Читать книгу The Biofuels Deception - Okbazghi Yohannes - Страница 9

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The Biofuel Industrial Complex and Its Migration to the Global South

Haunted by the specter of the Hubbert peak theory, which predicted the eventual depletion of petroleum energy, George W. Bush’s first act as president in February 2001was to establish a national energy task force, under the leadership of his vice president, Dick Cheney. The membership of the task force is still classified, but many analysts suspect that it was made up of high-powered oil tycoons and intellectuals from corporate-funded think tanks. The group’s mandate was to identify new areas where petroleum production could be expanded. Its recommendations are contained in eight chapters. According to the group’s collective speculations, by 2020 demand in the United States for natural gas, electricity, and oil would rise by 50 percent, 45 percent, and 33 percent respectively.¹ The package of recommendations included a call for the United States to accelerate domestic oil exploration and production while, at the same time, upgrading its presence in oil- producing regions, strengthening its ties with such key oil-producing states as Nigeria and Angola, and assisting U.S. oil transnationals to overcome obstacles to investment in foreign energy sectors.

Coming on the heels of the oil task force, the unprecedented global oil price hikes during the first decade of this century seemed to give some credence to the task force’s overall conclusion about future fossil oil markets. It was against the backdrop of the Hubbert peak becoming a reality that the global biofuels industrial complex has given an extraordinary momentum to the expansion of primitive capital accumulation in the Global South through the conversion of living biological stocks into both liquid and solid fuels. In other words, with the apparent exhaustion of fossil fuels very much in prospect, both advanced and industrializing countries were increasingly looking to biofuels as complementary or alternative sources to fossil energy. To dramatize the long-term implications of exhaustion of nonrenewable fuels for the geo-economics of energy security, the IEA (International Energy Agency) heightened the concerns over the prospect of oil peak with the publication of Energy Technology Perspectives 2006, triggering a new scramble to complete the commodification of nature. Under a business-as-usual scenario, the IEA warned that by 2050 global demands for coal, natural gas, and petroleum would increase by 192 percent, 138 percent, and 65 percent, respectively. In consequence, global CO₂ emissions would increase by 130 percent by 2050. The IEA was, however, sanguine about the prospects of improving supply conditions and containing greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions by relying on nature’s capacity to furnish sufficient bioenergy. According to its bold assertion, bioenergy, depending on the pace of the technological revolution, could supply up to a 26,000 million ton oil equivalent (Mtoe) by 2050. Even if the pace of technological progress lags demand, the supply of biofuels could be in the range of 6,000 to 12,000 Mtoe a year, requiring the devotion of 20 percent of world farmland to bioenergy feedstock production. If the IEA’s speculations come to pass, the share of road transportation biofuels alone would rise from 19 Mtoe in 2007 to 57 Mtoe by 2015, and then to 102 Mtoe by 2030. With generous state subsidies and technological breakthroughs, the share of road biofuels could actually rise to 164 Mtoe in 2015 and then to 778 Mtoe by 2030.² Those were the predictions in 2007. In fact, though, the most recent IEA report shows that road biofuels consumption had exceeded predictions and had already risen to 396 Mtoe by 2015.³

It is against the context of such projections that countries and corporations began looking to biological resources as a source of bioethanol and biodiesel fuels, to continue limitless capitalist growth and to overcome the crisis of overaccumulation as well—effected under the veneer of emission reductions, poverty eradication, and energy independence. Indeed, the early exuberance regarding the prospects of biofuels was so irrational that the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) made a projection of world liquid biofuels consumption rising to 112.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day or 238 exajoules (EJ) per annum by 2030, of which 60 percent will be consumed by the road transport sector.⁴ Buoyed by such fanciful projections, by 2010, ninety-six countries had adopted bioenergy programs, another sixty countries had instituted biofuels mandates, and thirty countries were contemplating doing the same.⁵

The 105 billion liters of biofuels produced in 2011 comprised 3 percent of global road transport fuels, produced from feedstocks grown on 3 percent of global farmland. While the United States accounted for 63 percent of global bioethanol production using corn as feedstock, Brazil was responsible for 24 percent, using sugar. With respect to biodiesel, the European Union was the leader, controlling 53 percent of total production, followed by the United States with 15 percent, and Brazil and Argentina each producing 13 percent.⁶ First-generation bioethanol is produced from sugarcane, corn, sugar beets, wheat, rice, rye, sweet potatoes, sweet sorghum, cassava, and other starchy crops that must undergo fermentation and distillation. On the other hand, biodiesel is produced from soybeans, rapeseed, palm seeds, sunflowers, jatropha, as well as animal fats. Hounded by the controversy surrounding the issue of unsustainability of large-scale first-generation biofuels without jeopardizing food security, the biofuel industrial complex has been scrambling to move up to second-generation biofuel production, using woody plants, agricultural and forest residues, or fast-growing short rotation trees such as eucalyptus, pines, poplars, and willows as feedstocks that must undergo saccharification, the process of converting starches and cellulose to simple sugars, followed by fermentation and distillation into biofuels. If large-scale second-generation biofuel production becomes feasible, the scope for the commodification of natural resources and the biopredation of nature could be unprecedented, as will be the scope for human dispossession.

According to the imaginations of biofuel cornucopians, because all living biological stocks, whether crops or plants, are infinitely renewable throughput, the world could have infinite quantities of biofuels year after year, and, by extension, the crisis of overaccumulation of capital would be resolved. To be sure, the combination of the fear of petroleum depletion and the overly sanguine anticipation of biofuels becoming a substitute for or complementary to fossil fuels has been driving the growth of liquid biofuel production. Global bioethanol production rose from 38.2 billion liters in 2006 to 89 billion liters in 2008, and biodiesel production increased from 4 billion to 12 billion liters over the same period. Early on, energy analysts projected that the global market value for first-generation biofuels would grow from $20.5 billion in 2006 to $80.9 billion by 2009, and then to a whopping $280 billion by 2020.⁷

If the world dream of the biofuel industrial complex stands, the world can forever count on renewable biotic resources for 20 to 30 percent of global energy supply.⁸ Other techno-optimists predict that bioenergy could supply up to 50 percent of global energy needs by 2050.⁹ But this growth requires the continuous conversion of massive amounts of arable land, forests, and wetlands to bioenergy feedstock production as well as the use of vast quantities of freshwater resources to grow presumably unlimited bioenergy crops and industrial trees.

Oblivious to how the laws of evolutionary biology and thermodynamics operate, the global biofuel industrial complex is bullish about the prospects of realizing its global dream by completing the commodification, recommodification, and commercial enclosure of nature by supplying limitless energy, eradicating world hunger, and mitigating climate change. Indeed, in anticipation of greater accumulation, the cross-pollination of investments in the emerging bioenergy sector has become unprecedented, as multifarious capitalist corporations and institutions have begun pouring their overaccumulated capital into the sector. These corporations and institutions range from hedge and pension funds to automobile, petroleum, grain, biotech, and chemical industries. These corporate oligopolies see the socially constructed crisis of global capitalism in energy and food as an opportune moment to make a profit, and they are prepared to demolish all barriers on the way to limitless expansion of accumulation.

The potential depletion of fossil fuel has also brought oligopolies and governments into ever closer union. Global corporations promise that they have unlimited biotechnological capabilities and organizational means to transform all living organisms and plants into infinite sources of food and energy. Governments, for their part, are poised to create the necessary enabling environments for totalizing the commodification or recommodification of the Commons and the extortionate exploitation of labor. Seeing biofuels as a means of overcoming their legitimation deficit in the eyes of citizens, states now pin their future on the corporate promise that the global economy can be run on supposedly low-carbon biofuels decade after decade indefinitely, thereby strengthening the corporate grip on governments, at the expense of nature and society. As global oligopolies take over the driver’s seat in the commercial enclosure of nature, governments would enjoy a free ride in a run on an infinite supply of supposed renewable energy. Even more disconcerting, the socially constructed global energy crisis has brought oil oligopolies, grain corporations, and biotech companies into ever closer union through conglomerate diversification, cross-industry investment, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, and strategic alliances, so much so that it has become impossible to make functional demarcations among them. In 1999, there were 32,000 mergers and acquisitions worldwide, valued at $3.4 trillion. By then, of the hundred largest economies in the world, fifty-one were corporations while forty-nine were countries.¹⁰ The oligopolies in the oil, automobile, grain, and biotech sectors all now view biofuels as the final frontier of capitalist accumulation. As this chapter will show, the corporate transmigration to the biofuels sector is not about climate change mitigation or increasing food production to feed the world, but rather about expanding the scope for capital accumulation while containing the looming crisis inherent in overaccumulation.

FROM BLACK CARBON TO GREEN CARBON

The Hubbert peak, the potential fear of being frozen out of the heavily subsidized biofuel production sector, and the public relations problem facing the black-carbon economy form the backdrop for oil oligopolies to make a partial migration to the nascent biofuel sector. Public display of optimism notwithstanding, oil oligopolies have always been haunted by the specter of the Hubbert peak, and this fear has informed their decisions and moves. Even though the current technology and fracking boom has allowed oil oligopolies to venture into offshore drilling, shale, and tar sands, it is clear that the new discoveries are equally subject to depletion in the long run. In this context, biofuels are a fallback option for oil corporations. To remain relevant players in the global economy, they have to reckon with the need to make a partial migration to the biofuel sector. However, this new vision of a bio-based direction for capitalist accumulation on a global scale is not seen as a substitute for, but rather a complement to, hydrocarbon-driven accumulation. Chevron’s VP, Donald Paul, was frank on this point when he stated that his company did not see biofuels as a replacement for fossil fuels, but rather, as a supplement to it. As he put it, “How big is this going to be? I would have to say you don’t know. When you got a new playing field with different players, the way you find out how big it is, is you get in there and do it. We see it as an augmentation strategy, quite frankly. When you look at the growth in demand in the next 25 years in fuels, to meet some fraction of that growth … you’re going to need to augment what we have.”¹¹ Shell and Exxon have even been more conservative than Chevron over the prospects of biofuels. As Rob Routs, Shell’s director for downstream operations, notes, “We don’t believe the current situation is sustainable, because if agricultural land is being picked up for fuel production, sooner or later there is going to be a clash. And as a fuel company, we don’t want to get involved in that.”¹² This attitude has been reflected in Shell’s investment priorities. For example, Shell invested $32 billion in 2008 in fossil fuels, whereas it allocated a mere $1.3 billion in alternative energy sources over a five-year period.¹³

For managers of Exxon-Mobil, biofuels are “moonshine,” believing that bio-based fuels are far into the future. In their calculation, even if production of biofuels is probable, the amount generated would be too small to displace the hegemony of fossil fuels. Former Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson was candid when he told Charlie Rose: “When coal came into the picture, it took 50 or 60 years to displace timber. Then crude oil was found, it took 60, 70 years, and then natural gas. So it takes 100 years or more for some new breakthrough in energy to become the dominant source. Most people have difficulty coming to grips with the sheer enormity of energy consumption. If we look at our energy outlook, things like renewable wind, solar, biofuels, we have those sources over the next 30 years growing 700 to 800 percent. But in the year 2040, they’ll supply just 1 percent.”¹⁴ Exxon’s bearish orientation toward biofuels is reflected in its investment priorities. In 2006, the oligopoly allocated a mere $600 million to algae research out of its total $23 billion capital expenditure for that year.

Among oil oligopolies, BP is more aggressive in its approach to alternative energy. In 2006, BP announced an allocation of $8 billion for alternative energy over a ten-year period, with biofuels the primary corporate focus. In 2007, BP led its partners, Associated British Foods and DuPont, in a joint ethanol plant in England to jack up ethanol production from one million liters a year to 420 million liters a year, providing a third of Great Britain’s ethanol demand by 2010.¹⁵ In 2007, BP and D1 Oils also formed a joint venture to accelerate jatropha (a plant whose oil can be converted to biofuel) planting. According to the deal, while BP agreed to contribute a $160 million investment over a five-year period, UK’s D1 Oils would contribute its 172,000 hectares of existing jatropha plantations in India, southern Africa, and Southeast Asia. The plan has been to plant one million jatropha uring the first four years, and 300,000 a year thereafter. However, despite its relative aggression toward biofuels, BP’s investment in alternatives in 2008 was only $1.4 billion, or a mere 6 percent of its capital expenditure, demonstrating its undiminished devotion to the black-carbon economy.¹⁶

The fear of growing restrictions by governments on the production and distribution of fossil fuels and public support for mandated blending of biofuels with fossil fuels form another set of factors impelling oil oligopolies to grudgingly embrace biofuels. If biofuels become a viable source of energy without their participation, the biofuel sector could become a competitor with, rather than complementary to, black energy, potentially cutting deep into the market share of fossil fuels. The U.S. Department of Energy projects that the availability of biofuels in the United States alone will rise from half a million barrels a day in 2007 to 2.3 million barrels a day by 2030; for oligopolies that bank on speculations, every projection matters.¹⁷ This potential growth could represent a significant market share loss for fossil fuel corporations. Furthermore, biofuels are heavily subsidized, courtesy of the taxpayer. None is better positioned in the corporate world than oil oligopolies to capture a lion’s share of the generous public subsidies to accelerate commodifying the Commons.

There is also the issue of control. By actively participating in the biofuel sector, oil oligopolies could control the pace at which the biofuel sector grows without jeopardizing the established hegemony of fossil fuels. Therefore, oil oligopolies are establishing research centers to investigate the potential of biofuels. In June 2006, BP made the first move to establish a bioscience energy research center closely associated with the universities of California and Illinois with a $500 million initial allocation to serve its biobusiness unit. The center’s primary mission has been to look at how plants could supply feedstocks for ethanol production. Three areas of investigation have been identified for the center: developing bio-based fuel additives, developing new technologies to speed up the conversion of plants into fuels, and deploying advanced plant science to develop bioenergy crops capable of producing a higher yield of energy molecules, supposedly grown on marginal land.¹⁸

Moreover, enticed by the potential of the genetic engineering of plants, BP has partnered with DuPont to collaborate in research on bioenergy crops. BP sees huge dividends in this partnership, as DuPont is the second-largest seed company, the sixth-largest chemical company, and the sixth-largest pesticide company in the world, and is exceptionally well positioned to be a key player in biotech, biofuels, bio-plastics, synthetic biology, and enzymes development.¹⁹ This explains why BP became the first major oil company to join the Biotechnology Industry Organization (the trade association of biotech companies), which includes Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, and BASF.²⁰ After eyeing the potential of the Agrilife Research high-biomass energy program, BP also entered into an alliance in 2012 with Texas A&M University, the parent institution of Agrilife Research, to accelerate research into the potential of grasses for cellulosic ethanol production, specifically focusing on plant breeding and agronomics. From BP’s viewpoint, this partnership with Texas A&M would strengthen its ambitious trial project in Louisiana where it has planted 100,000 acres of miscanthus to generate lignocellulosic material (dry plant matter composed of carbohydrates and polymers) for road transport fuel. BP and Texas A&M hope that the integration of plant breeding and agronomic production will allow for developing an elite genetics and agronomic production system, considered critical to continuous production of lignocellulosic ethanol. Excited by the prospect of the partnership, Tom Campbell, BP Biofuels technology officer, offered a rosy commercial scenario: “Developing new varieties of energy grass is essential for commercializing a cellulosic biofuels industry that will enhance domestic energy security, create jobs for Americans, and improve rural economies. Working with Texas AgriLife Research is an important step in the process of bringing clean transport fuels to scale and to market.” Craig Nessler, Agrilife Research director, was equally bullish about the partnership’s prospects: “The opportunity to collaborate with BP Biofuels is an excellent opportunity for Texas AgriLife Research to perform market-driven, scientific research that will create future value to the producers of the state of Texas and beyond with an industry leader. Renewable energy produced from dedicated energy crops will play a vital role for the 21st century economy.”²¹

Following BP’s example, Chevron also announced an investment of $400 million in biofuels research and development. To this end, it contributed $12 million to Georgia Institute of Technology to develop technology to produce biofuels from biomass. This involves examination of the properties of biofuel feedstocks and the biology and chemistry of certain plants considered conducive to ethanol production from cellulose.²²

The urgency to green-wash the fossil fuel industry is still another consideration for oil oligopolies to look at biofuels as a convenient hideout. The black carbon–based economy has long been in deep crisis resulting from the public outcry about its climate consequences. So a “green” carbon-based post-petroleum economy is necessary to put people at ease, and thereby ensure the continuous reproduction of capitalism. In the view of corporate managers, the transition from a fossil-based to a biofuels-run economy can be easily defended, as the bio-based economy can be marketed as green and clean. This allows the oil oligopolies to put in place enabling environments for converting more grain into bioethanol and biodiesel or more biotic resources into biofuels. As of now, however, oil oligopolies are determined to hang on to black carbon, because it is still the lowest hanging fruit, exemplified by the fact that the oil sector continues to enjoy heavy subsidies. In 2011, for example, the global pre-tax and post-tax subsidies for fossil fuels stood at around $5 trillion. The leading oil consumption subsidizers in 2011 were Iran and Saudi Arabia, while the United States, China, and Russia were the leading fossil fuel production subsidizers.²³

Since 1918, oil companies in the United States received $446 billion in federal government subsidies. Even though the big five oil oligopolies—Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell, and ConocoPhillips—together made $900 billion during the first decade of this century, and another $255 billion in profits in 2011 and 2012, they continued to sustain their addiction to the subsidies and tax breaks for the production and distribution of dirty black energy. In 2011, the effective tax rates for Exxon, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips were 13, 19, and 18 percent, respectively. Corporate managers and their congressional allies contend that the companies need public financial support to bring petroleum products to the market, even though in 2012 the oligopolies were sitting on $70 billion of idle cash.²⁴ In truth, the subsidies are given not because the oil and gas corporations cannot profitably operate without financial support from the state but because they control the political process. The way they do this is by controlling the electoral and legislative processes.

Between January 2009 and June 2010, for example, the oil and gas industry spent $250 million on lobbying the U.S. Congress. Trade associations spent another $290 million on lobbying Congress to squash clean energy bills, and the Chamber of Commerce spent $190 million to defeat global warming legislation during the same period. Between 1999 and 2009, oil and gas, coal, and utility companies together spent over $2 billion lobbying Congress to defeat proposed legislation whose aim was to mitigate the effects of climate change.²⁵ Even after a bipartisan commission recommended phasing out the subsidies to black-carbon companies in order to save $120 billion in ten years toward deficit reduction, the U.S. Congress balked at the suggestion.²⁶ By defeating legislation that was meant to close tax loopholes, oil and gas companies saved $45 billion. They even decisively defeated proposed legislation requiring shale gas producers to inform communities of the potential danger posed by hydraulic fracturing operations (fracking), and of the potential consequences of chemicals used in it.²⁷ What this type of corporate behavior suggests is that the oil oligopolies are not going to abandon fossil fuels until every available drop of black carbon is exhausted. The perils for nature and society now stem from the parallel expansion of biofuel production and the further exploration and drilling of fossil fuels. Alongside the ferocious commodification of biotic resources, tar sands, and shale formations are the new frontier of oil and gas production, which has raised the stakes for oil oligopolies to stay the course. Tar sands oil is a carbon-saturated heavy black viscous oil, composed of bitumen, clay, sand, and water, which takes a significant amount of energy to produce, presaging ecological evisceration and climate change aggravation.

In contrast, shale resources are oil and gas trapped in rocks deep in the ground. Global estimates of shale oil and gas vary significantly, making it difficult to put a handle on any reasonable figure. In May 2012, for example, the Government Accountability Office reported to Congress that the Green River formation in parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming hold three trillion barrels of shale oil, half of which is technically recoverable. Shale formations in other regions of the United States hold at least one trillion barrels of shale oil.²⁸ If the above estimates are correct, the technically recoverable shale oil in the Green River formation alone is almost equal to the current world proven conventional oil reserves. Estimates of U.S. shale gas reserves are in the range of 870 tcf (trillion cubic feet) with the mean recoverable gas standing at 650 tcf.²⁹ The growing importance of shale resources is such that in 2012 shale oil accounted for 29 percent of U.S. oil production, while shale gas accounted for 40 percent of total natural gas production.³⁰ It is small wonder that, from 2007 to 2011, shale oil and gas production in the United States increased fivefold and fourfold, respectively.³¹

Shale formations with huge reserves outside the United States also reportedly abound. In its lengthy report of June 2013, the U.S. Energy Information Administration identified ninety-five basins with 137 shale formations in forty-one countries. According to the findings, these shale formations contain 7,239 tcf of technically recoverable natural shale gas, amounting to 47 percent of global gas reserves; and 345 billion barrels of technically recoverable shale oil, adding 11 percent to global oil reserves. Extraction of shale oil and gas requires horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, followed by injections of massive amounts of water, sands, and chemicals into the wells under extremely high pressure. The prospects of having access to massive shale resources are so high that an unprecedented scale of investment is being funneled into the new frontier of black-carbon exploration and production. The estimated investment in oil and gas in the United States alone in 2012 was $302 billion, 4 percent higher than the previous year, of which $275.8 billion was for upstream oil and gas projects. As a result, drilling of new oil and gas wells has been booming in the United States in recent years with tragic ramifications for the ecology and hydrology of the country. The number of new wells drilled over the three-year period from 2010 to 2012 in the continental United States was 120,812.³²

Other countries have also announced having huge recoverable shale resources waiting to be exploited. In addition to its proven conventional natural gas of 279 trillion cubic feet, Saudi Arabia claims that it has 649 tcf of shale gas; Algeria has over 700 tcf of shale gas; India boasts having 496 tcf of shale gas; Morocco has 266 tcf of shale gas; Indonesia boasts of having more than 1,000 tcf; and China holds 1,115 tcf of technically recoverable shale gas to go along with 32 billion of shale oil.³³ All told, the MIT Energy Initiative (2011) and the U.S. EIA (2013) speculate that the world has 20,040 tcf of recoverable shale gas, which is 150 times the current annual world natural gas consumption, and 3.12 trillion shale and non-shale oil reserves.³⁴

Another country with huge shale oil and gas potential is Australia. In early January 2013, it was announced that 233 billion barrels of shale resources were discovered in the country, worth U.S.$19 trillion if all of it is exploited.³⁵ Chevron has reportedly found nineteen natural gas fields in Australia and is building two giant natural gas liquefaction plants with a price tag of 86 billion Australian dollars. For its part, Shell was injecting 12 billion Australian dollars into a four-soccer-fields-long offshore natural gas project in northwest Australia. All in all, 260 billion Australian dollars were injected into the country’s energy sector in 2012, with seven new liquid natural gas projects accounting for 164 billion Australian dollars of the total. Completion of these seven projects will raise Australia’s liquid natural gas production from 24 million metric tons to 80 million metric tons a year.³⁶ Australia has twelve additional liquid natural gas and coal-to-liquids projects that might add another 64 million metric tons.³⁷ It is thus no surprise that overall global capital expenditures on oil and gas exploration and production roared from U.S.$916 billion in 2011 to $1.08 trillion in 2012.³⁸

Oil oligopolies are not limited to oil and gas production and distribution. Coal is still integral to the global energy mix as it is responsible for 50 percent of global electricity generation. In fact, in 2011 world coal consumption increased by 4.3 percent (300 million tons), accounting for half of global primary energy demand increase, and is projected to continue increasing by 2.6 percent per annum through 2017, with the increase in annual coal consumption reaching 1.2 billion tons in 2017, which is equal to the annual coal consumption in the United States and Russia combined. Never mind the much-touted commitment to green energy; even in Europe coal-fired electricity production is projected to be 4 percent higher in 2017 than in 2011.³⁹ The growing coal consumption in Asia is even more worrisome. China now consumes half of global coal, followed by India. These two Asian giants together are today responsible for two-thirds of global coal demand and for one-third of global coal imports. By 2017, China’s coal consumption will increase by 77 percent and India’s by 22 percent. China will continue to get most of its primary energy from coal; India is projected to surpass the United States as the second-largest coal consumer.⁴⁰

As things stand now, 483 power companies are poised to build 1,200 coal-fired plants in forty-nine countries by 2017. When completed, these power plants will have over 1.4 million mw (megawatts) installed capacity, which is more than four times the total installed capacity in the United States.⁴¹ This statistic suggests that coal is likely to remain king in the global energy mix, never mind the grandstanding “green” reiterations about reducing global greenhouse gas emissions (ghg) by 50 percent by 2050. Indeed, the IEA projects that demand for coal will rise by 21 percent by 2035.⁴² To take advantage of this prospect, coal-rich countries are gearing up to boost production and export of their coal. For example, Australia is planning to triple its coal production to 900 million tons a year, just as coal-rich South Africa and Mozambique are preparing to do the same.⁴³ Accounting for 50 percent of global energy consumption, coal is responsible for 40 percent of global ghg emissions.⁴⁴ The peril with coal is not only that it is the dirtiest fossil fuel, but also that the market propaganda about “clean” coal technology perpetuates the myth that it can be “green” and “clean.” In part, this involves conversion of coal to motor fuel. This requires heating the coal to 1,000 degress Fahrenheit to produce gas before converting it to liquid fuel. This conversion process makes coal-to-liquids even dirtier than conventional gasoline and diesel. In the United States, it takes 120 million tons of coal to generate just one million barrels of coal-to-liquids.⁴⁵

Shale oil presents another ecological disaster in the making. The negative impacts of horizontal drilling and fracking of shale formations on hydrology and ecology are likely to be astronomical. Horizontal drilling and fracking operations generate noise, air, and soil pollution, water depletion, water contamination, and deforestation of delicate ecosystems. Even the Government Accountability Office acknowledges that shale oil and shale gas exploitation are bound to pose environmental, social, and public health risks.⁴⁶ These risks include engine exhaust from truck traffic, emissions from diesel-power pumps, gas flares, and release of pollutants from faulty equipment polluting the air; contamination of surface water and groundwater due to erosion of soil, ground disturbances, frequent spills, and releases of chemicals; underground migration of gases and chemicals, release of toxic chemicals from storage tanks, pipes and hoses; and overflow of toxic chemicals from impoundments associated with heavy rain. Finally, the use of drilling techniques in which water, sands, and chemical additives are injected under high pressure into shale oil and shale gas formations that release toxic chemicals and fluids are bound to pose risks to land resources and wildlife habitat.

Black-carbon oligopolies, however, paint a rosy picture of shale resources that they suppose can be exploited without causing environmental, hydrological, social, and health damages. To convince the public that fracking does no harm, they use the imprimatur of universities and research institutions to green-wash shale resource exploitation. For example, natural gas foundations and the oil industry sponsored the creation of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), headquartered on MIT’s campus, with initial donations of $125 million to make a “scholarly” case that horizontal drilling and fracturing techniques are safe and would not pose harm of any kind. BP, Shell, Saudi Aramco, and Italy’s ENI contributed $25 million each to make MITEI an effective mouthpiece for the exploitation of shale formations; another ten companies agreed to pay $5 million each to win seats on MITEI’s board.⁴⁷ With the urgency to counter ecological objections to hydraulic fracking in mind, the study group produced a lengthy document titled The Future of Natural Gas. In keeping with their mission, the authors of the document boldly assert there is no evidence that horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracking cause environmental, hydrological, and health harm. If spills or leaks occur, these are the result of “substandard well completion by some operators” rather than fracking techniques themselves.⁴⁸ The authors counsel that if these spills or water contamination occur, they are problems of management alone. Therefore, they argue, if small and big operators follow the best practices, shale gas can be safely exploited without environmental and hydrological cost. They see a big role for government to sponsor research in waste water management, reducing fracturing water use, and cost-effective waste water recycling technology in the shale gas sector, meaning heavy subsidies, courtesy of taxpayers.⁴⁹ They contend that since natural gas is inexpensive and clean, providing a bridge to low-carbon economy, shale gas resources must be part of a strategic U.S. energy policy.

The oil and gas industry has also mobilized the academic resources of Penn State, the State University of New York, Buffalo, and the University of Texas at Austin to launch a vigorous counteroffensive that uses questionable research products against environmental objections to shale fracking operations. All three institutions presented natural gas as the most essential bridge to a low-carbon world. The Penn State paper described shale gas as the dynamic engine of growth, whose operators are worthy of generous government support in the form of subsidies and relief from taxes. The Buffalo report extolled shale drillers as efficient and cautious under stringent state regulations and the vigilant supervision of regulators. The researchers at the University of Texas were even more assertive in their claim that there was no evidence of water contamination from shale drilling operations.⁵⁰