American Oil and Gas Reporter - March 2019 - 32

fighting renewable-energy projects."
He cites New York, which has a renewable-energy mandate of 50 percent
by 2030, where upstate counties Erie,
Orleans and Niagara as well as the towns
of Yates and Somerset are actively fighting
the Lighthouse Wind project on the shores
of Lake Ontario.
Despite its mandate for 60 percent renewable electricity by 2030, Bryce reports,
California's installed wind capacity declined by 150 megawatts from 2013 to
2017, and he says Los Angeles County
has banned new wind projects while San
Diego, Solano and Inyo counties have
placed restrictions on wind turbines. Restrictions on wind projects are becoming
so severe that Bryce quotes the head of
the California Wind Energy Association
lamenting, "It's pretty bleak in terms of
the potential for new development."
Unintended Consequences
This negative sentiment extends to the
tens of thousands of miles of new highvoltage electric transmission lines necessary for a massive switch to renewable
energy, Bryce continues, pointing to the
500-mile Rock Island Clean Line intended
to carry wind-generated power from Iowa
to Illinois and the 720-mile Plains &
Eastern Clean Line from Oklahoma to
customers in the southern and southeastern
United States, both of which were scrapped
as a result of local opposition.
Even in Vermont, where Green New
Deal backer and Democratic presidential
hopeful Bernie Sanders along with climate
activist Bill McKibben pushed to close
the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant,
only one wind farm has been built in the
last 10 years, according Michael Shellenberger, president of Environmental
Progress and Time magazine "Hero of
the Environment."
And it took eight years to complete
the Deerfield Wind Project because of
litigation stemming from the fact the
wind farm is located in black bear critical
habitat, Shellenberger says, and asks,
"Can you guess how many wind farms
the size of Deerfield are needed to replace
the annual electricity from Vermont Yankee, one of the smallest nuclear plants in
the United States when it was closed?
The answer is 59."
Ravi Manghani, director of storage
research at Wood Mackenzie Power and
Renewables, provides a somewhat similar
analysis for the Green New Deal's goal
of replacing all internal combustion engines with electric vehicles.
He notes the dominant technology behind both EVs and electric power storage
32 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

is lithium-ion batteries, which rely on
rare earth minerals such as cobalt. "There
are serious concerns about the environmental impacts on lithium producing nations," Manghani tells CNBC.com.
He remarks that more than half of the
world's cobalt supply comes from the
Democratic Republic of Congo, which
has a record of instability and a history
of child labor in the mining industry.
"Lifting EV sales from 16 to 100 percent by 2030 would require a five- to
sixfold increase in mining," CNBC.com
quotes Manghani, adding that he "is concerned that a huge surge in demand over
a short period could incentivize environmental and labor abuses, and even tip
DRC further into instability."
Lukewarm Support
Less than a week after its introduction,
Reuters reported Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., promised a
vote on the Green New Deal.
While it has been endorsed by announced 2020 Democratic presidential
candidates, Senators Elizabeth Warren of
Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York
and Cory Booker of New Jersey, other
Democratic leaders and traditional supporters have been less enthusiastic.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Ca.,
referred to the Green New Deal as simply
"one of several" approaches to dealing
with climate change, and is quoted in
Politico saying, "The green dream or
whatever they call it, nobody knows what
it is, but they are for it, right?"
A published report says Sean McGarvey, president of North America's Building
Trades Unions, reflected that his members
who worked in the oil and gas industry
could make a middle-class living, whereas
renewable energy firms had been less
generous. "They are talking about everything except the workers," the report
quotes McGarvey worrying.
A Bloomberg report says the Laborers'
International Union of North America
has distanced itself from the Green New
Deal, and quotes LiUNA President Terry
O'Sullivan saying, "Attaching a laundry
list of laudable proposals unrelated to
climate change to unrealistic climate legislation ensures they all go down."
Even the renewable energy industry
is withholding support, other reports
say. One such account reflects, "A number
of energy trade groups at a Bloomberg
New Energy Finance Conference declined
to respond when asked why none of
them mentioned the Green New Deal in
public remarks."

Rather, the report quotes "one senior
renewable energy official on condition
of anonymity" saying, "We want to look
at those things that are going to get into a
spot of bipartisan support, so we actually
can get things passed."
Nevertheless, Jonah Goldberg, senior
editor of National Review and holder of
the Asness Chair in Applied Liberty at
the American Enterprise Institute, warns
that the "fantasy masquerading as green
virtue-signaling" shouldn't be dismissed
too lightly because of the dangerous
worldview it embodies.
Goldberg writes, "National Public Radio's Steve Inskeep asked Ocasio-Cortez
whether she was comfortable with the
'massive government intervention' critics
say is required by such an undertaking.
'We have tried their approach for 40
years,' Ocasio-Cortez replied. 'For 40
years we have tried to let the private
sector take care of this.'"
Federal Lands
IPAA describes S 47, the Natural Resources Management Act, which passed
the U.S. Senate on Feb. 12 and the House
on Feb. 26, as "a mixed bag, addressing
legitimate requests from states to help
align their conservation approaches and
to establish core protections for threatened
species, including the sage grouse and
other embattled Western species."
Among the provisions IPAA highlights
is creation of the Theodore Roosevelt
Genius Prize, which is to be awarded annually for a technological advancement
that protects endangered species.
S 47 also reauthorizes the Upper Colorado and San Juan River fish recovery
program, IPAA observes, and includes
Senate Environment and Public Works
Chairman John Barrasso's, R-Wy., Wildlife
Innovation and Longevity Driver Act,
which, the association says, reauthorizes
the Interior Department's Partners for
Fish and Wildlife Program until fiscal
2023 and contains other measures to protect endangered species.
The American Petroleum Institute
praises S 47 for permanently authorizing
the Land and Water Conservation Fund,
which API notes is almost entirely paid
for by federal offshore oil and gas revenues. The LWCF "is critical to not only
protecting our environment, but also to
boosting local economies across the country, creating jobs in the outdoor industry
and supporting rural communities," says
API Vice President for Upstream and Industry Operations Erik Milito.
The Land and Water Conservation
Fund Act of 1964 expired on Sept. 30.
http://www.CNBC.com http://www.CNBC.com
American Oil and Gas Reporter - March 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Oil and Gas Reporter - March 2019
