"The energy industry is under attack"... By who?

Going over to the American Petroleum Institute's (API) website this morning to try and see if I could dig up some obscure reports, I ran across this opening message on their main page:

My first reaction was something like this "attack... nothing new there... WAIT."

The picture above of the digital skull of computer doom refers to a real issue that people across energy production sectors in the United States are worried about: cyber security. Cyber security, the newest addition to our "energy security" concerns is a problem all companies deal with, and given how much of our key infrastructure is tied up in energy production it is no surprise that API would paint this as an attack on all of the energy industry.

But let's think for a minute... when you hear "the energy industry is under attack", do you really think about cyber security? If you are like me wrapped up in research on energy security the first thing your mind goes to is physical attacks on energy facilities, such as you have seen and will continue to see in Iraq.

While I imagine most Americans are familiar with the images of burning oilfields and refineries, especially in the context of the Gulf War (the first one), I do not think it usually equates to "American Energy Security" in the sense that we are personally under attack.

What most of us are used to hearing about, especially within the last 10 years or so, is this war on traditional fossil fuels sources - oil and coal. From oil companies being under attack for their actions related to environmental damage (think BP in the Gulf of Mexico) to the American coal industry being under attack by federal environmental regulators most of the time "attack on American energy" means political attack.

API is not helping themselves in this respect, as just to the right of the digital skull image is a list of the group's primary policy issues: Taxes, LNG Exports, and the Keystone XL pipeline. The first two are primarily about leveraging our natural gas boom. The Keystone XL pipeline, however, is at the center of a ongoing political battle (yes, it is still ongoing in some circles despite the supposed victory on the part of anti-Keystone activists) over whether to build a transcontinental pipeline connecting Canadian tar sands oil fields in western Canada with the American refineries near the Gulf of Mexico.

Energy rhetoric, language such as "wars" and "attacks" all draw from these political battles over what types of energy we should use as a country and can sometimes, like in the case of API, take on a life of their own. "The energy industry is under attack" is one of those "slippery-slope" sorts of catchphrases - it fits the problem at hand (cyber security), but brings with it a ton of baggage related to the political issues around fossil fuels and future energy sources.

#Winning the Future, or "Victory in the Specifics"

During my work on a side project unassociated with my dissertation (because that's what grad students do, okay?), I ran across the Obama Administration's line from 2011 on how the United States can become energy secure - specifically from foreign powers which we import our oil from:


"With an ultimate goal of reducing our dependence on oil, in the near term we must responsibly develop and produce oil and gas at home, while at the same time leveraging cleaner, alternative fuels and increasing efficiency.  And beyond our efforts to reduce our dependence on oil, we must focus on expanding cleaner sources of electricity – keeping America on the cutting edge of clean energy technology so that we can build a 21^st century clean energy economy and win the future."

For reference, I added the emphasis on that last bit. 

Win the future? What does "winning" mean in this context? Are we talking about Charlie Sheen #winning here? Who are we beating? Ourselves? The past? The future? Oil exporting countries in the Middle East? The Russians? The Chinese? Betty White???

Okay, probably not the first and last ones.

The point is, how do you win something you do not yet know? Winning implies there is some sort of "thing" we are competing over, but the future is not a thing. Not yet at least. Turning the world of energy into some sort of game of "The Settlers of Catan" is not particularly advisable. Losing in Settlers, even when it happens three times in a row to your best friend who has never played in her life and basks in the victories, still does not meany anything in the grander scheme. 

Losing in a "energy game" could mean finding yourself on the short end of the stick, left behind in a world of glossy cities.

A literal "District 12" for your energy secure Panem.

 

Energy With Scouts!

Energy organizations love bringing in Boy and Girl Scouts and showing them about the cool things they can do with energy. I have to admit, I loved this kind of stuff as a kid too. The Ann Arbor Michigan Hands-On Museum was probably one of my favorite places growing up, if only because they made science and technology so interesting.

So, I don't fault power companies, large energy corporations (like Westinghouse), environmental groups, or federal agencies for doing Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) outreach. Even if you could care less about technology, it is still useful to understand how the things people hand you and tell you that you need (like a smartphone) work.

It's just sometimes, please, PLEASE outreach groups, think about what you have kids do.

Case in Point: last weekend, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) hosted a day of events about energy action for a group of Scouts from the D.C. area. The major topics scouts could learn about were electricity, energy, or nuclear science, each of which would go towards a specific merit badge/patch.

The top two are merit badges Boy Scouts could earn in either Nuclear Science (top) or Energy (middle). The Girl Scout below is holding the Nuclear Science patch (which is a lot sweeter than the Boy Scout's one) she earned at the event.

The Good: The event had a number of interesting ways to get kids to think about energy from the universally-fun static electricity balloon example (something I have seen adults engage in well into later life) and a sweet example of how a nuclear chain reaction works using ping pong balls and mousetraps:

I wish they would have shown me that when I was starting nuclear engineering...would've explained things so much better.

The Not-So-Good: I understand from working with nuclear scientists and engineers, as well as being a Vice President of a student chapter of their primary society, the American Nuclear Society, that explaining radiation is one of the most difficult things to do. Its odorless, tasteless, around you all the time, and was/is a favorite in T.V. for explaining random health issues (at least until House came about, then it was Lupus). But seriously folks, this?

The caption reads: "A Boy Scout uses a radiation survey meter".

Talking about energy and energy technologies does not always mean talking about it, sometimes it can come across in more visual representations. For reference, that is a Geiger counter. Yes, you use a Geiger counter for a number of things, not all of them out of B-movie stories of radiation creating mutant creatures that terrorize the world (think Them!). Problem is, Geiger counters and other radiation detection gear hold a certain sway on the human imagination. 

When people think radiation, then tend to think this:

So, when you plan STEM projects, please first think about what the parents will think, and then focus on what you actually want to teach the kids. Context is everything, and as the old adage goes "a picture is worth a thousand words".