“Mexico doesn’t have the resources to combat a major oil spill, and the United States does,” said Jorge Piñon, a former president of Amoco Oil Latin America and a current research fellow at the University of Texas. “Coordination and sharing communications, training, personnel, equipment and technology are essential for safe and productive drilling.” Mexico is the U.S.’s number 2 oil supplier, behind Canada.

The Agreement must be ratified by lawmakers.

Among the energy-related budget requests:

• $27.2 billion to the Department of Energy, a 3.2% hike over FY2012
• $5 billion for DOE’s Office of Science
• $2.3 billion for DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy office – a 29% increase – with a focus on improving clean-vehicle technologies to move closer to one million advanced vehicles on the road, and on developing advanced materials and processes to cut the costs of manufacturing by using less energy
• $650.8 million for the US Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy. The request includes $420.6 million for Fossil Energy Research and Development; $195.6 million for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; $14.9 million for the Naval Petroleum Reserves [GreenCarCongress.com]
• $770 million for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, to help develop small modular reactors and implement the nuclear waste management recommendations
• $350 million for DOE’s ARPA-E
• A repeal of over $4 billion/year in subsidies to oil, gas, and other fossil fuel producers
• $248 million for the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline Safety program, up 44% from last year [EnergyandCapital.com]

What do you think of President Obama’s requested budget? What, if anything, would you change? What aspects of the nation’s energy infrastructure need the most support in the short-run? In the long-run?

“Today’s licensing action sounds a clarion call to the world that the United States recognizes the importance of expanding nuclear energy as a key component of a low-carbon energy future that is central to job creation, diversity of electricity supply and energy security,” said Marvin S. Fertel, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear industry association. [FOX Business]

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko provided the lone dissenting vote, saying “I cannot support issuing this license as if Fukushima never happened. I believe it requires some type of binding commitment that the Fukushima enhancements that are currently projected and currently planned to be made would be made before the operation of the facility.” [Reuters]

A group of nine advocacy groups said that they would sue to block the license, stating that the NRC did not adequately analyze the reactor design’s safety in light of last year’s disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi facility. [New York Times]

What do you think of this announcement? What’s the proper role of nuclear power in America’s energy future? What’s the cost-benefit mix of nuclear power?

The coal industry has been challenged recently by low natural gas prices and new federal clean air regulations. These factors have compelled some electric utilities to close their coal-fired power plants, or to switch them to natural gas or other, cleaner coal sources. Utilities such as FirstEnergy, Duke Energy, and American Electric Power have recently announced coal-fired plant closures. Other factors hampering the coal industry are the slow economy and growing market share of renewable energy sources.

What do you make of this news? From what standpoint is this trend of decreased coal demand a bad thing? From what standpoint is it positive?

This upward trend in energy self-sufficiency is due in large part to increased oil and natural gas development, and low natural gas prices. “Domestic oil output is the highest in eight years. The U.S. is producing so much natural gas that, where the government warned four years ago of a critical need to boost imports, it now may approve an export terminal.” Other factors include improved vehicle fleet fuel efficiency.

This trend, according to the Bloomberg piece, “could see the country become the world’s top energy producer by 2020.”

What are the implications of this trend? Is energy self-sufficiency the same thing as energy security? How does this movement toward energy self-sufficiency, as described by the Bloomberg piece, interact with other energy policy goals: economic growth, the environment, energy security, etc.?

One of GPIC’s theories is that the siloed nature of the contemporary building industry – where the architecture, building, engineering, and systems and structures of a building project are handled by separate, specialized firms or individuals – leaves energy efficiency, which requires the proper interaction of a building’s many parts, out of the equation. [E&E ClimateWire (sub. req.)]

Why hasn’t commercial building efficiency increased at a faster rate? What stands in the way of broader private sector adoption of energy-efficient designs, products and practices? What could Congress do to push energy efficiency forward?

The U.S. in 2011 experienced a record number of natural disasters, and the costs of recovery – much of which will be borne by the insurance industry – are expected to exceed $50 billion. [New York Times]

“We want to make sure that the financial soundness and stability of the insurance companies are not jeopardized by inadequate preparation for climate change,” said Washington State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler. [E&E ClimateWire (sub. req.)]

What do you think of this requirement as a question of state policy? Of federal policy? What public good comes out of the information collected by a survey like this? Could the costs to insurers of climate-related disasters be a catalyst for broader policy change?

H.R. 3407 would open up vast areas of Alaska’s coastal plain to oil leasing.

H.R. 3408 would expand shale oil development in several Western states. Many Democrats opposed the bill, arguing that the environmental, social, and geologic risks of shale oil development are not yet well understood. The committee voted down a Democratic amendment that would have required the USGS to study oil shale development impacts on water availability and quality.

H.R. 3410 would force the federal government to auction leases in oil-rich areas of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and in the Gulf of Mexico. The committee rejected a Democratic amendment that would have allowed states’ voters to refuse leases off their shores.

These bills have been reported to the House floor, where they are expected to accompany Speaker John Boehner’s “American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act.”

What policy goals does expanded domestic oil and gas development accomplish? What goals does it undermine? What do you think of the short-term implications of these bills? And the long-term?

Because of increased gas production throughout the U.S., EIA had more data available in making its 2012 estimates. For example, with additional data from increased production throughout the Marcellus shale – a geological formation stretching beneath West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York – EIA adjusted its estimates for the Marcellus to 141 tcf, down nearly 66% from 410 tcf in its previous report. The U.S. Geological Survey last year estimated that the Marcellus has 84 tcf of gas.

What impact could these updated estimates have on U.S. policy? On the natural gas market? On the broader energy sector? How does this uncertainty around U.S. gas holdings impact your assumptions about America’s energy future?

According to a June 2011 report by the IAEA International Fact Finding Expert Mission, “To date no health effects have been reported in any person as a result of radiation exposure from the nuclear accident”. This included the operators and others who worked from the beginning of the shutdown.

Despite this finding, today over 80,000 Japanese are prevented from returning to Fukushima, prevented from returning to their homes, their jobs, and to farming their lands. The basis for this prevention is radiation standards based on a “conservative” model called Linear No Threshold (LNT), which asserts that any radiation exposure causes health effects. The LNT assumption is a simple projection of health effects data from high-level exposures – like those at Hiroshima and Nagaski – and in nuclear bomb tests: levels of radiation exposure above 100,000 millirem. The effects of this level of exposure are real, and demonstrable, but extrapolating them all the way down to zero on a straight (linear) line is not only simplistic, it’s inaccurate, and it leads to impossible predictions. There is no scientific biological data that shows any evidence of any human health impact (much less cancer) at radiation dose levels of less than even 10,000 millirem.

In the case of Fukushima, the application of the LNT principle has caused demonstrable economic and social harm to thousands of people. This misguided policy has resulted in decontamination programs that have stripped off the rich top soil, which is being called radioactive waste; left homes abandoned and destroyed by the weather and looting; and driven people toward poverty, alienation and depression, and even suicide. While there are radioactive “hot spots” around Fukushima that need to be avoided and cleaned up, the majority of the affected areas have radiation levels significantly lower than some areas in Norway, Brazil, Iran, and India, areas where generations of people have lived without harmful effects.

What is the right thing to do? Are “conservative” standards such as LNT – standards based on a principle rather than on scientific data – in the best interest of real people? All energy sources have attendant trade-offs, so what about nuclear power makes people and policymakers unable or unwilling to responsibly confront its trade-offs?