Harcourt envisioned a permanent unit dedicated to the prevention of politically motivated violence through the use of modern techniques such as undercover infiltration. This pioneering branch was the first to be trained in counter-terrorism techniques.
Its name was changed to Special Branch as it had its remit gradually expanded to incorporate a general role in counterterrorism, combating foreign subversion and infiltrating organized crime. Law enforcement agencies, in Britain and elsewhere, established similar units.
Counterterrorism forces expanded with the perceived growing threat of terrorism in the late 20th century. Specifically, after the September 11 attacks, Western governments made counter-terrorism efforts a priority, including more foreign cooperation, shifting tactics involving red teams and preventive measures. Although sensational attacks in the developed world receive a great deal of media attention, most terrorism occurs in less developed countries. Government responses to terrorism in some cases generate substantial unintended consequences.
Domestic intelligence is often directed at specific groups, defined on the basis of origin or religion, which is a source of political controversy. Mass surveillance of an entire population raises objections on civil liberties grounds. Homegrown terrorists, especially lone wolves are often harder to detect because of their citizenship or legal status and ability to stay under the radar.
In response to the growing legislation.
The United Kingdom has had anti-terrorism legislation in place for more than thirty years. The Prevention of Violence Act 1939 was brought in response to an Irish Republican Army (IRA) campaign of violence under the S-Plan. This act had been allowed to expire in 1953 and was repealed in 1973 to be replaced by the Prevention of Terrorism Acts a response to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. From 1974 to 1989 the temporary provisions of the act were renewed annually.
The Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 was formally introduced into the Parliament November 19, 2001 two months after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. It received royal assent and went into force on December 13, 2001. On December 16, 2004 the Law Lords ruled that Part 4 was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, but under the terms of the Human Rights Act 1998 it remained in force. The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 was drafted to answer the Law Lords ruling and the Terrorism Act 2006 creates new offences related to terrorism, and amends existing ones. The Act was drafted in the aftermath of the 7 July 2005 London bombings, and like its predecessors some of its terms have proven to be highly controversial.
Since 1978 the UK's terrorism laws have been regularly reviewed by a security-cleared Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, whose often influential reports are submitted to Parliament and published in full.
The U.S. passed the USA PATRIOT Act after the September 11 attacks, as well as a range of other legislation and executive orders relating to national security.
The Posse Comitatus Act limits domestic employment of the United States Army and the United States Air Force, requiring Presidential approval prior to deploying the Army and/or the Air Force. Pentagon policy also applies this limitation to the United States Marine Corps and the United States Navy, because the Posse Comitatus Act doesn't cover naval services, even though they are federal military forces. The Department of Defense can be employed domestically on Presidential order, as was done during the Los Angeles riots of 1992, Hurricane Katrina, and the Beltway Sniper incidents.
In February 2017, sources claimed that the Trump administration intends to rename and revamp the U.S. government program Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) to solely focus on Islamist extremism.
Australia has passed several anti-terrorism acts. In 2004, a bill comprising three acts Anti-terrorism Act, 2004, (No 2) and (No 3) was passed. Then Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, introduced the Anti-terrorism bill, 2004 on March 31. He described it as "a bill to strengthen Australia's counter-terrorism laws in a number of respects – a task made more urgent following the recent tragic terrorist bombings in Spain." He said that Australia's counter-terrorism laws "require review and, where necessary, updating if we are to have a legal framework capable of safeguarding all Australians from the scourge of terrorism." The Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005 supplemented the powers of the earlier acts. The Australian legislation allows police to detain suspects for up to two weeks without charge and to electronically track suspects for up to a year. The Australian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2005 included a "shoot-to-kill" clause. In a country with entrenched liberal democratic traditions, the measures are controversial and have been criticized by civil libertarians and Islamic groups.
Israel monitors a list of designated terrorist organizations and has laws forbidding membership in such organizations, funding or helping them in any way.
On December 14, 2006 the Israeli Supreme Court ruled targeted killings were a permitted form of self-defense.
In 2016 the Israeli Knesset passed a comprehensive law against terrorism, forbidding any kind of terrorism and support of terrorism, and setting severe punishments for terrorists. The law also regulate legal efforts against terrorism.
John Walker Lindh was captured as an enemy combatant during the United States' 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.
Democratic principles and values are essential tools in the fight against terrorism. Any successful strategy for dealing with terrorism requires terrorists to be isolated. Consequently, the preference must be to treat terrorism as criminal acts to be handled through existing systems of law enforcement and with full respect for human rights and the rule of law. We recommend: (1) taking effective measures to make impunity impossible either for acts of terrorism or for the abuse of human rights in counter-terrorism measures. (2) the incorporation of human rights laws in all anti-terrorism programmes and policies of national governments as well as international bodies."
A 2017 study found that "governance and civil society aid is effective in dampening domestic terrorism, but this effect is only present if the recipient country is not experiencing a civil conflict."
Terrorism has often been used to justify military intervention in countries like Pakistan where terrorists are said to be based. That was the main stated justification for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. It was also a stated justification for the second Russian invasion of Chechnya.
Military intervention has not always been successful in stopping or preventing future terrorism, like during the Malayan Emergency, the Mau Mau uprising, and most of the campaigns against the IRA during the Irish Civil War, the S-Plan, the Border Campaign (IRA) and the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Although military action can disrupt a terrorist group's operations temporarily, it sometimes doesn't end the threat completely.
Whatever the target of terrorists, there are multiple ways of hardening the targets to prevent the terrorists from hitting their mark, or reducing the damage of attacks. One method is to place Hostile vehicle mitigation to enforce protective standoff distance outside tall or politically sensitive buildings to prevent car and truck bombing. Another way to reduce the impact of attacks is to design buildings for rapid evacuation.
Aircraft cockpits are kept locked during flights, and have reinforced doors, which only the pilots in the cabin are capable of opening. UK railway stations removed their rubbish bins in response to the Provisional IRA threat, as convenient locations for depositing bombs.
Scottish stations removed theirs after the 7 July 2005 London Bombings as a precautionary measure. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority purchased bomb-resistant barriers after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Iron Dome air defense system. It intercepts artillery rockets fired by terrorist onto Israeli cities and towns.
As Israel is suffering from constant shelling of its cities, towns and settlements by artillery rockets from the Gaza Strip (mainly by Hamas, but also by other Palestinian factions) and Lebanon (mainly by Hezbollah), Israel developed several defensive measures against artillery, rockets and missiles. These include building a bomb shelter in every building and school, but also deploying active protection systems like the Arrow ABM, Iron Dome and David's Sling batteries which intercept the incoming threat in the air. Iron Dome has successfully intercepted hundreds of Qassam rockets and Grad rockets fired by Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
A more sophisticated target-hardening approach must consider industrial and other critical industrial infrastructure that could be attacked. Terrorists need not import chemical weapons if they can cause a major industrial accident such as the Bhopal disaster or the Halifax Explosion. Industrial chemicals in manufacturing, shipping, and storage need greater protection, and some efforts are in progress. To put this risk into perspective, the first major lethal chemical attack in WWI used 160 tons of chlorine. Industrial shipments of chlorine, widely used in water purification and the chemical industry, travel in 90 or 55 ton tank cars.
To give one more example, the North American electrical grid has already demonstrated, in the Northeast Blackout of 2003, its vulnerability to natural disasters coupled with inadequate, possibly insecure, SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) networks. Part of the vulnerability is due to deregulation leading to much more interconnection in a grid designed for only occasional power-selling between utilities. A small number of terrorists, attacking key power facilities when one or more engineers have infiltrated the power control centers, could wreak havoc.
Equipping likely targets with containers (i.e., bags) of pig lard has been utilized to discourage attacks by suicide bombers. The technique was apparently used on a limited scale by British authorities in the 1940s. The approach stems from the idea that Muslims perpetrating the attack would not want to be "soiled" by the lard in the moment prior to dying. The idea has been suggested more recently as a deterrent to suicide bombings in Israel. However, the actual effectiveness of this tactic is probably limited as it is possible that a sympathetic Islamic scholar could issue a fatwa proclaiming that a suicide bomber would not be polluted by the swine products.
Emergency medical services will triage, treat, and transport the more seriously affected victims to hospitals, which will also need to have mass casualty and triage plans in place.
Today, many countries have special units designated to handle terrorist threats. Besides various security agencies, there are elite tactical units, also known as special mission units, whose role is to directly engage terrorists and prevent terrorist attacks. Such units perform both in preventive actions, hostage rescue and responding to on-going attacks. Countries of all sizes can have highly trained counter-terrorist teams. Tactics, techniques and procedures for manhunting are under constant development.
Most of these measures deal with terrorist attacks that affect an area, or threaten to do so. It is far harder to deal with assassination, or even reprisals on individuals, due to the short (if any) warning time and the quick exfiltration of the assassins.
Some counterterrorist actions of the 20th and 21st century are listed below. See list of hostage crises for a more extended list, including hostage-taking that did not end violently.
1972 Sabena Flight 571 Tel Aviv-Lod International Airport, Israel Mixed Black September Sayeret Matkal 1 passenger dead, 2 hijackers killed. 2 passengers and 1 commando injured. 2 kidnappers captured. All other 96 passengers rescued.
1975 AIA Hostage Incident AIA building, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Mixed. US and Swedish Japanese Red Army Special Actions Unit All hostages rescued, all kidnappers flown to Libya.
1977 Hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181 Spanish airspace and Mogadishu, Somalia Mixed PFLP GSG 9, Special Air Service consultants 1 hostage killed prior to the raid, 3 hijackers dead, 1 captured. 90 hostages rescued.
1980 Casa Circondariale di Trani Prison riot Trani, Italy Italian Red Brigades Gruppo di intervento speciale (GIS) 18 policemen rescued, all terrorists captured.
1980 Iranian Embassy Siege London, UK Mostly Iranian but some British Democratic Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Arabistan Special Air Service 1 hostage, 5 kidnappers dead, 1 captured. 24 hostages rescued. 1 SAS operative received minor burns.
1981 Hijacking of "Woyla" Garuda Indonesia Don Muang International Airport, Thailand Indonesian Jihad Command Kopassus, RTAF mixed forces 1 hijacker killed himself, 4 hijackers and 1 Kopassus operative dead, 1 pilot wounded, all hostages rescued.
1982 Liberation of General James L. Dozier Padua, Italy American Red Brigades Nucleo Operativo Centrale di Sicurezza (NOCS) Hostage saved, capture of the entire terrorist cell.
1983 Turkish embassy attack Lisbon, Portugal Turkish Armenian Revolutionary Army GOE 5 hijackers, 1 hostage and 1 policeman dead, 1 hostage and 1 policeman wounded.
2000 Sauk Arms Heist Perak, Malaysia Malaysian (2 policemen, 1 soldier and 1 civilian) Al-Ma'unah Grup Gerak Khas and 20 Pasukan Gerakan Khas, mixed forces 2 hostages dead, 2 rescuers dead, 1 kidnapper dead and the other 28 kidnappers captured.
2001-2005 Pankisi Gorge crisis Pankisi Gorge, Kakheti, Georgia Georgians mixed, mostly Arab and Chechen combatants 2400 troops and 1000 policemen Repressing the threats of terrorism in the gorge.
2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis Moscow Mixed, mostly Russian (900+) Chechen Russian Spetsnaz 129–204 hostages dead, all 39 kidnappers dead. 600–700 hostages freed.
2004 Beslan school hostage crisis Beslan, North Ossetia-Alania, (an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation). Russian Chechen Mixed Russian 334 hostages dead and hundreds wounded. 10–21 rescuers dead. 31 kidnappers killed, 1 captured.
2008 Operations Dawn Gulf of Aden, Somalia Mixed Somalian piracy and militants PASKAL and international mixed forces Negotiation finished. 80 hostages released. RMN including PASKAL navy commandos with international mixed forces patrolling the Gulf of Aden during this festive period.
2008 2008 Mumbai attacks Multiple locations in Mumbai city Indian Nationals, Foreign tourists Ajmal Qasab and other Pakistani nationals affiliated to Laskar-e-taiba 300 NSG commandos, 36–100 Marine commandos and 400 army Para Commandos 141 Indian civilians, 30 foreigners, 15 policemen and two NSG commandos were killed.
2009 2009 Lahore Attacks Multiple locations in Lahore city Pakistan Lashkar-e-Taiba Police Commandos, Army Rangers Battalion March 3, The Sri Lankan cricket team attack – 6 members of the Sri Lankan cricket team were injured, 6 Pakistani policemen and 2 civilians killed.
March 30, the Manawan Police Academy in Lahore attack – 8 gunmen, 8 police personnel and 2 civilians killed, 95 people injured, 4 gunmen captured..
Plaza Cinema Chowk attack – 16 policemen, an army officer and unknown number of civilians killed. As many as 251 people injured.
2011 Operation Dawn of Gulf of Aden Gulf of Aden, Somalia Koreans, Myanmar, Indonesian Somalian piracy and militants Republic of Korea Navy Special Warfare Flotilla(UDT/SEAL) 4+ killed or missing, 8 killed, 5 captured, All hostages rescued.
2012 Lopota Gorge hostage crisis Lopota Gorge, Georgia Georgians ethnic Chechen, Russian and Georgian militants Special Operations Center, SOD, KUD and army special forces 2 KUD members and one special forces corpsman killed, 5 policemen wounded, 11 kidnappers killed, 5 wounded and 1 captured. All hostages rescued.
2013 2013 Lahad Datu standoff Lahad Datu, Sabah, Malaysia Malaysians Royal Security Forces of the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo (Jamalul Kiram III's faction) Malaysian Armed Forces, Royal Malaysia Police, Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency and joint counter-terrorism forces as well as Philippine Armed Forces. 8 policemen including 2 PGK commandos and one soldier killed, 12 others wounded, 56 militants killed, 3 wounded and 149 captured. All hostages rescued. 6 civilians killed and one wounded.
2017 2017 Isani flat siege Isani district, Tbilisi, Georgia Georgians Chechen militants Police special forces 3 muslim militants killed, including Akhmed Chatayev. One special forces officer killed during skirmishes.
A particular design problem for this system is that it will face many uncertainties in the future. The threat of terrorism may increase, decrease or remain the same, the type of terrorism and location are difficult to predict, and there are technological uncertainties. Yet we want to design a terrorism system conceived and designed today in order to prevent acts of terrorism for a decade or more. A potential solution is to incorporate flexibility into system design for the reason that the flexibility embedded can be exercised in future as uncertainty unfolds and updated information arrives. And the design and valuation of a protection system should not be based on a single scenario, but an array of scenarios. Flexibility can be incorporated in the design of the terrorism system in the form of options that can be exercised in the future when new information is available. Using these 'real options' will create a flexible Anti-terrorism system that is able to cope with new requirements that may arise.
While some countries with longstanding terrorism problems, such as Israel, have law enforcement agencies primarily designed to prevent and respond to terror attacks, in other nations, counter-terrorism is a relatively more recent objective of civilian police and law enforcement agencies.
While some civil-libertarians and criminal justice scholars have called-out efforts of law enforcement agencies to combat terrorism as futile and expensive or as threats to civil liberties, other scholars have begun describing and analyzing the most important dimensions of the policing of terrorism as an important dimension of counterterrorism, especially in the post-9/11 era, and have argued how police institutions view terrorism as a matter of crime control. Such analyses bring out the civilian police role in counterterrorism next to the military model of a 'war on terror'.
Pursuant to passage of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies began to systemically reorganize. Two primary federal agencies (the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)) house most of the federal agencies that are prepared to combat domestic and international terrorist attacks. These include the Border Patrol, the Secret Service, the Coast Guard and the FBI.
Following suit from federal changes pursuant to 9/11, however, most state and local law enforcement agencies began to include a commitment to "fighting terrorism" in their mission statements. Local agencies began to establish more patterned lines of communication with federal agencies. Some scholars have doubted the ability of local police to help in the war on terror and suggest their limited manpower is still best utilized by engaging community and targeting street crimes.
While counter-terror measures (most notably heightened airport security, immigrant profiling and border patrol) have been adapted during the last decade, to enhance counter-terror in law enforcement, there have been remarkable limitations to assessing the actual utility/effectiveness of law enforcement practices that are ostensibly preventative. Thus, while sweeping changes in counter-terrorism rhetoric redefined most American post 9/11 law enforcement agencies in theory, it is hard to assess how well such hyperbole has translated into practice.
In intelligence-led policing(ILP) efforts, the most quantitatively amenable starting point for measuring the effectiveness of any policing strategy (i.e.: Neighborhood Watch, Gun Abatement, Foot Patrols, etc.) is usually to assess total financial costs against clearance rates or arrest rates. Since terrorism is such a rare event phenomena, measuring arrests or clearance rates would be a non-generalizable and ineffective way to test enforcement policy effectiveness. Another methodological problem in assessing counter-terrorism efforts in law enforcement hinges on finding operational measures for key concepts in the study of homeland security. Both terrorism and homeland security are relatively new concepts for criminologists, and academicians have yet to agree on the matter of how to properly define these ideas in a way that is accessible.
Assault car of the French GIGN.
Algeria: GIS, DSI [fr], GOSP.
China: Snow Leopard Commando Unit+, Beijing SWAT.
Irish Army Ranger Wing operators during counter-terrorism training exercise.
Given the nature of operational counter-terrorism tasks national military organizations do not generally have dedicated units whose sole responsibility is the prosecution of these tasks. Instead the counter-terrorism function is an element of the role, allowing flexibility in their employment, with operations being undertaken in the domestic or international context.
In some cases the legal framework within which they operate prohibits military units conducting operations in the domestic arena; United States Department of Defense policy, based on the Posse Comitatus Act, forbids domestic counter-terrorism operations by the U.S. military. Units allocated some operational counter-terrorism task are frequently Special Forces or similar assets.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Counter-terrorism.
^ "Introduction to Foreign Internal Defense" (PDF). Curtis E. Lemay Center for Doctrine Development and Education.
^ Aniceto Masferrer, Clive Walker (2013). Counter-Terrorism, Human Rights and the Rule of Law: Crossing Legal Boundaries in Defence of the State. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 294. ISBN 9781781954478.
^ Wisnicki, Adrian (2013). Conspiracy, Revolution, and Terrorism from Victorian Fiction to the Modern Novel. Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory. Routledge. p. 150. ISBN 978-1-135-91526-1. With the collapse of Parnell's political career in 1891 and the general, if temporary, demoralization of the Irish cause, the Special Branch's interests shifted to other revolutionary and anarchist groups, and the word Irish dropped out of the name.
^ Tim Newburn, Peter Neyroud (2013). Dictionary of Policing. Routledge. p. 262. ISBN 9781134011551.
^ Shaffer, Ryan (2015). "Counter-Terrorism Intelligence, Policy and Theory Since 9/11". Terrorism and Political Violence. 27 (2): 368–375. doi:10.1080/09546553.2015.1006097. Volume 27, Issue 2, 2015.
^ "Preventive Counter-Terrorism Measures and Non-Discrimination in the European Union: The Need for Systematic Evaluation". The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism - The Hague (ICCT). July 2, 2011. Retrieved September 6, 2016.
^ "Which Countries' Terrorist Attacks Are Ignored By The U.S. Media?". FiveThirtyEight. 2016.
^ "Trade and Terror: The Impact of Terrorism on Developing Countries". Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. 2017.
^ Sexton, Renard; Wellhausen, Rachel L.; Findley, Michael G. (2019). "How Government Reactions to Violence Worsen Social Welfare: Evidence from Peru". American Journal of Political Science. 0. doi:10.1111/ajps.12415. ISSN 1540-5907.
^ Feiler, Gil (September 2007). "The Globalization of Terror Funding" (PDF). Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University: 29. Mideast Security and Policy Studies No. 74. Retrieved November 14, 2007.
^ "Terror bill passes into law". Jerusalem Post. Jerusalem Post. June 16, 2016. Retrieved June 16, 2016.
^ "Accountability and Transparency in the United States' Counter-Terrorism Strategy". The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism - The Hague (ICCT). January 22, 2015. Retrieved September 6, 2016.
^ "Preventive Counter-Terrorism Measures and Non-Discrimination in the European Union: The Need for Systematic Evaluation". The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism-The Hague (ICCT). July 2, 2011. Retrieved September 6, 2016.
^ Savun, Burcu; Tirone, Daniel C. (2018). "Foreign Aid as a Counterterrorism Tool - Burcu Savun, Daniel C. Tirone". Journal of Conflict Resolution. 62 (8): 1607–1635. doi:10.1177/0022002717704952.
^ Nagl, John A.; Petraeus, David H.; Amos, James F.; Sewall, Sarah (December 2006). "Field Manual 3–24 Counterinsurgency" (PDF). US Department of the Army. Retrieved February 3, 2008. While military manuals rarely show individual authors, David Petraeus is widely described as establishing many of this volume's concepts.
^ Ronchi, E. (2015). "Disaster management: Design buildings for rapid evacuation". Nature. 528 (7582): 333. doi:10.1038/528333b. PMID 26672544.
^ Weiss, Eric M. (January 11, 2005). "D.C. Wants Rail Hazmats Banned: S.C. Wreck Renews Fears for Capital". The Washington Post: B01.
^ "Suicide bombing 'pig fat threat". BBC News. February 13, 2004. Retrieved January 2, 2010.
^ "Swine: Secret Weapon Against Islamic Terror?". ArutzSheva. December 9, 2007.
^ Stathis N. Kalyvas (2004). "The Paradox of Terrorism in Civil Wars" (PDF). Journal of Ethics. 8 (1): 97–138. doi:10.1023/B:JOET.0000012254.69088.41. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 11, 2006. Retrieved October 1, 2006.
^ Crewmen tell of scary ordeal Archived October 8, 2008, at the Wayback Machine The Star Sunday October 5, 2008.
^ "Ops Fajar mission accomplished". The Star. October 10, 2008. Archived from the original on October 24, 2008. Retrieved November 7, 2008.
^ Buurman, J.; Zhang, S.; Babovic, V. (2009). "Reducing Risk Through Real Options in Systems Design: The Case of Architecting a Maritime Domain Protection System". Risk Analysis. 29 (3): 366–379. doi:10.1111/j.1539-6924.2008.01160.x.
^ Juergensmeyer, Mark (2000). Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
^ a b Deflem, Mathieu. 2010. The Policing of Terrorism: Organizational and Global Perspectives. New York: Routledge.
^ Mathieu Deflem. 2010. The Policing of Terrorism: Organizational and Global Perspectives. New York: Routledge.
^ Ramirez, D., J. Hoopes, and T.L. Quinlan. 2003 "Defining racial profiling in a post-September 11 world." American Criminal Law Review. 40(3): 1195–1233.
^ Kilburn Jr., John C. and Costanza, S.E. 2009 "Immigration and Homeland Security" published in Battleground: Immigration (Ed: Judith Ann Warner); Greenwood Publishing, Ca.
Janos Besenyo: Low-cost attacks, unnoticeable plots? Overview on the economical character of current terrorism, Strategic Impact (ROMANIA) (ISSN: 1841-5784) (eISSN: 1824-9904) 62/2017: (Issue No. 1) pp. 83-100.
Deflem, Mathieu, and Stephen Chicoine. 2019. "Policing Terrorism." In The Handbook of Social Control, edited by Mathieu Deflem. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
Deflem, Mathieu and Shannon McDonough. 2015. "The Fear of Counterterrorism: Surveillance and Civil Liberties Since 9/11." Society 52(1):70-79.
Gagliano Giuseppe, Agitazione sovversiva, guerra psicologica e terrorismo (2010) ISBN 978-88-6178-600-4, Uniservice Books.
Ishmael Jones, The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture (2008, revised 2010) ISBN 978-1-59403-382-7, Encounter Books.
James F. Pastor, "Terrorism and Public Safety Policing:Implications for the Obama Presidency" (2009, ISBN 978-1-4398-1580-9, Taylor & Francis).
Judy Kuriansky (Editor), "Terror in the Holy Land: Inside the Anguish of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" (2006, ISBN 0-275-99041-9, Praeger Publishers).
Newton Lee, Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (Second Edition) (Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2015), ISBN 978-3-319-17243-9.


text:
package seedu.watodo.commons.core;

import java.util.Objects;
import java.util.logging.Level;

/**
 * Config values used by the app
 */
public class Config {

    public static final String DEFAULT_CONFIG_FILE = "config.json";

    // Config values customizable through config file
    private String appTitle = "Watodo";
    private Level logLevel = Level.INFO;
    private String userPrefsFilePath = "preferences.json";
    private String watodoFilePath = "data/watodo.xml";
    private String watodoName = "My Tasks";

    public String getAppTitle() {
        return appTitle;
    }

    public void setAppTitle(String appTitle) {
        this.appTitle = appTitle;
    }

    public Level getLogLevel() {
        return logLevel;
    }

    public void setLogLevel(Level logLevel) {
        this.logLevel = logLevel;
    }

    public String getUserPrefsFilePath() {
        return userPrefsFilePath;
    }

    public void setUserPrefsFilePath(String userPrefsFilePath) {
        this.userPrefsFilePath = userPrefsFilePath;
    }

    public String getWatodoFilePath() {
        return watodoFilePath;
    }

    public void setWatodoFilePath(String watodoFilePath) {
        this.watodoFilePath = watodoFilePath;
    }

    public String getWatodoName() {
        return watodoName;
    }

    public void setWatodoName(String watodoName) {
        this.watodoName = watodoName;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean equals(Object other) {
        if (other == this) {
            return true;
        }
        if (!(other instanceof Config)) { //this handles null as well.
            return false;
        }

        Config o = (Config) other;

        return Objects.equals(appTitle, o.appTitle)
                && Objects.equals(logLevel, o.logLevel)
                && Objects.equals(userPrefsFilePath, o.userPrefsFilePath)
                && Objects.equals(watodoFilePath, o.watodoFilePath)
                && Objects.equals(watodoName, o.watodoName);
    }

    @Override
    public int hashCode() {
        return Objects.hash(appTitle, logLevel, userPrefsFilePath, watodoFilePath, watodoName);
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        sb.append("App title : " + appTitle);
        sb.append("\nCurrent log level : " + logLevel);
        sb.append("\nPreference file Location : " + userPrefsFilePath);
        sb.append("\nLocal data file location : " + watodoFilePath);
        sb.append("\nWatodo name : " + watodoName);
        return sb.toString();
    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Root > Dubai Statistics Center > Dubai Statistics Center News > DSC and SIRA sign MoU
DSC and SIRA sign MoU
Image : DSC and SIRA sign MoU
The Dubai Statistics Centre, DSC, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with the Security Industry Regulatory Agency, SIRA, with the aim of achieving integration, promoting joint cooperation and developing their bilateral relations.
The MoU was signed by Arif Obaid Al Muhairi, Executive Director of the DSC, and Khalifah Al Sulais, CEO of the SIRA, at the headquarters of the DSC, with the attendance of several officials from both sides.
Al Muhairi said that statistical work is based on partnerships, and the DSC's partnership with the SIRA will support their message equally.
"We are building an integrated administrative, technological and technical system. As well as our specialist work, we have considered other institutional factors, such as strengthening our statistical capabilities, planning and decision-making, and creating our policies based on scientific foundations, which requires the availability of statistical information," Al Sulais said.
According to the MoU, the DSC will offer statistical support by providing reports and statistical indicators to the second party, to support its planning and decision-making. It will also offer consultations and statistical technologies, as well as organize statistical training programs.
SIRA will offer institutional statistical entries and security data to the DSC, as well as consultations on security systems, protection and administrative systems, which will help protect lives and possessions while applying the best international practices in this area, in addition to conducting specialized training programs to further improve DSC employees' security awareness.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The idea that likeminded journalists would engage in formalized pre-discussions amongst ideologically like-minded people before publishing for the broad public is a formula for group-think. Genuinely private discussion via email is one thing. Coordination among colleagues: very different. Coordination seems to have been the purpose of JournoList from the start. It created "secret editors" to whom journalists privately reported, different from and undisclosed to their actual editors. That seems to me a genuinely sinister enterprise, a disservice to readers and corrupting of the participants in the list themselves.
Frum's description is a more lurid version of what Ross Douthat imagines. Let me disabuse everybody by revealing that Journolist was not created for people to work out some party line. The discussion was private not because the conversations were too explosive to be made public, but because they were too mundane. Conversations consisted of requests for references -- does anybody know an expert in such and such -- instantaneous reactions to events, joshing around, conversations about sports, and the like. Why did this have to be private? Because when you're a professional writer, even in the age of Twitter, you try to maintain some basic standard in your published work. I don't subject my readers to my thoughts on the Super Bowl as of halftime, or even (usually) the meaning of the Pennsylvania special election two minutes after polls close. You want the ability to share your thoughts with a group to which you may not have physical proximity.
Why was the group exclusively non-conservative? I wished it did have some right-wingers, but I went back and forth on this and I can understand the reason it didn't. You wanted to have some discussion of politics that didn't constantly require establishing first principles, so you could muse about a vote to extend unemployment benefits without having to refute the notion that Franklin Roosevelt deepened the Great Depression. It was the same reason that any community of interest exists. There was plenty to argue about. Eric Alterman and I both participated in Journolist -- that didn't keep us from maintaining a rather hostile public relationship. The same is true of many other members of the list. There was no explicit or implicit understanding that "we're all friends." It was like a bar you frequent, containing some friends, some total strangers, and some guys you get into brawls with.
I've been looking back a bit at what's archived in my inbox and what you see lately is an effort to organize a happy hour in Dave Weigel honor, many threads about World Cup matches, Wimbledon matches, NBA Finals games, etc., and mostly a lot of what amounts to self-promotion. People sending out links to articles they've published or talks they've given, sometimes followed by a reply or two. We had a thread in which people speculated as to where Peter Orszag will end up when he leaves the White House. This is the sort of thing that journalists like to talk about, but don't like to write about in public, because it's unprofessional to publish baseless speculation.
I'm sorry to spoil the excitement. It was a chat group.


$900 USD Per person - includes training materials lunches and banquet dinner. Breakfasts included with hotel registrations. Lodging, travel and transportation costs not included.
Please submit the registration form or contact us for rates. Reservations for this hotel and event need to be made directly through CODAR.
This course is for all SeaSonde owners and technicians who maintain SeaSondes and perform quality assurance and quality control monitoring of data from the SeaSonde processor. It is not a data analysis or specialty applications course.
Formal course instruction will begin on Monday 4 August at approx. 9:00AM, and will end on Wednesday 6 August at 5:00PM.
A DRAFT schedule is available here for download .
Registration Form (180K PDF) is provided here for download.
Registration and payment must be received by 1 July, 2014. Payments can be made via check (U.S. only) written to CODAR Ocean Sensors, Visa credit card, or issuance of a Purchase Order from your institution.


Thought I would take a quick moment to say hello and yes, I am still among the living!
My days seem to consist of: weeding, picking veggies, cleaning veggies, chopping veggies, canning veggies, drying veggies, freezing veggies…..ok, you get the picture!
So, I am just going to step back , breath and relax for a moment.
Time for a simple cup of tea.
Just a light treat of a sliced fresh plum and dollop of whipped cream.
And an easy sandwich for lunch. Let's make it a ham salad tea sandwich.
Just a moment to catch my breath.
No need to spend lots of money to create a simple tea moment for yourself. I just snatched up a few thrifted items and had a little "Me" time.
Are you taking time for yourself during these crazy busy summer days?
Okay, now where is my book?
You hav e prepared the perfect little tea respite for yourself.....time well earned, so it seems!
I love this post - if it encourages just one more to use one's china and take a little pretty tea break it is good. I thrifted through tea time today, slept in today and got my whole day all wonky, hate that.
It's one of the most beautiful perfect days I have ever lived, just gorgeous. So thinking ic ed tea and one chapter of my book then start dinner.
I'm not sure I ever had a tea sandwich. But yours looked good.
I need to treat myself to tea sandwiches and a sweet cup of tea also. Love that cup and saucer, so pretty! Glad you are taking a little time for yourself!
Lovely! I can't wait to try the ham sandwich recipe.
It has been a long time since I've had a proper tea just for myself. I ought to get back into the habit.
I like ham salad, but have never thought to make it myself. Your recipe sounds good.
I have always liked assorted sandwiches, i wish i could have been there with you to enjoy it.
Very pretty post! Love your teacup.


Mayor Ed Glode learned about his hometown from a new standpoint as mayor, and looks forward to another year.
"I've enjoyed it. It's been fun working with everybody and learning a lot of new things, and learning town finances. There's certain challenges working with state and federal government. It's entertaining," Glode laughed.


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The European association of cities in energy transition
Governance & Funding
On the way to energy democracy
Energy democracy
On the road away from Paris, the urge to accelerate the green transition of our energy system is no longer disputed. The technology is ready and the economic case is stronger than ever, with renewable energy becoming more competitive than fossil fuels in numerous regions of the world.
Members in the spotlight
"Adopt a panel" in Helsinki
Finland's largest solar power plant hosted on the roof of the Kivikko ski hall is owned by the city of Helsinki. As part of this project, the city utility, Helen Ltd, had the brilliant idea of inviting local residents to order their own designated panels, meaning they can benefit from solar energy without having to make large initial investments. The panels are rented for €4.40 per month and the electricity generated from them is then deducted from the customer's bill.
First tested out in one district of the capital, where the utility had built another solar plant, the panels were sold out within just a few days! Operational since April 2016, the plant has almost 3,000 solar panels, of which half have been ordered by citizens. Annual production is expected to reach about 700 megawatt-hours, equivalent to the yearly electricity consumption of about 350 one-bedroom apartments.
When asked why they decided to rent the PV panels instead of introducing a net metering system, the city utility project manager Atte Kallio replied: "We asked our customers what they wanted and their answer was designated panels. […] We have promised to build more solar plants for as long as there is a demand for them.[…] This way, our customers have a concrete impact on how electricity is generated in our country", she added.
Newcastle: From passive consumers to community buyers!
As civic energy is also about making the right consumer choices, the British city of Newcastle has launched a scheme to help its citizens become active energy players and at the same time benefit from cheaper and more efficient services. The local council has thus teamed up with the online switching service "iChoosr", which helps provide a more competitive deal to citizens through collective buying. The scheme, which is called "Big Community Switch", has helped hundreds of residents save an average £200 (ca. €260) every year on their gas and electricity bills. Central to this endeavour is also a wish to tackle the very worrying problem of fuel poverty in the city. Coupled with ambitious energy efficiency programmes, this initiative looks set to have promising results!
Mulhouse: Five citizens take action to fight energy poverty!
In Mulhouse, France, five friends decided to create an association to tackle the dire situation of fuel poverty in their city, through more efficient use of resources and the concept of "homemade energy"! After finding out that a 20% variation in energy costs in the country could push 2.5 million households in or out of fuel poverty, they decided it was time to take action. With the support of the municipality, they thus started flexing their 'citizen muscles' to relocate energy and founded the association "Mulhouse 100%": 100% for prosperity, with 100% of people having affordable access to energy. Mulhouse 100% was then renamed "Citizen energy", a very fitting name!
More examples in the latest edition of EC INFO
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The world is changing and universities should be changing with it. That is the basic idea behind the ECIU's ambitious project, the 'ECIU University'. It's a joint university involving all ECIU members and offering a completely new type of education. Today, the ECIU Executive Board is at the University of Trento for further discussion about the ECIU University.
The ECIU University's type of education is open to everyone, including lifelong learners, and that is not focused on getting a diploma, but on solving real life challenges. 'I dream of a "NETFLIX" styled university, where you pay a fee and choose from all the courses available,' says Sander Lotze, Manager of International Affairs at the University of Twente and the 'ECIU University' project leader.
Where and why did the idea for the ECIU University originate?
What is a 'challenge-based' university?
Should this new type of education replace the current universities?
When do you think this could become a reality?
To start the 'ECIU University', the consortium has applied for funding under the call of the DG Education, Sports and Cultures (DG EAC) for European Universities. The plan for the ECIU University has been co-created with industry, public organisations, society, academics, future and current students at stakeholder events all over Europe. All 13 ECIU members have been involved in establishing this new joint university. If funded, the ECIU University project will kick-off in November 2019. The first phase of the project will last for three years, during which the concept will be developed further.
Please read more about ECIU in our new ECIU Magazine.


There is no doubt that it is an energy and time consuming recipe, but the uses of rabri are many. You can add it to gulab jamun, rasgulla, jalebi, ice cream or have it alone. A perfect dessert.
Boil the milk in a deep heavy pan.
Add cardamom seeds and sugar and cook over low heat for 2 hours till the milk get reduced to a quarter.
After two hours, turn off the stove and add kewra essence.
Sprinkle pistachio and cardamom and serve hot or cold with jalebi, gulab jamun or whatever you like.


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Seasons of Sharing: New Year's Noon Celebration
Olivia Flores Alvarez December 31, 2009 4:00AM
Kids don't have to wait until the stroke of midnight to ring in the new year. The fun goes on all day at the Children's Museum of Houston's New Year's Noon Celebration. Get things started by making a float and joining the New Year's Day Parade (it snakes through the museum and grounds), then count down to a ball drop. After that, there are New Year's puzzles to solve, 2010 calendars to decorate and noisemakers that will drive adults crazy. The Texas Brass Band helps make things a little louder with a jazzy performance of kid-friendly tunes. 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 1500 Binz. For information, call 713-522-1138 or visit www.cmhouston.org. $6 to $7.
Thu., Dec. 31, 2009
Welcome to the Neighborhood: New Asiatown
By Olivia Flores Alvarez
The Cherry Orchard
By Holly Beretto
"John Biggers: MAAME"
By Susie Tommaney


Laura Puddy is a Fashion Stylist, Writer and Consultant based in London.
Bio: Over the past 10 years, Laura has worked in various areas of the fashion industry from styling and writing for magazines to dressing celebrities and personal clients, presenting and working on TV programmes, such as ITV's X Factor. Previously, Laura held the position of Fashion Stylist & Columnist at Cosmopolitan Magazine UK until she left the publication in August 2013 to pursue her freelance career. Laura is well known for her 'Catwalk to Curvy' column, which ran in Cosmopolitan UK for over 3 years and continues to be an ambassador for body confidence in the fashion industry.
Laura is now Style Editor at heat Magazine. She launched her new column 'Laura's All Inclusive' in 2018, focusing on how to make fashion work for everyBODY. She is an advocate for inclusivity in the fashion industry and has appeared on BBC1's panel discussion programme 'Sunday Morning Live' and presents fashion segments for ITV's 'This Morning'.
Laura continues to work across a variety of projects with commercial clients as well as consultancy for fashion and beauty brands. In 2014, she launched her first curated collection for luxury British fashion brand Gorgeous Couture which saw the brand extend its size range for curvier figures for the first time. Laura is involved in various charity projects and was an Ambassador for Fashion Targets Breast Cancer 2015. She is available for styling projects, commissions, presenting and consultation work.
Clients include: Cosmopolitan UK, Good Housekeeping, Stylist, Brides, You & Your Wedding, Mollie Makes, Heat Magazine, Reveal, Closer, The Mail Online, Weight Watchers Magazine, Now Magazine, ITV, BBC, Talk Back Thames, Hammerson Retail, The Hoxton Hotel Group, The Yoox Net-a-Porter Group, DKNY, Very Exclusive, ASOS, River Island, Very.co.uk, Marks & Spencer, New Look, Gorgeous Couture, Evans, Simply Be, George, Navabi, Duo Footwear, Skechers, Mark Milton Jewellery, Charnos Hoisery, Panache Lingerie, Freya, B'Tempt'd, Curvy Kate, Oral B, Kellogg's, L'Oréal, P&G, Rimmel and Tesco.


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O Lago Minnewaska é um lago no condado de Pope, no estado norte-americano do Minesota. As cidades de Glenwood, Long Beach e Starbuck estão localizadas em torno do lago. Pertence à bacia hidrográfica do rio Mississippi.
Minnewaska é um nome derivado das línguas nativas americanas que significa "boa água".

Minnewaska

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Music » Livewire
With Shai Hulud, Bleeding Through, and Kataklysm. Sunday, June 8, at the Agora Theatre.
by Phil Freeman
Michael Lacey is executive editor of New Times.
The Haunted has gotten a ton of respect from the metal underground. Part of that's due to their lineage, of course -- members of the band did time in such well-respected acts as Witchery and At the Gates. But a large part is due to the visceral power of the group's three albums: The Haunted, The Haunted Made Me Do It, and One Kill Wonder are all blasting thrash-metal efforts, with minimal progressive tendencies and no letup from first track to last. This is fine, but like a few other bands (Cryptopsy and Carnal Forge come readily to mind), the Haunted sometimes allows overwhelming fury to lapse into monotony. This is particularly true of One Kill Wonder, in which the headlong assault -- when taken cumulatively with the two headlong assaults that preceded it -- becomes too much of a good thing. Still, they're likely to be great live. Bands that just bash out one brutal anthem after another tend to make for better mosh pits than albums anyway.
Livewire Previews Previews


When a Border Collie chases cars.. — Havers Dog Behaviour.
A new client recently bought and downloaded one of my dog behaviour guides from my web site on how to stop a dog pulling on the lead. As I always do, I send a thank you email which also requests if the client has any questions to reply to the email so they can have the support they need to make sure everything is correctly understood.
I got a reply to the email telling me how much the dog pulled on the lead and when close to a road, the dog also tried to chase the cars. What advice would I give?
I replied saying there was a great deal I can do to help but it would need a very long email so my client agreed on a 45 minute home visit which took place today.
Two Border Collies only 4 months apart in age and the female was very vocal and insistent on getting attention and the wheel chaser was the male. He was very quiet, probably couldn't get a word in but he was wary of the lead when we brought it out.
Rather than going straight out to find some cars, I created activity and noise with the other dog so I could see how he thought he should behave on the lead and he was quite determined to go wherever he wanted to go, he didn't seem to grasp the concept of going where the person with the lead wanted to go and he would stand firm.
Looking at a dogs associated behaviour on the lead is always a good place to start as you can observe his expectations. In this instance, I was asking him to walk with me away from the other dog playing with a ball.
This was clearly something he had never had to do before and he struggled with making a different decision but within a few minutes he was walking around the kitchen with me on a loose lead.
The owner had never thought of doing lead work in the house and using the other dog as both stimulation and distraction and she was very pleased with how well her dog responded and how calm he was. What was the most pleasing was his tail and more importantly the position of his tail. It started off tucked under and as we progressed his tail relaxed, moved position and when praised, he showed us some movement in it so he was really embracing the whole new approach.
We then progressed outside and he walked out of the door on a loose lead and we stopped at the kerb where he let two cars and a van go past without any reaction at all and his tail was still relaxed!
His owner was delighted that she had learned a great deal, especially about her noisy ball obsessed female but to see her male being able to change his behaviour was the most rewarding part.
She has booked a 90 minute home visit for next wek so we can take him for a walk and continue his progression.
The photograph is of a Border Collie because they are beautiful, this is not one of the dogs I worked with today.


YES! We love people who press the action button! There should be an klaxon or something!
Thanks so much for wanting to find out how you can get involved.
Pray - Any new movement of God needs dedicated pray-ers and prayers. Please join us by praying for us - we're working on a regular prayer update, but till then, don't wait for us! Please begin regularly praying for Missional Communities.London and all the leaders and members of Missional communities across London!
Register a community - If you're already involved in leading a household on mission, network, entrepreneurship, simple church, discipleship movement, or any other Missional Community and would like to connect with a wider movement across London, then please get in touch! You can contact us here. We'd love to hear from you!
Give - If you have a skill, time or finances that you think could help the work of missionalcommunities.london, then please get in touch and we can chat about it! You can support MissionalCommunities.London financially through the Diocese of London. to get in touch for more info click here.


Hope you have time to read here.
Once I had a brief mail with you on the availability of the manuscript of the crash course. I am asking the 3rd time because I promised my friends something freshly new but directly-to-the-core.
Sorry for being a trouble but could you please let me know if it is still available to me as you said?


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The Race to Commercialize Mini–Nuclear Reactors
A Fresh Look at Coal-Derived Liquid Fuels
Safely Replace Blown Fuses
CO2 Source and Sink Tracking Improving
Planned Power Plants in North America
New Shaft Design Eliminates Leaks
2009 Industry Forecast: A Challenging Year Lies Ahead
2009 Industry Forecast: Existing Generating Assets Squeezed as New Project Starts Slow
Improving Workforce Connectivity
Is a Green Future Realistic with an Economy in the Red?
2009 Industry Forecast: New Power Politics Will Determine Generation's Path
The U.S. power industry's story in 2009 will be all about change, to borrow a now-familiar theme. Though the new administration's policy specifics hadn't been revealed as POWER editors prepared this report, it appears that flat load growth in 2009 will give the new administration a unique opportunity to formulate new energy policy without risking that the lights will go out.
Astrange and funny thing happened on the way to a power generation boom last year. Wall Street collapsed under the weight of a mortgage crisis last fall, creating a credit crunch not seen, according to many experts, since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Then the U.S. economy, followed by the rest of the world, went into a free fall. Bye, bye, generating boom.
Fear and loathing in credit markets — to crib from the late, great gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson — quickly replaced optimism and trust. Lenders were reluctant to lend, preferring to sit on their cash. Borrowers were faced with no credit, or credit at rates that would eat the profits of projects they wanted to build. The result? Cancelled or delayed infrastructure projects, retreats on scheduled upgrades, and a hormonally driven urge to merge among financial firms and energy companies.
The across-the-board cramping up of international credit markets last fall quickly dimmed prospects for high-capital energy projects, including new generation and major high-voltage transmission ventures. Despite the $700 billion Bush bank bailout package of October 2008, as well as an extension of renewable energy tax credits in legislation enacting that bailout, the temporary collapse of credit markets in late 2008 rendered doubtful major new projects from nuclear to coal to wind and solar. Pitches for capital-intensive projects were met with the ruling, "You're out."
How can producers get anything on the scoreboard? Gas generation — requiring less upfront capital, although the fuel costs are unpredictable — looks like the generating resource of last resort. On the plus side for gas, prices have been in major retreat during the economic meltdown. Also, gas generation can be built near load, obviating the need for expensive electric transmission. Other virtues: Gas projects go up quickly, and they can be modular.
Will capital markets rebound in 2009? As we write this in late 2008, the credit constipation appears to be clearing, although how quickly the clog will flush is still unknown.
The resounding election of Barack Obama to be president, and expanded Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, portend a somewhat different approach to energy politics in Washington in 2009. Though policy specifics have yet to be revealed, we do know that the president-elect is a fan of renewable power and carbon controls but does not support construction of conventional coal plants or the Yucca Mountain spent nuclear fuel repository. We also know that the prospects for global warming legislation, specifically for a cap-and-trade program (a new tax by any other name, according to some analysts), are greater today than they were four years ago. But John McCain had also supported the idea of legislating control of carbon dioxide emissions, and particularly power plant CO2 emissions.
Ned Helme, president of the Center for Clean Air Policy, a group that advocates climate legislation, said after the Nov. 4 election that his organization "is confident the Obama administration will embrace the very important challenge of collaborating with the new Congress to adopt national climate change legislation that includes a cost-effective cap-and-trade system and work to establish vital green jobs and green technology for the international economy."
Should Congress, where coal-state legislators in both parties remain an important bloc, balk at carbon control legislation, it seems likely that an Obama administration would move administratively. Jason Grumet, Obama's energy and environmental policy advisor, has said repeatedly that an Obama administration believes it has adequate authority under the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments to impose a regulatory regime on CO2 emissions. Grumet is rumored to be a leading candidate for energy secretary in the new administration.
But the new administration could also push new energy projects as part of a strategy to invest in infrastructure, loosely defined, as a way to jump-start the sluggish U.S. economy. This could include electric transmission, power plant construction (more likely favoring coal and renewables rather than nuclear), and subsidizing carbon capture and sequestration. Though some will call this pork-barrel spending, the conventional view in Washington is that one legislator's pork is another's porterhouse.
New Infrastructure Required
That the U.S. needs major new electricity generating plants and transmission infrastructure — including baseload coal and nuclear — seems indisputable. Almost every examination of U.S. electricity markets — from the Energy Information Agency (EIA) to the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC), to the various state and regional power agencies — finds capacity margins a problem. Although there is no agreement on what is a prudent capacity edge (the 30% to 40% margins of the 1970s and 1980s were clearly excessive and too expensive), most analysts seem to agree that around 15% is reasonable (arrived at by a wet-thumb-to-the-air test, rather than any solid engineering calculations). Some reliability regions in the U.S. could be bumping up against that 15% figure not too far into the future, according to the NERC analysis.
But NERC's latest forecast provides reason for optimism that blackouts are not in the picture for 2009. "Lowered load forecasts for the coming ten years and new market mechanisms have contributed to generally improved capacity margins for most of North America," said NERC in its late October "2008 Long-Term Reliability Assessment." Slower economic performance is a reason (U.S. gross domestic product dropped 0.03% in the third quarter of 2008 and may also drop in the fourth quarter). As of Dec. 1, the country was officially in a recession, and that will likely mean reduced demand for energy, including electricity. The recession will also reduce the strain on existing electric infrastructure (Figure 1).
1. U.S. total electricity consumption dropping. The economic slowdown will impact consumption in all sectors, particularly the industrial sector, which is now expected to decline by 2.5% in 2009. Source: EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook, November 2008
What is the best way to ensure that U.S. system reliability is robust enough to prevent major blackouts and brownouts in the coming year and years to come? Many experts agree that a combination of new generation and new transmission capacity are necessary, particularly if the nation is to begin integrating major increases in variable renewable resources, located far from electric loads, into the generation and distribution mix.
NERC CEO Rick Sergel said the most pressing problem facing the nation is a dearth of investment in transmission, not generation: "Transmission lines are the critical link between new generation and customers, yet we continue to see transmission development lag behind generation additions. Faster siting, permitting, and construction of transmission resources will be vital to keeping the lights on in the coming years."
As governments of the world scrambled to restore order to financial markets at the end of 2008, it appeared that money needed for energy infrastructure, including generation and transmission, would not be easily available. In the mid-to-late-2008 time frame, oil prices started heading south. So did natural gas prices. Though the retreat of energy prices relieved some political pressure as gasoline prices and the cost of heating homes fell, it left the future of new generation projects in doubt. Why invest new capital in a market where returns look as if they could be shrinking?
Kevin Book, energy analyst for FBR Financial Markets, predicted to a group of reporters in late October that the worldwide financial collapse will lead to vast underinvestment in everything from renewables to coal to transmission because of constrained credit markets and lower energy prices. Investors will be extremely cautious with their bets on the future. That could be foolish in the long run.
The downside of that underinvestment, Book predicted, is that when the next energy price spike occurs — as he confidently said it will — the results will be "really nasty." Having underspent in the wake of the current economic crisis, when higher energy prices hit in the future, said Book, the U.S. will be increasingly unprepared for the results. Those include energy shortages, blackouts, much higher prices, and pain and suffering across the economy.
King Coal Has No Clothes
With over 50% of the market, coal continues to be the king of the U.S. generating hill. But new coal projects, which looked likely just three years ago, are facing increasing difficulties. These obstacles include political opposition, state rate and environmental objections, financial skepticism, and the possibility of reduced short-term demand due to a possibly protracted, worldwide recession.
The past few years have not been particularly good for new coal-fueled projects; 2009 doesn't look better. An analysis by SourceWatch, a web-based infrastructure tracker, concluded, "Between 2000 and 2006, over 150 coal plants were fielded by utilities in the United States. By the end of 2007, 10 of those proposed plants have been constructed, and an additional 25 plants were under construction. But during 2007, a large number of proposed plants were cancelled, abandoned, or put on hold."
A mid-2008 analysis of coal capacity claims, updating an earlier report by the Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), found, "Historically, actual capacity has been seen to be significantly less than proposed capacity. For example, the 2002 report listed 36,161 MW of proposed capacity by the year 2007, when actually only 4,487 MW (12%) were constructed." The NETL analysis concluded (no surprise to those who have followed the industry): "Delays and cancellations have been attributed to regulatory uncertainty (regarding climate change) or strained project economics due to escalating costs in the industry." The Edison Electric Institute projections are a bit more conservative but do not include merchant plant construction (see table).
Planned new units and plant expansions. This table includes only regulated utility assets. Source: Edison Electric Institute Q3 2008 Financial Update
Another factor constraining coal has been that state energy and environmental regulators have eschewed the fuel in favor of projected, and politically favored, renewables, according to SourceWatch. Its analysis noted that in "Delaware, regulators cancelled a coal power plant proposed by NRG Energy in favor of an alternative proposal that combined wind and natural gas." California in 2008 essentially banned any kind of coal-fired power from entering its electricity mix, whether it was generated in the state (long-forbidden) or beyond the state's borders (long a California staple).
A classic example of the dilemma of new coal-fire generation comes from southern Montana, where generators have access to enormous amounts of low-cost, low-sulfur Powder River Basin coal. Southern Montana Electric Generation & Transmission Cooperative, a rural electric cooperative, has been trying for several years to develop a 250-MW, coal-fired circulating fluidized-bed plant, similar to a recently completed plant at the co-op. The project was designed to balance the co-op's reliance on power from the federal Bonneville Power Administration's hydro system.
Under past circumstances, the Highwood Generating Station near Great Falls likely would have been a no-brainer. The generation and transmission co-op would get political support from the distribution co-ops it serves and from the Montana congressional delegation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) would underwrite financing for the plant, guaranteeing low-interest credit and low consumer rates. The project would move forward without protest. That's been the model in the rural West for decades. The utility began moving earth in late October, under those expectations.
But the project has run into a green political buzz saw, with the Helena-base Montana Environmental Information Center (MEIC) leading the opposition to the plant. The MEIC fired off a shotgun shell of reasons the plant should not be built: The plant would pollute with CO2 emissions, charged the opponents, violating the state air permit; it would also violate permit requirements for particulates (PM2.5). The opponents also raised zoning and land use objections.
A major blow to the Highwood plant came last February, when the RUS, usually the most generous of public power plant financing sources, turned thumbs down on Highwood and all other pending coal-fired projects. It was allegedly a temporary move. According to the Great Falls Tribune, the RUS policy to back away from baseload coal projects came from the White House's Office of Management and Budget. In a phone interview, RUS Administrator James Andrew told the newspaper, "The feasibility of [Highwood] made us a little bit nervous."
Rick Sergel, NERC's CEO, told the New York Times over a year ago, "It's clear new coal-fired generation is running into roadblocks. I don't believe we can allow coal-fired generation to become an endangered species. We simply must use all the resources we have."
Good luck. Making that case appears increasingly problematic. The only other obvious baseload generating technology, nuclear, may face equally hard times ahead, despite highly hyped rumors of a nuclear rebound.
Nuclear Renaissance Flounders
No company has more loudly trumpeted the so-called "nuclear renaissance" than Baltimore-based Constellation Energy, owner of two well-run 1,000-MW pressurized water reactors in Maryland's Calvert County, some 30 miles south of Charm City. Constellation CEO Mayo Shattuck III has aggressively pushed for a third reactor at the Calvert Cliffs site. This enthusiasm comes despite the fact that Constellation is a merchant generator, without any guarantees that it can recover the costs of a new nuclear unit, since it has no captive customers.
Constellation's two nuclear units at the site on the Chesapeake Bay are fully amortized and generate low-cost electricity, meaning they are successful bidders into regional PJM power supply auctions. That's no guarantee that a new unit — with a capital cost in excess of $6 billion — would be a successful bidder into a competitive generating auction, according to financial experts following the current interest in new nuclear capacity.
Today, nuclear power generates 20% of U.S. electricity, and does it cheaply, as plant capital costs have mostly been retired. That's a testimonial to current nuclear power plant management. But financial gurus note that it is not a persuasive argument for new nuclear generation. New nukes would entail very expensive capital costs that would have to be paid by customers.
Constellation also is a major player in commodity energy markets across the country, which almost sunk the company. In late 2008, Constellation's traders were betting, through derivative contracts, that oil prices would continue rising as they had at the end of 2007 and well into 2008. The traders leveraged those bets, backing them by credit, not cash. So the bids were reliant on credit ratings from agencies such as Standard & Poor's (S&P) to ensure that the company could pay if its bets proved bad.
Constellation wasn't putting what it thought was real money at risk, but was speculating on its vision of the future. The company was confident its financial wagers would pay off.
Oops! Oil prices stabilized and then began to fall at the end of 2008. Credit rating agencies, particularly S&P, started looking askance at Constellation's trading book. As Constellation's long positions on oil prices began to look dangerous, S&P said it was contemplating a credit downgrade. That would mean a margin call by lenders on Constellation's market bets.
But Constellation didn't have the cash to cover the demand for new collateral. The company, according to several published accounts, was 48 hours away from default and bankruptcy when Warren Buffet last September stepped in to rescue Constellation, on very favorable (to Buffet) terms.
Constellation Energy narrowly avoided the financial grim reaper. But it's possible that the company's ambitious plan for new nuclear generation will be sidelined as a result. Some industry insiders expect Buffet will unwind Constellation's trading book, scrap the plans for new nuclear generation at Calvert Cliffs, and focus on Constellation's regulated utility, Baltimore Gas & Electric. The dreams of Constellation's Shattuck, a fancy finagling finance man, may have gone up in fiscal smoke.
So, too, may the plans of other would-be nuclear generating enterprises, driven by the radioactive pixie dust of the 2005 Energy Policy Act. To extend the Peter Pan metaphor, the political Tinker Bell of 2005 ("if we just believe") may be replaced by the crocodile of the 2009 financial markets. The year ahead, enmeshed in economic crisis, looks grim for power generation and new transmission, across the board. Nuclear — the most heavily dependent on big, up-front capital — may be the first to feel pain.
The several-year-long nuclear renaissance fever has been driven in part by the fervor for reducing manmade greenhouse gases (mostly CO2) and the irrational exuberance of congressional Republicans for generating electricity from uranium at whatever the cost. In 2005, after many years of legislative failure, the Republican Congress passed the new Energy Policy Act.
Largely due to the efforts of New Mexico Republican Pete Domenici, then-chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the new law contained several incentives for nuclear power, an industry that has been stagnant for 30 years. Domenici's support for nukes was no surprise, given that New Mexico is a major producer of uranium fuel and the home to major DOE nuclear facilities (although there are no nuclear generating plants in the Land of Enchantment).
For the nuclear power industry, the most-coveted of the 2005 law's atomic goodies was loan guarantees for the next generation of nuclear generating plants. The act provided $18.5 billion in loans; the industry persuaded the Bush administration that the guarantees should cover 80% of the capital costs of a new nuclear generating plant.
At the same time, developers of new nuclear plants were lining up at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to take advantage of a supposedly streamlined licensing process that combined a construction permit and an operating license into one application. In prior years, utilities needed a construction permit to build a plant and then an operating license before they could run the plant (see sidebar, "Haste May Cost New Nuclear Critical Time").
Haste May Cost New Nuclear Critical Time
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC's) combined construction and operating license process promises to shorten the time between submission of a utility application and receipt of a license to construct and operate a new nuclear power plant. Unfortunately, that very process may become the Achilles heel of the nuclear renaissance. Expect it to be quickly exploited by groups of intervenors as their only potentially solid wedge into the entire nuclear permitting process, assuming their concerns get traction in court. Here's their game plan.
In a perfect world, the process of permitting a specific reactor at a specific site is a two-step process. First, a reactor design is certified by the NRC and then a utility adopts that design for its plant, leaving specific site safety issues to be addressed in its site permit. The NRC has been placed in the unenviable position of not only simultaneously certifying several reactor designs as it grapples with more than 30 site permit applications but also keeping pace with all these project schedules, as the NRC cannot approve a site permit until the design is fully certified. Fundamentally, the process is now being run in parallel, rather than in series, as originally envisioned.
The challenge for the NRC and plant owners is to manage the many design iterations that are occurring by short-circuiting the "normal" permitting process. By accelerating the process in this manner, the NRC and plant owners have opened themselves up to charges that they are potentially certifying a site based on an out-of-date reactor design certification. It now appears the courts will have to unscramble the mess.
Bellefonte Efficiency and Sustainability Team, Beyond Nuclear, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Friends of the Earth, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and NC WARN: Waste Awareness & Reduction Network have banded together to force license applications from Progress Energy, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Duke Energy, Southern Company, SC Electric, and others using the Westinghouse AP1000 design to resubmit their applications based on the latest design. In essence, they want the utilities to wait until the entire reactor design issue is resolved before submitting an application for a site permit. The impact is years of additional delay for each project.
The AP1000 was pronounced "certified" by the NRC in January 2006, making it the first of the new third-generation reactors. Since that initial certification, a spokesman for these groups noted that Westinghouse has submitted 17 updates to the AP1000 certified design.
The seven organizations filing legal action contend that the utilities should be required to resubmit applications based on the latest design. The NRC pledged to review and recertify the standard design by 2011 but recently admitted it will not meet that schedule and has not committed to a new timetable. According to the groups, the NRC has proposed a new approach to handling design changes that is expected to continue throughout the approval process: granting licenses, possibly by 2012, then later amending them in order to incorporate alterations to the design.
"The NRC appears to be making up the process as they go," said Sara Barczak of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, a regional group contesting plants in Georgia and elsewhere, in a press release. "The application and design reviews are leap-frogging each other, but both keep sliding backward."
"It is clearly unlawful for the NRC to review license applications prior to genuine certification of the AP1000 design," explained Lou Zeller of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, which is leading the federal intervention against Duke Energy's proposed Lee 1 and 2 reactors in South Carolina and TVA's Bellefonte project in Alabama. "The industry jumped the gun before the blueprints were finished, but they cannot redirect their problem onto interveners and NRC staffers trying to review these ever-changing, complex documents."
Are these groups raising serious safety questions? Probably not, because each of the AP1000 plants would ultimately be built to the latest, approved design. But they do raise a good question: Are we asking too much of the NRC to adequately handle multiple reactor certifications at the same time as it is evaluating several dozen site permits?
— By Dr. Robert Peltier, PE
Potential builders and operators queued up at the NRC (Figure 2), knowing that they couldn't get the loan guarantees, and private-sector financing, without an NRC license. For its part, the NRC laid out a licensing process that would require 42 months for approval (this passes for streamlining in Washington).
2. Location of announced new nuclear plants and their reactor technology. Source: Nuclear Regulatory Commission
The result? Gridlock, at precisely the time that worldwide credit markets collapsed. At last count, some 24 nuclear units were lined up at the DOE for loan guarantees totaling $122 billion, for a total capital cost of $188 billion for new plants. The demand simply swamped the available funding authority. The DOE was wringing its hands and decided to toss the problem to the incoming administration.
What's the final score for the nuclear efforts of the outgoing Bush administration? A long-time nuclear lobbyist told POWER recently, "This has been the most pro-nuclear administration in the last 30-plus years, and not a spade has turned on new construction during its eight years in power. Don't bet on any different outcome in a new administration."
Natural Gas's Future Uncertain
Who wins in a world where coal and nuclear are constrained by finance and politics? It looks as if natural gas, with 20% of the generating market (equal to nukes), may be the winner. The chief attribute of gas, as always, is low capital costs. That's a major plus in an economy where cash and credit are scarce. On top of that, gas plants can be built close to load, meaning they don't require a lot of high-cost, high-voltage transmission. They are also a lower emitter of carbon dioxide than coal.
The downside? Natural gas prices are volatile and have swung mightily over the past decade or so. But that's also the upside, note gas mavens. According to the EIA, since July 2008, wholesale natural gas prices have fallen from nearly $14/million Btu to $6/mmBtu (Figure 3), tracking the fall in crude oil prices (although many experts claim the two price curves are not causally connected).
3. U.S. natural gas prices are dropping. Natural gas prices are expected to remain stable for 2009, reflecting essentially zero growth in the electricity supply. Source: EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook, November 2008
Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) in a recent report notes that natural gas prices have been remarkably stable during recent market upsets, including two major fall 2008 hurricanes that disrupted oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico. Says CERA, "The North American natural gas market's calm in the midst of two hurricanes and financial crises through September and October has been notable," with prices on a general, and gently, falling trend. CERA said it "believes that the gas market has remained steady because it is in balance, with supply equal to demand at a small premium over long-term supply costs, and storage inventories sufficient to withstand short-term disruptions."
The CERA analysis points to another attribute that makes gas attractive to generators: Like coal, it can be easily stored, enabling buyers to lock in prices. The EIA reported in its weekly natural gas report at the end of October, "Working gas in storage increased to 3,347 billion cubic feet." That's up significantly from the same period a year ago, the EIA noted.
At the same time, gas used for power generation dipped in price, along with consumers' use of electrical power. The dip in gas usage for generation suggests that pressures on gas prices could lead to decreases, rather than increases, in electric rates. That's good news for gas-fired power customers. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in late October that lower natural gas prices are already translating into lower local electricity prices, reversing trends earlier last year, particularly in the summer of 2008. Lower bills could encourage higher electricity usage, providing an opportunity for new gas-fired generation.
If electricity usage slides on an economy in recession, gas prices could also decline. That would make running intermediate and peaking gas-fired units more economical. The spark spread — the difference between the financial yields from selling gas to generate power or to heat homes — could favor generation.
That's the short-term outlook — for 2009.
What's the longer view? CERA says, "The long-term effects on gas — and energy — are uncertain. Although the physical natural gas market remains in balance and prices are relatively stable, CERA believes that the wholesale restructuring of financial markets, the disappearance of major players from the trading floor, and the global credit squeeze will have long-term effects on natural gas investment and demand. Oil and gas companies with sound balance sheets will have an advantage in financing new projects or acquisitions."
Expect Stagnant LNG Growth
Three years ago, with U.S. natural gas prices in what seemed an inexorable ascent, liquefied natural gas (LNG) became the fuel flavor of the moment. Long a sleeper technology, LNG suddenly looked like an economic winner. Applications for LNG terminals flowed into the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which regulates on-shore LNG facilities and gas pipelines. Projects also appeared at the U.S. Maritime Administration, which governs off-shore projects.
The flood of proposed projects predictably kicked off protests by folks living and working near the planned terminals. Locals raised the specter of terrorism, explosions, fires, and the like. It began to look like a reprise of the anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s and 1980s.
Since then, with domestic U.S. gas prices falling and demand for LNG in Europe growing, and drawing investment away from the U.S., LNG has largely dropped off of the U.S. energy debate agenda. LNG is unlikely to be a major player in 2009, although local protests against LNG projects will continue.
Last February, before the collapse of credit markets and the fall in oil and natural gas prices, CERA, which has been consistently bullish on LNG, scaled back its estimate for U.S. LNG imports. CERA's Robert Ineson told an industry conference in Houston that the consultancy was cutting its prospects for U.S. LNG imports "from 3.2 billion cubic feet per day as of last fall to 2.6 bcfd now," a nearly 19% reduction. That was close to a contemporaneous EIA forecast of a 16% reduction in LNG imports for the year.
According to the EIA, some 40 LNG terminals planned for North America are now before FERC. Five terminals are now operating in the U.S., with one in Alaska exporting gas, according to the EIA, and four more likely to be operational by the start of 2009. This EIA forecast came in July 2008, when crude oil prices were over $140/barrel.
The EIA had yet to offer its wisdom on LNG while this story was coming together at the end of 2008, when crude prices fell below $47/barrel on Dec. 3. Few in the industry expect that the EIA estimate of four more new LNG terminals in service during 2008 is credible.
Renewable Projects Get a Second Wind
Renewable energy, particularly wind, has been the fastest growing electricity-generating technology in the past five years or so. Environmentalists and advocates for technologies to displace fossil fuels have long pushed wind and other renewables (but not politically incorrect hydro) as the answer to the question of how to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions while ensuring low-cost electricity (Figure 4).
4. Renewables are a growth industry. Renewable energy contributed 7% of total U.S. energy demand (and 8.4% of total U.S. electricity generation) in 2007, the last full year data is available from the EIA. The sum of components may not equal 100% due to independent rounding Source: Energy Information Administration
According to the American Wind Energy Association, the wind industry installed 1,389 MW of nameplate capacity in the third quarter of 2008, "bringing to 4,204 MW the total of wind power projects completed in what is expected to be another record year." With congressional wind production credits once again renewed (as part of the $700 billion bank bailout), 2009 looks to be another good year for wind.
But there's a downside. Congress renewed the tax credits for another year only. That sets up a battle in the new Congress and creates uncertainty on the part of investors in renewable energy projects, which are mostly wind projects. It also reflects a concern that wind and solar, which drive up overall electricity prices, aren't an economically sustainable answer to the need for new generation (see sidebar, "Wind Power Goes Mainstream").
Wind Power Goes Mainstream
Climate change issues, a struggling economy, and technical and legal problems related to the development of carbon capture and storage technologies don't seem to bode well for the future of our country's electrical generation industry. Nonetheless, wind energy appears to be one bright spot on this somewhat gloomy horizon.
In October, Edward Zaelke, a partner with the law firm of Chadbourne & Parke LLP, participated in a finance and investment workshop sponsored by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). He pointed out that, despite the current general financial turmoil in the U.S., there remains a great deal of interest in renewable energy, including wind power.
"Industries that do well through tight economies tend to perform even better when the economy recovers," he said. "Once the financial dust settles, I would not be surprised to see renewable energy be one of the key leaders in the new economy."
With the U.S. wind energy industry posting its fourth record year in a row in 2008 and rolling up its sleeves to help tackle the impacts of the financial crisis and economic downturn, AWEA stated in November that it looks forward to working with President-elect Barack Obama and Congress on a new energy policy agenda that will encourage continued investment in wind energy.
"During the campaign, President-elect Obama spoke of moving America toward a new energy future by facilitating investments in clean energy and revitalizing our economy in the process by creating new, green collar jobs," said Randall Swisher, AWEA's executive director. "The U.S. wind energy industry is ready to work with our new leaders to help revitalize the American economy."
"Wind energy's recent rapid growth is evidence of its strong economic fundamentals and huge potential," Swisher said. "The U.S. Department of Energy reported in early 2008 that wind could provide 20% of U.S. electricity by 2030, supporting 500,000 jobs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions as much as taking 140 million vehicles off the road."
On November 13, the leaders of the AWEA, the Geothermal Energy Association, the National Hydropower Association, and the Solar Energy Industries Association released a joint statement in which they emphasized that the new Obama Administration and Congress need to take action to ensure that the renewable industries' growth continues, given the current challenging economic realities.
In their statement, the renewable energy industries spelled out what actions they want the Obama Administration and the 111th Congress to take in the near future:
Adjust renewable energy tax credit policies so incentives work as intended given the current economic conditions.
Adopt a national renewable electricity portfolio standard to ensure that at least 10% of electricity consumed in the U.S. is derived from renewable energy sources by 2012, and at least 25% by 2025.
Approve a minimum five-year extension of the federal renewable energy production tax credit and additional funding for the Clean Renewable Energy Bonds program.
Issue an executive order expanding federal procurement of renewable energy generation to meet the government's substantial energy supply needs.
Launch a major initiative to support investment in the U.S. interstate electrical grid infrastructure and smart-grid technology to deliver green energy from areas with renewable resources to population centers and to support distributed power generation.
Invest $30 billion in 2009 for financing options that support new project development and installations for all renewable energy technologies as part of the Obama Administration's commitment to investing $150 billion over the next 10 years in clean energy technologies.
Adopt a cap-and-trade regime to reduce GHG emissions that rewards the production of clean renewable energy.
"If the new Administration and Congress can quickly implement these policies, renewable energy growth will help turn around the economic decline while at the same time addressing some of our most pressing national security and environmental problems," Swisher said. "Expansion of renewable energy production will mean billions of dollars in economic growth, millions of new jobs, enhanced energy security as we increase domestic energy production, and critically important progress in reducing GHG emissions."
— By Angela Neville
The exponential growth in wind capacity seen in the U.S. comes from a tiny base, and wind remains a miniscule contributor to U.S. electricity supplies. The claims of wind and solar advocates that renewables can effectively replace baseload or even peak generation are overblown, according to many experts. Wind and solar are not dependable replacements for fossil-fueled generation, according to these critics.
A recent article by Carnegie Mellon University researchers Jay Apt, Lester B. Lave, and graduate student Sompop Pattanariynkool, in Issues in Science and Technology, lays out a powerful critique of renewables in general and the specific trend toward state (and potentially federal) renewable portfolio mandates. The summary of "A National Renewable Portfolio Standard? Not Practical," states, "Legislation that mandates specific electricity production from renewable sources paves a path to costly mistakes because it excludes other sources that can meet the country's goals."
Renewable energy, say the article's authors, "seems to addle the brains of many sensible people, leading them to propose policies that are bad engineering and science or have a foundation in a yearning for utopia."
A national renewable generating mandate, a goal of the incoming administration in Washington, they argue, is a bad idea for three reasons. First, "renewable" and "low greenhouse gas emissions" are not synonymous, as "there are several other practical and often less expensive ways to generate electricity with low CO 2 emissions." This is a veiled reference to "generating" what's known as "negawatts" (a term coined by Amory Lovins) through energy conservation and energy efficiency. In fact, some utilities are negotiating with their regulators to add energy conservation project investments (such as projects that subsidize the replacement of older refrigerators with Energy Star models) to their rate base in order to earn a guaranteed rate of return. Whether regulators will put investments that promote end user conservation on the same footing as major generation construction projects remains to be seen.
Also, locations for wind and solar generation are generally far from the loads they must supply, leading to "unpopular and expensive transmission lines" to move the power to the market. Transmission lines that cross states but confer no local benefits have historically drawn intense opposition.
Finally, the Carnegie Mellon team argues, because it's unlikely developers would build the needed transmission lines, a national market to allocate carbon reductions through trading would mean supply disruptions and cascading grid blackouts. "Renewable energy resources," says the report, "are a key part of the nation's future, but wishful thinking does not provide an adequate foundation for public policy." A national renewable portfolio standard, says the report, "could cause a backlash that might doom renewable energy even in the areas where it is abundant and economical."
FBR Capital Markets analyst Kevin Book predicts that the 111th Congress, probably in 2010, will approve some form of carbon dioxide regulation. The legislation, he told reporters recently, will be enacted not because the carbon restraint will change behavior. Rather, he argued, it will be enacted because the regulation — cap-and-trade, carbon tax, or whatever one choose to call the surcharge on fossil-fueled energy — will be a way for the federal government to raise money. It will be, in short, a new tax.
What do all these indicators mean for U.S. electricity supply? As in the recent past, it looks as if the industry will continue muddling through. It may see advancement in infrastructure investment, significant new generation, or new technology development. But it also faces the possibility that the policies necessary to achieving those goals will not materialize, for political and economic reasons. In the words of the 1970s disco group the Bee Gees, in the splendid film Saturday Night Fever, it's likely to be a case of "Stayin' alive, stayin' alive."
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