NDI 2014 – Pre Camp Natural Gas
Affirmative
Natural Gas Affirmative
**Advantages**
Plan
The United States federal government should substantially increase its natural gas
development in the outer continental shelf
Warming Advantage
1AC
Advantage __ is Warming.
Warming is real and anthropogenic – we need to cut emissions in the short term and
adaptation can’t solve. Our science is watertight and theirs is garbage.
Harvey 2013 Fiona, Guardian Environment Reporter, IPCC climate report: human impact is 'unequivocal', September 27 2013,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/27/ipcc-climate-report-un-secretary-general
World leaders must now respond to an "unequivocal" message from climate scientists and act with policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions,
the United Nations secretary-general urged on Friday. Introducing a major report from a high level UN panel of climate scientists, Ban Ki-moon
said, "The heat is on. We must act." The
world's leading climate scientists, who have been meeting in all-night sessions this week
there was no longer room for doubt that climate change was occurring, and the
dominant cause has been human actions in pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In their starkest warning yet,
following nearly seven years of new research on the climate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
said it was "unequivocal" and that even if the world begins to moderate greenhouse gas emissions, warming is likely to
cross the critical threshold of 2C by the end of this century. That would have serious consequences, including
sea level rises, heatwaves and changes to rainfall meaning dry regions get less and already wet areas receive more. In
in the Swedish capital, said
response to the report, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, said in a statement: "This is yet another wakeup call: those who deny the science
or choose excuses over action are playing with fire." "Once again, the
science grows clearer, the case grows more
compelling, and the costs of inaction grow beyond anything that anyone with conscience or
commonsense should be willing to even contemplate," he said. He said that livelihoods around the world would be
impacted. "With those stakes, the response must be all hands on deck. It's not about one country making a demand of another. It's the science
itself, demanding action from all of us. The United States is deeply committed to leading on climate change." In a crucial reinforcement of their
message – included starkly in this report for the first time – the
IPCC warned that the world cannot afford to keep
emitting carbon dioxide as it has been doing in recent years. To avoid dangerous levels of climate change,
beyond 2C, the world can only emit a total of between 800 and 880 gigatonnes of carbon. Of this, about 530
gigatonnes had already been emitted by 2011. That has a clear implication for our fossil fuel consumption, meaning
that humans cannot burn all of the coal, oil and gas reserves that countries and companies possess . As
the former UN commissioner Mary Robinson told the Guardian last week, that will have "huge implications for social and economic
development." It will also be difficult for business interests to accept. The central estimate is that warming is likely to exceed 2C, the threshold
beyond which scientists think global warming will start to wreak serious changes to the planet. That threshold is likely to be reached even if we
begin to cut global greenhouse gas emissions, which so far has not happened, according to the report. Other key points from the report are: •
Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are now at levels "unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years."
• Since the 1950's it's "extremely likely" that human activities have been the dominant cause of the temperature rise. • Concentrations of CO2
and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have increased to levels that are unprecedented in at least 800,000 years. The burning of fossil
fuels is the main reason behind a 40% increase in C02 concentrations since the industrial revolution. • Global temperatures are likely to rise by
0.3C to 4.8C, by the end of the century depending on how much governments control carbon emissions. • Sea levels are expected to rise a
further 26-82cm by the end of the century. • The oceans have acidified as they have absorbed about a third of the carbon dioxide emitted.
Thomas Stocker, co-chair of the working group on physical science, said the
message that greenhouse gases must be
reduced was clear. "We give very relevant guidance on the total amount of carbon that can't be emitted to stay to 1.5 or 2C. We are not
on the path that would lead us to respect that warming target [which has been agreed by world governments]." He said: "Continued
emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the
climate system. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of
greenhouse gas emissions." Though governments around the world have agreed to curb emissions, and at numerous international
meetings have reaffirmed their commitment to holding warming to below 2C by the end of the century, greenhouse gas concentrations are still
rising at record rates. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC, said it was for governments to take action based on the science produced by the
panel, consisting of thousands of pages of detail, drawing on the work of more than 800 scientists and hundreds of scientific papers. The
scientists also put paid to claims that global warming has "stopped" because global temperatures in the past 15 years have not continued the
strong upward march of the preceding years, which is a key argument put forward by sceptics to cast doubt on climate science. But the IPCC
said the
longer term trends were clear: "Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at
the Earth's surface than any preceding decade since 1850 in the northern hemisphere [the earliest date for reliable
temperature records for the whole hemisphere]." The past 15 years were not such an unusual case, said Stocker. "People always pick 1998 but
[that was] a very special year, because a strong El Niño made it unusually hot, and since then there have been some medium-sized volcanic
eruptions that have cooled the climate." But he said that further research was needed on the role of the oceans, which are thought to have
absorbed more than 90% of the warming so far. The
scientists have faced sustained attacks from so-called sceptics,
often funded by "vested interests" according to the UN, who try to pick holes in each item of evidence for
climate change. The experts have always known they must make their work watertight against such an onslaught, and every
conclusion made by the IPCC must pass scrutiny by all of the world's governments before it can be
published. Their warning on Friday was sent out to governments around the globe, who convene and fund the IPCC. It was 1988 when
scientists were first convened for this task, and in the five landmark reports since then the research has become ever clearer.
Now, scientists say they are certain that "warming in the climate system is unequivocal and since 1950
many changes have been observed throughout the climate system that are unprecedented over decades to
millennia." That warning, from such a sober body, hemmed in by the need to submit every statement to
extraordinary levels of scrutiny, is the starkest yet. "Heatwaves are very likely to occur more frequently and last longer. As
the earth warms, we expect to see currently wet regions receiving more rainfall, and dry regions receiving less, although there will be
exceptions," Stocker said. Qin Dahe, also co-chair of the working group, said: "As the ocean warm, and glaciers and ice sheets reduce, global
mean sea level will continue to rise, but at a faster rate than we have experienced over the past 40 years." Prof David Mackay, chief scientific
adviser to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, said: "The far-reaching consequences of this warming are becoming understood,
although some uncertainties remain. The
most significant uncertainty, however, is how much carbon humanity
will choose to put into the atmosphere in the future. It is the total sum of all our carbon emissions
that will determine the impacts. We need to take action now, to maximise our chances of being faced
with impacts that we, and our children, can deal with. Waiting a decade or two before taking climate change action will certainly
lead to greater harm than acting now."
And renewable usage is the only way to solve global warming – we must fully switch
our energy source soon
Wasserman, climate change journalist, 14 (Harvey, reporting on the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) from the IPCC,
“UN Panel: Renewables, not Nukes, Can Solve Climate Crisis”, http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/04/187639/un-panel-renewables-notnukes-can-solve-climate-crisis)
The authoritative I ntergovernmental P anel on C limate C hange has left zero doubt that we humans are wrecking our
climate. It also effectively says the problem can be solved, and that renewable energy is the way to do it ,
and that nuclear power is not. The United Nations’ IPCC is the world’s most respected authority on climate. This IPCC report was four
years in the making. It embraces several hundred climate scientists and more than a thousand
computerized scenarios of what might be happening to global weather patterns. The panel’s work has definitively
discredited the corporate contention that human-made carbon emissions are not affecting climate
change. To avoid total catastrophe, says the IPCC, we must reduce the industrial spew of global warming
gasses by 40-70 percent of 2010 levels. Though the warning is dire, the report offers three pieces of good news. First, we
have about 15 years to slash these emissions. Second, renewable technologies are available to do the
job . And third, the cost is manageable. Though 2030 might seem a tight deadline for a definitive transition to Solartopia,
green power technologies have become far simpler and quicker to install than their competitors, especially atomic
reactors. They are also far cheaper, and we have the capital to do it. The fossil fuel industry has long scorned the idea that its emissions are
disrupting our Earth’s weather. The oil companies and atomic reactor backers have dismissed the ability of renewables to provide humankind’s
energy needs. But the IPCC confirms that green
technologies, including efficiency and conservation, can in fact handle the
job---at a manageable price. “It doesn’t cost the world to save the planet,” says Professor Ottmar Edenhofer, an economist who led
the IPCC team. The IPCC report cites nuclear power as a possible means of lowering industrial carbon emissions. But it also underscores
considerable barriers involving finance and public opposition. Joined with widespread concerns about ecological impacts, length of
implementation, production uncertainties and unsolved waste issues, the report’s positive emphasis on renewables virtually guarantees
nuclear’s irrelevance. Some climate scientists have recently advocated atomic energy as a solution to global warming. But their most prominent
spokesman, Dr. James Hansen, also expresses serious doubts about the current generation of reactors, including Fukushima, which he calls
“that old technology.” Instead Hansen advocates a new generation of reactors. But the designs are untested, with implementation schedules
stretching out for decades. Financing is a major obstacle as is waste disposal and widespread public opposition, now certain to escalate with the
IPCC’s confirmation that renewables can provide the power so much cheaper and faster. With its 15-year deadline for massive carbon
reductions the IPCC has effectively timed out any chance a new generation of reactors could help. And with
its clear endorsement
of green power as a tangible, doable, affordable solution for the climate crisis, the pro-nuke case has clearly
suffered a multiple meltdown. With green power, says IPCC co-chair Jim Skea, a British professor, a renewable solution
is at hand.
“It’s actually affordable to do it and people are not going to have to sacrifice their aspirations about improved standards of
living.”
But renewables can’t solve alone – only a switch to gas allows a sustainable energy
source to reduce emissions in the meantime
Trembath et al 13 (Alex, policy analyst in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough Institute, where he researches and
writes about renewable energy technologies, American federal energy policy and the history of public investments in technological innovation,
and Max Luke, policy associate in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough, where his research focused on a range of energy issues and
topics including nuclear power, natural gas, renewables, energy efficiency rebound and backfire, national energy subsidies, and electricity
systems, with Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, “Coal Killer: How Natural Gas Fuels the Clean Energy Revolution”,
http://thebreakthrough.org/images/main_image/Breakthrough_Institute_Coal_Killer.pdf)
Primarily as
a result of the shift from coal to gas, energy-related carbon emissions have declined more in
the US than in any other country in the world in recent years, from 6.6 billion tons in 2007 to 5.9 billion tons in 2012. The
Department of Energy and EIA project that total 2020 energy-related CO emissions will be 9 percent lower than 2005 emissions. In the electric
power sector, where most of the countrys coal is used, emissions declined from 2.7 billion tons in 2007 to 2.2 billion tons In 2012. In 2012 there
were 726.000 fewer train car loads of coal than there were in 2011.
Gas deserves most of the credit for declining US
emissions . Experts like the University of California-San Diego’s David Victor and others at the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory estimate that the shale gas revolution has reduced US emissions between 300 to 500
million tons (Mt) of CO2 per year, about the same amount of total annual CO2 emissions in Australia, Brazil, France, or Spain.55, 56 John
Hanger, former Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, estimates that 77 percent of the CO2 reduction
between 2011 and 2012 is attributable to the switch from coal to gas.57 Council on Foreign Relations energy analyst Michael Levi put half the
decrease in carbon dioxide emissions from January–May 2011 and January–May 2012 to the switch from coal to natural gas.58 The
White
House Council of Economic Advisors attributes 40 percent of the 2005–2012 emissions reduction to “fuel
switching to natural gas and renewables,”59 and energy analyst John Miller estimates that the coal-togas switch is the largest single factor for emissions reductions over the same time period.60 We estimate that CO2
emissions reductions resulting from the coal-to-gas switch in the past several years have been 3–10 times greater than for non-hydro
renewables. The share of natural gas in the electricity supply mix increased by 10 percentage points between 2007 and 2012, from 20.3 percent
to 30.4 percent. Over the same period, the share of non-hydro renewable supplied to the electric power sector only increased by 2.6
percentage points, from 0.9 percent in 2007 to 3.5 percent in 2012.61 In 2012, natural gas electricity generation increased by about 10 times
more than the increase in wind generation, relative to 2011, and about 100 times more than the increase in solar generation. It
is unlikely
that wind and solar will contribute significantly to the decarbonization of the electricity sector in the
next decade, despite the fact that they’re poised to supply increasing amounts of power to the grid. For wind and solar to be
effectively integrated into the grid, they rely on additional backup and spinning reserve capacity.
Historically, intermittent renewables have supplemented, not displaced, fossil fuels,62 and wind and solar today displace marginal gas
generation far more than they displace coal.63 While
to increase in the short- to medium-term,
we should expect non-hydro renewables’ role in reducing emissions
this will occur in partnership with expanded and newly utilized
flexible gas capacity .64 The extent to which renewables do displace fossil fuel generation and lead to
CO2 emissions reductions depends crucially on the types of electricity generation
etc.)
in a given region.
(coal, gas, nuclear, hydro,
A recent analysis by researchers at the Colorado School of Mines, for example, finds that in coal-dominated
regions wind power may save 0.9 tons of CO2 for each megawatt hour (MWh) of wind power generation, while coal generation typically
releases closer to 1.1 tons of CO2 per MWh. In other regions, where renewables replace more gas than coal, the researchers find that savings
could be as low as 0.3 tons CO2 per MWh (see Figure 6 for regional displacement factors from wind power).65 While
estimates of CO2 displacement by renewable power are unavailable, it is clear that
not match the emissions reductions of coal-to-gas switching
aggregate
their deployment will
in the near- to medium-term. Even
impact on emissions increases, their ability to displace coal will likely remain limited
as renewables
for the foreseeable
future. In spite of the well-established carbon emissions benefits associated with switching from coal to gas, the long-term climate benefits of
the coal-to-gas switch have been called into question due to both concerns about fugitive methane emissions from shale gas production and
the fact that switching from coal to gas reduces CO2 emissions but does not eliminate them.
Natural gas plays a significant role as a bridge to a low-carbon future – even if
leakages occur, natural gas is critical
Luke and Trembath, policy analysts at the Breakthrough Institute, 13 (Max, policy associate in the
Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough, where his research focused on a range of energy issues and topics including nuclear power,
natural gas, renewables, energy efficiency rebound and backfire, national energy subsidies, and electricity systems, and Alex, policy analyst in
the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough Institute, where he researches and writes about renewable energy technologies, American
federal energy policy and the history of public investments in technological innovation, “The Bridge to Zero Carbon: Can natural gas catalyze the
transition to a clean energy future?”, http://ensia.com/voices/the-bridge-to-zero-carbon/)
Environmental experts and advocates have long viewed natural gas as a critical driver of the shift from
coal to lower-carbon energy . Because it produces roughly half the CO2 emissions of coal, natural gas has
been considered as a bridge fuel to zero-carbon energy supplies by Al Gore, the Natural Resources Defense Council,
Resources for the Future, former Environmental Protection Agency head and former Obama climate chief Carol Browner, and energy experts
across the political spectrum. Studies
that model natural gas as a bridge, such as one conducted by Michael Levi of the Council
on Foreign Relations, find it could help stabilize atmospheric CO2 concentrations . Levi’s scenario shows natural
gas could play a significant role in limiting the atmospheric CO2 concentration to 550 parts per million,
provided it is gradually phased out and replaced with zero-carbon-emitting energy. While Levi’s paper also finds that natural gas could play less
of a role in limiting the concentration to 450 ppm — a concentration frequently associated with the threshold for “dangerous climate change”
— this finding should not come as a surprise. Limiting global atmospheric CO2 concentrations to or below 450 ppm would require that we stop
building new fossil fuel infrastructure in the next several years and significantly reduce energy demand over the next few decades. This is highly
unlikely due to rapid energy demand growth in China, India and other developing countries, and carbon emission “lock-in” from existing fossil
fuel infrastructure. Levi’s finding, therefore, is evidence that
gas can play an important bridging function to a low-
carbon future . Many have voiced concerns that fugitive methane leakage from natural gas production diminishes the climate benefit of
switching from coal to natural gas. And it is true that over the short term, fugitive methane emissions have the
potential to erode most or all of the CO2 emissions benefit resulting from switching from coal to gas.
However, there is strong evidence that leakage can and will be lowered substantially in the future .
One study found that 70 percent of total leakage from 250 wells in Fort Worth, Texas, was occurring at only 10
percent of the wells, suggesting significant potential for low-cost, high-impact intervention. And a
recent report from the World Resources Institute identifies several promising options for further limiting
fugitive methane emissions. Moreover, long-term climate models suggest that warming trends have less
to do with the rate of methane leakage and more to do with other variables, such as the thermal efficiency
of future coal plants and whether the switch to gas is permanent or a bridge to zero-carbon energy. So, although
methane leakage reduces the short-term emissions benefit of switching from coal to gas — and should be addressed for that reason — it
does not limit natural gas’s potential as a bridge fuel to a low-carbon future.
It’s modeled internationally – demonstrating shale gas as a substitute gets China and
India on board – it’s the only option to stabilize emissions
Riley, professor of energy law at The City Law School, 12 (Alan, prof at City University in London, “Shale
Gas to the Climate Rescue”, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/opinion/shale-gas-to-the-climate-rescue.html?_r=0)
The battle against runaway climate change is being lost. The green movement and the energy industry —
while engaged in a furious debate on issues from nuclear power to oil sands — are missing the bigger picture. There is little
recognition by either side that current policies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are inadequate for dealing with
the threat that they pose. It is the coal-fueled growth of countries like China and India that generates much of
these emissions. Unless a cheap, rapidly deployable substitute fuel is found for coal, then it will be next to
impossible to safely rein in rising carbon dioxide levels around the world. Although the green movement might at first see
shale gas as an enemy in this fight, it may in fact turn out to be a friend. Broad development of shale gas resources — with
proper ecological safeguards — could be the best way to achieve the quick cuts in carbon dioxide emissions
that we need to maintain a habitable environment on Earth. The International Energy Agency has made it clear that, under current energy
policies, the door is closing on our attempts to contain the carbon-driven rise in global temperatures to
within 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) by the middle of the century. In fact, worldwide carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels
reached a record high of 31.6 gigatons in 2011. With emissions rising by one gigaton per year, it appears the temperature-increase target will
most likely be missed.
emissions
The shale gas revolution could be the means of blunting the rise of carbon dioxide
and give new hope for staying within the 2 degrees Celsius scenario. This
resource is widely dispersed across the
planet, cheap to develop and offers many of the same energy benefits as coal. If exploited properly, it could
replace coal within a couple of decades
as a primary fuel. By developing shale gas as a replacement fuel for coal we retrieve
the prospect of blunting — and possibly reversing — the upward climb of carbon dioxide emissions. Shale
gas emits 50 percent less
carbon dioxide than coal, and so if countries like China and India made the switch on a large scale, then we
have a chance to reset the trajectory of global carbon dioxide emissions. A widespread turn to the
use of shale gas would give the planet precious time to develop other, renewable solutions to further lower
our output of carbon dioxide. Current renewable energy sources cannot in any way deliver the same savings in carbon emissions that we can
achieve by replacing coal with shale gas. One only has to look to China to see the strong potential of this solution. With
the world’s
largest shale gas resources, the country has set out a vast gas development program in its latest five-year economic
plan. Output would rise from 6.5 billion cubic meters of shale gas by 2015 to 100 billion cubic meters by 2020. And if China can produce that
much by 2020, is there any reason to think it cannot pump out 800 billion cubic meters by 2030? Such a development program would be similar
in scale to that undertaken in the United States, which has seen shale gas rise from 1 percent of gas production in 2001 to 37 percent last year.
China can surely achieve these goals, especially given all the new technology available to the shale gas
industry, along with abundant state capital. That the government is focusing its efforts in this direction is another reason to believe that
China can reach these production levels. An output of 800 billion cubic meters a year — combined with far-higher levels of
energy efficiency — would allow China to slow, and then terminate, its coal-expansion plans and ultimately end its
reliance on coal-fired energy altogether. The United States could play a key role in encouraging China and other
developing nations to switch from coal to shale gas . The State Department has launched a Global
Shale Gas Initiative to facilitate the transfer of technical expertise to other countries to ensure safe
development of this new resource. The U nited S tates could also lead the way in creating a credible, alternative
climate change strategy in which the use of shale gas becomes the driver of radical cuts in carbon
dioxide emissions
over the short and medium term. Such a strategy would include establishing a series of Shale Gas Trusts around the
world to disseminate information, know-how and assist in building regulatory capacity. A second part of the strategy would press for the
gradual suppression of coal use and the global trade in coal, with compensation outlays for the coal industry as a whole. Suppressing the
production and trade in coal would be vital for three reasons. First, it would demonstrate the West’s commitment to replacing coal. Second, we
would be able to transfer the social, regulatory and business know-how to other nations to encourage coal suppression. Third, it would push up
the price of coal to encourage states to switch from coal to shale gas. Of course the coal industry in the West would resist suppression. But the
reality of rising access to cheap shale gas will in any event increasingly undermine the profitability of coal. A compelling business case can be
made to the coal industry that compensation and access to the shale gas industry is a better option than remaining in coal. Successful
worldwide cooperation in suppressing coal could provide the basis for building a credible
international coalition to further decarbonize the energy system beyond shale gas and into a fully
renewable economy.
Absent cuts in emissions, warming causes extinction
Mazo 10 (Jeffrey Mazo – PhD in Paleoclimatology from UCLA, Managing Editor, Survival and Research Fellow for Environmental Security
and Science Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, 3-2010, “Climate Conflict: How global warming threatens
security and what to do about it,” pg. 122)
The best estimates for global warming to the end of the century range from 2.5-4.~C above pre-industrial
levels, depending on the scenario. Even in the best-case scenario, the low end of the likely range is 1.goC, and in the
worst 'business as usual' projections, which actual emissions have been matching, the range of likely warming runs from 3.1--7.1°C. Even
keeping emissions at constant 2000 levels (which have already been exceeded), global temperature would still be expected to
reach 1.2°C (O'9""1.5°C)above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century." Without early and severe reductions in
emissions , the effects of climate change in the second half of the twenty-first century are likely to be
catastrophic for the stability and security of countries in the developing world - not to mention the associated human
tragedy. Climate change could even undermine the strength and stability of emerging and advanced
economies, beyond the knock-on effects on security of widespread state failure and collapse in
developing countries.' And although they have been condemned as melodramatic and alarmist, many informed observers
believe that unmitigated climate change beyond the end of the century could pose an existential
threat to civilisation ." What is certain is that there is no precedent in human experience for such rapid change or such climatic
conditions, and even in the best case adaptation to these extremes would mean profound social, cultural and political changes
No adaptation – 4 degree temperature increase will breakdown civilization and cause
every impact
Roberts 13 (David, citing the World Bank Review’s compilation of climate studies, “If you aren’t alarmed about climate, you aren’t
paying attention” http://grist.org/climate-energy/climate-alarmism-the-idea-is-surreal/)
We know we’ve raised global average temperatures around 0.8 degrees C so far. We know that 2
degrees C is where most scientists
predict catastrophic and irreversible impacts. And we know that we are currently on a trajectory that
will push temperatures up 4 degrees or more by the end of the century. What would 4 degrees look like? A recent
World Bank review of the science reminds us. First, it’ll get hot: Projections for a 4°C world show a dramatic increase in the
intensity and frequency of high-temperature extremes. Recent extreme heat waves such as in Russia in 2010 are likely to
become the new normal summer in a 4°C world. Tropical South America, central Africa, and all tropical islands in the
Pacific are likely to regularly experience heat waves of unprecedented magnitude and duration. In
this new high-temperature climate regime, the coolest months are likely to be substantially warmer than the warmest months at the end of the 20th century.
In regions such as the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Tibetan plateau, almost all summer months are likely to be warmer than the most
extreme heat waves presently experienced. For example, the warmest July in the Mediterranean region could be 9°C warmer than today’s warmest July.
Extreme heat waves in recent years have had severe impacts, causing heat-related deaths, forest
fires, and harvest losses. The impacts of the extreme heat waves projected for a 4°C world have not been evaluated, but they could be
expected to vastly exceed the consequences experienced to date and potentially exceed the adaptive
capacities of many societies and natural systems. [my emphasis] Warming to 4 degrees would also lead to
“an increase of about 150 percent in acidity of the ocean,” leading to levels of acidity “unparalleled
in Earth’s history.” That’s bad news for, say, coral reefs: The combination of thermally induced bleaching events, ocean acidification, and sea-level
rise threatens large fractions of coral reefs even at 1.5°C global warming. The regional extinction of entire coral reef ecosystems, which could occur well before
4°C is reached, would have profound consequences for their dependent species and for the people who depend on them for food, income, tourism, and
shoreline protection. It will also “likely lead to a sea-level rise of 0.5 to 1 meter, and possibly more, by 2100, with several meters more
to be realized in the coming centuries.” That rise won’t be spread evenly, even within regions and countries — regions close to the equator will see even higher
seas. There are also indications that it
would “significantly exacerbate existing water scarcity in many regions,
particularly northern and eastern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, while additional countries in Africa would be newly
confronted with water scarcity on a national scale due to population growth.” Also, more extreme weather events: Ecosystems
will be affected by more frequent extreme weather events, such as forest loss due to droughts and
wildfire exacerbated by land use and agricultural expansion. In Amazonia, forest fires could as much as double by 2050 with warming of approximately
1.5°C to 2°C above preindustrial levels. Changes would be expected to be even more severe in a 4°C world. Also loss of biodiversity and
ecosystem services: In a 4°C world, climate change seems likely to become the dominant driver of ecosystem
shifts, surpassing habitat destruction as the greatest threat to biodiversity. Recent research suggests
that large-scale loss of biodiversity is likely to occur in a 4°C world, with climate change and high
CO2 concentration driving a transition of the Earth’s ecosystems into a state unknown in human
experience. Ecosystem damage would be expected to dramatically reduce the provision of ecosystem services on which society depends (for example,
fisheries and protection of coastline afforded by coral reefs and mangroves.) New research also indicates a “rapidly rising risk of
crop yield reductions as the world warms.” So food will be tough. All this will add up to “large-scale
displacement of populations and have adverse consequences for human security and economic
and trade systems.” Given the uncertainties and long-tail risks involved, “ there is no certainty that adaptation to a 4°C
world is possible .” There’s a
entirely.
small but
non-trivial chance of advanced civilization breaking down
Now ponder the fact that some scenarios show us going up to 6 degrees by the end of the century, a level of devastation we have not studied
and barely know how to conceive. Ponder the fact that somewhere
along the line, though we don’t know exactly where, enough selfreinforcing feedback loops will be running to make climate change unstoppable and irreversible for
centuries to come. That would mean handing our grandchildren and their grandchildren not only a burned, chaotic,
denuded world, but a world that is inexorably more inhospitable with every passing decade.
**Internals**
XT – Renewable Bridge
Only natural gas can act as a bridge – accelerates the integration of renewables by
providing a flexible, clean energy option
Trembath et al 13 (Alex, policy analyst in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough Institute, where he researches and
writes about renewable energy technologies, American federal energy policy and the history of public investments in technological innovation,
and Max Luke, policy associate in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough, where his research focused on a range of energy issues and
topics including nuclear power, natural gas, renewables, energy efficiency rebound and backfire, national energy subsidies, and electricity
systems, with Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, “Coal Killer: How Natural Gas Fuels the Clean Energy Revolution”,
http://thebreakthrough.org/images/main_image/Breakthrough_Institute_Coal_Killer.pdf)
Gas-fired power provides cheap, low-carbon, and flexible backup support for intermittent wind and
solar. Grid operators depend on reliable power production from power plant operators to match grid supply and
demand and ensure consistent price signals. As intermittent renewables — particularly wind — continue to
occupy a greater share of the nation’s electricity output, power system operators will need to
increasingly rely on capacities of backup and firming power . Natural gas–fired power plants offer the
best currently available solution . By contrast, the majority of coal plants in the United States were designed to
provide steady baseload power to the grid, with very little flexibility. Today’s coal plants have low ramping
rates (1.5 percent to 3 percent per minute) and become inefficient if they are operated below maximum output,
increasing marginal emissions of CO2, NOx, and SO2 pollutants.93 Conventional nuclear power cannot be counted
on for flexible power in any context today, given extreme technical difficulties in cycling and ramping nuclear generators.
Although grid-scale energy storage options are expanding, the technology is still limited in its commercial applicability. Natural gas
power — and particularly power from natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) plants — provides a readily substitutable
alternative to baseload and older load-following coal plants. Flexible gas plants provide support for
electric power grids that are increasingly occupied by intermittent wind and solar. A study from researchers at
Carnegie Mellon University suggests that for every 4 MW of wind capacity, 3 MW of NGCC capacity will be needed to operate the grid
reliably.94
The expansion of gas-fired power plants could accelerate the integration of intermittent
power into existing grid systems .95 New natural gas plants have ramping rates of approximately 8 percent per minute and can
reduce their output to 80 percent capacity with minimal heat rate penalty. New NGCC plants that are specifically designed to offer flexibility to
a renewables-heavy grid system can ramp to 150 MW in 10 minutes and to full load in 30 minutes.96 General Electric’s new fleet of gas-fired
power plants is designed to optimize integration with variable power sources and can ramp as fast as 100 MW per minute.97
Natural gas accelerates the integration of zero-carbon technology – acts as a bridge to
wind, solar, and even carbon capture
Luke and Trembath, policy analysts at the Breakthrough Institute, 13 (Max, policy associate in the
Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough, where his research focused on a range of energy issues and topics including nuclear power,
natural gas, renewables, energy efficiency rebound and backfire, national energy subsidies, and electricity systems, and Alex, policy analyst in
the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough Institute, where he researches and writes about renewable energy technologies, American
federal energy policy and the history of public investments in technological innovation, “The Bridge to Zero Carbon: Can natural gas catalyze the
transition to a clean energy future?”, http://ensia.com/voices/the-bridge-to-zero-carbon/)
One of natural gas’s most important strengths as a bridge technology is its ability to support the
continued expansion and deployment of wind, solar and other zero-carbon energy. Renewables such as
wind and solar complicate the traditional operation of electricity power systems. For example, utility-scale wind
generation, a particularly volatile intermittent power source, requires electricity operators to make significant adjustments to balance
generation and load, creating inefficiency in the system. By
providing backup and firming capacity, the expansion of
gas-fired power plants can accelerate the integration of intermittent power into existing electricity
grids . New natural gas plants can power up and reduce output very quickly with minimal efficiency
loss, and new NGCC — natural gas combined cycle — plants are specifically designed to offer flexibility to a renewables-heavy grid system.
Countering concern that cheap natural gas undercuts the deployment of renewables, wind and solar have
seen rapid growth in recent years thanks to federal tax incentives, state mandates and other subsidies. And while
there may be cases where cheap natural gas has challenged the economics of renewable power, the far bigger threat to
renewables is subsidy dependence and regulatory uncertainty . Likewise, the existential threats to nuclear power
have more to do with high capital costs and regulatory challenges than with recent price competition by cheap natural gas. (Another report
published this month by the Breakthrough Institute details the reforms needed to accelerate innovation in nuclear energy to make it cheaper
and more scalable.) Finally, cheap
natural gas presents opportunities for development of advanced carbon
capture technologies. While carbon capture has typically only been considered for coal-fired power, the
cleaner pollution stream emitted from natural gas plants makes them more amenable to carbon
capture than coal.
But federal action is needed – shale gas cannot act as a bridge without further support
for drilling and exploration
Luke and Trembath, policy analysts at the Breakthrough Institute, 13 (Max, policy associate in the
Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough, where his research focused on a range of energy issues and topics including nuclear power,
natural gas, renewables, energy efficiency rebound and backfire, national energy subsidies, and electricity systems, and Alex, policy analyst in
the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough Institute, where he researches and writes about renewable energy technologies, American
federal energy policy and the history of public investments in technological innovation, “The Bridge to Zero Carbon: Can natural gas catalyze the
transition to a clean energy future?”, http://ensia.com/voices/the-bridge-to-zero-carbon/)
But although the transition to cleaner, cheaper, more energy-dense fuel has many historical precedents, it
is not inevitable, nor does it occur spontaneously . Natural gas has seen unprecedented growth in the U.S. as a result of
technological innovation that led to its cheap and abundant production. It has had enormous positive economic impacts. But in order to
fulfill its critical role in the transition to lower-carbon and improved energy technologies, natural gas
must be recognized by policy makers
and energy planners as a moment in the process of energy modernization and innovation,
not the end point. One way to ensure this is to reinvest a portion of the enormous revenues from expanded gas production into zero-carbon
energy innovation. Lower natural gas prices due to the shale gas revolution resulted in more than $100 billion of additional economic surplus in
2010, and are expected to have contributed similar benefits in the years since. A study by the economic research firm IHS found that
unconventional oil and gas activity generated $61 billion in federal and state revenues in 2012, and estimates this will increase to $91 billion in
2015 and $111 billion in 2020. The
robust economic gains of shale gas should be paid forward to the
development and deployment of renewable energy technologies, as well as advanced nuclear and carbon capture
and sequestration technologies. The Obama administration and members of Congress have already recognized the necessity of paying it
forward, advancing policies that would allocate portions of unconventional oil and gas drilling revenues for clean energy technologies.
Proposals such as these should be encouraged and advanced vigorously at both federal and state levels. Gas’s
success as a bridge
fuel crucially hinges on the degree to which it is recognized as such by policy makers, energy planners
and industry. It depends on smart policy to accelerate the transition from coal to gas, and on reinvesting state and federal revenues from
expanded drilling into other low-carbon and zero-carbon energy technologies. And it depends on acknowledging the
temporary role that gas can — and should — play as we move toward tomorrow’s energy system. View
Ensia homepage
XT – Renewables Solve
Newest IPCC report takes out your 4 year old card – renewables can and will solve
global warming – the tech is available, we just need a reliable low-carbon energy
source for the interim – that’s Wasserman and Trembath
Your evidence assumes immediate renewable use – that’s not us – using natural gas as
a bridge buys time tech to mature
Trembath et al 13 (Alex, policy analyst in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough Institute, where he researches and
writes about renewable energy technologies, American federal energy policy and the history of public investments in technological innovation,
and Max Luke, policy associate in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough, where his research focused on a range of energy issues and
topics including nuclear power, natural gas, renewables, energy efficiency rebound and backfire, national energy subsidies, and electricity
systems, with Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, “Coal Killer: How Natural Gas Fuels the Clean Energy Revolution”,
http://thebreakthrough.org/images/main_image/Breakthrough_Institute_Coal_Killer.pdf)
Although limiting global atmospheric CO2 concentration to 450 parts per million is probably unachievable,
our focus should remain on reducing emissions as quickly as possible and stabilizing atmospheric CO2
concentration at as low a level as possible. Natural gas has an important role to play in accomplishing this goal,
as a bridge to lower-carbon technologies . Even taking fugitive methane emissions into account, it is
clear that natural gas offers a sizable emissions reduction benefit over coal for the next several decades.
While other low-carbon technologies mature — including renewables , advanced nuclear, and carbon capture — natural
gas provides a cheap and abundant source of energy that can mitigate global warming emissions and
toxic terrestrial pollution. In the ongoing process of energy transitions and global decarbonization, the displacement of
dirty coal by cleaner natural gas buys time to develop and deploy zero-carbon technologies. As long as
abundant, energy-dense fuels like coal and natural gas exist, human societies will extract them — unless better, cheaper, cleaner alternatives
arrive to enable their regulation and replacement. Given the strong physical and moral imper atives to provide clean, cheap, abundant energy
while reducing carbon emissions as quickly as possible,
the time bought by cheap natural gas will prove valuable.
And renewables can solve, but natural gas is key for energy in the interim
Azau, EWEA, 14 (Sarah, European Wind Energy Association, “IPCC: fossil fuels out, renewables in to tackle global warming”,
http://www.ewea.org/blog/2014/04/ipcc-fossil-fuels-renewables-tackle-global-warming/)
Switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy and energy efficiency measures in the coming decades is the
International Panel for Climate Change’s (IPCC) recommendation in its latest report. This change is “affordable”,
says the IPCC: it would knock only 0.06% off expected annual economic growth rates of 1.3%-3%, without quantifying the enormous
health benefits of the lower CO2 and pollution levels. The report – the third in a trilogy from the IPCC in recent months – was widely picked up
in the press. Some led on the need to “revolutionise the economy” (German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and French daily Le Monde)
Others led with a more alarmist take on the current situation – “Global emissions of greenhouse gases have increased to unprecedented levels
despite global efforts to reduce them” said Spanish paper El Mundo – and the limited time left to act (“Only 17 years” said La Repubblica in
Italy). In the UK, there was a divergence of views, with Independent and the Guardian upbeat and focusing on renewables’ role – “Incentives to
mitigate climate change are not in vain”, said the former – while the right-wind Times and Telegraph both led on fracking and shale gas “being
part of the solution to global warming”. In fact,
the IPCC report
only
mentions gas and shale gas as an interim
measure to replace coal , while stressing that long term, all fossil fuels should be abandoned. Interestingly
this morning, the Financial Times published an article on a poll in the UK showing that three times as many Britons would prefer to live close to
a wind farm than to a fracking site, making the government’s plan to stop new onshore wind farm projects look even more illogical.
**Impact**
Only Existential Risk
Warming is the only existential risk
Deibel ’07—Prof IR @ National War College (Terry, “Foreign Affairs Strategy: Logic for American Statecraft,” Conclusion: American
Foreign Affairs Strategy Today)
Finally, there is one major existential threat to American security (as well as prosperity) of a
nonviolent nature, which, though far in the future, demands urgent action. It is the threat of global warming to
the stability of the climate upon which all earthly life depends. Scientists worldwide have been observing the gathering of this threat for three
what was once a mere possibility has passed through probability to near certainty.
Indeed not one of more than 900 articles on climate change published in refereed scientific journals
from 1993 to 2003 doubted that anthropogenic warming is occurring. “In legitimate scientific circles,”
writes Elizabeth Kolbert, “it is virtually impossible to find evidence of disagreement over the
fundamentals of global warming.” Evidence from a vast international scientific monitoring effort
accumulates almost weekly, as this sample of newspaper reports shows: an international panel predicts “brutal droughts, floods
decades now, and
and violent storms across the planet over the next century”; climate change could “literally alter ocean currents, wipe away huge portions of
Alpine Snowcaps and aid the spread of cholera and malaria”; “glaciers in the Antarctic and in Greenland are melting much faster than expected,
and…worldwide, plants are blooming several days earlier than a decade ago”; “rising sea temperatures have been accompanied by a significant
global increase in the most destructive hurricanes”; “NASA scientists have concluded from direct temperature measurements that 2005 was
“Earth’s warming climate is estimated to contribute to more
than 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses each year” as disease spreads; “widespread bleaching from Texas to
the hottest year on record, with 1998 a close second”;
Trinidad…killed broad swaths of corals” due to a 2-degree rise in sea temperatures. “The world is slowly disintegrating,” concluded Inuit hunter
Noah Metuq, who lives 30 miles from the Arctic Circle. “They call it climate change…but we just call it breaking up.” From the founding of the
first cities some 6,000 years ago until the beginning of the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere remained relatively
constant at about 280 parts per million (ppm). At present they are accelerating toward 400 ppm, and by 2050 they will reach 500 ppm, about
double pre-industrial levels. Unfortunately, atmospheric CO2 lasts about a century, so there is no way immediately to reduce levels, only to
slow their increase, we are thus in for significant global warming; the only debate is how much and how serous the effects will be. As the
we are already experiencing the effects of 1-2 degree warming in more
violent storms, spread of disease, mass die offs of plants and animals, species extinction, and
threatened inundation of low-lying countries like the Pacific nation of Kiribati and the Netherlands at a warming of 5 degrees
or less the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets could disintegrate, leading to a sea level of rise of 20 feet
that would cover North Carolina’s outer banks, swamp the southern third of Florida, and inundate
Manhattan up to the middle of Greenwich Village. Another catastrophic effect would be the collapse of the Atlantic
newspaper stories quoted above show,
thermohaline circulation that keeps the winter weather in Europe far warmer than its latitude would otherwise allow. Economist William Cline
once estimated the damage to the United States alone from moderate levels of warming at 1-6 percent of GDP annually; severe warming could
cost 13-26 percent of GDP. But the most frightening scenario is runaway greenhouse warming, based on positive feedback from the buildup of
water vapor in the atmosphere that is both caused by and causes hotter surface temperatures. Past ice age transitions, associated with only 510 degree changes in average global temperatures, took place in just decades, even though no one was then pouring ever-increasing amounts
Faced with this specter, the best one can conclude is that “humankind’s
continuing enhancement of the natural greenhouse effect is akin to playing Russian roulette with the
earth’s climate and humanity’s life support system. At worst, says physics professor Marty Hoffert of
New York University, “we’re just going to burn everything up; we’re going to heat the atmosphere to
the temperature it was in the Cretaceous when there were crocodiles at the poles, and then
everything will collapse.” During the Cold War, astronomer Carl Sagan popularized a theory of nuclear winter to describe how a
thermonuclear war between the Untied States and the Soviet Union would not only destroy both countries but possibly end life on this planet.
Global warming is the post-Cold War era’s equivalent of nuclear winter at least as serious and
considerably better supported scientifically. Over the long run it puts dangers from terrorism and
traditional military challenges to shame. It is a threat not only to the security and prosperity to the
United States, but potentially to the continued existence of life on this planet
of carbon into the atmosphere.
XT – Extinction
Climate change ends all life – runaway climate hothouse earth.
Farley 2010 John, Professor of physics and astronomy @ UNLV, Monthly Review Vol 62 issue 4 september 2010
http://monthlyreview.org/2010/09/01/our-last-chance-to-save-humanity
If the sea level rises 70 meters (250 feet), it would not extinguish all human life. After all, hominids have existed on earth for several million
years, and homo sapiens more than a hundred thousand, surviving numerous ice ages, during which ice sheets a mile thick covered areas that
came to be Boston and New York City. But the
world population during the last ice age, ten thousand years ago,
has been estimated at five million. It is now six billion. It is human civilization that is unlikely to
survive a flooding catastrophe. According to the penultimate chapter, The Venus Syndrome, it might be even worse. Hansen posits
a possible future earth, in which a “runaway greenhouse effect” takes over: anthropogenic global warming
from greenhouse gases causes increased water vapor in the atmosphere, which in turn causes further
warming. The methane clathrate deposits are destabilized, releasing vast amounts of methane in the
atmosphere. The oceans become acidified by dissolution of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This
could eliminate all life on Earth. This is speculation, of course. But Venus, the planet most similar to earth, has a very
strong greenhouse effect, much stronger than earth’s. In the absence of atmospheric greenhouse gases, the surface temperature of
the earth would be -18°C (0°F). The actual observed temperature of the Earth is 15°C (59°F). Thus, the greenhouse effect on the Earth raises the
temperature by 33°C (59°F). On Venus, the surface temperature, in the absence of the greenhouse effect, would be -41°C (-42°F), well below
the melting point of ice. A very strong greenhouse effect raises the surface temperature to the observed temperature of 464°C (867°F). The
greenhouse effect on Venus is a staggering 505°C (909°F), creating a planetary surface hot enough to melt lead (!!), which requires “only” 327°C
(621°F).
And we're reaching a tipping point, uncontrolled warming will annihilate all life if we
allow the oceans to continue absorbing CO2.
Reuters 2010 "Oceans Choking on CO2, Face Deadly Changes: Study"
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65H0LI20100618?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medi
um=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Oceans were rapidly warming and acidifying, water circulation was being altered and dead zones within the ocean depths
were expanding, said the report. There has also been a decline in major ocean ecosystems like kelp forests and coral
reefs and the marine food chain was breaking down, with fewer and smaller fish and more frequent diseases and pests among marine
organisms. "If we continue
down this pathway we get into conditions which have no analog to anything
we've experienced," said Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Global Change Institute at The University of Queensland. Hoegh-Guldberg
said oceans were the Earth's "heart and lungs", producing half of the world's oxygen and absorbing 30
percent of man-made carbon dioxide. "We are entering a period in which the very ocean services
upon which humanity depends are undergoing massive change and in some cases beginning to fail,"
said Hoegh-Guldberg. "Quite plainly, the Earth cannot do without its ocean. This is further evidence that we are
well on the way to the next great extinction event." More than 3.5 billion people depend on the ocean for their primary
source of food and in 20 years this number could double, the report's authors say. The world's climate has remained stable for several thousand
years, but climate change in the past 150 years is
now forcing organisms to change rapidly -- changes that
through evolution would normally take a long time, said the report. "We are becoming increasingly certain
that the world's marine ecosystems are approaching tipping points. These tipping points are where
change accelerates and causes unrelated impacts on other systems," said co-author marine scientist John F. Bruno at
the University of North Carolina. Last week, the head of the United Nations Environment Program, Achim Steiner, said it was crucial the world
responded to the loss of coral
reefs, forests and other ecosystems "that generate multi-trillion dollar services that underpin
all life-including economic life-on Earth".
AT: Inevitable
Not inevitable – it’s immediately reversible and there is no time lag
Desjardins 13 (Clea, member of Concordia university Media Relations Department, academic writer, citing Damon Matthews;
associate professor of the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment at Concordia University, PhD, Member of the Global
Environmental and Climate Change Center, “Global Warming: Irreversible but Not Inevitable,” http://www.concordia.ca/now/what-wedo/research/20130402/global-warming-irreversible-but-not-inevitable.php)
Carbon dioxide emission cuts will immediately affect the rate of future global warming Concordia and
MIT researchers show Montreal, April 2, 2013 – There is a persistent misconception among both scientists and
the public that there is a delay between emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and the climate’s
response to those emissions. This misconception has led policy makers to argue that CO2 emission cuts implemented now will
not affect the climate system for many decades. This erroneous line of argument makes the climate problem
seem more intractable than it actually is, say Concordia University’s Damon Matthews and MIT’s Susan Solomon in a
recent Science article. The researchers show that
immediate decreases in CO2 emissions would in fact result in
an immediate decrease in the rate of climate warming. Explains Matthews, professor in the Department of
Geography, Planning and Environment, “If we can successfully decrease CO2 emissions in the near future, this
change will be felt by the climate system when the emissions reductions are implemented – not in
several decades ." “The potential for a quick climate response to prompt cuts in CO2 emissions
opens up the possibility that the climate benefits of emissions reductions would occur on the same
timescale as the political decisions themselves.” In their paper, Matthews and Solomon, Ellen Swallow Richards
professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Science, show that the onus for slowing the rate of global warming
falls squarely on current efforts at reducing CO2 emissions, and the resulting future emissions that
we produce. This means that there are critical implications for the equity of carbon emission choices currently being discussed
internationally. Total emissions from developing countries may soon exceed those from developed nations. But developed countries are
expected to maintain a far higher per-capita contribution to present and possible future warming. “This disparity
clarifies the
urgency for low-carbon technology investment and diffusion to enable developing countries to continue to
develop,” says Matthews. “Emission cuts made now will have an immediate effect on the rate of global
warming,” he asserts. “I see more hope for averting difficult-to-avoid negative impacts by accelerating advances in technology
development and diffusion, than for averting climate system changes that are already inevitable. Given the enormous scope and
complexity of the climate mitigation challenge, clarifying
these points of hope is critical to motivate change.”
AT: No Warming
Yes warming – most rigorous studies from the IPCC and a consensus from experts
prove warming is real and caused by carbon emissions – only immediate cuts solve –
their evidence comes from hacks – that’s Harvey
Global warming is real and anthropogenic – the most recent studies prove that we’re
screwed unless we take action
Deluca 13 (Matthew, reporter for NBC, all facts and statistics come from the IPCC Fifth Assessment Reporter (AR5) along with various
climate experts, “Top scientists urge cap on carbon emissions to limit climate change”, http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/topscientists-urge-cap-carbon-emissions-limit-climate-change-f8C11274530)
Top climate scientists say in a new report that industrial carbon emissions need to be kept below a cumulative
total of 1 trillion tons to avoid dangerous climate change — and they note that humanity has already used
up more than half that allotment . The I ntergovernmental P anel on C limate C hange said in the report that it is
beings are the main drivers for the rise in temperatures recorded around the world
over the last 50 years — the strongest words the panel has used to describe the effect humans are having on the planet. “Continued
“extremely likely” human
emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further global warming and changes in all components of the climate
system,” the IPCC report said. “Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions
of greenhouse gas emissions.” More rain could pour down over tropical areas, and monsoon seasons could expand to include
larger areas, striking earlier and lasting longer, according to the report. It is “virtually certain” that sea levels will continue to rise through the
end of this century and beyond, and they said it is likely that the heat waves have become more frequent across swaths of Europe, Asia, and
Australia. “Warming
of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes
are unprecedented over decades to millennia,” the researchers wrote in the report. “The atmosphere and ocean
have warmed, the amount of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased.”
And while the evidence is clearer than ever that the planet’s getting toastier, the report said that people now are living through a truly historic
period of uncomfortable warmth — at least as far as the last millennium is concerned. “Each of the last three decades has been successively
warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850,” according to the report. “In the Northern Hemisphere, 1983-2012 was
likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years.” The
amount of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide,
methane, and nitrous oxide is at an 800,000-year high, according to the report, with concentrations of CO2 showing
a 40 percent spike over pre-industrial levels. About a third of the gas emitted by humans has been absorbed
by the ocean, making the waters acidic. A ceiling on carbon emissions? The climate situation could get much
worse, the scientists said: Past studies have suggested that a mean global temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6
degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels would have dangerous, irreversible effects on sea levels and
weather patterns. In the new report, experts estimate that 2-degree target would be reached when industrial carbon dioxide emissions
add up to 1 trillion tons. They say the running total, going from the 19th century to 2011, amounts to 531 billion tons. Thus, even at the current
emission rate of roughly 10 tons per year, humanity would hit the 1-trillion-ton ceiling by 2060. And if carbon
emissions continue
to rise, as expected, the ceiling could be reached by the 2040s. Such projections are likely to spark calls for renewed
negotiations on global greenhouse-gas limits. The scientists said other measures to head off global warming — for example, sequestering
carbon underground or pumping aerosols into the atmosphere to reduce sunlight — would have limited or unpredictable effects. Explaining the
slowdown in warming The climate
panel’s report rebuts claims made by people who point to a so-called
“hiatus” in warming over the past 15 years — a claim that experts say is just blip compared to the long-term trends of climate
change. “The hiatus is a denier-manufactured diversion,” Kevin Trenberth, climate scientist with
Colorado’s National Center for Atmospheric Research, told NBC News in an email before the report’s release. “The
2000s are the warmest decade on record by far.” Part of the seeming slowdown in warming may be because of the
amount of heat trapped by the ocean, said John Reilly, co-director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of
Global Change. “The hiatus, if anything, may just fool us because while the ocean is taking up more heat
this past decade, sometime in the future it may take up relatively less heat, and then we’ll see the atmosphere warming
just that much more,” Reilly said. Other factors may include the transitory effects of volcanic eruptions and a downturn in the sun's 11-year
activity cycle, scientists said in the report. 'Another wakeup call' The IPCC report was received warmly by the Obama administration. In a
statement, Secretary of State John Kerry called it “yet another wakeup call.” “Once again, the science grows clearer, the case grows more
compelling, and the costs of inaction grow beyond anything that anyone with conscience or common sense should be willing to even
contemplate,” Kerry said in the statement. “This isn’t a run of the mill report to be dumped in a filing cabinet. This isn’t a political document
produced by politicians.” “It’s science.”
The effects of global warming are likely to continue to unfold over
centuries , scientists said, even if human beings take immediate action
to limit their role in changing the environment,
causing ocean patterns to change as the rising water heats up and Arctic sea ice gets thinner. “Scientists have confirmed what farmers in poor
countries around the world have been telling us or years, that changes to their climate are destroying their livelihoods, ruining crops, hitting
incomes, food quality and often their family’s health,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam, according to Reuters.
Warming is absolutely happening and cutting emissions is the only way to save
ourselves
Ross, IBTimes, 14 (Philip, citing Daniela Cusack, an assistant professor of geography in the University of California, Los Angeles’
College of Letters and Science and the study's lead author and a recent peer-reviewed report in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the
Environment, “Cutting Carbon Emissions Is Our Best Option For Slowing Global Warming, Study Finds”, http://www.ibtimes.com/cuttingcarbon-emissions-our-best-option-slowing-global-warming-study-finds-1593158)
Green technologies and sustainability efforts are important, but scientists say the
only way to truly rein in global warming is
to attack the issue at its source by reducing carbon emissions, according to a comprehensive new study that coincides
with the Obama administration's new proposal to reduce such emissions. "We found that climate engineering doesn't offer a
perfect option," Daniela Cusack, an assistant professor of geography in the University of California, Los Angeles’ College of Letters and
Science and the study's lead author, said in a statement. " The perfect option is reducing emissions . We have to
cut down the amount of emissions we're putting into the atmosphere if, in the future, we want to have
anything like the Earth we have now." Human activity adds roughly 7 billion metric tons of carbon to
the environment every year . Ninety-one percent of carbon comes from the burning of fossil fuels and
cement production; the remainder comes from land use change. Fifty percent of the carbon we release ends up in the
atmosphere. The rest is absorbed by Earth’s carbon sinks, including our forests and oceans. Researchers from UCLA and five other
universities compared several innovative approaches to climate change mitigation, including carbon sequestration, storing carbon underground
and solar reflection. They found that none came close to reducing the impact carbon has on global warming like limiting how much carbon
we’re pumping into the environment. Scientists considered several factors in their study like feasibility, cost-effectiveness, risk and public
acceptance of various approaches to mitigation. Based on these and other criteria,
than ever is the time to curb carbon emissions.
researchers concluded that now more
However, the study authors also recognized the role that certain climate
change engineering strategies could play in slowing global warming. “While abatement remains the most desirable policy, certain climate
engineering strategies, including forest and soil management for carbon sequestration, merit broad-scale application,” researchers wrote in
their report, published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. “Other proposed strategies, such as biochar production and
geological carbon capture and storage, are rated somewhat lower, but deserve further research and development.” On Sunday, the U.S. federal
government announced plans to require power plants to cut carbon emissions by 25 percent by 2020 and 30 percent by 2030. The proposal is
the cornerstone of President Obama’s climate change agenda and will allow states more flexibility in reaching the target.
AT: Adaptation
Adaptation fails – overwhelming consensus agrees substantial and immediate cuts in
carbon emissions are they only way to solve – that’s Harvey
We definitely won’t adapt, but we can avoid it – the UN agrees.
Freedman, Climate Central's Managing Editor, 14 (Andrew, Climate Policy Analyst for Climate Central, “We're
Running Out of Time to Stop Global Warming, UN Says”, http://mashable.com/2014/04/13/global-warming-un-report/)
The window of opportunity to avoid an amount of global warming that global leaders have agreed would be
“dangerous” is rapidly closing, with just a decade left for the world to begin undertaking sweeping technological and
governmental actions to rein in emissions of global-warming gases such as carbon dioxide, according to a new
United Nations report released Sunday in Berlin. After that, it becomes far more difficult and expensive to cut
emissions sufficiently to avoid dangerous amounts of warming. Given recent emissions and temperature trends, the world
is on track to see an increase in global average surface temperatures of up to 9 degrees Fahrenheit by
the end of this century, the report says. This could have disastrous consequences by dramatically raising global sea levels, melting
land-based ice sheets, and leading to more heat waves and extreme precipitation events, among other impacts. The report, the third and
final installment of the latest comprehensive review of climate science from the Nobel Prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change’s (IPCC), analyzes
more than 1,000 scenarios of potential economic growth and environmental
changes to determine how to minimize global warming. The report is simultaneously optimistic and grim in tone, since it
concludes there is time and pre-existing technological knowledge available to meet the goals that
leaders set out in a non-binding agreement in 2009, yet lays bare the sheer scope of the challenges that lie ahead. The central task for
scientists, engineers and policymakers is to figure out how to facilitate continued economic and population growth, without also causing
emissions to skyrocket at the same time, the report says. Figuring out how to do that gets at the core of global-development issues and the
sharp climate-policy divide between industrialized and developing nations. Government representatives meeting in Berlin last week to approve
the report, objected to language in the widely read summary for policymakers that suggested developing countries have to do more to reduce
their greenhouse gas emissions, according to the New York Times. However, such language remained in the lengthy technical report. Text
discussing transfers of funding to developing countries to assist them in growing their economies without boosting emissions was also removed
from the summary, The IPCC’s
fifth assessment provides the foundation for upcoming rounds of
negotiations to craft a new global climate treaty, starting with a high-level climate summit in New York this September, and culminating in
another summit in Paris next year. The next treaty is supposed to be enforced by 2020. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the report
underscores the need for action by 2015. “So
many of the technologies that will help us fight climate change are
far cheaper, more readily available and better performing than they were when the last IPCC assessment
was released less than a decade ago,” Kerry said in a statement. “This report makes very clear we face an issue of
global willpower, not capacity.”
Adaptation impossible – warming is happening faster than we think
Jamail 2013 Dahr, independent journalist, is the author of the just-published Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded
Journalist in Occupied Iraq, citing tons of super qualified people, “The Great Dying” redux? Shocking parallels between ancient mass extinction
and climate change, Salon, December 2013,
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/17/the_great_dying_redux_shocking_parallels_between_ancient_mass_extinction_and_climate_change_part
ner/
Climate-change-related deaths are already estimated at five million annually, and the process seems
to be accelerating more rapidly than most climate models have suggested. Even without taking into account the release of frozen
methane in the Arctic, some scientists are already painting a truly bleak picture of the human future. Take Canadian Wildlife Service biologist
Neil Dawe, who in August told a reporter that he wouldn’t be surprised if the generation after him witnessed the extinction of humanity. All
around the estuary near his office on Vancouver Island, he has been witnessing the unraveling of “the web of life,” and “it’s happening very
quickly.” “Economic growth is the biggest destroyer of the ecology,” Dawe says. “Those people who think you can have a growing economy and
a healthy environment are wrong. If we don’t reduce our numbers, nature will do it for us.” And he isn’t hopeful humans
will be able to save themselves. “Everything is worse and we’re still doing the same things. Because ecosystems are so resilient, they don’t
exact immediate punishment on the stupid.” The University of Arizona’s Guy McPherson has similar fears. “We
will have very few
humans on the planet because of lack of habitat,” he says. Of recent studies showing the toll temperature increases will
take on that habitat, he adds, “They are only looking at CO2 in the atmosphere.” Here’s the question: Could
some version of
extinction or near-extinction overcome humanity, thanks to climate change — and possibly incredibly
fast? Similar things have happened in the past. Fifty-five million years ago, a five degree Celsius rise in average
global temperatures seems to have occurred in just 13 years, according to a study published in the October 2013 issue
of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A report in the August 2013 issue of Science revealed that in the near-term
Earth’s climate will change 10 times faster than at any other moment in the last 65 million years. “The Arctic is
warming faster than anywhere else on the planet,” climate scientist James Hansen has said. “There are potential irreversible
effects of melting the Arctic sea ice. If it begins to allow the Arctic Ocean to warm up, and warm the ocean floor, then we’ll
begin to release methane hydrates. And if we let that happen, that is a potential tipping point that we
don’t want to happen. If we burn all the fossil fuels then we certainly will cause the methane hydrates, eventually, to come out and
cause several degrees more warming, and it’s not clear that civilization could survive that extreme climate
change .” Yet, long before humanity has burned all fossil fuel reserves on the planet, massive amounts
of methane will be released. While the human body is potentially capable of handling a six to nine degree Celsius rise in the
planetary temperature, the crops and habitat we use for food production are not. As McPherson put it, “If we see a 3.5 to 4C
baseline increase, I see no way to have habitat. We are at .85C above baseline and we’ve already triggered all
these self-reinforcing feedback loops.” He adds: “All the evidence points to a locked-in 3.5 to 5 degree C
global temperature rise above the 1850 ‘norm’ by mid-century, possibly much sooner. This guarantees a positive
feedback, already underway, leading to 4.5 to 6 or more degrees above ‘norm’ and that is a level
lethal to life. This is partly due to the fact that humans have to eat and plants can’t adapt fast enough to make
that possible for the seven to nine billion of us — so we’ll die .” If you think McPherson’s comment about lack of adaptability goes
over the edge, consider that the rate of evolution trails the rate of climate change by a factor of 10,000, according
to a paper in the August 2013 issue of Ecology Letters. Furthermore, David Wasdel, director of the Apollo-Gaia Project and an expert on
multiple feedback dynamics, says, “We
are experiencing change 200 to 300 times faster than any of the previous
major extinction events.” Wasdel cites with particular alarm scientific reports showing that the oceans have
already lost 40% of their phytoplankton, the base of the global oceanic food chain, because of climate-changeinduced acidification and atmospheric temperature variations. (According to the Center for Ocean Solutions: “The oceans have absorbed almost
one-half of human-released CO2 emissions since the Industrial Revolution. Although this has moderated the effect of greenhouse gas
emissions, it is chemically altering marine ecosystems 100 times more rapidly than it has changed in at least the last 650,000 years.”) “This
is
already a mass extinction event,” Wasdel adds. “The question is, how far is it going to go? How serious does it become? If we
are not able to stop the rate of increase of temperature itself, and get that back under control, then a
high temperature event, perhaps another 5-6 degrees [C], would obliterate at least 60% to 80% of the
populations and species of life on Earth.”
**AT: Warming I/L Turn**
2AC Top Level
--Renewables can’t solve – not mature enough to support global energy grid – natural
gas is critical to cross the bridge to a zero-carbon economy – that’s Trembath
--Uniqueness goes aff – emissions are down because of natural gas surges, not
renewable use, but a greater supply is key
Ross, prof of humanities and sciences at Stanford, 13 (Lee, Stanford Federal Credit Union Professor of
Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University, “Progress in US on emissions may be tied to increased natural gas production”,
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/03/21/progress-in-us-on-emissions-may-be-tied-to-increased-natural-gas-production/)
Somewhat hidden among the alarming data about global warming and environmental horribles is a significant piece
of good news that seems to have slipped by with little attention. International and American agencies charged with keeping
track of carbon pollution each report that while global air pollution is on the rise, U.S. emissions have reduced significantly in
recent years. The I nternational E nergy A gency in 2012 reported that U.S. carbon emissions declined from the previous
year and also were down an astounding 7.7 percent since 2006. That's the largest reduction from any
country on the planet. A similar finding from the U.S. Department of Energy concluded that carbon emissions in the first quarter of
2012 were at their lowest point in two decades. A significant reason for the reduction may also explain why this hasn't been widely noted. "It's
underreported because it's not wind and solar; it's natural gas and that's still a fossil fuel," Heritage Foundation's Nick Loris
said. The IEA says America's move toward increased production of natural gas is a major reason for
the reduction. "It has been underreported that [natural gas has] usurped coal as the biggest electricity provider and has substantially
reduced emissions as well," Loris said. "[T]he fact that it's gone underreported is certainly glaring in terms of the environmentalist movement."
It's also noteworthy that the reduction has occurred in the absence of a controversial cap and trade law or U.S. participation in United Nationsbacked climate compacts. The Sierra Club doesn't dispute the numbers or the causes for the carbon reduction -- the IEA also says the economic
downturn with fewer cars and trucks on the roads played a role -- but it rejects the notion that the relative environmental benefits of natural
gas should be seen as long term positive development. "What we do know is that gas when you compare gas to clean energy, it actually hinders
our efforts to fight climate change," Sierra Club's Michael Brune told Fox News. "And it hinders our efforts to change to a clean energy
economy." The
raw data reveals a steady increase of natural gas withdrawals in the U.S. from 24.6 million cubic
to 29.7 million in 2012. Meanwhile the amount of coal extracted over that same time dropped
by ten percent. To be sure, the country has seen an economic slowdown during the time period. The federal government's Energy
Information Administration calls natural gas the least carbon-intensive fossil fuel. It also produces the smallest amount of
carbon dioxide emissions, which are linked to global warming. The agency also concludes that power plants
burning natural gas are usually more efficient than their coal-fired counterparts; another reason for the drop in
feet in 2007
emissions. While the numbers may be new to many people, they're not new to Adam Berig, head of air quality for the energy company Encana.
"I think that is widely known in the industry," Berig told Fox News at a production well near Boulder, Colorado. "We talk about that within our
own company and I think that we're always driving...to reduce emissions--to bring down any sort of emissions that we can through new control
technologies." Berig explained to Fox News how Encana's modernized field equipment is used to extract the natural gas then transform it into a
usable energy source. The company's website says, "strong environmental performance is a key indicator of our success." Berig offered a
simpler business-oriented explanation for why Encana wants to keep pollutants out of the air. "Those natural gas emissions -- we want to keep
in the pipeline so we can use that product," he said. The Sierra Club says studies from several years ago showing a significant reduction in
carbon emissions from coal to natural gas are overstated. Brune points to the fracking process as responsible for the natural gas boom as more
greenhouse gas intensive than normal drilling. Additionally, he says, the movement of natural gas once it's out of the ground and moved
through pipes harms the environment more than thought. "And so all of that adds up to a whole lot of pollution which minimizes the advantage
between coal and gas," he said. Those claims are rejected by the industry which touts natural gas as an affordable long term energy source that
minimizes environmental harm. But Sierra Club and other like-minded interests aren't satisfied with a reduced role of natural gas and are
pushing hard on the Obama administration for more stringent environmental standards. "[W]e do need some kind of comprehensive climate
change legislation here in the United States," Brune said. "If it doesn't happen this year it has to happen within the next few years in order to
give us a fighting shot at arresting climate change."
2AC No Exports
**Be careful with this if you read an exports internal link in the 1AC – don’t take our your own internal
link – but a lot of the cards in the neg have to do with *exporting* natural gas, not just drilling for it.
Easy way to get out of those arguments. They include the climate diplomacy and coal switch turns.
No link – aff doesn’t increase exports of natural gas – too many hurdles
Stolarczyk 14 (Agnieszka Joanna, policy analyst with the Spruce Grove & District Chamber of Commerce, located in the province of
Alberta, Canada, “U.S. LNG Exports to Europe: Why it won’t Happen Anytime Soon?”, http://securityobserver.org/u-s-lng-exports-to-europewhy-it-wont-happen-anytime-soon/)
On March 6, 2014, Republican Cory Gardner and other members of the
House Committee on Energy and Commerce introduced
bipartisan legislation to help expedite the export of U.S. shale gas as liquefied natural gas (LNG) to markets
overseas. The bill, called H.R. 6, the Domestic Prosperity and Global Freedom Act[i], stated that all pending LNG export
applications for which a notice had been published in the Federal Register as of March 6, 2014, would be granted a response without
delay.[ii] The decision concurred with the letter issued by Ambassadors of the Visegrad Group, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, urging the U.S.
Congress to help them buy American natural gas, this way reducing their dependence on Russian gas imports.[iii] Both documents were undoubtedly inspired by the
annexation of Crimea and the ongoing unrest in eastern Ukraine, which is the main transit country for Russian gas. In 2013, Europe got over 24% of its gas from
Russia, half of which passed through Ukraine.[iv] Nonetheless, despite vigorous international debate about how EU energy security could improve by
importing American LNG, it is not certain that the U.S. considers LNG exports to Europe a priority. The “shale boom” in
the U.S. started in 2008 when shale gas production increased by 71% in comparison to the previous year. Therefore, it is a relatively new development and so far no
national strategy has been drafted in regards to its future advancement. This is partly due to U.S. land and mineral ownership rights, which allow private individuals
to own much of the mineral reserves across the country, as opposed to governmental institutions. A significant portion (about 31%) of U.S. mineral reserves are
owned by the federal government, but these federally-owned non-fuel-containing mineral reserves can be staked and claimed by prospectors who acquire private
rights to them.[v] Thus, it is not the State, but rather the land owner who negotiates contracts with companies interested in oil and gas extraction. Apart from land
ownership rights, other factors that triggered the U.S. “shale revolution” should be mentioned, as they also answer the question of why the EU, despite having shale
gas reservoirs, could not duplicate the success. Next to technology innovation (horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing) the US has at its disposal favorable
geology, water availability, natural gas pipeline infrastructure and the associated open-access policy.[vi] As a result, while in 2000 shale gas provided only 1% of U.S.
natural gas production, by 2010 it grew to over 20% and the U.S. government’s Energy Information Administration predicts that by 2035, 46% of the United States’
natural gas supply will come from shale gas. The main shale reservoirs are located in Texas (Barnett reservoir) and across New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia
(Marcellus reservoir). The shale gas supplies from Pennsylvania alone equal the entire natural gas export capacity of Qatar, the world’s second largest natural gas
exporter in 2012.[vii] Fracking, apart from increasing U.S. production of natural gas and high quality light tight oil (shale oil), helped the country start exporting more
refined petroleum products than it used to import during the last 60 years.[viii] Robust
development of shale gas exploration raised
a question if the U.S. is interested in exporting part of it as LNG and if so, which countries would be the prime recipients.
The debate regarding whether to export the shale gas has divided not only Congress, but also public
opinion
as for the first time since 1960s the country has the chance to become energy independent. According to BP’s Energy Outlook 2035, published in
January 2014, the shale boom in the United States could help the country to reach energy independence by 2035.[ix] In addition, some worry that an increased
export of gas would cause natural gas prices to spike at home. In the State of the Union address delivered to Congress on January 28, 2014, President Barack Obama
said: “The all-of-the-above energy strategy I announced a few years ago is working, and today, America is closer to energy independence than we’ve been in
decades. One of the reasons why is natural gas.”[x] In a fact sheet distributed alongside the speech, the
White House announced the
creation of Sustainable Shale Gas Growth Zones which would help regions come together to make sure shale gas is developed in a safe,
responsible way. President Obama announced specific ways to better focus on leveraging natural gas in
manufacturing, transportation, and power generation and reducing dependence on foreign oil through investing in new
manufacturing plants that rely on natural gas. The Administration declared expanding tax incentives to replace oil with U.S.produced natural gas in trucks and other vehicles. It is worth noting that neither the State of the Union address nor the
associated fact sheet mentioned plans of exporting shale gas abroad; instead, they focused on developing the national
economy based on natural gas rather than on crude oil, and thereby fulfilling the government’s promises on climate change policy as well as on achieving energy
independency. Currently, there are twenty-four applications for building LNG export terminals on hold; they cover twenty-two facilities where businesses are
seeking to build and operate LNG export terminals mainly on the East coast. There are more than 110 LNG facilities operating in the U.S., performing a variety of
services, but no export terminal for LNG has been opened so far. To
export LNG to countries that do not have free trade
agreements with the U.S. (which is the case of the EU countries)[xi], the projects must obtain two major approvals: an
approval to export LNG from the Department of Energy (DOE) and another approval to construct liquidation
facilities from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The latter is more expensive and takes longer to
receive .[xii] As of March 24, 2014, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) had approved only seven applications for
permits to export LNG to nations that currently do not have free trade agreements with the US.[xiii] At the end
of 2015, the first LNG export port, called Sabine Pass, will be opened in Louisiana. First contracts have been already signed with South Korea, Japan and Taiwan; the
countries will start importing U.S. LNG in 2017. In the meantime, as of February, the U.S. has begun exporting LNG by truck to Canada and Mexico.[xiv] The
slow process of granting permissions for new LNG export facilities, the pursuit to maintain energy independence, the
lack of a free trade agreement with the EU, and the so-called American “pivot to Asia” announced four years ago[xv] are
only a few reasons why exports of U.S. LNG to Europe will not start any time soon . Considerable impediments
also lie on the EU side. According to some analysts, Europe lacks necessary energy policies and pipeline infrastructure to
transport gas from European LNG ports to landlocked EU countries. In addition, the American gas, after liquidation, transit
and regasification will be at least double the price of what Europe currently pays Russia.[xvi] This is particularly important for the EU countries that do not depend
on Russian gas and can get it cheaper from Algeria, Libya or Egypt. Ironically, these are the same countries which administer the majority of LNG ports. The fact that
EU countries do not lean equally on Russian gas is one of the main reasons why the EU struggles to formulate a common energy security policy, which would
harmonize energy policies of all EU member countries, strengthening at the same time the EU position when negotiating new energy contracts. In spite of increasing
the share of renewable energy in the EU energy mix, the EU dependency on imported gas and oil will continue to grow, and by 2035 the EU will rely on foreign gas
and oil for more than 80% of its supply. Therefore, new agreements and partnerships, mostly with the Caspian region and North Africa, are on the way.[xvii]
Shale gas extraction in the U.S. is a considerably new development and the government has not decided
how much of this natural resource is going to be exported oversees yet. However, the first LNG export contracts have been
already signed with the two top LNG importers: South Korea and Japan, which on average pay 25% more for LNG than Europe. The U.S. may start
exporting LNG to Europe, but it probably will not happen before both sides sign the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP) agreement, which is at least a few years from completion . In the meantime, Europe will have to continue working
on new diversification strategies[xviii], construction of additional LNG ports, and on finalizing ongoing projects like the Trans-Anatolian natural gas pipeline (TANAP),
which will start transporting gas from the Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan in 2018. Finally, the most important repercussion of the American “shale revolution” for the
EU, in light of ongoing unrest in Ukraine, will be the fact that it has triggered a necessary debate on energy security in Europe. The rapidly changing geopolitical
situation forced the EU to make energy security a priority, something that the Central European EU member countries have been advocating for since the last
Ukrainian crisis in 2008. In the best case scenario, the EU will take advantage of the shifts on the geopolitical map and will start working on a strategy that would
allow the EU to speak about energy security with one voice.
AT: Methane Leaks
No impact – methane emissions will decrease over time and the best models prove
that they won’t affect the warming rate – natural gas is still the only answer – that’s
Luke
No impact – methane leakage won’t contribute to overall warming – gas is still key to
solve
Bernstein, Washington Post, 14 (Lenny, review of a study led by professor of Energy Resources Engineering Adam R.
Brandt from Stanford University, compiling over 200 studies of methane leaks and global warming, “Levels of global-warming gas methane
exceed government estimates, new study contends”, http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/global-warming-gas-methaneexceeds-government-estimates-new-study-contends/2014/02/13/e4182008-9420-11e3-84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html)
The amount of the heat-trapping gas methane in the atmosphere is considerably great-er than government estimates, a problem significantly fueled by leaks from
the U.S. natural gas system, according to a study released Thursday. The leak rate probably is large enough to negate the value of converting buses and trucks from
diesel to natural gas, as governments and private companies have done to help slow the warming of the planet, the scientists concluded. But even
with the
current leaks, burning natural gas instead of coal is producing less heat-trapping gas and will slow the
rate of climate change over 100 years, the researchers said in their study, published in the current issue of the journal Science. They
also determined that the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for gas trapped in rock formations is
“unlikely to be a dominant contributor” to total methane emissions. “If natural gas is to be a ‘bridge’ to
a more sustainable energy future, it is a bridge that must be traversed carefully: Diligence will be required to ensure that leakage rates
are low enough to achieve sustainability goals,” the team wrote. Fortunately, the researchers added, that task is achievable , because a large
share of the leaked gas comes from a tiny number of “super-emitters,” devices or other parts of the gas and oil system
that are allowing disproportionate emissions. The scientists, from universities, national laboratories and government agencies, reviewed more
than 200 studies with conflicting methodologies in what a news release called the first comprehensive look at North American
methane emissions. They considered studies that totaled leaks directly from equipment, as well as research that
measured the gas in the atmosphere, using aircraft and towers. The research was led by Adam R. Brandt of Stanford University. Although methane is much
less common in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, the primary contributor to global warming, it is much more effective at trapping heat — perhaps 30 times as
potent, the researchers said. Natural gas is composed mainly of methane. As natural gas is extracted from the earth, processed and transported through pipes to
consumers, about 1.5 percent of it escapes, the researchers concluded. Some natural gas is released intentionally by drillers. Oil exploration also releases methane.
The study concluded that estimates of methane in the atmosphere by the Environmental Protection Agency, begun in the 1990s, are probably 50 percent too low,
for a variety of reasons. In a telephone news conference, the researchers said they are working with the EPA to reconcile the differences. “We are in discussion with
EPA as scientists who have tried to synthesize the available evidence, and they are very interested in hearing” the researchers’ views, said Garvin Heath, a senior
scientist with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and one of the authors of the study. The researchers could not pinpoint the natural gas system’s leakage
rate. They did not offer an estimate of how much the transition from coal to natural gas in sectors such as electricity generation is slowing global warming.
1AR AT: Methane Leaks
Even if leakage occurs, it has little effect on warming – natural gas is still net beneficial
Trembath et al 13 (Alex, policy analyst in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough Institute, where he researches and
writes about renewable energy technologies, American federal energy policy and the history of public investments in technological innovation,
and Max Luke, policy associate in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough, where his research focused on a range of energy issues and
topics including nuclear power, natural gas, renewables, energy efficiency rebound and backfire, national energy subsidies, and electricity
systems, with Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, “Coal Killer: How Natural Gas Fuels the Clean Energy Revolution”,
http://thebreakthrough.org/images/main_image/Breakthrough_Institute_Coal_Killer.pdf)
Methane leakage rates, however, appear to have little impact on long-term warming trends , according
to climate models assuming different leak levels over the century scale timeframe that matters most in the context of global
warming. Studies that use high leakage rates find that a long-term, permanent shift from coal to gas
would have little impact on long-term warming,82, 83 yet studies that assume no methane leakage arrive at similar
conclusions.84 Climate modeling suggests that the implications of a long-term global shift from coal to gas are largely determined by
assumptions about the thermal efficiency of future coal plants and whether the switch to gas is permanent or a bridge to zero-carbon energy
sources in the middle and latter portions of the 21st century. Studies that assume that future coal plants will be significantly more efficient than
present-day plants, and that the switch to gas is permanent and not a bridge, find little climate benefit from the switch to gas. Studies that are
more pessimistic about the future efficiency of coal plants or that assume that gas serves as a bridge to zero-carbon energy sources find that
switching to gas today brings significant climate benefits.85, 86 For a variety of reasons, regulatory and technological efforts to reduce methane
leakage make sense. The
long-term climate benefits of the coal-to-gas switch, however, will largely be
determined by how quickly zero-carbon technologies are able to displace gas. For the next several
decades, natural gas offers a sizable emissions-reduction benefit over coal , while other low-carbon
technologies mature. The long-term climate benefits of the coal-to-gas switch will depend upon how rapidly
those technologies mature and the degree to which the gas revolution impedes or assists that maturation process.
Leakage levels are guaranteed to decrease with time – stronger regulations, economic
incentives and developing tech ensure
Trembath et al 13 (Alex, policy analyst in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough Institute, where he researches and
writes about renewable energy technologies, American federal energy policy and the history of public investments in technological innovation,
and Max Luke, policy associate in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough, where his research focused on a range of energy issues and
topics including nuclear power, natural gas, renewables, energy efficiency rebound and backfire, national energy subsidies, and electricity
systems, with Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, “Coal Killer: How Natural Gas Fuels the Clean Energy Revolution”,
http://thebreakthrough.org/images/main_image/Breakthrough_Institute_Coal_Killer.pdf)
Nonetheless, it
is already clear that leakage rates could, and probably will, be lowered substantially in the future.
One study found that 70 percent of total leakage was occurring in only 10 percent of wells, suggesting
that the problem is not evenly distributed and the potential for low-cost, high-impact interventions is
significant.76 Public concern about leakage has already led to stronger government regulation as well as efforts by
the gas industry, in partnership with environmental groups, to increase the use of best practices.77 Moreover, because methane has a
high economic value, there are strong financial incentives to reduce leakage .78 An MIT analysis of 4,000
horizontal wells that were brought online in 2010 found that in most cases, capturing methane emissions was
profitable to drillers.79 A recent report from the World Resources Institute identifies several promising options
for further limiting fugitive methane emissions, including monitoring and repair systems, more-efficient pneumatic devices
that capture fugitive emissions, and plunger lift systems to remove excess fluid in wells without venting excessive amounts of methane.80 The
authors of the report expect that these
opportunities will be attractive to most drillers, and that
implementation of these simple measures can keep methane leakage to reasonable levels. Steps in
the direction of more-aggressive methane capture are already being taken . According to a senior scientist from
the Environmental Defense Fund, over 90 percent of wells use “green completion” techniques to seriously
reduce fugitive emissions, where only a quarter of wells used these techniques as recently as two to three years ago.81
Natural gas substitution results in a 40% reduction of warming regardless of leaks –
buys time for renewable, zero carbon sources to be developed
Cathles, prof of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences @ Cornell, 12 (L. M., fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Geophysical Union, Director of the Cornell Institute for the Study of
the Continents, and continuing collaboration with IRiS and UiS researchers on petroleum-related research, and with scientists in Tectonor (in
Stavanger) on glacial isostatic rebound “Assessing the greenhouse impact of natural gas”
http://www.geo.cornell.edu/eas/PeoplePlaces/Faculty/cathles/Natural%20Gas/Assessing%20the%20greenhouse%20impact%20of%20natural%
20gas%20FINAL%20UNFORMTTED.pdf)
The global warming impact of substituting natural gas for coal and oil is currently in 5 debate. We address
this question here by comparing the reduction of greenhouse warming 6 that would result from substituting
gas for coal and some oil t o the reduction which could 7 be achieved by instead substituting zero carbon energy sources. We show
that substitution 8 of natural gas reduces global warming by 40% of that which could be attained by the 9
substitution of zero carbon energy sources. At
methane leakage rates that are ~1% of 10 production, which is
similar to today’s probable leakage rate o f ~1.5% of production, the 11 40% benefit is realized as gas
substitution occurs. For short transitions the leakage rate 12 must be more than 10 to 15% of pr oduction for gas substitution not to
reduce warming, 13 and for longer transitions the leakage must be much greater. But even if the leakage was so 14 high that
the substitution was not of immediate benefit, the 40 %‐of‐zero‐carbon benefit 15 would be realized
shortly after methane emissions ceased because methane is removed 16 quickly form the atmosphere
whereas CO 2 is not. The benefits of substitution are 17 unaffected by heat exchange to the ocean. CO 2 emissions are the key to
anthropogenic 18 climate change, and substituting gas reduces them by 40% of that possible by conversion to 19 zero carbon energy sources.
Gas substitution also reduces the rate at which zero carbon 20 energy sources must be eventually
introduced.
AT: Methane Emissions = Warming
No warming from hydrates
Noserale et al., USGS Communications, 2012 (Diane, “Gas Hydrates and Climate Warming—Why a Methane
Catastrophe Is Unlikely”, May/June, http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2012/06/)
Sector 1, Thick Onshore Permafrost: Gas
hydrates that occur within or beneath thick terrestrial permafrost will
remain largely stable even if climate warming lasts hundreds of years. Over thousands of years, warming could cause gas
hydrates at the top of the stability zone, about 625 feet (190 meters) below the Earth’s surface, to begin to dissociate. Sector 2, Shallow Arctic Shelf: The
shallow-water continental shelves that circle parts of the Arctic Ocean were formed when sea-level rise during the past 10,000 years inundated
permafrost that was at the coastline. Subsea permafrost is thawing beneath these continental shelves, and associated methane hydrates are likely dissociating now.
(For example, see related Sound Waves article "Degradation of Subsea Permafrost and Associated Gas Hydrates Offshore of Alaska in Response to Climate Change.")
If methane from these gas hydrates reaches the seafloor, much of it will likely be emitted to the atmosphere. Less
than 1 percent of the world’s
gas hydrates probably occur in this setting, but this estimate could be revised as scientists learn more. Sector 3, Upper Edge of
Stability: Gas hydrates on upper continental slopes, beneath 1,000 to 1,600 feet (300 to 500 meters) of water, lie at the shallowest
water depth for which methane hydrates are stable. The upper continental slopes, which ring all of the world’s continents, could host gas hydrate in zones that are
roughly 30 feet (10 meters) thick. Warming ocean waters could completely dissociate these gas hydrates in less than 100 years. Methane
emitted at
these water depths will probably dissolve or be oxidized in the water column and is unlikely to reach
the atmosphere. About 3.5 percent of the Earth’s gas hydrates occur in this climate-sensitive setting. Sector 4, Deepwater: Most of the Earth’s gas
hydrates, about 95 percent, occur in water depths greater than 3,000 feet (1,000 meters). They are likely to remain stable even with a
sustained increase in bottom temperatures over thousands of years. Most of the gas hydrates in these
settings occur deep within the sediments. If the gas hydrates do dissociate, the released methane
should remain trapped in the sediments, migrate upward to form new gas hydrates, or be consumed
by oxidation in near-seafloor sediments. Most methane released at the seafloor would likely dissolve
or be oxidized in the water column. A recent article, “Methane Hydrates and Contemporary Climate Change,” provides more detail.
Be skeptical of their evidence—qualified research concludes neg
Revkin, Pace Environmental Understanding senior fellow, 2011 (Andrew, “Methane Time Bomb in
Arctic Seas – Apocalypse Not”, 12-14, dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/methane-time-bomb-in-arctic-seas-apocalypse-not/, DOA: 3-613)
A very important research effort has been under way during recent summers in the warming, increasingly ice-free shallows off Russia’s Siberian coast. There, an
international array of scientists has been investigating widening areas of open water that are
disgorging millions of tons of methane each year. Given that methane, molecule for molecule, has at least 20 times the heat-trapping
properties of carbon dioxide, it’s important to get a handle on whether these are new releases, the first foretaste of some great outburst from thawing sea-bed
stores of the gas, or simply a longstanding phenomenon newly observed. If you read the Independent of Britain, you’d certainly be thinking the worst. The
newspaper has led the charge in fomenting worry over the gas emissions, with portentous, and remarkably similar, stories in 2008 and this week. [Dec. 29, 1:44 p.m.
| Updated | Steve Connor, the writer (also science editor) at The Independent, alerted me that the article has been revised with a new headline and expanded to
include content that didn't make it into the piece when first published.] If you read geophysical journals and survey scientists tracking past and future methane
emissions, you get an entirely different picture: A paper published in Dec. 6 in the Journal
of Geophysical Research appears to
confirm pretty convincingly that the gas emissions seen in recent years are from a thawing process
that has been under way for 8,000 years — since seas rose sufficiently to cover the near-shore seabed. Sharp warming of the sea in the
region since 1985 has clearly had an influence on the seabed, according to the paper, led by Igor Dmitrenko of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel,
Germany. But read this summary of the paper from the American
Geophysical Union, which publishes the journal, and see if you feel reassured
that roughly 1 meter of the subsurface
permafrost thawed in the past 25 years, adding to the 25 meters of already thawed soil. Forecasting the
expected future permafrost thaw, the authors found that even under the most extreme climatic scenario tested this thawed
soil growth will not exceed 10 meters by 2100 or 50 meters by the turn of the next millennium. The authors note
that the bulk of the methane stores in the east Siberian shelf are trapped roughly 200 meters below the
seafloor… [Read the rest.] Here’s the link to the paper itself: “Recent changes in shelf hydrography in the Siberian Arctic: Potential for subsea permafrost
instability.” To review, the authors confirm “drastic bottom layer heating over the coastal zone” that they attribute to warming of the Arctic atmosphere, but
conclude that “recent climate change cannot produce an immediate response in sub-sea permafrost. ”
that the “methane time bomb” there is safe for a long time to come: [T]he authors found
That’s the understatement of the year considering their conclusion that even under sustained heating, the brunt of the sub-sea methane won’t be affected in this
millennium. It’s worth considering the risks of “single-study syndrome,” given that other recent work continues to find disturbing amounts of methane emissions in
Arctic shallows. But scientists
who track methane in the atmosphere in the Arctic and elsewhere around the planet see no big surge
that can be pinned on such releases. Before I distributed the link to the new paper above to relevant scientists, I’d already heard from Ed
Dlugokencky, one of the top federal researchers tracking methane trends. He sent a detailed review of
atmospheric measurements from the Arctic to the Equator and concluded, quite simply: [B]ased on what we see in the
atmosphere, there is no evidence of substantial increases in methane emissions from the Arctic in the past
20 years.
AT: Coal Trade-Off
Most rigorous scientific studies prove that carbon emissions swamp all other causes of
warming – switching from coal is the only way to avoid runaway warming – that’s
Harvey
And Walsh concludes aff – suflates won’t cool the earth and we need to stop coal
emissions now
Walsh, 2011 (Bryan, is a senior writer for TIME magazine, citing a study from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, “Natural
Gas Can Save the Climate? Not Exactly” http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/09/09/natural-gas-can-save-the-climate-not-exactly/)
Wigley’s study doesn’t mean we should give up on natural gas and keep burning coal
until the sky above the U.S. resembles, well, China sky. While they may slow the process of global warming, sulfates and
coal ash cause direct damage to human health, and it’s in our interest to reduce them. That’s
especially true for heavily coal-using, heavily-polluted developing nations like China, for whom killer air
pollution is a much more immediate threat than climate change. (As it happens, China also might have some of the
Frankly, it’s a drag. But
largest shale gas reserves in the world—and by all accounts, they’re ready to drill.) That dash for gas isn’t likely to be blunted by fears over
warming, although tighter regulations—especially on methane leakages—will be needed. But Wigley’s study is a reminder that natural gas—
which is a fossil fuel, after all—isn’t a perfect panacea, now matter how hard members of the industry might wish it so. Ultimately, unless we
figure out a way to magically suck carbon out of the air cheaply,
rather than later.
we’ll need to switch to carbon-neutral fuels sooner,
Natural gas is hyped as a bridge fuel, and maybe it is—but that bridge had better be a short one.
AT: Coal Switch
--Try or die for the aff – renewables can’t solve now – the tech and development isn’t
mature enough – the aff is a key low-carbon bridge until renewables are ready – that’s
Trembath
--No increased coal consumption – your ev assumes an increase in domestic gas prices
if exports are increased – only true if we don’t increase offshore development
Chamber of Commerce 13 (the Institute for 21st Century Energy, “Remove Barriers to Increased Domestic Oil & Natural Gas
Production and Fuel Manufacturing”, http://www.energyxxi.org/sites/default/files/file-tool/Energy_Works_For_US.pdf)
Some have expressed concern that if the U nited S tates exports LNG to these places, natural gas prices would
increase substantially and America would lose the competitive advantage low natural gas prices give manufacturing, petrochemicals,
and other industries that use natural gas as a fuel or feedstock. Exports of natural gas to nations that do not have free trade agreements with
the United States, however, require a permit from the Department of Energy (DOE). In
2012, Cheniere Energy was granted the first permit to
an in-depth
export LNG from its Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana. But before DOE would issue further permits, it wanted
assessment of the economic impact of LNG exports. The study by NERA Economic Consultants released in December
2012 found that in all of the cases it examined, including those with relatively high levels of LNG exports, “the U.S. would
experience net economic benefits from increased LNG exports.” 17 Moreover, export restriction also would be in
violation of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, which prohibits WTO members from discriminantly restraining exports to other WTO
members.
All the benefits of greater oil and natural gas production will be at risk, however, if these
resources cannot be tapped further
and delivered to where they are needed. With
some 80% of federal onshore
and offshore areas unavailable, access to resources on public lands remains a key concern . These
restrictions amount to a huge lost economic opportunity. Wood Mackenzie found that “policies that increase access to
currently undeveloped regions have the largest potential to create jobs in the U.S.,” which the firm estimates could result in 690,000 new jobs
by 2030. 18 The
benefits of the midstream, downstream, and energy- related chemicals links of the unconventional oil and
natural gas value chain also are impressive. According to an IHS analysis, in 2012 these activities supported 324,000 jobs,
generated nearly $46 billion in GDP, and added $11.4 billion to federal and state tax revenues. By 2020, IHS projects these economic
contributions will grow to 351,000 jobs, nearly 52 billion in GDP, and $12.6 billion in federal and state
tax revenues. Infrastructure bottlenecks, labor shortages, inadequate storage facilities, stressed supply chains, and
regulatory delays and uncertainty can keep America from capitalizing on the potential of these resources.
Bakken oil, for example, has traded at a discount because of inadequate pipeline capacity, and much of it has to be shipped by rail
1AR AT: Coal Switch
--No domestic price spike – best evidence supports the aff
Medlock, Fellow in Energy and Resource Economics at Rice University, 12 (Kenneth B., senior
director of the Center for Energy Studies, as well as an adjunct professor and lecturer in the Department of Economics at Rice University, “US
LNG Exports: Truth and Consequence”, http://bakerinstitute.org/media/files/Research/da5493d4/US_LNG_Exports__Truth_and_Consequence_Final_Aug12-1.pdf)
However, it is important to recognize that the prospect of LNG exports from the U.S. does not equate to large scale reality . In general ,
regardless of the number of export licenses granted, U.S. LNG exporters face risks associated with exchange rate moveme nts, the development
of alternative foreign supplies, and the relative price impacts of introducing U.S. LNG volumes into a currently tight international LNG market. In
fact, we have presented evidence above that the apparent profitable export option from the U.S. market based on current market conditions is
transitory, as current market conditions beget a supply response abroad that erodes current price differential s . Moreover, data on regional
spot prices are supportive of this notion. A side from the app arent commercial risks associated with LNG exports, the
more salient
question for U.S. policymakers regards the U.S. price response to U.S. LNG exports. This question is best
answered in understanding the elasticity of the domestic supply curve. In particu lar, we estimate that domestic
elasticity of supply is roughly 1.52 between a price of $4 and $6 per mcf , which represents a five - fold increase since the emergence of shale
gas. In other words, a one percent increase in price will result in a one - and - a - hal f percent increase in domestic production. This means that
the export of LNG in any reasonable volume from the U.S. should not have a significant impact on price at
the margin. Rather, the analysis herein indicates that international market response will u ltimately limit
the amount of LNG that the U.S. exports as a matter of commercial rationing. Finally, even with exports, the price
in the U.S. will not likely increase dramatically. While the projected price is above today’s price, this
reflects a long - run sustainable price in line with the marginal cost of supply, not the impact of LNG exports.
The current low price in North America reflects an oversupply that resulted partly from the abnormally warm winter of
2011 - 12 coupled with ill - timed domestic produc tion growth. The marginal cost of supply is above the current price, as is evidenced by an
increasing number of producers ramping down their domestic rig activities, so the price should be expected to rise before LNG exports ever
eventuate . Our
own simulat ions indicate a long - run equilibrium price in the $4 to $6 per mcf range is
response s will ultimately limit export volumes
The hand - wringing about domestic price impacts is based largely on an incomplete assessment of
likely for many years to come. The implication for policy is simple : market
.
what should be addressed as an international trade question. Even if ex - post unprofitable investments are made in LNG liquefaction capacity
in the U.S. , the establishment of a link from U.S. supplies to foreign market s will intensify pressure on traditional pricing paradigms , thus
having potentially dramatic implications. Moreover, a
direct link between the U.S. and abroad will invite foreign
market players to consider taking positions in the U.S. storage market to hed ge their physical
positions. This will only serve to accelerate market liquidity thus lowering liquidity risk . In turn, this
could alter the financing risk of LNG projects, reducing the importance of oil - linked bilateral
relationships. As the story plays o ut, the international gas market will evolve into something dramatically different from what it is today
--Increased exports will increase drilling – reduces any price spike caused by exporting
natural gas
Ebinger, director of the Energy Security Initiative at Brookings, and Avasarala 13 (Charles
K., previously senior advisor at the International Resources Group where he advised over 50 governments on various aspects of their energy
policies, “The Case for U.S. Liquefied Natural Gas Exports”, http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2013/02/us-lng-exports-ebingeravasarala)
Companies and groups in favor of exports make some noteworthy points. First, a
host of reports by third party analysts
have found that the pricing implications of exports are indeed modest . Studies from three consulting
firms – Navigant, ICF International, and Deloitte – and the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) have all
found that under reasonable expectations for export volumes natural gas prices in 2035 would be
between 2 and 11 percent higher if the USA does export LNG than if it does not. (Most analysts, including us, estimate that 4–6
bcf/day of LNG would be exported under reasonable market conditions.) These price increases should not sway the
profitability of multi-billion dollar industrial investments. According to Kevin Book, Managing Director of ClearView
Energy Partners, another consulting firm, ‘if your margins are so thin that [modest price increases] could break them, then there isn’t much
benefit to putting up a plant here. Conversely, if it is so beneficial to do it here, then a small change in price probably won’t undermine those
benefits.’ Even if one cannot fault the industrial sector for being worried about potential price increases, given the high natural gas prices
experienced in the 2000s, the
prospects of large volumes of new supply suggest that the industrial sector’s
competitiveness is stable regardless of US export policy. Today the ratio of the price of oil to the price of
natural gas is over 30:1, well over the 7:1 oil-to-gas price ratio at which US petrochemical and plastics producers are
generally considered to be globally competitive. (Competing European and Asian petrochemical producers use oil-based
products such as naphtha and fuel oil as feedstock, as they lack access to cheap natural gas.) Moreover, the majority of gas used for
exports will come from new production, according to both Deloitte and the EIA. Increased drilling will likely result in
greater production of natural gas liquids such as ethane, a valuable feedstock for industrial consumers. According to a study by
the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade body, a 25 percent increase in ethane production would yield a
$32.8 billion increase in US chemical production. To the extent that increased gas production linked to exports results in
increased production of such natural gas liquids, they will benefit the petrochemical industry. In addition to the economic benefits of more
domestic natural gas production, LNG
exports may have additional macroeconomic benefits, including to the
balance of payments and foreign exchange . In December 2012 NERA, an economic consultancy, released a
report commissioned by DoE modeling the macroeconomic implications of LNG exports under a variety of scenarios. The study found that
in each scenario ‘the US would experience net economic benefits from increased LNG exports.’ To be
sure, these are net economic benefits, and certain segments of the population are projected to be adversely affected by LNG exports. Both the
benefits and the costs, however, are marginal. Welfare, represented in NERA’s report as the amount that households are made better or worse
off over the time horizon modeled, is estimated to increase between 0.004 percent and 0.03 percent, depending on the scenario. The greatest
achievable net increase in GDP as a result of exports is 0.26 percent of GDP.
AT: Climate Diplomacy
--No impact – worldwide modeling of natural gas as a low-carbon bridge solves
warming and prevents the worst impacts regardless of external climate diplomacy –
that’s Riley
--Boosting natural gas exports increases European ties and climate diplomacy
Bledsoe and Feinstein, Reuters, 14 (Paul and Lee, “To blunt Russia, time for American natural gas diplomacy”,
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/03/05/to-blunt-russia-time-for-american-natural-gas-diplomacy/)
Enabling a steady flow of gas from the U nited S tates to Europe would benefit both regions — geopolitically,
environmentally and economically.
It would bolster transatlantic solidarity
and help to form a united U.S.-EU response to
Russian intervention in Crimea. The Obama administration’s efforts to gain support for economic sanctions against Russia will surely attract
criticism from those Europeans who are concerned about Russian retaliation and exploitation of European dependency on Russian natural gas.
Natural gas from the U.S. will not eliminate Russian leverage, but together with substantial supplies already on the market and
other sources from Qatar and Norway, it could reduce Russia’s stranglehold on European energy requirements. Some
NATO allies are worried about announced cutbacks to the size of the U.S. army in Europe. At a time when security encompasses much more
than boots on the ground, allowing
the EU to import U.S. gas would be a tangible sign of America’s continued
commitment to the region. Gas exports can also help the U nited S tates and Europe advance their shared
goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions . Today the UK, the Netherlands, and Germany are three of
the top four destinations for U.S. coal exports. Yet natural gas, when burned, emits only half the carbon
dioxide of coal. To deliver the full climate promise, the U.S. must upgrade its domestic gas infrastructure, developing more efficient
drilling techniques and building new pipelines. Those steps would reduce leaks of unburned gas as methane, which has 23 times greater
greenhouse gas impact than natural gas that is burned. Natural
gas can also help increase the amount of renewable
energy that enters the European grid. Natural gas plants can start up and shut down much more
rapidly and cheaply to adjust to intermittent wind and solar production than either coal or nuclear power. In this
way, too, gas exports can be an important component in meeting the EU’s renewable energy and
emissions targets . As the administration prepares to roll out a series of targeted U.S. sanctions against Russia, President Obama should
use the authority of the presidency to direct the Department of Energy to speed approval of LNG exports to NATO allies, pending the hoped-for
conclusion of a comprehensive trade deal with Europe. The
U.S. energy boom has helped foster America’s economic
rebound, while advancing our climate goals. Now is the time to use America’s energy prowess to
foster transatlantic unity
by enabling U.S. gas exports to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian energy.
AT: Renewable Crowd-Out
Natural gas can only increase renewable development – no correlation between low
prices and crowd out
Trembath et al 13 (Alex, policy analyst in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough Institute, where he researches and
writes about renewable energy technologies, American federal energy policy and the history of public investments in technological innovation,
and Max Luke, policy associate in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough, where his research focused on a range of energy issues and
topics including nuclear power, natural gas, renewables, energy efficiency rebound and backfire, national energy subsidies, and electricity
systems, with Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, “Coal Killer: How Natural Gas Fuels the Clean Energy Revolution”,
http://thebreakthrough.org/images/main_image/Breakthrough_Institute_Coal_Killer.pdf)
The evidence reviewed here confirms that fears of gas “crowding out” other low-carbon technologies are
largely misplaced. There is no correlation between wind deployment and natural gas prices (see Figure 8).
Rather than being undermined by shale gas, intermittent renewables like solar and wind have benefited from it as
an inexpensive source of backup power. While low natural gas prices have added marginally to the challenges faced by the
nuclear industry, they have not significantly altered the trajectory of nuclear power, which is faced with a number of unique historical
challenges. With
lower capital costs and a cleaner stream of power-plant emissions than coal, natural gas
a potential development and demonstration platform for nascent carbon-capture technologies.
And cheap natural gas, which has added $100 billion annually to the US economy since 2007 in the form of lower electricity prices,
creates the national wealth required to continue investing in ever-cleaner and evercheaper energy
sources. It is public policies, not fossil energy prices , that overwhelmingly determine whether zero-carbon
energy sources get deployed or not. Renewables deployment is dependent on public subsidies and state utility mandates; new
also offers
nuclear deployment is dependent on loan guarantees, ratepayer tariffs, and innovation funding. Recent wind deployment trends are proof of
the industry’s subsidy dependence. In 2012, uncertainty over whether Congress would renew the key wind subsidy led to a rush of wind
installations, the largest in US history. It is predicted that less than half as much new wind will be installed in 2013 as was installed in 2012.
Prices
1AC
Demand is set to increase—shale can’t meet it—that drives up prices
Funk, 14, writer; cites James Halloran, energy analyst @ Ohio Oil and Gas Association(“Nation's shale gas boom will lead to
boom in demand and higher prices”,
http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2014/03/nations_shale_gas_boom_will_le.html)
COLUMBUS, Ohio - The widely-held belief
that shale gas has given the nation a 100-year gas supply has funded a
drilling frenzy and a temporary surplus -- setting the stage for higher and more volatile prices in the near
future. "Personally, I don't think a 100-year supply exists, but what's important is the belief that it does," James Halloran, energy analyst
and board member of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, told a luncheon crowd at the group's annual winter conference. This year's conference
has drawn 1,500 attendees and 80 companies. "My outlook is that we will
see growing volatility and that we will get to $6 gas
(from $4 today) by
the end of the decade," Halloran said following a luncheon hosted by the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Likening
new natural gas demands
that will soak up supplies unless drilling goes into an even higher gear . Today, the nation uses an average of roughly
70 billion cubic feet of natural gas every day, he said. By 2020, that demand will probably be about 90 billion cubic
feet. The new demand will come from: • Gas-fired power plants displacing coal, five billion cubic feet a day; •
Chemical and plastic plants on the Gulf of Mexico, three billion cubic feet a day; • Manufacturing and industrial demand, three
the current state of energy analysis to Alice in Wonderland and the Cheshire Cat, Halloran laid out key
billion cubic feet a day; • Exports to Mexico and some to Canada, three billion cubic feet, as early as 2017; • Liquefied natural gas, "the wild
card," could be six billion cubic feet; and • CNG cars and LNG trucks, an indeterminate demand at this point. These healthy
increases in
demand will come as many shale gas fields with horizontal wells will go into steep decline, said Halloran,
leading to more drilling and to a strong return of old-fashioned vertical wells. But many of the old-style wells can't compete at
today's prices. The result? The new demand will drive up prices -- from today's $4 to $4.50 per million BTUs, (about 1,000
cubic feet, or one Mcf) to about $6 to $6.50, he said. The $6 rate is the "balancing price," he explained, just enough money to increase supply to
meet all that new demand. But before that point is reached, shale
gas development will continue to surge, driven by
private investors looking for a place to invest - and believing that the shale guarantees a 100-year supply. The bottom line is that
"technical improvements (now) are bringing more gas on line, but that does not give you as much gas
going forward," he said, predicting the industry will once again be on the treadmill it was before the shale
boom, trying to meet demand.
And, shale as an industry is structurally unsustainable
Heinberg, 12 [Richard, He is Senior Fellow-in-Residence of the Institute and is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost Peak Oil
educators, He has authored scores of essays and articles that have appeared in such journals as Nature, The Ecologist, The American Prospect,
Public Policy Research, Quarterly Review, Z Magazine, Resurgence, The Futurist, European Business Review, Earth Island Journal, Yes!, Pacific
Ecologist, and The Sun; and on web sites such as Alternet.org, EnergyBulletin.net, TheOilDrum.com, ProjectCensored.com, and
Counterpunch.com.¶ He has appeared in many film and television documentaries, including Leonardo DiCaprio’s 11th Hour, is a recipient of the
M. King Hubbert Award for Excellence in Energy Education, and in 2012 was appointed to His Majesty the King of Bhutan's International Expert
Working Group for the New Development Paradigm initiative, “Gas Bubble Leaking, About to Burst”, http://www.postcarbon.org/blogpost/1262435-gas-bubble-leaking-about-to-burst]
In those early days almost no one wanted to hear about problems with the shale gas boom—the need for
enormous amounts of water for fracking, the high climate impacts from fugitive methane, the threats
to groundwater from bad well casings or leaking containment ponds, as well as the unrealistic supply
and price forecasts being issued by the industry.
I recall attempting to describe the situation at the 2010 Aspen
Environment Forum, in a session on the future of natural gas. I might as well have been claiming that Martians speak to me via my tooth fillings.
After all, the Authorities were all in agreement: The game has changed! Natural gas will be cheap and abundant from now on! Gas is better
than coal! End of story! These truisms were echoed in numberless press articles—none more emblematic than Clifford Krauss’s New York Times
piece, “There Will Be Fuel,” published November 16, 2010. Now Krauss and the Times are singing a somewhat different tune. “After the Boom
in Natural Gas,” co-authored with Eric Lipton and published October 21, notes that “. . . the gas rush has . . . been a money loser so far for many
of the gas exploration companies and their tens of thousands of investors.” Krauss and Lipton go on to quote Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil:
“We are all losing our shirts today. . . . We’re making no money. It’s all in the red.” It seems gas producers drilled too many wells too quickly,
causing gas prices to fall below the actual cost of production. Sound familiar? The
obvious implication is that one way or
another the market will balance itself out. Drilling and production will decline (drilling rates have
already started doing so ) and prices will rise
than we currently do, and
until production is once again profitable. So
we will have less gas
gas will be more expensive . Gosh, whoda thunk? The current Times article doesn’t drill
very far into the data that make Berman and Hughes pessimistic about future unconventional gas
production prospects—the high per-well decline rates, and the tendency of the drillers to go after
“sweet spots” first so that future production will come from ever-lower quality sites. For recent analysis that
does look beyond the cash flow problems of Chesapeake and the other frackers, see “Gas Boom Goes Bust” by Jonathan Callahan, and Gail
Tverberg’s latest essay, “Why Natural Gas isn’t Likely to be the World’s Energy Savior”. David Hughes
is working on a follow-up
report, due to be published in January 2013, which looks at unconventional oil and gas of all types in North
America. As part of this effort, he has undertaken an exhaustive analysis of 30 different shale gas
plays and 21 shale/tight oil plays—over 65,000 wells altogether. It appears that the pattern of rapid
declines and the over-stated ability of shale to radically grow production is true across the U.S., for both
gas and oil. In the effort to maintain and grow oil and gas supply, Americans will effectively be chained to
drilling rigs to offset production declines and meet demand growth, and will have to endure collateral environmental impacts
of escalating drilling and fracking. No,
shale gas won’t entirely go away anytime soon. But expectations of
continuing low prices ( which drive business plans in the power generation industry and climate
strategies in mainstream environmental organizations) are about to be dashed . And notions that the U.S. will
become a major gas exporter, or that we will convert millions of cars and trucks to run on gas, now ring hollow.
Historical data proves – causes insecure supply and cost increases
Pittinger and Berman, 11 [August 5 , Arthur E. Berman and Lynn F. Pittinger Lynn Pittinger is a consultant in petroleum
th
engineering with 30 years of industry experience. He managed economic and engineering evaluations for Unocal and Occidental Oil & Gas, and
has been an independent consultant since 2008. He has collaborated with Berman on all shale play evaluation projects since 2009 AND, Arthur,
lecturer at Rice Graduate School of Management, geological consultant with 32 years of experience in petroleum exploration and production,
M.S. Geology Colorado School of Mines, B.A Amherst College, published 50 articles on geology, member of the National Petroleum Council and
on the Board of Directors of ASPO USA editorial board of The Oil Drum, and an associate editor of the AAPG (American Association of
Petroleum Geologists), http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8212]
Summary and Conclusions
We have shown that the
true structural cost of shale gas production is higher than present prices can
support ($4.15/mcf average price for the year ending July 30, 2011), and that per-well reserves are about one-half of the volumes claimed
by operators. Relatively long-lived production history data in the Barnett and Fayetteville shale plays is
compelling. A shorter production history for the Haynesville Shale play permits more latitude in forecasting projections. There is,
however, sufficient data to conclude that results for the play are disappointing. ¶ Our work on the
three most mature shale plays has profound implications. Facts indicate that most wells are not commercial
at current gas prices and require prices at least in the range of $8.00 to $9.00/mcf to break even on fullcycle prices, and $5.00 to $6.00/mcf on point-forward prices. Our price forecasts ($4.00-4.55/mcf average through 2012) are below
$8.00/mcf for the next 18 months. It is, therefore, possible that some producers will be unable to maintain present
drilling levels from cash flow, joint ventures, asset sales and stock offerings . ¶ Decline rates indicate
that a decrease in drilling by any of the major producers in the shale gas plays would reveal the
insecurity of supply. This is especially true in the case of the Haynesville Shale play where initial rates are about three times higher than
in the Barnett or Fayetteville. Already, rig rates are dropping in the Haynesville as operators shift emphasis to more liquid-prone
objectives that have even lower gas rates. This might create doubt about the paradigm of cheap and abundant shale
gas supply and have a cascading effect on confidence and capital availability.¶ On the other hand, major oil
companies, foreign investors and overseas energy companies have shown a surprising appetite for joint ventures and acquisitions of producers
in these plays. Although this trend might result in a different cast of players, it may also introduce a stabilizing effect on the distress scenario
described in the previous paragraph. The entry of better-capitalized producers does not change the economic fundamentals of shale gas, but it
suggests that there may be strategic reasons for large companies to pursue market share in the North American gas arena. ¶ We suspect that
the current euphoria about shale gas will follow the path of other energy panaceas including coal-bed methane and tight sandstone gas.
Shale gas will remain an important part of the North American energy landscape but its costs will almost certainly be
higher, and its abundance less than many now believe. Producer behavior will be modified by the effect of changing
perceptions on capital availability and the entry of new, more substantial players.
Prefer our ev—best studies and empirics
Hurdle, 12/3/12 [Jon, Citing Berman, qualls above, AOL Energy, “Are US Shale Gas Resources
Overstated? Part 1”, http://energy.aol.com/2012/12/03/are-us-shale-gas-resources-overstated-part1/?icid=trending1]
A forthcoming book argues that the country's shale gas plays contain only about a quarter of the fuel that has
been estimated by the US Energy Information Administration, and other widely used industry and academic
assessments. "Cold, Hungry and in the Dark: Exploding the Natural Gas Supply Myth," by Bill Powers asserts that the quantity of
unproved but technically recoverable natural gas in US shale plays is approximately 127 trillion cubic feet ,
or about a quarter of the 482 tcf estimated by the EIA in its Annual Energy Outlook for 2012. Powers, who publishes a
newsletter for energy investors, argues that existing natural gas plays have not been nearly as productive as their
backers predicted, and so cannot be expected to live up to expectations for future output. "Recent
drilling success has been extrapolated into the future," said Powers, who also sits on the board of the
Calgary oil and gas company Arsenal Energy. " That's not supported by drilling history ." In Arkansas'
Fayetteville Shale, 4,400 wells have produced 3.3 tcf since 2005, according to the Arkansas Oil & Gas Commission, or around a tenth of the 32
tcf that the EIA says is technically recoverable. In reality, Powers says, the Fayetteville contains
a total recoverable
resource (TRR) of just 10 tcf. In Louisiana, Arkansas and east Texas, the Haynesville Shale has produced around 5 tcf so far, Powers
said. He predicted it has a total recoverable resource of 10-20 tcf, far short of the EIA's estimate of 75 tcf, a number Powers called "ridiculous."
Swimming Against the Current He applies the same argument to Michigan's Antrim Shale, a play that has not been subject to the new
wave of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling that has made many shale beds economic, but whose
long history since the
mid-1980s shows production that he says has fallen short of expectations . The Antrim has so far produced 3 tcf
from some 10,000 wells, and its output has been declining since 1998, according to the Michigan Public Service Commission. Powers predicted
the shale contains a TRR of 2 tcf, sharply lower than the 20 tcf predicted by the EIA. Powers is the latest analyst to argue that the widely
heralded shale-gas "revolution"
may be overblown . Other skeptics include Houston-based petroleum consultant
Arthur Berman who has long claimed that resource estimates are being overstated by energy
companies seeking to defend their stock prices. Berman, who writes the foreword to Powers's book, said the national gas
resource, including proven reserves, is likely to equal about 22 years of consumption at the current rate, or less than a quarter of the 100 years'
worth that is often cited by analysts and policymakers including President Obama. Berman's
forecast is based on an estimate
of probable reserves published by the Potential Gas Committee at the Colorado School of Mines, a
100-strong panel of company representatives that Berman called the "gold standard" of natural gas resource
estimation. "There is a great deal more uncertainty in this whole shale revolution than most people
want to believe," Berman told AOL Energy. "There is definitely less gas than the propaganda says."
Natural gas solves growth and manufacturing—provides vital jobs
Carey, 12 [Julie M, Julie M. Carey is an energy economist with Navigant Economics who provides
consulting and testifying services Navigant’s unconventional oil and gas offerings include advisory
services for strategic business decision analysis, construction risk management, economic and antitrust
analyses, investment banking and restructuring advisory services, and expert services for disputes and
investigations, “How Unconventional Oil And Gas Is Supercharging The U.S. Economy”,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2012/12/13/how-unconventional-oil-and-gas-istransforming-the-u-s-economy/]
It’s an exciting time to be in the energy industry in America. The
impact of unconventional oil and gas development on the U.S.
economy is considerable, with potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in investments, millions of new
jobs, and a renaissance of American ingenuity and innovation. In thinking about what is to come, looking back five
years helps set the stage. January 2008: The energy sector was facing the great recession, high current and future expected natural gas
prices, and job losses to China. There was a generally poor outlook for the energy industry and the economy. Few could have
predicted the changes that were to come. Unforeseen happenings include the North Dakota oil rush, liquefied natural gas facilities being used as export facilities
(instead of as import facilities as originally planned), railroads hauling crude oil, and jobs coming back from China. And, this is just the beginning. The
commencement of the crude oil and natural gas revolution can be boiled down to one simple equation: Surprise Side Effect Of Shale Gas Boom: A Plunge In U.S.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Forbes Staff Contributor Abundant resources + cost effective extraction = high production levels of unconventional oil and gas. The net
effect is a reshaping of the U.S. energy industry and our economy. Additionally, the country’s increased reliance on natural gas (displacing coal) has already
benefited the environment, and will continue to do so in the future. Carbon emissions hit a 20-year low (in the first quarter 2012 according to EIA) and some
industry observers believe that the U.S. could meet the Kyoto agreement standards by 2020 (even though the U.S. did not sign it). The emergence of unconventional
oil and gas will have tremendous impacts on both the energy industry and the economy. The outlook for unconventional gas is exceptionally bright—with
expectations for relatively low future natural gas prices, enough supply to meet domestic needs, and surplus enough to export to other countries. While the
unconventional oil story continues to unfold and evolve, an abundance of domestic crude oil is expected. And, thus, an opportunity to not only significantly reduce
the country’s dependence on oil imports, but to also increase energy security. Currently, crude oil prices are out of balance as new supply regions are isolated,
making it difficult to get crude oil to market. That is expected to change once the necessary infrastructure is built to handle the new-found supply. As a result of
these infrastructure needs, and the tremendous opportunities associated with unconventional oil and gas, U.S. economic activity is rising. Rising levels of economic
activity can be divided into three distinct but overlapping waves of capital investment. The first wave of capital investment targets new and expanding oil and gas
production areas. Sustained investment in the upstream sector – including wellheads, drilling and production – will be required to keep pace with increases in
demand for the foreseeable future. The second wave of investment will focus on infrastructure to address new supply locations, delivering the product to market,
and capitalizing on the near term opportunities arising from lower energy costs. Billions of dollars of investments specifically targeting capital projects in this wave
are being announced weekly. Substantial investment in crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids pipelines will be required in order to build, expand, and reverse
pipelines to address the new supply source locations. Natural gas processing plants that separate natural gas liquids (NGL) from natural gas will be required to
address the growing production levels and new supply regions. In addition, LNG facilities will begin to export natural gas, and there is a potential opportunity for
natural gas-to-diesel plants. In addition to these traditional areas of investment, creative market solutions are also emerging, such as rail transportation of crude oil.
While railroads may serve primarily as a near to mid-term solution in the wake of long-lead time pipeline solutions, they are nimble competitors with small capital
requirements that can be quickly deployed to utilize the country’s far-reaching rail networks. With only a few years needed to recover capital costs on investment,
the competitive landscape changes and rail transportation rates could be reduced after pipelines enter the market to keep railroads competitive and still profitable.
These factors suggest that railroads could be in the crude oil transportation business for the long haul. During this second wave, there
will be a
manufacturing resurgence , in part because of lower expected energy costs . Other macroeconomic
factors will also be at work—including relative improvement in U.S. labor rates as labor markets tighten in China and
other countries. Petrochemical plants will become cost effective competitors in the worldwide market and
will be a significant component of the manufacturing investment story. Manufacturing facilities will be built to
manufacture pipes, drill bits, valves and other required infrastructure materials. In addition, other manufacturing plants will likely be built
solely as a play on the expectation of relatively low energy costs into the future. Such suspects
could include those whose energy costs are large portion of production costs: semiconductors,
plastics, and LCD televisions. The trend includes linking production and energy resources in an efficient manner, and moving production closer to
market demand in order to minimize transportation related costs. The last wave of investment – which won’t begin to heat up for a few years – focuses on the
consumers segment. In this wave, additional natural gas-fired power plants will be built to replace retiring coal plants and meet future increases in demand. Of
course, new gas fired power plants will initially be built in regions with less excess capacity (post coal plant retirement). Another impact of U.S. unconventional oil
and gas development will be increased in electricity demand (occurring more dramatically in various localized pockets), directly resulting from investment in waves
one and two. New production areas and locations for processing and manufacturing plants will observe higher load growth. For example, localized areas within the
Bakken region expect energy demand to double in the next five years. As a result of very specific changes to the economic activity and corresponding energy
consumption levels, a more granular analyses will be required than is previously provided by traditional load forecasting methods. This third wave will also see a
significant number of new heavy-duty natural gas vehicles, including bus and truck fleets. Greater reliance on natural gas-fueled light duty vehicles is possible but
will require more time due to greater infrastructure requirements and technological innovation. Other creative opportunities being explored include natural gas
pumps (hooked up to the home) to fuel natural gas vehicles, and light duty vehicles relying on fuel cells (which manufacturers hope to begin building by 2015).
While it’s not currently clear who the winners will be, it’s safe to say that positive market forces and ample opportunity will lead to innovative solutions. The nearterm outlook for total capital investment (from primarily first and second wave projects) is immense. The table below provides a snapshot analysis of the short term
outlook (through 2020) for domestic (lower 48 state) based capital investment. These estimates are conservative and based largely on publicly reported company
business plans. For example, Table 1 includes only a portion of expected U.S. LNG projects going forward, as compared to the full list of DOE applications. The
estimate also excludes the massive $65 billion proposed Alaska pipeline/export facility project and third wave investments targeting natural gas fired power plants
and natural gas vehicles. Even with just a portion of total investment included, the conservative estimate of short term investment reaches more than $300 billion.
Estimate of U.S. Unconventional Oil and Gas Capital Expenditures and Job Creation (Through 2020) These
investments have a huge
economic impact on the U.S. economy — impacting jobs , economic growth and energy security . Some studies
indicate that the U.S. has avoided retreating into an economic recession as a result of activity in the
unconventional oil and
gas sector . Production areas for unconventional oil and gas have observed very low unemployment and stronger GDP and tax
revenues as compared to the rest of the U.S. As a result of the significant near term investments associated with unconventional oil and gas, it’s possible that up to
3.5 million jobs will be created from the infrastructure build out and related opportunities (including
both direct and indirect jobs).
Robust domestic production and low prices are key to manufacturing growth—that’s
the basis for economic recovery
Duesterberg, 12 [Tom is Executive Director of the Manufacturing and Society in the 21st Century
program at the Aspen Institute. He recently retired as President and CEO of The Manufacturers
Alliance/MAPI, an economic research and executive education organization based in Arlington, Virginia
with more than 500 manufacturing firms as members. Previous positions include: Director of the
Washington Office of The Hudson Institute, Assistant Secretary for International Economic Policy at the
U.S. Department of Commerce, chief of staff to two members of Congress, and associate instructor at
Stanford University. His commentary and analysis on manufacturing, economic performance,
globalization, and related policy issues can be found in major news outlets. He holds a B.A. degree from
Princeton and M. A. and Ph.D. degrees from Indiana University, “Impact of the Energy Boom on US
Manufacturing”,
http://www.aspeninstitute.org/about/blog/impact-energy-boom-us-manufacturing]
The manufacturing sector has been leading the US economic recovery since the end of the Great
Recession in 2009. One of the key drivers in the manufacturing recovery is the renaissance in domestic
production of natural gas and, to a lesser extent, oil. On November 28, the Institute’s program on Manufacturing and Society in the
21st Century will host an event exploring the ramifications of recent developments in energy and manufacturing, and the sustainability of the
production boom for the future.¶ Growth
in domestic energy production, driven by the deployment of new exploration and
drilling technologies, has been an economic turning point in the US for a number of reasons . Not the least of these is
the possibility of reaching the US’ long-term goal of energy independence, a goal which arguably has already been reached, if North America is
considered the proper unit for determining independence. The substitution of natural gas for coal in electricity production and process heat in
manufacturing, as well as the growing use of natural gas in transportation, also contribute to lowering greenhouse gas emissions. The
Department of Energy’s estimates of future carbon emissions show a 69 percent drop in expected emissions from 2002 to 2030 compared to
overall economic growth is strengthened considerably by the energy boom.
Not only is the United States producing more energy, it will also be building more petrochemical
refineries, will supply the equipment needed to build the exploration and refining infrastructure, and
almost every energy user—from households to large manufacturers—will benefit from more secure supplies and
projections from 1990. Finally,
lower costs. ¶ Manufacturing is at a pivotal point in this emerging energy economy. It uses about onethird of all energy produced in the United States, so lower prices and more secure supply give almost
all firms in the sector a competitive advantage over firms in other nations. Relative to the United States, the spot
price of natural gas is nearly three times more expensive in Europe and four times more expensive in most of Asia. This advantage is
especially important in the chemicals industry, which is the second largest subsector of US
manufacturing. Natural gas and associated liquids represent over 80 percent of the feedstock for US
refineries, whereas in Europe and Asia the ratios are roughly two-thirds oil and one-third natural gas. When the price differential
between natural gas and oil is taken into account, the advantage to the American chemicals sector
comes into much sharper relief. The US manufacturing sector benefits in many other ways: lower
process heat costs, a globally competitive advantage in building the energy and refinery infrastructure
driving the renaissance , and the stability of supply which will help attract long-term investment in
subsectors like steel, glass, aluminum, and metal working. Finally, a larger share of GDP for a growing
manufacturing sector helps to improve living standards, since productivity growth is so strong in this
sector. Since 1998, manufacturing productivity has grown at an annual rate of 3.5 percent, over twice
as much as the 1.4 percent in the services sector.¶ In the last few decades, manufacturing -- which faces
steadily growing foreign competition and must innovate to protect its market share -- has steadily
improved the energy efficiency of production. Total carbon emissions in this sector have fallen by nearly one-fourth since
1998, even though total output has increased by about a third. As a result, carbon emissions per dollar of output in manufacturing have fallen
by 36 percent since 1998, compared to only 20 percent in the overall economy. This
is due in part to the substitution of
natural gas , in part due to productivity increases, and in part due to higher use of renewable energy—manufacturing uses 90 percent
more renewables than the transportation sector.
Slow growth causes war—statistics
Royal 10 – Jedediah Royal, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of
Defense, 2010, “Economic Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises,” in
Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p.
213-214
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political science literature
has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of interdependent states. Research in
this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances
Modelski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms
in the global economy are associated with
the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader
to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could usher in a redistribution of relative
power (see also Gilpin. 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Feaver,
1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment
for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner. 1999). Separately, Pollins (1996) also shows
that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests
that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland's (1996, 2000)
theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future
expectation of trade' is a significant variable in understanding
economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from
trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for
difficult to replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use
force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations
either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 Third, others have considered the link between
economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong
correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic
downturn. They write: The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict tends to
spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to
which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002. p. 89) Economic
decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 2004), which
has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government.
"Diversionary theory" suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting
governments have increased incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around
the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995). and Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of
force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards
diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally
more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak
economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically
linked to an increase in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates economic integration with an
increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science scholarship links economic decline with external
conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels.5 This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not
featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention.
Manufacturing loss devastates the economy
Pisano and Shih, 12 [September, Producing Prosperity: Why America Needs a Manufacturing
Renaissance [Kindle Edition], Harry E. Figgie Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard
Business School. He has been on the Harvard faculty for 23 years, Professor of Management Practice. He
joined the Technology and Operations Management Unit in January 2007, p. amazon kindle]
The rough and tumble of international competition means we should expect industries to come and
go. Even if this is sometimes painful, it is, in fact, a healthy process by which resources flow to their
most productive uses. When a commons erodes, however, it represents a deeper and more
systematic problem. It means the foundation upon which future innovative sectors can be built is
crumbling. When the semiconductor production business moved to Asia in the 1980s, it brought with it a whole host of capabilities—
electronic-materials processing, deposition and coating, and sophisticated test and assembly capabilities—that formed an industrial commons
needed to produce a whole host of advanced, high-valued-added electronic products such as flat-panel displays, solid-state lighting, and solar
PV. In this book, we will examine the dynamics that underlie both the rise and decline of commons, and the consequence of those declines. Our
argument is built around three core themes. Theme 1:
the Ability to Innovate
When a Country Loses the Capability to Manufacture, It Loses
Innovation and manufacturing are often viewed as residing at the opposite ends of the economic spectrum—
innovation being all about the brain (knowledge work) and manufacturing all about brawn (physical work). Innovation requires highly skilled,
highly paid workers, and manufacturing requires low-skilled, low-paid workers; innovation is a high-valued-added specialty, and manufacturing
is a low-value-added commodity; innovation is creative and clean, and manufacturing is dull and dirty. Such a view of manufacturing is a myth
and is based on a profound misunderstanding of how the process of innovation works and the link between R&D and manufacturing. R&D is a
critical part of the innovation process, but it is not the whole thing. Innovation is about moving the idea from concept to the customer’s hands.
For some highly complex products (flat-panel displays, PV cells, and biotechnology drugs, to name a few) the transfer from R&D into production
is a messy affair, requiring extremely tight coordination and the transfer of learning between those who design and those who manufacture. If
you do not understand the production environment, you have a harder time designing the product. In these settings, there
are strong
reasons to co-locate R&D and production. It is a lot easier for an engineer to walk across the street to the
plant or drive down the road than to fly halfway around the world to troubleshoot a problem. This helps to explain
why the American company Applied Materials, a leading maker of equipment for manufacturing semiconductors and solar panels, moved its
chief technical officer from the United States to China.14 Because most of its large customers are now in China, Taiwan, and South Korea, it
makes sense for the company to do its research close to the factories that use its equipment. Applied
Materials is now moving much of its manufacturing operations to Asia as well. In chapter 4, we will offer a framework for determining when it
matters whether R&D and manufacturing are located near each and when it does not. Theme 2:
Platform for Growth
The industrial commons perspective suggests that a
The Industrial Commons Is a
decline of competitiveness of firms in one
sector can have implications for the competitiveness of firms in another. Industries and the suppliers
of capabilities to the industries need each other. Kill a critical industry, and the suppliers
not survive
for long; other
probably
will
industries in the region that depend on those suppliers will then be jeopardized.
When the auto industry declines, it causes an atrophy of capabilities (such as casting and precision machining) that are also used in industries
such as heavy equipment, scientific instruments, and advanced materials. The unraveling of a commons is a vicious circle. As
capabilities
erode, it is harder for companies that require access to stay in business . They are forced to move their operations
or their supplier base to the new commons. As they move, it is harder for existing suppliers to sustain themselves. Ultimately, they must either
close shop or move their operations. Even worse, the
loss of a commons may cut off future opportunities for the¶
emergence of new innovative sectors if they require close access to the same capabilities . Four decades
ago, when US consumer electronics companies decided to move production of these “mature” products to Asia, who would have guessed that
this decision would influence where the most important component for tomorrow’s electric vehicles—the batteries—would be produced? But
that is what happened.15 The offshoring of consumer electronics production (often contracted to then-little-known Japanese companies such
as Sony and Matsushita) led to the migration of R&D in consumer electronics to Japan (and later to South Korea and Taiwan). As consumers
demanded ever-smaller, lighter, and more powerful (and power hungry!) mobile computers and cell phones, electronics companies were
pushed to innovate in batteries. In the process, Asia became the hub for innovation in the design and manufacturing of compact, high-capacity,
rechargeable, lithium ion batteries, a technology that was invented in America. This explains why Asian suppliers have become the dominant
source of the lithium ion battery cells used in electric vehicles.
That causes competition for resources and instability that escalates and goes nuclear
Harris and Burrows, 9 – *counselor in the National Intelligence Council, the principal drafter of
Global Trends 2025, **member of the NIC’s Long Range Analysis Unit “Revisiting the Future: Geopolitical
Effects of the Financial Crisis”, Washington Quarterly,
http://www.twq.com/09april/docs/09apr_burrows.pdf)
Increased Potential for Global Conflict Of course, the report encompasses more than economics and indeed believes the future is likely to be the result of a number
of intersecting and interlocking forces. With so many possible permutations of outcomes, each with ample opportunity for unintended consequences, there is a
growing sense of insecurity. Even so, history may be more instructive than ever. While
we continue to believe that the Great
Depression is not likely to be repeated, the lessons to be drawn from that period include the harmful effects
on fledgling democracies and multiethnic societies (think Central Europe in 1920s and 1930s) and on the sustainability of multilateral
institutions (think League of Nations in the same period). There is no reason to think that this would not be true in the twentyfirst as much as in the twentieth century. For that reason, the ways in which the potential for greater conflict could
grow would seem to be even more apt in a constantly volatile economic environment as they would be if change would be steadier. In
surveying those risks, the report stressed the likelihood that terrorism and nonproliferation will remain priorities even as resource issues move up on the
international agenda. Terrorism’s appeal will decline if economic growth continues in the Middle East and youth unemployment is reduced. For those terrorist
groups that remain active in 2025, however, the diffusion of technologies and scientific knowledge will place some of the world’s most dangerous capabilities within
their reach. Terrorist groups in 2025 will likely be a combination of descendants of long established groups inheriting organizational structures,
command and control processes, and training procedures necessary to conduct sophisticated attacks and newly emergent collections of the angry and
disenfranchised that become self-radicalized, particularly in the absence of economic outlets that would become narrower in
an economic
downturn. The most dangerous casualty of any economically-induced drawdown of U.S. military
presence would almost certainly be the Middle East. Although Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons is not inevitable, worries
about a nuclear-armed Iran could lead states in the region to develop new security arrangements with
external powers, acquire additional weapons, and consider pursuing their own nuclear ambitions. It is not clear
that the type of stable deterrent relationship that existed between the great powers for most of the Cold War would
emerge naturally in the Middle East with a nuclear Iran. Episodes of low intensity conflict and terrorism taking place under a nuclear umbrella could lead to an
unintended escalation and broader conflict if clear red lines between those states involved are not well established. The close proximity of potential nuclear rivals
combined with underdeveloped surveillance capabilities and mobile dual-capable Iranian missile systems also will produce inherent difficulties in achieving reliable
indications and warning of an impending nuclear attack. The
lack of strategic depth in neighboring states like Israel, short warning and
missile flight times, and uncertainty of Iranian intentions may place more focus on preemption rather than
defense, potentially leading to escalating crises. Types of conflict that the world continues to
experience, such as over resources, could reemerge, particularly if protectionism grows and there is a
resort to neo-mercantilist practices. Perceptions of renewed energy scarcity will drive countries to take
actions to assure their future access to energy supplies. In the worst case, this could result in interstate
conflicts if government leaders deem assured access to energy resources, for example, to be essential for maintaining domestic stability and the survival of
their regime. Even actions short of war, however, will have important geopolitical implications. Maritime security concerns are providing a rationale
for naval buildups and modernization efforts, such as China’s and India’s development of blue water naval capabilities. If the fiscal stimulus focus for
these countries indeed turns inward, one of the most obvious funding targets may be military. Buildup of regional naval capabilities could lead to increased
tensions, rivalries, and counterbalancing moves, but it also will create opportunities for multinational cooperation in protecting critical sea lanes. With
water also becoming scarcer in Asia and the Middle East, cooperation to manage changing water resources is likely to be increasingly difficult both within and
between states in a
more dog-eat-dog world.
Healthy manufacturing sector key to military dominance
Eaglen et al 12 (American Enterprise Institute, Rebecca Grant, IRIS Research, Robert P. Haffa, Haffa
Defense Consulting, Michael O’Hanlon, The Brookings Institution, Peter W. Singer, The Brookings
Institution, Martin Sullivan, Commonwealth Consulting, Barry Watts, Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments, January, "The Arsenal of Democracy and How to Preserve It: Key Issues in Defense
Industrial Policy,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2012/1/26%20defense%20industrial%20bas
e/0126_defense_industrial_base_ohanlon)
The current wave of defense cuts is also different than past defense budget reductions in their likely industrial impact, as the U.S. defense industrial base is in a
much different place than it was in the past. Defense industrial issues are too often viewed through the lens of jobs and pet projects to protect in congressional
districts. But
the overall health of the firms that supply the technologies our armed forces utilize does
have national security resonance . Qualitative superiority in weaponry and other key military
technology has become an essential element of American military power in the modern era—not only for winning wars but for deterring them. That
requires world-class scientific and manufacturing capabilities —which in turn can also generate civilian and military export
opportunities for the United States in a globalized marketplace. While procurement budgets have finally, in recent years, reached their historic norms as a percent
of the overall defense budget, the legacy of the 1990s procurement “holiday” remains real. In that period, the United States as a matter of policy bought much less
equipment than it would normally, enjoying the fruits of the 1980s buildup as it sought to reduce defense spending. But Reagan-era weaponry is wearing out, and
the recent increase in procurement spending has not lasted long enough to replenish the nation’s key weapons arsenals with new weaponry. The last decade of
procurement policy focused more on filling certain gaps in counterinsurgency capabilities than replacing the mainline weapons programs that make up the bulk of
conventional capabilities. Meanwhile, the main elements of DoD’s weapons inventories—fighter jets, armored vehicles, surface vessels and submarines—continue
to age. We often say that, in today’s American armed forces, people are our most cherished commodity and greatest asset. That is certainly true at one level,
through the dedication and excellence shown by our brave men and women in uniform. But it is also true that adjusting the personnel size of the military up or
down has been done with success multiple times, and seems likely to happen again. By contrast, scientific
and manufacturing excellence in
the defense space is not something easily moved up and down. Today’s industrial capabilities took
decades to build and would be hard to restore if lost (Great Britain’s difficulty restoring its ability to build nuclear submarines is a
frequently cited example.).
Maintaing a large power differential is key—innovation is the lynchpin of hegemony.
Tellis 9 — Ashley J. Tellis, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security,
defense and Asian strategic issues, Research Director of the Strategic Asia program at NBR—the National Bureau of Asian Research, holds a
Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, 2009 (“Preserving Hegemony: The Strategic Tasks Facing the United States,” Global Asia, Volume 4,
Number 1, Available Online at http://globalasia.org/pdf/issue9/Ashley_J._Tellis.pdf, Accessed 09-13-2011, p. 55-56)
Second, and equally importantly, who
wins in the ensuing struggle — whether that struggle is short or long, peaceful or violent —
is as important as by how much. This is particularly relevant because the past record unerringly confirms that the
strongest surviving state in the winning coalition usually turns out to be the new primate after the
conclusion of every systemic struggle. Both Great Britain and the United States secured their respective ascendancies in this
way. Great Britain rose through the wreckage of the wars with Louis XIV and with Napoleon. The United States did so through the carnage of
the hot wars with Hitler and Hirohito, finally achieving true hegemony through the detritus of the Cold War with Stalin and his successors. If
the United States is to sustain this hard-earned hegemony over the long term, while countering as necessary a future
Chinese challenge should it emerge, Washington will need to amass the largest differential in power relative
not only to its rivals but also to its friends and allies . Particularly in [end page 55] an era of globalization, this objective
cannot be achieved without a conscious determination to follow sensible policies that sustain economic growth ,
minimize unproductive expenditures, strengthen the national innovation system , maintain military
capabilities second to none and enjoin political behaviors that evoke the approbation of allies and neutral states alike.
The successful pursuit of such policies will enable the United States to cope more effectively with nearterm challenges
as well, including
the war on terrorism and managing threatening regional powers, and
will ineluctably require — to return full circle — engaging the central tasks identified earlier as facing the new US administration. These tasks
involve the need to satisfactorily define the character of desirable US hegemony, the need for sound policies that will renew the foundations of
US strength, and the need to recover the legitimacy of US purposes and actions. What is clearly implied is that the principal burdens facing the
next US president transcend Asia writ large. The success of these pursuits, however, will inevitably impact Asia in desirable ways, even as the
resolution of several specifically Asian problems would invariably contribute to the conclusive attainment of these larger encompassing goals.
Hegemony is good – solves great power war and multiple flashpoints of conflict – also
ensures multilateral cooperation – retrenchment collapses it all
Ikenberry et. al, 13 – John Ikenberry, Ph. D in Political Science from Chicago, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at the
Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute, Co-Director of Princeton’s Center for International
Security Studies; William Wohlforth, Ph. D in Political Science from Yale, Webster Professor of Government at Dartmouth College; Stephen
Brooks, Ph. D in Political Science from Yale, Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for
Science and International Affairs at Harvard University; “Don’t Come Home, America: The Case Against Retrenchment”,
http://live.belfercenter.org/files/IS3703_Brooks%20Wohlforth%20Ikenberry.pdf
Assessing the Security Benefits of Deep Engagement Even if deep engagement’s costs are far less than retrenchment advocates claim, they are
not worth bearing unless they yield greater benefits. We focus here on the strategy’s major security benefits; in the next section, we take up
the wider payoffs of the United States’ security role for its interests in other realms, notably the global economy—an interaction relatively
unexplored by international relations scholars. A
core premise of deep engagement is that it prevents the
emergence of a far more dangerous global security environment . For one thing, as noted above, the United
States’ overseas presence gives it the leverage to restrain partners from taking provocative action.
Perhaps more important, its core alliance commitments also deter states with aspirations to regional
hegemony from contemplating expansion and make its partners more secure, reducing their incentive
to adopt solutions to their security problems that threaten others and thus stoke security dilemmas.
The contention that engaged U.S. power dampens the baleful effects of anarchy is consistent with
influential variants of realist theory . Indeed, arguably the scariest portrayal of the war-prone world that would
emerge absent the “American Pacifier” is provided in the works of John Mearsheimer, who forecasts
dangerous multipolar regions replete with security competition, arms races, nuclear proliferation
and associated preventive war temptations, regional rivalries, and even runs at regional hegemony
and full-scale great power war . 72 How do retrenchment advocates, the bulk of whom are realists, discount this benefit? Their
arguments are complicated, but two capture most of the variation: (1) U.S. security guarantees are not necessary to prevent dangerous rivalries
and conflict in Eurasia; or (2) prevention of rivalry and conflict in Eurasia is not a U.S. interest. Each response is connected to a different theory
or set of theories, which makes sense given that the whole debate hinges on a complex future counterfactual (what would happen to Eurasia’s
security setting if the United States truly disengaged?). Although a certain answer is impossible, each
of these responses is
nonetheless a weaker argument for retrenchment than advocates acknowledge. The first response flows from
defensive realism as well as other international relations theories that discount the conflict-generating potential of anarchy under
contemporary conditions. 73 Defensive realists maintain that the high ex pected costs of territorial conquest, defense dominance, and an array
of policies and practices that can be used credibly to signal benign intent, mean that Eurasia’s major states could manage regional multipolarity
peacefully without the American pacifier. Retrenchment would be a bet on this scholarship, particularly in regions where the kinds of stabilizers
that nonrealist theories point to—such as democratic governance or dense institutional linkages—are either absent or weakly present. There
are three other major bodies of scholarship, however, that might give decisionmakers pause before
making this bet. First is regional expertise. Needless to say, there is no consensus on the net security effects of U.S. withdrawal.
Regarding each region, there are optimists and pessimists. Few experts expect a return of intense great power competition in a post-American
Europe, but many doubt European governments will pay the political costs of increased EU defense cooperation and the budgetary costs of
increasing military outlays. 74 The
result might be a Europe that is incapable of securing itself from various
threats that could be destabilizing within the region and beyond (e.g., a regional conflict akin to the 1990s Balkan
wars), lacks capacity for global security missions in which U.S. leaders might want European
participation, and is vulnerable to the influence of outside rising powers. What about the other parts of Eurasia
where the United States has a substantial military presence? Regarding the Middle East, the balance begins to swing
toward pessimists concerned that states currently backed by Washington— notably Israel, Egypt, and
Saudi Arabia —might take actions upon U.S. retrenchment that would intensify security dilemmas .
And concerning East Asia, pessimism regarding the region’s prospects without the American pacifier is
pronounced. Arguably the principal concern expressed by area experts is that Japan and South Korea are likely to obtain
a nuclear capacity and increase their military commitments, which could stoke a destabilizing
reaction from China. It is notable that during the Cold War, both South Korea and Taiwan moved to obtain
a nuclear weapons capacity and were only constrained from doing so by a still-engaged United States.
75 The second body of scholarship casting doubt on the bet on defensive realism’s sanguine portrayal
is all of the research that undermines its conception of state preferences. Defensive realism’s optimism about
what would happen if the United States retrenched is very much dependent on its particular—and highly restrictive—assumption about state
preferences; once
we relax this assumption, then much of its basis for optimism vanishes. Specifically, the
prediction of post-American tranquility throughout Eurasia rests on the assumption that security is
the only relevant state preference, with security defined narrowly in terms of protection from violent external attacks on the
homeland. Under that assumption, the security problem is largely solved as soon as offense and defense are
clearly distinguishable, and offense is extremely expensive relative to defense. Burgeoning research across the
social and other sciences, however, undermines that core assumption: states have preferences not only for security but
also for prestige, status, and other aims, and they engage in trade-offs among the various objectives.
76 In addition, they define security not just in terms of territorial protection but in view of many and varied milieu goals. It follows that even
states that are relatively secure may nevertheless engage in highly competitive behavior. Empirical
studies show that this is indeed sometimes the case. 77 In sum, a bet on a benign postretrenchment
Eurasia is a bet that leaders of major countries will never allow these nonsecurity preferences to
influence their strategic choices. To the degree that these bodies of scholarly knowledge have predictive leverage, U.S.
retrenchment would result in a significant deterioration in the security environment in at least some
of the world’s key regions. We have already mentioned the third, even more alarming body of scholarship. Offensive realism predicts
that the withdrawal of the American pacifier will yield either a competitive regional multipolarity
complete with associated insecurity, arms racing, crisis instability, nuclear proliferation , and the like,
or bids for regional hegemony, which may be beyond the capacity of local great powers to contain
(and which in any case would generate intensely competitive behavior, possibly including regional
great power war).
Hence it is unsurprising that retrenchment advocates are prone to focus on the second argument noted above: that
avoiding wars and security dilemmas in the world’s core regions is not a U.S. national interest. Few doubt that the United States could survive
the return of insecurity and conflict among Eurasian powers, but at what cost? Much of the work in this area has focused on the economic
externalities of a renewed threat of insecurity and war, which we discuss below. Focusing on the pure security ramifications, there are two
main reasons why decisionmakers may be rationally reluctant to run the retrenchment experiment. First, overall
higher levels of
conflict make the world a more dangerous place. Were Eurasia to return to higher levels of interstate
military competition, one would see overall higher levels of military spending and innovation and a
higher likelihood of competitive regional proxy wars and arming of client states—all of which would
be concerning, in part because it would promote a faster diffusion of military power away from the
United States. Greater regional insecurity could well feed proliferation cascades, as states such as
Egypt, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia all might choose to create nuclear forces. 78 It is
unlikely that proliferation decisions by any of these actors would be the end of the game: they would likely generate pressure
locally for more proliferation . Following Kenneth Waltz, many retrenchment advocates are proliferation
optimists, assuming that nuclear deterrence solves the security problem. 79 Usually carried out in dyadic terms,
the debate over the stability of proliferation changes as the numbers go up. Proliferation optimism
rests on assumptions of rationality and narrow security preferences . In social science, however, such assumptions
are inevitably probabilistic. Optimists assume that most states are led by rational leaders, most will overcome
organizational problems and resist the temptation to preempt before feared neighbors nuclearize,
and most pursue only security and are risk averse. Confidence in such probabilistic assumptions
declines if the world were to move from nine to twenty, thirty, or forty nuclear states. In addition, many
of the other dangers noted by analysts who are concerned about the destabilizing effects of nuclear
proliferation—including the risk of accidents and the prospects that some new nuclear powers will not
have truly survivable forces—seem prone to go up as the number of nuclear powers grows. 80 Moreover,
the risk of “unforeseen crisis dynamics” that could spin out of control is also higher as the number of
nuclear powers increases . Finally, add to these concerns the enhanced danger of nuclear leakage, and a
world with overall higher levels of security competition becomes yet more worrisome. The argument that
maintaining Eurasian peace is not a U.S. interest faces a second problem. On widely accepted realist assumptions, acknowledging that U.S.
engagement preserves peace dramatically narrows the difference between retrenchment and deep engagement. For many supporters of
retrenchment, the optimal strategy for a power such as the United States, which has attained regional hegemony and is separated from other
great powers by oceans, is offshore balancing: stay over the horizon and “pass the buck” to local powers to do the dangerous work of
counterbalancing any local rising power. The United States should commit to onshore balancing only when local balancing is likely to fail and a
great power appears to be a credible contender for regional hegemony, as in the cases of Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union in the
midtwentieth century. The problem is that China’s
rise puts the possibility of its attaining regional hegemony on
the table, at least in the medium to long term. As Mearsheimer notes, “The United States will have to play a key role in
countering China, because its Asian neighbors are not strong enough to do it by them selves.” 81
Therefore, unless China’s rise stalls, “the United States is likely to act toward China similar to the way it behaved toward the Soviet Union
during the Cold War.” 82 It follows that the United States should take no action that would compromise its capacity to move to onshore
balancing in the future. It
will need to maintain key alliance relationships in Asia as well as the formidably
expensive military capacity to intervene there. The implication is to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan,
reduce the presence in Europe, and pivot to Asia— just what the United States is doing. 83 In sum, the
argument that U.S. security commitments are unnecessary for peace is countered by a lot of
scholarship, including highly influential realist scholarship. In addition, the argument that Eurasian peace is unnecessary
for U.S. security is weakened by the potential for a large number of nasty security consequences as
well as the need to retain a latent onshore balancing capacity that dramatically reduces the savings
retrenchment might bring. Moreover, switching between offshore and onshore balancing could well be
difficult.
Bringing together the thrust of many of the arguments discussed so far underlines the degree to which the case for retrenchment
misses the underlying logic of the deep engagement strategy. By
supplying reassurance, deterrence, and active
management, the United States lowers security competition in the world’s key regions, thereby
preventing the emergence of a hothouse atmosphere for growing new military capabilities . Alliance
ties dissuade partners from ramping up and also provide leverage to prevent military transfers to
potential rivals. On top of all this, the United States’ formidable military machine may deter entry by
potential rivals . Current great power military expenditures as a percentage of GDP are at historical
lows, and thus far other major powers have shied away from seeking to match top-end U.S. military
capabilities. In addition, they have so far been careful to avoid attracting the “focused en mity” of the
United States. 84 All of the world’s most modern militaries are U.S. allies (America’s alliance system of more than
sixty countries now accounts for some 80 percent of global military spending), and the gap between the U.S. military
capability and that of potential rivals is by many measures growing rather than shrinking . 85 In the end,
therefore,
deep engagement reduces security competition and does so in a way that slows the diffusion
of power away from the United States . This in turn makes it easier to sustain the policy over the long term. THE WIDER BENE
FITS OF DEEP ENGAGEMENT The case against deep engagement overstates its costs and underestimates its security benefits. Perhaps its most
important weakness, however, is that its preoccupation with security issues diverts attention from some of deep engagement’s most important
benefits: sustaining the global economy and fostering institutionalized cooperation in ways advantageous to U.S. national interests. ECONOMIC
BENE FITS Deep engagement is based on a premise central to realist scholarship from E.H. Carr to Robert Gilpin: economic orders do not just
emerge spontaneously; they are created and sustained by and for powerful states. 86 To be sure, the sheer size of its economy would
guarantee the United States a significant role in the politics of the global economy whatever grand strategy it adopted. Yet the
fact that it
is the leading military power and security provider also enables economic leadership . The security
role figures in the creation, maintenance, and expansion of the system. In part because other states—
including all but one of the world’s largest economies—were heavily dependent on U.S. security
protection during the Cold War, the United States was able not only to foster the economic order but
also to prod other states to buy into it and to support plans for its progressive expansion. 87 Today, as the
discussion in the previous section underscores, the security commitments of deep engagement support the global
economic order by reducing the likelihood of security dilemmas, arms racing, instability, regional
conflicts and, in extremis, major power war. In so doing, the strategy helps to maintain a stable and
comparatively open world economy —a long-standing U.S. national interest. In addition to ensuring
the global economy against important sources of insecurity, the extensive set of U.S. military
commitments and deployments helps to protect the “global economic commons.” One key way is by
helping to keep sea-lanes and other shipping corridors freely available for commerce. 88 A second key
way is by helping to establish and protect property/sovereignty rights in the oceans. Although it is not the
only global actor relevant to protecting the global economic commons, the United States has by far the most important
role given its massive naval superiority and the leadership role it plays in international economic
institutions . If the United States were to pull back from the world, protecting the global economic
commons would likely be much harder to accomplish for a number of reasons: cooperating with
other nations on these matters would be less likely to occur; maintaining the relevant institutional
foundations for promoting this goal would be harder ; and preserving access to bases throughout the
world—which is needed to accomplish this mission—would likely be curtailed to some degree.
AT: Manufacturing High Now
The reshoring impact in the past few years is negligible---there is still a large jobs
deficit
Aeppel, 6/26 Timothy, staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal, “U.S. Manufacturing Importing As Many Jobs As It Exports, Says
Group,” http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/06/26/u-s-manufacturing-importing-as-many-jobs-as-it-exports-says-group/
America is now luring as many factory jobs back from overseas—a process known as reshoring— as it’s losing
to continued offshoring .¶ That’s the assessment of the Reshoring Initiative, a Chicago-based nonprofit that
encourages companies considering moving work back to the U.S. The group says 2013 was a turning point, with
roughly 40,000 jobs added in the U.S. by the return of jobs that were previously moved offshore—equal to the number of jobs lost from the
continued movement of work abroad. In
2003, an estimated 150,000 factory jobs left, while only 2,000 were
brought back.¶ “We say the bleeding has stopped,” says Harry Moser, president of the group. “But the patient is still
missing about 1 million workers —like liters of blood.”
Renaissance is a hoax---improvement is modest and the jobs that have been gained
are rebalancing
Wingard and Connerty, 6/4 **Carol, managing director in L.E.K.’s Boston office and helped found the firm’s practice in China
AND **Michael, managing director in L.E.K. Consulting’s Chicago office, where he helps lead the firm’s organization and operations practices.,
“The Rebirth of U.S. Manufacturing: Myth or Reality?,” http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/06/the-rebirth-of-u-s-manufacturing-myth-or-reality/
The media has been full of reports lately about a renaissance in U.S. manufacturing. The cheerleaders cite an
array of heartening examples, including a $4 billion investment by Dow Chemical to boost its ethylene and propylene capacity on the U.S. Gulf
Coast, an announcement by Flextronics of plans to create a $32 million product innovation center in Silicon Valley, and a decision by Airbus to
build a $600 million assembly line in Alabama for its jetliners. These
stories have prompted much talk about the
“reshoring” of manufacturing jobs to the U.S. from China and elsewhere. Indeed, President Obama recently hailed “a
manufacturing sector that’s adding jobs for the first time since the 1990s.”¶ But is this revival for real? Forbes has derided the
notion of a U.S. manufacturing comeback as “ a cruel political hoax.” And the New York Times recently ran an
editorial by Steven Rattner entitled “ The
Myth of Industrial Rebound .”¶ A lack of detailed data has made it hard to assess what’s
really going on within the U.S. manufacturing sector. To help remedy this, L.E.K. Consulting conducted a study of decision
makers in 10 U.S. manufacturing industries, including aerospace and defense equipment, chemicals,
industrial components, automotive equipment, and electronics. The study, which focused on large companies
with more than $500 million in revenues, also involved in-depth interviews with high-level executives about the factors driving their decisions
on where to locate their manufacturing.¶ The picture that emerges from this research is less black and white than either the cheerleaders or
the naysayers would suggest. Overall, we
see a modest improvement in U.S. manufacturing but not a wave of
reshoring . More companies are investing in the U.S. or considering it as a location for new manufacturing facilities. But this
is essentially a rebalancing
after many years in
which manufacturing shifted overwhelmingly to lower-cost
nations such as China.
Yes jobs have increased, but that is a drop in the bucket given the amount of jobs that
were lost---manufacturing is on the brink
Swan, 6/19 CSM Staff Writer, “White House hails rebound of US manufacturing, but is it for real? (+video),”
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2014/0619/White-House-hails-rebound-of While President Obama
and his economic council
have jubilantly reported an increase of 646,000 manufacturing jobs since 2010, included in the report, that
increase is but a drop in the bucke t compared with the mass exodus of manufacturing jobs seen in the
decade prior, says Richard McCormack, editor and publisher of Manufacturing and Technology News.¶ “We suffered such a
colossal loss of manufacturing jobs that we couldn’t really lose many more ,” Mr. McCormack says. “We hit
our nadir and we couldn’t really go down more than we had. So we’re really bouncing off the
bottom.Ӧ In 2000, there were more than 17 million manufacturing jobs in this country, according to the US
Bureau of Labor Statistics. That number dropped to just 14 million by 2004 and plunged even further following the 2008 financial crisis. By
2010, there were just 11.5 million manufacturing jobs.
AT: Energy Independence
Projections of United States energy independence assume production on federal lands
– restrictions must be removed to solve
Barton 6/27 (2014, James, Director for Energy at ARTIS Research, and speaks around the country on energy and energy security
matters, previously served as the deputy director of Middle East policy at the Pentagon, “We must unleash America's potential”,
http://www.thewesternnews.com/columns/we-must-unleash-america-s-potential/article_f2b7f2fc-fe54-11e3-bee1-0019bb2963f4.html)
The U nited S tates is the new Saudi Arabia. At least with regards to oil and natural gas deposits. To take full advantage
of our nation’s energy bounty, however, the federal government must allow
responsible
exploration and production
now occurring on private lands
the same kind of careful,
to take place on public lands
The federal
government owns about 650 million acres of property - around 29 percent of the country. Over 35 percent of this land is in Alaska alone. Yet
the government inexplicably restricts oil and gas production to just 13 percent of our federally-owned land.
As a result, we are failing to reap the full benefit of innovative new technologies that have allowed unprecedented
access to underground oil and natural gas. On private lands, however, the federal government has no authority to block these job creating
endeavors. New technologies utilized on private land have created booming growth in an otherwise lackluster economy. At the same time,
they’ve reduced energy prices and our dependence on foreign energy. Further, abundant
low-cost natural gas is increasingly
crowding out dirtier, more traditional energy sources, bettering the environment. Already, natural gas and oil are directly
responsible for 9.8 million jobs across the country, paying a total of $200 billion in wages. In 2010, during the worst of the Great Recession, the
oil and gas industry contributed $476 billion to the U.S. economy. Throughout the recession and recovery, private-sector employment
increased by only about 1 percent, but within the oil and natural gas sectors, it skyrocketed by 40 percent. The future looks even brighter. The
Energy Information Administration predicts the United States will produce an additional 8.5 million barrels of oil a day in 2014, increasing to 9.3
million barrels by 2015. Natural gas production is forecast to enjoy a 56 percent increase between 2012 and 2014.
policy doesn’t restrict growth,
oil and gas
If government
could easily create an extra 1.4 million direct jobs in the
United States by 2030. The International Energy Agency has reported that the U nited S tates is on track
to become the top energy producer in the world by 2015. Moreover, natural gas is fast coming to dominate
the domestic energy marketplace, contributing to a greener tomorrow. Sadly, the federal government
is doing little to encourage this domestic energy bonanza . The Department of the Interior reports that the number of
drilling permits issued on federal lands was slashed by 36 percent between 2008 and 2012. Furthermore, the Congressional
Research Service has found that all of the increased production in crude oil between 2007 and 2012
occurred on non-federal lands. During that same period, the federal share of U.S. crude-oil production dropped 7 percent, despite
the trumpeting about reducing our dependence on foreign oil. In fact, in his recent State of the Union Address, Obama praised natural
gas as one of the key reasons we are “closer to energy independence than we’ve been in decades,” conveniently
failing to mention that this occurred despite his fierce opposition to drilling. That comes at significant
cost to Americans in this struggling economy . An estimated 26 billion barrels of oil are trapped below federal lands, waiting
on permits. The Institute for Energy Research estimates that federal lands hold $128 trillion in oil and gas
resources, “about 8 times our national debt.” The 10-year royalties, rents, and lease bonuses alone would earn the government around
$150 billion total in revenue. And those numbers draw off a widely-considered conservative estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.
This public land must be developed
responsibly, taking into consideration both the environment and affected local
communities. Though state governments are best positioned to make responsible choices about permits and drilling, current policy puts the
authority in the hands of distant federal regulators - shutting out the local residents and community organizers who are most directly affected
by these policies. As a result, some states are lagging behind as the key to their economic future rests beneath residents’ feet. To fully realize
our potential,
the Obama administration must lift its economic blockade of these affected states . We
can’t afford to miss out on this golden opportunity to be energy independent , reduce our federal debt, and
create the jobs Americans desperately need.
Natural gas production is key
Powell, senior fellow @ the Discovery Institute, 14 (Scott, May 6, “Energy Independence Should Be a Top
Priority”, http://blogs.epmag.com/guests/2014/05/06/energy-independence-should-be-a-top-priority/)
When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, energy independence was considered impossible, with imported
oil accounting for 66% of the oil refined in the U.S. That predicament was a troublesome weak link in U.S. national security. But unexpectedly, with the
technology-driven energy boom that began half a dozen years ago, that longstanding vulnerability is now close to being
remedied. What Americans can do now is understand and support three key initiatives that together provide more self-sufficiency at home and a stronger
energy position in the world. The first game changer started with extracting oil from shale deposits on private lands in continental U.S. with novel horizontal drilling
and fracking extraction technologies. The Bakken formation in North Dakota, Eagle Ford in Texas and the Monterey Shale in California are the best known, having
some 45 billion recoverable barrels. But lesser known and undeveloped deposits, like the Wolfcamp shale in Texas, may have 50 billion in reserves. These four
deposits alone more than quadruple 2010 estimated U.S. oil reserves. But the greatest bonanza may be on public land. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
reports that, “More than 70% of American shale oil…lays on federal land in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming…an estimated 1.23 trillion barrels of oil—more than 50
times the nation’s proven conventional oil reserves.” Shale drilling is more costly than conventional drilling, so not all shale deposits can be developed economically.
But even if only a quarter of the BLM’s shale estimates are recoverable, the U.S. would be ranked No. 1 in the world in proven oil reserves. A second factor is
success in extracting crude oil from oil sands in Alberta, Canada. Canada has the world’s third largest proven oil reserves and is a friendly dependable source for
imports, unlike many OPEC nations. The problem with Canadian heavy crude is that few refineries handle it. Thus, the Keystone XL Pipeline was proposed in 2008 as
the most efficient and safe way to transport the oil to plants in Texas and Louisiana designed for refining heavy crude it into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel by-products.
The third contributing factor for U.S. energy independence is the shale fracking revolution in natural gas
production and the substitution of natural gas for oil. The U.S. is now the Saudi Arabia of the world in
natural gas, producing more than any other nation and a surplus for export. And as power plants and internal combustion engines get retrofitted to burn
natural gas, the demand for oil also declines. U.S. energy independence would be further along, but for the Obama
administration’s obstructionism and opposition to fossil fuels . Now at a time when export facilities capability could bolster
NATO’s energy needs to counter Vladimir Putin’s natural gas blackmail and further land grabs in the Ukraine, we have none. Consider: • U.S. public lands
have been increasingly restricted for energy development during the Obama administration, with the BLM
leasing 600,000 fewer acres in 2013 than the previous year and the smallest area leased since the late 1980s; • The 1,931-km (1,200-mile)
Keystone XL pipeline remains stalled after five plus years—notwithstanding complaints from grain producers and manufacturers that rail lines are clogged with oil
transport and prone to accidents and spills, while 281,635 km (175,000 miles) of existing pipeline already safely transport oil and gas all over the country; and • LNG
exports face yet new hurdles with recent EPA instructions to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to withhold permits pending assessment of alleged harmful
environmental effects from increased natural gas drilling anticipated to meet export demand. Russian aggression in Ukraine is a wake-up call to support gas and oil
exploration and development on public lands, to break ground on the Keystone Pipeline and to streamline bureaucratic red tape on constructing LNG export
facilities. Reducing
benefits. But
energy costs by increasing supply creates new tax revenues and jobs —two important
protecting national security with energy independence and providing natural gas to help allies
thwart tyrants, terrorists and bad actors
make this a top priority.
AT: Manufacturing Turn
Assumes increase in supply—not the aff—we change extraction techniques which
solves the impact
Plan’s key to industries
Cobb, 13 [January 14 , Kurt Cobb is a founding member of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas—USA, and he serves on the
th
board of the Arthur Morgan Institute. Natural gas, oil prices: why the long-term forecasts are wrong
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2013/0114/Natural-gas-oil-prices-why-the-long-term-forecasts-are-wrong]
Here's the short version of why forecasts of low
long-term oil and natural gas prices are almost certainly wrong: It costs
more than that to get the stuff out of the ground. Only two things could actually lead to low long-term
prices : 1) Somebody could invent and deploy some genuinely brand new technology that makes it really
cheap once again to get oil and gas out of the ground or 2) we could have a deep and grinding deflationary depression that brings demand for oil and
natural gas down so much that prices collapse. The people who are predicting $50, now $45 oil, and $3, now $2 natural gas (in the United States) for as far as the
eye can see believe that such prices will result from the already widespread application of current technology. And yet, the
very companies that
use that technology to extract these hydrocarbons say that there's no way they can produce them
profitably at those prices. ExxonMobil's CEO said last year, "We are losing our shirts" selling natural
gas at such low prices. Forecasts for much lower oil prices would also represent losses on new wells for most oil producers. Here's why: The full cost of
producing new oil for the 50 largest publicly traded oil companies in the world is $92 a barrel according to Bernstein Research. While average costs are lower
because they include previously discovered conventional oil which is cheaper and easier to produce, the Bernstein report challenges the notion that new
technologies will lead to cheaper oil. Those technologies including hydraulic fracturing will make it possible to extract previously uneconomic oil resources--but only
at very high and rising costs. In fact, the cost of producing the marginal new barrel of oil has been rising at 14 percent per year since 2001, Bernstein says. Finding,
developing and producing new oil isn't getting cheaper; it's getting much more expensive. So while oil prices could fall below the cost of producing new barrels for a
while, they simply could not stay there unless the world were to become content with ever shrinking supplies of oil. No company will continue to drill for oil when
each new well loses money. RECOMMENDED: Cheapest way to heat your home? Four fuels compared. So given that the world will probably continue to seek
expanded supplies of oil, prices in the long run below $92 a barrel seem implausible. And, that floor is likely to rise as the oil resources that companies are now
forced to pursue become costlier and more difficult to extract. We've already extracted the easy-to-get oil in the first 150 years of the oil age; now comes the hard
The same logic applies to natural gas. The bulk of new U.S. supplies are coming from so-called shale
gas deposits. Looking at the actual data, petroleum consultants Art Berman and Lynn Pittinger found that industry claims of profitability of shale gas
stuff.
production at $4 per thousand cubic feet were based on excluding important costs such as land acquisition. Once all the costs are figured in, Berman and Pittinger
found that costs for gas wells drilled in the Fayetteville Shale, the Haynesville Shale, and the Barnett Shale were $8.31, $8.68 and $8.75, respectively. If land
acquisition is excluded and only drilling, completion and other variable costs are included, the cost falls to $5.06, $5.63, and $6.80, respectively. Even these
lower costs are still far above what some forecasts say will be the long-term U.S. price of natural gas.
But, natural gas drillers will not drill wells indefinitely that lose money. All of this flies in the face of the current popular
meme that the United States and perhaps even the world will enjoy both cheap and plentiful supplies of oil and natural gas for the foreseeable future (whenever
that is). Keep in mind that the costs cited above include the use of the latest technology. That tells us that depletion is long
since winning the contest with technology. Yes, technology has helped to mitigate the damage that constrained energy supplies are inflicting on the world economy.
Without it, matters would be much worse. But it is clear now that technology will no longer be able to overcome the fact that we as a species have used up the
easy-to-extract hydrocarbons. We are now faced with exploiting ever leaner resources with diminishing returns on ever higher investments. In fact, record
investment in finding and developing new oil resources has only just kept the rate of worldwide oil production on a choppy plateau since 2005.
Status quo proves—but this doesn’t take out the aff—shale’s unsustainable
Casselman and Gold, 10/12/14, writers @ wsj(“Cheap Natural Gas Gives New Hope to the Rust Belt”,
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444549204578020602281237088)
BEAVER COUNTY, Pa.—Three decades after being devastated by the closing of steel mills, this gritty river valley is hoping its
revival will come from cheap natural gas. The hope doesn't rest on drilling rigs, but on a multibillion-dollar chemical plant that
Royal Dutch Shell RDSB.LN 0.00% PLC is considering building here because of a flood of domestically produced natural
gas. Community leaders are touting the plant as the first step toward reviving a manufacturing industry
many thought was gone for good. "I never would have expected that as a region we'd have a second chance to be a real leader in American
manufacturing," Bill Flanagan of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, a regional business group, told a crowd of locals who
came to hear about the chemical plant. "Suddenly we're back in the game."
It isn't just Beaver County reaping the benefits
of cheap gas. Plunging prices have turned the U.S. into one of the most profitable places in the world
to make chemicals and fertilizer, industries that use gas as both a feedstock and an energy source. And
they have slashed costs for makers of energy-intensive products such as aluminum, steel and glass. "The
U.S. is now going to be the
low-cost industrialized country for energy," the energy economist Philip Verleger says. "This creates a base for
stronger economic growth in the United States than the rest of the industrialized world."
Natural gas prices key
Paul N. Cicio (President, Industrial Energy Consumers of America) August 2012 “RE: In Response to
Michael A. Levi, “The Case for Natural Gas Exports” Op¶ -¶ Ed, August 15, 2012¶ in¶ The¶ New York Times”
http://www.ieca-us.com/wp-content/uploads/NY-Op-Ed-Levi-Response_08.27.12.pdf
The August 15, 2012 op¶ -¶ ed in The New York Times, authored by Michael A. Levi, titled "The Case for¶ Natural Gas Exports,"
completely misses the mark by conveniently looking at the export issue narrowly.¶ The op¶ -¶ ed overlooks the
massive domestic economic impl ications and jobs of abundant and affordable¶ natural gas if used in
the U.S.; the significant growing accumulative domestic demand that is underway;¶ and the dangers of
exports increasing U.S. natural gas prices to international levels for every consumer¶ in¶ the country. Using natural gas in
manufacturing products and exporting those products is the best¶ way to create jobs and economic
growth.¶ For clarity, prices of natural gas on the NYMEX are trading at about $2.67 per MMBtu and rise an¶ average of 2¶ 7% per year to
2020. So, even without exports, prices are going up rapidly. And, as they do,¶ both our natural gas and¶ electricity prices¶ will go up¶
–¶ a double impact for all consumers.¶ There are¶ now¶ fourteen applications to export natural gas¶ before the U¶ .S. Department of Energy,
which¶ account for¶ an equivalent demand of 6.7¶ T¶ cf, a 30 percent increase above today’s level. That is a very¶ significant increase. For
perspective, U¶ .¶ S¶ .¶ demand increased only 4.4 percent from 2000 to 2011. The¶ manufacturing sector¶ has announced projects of $70
billion in capital investments on the back of low¶ natural gas prices that will increase demand about 3.7¶ T¶ cf per year. Electric utilities are
engaged in¶ massive coal to natural gas fuel¶ -¶ switching¶ ,¶ and truck and bus fleets acr¶ oss the country are switching¶ from diesel to natural
gas. Domestic demand is growing rapidly.¶ As more and more LNG cargos are shipped from the U.S., it increases the potential for
domestic natural¶ gas to be priced like crude oil is today, on internat¶ ional demand. It is NOT in the public interest to pay¶ higher natural gas
prices when demand for natural gas from the Far East increases.¶ The
shale gas revolution has given U.S. manufacturing
our biggest competitive advantage in a¶ generation. Proponen¶ ts of expediting U.S. natural gas exports tend to focus only
on the jobs that can be¶ created on the natural gas well pad, at the expense of the more substantial job growth in the¶ manufacturing value
chain that would flow from using natural gas as an afford¶ able raw material and as¶ an energy source. While we do not oppose exports,
common sense says that we can create more jobs by¶ using the natural gas domestically and exporting value¶ -¶ added products. This country
needs to be¶ thoughtful about maximizing America¶ n job creation and our energy diversity
AT: Private T/O
Government-led development’s key to breakthroughs and commercialization --- no
private trade-off
Stepp 11 [Senior Analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF)
Specializing in Climate Change and Clean Energy Policy “Counterpoint: Heritage Foundation
Backgrounderhttp://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Counterpoint_Heritage_BTI_ITIF_AEL.pd]
Heritage cites each of these examples as supposed evidence of the proficiency of the private sector in advancing pre-competitive and advanced energy technologies to market on its own.
In
reality, all of the companies and research ventures above are prime examples of the kind of
productive partnership between private and public sectors that is the true face of American
innovation – a partnership that Heritage would dismantle . This is the kind of public support for emerging technologies and private sector
entrepreneurs that gave birth to everything from jet engines to the Internet, microchips to GPS, and countless biomedical and agricultural innovations, each of which fueled American
economic growth and prosperity.8 And unless Heritage has its way, this is the kind of key partnership between public and private sectors that could give rise to new groundbreaking
innovations in the energy sector that will strengthen American energy security, launch new high-tech industries, and contribute to another century of sustained national prosperity¶ The
report wrongly suggests that DOE budget expenditures are prime targets for substantial deficit reduction.¶ Cutting $6 billion, or approximately 23 percent, from the FY2010 DOE budget, as
Heritage proposes, would reduce the $1.5 trillion federal deficit by a mere four-tenths of one percent.¶ The report uses out-of-context figures to exaggerate the relative magnitude of DOE’s
budget.¶ Heritage writes that DOE’s budget experienced a “staggering” increase in size from $15 billion to $26.4 billion over the last decade. To call these figures “staggering” is misleading.
The DOE’s budget is the fourth smallest of the federal executive departments (only Treasury, State and Commerce have smaller ones), and it compares to $854 billion at Health and Human
Services and $691 billion at the Department of Defense. The budgets for HHS and DOD each more than doubled in size over the same ten-year period, adding over half a trillion dollars in
The report is inconsistent in its support and understanding of
the DOE’s role in enhancing energy security.¶ In the “Talking Points” sidebar of the report, Heritage claims that DOE should stick to its “traditional
government spending, compared to a roughly $10 billion increase at DOE.9¶
mission of promoting national and economic energy security.” Yet later in the report they dismiss such efforts, such as advancing biofuels to replace the nation’s reliance on imported fossil
fuels, as “either protectionist or attempts to deploy uncompetitive technologies.”¶
The report assumes a zero-sum competition between
government and private investors rather than acknowledging the long and successful history of
public-private partnerships.¶ The report claims that by “forcing government-developed technologies into the market, the
government diminishes the role of the entrepreneur and crowds out private sector investment." Evidence from
various DOE programs refutes this claim. ARPA-E does not force government-developed technologies
into the market, but instead provides financing for pre-commercial private sector and university
ventures that invest in technological innovation.10 Similarly the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s pre-commercial
research into thin-film solar technology was adopted and commercialized by First Solar, now the world’s leading private thin film solar
Selective and prejudicial history is applied to suggest that government research has little
to no commercial aim or value.¶ Citing the examples of the Internet, computer chips, and GPS, the report claims, "Government programs that become commercial
company.11¶
successes were not intended to meet a commercial demand." There are two problems with this. First, this is not a reason to eschew federal funding for future basic research and precommercial technology since, as Heritage acknowledges, such investments have resulted in technologies that launched entire new industries, fueled decades of American prosperity, and
this claim is not universally true. For example, nuclear power, a technology born out of
the government-organized Manhattan Project and supported by the precursors to the DOE, relied on tremendous federal
support for its development and deployment, and was explicitly developed for commercial use. Private companies like
improved the lives of millions. Second,
General Electric and Westinghouse coordinated closely to guarantee that the government would support their high-risk, advanced technology
The report relies
on the unfounded assumption that the private sector is, and should be, largely responsible for energy
research, commerce, and infrastructure.¶ Heritage adamantly stands by its assertion that, “The reality is that when it comes to
energy policy, the free market works.” In fact, few industries are more entrenched in a system of government
support, insurance, regulation, and protection than energy. Over a century’s worth of subsidizing fossil energy
sources—not to mention roads, vehicle development and manufacturing, and transmission/distribution infrastructure—have
underwritten the steady development and improvement of conventional energy sources and embedded coal, oil, and natural gas
ventures, and the Atomic Energy Commission was set up to ensure the safety and economic viability of the industry.¶
as the favored national energy inputs. In the case of nuclear power, the only new commercial energy generation technology to emerge and scale up significantly in the 20th
century, government insurance, liability limitation, and loan guarantees have allowed private financiers the certainty and stability to invest in nuclear energy projects, which typically have high
up-front capital cost and long life spans. Military resources, including the lives of American soldiers, are expended in the protection of foreign energy reserves and the shipping lanes that bring
them to American markets. The private sector does not and cannot provide these services.
The claims that the energy sector is a “free market”
simply wrong .¶
and that advanced energy technologies will achieve an efficient critical mass through private investment alone are
Heritage acknowledges the role of government in advancing a national interest not met by the private sector, yet claims that the government is not equipped to do so.¶ Heritage employs two
conflicting rationales in calling for cuts to various innovation programs. “Government research programs,” Heritage admits, “should advance a specific critical national interest that is not being
met by the private sector.” Elsewhere in the report, however, the think tank states that “the government is not equipped to determine commercial viability and can retard the process by
Heritage Foundation first admits that the government plays a critical role in fixing key market failures
private sector is the more effective and appropriate venue to
invest in new energy research, apparently assuming that the market will somehow fix itself and overcome the
inherent market failures and limitations that now constrain it.¶ Heritage’s logic is self-contradictory ,
misallocating resources to inefficient uses.” The
and advancing critical national interests, but then claims that the
and evidences a misunderstanding of the many market failures constraining the development and
adoption of new, advanced energy technologies. In reality, market failures plague the energy
innovation process at each stage , from lab to market launch.12 Spillover risks , uncertain returns ,
and long lead-times all constrain or outright prevent private firms from investing in breakthrough
energy innovations. Furthermore, first-of-a-kind advanced energy technologies must typically prove
themselves at full commercial scale before attracting traditional financiers. Yet demonstrating largescale technologies – such as advanced modular nuclear reactors, floating deepwater wind turbines, or carbon capture and
storage technologies – typically costs more than venture capitalists can finance alone, leaving a large ‘Valley
of Death’ that kills off many promising technologies before they can enter the marketplace.
Overcoming these persistent market failures to help advance a portfolio of advanced energy technologies and provide the
secure, affordable, and healthy energy needed to fuel the economy is clearly in the national interest, and is the proper role for
government energy and innovation programs.¶ Heritage is inconsistent in applying their support or opposition to federal programs supporting clean energy
innovation.¶ While the Heritage Foundation supports on ongoing role for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, lauding the agency's focus on "transformational energy research that
industry by itself cannot and will not support," the Heritage brief simultaneously calls for the dismantling of budgets for the DOE Office of Science, including the Energy Frontier Research
Centers program, which pursues basic energy research at the frontiers of energy science, the kind of high-risk, long-term research with very uncertain payoffs that private sector firms cannot
and do not pursue. The other DOE energy and innovation programs targeted by Heritage also work to fill critical private sector gaps and overcome the market failures listed above.¶
Heritage wrongly suggests that the private sector invests sufficiently in energy innovation.¶ Heritage writes,
“Even for technologies that are not yet commercially feasible, the private sector is making financial investments.” But the fact is that
for decades the private sector has consistently underinvested in energy research and development (R&D). In
fact, the energy industry invests just 0.3 percent of its revenues back into R&D, while most innovative
industries such as Information Technology and Biotechnology reinvest 5-20 percent of their revenues into new product
development and innovation.13 The gap is so significant that Bloomberg New Energy Finance recommended a
number of government policies to support technology demonstration and commercialization, such as the creation of a
Clean Energy Deployment Administration and additional technology development through DOE.14
Can’t divorce the two -- huge gaps mean linkage is critical to successful
commercialization and research by itself fails
Fletcher & Borne, ‘12
[Anthony C., PhD in organic chemistry, and had a 20-year career as a management consultant with
Deloitte and with Cap Gemini Ernst and Young and is now a freelance consultant, Phillip E., PhD in
physical chemistry, is a professor of pharmacology and Associate Vice Chancellor for Innovation and
Industrial Alliances at the University of California San Diego, the co-founder of SciVee.tv, and founding
editor-in-chief of this journal, 9-27, “Ten Simple Rules To Commercialize Scientific Research,” PLoS
Comput Biol 8(9),
http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1002712]
Scientists evaluate research by considering whether it makes an original contribution to our
understanding of the world. Businesses have a different rationale, which, by and large, is to make money.
This engenders a huge culture gap. In the 18th century, as the Chinese started to make porcelain for European markets, it was noted
that they simply didn't get the idea of perspective. Pagodas appeared the size of flower vases. The artists understood symbolism; Europeans
sought realism. And so it is with commercialization: scientists are not primed for business (some would even say this goes against academic
freedom) and businesses are not, for the most part, so good at science unless they have specialized research divisions—Bell Labs comes to mind
here, although these days an exception rather than a rule. When these worlds collide
there is a need for intermediaries and
translators to ensure a common understanding and successful path from research to commercialism.
Scientists need to get business people who are “on the same wavelength” on their team and who can
explain and guide them. Conversely, businesses have to be able to determine what research universities
have to offer and how it could be of benefit. Interfaces are varied, ranging from university
development offices to business outreach units to organizations like CONNECT (http://www.connect.org) that
specialize on being the interface. These are valuable resources and should be utilized by both scientists and potential business partners. Rule 2:
There Is No Single Path To Commercialization Commercialization of
scientific breakthroughs is something that has
become more formalized in recent years thanks, in the United States at least, to the Bayh-Dole Act (legislation
dealing with intellectual property arising from federal government–funded research) [4], with academia taking an active role in
facilitating the translation of its intellectual capital into business. There are many routes for this: licensing, royalties,
incubation, and in-house development. Industry itself has also moved physically closer to large universities (e.g. science
parks) to share in the human capital. Beneath all this activity there are complex issues regarding how much potential value lies
locked up in these intellectual assets and how they can best be developed without straying too far from the progenitors' ideals, and at the same
time generating value. There are many ways to go from the laboratory bench to the store: commercialization is just like any business process–
part art, part science; part inspiration, part perspiration. Most routes are essentially mechanistic, some work and some don't—there is no
secret way to do things. So if anyone tells you at the start it's a sure fire winner (or not), don't believe them—there is a lot of hard work that has
to be done to see if an idea can make it. And never believe advice that says “this is the best way” based on a single example—for
every
research-driven idea that makes it big, hundreds wither slowly away. These failures are hardly ever the subject of
detailed case studies, and so we have no idea why they failed and what lessons we could learn. Rule 4: Consider The Implications Of Going From
Public To Private Academic research has many benefits, for example, collaboration, data and knowledge sharing, and freedom to publish.
When moving this research into the private sector, different rules apply. There is a need to protect the
intellectual property. In some cases, protecting that investment has implications for follow-on
developments and impacts academic freedom. For example, consider a situation where a company licensing a technology from an
academic institution also has the rights to follow-on developments. Those rights could impact the academic scientist's ability to freely publish
those new developments.
Canada
1AC
Recent ag disputes put US-Canada relations on the brink
Leader-Post, 2014, (“Labelling policy cools Canada-U.S. relations”,
http://www.leaderpost.com/life/Labelling+policy+cools+Canada+relations/9880676/story.html)
Canada has a big beef with its neighbour to the south. The gripe over country-oforigin labelling (COOL) in
the U.S. has been heating up for a decade. Now it is coming to a head. Canada argues the labelling offers no real value to
consumers and violates free trade agreements - and is vowing retaliation if no changes are made. While
Canadians are justifiably proud of the beef raised in this country, and confident that Americans will realize the "Canadian" label is synonymous
with quality, it has become apparent that U.S. COOL legislation is really just a thinly disguised trade barrier. The U.S. law requires meat
products sold in that country to be sorted, packaged and labelled separately, depending on where the animal was born, raised and slaughtered.
The added cost that entails has prompted some U.S. meat processors to trim the amount of Canadian livestock they buy. The result has
been a $1-billion loss to Canadian livestock producers - $629 million a year to the Canadian beef industry alone. Since
Alberta produces more than 40 per cent of all cattle in this country, that's an especially big hit to the province. Federal Agriculture
Minister Gerry Ritz ramped up the pressure at a NAFTA agriculture ministers meeting in Mexico last week .
Ritz said he told U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack that Canada is ready to impose retaliatory tariffs
on certain U.S. goods when it receives authorization from the World Trade Organization - which is expected as early as this fall. At the same
time, he
is urging Mexico, which has also been hammered by COOL, to turn up the pressure by releasing its own list
of U.S. products it might target with tariffs. What is really nuts about this is that although the labelling laws have the backing
of some ranchers in border states and the congressmen who count on their votes, broad segments of the U.S. meat industry oppose them
because they are driving food prices up in that country. The case is also being heard by 11 judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.
While government lawyers claim the law merely furthers consumers' ability to act on their own preference, one judge pushed for an
explanation of how the rules help consumers and suggested it smacks of traditional protectionism. As Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall points
out, COOL isn't the only issue irritating the usually dynamic trade relationship between our two countries. Add
in the not-so-minor
political stalling on a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline and it's apparent that the West - Alberta in
particular - is bearing the brunt of what Wall describes as a "low ebb" in trade relations. For his part, Ritz
promises "Canada will not blink" until the COOL issue is resolved. Some critics argue it is counterproductive to risk starting a trade
war over an issue representing $1 billion, which is about half a day's trade between our nations - and that instead, we need to
start developing alternative markets. That's worth pursuing, but it's time to remind our usually friendly, but sometimes belligerent southern
neighbour there is a price to pay for turning a blind eye to economic damage done to Canada through unilateral actions motivated solely by
politics.
Lingering disputes have the potential to escalate—the Arctic is key
Bergh, 12 [SIPRI is an independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict,
armaments, arms control and disarmament. Established in 1966, SIPRI provides data, analysis and
recommendations, based on open sources, to policymakers, researchers, media and the interested
public, THE ARCTIC POLICIES OF CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES: DOMESTIC MOTIVES AND
INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT kristofer bergh, No. 2012/1_July 2012]
V. Conclusions While Canada has fairly comprehensive strategies to deal with its own Arctic areas as well as
wider foreign policy in the region , the presidential directive that guides US policy is quite limited. However, the
scope of the two policy documents also testifies to the importance of the Arctic as a political issue in both
countries. The Arctic has become a region of great political importance in Canada. However, the Canadian
Government’s statements about identity and sov- ereignty may not be conducive to international cooperation. Although US public and political interest remains low
and the USA’s capacity to operate in the region leaves much to be desired, changes are visible in terms of US foreign and defence policy. While the USA has not
particularly distinguished itself in the inter- national cooperation over the Arctic—although it seems that this is now changing—Canada has repeatedly made clear
that it is seeking a leadership role. The
lingering disagreements between the two countries may, however undermine
their ability to pursue their interests in the region. The future of the Arctic will require close
cooperation between Canada and the USA, not least if human activity in the area increases as it becomes more accessible. Increased
traffic in the Northwest Passage will present a challenge to both Canadian and US capacity to operate in the region, not least if responsibili- ties in the area are
unclear. The two countries’ inability to agree on key issues such as the legal status of the Northwest Passage and the maritime bound- ary in the Beaufort Sea is
affecting not only their domestic abilities but also their abilities to exercise international leadership in the region. In terms of boundary issues, for example, Norway
and Russia, rather than Canada and the USA, have set a positive example and created a model for future delimita- tions. Canada and then the USA will chair the
Arctic Council for two years each starting in 2013. Coordination between the two countries, along the lines of the common platform of the chairmanships of
Norway, Denmark and Sweden, could be an attractive option for Canada and USA that would strengthen their positions in Arctic cooperation by formulating a North
American Arctic policy. In order for this to happen, the two countries would have to approach each other on issues such as admitting observers to the Council and
the role of the five Arctic littoral states. Moreover, they would have to agree on a common set of priorities to pursue in the Council for the coming years. The two
countries’ abilities and willingness to address the challenges posed by the changing Arctic will depend on a range of circumstances, including geography and history;
the shape of political systems; the presence of economic and strategic interests; and public engagement. The
bilateral relationship between
Canada and the USA will also be a key factor for the two countries’ abilities to meet the challenges in the
rapidly changing region.
And, that makes cooperation ineffective
Meyer, 12 [Julia, Meyer, In Depth News, The Arctic: Simmering Tensions Between Canada and USA,
http://www.indepthnews.info/index.php/global-issues/1069-the-arctic-simmering-tensions-betweencanada-and-usa]
STOCKHOLM (IDN) - The focus of international attention on melting polar ice is hiding simmering tensions between
Canada and the USA
– two of the eight states with Arctic territory – which
need be urgently resolved to avoid
complications in a new emerging geopolitical situation, says a new study. "Both countries need to pay
attention to the challenges in the Arctic but should also be wary of how their domestic posturing in the region
is affecting their international relations , including with each other ," says the study by the prestigious Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Authored by Kristofer Bergh, the study says: "The abilities of Canada and the USA to
pursue their interests in the region will rely on them cooperating closely, not least because from 2013 they will hold successive
chairmanships of the Arctic Council. Canadian-US relations will thus be an important factor in the future of a changing
Arctic. Resolving key disagreements and identifying common priorities would strengthen both
countries’ positions in the region." Together with Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Canada and the USA are members of the Arctic
Council. The Council, which includes the representatives of the region's indigenous populations, has evolved into a decision-making organization with a permanent
secretariat and budget. Subsequently it attracts more attention from the rest of the world.
The plan provides an in-road to relations through cooperative management of Arctic
resources
Jelinski, 10 [Cameron Jelinski, M.A, The University of British Columbia (Vancouver) Diplomacy and
the Lomonosov Ridge: Prospects for International Cooperation in the Arctic,
https://circle.ubc.ca/bitstream/handle/2429/28128/ubc_2010_fall_jelinski_cameron.pdf?sequence=1%
29]
Possibilities for cooperation: Joint development zones While this paper focuses on interim solutions that may help lead to final delimitation of
boundaries, it is important to mention in brief the possibilities for alternative solutions. As noted in the discussion above, the more
conventional approach is for countries to enter into bilateral or multilateral delimitation negotiations in order to
determine the final boundaries between them. As Vivian Forbes asserts, ―[t]he settlement of boundary disputes involving resources
has traditionally centred on the demarcation of specific lines ... dividing the disputed resource area between the States involved.‖xcvi In
addition to this approach, however, another
option exists—one that has been adopted by several countries worldwide when faced
is possible for two or more states to effectively share
jurisdiction indefinitely , by enacting arrangements that are variously called joint development zones, areas, or
regimes. Joint development has been defined as ―cooperation between States with regard to the exploration
for and exploitation of certain deposits ... of non-living resources, which ... lie in an area of overlapping claims.‖xcvii It is
with continental shelf delimitation disagreements. Specifically, it
informative to examine in brief several existing examples of joint development before discussing the prospects of such a regime in the central
Arctic Ocean. A
number of joint development regimes exist in various situations of maritime or continental shelf
worldwide, such that Forbes posits that these regimes ―have gained universal
delimitation disputes
acceptance. ‖xcviii An oft-cited example concerns the overlapping claims to the continental shelf that existed between Australia and
Indonesia, and now between Australia and East Timor.xcix After years of disagreement over control of the 29 resources
in this area, Australia and Indonesia reached in 1989 ―an elaborate compromise: the two sides set aside the question
of permanent boundaries and agreed, instead, to the establishment of a zone of joint development‖ under which any government revenues
from petroleum exploitation were equally shared by the two countries.c Thus, while this
exclusive sovereignty, it did effectively
agreement did not determine final areas of
neutralize a longstanding dispute by creating an arrangement that
could be adhered to indefinitely. In other words, while final delimitation was not achieved, delimitation was no longer seen as a
pressing matter as long as the joint development agreement was respected. When East Timor gained independence from Indonesia, it
renegotiated the treaty in such a way that the concept of joint development was maintained, albeit in a manner far more beneficial to this
small developing country.ci In another example, Thailand and Malaysia formally created a Joint Development Area (JDA) in 1990.cii Forbes
points out that the two countries’ belief that hydrocarbon resources existed in the area made delimitation more difficult, but that the perceived
―economic benefits‖ of exploitation was a driving factor behind the states’ willingness to pursue a joint development arrangement.ciii This
factor may be relevant in the case of the central Arctic Ocean, as discussed below. Finally, a third example of joint
development may be mentioned – this one on the southern fringes of the Arctic. In 1980, when negotiations on a maritime boundary between
Iceland and Jan Mayen (Norway) failed to delimit the continental shelf, a Conciliation Commission
recommended the creation
of a joint development zone for ―an area of the shelf which had the greatest resource potential .‖civ
Since adopting the recommendations, cooperation between the two states typically ―takes the form of joint venture
contracts. ‖cv In short, then, the concept of joint development is well-established in 30 relations between
countries, and in several cases has effectively removed from contention disputes over the continental
shelf. In light of these concrete examples, it is possible to discuss the feasibility of a joint development regime as a method of defusing any
disputes in the central Arctic Ocean. On the one hand, some of the factors that seem to facilitate joint development are
present in the central Arctic Ocean, including areas of potentially overlapping claims, belief that resources may be found in these
areas, and a history of some cooperation. Therefore, if eventual delimitation negotiations are found to be intractable, a joint
development regime in the Arctic could attain the benefits that such regimes have facilitated
elsewhere, particularly by providing ―a management tool in situations which otherwise would lead to
disputes and confrontations . ‖cvi Such a regime could be established through a series of bilateral agreements, or through one
multilateral agreement. On the other hand, however, it was noted above that the perceived economic benefits of joint
exploitation were in at least one case a major factor behind the push for a joint development area. cvii
Given that few oil and gas resources may exist in the area of potential overlap, and that their exploitation would be very costly, the drive for a
joint development zone may be less urgent along the Lomonosov Ridge in the near term. It should be noted, however, that while resource
exploitation is typically the main reason for joint development regimes of shared jurisdiction, other issues may be covered by such agreements.
For example, Francisco Orrego Vicuna points out that some agreements on shared development jurisdiction ―have included clauses on
cooperation regarding living resources, the environment, scientific research, search and rescue, and other issues.‖cviii Thus, even if 31 shared
resource exploitation does not present an immediately compelling reason for pursuing a zone of joint jurisdiction, such an agreement could also
increase the possibility of cooperation on other matters in the central Arctic Ocean. It should be noted as well that as in the case of a
provisional delimitation arrangement, more information on the seabed may be needed in the central Arctic Ocean before the establishment of
a joint development regime is feasible. In short, then, several potential forms of political cooperation could be pursued in the central Arctic
Ocean. In an assertion that addresses potential concerns about the difficulties of diplomatic relations, Riddell-Dixon argues that ―[t]he
prospects of dealing with [probable overlaps] in an orderly manner appear promising in light of the high degree of cooperation evident in
Canada’s relations with Denmark, the United States, and Russia in the preparations of their respective submissions.‖cix While she does not
advocate one form of cooperation or another, by
formalizing such cooperation by means of a joint or coordinated
submission, through a provisional delimitation agreement, or potentially through a joint development zone in the future, the
concerned states could further enhance the prospects of dealing with overlaps peacefully and fairly.
Offshore gas is key—forces the US and Canada to cooperate
Parfomak and Ratner, 11 [June 17, 2011 The U.S.-Canada Energy Relationship: Joined at the Well
Paul W. Parfomak Specialist in Energy and Infrastructure Policy Michael Ratner Analyst in Energy Policy,
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41875.pdf]
Summary
The U nited S tates and Canada, while independent countries, effectively comprise a single
integrated market for petroleum and natural gas . Canada is the single largest foreign supplier of petroleum
products and natural gas to the United States—and the United States is the dominant consumer of Canada’s
energy exports. The value of the petroleum and natural gas trade between the two countries totaled nearly $100 billion in
2010, helping to promote general economic growth and directly support thousands of energy industry and
related jobs on both sides of the border. Increased energy trade between the United States and Canada—a stable, friendly
neighbor—is viewed by many as a major contributor to U.S. energy security. The U.S.-Canada energy
relationship is increasingly complex, however, and is undergoing fundamental change, particularly in the
petroleum and natural gas sectors. Congress has been facing important policy questions in the U.S.-Canada energy context on several fronts,
including the siting of major cross-border pipelines, increasing petroleum supplies from Canadian oil sands, increasing natural gas production
from North American shales, and the construction of new facilities for liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Legislative proposals in the 112th
Congress could directly influence these developments. These proposals include H.R. 1938, which would expedite consideration of the Keystone
XL pipeline proposal, H.R. 909, which would encourage petroleum and natural gas production on the outer continental shelf and in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge, and S. 304, which would support a program to train workers involved with oil and gas infrastructure in Alaska. Other
proposals in Congress affecting hydraulic fracturing operations for natural gas production, offshore drilling , or U.S. oil shale
could also affect the U.S.-Canada energy relationship . Traditionally, the energy trade
between the United States and Canada, while intertwined, has been uncomplicated—taking the form of a
steadily growing southward flow of crude oil and natural gas to markets in the U.S. Midwest and Northeast. But recent
development
developments have greatly complicated that energy relationship creating new competition and
interconnections. Consequently, while energy policies in one country have always inevitably affected
the other, their cross-cutting effects in the future may not be widely understood and, in some cases, may be
largely unanticipated. For example, policies affecting U.S. shale gas production could affect North American natural
gas prices overall, and thus, the costs of producing petroleum from oil sands (which requires large volumes of natural gas for heating).
Changing oil sands costs could, in turn, affect Canadian petroleum supplies to the United States, affecting north-south pipeline use and
changing U.S. petroleum import requirements from overseas. Changing
natural gas prices would also change the
economics of Arctic natural gas, however, and influence the development of the Arctic natural gas
pipelines, which could provide an alternative source of economic natural gas for oil sands production
in Alberta. How such scenarios could play out in reality is open to debate, but they illustrate the tangled web policymakers in both
countries must navigate as they consider future energy, environmental, and transportation decisions. As Congress debates legislative
proposals affecting the petroleum and natural gas industries, it may be helpful to consider these proposals in the broadest possible North
American context, recognizing that the energy sector in Canada may be moved in one direction or another based on policies in Washington,
DC. To date, the
judgment of Congress has favored a growing U.S.- Canada energy partnership—but
ensuring that this relationship continues to be as mutually beneficial as possible will likely remain a
key oversight challenge for the next decades.
Solvency
Offshore Development Key
Only opening up offshore lands solves – 87% of our supply is currently off-limits –
absent new supply, we’ll lose our lead, prices will increase and the market will
become volatile
Green, API, 14 (Mark, reporting on a conference with Andy Radford, senior policy advisor for the API, “Better Planning for a Better
Energy Future”, http://energytomorrow.org/blog/2014/june/better-planning-for-a-better-energy-future)
With the Interior Department turning its attention to the next five-year offshore leasing plan, here’s a
figure to keep in mind: 87 percent. That’s how much of our federal offshore acreage is off limits for
energy development
– and it’s costing us energy, jobs and economic growth. Andy Radford, API senior policy advisor, set out some of
the arguments for increasing access to energy reserves in the next five-year leasing plan during a conference call with reporters: Pro-
development energy policies opening access to areas both on and offshore could generate more than 1
million new jobs and 4 million additional barrels of oil per day. Development in just the Atlantic outer continental shelf
(OCS) could create nearly 280,000 new jobs, grow the economy by up to $23.5 billion per year and add 1.3 million
barrels of oil equivalent per day to U.S. production. Locked away in the Pacific and eastern Gulf of Mexico are more than
200,000 jobs, $218 billion in government revenue and 2.6 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. Radford said including these
areas in the next leasing plan would signal to global markets that the U.S. energy revolution is here to stay.
Offshore development is safer than ever before , he said, pointing to a statement released in April by the co-chairmen of
the national spill commission: “We are generally pleased with the way the industry and the executive branch have moved ahead on the
Commission’s recommendations to improve the safety of offshore drilling and the capacity to respond to spills. Federal
regulatory
agencies are implementing new rules regarding oversight of the industry and bolstering their
enforcement activities. Government and industry are working together to create a safety-conscious
culture in the offshore drilling industry. And the industry has substantially improved its capacity to respond to rupturing wells by
pre-positioning caps for ready deployment should trouble occur. Thus, offshore drilling is safer than it was four years ago.”
In addition, the Center for Offshore Safety continues to work with companies and regulators to develop safety plans and systems for managing
those plans – both designed to engrain safety even more deeply in day-to-day industry operations. Radford
said the next five-year
offshore leasing plan, covering sales for 2017 to 2022, will be significant for U.S. energy development and called
on the government to craft a plan that greatly expands access to oil and natural gas reserves: “Decisions
made now, especially in unexplored areas , will have impacts well into the future. Knowing this, the
department should thoroughly analyze the resource-rich areas of interest throughout the entire U.S. O uter
C ontinental S helf and draft an expansive leasing plan that maintains current leasing areas and seeks to unlock new
areas that are currently off-limits, such as the Atlantic and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.” More Radford: “The U.S. recently
became the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas. This energy renaissance has put millions of
Americans to work, generated billions of dollars in revenue for the government, and put downward pressure on prices
for consumers. But earlier this month, the I nternational E nergy A gency reported that we could fall behind
OPEC countries if U.S. production plateaus, which IEA says could result in ‘tighter and more volatile oil
markets’ and add $15 per barrel to the price of oil. Growing U.S. production has dramatically increased our
resistance to energy shocks, but our long-term energy security can only be ensured with a lasting
commitment to expanding oil and natural gas development both on and offshore.” Key to the leasing plan is a nearterm federal decision on issuing permits for the collection of new seismic survey data in the Atlantic and the conditions it will set for those
permits. Radford said the parameters for much-needed surveying should be based on the best available science and real operational
experience, which he said have shown that surveys are safe and have negligible effect on marine mammals. The data is needed to set the stage
for offshore leasing, exploration and development and shouldn’t be laden with restrictions based on unrealistic animal impacts, as API and
other organizations argued in recent comments to the government. Radford: “America’s oil and natural
gas renaissance has
nurtured our economy with good jobs, affordable energy, and stable prices, but if we want these
benefits last for the long-term, we cannot afford to make short-sighted decisions about our energy future. The U.S.
has an unprecedented opportunity to be the global leader in energy for decades to come, but achieving our true potential will take
leadership and foresight from those in government who hold the key to accessing our offshore
energy reserves. The time has come to open the lock and allow safe and responsible energy
production throughout the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf .”
We must open up drilling to the outer continental shelf – key to supply
Chamber of Commerce 13 (the Institute for 21st Century Energy, “Remove Barriers to Increased Domestic Oil & Natural Gas
Production and Fuel Manufacturing”, http://www.energyxxi.org/sites/default/files/energy-works-for-us/OilNatGas.pdf)
Technological advances have led to tremendous increases in oil and natural gas production, creating jobs and
spurring economic development. In a short time, the narrative of U.S. energy production has changed from one of “energy
scarcity” to one of “energy abundance.” Despite this success, oil and gas production faces barriers that are holding
back its full potential, costing America jobs and government revenue. While oil and gas production on state and private
lands has increased dramatically, production on federal lands has actually fallen . Furthermore, the vast
majority of federal offshore lands are closed to production, and the industry operates under the constant threat of
punitive taxes and ill-conceived, heavy-handed federal regulations. America is in the midst of a true energy revolution.
After decades of the national dialogue being dominated by energy scarcity, we are now facing an era of energy abundance. However, this is far
from a foregone conclusion. The
recent expansion of oil and gas production is a result of technological
innovation and industry persistence. If we can develop smart policies that complement the private sector, we are on the verge of
an energy revolution that has the potential to launch a manufacturing revival, effectively increase household spending power, and repower
America’s economy. American crude oil production is on the rise. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that America’s crude
production will be over 7.4 million barrels per day by the end of 2013—a nearly 50% increase since 2008. However, industry has been restricted
from exploring much less producing energy on vast amounts of federal land. In fact, while production of oil and gas on private and state land
has risen dramatically in the last few years, production on federal lands actually declined. Production
has not only declined on
federal lands, but industry is also locked out of most offshore federal lands – some 86% of the outer
continental shelf is off-limits for production and exploration . The natural gas story is even more astonishing.
Natural gas from shale today represents about one-third of all U.S. production and is forecast to supply up to 60%
of all U.S. natural gas production by 2030. In fact, EIA now expects the U.S. to become a net exporter of natural gas
by 2020 (if not sooner). Shale gas presents a significant opportunity to lower our nation’s energy security
risk and increase the competitiveness of our manufacturing sector. The resulting reduction in costs for power
generation and feedstocks has not only made U.S. manufacturing more competitive, it has also spurred new
investments in chemical and steel manufacturing. Unconventional oil and gas alone are expected to
generate hundreds of billions of dollars in local, state and federal revenues, and create or support millions of American jobs.
Continuing to optimize these valuable resources to help grow the U.S. economy will depend on smart energy
policies that do not limit or restrict development
Every benefit of natural gas is at risk – we need to open up offshore federal land now
– certainty is key
Chamber of Commerce 13 (the Institute for 21st Century Energy, “Remove Barriers to Increased Domestic Oil & Natural Gas
Production and Fuel Manufacturing”, http://www.energyxxi.org/sites/default/files/file-tool/Energy_Works_For_US.pdf)
The report concludes that “Unconventional oil and natural gas activity is reshaping America’s energy future and
bringing very significant benefits to the economy— in terms of jobs, government revenues, and GDP. A second IHS report took a look at statelevel job impacts in the lower 48 states. It concluded that both producing and non-producing states were benefiting from the unconventional
oil and natural gas revolution. Unconventional activity in producing states—including traditional producing states like Oklahoma and Texas and
new producing states like North Dakota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania—contributed nearly 1.3 million jobs in 2012. Non-producing states benefit
because many of their businesses are links in the long supply chains that provide goods and services supporting unconventional development.
These supply chain activities support about 475,000 workers in 32 non-producing states, with Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, and New York
each with more than 35,000 workers. 15 Wood Mackenzie reported similar results, finding that “U.S.
policies which encourage
the development of new and existing resources could, by 2030, increase domestic oil and natural gas
production by over 10 million boed [barrels of oil-equivalent per day], support an additional 1.4 million jobs,
and raise over $800 billion of cumulative additional government revenue.” 16 So swift has been the turnaround
in U.S. energy fortunes that the U nited S tates will shortly be in a position to export natural gas supplies , a
wholly unanticipated scenario as recently as five years ago. Unlike crude oil, natural gas is priced regionally, not globally. In
most parts of the world, the price of natural gas is linked to the price of crude oil and is much higher than it is in the
U nited S tates. In Europe, for example, natural gas can sell for as much as $12, $13, or even $14 per million Btu, and in Asia, it can go higher
still. Some
have expressed concern that if the U nited S tates exports LNG to these places, natural gas prices
would increase substantially and America would lose the competitive advantage low natural gas prices give manufacturing,
petrochemicals, and other industries that use natural gas as a fuel or feedstock. Exports of natural gas to nations that do not have free trade
agreements with the United States, however, require a permit from the Department of Energy (DOE). In
2012, Cheniere Energy was granted
an in-
the first permit to export LNG from its Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana. But before DOE would issue further permits, it wanted
depth assessment of the economic impact of LNG exports. The study by NERA Economic Consultants released in
December 2012 found that in all of the cases it examined, including those with relatively high levels of LNG exports, “the
U.S. would experience net economic benefits from increased LNG exports.” 17 Moreover, export restriction also
would be in violation of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, which prohibits WTO members from discriminantly restraining exports to other
WTO members.
All the benefits of greater oil and natural gas production will be at risk, however, if these
resources cannot be tapped further
and delivered to where they are needed. With
some 80% of federal onshore
and offshore areas unavailable, access to resources on public lands remains a key concern . These
restrictions amount to a huge lost economic opportunity. Wood Mackenzie found that “policies that increase access to
currently undeveloped regions have the largest potential to create jobs in the U.S.,” which the firm estimates could result in 690,000 new jobs
by 2030. 18 The
benefits of the midstream, downstream, and energy- related chemicals links of the unconventional oil and
natural gas value chain also are impressive. According to an IHS analysis, in 2012 these activities supported 324,000 jobs,
generated nearly $46 billion in GDP, and added $11.4 billion to federal and state tax revenues. By 2020, IHS projects these economic
contributions will grow to 351,000 jobs, nearly 52 billion in GDP, and $12.6 billion in federal and state
tax revenues. Infrastructure bottlenecks, labor shortages, inadequate storage facilities, stressed supply chains, and
regulatory delays and uncertainty can keep America from capitalizing on the potential of these resources .
Bakken oil, for example, has traded at a discount because of inadequate pipeline capacity, and much of it has to be shipped by rail
Offshore access is critical – the plan opens up a huge supply of natural gas
API 14 (American Petroleum Institute, “Offshore Access to Oil and Natural Gas”, http://www.api.org/policy-and-issues/policyitems/exploration/~/media/Files/Oil-and-Natural-Gas/Offshore/OffshoreAccess-primer-highres.pdf)
America must pursue smart energy policy in order to continue as a global energy superpower. The U.S.
Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) is estimated to contain vast undiscovered oil and natural gas resources. Unfortunately,
the federal government has placed most of the OCS off-limits to energy exploration and
development . . The Bureau of Ocean Exploration and Management (BOEM) estimates that 88.6 billion barrels of oil and 398.4
trillion cubic feet of gas have yet to be dscovered on the U.S. OCS. . Unfortunately, BOEMs estimates
are 30 years old. If Congress permits the use of state-of-the-art seismic surveying technology in largely unexplored areas of the Atlantic
OCS, we may discover an even greater abundance of oil and natural gas. . Developing these oil and natural gas
resources will be vital to achieving energy security, growing our economy, and reducing government
deficits . . A 2011 study by Wood Mackenzie shcms that developing oil aid natural gas offshore and in other oft Imits areas
codd: . ncrease domestic oil production by the equivalent of 30% of current imports ; . Create more than
1 million new jobs; and . Generate $127 billion ¡n new govemrnent revenue by 2020. . The oil and
natural gas industry has a strong safety record, despite a work environment that often iwolves heavy equipment, hazardous
materials, high temperatures and high pressures. Safety is our top priority, and we are constantly improving the technologies, standards and
best practices, aid programs that protect our workers and our environment.
OCS solves
Green 13 (Mark Green, joined API after 16 years as national editorial writer in the Washington bureau of The Oklahoman newspaper,
“Unlock US Energy Potential: Offshore Oil and Gas,” The Energy Collective, http://theenergycollective.com/mark-green/188896/unlockoffshore-energy-potential)
The map below makes clear that while
there’s talk in Washington of an all-of-the-above approach to energy,
there’s much to be done in applying that concept to our outer continental shelf (OCS) oil and natural gas
reserves. Other claims notwithstanding, the number to focus on is 87 – as in the 87 percent of federal offshore
acreage that’s off limits to oil and natural gas development, indicated in red. Areas open to development are colored
blue.¶ ¶ America’s vast OCS energy potential remains largely just that, potential. Also on hold are jobs and
economic growth associated with increased energy development. Key points:¶ ¶ 88.6 billion barrels of oil and 398.4 trillion cubic feet
of natural gas are believed to be held in the OCS, according to the Bureau of Ocean Exploration and
Management – though those estimates are 30 years old. There could be an even greater abundance, which stateof-the-art seismic surveying technology could determine, if Congress will allow it.¶ Nearly 465,000 new jobs
could be created by developing oil and natural gas offshore, according to a 2011 study by Wood Mackenzie. ¶ More than $312 billion in new
revenue could be generated for government from OCS production by 2030 (Wood Mackenzie).¶ That’s
a lot of potential being left
on the shelf because of our own policy choices. Also on hold is the boost to America’s energy security that could result from developing
more of our own reserves.¶ ¶ All of these points no doubt were on the minds of the governors of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina,
who wrote last week to Sally Jewell, the president’s choice to be the next Interior secretary, encouraging Jewell to support expanded OCS
leasing.¶ ¶ As the map shows, while
oil and natural gas development off the coasts of those states is off limits
through at least 2017, the administration has authorized a federal review to decide whether energy
companies may conduct seismic tests to see how much oil and natural gas is on the OCS there. The
governors backed a new energy plan offered by Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska that would increase OCS leasing in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico
and parts of the Atlantic OCS:¶ ¶ We applaud this proposal and sincerely hope that the Administration under your guidance can work with us
and our Congressional colleagues to enact these commonsense measures. … It’s estimated that energy production from the Atlantic OCS could
create more than 140,000 new jobs within the next 20 years, and we hope you will ensure that the Administration is a partner with the states
on this issue.¶ ¶ API President and CEO Jack Gerard:¶ ¶ “Unlocking
the resources off the Atlantic Coast could create
140,000 jobs, generate much-needed revenue for the government, and fuel major investments in
state and local economies. We have an opportunity to lead the world on energy, and through safe and
responsible development of our own oil and natural gas resources we can continue our path as a
global energy superpower.”¶ ¶ In the OCS we have significant supplies of oil and natural gas – which
could prove to be even larger with modern, up-to-date analysis. Unfortunately, 87 percent of the OCS is
unavailable for oil and natural gas development that could help create jobs, stimulate the economy
and add to domestic energy production.
Removing restrictions key to 98% of our supply
Pyle 2012 (Thomas Pyle, President of the Institute for Energy Research, July 10, 2012, “Energy Department sneaks offshore moratorium
past public; Jobs and oil-supply potential are shut down,” Lexis)
While the Obama administration was taking a victory lap last week after the 5-4 Supreme Court decision to uphold the president's signature
legislative accomplishment, Obamacare, the
Interior Department was using the media black hole to release a
much-awaited five-year plan for offshore drilling. That plan reinstitutes a 30-year moratorium on
offshore energy exploration that will keep our most promising resources locked away until long after President Obama begins
plans for his presidential library. Given the timing, it is clear that the self-described "all of the above" energy president didn't want the
American people to discover that he was denying
access to nearly 98 percent of America's vast energy potential
on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). ¶ The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) of 1953 provided the interior secretary
with the authority to administer mineral exploration and development off our nation's coastlines. At its most basic level, the act empowers the
interior secretary - in this case, former U.S. Sen. Kenneth L. Salazar of Colorado - to provide oil and gas leases to the highest-qualified bidder
while establishing guidelines for implementing an oil and gas exploration-and-development program for the Outer Continental Shelf. In 1978, in
the wake of the oil crisis and spiking gasoline prices, Congress amended the act to require a series of five-year plans that provide a schedule for
the sale of oil and gas leases to meet America's national energy needs.¶ But since taking office, Mr. Obama
and Mr. Salazar have
worked to restrict access to our offshore oil and gas resources by canceling lease sales, delaying
others and creating an atmosphere of uncertainty about America's future offshore development that
has left job creators looking for other countries' waters to host their offshore rigs. More than 3 1/2 years into
the Obama regime, nearly 86 billion barrels of undiscovered oil on the Outer Continental Shelf remain off-limits to Americans. Alaska alone has
about 24 billion barrels of oil in unleased federal waters. The Commonwealth of Virginia - where Mr. Obama has reversed policies that would
have allowed offshore development - is home to 130 million barrels of offshore oil and 1.14 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. But thanks to the
president, Virginians will have to wait at least another five years before they can begin creating the jobs that will unlock their offshore
resources.¶ Once you add those restrictions to the vast amount of shale oil that is being blocked, the administration has embargoed nearly 200
years of domestic oil supply. No wonder the administration wanted to slip its plan for the OCS under the radar when the whole country was
focused on the health care decision.¶ But facts are stubborn things, and the Obama administration cannot run forever from its abysmal energy
record. In the past three years, the government has collected more than 250 times less revenue from offshore lease sales than it did during the
last year of the George W. Bush administration - down from $9.48 billion in 2008 to a paltry $36 million last year. Meanwhile, oil production on
federal lands dropped 13 percent last year, and the number of annual leases is down more than 50 percent from the Clinton era.¶ Under the
new Obama plan, those numbers will only get worse. The
2012-17 plan leaves out the entire Atlantic and Pacific
coasts and the vast majority of OCS areas off Alaska. It cuts in half the average number of lease sales
per year, requires higher minimum bids and shorter lease periods and dramatically reduces lease
terms. Yet, somehow, we're supposed to believe that our "all of the above" president is responsible for increased production and reduced oil
import.
Lack of offshore natural gas access tanks production
New 2012 (Bill New, President of New Industires, June 30, 2012, “Letters: New Leasing Plan a Step Backward,” The Advocate,
http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/3484480-123/letters-new-leasing-plan-a)
In late June, the U.S. Department of the Interior released its long-awaited outer continental shelf
leasing plan, which effectively blocks offshore oil and natural gas exploration in any new areas for the next
five years. Unfortunately, the proposal is a step backward in our effort to achieve energy independence.
Under the plan, 85 percent of America’s OCS would be off-limits at a time when exploring every possible
energy source is critical to boosting our nation’s economy and creating jobs. Instead of finding out what
might be available to us in expansive unexplored areas off our coasts, we will be left to search for oil and natural
gas in the same, relatively small portion of the OCS we’ve been exploring for four decades. Not only does
this plan run counter to President Barack Obama’s “all of the above” strategy for energy independence, but it shows an outright disregard for
the requests of the Gulf Coast states –— including Louisiana — to increase domestic oil production when the Interior Department released a
draft of the plan late last year. Interestingly, the
Interior Department chose to release this latest version of the OCS
plan on the day the Supreme Court announced its health care decision — a thinly veiled attempt to
bury it in news coverage of the ruling. But that didn’t keep right-thinking lawmakers from taking notice and working on ways to
get America’s economy going using sound energy policies. U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., chairman of the House Natural Resource
Committee, has written legislation that sensibly revises the plan. While the Interior Department’s plan is to hold just 12 oil and gas lease sales in
the Gulf of Mexico, and three in offshore Alaska from 2012 to 2017, the Hastings plan would schedule 28 lease sales total, dramatically
increasing drilling opportunities off the Alaskan coast and including a sale of offshore leases in a potentially rich area off the coast of Virginia.
The United States is producing more oil and natural gas than ever thanks to increased production on state-owned or private land. However,
production on federal onshore land is down 14 percent in the last two years, and down 17 percent on
federal offshore areas. Imagine what could happen if we enact legislation that allows us to open new offshore areas.
K2 Prices
Only offshore development can keep domestic prices down
Pirog, 12 [Robert Pirog Specialist in Energy Economics CRS,
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40645_20120210.pdf]
Natural gas markets differ from the oil market in that they are not global , but regional. As shown¶ in
Table 6, above, virtually all U.S. natural gas consumption comes from U.S. or Canadian¶ sources. The only link between regional natural gas
markets is through LNG, but the rapidly¶ growing
market for LNG predicted earlier in this decade has failed to
materialize . LNG is still¶ largely characterized by long-term, two-party supply and purchase agreements. In the North¶ American market,
LNG plays the role of making up marginal short-falls in the demand and¶ supply balance. As production from domestic onshore
shale gas deposits increases, the role of¶ LNG in the U.S. market will likely be small.¶ In this regional
market structure , the development of new, offshore U.S. supplies could have a¶ significant impact on
the domestic price of natural gas, as well as contributing to U.S. energy¶ independence of this fuel. Although the price of natural
gas has not shown the same degree of¶ volatility as oil, the United States has been among the highest-priced regions
in the world. High¶ prices have caused residential consumers to allocate a greater portion of their budgets to home¶ heating expenses.
Industrial users either lose sales to overseas competitors, or cease U.S.¶ production when domestic
natural gas prices rise too much beyond those observed in other¶ regions of the world.¶ The development of
offshore natural gas resources is likely to further retard the development of a¶ growing LNG system in the United States. Terminals for the regasification of LNG have proven¶ to be difficult to site and permit, and expensive to build. If domestic natural gas resources, close¶ to existing
collection and distribution systems, at least in the Gulf of Mexico, could be developed,¶ the LNG terminals might prove to be redundant,
depending on the volumes of natural gas that¶ ultimately might be recovered. Offshore natural gas development, though commonly associated
with offshore oil production, will likely be less competitive in a market environment dominated¶ by onshore shale gas development.
AT: Takes Too Long
Drilling is fast
Gold 13 (Russell, Senior energy reporter, The Wall Street Journal, “U.S. Shale Producers Drilling Bigger, Faster Wells”,
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303672404579151874236726940)
New statistics from the federal government suggest the industry is becoming more efficient :
Companies have figured out ways to use fewer drilling rigs to produce bigger and better wells in
shale formations —helping to boost overall energy production. "The technology is getting better and companies are
moving up the learning curve," said Sam Gorgen, an analyst at the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the U.S.
Department of Energy, which released its "Drilling Productivity Report" for the first time Tuesday. This summer, the U.S. passed Russia
to become the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas, thanks to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking,
and related well-drilling improvements. Officials in Russia and at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries suggested that the U.S.
was in an energy bubble that would soon pop. Art Berman, a petroleum consultant who has been skeptical about the economics of the energy
boom, said that while shale extraction is getting better, it is still not ushering in an era of cheap energy abundance. "What I think this shows is
that we're getting better at a very expensive and inefficient process" he said. There is little evidence that the U.S. has used up its good drilling
locations, according to the new data. By drilling and fracking the dense shale rocks more economically, U.S. companies can continue to drill
more wells. The EIA's report measured rig efficiencies, production and declines in six petroleum basins in the U.S. Of the six, only the Permian
Basin in West Texas didn't show improvements in efficiency. The
trend of faster well drilling can be seen in newly
released data from the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas. The number of rigs drilling wells declined by 5% in September
from a year earlier. But each remaining rig was drilling more, and the oil and gas output from these wells was
28% higher than wells drilled by a single rig the previous year. Overall, oil and gas production in the Eagle Ford was up
57%, according to EIA data. "We have half of our entire staff just looking at efficiencies and what we can do to make our wells better," said
Floyd Wilson, chairman and chief executive of Halcón Resource Corp. and a veteran of shale development. For the industry, the result of this
focus is that "the outlook for crude prices has to be more moderate than it used to be because of these homegrown supplies we are finding,"
he said. Crude oil closed Tuesday at $97.80 a barrel, and has remained near this price for over a year, despite turmoil in the Middle East. The
new supplies of North American crude are helping lessen price volatility that has wracked the fuel at times over the past decade. Of course, not
all companies drilling wells into shales are successful. Royal Dutch Shell RDSB.LN 0.00% PLC, in August, took a $2.07 billion write-down of its
North American shale stakes. Last month, the Anglo-Dutch company said it was selling assets in South Texas. Shell has said its efforts to drill for
natural gas, in particular, had crimped profits. The abundance of natural gas from shales has helped drive down prices to below $4 per
thousand cubic feet for the past couple of years. It closed Tuesday at $3.58. Smaller producers have tended to be more successful in shale than
major oil companies, in part because they can move more quickly to lease up acreage before land prices rise and are more nimble at
experimenting with different well designs to maximize output and drive down unit costs. Companies
that provide drilling and
fracking are competing to lower costs and provide better services, even as they face what many believe is too many
rigs and frack crews. "Everybody is very, very focused on continuing to drive efficiencies in the marketplace," Jeff Miller, chief operating officer
of Halliburton Co., said on Monday in a conference call with investors.
AT: States Block
Federal preemption solves – state regulation will be shot down
Slaughter and Auslander 8 (James B., attorney at law focusing on the Commerce Clause and preemption challenges to state
and local laws, toxic tort defense, the Clean Water Act, and James M., attorney at law focusing on environmental, natural resources, and
administrative law and litigation, “Preemption Litigation Strategies Under Environmental Law”,
http://www.bdlaw.com/assets/attachments/199.pdf)
Preemption also has prompted important recent cases in the energy, communications, and land use fields. For
example, courts have struck down state efforts to regulate nuclear safety and waste, finding field preemption under the Atomic Energy Act.
Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians t’. Nielson, 376 E3d 1223 (10th Cir. 2004); United States y. Manning, 434 E Supp. 2d 988 (E.D. Wash. 2006)
(striking down measure passed by statewide ballot initiative). Similarly,
multiple courts have rescinded state and local
regulations governing siting and construction of natural gas pipelines and facilities , finding field
preemption under the Natural Gas Act and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regulations
(including as amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005.) Northern Natural Gas Co. y. Iowa Utils. Bd., 377 E3d 817 (8th Cir. 2004); AES Spar rows
Point LNG, LLC y. Smith, 470 E Supp. 2d 586 (D. Md. 2007). But see AES Sparrows, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45535 (D. Md. Jun. 22, 2007) (upholding
subsequent, more limited ordinance). In 2006, the Ninth Circuit
held that the federal Pipeline Safety Improvement
Act preempted Seattle’s safety standards imposed on a corporation’s hazardous liquid pipe lines, finding that neither public
policy nor waiver arguments were proper in the preemption context. Olympic Pipe Line Co. y. City of Seattle, 437 E3d 872, 882—83 (9th Cir.
2006). Finally, recent cases have
invalidated local, purportedly envi ronmental and safety regulatory schemes
regulating or banning the construction of wireless telecommunications facilities as expressly preempted by the
federal Telecommunications Act of 1996. Sprint Telephony PCS, L.P. y. County of San Diego, 490 E3d 700 (9th Cir. 2007); Verizon Wireless
(VAW) LLC y. City of Rio Rancho, 476 E Supp. 2d 1325 (D.N.M. 2007). Clashes
over the reach of state and local
environmental authority will continue to play out in the courts, at least as long as state leg islatures and Congress fail
to make the tough political choices to demark and enforce the boundaries of regulatory authority in a decentralized, federal system.
States only have access to state land which is not the same as the federal land opened
by the plan
Ventura 13 (County of Ventura, CA website, “Oil and Gas Project Permitting”,
http://www.ventura.org/rma/planning/permits/discretionary-permits/oil-gas-projects.html)
Federal The Federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) jurisdiction generally includes the area extending from 3
- 200 miles offshore. The U.S. Department of the Interior, Minerals Management Service
(MMS),
regulates oil and gas development in this area . Before any exploration and development begins, the Federal
government issues leases for specific offshore areas. MMS leases OCS tracts for terms ranging from five to ten years. As part of the work to be done
to prepare the lands to be included on the lease schedules, the U.S. Department of Interior must consider environmental, economical and social values of the OCS,
as well as impacts of offshore drilling on marine, coastal and human environments. The permitting of an OCS project, including its State waters and onshore
components, typically requires the approval of Federal, State and local government authorities. Joint National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) reviews are commonly conducted. To integrate the concerns of other agencies in the direction of the environmental study effort,
a Joint Review Panel (JRP) is often formed to act as a management committee. In November of 1999, former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt approved
suspensions of production for 36 undeveloped leases situated in federal waters offshore Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo Counties. The suspensions, in
effect, extended the term of leases that were about to expire. Secretary Babbitt's action affected leases situated in the Lion Rock, Point Sal, Santa Maria, Purisima
Point, Bonito, Rocky Point, Sword, Gato Canyon, and Cavern Point units, as well as the non-unitized lease OCS-P 0409. The federal government granted these leases
between 1968 and 1984. To date, offshore operators have drilled 39 exploratory wells on these leases, but have not yet sought to produce the underlying reserves.
Six offshore oil and gas lessees requested these suspensions, so they could have more time to revise or prepare new Exploration Plans and Development Plans.
California Governor Gray Davis and California Coastal Commission filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court to block Secretary Babbitt's approval of the suspensions.
(Several other interested parties, including Santa Barbara County, joined the lawsuit.) In June of 2001, the U.S. District Court set aside Secretary Babbitt's action
(California v. Norton). The Court found that the action did not meet requirements of the Coastal Zone Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
The Court's ruling delays any action by the Minerals Management Service (MMS) and the lessees to explore or develop these leases until the MMS complies with
the foregoing federal laws. Prior to the court's ruling, the MMS had begun preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for exploratory oil and gas
drilling activities on OCS leases in federal waters offshore. The MMS issued a Draft EIS for public review in June 2001. The agency indefinitely suspended the
environmental review following the court's ruling. The project for which the MMS prepared its Draft EIS consists of the sequential drilling of between five and eight
delineation wells on existing leases in federal waters on the OCS. The operators have proposed to drill these wells to further define the physical characteristics and
the location of oil and gas resources on leases where previous commercial discoveries have been made. A single mobile drilling unit (MODU) is proposed to be used
for the exploration activities to reduce the effects associated with constructing multiple fixed offshore platforms. Generally, a MODU consists of a floating (semisubmersible) drill rig or a drill ship. MODUs are held in place with a series of anchors. Once drilling operations are completed in one location, the MODU can be
moved to the next location where delineation well drilling has been approved. The project descriptions for each unit where drilling and exploration activities are
proposed anticipate the use of a semi-submersible MODU. Operators must first renew their Exploration Plans (EPs) with the MMS prior to carrying out delineation
drilling because the previously approved plans are quite outdated. Applications for renewal of these plans must include maps depicting the location of the activity to
be undertaken, geologic and biological information, water and well depths, discussion of new or unusual technology to be used, potential effects of the activity with
State State tide and submerged lands include the area from mean
high tide seaward to the three-mile boundary with the Federal OCS. Development of oil and gas resources on existing
respect to the environment, and other information.
leases in this area is subject to the regulatory authority of the California State Lands Commission (SLC). The SLC is responsible for minerals leasing activities, issuance
of rights-of-way, and administration of CEQA requirements for projects involving new facilities on State Tide and Submerged lands. Development of resources on
State Tide and Submerged lands involving facilities at onshore locations is subject to local agency authority, including local agency administration of CEQA
requirements and other land use controls. The issuance of new oil and gas leases on State Tide and Submerged lands is currently restricted by the 1994 California
Coastal Sanctuary Act, which prohibits new leasing for oil and gas extraction in State waters except: (1) in the event of a severe national energy supply interruption;
or (2) when the State determines that state-owned oil or gas deposits are being drained by producing wells located upon adjacent Federal lands and the lease is in
the best interests of the State. Oil and gas leases in effect as of January 1, 1995 are unaffected by this Act until such leases revert back to the State, at which time
they become part of the California Coastal Sanctuary. The California Coastal Commission (CCC) is another agency involved in the review of development on State
Tide and Submerged lands. This review is accomplished in accordance with the requirements of the California Coastal Act, which establishes stringent standards of
Local While State and Federal governments have direct management control over
their respective offshore jurisdictions, local governments have direct control over the permitting of
onshore production-related facilities such as oil and gas processing plants, pipelines, supply bases, and marine terminals. Local resource
environmental protection.
management or planning agencies typically act as the CEQA lead agency for projects involving onshore facilities, even when these projects also involve components
on State Tide and Submerged lands. In Ventura County, this function is carried out by the Planning Division of the Resource Management Agency. Several oil and gas
production “fields” (a lease is a portion of a field) exist offshore of Ventura County. These fields include the Hueneme Field, Santa Clara Field, Rincon Field, Dos
Cuadras Field, Carpinteria Field and the West Montalvo Field.
AT: No Infrastructure
Expansion now
Moser, 12 – partner at Kaye Scholer, focuses his practice on the planning, development, acquisition, financing, refinancing, operation and
sale of energy and infrastructure assets around the world. He has represented investment funds, developers, industrial sponsors, banking and
investment firms, governments and agencies in investments and transactions in a wide variety of industries, including oil and gas,
transportation, power, water, professional athletics facilities, and education. Joel is an adjunct professor at Columbia University School of
International and Public Affairs and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the founding editor of Global Infrastructure (Joel,
“Money matters: oil & gas infrastructure investment comes of age” Lexology,
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9f7ed19c-08eb-4bb8-8beb-c7ff64e60a24)
As the US economy continues to slowly improve, 2013 may usher in the start of the biggest expansion of energy
infrastructure investment seen in the US in more than 50 years, particularly in regard to tight gas and tight
oil. This is the result of two mega trends converging: the maturation of investment funds focused on
infrastructure as an asset class and the discovery of vast untapped oil and gas reserves in North America, particularly from
Canada’s oil sands and in US shale beds such as the Marcellus formation, which according to the United States Geological Survey covers roughly
95,000 square miles, ranging in depth from 4,000 to 8,000 feet, as well as the larger Utica formation. As a result, the US Energy Information
Administration (EIA) projects US natural gas production to increase from 21.6 trillion cubic feet in 2010 to 27.9 trillion cubic feet in 2035, a 29%
increase. Almost all of this increase is due to projected growth in shale gas production, which is expected to grow from 5.0 trillion cubic feet in
2010 to 13.6 trillion cubic feet in 2035.1 However, delivering this reserve to consumers will require the building and financing of pipelines,
storage, transmission and waste water containment and treatment facilities. According to a recent study conducted by industry analyst firm
IHS, nearly $1.9
trillion in cumulative capital investments in the drilling and capturing of tight gas are
expected to be made between 2010 and 2035.2
AT: Shale Boom/Squo Solves
Extraction prices mean shale isn’t cost competitive
Tverberg 11 – Senior associate at Our Finite World (Gail, “Natural Gas: The Squeeze at the Bottom of the Resource Triangle”,
08/21/2011, http://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/08/28/natural-gas-the-squeeze-at-the-bottom-of-the-resource-triangle/)
Shale gas is very low on the resource triangle for natural gas, at least according to Stephen Holditch, in a paper
authored under the Distinguished Author Series of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. It has even lower permeability measured
in millidarcies or md) than tight gas or coal bed methane. It seems to me that in the United States we are, or will soon be,
reaching a different kind of squeeze at the bottom of the triangle for natural gas–the squeeze of too
low prices for shale gas producers to be profitable. If, somehow, natural gas prices do manage to rise
sufficiently for the majority of shale gas producers to be profitable, the higher prices are likely to add
to the oil’s high price squeeze on the economy that I noted in my earlier post. In this post, I will explain what I see
as happening with US natural gas supply and prices, and how this fits in with the natural gas supply
controversy we have been reading about in the press recently. 1. The cost of extraction seems likely to
increase as we move down the natural gas resource triangle,toward shale gas. As we move toward more and
more difficult to extract natural gas, located in less advantageous locations (next to cities, for example, as compared to in a
location with few neighbors) I would expect the cost of extraction to get higher. This higher cost may relate to
indirect costs related to extra precautions for protecting the environment in sensitive locations as well
as direct costs of extraction. We know that if we look at US natural gas extraction, the cost per foot drilled rose more than four-fold
between 2000 and 2007 (Figure 3), based on EIA data. At least part of the reason for this increase in cost is the greater
use of fracking, which is very expensive.In Figure 3, the amounts shown are averages for all types of natural gas wells drilled,
including those that use little fracking as well as those that use a lot. Shale gaswells use a great deal of fracking, so would be
expected to have higher costs than the average per foot drilled. (This is not complete proof that shale gas costs are
higher, of course. If the fracked shale gas wells are extremely efficient, the benefit of the new wells could theoretically offset their higher cost.)
Reserve productivity means shale isn’t profitable—reserves overestimate deposits
Tverberg 11 – Senior associate at Our Finite World (Gail, “Natural Gas: The Squeeze at the Bottom of the Resource Triangle”,
08/21/2011, http://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/08/28/natural-gas-the-squeeze-at-the-bottom-of-the-resource-triangle/)
2. Part of the current shale gas controversy relates to how high the price of natural gas needs to be for
shale gas to be profitable; part of the controversy relates to how much natural gas can be extracted from
a given acreage. There is a great deal of estimation that goes into figuring how profitable shale gas
production will be. When a well is drilled, the producer hopes it will continue to produce natural gas for
a very long time–30 or 40 years. One question is whether wells will really lastthat long, and continue to produce
enough natural gas to remain economic. Another is whether it is possible to extrapolate favorable results for a few small areas
to the entire acreage. It could be that the shale gas is concentrated in sweet spots, and these are drilled first. A
recent analysis by Art Berman and LynnPittinger is given in this recent Oil Drum post. According to their calculations, reserves in the
aggregate appear to be overstated by more than 100% (suggesting that there is less than half as much
natural gas per acre recoverable as what most operators are expecting), and the price needs to be
more than double today’s price, for shale gas to be profitable.
Shale boom causes price volatility and supply-demand failures—empirics prove
Vickerman 14 – Writer for Midwest Energy News(Michael, “Commentary: Time to scrap shale gas ‘game-changer’ myth”, 02/03/2014,
http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2014/02/03/commentary-time-to-scrap-shale-gas-game-changer-myth/)
As this latest blast of arctic air slides away from the Upper Midwest,now
is a good time to take stock of the conventional
wisdom that grips natural gas markets today. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) last week reported another
large weekly withdrawal of natural gas–230 billion cubic feet (bcf)–from underground inventories. While
this is a big number, it is well short of the record-setting 287 bcfwithdrawal reported two weeks earlier. This week’s report may eclipse that
number. The heavy demand
for natural gas this winter leaves inventories at their lowest levels for this time of
year since 2004. Even if temperatures returned to normal this February and March, we could finish the heating season with only one-third the
volume in storage back in early November. In fact, we’re on track to pull 26 trillion cubic feet (tcf) out of storage this heating season, a volume
likely to exceed all the natural gas extracted from domestic sources last year (an estimated 25.5 trillion cubic feet). Remember
the
extraordinary surplus that accumulated in the winter of 2011-2012? It’s ancient history now. Without
a moment’s thought to what was happening, we managed to Hoover through every last cubic foot of
ballooning inventories that in 2012 sent gas prices plunging down to levels not seen since 2002. One
month into 2014, the pendulum has clearly swung over to the deficit side of the supply-demand
equilibrium.The problem is less a shortage of supply—domestic extraction volumes have risen nearly
50 percent in a mere eight years—than an accelerating “longage” of demand. Notwithstanding the
sluggish economy, baseline consumption is rising, stoked by low commodity prices that discourage
conservation efforts and a growing supply of residences and businesses to heat. Even though power companies
scaled back their use of natural gas in 2013, overall gas consumption rose 2 percent from 2012 levels, according to EIA estimates. Stir into that
dynamic the coldest winter in the Upper Midwest this century and spice it with slowing production growth reported last year, and you have all
but one of the ingredients needed for a dramatic upward re-pricing of this precious energy resource. What is the missing ingredient here? A
new narrative to combat the
“shale gas miracle” myth that has been drummed into every adult
American’s brain and belief system, courtesy of a well-financed and expertly orchestrated public relations campaign sponsored by the fossil
energy industry. Most Americans now believe that there is enough recoverable natural gas lurking under our feet to heat and power this
country well into the next century. A
fairy tale to be sure, but as long as it is one we believe to be true, we will have
trouble recognizing the signals that tell us that the supply-demand picture is tightening.
**Offcase**
AT: Midterm Politics DA
Link – Popular with GOP
Reducing red tape for natural gas drilling massively popular with the GOP – it’s a vote
determiner
Adams 14 (Genesis Communications Network, citing a Western Governors Association poll of vote determining issues in the West,
“Energy Production and Conservation’s Effects on Midterm Elections in the West”, http://www1.gcnlive.com/CMS/index.php/news/360energy-production-and-conservation-s-effects-on-midterm-elections-in-the-west/360-energy-production-and-conservation-s-effects-onmidterm-elections-in-the-west)
Results from the poll indicate that energy production and protecting public and private lands are the two key “vote
motivating” issues
and “that voters
are far more likely to show support for candidates who seek to protect
natural areas and public lands while proceeding with energy development.” Energy development, particularly hydraulic
fracturing (“fracking”), has come under intense review in parts of the West, especially Colorado. Respondents in the poll also made it
clear that they are more likely to vote for a candidate who would promote alternative or renewable
energy . This view extended across party lines. However, when asked whether or not they would support reducing
“red tape” associated with oil and gas development, there was a clear division along party lines .
Republicans were found to be more likely (73%) to favor a reduction of red tape
whereas Democrats were less
likely (33%).
Republicans would get the credit for the aff – oil-and-gas companies are pouring
money into their campaigns
Litvan, Bloomberg News, 6/5 (Laura, reporter, “Energy industry placing big bets on Republican Senate win”,
http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/home-powersource/2014/06/23/Justices-limit-existing-EPA-global-warmingrules/stories/201406230145)
Energy companies are giving more to Republicans to help them win a Senate majority and counter
President Barack Obama’s environmental agenda. Electric utility political action committees have
donated 63 percent of their cash this election cycle to Republican candidates. That represents a partisan flip
from four years ago
when they gave 55 percent to Democrats and just 43 percent to Republicans, according to data from the
nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics in Washington.
Oil-and-gas company committees skew even more to
Republicans . They’ve given 83 percent of their cash to the party’s Senate and House candidates so far,
11 points higher than in 2010, the last election in the middle of a presidential term, according to data compiled by the center. Employees of one
company, Occidental Petroleum Corp., have more than tripled donations to the Republicans’ Senate election fund from four years ago, at
$94,800. Occidental hasn’t given a penny to the Democrats’ committee, after giving $5,000 in 2010. “Under
Republican control, we
would have a better ability to stop bad things from happening,” said Tim Wigley, president of the Denver-based
Western Energy Alliance of oil and natural gas producers. The alliance’s PAC recently gave to Colorado Democrat Mark Udall’s challenger, who
supports the Keystone oil pipeline and hydraulic fracturing, a method to mine natural gas opposed by environmentalists. Republicans
need a net gain of six seats to wrest Senate control and the partisan tilt of the donations coincides
with Obama’s efforts to combat climate change. This week, the White House unveiled new rules targeting coal-fired power
plants, and the president has faced criticism for delaying a decision on building the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Energy companies are also seeking
to force Senate action on legislation that has already passed the Republican-controlled U.S. House. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., last
month blocked
final votes on a Republican proposal that would force the Energy Department to approve
natural gas exports to certain nations. He also resisted a measure that would bypass Obama and approve TransCanada Corp.‘s crossborder pipeline. The giving pattern represents a departure from the typical model followed by business PACs, which tend to donate to
incumbents and split their checks between the two parties at closer margins. Securities and investment industry PACs are giving 57 percent of
their donations to Republican Senate and House candidates, and 43 percent to Democrats. In contrast, coal mining industry PACs are writing 93
percent of their checks to Republicans, up from 68 percent in 2010. Occidental’s political committee also has given 93 percent of donations to
Republican candidates so far this cycle, up from 77 percent in 2010, according to the center’s data. The company declined to comment on its
donation decisions. Even if Republicans prevail, their majority would lack the 60 votes to end filibusters, and fall short in both chambers of the
two-thirds necessary to override Obama vetoes. Still, a Senate majority would let them set committee agendas, and
taking on the power-plant rules is a top priority of utilities such as Southern Co. of Atlanta, and coal producers like Bristol, Virginia-based Alpha
Natural Resources Inc. The National Mining Association, which includes Alpha, Arch Coal in St. Louis and Murray Energy of Pepper Pike, Ohio,
would push a Republican Senate to pass a House bill limiting the Environmental Protection Agency in crafting emission standards, Nancy
Gravatt, senior vice president, said in an interview. “It’s one of many examples of a bill making progress in the House and then getting
stalemated in the Senate,” she said. “There’s not enough support at this time to move it forward.”
Conservatives support natural gas – most abundant natural resource in the US
Silverstein 13 (Ken, “Environmentalists Struggle with Natural Gas while Conservatives Battle Clean Energy”,
http://www.energybiz.com/article/13/07/environmentalists-struggle-natural-gas-while-conservatives-battle-clean-energy)
Environmentalists are facing a conundrum. Reducing
greenhouse gas levels is urgent, although the greenies are remiss
to accept natural gas as a viable vehicle, releasing 45 percent fewer carbon emissions than coal. Despite the possibilities, its
imperfections remain a sore point among ecologists. Eco-activists can be accused of taking the apocalyptic view while partisan
conservatives have inflated the failures associated President Obama’s clean energy program. And while
those critics reject the notion that climate change is the result of human endeavor, they do support
the acceleration of this country’s most abundant natural resource: unconventional shale gas , which
has also helped the U nited S tates reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 4 percent in recent years.
Link – Unpopular with Dems
Plan kills the lefts midterm momentum – greens will push the election over the edge
and bring vulnerable dems with it
WSJ 3/20 (Wall Street Journal, “The Democratic Civil War Over Energy”,
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303802104579451693067746208)
The environmental left is seeing Democrats the Keystone XL pipeline, and raising them natural-gas exports. The question of who folds on this
issue will play big in this midterm election year. A
split is growing in the Democratic Party, one that ought to rival the divisions
on the right that the headlines trumpet. Greens are increasingly bitter about President Obama —annoyed that he's
dropped climate legislation, scaled back green subsidies, ignored fracking. They've channeled their frustration into the fight
against Keystone, warning that they'll turn their significant money and resources against Mr.
Obama's party if the president approves more "dirty oil." Since this president cares about nothing so much as winning
elections, he's sat on the pipeline for five years. Emboldened, the eco-warriors are now dramatically upping the
stakes, demanding that Democrats turn against the natural-gas revolution that has propped up the Obama
economy. More than a thousand activists flooded last month to a Keystone-like rally protesting Cove Point, a
Maryland facility that is due to be the first to export liquefied natural gas. The Ukraine crisis and calls for greater gas exports have given the
issue a big new lift. On Wednesday 16 prominent green groups sent an open letter to Mr. Obama demanding he essentially shut down Cove
Point. The letter was revealing for its honesty. Not
so long ago enviros endorsed natural gas as a cleaner alternative
to coal or oil. Most limited themselves to calling for "better" industry practices, or to solely opposing exports. But as the gas rush
has grown, threatening their solar-and-windmill nirvana, greens now openly decry drilling, chiding Mr. Obama for
his "support for hydraulic fracturing" and calling on him to keep "our nation's fossil fuel reserves in the ground." The letter was
signed by Bill McKibben, the director of the anti-Keystone outfit 350.org, as well as directors of nearly every major green shop in the country—
the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, CREDO and Earthjustice. This new
demand could not come at a more
awkward time for the party. Under fire for ObamaCare and the economy, scores of vulnerable
Democrats are rushing to natural gas and drilling as political safe harbors. Supporting fracking allows them to claim
they are in favor of more jobs, cheaper energy and rising incomes. Supporting natural-gas exports allows them to look responsive to the
Ukraine crisis, or at least more responsive than their unpopular president. It helps, too, that this puts them on the same page as the significant
majority of Americans who support more drilling (and pipelines). Red-state
senate Democrats like Mary Landrieu (La.) and
Mark Pryor (Ark.) are these days fighting for pro-energy airtime with colleagues like Colorado's Mark Udall. Mr. Udall, who
can usually be found pushing a federal renewable energy mandate, now finds himself facing a likely challenge from Rep. Cory Gardner —as proenergy a Republican as they come. When the Ukraine crisis began, Mr. Udall suddenly couldn't move quickly enough to introduce a bill to
expand the number of countries to which the U.S. can export natural gas. A Udall spokesman publicly bragged that they'd got their own bill
introduced before Mr. Gardner introduced his own. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, who just loves solar, wind and biofuels, but who is also facing
an electoral threat from Republican Ed Gillespie, materialized on Wednesday to demand that the Obama Energy Department greenlight more
gas export terminals. New Mexico's Tom Udall has embraced more exports, tying it directly to his state's drilling jobs. With all this Democratic
love for natural gas, Ms. Landrieu was hard pressed to get attention for her own announcement that she is devoting her first hearing as new
chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to the benefits of more oil and gas exports. All this comes on top of the 11
Senate Democrats and 69 House Democrats who have previously voted for Keystone, and the 26 House Democrats who late last year voted to
speed approvals of natural gas pipelines.
House Republicans intend to hold a vote on Mr. Gardner's bill to
expedite approval of export terminals . Expect a significant Democratic turnout. Green groups have mostly avoided
targeting vulnerable Democrats; even billionaire Tom Steyer backed away from suggestions he might go after Ms. Landrieu on
climate change. But this restraint is partly due to the fact that the White House hasn't openly defied him
on Keystone . The left's new fracking demand is not so easily avoidable. The White House is technically in favor of natural gas, has reaped
its environmental and economic upside, and its candidates are coalescing around drilling and export expansion. The president's green
troops now demand an end to this. To crack down on fracking would be economically and politically
dumb. Not cracking down risks tipping his green base over the edge. Mr. Obama has for years politically danced
around the U.S. natural gas boom, but Mr. McKibben & Co. are now forcing the issue. The president may not be able to punt on this one.
AT: Environment DA
Top Level: Regs/Safety Measures Check
No impact – safety measures ensure no new spills and cleanup measures will check
the impact even if they don’t
Milito, API, 14 (Erik, group director of upstream and industry operations for the American Petroleum Institute, “Offshore Drilling is
Safer”, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/04/25/offshore-drilling-is-safer/)
Four years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, we’re well into a new era of safety for
offshore energy exploration. Even before cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico was complete, the oil and natural gas
industry started working with federal regulators on a comprehensive review of offshore operations .
We in the industry clearly understand that the future of offshore drilling depends on our ability to conduct operations safely. Federal regulators
and the public should rest assured. Despite claims
to the contrary, the oil and natural gas industry and the
federal government have together taken great strides to enhance the safety of offshore operations.
Four joint industry task forces have now reexamined every aspect of offshore drilling, from equipment and
operating procedures to subsea well control and oil spill response. Working with experienced regulators from the
Department of Interior, industry experts developed new recommendations and standards for operations in
both deep and shallow water exploration. One of the most urgent needs was clearly to boost the rapid response
capability for containment in case of a leak. New collaborative containment companies established
stand ready to deploy state-of-the-art containment technology at the first indication of a
spill at the wellhead. Our task forces found room for improvement in numerous other areas. The industry is now following newly
established or revised standards in areas ranging from well design and cementing to blowout prevention,
subsea equipment for capping wells, and protections for workers responding to a spill. The A merican P etroleum I nstitute maintains
more than 600 industry standards covering all aspects related to production, and more than 100 have been
incorporated into federal regulations. Even before the Deepwater Horizon accident, spills were rare. Over the past decade,
99.999% of oil shipped to the U nited S tates reached its destination without incident . More than 40,000 total
after the 2010 spill now
wells have been drilled in the Gulf of Mexico, and at the time of the spill, 699 wells were operating at depths of 5,000 feet or greater, while
more than 3,900 were in production at 1,000 feet or more. It’s
a common and understandable misconception that
deep water operations are inherently more risky. While deep water wells present greater technical
challenges in some cases, safety standards also change to reflect the difference . As a result, working in
deeper water does not equate to greater risk. Obviously, even one incident is too many, let alone one on the scale of the
2010 crisis. That’s why the industry has also created the Center for Offshore Safety (COS). Its mission is to work
with independent third-party auditors and government regulators to create an industry-wide culture
of continuous safety improvement. The federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has already incorporated
a number of guidelines COS devised into its own regulations. BSEE is one of three new agencies formed from the reorganization of the former
Minerals Management Service in response to the Gulf spill. In recent congressional testimony, Director Brian Salerno noted that 25 of the 33 BP
Deepwater Horizon Commission recommendations have been acted upon or are in the process of being addressed. COS is also working on a
major initiative on prevention. The Center collects and analyzes data to better detect potential problems before they occur. The prevention
protocol includes a “blind source” reporting system, which allows companies to provide data without incurring punitive action, enabling us to
learn more and faster. Safe
and responsible offshore development is an essential part of America’s energy
security. According to new projections from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, domestic production has been increasing so quickly
that by 2040, the United States can be entirely energy self-sufficient. Improved energy security has been the goal of every American president
since Richard Nixon and the 1973 oil embargo. Energy security on a scale that now seems likely was unthinkable as recently as 10 years ago.
Making energy independence a reality requires the ability to unlock our abundant natural resources safely. The oil and natural gas industry
understands and accepts that challenge.
Environmental groups exaggerate – regulations and improved safety conditions make
drilling one of the safest sectors
Bradley, CEO and founder of the Institute for Energy Research, 12 (Robert, “Oil & Gas Isn't Just One
Of The Richest Industries, It's Also One Of The Safest”, http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbradley/2013/03/25/oil-gas-isnt-just-one-of-therichest-industries-its-also-one-of-the-safest/)
You wouldn’t know it from the major media coverage, but the
American oil and natural gas industry is one of the safest
sectors in operation. These businesses have established smart protocols to minimize the dangers to their
and prevent catastrophe . Of course, there are exceptions to the industry’s sterling track record. But they’re
exceedingly rare and not at all indicative of the way the average energy project operates . Visitors to an
personnel
offshore drilling rig or production platform receive safety training and are outfitted with steel-toed boots, safety goggles, gloves, hearing
protection, and a helmet. Once on the rig, their conduct is carefully monitored. Adherence to safe practices is mandatory, greatly reducing risk
to life, property, and the environment. Accidents do happen. Three incidents — Santa Barbara (1969), Exxon Valdez (1989), and the
Deepwater Horizon (2010) — illustrate the oil and natural gas business is not risk-free. Unanticipated, tragic incidents have resulted in very high
private and public costs. But the
industry has responded to these failures by developing new technologies
and improved safety systems . Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, a most reluctant friend of oil and gas, said as much at a recent Gulf
of Mexico lease sale: “People of industry stood up and said, ‘We are going to get it right,’ and we are getting it right.” The industry does not
have to hang its head. In
2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 2.3 incidents of injury and
illness per 100 oil and gas workers. That’s compared with 3.5 incidents per 100 for the entire private sector.
The U.S. offshore industry experienced an even lower rate of 0.8 incidents per 100 full-time workers. In oil refining, the
injury and illness rate was 1.1 per 100 full-time workers versus 4.4 per 100 for the U.S. manufacturing sector overall. A comparison of U.S.
pipeline transportation data versus the U.S. transportation and warehousing sector shows that precisely zero pipeline workers experienced
injuries and illnesses in 2011. This accomplishment is all the more impressive given that trillions of cubic feet of natural gas and billions of
gallons of oil traverse United States pipelines every year Meanwhile, the rest of the transportation sector clocked in a rate of 5.0 safety
incidents per 100 full-time employees. Federal
data also show improvements in spill rates. A 2012 Interior Department
found that
offshore spill frequency was actually “relatively low” despite the fact that Gulf of Mexico deepwater oil
production had risen sharply over that time. Spills from oil tankers continued their precipitous
report examined spill records from 1996 through 2010 (the year of the Deepwater Horizon incident). Researchers
decline due in part to the double-hull requirement instituted after the Valdez spill. Unfortunately,
environmental groups refuse to acknowledge the oil and gas industry’s excellent safety and environmental
record. Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, recently opined: “We need stronger safeguards and increased
oversight to reduce the risk of accidents.” She went on to argue that “we need to prioritize safer forms of energy that don’t threaten the lives
of our workers and foul our waters. Until then, we’ll remain stuck on this collision course with disaster.”
Regulations and updated oversight requirements solve
BOEM ‘11 (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, “Proposed Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program 2012-2017”, November,
http://www.boem.gov/uploadedFiles/Proposed_OCS_Oil_Gas_Lease_Program_2012-2017.pdf)
The Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill exposed the overconfidence in the safety of offshore
drilling that had developed over time. Because there had not been a major blowout or drilling accident in U.S. waters in decades, both
government and industry underestimated the well control issues posed by offshore drilling, particularly in deep and ultra-deepwater. This
Proposed Program is informed by both our better understanding of the risks posed by offshore drilling and the substantial measures that have
been implemented since the Deepwater Horizon event to address and reduce those risks. Immediately
after Deepwater
Horizon, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) – with its functions now divided between
BOEM and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) – imposed heightened standards for offshore
drilling operations, which included new requirements for well design and integrity and the testing and
maintenance of blowout preventers (BOPs). The BOEMRE also introduced, for the first time in U.S. waters, new
performance-based standards that require operators to develop Safety and Environmental
Management Systems programs that, among other things, systematically and thoroughly evaluate the
hazards involved with offshore facilities and operations and implement measures to address those hazards. These new
and heightened standards are designed to help prevent a loss of well control or a spill from
happening . While these measures have made offshore drilling safer, the risk of an accident cannot be eliminated and
government and industry must be prepared in the event of a loss of well control or a spill. After
Deepwater Horizon, BOEMRE issued new guidance to operators that revised the methodology for
calculating the worst case discharge potential of individual wells to provide more accurate estimates of true worst case
scenarios. Operators must submit Oil Spill Response Plans that demonstrate sufficient response
capacity
to address these revised worst case discharge estimates, as well as other enhancements based on experience with the response
to Deepwater Horizon. Most
significantly, unlike prior to Deepwater Horizon, operators using subsea BOPs or drilling
from a floating facility must demonstrate in advance that they have access to and can deploy an
effective subsea containment system in the event of a loss of well control. This includes systems, such as a capping
stack, to shut in the well and, if necessary, to capture and contain flow from a well. Industry has developed these
systems, and they are available for every covered well in the Gulf of Mexico that has been permitted since Deepwater Horizon The
government’s oversight of offshore oil and gas operations has also undergone broad and substantial
reforms. Prior to Deepwater Horizon, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) had jurisdiction over offshore activities, was severely underresourced, and saddled with multiple, sometimes conflicting missions that included responsibility for leasing and environmental reviews, safety
oversight, and the collection of revenue from offshore operations. Soon after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the Secretary of the Interior
abolished MMS. In its place, the
Secretary established BOEMRE and announced that the DOI’s management of
OCS resources and oversight of offshore energy activity would be reorganized into three new agencies – BOEM,
BSEE, and the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR). That reorganization is now complete, and three strong,
independent agencies with clear and distinct missions have been established to manage and oversee safe and
environmentally responsible offshore activity that helps to meet the Nation’s energy needs and provides a fair return to the
public. The BOEM is charged with managing the nation’s offshore resources in a balanced way that promotes
prompt and environmentally responsible development. The BSEE is a safety authority responsible for enforcing safety
and environmental protection standards. Finally, ONRR is responsible for collecting the public’s share of
revenue from resource development on public lands and waters. These new agencies will provide more effective and
appropriately balanced management and oversight of the nation’s offshore oil and gas resources
Turn – Drilling k2 Enviro
Link turn – offshore drilling helps environment
Allen 09 – Bruce Allen is co-founder of SOS California, an environmental and energy non-profit (Bruce, November 30, 2009, “How Offshore
Oil and Gas Production Benefits the Economy and the Environment,” Heritage, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2009/11/howoffshore-oil-and-gas-production-benefits-the-economy-and-the-environment)
Drilling restrictions in general are imposed due to environmental concerns, despite the fact that
offshore environmental damage has been greatly reduced by technologies that minimize the risk of oil
spills and other hazards to the environment. In fact, offshore oil production has lowered the amount of oil released
into the ocean by reducing natural seepage of oil, especially in areas with active offshore oil seeps, such as California's Santa
Barbara coast.¶ Natural hydrocarbon seeps have historically been used to locate the world's usable sources of oil and tar. Papers published by
British Petroleum in the early 1990s[1] show that over
75 percent of the world's oil basins contain surface oil seeps.
Most seeps emit small volumes of oil and gas that do not significantly deplete hydrocarbon reservoirs over the short term,
but can add up to significant depletion of oil and gas over the longer term.¶ The knowledge that surface seepage
has a direct link to subsurface oil and gas accumulations is not new and has been the impetus for many of the world's early major oil and gas
discoveries by pioneers of oil production -- as far back as ancient China, and more recently the 1860s in Pennsylvania and the 1890s in
Azerbaijan. Natural seeps were the impetus for early exploration of oil in Iran and Iraq in the early 1900s.¶ Natural hydrocarbon seeps continue
to be an important indicator of economic oil and gas resources. The high cost of deep-water offshore oil and gas exploration has made the
identification of hydrocarbon seeps an important consideration in oil-exploration risk-reduction methods.[2]¶ Natural Seeps: The Largest
Source of U.S. Marine Hydrocarbon Pollution¶ Natural
hydrocarbon seeps generally result from pressurized
hydrocarbon reservoirs that force oil and gas up through fissures to the earth's surface either on land
or the seabed floor where the hydrocarbons escape in the form of oil, tar, and methane-rich gases.¶ It
is a widely overlooked fact that natural hydrocarbon seeps generally have a larger impact on the marine
environment than do oil and gas exploration and production . According to the National Academy of Sciences, 63
percent of hydrocarbon pollution in U.S. waters stems from natural seeps, while only 1 percent is due to
offshore drilling and extraction.[3] Geologists believe that over the course of millions of years, more oil has seeped naturally into
the earth's environment than currently exists in all conventional oil reservoirs combined.¶ The Gulf of Mexico, for instance, is a major U.S.
offshore oil and gas producing region where the environmental impact of natural hydrocarbon seepage appears to far exceed the
environmental impact of accidental oil releases due to commercial extraction and transportation.[4]¶ Onshore
hydrocarbon seeps
are also pervasive in many areas of the world, and are a source of contamination for many
streambeds and rivers. The Santa Susanna Mountains in California are estimated to contain 22,000 active oil seeps that are associated
with significant streambed contamination.[5]¶ One of the most studied offshore oil and gas seep regions over the last 40 years is the Santa
Barbara coast of California, which has the world's second most prolific oil seepage areas, extending for about 80 miles along the coastline.[6]
The offshore Santa Barbara oil seepage zones result in about 70,000 barrels per year of oil and tar seepage into the Pacific, much of which
washes up on California beaches.[7] Every four years, the amount of offshore Santa Barbara oil seepage exceeds the 240,000 barrels that spilled
from the Exxon Valdez in 1989. By comparison, according to the U.S. Minerals and Management Service, the total amount of oil spilled in
California coastal waters due to offshore oil production since 1970 has been less than 870 barrels.[8] Far
more birds and wildlife
have been killed in the last 40 years by California's offshore oil seepage than by all previous California
offshore oil production spills combined, including the 1969 spill.[9]¶ Seeps are also one of the world's
largest methane gas emission sources,[10] and are a major source of air pollution in Santa Barbara
County.[11] These coastal California seeps release oil and tar that washes ashore along nearly half the coastline of California, with the
highest concentrations in Santa Barbara County. In the winter, the Davidson current washes seep oil and tar ashore as far north as the beaches
of Santa Cruz and San Francisco.[12]¶ The California Department of Fish Game often receives public calls reporting a possible oil spill on
California central coast beaches, which is invariably determined to be natural seepage. The California Department of Fish Game requires that
seep oil and tar collected on California beaches be treated as hazardous waste, the same as for industrial oil spills.¶ Offshore Production:
Significant Reductions in Oil Pollution on California Beaches¶ One
of the side affects of offshore oil production has been
the reduction of oil and gas seepage due to decreases in subsea oil-reservoir pressure. Seep oil is chemically
the same as commercially extracted oil, although the seep oil and tar have often undergone partial oxidation by the time they move into the
water or onshore.¶ The seepage reductions due to offshore oil and gas extraction have, in some cases, resulted in significant reductions in
natural oil and gas seep pollution over the last 40 years.[13]¶ There are also anecdotal observations and research indicating that oil production
around the world is responsible for ongoing reductions in hydrocarbon seepage pollution.[14]¶ Ironically, the decreased oil and gas reservoir
pressure due to ongoing "legacy" offshore oil and gas production (which continued even after the state-wide offshore moratorium was
imposed) near the site of the famous 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill is resulting in reductions in California's coastal seepage pollution.
California beaches have become significantly cleaner over the last 50 years due to offshore oil and gas
production.
No Uniqueness – Other Countries
Drilling high now-a. Cuba
Cuba Standard 12 “Cuba announces start of more offshore drilling”
http://www.cubastandard.com/2012/12/16/cuba-announces-start-of-more-offshore-drilling/
A Norwegian-owned platform will begin drilling in “the next few days” off North-Central Cuba, state oil
company CubaPetróleo (Cupet) announced in a note published by official daily Granma Dec. 15. According to Russian officials, the
semi-submersible has been in Cuban waters since mid-November. The Songa Mercur, a shallow-water
platform, will perform drills for Zarubezhneft apparently in one of four blocks leased by the Russian
state oil company near some of Cuba’s most popular beach resorts through the next six months. It will
begin with exploratory well L-01X, Cupet said, without giving its location. The well, according to Cupet, will be 6,500 meters (21,300 feet) deep.
Songa Offshore AS, the Oslo-based company that owns the platform, announced earlier this year that the Songa Mercur was chartered by
Zarubezhneft for 325 days. The company said earlier it will be drilling in block L (see map), the easternmost of four blocks Zarubezhneft leased
in 2009. Block L is located off the keys of Villa Clara province, near Cayo Santa María, a new beach tourism destination Cuba has been
developing over the past 10 years. “The new well has the objective to determine the oil and gas potential of that sector in our country,” the
Cupet note said. “Its results must contribute to the knowledge of the area where it will be drilled, as well as all of North-Central Cuba.” The
platform was inspected by Cuban officials to ensure the safety of operations, Cupet said. In addition, ModuSpec, a Netherlands-based company,
inspected the Songa Mercur to confirm that less than 10 percent of the platform’s content includes U.S. parts. U.S. embargo regulations impose
penalties on companies that do not comply with this restriction. Zarubezhneft
will spend close to $126 million on nearshore exploration, a Russian official said during a visit to the island in November. The Songa Mercur, a Soviet-built and Norwegianowned semi-submersible, arrived Nov. 15 in Cuban waters from Trinidad & Tobago, Russian Comptroller Sergei Stepashin said, according to
Russian news service rt.com. In November, a delegation of Russian and Cuban officials, including Stepashin, Zarubezhneft CEO Nikolay Brunich,
and Russia’s ambassador to Havana, Mikhail Kamyshin, toured the platform.
b. Israel
Chen Pundak (writer for Ynet News) December 30, 2012 “Green groups aim to stop offshore drilling
project” http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4325667,00.html
The Society for Protection of Nature in Israel, the Israel Nature and National Parks Service and several
other green groups have filed petitions against a gas exploration project planned off the coast of
Herzliya, saying it will disrupt a maritime reservation. The petitions, filed with the Tel Aviv Zoning Committee – which has
jurisdiction in the matter – say that the company heading the project, which has been dubbed "Gabriella," has failed to explore all other
alternatives. "On
the surface, the Gabriella project is cut from the same cloth as dozens of other
exploration projects taking place off Israel's shores, but it is different since it aims to drill in the midst
of an area which has been earmarked as a maritime reservation," the Society for Protection of Nature in Israel's
petition said. The company, it argued, opted for the "easy drilling option, rather than explore alternatives
that would protect the environment." According to SPNI's brief, "The Environmental Protection Ministry's environmental impact
reports were set aside in favor of a Water and Energy Ministry report, which failed to explore any alternatives." Attorney Noa Yayon of SPNI
said that "The entire ocean has been divvied up… but we have to decide that we want to protect the ocean's ecosystems as well
– Israel is obligated to do so under several international treaties." "This isn't just a question of placing a reef versus stock prices," NNPS marine
ecologist Dr. Ruth Yahel added. "The State of Israel cannot afford not to declare and protect maritime reservations." The
Zalul
environmental group also filed a petition against the project, focusing on both the damaged to the
area's ecosystem and the fact that the government has yet to put in place a contingency in case of a
leak. The petitions urge the committee to defer giving the project a permit pending the exploration of all alternative in the matter.
C. Russia spills oil everywhere
Schwartz 9/24/12 (Daniel, staffwriter, “Russia, world's worst oil polluter, now drilling in Arctic”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/09/21/f-russia-arctic.html)
As climate change alters the Arctic landscape, shrinking the ice cover on sea and land, it opens up more of the region
to resource exploitation. On Sept. 16, the ice cover in the Arctic Ocean reached the record for the smallest area since satellite
tracking began. For decades, Russia has been the pioneer in Arctic development, and it continues to forge
ahead . Some of the consequences of that development can be gleaned from a Russian government
report that outlines its program for protecting the Russian Arctic Environment. "The concentration of heavy metals in soils,
plants, and animals, in water and snow, in sea ice and bottom sediments is increasing nearly everywhere "
according to the report, released in 2009, with an English edition. In the Arctic Ocean, "Many marine expanses of the Barents,
White, Kara, and Laptev seas hold concentrations of pollutants that exceed maximum allowable
concentrations two or three times over."
The report describes how oil
pollution in Russia's Arctic basin has
reached high levels . "Every year several hundred thousand tones of petroleum products are
transported by rivers into the Arctic seas. "Severe pollution of surface waters has been found beyond the
boundaries of oil- and gas-bearing deposits
and even the basins of the rivers flowing into the Arctic seas." Even so, the
report states that despite hotspots, the Russian "Arctic remains relatively clean." Started with Stalin Development
of the Russian
Arctic pre-dates the arrival of the oil and natural gas industry, beginning in the 1930s as government
policy under dictator Joseph Stalin. Elana Wilson Rowe, editor and co-author of the book, Russia and the North, told CBC News those
first decades of development were helped by Stalin's "gulag system that brought a lot of labour, against their will, to the north." The
government wanted a populated north, and so that was an economic goal. When the Soviet Union began to collapse in 1989, there were nearly
10 million people in the Russian north. The economic chaos and liberalization that followed led to a major migration south. By 2006, one-sixth
of the population had left the region. In the hardest-hit regions of Chukotka, nearly 74 per cent of people left, and in Magadan, out-migration
was over 57 per cent. Wilson Rowe explained that after 1989, "costs went up, collapsing some of the important transport networks and it no
longer worked to maintain so many settlements." Census takers arrived to find ghost towns. However, in some northern areas, especially ones
with oil or natural gas development, populations increased and today, "parts of the Russian far north are booming," Wilson Rowe said. Putin
pushes northern development In this century, the combination of rising oil prices and the return to an authoritarian and nationalist regime
under Vladimir Putin have led to a renewed push for northern development. Wilson Rowe is now at the Norwegian Institute of International
Affairs in Oslo, but also lived in Iqaluit for about six months in 2003-2004. She has analyzed the Arctic policy of the five Arctic countries and
notes that in their documents, "only Canada and Russia mention this idea of being an Arctic power." Then she adds, laughing, about the country
of her birth, "I guess the United States doesn't have to mention that." For Russia, she says, "the
emphasis over the last four years
has been on economic opportunity, political opportunity, seeing the Arctic as a place where there can
be a win-win type of political experience where Russia can positively take the lead and live up to the
image it has of itself as a great power." Russia's policy goal is for the Arctic to become its primary
resource base by 2020.
No brink – Russia’s doing Deepwater Horizons every two months
Merchant 12/19/11 (Brian, staffwriter, “Russia Spills 5 Million Tons of Oil, Equivalent to 6 BP Disasters, Every Year”
http://www.treehugger.com/fossil-fuels/russia-spills-5-million-tons-oil-equivalent-6-bp-disasters-every-year.html)
Russia, it turns out, sucks at more things than not killing journalists. It also sucks at not spilling tons of oil into pristine
environments every year. A new study shows that the oil-rich nation spills 5 million tons of oil every
year. To put that into perspective, that's the equivalent of having a Deepwater Horizon-scale oil disaster every
two months. And it accounts for a full 1% of the nation's output. That's just bad business. The AP has more (via
Grist): Crumbling infrastructure and a harsh climate combine to spell disaster in the world's largest oil producer, responsible for 13 percent of
global output. Oil, stubbornly seeping through rusty pipelines and old wells, contaminates soil,
kills all plants that grow on
it and destroys habitats for mammals and birds. Half a million tons every year get into rivers that
flow into the Arctic Ocean , the government says, upsetting the delicate environmental balance in those
waters ... Oil spills in Russia are less dramatic than disasters in the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea, more the result
of a drip-drip of leaked crude than a sudden explosion. But they're more numerous than in any other
oil-producing nation
scientists say.
including
insurgency-hit Nigeria, and combined they spill far more than anywhere else in the world,
AT: Spills
Alt causes leak oil into the oceans
Tuggle 14 (Ashley, Great Ecology, “Marine Ecosystems Battling Oil Impacts”, http://greatecology.com/marine-ecosystems-battling-oilimpacts/)
Spills from ships and pipelines are not the only culprits for oil impacts in North America’s coastal waters. Widelypublicized major spills like the Houston Ship Channel spill typically account for only 8% of the petroleum inputs into
the North American marine ecosystem. Natural seeps, cars, and other land vehicles, along with
recreational boats are major contributors to oil pollution in the Gulf . It is death by a thousand paper
cuts. None of these impacts are on the scale of oil spills, but taken in sum, they can add up to the more
insidious and chronic injuries impacting our oceans.
Oceans resilient
Kennedy 2 (Victor, Coastal and Marine Ecosystems and Global Climate Change,
http://www.pewclimate.org/projects/marine.cfm)
There is evidence that marine organisms and ecosystems are resilient to environmental change. Steele
(1991) hypothesized that the biological components of marine systems are tightly coupled to physical
factors, allowing them to respond quickly to rapid environmental change and thus rendering them
ecologically adaptable. Some species also have wide genetic variability throughout their range, which may allow
for adaptation to climate change.
AT: Seismic Waves
Four decades of seismic testing prove no impact on marine animals
APPEA 14 (Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association is the peak national body representing Australia’s oil and gas
exploration and production industry, “Seismic Surveying”, http://www.seismicsurvey.com.au/)
Contrary to the claims of some environmental groups, seismic surveying is a very well-understood science
and a very safe industry practice. More than four decades of seismic surveying and numerous research
projects have shown no evidence that offshore seismic surveys harm marine animal populations or
ecosystems . The responsible precautions taken by industry mean the effects of man-made noises, such
as seismic surveys, on marine mammals are insignificant. For example, whale populations can be found all
along Australia's coastlines and seismic operators employ extensive precautions to minimise any
disturbances to these animals. Whale populations in Australia continue to thrive — humpback whale populations are
increasing at close to their biological maximum, more than 10 per cent a year. There is much more offshore oil and gas activity on Australia’s
west coast than on its east coast, but the rates of humpback population increase are almost identical. There is no evidence that seismic surveys
off Western Australia have harmed Australia’s humpback whale populations.
Guidelines and regulations check the whale impact and at worst seismic waves change
the whale’s behavior – can’t access the death of all whales.
Foley 14 (James A., Nature world news, “IUCN, Oil and Gas Industries, Collaborate on Guidelines to Protect Whales at Exploration Sites”,
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/5709/20140120/iucn-oil-gas-industries-collaborate-guidelines-protect-whales-explorationsites.htm)
An international group of scientists and animal experts have published a set of guidelines to minimize
the effects of underwater seismic impacts on whales and other vulnerable marine species made by the oil and gas
industries. Researchers from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel (WGWAP) and
Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd., collaborated on the project, calling the step-by-step set of guidelines the
"most thorough, robust and practical approach to minimizing and monitoring the risk of harm to
vulnerable marine species" made by underwater seismic activity, which is primarily made on the seafloor during oil and natural gas
exploitation attempts. Their study is published in the journal Aquatic Mammals. "This is a valuable tool for oil and gas
companies, regulators and others on all aspects of developing and implementing successful environmental
monitoring and mitigation programs that are precautionary, responsible and effective," said lead author Doug Nowacek, a
WGWAP member from Duke University. "We hope our guidelines on how to reduce the environmental impacts of seismic work in the oceans
will find their way into the manuals of energy companies and environmental agencies around the world," he said. At
the heart of the
issue is the system of seismic surveys used by the oil and gas industries, which use powerful airguns to
blast sound waves to the ocean floor. The echo data created by these airgun blasts allows detailed maps of the seabed to be rendered,
providing oil and natural gas companies with information on the best places to drill for resources. But because whales and other
marine creatures rely on sound for navigation and communication, the airgun blasts can be disruptive and
harmful to their way of life, causing behavioral changes than can affect foraging and nursing, or result in direct physical
damage, the researchers said. For their research, the team focused on whales around Sakhalin - a region on the Russian coast, just north of
Japan with huge offshore oil and gas deposits. The area is also a vital feeding ground for gray whales. "Key
to minimizing impacts
during seismic surveys is advance knowledge of marine life distribution and migrations and timing a survey
accordingly," said study co-author Greg Donovan, chairman of the WGWAP Seismic Survey and Noise Task Forces and Head of Science at
the International Whaling Commission. "In the Sakhalin case that means conducting the survey as early as possible in spring when the ice has
melted but most of the whales have not yet arrived." While the researchers stress that a unique plan of action must be taken to minimize harm
this can be done under a set of unified guidelines . These
guidelines include obtaining baseline ecological data, conducting detailed advance planning and critical review
of survey design and mitigation approaches, restricting the survey area and limiting estimated noise levels to
to marine life in each area of resource exploration, they say
minimize the "acoustic footprint" left by the survey. Other recommended guidelines include employing real-time visual and acoustic monitoring
of noise levels, whale locations and behavior before, during and after the survey, and halting the survey if whales get too close or show strong
reactions to seismic activity. "Our paper draws upon the experience and practical knowledge of the industry as well as rigorous applied science
from acousticians and marine mammal scientists to develop a broadly applicable framework for minimizing the potential impacts of seismic
surveys and quantitatively assessing the efficacy of mitigation measures used," Donovan said. "Our goal was to synthesize Sakhalin lessons
learnt and develop an approach to enable seismic surveys to be conducted in an environmentally responsible manner, regardless of purpose or
species within the region."
Seismic exploration has no effect on whale populations – multiple studies prove
DFO 13 (Fisheries and Oceans Canada, “Does Seismic Exploration Harm Whales and Fish?”, http://www.dfompo.gc.ca/science/publications/article/2005/01-08-2005-eng.htm)
COOGER co-ordinates DFO's research on offshore exploration, drawing on scientists across the country. For
the Gully project, Dr. Lee
brought in researchers from the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney, British Columbia, the Maurice Lamontagne
Institute in Mont-Joli, Quebec, Newfound-land's Marine Institute, and other centres in the private sector and academia.
At-sea research took place in 2003, before and during commercial surveys nearby. "We documented the occurrence of
northern bottlenose whales, to supplement earlier information on their numbers and distribution," Dr. Lee says. "We
observed humpback, blue, fin, and sperm whales, along with seals and dolphins, and recorded their
vocalizations and other ocean sounds under natural conditions. We have provided the scientific community with a major amount of new
baseline data." " Then
we monitored what happened during seismic explorations . The energy companies
have models of sound propagation. We need to validate how well they work for this area, and to document seismic effects in
general." The researchers used Ocean Bottom Seismometers and hydrophones to measure sounds. They developed new instrument-ation for
monitoring noise and vocalizations in the process. Marine mammal observers also did visual observations. The study catalogued multiple
aspects of sound propagation and fish and mammal behaviour.
Researchers found no significant changes in the general
distribution of Gully whales during seismic explorations . "It's not that we've ruled out all effects," Dr. Lee said. “But
we've seen no evidence of the most-feared results, such as abandonment of the area. "We're still completing
our evaluation of the energy-company models. And we'll continue our research on more subtle effects of seismic explorations." The Gully study
has built a strong framework for future research. "We know better what questions to ask," Dr. Lee says, "and how to answer them."
COOGER's second major Atlantic study to date took place off the west coast of Cape Breton, home of some of
the richest snow-crab grounds in the world. When the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board allowed airgun surveys in the
area, commercial fishermen feared bad effects. Previous laboratory experiments had suggested that high-energy
sound could affect crab reproduction. Dr. Mikio Moriyasu of DFO's Gulf Fisheries Centre in Moncton, New Brunswick, led
COOGER's 2003 crab study in the area. The researchers captured female crabs and placed some in the path of seismic exploration,
leaving others in a non-seismic control area. Ocean Bottom Seismometers monitored sound levels. The researchers assessed the physiology of
the captured crabs just after the seismic explorations took place, and again months later.
All the crabs survived, with no clear
damage to animals, eggs, or larvae . "It's seemingly reassuring," Ken Lee says. "But, there is a preliminary suggestion of cell
damage in some crabs in the seismic survey area, whether from the airguns or another cause. We're following up with lab research to nail that
down." As in the Gully, the crab study gave researchers the protocols to ask tighter questions about current and emerging issues of concern.
Besides follow-up research in these two areas, COOGER is also assessing seismic effects on Newfoundland lobster and on freshwater species in
the Northwest Territories' Mackenzie River. The end result will be concrete, reliable, and tested data on Canadian seismic research and its
effects. The studies will contribute to governmental guidelines on seismic explorations. The seismic work forms part of a long list of COOGER
projects. "We operate as a virtual research centre within DFO," Dr. Lee says. "With the co-operation of the department's research centres,
universities, and provincial institutions, we can bring together an array of talent to match the questions."
The whales won’t die – safeguards check and activists seriously exaggerate the issue
Wines, NYT, 14 (Michael, “U.S. Moves Toward Atlantic Oil Exploration, Stirring Debate Over Sea Life”,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/28/us/us-moves-toward-atlantic-oil-exploration-stirring-debate-over-sea-life.html?_r=0)
The Interior Department opened the door on Thursday to the first searches in decades for oil and gas off the
Atlantic coast, recommending that undersea seismic surveys proceed, though with a host of safeguards to
shield marine life from much of their impact . The recommendation is likely to be adopted after a period of public comment
and over objections by environmental activists who say it will be ruinous for the climate and sea life alike. The American Petroleum
Institute called the recommendation a critical step toward bolstering the nation’s energy security ,
predicting that oil and gas production in the region could create 280,000 new jobs and generate $195 billion in private investment. Activists
were livid. Allowing exploration “could be a death sentence for many marine mammals, and is needlessly turning the Atlantic Ocean into a blast
zone,” Jacqueline Savitz, a vice president at the conservation group Oceana, said in a statement on Thursday. Oceana
and other
groups have campaigned for months against the Atlantic survey plans, citing Interior Department calculations
that the intense noise of seismic exploration could kill and injure thousands of dolphins and whales. But while
the assessment released on Thursday repeats those estimates, it also largely dismisses them, stating that
they employ multiple worst-case scenarios and ignore measures by humans and the mammals
themselves to avoid harm.
Many marine scientists say
the estimates of death and injury are at best
seriously inflated . “There’s no argument that some of these sounds can harm animals, but it’s blown
out of proportion,” Arthur N. Popper, who heads the University of Maryland’s laboratory of aquatic bioacoustics, said in an
interview. “It’s the Flipper syndrome, or ‘Free Willy.’ ” How the noise affects sea mammals’ behavior in the long term — an issue about which
little is known — is a much greater concern, he said. A formal decision to proceed with surveys would reopen a swath off the East Coast
stretching from Delaware to Cape Canaveral, Fla., that has been closed to petroleum exploration since the early 1980s. Actual drilling of test
wells could not begin until a White House ban on production in the Atlantic expires in 2017, and even then, only after the government agrees to
lease ocean tracts to oil companies, an issue officials have barely begun to study. The petroleum industry has sunk 51 wells off the East Coast —
none of them successful enough to begin production — in decades past. But the Interior Department said in 2011 that 3.3 billion barrels of
recoverable oil and 312 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could lie in the exploration area, and nine companies have already applied for permits
to begin surveys. President Obama committed in 2010 to allowing oil and gas surveys along the same stretch of the Atlantic, and the
government had planned to lease tracts off the Virginia coast for exploration in 2011. But those plans collapsed after the Deepwater Horizon oil
rig disaster in April 2010, and the government later banned activity in the area until 2017. Thirty-four species of whales and dolphins, including
six endangered whales, live in the survey area. Environmental activists say seismic exploration could deeply imperil blue and humpback whales
as well as the North American right whale, which numbers in the hundreds. Surveys generally use compressed-air guns that produce repeated
bursts of sound as loud as a howitzer, often for weeks or months on end. The Interior Department’s estimate said that up to 27,000 dolphins
and 4,600 whales could die or be injured annually during exploration periods, and that three million more would suffer various behavioral
many scientists say death and injury are not a major concern . Decades of seismic
exploration worldwide have yet to yield a confirmed whale death, the government says. “It is quite
unlikely that most sounds, in realistic scenarios, will directly cause injury or mortality to marine mammals,”
Brandon Southall, perhaps the best-known expert on the issue, wrote in an email exchange. “Most of the issues now really
changes. But
have to do with what are the sublethal effects — what are the changes in behavior that may happen.” Dr. Southall is president of SEA
Incorporated, an environmental consultancy in Santa Cruz, Calif. Loud
sounds like seismic blasts appear to cause stress to
marine mammals, just as they do to humans. Experts say seismic exploration could alter feeding and mating habits, for example, or
simply drown out whales’ and dolphins’ efforts to communicate or find one another. But the true impact has yet to be measured; there is no
easy way to gauge the long-term effect of sound on animals that are constantly moving. “These animals are living for decades, if not centuries,”
said Aaron Rice, the director of Cornell University’s bioacoustics research program. “The responses you see are not going to manifest
themselves in hours or days or weeks. We’re largely speculating as to what the consequences will be. But in my mind, the absence of data
doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem.”
AT: Biodiversity Impact
No impact to the environment
Brook, Adelaide professor, 2013 (Barry, “Worrying about global tipping points distracts from real planetary threats”, 3-4,
http://bravenewclimate.com/2013/03/04/ecological-tipping-points/)
We argue that at
the global-scale, ecological “tipping points” and threshold-like “planetary boundaries”
are improbable. Instead, shifts in the Earth’s biosphere follow a gradual, smooth pattern . This means that
it might be impossible to define scientifically specific, critical levels of biodiversity loss or land-use change. This has important consequences for
both science and policy. Humans are causing changes in ecosystems across Earth to such a degree that there is now broad agreement that we
live in an epoch of our own making: the Anthropocene. But the question of just how these changes will play out — and especially whether we
might be approaching a planetary tipping point with abrupt, global-scale consequences — has remained unsettled. A tipping point occurs when
an ecosystem attribute, such as species abundance or carbon sequestration, responds abruptly and possibly irreversibly to a human pressure,
such as land-use or climate change. Many local- and regional-level ecosystems, such as lakes,forests and grasslands, behave this way. Recently
however, there have been several efforts to define ecological tipping points at the global scale. At a local scale, there are definitely warning
signs that an ecosystem is about to “tip”. For the terrestrial biosphere, tipping points might be expected if ecosystems across Earth respond in
similar ways to human pressures and these pressures are uniform, or if there are strong connections between continents that allow for rapid
diffusion of impacts across the planet. These criteria are, however, unlikely to be met in the real world. First,
ecosystems on
different continents are not strongly connected . Organisms are limited in their movement by oceans
and mountain ranges, as well as by climatic factors, and while ecosystem change in one region can affect the global
circulation of, for example, greenhouse gases, this signal is likely to be weak in comparison with inputs from fossil
fuel combustion and deforestation. Second, the responses of ecosystems to human pressures like
climate change or land-use change depend on local circumstances and will therefore differ between
locations. From a planetary perspective, this diversity in ecosystem responses creates an essentially gradual
pattern of change, without any identifiable tipping points. This puts into question attempts to define critical levels of
land-use change or biodiversity loss scientifically. Why does this matter? Well, one concern we have is that an undue focus on
planetary tipping points may distract from the vast ecological transformations that have already
occurred. After all, as much as four-fifths of the biosphere is today characterised by ecosystems that locally, over the span of centuries and
millennia, have undergone human-driven regime shifts of one or more kinds. Recognising this reality and seeking appropriate conservation
efforts at local and regional levels might be a more fruitful way forward for ecology and global change science. Corey Bradshaw (see also notes
published here on ConservationBytes.com) Let’s not get too distracted by the title of the this article – Does the terrestrial biosphere have
planetary tipping points? – or the potential for a false controversy. It’s important to be clear that the planet is indeed ill, and it’s largely due to
us. Species are going extinct faster than they would have otherwise. The planet’s climate system is being severely disrupted; so is the carbon
cycle. Ecosystem services are on the decline. But – and it’s a big “but” – we have to be wary of claiming the end of the world as we know it, or
people will shut down and continue blindly with their growth and consumption obsession. We as scientists also have to be extremely careful
not to pull concepts and numbers out of thin air without empirical support. Specifically, I’m referring to the
latest “craze” in
environmental science writing – the idea of “planetary tipping points” and the related “planetary
boundaries”. It’s really the stuff of Hollywood disaster blockbusters – the world suddenly shifts into a new “state”
where some major aspect of how the world functions does an immediate about-face. Don’t get me wrong: there are plenty of localised
examples of such tipping points, often characterised by something we call “hysteresis”. Brook defines hysterisis as: a situation where the
current state of an ecosystem is dependent not only on its environment but also on its history, with the return path to the original state being
very different from the original development that led to the altered state. Also, at some range of the driver, there can exist two or more
alternative states and “tipping point” as: the critical point at which strong nonlinearities appear in the relationship between ecosystem
attributes and drivers; once a tipping point threshold is crossed, the change to a new state is typically rapid and might be irreversible or exhibit
hysteresis. Some of these examples include state shifts that have happened (or mostly likely will) to the cryosphere, ocean thermohaline
circulation, atmospheric circulation, and marine ecosystems, and there are many other fine-scale examples of ecological systems shifting to
new (apparently) stable states. However, claiming
that we are approaching a major planetary boundary for our
ecosystems (including human society), where we witness such transitions simultaneously across the globe, is simply not upheld
by evidence. Regional tipping points are unlikely to translate into planet-wide state shifts. The main
reason is that our ecosystems aren’t that connected at global scales.
No impact to bio-diversity loss - their ev is bad science
Hance, Mongabay senior writer, 2013
(Jeremy, “Warnings of global ecological tipping points may be overstated”, 3-5,
http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0305-hance-tipping-points.html#r2IbUBDMyux2eU7i.99)
There's little evidence that the Earth is nearing a global ecological tipping point, according to a new Trends in
Ecology and Evolution paper that is bound to be controversial. The authors argue that despite numerous warnings that the Earth is headed
toward an ecological tipping point due to environmental stressors, such as habitat loss or climate change, it's unlikely this will occur anytime
soon—at least not on land. The paper comes with a number of caveats, including that a global tipping point could occur in marine ecosystems
due to ocean acidification from burning fossil fuels. In addition, regional tipping points, such as the Arctic ice melt or the Amazon rainforest
drying out, are still of great concern. "When
others have said that a planetary critical transition is possible/likely,
they've done so without any underlying model (or past/present examples, apart from catastrophic drivers like
asteroid strikes)," lead author Barry Brook and Director of Climate Science at the University of Adelaide told mongabay.com. "It’s just
speculation and we’ve argued [...] that this conjecture is not logically grounded. No one has found the opposite
of what we suggested—they’ve just proposed it." According to Brook and his team, a truly global tipping point must include an impact large
enough to spread across the entire world, hitting various continents, in addition to causing some uniform response. "These criteria, however,
are very unlikely to be met in the real world," says Brook. The idea of such a tipping point comes from ecological research, which has shown
that some ecosystems will flip to a new state after becoming heavily degraded. But Brook and his team say that tipping
points in
individual ecosystems should not be conflated with impacts across the Earth as a whole. Even climate
change, which some scientists might consider the ultimate tipping point, does not fit the bill, according to the paper. Impacts
from climate change, while global, will not be uniform and hence not a "tipping point" as such. "Local and regional
ecosystems vary considerably in their responses to climate change, and their regime shifts are therefore likely to vary considerably across the
diversity in ecosystem responses
creates an essentially gradual pattern of change, without any identifiable tipping points." The paper further
argues that biodiversity loss on land may not have the large-scale impacts that some ecologists argue, since
invasive species could potentially take the role of vanishing ones. "So we can lose the unique
evolutionary history (bad, from an intrinsic viewpoint) but not necessarily the role they impart in terms of
ecosystem stability or provision of services," explains Brook. The controversial argument goes against many scientists' view
terrestrial biosphere," the authors write. Barry adds that, "from a planetary perspective, this
that decreased biodiversity will ultimately lessen ecological services, such as pollination, water purification, and carbon sequestration.
Fragility theories are wrong – the loss of single species won’t cascade and nature
won’t implode
Kareiva et al, Chief Scientist and Vice President, The Nature Conservancy, 12 (Peter, Michelle
Marvier, professor and department chair of Environment Studies and Sciences at Santa Clara University, Robert Lalasz, director of science
communications for The Nature Conservancy, Winter, “Conservation in the Anthropocene,”
http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/past-issues/issue-2/conservation-in-the-anthropocene/)
As conservation became a global enterprise in the 1970s and 1980s, the movement's justification for saving nature shifted from spiritual and
aesthetic values to focus on biodiversity. Nature was described as primeval, fragile, and at risk of collapse from too much human use and abuse.
And indeed, there are consequences when humans convert landscapes for mining, logging, intensive agriculture, and urban development and
when key species or ecosystems are lost. But ecologists
and conservationists have grossly overstated the fragility
of nature , frequently arguing that once an ecosystem is altered, it is gone forever. Some ecologists
suggest that if a single species is lost, a whole ecosystem will be in danger of collapse, and that if too
much biodiversity is lost, spaceship Earth will start to come apart. Everything, from the expansion of agriculture to
rainforest destruction to changing waterways, has been painted as a threat to the delicate inner-workings of our planetary ecosystem. The
fragility trope dates back, at least, to Rachel Carson, who wrote plaintively in Silent Spring of the delicate web of life and warned that
perturbing the intricate balance of nature could have disastrous consequences.22 Al Gore made a similar argument in his 1992 book, Earth in
the Balance.23 And the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment warned darkly that, while the expansion of agriculture and other forms of
development have been overwhelmingly positive for the world's poor, ecosystem degradation was simultaneously putting systems in jeopardy
of collapse.24 The
trouble for conservation is that the data simply do not support the idea of a fragile
nature at risk of collapse. Ecologists now know that the disappearance of one species does not
necessarily lead to the extinction of any others, much less all others in the same ecosystem . In many
circumstances, the demise of formerly abundant species can be inconsequential to ecosystem function. The American
chestnut, once a dominant tree in eastern North America, has been extinguished by a foreign disease, yet the forest ecosystem is surprisingly
unaffected. The passenger pigeon, once so abundant that its flocks darkened the sky, went extinct, along with countless other species from the
Steller's sea cow to the dodo, with no catastrophic or even measurable effects. These stories
of resilience are not isolated
examples -- a thorough review of the scientific literature identified 240 studies of ecosystems following
major disturbances such as deforestation, mining, oil spills, and other types of pollution. The abundance of plant and
animal species as well as other measures of ecosystem function recovered, at least partially, in 173 (72 percent)
of these studies.25 While global forest cover is continuing to decline, it is rising in the Northern Hemisphere, where "nature" is returning
to former agricultural lands.26 Something similar is likely to occur in the Southern Hemisphere, after poor countries achieve a similar level of
economic development. A 2010 report concluded that rainforests
that have grown back over abandoned agricultural
land had 40 to 70 percent of the species of the original forests.27 Even Indonesian orangutans, which were widely
thought to be able to survive only in pristine forests, have been found in surprising numbers in oil palm plantations and degraded lands.28
Nature is so resilient that it can recover rapidly from even the most powerful human disturbances.
Around the Chernobyl nuclear facility, which melted down in 1986, wildlife is thriving, despite the high levels of
radiation.29 In the Bikini Atoll, the site of multiple nuclear bomb tests, including the 1954 hydrogen bomb test that boiled the water in the area,
the number of coral species has actually increased relative to before the explosions.30 More recently,
the massive 2010 oil spill in
the Gulf of Mexico was degraded and consumed by bacteria at a remarkably fast rate. 31 Today, coyotes
roam downtown Chicago, and peregrine falcons astonish San Franciscans as they sweep down skyscraper canyons to pick off pigeons for their
next meal. As we destroy habitats, we create new ones: in the southwestern United States a rare and federally listed salamander species seems
specialized to live in cattle tanks -- to date, it has been found in no other habitat.32 Books have been written about the collapse of cod in the
Georges Bank, yet recent trawl data show the biomass of cod has recovered to precollapse levels.33 It's doubtful that books will be written
about this cod recovery since it does not play well to an audience somehow addicted to stories of collapse and environmental apocalypse.
Even that classic symbol of fragility -- the polar bear, seemingly stranded on a melting ice block -- may have a good
chance of surviving global warming if the changing environment continues to increase the populations and northern ranges of
harbor seals and harp seals. Polar bears evolved from brown bears 200,000 years ago during a cooling period in Earth's
history, developing a highly specialized carnivorous diet focused on seals. Thus, the fate of polar bears depends on two
opposing trends -- the decline of sea ice and the potential increase of energy-rich prey. The history of life on
Earth is of species evolving to take advantage of new environments only to be at risk when the environment changes again. The wilderness
ideal presupposes that there are parts of the world untouched by humankind, but today
it is impossible to find a place on
Earth that is unmarked by human activity. The truth is humans have been impacting their natural environment for centuries.
The wilderness so beloved by conservationists -- places "untrammeled by man"34 -- never existed, at least not in the
last thousand years, and arguably even longer. The effects of human activity are found in every corner of the Earth. Fish and whales in
remote Arctic oceans are contaminated with chemical pesticides. The nitrogen cycle and hydrological cycle
are now dominated by people -- human activities produce 60 percent of all the fixed nitrogen deposited on land each year, and
people appropriate more than half of the annual accessible freshwater runoff.35 There are now more tigers in captivity than in their native
habitats. Instead of sourcing wood from natural forests, by 2050 we are expected to get over three-quarters of our wood from intensively
managed tree farms. Erosion, weathering, and landslides used to be the prime movers of rock and soil; today humans rival these geological
processes with road building and massive construction projects.36 All
around the world, a mix of climate change and
nonnative species has created a wealth of novel ecosystems catalyzed by human activities.
There’s no impact
Boucher 98 (Doug, "Not with a Bang but a Whimper," Science and Society, Fall,
http://www.driftline.org/cgi-bin/archive/archive_msg.cgi?file=spoon-archives/marxisminternational.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxisminternational.9802&msgnum=379&start=32091&end=32412)
The political danger of catastrophism is matched by the weakness of its scientific foundation. Given the prevalence of the idea
that the entire biosphere will soon collapse, it is remarkable how few good examples ecology can
provide of this happening m even on the scale of an ecosystem, let alone a continent or the whole
planet. Hundreds of ecological transformations, due to introductions of alien species, pollution, overexploitation, climate
change and even collisions with asteroids, have been documented. They often change the functioning of ecosystems, and
the abundance and diversity of their animals and plants, in dramatic ways. The effects on human society can be far-reaching, and often
extremely negative for the majority of the population. But one
feature has been a constant, nearly everywhere on earth:
life goes on. Humans have been able to drive thousands of species to extinction, severely impoverish the
soil, alter weather patterns, dramatically lower the biodiversity of natural communities, and incidentally
cause great suffering for their posterity. They have not generally been able to prevent nature from growing
back. As ecosystems are transformed, species are eliminated -- but opportunities are created for new ones. The
natural world is changed, but never totally destroyed. Levins and Lewontin put it well: "The warning not to destroy the
environment is empty: environment, like matter, cannot be created or destroyed. What we can do is replace
environments we value by those we do not like" (Levins and Lewontin, 1994). Indeed, from a human point of view the most impressive feature
of recorded history is that human societies have continued to grow and develop, despite all the terrible things they have done to the earth.
Examples of the collapse of civilizations due to their over- exploitation of nature are few and far
between. Most tend to be well in the past and poorly documented, and further investigation often
shows that the reasons for collapse were fundamentally political.
Warming turns Biodiversity
Warming destroys biodiversity—Leads to extinction
Hansen 2011 - is member of the National Academy of Sciences, an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental
Sciences at Columbia University and at Columbia’s Earth Institute, and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (James E,
“Storms of my Grandchildren”)
As long as the total movement of isotherms toward the poles is much smaller than the size of the habitat, or the ranges in which the animals
live, the effect on species is limited. But now the
movement is inexorably toward the poles and totals more than
one hundred miles over the past several decades. If greenhouse gases continue to increase at businessas-usual rates, then the rate of isotherm movement will double in this century to at least seventy
miles per decade. Species at the most immediate risk are those in polar climates and the biologically
diverse slopes of alpine regions. Polar animals, in effect, will be pushed off the planet. Alpine species will be pushed toward higher
altitudes, and toward smaller, rockier areas with thinner air; thus, in effect, they will also be pushed off the planet. A few such species, such as
polar bears, no doubt will be "rescued" by human beings, but survival in zoos or managed animal reserves will be small consolation to bears or
nature lovers. Earth's history provides an invaluable perspective about what is possible. Fossils
in the geologic record reveal
that there have been five mass extinctions during the past five hundred million years— geologically
brief periods in which about half or more of the species on Earth disappeared forever. In each case, life
survived and new species developed over hundreds of thousands and millions of years. All these mass extinctions were
associated with large and relatively rapid changes of atmospheric composition and climate. In the
most extreme extinction, the "end-Permian" event, dividing the Permian Triassic periods 251 million years ago, nearly all life on
Earth— more than 90 percent of terrestrial and marine species—was exterminated. None of the extinction
events is understood in full. Research is active, as increasingly powerful methods of "reading the rocks" are being developed. Yet enough is
now known to provide an invaluable perspective for what is already being called the sixth mass extinction, the human-caused destruction of species. Knowledge of past extinction events can inform us about potential paths
for the future and perhaps help guide our actions, as our single powerful species threatens all others, and our own.
We do not know how many animal, plant, insect, and microbe species exist today. Nor do we know the rate we are driving species to extinction.
About two million species—half of them being insects, including butterflies—have been cataloged, but more are discovered every day. The
order of magnitude for the total is perhaps ten million. Some biologists estimate that when all the microbes, fungi, and parasites are counted,
there may be one hundred million species. Bird species are documented better than most. Everybody has heard of the dodo, the passenger
pigeon, the ivory-billed woodpecker—all are gone—and the whooping crane, which, so far, we have just barely "saved." We are still losing one
or two bird species per year. In total about 1 percent of bird species have disappeared over the past several centuries. If the
loss of birds
is representative of other species, several thousand species are becoming extinct each year. The
current extinction rate is at least one hundred times greater than the average natural rate . So the
concern that humans may have initiated the sixth mass extinction is easy to understand. However, the
outcome is still very much up in the air, and human-made climate change is likely to be the determining factor. I will argue that if we
continue on a business-as-usual path, with a global warming of several degrees Celsius, then we will
drive a large fraction of species, conceivably all species, to extinction. On the other hand, just as in the case of ice
sheet stability, if we bring atmospheric composition under control in the near future, it is still possible to keep human-caus ed extinctions to a
moderate level.
AT: Renewables CP
Perm
--Perm – do both – natural gas acts as a bridge to renewables as they mature – they
can’t yet support the energy grid – that’s Trembath
The permutation accelerates the integration of renewables – current coal-based
power plants can’t solve intermittency
Trembath et al 13 (Alex, policy analyst in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough Institute, where he researches and
writes about renewable energy technologies, American federal energy policy and the history of public investments in technological innovation,
and Max Luke, policy associate in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough, where his research focused on a range of energy issues and
topics including nuclear power, natural gas, renewables, energy efficiency rebound and backfire, national energy subsidies, and electricity
systems, with Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, “Coal Killer: How Natural Gas Fuels the Clean Energy Revolution”,
http://thebreakthrough.org/images/main_image/Breakthrough_Institute_Coal_Killer.pdf)
Gas-fired power provides cheap, low-carbon, and flexible backup support for intermittent wind and
solar. Grid operators depend on reliable power production from power plant operators to match grid supply and
demand and ensure consistent price signals. As intermittent renewables — particularly wind — continue to
occupy a greater share of the nation’s electricity output, power system operators will need to
increasingly rely on capacities of backup and firming power . Natural gas–fired power plants offer the
best currently available solution . By contrast, the majority of coal plants in the United States were designed to
provide steady baseload power to the grid, with very little flexibility. Today’s coal plants have low ramping
rates (1.5 percent to 3 percent per minute) and become inefficient if they are operated below maximum output,
increasing marginal emissions of CO2, NOx, and SO2 pollutants.93 Conventional nuclear power cannot be counted
on for flexible power in any context today, given extreme technical difficulties in cycling and ramping nuclear generators.
Although grid-scale energy storage options are expanding, the technology is still limited in its commercial applicability. Natural gas
power — and particularly power from natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) plants — provides a readily substitutable
alternative to baseload and older load-following coal plants. Flexible gas plants provide support for
electric power grids that are increasingly occupied by intermittent wind and solar. A study from researchers at
Carnegie Mellon University suggests that for every 4 MW of wind capacity, 3 MW of NGCC capacity will be needed to operate the grid
reliably.94
The expansion of gas-fired power plants could accelerate the integration of intermittent
power into existing grid systems .95 New natural gas plants have ramping rates of approximately 8 percent per minute and can
reduce their output to 80 percent capacity with minimal heat rate penalty. New NGCC plants that are specifically designed to offer flexibility to
a renewables-heavy grid system can ramp to 150 MW in 10 minutes and to full load in 30 minutes.96 General Electric’s new fleet of gas-fired
power plants is designed to optimize integration with variable power sources and can ramp as fast as 100 MW per minute.97
Perm Key – Independence
Your evidence proves – independence can’t occur without the permutation – this card
is all about increasing domestic supply, not renewables
Sovacool, 2007 (Research Fellow for the Energy Governance Program @ National University of Singapore Benjamin K. Sovacool
(Professor of International Affairs @ Virginia Tech University, “Oil Independence Possible for U.S. by 2030” http://scitizen.com/futureenergies/oil-independence-possible-for-u-s-by-2030_a-14-1167.html)
Oil independence is possible for the U.S. if comprehensive and aggressive energy policies are implemented
aimed at reducing demand for oil, increasing supply, and promoting alternative fuels . default textContrary
to what most people might think, oil independence is possible for the United States by 2030. The news is especially important when one
considers that, between 1970 and 2000, economists estimate that the costs of American dependence on foreign supplies of oil have ranged
between $5 and $13 trillion dollars. That’s more than the cost of all wars fought by the U.S. (adjusted for inflation) going all the way back to the
Revolutionary War. The trick is to start by thinking about oil independence a little differently.
Oil independence should not be
viewed as eliminating all imports of oil or reducing imports from hostile or unstable oil producing states. Instead, it should entail
creating a world where the costs of the country’s dependence on oil would be so small that they would have little to no effect on our economic,
military, or foreign policy. It means creating a world where the estimated total economic costs of oil dependence would be less than one
percent of U.S. gross domestic product by 2030. Conceived in this way (and contrary to much political commentary these days), researchers at
the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have calculated that if the country as a whole reduced their demand for oil by 7.22 million barrels
per day (MBD) and increased supply by 3 MBD, oil independence would be achieved by 2030 with a 95 percent chance of success. By
reducing demand for oil, increasing its price elasticity, and increasing the supply of conventional and
unconventional petroleum products,
oil price shocks
ORNL researchers noted that the
country would be virtually immune from
and market uncertainty. If large oil producing states were to respond to the U.S. by cutting back production, their initial
gains from higher prices would also reduce their market share, in turn further limiting their ability to influence the oil market in the future. So if
decreasing American demand for oil by 7.22 MBD and increasing supply by 3 MBD would enable the U.S. to achieve oil independence in 2030,
which combination of policies offers an optimal strategy? Policymakers, for instance, could
lower demand for oil by making
automobiles more efficient (by legislating more stringent fuel economy standards for light and heavy duty vehicles or lowering the
interstate speed limit), promoting alternatives in mode choice (such as mass transit, light rail, and carpooling), or establishing
telecommuting centers and incentives for commuters to work from home. They could also promote rigorous standards for tire inflation and
reduce oil consumption in other sectors of the economy. Alternatively,
they could increase alternative domestic supplies
of oil , develop better technologies for the extraction of oil shale, mandate the use of advanced oil recovery and extraction techniques, and
promote alternatives to oil such as ethanol, bio-diesel, and Fischer-Tropsch fuels. Taken together, such policies could reduce demand for oil by
8.266 to 12.119 MBD and increase American oil supply by 8.939 and 12.119 MBD by 2030—well over the target set by the ORNL study. Thus, to
insulate the American economy from the vagaries of the world oil market, policymakers need not focus only geopolitical power structures in oil
producing states. Instead, attempts to change the behavior of the country’s automobile drivers, industrial leaders, and homeowners could
greatly minimize reliance on foreign supplies of oil. To battle the “oil problem” policymakers need not talk only about sending more troops to
Iraq or Saudi Arabia nor drafting new contracts with Nigeria and Russia. They could also focus on curbing American demand for oil and
expanding domestic conventional and alternative supplies.
Can’t Solve – Not Ready
Renewables cannot power the grid by themselves – only a hybrid between renewables
and gas solves for emissions and energy consumption
Dodge 13 (Edward, the Energy Collective, “Renewables and Natural Gas are Partners Not Opponents”,
http://theenergycollective.com/ed-dodge/308406/renewables-and-natural-gas-are-partners-not-opponents)
Renewable energy sources and natural gas should be considered as complements and not rivals. A
hybrid gas-electric clean energy provides a workable engineering solution while 100% Renewables
models based heavily on wind, solar and efficiency fall short of the meeting the functional needs of a
modern technology intensive society . Natural gas and renewables are already functional partners on the grid. Because
wind and solar are intermittent sources of electricity, some form of backup power is required to fill the down
times. By and large this backup power has been provided by natural gas because gas is the most flexible in its deployment.
Gas turbines can be turned on and off quickly to meet fluctuating power demands. Large boiler based systems such as coal
and nuclear are not so flexible in their operations, they can take hours to turn up and efficiency is lost. Big boilers work best when they are
operating consistently which makes it more challenging to integrate with the intermittent wind and solar power sources. Secondly, natural
gas is primarily methane and methane is itself renewable. Methane can be manufactured in vast quantities and is
indistinguishable from fossil sources. Renewable methane can be made from biomass, garbage, sewage, farm
waste and is given a variety of names; biomethane, renewable natural gas, substitute natural gas, biogas and others. Many of the best
resources for biomethane are waste products today and are treated as liabilities but could be converted into assets. Biomethane can be
produced in greater quantities than other biofuels such as ethanol or biodiesel. Third, power-to-gas
offers the potential to
convert excess electricity into methane and store it in the pipeline infrastructure. Electrolysis uses electricity to
separate water (H2O) molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. This hydrogen can be used directly for a variety of industrial
purposes and powering fuel cells, but can also be used in the manufacture of biomethane which is CH4. In Germany experiments
are being run to determine how much methane can be injected directly into the natural gas pipelines. While power-to-gas is not being
implemented in commercial scales today, the technology is all completely proven. As solar and wind deployments ramp up the need for storage
becomes more pronounced and gas production has advantages over batteries because gas can be stored indefinitely while batteries lose their
power over time. Gas can also be easily transported in pipelines and tankers and converted into other products. The
natural gas
infrastructure enables the use of fuel cells to produce emissions free electricity. Proton Exchange Membrane
(PEM) fuel cells use pure hydrogen as fuel and are being developed for vehicles. Solid Oxide fuel cells can use methane as fuel but are best for
stationary power production. There is great promise in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles but there is a fundamental challenge in distributing and
storing pure hydrogen. Hydrogen is tiny and extremely volatile, it both leaks out of conventional steel pipes and reacts with steel making it
brittle. Hydrogen distribution requires the use of stainless steel (or other specialty material) pipes with high test welds at all joints and special
valves. This is a very expensive and complex engineering proposition compared to the existing natural gas infrastructure that uses common
galvanized steel pipe. The practical and economic answer is to connect hydrogen fueling stations to natural gas distribution and steam reform
and pressurize the hydrogen on site where it is sold. Industry generally produces hydrogen from natural gas as it is far cheaper than producing
hydrogen from electrolysis. In this way natural gas enables the widespread use of hydrogen and fuel cells. As
the cleanest burning of
all hydrocarbons methane is naturally a friend to the environment when used to replace coal and
petroleum. Renewable electricity solutions can replace many uses of coal for power but are challenged at
replacing petroleum for vehicles, big ships and high horsepower machines
trains and airplanes.
Natural gas is a direct replacement for diesel,
such as mining equipment, freight
gasoline and bunker fuel and can be converted into high
quality liquid fuels such as jet fuel. Dirty fuels such as coal and diesel are loaded with particulates, heavy metals, sulfur and other contaminants
that cause toxic pollution and kill hundreds of thousands of people every year globally. Methane
is clean enough to burn
indoors and cook food on, its widespread adoption to replace dirty fossil fuels would create significant air quality improvements and
save many lives. Methane also has the lowest carbon content of any hydrocarbon so when used to replace
coal and petroleum it reduces carbon pollution. Methane is the most abundant and versatile of all hydrocarbons. It can be
used to produce heat, power and transportation. Methane can be converted into ultra clean diesel and jet fuel through Fischer-Tropsch
processes. Methane is also a critical raw material for the production of plastics, chemicals and fertilizers .
Recycling plastics back into methane can help facilitate zero-waste goals. Natural gas resources are broad and deep and found all over the
world. The
shale gas revolution has already overturned global energy markets and there appears to be
vast resources to be tapped. If the methane hydrate resources in the ocean can be brought to market that would further tilt the
energy landscape towards natural gas as those reserves are massive and dwarf all coal and petroleum known to exist. Natural gas has an
excellent safety record, though it is often thought of as very dangerous. LNG in transport is very safe. LNG has been shipped in huge quantities
by ship for decades and there has never been a disaster (knock on wood). When used for a vehicle fuel it has distinct safety advantages over
gasoline, diesel and propane because methane is the only one that is lighter than air and dissipates quickly if released while the others pool on
the ground awaiting ignition. Methane has a very narrow range for ignition making harder to combust accidently. Also the tanks used for CNG
and LNG are very robust by nature, whereas liquid fuels are often carried in thin walled tanks. Methane combustion does produce carbon
emissions but far fewer than other fossil fuels, and methane is itself a greenhouse gas, so its use does need to optimized to mitigate any global
warming effects. Capturing leaking methane is important, and has the benefit of increasing fuel supplies. Natural gas is easily deployed as fuel
for power production and can be deployed nearer to where the electricity is used minimizing line losses and improving efficiency. Combined
heat and power is part of this efficiency playbook that natural gas enables. In conclusion methane, aka natural gas, is
a clean, high
performance and versatile fuel that complements the roll out of renewable electricity technologies. In
practice, intermittent power sources such as wind and solar require stored fuel to be available at all
times to keep the grid online . Electrical sources are also not proven to power high horsepower vehicles while gas can. Natural
gas is the most abundant, clean and safe of all hydrocarbons and fulfills a critical role in our energy infrastructure. Renewables
advocates should recognize this fundamental harmony between these energy sources.
They can’t yet fuel the grid – variable supply and site-specific constraints
Ng, Golder Associates, 12 (Ying, “Natural Gas Key to a Renewable Energy future”, http://www.powereng.com/articles/print/volume-116/issue-7/features/natural-gas-key-to-a-renewable-energy-future.html)
However, the
need to meet political and public expectations for more renewable energy is running into
the constraints posed by the nature of the four main types of green power. Hydro and geothermal are
constrained by their site-specific nature. Hydropower has geographical needs for water flow, impoundments,
and elevation differentials. Steps must be taken to manage any impacts on fish migration. In geothermal, utility-scale energy sources are few
and difficult to develop. Installed costs
may be too high to be competitive in the general electricity market
is constrained by the need for reliable, acceptable,
and low-cost fuel available nearby. In addition, biomass fuel produces emissions and is considered carbon neutral. This leaves
wind and solar -- and as these sources edge upwards in their share of the overall power supply, their limitations become
more and more problematic: their supply is variable and not coincident with demand, so these
without price supports and regulatory subsidies and tariffs. Biomass
sources are not able to serve demand or regulate system voltage. Therefore, a power source that can
efficiently counter those negative effects is required. Attempts to store energy and smooth production have been met
with mixed success. Flywheels, compressed air and battery storage are not mature enough for commercial viability. Pumped power, which uses
surplus energy to pump water from a reservoir at one level to one a higher level during times of surplus power, with the water flowed back
down through a turbine at times of higher demand, is constrained by lack of suitable sites and high installed costs.
AT: Wind
Drastic reductions in performance make windfarms uneconomical – couldn’t compete
with coal
Mackay 12 (The Courier, “Wind turbines’ lifespan far shorter than believed, study suggests”,
http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/scotland/wind-turbines-lifespan-far-shorter-than-believed-study-suggests-1.62945)
SCOTLAND’S LANDSCAPE could be blighted by the rotting remains of a failed regeneration of windfarms, according to a scathing new report. A
study commissioned by the Renewable Energy Foundation has found that the economic life of onshore
wind turbines could be far less than that predicted by the industry. The “groundbreaking” research was carried out by
academics at Edinburgh University and saw them look at years of windfarm performance data from the UK and Denmark. The results
appear to show that the output from windfarms — allowing for variations in wind speed and site characteristics —
declines substantially as they get older. By 10 years of age, the report found that the contribution of an
average UK windfarm towards meeting electricity demand had declined by a third. That reduction in
performance leads the study team to believe that it will be uneconomic to operate windfarms for more
than 12 to 15 years — at odds with industry predictions of a 20- to 25-year lifespan. They may then have to be replaced with new machinery —
a finding that the foundation believes has profound consequences for investors and government alike. Members of the renewables industry
have attacked the findings, questioning the Edinburgh University research and describing them as “misleading”. Scottish Renewables for one
said that its oldest commercial windfarms in Scotland were around 16 years old and that none of them have been decommissioned or
repowered. Nonetheless, anti-windfarm campaigners believe that
the evidence should be enough to halt the pace of
development and force the Scottish Government to rethink its backing of the energy source. Conservative
MSP Murdo Fraser said that parts of the USA, where the industry is further advanced, were already home to
what amounted to windfarm graveyards . And he said the difficulties associated with the decommissioning of such machinery
could blight the Scottish landscape for years. “We already know that the average wind turbine must be in operation for a minimum of two years
to pay back the carbon cost of construction,” he said. “If the average lifespan of a wind turbine is only 10 years then the Scottish Government
must seriously question wind energy’s role in displacing carbon emissions. “However, the rapid wear and tear of wind turbines comes as no
surprise. We need only cast our eye across the Atlantic to see 12,000 turbines rotting in the Californian desert. “I
have particular
concerns surrounding the environmental costs of decommissioning and exactly who bears these
burdens. “With question marks raised over intermittency, noise, cost, efficiency, placement and now lifespan, when will the Scottish
Government see sense and pull at the reins of wind energy?” The Renewable Energy Foundation is a registered charity promoting sustainable
development for the benefit of the public by means of energy conservation and the use of renewable energy. It claims to have “no political
affiliation or corporate membership” and believes its findings have worrying implications for the investment being made in the UK in wind
power. The study also reports that the decline in the performance of Danish offshore windfarms had been greater than that of UK onshore
windfarms. Director Dr John Constable said: “This study confirms suspicions that decades of generous subsidies to the wind industry have failed
to encourage the innovation needed to make the sector competitive. “Put bluntly,
wind turbines onshore and offshore still
cost too much and wear out far too quickly to offer the developing world a realistic alternative to
coal.”
Only natural gas leadership solves international modeling and allows renewables to
mature – that’s Riley – renewables can’t support Chinese energy use yet
Bernton 14 (Hal, The Seattle Times, “Renewable-energy surge slow to wean China off coal”,
http://seattletimes.com/html/specialreportspages/2023538675_chinawindmainbarxml.html)
China is now the world’s biggest wind-power generator and largest market for solar panels. With the
completion of the controversial Three Gorges Dam, which displaced 1.2 million people along the Yangtze River, China is now the world’s top
hydro-energy producer. Some
are hopeful that China’s ambitious development plans for renewable energy resources
will eventually lead to a dramatic reduction in the use of coal — and help pull the world back from the extremes of climate
change and ocean acidification forecast for later in this century. “I think it’s a hell of a rocky road to get there. But I think it’s possible,” said
William Chandler, co-author of an Energy Transition Research Institute study that outlines a road map for China generating 80 percent of its
electricity from renewables by 2050. So far, China’s
appetite for energy is so big — and expanding so fast — that coal
consumption keeps climbing even in a period of runaway growth for renewables. Much of the coal is burned in
a new generation of power plants, which are often built by the same state-owned corporations investing in alternative energy. “Even
if
coal consumption eventually plateaus, it will be a very long plateau,” said Armond Cohen, executive director of
the Clean Air Task Force, which works in China to reduce carbon emissions. Coal now provides some 65 percent of all the
energy consumed each year by China, generating most of the electricity and heat for 1.3 billion Chinese and providing most of
the power for industry. Meanwhile, solar and wind power still meet less than 3 percent of the nation’s energy
needs . And China’s grid hasn’t expanded fast enough to deliver all the power that these projects can
generate . Wind-power developers often wait months to have their projects connected to the stateowned grid. And once their plants are finally able to feed into power lines, they often are ordered to shut
down many of their turbines so the flow of electricity is balanced with demand. In Eastern Mongolia, for example, some wind farms
ran at only about 50 percent capacity in 2012, according to the Chinese Wind Energy Association. On blustery winter days, the kind that are
prime for generating wind power, rows of turbines often are idled. “It’s a big waste of money and resources,” said a wind-power-industry
official. “In China we have a renewable law, which requires that 100 percent of the electricity from wind should be purchased by the grid. But
the fact is, not all of it is delivered. So there is a big effort to upgrade the grid.”
Hurricanes knock them out
Haluzan 12 (Ned Haluzan is a freelance eco-journalist,“Can U.S. offshore wind farms withstand rough weather?”
http://www.renewables-info.com/energy_news_and_reports/can_us_offshore_wind_farms_withstand_rough_weather.htm)
Offshore wind turbines must be powerfully built in order to withstand rough weather conditions but are they powerful enough to withstand
hurricanes in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico? According
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the proposed U.S.
to U.S. researchers from the Carnegie Mellon University
offshore wind energy expansion might hit the stumbling block
because hurricanes are likely to destroy half of the offshore wind farm s the U.S. is planning to build in the Atlantic
and the Gulf of Mexico. Wind energy plays important role in planning U.S. clean energy future and the U.S. Department of Energy already set a
goal for the country to generate 20% of its electricity from wind turbines by 2030, with one sixth to come from offshore wind turbines. Since
offshore wind farms are very expensive to build and have costs of approximately $175 million per
wind farm it is of vital importance to put all risks into equation in order to avoid massive financial
losses in years to come. Despite the fact that offshore wind turbines shut down in high winds
powerful hurricane winds can still topple them causing massive financial damage so the science has an
important task in making these offshore wind farms hurricane-proof.
AT: Solar
Solar is the worst and least cost effective way to reduce emissions
Myers 13 (Todd, environmental director at the Washington Policy Center in Seattle, “The Biggest Misconceptions People Have About
Renewable Energy”, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304213904579093702011171762)
TODD MYERS: Two years ago, NY Times columnist Paul Krugman put it simply: "That's right: Solar power is now cost-effective." He was wrong
then and is wrong today.
Solar energy is not close to being cost effective for consumers or for the
environment . The National Renewable Energy Laboratory recently concluded that in the sunny Western
U.S., solar "could" be competitive in 12 years. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) agrees. In its cost
projection for 2018, solar is 67% more expensive than wind and twice as expensive as natural gas . At the
Pacific Northwest Regional Economic Conference this year, one utility energy planner reported that solar costs about 80 cents per kilowatt hour
(kwh) compared with the national average of about 10 cents per kwh.
Solar energy is one of the worst ways to reduce
carbon emissions . McKinsey and Company's analysis found that nuclear, wind and even coal with carbon capture
are more effective. Bloomberg New Energy Finance found the same result, ranking solar panels 28th out of 33 carbon-reduction
options. Then why is solar popular? Huge taxpayer subsidies hide the actual cost . Other renewables
receive a subsidy of about one cent per kwh, solar energy receives about 96 cents per kwh. We pay solar's cost
in the form of taxes instead of as electric rates. A new study co-authored by William Nordhaus, a man Mr. Krugman calls a "mentor,"
noted how ineffective subsides are, saying "very little if any GHG reductions are achieved at
substantial cost." Finally, as a recent study reveals, people desire solar panels because they convey "green" status. Solar panels increase
home prices "in communities with more registered Prius" owners. Although solar panels yield tiny environmental benefits, some pay the price
to look "green." This misconception is not harmless. Billions
are spent propping up wasteful solar energy instead of
projects that effectively reduce carbon emissions.
There’s not enough rare earths to maintain supply
Jones 13 (Nicola, freelance journalist, background in chemistry and oceanography, she writes about the physical sciences, most often for
the journal Nature, “A Scarcity of Rare Metals Is Hindering Green Technologies”,
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/a_scarcity_of_rare_metals_is_hindering_green_technologies/2711/)
With the global push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it’s ironic that several
energy- or resource-saving technologies
aren’t being used to the fullest simply because we don’t have enough raw materials to make them.
For example, says Alex King, director of the new Critical Materials Institute, every wind farm has a few turbines standing idle
because their fragile gearboxes have broken down. They can be fixed, of course, but that takes time – and meanwhile wind
power isn’t being gathered. Now you can make a more reliable wind turbine that doesn’t need a gearbox at all, King points
out, but you need a truckload of so-called "rare earth" metals to do it, and there simply isn’t the
supply . Likewise, we could all be using next-generation fluorescent light bulbs that are twice as efficient as the current standard. But when
the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) tried to make that switch in 2009, companies like General Electric cried foul: they wouldn’t be able to get
hold of enough rare earths to make the new bulbs. The
move toward new and better technologies — from smart phones to
an ever-increasing demand for exotic metals that are scarce thanks to both geology and politics.
Thin, cheap solar panels need tellurium , which makes up a scant 0.0000001 percent of the earth’s crust, making it three times
electric cars — means
rarer than gold. High-performance batteries need lithium, which is only easily extracted from briny pools in the Andes. In 2011, the average
price of 'rare earth' metals shot up by as much as 750 percent. Platinum, needed as a catalyst in fuel cells that turn hydrogen into energy,
comes almost exclusively from South Africa. Researchers and
industry workers alike woke with a shock to the
problems caused by these dodgy supply chains in 2011, when the average price of "rare earths" — including
terbium and europium, used in fluorescent bulbs; and neodymium, used in the powerful magnets that help to drive wind turbines and electric
engines — shot
up by as much as 750 percent in a year. The problem was that China, which controlled 97
percent of global rare earth production, had clamped down on trade. A solution was brokered and the price shock
faded, but the threat of future supply problems for rare earths and other so-called "critical elements" still looms. That’s why the Critical
Materials Institute, located at the DOE’s Ames Laboratory, was created. The institute opened in June, and the official ribbon-cutting was in
September. Its mission is to predict which materials are going to become problems next, work to improve supply chains, and try to invent
alternative materials that don’t need so many critical elements in the first place. The institute is one of a handful of organizations worldwide
trying to tackle the problem of critical elements, which organizations like the American Physical Society have been calling attention to for years.
"It’s a hot topic in Europe right now," says Olivier Vidal, coordinator of a European Commission project called ERA-MIN — one of a handful of
European initiatives that are now ramping up. "It's really urgent," says King. "We're facing real challenges today — we need solutions
tomorrow, not the day after." Despite
the high cost and high demand of metals critical for energy technologies,
very little of this metal is recycled: In 2009, it was estimated that less than one percent of rare earth metals was recovered.
Ruediger Kuehr, head of the Solving the E-waste Problem (StEP) initiative in Bonn, says that 49 million tons of e-waste are produced each year,
from cell phones to refrigerators. Of that, perhaps 10 percent is recycled. It’s ridiculous to simply throw so much valuable material away, says
Diran Apelian, founding director of the Metal Processing Institute in Worcester, A Belgian company now recycles 350,000 tons of e-waste a
year, including photovoltaic cells. Massachusetts. "There’s something like 32 tons of gold in all the world's cell phones," says Apelian. "There's a
huge goldmine in our urban landfills."
Switching to renewables will be costly and make the US more dependent on coal in
the short-term – we need natural gas as a bridge – Germany proves
The Economist 14 (“Sunny, windy, costly and dirty”, http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21594336-germanys-new-superminister-energy-and-economy-has-his-work-cut-out-sunny-windy-costly)
More a marketing slogan than a coherent policy, the Energiewende is mainly a set of timetables for different goals.
Germany’s last nuclear plant is to be switched off in 2022. The share of renewable energy from sun, wind and biomass is meant to rise to 80%
of electricity production, and 60% of overall energy use, by 2050. And emissions of greenhouse gases are supposed to fall, relative to those in
1990, by 70% in 2040 and 80-95% by 2050. German consumers
and voters like these targets. But they increasingly dislike their
side-effects. First, there is the rising cost of electricity . This is a consequence of a renewable-energy law
passed in 2000 which guarantees not only 20 years of fixed high prices for solar and wind producers but
also preferred access to the electricity grid. As a result, Bavarian roofs now gleam with solar panels and windmills dominate
entire landscapes. Last year, the share of renewables in electricity production hit a record 23.4%. This subsidy is costly. The
difference between the market price for electricity and the higher fixed price for renewables is passed on
to consumers, whose bills have been rising for years. An average household now pays an extra €260 ($355) a year
to subsidise renewables: the total cost of renewable subsidies in 2013 was €16 billion. Costs are also going up for companies, making
them less competitive than rivals from America, where energy prices are falling thanks to the fracking boom. To forestall job losses, Germany
therefore exempts companies who depend on electricity and compete globally from paying the subsidy. But the European Union’s competition
commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, has been investigating whether the entire package of subsidies and exemptions violates European law. Only
concerted German lobbying in Brussels just before Christmas has held him back from seeking repayments for now. So Mr Gabriel
is in a
bind. New estimates by McKinsey, a consultancy, suggest that there is almost nothing he can do to reduce the
costs of the subsidy. Germany’s constitution forbids retroactively reneging on promises already made. Cutting subsidies for,
say, new windmills by 15% in the next two years would reduce an average household’s annual
electricity bill by only a cent. Even if Mr Gabriel decided to stop supporting renewable energy completely (which is unimaginable),
the surcharge on consumers’ monthly bills would hardly decrease. And if he hypothetically scrapped all industrial exemptions (also
unimaginable), the average bill would still fall only a little. Cost
is not the only problem with the Energiewende. It has in effect
turned the entire German energy industry into a quasi-planned economy with perverse outcomes. At
certain times on some days, sun and wind power may provide almost all German electricity . But the
sun does not always shine, especially in winter, and the wind is unpredictable . And “batteries”—storage
technologies that, for example, convert power to gas and back again to electricity—on a scale sufficient to supply a city are years away.
Nuclear-power plants are being phased out (this week’s court decision that the closure of a plant in Hesse was illegal will raise
costs even more, as it may entitle the operator to more compensation). So conventional power plants have to stay online
in order to assure continuous supply. The Energiewende has, in effect, upset the economics of building
new conventional power plants, especially those fired by gas, which is cleaner but more expensive
than coal. So existing coal plants are doing more duty . Last year electricity production from brown coal (lignite), the least
efficient and dirtiest sort, reached its highest level since 1990. Gas-fired power production, by contrast, has been declining (see chart). In
effect, the Energiewende has so far increased, not decreased, emissions of greenhouse gases. This puts
the SPD and Mr Gabriel in a particularly awkward spot. Germany is the world’s largest miner of brown coal, and mining belts such as the one in
North-Rhine Westphalia are traditional strongholds for the party. Mr Gabriel cannot therefore be seen to be “anti-coal”. But that is exactly
what the ecologically minded Greens in the opposition are. They want Mr Gabriel to lean on Brussels to reform the EU’s emissions-trading
regime, making certificates for carbon-dioxide emissions more expensive and thus coal-fired plants less attractive than gas-powered ones.
Ideological allies before last September’s election, the Greens and the Social Democrats could now become increasingly shrill opponents. As Mr
Gabriel plans his rescue, he enjoys just one advantage over his predecessors: as super minister, he has all the relevant bureaucracies under his
control. The accompanying disadvantage is that, come the next election, voters will know exactly whom to blame if the Energiewende is still a
failure. If that happens, Mr Gabriel may find that he can pick up his daughter from school a lot more often.
Solar will never work---Rare earth metal shortages
Fridley- Energy Analysis Program, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory-10
http://www.postcarbon.org/report/127153-energy-nine-challenges-of-alternative-energy
Unlike what is generally assumed, the input to an alternative energy process is not money per se : It is
resources and energy, and the type and volume of the resources and energy needed may in turn limit
the scalability and affect the cost and feasibility of an alternative. This is particularly notable in
processes that rely on advanced technologies manufactured with rare-earth elements . Fuel cells, for
example, require platinum, palladium, and rare-earth elements. Solar-photovoltaic technology requires
gallium, and in some forms, indium. Advanced batteries rely on lithium. Even technology designed to
save energy, such as light-emitting diode (LED) or organic LED (OLED) lighting, requires rare earthsindium, and
gallium. Expressing the costs of alternative energy only in monetary terms obscures potential limits
arising from the requirements for resources and energy inputs. Because alternative energy today
constitutes only a small fraction of total energy production, the volume of resources and energy
demanded for its production has so far been easily accommodated. This will not necessarily be the
case with large-scale expansion . For example, thin-film solar has been promoted as a much lowercost, more flexible, and more widely applicable solar-conversion technology compared to traditional silicon panels. Thinfilm solar currently uses indium because of its versatile properties, but indium is also widely used as a
component of flat-screen monitors. Reserves of indium are limited, and a 2007 study found that at
current rates of consumption, known reserves of indium would last just thirteen years . 7 Can greatly
increased demand for these resources be accommodated? As shown in table 18.1, successful deployment to 2030 of a range
of new energy technologies (and some non-energy advanced technologies) would substantially raise demand for a
range of metals beyond the level of world production today . In the case of gallium, demand from
emerging technologies would be expected to reach six times today’s total global production by 2030;
for indium, more than three times today’s production—compared to just fractional increases in the demand for
ruthenium and selenium. Although alternative metals and materials exist for certain technologies (albeit
often with performance tradeoffs), embarking on a particular technology deployment path without
consideration of long-term availability of material inputs can substantially raise risks. These risks are
not limited to physical availability and price; they include potential supply disruptions as a
consequence of the uneven geographical distribution of production and reserves. Currently, China is
the dominant world source (over 95 percent) of the rare-earth element neodymium, a key input in the production of permanent
magnets used in hybrid-vehicle motors and windmill turbines. In 2009, the Chinese government announced restrictions
on the export of rare earths, ostensibly to encourage investment within China of industries using the
metals. Whether for the rare earths themselves or for final products made from them, import
dependency in the face of such a high concentration of production would do little to alleviate
energy security concerns now seen in terms of import dependency on the Middle East for oil.
Alternative energy production is reliant not only on a range of resource inputs, but also on fossil fuels
for the mining of raw materials, transport, manufacturing, construction, maintenance, and
decommissioning. Currently, no alternative energy exists without fossil-fuel inputs, and no alternative
energy process can reproduce itself—that is, manufacture the equipment needed for its own
production—without the use of fossil fuels. In this regard, alternative energy serves as a supplement to the fossil-fuel base,
and its input requirements may constrain its development in cases of either material or energy scarcity.
Chemical Industry Add-On
LNG production key to the chemical industry – boosts chemical byproducts
Ragheb, Associate Professor @ NPRE Illinois, 14 (Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering,
Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering/Computer Sciences from Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, 1978, “Natural Gas as a Bridge Fuel to Renewables”,
http://mragheb.com/NPRE%20498ES%20Energy%20Storage%20Systems/Natural%20Gas%20as%20a%20Bridge%20Fuel%20toward%20Renewa
bles.pdf)
The real advantage for the USA may not come in exporting LNG, but rather in the chemical
byproducts from it such as fertilizers and feed-stocks for the chemical industries . Europe is
complaining that cheap USA natural gas is encouraging a flight of its energy intensive businesses to
the USA. Europe's chemical producers buying expensive Russian gas cannot compete with their USA
competitors who are guaranteed access to cheap feed-stock s. The development of their native considerable shale oil and gas fields faces
public resistance.
Increased natural gas supply = chemical industry coming back
Freed et al 2012 (Josh Freed is Vice President of the Third Way Clean Energy Program, Robert Walther is Deputy Director of the Third
Way Clean Energy Program, Jeremy Twitchell is a former intern for the Third Way Clean Energy Program, “Keeping it affordable, stable, and
accessible,” October/November 2012?, http://content.thirdway.org/publications/614/Third_Way_Report__American_Shale_Gas_Keeping_it_Affordable_Stable_and_Accessible.pdf)
Recent developments suggest the era of price volatility may be giving way to a period of price stability
for natural gas. Analysts at Goldman Sachs and Jepsen are returning scenarios that show natural gas supply
and demand balancing in the U.S., easing the price to the $4–$6 range for a prolonged period.44 The
Energy Information Administration (EIA) went so far as to suggest prices could remain between $4 and $6 for at least another decade.45 And
the manufacturing sector that was so badly burned by natural gas volatility that it sent jobs and
capacity overseas is now coming back. Companies like Dow and DuPont, which rely on natural gas as a
feedstock for chemical production and are extremely price sensitive, are moving facilities back to the
U.S. or building new facilities to take advantage of persistent, low natural gas prices. As Dow CEO Andrew
Liveris explained, “For the first time in over a decade, U.S. natural gas prices are affordable and relatively stable.”46
The chemical industry solves extinction
Baum 1999 (Rudy, C&EN Washington, MILLENNIUM SPECIAL REPORT, Volume 77, Number 49 CENEAR 77 49 pp.46-47,
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/hotarticles/cenear/991206/7749spintro2.html)
Here is the fundamental challenge we face: The
world's growing and aging population must be fed and clothed and
housed and transported in ways that do not perpetuate the environmental devastation wrought by the first
waves of industrialization of the 19th and 20th centuries. As we increase our output of goods and services, as we increase our consumption of
energy, as we meet the imperative of raising the standard of living for the poorest among us, we must learn to carry out our economic activities
sustainably. There are optimists out there, C&EN readers among them, who believe that the history of civilization is a long string of
technological triumphs of humans over the limits of nature. In this view, the idea of a "carrying capacity" for Earth—a limit to the number of
humans Earth's resources can support—is a fiction because technological advances will continuously obviate previously perceived limits. This
view has historical merit. Dire predictions made in the 1960s about the exhaustion of resources ranging from petroleum to chromium to fresh
water by the end of the 1980s or 1990s have proven utterly wrong. While I do not count myself as one of the technological pessimists who see
technology as a mixed blessing at best and an unmitigated evil at worst, I do not count myself among the technological optimists either. There
are environmental challenges of transcendent complexity that I fear may overcome us and our Earth before technological progress can come to
our rescue. Global climate change, the accelerating destruction of terrestrial and oceanic habitats, the catastrophic loss of species across the
plant and animal kingdoms—these are problems that are not obviously amenable to straightforward technological solutions. But I know this,
too: Science and technology have brought us to where we are, and only science and technology, coupled with innovative social and economic
thinking, can take us to where we need to be in the coming millennium. Chemists, chemistry, and the
chemical industry—what we at
C&EN call the chemical enterprise—will play central roles in addressing these challenges. The first section of this Special
Report is a series called "Millennial Musings" in which a wide variety of representatives from the chemical enterprise share their thoughts
about the future of our science and industry. The five essays that follow explore the contributions the chemical enterprise is making right now
to ensure that we will successfully meet the challenges of the 21st century. The essays do not attempt to predict the future. Taken as a whole,
they do not pretend to be a comprehensive examination of the efforts of our science and our industry to tackle the challenges I've outlined
above. Rather, they paint, in broad brush strokes, a portrait of scientists, engineers, and business managers struggling to make a vital
contribution to humanity's future. The first essay, by Senior Editor Marc S. Reisch, is a case study of the chemical industry's ongoing
transformation to sustainable production. Although it is not well known to the general public, the
chemical industry is at the
forefront of corporate efforts to reduce waste from production streams to zero. Industry giants DuPont and
Dow Chemical are taking major strides worldwide to manufacture chemicals while minimizing the environmental "footprint" of their facilities.
This is an ethic that starts at the top of corporate structure. Indeed, Reisch quotes Dow President and Chief Executive Officer William S.
Stavropolous: "We must integrate elements that historically have been seen as at odds with one another: the triple bottom line of
sustainability—economic and social and environmental needs." DuPont Chairman and CEO Charles (Chad) O. Holliday envisions a future in
which "biological processes use renewable resources as feedstocks, use solar energy to drive growth, absorb carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere, use low-temperature and low-pressure processes, and produce waste that is less toxic." But sustainability is more than just a
philosophy at these two chemical companies. Reisch describes ongoing Dow and DuPont initiatives that are making sustainability a reality at
Dow facilities in Michigan and Germany and at DuPont's massive plant site near Richmond, Va. Another manifestation of the chemical
industry's evolution is its embrace of life sciences. Genetic engineering is a revolutionary technology. In the 1970s, research advances
fundamentally shifted our perception of DNA. While it had always been clear that deoxyribonucleic acid was a chemical, it was not a chemical
that could be manipulated like other chemicals—clipped precisely, altered, stitched back together again into a functioning molecule.
Recombinant DNA techniques began the transformation of DNA into just such a chemical, and the reverberations of that change are likely to be
felt well into the next century. Genetic
engineering has entered the fabric of modern science and technology. It is one of the
basic tools chemists and biologists use to understand life at the molecular level. It provides new avenues
to pharmaceuticals and new approaches to treat disease. It expands enormously agronomists' ability
to introduce traits into crops, a capability seized on by numerous chemical companies. There is no doubt that this
powerful new tool will play a major role in feeding the world's population in the coming century, but its
adoption has hit some bumps in the road. In the second essay, Editor-at-Large Michael Heylin examines how the promise of agricultural
biotechnology has gotten tangled up in real public fear of genetic manipulation and corporate control over food. The third essay, by Senior
Editor Mairin B. Brennan, looks at chemists embarking on what is perhaps the greatest intellectual quest in the history of science—humans'
attempt to understand the detailed chemistry of the human brain, and with it, human consciousness. While this quest is, at one level, basic
research at its most pure, it also has enormous practical significance. Brennan focuses on one such practical aspect: the effort to understand
neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease that predominantly plague older humans and are likely to become
increasingly difficult public health problems among an aging population. Science and
technology are always two-edged
swords. They bestow the power to create and the power to destroy. In addition to its enormous potential for health and agriculture,
genetic engineering conceivably could be used to create horrific biological warfare agents . In the fourth
essay of this Millennium Special Report, Senior Correspondent Lois R. Ember examines the challenge of developing methods to counter the
threat of such biological weapons. "Science and
technology will eventually produce sensors able to detect the
presence or release of biological agents, or devices that aid in forecasting, remediating, and
ameliorating bioattacks," Ember writes. Finally, Contributing Editor Wil Lepkowski discusses the most mundane, the most marvelous,
and the most essential molecule on Earth, H2O. Providing clean water to Earth's population is already difficult—and tragically, not always
accomplished. Lepkowski looks in depth at the situation in Bangladesh—where a well-meaning UN program to deliver clean water from wells
has poisoned millions with arsenic. Chemists are working to develop better ways to detect arsenic in drinking water at meaningful
concentrations and ways to remove it that will work in a poor, developing country. And he explores the evolving water management
philosophy, and the science that underpins it, that will be needed to provide adequate water for all its vital uses. In the past two centuries, our
science has transformed the world. Chemistry is a wondrous tool that has allowed us to understand the structure of matter and gives us the
ability to manipulate that structure to suit our own purposes. It allows us to dissect the molecules of life to see what makes them, and us, tick.
It is providing a glimpse into workings of what may be the most complex structure in the universe, the human brain, and with it hints about
what constitutes consciousness. In
the coming decades, we will use chemistry to delve ever deeper into these
mysteries and provide for humanity's basic and not-so-basic needs.
Link to Politics
No support for wind energy in congress
Ciaramella 14 (CJ, Free Beacon, “Future Uncertain for Wind Industry Tax Credits”, http://freebeacon.com/issues/future-uncertain-forwind-industry-tax-credits/)
Expired federal tax credits for the wind industry are in front of Congress again, but the political future
for the long-standing subsidies is anything but safe , according to a new report. Experts at Capital Alpha Partners, one of a burgeoning
group of research firms that provides political intelligence for investors, wrote last week that the appetite on Capitol Hill for
continuing the wind energy production tax credit (PTC) is declining. In a report obtained by the Washington Free
Beacon, Capital Alpha writes that a combination of flagging political will and changing market
environments could signal the decline, and possibly the end, of the two-decades-old tax credit for the
wind industry. “There comes a time when subsidies which are popular to start with become less popular as conditions change,” the report
says. “The wind PTC may be reaching that point—not just because some in Congress are losing patience with the socalled tax extenders , but also because fundamental market conditions are putting the traditional utility model under stress.” Congress
first enacted the wind energy PTC in 1992, and has renewed it seven times since, but the tax credit has faced increasing resistance from fiscal
hawks and competing energy interests, who say the wind industry is mature enough to take off the federal training wheels. The wind PTC
expired for one day in 2013 before Congress revived it in a one-year extension. It expired again this year, but on April 3, the Senate Finance
Committee passed an extenders package for 55 tax credits, including a two-year extension for the wind PTC. Capital Alpha said its analysis
showed only six to eight of those are core provisions of the tax code. “Others might count a little differently,” the firm writes. “But there is wide
agreement that the majority
of extenders are special interest handouts, the pet political projects of a few
influential members of Congress, or simply too trivial to have any impact on problems they supposedly address,” the report says.
While the majority of tax credits are non-essential, investors have traditionally—and correctly—placed faith in Congress to continue
accommodating rent-seekers. “Our investor clients have become used to the idea that all extenders are extended eventually, and that enacting
the extension is purely a matter of routine, in which gridlock on unrelated topics is the only source of uncertainty and delay,” the report says.
However, Capital Alpha warns that wind energy subsidies are on the same political trajectory as ethanol mandates, which stalled in 2013 after
years of steady increases. Senate Finance chairman Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) signaled his feelings by naming the extenders package bill the Expiring
Provisions Improvement Reform and Efficiency (EXPIRE) Act. The bill’s future on the Senate floor in uncertain, but if it passes, it will face even
stiffer opposition in the House. “Our sense from monitoring lobbying activity is that overall, active support
from the utility
industry has declined as utilities that might be interested in wind generation have either met their
state mandates or have come close enough that their state utility commissions will not allow them to
build more,” the report says. “Meanwhile, the active opposition has found a ready audience among Tea
Party-influenced Republicans in the House of Representatives.”
Supporters of the tax credit argue it fosters job-
creation and renewable energy production. According to a report by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the wind industry shrank
by 30,000 jobs in 2013 because of uncertainty over the tax credit. “Congress must act quickly to retroactively extend the PTC. Failure to do so
will kill jobs and roll back progress that the nation has made to diversify its electricity portfolio,” AWEA said on its website. “Extending the PTC
will foster economic security and energy diversity.”
AT: NEPA CP
Perm – Do the CP
Perm do the counterplan – plan isn’t immediate because every USFG action requires
limited delay
Mack and Endemann 09 Latham & Watkins, international law firm (Joel Mack, Buck B. Endemann, October 2, 2009, “Making
carbon dioxide sequestration feasible: Toward federal regulation of CO2 sequestration pipelines,”
http://lw.com/upload/pubContent/_pdf/pub3385_1.pdf)//DR. H
Under federal law, any
‘‘major federal action’’ requires compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act
(‘‘NEPA’’).53 Under NEPA, before any federal agency can approve a project, it must first conduct an
environmental assessment and, if necessary, prepare an environmental impact statement (‘‘EIS’’) to
determine what the significant effects would be from the project and assess potential mitigation
measures.54 This analysis would be documented in the federal agency’s official record of decision, and would then be subject to review
in federal court. Although many states have a state version of NEPA (US Department of Energy, 2009),55 many other states do not—
including many states in the Midwest and Gulf Coast, which would be charged with siting and regulating new CO2 pipelines.56 Potentially, a
pipeline could be routed through states that, if all lacked any form of state NEPA, would result in such a facility being constructed without a
comprehensive assessment of its environmental impact. Even
though these facilities would be helping to reduce our
carbon footprint, the pipelines themselves have the potential for environmental impacts that
warrant study and consideration in the permitting process.
It’s normal means for the leasing process for drilling areas
Vann 13 (Adam, legislative attorney, prepared for the congressional research service, “Offshore Oil and Gas Development: Legal
Framework”, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/211805.pdf)
Leasing The lease sale process involves multiple steps as well. Leasing decisions are impacted by a
variety of federal laws; however, it is section 8 of the OCSLA and its implementing regulations that establish the mechanics of the
leasing process.46 The process begins when the Director of BOEM publishes a call for information and nominations
regarding potential lease areas. The Director is authorized to receive and consider these various expressions
of interest in lease areas and comments on which areas should receive special concern and analysis.47 The Director is then
to consider all available information and perform environmental analysis under NEPA in crafting both
a list of areas recommended for leasing and any proposed lease stipulations.48 This list is submitted to the
Secretary of the Interior and, upon the Secretary’s approval, published in the Federal Register and submitted to the governors of potentially
affected states.
Can’t Solve – Circumvention
Can’t access the internal net benefit – one-shot assessments won’t fix the
environmental problems
Farber, Professor of Law and Chair of the Energy and Resources Group, University of
Cal-Berkeley, 9 (Daniel A., “ADAPTATION PLANNING AND CLIMATE IMPACT ASSESSMENTS: LEARNING FROM NEPA’S FLAWS”,
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1341902)
NEPA provides few learning mechanisms. Once an EIS is issued, the agency has no duty to follow up
and confirm whether the statement’s predictions were valid. The relatively sparse studies that are available are not
reassuring on this score. The one‐shot nature of environmental assessment has been a frequent source of
criticism .42 As a result, the assessment process ignores “unanticipated changes in environmental
conditions, inaccurate predictions, or subsequent information that might affect the original environmental
protections.”43 Follow‐up is particularly important in connection with adaptive management: Adaptive management emphasizes formal
experimentation with replicates, controls, and extensive monitoring. . . . Adaptive management is a knowledge driven system, and
environmental impact statements can be a central supplier of the relevant data. . . . Because environmental impact statements continually
revisit the environmental health of particular regions, environmental assessments build up the knowledge base as they accumulate over
time.44 Although the viability of adaptive management as an environmental tool is debated, there can be no doubt on one point: Without
monitoring of outcomes, successful adaptive management is not even a possibility
Means the counterplan gets circumvented – no enforcement process for NEPA’s
recommendations
Farber, Professor of Law and Chair of the Energy and Resources Group, University of
Cal-Berkeley, 9 (Daniel A., “ADAPTATION PLANNING AND CLIMATE IMPACT ASSESSMENTS: LEARNING FROM NEPA’S FLAWS”,
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1341902)
The absence of follow‐up under NEPA is a serious problem in part because promised mitigation plans are
not always implemented .53 Most agencies seem to have no formal procedures for ensuring that
mitigation measures are actually put in place, although the U.S. Army has recently taken the lead by imposing such a
requirement.54 Thus, the environmental impacts may be much more serious than predicted in an environmental
assessment simply because mitigation commitments are not honored. As others have observed, active learning is a key
to adaptation. In this setting, “[k]nowledge is dynamic; it accumulates through observation, monitoring, and analysis.”55 One solution to this
problem is to impose formal monitoring requirements on agencies.56 While this possible solution has appeal, it may be too expensive to
institute across‐the‐board; after all, “[m]onitoring is not free.”57 An emerging model of assessment is tied with adaptive management, which
involves a cycle of planning, implementation, and reappraisal.58 Of course, this process
can only be effective if the
proposals, predictions, and appraisals are all available for study. (As the next section discusses, availability is a real
deficiency in NEPA implementation.) In any event, we do need to institutionalize follow‐up mechanisms to check on the effectiveness of climate
adaptation policies.
Can’t Solve – Delay
Counterplan results in massive delays
USDI, USDA, DOE 2008 [“Inventory of Onshore Federal Oil and Natural Gas Resources and Restrictions to Their Development”,
http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medialib/blm/wo/MINERALS__REALTY__AND_RESOURCE_PROTECTION_/energy/0.Par.68195.File.dat/EPCA2
008lo_1.pdf //wyo-tjc]
The NEPA process can impact oil and gas development in terms of cost and time delays. Typically an EIS or EA is
drafted in consultation with the cooperating agencies, presented for public comment, and reviewed by multiple agencies. A simple EIS
can take 24 to 36 months to complete, while those with more complex issues may require three to six years to complete. The
land use planning process as a whole takes in excess of 36 months, particularly if there is oil and gas involved. The
NEPA documents analyze alternatives to the proposed action and must include a “no action” alternative.
Impacts are classified as direct, indirect, and cumulative, and include the evaluation of economic impacts to counties and states to be
considered, as well as impacts on resources. When
considering oil and gas leasing, the BLM has identified the need
to obtain additional data on such issues as air quality and clean water as a part of the cumulative impact analysis required by the
NEPA and land use planning processes. This has been cited as an overarching issue that affects oil and gas lease
parcel nominations. This lack of data can result in leasing delays when existing documents are deemed
inadequate. The net result is that potential applicants are often aware of the problem and make decisions not
to develop in areas that will be or could be held up by the NEPA process . With respect to the NEPA process itself,
concern was expressed by some government officials that individual documents provide “piecemeal” information and that better
environmental decisions could be made based on larger scale studies that look at the “bigger picture.” For example, wildlife habitat
fragmentation is better characterized when it is examined in the context of larger rather than smaller areas.
Delays can increase
costs for oil and gas operations because , rather than waiting for the Federal agency to complete the work, operators
frequently pay a third-party contractor
to perform the necessary work. Section 366 of Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005)
sets a deadline for the consideration of applications for permits. The permit must be issued within 30 days (if NEPA and other legal
requirements have been met), or defer the decision and provide a notice to the applicant.
The counterplan results in up to eight years of delays – we can’t afford to wait
Haubert 14 (Jon, Manager of Communications, Western Energy Alliance, “Government Delays Preventing Jobs and Economic Growth”,
http://www.westernenergyalliance.org/printpdf/481)
Before BLM approves any exploration or production activity on leased federal acreage, it must
conduct environmental analysis under the NEPA. Despite the fact that companies routinely pay for contractors to complete
the technical analysis for BLM, DOI continues to delay NEPA documents. These often take years to complete, with more
than eight years for large projects not uncommon . These unnecessary delays are costing the West
significant economic activity and large numbers of jobs. A 2012 study by SWCA Environmental Consultants found
that the total annual impact of just twenty projects in Wyoming and Utah is 120,905 jobs with $8 billion in
wages, $27.5 billion in economic activity, and $139 million in government revenue. The total economic impact of these
projects over their lifespan of ten to fifteen years is $383.5 billion. As of January 1, 2014, federal government delays to these projects of more
than three years are preventing the development of 2,055 wells and the creation of 78,987 jobs, $5 billion in wages, and $17.8 billion in
economic impact every year. White
House Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) guidelines indicate that
Environmental Assessments (EAs) for small- to medium-sized projects should take 18 months or less, and
Environmental ImpactStatements (EISs) for large projects should take two to three years. However, these guidelines are routinely
ignored . Most large project NEPA in the West has been delayed between three and eight years, and even
small project EAs can take four years. BLM has only approved three large oil and natural gas projects in the West in the first five
years of the Obama Administration.
Energy projects prove – NEPA is redundant to increase delays and kill the project
Weber 7 [Lucas, no qualifications available, published on WindPower.net- the North American Offshore Wind Power Information Project,
“Offshore Wind Energy Permitting”, May 10, p. online//wyo-tjc]
The Cape
Wind Project provides the perfect illustration of this misuse of the NEPA environmental review
process. This project has already undergone more than four years of rigorous environmental review,
beginning with the Army Corps of Engineers in 2001. Nearly three years after submitting an application to
the Corps, a Draft EIS was finally issued in 2004.130 Despite the fact that the Corps’ Draft EIS was 4,000
pages, the MMS did not find it to be comprehensive enough and, as the newly appointed lead agency,
demanded another Draft EIS be completed under its supervision.131 The Final EIS is not expected to be issued until Fall of 2007
and the Record of Decision is not expected until Winter of 2007.132 In all, the Cape Wind Project will have undergone more than six years of
environmental review. This
unreasonable delay runs contrary to the intended use of the NEPA environmental
review process. According to the regulations, an EIS “shall normally be less than 150 pages and for proposals of unusual scope or complexity
shall normally be less than 300 pages.”133 Accordingly, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), the agency charged with overseeing
NEPA’s implementation, has “advised that under the new NEPA regulations even large complex energy projects would require only about 12
months for the completion of the entire EIS process.”134 The
Cape Wind Project’s 4,000-page Draft EIS and its six
years of environmental review would seem to be evidence that the process has gotten out of control.
Thus, the NEPA process has been converted into a tool for blocking the development of offshore wind
energy. The MMS needs to rein in this environmental review process and honor the intention of NEPA.
Based on the decision-making process that NEPA mandates, the choice of whether to permit the proposed projects should be easy for the
agency to make.135
Can’t Solve – Certainty
Certainty is key- only the plan solves
Loris 2012 (Nicolas Loris, Fellow in the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, August 6, 2012, “Senate
Energy Bill: Good Start, Room for Improvement,” Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/08/domestic-energyand-jobs-act-good-start-room-for-improvement)
Senator John Hoeven (R–ND) recently
introduced the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act (DEJA), which would greatly
burdensome regulations that prevent projects from coming online in a
timely manner. While the legislation could be improved by further increasing access and removing the
top-down energy planning, DEJA would still spur economic growth and drive energy production. Increasing Access to Energy DEJA
expand access to energy and simplify
would accept the State Department’s environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline as sufficient and allow the state of Nebraska to reroute
the pipeline to meet the state’s environmental concerns. The State Department studied and addressed risks to soil, wetlands, water resources,
vegetation, fish, wildlife, and endangered species and concluded that construction of the pipeline would pose minimal environmental risk.[1]
The construction of Keystone XL would allow up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day to come from Canada to the Gulf Coast and create thousands
of jobs. DEJA also directs the Department of the Interior (DOI) to conduct a lease sale off the coast of Virginia. The 2.9 million acres 50 miles off
the coast has an estimated 130 million barrels of oil and 1.14 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Opening access off Virginia’s coast is long
overdue, and the
legislation only opens up a small portion of America’s territorial waters that are off
limits. The Offshore Petroleum Expansion Now (OPEN) Act of 2012, also co-sponsored by Senator Hoeven, would replace President Obama’s
2012–2017 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program with a much more robust plan that opens areas in the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans, in the Gulf of Mexico, and off Alaska.[2] Both DEJA and OPEN increase the royalties that states would receive from energy production,
but both could go further to increase state involvement in offshore drilling decisions. Since onshore states already receive 50 percent of the
royalties, Congress should also implement a 50/50 royalty-sharing program between federal and state governments involved in offshore
drilling. Efficient Permitting and Leasing for All Energy Projects Another important component of DEJA is that it streamlines
the
permitting of all energy projects. Receiving a permit for any energy project, not just fossil fuels, takes
entirely too long. Duplicative and unnecessary regulations slow the process and drive up costs.
Furthermore, environmental activists delay new energy projects by filing endless administrative appeals and lawsuits. DEJA would
create a manageable time frame for permitting for all energy sources to increase supply at lower costs and stimulate
economic activity. DEJA also calls for an end to the lengthy permit process in the Natural Petroleum Reserve area of
Alaska. It would require the DOI to approve drilling permits within 60 days and infrastructure permits within six months. Lease
certainty is another critical issue . The act states that the DOI cannot cancel or withdraw a lease sale after
the winning company pays for the lease. Ensuring that the federal government does not pull the rug
out from under a company that wins the lease sale would provide the certainty necessary to pursue
energy projects. Freeze and Study Environmental Regulations DEJA would also create transparency and accountability for Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) regulations by establishing an interagency committee that would report on the full economic impact of the rules
implemented by the EPA that affect fuel prices. This includes any part of the production process that would be affected by greenhouse gas
regulations. DEJA delays the implementation of Tier 3 fuel standards (designed to replace the Tier 2 regulations issued in 2000) that would
lower the amount of sulfur in gasoline but could add 6–9 cents per gallon to the cost of manufacturing gasoline. The EPA has declared no
measurable air quality benefits from these standards. DEJA delays the New Source Performance Standards for refineries, which would drive up
the cost of gasoline for no measurable change in the earth’s temperature.[3] It would also delay new national ambient air quality standards for
ozone, which are unnecessary because the ozone standard set by the EPA is already more than stringent enough to protect human health.
Though the delays contained in DEJA underscore the problems with these regulations, the preferred approach would be to prohibit the
implementation of these three standards altogether. DEJA would also prevent the DOI from issuing any rule under the Surface Mining Control
and Reclamation Act of 1977 before 2014 that would adversely affect coal employment, reduce revenue from coal production, reduce coal for
domestic consumption or export, designate areas as unsuitable for surface mining and reclamation, or expose the U.S. to liability by taking
privately owned coal through regulation. While this temporary fix recognizes the federal overreach in coal production, a better approach would
be to create a framework that restricts overregulation, empowers the states, balances economic growth and environmental well-being, and
creates a timely permitting process for all aspects of coal production.[4] Energy Central Planning Unneeded DEJA would require the federal
government to create production objectives for fossil fuels and renewable energy and allow the relevant agencies to make additional lands
available to meet those objectives. The bill would also require the U.S. Geological Survey to establish a critical minerals list and create
comprehensive policies to increase critical mineral production. A
all federal lands for energy production
much simpler and effective solution would be to open
of all sources and allow the private sector to determine what sources of energy and
what technologies meet America’s electricity and transportation fuel demand. Too often the use of critical minerals has been used as cover for
subsidies and extensive government intervention in a major industry. If there are clear military needs for certain critical materials, these should
be met by government action. Absent
that, streamlining the bureaucracy that has expanded around mining and opening access is
the only necessary federal action surrounding critical minerals.
Can’t Solve – NEPA Ignored
CP is ignored and lack of data results in knee-jerk projects – replicating errors
Cole et al., UCLA School of Public Health, 2004 (Brian, “Prospects for Health Impact Assessment in the United
States: New and Improved Environmental Impact Assessment or Something Different?” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, Vol. 29, No. 6,
December 2004. Copyright © 2004 by Duke University Press)
While NEPA and CEQ guidelines call for the assessment of environmen tal impacts of most ‘major federal
actions,” including projects. programs. and policies (40 Code of Fedemi Regulations. sec. 1508.18 119841), many informants told us that. in
practice, the EIA process is largely geared to assessing the consequences of place-based projects. The
CEQ itself has acknowledged that NEPA is virtually ignored in formulating specific policies and often is skirted
in developing programs”
(Council on Envi ronmental Quality l997a: Il). This omission is of concern since the broad, multifaceted
effects of programs and policies have greater impacts on both the environment and human health than most brick-and-mortar projects. One
reason for the reluctance to apply EIA to programs and policies may be the relative difficulty of
predicting their impacts. Even forming a clear picture of how a policy will be implemented and operationalized can be difficult (ibid.).
Predicting the impacts of a brick-and-mortar project. such as an electrical generating plant. is usually more
straightforward and involves less uncertainty, because the exact parameters of the project are known from the outset and
because data from similar projects in other locations can provide a solid basis for projections of potential impacts from the proposed project.
With few data to guide the estimation of im pacts stemming from a proposed policy, numerous
assumptions must be made, increasing the likelihoxi of error and opening the way for challenge by opponents.
Links to Politics
Links to politics
Dreher 5 - Deputy Executive Director of the Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute. He served as Deputy General Counsel of
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Robert, “The Political Assault on the National Environmental Policy Act,”
http://www.law.georgetown.edu/gelpi/research_archive/nepa/NEPAUnderSiegeFinal.pdf
NEPA is justly regarded as the foundation for U.S. environmental protections. In addition to establishing our nation’s basic commitment to
a policy of environmental protection, NEPA
creates a framework for informed and responsive government decision-making
based on extensive public input. The assault on the Act that is taking place on Capitol Hill and within some
federal agencies threatens to destroy this basic environmental framework. After 35 years, it is worthwhile to
consider how NEPA should be improved. Thoughtful improvements in agency practices and renewed commitments of federal resources
can make the Act more effective. The goal should be to improve and strengthen this bedrock environmental law, not to undermine and
weaken it
AT: Backlash Turns Aff
Counterplan locks in opposition that derails the aff – ensures it can’t solve
Conrad, National Chamber Litigation Center Executive Vice President, 06 (Robin, “Brief of the
Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America as Amicus Curiae in Support of Petitioner”,
http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/06-466Chamber.pdf
NEPA’s requirements are essentially procedural: An agency must take a “hard look” at potentially
significant en vironmental effects of its proposed actions, but the Act does not purport to control the
agency’s ultimate choices . See, e.g., Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power (‘oip. y. NRDC, 435 U.S. 519, 558 (1978). That procedural
mandate has served an important role in correcting a situation in which agencies did not take sufficient account of environmental concerns.
Over time, however, both NEPA’s procedural require ments and, in particular, litigation challenging the
adequacy of an agency’s NEPA compliance have also become “notorious for special interest abuse .” Frank
B. Cross, The Judici ary and Public Choice, 50 Hastings L. J. 355, 375 (1999). An expansive judicial view of NEPA’s
requirements, which first shapes action at the administrative level and then plays out in follow-on litigation, can introduce
significant costs and delay in obtaining agency action—costs and delay that are too often the only real ends
of those who use NEPA to impose them. One commentator describes the phenomenon as follows: Delay buys time,
which opponents can use to build popular and political opposition to the project. New information may
develop, partially through the dis- closures of the NEPA statement. Inflationary pres sures, and other costs, could economically
doom the project during the delay. NEPA thereby became an important means to the end: stopping the
project . Denis Binder, NEPA, NIMBYs and New Technology, 25 Land and Water Law Review 11, 17 (1990). See also, e.g., James Dao,
Environmental Groups to File Suit over Missile De fense, N.Y. Times, Aug. 28, 2001, at AlO (reporting plain tiff’s statement that the hope is that
[the NEPA-induced] delay will lead to cancellation.... That’s what we always hope for in these suits.”); Daniel Ackman, Highway to No where:
NEPA, Environmental Review and the Wesrwav Case, 21 Colum. L.J. & Soc. Probs. 325 (1988). In other words.
NEPA can easily
become a tool of those interested in scuttling a project for any reason .
Industry just says no—key Execs aren’t on board with new regulations
Koronowski 13, writer @ think progress(Ryan, “Critic Of Offshore Drilling Safety Regulation Helps Run
Company That Owns Failed Natural Gas Rig”, natural gas industry)
Hercules Offshore’s executive VP is Jim Noe. Noe is also executive director of the Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition, which
said on the three-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster: The continued, even perpetual, regulatory uncertainty
limits long-term business confidence. It also reflects a fundamental misconception: that any new
regulation makes things safer than they were before, even if we haven’t fully analyzed the effectiveness of
previous regulations. Spending too much time complying with new and ever changing regulations can
distract us from ensuring that industry is focusing on holistic and practical risk management.
AT: Resource Wars
Purvis only cites water wars -- empirically, water doesn’t cause war
Lawfield 10 – Thomas Lawfield is an MA candidate at the University for Peace. Water Security: War or Peace? Thomas Lawfield May 03,
2010 http://www.monitor.upeace.org/innerpg.cfm?id_article=715
In reality, water
does not cause war. The arguments presented above, although correct in principle, have little purchase in empirical
evidence. Indeed, as one author notes, there is only one case of a war where the formal declaration of war was over
water.[20] This was an incident between two Mesopotamian city states, Lagash and Umma, over 2,500 years BC, in modern day
southern Iraq. Both the initial premises and arguments of water war theorists have been brought into question. Given this, a number of areas
of contestation have emerged: "Questioning both the supply and demand side of the water war argument [...] Questioning assumptions about
the costs of water resources [...and] Demonstrating the cooperative potential of the water resource."[21] Why
then is water not a
cause of war? The answer lies in two factors: first, the capacity for adaptation to water stresses and, second,
the political drawbacks to coupling water and conflict. First, there is no water crisis, or more correctly, there are a
number of adaptation strategies that reduce stress on water resources and so make conflict less likely.
Unlike the water war discourse, which perceives water as finite in the Malthusian sense, the capacity for adaptation to water
stress has been greatly underestimated. For instance, I will discuss in particular a trading adaptation known as ‘virtual water’,
which refers to the water used to grow imported food. This water can be subtracted from the total projected
agricultural water needs of a state, and hence allows water scarce states to operate on a lower incountry water requirement than would otherwise be expected.[22] This means that regions of the world that are
particularly rich in water produce water intense agricultural products more easily in the global trade system, while other water scarce areas
produce low intensity products.[23] The
scale of this water is significant - Allan famously pointed out that more
embedded water flows into the Middle East in the form of grain than flows in the Nile.[24] In addition,
there are significant problems around the hegemonic doctrine of the water crisis. Many authors point to
relatively low water provision per capita by states, and suggest that this will increase the likelihood of a state engaging in war with a
neighbouring state, to obtain the water necessary for its population. This is normally a conceptual leap that produces the incorrect corollary of
conflict, but is also frequently a problem of data weaknesses around the per capita requirements. For instance, Stucki cites the case of the
Palestinians being under the worst water stress, with a per capita provision being in the region of 165m³/year.[25] Unfortunately, such an
analysis is based on false actual provision data in this region. Based on the authors work on water provision in Lebanese Palestinian refugee
camps, the actual provision is over 90m³/month. Such a figure is highly likely to be representative of other camps in the region.[26] If this
example is representative of trends to exaggerate water pressures in the region, then we
should be sceptical about claims of
increasing water stress. Furthermore, given that many water systems have a pipe leakage rate of fifty per
cent, combined with a seventy per cent loss of agricultural water, significant efficiency enhancements
could be made to existing infrastructure. Combined with desalination options in many water shortage
prone states, there is an overall capacity for technological and market driven solutions to water
scarcity.[27]
AT: Environmental Leadership
1AC uniqueness claim says shale is the status quo—that takes out uniqueness to the net benefit—
fracking’s worse for the environment and has more regulatory loopholes than offshore drilling
NRDC, No Date, Natural Resources Defense Council(“The rapid expansion of natural gas drilling across the nation endangers human
health and the environment.”, http://www.nrdc.org/energy/gasdrilling/)
Nearly all natural
gas extraction today involves a technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which
dangerous chemicals are mixed with large quantities of water and sand and injected into wells at
extremely high pressure. Fracking is a suspect in polluted drinking water in Arkansas, Colorado, Pennsylvania,
Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming, where residents have reported changes in water quality or quantity following fracturing
operations. NRDC
opposes expanded fracking until effective safeguards are in place. Natural gas producers
have been running roughshod over communities across the country with their extraction and production activities
for too long, resulting in contaminated water supplies, dangerous air pollution, destroyed streams, and
devastated landscapes. Weak safeguards and inadequate oversight fail to protect our communities
from harm by the rapid expansion of fossil fuel production using hydraulic fracturing or "fracking.
Counterplan can’t solve environmental leadership
Buzan, London School of Economics IR professor, 2010 (Barry, “The End of Leadership?—Constraints on the
World Role of Obama’s America”, http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/43579/1/Obama%20nation_the%20end%20of%20leadership%28lsero%29.pdf)
INTRODUCTION It is appealing to think of the Obama administration as a return to normalcy after the deviance, unilateralist arrogance and
damaging mistakes of the Bush years. In this view, we should expect a return to business as usual, with the US picking up the signature themes
of multilateralism and the market that have underpinned its world role since the end of the Second World War. Although by no means
universally loved, the US was an effective leader through the Cold War and beyond not only because it promoted liberal economic and political
values that were attractive to many others, but also because it was prepared to bind its own power in multilateral rules and institutions
sufficiently that its followers could contain their fear of its overwhelming power. Does Obama’s liberal stance mean that we should expect a
return to the leadership role that the US has exercised for more than half a century? I argue that this is unlikely to happen because there
are now three powerful constraints that will largely block a return to US leadership. The first is that
the US has lost much of its followership. The second is that the capacity of the US to lead is now much
weakened even if it still retains the will to do so. The third is that there is a general turn within international society
against hegemony and therefore against the global leadership role itself. LOST FOLLOWERSHIP If the US remains willing to lead, will
anyone follow? There are two issues here: the growing range of policy disagreements on specific issues between the US and others; and the
decline of shared values and visions between the US and its former followers. A good symbol of the weakening relationship between the US
and its followers is the replacement of talk about ‘friends and allies’ or ‘the free world’ with a much harsher and still basically unchanged, line
about ‘coalitions of the willing’. There is
some hope that under Obama differences over policy might improve in
environment, but even on that issue Obama will be lucky just to get the US
seen as not part of the problem. Domestic constraints on carbon pricing and accepting binding
international standards will make it difficult for the US to lead. Many other areas of disagreement
remain, some deep. The US has failed to make the war on terrorism into anything like the binding cause that underpinned its leadership
specific areas, particularly the
during the Cold War, and its policies continue to erode its liberal credentials. By its use of torture, and even moreso the public advocacy of such
interrogation techniques by senior Bush administration figures, and by its rejection of the Geneva Conventions on prisoners or war, it exposed
itself to ridicule and contempt as an advocate for human rights. That
China is still plausibly able to criticise the US on
human rights and environment issues is a marker of how far Washington’s reputation has fallen. US policy in the
Middle East, particularly on Israel, has few followers, and the repercussions of the disastrous interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to
rattle on. Unless China turns quite nasty, the inclination of many in the US to see China as a challenger to its unipolar position is unlikely to
attract much sympathy. The financial chaos of 2008-9 has undermined Washington’s credibility as an economic leader. Anti-Americanism,
though obviously not newbecame exceptionally strong under Bush, and is now more culturally based, and more corrosive of shared identities. It
questions whether the ‘American way of life’ is an appropriate model for the rest of the world, and whether the US economic model is either
sustainable or desirable. It looks at health; at a seeming US inclination to use force as the first choice policy instrument, with its domestic
parallel of gun culture; at the influence of religion and special interest lobbies in US domestic politics; at a US government which was openly
comfortable with the use of torture and was re-elected; and at a federal environmental policy until recently in denial about global warming;
and asks not just whether the US is a questionable model, but whether it has become a serious part of the problem. While some of this was
specific to the Bush administration, and is being turned around by Obama, some of the deeper issues are more structural. The US is much more
culturally conservative, religious, individualistic, and anti-state than most other parts of the West. America’s religion and cultural conservatism
and anti-statism set it apart from most of Europe, where disappointment with Obama is already palpable. America’s individualism and anti-
statism set it apart from Asia, where China is anyway disinclined to be a follower. This kind of anti-Americanism rests on very real differences,
and raises the possibility that the idea of ‘the West’ was just a passing epiphenomenon of the Cold War. The Bush administration asset-stripped
half-a-century of respect for, goodwill towards and trust in US leadership, and it reflected, and helped to consolidate, a shift in the centre of
gravity of US politics. The Obama administration cannot just go back to the late 1990s and pick up from where Clinton left off. LOST CAPACITY
In addition to having less common ground with its followers the US also has less capacity, both
material and ideological, to play the role of leader. The rise of China, and also India, Brazil and others, means that the US
now operates in a world in which the distribution of power is becoming more diffuse, and in which several
centres of power are not closely linked to it, and some are opposed. In this context, the Bush legacy of a crashed economy and an enormous
debt severely constrain the leadership options of the Obama administration. The
economic crisis of 2008-9 not only hamstrung
the US in terms of material capability, but also stripped away the Washington consensus as the
ideological legitimizer for US leadership. The collapse of neoliberal ideology might yet be seen as an ideational event on the
same scale as the collapse of communism in 1989. Since the late 1990s, and very sharply since 2003, the US has in many ways become the
enemy of its own 20th century project and thus of its own capacity to lead. Not surprisingly this has deepened a longstanding disjuncture
between how the US perceives itself and how the rest of the world sees it. The deeply established tendency
of the US to see itself
as an intrinsic force for good because it stands for a right set of universal values, makes it unable easily, or possibly at
all, to address the disjuncture between its self-perception and how others see it. Self-righteous unilateralism
does not acquire legitimacy abroad. To the extent that celebrations of US power as a good in itself (because the US is good) dominate
American domestic politics, this does not inspire the US to seek grounds for legitimating its position abroad . A
contributing factor here is the US tendency to demand nearly absolute security for itself. The problem for the US of transcending its own selfimage is hardly new, but it has become both more difficult and more important in managing its position in the more complex world in which the
US is neither so clearly on the right side of a great struggle, nor so dominant in material terms. It is unclear at this point whether Obama will be
able to transcend this aspect of American politics, though it is clear that the nature of American politics makes it difficult for any president to do
so. THE TURN AGAINST HEGEMONY The
third constraint stems not from any particular characteristic of the US, but from the fact of
unipolarity itself. Since decolonisation global international society has developed a growing disjuncture between a defining principle of
legitimacy based on sovereign equality, and a practice that is substantially rooted in the hegemony of great powers. The problem is the absence
of a consensual principle of hegemony with which international society might bridge this gap between its principles and its practices. A
concentration of power in one actor disrupts the ideas of balance and equilibrium which are the traditional sources
and conditions for legitimacy in international society. This problem would arise for any unipolar power, but it connects back to the
more US-specific aspects of the legitimacy deficit. Under the Bush administration, the US lost sight of what Adam Watson
calls raison de systeme (‘the belief that it pays to make the system work’), and this exacerbated the illegitimacy of hegemony in itself. Since the
US looks unlikely to abandon its attachment to its own hegemony, this problem is not going to go away. If
hegemony itself is
illegitimate, and the US now lacks both the capabilities and attractiveness to overcome this, what lies
on the near horizon is a world with no global leader. Such a world would still have several great powers influential within
and beyond their regions: the EU, Russia, China, Japan, the US, possibly India and Brazil. It would also have many substantial regional powers
such as South Africa, Turkey and Iran. Whether one sees a move towards a more polycentric, pluralist, and probably regionalised, world
political order as desirable or worrying is a matter of choice. In such a world, global hegemony by any one power or culture will be
unacceptable. Obama may hasten or delay the US exit from leadership. But the waning of the Western tide, and the re-emergence of a more
multi-centred (in terms of power and wealth) and more multicultural (albeit with substantial elements of Westernization) world, mean that
hegemonic global leadership whether by a single power or the West collectively is no longer going to be acceptable. The question is whether
such a new world order can find the foundations for collective great power management, and whether the US can learn to live in a more
pluralist international society where it is no longer the sole superpower but merely the first among equals. Pg. 4-6
AT: CCP Collapse
No instability-CCP is seen as legitimate and no one wants regime change-all their
evidence is Western misperception
Lundquist, Tsinghua University western philosophy lecturer, 2012 (David, ‘Why China Won't
Collapse”, 6-22, http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/china-isnt-headed-collapse-7046?page=1)
China is said to be headed for collapse for several reasons, any and all of which might combine to overwhelm its
increasingly expensive repressive apparatus. Within this supposed house of horrors is corruption, exorbitant housing prices, costly education,
an antsy middle class and college graduates with dreams deferred—not to mention frustration stemming from China’s shortage of females,
dubbed China’s “bachelor bomb.” But
those reasons take a narrow view of political change, assuming
dissatisfaction will morph into regime change. For a more nuanced perspective, economic analysis has
to give way to political analysis. One well-articulated China-collapse theory comes from Gordon Chang, who says that the country
is enjoying the tail end of a “three-decade upward supercycle” spurred by Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, globalization and demography. Chang’s
analysis might be entirely on point, but it doesn’t suggest a dramatic collapse. For
one thing, although China is slowing, a
hard landing is looking less likely. But Chang has more than economic arguments. And that’s where his case weakens severely; he
foresees economic weakness aggravating deep-seated tensions in Chinese leadership and society, tensions
which in turn will bring conflict among decision makers and general discontent among the masses. It’s a plausible picture, but the evidence
behind it is lacking. We must ask: How exactly could an economic crisis destabilize China? That is, how do graphs and pie charts become chaos
in the streets? Charting Revolutions The textbook example of a similar change might be Iran’s 1979 revolution, widely thought be propelled by
a dramatic fall in global oil prices. But the
Chinese economy is no oil-addicted dictatorship, and China has no
Ayatollah Khomeini antagonizing it through sermons on scratchy cassette tapes. Contrary to the banal
collapse theories, there are reasons to believe that a slowing Chinese economy will bring a chill of
calm to the simmering cauldron of society. China is a modern, complex polity with an adept, agile government. In
his landmark work Political Order in Changing Societies, Samuel Huntington argued that violence is a mark of modernizing societies. To
Huntington, modernity meant three things: the government gains recognition as the legitimate wielder of force; the division of labor is divided
between military, administrators, scientists and the judiciary; there is mass political participation, by which Huntington meant all forms of
participation, be it democratic or totalitarian (as in the Cultural Revolution). By Huntington’s standards, the PRC is a quite modern polity, one he
would deem “civic” because its institutions are developed beyond its level of political activity. In short, the system can withstand economic
pressure. Indeed,
Beijing is well-prepared to confront, divert or grant concessions to popular discontent.
With firm institutions established, a state is less susceptible to economic vagaries, something Chang’s
argument doesn’t consider. By proactively heading off economic distress, the PRC might even stand to gain
trust and legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens. After all, as Western governments rushed to ease the liquidity crunch of 2008–
2009, baffled and nervous citizens said nary a word of protest as unelected bureaucrats worked their money-printing and bailout magic. Only
after the crisis, years later, did diverse Occupy Wall Street movements include this as a minor detail in their failed campaign against capitalist
excesses. A
faltering economy does not necessarily cause disorder, even when effective institutions are
absent. A recent New York Times editorial opposing Western sanctions on Iran broaches this notion,
arguing that the Iranian people might stand up to oppression once well-fed and prospering. The same
very well could be true for China. Reform in China There are hundreds of thousands of conflicts between
the Chinese people and the state every year. But putting aside egregious land-grab cases like the one in the southern Chinese
village of Wukan last year, they rarely rise to the level of violence—much less regime-change—as many such events
are simply labor disputes. The participants have little notion of a future democratic China, unlike some of
their middle-class counterparts, who in contrast have few material incentives to protest but much to
lose. “Chinese people generally do not have revolutionary intentions,” Gordon Chang recognizes. But reform is another story. No Chinese
citizen goes unaffected by the government’s heavy-handedness—the paternalistic, technocratic, socialist or vulgarly utilitarian blemishes in its
laws and administration. That means there’s a lot to fix. Unfortunately,
important domestic-reform initiatives often
receive comparatively little attention from Western media, fostering the perception that China is a
radically illegitimate oligarchy powered by the blood of its treasured working class. This is a distorted picture that
panders to democratic, wishful thinking about Chinese society. The truth is that however slowly and hamhandedly, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has accrued political capital by improving the lives of its
people in ways many bygone regimes could not. In late February, the World Bank issued a report entitled "China 2030.” Its
suggestions for China’s economic health include decreasing state ownership of major industries, establishing protections for society’s most
vulnerable citizens, as well as calls for tax reform, reduced carbon emissions and green energy. Lost in the foofaraw of a lone Chinese man
interrupting a bank press conference to defend state-owned enterprises (SOEs) was the fact that the PRC’s State Council coauthored the report.
A Chinese government body signed off on prescriptions counter to the interests of SOE monopolists—a milestone for the development of civil
society there. SOEs have been criticized in China as price manipulators and as magnets for rent seeking. For example, oil companies like Sinopec
have stymied fuel-quality regulations and refused to supply petro to stations, running them out of business. Often shielded by nationalistic
sentiment, SOEs have now come under assault by academics and newspaper editorials that echo the World Bank report, identifying SOEs as
special interests, distinct from public interests. Elsewhere in China, regional governments are having a crack at mending the controversial hukou
system, which threatens to fragment China into two entrenched groups: legally recognized urbanites and migrant workers, the latter of whom
generally enjoy no entitlement to medical care or education in the cities where they’ve come to toil. In a country of peasants, internal migration
is not just a matter of civil rights. It’s a matter of economic transformation, as those former farmers have settled into cities and long forgotten
tilling a field. As China’s population urbanizes, policy makers have proven adaptive and willing to experiment. The
CCP has
demonstrated a concern for China’s social fabric. Beijing has decreed that television programming, including wildly
popular dating shows, avoid the depths of crass sexual and material indulgence. Obviously, such policies might be in the ultimate interest of
self-preservation (especially given Hu Jintao’s less than subtle warning about Western culture’s ideological penetration of China). And it’s
debatable whether traditional, native values are what China or any country needs for stability or prosperity. Granted,
on some
reform proposals, like liberalization of criminal law, conflict has emerged. But do these disagreements
reveal cracks in the party leadership, as Chang implies? Probably not. First, these are practical differences among
technocrats who are after the same thing: stability via steady growth. Second, policy disputes are also a sign that China’s
decision making is more consultative and decentralized than before. As the hukou example above illustrates, once
delegated certain powers, provinces and municipalities can innovate on a smaller scale than the central government, as in the U.S. federal
system. Finally,
interest groups and factions are nothing new to Chinese politics. Thus, it’s unrealistic to
think factional tension could paralyze party leadership, military and police at the same time that
protesters agitate and show potential for violence and greater lawlessness. What’s more, scholarly work on
factional politics over recent decades, often with a focus on China, has shown how factions can coexist and even thrive by
nearing some sort of competitive equilibrium. This may explain the relative quietude of Chinese elite
politics since 1989. Why China Won’t Fall The political must be analyzed alongside the economic. China’s institutions are still
significantly ahead of the demands of its society. Beijing’s apparent influence by Huntington’s theories is not surprising, as
his works are popular among the PRC-establishment intellectuals, especially those on the government payroll. Meanwhile, the
authoritarian CCP junta keeps the trains running fast and on time. This means a lot to the swaths of
China’s massive, aging population. Hard landing or soft, don’t look for the Beijing to suffer any hits to
the head in 2012. Collapse theories are rooted in idealism, but they’re no more likely to pan out
because of it.
AT: Russia Econ DA
2AC New LNG Terminals
New LNG terminals built in the squo means there’s no uniqueness but doesn’t take
out the aff because it doesn’t increase supply
Johnston, 5/29/2014 (J Bennett, former Democratic senator, “The United States can use its energy prowess to discipline Russia: J.
Bennett Johnston” http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2014/05/the_united_states_can_use_its.html)
So far, the
U.S. government has approved seven new export terminals for shipping liquefied natural gas (LNG)
to countries with which the United States does not have a free-trade agreement, including most of
Europe. Yet, more than 20 other applications are pending -- about half of which would result in major economic projects
here in Louisiana. These exports will take time, and the first terminal won't be operational until late next year. But the signal will be
crystal clear: America intends to become a major player in the global gas market, and Russia's ability to
use energy as a weapon is coming to an end.
2AC Russia’s Economies Low
Russia’s economy will decline – Ukraine crisis
ITAR, 6/18/2014 (ITAR-TASS News Agency, “Protracted conflict in Ukraine may weaken Russian rouble — Central Bank”
http://en.itar-tass.com/economy/736654)
MOSCOW, June 18. /ITAR-TASS/. A
protracted conflict in Ukraine may cause the rouble to weaken in the
second half of 2014 , the Central Bank said on Wednesday, June 18. “If the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine drags on, the
Russian economy may face both direct and indirect consequences ,” the Bank said. This and possible losses
from dwindling trade and increased risks for the transit of Russian gas to Europe may lead to
expectations of broader US and EU sanctions against Russia, which will negatively affect the outlook
of international and domestic investors . The Bank also believes that this may cause further decline in business activity and
weaken the rouble in the second half of the year as demand for rouble-denominated assets decreases. “Should this scenario materialise, the
Bank of Russia will carry out an active monetary and credit policy aimed at curbing inflationary risks,” the Bank said. It said inflation
Russia would slow down to the projected 4.5 and 4% in 2015-2016, respectively.
in
1AR Russia’s Economies Low
Russia’s economy will decline in the long term – 1. Ukraine conflict cause the rouble to
weaken – that drags down Russian trade and leads to a lack of investment preventing
growth – that’s ITAR. Prefer it – it subsumes the Russia/China trade agreement.
2. Russia’s economy is up in smoke and will be worse than the ’08 crisis which their
impact evidence is in the context of – this card is on fire.
Zigfield, 6/9/2014 (Kim, The American Thinker, “Russia: the Noose Tightens”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/06/russia_the_noose_tightens.html)
It was not that long ago that Vladimir Putin was being widely praised for saving the Russian economy from disaster. Many even argued that one
should overlook Putin’s repressive acts since his economic policies were so brilliant and so essential to the nation (the same argument, of
course, was made in the early days of Hitler). Today,
have nowhere to hide.
Last week, the
the Russian economy is a smoking ruin and Putin’s apologists
Vienna Institute for Economic Studies revealed that foreign direct
investment in Russia will fall this year by a shocking 50%
make Russia the least attractive economy
compared to 2013, whose level was already anemic. This
in all of Eastern Europe by
will
a wide margin. The VIES opined that Putin’s
aggression in Ukraine was the major cause of these catastrophic losses , which would have dire
impacts upon economic growth not just in Russia but throughout Eastern Europe , further alienating Russia’s
neighbors. Also last week, international
banking giant HSBC disclosed that in May Russia's shrinking service
sector reached its fastest rate of decline
in five years. HSBC’s purchasing managers’ index fell to 46.1 in May from 46.8 in April.
Values above 50 signify growth while values below 50 indicate contraction. This intense
economic pressure has forced the
government to spend a ghastly chunk of foreign currency reserves defending its currency and stock
market values. Already this year over $40 billion in precious reserves have hemorrhaged out of the Russian treasury, and the bloodletting
is only going to get worse in the second half of the year. Between loss of foreign investment and loss of reserves, Russia may take a
stunning $200 billion hit before the year is over. But ruble and stock market defense are only the tip of the
needy iceberg
where state spending is concerned. The Putin regime has already openly acknowledged that both the banking and energy
sectors of the economy need major recapitalization from the state in order to stave off collapse. Russia’s
state-owned gas
monopoly Gazprom, for instance, needs more than $50 billion in capitalization just to finance
infrastructure necessary to comply with Russia’s recent deal to supply gas to China. The plummeting
ruble, stock market, and GDP growth figures remind many of the devastating losses Russia experienced during
the global economic crisis six years ago. But a senior banker from a Russian state-owned bank told Reuters: “ This crisis is
much worse than in 2008. At that time, everyone was in the same boat. Now it’s only Russia, and
everyone wants to sink it
in addition to dealing with their own problems. It will be a very hard year.” That’s
because Putin’s
aggression in Ukraine has caused Russia to incur massive worldwide economic sanctions that are
already
pummeling the Russian economy like a typhoon . Putin’s attempt to respond to the sanctions -- forming a trade
group with the likes of Belarus and Kazakhstan -- would be outright hilarious if they did not signal a leader hopelessly adrift and isolated just as
his Soviet ancestors used to be. The Economist sums up the hopeless position that Putin has boxed Russia into: The weakness in Mr Putin’s
strategy is that, by allowing his visceral fears to drive his policy in Ukraine, he risks bringing about just what he hoped to avoid. He has lost
Ukraine as an ally and a potential partner in the Eurasian union, while NATO is reasserting its military posture and bolstering
its defences. The spectre of increased NATO forces on Russia’s borders in Poland and the Baltic states has become a reality thanks to Mr Putin’s
actions in Ukraine. And having fought to preserve its sovereignty and economic leverage in relation to Europe and the West, Russia risks
replacing them with a new dependence on China. And that’s not all. Putin has clearly established a precedent for separatism while leading a
country rife with breakaway regions. The entire Caucasus area is roiling with separatist violence, and Russia’s isolated Kaliningrad region,
surrounded by countries that Putin has now terrified and alienated, is going to start feeling intense
pain that Putin can do little to soothe. Dependence on China , a brutal partner that only a madman
would prefer to Europe , isn’t as low as Putin is prepared to drag Russia down . He’s openly courting both
pariah states like North Korea and fascist extremists in Europe, making Russia seem like a nuclear-fanged Iran prepared to engage in a wide
variety of international terrorist acts in order to lash out at democratic nations that have spurned it. A telling cartoon shows Putin marching
shirtless into a gilded private club. In one hand he holds a large cudgel and in the other he drags a woman across the floor by her hair. The
woman is Ukraine, and the club is the G-8. He’s stopped at the door and told that his appearance doesn’t conform with club rules. The irony is
palpable. Putin just spent over $50 billion to host the Winter Olympics for the sole purpose of proving to the world that Russia was an
accomplished, civilized state whose voice should be heard and respected. As his tanks plunged into Ukraine, all those years of work went right
up in flames. Now, Putin
is a very lonely man relying upon state repression to try to hide his economic
failure from his fellow citizens, the same failed tactic that brought down the USSR.
2AC No Crowd Out
Plan wouldn’t crowd out Russian exports – US law binds exports to nations we have
free trade agreements with.
Sinkevičius, 6/19/2014 (Virginijus, staffwriter @ Lithuiana Tribute, “Opinion: crumbling myths against the export of LNG”
http://www.lithuaniatribune.com/69309/opinion-crumbling-myths-against-the-export-of-liquefied-natural-gas-201469309/)
However, under
current U.S. laws the Department of Energy must prioritize public interest before
issuing a license to export U.S. natural gas to countries that do not have a free-trade agreement with
the United States. Over the past three and a half years, the Energy Department has only approved seven
applications to export natural gas; there are 24 other applications still pending, some in the approval process
for more than two years . Despite the need for American natural gas, Poland and Lithuania do not have the power
to push forward the application process. By the end of this year, Lithuania and Poland are expected to finalize LNG import
terminals. Lithuania is presently holding negotiations with potential suppliers. A five-year contract for an annual supply of 540 million cubic
meters of natural gas will be signed with the supplier that offers the best terms and conditions. When fully functional, Klaipėda LNG terminal
will reach 2-3 bn. m³ annual capacity. For Lithuania, which is currently importing 100% of natural gas from Russia, the LNG terminal at full
capacity would fulfill the national demand for natural gas and also provide an opportunity to share natural gas with Baltic neighbors Latvia and
Estonia. In Poland, the Świnoujście LNG terminal is expected to have an annual capacity of 5 bn. m³ of natural gas. Depending on the increase of
demand for gas, it will be possible to increase the capacity up to 7.5 bn. m3. In 2012, annual Polish natural gas consumptions reached 15 bn.
m³. A de-monopolized and more competitive energy sector for Lithuania and Poland will decrease the gas prices for consumers, increase
foreign investments and further boost European economies, which are still recovering after the most recent financial crisis. Lithuanian and
Polish success has not gone unnoticed by other Central and Eastern European countries, which are already developing plans to build LNG
import terminals. Recently, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk laid out a vision of single Central and Eastern European energy alliance.
1AR No Crowd Out
Plan won’t crowd out exports – US exports require DOE approval and FTA’s to be in
place – the plan doesn’t mandate approval and exports with other countries – we’d
just keep the gas – that’s Sinkevicius.
DOE will block natural gas exports – increased demand means exports hurt “public
interest”
Ebinger et al, 2012 (Charles, Senior Fellow and Director of the Energy Security Initiative – Brookings, Kevin Massy, Assistant Director
of the Energy Security Initiative – Brookings, and Govinda Avasarala, Senior Research Assistant in the Energy Security Initiative – Brookings,
“Liquid Markets: Assessing the Case for U.S. Exports of Liquefied Natural Gas,” Brookings Institution, Policy Brief 12-01,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2012/5/02%20lng%20exports%20ebinger/0502_lng_exports_ebinger.pdf)
From the perspective of the U.S. federal government, the issue of implications is viewed in terms of
“public interest.”
Under existing legislation, exports of natural gas to countries with a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States are, by law, deemed to be in the
Projects looking for authorization to export LNG to
countries without an FTA, which account for roughly 96 percent of current global LNG demand, are required to be approved by the
Secretary of Energy unless, after public hearing, the Department of Energy finds that such exports are
not in the public interest. 80 Although the legal definition of “public interest” is not explicitly given in
existing legislation, according to public statements by officials from the Department of Energy, “public
interest” includes: • Adequate domestic natural gas supply; • Domestic demand for natural gas proposed
for export; Economic impacts of exports (on GDP, consumers, and industry); • U.S. energy security; • Job creation; • U.S. balance of trade; • International considerations; •
public interest and authorization is required to be given without modification or delay.
Environmental considerations; • Consistency with DoE’s policy of promoting market competition through free negotiation of trade 81 The first two of these criteria were addressed in Part I.
The remainder focus on the various domestic and international implications of U.S. LNG exports. domestic implications The domestic implications of U.S. LNG exports include their impact on
The domestic price impact of
natural gas exports will be a significant factor in determining whether or not the United States
should export LNG. While it is generally acknowledged that a domestic price increase will result from largescale LNG exports, the size of the price increase is the subject of
natural gas prices, natural gas price volatility, jobs and competitiveness, and on overall energy security. Price of domestic natural Gas
debate, with a number of studies suggesting a range of possible outcomes. The important considerations when analyzing the results and conclusions of the various existing studies are the
assumptions and models that are used when making price forecasts. Below are the results and methodologies of five major pricing studies done by the EIA and three consultancies: Deloitte,
ICF International, and Navigant Consulting, which published two studies. 2012 Energy information Administration study In January 2012, the EIA published a study entitled “Effect of Increased
Natural Gas Exports on Domestic Energy Markets.” 82 The study, conducted at the request of the Office of Fossil Energy of the Department of Energy, analyzed four different export scenarios
across four different resource base or economic assumptions to project price responses to LNG exports. In addition to a “baseline” scenario, where no LNG is exported, the EIA model
considered four different export scenarios: • A low export/slow growth scenario, where 6 bcf/day of LNG is exported, phased in at a rate of 1 bcf/day per year; • A low export/rapid growth
scenario, where 6 bcf/day of LNG is exported, phased in at a rate of 3 bcf/day per year; • A high export/slow growth scenario, where 12 bcf/day of LNG is exported, phased in at a rate of 1
bcf/day per year; • A high export/rapid growth scenario, where 12 bcf/day of LNG is exported, phased in at a rate of 3 bcf/day per year Given the uncertainty over the actual size of the shale
gas resource base and the future growth of the U.S. economy, each of these scenarios (both “baseline” and export) were applied to four alternate background cases: • A reference case, based
on the EIA’s 2011 Annual Energy Outlook; • A low-shale estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) case, in which shale gas production from new, undrilled wells is 50 percent below the reference case
scenario; • A high-shale EUR case, in which shale gas production from new, undrilled wells is 50 percent higher than the reference case; • A high economic growth case, in which U.S. GDP
grows at 3.2 percent as opposed to the 2.7 percent assumed in the reference case. Given the range of assumptions, the range of results was unsurprisingly wide. The results range from a 9.6
percent increase (from $3.56 to $3.90/ mcf) in domestic natural gas prices in 2025 due to exports (in the case of high shale gas recovery, low export volumes and a slow rate of export growth)
to a 32.5 percent increase (in the case of low shale gas recovery, high export volumes and a high rate of export growth). The percentage premium for domestic natural gas prices in 2025 for
each scenario relative to the baseline scenario price estimate is detailed in table 3. In addition to the price premium for exporting natural gas that exists in each case, the EIA study projected a
short-term spike in natural gas prices as a result of LNG exports. As figure 7 below illustrates, in 2015, the first year that LNG exports occur, domestic natural gas prices rise rapidly until total
export capacity is reached. In the “lowrapid” scenario prices peak in 2016, after the 6 bcf/day of export capacity is built over 2 years; in the “high-slow” scenario, natural gas prices peak in
2026, after the 12 bcf/day of export capacity is built over 12 years. The immediate jump in price becomes more pronounced in the scenarios where LNG export capacity increases quickly. In
the “low-rapid” scenario, the price of natural gas peaks at nearly 18 percent above the baseline case; in the “high-rapid” scenario, natural gas prices peak at 36 percent above the baseline
case. This price impact is exacerbated in the Low Shale EUR and High Macroeconomic Growth cases, as LNG exports further tighten domestic natural gas markets. In the most extreme
example, the high-rapid scenario for exports in a Low Shale EUR case, the price for natural gas peaks at more than 50 percent than the baseline case. 83 There are two factors that should be
considered when interpreting the results of this price impact study. The first is the assumption regarding the rate at which LNG could be exported. The results of EIA’s analysis represent an
extreme scenario for LNG exports. In the existing LNG market, it is particularly unlikely that either the “low-rapid” or the “high-rapid” scenarios would materialize. The former assumption
stipulates that the United States would export 6 bcf/day of LNG by 2016. Given that, at the time of writing, only one facility has been approved to export 2.2 bcf/day to nonFTA countries
starting in 2015, it is unlikely that another three plants would be approved and built in such a short time frame. 84 The latter scenario, that the United States would be exporting 12 bcf/ day of
LNG by 2018, suggests that in the next several years, the United States would grow from exporting negligible volumes of LNG to having roughly one-third of the global LNG export capacity. Not
only would this supply growth outpace growth in global LNG demand, but this capacity addition would also have to compete with roughly 11 bcf/day of Australian-origin LNG that is expected
to hit the market around the same time. 85 The second issue is the model’s assumptions for incremental investment in natural gas production as a result of increased export capacity. The
spike in price depicted in figure 7 occurs because investment from gas producers lags additional demand. In the model, producers respond to, rather than anticipate, additional demand. For
this reason, prices peak once the export capacity is filled, before steadily decreasing. In reality, the expectation of future demand would likely induce gas producers to invest in additional
production before incremental demand occurs. As a result, the increase in prices would likely begin earlier and peak at a lower level than suggested by the model. deloitte study An earlier
study released in November 2011 from the Deloitte Center for Energy Solutions highlighted the producer-response in its model. In addition to finding that LNG exports would produce a smaller
increase in gas prices than the EIA report suggests, the Deloitte study points out that “producers can develop more reserves in anticipation of demand growth, such as LNG exports. There will
be ample notice and time in advance of the exports to make supplies available.” 86 Using a dynamic model, in which production increased in anticipation of new demand, the Deloitte study
found that 6 bcf/day of exports of LNG would result in, on average, a 1.7 percent increase (from $7.09 to $7.21/MMBtu) in the price of natural gas between 2016 and 2035. Further, the
Deloitte study noted that there would be regional variations to the increase in natural gas prices resulting from LNG exports. As most of the proposed liquefaction terminals are expected to be
on the Gulf Coast, the price of Henry Hub gas, which is the key benchmark for natural gas from the Gulf Coast, will increase by $0.22/ MMBtu by 2035 as a result of U.S. LNG exports. This is
more than double the price increase projected in regions further away from the LNG export terminals. In New York and Illinois, natural gas prices are projected to increase by less than
$0.10/MMBtu. This is particularly important in the Northeast, which historically experiences some of the highest natural gas prices in the country, but will benefit from the development and
consumption of natural gas from the nearby Marcellus shale play. other studies Three other studies of note have analyzed the price impacts of U.S. LNG exports. In August 2010, Navigant
Consulting found that 2 bcf/day of LNG exports would cause a price increase of between 7 and 7.9 percent from 2015 to 2035 relative to a scenario with no gas exports. ICF International found
in August 2011 that 6 bcf/day of exports would result in an 11 percent ($0.64/MMBtu) increase in natural gas prices over the same period. 87 More recently, Navigant released another study
that analyzed the impact of two separate export scenarios. The first scenario modeled the impact of 3.6 bcf/day of LNG exports from three terminals in North America: Sabine Pass in
Louisiana, Kitimat in British Columbia, and Coos Bay in Oregon. The second scenario modeled the impact of 6.6 bcf/day of LNG exports from the three aforementioned export projects and 2
bcf/day of added exports from the Gulf Coast and 1 bcf/day from Maryland. 88 This Navigant study found that 6.6 bcf/day of LNG exports would result in a 6 percent ($0.35/MMBtu) increase
in natural gas prices from 2015 to 2035. As with the EIA and Deloitte studies, the results of both Navigant and ICF’s studies must be analyzed in the context of their respective methodologies
and assumptions. Navigant’s first study uses a more static supply model, which, unlike dynamic supply models, does not fully take account of the effect that higher prices have on spurring
additional production. As a result, it takes a conservative estimate of supply growth potential. The report acknowledges that the price outcomes modeled in its analysis “establish the upper
range of impacts that exports […] might have on natural gas prices.” 89 This study also did not factor in the reemergence of the industrial sector as a major consumer of natural gas following
the shale gas “revolution.” The study assumes that natural gas consumption by the industrial sector will decline by 0.3% per year to 2035. By contrast, the EIA model assumes that industrial
sector demand will increase by roughly 1% per year over the same period. 90 The ICF study factors in various levels of production response from an increase in price. Under its 6 bcf/day export
scenario, the price impact ranges from a $0.52/ MMBtu increase in a more responsive drilling activity scenario to a $0.75/MMBtu increase in a less responsive drilling activity scenario. which
study is right? Given that these studies forecast natural gas prices two decades into the future, it is difficult to determine which study is most accurate. (table 4 shows a comparison of the price
impact forecasts of the various models.) However, policymakers would benefit from having a better understanding of the results that are generated from each report. This includes choosing
the most relevant results from each report. For instance, following the release of the EIA study, many commentators were quick to highlight that natural gas prices could increase by more than
50 percent as a result of LNG exports. However, this ignored the assumptions behind this number: it was based on the price of natural gas in one year under the most extreme assumptions of
exports and domestic resource base. A more comprehensive analysis should include an assessment of the average price impact from 2015 to 2035. When distinguishing between the various
studies, policymakers should identify which assumptions most resemble the existing natural gas market and its likely direction, and which models are most reflective of the complex nature of
domestic and global natural gas trade. Assuming realistic volumes of natural gas exports as well as a reasonable supply response by natural gas producers are important considerations. It is
important to note that the supply curves in the various studies reflect different interpretations of the economics of marginal production. The Power sector and industrial sector Part I indicated
that the power-generation and industrial sectors would account for most of the demand for newly available natural gas resources. As shown above, LNG exports are likely to increase domestic
prices of natural gas, suggesting negative consequences for these two competing sectors. In their analyses, both Deloitte and EIA found that the majority—63 percent, according to both
studies—of the exported natural gas will come from new production as opposed to displaced consumption from other sectors. By contrast, between 17 and 38 percent of supply of natural gas
for export would be met by reduced demand, as higher prices pushes some domestic consumers to use less gas. In the power generation and industrial sectors, the price impacts of LNG
In the power sector, natural gas has historically been used as a back up to coal
and nuclear base-load generation. For such gas used at the margin, the increase in electricity prices as a result of LNG exports would be limited by its
competitiveness relative to other fuels: as soon as it becomes more expensive than the alternative for back up
generation, power producers will substitute away from gas . 91 According to ICF International, a $0.64/MMBtu increase in the price of
exports are likely to have modest impacts.
natural gas would result in an electricity price increase of between $1.66 and $4.97/megawatt-hour (MWh), depending on how often gas is used as the marginal fuel for electricity. Deloitte
estimates that the price increase of electricity would not be more than $1.65/MWh. 92 EIA estimates that electricity price impacts will be marginal as well (between $1.40/MWh and
$2.90/MWh) except in the “highrapid” export scenario. 93 The EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2011 estimates that, without exporting LNG, the average price of electricity (across all fuels) in 2035
will be $92/MWh. 94 In the longer term, natural gas is itself likely to be used for more base-load generation. The rapid increase in shale gas production, coupled with the retirements of as
much as 50 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired electricity due to plant age or inability to adhere to possibly forthcoming EPA regulations is likely to increase the demand for natural gas in the power
retirements of the oldest and least efficient coal-fired power
plants could result in an additional natural gas demand of 2 bcf/day. 95 Given the lack of environmentally and economically viable alternatives,
sector. According to some analysts, the near-term demand caused by the
a moderate increase in gas prices is unlikely to result in a large move away from natural gas, although increased costs will be transferred to customers. Natural gas consumption in the power
sector has been considered economic at prices much higher than those resulting from LNG exports in even the highest price-impact projections. Even prior to the shale gas “revolution,” when
natural gas prices were high, natural gas demand was increasing in the power sector. The EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2005— published in a year when average well head prices were over
$7/MMBTU—projected that natural gas demand in the electricity sector would increase by 70 percent between 2003 and 2015. 96 Unlike the power sector, which continued to build naturalgas fired generation during a period of increasing gas prices, the industrial sector was negatively affected by growing natural gas import dependence, high gas prices, and gas price volatility.
Between 2000 and 2005, the price of natural gas increased by 99 percent and LNG imports more than doubled. 97 By 2005, the ratio of the price of oil to the price of natural gas was
approximately 6:1, just below the 7:1 oil-to-gas price ratio at which U.S. petrochemical and plastics producers are globally competitive. 98 That same year Alan Greenspan, then-Chairman of
the Federal Reserve, noted that because of natural gas price increases “the North American gas-using industry [was] in a weakened competitive position.” 99 Since then the price of natural gas
has collapsed. In 2011, the oil-to-natural gas price ratio was more than 24:1. In 2012 it has been even higher. The decline in natural gas prices has galvanized the industrial sector. A joint study
by PwC and the National Association for Manufacturers, an industry trade group, found that the development of shale gas could save manufacturers as much as $11.6 billion per year in
feedstock costs through 2025. 100 New investments in petrochemical and plastics producing facilities are occurring throughout the East and Southeast, largely predicated on the availability of
inexpensive natural gas. Opponents of LNG exports contend that such investments would be deterred in the future as a result of increases in the price of natural gas. However, the evidence
suggests that the competitive advantage of U.S. industrial producers relative to its competitors in Western Europe and Asia is not likely to be affected significantly by the projected increase in
natural gas prices resulting from LNG exports. As European and many Asian petrochemical producers use oil-based products such as naphtha and fuel oil as feedstock, U.S. companies are more
likely to enjoy a significant cost advantage over their overseas competitors. Even a one-third decline in the estimated price of crude oil in 2035 would result in an oil-to-gas ratio of 14:1. 101
There is also the potential for increased exports to help industrial consumers. Ethane, a liquid byproduct of natural gas production at several U.S. gas plays, is the primary feedstock of
ethylene, a petrochemical product used to create a wide variety of products. According to a study by the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade body, a 25 percent increase in ethane
production would yield a $32.8 billion increase in U.S. chemical production. By providing another market for cheap dry gas, LNG exports will encourage additional production of natural gas
liquids (NGL) that are produced in association with dry gas. According to the EIA, ethane production increased by nearly 30 percent between 2009 and 2011 as natural gas production from
shale started to grow substantially. Ethane production is now at an alltime high, with more than one million barrels per day of ethane being produced. 102 Increased gas production for exports
A major
concern among domestic end users of natural gas is the possibility of an increase in natural gas price volatility resulting from an
results in increased production of such natural gas liquids, in which case exports can be seen as providing a benefit to the petrochemical industry. natural gas price volatility
increase in U.S. LNG exports. As figure 8 demonstrates, the price volatility experienced during the 2000s was the highest the domestic gas market has experienced in the past three decades.
The volatility of the natural gas market in the 2000s was largely caused by a tight supply-demand
balance . Natural gas demand increased substantially as the U.S. economy grew and natural gas was viewed as environmentally preferable to coal
for power generation. This increase in demand coincided with a reduction in domestic supply and an increased reliance on
imports. The recent surge in U.S. natural gas production has resulted in less market volatility since 2010. According to EIA, the standard deviation of the price of natural gas (a general statistical
indicator of volatility) between 2010 and 2011 was one-third what it was during the 2000s. 103 Potential exports of U.S. LNG concerns some domestic consumers for two principal reasons:
greater volatility in domestic natural gas prices; and exposure of domestic natural gas prices to higher international prices resulting in a convergence between low U.S. prices and high
international prices. There is an insufficient amount of data and quantitative research on the relationship between do mestic natural gas price volatility and LNG exports. However, certain
characteristics of the LNG market are likely to limit volatility. LNG is bound by technical constraints: it must be liquefied and then transported on dedicated tankers before arriving at terminals
where a regasification facility must be installed. Liquefaction facilities have capacity limits to how much gas they can turn into LNG. If they are operating at or close-to full capacity, such
facilities will have a relatively constant demand for natural gas, therefore an international price or supply shock would have little impact on domestic gas prices. Moreover, unlike oil trading, in
which an exporter—theoretically—sells each marginal barrel of production to the highest bidder in the global market, the capacity limit on LNG production and export means that LNG
exporters have an infrastructure-limited demand for natural gas leaving the rest of the natural gas for domestic consumption. As most LNG infrastructure facilities are built on a project finance
basis and underpinned by long-term contracts, this demand can be anticipated by the market years in advance, reducing the likelihood of volatility. The macroeconomy and jobs The
macroeconomic and job implications of LNG exports depend on two principal factors: the gains from trade from exploiting pricing differentials and inefficiencies of the global market; and the
employment implications of those gains, higher domestic natural gas prices, and greater domestic natural gas production. The Department of Energy has commissioned a study on both the
macroeconomic and employment implications of U.S. LNG exports, which will be released later this year. This study will provide a qualitative assessment of the implications of LNG exports to
the U.S. economy and employment. LNG exports are likely to be a net benefit to the U.S. economy, although probably not a significant contributor in terms of total U.S. GDP. Exports of U.S.
natural gas will take advantage of the benefits of the existing producer’s surplus resulting from the pricing differentials between the natural gas markets in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Contractual terms will determine how this surplus is shared between U.S. sellers and foreign buyers. 104 The benefit of this trade will likely outweigh the cost to domestic consumers of the
increase in the price of natural gas as most of the natural gas demanded by exports will come from new natural gas production as opposed to displacing existing production from domestic
consumers. On the other hand, LNG exports from the United States are likely to put marginal upward pressure on the relative value of the U.S. dollar. In March 2012, Citigroup released a
report on North American hydrocarbon production that included a model of the macroeconomic impact of U.S. oil and gas exports. The Citi analysis found that oil and gas exports would cause
a nearly two percent decline in the current account deficit by 2020, but that the exchange rate implications would be modest. By 2020, the U.S. dollar would appreciate by between 1.6 and 5.4
percent. 105 The implications of LNG exports on job creation are similarly difficult to quantify. Other than temporary construction jobs created by the need to build liquefaction capacity,
pipelines, and other ancillary infrastructure, the operation of the liquefaction facility will likely provide little permanent employment benefit. As outlined in the section on price impacts above,
as much of the gas for export will come from new production, rather than the displacement of consumption in other sectors, the negative economic, and therefore jobrelated, effects on those
sectors is likely to be limited. Beyond the labor required for additional gas production to satisfy LNG exports, the net impact of LNG exports is likely to be minimal. Further upstream, the job
potential may be greater. By increasing domestic natural gas production, employment from additional oil and gas producers will increase, as will the demand for manufacturers of equipment
from the price impact of potential U.S. LNG exports, a major concern
among opponents is that such exports would diminish U.S. “energy security”; that exports would deny the United States of a
strategically important resource. The extent to which such concerns are valid depends on several
factors, including the size of the domestic resource base , and the liquidity and functionality of global trade. As Part I of this report notes,
geological evidence suggests that the volumes of LNG export under consideration would not materially affect the
availability of natural gas for the domestic market. Twenty years of LNG exports at the rate of 6 bcf/day, phased in over the course of 6 years, would
for oil and gas production, gathering, and transportation. domestic energy security Aside
increase demand by approximately 38 tcf. As presented in Part I, four existing estimates of total technically recoverable shale gas resources range from 687 tcf to 1,842 tcf; therefore, exporting
shale gas reserves are
uncertain, in a scenario where reserves are perceived to be lower than expected , domestic natural
6 bcf/day of LNG over the course of twenty years would consume between 2 and 5.5 percent of total shale gas resources. While the estimates for
gas prices would increase and exports would almost immediately become uneconomic . In the long-term, it is
possible that U.S. prices and international prices will converge to the point at which they settle at similar levels. In that case, the United States would have more
than adequate import capacity (through bi-directional import/export facilities) to import gas when economic. A further gas-related
consideration with regard to energy security is the effects of increased production of associated natural gas with the increasing volumes of U.S. unconventional oil. As the primary energysecurity concern for the United States related to oil, the application of fracking and horizontal drilling in oil production is reducing U.S. oil import dependence, while simultaneously producing
substantial volumes of natural gas, which, given the relative economics of oil and gas, is effectively delivered at zero (or, in the case of producers who have to invest in equipment to manage
flaring and venting, negative) cost. To the extent that associated gas from unconventional oil production is used for LNG export, it can be seen as a consequence of—rather than a threat to—
increased U.S. energy security. international implications The international implications of LNG exports from the United States can be divided into pricing, geopolitics, and environment.
international Pricing As discussed in Part I, the global LNG market is informally separated into three markets: North America, the Atlantic Basin (mostly Europe), and the Pacific Basin (including
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, and India). These markets are separated because of important technical differences that impact the pricing structure for LNG in each market. The North
American natural gas market is competitive and prices are traded in a transparent and open market. The Atlantic Basin is dominated by European LNG consumers such as the United Kingdom,
Spain, France, and Italy, and is a hybrid of a competitive U.K. market that was liberalized in the mid-1990s and a Continental European market that is dominated by oil-linked, take-or-pay
contracts. In recent years, the U.K. hub, the National Balancing Point (NBP), has traded at a premium to the U.S. hub, the Henry Hub. The Pacific Basin is a more rigid market that depends
heavily on oilindexed contracts that are more expensive than those used in the Atlantic Basin. While they have no central trading hub, the Pacific Basin consumers such as Japan and South
Korea (which is implementing its recently-signed free-trade agreement with the United States) currently import LNG based on a pricing formula known informally as the Japan Crude Cocktail,
the average price of custom-cleared oil imports into Tokyo. Many Pacific Basin contracts have a built-in price floor and price ceiling depending on the price of oil. 106 Without exporting any
natural gas, the U.S. shale gas “revolution” has already had a positive impact on the liquidity of global LNG markets. Many LNG cargoes that were previously destined for gas-thirsty U.S.
markets were diverted and served spot demand in both the Atlantic and Pacific Basins. The increased availability of LNG cargoes has helped create a looser LNG market for other consumers
(see figure 9). This in turn has helped apply downward pressure to the terms of oillinked contracts resulting in the renegotiation of some contracts, particularly in Europe. Increased availability
of LNG cargoes also accelerated a recent trend of increasing reliance of consumers on spot LNG markets. In 2010 short-term and spot contracts represented 19 percent of the total LNG
market, up from only a fraction one decade earlier. 107 In this case, increasing demand for spot cargoes indicates that consumers are taking advantage of spot prices that are lower than
oilindexed rates. LNG exports will help to sustain market liquidity in what looks to be an increasingly tight LNG market beyond 2015 (see figure 10). Should LNG exports from the United States
continue to be permitted, they will add to roughly 10 bcf/day of LNG that is expected to emerge from Australia between 2015 and 2020. Nevertheless, given the projected growth in demand
for natural gas in China and India and assuming that some of Japan’s nuclear capacity remains offline, demand for natural gas will outpace the incremental supply. This makes U.S. LNG even
more valuable on the international market. Although it will be important to global LNG markets, it is unlikely that the emergence of the United States as an exporter of LNG will change the
existing pricing structure overnight. Not only is the market still largely dependent on long-term contracts, the overwhelming majority of new liquefaction capacity emerging in the next decade
(largely from Australia) has already been contracted for at oil-indexed rates. 108 The incremental LNG volumes supplied by the United States at floating Henry Hub rates will be small in
comparison. But while U.S. LNG will not have a transformational impact, by establishing an alternate lower price for LNG derived through a different market mechanism, U.S. exports may be
central in catalyzing future changes in LNG contract structure. As previously mentioned, this impact is already be ing felt in Europe. A number of German utilities have either renegotiated
contracts or are seeking arbitration with natural gas suppliers in Norway and Russia. The Atlantic Basin will be a more immediate beneficiary of U.S. LNG exports than the Pacific Basin as many
European contracts allow for periodic revisions to the oil-price linkage. 109 In the Pacific Basin this contractual arrangement is not as common and most consumers are tied to their respective
oil-linkage formulae for the duration of the contract. 110 Despite the increasing demand following the Fukushima nuclear accident, however, Japanese LNG consumers are actively pursuing
new arrangements for LNG contracts. 111 There are other limits to the extent of the impact that U.S. LNG will have on global markets. It is unlikely that many of the LNG export facilities under
consideration will reach final investment decision. Instead, it is more probable that U.S. natural gas prices will have rebounded sufficiently to the point that exports are not commercially viable
beyond a certain threshold. (figure 11 illustrates the estimated costs of delivering LNG to Japan in 2020.) This threshold, expected by many experts to be roughly 6 bcf/day by 2025, is modest
in comparison to the roughly 11 bcf/day of Australian LNG export projects that have reached final investment decision and are expected to be online by 2020. Also, the impact of U.S. LNG
exports could be limited by a number of external factors that will have a larger bearing on the future of global LNG prices. For instance, a decision by the Japanese government to phase-out
nuclear power would significantly tighten global LNG markets and probably displace any benefit provided by U.S. LNG exports. Conversely, successful and rapid development of China’s shale
gas reserves would limit the demand of one of the world’s fastest-growing natural gas consumers. However, to the extent that U.S. LNG exports can help bring about a more globalized pricing
structure, they will have economic and geopolitical consequences. Geopolitics A large increase in U.S. LNG exports would have the potential to increase U.S. foreign policy interests in both the
Atlantic and Pacific basins. Unlike oil, natural gas has traditionally been an infrastructure-constrained business, giving geographical proximity and political relations between producers and
consumers a high level of importance. Issues of “pipeline politics” have been most directly visible in Europe, which relies on Russia for around a third of its gas. Previous disputes between
Moscow and Ukraine over pricing have led to major gas shortages in several E.U. countries in the winters (when demand is highest) of both 2006 and 2009. Further disagreements between
Moscow and Kiev over the terms of the existing bilateral gas deal have the potential to escalate again, with negative consequences for E.U. consumers. The risk of high reliance on Russian gas
has been a principal driver of European energy policy in recent decades. Among central and eastern European states, particularly those formerly aligned with the Soviet Union such as Poland,
Hungary, and the Czech Republic, the issue of reliance on imports of Russian gas is a primary energy security concern and has inspired energy policies aimed at diversification of fuel sources for
power generation. From the U.S. perspective such Russian influence in the affairs of these democratic nations is an impediment to efforts at political and economic reform. The market power
of Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned gas monopoly, is evident in these countries. Although they are closer to Russia than other consumers of Russian gas in Western Europe, many countries in
Eastern and Central Europe pay higher contract prices for their imports, as they are more reliant on Russian gas as a proportion of their energy mixes. In the larger economies of Western
Europe, which consume most of Russia’s exports, there are efforts to diversify their supply of natural gas. The E.U. has formally acknowledged the need to put in place mechanisms to increase
supply diversity. These include market liberalization approaches such as rules mandating third-party access to pipeline infrastructure (from which Gazprom is demanding exemption), and
commitments to complete a single market for electricity and gas by 2014, and to ensure that no member country is isolated from electricity and gas grids by 2015. 112 Despite these formal
efforts, there are several factors retarding the E.U.’s push for a unified effort to reduce dependence on Russian gas. National interest has been given a higher priority than collective,
coordinated E.U. energy policy: the gas cutoffs in 2006 and 2009 probably contributed to the acceptance of the Nord Stream project, which carries gas from Russia into Germany. Germany’s
decision to phase out its fleet of nuclear reactors by 2022 will result in far higher reliance on natural gas for the E.U.’s biggest economy. The environmental imperative to reduce carbon
emissions—codified in the E.U.’s goal of essentially decarbonizing its power sector by the middle of century—mean that natural gas is being viewed by many as the short-to medium fuel of
choice in power generation. Finally, the prospects for European countries to replicate the unconventional gas “revolution” that has resulted in a glut of natural gas in the United States look
uncertain. Several countries, including France and the U.K., have encountered stiff public opposition to the techniques used in unconventional gas production, while those countries, such as
Poland and Hungary, that have moved ahead with unconventional-gas exploration have generally seen disappointing early results. Collectively, these factors suggest that the prospects for
reduced European reliance on Russian gas appear dim. The one factor that has been working to the advantage of advocates of greater European gas diversity has been the increased liquidity
of the global LNG market, discussed above. Russia’s dominant position in the European gas market is being eroded by the increased availability of LNG. Qatar’s massive expansion in LNG
production in 2008, coupled with the rise in unconventional gas production in the United States as well as a drop in global energy demand due to the global recession, produced a global LNG
glut that saw many cargoes intended for the U.S. market diverted into Europe. As mentioned previously, with an abundant source of alternative supply, some European consumers, mainly
Gazprom’s closest partners, were able to renegotiate their oil-linked, takeor-pay contracts with Gazprom. As figure 10 illustrates, however, in the wake of the Fukushima natural disaster and
nuclear accident in Japan and a return to growth in most industrialized economies, the LNG market is projected to tighten considerably in the short-term, potentially returning market power to
Russia. However, there is a second, structural change to the global gas market that may have more lasting effects to Russia’s market power in the European gas market. LNG is one of the
fastest growing segments of the energy sector. The growth of the LNG market, both through long-term contract and spot-market sales, is likely to put increasing pressure on incumbent
pipeline gas suppliers. A significant addition of U.S. LNG exports will accelerate this trend. In addition to adding to the size of the market, U.S. LNG contracts are likely to be determined on a
“floating” basis, with sales terms tied to the price of a U.S. benchmark such as Henry Hub, eroding the power of providers of long-term oil linked contract suppliers such as Russia. While U.S.
LNG will not be a direct tool of U.S. foreign policy—the destination of U.S. LNG will be determined according to the terms of individual contracts, the spot-price-determined demand, and the
LNG traders that purchase such contracts—the addition of a large, market-based producer will indirectly serve to increase gas supply diversity in Europe, thereby providing European
consumers with increased flexibility and market power. Increased LNG exports will provide similar assistance to strategic U.S. allies in the Pacific Basin. By adding supply volumes to the global
LNG market, the U.S. will help Japan, Korea, India, and other import-dependent countries in South and East Asia to meet their energy needs. The desire on the part of Pacific Basin countries for
the U.S. to become a gas supplier to the region has been underlined by the efforts of the Japanese government, which has attempted to secure a free-trade agreement waiver from the United
States to allow exports. As with oil price-linked Russian gas contracts in Eu- rope, U.S. LNG exports linked to a floating Henry Hub benchmark, have the potential to weaken the market power
of incumbent LNG providers to Asia, increasing the negotiating power of consumers and decreasing the price. As U.S. foreign policy undergoes a “pivot to Asia,” the ability of the U.S. to
provide a degree of increased energy security and pricing relief to LNG importers in the region will be an important economic and strategic asset. Beyond the basin-specific considerations of
U.S. LNG exports, they would provide a source of predictable natural gas supply that is relatively free from unexpected production or shipping disruption. With Qatar representing roughly onethird of the global LNG market, a blockade or military intervention in the Strait of Hormuz or a direct attack on Qatar’s liquefaction facilities by Iran would inflict chaos on world energy
markets. While the United States government will be unable to physically divert LNG cargoes to specific markets or strategic allies that are most affected (gas allocation will be made by the
market players), additional volumes of LNG on the world market will benefit all consumers. international Environmental implications Proposed LNG exports from the United States have
encountered domestic opposition on environmental grounds. As outlined in Part I, natural gas production causes greenhouse gas emissions in the upstream production process through
leakages, venting, and flaring. The greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas production has been the subject of vigorous debate, with some studies suggesting that methane from the production
process leads to shale gas having a higher global warming impact than that of other hydrocarbons including coal. While the methodology underlying such studies has been widely criticized,
there is no doubt that leakage and venting of natural gas is a serious negative environmental consequence of natural gas production and transportation: EPA has estimated that worldwide
leakages and venting volumes were 3,353.5 bcf in 2010. 113 By contrast, some advocates of U.S. exports of LNG maintain that they have the potential to bring global environmental benefits if
they are used to displace more carbon-intensive fuels. According to the IEA, natural gas in general has the potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 740 million tonnes in 2035, nearly
half of which could be achieved by the displacement of coal in China’s power-generation portfolio. Natural gas—in the form of LNG—also has the potential to displace more carbon-intensive
fuels in other major energy users, including across the EU and in Japan, which is being forced to burn more coal and oil-based fuels to make up for the nuclear generation capacity lost in the
wake of the Fukushima disaster. In addition to its relatively lower carbon-dioxide footprint, natural gas produces lower emissions of pollutants such as sulfur dioxide nitrogen oxide and other
particulates than coal and oil. Natural gas—both in the form of LNG and compressed natural gas—is also being viewed as a potential replacement for oil in the vehicle transportation fleet, with
large carbon dioxide abatement potential. 114 However, as discussed in Part I, even the United States with its low gas prices is unlikely to see any significant move toward natural gas vehicles
in the absence of government policies; the prospects for such vehicles entering the European or Asian markets, where gas is several times as expensive, are remote. On the other hand,
additional volumes of natural gas in the global power generation fleet may also have longer-term detrimental consequences for carbon emissions. According to the IEA, by backing out nuclear
and renewable energy generation, natural gas could add 320Mt of carbon dioxide by 2035. 115 Whether U.S. LNG exports contribute to reduced carbon dioxide emissions through the
displacement of coal fired power generation or to the crowding out of renewable and nuclear energy in the global energy mix is something of a moot point. According to the IEA, global power
generation is projected to exceed 27,000 terawatt hours per year by 2020. 116 Even assuming U.S. exports of 6 bcf/day (on the upper end of the range of expectations), zero losses due to
transportation, regasification, and transmission, and a high natural gas power plant efficiency level of 60 percent, such volumes would account for just over one percent of total global power
generation. 117 Therefore, although the domestic environmental impacts associated with shale gas extraction may, pending the outcome of further study, prove to be a cause for concern with
respect to greenhouse gas emissions, the potential for U.S. LNG exports to make a meaningful impact on global emissions through changes to the global power generation mix is negligible. T
For exports to be feasible,
several demand and supply-related conditions need to be met. On the supply side, adequate resources must be available and their
his paper has attempted to answer two questions: Are U.S. LNG exports feasible? If so, what are the implications of U.S. LNG exports?
production must be sustainable over the long-term. The regulatory and policy environment will need to accommodate natural gas production to ensure that the resources are developed. The
capacity and infrastructure required to enable exports must also be in place. This includes the adequacy of the pipeline and storage network, the availability of shipping capacity, and the
On the demand side, LNG exports will compete with two main other
domestic end uses for natural gas: the power-generation sector, and the industrial and petrochemical sector. According to most
projections, the U.S. electricity sector will see an increased demand for natural gas as it seeks to comply with policies and
availability of equipment for production and qualified engineers.
regulations aimed at reducing carbon-dioxide emissions and pollutants from the power-generation fleet. Cheaper natural gas in the industrial sector has the potential to lower the cost of
petrochemical production and to improve the competitiveness of a range of refining and manufacturing operations. Advocates of natural gas usage in the transportation fleet – particularly in
heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) – see it as a way to decrease the country’s dependence on oil, although absent major policy support, this sector is unlikely to represent a significant source of gas
demand. For increased U.S. LNG exports to be feasible, they will also need to be competitive with supplies from other sources. The major demand centers that would import U.S. LNG would be
Pacific Basin consumers (Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, and increasingly China and India), and Atlantic Basin consumers, mostly in Europe. The supply and demand balance in the Atlantic and
Pacific Basins and, therefore the feasibility for natural gas exports from the United States, depend heavily on the uncertain outlook for international unconventional natural gas production.
Recent assessments in countries such as China, India, Ukraine, and Poland indicate that each country has significant domestic shale gas reserves. If these reserves are developed effectively—
which is likely to be difficult in the short-term due to a lack of infrastructure, physical capacity, and human capacity—many of these countries would dramatically decrease their import
dependence, with negative implications for existing and newcomer LNG exporters. Detailed analysis of the foregoing factors suggests that the exportation of liquefied natural gas from the
United States is logistically feasible. Based on current knowledge, the domestic U.S. natural gas resource base is large enough to accommodate the potential increased demand for natural gas
from the electricity sector, the industrial sector, the residential and commercial sectors, the transportation sector, and exporters of LNG. Other obstacles to production, including
infrastructure, investment, environmental concerns, and human capacity, are likely to be surmountable. Moreover, the current and projected supply and demand fundamentals of the
While LNG exports may be practically feasible, they will be
subject to approval by policy makers if they are to happen. In making a determination on the
advisability of exports, the federal government will focus on the likely implications of LNG exports: i.e.
whether LNG exports are in the “public interest.” The extent of the domestic implications is largely
dependent upon the price impact of exports on domestic natural gas prices. While it is clear that domestic natural gas prices will increase if natural gas is
international LNG market are conducive to competitive U.S.-sourced LNG.
exported, most existing analyses indicate that the implications of this price increase are likely to be modest.
Even if it did crowd out it wouldn’t occur for another year.
Faulkner, 6/201/2014 (Chris, chief executive officer of Breitling Energy Corporation, “Gas diplomacy could slow Russia”
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140620/OPINION01/306200020/Gas-diplomacy-could-slow-Russia)
The United States produces more natural gas than any nation in the world. Yet
Russia leads the world in natural-gas exports ,
using energy to advance its domestic repression and its foreign aggression. It might be tempting to think that as the United States escalates its
sanctions on Russia, President Barack Obama should consider penalizing Vladimir Putin’s energy sector. But such sanctions could backfire,
undermining America’s long-term economic opportunities and foreign policy goals. Obama’s reluctance to tighten the screws on the Kremlin’s
oil and gas companies has been widely attributed to concerns about the impact on Europe’s economic recovery, given the region’s reliance on
Russian energy. But it’s also worth noting that if the Kremlin can’t peddle its ample energy to Europe, it would likely pursue alternative markets
in Brazil, India and China — its three peers in the so-called BRIC bloc. Giving Russia greater incentive to penetrate these developing energy
markets would be profoundly short-sighted. BRIC countries represent an incredible economic opportunity for whichever country builds export
relationships there first. And given its bountiful supply of natural gas, the United States is perfectly positioned to win in these emerging
markets. Forecasts project demand for energy in BRIC nations escalating quickly. In 2005, these countries accounted for 27 percent of the
world’s overall demand for primary energy — but by 2025, that will rise to about 38 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information
Administration. In particular, both China and India are already struggling to meet their energy needs, a problem that will only become more
pronounced as they become wealthier. In China, the energy situation has already flirted with crisis. Heavy reliance on coal, as well as a surge in
automobile use, have resulted in “airpocalypses” — days when dense pollution shrouds large regions. The smog has closed highways, cut life
expectancies, hospitalized thousands of children, and led to massive public discontent. India has also experienced energy catastrophes. In the
summer of 2012, short supply of energy resulted in historic blackouts — the lights went out for more than 700 million people in July 2012,
impacting all but eight of India’s 28 states and prompting concerns about massive unrest. If the United States began sending its liquefied
natural gas (LNG) abroad, it could alleviate the growing problems in both China and India. It would also make the air cleaner, as natural gas
produces far fewer emissions than coal and oil. Best of all, American natural gas could offer a solution to the energy problems in China and
India without hindering the life-changing economic progress that has lifted millions out of hand-to-mouth poverty in the developing world.
Though the potential is huge, the United States must take urgent action to ensure it beats out international competitors. And while the United
States has abundant energy resources, it woefully lacks the infrastructure to begin large-scale exports of natural gas. The Department of Energy
subjects permit applications to extensive review. In the last three years, 31 separate proposals for LNG export facilities were submitted to the
DOE: only one was green-lighted, while six received merely conditional approval; the rest have languished. Furthermore, federal approval just
begins the process, and constructing the facilities will take years, too. Even
if approval were expedited, American LNG
wouldn’t make it to foreign shores until 2015 at the very earliest.
2AC No Russia Econ Impact
No impact – won’t alter their foreign policy
Blackwill 9 – former associate dean of the Kennedy School of Government and Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National
Security Advisor for Strategic Planning (Robert, RAND, “The Geopolitical Consequences of the World Economic Recession—A Caution”,
http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2009/RAND_OP275.pdf)
Now on to Russia. Again, five years from today. Did the global recession and Russia’s present serious economic
problems
substantially modify Russian foreign policy? No. (President Obama is beginning his early July visit to Moscow as this
paper goes to press; nothing fundamental will result from that visit). Did it produce a serious weakening of Vladimir Putin’s
power and authority in Russia? No, as recent polls in Russia make clear. Did it reduce Russian worries and capacities to
oppose NATO enlargement and defense measures eastward? No. Did it affect Russia’s willingness to accept much tougher sanctions against
Iran? No. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has said there is no evidence that Iran intends to make a nuclear weapon.25 In sum, Russian
foreign policy is today on a steady, consistent path that can be characterized as follows: to resurrect Russia’s standing
as a great power; to reestablish Russian primary influence over the space of the former Soviet Union; to resist Western eff orts to encroach
on the space of the former Soviet Union; to revive Russia’s military might and power projection; to extend the reach of Russian diplomacy
in Europe, Asia, and beyond; and to oppose American global primacy. For Moscow, these foreign policy first principles are here to stay, as
they have existed in Russia for centuries. 26 None of these
enduring objectives of Russian foreign policy are likely
to be changed in any serious way by the economic crisis.
Russian stability does not depend on its economy
Goodrich and Zeihan 9 [Lauren Goodrich, Stratfor's Director of Analysis and Senior Eurasia analyst, and Peter Zeihan, Vice
President of Analysis at Stratfor, “The Financial Crisis and the Six Pillars of Russian Strength,” March 3 2009,
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090302_financial_crisis_and_six_pillars_russian_strength]
the Kremlin uses an iron fist to maintain domestic control . There are few
domestic forces the government cannot control or balance. The Kremlin understands the
revolutions (1917 in particular) and collapses (1991 in particular) of the past, and it has control mechanisms in
place to prevent a repeat. This control is seen in every aspect of Russian life, from one main political party
ruling the country to the lack of diversified media, limits on public demonstrations and the infiltration of the security
services into nearly every aspect of the Russian system. This domination was fortified under Stalin and has been reestablished under the reign of former President and now-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. This
political strength is based on neither financial nor economic foundations . Instead, it is based
within the political institutions and parties, on the lack of a meaningful opposition, and with the backing of the military
Politics: It is no secret that
and security services. Russia's neighbors, especially in Europe, cannot count on the same political strength because their systems are simply
not set up the same way. The stability of the Russian government and lack of stability in the former Soviet states and much of Central
Europe have also allowed the Kremlin to reach beyond Russia and influence its neighbors to the east. Now as before, when some of its
former Soviet subjects -- such as Ukraine -- become destabilized, Russia sweeps in as a source of stability and authority, regardless of
whether this benefits the recipient of Moscow's attention
2AC No Accidental Launch
A) Early warning systems solve
Bailey 98 (Kathleen, Snr Fellow @ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, August, NIPP, http://www.nipp.org/5.php)
The U nited S tates and
Russia have satellite- and ground-based systems to detect and track the launch of ballistic
missiles toward their territories, as well as some capabilities to warn of approaching aircraft. Additionally, both nations have
communications established that enable them to raise questions and seek clarification should there be
unexplained activity that appears threatening. Critics who favor de-alerting cite an incident in January 19 95 as evidence that
early warning in Russia is inadequate and could lead to hasty Russian nuclear use. The incident involved a Russian alert response to a research
rocket fired from Norway. But, while some people viewed President Yeltsin's order for an alert as excessively dangerous, others noted that it
was actually an example of the system working as it should: a missile firing was observed and the
leadership stepped up readiness in event that it was actually an attack.
B) Numerous checks and balances
Bailey 98 (Kathleen, Snr Fellow @ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, August, NIPP, http://www.nipp.org/5.php)
Neither U.S. nor Russian nuclear weapons can be fired accidentally, nor can an illegitimate order to
fire be acted upon. There are numerous checks and balances to assure a very high level of control over
weapons (see Table 2). Nuclear weapons require a series of steps not only to issue the order to fire (and for
the recipient to authenticate the order once received), but also to execute the order. For example, instruction codes to issue a
command to fire U.S. nuclear weapons are kept in a safe. To open the safe requires that an order from the commander-inchief (or his successor) be received and de-coded. Two individuals, each with complementary components of the combination or key to the safe
must then participate in opening it. (In Russia, there are three
individuals.) A single person cannot do the action, nor can it be done by
weapons themselves also have codes
and/or mechanical devices, which must be implemented or activated correctly to enable the weapon to be fired.
only the two people with the key; others must be aware and complicit in the action. The
-- Use control devices and motion sensors prevent accidental launch
Busch 4 (Nathan, Professor and Senior Research Associate in the Center for Trade and Security – University of Georgia, No End in Sign, p.
100)
Russian ICBMs and ICBM silos have sophisticated use-control devices. First, it appears that Russian
missile warhead detonation systems are deactivated during normal circumstances and require a
separate command to activate them." This command cannot be given before the communication links are engaged by the
preliminary command. It is possible that an authorization code must be entered in order to activate the warhead detonation systems. If the
General Staff chose to have the launch crews launch the ICBMs, they would first send a message to the Strategic Rocket Forces headquarters
containing the command to unlock specific launchers and the unlocking codes for those launchers. The launch crews would then enter the
authorization codes and launch the missiles." Only
those launchers designated for immediate launch need be
unlocked. They automatically lock again if they are not launched in a short period of time." In addition,
Russian missile silos are equipped with sensors that would detect an unlawful entry or an attempt to
defeat the locks on the missiles. In either of these cases, the launch mechanism for the ICBM would be
automatically disabled.