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December 05, 2010 06:42 PM UTC

AstroTurfing Media on West Slope

  • 21 Comments
  • by: Teeter

(In-house astroturf–really cuts out the middleman! – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Last week there was a diary about Mr. Josh Penry’s new job working for the energy industry lobbying firm, EIS Solutions.  

Later in the week the Sentinel (Grand Jct) announced Mr. Penry’s weekly column, and a letter-to-the-editor appeared praising Gary Harmon’s coverage of oil shale.  Another letter appeared in the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent.  Both, signed by Curtis Moore, allegedly of a group called ‘Environmentally Conscious Consumers for Oil Shale’ or ECCOS.  

Ever since I read ‘Toxic Sludge’ I have noticed such things: the astroturfing PR firm that exists to confuse consumers, that has as its last priority protecting the environment and first priority pretending to.  

Neither the GJ Sentinel nor the Post-Independent have identified Mr. Moore’s employer–EIS Solutions (which, conveniently, works out of the same address!) in publishing his letters, or even in interviews for “news” reports.  

Not that it would be hard for members of the media to do their job.  I mean, if they were so inclined.  In one of those happy coincidences that make one go ‘Doh!‘  We find that ECCOS and EIS Solutions share the same mailing/street address.  SourceWatch has its write-up here, and for a rosy picture of how awesome oil shale could be…go here.

Industry is allowed to have its voice, for sure.  Mr. Moore is, of course, entitled to his position and to a job pushing one.  But when Gary Harmon, or anyone else posing or acting as a journalist, quotes such a source for an article, he might note who Mr. Moore works for, and what ECCOS really is.

I’m sure Mr. Penry has some interesting insights and perspectives, although the comments under his debut column are less than kind.  But how will he present his positions on oil and gas regulations, oil shale development, and the other extractive-industry issues for which he will (by appearances, at least) be writing as a paid representative under a Sentinel byline.  When talking with his business peeps, Mr. Moore identifies himself as EIS Solutions, when signing letters-to-the-editor it’s as ‘ECCOS.’  But in both cases I think I know who pays the bill.  

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21 thoughts on “AstroTurfing Media on West Slope”

  2. I might link to it.

    One other little piece of data (a trick taught to me by Gertie) is to call their phone number after business hours when voicemail kicks in.

    If you do that with EIS, you’ll hear, “For Curtis Moore, press 6.”

    Not too much doubt about who he works for.

    But that’s too much work for Harmon I guess.

    1. “Some companies are even demonstrating on a small scale they will use less than one barrel of water per barrel of oil,” Moore said.

      Americans also have to find a balance between using “some of our water for energy development or whether we should continue on the road of increasing dependence on foreign countries to provide our energy for us,” Moore said.

      I guess EIS and Mr. Moore forgot that we have wind and solar alternatives too.  Think they’ll bother to calculate the ratio of a barrel of water per barrel of wind or sunshine?

      Hmm. Probably not.

      1. But if everyone pretends none of this happened or exists, you’ll probably get a barrel of smiles and rainbows.  Who doesn’t love smile and rainbows?  Questions… hated by all.

      2. the actual summary in the GAO report (GAO-11-35 Energy-Water Nexus).

        For example, on page 9 is a section titled:

        Oil Shale Development Could Adversely Impact Water Resources, but the Magnitude of These Impacts Is Unknown

        Then, starting on page 15 is a section on estimating water needs. Here is a statement that Mr. Moore hopes you’ll overlook:

        Based on our review of available information for the life cycle of oil shale production, existing estimates suggest that from about 1 to 12 barrels of water could be needed for each barrel of oil produced from in-situ operations, with an average of about 5 barrels.

        This average water requirement is an increase over the estimates from a 2005 report on a 1981 study (Rand Corporation, p. 50).

        … which is the equivalent of about three barrels of water per barrel of oil.

        Of course, don’t worry your pretty little heads over whether or not we can (in an ideal world) ever produce enough oil from oil shale to achieve “energy independence.” Because we can’t. Even the pie-in-the-sky projections are for ramping up to production of 1 million barrels per day in 20-50 years.

        Given that current US demand is approximately 20 million barrels per day, full scale plunder of the Green River shale formations would net us approximately 72 minutes of “independence” each day. Gadzooks! I’m convinced it is worth drying up the White River to gain 72 minutes of freedom from the imperial domination of Canada and Mexico!

        Woo hoo!

        Or, if you prefer, you can believe this (it was published in National Geographic, so it must be true, right?)

        … within a year petroleum will probably be distilled from these shales in competition with that obtained from wells.

        Again, don’t let it worry your pretty little head that that claim is from 1919. What’s 90 years (and counting) between friends?

        2. Poking around on Google, I ran across something I’ve never heard of before:

          Thorium-based Nuclear power.

          Let’s review some of the key benefits of thorium. It’s abundant (because we’ve never used any of it); it doesn’t require the costly and time-intensive refining process important for uranium, and the waste it produces becomes inert in one hundred years as opposed to hundreds of thousands of years. It’s nearly impossible for terrorists to manipulate for weapons production. There’s more: the annual fuel cost for a one gigawatt thorium reactor is approximately six hundred times lower than that of a uranium reactor, which requires 250 times more of the raw element.

          But in the politically explosive 1960s, thorium’s key drawback — that it didn’t help us make bombs — led to its extinction.

          Sounds almost too good to be true.  BTW, the article and the comments attached to it go on to say that the biggest deposits are in India, and that it is a no-extra-charge byproduct of rare-earth mining that the renewable energy industry also uses.

          We need a carbon tax to break off our dependence on oil once and for all.

          3. a couple years ago about this.

            From the oildrum article I cited:

            India has only a small uranium supply, but an enormous thorium reserve. Millions of tons of thorium ore lie on the surface of Indian beaches, waiting to be scooped up by front loaders and hauled away to potential thorium reactors for a song. (For those of you who are interested in the EROEI concept, the EROEI for the recovery of thorium from Indian beaches would be almost unbelievably high, and the energy extracted could power the Indian economy for thousands of years, potentially making India the richest nation in the world.)

            India has for 50 years been following a plan to gradually switch from uranium to thorium cycle reactors. That plan is expected to finally come to fruition by the end of the next decade. At that point India will begin the rapid construction of a fleet of thorium fuel cycle reactors.

            1. and put it in a reactor.  Thorium minerals are very difficult (expensive) to refine.  I see much more thorium being available, though, as monazite (Thorium rare-earth-element phosphate) sands are refined for their rare earth content.  That will produce lots of thorium as a byproduct.  Can’t build flat screen TVs without rare earths and right now China controls the supply.  Rare earths are  a hot commodity in the mineral exploration business these days.

              I wouldn’t say that nobody’s running with the thorium reactor fuel cycle.  There was a thorium-fueled reactor built at Oak Ridge in the 1960s.  And our own Fort St. Vrain, now decommissioned, used a thorium fuel.

              It’s a promising technology, but it still has some technological hurdles to clear.  It’s really years away from rollout as a commercial power source.

  5. You should all dig deeper into EIS and its activities in generating numbers of “supporters” of the old energy companies to appear at various public meetings and forums.

    And, once you have done that, dig deeper again.

    You will find some oil and gas, I suspect some oil shale and some uranium.

    Dig deeper, dig deeper.

    2. O&G rule making hearings that opposition was orchestrated, using big $$ from the industry lobby.

      Invariably, a hearty, free breakfast or lunch was provided, often transportation was included (if not company trucks, they sometimes even bussed them in), and anyone who believes those armies of workers were on their own time doesn’t know how the O&G industry works.

      If EIS was doing anything illegal, it will be a cold day in Rio before the DS will ask any questions..

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