Oil Import Interactive Map and Energy Consumption over Long Time Scales

The Rocky Mountain Institute has created an interesting way to view how oil imports into the U.S. have changed over time. You are able to see the magnitude of oil flowing from each exporting country for each month since 1973. Notice how imports from Iran go away after the second oil crisis.

Personally, I like to view view fossil fuel usage from a more historical perspective. The image below is a different "hockey stick" graph than the one most commonly referred to that shows CO2 or temperature increases in the last 30-40 years.

Figure 1. The world primary energy consumption and GDP over the last 300 years.


The image of Figure 1 shows the primary energy consumption and Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The basic point here is that the large increase in energy consumption has only been enabled by fossil fuels. Notice the first steam engine was built in 1712 by Newcomen. What does this graph look like when we look over the time scale of human civilization? I would not call it a hockey stick shape any more, but perhaps a wall of energy consumption (see Figure 2). Think about energy independence and sustainability when you contemplate Figure 2.


Figure 2. The world primary energy consumption and GDP over the last 6000 years.

Water and Energy Nexus: Nature Geoscience May edition

I have recently written a commentary for Nature Geoscience in which I and my co-authors discuss the tie between energy and water usage. For those who have a subscription to Nature, you can link to the article here. Alternatively, you can sign up for free and read the article OR just read my pasted text below:

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Water and solar energy enable trees and plants to grow today, just as hundreds of millions of years ago. Creation of the deposits of biomass that became fossil fuels depended on these two resources. The technological advances that have changed human life profoundly over the past decades and centuries have altered, but not resolved, this close coupling between water and energy. Current technologies for power generation, with some exceptions such as wind turbines and photovoltaic solar cells, rely heavily on the availability of large amounts of water. Primarily this water is needed for cooling thermoelectric plants and supplying fluid pressure and flow for hydroelectric power generation. But in a changing climate, it is not clear whether sufficient volumes of water will continue to be available where needed. And if, in an attempt to combat climate change, petrol is replaced by biofuels at a significant scale, more water will be needed for irrigation. Furthermore, clean fresh water is a basic necessity for human health and development. Large quantities of water can be provided — as long as sufficient energy supplies are available to reach deep aquifers, treat dirty water or desalinate the oceans. But a scarcity of energy implies a scarcity of water, just as constraints on water availability threaten the supply of energy, at least with the current infrastructure. Because of this interconnection (Fig. 1), water and energy cannot be treated in a disaggregated fashion, as is common today with both

markets and policy makers.

THE NEED FOR WATER IN POWER GENERATION

Large power plants present a strain on water resources. In the US in 2007, thermoelectric power generation, primarily comprising coal, natural gas and nuclear fuels, generated 91% (3,500 million MW h) of total electricity. These thermoelectric power plants require cooling by water, air or a combination of the two (Table 1), amounting to 40% of US freshwater withdrawals. Open-loop (or once-through) cooling withdraws large volumes of surface water, fresh and saline, for one-time use and returns nearly all the water to the source with little of the overall water being consumed by evaporation. While open-loop cooling is energy efficient and low in infrastructure and operational costs, the discharged water is warmer than ambient water, causing thermal pollution, which can kill fish and harm aquatic ecosystems. Thus, environmental agencies regulate discharge temperatures, taking into account a water body’s heat dissipation capacity. Closed-loop cooling requires less water withdrawal because the water is recirculated through use of cooling towers or evaporation ponds. However, because the cooling is essentially achieved through evaporation, closed-loop cooling results in higher water consumption (Table 1). The alternative, air-cooling, does not require water, but instead cools by using fans to blow air over a radiator similar to that in automobiles. The power efficiency of this is lower, up-front capital costs are higher and real-estate requirements are larger, making it a less attractive option economically.

Water is obviously central to power generation in hydroelectric dams. In the US in 2006, hydroelectric power plants generated approximately 7% (268 million MW h) of total electricity. Fifty-eight percent of US hydroelectricity is generated in California, Oregon and Washington alone, making the power supply vulnerable to regional changes in water availability. Though hydroelectric power is attractive for many reasons, it is least reliable during droughts when the need for water may take precedence over hydroelectricity.

THE NEED FOR ENERGY IN WATER PRODUCTION

The relationship goes the other way too, in that energy is necessary for producing and delivering fresh and potable water, just as water is necessary for generating energy. For example, energy is needed to convey, heat and treat fresh water and waste water. Heating water in homes and businesses for cooking, cleaning and other municipal and commercial uses consumes 3.6 quads, or 3.6%, of total US energy consumption. Thus, the need for hot water represents an important enduse for energy. Combined heat and power systems are efficient because they use otherwise wasted heat to do useful tasks.

Supply and conveyance of water is one of the most energy-intensive water processes, estimated to consume over 3% of total US electricity1,6. However, the energy use for supply and conveyance of water varies widely depending on the local infrastructure. Many gravity-fed systems require little energy, whereas long-haul systems, such as that in California, require vast energy investments to move water across the state and over mountain ranges. The average surface water treatment plant consumes over 370 kW h Ml–1. Tapping into groundwater sources also requires energy for pumping, which is dependent on aquifer depth: at a depth of 120 m, 530 kW h Ml–1 is required1,6.

Recent news articles illustrate these competition between water resources and power generation: the debate of whether to use water from a reservoir to serve municipal needs for drinking water versus generating hydroelectric power arose with Uruguay’s Salto Grande dam and the US Colorado River lakes; a natural gas power plant and private landowners argued over groundwater rights in Texas; and hydroelectric dams were taken offline in response to drought in Georgia, among others2–5.

As freshwater supplies become strained, many have turned to water sources once considered unusable, including brackish ground water and sea water. Although use of these water sources mitigates constraints on drinking-water supplies, treatment of brackish ground water and sea water requires as much as 10–12 times the energy use of standard drinking-water treatment. However, usually, untreated saline water can be used to cool the thermoelectric power plant that may be required for desalination.

Partly because of the high energy requirements, proposed desalination water treatment plants in Carlsbad, California, and Chennai, Tamil Nadu India have been opposed7,8.

Wastewater treatment also requires large amounts of energy, which will increase as discharge regulations in the US become stricter, requiring increasingly energy-intensive treatment technologies.

Estimates range from 250 kW h Ml–1 for trickling filter treatment, which uses a biologically active substrate for aerobic treatment, to 350 kW h Ml–1 for diff used aeration as part of activated sludge processing, and 400–500 kW h Ml–1 for advanced wastewater treatment that uses filtration and the option of nitrification6. Sludge treatment and processing alone can consume energy in the range of 30–80% of the total energy used in a wastewater plant; other physical and chemical treatment processes use much of the remaining percentage.

A THIRST FOR TRANSPORTATION FUELS

Two of the earliest fuels were wood and dung. They are still the major primary energy fuels for many regions of the world, providing 8.5% of the primary energy globally10. Trees require water for growth, as do the animals that supply dung. But modern liquid fuels such as gasoline, ethanol and diesel also require water for their extraction, farming, processing and refining. This ‘embodied water’ is not directly used in a vehicle, but rather indirectly required to make the fuel.

Water use for transportation can be considered in a similar fashion as for power generation in the form of withdrawal — that is, the amount of water that is necessary, but may eventually be returned to the system — and consumption, for example, through evaporation. However, in the context of transportation, consumption can additionally be associated with irrigated farming and as a feedstock. Generally, while driving light duty vehicles using current petroleum-based gasoline (assuming an average fuel economy of 20.5 miles per gallon (mpg) = 8.7 km l–1) and diesel (28.2 mpg = 12.0 km l–1), embodied water is withdrawn and consumed from nature at rates of up to 1.5 l km–1 and 0.3 l km–1, respectively.

Using liquids converted from other fossil fuels (coal, oil shale and tar sands) means that the rates of water consumption and withdrawal are 2–4 times and 1–2 times higher, respectively, and they are much more concentrated in regions where the fossil fuel resources exist.

Propelling vehicles using hydrogen and electricity also has substantial water impacts when drawing from the average US electric grid (owing to water used for power plant cooling as discussed earlier). Under these assumptions, driving ‘electric’ miles using a fuel-cell vehicle with hydrogen via electrolysis and a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) or electric vehicle (EV) consumes water at 0.9 and 0.5 l km–1 while withdrawing 27 and 17 l km–1, respectively11,12. Using wind and photovoltaic solar power to supply required electricity for transportation makes water intensity negligible. However, even if every US light duty vehicle mile were driven via US electric power with current technologies, US water demand would only increase by 0.9% (3.4 billion litres per day). Most of the fuels under consideration to replace petroleum are more water intensive, with biofuels residing at the top of the list. Only for fuel crops that are not irrigated is the water intensity comparable to petroleum fuels. But many fuel crops are irrigated, and accounting for irrigation can cause water consumption rates to be 2–3 orders of magnitude higher than without irrigation. Although only 15–20% of US corn and 5–10% of US soybean bushels are irrigated to any degree, there was still a substantial water contribution to biofuel crop farming at nearly 5,700 gigalitres (3.5% of US water consumption) in 2005 for the production of ethanol alone. Given that agricultural irrigation is the most water-consumptive sector of the US economy, high water usage is not surprising. But by switching to biofuels, this water consumption is likely to grow.

Additionally, competing water demands oft en make the siting of ethanol plants difficult because they require large amounts of water. Ethanol processing plants consume water for cooling processes, including the exothermic fermentation reaction, requiring 1–3 million litres per day to produce 250,000–750,000 litres per day of ethanol13,14.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

We see trends towards more water- intensive liquid fuels, more energy-intensive water sources and a growing population that will require more of both. These challenges will be exacerbated by climate change, which may cause geographic and temporal changes in the amount, annual distribution and form of precipitation (for example, as rain or snow). Because cities and their infrastructure are built on the basis of past precipitation patterns, such climatic changes may require substantial adjustments. In regions where water becomes scarcer, people must weigh the pros and cons between moving the people to the water and moving the water to the people (the latter of which requires continuous additional energy).

Regional climate projections will be needed to inform planning and policy. When siting new power plants, governments and power generators need to consider water availability over the plants’ lifetimes, normally on the order of several decades. Policy for energy and water resources should be integrated to consider less-water-intensive options in agriculture, such as forestry, and in electricity generation, such as wind, photovoltaic solar and air-cooling technologies. In the fuel sector, water consumption and withdrawal need to be included in environmental impact analyses such as those dictated by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which requires life-cycle analysis for understanding the greenhouse-gas impacts of renewable fuels. Like diversified long-term financial investment strategies, future water and energy infrastructure should also be diverse and multiscaled in order to create resilience in an uncertain climate and energy future. For example, Ghana has had highly fluctuating reliability of electricity supply owing to heavy dependence upon hydropower or other single energy sources, without extensive electric grids to help transport electricity in tough times.

Distributed energy systems provide smaller-scale systems and add resilience to electric grids dominated by large centralized power plants, but they are usually considered more expensive owing to conventional financial and appraisal systems that account for capital but not operating expenses. For new power plants at greenfield sites in the US, open-loop cooling has been outlawed for all practical purposes by the environmental constraints on water intake velocity. The trend since the 1980s has been towards closed-loop cooling. However, closed-loop cooling makes the use of sea water more difficult, because evaporating water with high proportions of dissolved solids can create foul-up problems. Nevertheless using sea water, waste water and other low quality water for cooling should be encouraged where possible.

We also need policy that allows the operating costs and energy consumption of buildings and homes to be integrated into the construction, sales and finance phases of development. More energy efficient buildings within larger cities require less bulk city services. We must ask ourselves why we require no energy return on investment for crown moulding yet claim photovoltaics do not pay back fast enough. Fortunately sustainable concepts such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and projects such as the China EcoBlock18 guide and demonstrate integrated water and energy infrastructure via whole system design.

Water and energy cannot be separated. With an unlimited supply of available energy, we would be able to supply as much clean water as the world needs. In the real world of resource constraints, we need to simultaneously conserve water and energy. Thankfully, water conservation and energy conservation are synonymous with each other, so we have the opportunity for swift progress.

Offshoring Energy and Emissions - Coming back from Developing to Developed Countries

A recent study in the journal in Environmental Science and Technology discusses the 'embodied carbon' in global trade. The concept of embodied effects in global trade has been noted by scientists and engineers by estimating such aspects as the energy embodied in a product when it is made in one place and shipped to another.

Somewhat by definition, making a product in China (say a Barbie doll) and shipping it to the United States takes more energy than making it in the United States and keeping it here. Just think of the energy used to create the infrastructure (tankers) and fuel the cargo ships (low grade petroleum used in ships). You don't need these if you don't travel the globe, but both systems require intra-continental infrastructure.

As peak oil and gas come on, businesses will be forced (albeit in some views 'rightly so') to better account for the energy used to make a particular product or provide a particular service. Products from China don't cost less in the U.S. because it actually costs less to make from an engineering sense; it just costs less based upon how much you value a person's time and labor. Essentially the time of farmer converted to factory worker in China has less value than the average Joe/Jane in the U.S. The 100s of millions of workers in China available to work cheap is the main reason why products have gotten cheaper in the U.S.

Essentially, the CO2 being shipped from abroad to the U.S. (and generally from developing to developed countries) is a proxy measure for energy. As suggested in the synopsis (linked above), the solution is likely to factor the cost into the consumer of the product and not necessarily its producer.

And we should quit shipping electronic 'waste' to China, as someday we'll likely wish we kept it to make use of it via recycling, but that's another story ...

Shell CEO Talks of peak "easily accessible supplies of oil and gas" by 2015

As posted on other blogs (The Oil Drum and The Energy Blog) Jeroen van der Veer, the Chief Executive of Royal Dutch Shell, has suggested that the "easy oil" will not keep up with demand by 2015, and that a "blueprint" future energy scenario is preferable to a haphazard strategy. Now one of the world's largest companies says peak oil is within 7 years. Anyone want to work on battery and capacitor technology!?!

Use the title link to go to the Shell website for the statement, or just read below:

Two Energy Futures

* By Jeroen van der Veer

By 2100, the world’s energy system will be radically different from today’s. Renewable energy like solar, wind, hydroelectricity, and biofuels will make up a large share of the energy mix, and nuclear energy, too, will have a place. Humans will have found ways of dealing with air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. New technologies will have reduced the amount of energy needed to power buildings and vehicles.

Indeed, the distant future looks bright, but much depends on how we get there. There are two possible routes. Let’s call the first scenario Scramble. Like an off-road rally through a mountainous desert, it promises excitement and fierce competition. However, the unintended consequence of “more haste” will often be “less speed,” and many will crash along the way.

The alternative scenario can be called Blueprints, which resembles a cautious ride, with some false starts, on a road that is still under construction. Whether we arrive safely at our destination depends on the discipline of the drivers and the ingenuity of all those involved in the construction effort. Technological innovation provides the excitement.

Regardless of which route we choose, the world’s current predicament limits our room to maneuver. We are experiencing a step-change in the growth rate of energy demand due to rising population and economic development. After 2015, easily accessible supplies of oil and gas probably will no longer keep up with demand.

As a result, we will have no choice but to add other sources of energy – renewables, yes, but also more nuclear power and unconventional fossil fuels such as oil sands. Using more energy inevitably means emitting more CO2 at a time when climate change has become a critical global issue.

In the Scramble scenario, nations rush to secure energy resources for themselves, fearing that energy security is a zero-sum game, with clear winners and losers. The use of local coal and homegrown biofuels increases fast. Taking the path of least resistance, policymakers pay little attention to curbing energy consumption – until supplies run short. Likewise, despite much rhetoric, greenhouse gas emissions are not seriously addressed until major shocks trigger political reactions. Since these responses are overdue, they are severe and lead to energy price spikes and volatility.

The Blueprints scenario is less painful, even if the start is more disorderly. Numerous coalitions emerge to take on the challenges of economic development, energy security, and environmental pollution through cross-border cooperation. Much innovation occurs at the local level, as major cities develop links with industry to reduce local emissions. National governments introduce efficiency standards, taxes, and other policy instruments to improve the environmental performance of buildings, vehicles, and transport fuels.

Moreover, as calls for harmonization increase, policies converge across the globe. Cap-and-trade mechanisms that put a price on industrial CO2 emissions gain international acceptance. Rising CO2 prices in turn accelerate innovation, spawning breakthroughs. A growing number of cars are powered by electricity and hydrogen, while industrial facilities are fitted with technology to capture CO2 and store it underground.

Against the backdrop of these two equally plausible scenarios, we will know only in a few years whether December’s Bali declaration on climate change was just rhetoric or the start of a global effort to counter it. Much will depend on how attitudes evolve in China, the European Union, India, and the United States.

Shell traditionally uses its scenarios to prepare for the future without expressing a preference for one over another. But, faced with the need to manage climate risk for our investors and our descendants, we believe the Blueprints outcomes provide the best balance between economy, energy, and environment. For a second opinion, we appealed to climate change calculations made at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These calculations indicate that a Blueprints world with CO2 capture and storage results in the least amount of climate change, provided emissions of other major manmade greenhouse gases are similarly reduced.

But the Blueprints scenario will be realized only if policymakers agree on a global approach to emissions trading and actively promote energy efficiency and new technology in four sectors: heat and power generation, industry, transport, and buildings.

This will require hard work, and time is short. For example, Blueprints assumes CO2 is captured at 90% of all coal- and gas-fired power plants in developed countries by 2050, plus at least 50% of those in non-OECD countries. Today, none capture CO2. Because CO2 capture and storage adds costs and yields no revenues, government support is needed to make it happen quickly on a scale large enough to affect global emissions. At the least, companies should earn carbon credits for the CO2 they capture and store.

Blueprints will not be easy. But it offers the world the best chance of reaching a sustainable energy future unscathed, so we should explore this route with the same ingenuity and persistence that put humans on the moon and created the digital age.

The world faces a long voyage before it reaches a low-carbon energy system. Companies can suggest possible routes to get there, but governments are in the driver’s seat. And governments will determine whether we should prepare for bitter competition or a true team effort.

Jeroen van der Veer, Chief Executive of Royal Dutch Shell plc, is Energy Community leader of the World Economic Forum energy industry partnership in 2007-2008 and chaired this year’s Energy Summit in Davos. He also chairs the Energy and Climate Change working group of the European Round Table of Industrialists.

Peak Energy, Coal Reserves, and Climate Change

The blog The Oil Drum has posted a writing by Dave Rutledge, the Chair for the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at Caltech. In this post and in a YouTube video Rutledge makes a few basic claims or revelations, that if correct, should profoundly affect how we (the United States and the World) treat the issues of energy supply and climate change. Also see a webpage posted by Dave Rutledge where you can download his power point presentation and Excel files.

The three basic points he makes are:

1. Coal reserve estimates are inaccurate, outdated (derived and unchanged significantly since 1974), and in need of revision quite a bit downward. He references a National Academies report that discusses the need for new and accurate accounts of coal reserves and resources.

2. Hydrocarbon (oil and natural gas) and coal resources are well below those that are use by the IPCC climate models to estimate future global warming. The end result is that there is not enough mineable fossil fuels to cause the warming and sea level rises that are being predicted. For example, in some IPCC models, oil production is assumed larger in 2100 than today. Is this possible? Does this mean the use of tar sands and oil shale, or is using those resources even not enough? Rutledge's discussion of this concept makes it seem unlikely that new sources will take up the slack.

3. For climate change reasons, or fossil fuel depletion reasons, work on implementation and research and development into renewable energy systems is an imperative. I'll add not energy efficiency per se, but energy reductions that still enable us, as humans, to continue to be healthy and interact culturally as needed to have good lifestyles.

I will not further discuss this topic as one should refer to the links within this post for further information from the Dave Rutledge himself.

Google's Energy Ventures - Can Computer/Programming Companies Tackle the Commanding Heights?

The "Commanding Heights" of the economy were what Vladimir Lenin referred to as the segments and industries in an economy that effectively control and support the others: energy, banking, and transportation/shipping. Google and other so-called 'tech' companies (note: it is a misnomer to call technology only concepts that involved computers and programming) are aiming at solving both their own and others' energy cost problems.

In all likelihood, companies venturing in this space see their future growth limited if energy does not stay cheap and abundant. Venture capitalists see the large amount of dollars possible for finding the next major contributor to the energy mix. But tackling the Commanding Heights takes a lot of physical capital - the steel, silicon, wires, etc. that actually exist on the ground somewhere - and the paybacks times are historically slower than what Google and others are used to.

In the case of Google, their servers have grown at such a rate that they likely see limitations in their ability to continually increase their offers for free hosting services. Since providing the energy to power servers is critical to many of Google's business aspects, they Google executives have decided it is worth their while to try to solve the problem for themselves. They likely can do that, but making a new renewable energy technology (besides wind power) go mainstream will be tough, but I'm glad they are taking this challenge.

The fact is, that for almost any building in the United States, putting photovoltaic panels (for example) at the facility to offset electricity purchases will provide a payback on the investment within the lifetime of the building, and likely in less than 15 years, and possibly in less than 10 years depending upon location and incentives. The reason why this is typically not done (except on government buildings) is that there are other investments to be made with the same money that have higher paybacks in shorter time frames: this is the crux of the issue.

As long as the paybacks in energy investments take longer than other investments, companies will fulfill their fiduciary duty to make the non-energy investments. Energy simply does not cost enough to change the economics. Making renewable energy generation cost less than coal can be done by two ways: (1) cheaper renewable energy and/or (2) more expensive coal energy. The latter is not likely to happen anytime soon, even with a possible future carbon, or carbon dioxide, price. One way for the former to occur is to allocate semiconductor factories toward building solar cells instead of microchips. But then this means more expensive servers (because of less supply of chips and processors) for Google ... a catch 22.

Some elements of a proper energy policy

A proper Energy Policy in the United States would promote (1) clarity of purpose, (2) diversification of use of energy resources, and (3) more transparent and accurate pricing of energy such that the market (consumers and energy companies) can properly make both short and long term decisions.

How to promote each item above:

(1) CLARITY – State, through actions and rules in the Energy Bill, that the U.S., being the largest energy consumer in the world, and the largest energy user per capita, must always consider the tradeoffs of such a large amount of energy. These tradeoffs are environmental stewardship, security/accessibility of energy resources, and costs that don’t cause disruptive economic conditions (but that if changing slowly over time in the right direction can work to our benefit). For example: The fact that private banks will not underwrite new nuclear facilities is testament to how high they perceive the risk. Does this mean that the U.S. should have no new nuclear facilities? Not necessarily, BUT if the taxpayers underwrite (through government loan guarantees) the high infrastructure costs (for nuclear plants and disposal), then the taxpayers should also reap the economic benefits of this underwriting. I don’t want a “national energy company” (i.e. U.S. government running a nuclear facility), but I might rather have that than the U.S. citizens taking the risk of a nuclear facility without directly benefiting from the cheaper operational costs of generating electricity from nuclear facilities.

(2) DIVERSIFICATION – The oil shocks of the 1970’s took petroleum out of the mix (almost, but not entirely) of electricity generation. We are benefiting from this decoupling today with higher oil prices. Consumers will generally benefit when there are multiple competing sources of fuels/energy for various applications ranging from heating/cooling homes to fueling cars. The market is NOT SET UP to take into account these concerns, so it is the responsibility of the government to set up the rules such that various companies end up filling the need for a diverse energy supply that includes ALL fuels renewable, fossil fuels, and nuclear. THE MOST IMPORTANT thing to do regarding this concept, and energy policy in general, is to promote higher CAFE fuel standards for cars AND LIGHT TRUCKS AND SUVS. We, the United States, can do this, and should. More fuel efficient cars are being made, and can be made. Also, the more fuel efficient a car is, the further it can go ON ANY FUEL (electricity, hydrogen, gasoline, diesel, etc.). AND, higher fuel standards do not mean people will buy less cars, so I’ve never been sure why automakers are so concerned about this issue as long as the time for transition is appropriate.

(3) TRANSPARENT PRICING – Every energy usage today is subsidized in some way by the government at both the state and federal levels. This is not inherently bad as the governments have concerns and perspectives that the players in the economic market do not have. The U.S. has established over long time scales that it is willing to promote and fund expansion of fuels that are BOTH NEW (wind, solar) AND WELL-ESTABLISHED (coal, petroleum exploration). Arguments abound such as (1) fossil exploration is “new” and R&D is needed, or (2) wind energy is starting at a disadvantage and needs R&D to compete as well as new transmission lines and rules, (3) etc. on other energy resources. All of this is generally true, and people are just bickering over who is not getting their fair share. Everyone has an argument because the coupling between energy subsidies and subsidies in other areas of the economy are sufficiently blurry. There are some areas where U.S. investment can have a more direct effect upon pricing than others. For example, the U.S. is only one player in indirectly dictating (by consumption, production, and intervention in oil-rich areas) the price of oil. But investing in resources that exist within the U.S. (renewables, coal) a more direct effect will be had upon how much citizens spend on energy. We can make a start to people understanding this by making some basic information available in a simple and straightforward manner: 1. Government dollars given to promote each fuel (wind, oil, coal, etc.) 2. Amount of energy consumed from each fuel (absolute values and percentages) 3. Dollars per energy consumed 4. List of externalities that are and are not accounted for in prices of energy. Examples include SO2 is not sufficiently internalized for coal plants (due to technology for scrubbing) and nuclear waste disposal is not sufficiently internalized for nuclear power.