BIG OIL: The folly of advertisements from the fossil-fuel industry

Posted on June 20, 2010 by Buck

Here’s a collection of disturbing but oddly comical oil company advertisements from the past—some are eerily prophetic while others are blatantly misleading:

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Given the BP Oil Spill, where are all the Bay Skimmers? This 1980 Gulf Oil advertisement boasts, “I think the best $200,000 Gulf ever spent was for this seagoing vacuum cleaner.” The advertisement further professes, “That’s a lot of oil, and if any of it gets into the water, the Bay Skimmer can pick it up fast. It was tailor-made for this job. We can go right thought an oil slick, and a big belt in the bow simply lifts the oil off the water.” Currently, boats that skim oil are being used in the Gulf of Mexico to clean up the spill. See “Skimming surface, deep dedication,” “$89,000 oil skimmer headed to Louisiana via eBay,” and “More oil spill skimmer, spotter boats activated, mostly in Alabama waters.”
Via
Fossil-fuel companies are Earth’s antifreeze: In a 1940s advertisement for Eveready Prestone antifreeze, manufactured for the National Carbon Company, Inc., there’s a prophetic victory declared over the cold and polar bears:

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Humble Oil predicts the future in 1962 advertisement: “Each day Humble supplies enough energy to melt 7 million tons of glacier”

Via The Huffington Post
Fish love oil: For some reason, I doubt the fish of the Gulf of Mexico need “more oil . . . more oil!” Humanity sure doesn’t need more oil. If the United States government is truly serious about energy independence (and there’s a corollary of environmental preservation that follows energy independence), then we need a commonsensical or prudent energy policy that doesn’t include fossil fuels.

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Climate Cage Change: Seriously, this 1945 Shell Oil Company advertisement does read “Climate in a Cage.”
Via here and here

Video:

Nude model in 1960′s commercial for oil industry: I believe this lady does an exceptional job of capturing our blissful ignorance towards energy, the environment, and entropy.

BREAK

Oysters love oil: The oil industry created this video clip to refute claims made by Gulf fishermen that oil industry activities were destroying oyster beds. The video suggests that oysters love and even can be healed, if sick, by oil industry activities. The video also claims that the oyster’s natural conditions were recreated in the laboratory but note that the tanks do not use any aquarium circulation pump. Given the recent revelation that oil companies included the walrus as part of their Gulf of Mexico recovery plan, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that these oil industry scientists, in the video below, believe these oysters can live in these small tanks without flowing water. Otherwise, the white coats and the oysters in the fish tanks are merely smoke and mirrors. Historically, oysters have been decimated in areas where anthropogenic activities have caused poor water quality, since oysters are filter feeders. Oysters are Nature’s water filtration system, because they filter and clean water. In fact, “an adult oyster can filter as much as 50 gallons of water a day.” To put it another way, “the oysters in the [Chesapeake] Bay could once filter a volume of water equal to that of the entire Bay (about 19 trillion gallons) in a week. Today, it would take the remaining Bay oysters more than a year.” Furthermore, since oysters are Nature’s water filtration system, they easily pick up nasty pollutants and diseases from the water column. This video is another example of the outrageous tactics that the oil industry are willing to use in order to misinform or create doubt.
Via NBC New York

More on oysters and disease from the Maryland Department of the Environment:

Shellfish are filter-feeding organisms; they strain the surrounding water through their gills which trap and transfer food particles to their digestive tract. If the water they are housed in is contaminated with disease-causing organisms, these organisms are also trapped and consumed as food. Because shellfish pump large quantities of water through their gills each day, even low concentrations of harmful organisms from the waters can reach dangerous levels in the shellfish. If shellfish containing these organisms are eaten raw or partially cooked, illness may result.

Shellfish are bivalve mollusks such as clams, oysters, and mussels. [The term shellfish does not include crabs, lobsters, or shrimp.] Therefore, to protect public health, it is mandatory that shellfish be harvested from approved shellfish waters where protective standards have been met.

More on oysters and poor water quality from the Chesapeake Bay Program:

How do diseases and poor water quality affect oysters?

In addition to harvest pressure, the Bay’s oysters face a number of other challenges. One of these is disease. Since the 1950s, the oyster diseases MSX and Dermo have decimated the Bay’s remaining oyster population.

The Bay’s oysters have also been impacted by poor water quality.

Changes in land use over the past century—more agricultural and urban and suburban areas and fewer forested areas—have increased the amount of nutrients and sediment that enter the Bay.

Excess nutrients fuel the growth of algae blooms that deplete oxygen in deeper waters and can hinder the development of oyster larvae.

Oysters that are under stress from poor water quality or burial by sediment are likely more prone to disease.

Spoofs & irony:

This parody illustrates the truth behind BP’s television commercials:

Greenwashing:

BP or British Petroleum campaigns on the idea that BP is synonymous to “Beyond Petroleum.” However, the use of beyond petroleum to describe BP’s energy strategy and policy is contradictory or even misleading. More from Slate.com:

So what’s with this “Beyond Petroleum” stuff? BP has a huge investment in an intensively competitive commodity business. By and large, you’ll get virtually the same performance, price, and customer experience at Sunoco as you will at BP. Cars don’t develop tastes for brands of gas the way humans develop tastes for brands of soda or potato chips. Neither, by my own unscientific polling, do people. Oil retailers differentiate themselves by offering premium coffee in the stores or providing ease of payment through gizmos like Mobil’s Speedpass or, in BP’s case, by projecting a favorable brand image.

Highlighting environmentally friendly products has emerged as a popular way for retailers and consumer-product companies to strengthen bonds with discerning customers. Think Home Depot’s rainforest-free lumber, McDonald’s biodegradable Big Mac wrappers, and the entire Body Shop. Ford briefly aspired to eco-friendliness with its drive for greater fuel efficiency but canned it when the financial going got tough.

By running these ads and by doing things like powering gas pumps with electricity generated by photovoltaic cells, BP sends a message to conflicted SUV drivers—I’m one of them—who sleep better after filling the 14-mile-per-gallon Jeep from an energy-efficient pump. What’s more, it obtains what no global oil conglomerate can buy: positive coverage in the media. (The New York Times in particular seems to have a soft spot for anything that smacks of renewable energy.)

BP’s campaign inspires no small amount of cognitive dissonance. The company proudly notes that it will invest $15 billion in oil properties in the next 10 years. But while a release notes that “BP holds a leading share in the global market for photovoltaic modules, which turn sunlight into electricity,” you’ll search far and wide on its Web site without finding any dollar figures attached to it. You can be sure that “leading share” is a lot closer to $15 million than $15 billion.

More significantly, the Beyond Petroleum campaign seems to argue for the disappearance of the company’s core product. If our kids should be so fortunate as to live in a world beyond petroleum, one in which cars, factories, and electricity plants are powered by an alternative power source—hydrogen, fuel cells, electric batteries, ethanol, fission, or fairy dust—it’s a virtual certainty BP won’t be the one to get us there.

Big players in industries—especially dominant ones—can survive and even profit from dramatic inflection points. IBM adapted from the mainframe to the PC, and Microsoft has survived the transition to the Internet. But giant companies in competitive, capital-intensive businesses, which are owned by shareholders with short time horizons, have difficulty mustering the will to develop a new product that will render existing ventures obsolete.

In The Innovator’s Dilemma, Harvard Business School’s Clayton Christensen argued that established players are constitutionally disinclined to develop disruptive technologies on their own. Why? Incumbents spend too much time and resources satisfying their customers’ current needs—in BP’s case, the need for cheap oil and gas. As a result, they fail to latch on to new technologies that may turn into products that customers might need or don’t even know they need.

Oil companies have been greenwashing with the idea of “Beyond Petroleum”—which is mere self-serving propaganda—for years. For example, this 1977 Exxon advertisement highlights the importance of solar energy and energy conservation. However, although solar energy and energy conservation have increased since the 1970s, renewable energy and energy conservation would certainly represent a higher share if both the United States government and energy companies had implemented energy policies that required and incentivized more renewable energy and conservation projects. The advertisement states that the United States’ top priority should be the development of more domestic oil and gas—despite oil and gas being fungible. Also, allowing our growing society to become so dependent on fossil fuels, which are a nonrenewable resource, raises national security concerns. Secondly, the advertisement highlights the importance of coal—despite the negative externalities associated with coal. Lastily, the advertisement states that “solar power can make a contribution.”
Via
These advertisements from the 1970s suggest that you can fight air pollution by burning certain petroleum products. Despite technological advances in the development of cleaner fuels and “despite America’s growing ‘green’ movement, the air in many cities [is becoming] dirtier.” Air pollution from tailpipe emissions impacts human health and the human environment by contributing to ozone pollution, global warming, pollution that damages infrastructure, and ocean acidification.
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COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER increasing costs for farmers

Posted on March 8, 2010 by Buck

Colony collapse disorder or CCD occurs when a bee colony collapses or fails due to the sudden disappearance of its worker bees. Bee colonies may be destroyed or may withdraw from a hive for a number of reasons. For example, Varroa mite infestations can be particularly destructive. However, the exact cause of CCD or “the mass disappearance of worker honey bees” is unknown. There are several theories to explain what’s causing CCD, but it probably results from a combination of factors. Though, there may be one or two factors—probably resulting from anthropogenic activities—which play a more prominent role in the manifestation of CCD. For instance, according to the Daily Green, bee frames, which house the honey, pollen, bee larva, and unhatched bee eggs, have “to be replaced every 2 or 3 years because of the agricultural toxins that build up inside.” More from the Washington Times:

The prevailing theory on the cause of CCD includes several factors. The three main suspects of CCD are: viruses, stress and pesticides. When joined together these factors may create the deadly disease, researchers say.

As a result of the increasing scarcity of bees and beekeepers, the cost of bee rental has skyrocketed. Farmers rent beehives to increase pollination thus crop productivity, so bees do more than just make honey—they’re important pollinators as well. According to estimates from a Cornell University study, “Nearly one-third of U.S. agriculture depends on the 2.4 million bee colonies for big crop production, where they annually pollinate $14 billion worth of seeds and crops.” More from Economist.com:

Since 2006, however, bees have been suffering from “colony collapse disorder” (CCD), a mysterious affliction that has drastically reduced their numbers. As a result, says Joe MacIlvaine, the president of Paramount Farming and the largest almond-grower in the world, the rental cost of a hive has tripled in the past five years to about $150. Bee rental now accounts for 15% of Paramount’s costs.

So Paramount has hired Mr Wardell, who has been studying bees for 30 years and CCD since it broke out. Its cause may be mobile-telephony radiation, viruses, fungi, mites and pesticides—or none of the above. In the absence of a clear explanation, Mr Wardell is concentrating on something different: nutrition.

A healthy worker bee spends about four weeks in its hive, feeding on protein-rich pollen and nursing larvae, and then another two weeks in the field eating sugary honey until its proteins are depleted and it dies. For some reason bees are getting too little protein in the hive, thus dying after only about four weeks, almost as soon as they venture outside. So Mr Wardell is force-feeding them protein. He owns a patent for MegaBee, which he says “looks like cookie dough”. He puts a bit of this into the hives, blocking the bees’ entrance so that they have to chomp their way through it. As part of his new job, Mr Wardell is working with beekeepers across the country to supplement bee diets everywhere.

So far he has noticed that hives are smaller this year and some colonies still collapsing. But he has hopes that his cookies will work, bringing more of a buzz next year.

In addition to nutritional issues, current research into a solution for CCD is focusing on breeding disease-resistant bees. From the Washington Times:

Through the growing science of genomics – the science of looking at molecular information in DNA – Mr. Delaplane’s science team will select a super-resistant bee that is able to naturally combat CCD and a culprit in this disorder: varroa mites.

First, “We’re going to be identifying bees that are resistant to XYZ” diseases, he said. Then, “We will be able to genetically mark these lines.”

The technique of marking and using favorable genetic traits is now done in the animal and plant industry, but marking a natural trait is different than engineering a change.

“We have no plan for doing [genetic] engineered selections,” Mr. Delaplane said. “We’re going to be screening for natural resistance.”

Afterward, Mr. Delaplane’s team will take those disease-resistant bees and breed more of them. Here science is guiding the process of natural selection.

Once the genetically strong bees are developed in the laboratory, they will be shipped to commercial bee breeders. The breeders, in turn, will mass produce them and flood the market with disease-resistant bees to beekeepers across the country. CCD may still be around, but the superbee’s immune system will effectively combat it.

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Photo source for attribution here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. The authors or licensors of these images do not endorse my work or me and their images are protected under an attribution license. The bee graphic is via The New York Times.

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ENERGY: Biofuels from the sunlight: Algae-to-fuel technology promising, but challenges exist when going from the lab to the field with algae-to-fuel technology, and a new study suggests significant environmental impacts from algae-based biofuels

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Buck

Through photosynthesis, algae can produce oil. In turn, algae-based biofuel can be used as an alternative to petroleum-based fuels. Fuels derived from algae are an attractive alternative energy source, because unlike petroleum-based fuels, which add trapped carbon dioxide into the atmosphere following combustion, biofuels do not.

However, research suggests that algae-based biofuels have several hurdles to overcome before becoming practical on a commercial scale. For example, proponents of algae-based biofuel argue that this type of biofuel produces less greenhouse gases, but recent research suggests otherwise. From The New York Times:

Proponents of algae oil say that the technology will perform significantly better than older generations of biofuels — that it will produce less greenhouse gas in its lifecycle, that it uses less land, that it can be grown anywhere — bypassing the concerns about competition with food crops that have come to plague corn ethanol.

Some environmentalists say water availability could be a problem for algae to fuel in the desert, though they say the issue has not been explored in depth. But some algae-to-fuel companies are already looking at using saltwater or wastewater — from sources like the Salton Sea — so that they won’t be shipping water to the desert.

. . .

Unexpected problems include other algae or microorganisms — borne by the winds or the birds — eating or outcompeting the cultivated algae (“equivalents of weeds,” Melnick says). Temperature fluctuations could range high. There could be too much sun. “All the variables that farmers are constantly exposed to,” Melnick says.

So going from the lab to the field, some strains live and others die. Demattia can brace for some forces — for example, hold off on adding water when he expects rain — and adjust for others, such as through tweaking fertilizer amounts. But some things he cannot help.

“Algae’s a mystery,” Demattia said. “It dies on you, you never know why it died. You just have it die overnight, and you’ll come in and no one will know, even the guys who’ve been doing it for 30 years won’t know what killed it. So there’s still a lot more to learn.”

Algae-to-fuel technology can be carbon and energy intensive. More from Yale Environment 360:

Growing algae for biofuels is an energy-intensive process that can generate more greenhouse gases than the process sequesters, according to a new study. Examining the life cycle of algal biofuels, researchers from the University of Virginia found that the process emits high levels of greenhouse gases because algal production requires using large amounts of fertilizer. Those fertilizers often come from petroleum-based sources, and fertilizers also emit nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas, according to the study. The study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, said that while biofuel production from crops such as corn, canola, and switchgrass can result in a net carbon dioxide uptake, that is not yet the case with algal biofuels. The paper said that one promising way to overcome the environmental impact of using fertilizers to grow algal biofuels is to produce them with effluent from sewage treatment plants. Proponents of algal biofuels also said it is too early to make firm conclusions about the environmental impact of the technology because it is still in its infancy.

Algae biofuel companies respond to the study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. From the New York Times:

One industry member said that while the University of Virginia research was conducted in a sound fashion, it was extremely outdated.

“It’s absolutely right if you think of it as last generation algae,” said Riggs Eckelberry, chief executive of the algae biofuel company Origin Oil, based in New Jersey. “But we’ve got to make this stuff viable now.”

One of the challenges to large-scale algae production noted by the paper was the need for large amounts of fertilizer to be added to the water in which it is grown. But Mr. Eckelberry said his company plans to use wastewater in algae production.

“Identifying wastewater is a homerun for algae production, probably the best there is,” he said. “There are lots of nitrates, and algae love dirty water — they can remove toxins, such as medical drugs from that water.”

In response, Andres Clarens the lead author of the study said he used the most recent data that he could, which was about 10 years old. Algae biofuel companies keep their research a closely guarded secret, he said.

He invited companies to share any more recent and relevant data they had with him.

“Everybody talks about the next generation – what is the next generation?” he said. “I’d be happy to model it if somebody produces it.”

He may get what he wishes for – the whole blow-out may result in a partnership.

On Tuesday, Mary Rosenthal of the Algal Biomass Association called him, and if member companies agree to make data available, Dr. Clarens may do a follow-up study.

One project is recycling dairy waste to produce algae-based fuel. From Sandia National Laboratories:

Recently Williams and other Sandia researchers have grown green algae in a 12-by-30-foot greenhouse using a simulated dairy effluent, the nutrient-rich liquid remaining after bacterial digestion of dairy manure. The solids from the digestion of dairy manure can potentially be used to develop fertilizer and feed and the liquid serves as a nutrient source for algae. The algae are typically cultured for several days, followed by harvesting and dewatering, after which the algal oil is extracted. The algae produce lipids, the most useful being neutral oil made up largely of triacyglycerides (TAG) that can be converted to biofuels.

Williams said that growing algae for biofuels eliminates many problems associated with traditional biofuels.

“The current generation of biofuels [starch- and sugar-based ethanol and oil crop-based biodiesel] rely on the use of commodity crops and therefore compete for use of food crops, primarily corn,” she said. “Also, they are very farm-intensive and use a lot of good farming land, fuel and fertilizer inputs and fresh water.”

Algae ponds, on the other hand, can be put on marginal land and grown with non-fresh brackish water produced from energy mineral extraction (petroleum, natural gas, coal-bed methane), or nutrient-loaded wastewater from municipal and agricultural sources. The Southwest has the potential for being a leader in manufacturing this new type of biofuel because “it has lots of barren land that can’t be used for anything else, lots of sunlight and a lot of marginal water,” Sandia researcher Brian Dwyer said.

. . .

Williams anticipates that the Sandia research will have the potential to provide new jobs and economic development to New Mexico, the seventh largest dairy-producing state in the nation. The state’s dairy industry employs more than 5,000 people and has an annual impact of nearly $2.7 billion.

The 340,000 dairy cows in New Mexico produce large quantities of manure and nutrient-rich effluent water that represent a significant waste management problem and regulatory expense to the state’s dairy industry. These and other agri-industrial waste streams represent a valuable and underused feedstock for recycling of energy, biofuels, reusable water and other coproducts. The DOE Algal Biofuels Technology Roadmap currently in draft suggests the use of non-fresh water sources, including agricultural effluent, for algal biomass production. Besides providing a source of non-fresh water and the recycling of needed nutrients, the use of these waste streams in an integrated biorefinery will help to alleviate disposal regulatory requirements on dairies and other confined animal feeding operations in New Mexico and the broader United States.

Images via Randy Montoya

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POLITICS: Bush II Administration’s “unpaid-for policies will continue to add trillions to our deficit”

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Buck

The consequences of the Bush II Administration’s policies and its spending spree are staggering. It’s something the so-called tea party movement missed. From the Washington Post:

The day the Bush administration took over from President Bill Clinton in 2001, America enjoyed a $236 billion budget surplus — with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion. When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit — and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade. During eight years in office, the Bush administration passed two major tax cuts skewed to the wealthiest Americans, enacted a costly Medicare prescription-drug benefit and waged two wars, without paying for any of it.

To put the breathtaking scope of this irresponsibility in perspective, the Bush administration’s swing from surpluses to deficits added more debt in its eight years than all the previous administrations in the history of our republic combined. And its spending spree is the unwelcome gift that keeps on giving: Going forward, these unpaid-for policies will continue to add trillions to our deficit.

This fiscal irresponsibility — and a laissez-faire attitude toward the excesses of the financial industry — helped create the conditions for the deepest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. Economists across the political spectrum agreed that to deal with this crisis and avoid a second Great Depression, the government had to make significant investments to keep our economy going and shore up our financial system.

How is President Obama doing on spending cuts? He’s doing better than former president George W. Bush‎. From the Washington Times:

President Obama notched substantial successes in spending cuts last year, winning 60 percent of his proposed cuts and managing to get Congress to ax several programs that had bedeviled President George W. Bush for years.

The administration says Congress accepted at least $6.9 billion of the $11.3 billion in discretionary spending cuts Mr. Obama proposed for the current fiscal year. An analysis by The Washington Times found that Mr. Obama was victorious in getting Congress to slash 24 programs and achieved some level of success in reducing nine other programs.

. . .

By comparison, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says Mr. Bush won 40 percent of his spending cuts in fiscal 2006 and won less than 15 percent of his proposed cuts for 2007 and 2008.

Mr. Obama’s cuts shine a bright spot in an otherwise dreary budget picture. The Congressional Budget Office said the deficit for fiscal 2010, which began Oct. 1, is building at a record pace, reaching $389 billion for those first three months.

Even though the president succeeded in winning a high percentage of his cuts, they still account for well less than one-half of 1 percent of the total federal budget.

On the Net:

Image found here

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Category Archives: Business

COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER increasing costs for farmers

ENERGY: Biofuels from the sunlight: Algae-to-fuel technology promising, but challenges exist when going from the lab to the field with algae-to-fuel technology, and a new study suggests significant environmental impacts from algae-based biofuels

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