PYLE: Camp’s Proposal is Encouraging

WASHINGTON — American Energy Alliance President Thomas Pyle issued a statement today on House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp’s (R-MI) draft tax reform legislation. Chairman Camp’s plan would repeal a number of green energy tax incentives, including the wind Production Tax Credit (PTC). Pyle’s statement reads:

“Chairman Camp’s proposal is an encouraging step toward common sense tax reform that Americans deserve. The Chairman should be commended for his efforts to save taxpayer dollars by ending wasteful green energy subsidies, including the wind PTC. 

“The expiration of the PTC at the end of 2013 was a victory for taxpayers. Now, Chairman Camp’s attempt to slash this wasteful handout from the tax code provides another positive sign to the American people. For over twenty years, the PTC has put an unnecessary burden on taxpayers by forcing them to prop up the self-proclaimed ‘infant’ wind industry. The wind industry demands ‘policy certainty’ for wind energy subsidies. Chairman Camp’s plan answers those calls by providing certainty that taxpayers will no longer be forced to foot the bill for Big Wind.”

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Pyle Urges Wyden to Examine PTC

WASHINGTON — American Energy Alliance President Thomas Pyle sent a letter today to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) urging him to initiate a full inquiry into past extensions of the wind Production Tax Credit (PTC). As the new Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Wyden has already expressed support for a tax extenders package that includes the wind PTC. American taxpayers deserve to know the full economic impacts of wind subsidies before Sen. Wyden even considers tax extenders. The letter reads:

As you know, Congress voted last year to give the wind industry another year of subsidies, which the Joint Committee on Taxation pegged at a $12 billion cost to taxpayers. Congress has a duty to consider the full impacts of last year’s expansion of the wind Production Tax Credit before committing billions more to an industry whose technology former Energy Secretary Steven Chu labeled “mature.”  In fact, AWEA proudly boasts that at the end of last year, “there were more U.S. wind power MW under construction than ever in history.”

The American people deserve a full airing of the cumulative economic impacts of wind subsidies, and the Senate Finance Committee has a unique responsibility to assess these impacts. We urge you, therefore, to initiate a full inquiry into the success of past extensions of the wind PTC to determine if taxpayers have received the benefit that policymakers and wind lobbyists promised.  We would also urge the Committee to investigate the other nations who have subsidized and/or mandated renewable energy and are now rapidly moving away from this model because of skyrocketing consumer energy costs.  By examining the experience of others, the U.S. may be able to avoid some of the same mistakes.

The American Energy Alliance welcomes a full discussion of this matter before the Senate Finance Committee and would eagerly participate in a meaningful conversation about the merits of the wind PTC, specifically, and all energy subsidies in general. A common sense U.S. energy policy should be guided by solid facts, sound science and an assessment of the impacts of these policies to the marketplace and the costs to consumers.

To read the full letter, click here.

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Introduction to Petroleum Coke

What is Petroleum Coke?

Generally, people think of oil refineries as producing gasoline and diesel fuel, but refineries produce much more than just those two fuels. One important product produced by refineries is something called petroleum coke, or “petcoke.” Petcoke is used as a fuel and as a source of carbon for industrial processes.

How is Petcoke Produced?

Petcoke is produced after crude oil undergoes two processes. First, the oil is distilled into various products, separating out the light parts of the oil—the gasoline vapors, liquid petroleum gas (LPG), naphtha, and kerosene from the heavier parts of the oil. The heavier portion of the oil in then processed through a “coker” which subjects the remaining oil to high heat and pressure to exact as much of the lighter gasoline-like parts of the oil as possible. What remains after the coker after the high heat and pressure is a substance called petroleum coke.

Source: Wikimedia author romanm

What Are Petcoke’s Uses?

Petroleum coke is high in carbon—this makes it chemically similar to coal and both energy dense and useful for many other industrial processes that require carbon.

About 80 percent of petcoke is used as fuel. While petcoke is similar to coal, petcoke generates just 0.2 percent of America’s electricity, while coal generates nearly 40 percent. Instead, petcoke is usually used as a fuel to make cement, lime, brick, glass, steel, and fertilizer as well as many other industrial applications.

Much of the rest of the petcoke is “calcined petroleum coke.” Calcined petcoke is petcoke that is again heated to remove moisture, volatile matter, and impurities and to increase the electrical conductivity. Calcinced petcoke is used to make steel, graphite and titanium.

Calcined petcoke is essential to the creation of aluminum. Because of its high carbon purity and a lack of contaminants, calcined petcoke provides the only economically viable method to produce primary aluminum. Calcined petcoke also produces titanium dioxide, a safer alternative to the lead used in paint.

Why is Petcoke Important?

Demand for U.S. petcoke is rising, with China, Mexico, Japan, Canada, India and Turkey as the largest importers. China, for instance, imported 3.2 million barrels of petroleum coke from the U.S. in this past April alone, their third largest monthly volume of all time.

America became a net exporter of petroleum products in 2011 and the exports of petroleum coke is one of the reasons. As the next chart shows, the U.S. exported 184,167,000 barrels of petcoke in 2012, a nearly 30 percent increase since 2009.

Coal is one of the most affordable and abundant sources of energy for electricity generation. But international coal prices are often higher than U.S. petcoke prices, making U.S. petcoke an attractive option for many countries to use as a fuel.

Growing demand in developing countries, coupled with affordable prices, has enabled U.S. petcoke to emerge as a valuable export for the U.S. and a cost-effective analogue for coal for much of the rest of the world.

Conclusion

Whether or not petcoke will continue its rise in global energy markets remains to be seen. But barring any significant changes in federal regulatory practices, America can only stand to gain from petcoke’s continued production and exportation. Because petroleum coke is a product of petroleum and is chemically similar to coke, some special interest groups are trying to demonize petroleum coke on environmental grounds. In future posts, we’ll explore the environmental considerations surrounding petroleum coke.

 

Biofuel Industry Gets Rich at the Expense of World's Poor

By their very nature, government policies that artificially encourage the use of “biofuels” (such as ethanol) distort resource allocation and make consumers poorer than they otherwise would be. Of course, fans of the free market have been leveling such a criticism against biofuel mandates and subsidies from the beginning.

Yet over the last few years, even many left-leaning groups have realized the harm of these programs. In particular, biofuels divert agricultural products and lands out of food production and into energy production, thereby driving up food prices. We have already written here about the Renewable Fuels Association’s celebratory document explaining the boost to farm income (and higher prices for consumers) provided by the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). But now a new scholarly article by Brian Wright in The Journal of Economic Perspectives provides additional insight into the connection between biofuel policies and food prices.

Wright is Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley. His paper explores the reasons for the large increase in prices of wheat, rice, and corn over the last five years, which is at first puzzling since these are textbook competitive markets. Wright argues that “[t]he price jumps since 2005 are best explained by the new policies causing a sustained surge in demand for biofuels.” In other words, subsidies and mandates for biofuels are making food more expensive, particularly for the poorest among us. He goes on to write:

The rises in food prices since 2004 have generated huge wealth transfers to global landholders, agricultural input suppliers, and biofuels producers. The losers have been net consumers of food, including large numbers of the world’s poorest peoples. The cause of this large global redistribution was no perfect storm. Far from being a natural catastrophe, it was the result of new policies to allow and require increased use of grain and oilseed for production of biofuels. Leading this trend were the wealthy countries, initially misinformed about the true global environmental and distributional implications.

Wright’s analysis shows that the problem of biofuel policies is not limited to the United States; wealthy countries around the world are embracing these flawed policies in the name of protecting the environment. Yet perversely, the full impact of these policies falls on the poorest people of the world, who are hurt the most by increased food prices.

Even groups who initially supported the RFS and similar policies are realizing its perverse consequences. We have earlier discussed the ethanol “blend wall” which threatens to actually harm vehicle engines and make fuel more expensive for American motorists. Now we can add increased global food prices to the list.

IER Senior Economist Robert P. Murphy authored this post. 

Keystone XL: Fifth and Final Environmental Review is Favorable

While the State Department’s latest report on the environmental impact of the Keystone XL pipeline released late last week is favorable to its construction, President Obama is still not so sure[i] and there are several steps to be undertaken before a decision will be made. First, is a comment period lasting 30 days on the report’s findings from the public and a 90-day period for comments from other government agencies. That puts the next milestone into May, at the earliest, when Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to make a recommendation to the President as to whether the pipeline is in the national interest. So, the summer is the earliest when an answer might be expected from the President. Given his past history on the subject, however, delays until beyond the mid-term elections will likely be the case bringing the ‘studying’ of the national merit of the Keystone pipeline to over 6 years.

The Latest State Department Report

The 11-volume Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement[ii] concludes that the Keystone XL pipeline would have no marginal effect on climate or oil and gas development in the Alberta oil sands because the resources would be produced anyway irrespective of the President’s decision. The only difference is how the oil sands would be transported.

In a scenario where the oil sands is transported by rail and tanker, 27.8 percent more greenhouse gas emissions are emitted than if the pipeline were constructed. If the oil sands were to be moved by train to existing pipelines, 39.7 percent more greenhouse gas emissions would result. And, if the oil sands were to be transported solely by rail to the Gulf of Mexico, 41.8 percent more greenhouse gas emissions would result.[iii]

extra-KXL-graph

The surge in rail movements of oil can be seen by these statistics:  In 2009, 9,500 carloads of oil were moved by rail compared to almost 234,000 carloads in 2012, an increase of almost a factor of 25. And, in 2013, it is estimated that around 400,000 carloads of oil were moved, about a 70 percent increase from 2012.

Further, according to the study, replacing the Keystone XL pipeline with rail from Canada could result in an average of six additional rail-related deaths per year. Using data from the Federal Railroad Administration  and the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration, shipping 830,000 barrels per day of oil “would result in an estimated 49 additional injuries and six additional fatalities for the No Action rail scenarios compared to one additional injury and no fatalities” per year if Keystone XL is built instead. The “No Action” scenarios analyze the likely situation if the Northern portion of Keystone is not built.[iv]

Also, according to the report, shipping oil by rail, instead of by pipeline, is expected to result in a higher number of oil spills and a larger amount of leakage over time. If Keystone XL is built as planned, it is expected to spill an average of 518 barrels per year, with a leak occurring once every two years. Under the most optimistic scenario involving rail, over 1,200 barrels are expected to be spilled each year from nearly 300 spills.

The State Department expects the Keystone project to create 42,100 direct, indirect, and induced jobs, many of which are union jobs. About 3,900 of those jobs are expected to be temporary construction jobs. Once built over a 2-year period, the pipeline would support 50 jobs directly. Keystone is expected to contribute about $3.4 billion to the economy (about 0.02 percent of GDP).[v]

The State Department report did evaluate some scenarios where Canada’s oil sands would not be produced in their entirety based on a future low price for world oil.  If the price of world oil were to fall to between $65 and $75 per barrel, the higher cost of rail shipping compared to pipeline shipping could make some oil sands unprofitable. Or, if the price were to drop to below $65, then a larger amount of oil sands could be unprofitable to produce with or without the pipeline. However, these scenarios are not very likely particularly since the reason for any speculation in low oil prices is due to the boom in North American crude, of which oil sands is a part.[vi]

Barge Traffic Increases

It is not just rail that is benefiting from a lack of sufficient pipeline capacity to move oil. Oil moving on barges on the Mississippi River from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico has increased by a factor of 13 since 2010. According to federal data, almost five million barrels of oil a month is being shipped by barge from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale and from Canada’s oil sands. Barges also are moving oil around the Gulf and on the East and West coasts, providing links between pipelines and railroad terminals and refineries.[vii]

While barges carry less oil than railcars, are slower, and are more limited to routes, they are less expensive and can fill gaps easily in the logistics chain. An oil barge generally carries 30,000 barrels of oil — less than half the volume of a 100-car oil train.

Oceangoing barges also are moving oil. Waterborne shipments of Eagle Ford shale oil from the Port of Corpus Christi in Texas not only move along the Intracoastal Waterway to refineries on the Gulf Coast, but they also supply oil to New Jersey and Canada’s eastern coast. According to Clipper Data LLC, barge and tanker traffic from Gulf Coast ports to East Coast refineries in the United States and Canada increased by almost a factor of 10 last year. In December, the amount of oil shipped to the Atlantic Coast doubled from August, reaching 1.4 million barrels.

Increased traffic is adding to the profits of barge operators. For example, Houston-based Kirby Corporation, which is the biggest operator by fleet size, reported a record profit of $64.3 million for the fourth quarter based on revenue of $568.4 million. This year, Kirby is adding 37 inland barges to its fleet and one that can travel on the open sea at a cost of $90 million.

MK-CJ762_BARGES_G_20140202180904

Source: Wall Street Journal

Conclusion

The State Department is finding the Keystone pipeline as a favorable asset in its latest environmental impact statement, which should pave the way for the President to find Keystone in the national interest by this summer. But, President Obama says “not so fast” as comments from the public and other federal agencies are the next steps in the process that has now taken 5 and a half years. But, as we all know, oil sands will be moved regardless of the decision, whether to the United States or Asia, whether by pipeline, rail, barge or tanker. Americans should want and expect the decision to be the safest and cheapest means possible.


[i] National Journal, White House to Keystone Advocates: Not So Fast, January 31, 2014,http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/white-house-to-keystone-advocates-not-so-fast-20140131

[ii][ii] U.S. Department of State, Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, http://keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/finalseis/index.htm

[iv] Reuters, Without Keystone, oil trains may cause six deaths per year: U.S. State Department report, February 2, 2014,http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/03/us-keystone-rail-idUSBREA1201Z20140203

[v] Washington Post, Five takeaways from State Department’s review of the Keystone XL pipeline, January 31, 2014,http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/31/four-takeaways-from-the-state-departments-review-of-the-keystone-xl-pipeline/

[vi] Council on Foreign Relations, The Most Important Part of the Keystone Environmental Impact Statement, February 1, 2014, http://blogs.cfr.org/levi/2014/02/01/the-most-important-part-of-the-keystone-xl-environmental-impact-statement/

DOE Doubles Down on Failed Electric Vehicle Subsidies

When it comes to green energy subsidies, the Obama administration has a habit of throwing good money after bad. The latest example comes from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which recently announced an additional $50 million in funding for electric vehicle technology as part of President Obama’s quixotic pledge to “become the first country to have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.”

The latest infusion of taxpayer funds is part of DOE’s “Electric Vehicle Everywhere Grand Challenge,” launched in March 2012 with a series of “ambitious, far-reaching goals” to make electric vehicles more affordable for American families. The problem is that the Obama administration has a poor track record of picking winners and losers when it comes to subsidies for electric vehicle technology.

To date, the president’s “grand challenge” has amounted to a grand headache—one that has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and resulted in a string of well-documented failures:

-> Fisker Automotive declared bankruptcy in November 2013 after receiving a $529 loan guarantee from DOE. When Fisker finally shuttered operations, the company had drawn down $192 million of its loan, of which only $53 million will be repaid, exposing taxpayers to $139 million in losses.

-> Electric vehicle battery maker A123 Systems filed for bankruptcy despite receiving a $249.1 million federal grant from DOE. The company incurred debts of $376 million and was ultimately acquired for less than a third of the final assessment of their remaining assets.

-> ECOtality, an electric vehicle charging station company, was forced to declare bankruptcy in September 2013 after receiving $115 million in federal grants. The company was later acquired for a mere $3.33 million.

The Obama administration’s record on electric vehicles demonstrates that government subsidies cannot replace consumer demand. If consumers wanted to buy more electric vehicles, there would be no need for subsidies. The only way to convince Americans to buy more electric vehicles is for companies that make electric vehicles to make a better product.

IER Policy Intern Daniel Smith authored this post. 

Congress Fights Obama's Plan to Bankrupt Coal Industry

Last month, the Obama administration published a proposed rule in the Federal Register that will effectively ban new coal-fired power plants. This greenhouse gas emission mandate on new power plants represents the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s plan to bankrupt the coal industry—and with it one of America’s most affordable, abundant, reliable energy sources. A bipartisan coalition in Congress, however, is fighting back.

The Electricity Security and Affordability Act (H.R. 3826) would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from instituting any power plant regulations that rely on unproven technology; require the EPA to seek approval from Congress on any proposed rules for existing power plants; and repeal the EPA’s recently proposed greenhouse gas emissions standards for new power plants. The bill, co-authored by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), recently passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee and has attracted 72 co-sponsors from both parties.

EPA’s proposed standards for new power plants would limit natural gas-fired power plants to 1,000 pounds per megawatt hour of carbon dioxide emissions and coal-fired power plants to 1,100 pounds per megawatt-hour. Most new natural gas-fired plants will be able to meet this requirement, but it is a de facto ban on new coal plants. The only way to achieve these carbon dioxide emissions reductions would be to install highly expensive technology called carbon capture and storage (CCS). CCS technology is neither economically or commercially viable at this point, yet the EPA uses it as a justification for creating its new regulations.

In fact, there is not a single coal-fired generating facility that is currently employing CCS at the commercial level anywhere in the world. As the Institute for Energy Research has pointed out before, all of the projects that the EPA cites in its regulation are either under construction or still in the planning process. In fact, one of the projects recently hit a snag in its development: CPS Energy of Texas canceled its agreement with the Texas Clean Energy Project.

The Whitfield-Manchin bill would require EPA to base power plant standards on proven technology, not the agency’s own pipe dreams. The bill states that the EPA cannot set emission standards unless “such standard has been achieved on average for at least one continuous 12-month period (excluding planned outages) by each of at least 6 units within such category.” In addition, the bill prevents EPA from using “demonstration projects” to satisfy the “adequately demonstrated” requirement.

Whitfield-Manchin also adds layers of accountability and transparency to EPA’s opaque rulemaking process. For instance, the bill requires EPA to file a report for approval by Congress for any new standards for existing power plants. It would also repeal the recently proposed standards on new power plants, forcing EPA to follow the process laid out in the bill before pursuing any new regulations.

The EPA’s emission regulations for new and existing power plants are the lynchpin of the Obama administration’s war on affordable energy in general and coal in particular. Coal provides about 40 percent of the country’s electricity, but the EPA’s attempts to shut down these power plants will threaten this reliable energy source and raise energy costs on the American people. Legislative efforts to curtail the EPA’s power grab deserve attention.

AEA Press Secretary Chris Warren authored this post. 

No Stone Unturned at FERC

WASHINGTON — News broke today that the White House plans to nominate Norman Bay, the chief enforcement officer for FERC, as the agency’s next chairman. Bay is the second person the White House has nominated to fill the seat of former FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff. Last year, Ron Binz withdrew from consideration after a bruising confirmation battle, despite the assistance of high-paid outside communications advisors to help him through the process. AEA President Thomas Pyle released the following statement:
“The American Energy Alliance has monitored developments at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission with increased interest due to the critical role that this bipartisan, independent regulator must play in the execution of President Obama’s agenda. The FERC is no place for anti-hydrocarbon ideologues like Ron Binz, and we stood strong with our coalition partners against his ultimately doomed confirmation. The announcement today that the White House will nominate Norman Bay is due the same level of scrutiny that was applied to Mr. Binz, and we are hopeful that his confirmation process will leave no stone unturned.”

 

IER Comments on EPA's Flawed Biofuel Mandate

Yesterday, the Institute for Energy Research (IER) submitted a public comment on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) Program for 2014. IER commends EPA for proposing to reduce the total renewable fuel mandate for this year, but explains that EPA does not go far enough. Furthermore, EPA has once again proposed an unrealistic cellulosic biofuel mandate. As IER explains:

EPA’s reduction from 16.55 billion gallons to 15.21 billion gallons as the total ethanol mandate for 2014 is a good first step and well within EPA’s statutory authority. But EPA should go further in its reduction of the total renewable fuel mandate.

EPA has the ability to reduce the RFS if severe harm would occur. We believe that the severe harm has already occurred because the RFS drives up food and fuel costs and because it can harm engines—especially small engines.

While EPA took a good step in proposing to reduce the overall mandate, they took a big step back by proposing a large increase in the cellulosic ethanol mandate. As we explain in the comment:

EPA’s method of analysis has resulted in extremely inaccurate predictions for the past four years. The Proposed Rule for 2014 mandates an amount of cellulosic biofuel that, once again, likely will not exist by the end of the year. EPA should set the mandated level of cellulosic biofuel at 422,000 gallons for 2014 so as to reflect the most recent proven capabilities of the domestic cellulosic biofuel industry. Furthermore, EPA should reduce further both the overall renewable mandate and the advanced ethanol mandate.

EPA has issued wildly inaccurate cellulosic biofuel projections for the last four years. In fact, the closest EPA has come to accurately projecting cellulosic biofuel volumes was 2010, the year in which EPA mandated the lowest volumes.

 

The D.C. Circuit Court ruled that EPA’s cellulosic projections must not be “aspirational,” but instead based on a “neutral methodology.” It is difficult to see how EPA’s proposal to nearly triple the 2014 mandate to 17 million gallons—when just more than 422,000 gallons of cellulosic biofuel were produced last year—reflects the reality on which EPA is legally obligated to base its projections.

To read the full IER comment, click here.

IER Policy Associate Alex Fitzsimmons authored this post.

 

EPA Pledges to 'Reconsider' Unrealistic Biofuel Mandate

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced it will “reconsider” last year’s unrealistic cellulosic biofuel mandate in light of the industry’s inability to meet production targets. In a letter to the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy admitted that expected production at a crucial cellulosic facility did not match reality:

We believe that KiOR’s August 8, 2013, announcement of reduced anticipated production in 2013, which your petition noted, justifies reconsideration of the 2013 cellulosic biofuel standard.

Therefore, we are granting your petition for reconsideration with regard to the 2013 cellulosic biofuel standard and will initiate a notice and comment rulemaking to reconsider this aspect of the rule.

KiOR, one of the two companies on which EPA based its 2013 cellulosic mandate, missed its second quarter production goal by a whopping 75 percent. This prompted an investor to file a lawsuit accusing the company of making “false and misleading statements regarding the timing of projected production levels of biofuels,” while KiOR “continued to reassure investors that the company remained on schedule to produce commercially meaningful levels of biofuel.”

KiOR’s problems have only deepened since. Just this month, KiOR CEO Fred Cannon announced that the company will let its Columbus facility sit idle in the first quarter of this year: “We do not believe it is prudent to fund the production of our cellulosic fuels out of Columbus at a significant loss relative to the prices we would expect to receive from our customers.”

EPA’s change of heart comes less than a week before the deadline for submitting public comments on the proposed ethanol mandates for 2014. In November 2013, EPA proposed nearly tripling the cellulosic mandate from 6 million gallons last year to 17 million gallons this year. To date, just over 422,000 cellulosic biofuel credits were generated in 2013, according to EPA data. This will mark the fourth consecutive year in which EPA has grossly overestimated cellulosic biofuel production.

IER Policy Associate Alex Fitzsimmons authored this post.