by Richard W. Caperton

Who will take radical steps to stop the transition to clean energy?  That’s the question that underlies “Blowout,” the new book by retired Senator Byron Dorgan and David Hagberg.  Because the answer is so straightforward (hint: it’s the oil companies), Dorgan and Hagberg have taken the unprecedented step of addressing the issue in a blood-soaked action thriller, instead of the typical non-fiction format we’re all so used to.

“Blowout” is based around a fictional clean energy research and development facility in North Dakota, which is very close to making a revolutionary technological breakthrough.  Just as the final critical test approaches, the facility is attacked by a relatively incompetent gang of militia members, who have been hired by unknown outside interests.  This attack, the resulting manhunt, and various other criminal hijinks make up the bulk of the plot.

Along the way, we’re treated to scenes of extreme violence in various North Dakota locations, as well as Venezuela and Washington, DC.  There are also numerous detailed mentions of all kinds of exotic military firearms.  For example, one character was previously shot with “a Barrett A2 .50 caliber U.S. sniper rifle,” and in another scene someone uses a “Knight PDW 6x35mm compact automatic carbine,” which presumably possesses an outstanding amount of killing power.

I’m glad they went the action route, because it’s actually pretty fun.  We’ve all read the formulaic clean energy book, which goes something like this: we’re in an energy crisis, the solution is X, but X has some small problems holding it back, so we need a broad national commitment, which will be a win-win situation for everyone involved.  “Blowout” is something entirely different: we’re in an energy crisis, the solution is an insanely complicated new technology that I can’t even begin to understand, developing this technology costs hundreds of billions of dollars, and special interests will go to unimaginable lengths to stop the research, including killing dozens of innocent civilians with weapons originally designed for big game hunting.

Unfortunately, this may be a case where fiction is stranger than truth.  As Joe Romm has written countless times on this very blog, the solutions to the climate crisis are almost certainly the technologies we have with us today.  Here’s how a character describes the new technology under development in “Blowout”:

We’re going to inject three classes of microbes directly into the coal seam [the facility] is sitting atop.  One breaks down the long hydrocarbons in the deposit.  The second converts those into organic acids and alcohols.  And the third – methanogens – feed on the first two and convert them to methane that we pump to the surface and burn as fuel to power our turbines.

Right.  Wouldn’t it be easier just to build a lot of existing renewable energy?  And cheaper?  In fact, it would be cheaper.  The new technology in “Blowout” cost the government $650 billion, but extending the production tax credit for wind would cost less than one percent of that.

Now, it would obviously be a mistake to read too much into a work of fiction, especially one that has two authors.  That said, it’s tempting to use this book to try to understand why Senator Dorgan wasn’t a bigger supporter of taking action on climate change when he was in the Senate.  The obvious connection is that one of the bad guys in “Blowout” is a derivatives trader, which aligns perfectly with this quote from Dorgan from a December 2009 press release: ““I don’t support offering Wall Street a trillion-dollar cap and trade carbon securities market so the investment banks and speculators can trade securities and establish speculative prices that tell the American people how much their energy is going to cost.”

Dorgan’s tepid support for addressing climate change is especially frustrating when you consider it in the context of the first sentences of “Blowout”:

We may have already reached the carbon dioxide tipping point, which in effect means that even in the planet reduced its carbon dioxide emission to zero, it may take a thousand years for Earth to heal itself. As dramatic as this might sound, the situation is closer to reality than even Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth was.  Of course, doing nothing is not an option.

We have to act now, to at least mitigate the effects of the poisons we are pumping into the air.

That just about perfectly sums up the situation.  One hopes that Senator Dorgan will remember this when thinking about what to work on in the real world, and not just his nascent career as a novelist.

Richard W. Caperton is the Director of Clean Energy Investments at the Center for American Progress.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) plans to offer an amendment tomorrow that would block enforcement of the Clean Air Act for greenhouse gases. Her “Dirty Air Act” amendment threatens Alaska and the hopes for a clean energy economic recovery for the nation. At Mother Jones, Kate Sheppard reports that at least one Democrat is supporting her climate catastrophe campaign:

Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski has gained co-sponsorship for her effort to block the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide from at least one Democrat, her office confirmed Friday evening. Spokesman Robert Dillon said that one Democrat has signed on, though he was not able to confirm the identity of the Democrat. There are, however, plenty of ideas about who this Democratic cosponsor may be. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Jim Webb (D-VA), Byron Dorgan (D-ND), and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), all previously on record voicing concerns about carbon regulation, have been floated as possible sign-ons.

In April 2009, Dorgan, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson, and Webb voted to preserve the filibuster threat against any “clean energy” legislation, even though they represent states on the front lines of the climate crisis. Below, the Wonk Room takes a closer look at these Murky Democrats:

BYRON DORGAN

Dorgan, buoyed by coal interests, has emerged as one of the strongest critics of President Obama’s plan to limit global warming pollution, saying it “makes no sense.” He opposes action even though his state has been ravaged by record floods and has vast renewable energy resources. Dorgan’s “preference is that Congress address this issue and not the EPA.” The senator told National Journal that “how the amendment is crafted — most notably whether it suspends the agency’s regulatory power or completely removes it — is crucial.”

BLANCHE LINCOLN

Lincoln has claimed that limits on carbon pollution would create “really high, higher food prices” and said when she took over the Senate Agriculture Committee that it isn’t her “preference to move on cap-and-trade legislation in the Senate this year.” Lincoln has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in polluter cash, including $10,000 from the right-wing extremists at Koch Industries.

MARY LANDRIEU

Landrieu has taken an oil-soaked stand “against forcing petrochemical companies” to “bear the brunt of new costs.” Her state, Lousiana, is still devastated by the widespread destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, a global-warming-fueled storm.

BEN NELSON

Nelson worries that climate legislation “could have a negative impact on our economy.” Unusual heat waves killed thousands of cattle last year, and a recent five-year drought was even more destructive.

JIM WEBB

Since 2008, Webb has opposed “things like emission standards.” Webb also opposes President Obama’s global warming plan, instead working with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) to promote a nuclear-industry subsidy plan. Coal and nuclear utility Dominion Resources is Webb’s fourth largest corporate contributor. Sea level rise is already eating away Virginia’s coastlines.

Murkowski’s move is expected to be attached to legislation to raise the federal debt ceiling. If it comes in the form of a binding amendment, 60 votes would be required for passage. She may instead offer a disapproval resolution, which would not block the EPA but would help senators pledge allegiance to coal and oil interests as the 2010 election season nears. A disapproval resolution would only require 51 votes to pass.

Speaking on the Senate floor this morning, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) responded to criticism that he does not support climate change legislation. Dorgan reiterated his opposition to the creation of a carbon market with a cap-and-trade system to limit global warming pollution. He aggressively dismissed the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), the clean energy and climate legislation supported by President Obama and passed by the House in June. Arguing that the energy legislation crafted by the Senate Energy Committee “takes significant steps towards addressing climate,” Dorgan calls for its passage “and then at some point later bringing a climate change bill to the floor”:

I hope very much when people think about energy and climate change, that a consideration will exist of bringing a good energy bill to the floor that is a significant step in the right direction for climate change. And then at some point later bringing a climate change bill to the floor, because I think they are related but separate. And I think it would be much smarter to get the value and the success of an energy bill that’s now out of the committee and ready to be dealt with by the Senate at some point very soon.

Watch it:

Dorgan’s belief that energy and climate policy are “separate” mirrors the argument made by House Agriculture chair Collin Peterson (D-MN) that “mixing climate change together with energy independence” isn’t smart. In fact, reforming our broken energy policy requires recognition that the entire lifecycle of energy use matters.

Worse, however, is Dorgan’s claim that the legislation the Senate energy committee approved — the American Clean Energy Leadership Act (ACELA) — is a “giant way towards addressing climate change.” This is simply untrue. As Center for American Progress Action Fund John Podesta has described, the Senate bill is “weak, toothless, and unacceptable.”

The Senate bill has a ineffectual renewable electricity standard — which Dorgan seemed to recognize when he said it should be raised to match the level in ACES — in addition to expanded subsidies for nuclear, coal, and the oil and gas industries. In no way would its passage begin to reduce the global warming pollution of the United States, the essence of a “climate bill.”

Dorgan also pledged his allegiance to coal, which he calls “our most abundant resource,” despite it being — unlike the wind, sun, and tides — a finite fossil fuel. This year alone, Dorgan has received $225,910 from coal-powered electric utilities and is the number two recipient of coal mining cash in the Senate.

Transcript: Read more

Our guest blogger is Stacy Morford, managing editor for SolveClimate.com.

The electric utility industry has been one of Congress’s top campaign contributers for years. Already in the still young 2009-2010 election cycle, it has contributed $2.4 million to congressional campaigns. During the 2007-2008 election cycle, when the Senate rejected the Lieberman-Warner climate bill, the industry gave $20.6 million.

As the Senate debate ramps up, the top ten Senate recipients of electric utility contributions so far this cycle have staked out positions on the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act that range from skepticism to virulent opposition.

Byron Dorgan (D-ND): $70,200

Dorgan, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is the top recipient of campaign cash connected to electric utilities so far in the 2010 election cycle. He’s leery of the cap-and-trade approach, and he sees a future still powered by fossil fuels. His home state happens to have vast coal reserves. Dorgan wrote in a recent opinion article in the Bismarck Tribune that to protect the environment and make the nation less dependent on foreign oil, the U.S. should:

Establish caps on carbon that are accompanied by both adequate research and development funding and reasonable time lines for implementation to develop and commercialize technologies that will greatly reduce the CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

Lisa Murkowski (R-AK): $60,000

Murkowski is the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. She criticized ACES for not promoting nuclear and oil and gas development. When her committee took up its own energy bill earlier this year, she pushed for a lower renewable energy standard of 15 percent by 2021, opening the Florida coast to oil drilling, creating a green bank that could heavily benefit nuclear development, and providing ample funding to Alaska’s natural gas pipeline project.

Richard Burr (R-NC): $55,449

Burr, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, believes in an “all options on the table” approach. He supports energy efficiency and renewable energy development, as well as continued oil exploration. He also believes nuclear “can and must be part of the energy solution if our country wants to achieve meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.” Read more

Even though his state is still rebuilding from unprecedented floods, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) is committed to coal and wary of fighting climate change. Dorgan told the North Dakota Senate that he was concerned that the market created by capping global warming pollution could be open to manipulation:

I’m not very interested with having a bunch of folks with a bunch of money get their mitts on trading credits, and have our future and our destiny tied to their interests. I feel very strongly there’s something going on with our climate. We need to be attentive to it, we need to deal with it, but as we do, we have to be smart.

It’s legitimate to have a concern about the regulatory structure of a carbon market, about one-tenth the size of the fossil-fuel commodity markets, and Sen. Dorgan has the expertise to design the legislation. But he seems to be letting a policy detail obscure the real issue — that global warming pollution is completely unregulated, allowing corporate polluters to make astronomical profits while destroying the atmosphere.

This carbon loophole has allowed pollution giants like Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries, Peabody Coal, and Massey Energy to ravage the planet, sicken our children, and rake in obscene profits for decades. Now, as North Dakota reels from its third extreme flood in as many years, scientists are warning that the climate crisis is outstripping their projections.

Yet Dorgan seems to be confusing political “reality” with actual reality, when he summarily dismissed Vice President Al Gore’s “Repower America” call that “the nation should rely solely on renewable fuels by 2020″:

Not going to happen. Not even close. We need to continue to use our most abundant resource, but to be able to do that, we have to be able to unlock the technology … to decarbonize coal, and we’re going to do that.

Again, Dorgan is missing the forest for the trees. Dorgan is strikingly pessimistic that America can free itself of fossil fuel dependence, even though the sun, wind, and human ingenuity are much more “abundant” resources than coal. Yet he willing to guarantee the success of experimental carbon capture and sequestration technology for coal-fired power plants Of course, a $300 million loan to a North Dakota coal plant for CCS development may help it along. If Dorgan truly wants CCS to happen, he should recognize that the most important thing the government can do is to create a market for clean energy by passing strong cap-and-trade legislation as soon as possible. Unfortunately, his voting record reveals he puts GOP filibusters of clean energy legislation above the security and health of the United States.