Energy: The Last Frontier

It’s official. The Montana GOP energy plan is out. It’s a lot like the one favored by some Democrats - - - they just haven’t gotten around to calling it a plan.

It’s called: Dig it! Drill it!

DiDi?

It was good enough for Alan Olson, an R running for the Public Service Commission, to earn the labor [AFL-CIO] endorsement last June.

They say DiDi is all about energy independence and jobs. Not going to cow-tow to a bunch of 'olive-skinned' Middle Easterners. What did our Governor once call them? Raghead dictators?

While the R’s complain about the permitting process and environmental regulations, the truth is that state every law and review process has been written to the complete satisfaction of industry. Oh, wait, there is one they want: Anyone who challenges the sufficiency of an administrative (regulatory) proceeding or initiates a court challenge against a ‘project’ or permit for any reason, must post a bond. A really, really big one. That one hasn't passed just yet - - - something about due process and impeding one's right to access the courts.

Roy Brown says DiDi is about funding for education. Mining companies pay taxes on the coal they produce and there's a lot out there. In fact, Montana sits atop the largest coal reserves in the western hemisphere. Sometimes, outsiders even call Montana the ‘Saudi Arabia of Coal.’ I’d just as soon go without that handle, thank you.

What DiDi is really all about is lunacy.

We all know oil and even coal are going to run out one day. They are finite fossil fuels. Our rate of consumption is growing exponentially and no new coal and oil have been produced, not in our lifetimes anyway. What happens when it all runs out?

And, the there is the little problem called global warming. Some dare refer to it as ‘climate change.’

Yes, science is not 100 percent convinced that we have climate change. As Thomas Friedman, the Pulitzer winning, free-marketeer, puts it, only 98 percent of the scientific community agrees that the planet is warming and the increase in temperature is caused by the human production of carbon dioxide.

Let’s say our worldwide atmosphere is your child. Your child has symptoms of a serious illness. So, you go to your family doctor. The diagnosis is the child will die without treating and changing how some systems are functioning.

You love your child and you want to be absolutely certain the recommended treatment is correct. So, you seek a second opinion, and a third, and a fourth and so on until you’ve seen 100 doctors.

Two of them say nothing’s wrong. Just wait and see.

Who do you believe? What do you do?


The cruel truth is that Coal is King. Economies worldwide are built around it because it is abundant, cheap and, although cursed as dirty and unhealthy [black lung and mercury poisoning], thought acceptably benign. It will enjoy a long rule even if we agreed today to phase its consumption down to zero as quickly as politically, economically and all of the other "-icallys" you can list, possible.

So, we continue to mine it and burn it and make electricity in Montana.

Or, we mine it, rail it to buyers elsewhere who burn it and make electricity. The quality of Montana coal [and its distance from markets and the higher transportation costs that result], not out taxes, make it less attractive to buyers than coal from, say, Wyoming.

But, wait a minute. What about 'real' energy independence? After all, we need fuels to run our trains, planes and automobiles.

That’s the coal to liquids caper.

You build a plant and liquefy coal. There aren’t many in operation. Try South Africa. The so-called Fischer-Tropsch was perfected by the Master Race in Nazi Germany. Using the Fischer-Tropsch method, one ton of coal produces 1.5 barrels of diesel fuel. If you are keeping score, a barrel is 42 gallons.

Or, we could turn coal into a gas.

The first thing to note about these processes: They cost zillions of dollars. When the economy was booming, the real question [although not posed this way] was, who is going to the first one dumb enough to build one outside of Africa?

Second thing to note about these processes: They consume massive amounts of water. Years of drought conditions [maybe, just maybe brought on by a warming of the climate] and little precipitation mean the rivers barely run through coal country these days. What little there is belongs to senior water rights holders, ranchers, farmers, municipalities and reserved in-stream flows. Perhaps, instead of going meatless, the humans can go waterless. The fish and wildlife? Gosh, let's see . . .

Third thing to note: They produce massive amounts of carbon dioxide. Sell it, we're told. Yes, pipe it to compressor stations where it pressurized then forced underground to squeeze crude oil out of once-thought-to-be-depleted oil fields. [And, when the oil is depleted completely, what happens to the CO 2?] Better yet, how about storing ( aka: sequestering) the carbon dioxide underground, a new, but completely untested idea? If I recall correctly, for hundreds of years, didn’t we think the best way to rid ourselves of certain industrial waste by-products was to flush them down a river or heat them up and expel them into the air? That didn’t work out so well.

Fourth thing to note: They consume massive amounts of electricity. Through a whirling dervish of activity, these plants can be trained to sit up and co-generate electricity - - - the process itself consumes roughly 40 percent of the electricity produced. The investors can only hope the cost of the remaining, unused power can be produced at a cost that makes it competitive enough to be sold profitably on the open market.

Earlier this year, the Governor nuzzled up to investors from Australia who, pretty much without any state involvement, concluded an agreement with the Crow Nation to build one of these plants. Although, come to think of it, the media didn’t mention Fischer-Tropsch. [The Aussies do have their own problems with genocide of the Aborigines.]

When the topsy-turvy financial markets and an inadequate supply of water doom the project, the Governor can fade away. Roy, you ask? I don’t know - - - has he actually said he supports these damned things? [Tragically, once again, the White Man’s words will pierce impoverished hearts, souls and stomachs in Indian Country.]

When you enter the frontier, you had better have a real plan. Otherwise you might just be stuck with DiDi: damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Hardly a way to survive.

Hardly a legacy to leave our ancestors.