Hoeveel fossiele brandstoffen ongeëxploiteerd om onder 1,5 °C temperatuurstijging te blijven?

[Olive Yao]

.
Nationalize the U.S. fossil fuel industry to save the Planet

Robert Pollin, The American Prospect zaterdag 8 april 2022


Turning the biggest oil companies over to public ownership would serve several goals at once, including climate resilience.

Even as Vladimir Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine proceeds and concerns over the subsequent high gas prices proliferate, we cannot forget that the climate crisis remains a dire emergency. The latest report of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—the most authoritative source on climate change research—could not be more explicit in reaching this conclusion. U.N. Secretary General António Guterres described the report as a “file of shame, cataloguing the empty pledges that put us firmly on track towards an unlivable world.” This follows several equally vehement studies in recent years, as well as those from other credible climate researchers.

If we are finally going to start taking the IPCC’s findings seriously, it follows that we must begin advancing far more aggressive climate stabilization solutions than anything that has been undertaken thus far, both within the U.S. and globally. Within the U.S., such measures should include at least putting on the table the idea of nationalizing the U.S. fossil fuel industry.

One specific way to proceed would entail the federal government purchasing controlling ownership of at least the three dominant U.S. oil and gas corporations: ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips. We could start with these giants because they are far larger and more powerful than all the U.S. coal companies combined, as well as all of the smaller U.S. oil and gas companies. The cost to the government to purchase majority ownership of these three oil giants would be about $420 billion at current stock market prices. This is a formidable sum, but it is only slightly more than 10 percent of the roughly $4 trillion that the Federal Reserve authorized to spend to bail out the corporate sector in 2020, during the COVID lockdown and recession.

The main argument for nationalizing the U.S. oil giants is straightforward. The single most important factor causing climate change is that we continue to burn oil, natural gas, and coal to produce energy. It follows that we must stop burning fossil fuels to have any chance of moving the global economy onto a viable climate stabilization path. By contrast, the purpose of private fossil fuel companies in the U.S. and elsewhere is precisely to make profits from selling oil, coal, and natural gas, no matter the consequences for the planet and regardless of how the companies may present themselves in various high-gloss, soft-focus PR campaigns.

With at least ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips under public control, the necessary phaseout of fossil fuels as an energy source could advance in an orderly fashion. The government could determine fossil fuel energy production levels and prices to reflect both the needs of consumers and the requirements of the clean-energy transition. This transition could also be structured to provide maximum support for the workers and communities that are presently dependent on fossil fuel companies for their well-being.

Oil Profits and Inflation

Our current bout with high inflation provides only the most recent reminder of the absolutely central role played by oil companies in the U.S. economy’s operations. Overall, inflation in February of this year was up to 7.9 percent, a 40-year high. The increase in retail energy prices alone accounted for roughly two percentage points (or 24 percent) of the overall inflation rate. The main specific drivers, in turn, of rising energy costs were the spikes in gasoline and fuel oil prices. As of April 4, the average price for gasoline at the pump increased over the past year from $2.85 to $4.17 per gallon, a nearly 50 percent rise.

It is true that the oil companies were clobbered during the initial COVID lockdown months, as energy demand collapsed. The price of gasoline bottomed out at $1.73 per gallon in April 2020, a 23 percent fall from the pre-COVID level. The stock prices of the three U.S. oil giants fell by nearly 50 percent during this brief period.

But such misfortunes were short-lived. The companies have been flourishing since COVID restrictions have eased. As of this writing in early April, the stock prices of the three big oil companies were nearly 60 percent higher than their pre-COVID levels. Their outsized profits are coming from the pockets of U.S. consumers paying $4.17 instead of $2.85 for a gallon of gasoline.

And yet, if we are going to take the climate emergency seriously, we cannot advocate for gasoline prices to fall back to pre-COVID levels. On behalf of saving the planet, we actually need all fossil fuel prices to remain high, and indeed, if anything, to increase still further. This is because high prices for oil, as well as for natural gas and coal, will discourage consumers from buying fossil fuels to meet their energy needs. Correspondingly, high fossil fuel prices will incentivize efforts to build a new energy infrastructure, whose two pillars will be high efficiency and renewable energy, in particular solar and wind power. A high-efficiency, renewable energy-dominant infrastructure will, among other things, deliver cheaper energy than our current fossil fuel–dominant system.

But that cannot happen in an instant. In the meantime, we cannot allow working-class and middle-class people to experience cuts in their living standards right now through high fossil fuel prices, while oil companies’ profits explode. How can we effectively address these equally valid, though competing, considerations?

Some straightforward solutions are readily at hand, at least on paper, while recognizing that the fossil fuel companies will vehemently oppose all of them. One approach being considered in Congress now is a “windfall tax” on the oil companies’ current level of outsized profits. In the Senate version of this measure introduced by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), the oil companies would be taxed at half the difference between the current retail oil prices and the average pre-pandemic price between 2015 and 2019. Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Peter DeFazio (D-OR) have introduced similar proposals in the House.

The average pre-pandemic price of gasoline was $2.37 per gallon. Based on the current average market price of $4.17 per gallon, the Senate version of the tax would amount to 85 cents per gallon; the calculation is ($4.17 - $2.37)/2 = $0.90. This calculation assumes no further adjustment for inflation. Over a year, the tax would generate a total of about $137 billion, based on current gasoline consumption levels. These revenues would then be channeled into compensating consumers for the spike in their energy bills. Every U.S. resident would receive nearly $400 if revenues from the tax were distributed equally to everyone.

(...)

[Olive Yao]

.
Should Fossil Fuel Companies Be Profiting at All?

The Whitehouse version of the windfall profits tax does address all three of our competing matters of current concern. First, it takes back some of the oil companies’ excessive gains; second, it compensates consumers for their increased energy bills; and third, it does so without lowering gas prices. But thinking beyond the specific features of such windfall profits tax proposals raises a more basic question: Should the fossil fuel companies be permitted to profit at all through selling products that we know are destroying the planet? The logical answer has to be no. That is exactly why nationalizing at least the largest U.S. oil companies is the most appropriate action we can take now, in light of the climate emergency.

In assessing the merits of such an aggressive proposal, we need to recall that the current actions of the oil companies—prioritizing their profits over everything else—are nothing new. As is now well known, in 1982, researchers working at the then Exxon Corporation (now ExxonMobil) estimated that continuing to burn oil, coal, and natural gas to produce energy would generate exactly the types of massive climate disruptions that we are increasingly experiencing. We also know what Exxon did with this information—they buried it. They did so for the obvious reason that, if the information had become known, it would have threatened Exxon’s bottom line. There is no minimizing the fact that what Exxon did was immoral. But it is equally clear that the company behaved exactly according to their mission of protecting their profits above everything else.

Is Nationalization Realistic?

It is reasonable to conclude that nationalizing ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips is beyond the realm of current political feasibility. Yet it was only 13 years ago, in the depths of the 2007–2009 financial crisis and Great Recession, that the Obama administration nationalized two of the three U.S. auto companies, General Motors and Chrysler. The government purchased majority ownership of these two companies because they were about to fail. Their failure would have generated devastating ripple effects, most critically for the workers and communities whose livelihoods were dependent on these companies. The government also took majority ownership of the giant insurance firm AIG at the same time. The reason, again, was that failing to do so would produce huge social costs, especially for people who received no benefit whatsoever from the Wall Street excesses that preceded the crash.

More generally, the U.S. government has undertaken nationalizations in many periods when the need was apparent. As Thomas Hanna writes in his excellent “A History of Nationalization in the United States: 1917–2009”:

The United States actually has a long and rich tradition of nationalizing private enterprise, especially during times of economic and social crisis. Importantly, this approach has often been deployed when private companies are hindering national efforts to address a crisis (either through obstruction, incompetence, or incapacity). This history of nationalization … suggests that far from being a non-starter, a public takeover of the fossil fuel industry should be considered an eminently plausible and viable policy option for dealing with the … climate crisis.

The Green Transition and Nationalization

Advancing a viable climate stabilization program does not just entail phasing out fossil fuels. It equally requires investments to build a new clean energy–dominant infrastructure throughout the globe. This will be no small task, even while the overall level of investments required should amount to no more than about 2.5 percent of global GDP between now and 2050.

A nationalized U.S. fossil fuel industry could play a significant positive role in building the clean-energy infrastructure at the scale and speed we need. To begin with, the profits of nationalized fossil fuel firms could be channeled into energy efficiency and renewable-energy investments, as well as transitional support for the workers and communities that are dependent on the fossil fuel industry. In addition, with nationalization, the political obstacles that fossil fuel companies now throw up against public financing for clean-energy investments would be eliminated.

To date, fossil fuel companies and their army of congressional minions continue to block clean-energy funding at anywhere close to the levels needed. West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is only the most obvious case in point. In the most recent installment of a nearly yearlong saga, Manchin is insisting on quid pro quo funding for fossil fuel corporations—which happens to include his own personal business holdings—in exchange for a diminished level of clean-energy investment support relative to President Biden’s original Build Back Better proposal.

Amid such machinations, it is fair to ask why the fossil fuel companies do not see the handwriting on the wall and transition themselves into clean-energy suppliers, much like auto manufacturers are transitioning from building internal-combustion-engine cars to zero-emissions vehicles. The big oil companies’ PR campaigns insist that they are indeed actively committed to exactly this transition, but the facts speak otherwise. The reason for their resistance is that the oil companies continue to swim in money from their current business model, and correctly assess that a clean energy–dominant infrastructure will not afford them the same outsized profit opportunities. Within a clean–energy infrastructure, Big Oil will not be able to exercise anything like the level of monopoly power they now enjoy. As Tyler Hansen’s recent analysis on comparative levels of profitability in the overall energy industry concludes, “the fossil fuel industry, in general, has enjoyed substantially greater profit margins than the renewable energy industry over the past decade, and there is little reason to think that the renewable energy industry will catch up in the near future, at least without a major change in energy policy.”

Nationalization With Open Eyes

Even while recognizing this, we also need to understand that nationalizing ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, or even the entire private U.S. fossil fuel sector, is not a panacea. Publicly owned companies already control approximately 90 percent of the world’s fossil fuel reserves. These national corporations include, of course, Gazprom in Russia, but also Saudi Aramco, China National Petroleum Corporation, the National Iranian Oil Company, Petróleos de Venezuela, Petrobras in Brazil, and Petronas in Malaysia. None of these publicly owned companies operates with the same profit imperatives as big private energy corporations. But this does not mean that they are prepared to commit to fighting climate change simply because they are publicly owned enterprises.

Just as with private companies, producing and selling fos*sil fuel energy generates huge revenues for state-owned enterprises. National development projects, lucrative careers, and political power—including Russia’s capacity to finance its invasion of Ukraine—all depend on continuing the flow of large fos*sil fuel revenues. We should therefore not expect that, in and of itself, public ownership of the U.S. oil giants will provide favorable conditions for fighting climate change, any more than public ownership has done so already in Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, or Iran.

In the U.S. case, we also have to recognize that a nationalized oil industry operating under something akin to a second Trump presidency would likely destroy any of the benefits of taking the industry out of private ownership. Such an administration could, among other options, sell the public oil firms to cronies, reversing any benefits that would have accrued from nationalization.

All such threats are real. Nevertheless, the climate emergency requires us to take big political risks. We therefore need to continue advancing a viable climate stabilization program in full recognition that, at least in the U.S., the private oil companies stand as the single greatest obstacle to successfully implementing such a program. The most straightforward solution to overcoming this obstacle is to eliminate the profit motive altogether from the companies whose business model continues to be predicated on destroying the planet.

[Olive Yao]

.
Noodtoestand van het klimaat


McGlade en Ekins in Nature meten hun studie af aan een temperatuurstijging van 2 °C.

Dat is teveel. Ook 1,5 °C is teveel. De temperatuur is nu 1,2 ºC gestegen en de noodtoestand van het klimaat is al in volle gang.

Een van McGlade’s en Ekins’ conclusies is:

(…) any increase in unconventional oil production are incommensurate with efforts to limit average global warming to 2 °C.

Imperatief:

Vuile – ‘onconventionele’ – fossiele brandstoffen moeten in de grond blijven!

Anders is het klimaat verloren.

Welke zijn die brandstoffen?

'fracking'
Dat woord betreft de exploitatie: kalksteen en leisteen hydraulisch breken om olie te winnen.
Leisteen is in het engels 'shale', daarom heet die olie wel 'shale oil', niet te verwarren met 'oil shale'.

– Het breken van de gesteentes kost energie die bkg uitstoot.
– Daarbij wordt water gebruikt en dat wordt vervuild.
– En er komt methaan vrij, die of ontsnapt of verbrand wordt, dus meer bkg-uitstoot.

bitumenolie ('teerzandolie')
Dat is olie uit bitumen. In de grond zit een mengsel van zand, klei, water en bitumen, zgn. 'teerzand'. De bitumen wordt met stoom of een chemisch oplosmiddel vloeibaar gemaakt en opgepompt. Naarmate exploitatie vordert zit de bitumen steeds dieper in de grond. Die exploitatie en productie kost veel energie en is zeer vervuilend.

Bitumenolie is de snelst groeiende bron van bkg-uitstoot
Bitumenolie stoot in totaal (van exploitatie tot en met verbruik) gemiddeld 23% meer bkg uit dan conventionele olie.

Elke liter benzine uit bitumengrond kost een veelvoud aan liters water (bronnen noemen tussen 1,5 en 5,9 liter water, afhankelijk van de wijze van exploitatie).
In Albera, Canada, komt het meeste water uit de Athabasca rivier, en dat ecosysteem zal als het zo doorgaat verstoord worden.

Het afvalwater bevat giftige chemicaliën en kan niet terug het milieu in. Het staat in daarvoor aangelegde meren, waar 200 miljoen liter afvalwater per dag in loopt en die in 2012 170 km² besloegen. Uit die meren zakt 11 à 12 miljoen liter afvalwater per dag in het grondwater. Een deel van het afvalwater wordt direct onder de grond gespoten.

'olieschalie'
'Schalie' is verhard sediment. Sommige schalie bevat kerogen; die schalie heet 'oil shale' in het engels.

Productie: 'kerogenschalie' → verhitten → damp en gas komt vrij → condenseren → olie

Bkg-uistoot bij exploitatie en productie: 3 keer zo hoog als bij conventionele olie.


Maar wat doen de westerse politici?

Ze sluiten relatief schoon russisch gas af. Het VS regime laat Nord Stream opblazen – een klimaatramp op zich. Europa gaat vuile fossiele brandstoffen – olie en gas uit fracking en bitumenolie – waarbij het gas vloeibaar gemaakt moet worden, en die per schip over lange afstand getranporteerd moeten worden – uit de VS en Canada halen. Een klimaatramp.

Maar de politici vinden het belangrijker om hun oorlog te voeren.

Ze hebben planetaire massasterfte bezegeld.

[Olive Yao]

.



Exporting US fracked gas is far worse for the climate than coal, study finds

Mike Ludwig | Truthout 10 november 2023


Gas fracking en exporteren is veel slechter voor het klimaat dan steenkool, zo blijkt uit onderzoek

Het volgende grote gevecht om fossiele brandstoffen broeit aan de kust van Louisiana, waar protesten van lokale vissers tegen enorme exportterminals voor vloeibaar gas zich ontwikkelen tot een landelijke beweging om een einde te maken aan wat volgens waarschuwingen van een groeiend aantal experts en milieuactivisten een noodtoestand van het klimaat is.

(...)

Milieuactivisten zeggen dat de drang naar LNG-export niets minder dan een ‘koolstofbom’ is die vrijwel alle vooruitgang die de VS boekt bij het behalen van hun klimaatdoelstellingen teniet zou doen, als gevolg van het weglekken van methaan en de enorme hoeveelheid energie die nodig is om het fossiele gas te produceren, raffineren, transporteren en verbranden wanneer het de buitenlandse markten bereikt.

(...)

Gevoed door een overvloed aan methaan geproduceerd in de uitgestrekte frackingvelden van Texas en andere staten, is de VS fossiele brandstofindustrie de grootste exporteur van vloeibaar aardgas ter wereld geworden dankzij vijf exportterminals langs de Golfkust en twee aan de Atlantische kust, die in totaal 14 miljard kubieke voet fossiel gas per dag vloeibaar kunnen maken. De VS Energy Information Administration verwacht dat er in 2025 dagelijks 20 miljard kubieke voet zal worden geëxporteerd naarmate meer terminals aan de Golfkust in gebruik worden genomen.

(…)

Methaan is een broeikasgas dat 80 keer krachtiger is voor het opwarmen van de aarde dan koolstofdioxide, en het lekt in de atmosfeer tijdens het langdurige proces van productie, opslag, transport, vloeibaar maken en verschepen van fossiel gas naar het buitenland, waardoor de uitstoot van broeikasgassen door LNG-export uit de VS nog slechter voor het klimaat is dan het verbranden van steenkool, volgens nieuw onderzoek aangeprezen door McKibben en anderen.

(...)

Robert Howarth, hoogleraar ecologie en milieubiologie bij de Cornell University, bestudeerde de gehele ‘bestaanscyclus’ van LNG en concludeert in een artikel dat deze week aan journalisten is vrijgegeven dat de VS export van gefrackt gas tussen de 24 en 274 procent meer broeikasgasemissies produceert dan het verbranden van steenkool.

(...)

[Olive Yao]

.


Alison Kirsch, Talia Calnek-Sugin – President Biden must defuse another carbon bomb
Sierra Club 29 september 2023

Wetenschappelijke rapporten, waaronder een recent collegiaal getoetst onderzoek van Brown University en RMI, hebben aangetoond dat gas net zo slecht voor het klimaat kan zijn als steenkool als er slechts rekening wordt gehouden met kleine methaanlekken.[11]

Fact sheet LNG expansion thwarts US and global climate goals

Toename van LNG-export brengt VS klimaatdoelstellingen buiten bereik.


Robert W. Howarth – The greenhouse gas footprint of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exported from the US
Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 USA
(archived pre-print copy of manuscript submitted to a peer-reviewed journal on Oct 24, 2023)

Samenvatting

Voor 2016 was de export van vloeibaar aardgas (LNG) uit de Verenigde Staten verboden, maar sindsdien is de export snel gestegen, deels aangewakkerd door de snelle groei van de schaliegasproductie [= met fracking, o.y.]. Tegenwoordig zijn de Verenigde Staten de grootste exporteur van LNG.

Dit document presenteert een volledige levenscyclusanalyse van de uitstoot van broeikasgassen door LNG.

Deze emissies zijn afhankelijk van het type tanker dat wordt gebruikt om het LNG te vervoeren, waarbij de emissies veel groter zijn wanneer LNG wordt vervoerd door oudere, door stoom aangedreven tankers die zware stookolie verbranden. De grootste bron van emissies is in dit geval het afvoeren van methaan dat verloren gaat door verdamping uit de opslagtanks, ook wel 'cook off' genoemd. Modernere tankers, of ze nu worden aangedreven door stoom- of viertakt- of tweetaktmotoren, kunnen dit verdampende methaan opvangen en gebruiken voor hun energie, waardoor de methaanemissies aanzienlijk worden verlaagd.

Voor scenario's voor LNG dat door modernere tankers wordt getransporteerd, is de grootste bron van emissies in de volledige levenscyclus die van de productie, verwerking, opslag en transport van het aardgas dat de grondstof voor LNG vormt. De diffuse uitstoot van onverbrand methaan is bijzonder belangrijk, maar dat geldt ook voor de uitstoot van kooldioxide als gevolg van de energie-intensieve processen achter de moderne schaliegaswinning.
In alle beschouwde scenario's overtreft de methaanemissie, voor alle soorten tankers die worden gebruikt voor het vervoer van LNG, de uitstoot van kooldioxide uit de uiteindelijke verbranding van LNG. De kooldioxide-emissies anders dan die van deze eindverbranding zijn aanzienlijk, maar kleiner dan de kooldioxide die vrijkomt bij de eindverbranding.

Hoewel sommige voorstanders van LNG hebben betoogd dat het klimaatvoordeel oplevert doordat het steenkool vervangt, weerlegt de hier gepresenteerde analyse dit. In alle beschouwde scenario's is de totale uitstoot van broeikasgassen door LNG groter dan die door steenkool, variërend van 24% tot 274% groter.





Maxine Joselow, Timothy Puko – The next front in the climate fight: U.S. exports of natural gas
Washington Post 17 oktober 2023

Goedkeuring van nieuwe gasexportterminals zal de uitstoot van broeikasgassen voor tientallen jaren vastleggen, zeggen activisten, die Biden onder druk zetten om deze projecten stop te zetten

(...)

Minder dan tien jaar geleden bestond de VS export van vloeibaar aardgas – kortweg LNG – niet. Nu groeit hij zo snel dat de Verenigde Staten vorig jaar de grootste gasexporteur ter wereld werden. Deze trend heeft Washington meer invloed in het buitenland gegeven, terwijl er grote vragen rijzen over zijn ecologische nalatenschap.

President Biden heeft zijn steun achter de industrie geworpen om de Europese bondgenoten te helpen, die in de nasleep van de Russische invasie in Oekraïne meer VS gas hebben gezocht om een jarenlange afhankelijkheid van Russische energievoorziening te doorbreken. Maar milieuactivisten vrezen dat de industrie, door miljarden dollars te investeren in nieuwe terminals om gas uit de VS af te koelen en naar het buitenland te verschepen, zich vastlegt op meer planeet-opwarmende uitstoot, terwijl Biden heeft beloofd de klimaatvervuiling tot nul terug te brengen.

[Olive Yao]

John Clarke | Counterfire 31 jan. 2024 | MR online 1 feb 2024


The poisonous waste, and deadly carbon emissions produced by oil-sands production is even worse than had been thought, and production must stop, argues John Clarke

Research that has been published in the journal Science, shows that toxic emissions from Canada’s notoriously dirty oil-sands project have been ‘dramatically underestimated’. The report ‘found that air pollution from the vast Athabasca oil sands in Canada exceed industry-reported emissions across the studied facilities by a staggering 1,900% to over 6,300%.’

(...)

The oil sands are ‘the world’s third-largest deposit of oil, containing an estimated 165 billion barrels of oil.’ They ‘are comprised of high-carbon bitumen deposits. Bitumen requires extraction from underneath the boreal forest, either through mining or the drilling of steam injected wells.’ Given the extensive use of such methods, it isn’t surprising that for ‘many years, the oilsands have represented Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions.’

The project also ‘generates a tremendous amount of contaminated water waste, called “tailings”. The tailings ponds from the Alberta oilsands cover about 220 square kilometres and hold an estimated 1.2 trillion litres of contaminated water that’s been used in bitumen mining.’

(...)

[Olive Yao]

John Vaillant, Fire weather: a true story from a hotter world

Verwoesting door exploitatie van vuile fossiele brandstoffen.

De aanstichters daarvan moeten ertoe veroordeeld worden daar te wonen.