusual in this case as the affected pipe was coated with asphalt and buried in non-corrosive soil. It was discovered that the combination of the pipe’s coating separating from the surface, a fluctuating water table, the presence of anaerobic bacteria and other factors all combined to create a corrosive environment.

 3. St. Norbert, April 15, 1996

 At a spot where a TransCanada gas pipeline crosses the La Salle River, gas escaped from a crack in the pipe, caught fire and an explosion destroyed a nearby home. The explosion also left a 13.5-metre-wide crater on the bottom of the river and damaged hydro lines and trees on both sides of the river. No one was injured.

 The investigation found “environmental assisted cracking” to be the cause. A shift in the river slope led the pipe to move and stress out a crack in the pipe that may have been present since the pipeline was laid in 1962.

 4. Rapid City, July 29, 1995

 A TransCanada Pipelines gas line ruptured and caught fire near Rapid City, north of Brandon. An adjacent gas pipe also ruptured and caught fire which damaged a third line.

 The incident left a 51-metres wide crater that was five metres deep. One TransCanada employee suffered minor cuts and bruises.

 The investigation found the first rupture was caused by stress corrosion cracking, the slow growth of small cracks in an environment capable of corroding a pipe. The second rupture was partly the result of a delay in shutting down the flow of gas to the first pipe.

Note that this is just in Manitoba, and in 2 of the 4 cases, cracks in the line were unobserved for decades, and in a 3rd case, the rupture was mismanaged.

As Charlie Pierce observes, , “Pretty plainly, TransCanada puts its pipelines in the ground and then you’re on your own, rube. At this point, I wouldn’t buy a bucket from these clowns, let alone a continent-spanning death funnel.”

I will note that pipelines for bitumen, the vaguely oil like crap that comes from the tar sands, is nowhere nearly as well understood as that of oil or gas, so it would be problematic even for a pipeline operator that was able to find its ass with both hands.

Yeah, I am So Confident in the Safety of the Keystone XL Pipeline

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Up in Alberta, land of the Tar Sands, a brand new bitumen pipeline has just ruptured, causing a major oil spill:

One of the largest leaks in Alberta history has spilled about five million litres of emulsion from a Nexen Energy pipeline at the company’s Long Lake oilsands facility south of Fort McMurray.

The leak was discovered Wednesday afternoon.

Nexen said in a statement its emergency response plan has been activated and personnel were onsite. The leak has been stabilized, the company said.

The spill covered an area of about 16,000 square metres, mostly within the pipeline corridor, the company said. Emulsion is a mixture of bitumen, water and sand.

BTW, that high tech brand new (1 year in operation) pipeline?

The warning system failed as well:

Nexen’s “failsafe” system didn’t detect massive pipeline spill: http://t.co/ULEnxlmQEN pic.twitter.com/DmChECTUX7

— Anna Mehler Paperny (@amp6) July 17, 2015

This is what happens when the private industries capture the government that is supposed to regulate it.

Shoot Me, I Agree with the Republicans

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Republicans in the House want to repeal the ethanol mandate for gasoline:

A new Republican bill introduced Tuesday would completely repeal the federal mandate to blend ethanol into the nation’s gasoline supply.

Sen. Bill Cassidy’s (R-La.) legislation would completely do away with the renewable fuel standard, which first took effect in 2005 and now requires increasing levels of ethanol and biodiesel to be put into traditional fossil fuels.

The mandate invites frequent criticism from Republicans, the oil industry and sectors that complain the demand it creates for corn ethanol increases agricultural prices.

“Workers, refiners, producers, farmers and ranchers across the country are affected by the renewable fuel standard,” Cassidy said in a statement. “More mandates mean less jobs. It means families are paying more for gas and groceries.”

Cassidy represents Louisiana, one of the largest states in terms of fuel refining capacity. Refiners say that buying ethanol or fuel credits increases their prices, and they must pass those costs onto consumers.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has had trouble keeping up with the annual volume mandates amid a decrease in fuel use. The agency proposed mandate levels for 2014 through 2016 last month.

The proposal would increase ethanol levels, though not to the goals set out in the law, leading to criticisms from both supporters and opponents of the mandate.

Republicans want this for a different reason than I do, though.

They object, because they believe that any imposition on the big oil is a crime against God, while I believe that ethanol, at least corn based ethanol as generated in the United States, makes little to no savings in CO2 emissions when all inputs are considered, and serves primarily as a way for Presidential candidates to pander to Iowa farmers so as to improve their performance in the Iowa caucuses.

Biodiesel is another matter, and unlike Cassidy, other proposals to eliminate the ethanol mandate do not eliminate a biodiesel mandate, which is the path that I favor.

Run Away from These People

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On a web site dedicated to people who do consumer electrical work, someone posits that Tesla’s new home battery packs will force homes to go voltage DC current. This is absolutely and completely wrong, because fails to get even a single fact right, as would be clear to anyone who knew the most basic physics:

CE pros might be sitting in the proverbial catbird seat when it comes to the future of wiring homes.

 With the solar revolution seemingly in full swing all across the nation, consumers are enamored with “going off the grid.” And many homeowners are counting on home batteries to be the next phase of their off-the-grid plans. Companies likes Tesla and RoseWater Energy Group are leading the way in the development of these new power storage devices for homes.

 But if the battery power trend takes off, it must lead to a new paradigm in which homes will be powered more with low voltage wiring than line voltage electrical, according to a blog by CE veteran Paul Self on Buildz.com.

Indeed, will the pure science limitations of AC/DC conversion eventually force a gigantic sea change from builders, electricians and the National Electric Code itself in the way homes are constructed and wired? The answer is “Yes” that might have to happen, says Self.

Here is Self’s logic: [Or more accurately, here are his completely incoherent thoughts]

“An underlying issue with solar power and the Tesla battery is the fact that they run on DC while the power infrastructure in buildings is AC. Stepping power up and down from AC to DC and vice-versa wastes energy, about 20 percent is lost in the conversion. Some converters do a better job than others, but resolving this 20 percent loss is very important when working on a battery stored energy supply.

Ummmm. No. Inverters operate at efficiencies of about 95% at their design points, and if you are connected to the grid, as Tesla envisions, you will only use the inverter .

Many devices in a home could run on DC. Almost all non-incandescent light bulbs can run on DC and require a transformer to step the 110 VAC down to a 12 – 5 VDC signal for the bulb.

No. The a fluorescent light ballast operates as follows: It uses a transformer to jump UP the voltage (not down), then rectifies it to DC, and then uses an inverter (square wave, because unlike motors, that is fine for gas tubes) to hop the frequency from 60hz in the wall, to 1+ Khz to eliminate flicker.  (For incandescents, it’s not an issue, because even as the AC current goes through them they hot.  CFLs are generating lights from individual sparks).

Other devices like computers, TVs, cable boxes, and cell phone chargers all operate similarly.

No again. They cannot use line current, they need to condition the power, and it is easier to do this with AC current.

Appliances like electric ovens, electric water heaters, and air conditioners will require 110VAC, but most of the house is on DC.
Let me paint you a picture.

They reacquire 110VAC because they are high power, and at low voltage, the amperage, and wire size go through the roof. (Details follow)

  • Sun generates 12VDC via the solar panel

Yes, a panel will generate relative low voltage DC, but if arranged in series, you can generate 100s of volts, and have smaller and cheaper wiring with less transmission losses.

  • Solar panels push power to a battery

Again, note arranging in series. In their cars, for example, Tesla battery packs operate at DC voltages between 250V and 425V.

  • The battery or the solar panel push 12VDC to a DC to AC converter (20% loss of power).

From an info page for an inverter for solar vendor

Again. Inverters are around 95% efficient these days.

  • AC is distributed throughout the house

  • Many devices then convert the power BACK to DC (20% loss of power)

Again, the efficiencies of rectifiers is about 95%, not 80%, and the devices that have to convert it back to DC would have to do so anyway, because power from the batteries is not as uniform as their electronics requires.

  • This all seems pretty silly to lose this much power. I am sure it is less than a cumulative loss of 40 percent power, but when your trying to free yourself of the power company, this really adds up.

Also note that he knows no math.  Two devices operating at a 20% loss (80% efficiency) would give us losses of 80% x 80% = 64%; 100% -64% = 36%.

This guy cannot even do basic multiplication.

You know what also “really ads up”?

Copper.

Let’s take a 40 W light bulb.

Power is Voltage x Current = V x I, so for a 120V source, the current is ⅓ amp. For his 12 Volt DC system, the current would be 3⅓ amps, 10 times more current.

You can also express power in terms of current and resistance, P=I2R, so losses in transmission would go through the roof.

Well, they would, except if you look up the charts, it turns out for a typical (I chose 50 feet) length, the DC wiring has much lower resistance, because it is much thicker.

How much thicker? Well the table for wiring for 12VDC gives us 6 Ga wire, and the worksheet for 120VAC gives us 14 Ga wire, and the wire gauge size table gives us conductor diameters of 0.17″ and 0.064″ respectively.

That is a lot of copper you end up paying for, and for many applications.

He also ignores the fact that DC Motors (the kind with brushes) are less efficient, run hotter, and wear out more quickly.

The motor on your furnace, and dryer, and washing machine, are typically induction motors, that operate directly off of  your house current, and with a DC house you would need inverters for the motors.  (So called “Brushless DC motors” contain their own power circuitry linked to an induction motor).

If you see this guy, do not let him near your electronics.  He will kill himself, or kill you, or set your house on fire.

Note that I am NOT an electrical engineer, though I got the basics in school, but this is so ignorant, and so wrong, that I felt compelled to Fisk this bit of  bovine scatology.

H/T /.

      Live in Obedient Fear, Citizen!

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      It appears that the acting as the private security firm for TransCanada:

      Unexpected visitors have been dropping in on anti-oil activists in the United States — knocking on doors, calling, texting, contacting family members.

       The visitors are federal agents.

       Opponents of Canadian oil say they’ve been contacted by FBI investigators in several states following their involvement in protests that delayed northbound shipments of equipment to Canada’s oilsands.

       A lawyer working with the protesters says he’s personally aware of a dozen people having been contacted in the northwestern U.S. and says the actual number is probably higher.

       Larry Hildes says it’s been happening the last few months in Washington State, Oregon and Idaho. He says one person got a visit at work, after having already refused to answer questions.

       “They appear to be interested in actions around the tarsands and the Keystone XL pipeline,” Hildes said in an interview.

       “It’s always the same line: ‘We’re not doing criminal investigations, you’re not accused of any crime. But we’re trying to learn more about the movement.“’

       He’s advised activists not to talk — and they mostly haven’t. That lack of communication has made it a little complicated to figure out what, exactly, the FBI is looking for.

       The bureau hasn’t offered too many clues.

       ………

       Is anti-oilsands activity an actual focus of the FBI investigation, or is it merely incidental? The bureau won’t say.

       What it will say is that it only investigates potential crimes, not political movements.

       “The FBI has the authority to conduct an investigation when it has reasonable grounds to believe that an individual has engaged in criminal activity or is planning to do so,” said FBI spokeswoman Ayn Dietrich.

       “This authority is based on the illegal activity, not on the individual’s political views.”

       But activists say oil sands opposition appears to be the common thread among people being contacted. Police have been in touch with people from different groups, who in some cases don’t agree on much, but one thing they share is mutual participation in the so-called megaload protests.

      Why is the FBI acting as TransCanada’s Pinkertons?

      At what level is this being authorized?

      More Evidence on Lead and Crime

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      Remember the red barns?

      Do you know why they were red?

      Because iron oxide (rust) was the only pigment readily available in many rural areas.

      It was mixed with locally produced linseed oil, and then applied.

      In the late 1800s, this changed with the building of the railroads, and changes in in both transportation and paints, allowed the use of white paint.

      It allowed other pigments to be distributed, and the red barn became the white barn through the use of white lead (Lead oxide, these days white pigment is most commonly titanium dioxide) which appears to have created a surge in murders in rural areas:

      Here’s a fascinating little anecdote about lead and crime from a recent paper by Rick Nevin. It shouldn’t be taken as proof of anything, but it’s certainly an intriguing little historical tidbit about the association between lead exposure and increases in crime rates.

      Here’s the background. Homicides increased dramatically between 1900-11, but most of that appears to be the result of increased rural homicides, not urban homicides. If lead exposure is part of the reason, it would mean that rural areas were exposed to increasing levels of lead about 20 years earlier, around 1880 or so. But why? Nevin suggests that the answer to this question starts with another question: Why are barns red?

      Professional painters in the 1800s prepared house paint by mixing linseed oil with white lead paste. About 90% of Americans lived in rural areas in the mid-1800s, and subsistence farmers could make linseed (flaxseed) oil, but few had access to white lead, so they mixed linseed oil with red rust to kill fungi that trapped moisture and increased wood decay. Red barns are still a tradition in most USA farming regions but white barns are the norm along the path of the old National Road. Why?

      ….The reason the red barn tradition never took root along that path is likely because the National Road made freight, including white lead, accessible to nearby farmers. USA lead output was a relatively stable 1000 to 2000 tons per year from 1801-1825, but lead output was 15,000 to 30,000 tons per year from the mid-1830s through the mid-1860s after the completion of the National Road.

      ….The first American patent for “ready-mixed” paint was filed in 1867; railroads built almost 120,000 track miles from 1850 to 1900; and Sears Roebuck and other mail-order catalogs combined volume buying, railroad transport, and rural free parcel post delivery to provide economical rural access to a wide variety of products in the 1890s.

      The murder arrest rate in large cities was more than seven times the national homicide rate from 1900-1904 because lead paint in the 1870s was available in large cities but unavailable in most rural areas. The early-1900s convergence in rural and urban murder rates was presaged by a late-1800s convergence in rural and urban lead paint exposure.

      In short, lead paint simply wasn’t available in most rural areas before the 1880s except in very narrow corridors with good transportation. You can see this in the prevalence of white barns along the National Road. Then, starting in the 1880s, revolutions in both rail transport and mail order distribution made economical lead paint available almost everywhere—including rural areas. A couple of decades later, homicide rates had skyrocketed in rural areas and had nearly caught up to urban murder rates.

      (Emphasis original)

      I live in a white barn area, Maryland.  In fact, there is a lot of a lot of painted white brick here too.

      It would explain why different police and law enforcement policies all achieved similar success in crime reduction in the 1990s.

      Lead became a mainstream additive to commercial gasoline in the mid 1930s, and 25 years later we saw a spike in violent crime.

      Lead became widely used in rural communities in paint in the 1870s, and 25 years later, we saw a spike in violent crime.

      Lead was reduced in gasoline in the early 1970s, and banned in paint, and 25 years later, we see a drop in violent crime across the country, and different tactics used by law enforcement agencies appear to have (at best) minimal effects on this.

      I think that the ink spilled over things like broken windows policing and community policing are more an attempt to take credit where none is due than anything else.

      Live in Obedient Fear, Citizen, Eh?

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      Up in the Great White North, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has determined anti-fossile fuel activists are a terrorism threats:

      The RCMP has labelled the “anti-petroleum” movement as a growing and violent threat to Canada’s security, raising fears among environmentalists that they face increased surveillance, and possibly worse, under the Harper government’s new terrorism legislation.

      In highly charged language that reflects the government’s hostility toward environmental activists, an RCMP intelligence assessment warns that foreign-funded groups are bent on blocking oil sands expansion and pipeline construction, and that the extremists in the movement are willing to resort to violence.

      “There is a growing, highly organized and well-financed anti-Canada petroleum movement that consists of peaceful activists, militants and violent extremists who are opposed to society’s reliance on fossil fuels,” concludes the report which is stamped “protected/Canadian eyes only” and is dated Jan. 24, 2014. The report was obtained by Greenpeace.

      “If violent environmental extremists engage in unlawful activity, it jeopardizes the health and safety of its participants, the general public and the natural environment.”

      The government has tabled Bill C-51, which provides greater power to the security agencies to collect information on and disrupt the activities of suspected terrorist groups. While Prime Minister Stephen Harper has identified the threat as violent extremists motivated by radical Islamic views, the legislation would also expand the ability of government agencies to infiltrate environmental groups on the suspicion that they are promoting civil disobedience or other criminal acts to oppose resource projects.

      It’s pretty clear that the RCMP report was done at the instigation of the government, not the other way around.

      It’s also pretty clear that Harper is a nasty piece of work, at least by Canadian standards.

      I Doubt his Motives, but I Approve the Action

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      New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has banned fracking in New York state:

      Finally, New York is about to ban fracking.

      In a long-awaited decision, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the state will not move forward with high volume hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, because of the threat it poses to air, water and public health.

      The governor’s been hedging on the issue since 2012, when his administration first undertook a health impact review. At a public year-end cabinet meeting Wednesday, New York state Acting Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker provided an overview of what he said could be ”significant health risks” from the oil and gas extraction process, which has been prevented in the state under a temporary moratorium put in place in 2008.

      “Would I live in a community [with fracking] based on the facts I have now?” Zucker asked. “Would I let my child play in a school field nearby, drink water from the tap or grow vegetables from the soil? My answer is no.”

      He concluded, “I cannot support high-volume hydraulic fracturing in the great state of New York.”

      I cannot help but assume that there is a crass self-serving reason behind this, because, well, it’s Andrew Cuomo.

      Still, it was the right decision.

      I Guess You Cannot Buy an Election if You Blow Up the Town ……… Twice Thrice

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      Richmond, California, whose town is dominated by a Chevron oil refinery, had local elections, and Chevron’s dumping $3 million into the race netted them nothing:

      Richmond voters handed Chevron a resounding rejection in Tuesday’s election, defeating all four candidates supported by the oil giant despite Chevron outspending its opponents by a 20-to-1 margin.

      Voters elected City Councilman Tom Butt as mayor and outgoing mayor Gayle McLaughlin, incumbent Jovanka Beckles and retired teacher Eduardo Martinez to the City Council, giving the panel a potential 6-1 left-leaning majority.

      “It’s extraordinary. This is a celebration of democracy,” said San Francisco State political science Professor Robert Smith, who studies Richmond politics. “This means that big money doesn’t always win, that ordinary people can defeat huge corporate power.”

      Chevron spent more than $3 million supporting Charles Ramsey, Donna Powers and Albert Martinez for council, and longtime Councilman Nat Bates for mayor. Butt won with 51.4 percent of the votes, with Bates trailing at 35.5 percent.

      Seeing as how that refinery has had fires and explosions in 1989, 1999, and 2012, (along with a long history of toxic emissions, and litigation over taxes, which Chevron lost) and the fact that the Richmond City Council was working on a lawsuit over the last fire, it’s pretty clear what this massive dump of election cash was about getting a “friendly” city council.

      Unfortunately, I cannot see how this could be applied more general.

      I’ll Believe It When I See It

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      Commercial fusion has been just 15 years away for the past 50 years, so I am necessarily skeptical of Lockheed Martin’s claims of a fusion break through: (Paid subscription required)

      Hidden away in the secret depths of the Skunk Works, a Lockheed Martin research team has been working quietly on a nuclear energy concept they believe has the potential to meet, if not eventually decrease, the world’s insatiable demand for power.

      Dubbed the compact fusion reactor (CFR), the device is conceptually safer, cleaner and more powerful than much larger, current nuclear systems that rely on fission, the process of splitting atoms to release energy. Crucially, by being “compact,” Lockheed believes its scalable concept will also be small and practical enough for applications ranging from interplanetary spacecraft and commercial ships to city power stations. It may even revive the concept of large, nuclear-powered aircraft that virtually never require refueling—ideas of which were largely abandoned more than 50 years ago because of the dangers and complexities involved with nuclear fission reactors.

      ………

      Until now, the majority of fusion reactor systems have used a plasma control device called a tokamak, invented in the 1950s by physicists in the Soviet Union. The tokamak uses a magnetic field to hold the plasma in the shape of a torus, or ring, and maintains the reaction by inducing a current inside the plasma itself with a second set of electromagnets. The challenge with this approach is that the resulting energy generated is almost the same as the amount required to maintain the self-sustaining fusion reaction.

      An advanced fusion reactor version, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), being built in Cadarache, France, is expected to generate 500 MW. However, plasma is not due to be generated until the late 2020s, and derivatives are not likely to be producing significant power until at least the 2040s.

      The problem with tokamaks is that “they can only hold so much plasma, and we call that the beta limit,” McGuire says. Measured as the ratio of plasma pressure to the magnetic pressure, the beta limit of the average tokamak is low, or about “5% or so of the confining pressure,” he says. Comparing the torus to a bicycle tire, McGuire adds, “if they put too much in, eventually their confining tire will fail and burst—so to operate safely, they don’t go too close to that.” Aside from this inefficiency, the physics of the tokamak dictate huge dimensions and massive cost. The ITER, for example, will cost an estimated $50 billion and when complete will measure around 100 ft. high and weigh 23,000 tons.

      The CFR will avoid these issues by tackling plasma confinement in a radically different way. Instead of constraining the plasma within tubular rings, a series of superconducting coils will generate a new magnetic-field geometry in which the plasma is held within the broader confines of the entire reaction chamber. Superconducting magnets within the coils will generate a magnetic field around the outer border of the chamber. “So for us, instead of a bike tire expanding into air, we have something more like a tube that expands into an ever-stronger wall,” McGuire says. The system is therefore regulated by a self-tuning feedback mechanism, whereby the farther out the plasma goes, the stronger the magnetic field pushes back to contain it. The CFR is expected to have a beta limit ratio of one. “We should be able to go to 100% or beyond,” he adds.

      This crucial difference means that for the same size, the CFR generates more power than a tokamak by a factor of 10. This in turn means, for the same power output, the CFR can be 10 times smaller. The change in scale is a game-changer in terms of producibility and cost, explains McGuire. “It’s one of the reasons we think it is feasible for development and future economics,” he says. “Ten times smaller is the key. But on the physics side, it still has to work, and one of the reasons we think our physics will work is that we’ve been able to make an inherently stable configuration.” One of the main reasons for this stability is the positioning of the superconductor coils and shape of the magnetic field lines. “In our case, it is always in balance. So if you have less pressure, the plasma will be smaller and will always sit in this magnetic well,” he notes.

      These are nice claims, but the only measurable claim that I can see is they might be a smaller and more compact installation. They may actually be onto something, or they may not. What I do know is that there have been claims that a fusion breakthrough is just around the corner for a very time, and their caveats lead me to believe that much of they are implying a level of maturity:

      With just such a “Holy Grail” breakthrough seemingly within its grasp, and to help achieve a potentially paradigm-shifting development in global energy, Lockheed has made public its project with the aim of attracting partners, resources and additional researchers.

      When a fusion prototype exceeds break even to the degree that it can function as a power station, I’ll find it worth my while to look at the relative virtues of different configurations.

      Until that point, I will assume that fusion claims of this nature are humbug.

      Sucks to be British Petroleum Right Now

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      Bummer of a birth mark, BP

      A federal judge has ruled that not only was BP negligent,  BP was grossly negligent in the Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill.

      This has the effect of increasing their fines by a factor of 4:

      In the four years since the blowout on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed 11 workers and sent millions of barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, BP has spent more than $28 billion on damage claims and cleanup costs, pleaded guilty to criminal charges and emerged a shrunken giant.

      But through it all, the company has maintained that it was not chiefly responsible for the accident, and that its contractors in the operation, Halliburton and Transocean, should shoulder as much, if not more, of the blame.

      On Thursday, a federal judge here for the first time bluntly rejected those arguments, finding that BP was indeed the primary culprit and that only it had acted with “conscious disregard of known risks.” He added that BP’s “conduct was reckless.”

      By finding that BP was, in legal parlance, grossly negligent in the disaster, and not merely negligent, United States District Court Judge Carl J. Barbier opened the possibility of $18 billion in new civil penalties for BP, nearly quadruple the maximum Clean Water Act penalty for simple negligence and far more than the $3.5 billion the company has set aside.

      Note, however, even at $18 billion, that is less than last year’s profits, which were just under $24 billion.

      It ain’t enough.

      Europe is About to Go Pear Shaped

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      Both the Europeans and the Ukrainians are going to have a long ans cold winter.

      While it is clear that the hostilities between the Ukraine and Russia would put a crimp in gas supplies, it turns out that the current billing dispute is almost certainly going to be a bigger problem.

      You see, the Ukrainian Government has taken the dispute to arbitration, and any deal that they might cut with the Russians could be used against Gazprom in that proceedings:

      But let’s not get into that again today. In the slipstream of the talks this weekend in Minsk between Putin and Poroshenko, a precious little detail seems to have escaped the western press entirely. But I think all our fine journalists will soon have to address it.
      You may remember that in an earlier phase of the dispute between Ukraine and Russia (not to be confused with the Kiev vs rebels fight), no agreement was reached on the payment of a $4.5 billion gas bill that Russian Gazprom said was overdue from Ukraine’s Naftogaz. And Gazprom demanded pre-payment for any future gas deliveries to Ukraine.

       Kiev, instead of paying the bill, claimed Russia had overcharged it for the already delivered gas, by $6 billion, going back to 2010. And brought its argument before the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.

       Now maybe, just maybe, someone in the Kiev camp should have paused right before that moment, and consulted with their western backers in Brussels and Washington. Perhaps not so much Washington, but Brussels for sure, and Berlin. And Athens. Rome. Prague. Warsaw.

      ou see, a pending case before the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce can apparently take 12-15 months to resolve. And perhaps Europe doesn’t have that much time. Which is what Putin hinted at at a press-op he did after the weekend Minsk talks. What it comes down is that even if Russia wanted to accommodate Ukraine, it can’t. On strictly legal terms, nothing political.

       What’s more, Gazprom had already paid Naftogaz in advance for the use of Ukraine pipelines, but the payment was returned. And that can have grave consequences not just for Kiev, but for almost all of Europe. Lots of countries get their gas through these pipelines.

       It looks like the EU, and especially Germany, has started to smell – potential – trouble:
      EU Suggests Russia, Ukraine Sign Interim Gas Agreement

      The E.U. has suggested an interim agreement on the gas supplies between Russia and Ukraine without waiting for a Stockholm arbitrary court decision, E.U. Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger said in a news conference following his meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko late Tuesday Two cases are before the Stockholm court, but the hearings will take 12-15 months, which is too long, while Europe needs an interim solution for this winter, Oettinger said In June, Russian gas giant Gazprom switched Ukraine off gas over the unpaid debt and filed a $4.5 billion suit to the Stockholm arbitration court. Later, Kiev reciprocated by sending a suit to the court against Gazprom for making Ukraine overpay $6 billion for gas since 2010, setting too high prices in its contract.

      The Russian Legal Information Agency has this:

      Putin: Naftogaz Suit Against Gazprom Axes Discount For Ukraine

      The fact that Ukraine’s Naftogaz has invoked arbitration proceedings against Gazprom prevents Russia from giving Ukraine a gas price discount, President Vladimir Putin said in Minsk where he met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. “We cannot even consider any preference solutions for Ukraine since it pursues arbitration,” Putin said. “Russia’s possible actions in this sphere could be used against it in the court. We couldn’t do it even if we wanted to.” After Gazprom switched to a prepayment system for gas deliveries to Ukraine on June 16, Naftogaz turned to the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. Naftogaz wants Gazprom to cut the price for gas and to get back $6 billion that Ukraine has allegedly overpaid since 2010.

      Gazprom in turn is seeking to recover Ukraine’s $4.5 billion debt for gas deliveries. Putin said Russia offered a compromise solution during the talks held before Gazprom switched to the prepayment scheme. “We reduced the price by $100,” Russian President said. Gas talks between Russia, Ukraine and the European Union went on from April to mid-June. Kiev said it would not repay its $4.5 billion debt unless Russia agreed to supply gas at a lower price. Russia offered a discount, but Ukraine turned down the offer. Russia then said it would only resume gas supply talks after Ukraine paid off its debt.

      More signs of German nerves are here in a piece from the European Council on Foreign Relations – I kid you not, they exist -, along with a nice but curious admission:

       Has Germany Sidelined Poland In Ukraine Crisis Negotiations?

      As Germany takes over leadership of the European Union’s efforts to solve the Ukrainian crisis, Poland is questioning the motivations and strategies behind Berlin’s new diplomatic activism. The initiatives of German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Angela Merkel are being followed closely in Warsaw – and often with mixed feelings. Is Berlin trying to mastermind a compromise with Russia on Moscow’s terms, ignoring Kyiv’s vital interests? And as Poland is increasingly edged out of the conflict resolution process, has Berlin-Warsaw co-operation on EU Ostpolitik broken down?

      As an aside, if I were trying to make sure that there wasn’t someone actively trying not to be a turd in the punchbowl in negotiations with Russia, I would sideline Poland as well.

      The (historically justified) political culture of Poland, and many other former Warsaw Pact nations is such that they are more driven a desire for payback than a realistic evaluation of their long-term interests.

      Poland was, along with France and Germany, one of the countries that orchestrated the political shift in Ukraine in February. Since then, Warsaw has played a central role in forging a bolder EU response to Russia’s aggression and in providing meaningful assistance to the Ukrainian government. However, as the conflict has worsened, Warsaw has become less visible as an actor in crisis diplomacy. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski was not invited to join his German, French, Russian, and Ukrainian counterparts in the negotiations on conflict resolution held in Berlin in early July and early August. Before Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to meet at the Customs Union summit in Minsk on 26 August, the idea had been floated of holding another high-level meeting in the “Normandy format” of France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine.

      Kiev is either so high on the EU, US and NATO support it was promised, or so desperate over its latest battlefield losses, that it goes for all on red, probably thinking, and probably rightly so, that the western press will swallow anything whole. Tyler Durden:

      Ukraine Accuses Russia Of Imminent Gas Cut-Off, Russia Denies, Germans Anxious

      So much for the Russia-Ukraine talks bringing the two sides together as even Germany’s Steinmeier could only say it’s “hard to say if breakthrough made.” Shortly after talks ended, Ukrainian Premier Yatsenyuk stated unequivocally that “we know about the plans of Russia to cut off transit even in European Union member countries,” followed by some notably heavy-on-the-war-rhetoric comments. The Russians were quick to respond, as the energy ministry was “surprised” by his statements on Ukraine gas transits and blasted that comments were an “attempt at EU disinformation.”

      Here’s what Putin said at the press op after the talks:

       Answers To Journalists’ Questions Following Working Visit To Belarus

      Currently, we are in a deadlock on the gas issue. You see, this is very serious matter for us, for Ukraine and for our European partners. It is no big secret that Gazprom has advanced payment for the transit of our gas to Europe. Ukraine’s Naftogaz has returned that advance payment. The transit of our gas to European consumers was just about suspended. What will happen next? This is a question that awaits a painstaking investigation by our European and Ukrainian partners.

      We are fulfilling all the terms of the contract in full. Right now, we cannot even accept any suggestions regarding preferential terms, given that Ukraine has appealed to the Arbitration Court. Any of our actions to provide preferential terms can be used in the court. We were deprived of this opportunity, even if we had wanted it, although we already tried to meet them halfway and reduced the price by $100.

      The ball is squarely in the western court. Of course many will think and hope that Russia will give in because it needs the revenue, but the problem with that is it could cost the country too much (admittedly, that’s not the only problem). $6 billion to Ukraine for starters, then potentially many more billions on future deliveries to Kiev, and then there’s the rest of its contracts with two dozen or so European nations.

      From a legal point of view, this may not be about what Moscow wants to do anymore, but about what it can. The Arbitration Court case may have tied its hands. And unless Europe wants a cold winter, it must seek a solution. Putin, who holds degrees in both judo AND law, understands this. But he didn’t set this up. Western and Kiev hubris did. Certain people got first too pleased with, and then ahead of, themselves.

      BTW, I also learned another reason that the Russians do not like the EU deal, it has the effect of severely curtailing Russian exports to the Ukraine:

      Putin pointed to another rather difficult but highly interesting legal ‘technicality’ as well, which involves Ukraine moving closer to the EU economically:

      We once again pointed out to our partners – both European and Ukrainian partners – that implementation of the association agreement between Ukraine and the EU carries significant risks for the Russian economy. We have shown this in the text of the agreement, directly pointing to specific articles in that agreement. Let me remind you that this concerns nullifying Ukraine’s customs tariffs, technical regulations, and phytosanitary standards.

      The standards in Russia and Europe currently do not correspond. But, as you recall, the most classic example is the introduction of EU technical regulations in Ukraine. In that case, we would not be able to supply our goods to Ukraine at all. We have different technical standards. And according to the European Union’s standards, we will not be able to supply our machine-building products there, or any industrial goods. If that happens, we cannot accept Ukrainian agricultural production goods in our territory, because we have different approaches to phytosanitary standards. We feel that many problems would occur.

      If we do not achieve any agreements and our concerns are not taken into account, then we will be forced to take measures to protect our economy. And we explained what those measures would be. So our partners must weigh everything and make corresponding decisions.

      So, even the EU actions, which were far less bellicose than those of the US State Department, begin to look more and more like a deliberately hostile act, even without considering the traditional Russian paranoia and xenophobia.

      I think that Putin considers this a nearly existential threat to Russia, and he is responding accordingly.

      H/t naked capitalism.

      BTW, just to throw some more fuel on the fire, the Ukrainian PM just announced he will pursue NATO membership:

      On Aug. 29, the Ukrainian prime minister said he will pursue NATO membership for his nation by asking parliament to overturn a law banning foreign alliances.

      Separately, the NATO secretary general said Russia is undertaking direct military operations designed to destabilize the Ukraine—and that NATO will “fully respect” any change in the Ukraine’s non-aligned status. He made the comments today after an extraordinary meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission held at the Ukraine’s request.

      ………

      “The Ukrainian government is submitting a bill to parliament on the abolition of the non-aligned status of the Ukrainian state and on the resumption of Ukraine’s course towards NATO membership,” Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said in an announcement.

      Ukrainian law forbids the nation from forming alliances that would economically or politically entangle the country with the Russian Federation. Overturning this law would remove any legal barriers from Ukraine joining NATO, a goal which the alliance has said it supports.

      This is stupidly and provocative.

      We are going to see a war in Europe in the next few years, the only question is whether it will be cold, or hot.

      We Learned Nothing from the California Energy Crisis

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      It’s Enron all over again, as energy traders loot the ratepayers through the magic of the market:

      By 10 a.m. the heat was closing in on the North Shore of Long Island. But 300 miles down the seaboard, at an obscure investment company near Washington, the forecast pointed to something else: profit.

      As the temperatures climbed toward the 90s here and air-conditioners turned on, the electric grid struggled to meet the demand. By midafternoon, the wholesale price of electricity had jumped nearly 550 percent.

      What no one here knew that day, May 30, 2013, was that the investment company, DC Energy, was reaping rewards from the swelter. Within 48 hours the firm, based in Vienna, Va., had made more than $1.5 million by cashing in on so-called congestion contracts, complex financial instruments that gain value when the grid becomes overburdened, according to an analysis of trading data by The New York Times.

      Those profits are a small fraction of the fortune that traders at DC Energy and elsewhere have pocketed because of maneuvers involving the nation’s congested grid. Over the last decade, DC Energy has made about $180 million in New York State alone, The Times found.

      ………

      The contracts were intended to protect the electricity producers, utilities and industries that need to buy power. The thinking was that the contracts would help them hedge against sharp price swings caused by competition as well as the weather, plant failures or equipment problems. Those lower costs could reduce consumers’ bills.

      But Wall Street banks and other investors have stepped in, siphoning off much of the money. In New York, DC Energy accounted for more than a quarter of the total $639 million in profits in the congestion markets between 2003 and 2013, The Times found. Some of DC Energy’s biggest paydays involved Port Jefferson, a village 60 miles east of Manhattan. Because of the geography of the grid, moving power from one point to another means demand often briefly outstrips supply here.

      “Why aren’t we getting that money?” said Margot Garant, mayor of Port Jefferson. City officials, including the mayor, had not heard of DC Energy before they were told about it by The Times.

      DC Energy — and its profits — are an unexpected result of the deregulation of the nation’s electric grid. The idea behind deregulation was to eliminate old monopolies and create robust, competitive markets that would encourage investment and ultimately lower costs for consumers. But in most places, electricity bills have been rising, not falling. While fuel prices, taxes and fees have added directly to the costs, Wall Street-style traders have contributed in subtle ways by turning new markets, like the trading of congestion contracts, to their advantage, The Times analysis found.

      The contracts have attracted big money: More than $2 billion has been invested nationwide in the monthly auctions for contracts since 2011, according to Platts, a trade publication.

      This is ALWAYS what happens when the decision is made to use the magic of the market instead of regulators.

      The banksters figure out a way do rape us like a bunch of passed out sorority girls.

      This sort of inherently parasitic behavior is what gave Timothy Geithner an erection when he waxes nostalgic about the increasing financialization of our economy.

      The Koch Suckers Win in Ohio

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      They just got a bill passed in Ohio ending their renewable power initiative:

      As renewable energy production has surged in recent years, opponents of government policies that have helped spur its growth have pushed to roll back those incentives and mandates in state after state.

      On Wednesday, they claimed their first victory, when Ohio lawmakers voted to freeze the phasing-in of power that utilities must buy from renewable energy sources.

      The bill, which passed the Ohio House of Representatives, 54 to 38, was expected to be signed into law by Gov. John R. Kasich, who helped negotiate its final draft.

      It stands in marked contrast to the broad consensus behind the original law in 2008, when it was approved with virtually no opposition, and comes after considerable disagreement among lawmakers, energy executives and public interest groups.

      ………

      Eli Miller, Americans for Prosperity’s Ohio state director, backed by the billionaire industrialists David H. and Charles G. Koch, called the proposed law “a prudent step” to re-examine standards that could be a “potential impediment to job creation and job growth here in the Buckeye State.”

      Seriously, the Kochs are a cancer on American society in general, and American politics in particular.