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Senator Bernie Sanders’ campaign has released his climate change plan, advertised as People before Polluters.

Several upfront comments

• To be clear, there is much of real and substantive value in the Sanders’ plan — despite some critical comments to follow.  With whatever faults it may (or may not) have, adopting (and executing) this plan would put the United States on a much stronger footing economically and help lead the world toward meaningful engagement / progress toward climate mitigation.
• Important in (and central to) this plan are several elements that set this plan apart:
  • As discussed by Brad Plumer, “the call for all-out war against fossil fuel interests, that sets Sanders’s platform apart from traditional Democratic climate proposals.” And,
  • a serious focus on environmental and ‘economic justice — the tackling of climate challenges and seizing of opportunities in ways that foster greater equity domestically and internationally.
• Full and robust analysis will wait until later. (And will probably involve a ‘side-by-side’ discussion of the full Sanders’ material with that of Senator Clinton and Governor O’Malley.)
• The substantive discussion of climate change and paths to address it that is seen on the Democratic side of #Election2016 is, of course, in stark contrast with the devoted science denialism across the GOP candidate rabble.

So, understanding that this is not based on a detailed read and analysis of the plan, follow after the fold for some thoughts / comments.

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Since diving into the deep end when it comes to energy issues, almost every day sees new fascinating concepts, approaches, and technologies. Fascinating … exciting … even hope inspiring at times. And, as well, as the passion builds, so many of these are truly Energy COOL. Often, at conferences, the trade show floors intrigue and impassion me far more than sitting and listening to formal presentations. Simply put, I do not know what and who will catch my attention when walking into these ‘business development/promotion’ spaces but know that I will have some happy surprises.

Every year, the trade show of USGBC‘s Greenbuild provides numerous opportunities for learning and excitement about developing and, even more importantly, available technologies and systems that can help provide solutions to and create opportunities within our energy, environmental, and economic challenges.

The 2015 Greenbuild, held in Washington DC last month, had an enormous trade-show floor — essentially stuffing the DC Convention Center’s ‘basement’ with hundreds of booths. Regretfully, with only a few hours available, I couldn’t even walk the entire trade show space with limited ability to pay serious attention to booths. Even so, there were many both new items of interest and new windows on long known about items. This post provides four brief examples from Greenbuild:

• Comfy: “intelligent software for personalized comfort in the workplace”;
• Suite Plants‘ indoor/outdoor vertical planters;
• Waterfence rain storage systems; and,
• Solatube tubes for bringing sunlight into living and working spaces.

Let’s be clear, none of these is the earth-shaking panacea to climate change and all our energy challenges that Bill Gates (and others) seems to be seeking and counting on.  While these aren’t Holy Grails, each  provides Silver BB value streams to be ‘part of a solution set’ to our myriad challenges. More interestingly, each of these has intriguing system-of-system value streams and their staff that I engaged with at Greenbuild were ready to speak substantively about this.

For some discussion, follow after the fold.

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an electric car is a relatively low-polluting vehicle today and will be even less polluting tomorrow.

A simple truth upfront:

All things being equal, electric vehicles (EVs) reduce pollution loads.

Now, there are many caveats and corollaries to this truism. For example,

• Better to reduce transport requirements (build/live in walkable communities; telecommute; etc …) than use electric vehicles.
• The cleaner the electricity sourcing, the lower the EVs pollution load.
• Even with 100% renewable electricity sourcing, EVs reduce pollution compared to “BAU” (business as usual)– they don’t eliminate it.

With this in mind, lets consider a recent Washington Post article on electric vehicles in the Netherlands and the potential ‘pollution’ impacts from the growth in Dutch EV deployment.  While buried deep within the article, the author rightly looks to a recent Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) study on electric vehicles that concluded that — even in the most heavily polluting of US electricity supplies — the worst status for an EV is roughly the climate impact of a 36 mile per gallon vehicle.  And, as the electric supply cleans up (hydro, wind, solar, nuclear, …), that mpg equivalent increases — actually skyrockets — to well about 100 mpg (and, well, potentially into the 100s of mpg equivalency).

Let’s be clear, to reinforce, EVs are better pollution wise (on the street level for urban pollution loads and globally for climate change) than their internal combustion equivalents … That is not what one really gathers from this front page article.

The Post article creates a misleading image for its readership as exemplified by the online title: Electric cars and the coal that runs them.  From the opening paragraphs,

In this traffic-packed Dutch city [of Rotterdam], electric cars jostle for space at charging ­stations. The oldest exhaust-spewing vehicles will soon be banned from the city center. … the share of electric vehicles has grown faster in the Netherlands than in nearly any other country in the world.

But behind the green growth is a filthy secret: In a nation famous for its windmills, electricity is coming from a far dirtier source. Three new coal-fired power plants, including two here on the Rotterdam harbor, are supplying much of the power to fuel the Netherlands’ electric-car boom.

What would any reasonable person take away from this?  From my perspective, rather simple: growth of EVs is driving deployment of coal-fired power plants and the use of this “filthy” energy source negates any potential value streams. [See published letter to the editor below [1].]

Let’s do a quick summation of why this framing is simply at odds with a reasonable read of the situation:

• Dutch EV penetration is growing rapidly, now. This comes well after the decision-making about whether to construct Rotterdam coal-fired plants (with a 2008 announcement of their construction).  E.g., the coal-fired power plants were being built well before “electric cars [began to] jostle for space …”
• EV electricity usage is only a small fraction of the demand for these coal-fired plants. Even if 100% of the EV electricity comes from these plants (a simply unrealistic assumption), the total Dutch EV demand is pretty much only a rounding error in terms of their electricity production. (See calculation below indicating that this is well below two percent. [2])

Thus, to make it clear: electric vehicles did not drive the development of Rotterdam coal-fired power plants nor are they using a substantial portion of the generated electricity. Now, as per the UCS study, electric vehicles’ environmental advantages over traditional internal combustion engines increase as the electricity supply gets cleaner. Thus, running an EV off coal is far from optimum. However, in the Netherlands as in most parts of the world, the rapidly increasing penetration of clean-electricity options is more than outpacing the introduction of electric transportation options.

Reading the article makes one wonder … The Washington Post has long had an editorial stance questioning the viability and basic sensibility of electric vehicles (on this, see, for example, here, here, here, here, here, here, ….).  Even though real-world developments are — with every passing day — making this seem a less reasonable position, articles like this one make one question whether and/or how that editorial position is influencing the writing/editing of news articles.

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The Center for Climate and Security released a report yesterday with a series of looks at the intersection of climate, the rebalance to Asia, and US national security concerns (pdf of the report).

the effects of climate change are likely to both shape, and be shaped by, the U.S. role in the Asia-Pacific. If the U.S. is to engage constructively in the region – building and broadening alliances, helping advance regional security and prosperity in the face of potentially catastrophic change, and advancing U.S. national security interests – it will have to seriously consider how climate change affects the region, how the U.S. can help advance the climate resilience of the region’s diverse nations, and how the U.S. will adapt strategically to a changed security environment.

From Admiral Samuel Locklear’s, US Navy (retired), forward:

Today we find ourselves in a period of unprecedented global change – change that is offering many new opportunities, but also introducing significant emerging challenges to the global security environment. Foremost among these emerging challenges are the long-term security implications of climate change, particularly in the vast and vulnerable Asia-Pacific region, where the nexus of humanity and the effects of climate change are expected to be most profound … Fortunately, within the context of the ongoing Rebalance to the Asia-Pacific, thoughtful consideration is now being given to the long-term security implications of climate changes – but much more is needed.

The report looks to be rich (disclosure — I’ve only had a chance to read about 20 (somewhat scattered) pages so far), with many top-notch people taking a look at specific issues (such as Marcus King‘s look at Vietnamese fisheries). This report might provide a template for discussions and examinations that should continue not just with US security/climate change interaction in the Asia-Pacific region but across the globe.
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We’ve known that climate change threatens agricultural productivity, infrastructure near oceans, human health, biodiversity (and huge numbers of species), sea turtle intercourse, national security, allergy sufferers, economic output, beer, chocolate and coffee, wine, whiskey, cherry blossoms, maple syrup, and, oh by the way, human civilization …. but sex … now we’re talking about something serious.

#Climate kills the mood: hotter temperatures reduce #sex drive, lower birth rates https://t.co/Tk23Q3Yc0Y #ActOnClimate

— A Siegel (@A_Siegel) November 3, 2015

The National Bureau of Economic Research just published Maybe Next Month? Temperature Shocks, Climate Change, and Dynamic Adjustments in Birth Rates. In this study, economists Alan Barreca, Olivier Deschenes, and Melanie Guldi look at the impact of “temperature shocks” on U.S. birth rates between 1931 and 2010. In short,

• If the temperature is above 80 degrees, birth rates nine months later are lower. [With implication that ‘sexual’ intercourse goes down as well — although, well, it could be impacts on fertility from sexual activity.]
• There is a rebound in following (cooler) months, but only about 30% — leading to notable reduction in overall birth rates (projected 2.6% decline in US birth rate).
• The delayed births — generally representing shifts from summer to autumn conception — occur in summer months, where there is a higher mortality and other health problems for babies (whether due to stress in pregnancy during higher heat or impacts directly on baby in summer months)

An economics perspective seems more focused on birth rate implications for economic performance (since a Dismal Science credo is that population growth = good …):

As summers heat up, developed countries may see already low birth rates sink even lower. Plunging birth rates can play havoc with an economy. China’s leaders recently acknowledged this by ditching the longtime one-child policy and doubling the number of children couples are allowed to have. A sub-replacement U.S. birthrate means fewer workers to pay Social Security benefits for retirees, among other consequences.

Non-economists might be more interested in the underlying point:

Climate change threatens sex

Across societies, relatively small policy changes have led to real change.  Getting people off a lazy addiction to plastic bags (and thus reducing plastic impacts — from use of fossil fuels to produce them, to reduced litter on the streets, to reduced impacts on wildlife) is one example. Over a decade ago, the institution of a 33 cents per bag fee in Ireland led to a 93 percent reduction of plastic bag use within a decade. Washington DC’s five-cent per bag fee is credited with cutting DC’s plastic bag use (with resulting impacts in terms of reduced plastic bags showing up in annual Anacostia River cleanups and otherwise).  The fees spark people to think and have, for many, an impact far greater than the actual price involved. Go to shops in most of Western Europe and you will see the vast (typically nearly 100% each day) majority of people walking in with their own bags and the shopkeepers very used to handling a wide range of size, style, nature of bag for packing up purchases.

As with so many things surrounding us, plastic bags (and, of course, plastics) are big (BIG) business. Thus, there are plentiful resources for fighting tooth-and-nail against bag fees. This includes money spent to “prove” that plastic bags are better for the environment than — well — anything else and to argue for the collapse of modern human society if there is the slightest inhibition created to their profligate (ab)use.

Such was the warning from the Daily Mail that a new 5 pence per bag charge in three UK cities would “cause chaos” on High Street.  Truth be told, there are some legitimate reasons to call this a confusing approach:

• Bags with handles should have a charge, no handles free.
• Only stores with >250 employees (e.g, mainly chains) should charge.
• “Unwrapped food, raw meat and fish, prescription medicines, uncovered blades, seeds, bulbs and flowers and live fish are exempt.”

Really, “prescription medicines” really need a free plastic bag (as if that container of antibiotic bills really can’t fit in a pocket)?  (Note: I am with the “environmentalists” who believe that a simple flat fee, without exceptions, is the more sensible move.)

In any event, when it came to the first day of implementation, a Guardian reporter tested the waters and found some confusion and differing perspectives as to the shopping bag charge but, writ large, when asked to investigate “Is there really panic on the streets?“, the result:  “Despite dire warnings, our reporter fails to uncover chaotic scenes on our high streets, and even manages to acquire a few free bags.”

My prediction: this will be incorporated into daily life and this 5p charge will help drive down plastic bag use and reduce public littering in these cities.

We will not ‘solve’ our societal problems and adequately address climate change with incremental changes like (confusing) 5p charges on plastic bags. Yet, we will not “solve” our societal problems and adequately address climate change without such incremental changes.

Pope Francis has finished his speech to Congress.  Within his comments, there are elements to please virtually all segments of U.S. society. From ‘sanctity of life’ to ‘sanctity of planet’ from the value of business to the importance to seeking greater equity, from …

One of the Pope’s major efforts relates to climate change. His encyclical merits reading — no matter whether you believe you understand climate change — as a powerful scientific, economic, philosophical, ethical, and moral laydown of the criticality of action.

The climate science denialists dominating the U.S. Congress (e.g., the GOP political elite) and the GOP in general feared that the Pontiff would lay down a strong gauntlet on climate change.  That their rejection of science, their fossil foolish endangerment of our common future in service to ideology and, in too many cases, their paymasters would face harsh and direct denouncement by the Pope.

This was not the case.

Listening to his speech, it is possible that many didn’t even pick up that he spoke to climate change — after all, those words aren’t even in the speech. Read the speech. It is worth the time … but notice how sublime the climate references are … (the relevant section after the fold

One has to wonder whether subtlety works in today’s American political system.

The Pope had the biggest soapbox in American politics.

The Pontiff, unlike too many in the American elite, actually seems to understand the serious risks we face and the criticality of serious actions to mitigate climate change if we are not to move from risks and damage to utterly catastrophic consequences for humanity …

At the greatest soapbox in American politics, the Pontiff chose subtlety rather than a sledge hammer.

I hope that his political judgment is correct.

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Looking at the reporting as to Volkswagon’s systemic fraud re diesel-engine pollution, there are some legitimate questions to ask:

• Will legal entities, around the world, take the legitimate approach of moving beyond “Corporate” to individual responsibility?  Will — sadly unlike the financial frauds of the 2000s — executives go to jail?
• To what extent do the implications from the 11 million+ VW vehicles built with systems designed to deceive pollution testing devices threaten VW’s financial health and, even, viability as a major global automaker?
• How many people have and will die due to VW’s deliberate deceit?

This last is a question that seems not to have caught attention … yet.

Pollution regulation exists, in no small part, to protect human health.  When it comes to vehicle fuels, the regulatory action to remove lead has had an economic value exceeding $3 trillion over the past 30 years with untold numbers of people living better lives (from reduced brain damage to reductions in crime rates).  Volkswagen acted deliberately — in what we might reasonably call a criminal conspiracy — to undermine pollution regulations.  In other words, acting with malice and forethought to take actions to threaten human lives around the world.

The VW system to defeat/deceive pollution testing systems has led to (and continues to cause) increased pollution levels, particularly of NoX.

Nitrogen oxides, or NOx,  contribute to smog, particulate matter and a wide range of health problems for certain people, which is why they’re so heavily regulated in emissions. Via the EPA:

NOx pollution contributes to nitrogen dioxide, ground-level ozone, and fine particulate matter. Exposure to these pollutants has been linked with a range of serious health effects, including increased asthma attacks and other respiratory illnesses that can be serious enough to send people to the hospital. Exposure to ozone and particulate matter have also been associated with premature death due to respiratory-related or cardiovascular-related effects. Children, the elderly, and people with pre-existing respiratory disease are particularly at risk for health effects of these pollutants.

Over 11 million vehicles being driven around the world with systems deliberately designed to emit greater levels of pollutants than regulation allows.   How many people have faced “serious health effects” due to Volkswagen’s actions?  How may have had implications “serious enough to send [them] to the hospital”?  How many people are six feet underground who might have been alive if Volkswagen’s executives had not made deliberate decisions to foster increased pollutant emissions?

To date, reporting has discussed the potential financial implications (stock falling, over $7B for a recall, potential for $16B of fines (just in the United States), etc …) and the likely end of VW’s CEO’s tenure due to this.  When will we begin talking about how many people Volkswagen has killed?

When it comes to the use (and, more appropriately, misuse) of analysis, perhaps the most powerful phrase is “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damn lies, and statistics“.

a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments

Today’s Washington Times provides an excellent example of this (ab)use of statistics in an effort to discredit efforts to address climate change by painting these efforts as a massive monetary scheme.

A heads up: in the business consulting world, when one tries to define ‘market’, generally this starts with extremely large definitions. The “Defense” market can include weaponry, construction of bases, information technology contracts to manage health care for dependents, day care provision at military bases, training programs for retiring personnel, etc … In terms of climate change “market” and business activity, this could range from things that ‘all’ consider directly related (such as research work on “climate change” science), things that are partially related but with wider benefit streams (investments in wind turbines which will put electricity into the grid at a lower price than any new fossil fuel power plant; insulating buildings; restorative efforts to Gulf of Mexico wetlands; …) to related but undertaken for other reasons as well (investments in resilience in electricity systems to reduce vulnerability to severe storms). “Market” is everything that you can potentially consider linked to the arena, sometimes with very tight linkage, sometimes very tenuous association.

Leveraging work done by a business consulting firm on the full extent of business opportunities related to “climate change” (note: this report is behind a (high-price) paywall and thus has not been examined for this post), the Times‘s article is entitled An inconvenient truth: ‘Climate change industry’ now a $1.5 trillion global business.

OMG!

$1.5 trillion dedicated to Al Gore!

That is the intended — both overt and implied — take away.

The plaintive calls about global warming and loss of polar bear habitats, the stern warnings about rising seas and flooded coastlines – this is what the public hears about. Then there’s this pesky, inconvenient truth they don’t hear about: $1.5 trillion.

OMG!  $1.5 Trillion!!!!

No serious discussion, of course, of how much of this is the price of putting in wind turbines versus NOAA’s weather satellites versus insulating homes so that are more frugal in energy use and, well, more comfortable live in.

No, because, the real point is: OMG!!! $1.5 TRILLION!!!

The only market segment specifically discussed?

the talkers, creatives and handlers too.

E.g., the “consultants” …

“climate change consulting market … estimates at $1.9 billion worldwide and $890 million in the U.S.”

Of course, $1.9B sounds like (is?) a big number … and all of 1/10th of 1 percent of the headline number.   But, this is ‘look, look, look, these people are earning so much money …”

The Washington Times has provided raw meat for climate science denialist trolling rather than a meaningful contribution to understanding our economy.

This Washington Times article is, politely phrased, a perversion of a more reasoned discussion based on the business report over at Insurance Journal.  From that article, something quite interesting as to that consultant ‘class’: that the work has been moving from greenhouse gas (GHG) analysis toward work on sustainability, resiliency, and adaptation. And why?

credits Superstorm Sandy, along with Hurricane Irene, for jump-starting a new market for climate risk assessment and resiliency solutions in the Northeast and the Gulf Coast.

“I think Sandy definitely stimulated more adaptation planning work,” Ferrier said. “Many more municipalities were requesting climate adaptation study scenarios. (Sandy) was a bit of a shot over the bow of a lot of municipalities.”

Who, other than those municipalities, are clients for these resiliency consulting services?

Those who own large property portfolios, big retailers and giant food producers to name a few. In other words it’s anyone who fears losses from more frequent extreme weather events – whether they are climate change related or not is anyone’s guess and a contentious point for some – as well as those who fear business interruption.

In other words, businesses who are concerned about protecting their businesses are hiring “climate change” consultants to help assure their supply chains, reduce risks from major storms, better plan their long-term capital investments … E.g., those who think strategically recognize that spending on “climate consulting” has solid benefits for their bottom line.

Clearly, the Washington Times doesn’t care itself with fostering such strategic thinking.

A Holy Grail for many for of climate-mitigationefforts is “carbon capture and sequestration” or CCS.  This offers a ‘have your cake and eat it too’ vision related to fossil fuel use. In short, rather than eliminating the burning of fossil fuels (mainly coal here), lets figure out how to capture carbon dioxide (in the smokestack) and ‘sequester’ that CO2 back where we dug it up from originally.

Somewhat like fusion or hydrogen vehicles, the CCS Holy Grail is used by many as sort of a panacea ‘tomorrow’s exciting technology’ to distract attention from already available opportunities to drastically change our collective emissions and climate impact profile (from energy efficiency to renewables to better land use to …). To be clear, we should invest in creating and developing ‘solutions’ for implementation tomorrow even as we invest (far, far more) in deploying things that are already available.

Thus, this brief commentary is not some Luddite manifesto objecting to fostering innovation to increase tomorrow’s toolbox of solutions but a discussion of how we can/should think about CCS in a more productive way. CCS, however, is absolutely the wrong mental structure to apply to the challenge and opportunity.  The issue is “S”: sequestration. Sequestration treats CO2 as a waste product and, just like carting trash to a landfill, will create significant cost streams (transporting CO2 to sequester locations, sequestering it, and monitoring …) with significant risks (what if sequestered CO2 is released? ….???). High cost, high risk, no direct benefit streams to those paying for the costs. Now, if we change that last letter, we might have something far more interesting.

As put here in discussing some innovative technologies

Hy-tek Bio captures exhaust from burning fossil fuels uses this as food for algae growing in tubes. Their system has multiple innovations that look to create viable paths toward cost-effective CCR rather than the overhyped CCS (carbon capture and reutilization vs carbon capture and sequestration).

As we invest to create tomorrow’s opportunities to mitigate (and, sigh, adapt to) climate change, we should look for win-win-win solution sets.  Treating CO2 as waste is more of a win-win-loss structure: a win (reduced carbon emissions) – win (increased business throughput for some firms and increased income for some communities) – loss (increased cost per energy unit and increased risk).  Looking to that CO2 as a resource with value can shift that WWL to a WWW. What are some paths for ‘reuse’ of that CO2 which could be focused on for innovation, demonstration, and deployment support?

• Agrichar / Biochar / Terra Preta:   Very simply, we have the potential for a carbon-negative fuel that will, over time, also foster improve fertility in soil.  Very simply, gasification of biomass can be combined with agricultural practices to create energy, have the waste plowed back into the soil to improve fertility (while reducing fertilizer requirements), and have some of the carbon from each of these cycles captured in the soil.  “[T]he great advantage of biochar is that the technique can be applied world-wide on agricultural soils, and even by rural communities in the developing world because it is relatively low tech.” This is a highly promising arena that is getting attention, but perhaps not enough.  For some additional discussion, for example, see: Biochar: The New Frontier; The pay dirt of El Dorado; International Biochar Initiative; Birth of a New Wedge; and Terra Preta for Carbon Reduction.  When it comes to CCR innovation research, could there be ways to leverage CO2 from smokestacks to enrich other soils in a biochar-like manner.

• Liquid Fuel production:
  1. The U.S. Navy (Office of Naval Research) is doing work to make synthetic fuel from sea-water.  One of the prime ‘resources’ from that sea water?  Carbon from CO2.  Could this be developed in such a way to enable turning high-density CO2 streams from carbon capture in smokestacks to liquid fuels?
  2. Algae/other fuel stocks w/CO2:  A CCR Holy Grail is to have algae farms taking in CO2 from smokestack emissions as a nutrient source and then convert that CO2 to energy. (As the CSM put it a decade ago, “Algae: like a breath mint for smokestacks.)

• Carbon-fiber / Carbon-fiber nanotubes: From bicycles to airplanes to …, carbon-fiber is finding ever more uses across the global economy. The ‘next’ step (leap ahead forward) is coming with carbon-fiber nanotubes. Carbon-fiber nanotubes have great structural strength and offer a path for extremely efficient, light-weight, and incredibly safe movement of electricity. The carbon-fiber nanotube offers the potential for combining structural strength with electricity movement. Imagine eliminating copper wiring from satellites — saving weight (just how valuable is a pound of weight in space), freeing up interior space (again, what is cubic centimeter’s value 23,000 miles above the earth’s surface?), and improving structural strength. As we learn and reduce costs, this equation moves to aircraft, to automobiles, to portable electronic devices, to our built infrastructure. The copper mining industry is a meaningful share of global emissions (pdf). Could carbon capture and reutilization to make carbon-fiber nanotubes provide a path to move the global economy away from using copper for things beyond beautiful kitchen utensils?  Every avoided ton of copper use roughly equates to five tons of avoided mining emissions.  Hmmm …

Note that CCR does have issues. First, the above ideas and other arenas require investment to make them viable realities — they are not ‘there there’ yet for serious climate mitigation benefits.  Second, to the extent that they rely on capturing emissions from smokestacks from fossil fuel burning facilities they are only ameliorating/reducing the worsening of our climate problems as the fossil-fuel burning will add CO2 into the atmosphere. These CCR methods would reduce additional emissions — not directly reduce them. Third … the list can go on.

We cannot afford to treat resources as waste — that is what CCS does. CCR flips the equation from CCS’ high-cost and high-risk path to something that could turn out to be net positive and low risk.  Which sounds more appealing to you?