Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
Dirk Adams filed for the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate late last week. Given John Walsh’s advantage in fundraising, lead in endorsements, and status as a U.S. Senator, I’d say the odds of Adams’ winning the nomination are only slightly better than the odds of winning the Irish Sweepstakes. Still, if he runs a high minded, issues oriented campaign, he could do a lot of good for both his party and himself even if he doesn’t beat Walsh.
One issue opportunity is energy.
Adams is the only major candidate to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline that would carry 800,000 barrels a day of heavy crude oil from Alberta to refineries in gulf coast Texas. Shoveling and steaming the bitumen based oil out of the Athabasca Tar Sands generates 10–20 percent more greenhouse gases in the well to pipeline phase than, for example, sweet light crudes. Opponents of the pipeline believe stopping it could hold tar sands oil production to its current two million barrels per day, and thus retard global warming.
Adams’ opposition to the KXL focuses on its direct impacts to Montana, but does not tie the issue to global warming:
The Keystone XL Pipeline. The proposed Keystone XL pipeline (which is only a shortcut on an existing pipeline) is a bad deal for Montana. Yet Dirk Adams is the only candidate, Democrat or Republican, who is standing up against it. The pipeline promises jobs it won’t deliver. It will cause problems for landowners. The last pipeline TransCanada built in Montana had 12 spills in its first year of operation, spewing over 20,000 gallons of crude. Rail incidents resulted in more oil spills in 2013 than in the previous 37 years combined. The Keystone XL pipeline is bad for the environment and the businesses that depend on it. It is bad for Montanans’ health and pocketbooks.
Nor does he address global warming directly. Instead, in the issues section of his website, he discusses climate change in general terms, calling for “real and meaningful action” without identifying that action:
Climate Change. Dirk Adams recognizes the critical nature of climate change. It is a global issue. In Montana where agriculture is our biggest industry, it’s a game-changer. Winters that are too wet or too dry or too cold or too warm wreak havoc with the water supply we depend on in the summer, which in turn affects our crops, livestock, and people’s paychecks. Climate change cannot be ignored. Adams is committed to making sure real and meaningful action is taken in recognition of climate change.
Finally, his platform contains a rough plank on energy development that addresses only two members (coal and natural gas) of the hydrocarbon trinity (coal, natural gas, and oil), an oddity given the importance of the Bakken oil boom to Montana:
Energy Development. Natural gas and coal serve as important resources for the Montana economy. The [industries] provide many Montanans with jobs. With this resource comes the responsibility to develop it intelligently, in ways that protect citizens’ health. Proper management entails long-term strategies for protecting the environment while maximizing the economic benefits to Montana.
Opposing the pipeline is a start, but Adams needs to couple it with proposals for reducing our reliance on hydrocarbon fuels in general and liquid fuels in particular. In 2013 the transportation sector (cars and trucks, trains, ships, and airplanes) burned 13 million barrels of oil a day, and only the equivalent of 500,000 barrels of oil a day in biofuels (90 percent of that was ethanol). How would he reduce the amount of oil necessary for transportation?
Basically, there are three options: more efficient engines, substituting biofuels for oil, and converting surface transportation to electricity. Of the three, converting to electricity most reduces transportation’s appetite for oil. Writing in 2008, Intel founder and engineer Andy Grove observed:
Most everything today runs on electricity. A big exception is the transportation sector. Transportation uses more than half of the petroleum consumed in this country. If we don’t convert a large portion of the transportation sector to electricity, we cannot make real progress toward energy resilience.
This conversion will not be easy. It requires growth in generation capacity as well as in the capacity and reach of the transmission infrastructure. Most important, it requires vehicles to run on electric power.
Given the size and weight of ordinary automobiles, current technology allows electric cars to run only 100 miles or so before their batteries need to be recharged — the way we recharge our cellphones, by plugging them into the national electric grid. Many drivers can live with this limitation most of the time, but few will find it satisfactory all of the time. Still, today’s capabilities can get us off to a good start.
New technology often appears in this manner: It is not completely satisfactory in the beginning but good enough to get going.
Converting surface transportation to electricity reduces the need for oil, but not for electricity. Indeed, it increases the need for electricity — and for electricity not generated by hydrocarbons, and preferably not generated by any kind of combustion. That leaves only a few technologies: wind, solar (photovoltaic and thermal), conventional hydropower (very little opportunity for growth), geothermal (again, not much opportunity for growth), and tidal hydropower. Whether our surface transportation needs can be met wholly without fossil fuels seems doubtful to me, but non-hydrocarbon generated electricity can power much transportation, so it’s time to get moving on the project.
Adams could propose a program for converting surface transportation to electricity that’s not generated by hydrocarbons or combustion. That would be at variance with the Obama administration’s All of the Above — aka, oil and usual — energy policy, and cause heartburn in many Democrats, but it would be an environmentally and economically sound proposal that could make our debate over energy more productive than it is now.