Kyoto Protocol: Canada Withdrawing From Climate Change Agreement

Canada made good Monday on speculation that surfaced two weeks ago regarding the country's intentions to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol.

Speaking at a news conference in Ottawa, Canada's minister for the environment, Peter Kent, said the decision would save the nation some $14 billion in penalties that would accrue for failure to meet emissions targets agreed to by a previous government in the 1997 pact -- the first international accord aimed at reducing global emissions of planet-warming gases.

"As we have said, Kyoto -- for Canada -- is in the past," Kent said, according to a wire transcript forwarded by the environment ministry. Kent had just returned from global climate talks in Durban, South Africa. "As such," he continued, "we are invoking our legal right to formally withdraw from Kyoto."

Canada's conservative government under Stephen Harper, who assumed the title of prime minister in 2006, has long been hostile to the Kyoto agreement, which was ratified by Liberal Party Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in 2002.

The Harper government has charged its predecessors with never making any real attempts to comply with Kyoto's emissions limits. It has also issued concerns, shared by the U.S. and other developed countries, that Kyoto's emissions rules apply only to rich nations, leaving up-and-coming polluters like India and China off the hook.

"While our government has taken action since 2006 to make real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, under Kyoto Canada is facing radical and irresponsible choices if we are to avoid punishing multi-billion dollar payments," Kent said. Meeting its commitments under Kyoto, he said, would require the equivalent of "removing every car, truck, ATV, tractor, ambulance, police car and vehicle of every kind from Canadian roads."

But the move to quit the Kyoto Protocol, while not unexpected, was met with jeers from environmental groups, who say that Canada has abandoned a long-standing reputation for environmental stewardship in favor of industry and, among other things, development of a controversial and emissions-intensive oil patch in Alberta known as the tar sands.

"It's a very odd feeling to look north and see a country even more irresponsible about climate change than the U.S.," said the author and climate activist Bill McKibben, who has spearheaded protests against the development of the Alberta oil resource. "For a long time, Canada has been seen as one of those countries that solved more problems than they created. But this makes it official: the lure of wealth in the tar sands has really corrupted the government."

Megan Leslie, a member of Canada's parliament and a Halifax-based member of the New Democratic Party, told The Huffington Post in an email that Kent and the conservative government of Stephen Harper were exaggerating the impacts of Canada's participation in Kyoto -- and the penalties associated with failing to meet targets. "He's essentially created a Kyoto bogeyman who will come after your cars and bank accounts," Leslie said. "His spin was reprehensible."

"By withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol, Canada is hiding from having to report our failures to our international partners," she added. "It's a shame that the broken promises and decades of inaction by successive Liberal and Conservative governments have led us to this point."

The Kyoto agreement grew out of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, 14 years ago. It bound more than three dozen industrialized countries to reduce emissions of certain greenhouse gases by an average of slightly more than 5 percent over 1990 levels. The protocol was to take effect only after at least 55 countries, representing 55 percent of global CO2 emissions, had ratified the document. Those conditions were fully met in 2004, and the treaty was entered into force in early 2005.

Europe has made up the bulk of the emissions reductions, and collectively, industrialized countries are on track to achieve the Kyoto goal of reducing their emissions by at least 5.2 percent over 1990 levels. But much of the decrease in emissions is attributed to the collapse of East European and Russian economies in the post-Soviet era, as well as to the current global recession, which has helped to reduce industrial output and overall energy use in many countries.

Canada's most recent inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, submitted to the United Nations earlier this year, showed that while the country had been making year-over-year reductions since 2008, its emissions are still nearly 20 percent higher than they were in 1990.

The country only accounts, however, for about 2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. The United States, accounting for roughly 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and by far the largest per capita emitter among industrialized nations, refused to participate in the Kyoto Protocol. China recently overtook the U.S. as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, now accounting for about a quarter of the global total.

As part of a last-minute deal in Durban, nations agreed to briefly extend the Kyoto Protocol, which was set to expire next year, until a new and broader pact that would eventually bring all nations under emissions restrictions is developed by 2015.

"We are committed to working together to address climate change in a way that is, for countries big and small, rich or poor, fair, effective and comprehensive and allows us to continue to create jobs and growth in Canada," Kent said at Monday's press conference. "Canada went to Durban in a spirit of good will. We went committed to being constructive. We went looking to reach an international climate change agreement that covers all major emitters. As we said from the outset, the Kyoto Protocol did not represent the path forward for Canada."

But Matt Horne, the director of climate change activities with the Pembina Institute, a Canadian environmental think tank, said the decision to withdraw from Kyoto was at odds with the country's long-term interests. "While there may not be formal penalties for withdrawal, there will be economic consequences," he said. "If Canada is unwilling to do its fair share by implementing made-in-Canada solutions to climate change, we are inviting made-for-Canada solutions to be imposed on us."

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Wind project in jeopardy as NRG drops contract

NRG Energy has announced plans to terminate its Bluewater Wind power-purchase contract with Delmarva Power at the end of this year.

Bluewater President Peter Mandelstam said on Monday he holds out hope that a buyer for the offshore wind division would step forward before Dec. 23, the date by which NRG must inform Delmarva if it wishes to end the contract.

The contract is widely seen as Bluewater's most valuable asset, and observers said it would be difficult to build the project without one.

NRG has struggled to secure financing for the massive project and failed to secure federal loan guarantees.

The Bluewater project captured the public's imagination five years ago as a utility-scale, carbon-free source of energy, 13 miles off the Delaware coast. The turbines have been expected to provide 200 megawatts, or enough to power about 54,000 homes.

Bluewater's contract with Delmarva, reached in 2008 and revised in September, calls for Bluewater to forfeit a $4 million security deposit on Dec. 31, or walk away.

In a release Monday, NRG reported it would not seek another extension. The release contained nothing about attempts to sell the contract or the company.

"Our people have worked hard and we've made a considerable financial investment in the wind park, but that effort cannot overcome the difficult and unfortunate realities of the current market," said David Crane, NRG president and CEO.

What's next

The long-term forecast for federal price supports for the wind industry remain uncertain. This has been important to offshore wind developers, given the long time frame for permitting and building an offshore wind farm.

NRG still expects to receive federal approval for a lease to build offshore wind turbines off the Delaware coast, said David Gaier, NRG spokesman. The company would hold onto this lease as an asset, unless NRG finds a buyer for Bluewater, he said.

Even absent the contract, NRG could re-enter the offshore wind business in the future if market conditions are good enough, Gaier said. Or it could sell Bluewater at a later date, he said.

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Global Warming and Adaptability

Any carbon deal to replace Kyoto would have a negligible impact on climate in coming decades


The Durban pit-stop in the endless array of climate summits has just ended, and predictably it reaffirmed the United Nations' strong belief that the most important response to global warming is to secure a strong deal to cut carbon emissions.

What is almost universally ignored, however, is that if we want to help real people overcome real problems we need to focus first on adaptation.

The Durban agreement is being hailed as a diplomatic victory. Yet it essentially concedes defeat, leaving any hard decisions to the far end of the decade when other politicians will have to deal with it. For nearly 20 years, the international community has tried to negotiate commitments to carbon cuts, with almost nothing to show for it.

Even most rich countries don't want to cut fossil fuels, because the alternatives are considerably more expensive. China, India and other emerging economies certainly do not want to, because putting the brakes on growth means consigning millions to poverty.

But even if such intractable issues could be magically resolved, any deal would have a negligible impact on climate. Even if we were to cut emissions by 50% below 1990-levels by 2050—an extremely unrealistic scenario—the difference in temperature would be less than 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit in 2050.

This goes against everything that carbon campaigners tell us. When Hurricane Katrina or other weather disasters devastate communities, we're told by advocates such as Al Gore that the effects of climate change are already being felt and it's time to commit to drastic carbon cuts.


It is worth noting that often these arguments are exaggerated for effect. Since Hurricane Katrina, the global accumulated cyclone energy index has declined to almost the lowest level since we started measuring such phenomena in the early 1970s. Global warming will probably make hurricanes slightly stronger but slightly less frequent, leaving the overall impact murky.

What we can say clearly is that if we want to help New Orleans or other at-risk areas, cutting emissions will have virtually no impact for many decades. Bolstering hurricane defenses through improved levees and wetlands could, however, make a world of difference.

This is even more true for hurricane impacts in Third World countries. When Hurricane Andrew hit Florida, it cost 10% of the state's GDP and killed 41 people. But when the similar-sized Hurricane Mitch hit Honduras, it cost the country two-thirds of its GDP and killed more than 10,000. Tackling hurricane impacts in developing countries is not about cutting carbon but about adaptation and economic growth to improve resilience.

This is true whether we look at hurricanes or at other problems exacerbated by global warming. It is often—correctly—pointed out that global warming will hit developing countries hardest. Malaria cases, for instance, will increase along with mosquito populations, while food production in many developing countries will decrease.

But getting an emissions deal in any of the future Durban meetings will do nothing to help either of these problems. Even if we halted global warming by the end of the century, we could expect to avoid only about 3% of world-wide malaria cases by 2100. What the billions afflicted by malaria in the world today need is access to treatment and better prevention through bed-nets and indoor spraying. This is adaptation.

When it comes to access to food, global warming is expected to be responsible for a 7% yield decrease in the developing world and a 3% yield increase in the developed world over this century. Yet this needs to be seen in the context of total developing world food production rising by about 270% over the same period.


Do we better help the developing world by making drastic carbon cuts today that might—in an ideal world—avoid a 7% yield drop, or by making higher-yielding varieties of crops available that could potentially generate drastic yield increases? These are questions we have to answer if we are to adapt to the reality of global warming in this century.

The first step in focusing on adaptation is measuring it. The Global Adaptation Institute, led by former World Bank Managing Director Juan Jose Daboub, publishes the Global Adaptation Index, which shows how vulnerable countries are to global warming and how prepared they are to tackle it. The challenge lies not merely in reducing vulnerability but also in getting the structures in place so governments and investors can tackle adaptation in the most effective manner possible. The good news is we can improve lives today while building the crucial infrastructure needed for tomorrow.

The climate will continue changing throughout this century. And we do need to fix carbon emissions smartly through technological innovation. But if our concern is with saving lives and helping the planet's most vulnerable populations, then we need to focus first on how we can build more resilient, adaptable communities.

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America's New Energy Security

Thanks to new technology, the U.S. has become less dependent on petroleum imports from unstable countries.

Every president since Richard Nixon has called for energy independence. Nevertheless, U.S. reliance on imported oil long seemed to be headed in only one direction—up—and that pointed to inevitably increasing dependence on the huge resources of the Middle East.

No longer. U.S. petroleum imports, on a net basis, reached their peak—60%—of domestic consumption in 2005. Since then, they have been going in the other direction. They are now down to 46%.

What's happening? Part of the answer is demand. U.S. oil consumption reached what might be called "peak demand" in 2005 and has since declined. The country has become more efficient in its use of petroleum, and that will continue as vehicle fuel economy goes up. The economic slump has also muffled demand.

But developments on the supply side are particularly striking. U.S. crude oil output has risen by 18% since 2008. Some of that has come from an increase in deep-water output, although after last year's Deepwater Horizon oil spill the pace of future growth is more uncertain. The big surprise is onshore, where the United States is experiencing an oil boom.

The reason is the sudden appearance of a new source, "tight oil," which is extracted from dense rocks. For years, tight oil has been a very marginal business. In 2000, it was only about 200,000 barrels per day, 3% of total output. Today it is about a million barrels per day. By the end of the decade, according to IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates' estimate, it could reach three million barrels per day, over half of current domestic crude oil production.


The dramatic increase in tight oil has been made possible by the same technology combo, hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, that created the "shale gale"—the explosive growth in natural gas production from shale rock.

The spread of fracking has generated debate about potential environmental impact, underscoring the need that these resources continue to be developed in a safe and transparent manner. It's vital that we do so, because shale gas now accounts for 34% of total U.S. natural gas output. Just a few years ago the expectation was that the U.S. would be importing large volumes of natural gas and becoming heavily dependent on world markets—and spending upward of $100 billion a year for those imports. Now people, including President Obama, talk about a hundred-year supply of domestic natural gas. Shale gas has also proved to be a job creator—over 600,000 jobs, according to the IHS Global Insight study released last week.

Oil extracted from shale also means lower imports, a lower bill for these imports, and substantial job creation. Thanks to tight oil, North Dakota is now America's fourth largest oil-producing state after Texas, Alaska and California. It may well move up to third or even second place.

North Dakota also has the lowest unemployment rate in the nation at 3.5%. The shale oil boom generates jobs in the oil fields, but it also has a long supply chain, fostering manufacturing jobs in states like Ohio and information technology jobs in California.

There are other changes in the world oil supply that can work in our favor. Many Americans have the impression that most U.S. oil imports come from the Persian Gulf region, or from hostile states. And it is true enough that Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, for instance, hardly hides his deep-seated enmity toward the U.S.

But the Persian Gulf represents 16% of our imports, and Venezuela 9%. By far the largest, and growing, source of imports is Canada, which supplies about 25%; Mexico is second, at 11%.

The main reason for Canada's large role is the expansion of output from its oil sands. Canada's oil sands now yield more output than Libya's total exports prior to its civil war. Current plans could double production to three million barrels per day by the beginning of the next decade. That would mean a higher share of our imports coming from our friendly neighbor and largest trading partner.

But how much more oil the U.S. imports from Canada will depend upon whether sufficient transportation exists. And in response to the State Department's postponement of the decision on the Keystone XL pipeline last month, the Canadian government has indicated that it cannot be wholly dependent on the vagaries of U.S. politics. The pipeline delay, said Prime Minister Stephen Harper, underscores "the necessity of making sure that we're able to access Asian markets for our energy products."

What he means is shipping some of the growing oil sands output west to the Pacific and on to Asia and particularly to China. Chinese companies, seeking to diversify their sources of supply, have already invested over $10 billion in Canada's oil sands.

It is true that the U.S. is still importing a larger share of its oil than it was in 1973, at the time of the first oil crisis. Even with increased domestic production and higher imports from Canada, it will still be part of the global oil market and vulnerable to disruptions and price spikes. Thus the U.S. needs to collaborate with other consuming and producing countries on energy security.

But the shift in oil sources means the global supply system will become more resilient, our energy supplies will become more secure, and the nation will have more flexibility in dealing with crises. It would also mean that economic benefits—in terms of jobs, manufacturing and services—would register on the ground in North America.


The most recent United Nations report on Iran's nuclear program, along with the call by French President Nicolas Sarkozy for an embargo on oil imports from Iran and possible sanctions on Iran's central bank, have raised the stakes. The Iranians have responded by again brandishing the threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, and by ransacking the British Embassy in Tehran.

Thus, over the next few years, new supply in North America becomes all the more important as a potential offset to rising tensions with Iran in the global oil balance. This gives new urgency to assuring that North America's oil resources are developed to what is now their much-greater potential.

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Stormwater fee debate heats up

COMMENT: This could be what we'll soon be facing in Delaware.

A stormwater utility fee contemplated by the County Council would pour much-needed money into the county's ailing waterways while hurting residents already strapped for cash. That was the testimony at a Monday hearing on the legislation, which would add new fees to homeowners' annual property tax bills. Councilmen Chris Trumbauer, D-Annapolis, and Dick Ladd, R-Severna Park, are sponsoring the bill. The annual fees of $35 on single-family residential properties and $25 on townhouses and condominiums would be used to reduce stormwater pollution. Trumbauer acknowledged that the timing could be better. Fees for commercial properties would be based on the amount of paved service each building covers.The councilmen estimate that the fees would raise up to $15 million annually, money that would go into a fund dedicated to cleanup projects. To Annapolis resident Julie Winters, one of the three dozen people who testified, this would be money well spent."My message to you is very simple. I want clean water," said Winters, telling councilmen her dogs have contracted bacterial infections from swimming in polluted waters. But others questioned the wisdom of levying new fees during tough economic times."Timing is everything, and in county government, the timing could not be worse," said Erik Robey, chief of staff for County Executive John R. Leopold. "We have record high unemployment. There are foreclosure signs everywhere." On top of that, the state may double or triple the $30 "flush fee" that goes to the Bay."The best thing would have been to do this four years ago," he said. In 2007, the council rejected similar legislation that would have charged each single-family home $30 a year and each business a fee based on impervious surface. At that time, Leopold introduced competing legislation that would have levied fees on new development only. Neither proposal passed. Since then, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has unveiled its bay pollution diet, which requires reductions of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment.Ron Bowen, the county's director of Public Works, said the county faces a nearly $1 billion backlog of water restoration projects. Several of the county's riverkeepers and environmental activists voiced their support for the bill, along with residents who said they remembered when area waters were clean. It's time to make them healthy again, they said."We want to avoid an environmental debt our children will have to pay off in the future," said Eric Smith, a Tracys Landing resident. Jeff Tosi, director of government relations for the Home Builders Association of Maryland, and Evan Gilligan, a spokesman for Mandrin Homes in Pasadena, also spoke in favor of the legislation. It would distribute the burden evenly, both said. Bob Burdon, CEO of the Annapolis and Anne Arundel Chamber of Commerce, supported the bill when Trumbauer and Ladd first introduced it.But last night, he said the possible flush fee hikes from the state have caused him to reconsider. "There's a whole lot of uncertainty that's been created," Burdon said yesterday. "We could create an untenable situation here."He said he's not against the bill, but thinks it would be better to pull it and see what the General Assembly does. Councilman John Grasso said that although he thought a $35 fee was "a great deal," he thought, like Burdon, that it might make more sense to wait."My fear is that our dear old governor will come up with something to nail the taxpayers hard," the Glen Burnie Republican said. The council could vote on the bill at its next meeting, on Dec. 19.

Washington doesn’t need to regulate rain

Supreme Court has a chance to stop judicial folly

If the Supreme Court declines to review it, a recent ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco will put federal courts into the business of managing every acre of privately owned timberland in America. Farmers beware. You could be next. In May, the 9th Circuit determined that rainwater draining from forest roads into local streams, rivers and lakes is "point source pollution." As such, it must be regulated in the same way effluent from sewage-treatment plants is regulated. To make a long story short, rainwater that accumulates alongside logging roads has become a new target of environmental litigators. Several lawsuits were filed within days of the 9th Circuit's decision.

The court made this determination despite the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has insisted for 35 years that requiring "point-source" permits is unnecessary to protect the environment and is even harmful. In deciding as they did, the judges overturned a long-standing rule that, within reason, the federal judiciary must defer to federal agencies in interpreting laws they enforce.

The main culprits here are the lowly drainage ditch and the only slightly more fashionable culvert, a steel cylinder buried beneath the road surface that directs rainwater away from the road, reducing the threat of flood-caused soil erosion. It is this rainwater that the three-judge panel thinks the federal government must regulate.

Many Americans don't know that drainage ditches and culverts don't pollute water. I know that because I grew up in northern Idaho's great woods and have been fly-fishing in the West for more than 50 years. God only knows how many times I've stuck my thirsty mug in a river or stream on a hot summer afternoon, but I can tell you thatgin-clear water passed through countless culverts, under dozens of bridges and alongside miles of forest roads before it reached my parched lips.

By instructing the EPA to oversee every ditch and culvert that runs alongside a forest road, the 9th Circuit is subjecting public and private timber landowners to an unnecessary and costly regulatory labyrinth that won't make water any more suitable for fish and wildlife than it is now. Worse, every project, no matter its insignificance or urgency, will be appealed and litigated by environmental groups that oppose economically productive use of the nation's forests.

The economic impact of this case is so significant that the attorneys general in 26 states have filed friend-of-the-court briefs urging the Supreme Court to review the decision, as have the Pacific Legal Foundation, famous for its private property rights advocacy, and several forest industry groups that represent forest landowners large and small. Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat, also has weighed in, declaring that letting the court's decision stand "would shut down forestry on private, state and tribal lands" wherever it is applied.

For 3 1/2 decades, the responsibility for protecting water quality in forests has fallen to the states. They have regulated forestry's many activities - including road, culvert and bridge construction, repair and operation - under the watchful eyes of EPA enforcers, who relied on science-based "best management practices." All this comes after the EPA's 1976 decision that forestry yields non-point-sourcepollutionthat is more effectively managed by drainage ditches, culverts and vegetation than by rules that defy the laws of gravity. No matter - the judges seem to think that even rainstorms need to be regulated by the EPA.

The new administrative burdens the 9th Circuit decision puts on landowners and federal and state government is staggering. The U.S. Forest Service reports there are about 378,000 road miles in our national forests and that it will need about 400,000 permits. By the most conservative estimate, adding in state and private forests nearly doubles that number. Other estimates place the total well into the millions. Simply obtaining the Forest Service's permits will take 10 years.

Word is that the Supreme Court will decide on Friday whether it will hear this case. Here's hoping it does. The court might take the occasion to ask why the Court of Appeals found it necessary to overturn 35 years of regulatory precedent. Plaintiff lawyers might also be asked to explain the environmental impacts of not installing roadside drainage ditches or repairing bridges, culverts or roads damaged by flooding. Taxpayers also need an estimate of the economic harm private landowners and their employees will suffer if roads that cannot legally be repaired prevent them from reaching their harvestable timber. Throughout the United States, about 3 million family-forest landowners are engaged in harvesting.

Americans who love to hike will find it hard to believe that when they are out walking amid the splendor of their favorite forest they are, in fact, strolling through toxic industrial sites. In effect, that is what the 9th Circuit has said, and that is why the nation's forest landowners are hoping the Supreme Court will rescue them from this new and astonishing display of legal revisionism and regulatory zeal.

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For Obama’s green-car revolution, fits and starts

The Obama administration has poured roughly $5 billion in taxpayer funds into the electric-car industry, offering incentives to manufacturers, their suppliers and even car buyers who might want to go green.

But analysts say the risk is rising that taxpayers in many cases will not see a return on their money soon, if ever. Instead, they warn that some federally subsidized companies could be forced to shut down in coming months.

For President Obama, who has made clean-technology investment a hallmark of his job creation efforts, troubles in the electric-car sector pose a potential new political problem after the collapse of solar-panel maker Solyndra, which recently defaulted on a half-billion-dollar federal loan after filing for bankruptcy. The administration has channeled an estimated $80 billion of the stimulus recovery effort into grants and loans to clean energy and energy efficiency programs, companies and research.

Obama predicted in 2008 that green cars would create thousands of new U.S. jobs as demand soared. But in recent months, production lines and sales expectations have been dramatically scaled back.

A123 Systems, a battery maker that received $380 million in government support, announced recently that declining orders had forced layoffs. Instead of up to 3,000 new Michigan jobs as Obama and the company had predicted, it now has 690 employees.

Battery maker EnerDel, recipient of a a $118 million federal grant, took a hit when its key customer, electric-car maker Think, declared bankruptcy this year. Johnson Controls, which received a $299 million stimulus grant, opted to build one factory instead of two because of lower-than-projected demand, a company official said, and that one is now operating at half capacity.

California electric-car maker Aptera announced it was shutting its doors because of problems raising capital. And General Motors — whose moderately priced Volt was supposed to drive Obama’s push for 1 million alternative vehicles by 2015 — revealed last week that it would fall roughly 38 percent shy of its goal of selling 10,000 Volts this year.

“Many in this industry have jumped the gun on how aggressive the growth of electric vehicles will be,” said Kevin C. See, an analyst at Lux Research.

Supporters of Obama’s green-car initiatives say that there are still industry bright spots and that this start-up sector will simply take longer to deliver results.

“Certainly, with electric-vehicle sales, we’re not on track to meet the president’s goal,” said Brendan Bell, clean-vehicle expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “But . . . these investments are good ones toward that goal.”

Alex Molinaroli, a Johnson Controls vice president, said the funds give U.S. factories the capacity to deliver when demand arrives and position them as industry players.

“Is it worth the premium?” Molinaroli said. “We’ll have to wait a long time to see if this was a good investment or not.”

Obama’s green-car goal

Obama started his alternative-vehicle push in the 2008 campaign, and his administration soon after put money behind the plan. Like Solyndra, several of the firms receiving support had investors who were also important Obama campaign donors.

Nissan, Tesla Motors and Fisker Automotive received $2.4 billion in loans to support building U.S. manufacturing plants for electric vehicles through an Energy Department program. In a stimulus push in August 2009, Obama announced $2.4 billion in more than 40 grants to car industry firms, much of it to advanced-battery manufacturers.

The president said the strategy would revive the country’s manufacturing base while nurturing a domestic green-car industry.

“If we want to reduce our dependence on oil, put Americans back to work and reassert our manufacturing sector as one of the greatest in the world, we must produce the advanced, efficient vehicles of the future,” Obama said.

At the time, many auto analysts questioned whether federal subsidies would create a glut of electric batteries and cars.

Obama reasserted his goal in his January State of the Union address, and the Energy Department made hopeful projections. In February, an agency report said U.S. car production “should be sufficient to achieve the goal of one million EVs by 2015,” with enough capacity to produce 44,000 of the top seven electric vehicles in 2011.

Actual sales of those models this year stand at 16,800 — roughly two-tenths of 1 percent of 2011 domestic auto sales. The vast majority were Chevrolet Volts or Nissan Leafs, which were in development long before Obama took office.

Some experts said the administration’s political goal — quickly announcing job creation in a recession — conflicted with the practical realities of expanding a complicated auto industry and wooing consumers.

“This is an investment that could have been planned better,” said Menahem Anderman, a leading auto battery expert and founder of Total Battery Consulting. “This has created a lot of publicity, but people have not bought many more cars as a result.”

White House officials say the electric-car emphasis has had a positive impact by accelerating the shift from foreign oil dependence.

“That effort continues to be successful as sales of advanced­technology vehicles keep increasing and these technologies continue to support growth of American auto companies, reduce oil dependence and create jobs,” said White House spokesman Clark Stevens.

Ripple effects

Problems in one part of the electric-car sector tend to have ripple effects. A123, for example, is hampered by production delays at a primary customer — Fisker Automotive, which was two years behind on delivering its first model, the luxury sports car Karma.

A123 chief executive David Vieau said in an interview that his company will rebound from these temporary troubles and rehire workers next year to deliver on contracts with other companies, including BMW.

“We’re humbled but not beaten,” Vieau said. “It’s not surprising you’ve seen some bumps and challenges. These are things to be expected in a brand-new space.”

A123 received a $249 million Energy Department grant to build its battery plant in Livonia, Mich., plus $125 million in state incentives. Like Solyndra, the company won presidential praise for its business model. It was cited by Obama in a 2010 Rose Garden news conference and in a Michigan news conference. Obama used an audio conference to congratulate the company on its factory opening.

Some watchdog groups question the value taxpayers are getting for their clean-car investments. The administration devoted $257 million to helping spur Volt battery production, through a $106 million battery assembly grant to GM and another $151 million to its battery provider, LG Chem.

A key industry problem is that electric cars are generally far more expensive than gas guzzlers. That’s true even with up to $7,500 in stimulus tax credits offered for each vehicle.

Obama announced the $2.4 billion in advanced-battery grants at a recreational-vehicle assembly plant in Wakarusa, Ind., where Navistar said it planned to build the eStar, an electric truck for fleets.

“Just a few months ago, folks thought these factories might be closed for good, but now they’re coming back to life,” Obama said that day.

But a large Maryland truck dealership tried for a year to sell an eStar, then sold it back to Navistar. Sam Eitel, marketing manager for Beltway Cos., said customers liked the truck’s sleek looks but were stopped cold by its $150,000-plus list price.

“People are scratching their heads saying, ‘How will we pay this?’ ” Eitel said.

A Navistar spokeswoman said 100 have been sold so far.

Anderman, who advocates reducing U.S. fossil fuel consumption, said he warned early on that economics did not support the administration’s push. Now he fears failures may undermine industry support.

“Politicians with an ax to grind will say, ‘Here it is — we spent $10 billion, we had companies collapse,’ ” Anderman said. “ ‘Here. We tried it. It didn’t work.’ ”

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