Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
It is amazing how quickly the technological and political landscape can change over a period of only four years. At this point during the 2008 presidential campaign, then-candidate Barack Obama was touting a promising future that featured scads of new jobs in the green energy business. The United States would be able to solve two problems with one bold stroke. It didn’t quite pan out that way. The Solyndra website leads off with its promise of “Clean and Economical Solar Power from Your Large Rooftop,” only to note that the bankrupt firm has suspended operations in order to evaluate its reorganization options.
This brutal reality reflects one insuperable difficulty with these renewable energy sources. Today, as in 2008, no one has found a way to store them except at a prohibitive cost. Unlike the much maligned fossil fuels, wind and solar power must be used when they are created, whether needed or not. Both wind and solar power sources are highly variable, so that, all too often, they are in greatest supply when they are least needed. In the absence of a seismic technological breakthrough, they are doomed to remain boutique sources of energy that cannot be counted on to power the economy going forward....continue reading my weekly column at Defining Ideas.
- Comment (16)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (2)
Comments:
Aug '10
Re: Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
I take exception to liberals characterizing our country as "addicted" to fossil fuels. But it does provide a window into their mindset, as did the president's "you didn't build that" comment. It is as absurd as saying that humans are addicted to food. Why not use what we have, and what the global economy has been designed around--fossil fuels--until economic alternatives present themselves? Necessity is the mother of invention--not government subsidies. "Fracking" has become a one-word bogeyman for the left, like "Halliburton". It is mindless. Fracking has been used for decades, but now that liberals have discovered it, it is suddenly a threat to life as we know it, rather than a boon.
May '11
Re: Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
Life after fossil fuels...
Edited on August 7, 2012 at 1:48pmDec '10
Re: Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
I read the rest of your article. The following about global warming struck me. "but which still (even in the midst of the current heat wave across the United States)".
I want to be sure I understand your position. The extremely cold winter experienced by Western Europe several months back, that was weather. The hot summer here in the US, that's climate.
Do you have difficulty with the definition of "global"?
Edited on August 7, 2012 at 1:58pmOct '11
Re: Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
"Fracking Fallacy"
Anyone who has watched Battlestar Gallactica (so, not Prof. Epstein) knows that that headline is a CoC violation.
:-)
Jun '11
Re: Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
There's another problem with wind and solar energy in addition to their variability: the areas where wind and sun are most abundant (sun in New Mexico and wind in North Dakota, for example) and therefore more reliable as energy sources tend to be far away from population centers .
This means that massive investments in new electric transmission facilities are required to move the renewable energy to places where its actually needed. Such investments, in turn, require the entity building the transmission to brave a complex and expansive minefield of local, state, and federal regulation -- as well as collaboration with regional transmission system operators -- that can take years to accomplish.
And, of course, it goes without saying that the same environmental community that preaches the gospel of renewable energy takes an extraordinarily dim view of those ugly new transmission lines.
Jun '12
Re: Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
Thank you for that top-shelf shot of premium truth, Professor Epstein. This coal and oil and gas attorney greatly appreciates a friendly voice from the halls of academia regarding my client base's industries.
Jul '11
Re: Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
Not quite true. While costly, pumped storage technology is an economically viable way to store energy that would otherwise be wasted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity
Jan '11
Re: Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
The problem with innovation is that it's difficult to plan.
Innovation has two stages. The first stage is discovery, where a new set of ideas and perspectives creates a new "spark." The second stage is development, where resources flow to the new spark to sustain and grow it.
Not every spark will succeed; many just flicker as a new idea, but can't survive. Therefore, you don't divert resources to every spark. That's where judgment and experience come in handy. Prudence devotes resources carefully.
More importantly, prudence devotes resources gradually. If the spark endures, you give it a little more. If it grows, a little more. But during each evaluation, you have to be ready to abandon the investment. You can't be blind. If it doesn't grow, you have to recognize it, admit it, and move on to something else.
A lot of these green energy jobs were sparks. But instead of being prudent, political ideology began driving investment. Resources were devoted more to please a voting bloc than to succeed.
Fracking is still a spark, and worth developing. We need to be as prudent with fracking now as they weren't with green energy.
Feb '11
Re: Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
Pumped storage works fine but in addition to being costly requires appropriate terrain, and every pumped storage project will be fought fiercely by environmentalists.
The great French scientist Sadi Carnot said, in 1824:
To take away England’s steam engines to-day would amount to robbing her of her iron and coal, to drying up her sources of wealth, to ruining her means of prosperity and destroying her great power. The destruction of her shipping, commonly regarded as her source of strength, would perhaps be less disastrous for her.
Precisely the same could be said about taking away America's fossil-fueled energy infrastructure. And that's exactly what the "progressives" intend to do.
See my post Powering Down.
Re: Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
"Friedman's Fracking Fallacy." I tried saying that five times fast. It didn't work out well. I should lie down now.
Dec '10
Re: Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
KC Mulville:
Fracking is still a spark, and worth developing. . · 2 hours ago
I went to work for Stewart & Stevenson in Houston, TX in May of 1984. Among other things, the company made fracking machinery. A spark?
Dec '10
Re: Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
Wade Moore
Not quite true. While costly, pumped storage technology is an economically viable way to store energy that would otherwise be wasted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity · 2 hours ago
Describing it as costly and economically viable appears to this reader to be a contradiction.
Aug '10
Re: Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
Yes. A bit hard to do that in Florida, where the highest point is 345 feet above sea level.
Here in California, our largest hydropower plant is a pumped storage plant at the inlet to Castaic Lake (1.5GW). But the California Aqueduct system of which it is a part could never be built today, even though it was Jerry Brown's daddy who built it in the first place.
Jun '12
Re: Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
Foxman
Wade Moore
Not quite true. While costly, pumped storage technology is an economically viable way to store energy that would otherwise be wasted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity · 2 hours ago
Describing it as costly and economically viable appears to this reader to be a contradiction. · 2 hours ago
Not quite.
Something can be both costly and yet still economically viable if the return on the investment will be large enough.
Most people would consider $100 million to be "costly," but if you stand to make $500 million, then it's economically viable.
Jul '11
Re: Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
Exactly. I work in the hydropower industry. The "average" pumped storage project is in the range of 500 to 1000 million dollars. But the returns are very good compared to dumping power in a grid that doesn't need it for pennys. The pumped storage business is booming right now...
Oct '10
Re: Thomas Friedman's Fracking Fallacy
Fracking has been around since 1948 and has improved. The Ho-Ha over alternative energy has been unattainable since the 70's despite the effort and vast sums invested.
If any of the proponents of Green Energy had to run a simple P&L to prove it's viability, well, nuff said on that. No Green Advocate EVER mentions the failed solar and wind project they walked away from when Guvmnt funding stopped and left all the trash behind for the rest of us to clean up.
Let us not for get the waivers they require for environmental damage these projects create, yet seek eagerly to silence the exposure.
Blue Sky appears easy to sell these days...