Dr. Jay Gulledge of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change spoke eloquently and powerfully about how focusing on ‘averages’ of relatively conservative (and optimistic) projections about climate impacts is a mistaken approach to understanding risk (from climate change). Jay’s talk merits attention.
Commander (Dr) Steve Cole, Australian Navy, spoke on Climate Change Implications for the Royal Australian Navy. Among other things, Cole pointed to the complex problems for the Australian Navy in planning for and investing in climate adaptation. For example, he noted that “The first example of sea-level-rise impact will be through storm
water drainage-type systems, which require a head to allow the
water to flow.”
As a synthesis speaker at the tail end of this two day event, I’d like to focus in several arenas:
The need to examine costs and benefits in a systems-of-systems manner.
How we must think differently – and seriously — about risk.
Thoughts about arenas meriting study.
What was/is this conference about? What might make sense for another/future event?
The need to think about costs and benefits in a systems-of-systems fashion
One of the things I’ve been mulling over is, how do we start thinking about climate and energy issues and integrating them in a system-of-systems fashion? To help us head in that direction, I am going to identify some specific issues that I think need more attention.
The first is, how do we start understanding the full values and costs related to energy and climate issues, from both a quantitative and a qualitative perspective?
To see what I mean here, let’s look in more detail at what it means to insulate the tents used to house our Marines in Iraq. We’ve heard that by doing so, we’ll use less fuel in the generators and by doing so free up Marines for patrols.
Before the tents were insulated, the air conditioners had a hard time “cooling” a tent from 130°F down to 100°F. Once the tent was insulated, they had no problem getting it down to 70°F.
Think about what that means to the Marine who is deployed for 6 months or a year. By being able to sleep in a tent at 80°F every night as opposed to 100°F, what do you think that will do to his (or her)operational effectiveness when he needs to go out on patrol? That is a value that needs to be understood and discussed. It goes beyond the value of having fewer Marines escorting convoys. It is not just that the Marines will need fewer fuel tankers, and it is not just that the Marines will be easier to deploy because they’ll have fewer generators and fewer tankers.
There is yet another thing to consider. I remember being deployed in Haiti and living in the tents. All of the generators were parked right next to the tents, and the fumes from those generators would blow into tents. The people in the tents were coughing, feeling sick, and having headaches. Imagine that we are using 10% less fuel because of efficiency measures and cutting it down further by using renewable. How much quieter is it? And, how is the volume of noxious fumes affected? We clearly receive operational effectiveness now, but are not there long-term costs and benefits that we should consider? What is the impact on the long-term health care costs for the personnel involved?
What might the impact be on the local economy if we can reduce deployed forces’ demand for electricity? According to one analysis, about 11% of the diesel fuel that we move around in Iraq is used to generate electricity to run our bases. My understanding is that the amount needed in Afghanistan is several times larger. If we can cut a significant portion of that away, we’ll need to send fewer fuel trucks over the Khyber Pass. Will that make things easier for Afghanistan’s civilian economy because they will now have less competition getting through the border or using the limited road space in that remote country?
We need to be thinking in a more system-oriented fashion.
We need to understand that it is not just about money, but it is also about operational capabilities.
We need to be thinking about capability, capability, capability.
When you hear discussions about greening buildings, most of the conversation is about saved utilities which looks at the issue in quite stove-piped ways. But greening also has a significant impact on worker productivity; the building is quieter, the temperature more comfortable, and the air cleaner. Gains of five, ten, or even more percent in worker productivity are not unusual. What might the impact be in ‘greened’ military facilities – whether at home or overseas.
Yet another potential impact of lowering energy demand is that it improves resilience by reducing the demand on the electrical grid. While I truly appreciate the Secretary of the Navy’s five energy goals, what did he say in his speech yesterday about the USS Makin Island, nicknamed ‘the Prius of the Seas’? He emphasized that it saved $2 million dollars when it sailed from Mississippi to its home port on the west coast due to its hybrid engine system and that this will save $250 million dollars over the ship’s lifetime. This cost focus, however, takes away from the type of benefits that speak to a military culture.Think about how it might be received if he were speaking to a room full of Navy Commanders .Instead of talking about fiscal savings, would the Secretary be more effective if he said something like the following?
“I want all of you to imagine that you get the chance to choose the ship you will command.I will give you a job choice.
·You can take command of Ship A, which has tremendous capability; it carries over a thousand Marines, tens of helicopters, and officers commanding ships like this have won Presidential Unit Citations when they’ve rescued endangered Americans.This ship is magnificent and has a 6,000 nautical mile range.
·Or, you can take command of Ship B, which has tremendous capability; it carries over a thousand Marines, tens of helicopters, and officers commanding ships like this have won Presidential Unit Citations when they’ve rescued endangered Americans.This ship is magnificent and has a 7,000 nautical mile range..
Which ship would you want to command?”
We need to focus on capability, capability, capability as part of our thinking. And, we need to do that in a system-of-systems way so that we take advantage of the fact that a hybrid power plant can support things like directed energy weapons in a way that our old steam plants cannot.
We must think differently – and seriously — aboutrisk.
I agree completely with Dr. Jay Gulledge’s observation that we need to change the way that we think about climate change. The IPCC is wrong because it is underestimating the risks and doing so in a potentially quite significant way. Simply using the average can be dangerous. After all, if Warren Buffet comes into the room, that does not make us all billionaires although if the room is small enough, on average, we would likely all be billionaires as soon as Buffett entered the room.
So how do we start looking at that full end cost, that long tail, and not use the average but take a more conservative approach? Let’s look at one possibility. I think that economists who use discounted costs end up significantly underplaying the economic cost risks associated with climate change. There is some reasonable work, as I recall, that says that climate change could impose a 30–40% hit on the U.S. economy.
What happens to America’s ability to support its military, which some people say requires 4% of gross domestic product (GDP)? If GDP goes down by 40%, what are the implications for the Department of Defense’s ability to secure budget authority?
Vice Admiral McGinn raised another interesting point. If the number of Katrina-like events increases, each of those will impose a hit on the economy, making it harder to support the military. We may also have climate migrants being driven by economic factors. How do we deal with the possibility of drastic changes in our national security posture?
When I look at the tail-end risk, I think perhaps there is a discussion that could come from the military that says when we look at this far-end tail, the risks appear so severe that our reasoned military judgment says that the nation needs to “go all in” to ensure that we can avoid this highest end risk. The tail end is so dangerous, we need an insurance policy.
Some other areas meriting study
Another important issue that deserves analysis is: what strategic communication should be going on within the Navy, both internally and externally? Let me begin by focusing on the internal side. In keeping with my earlier comments, I think the answer is to emphasize capability, capability, and capability. Financial considerations to be a footnote at all times. How can we possibly convince our young sailors and marines that they should risk their lives so that we can save a little money? You’ve got to be kidding me. Are you willing to risk your life to save a penny? Efficiency enhancements need to be sold by providing convincing arguments that they improve capability. The Commandant of the Marine Corps is doing this fantastically well. The Navy is doing this by advertising the 7000-nautical-mile range attained by the USS Makin Island. That needs to be the message throughout the Department of the Navy.
Although the Navy is also addressing climate issues, the military remains a hotbed of global warming skepticism. Perhaps we need a strong internal strategic communication effort based on Dr. Gulledge’s fact-based argument that the IPCC is wrong; they are too optimistic and climate change will be worse than projected. Dr. Gulledge’s arguments are compelling and merit a broader audience within the military community.
The critical challenge for strategic communication is: how do we use it to affect cultural change and get people to think differently about energy and climate issues? What is the best strategic communication pathway for convincing the average sailor, the average marine? The fact that the Commandant of the Marine Corps is willing to spend all day at energy meetings sends a pretty strong signal throughout the Marine Corps that ‘energy matters’ to Marines. But we need to do the same for average civilian and military personnel across the entire Department of the Navy. We also need to engage professional societies and organizations, other militaries, and even public/private partnerships.
And, we need to make certain that we include energy and climate considerations are included in the drafting of requests for proposals (RFPs) to industry. Unless this is done, commercial firms are almost legally obligated to ignore the issue unless we can figure out how to make a profit from it because the chief executive officer is obligated financially. It is just a truism. All of the words are well and good, but unless it is reflected in the government’s requests for proposals that we ask industry to respond to, it will not be part of what goes on.
In terms of strategic communications, we need to ensure that we take advantage of every opportunity. The Secretary of the Navy is doing that. He wants to change how the Navy uses energy, and by doing so, influence how the larger society uses energy. Rear Admiral Titley is doing that by engaging with the other services and with other government agencies in order to create what is essentially an interagency for more effective environmental modeling. Rear Admiral Cullom is doing that by focusing on biofuels.
Where else can the Navy and its money be used effectively?
The Secretary of the Navy has laid out five serious and tangible objectives on energy.These have many driving elements, which start with enhancing Navy capability but also improving larger national security and leveraging U.S. investment to foster more rapid change toward a more sensible energy situation across the whole economy.
The Secretary highlights, for example, that the Navy’s decision to buy significant – and growing – amounts of low-carbon (such as algae) biofuels will provide an assured market to enable producers to ramp up their production capacity, drive down prices with that increased production so that they can move into the larger marketplace. This path could pay off significantly for the nation.
A question to ask, therefore, is where can the Navy effectively invest its resources in meeting the Secretary’s goals, strengthen the naval services, and also foster change in the larger society.
Let me offer just one example.
The Navy is considering buying some 25,000 hybrid vehicles to use on their bases. However, the Navy’s buying 25,000 hybrids over the next 5 years will do little to change the economics associated with manufacturing those vehicles. On the other hand, if the Navy were to buy several hundred hybrid school buses, that might really make a substantial difference. Replacing standard diesel-powered school buses with plug-in hybrid electric school buses (PHESBs) would cut fuel use in half. The manufacturers, last time I checked, stated that an order of 100 or more buses would drive costs down 40 percent (or more.Lowering the purchase price per bus by 40% makes the hybrid cost-equivalent to a regular diesel-powered bus over a 7 year period due to the savings in the amount of fuel that needs to be purchased. And, by the way, some medical research suggests that the number one health risk to America’s public school youth is exposure to diesel fumes from school buses. With plug-in hybrid electric school buses, you cut the exposure by 80%. And, those PHESBs would also be a capability enhancement for Navy bases. These are mobile power generation facilities, able to support a unit’s power requirement on an exercise, power a band concert, or provide emergency power in a natural disaster. And, the PHESB batteries could provide a useful tool for base Smart Grid development.PHESBs would pay off for Navy capability and, if deployed broadly into the Navy, pay off in terms of reduced oil dependency, improved public health, and improved disaster relief capacity. (Think about 1000 PHESBs within a 12 hour drive of the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina.Would 1000 mobile generators, that could show up with relief supplies and a good amount of fuel, have provided significant assistance to the devastated communities?Could the Navy, which has hundred of buses across all of its bases, be that purchaser of a hundred that drops the price from $200,000 per vehicle to under $130,000 to transform PHESBs from a niche research program into a preferred choice for America’s school transportation programs?
What is this conference about? What could it be about?
It is valuable that this conference occurred and I appreciated the opportunity to be engaged in it as part of the synthesis panel.As someone who is deeply engaged in many of these issues and who has been to numerous conferences, I learned (perspectives and information) over the course of the two days.Recognizing this reality, I also have to say that I spent much of the two days wondering who this conference targeted and whether there might have been a more valuable framing of a conference hosted by these two organizations.Why?
First, we have to be clear that the world is awash in interesting energy and climate conferences. A few years ago, a single person could have tracked essentially all the relevant public meetings in DC and, well, attended most of them with spare time.That isn’t the case now.Prior to this symposia, I had some 20 invitations to energy or climate meetings this month. And, during the conference’s two days, I received several more on my Blackberry for the following weeks.
At this conference, there were people like me – who are impassioned on these subjects and have a lot of substantive background.While, as per above, I did learn, there was also a lot of rote discussion for anyone who follows these subjects. On the other hand, there were those in the audience who had little background in the subject matters and much of the material wasn’t in the ‘Energy/Climate 101 world’.Thus, I wondered ‘who’?
More importantly, let us think about the conference hosts and organizers and what the conference could have been.JHU-APL and CNA are the U.S. Navy’s two principal ‘outside’ (but yet insider) research institutions. As noted above, there are many energy conferences, meetings, and events including many that have discussed military energy and climate issues. What has not occurred, as far as I am aware, is a public event focused on the military’s energy and climate research needs and priorities. As preeminent Navy research institutions, JHU-APL and CNA are well positioned to take a leading role in conference focused in this domain.A two-day conference where the first day had Department of Navy (including Navy and Marine Corps officers) speaking of what they see as their energy and climate challenges, opportunities, uncertainties, and concerns.The second day could then focus on a discussion of where the Navy’s research community could help, what gaps might exist, and where the research program should focus.A conference like this would assist the Navy community, help set the JHU-APL/CNA research agendas, and truly stand out as a uniquely valuable event that would bring together people from across the military analytical community.
Core to that research agenda …
Finally, we should also be looking, in a system-of-systems manner, at the full set of structural impediments that hinder our ability to change the way that we use energy and respond to climate change, whether those impediments are legal, fiscal,or otherwise.
Before turning to a discussion of this (great) film, a short note on the festival. This is the “19th Annual Environmental Film Festival in the nation’s capital” and it will bring to the screen some 150 documentaries, animated, archival, children’s, etc films between 15 and 27 March. From astoundingly beautiful vistas (how about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (America’s Wildest Refuge) to the devastatingly destressing (such as a 40-square mile Superfund site in Oklahoma (Tar Creek)), the DC Environmental Filmfest provides a rich montage across the beauty and pain of 21st century environmentalism.
There are a myriad of rich themes within the Festival. The Energy Film Series, for example, has over 20 events — in other words, it is impossible to make it to every film worth seeing. On the other hand, to transition to the film, don’t “bag it” (“to quit, forgo, or give up on”) and — if you’re in the DC area — get yourself to at least some of these great films. And, if you want to be part of the ‘in crowd’, there is the Festival Launch Party, tomorrow, 10 March, with the always amazing and inspiring Van Jones as speaker.
A film worth seeing: Bag It!
This morning, I joined a few hundred Washington, DC, school students to watch Bag It, a film that starts from a simple odyssey questioning plastic bags overwhelming our lives (and, yes, just carry a canvas bag) to a wider exploration of (disposable) plastic in modern life and its impact on us and the broader environment.
This film is well constructed, flows, and delivers a strong message about the perverseness of using depletable resources (fossil fuels) to make things that will last esssentially forever (plastics) in extraordinary amounts (some 700 billion plastic bags per year) that we use for the briefest of moments (plastic wrapping, water bottles, …) that is ending up in the food stream (for both ourselves and throughout the ecosystem). The message, however, is also a positive one: that each of us can take actions to reduce the larger impact (reduce, reuse … and then recycle; make smart choices about what plastics to accept into your life) and also to reduce plastic’s impact on our own lives.
The last is brought to prominence as the film follows Joe Berrier through an odyssey from unawareness of plastic’s issues into substantive knowledge and concern. En route, Joe becomes an expectant father and thus has even greater concerns about impacts from plastics on health and infant development (BPA and Phalates focused on in the film). One segment of the film has Joe getting a test of the chemicals within his system after having worked to reduce plastics in his home life (like no plastic water bottles, not putting plastic in microwave, reduced plastics in body products, etc …). He then takes two days (at a friend’s apartment, away from his pregnant wife) using plastics like a ‘typical’ American (putting his food into a plastic container in the microwave, body creams, etc …). After two days, on average, counts of relevant substances in his body were up … by an average of 51 times. In other words, Joe’s individual actions to reduce plastics in his (and his wife’s and his yet to be born child) life were have having a substantive (and positive) impact on his body composition.
One thematic in the film is how industry (primarily the American Chemical Council) is engaged in a systemic campaign to inhibit movement forward to address environmental, energy, and health risks related to plastics whether this is suing to stop plastic bag bans or baldly asserting that plastics don’t create health risks. As to the first, think ‘paper or plastic’ question at the checkout line. For those who argue that they are essentially equivalent (or that plastic is better due to not cutting down trees), they conveniently leave ‘what happens next’ from the equation. Paper will biodegrade if it makes it to the sea. Plastic could well end looking like a meal to a turtle or a bird.
Bag It is strengthened by the ‘strong cast’ of interviewees, who include experts and heroes (and personal favorites) across numerous domains. Michael Braungart, Cradle to Grave; Annie Leornard, Story of Stuff; Dan Imhoff, Paper or Plastic; Beth Terry, Fake Plastic Fish; Elizabeth Royte, Garbage Land; etc … knowledgeable people, who know how to communicate, and who are well integrated into a compelling ‘story’ of serious risk and real potential to turn things around for the better.
Now, watching it with a horde of schoolchildren added value to the event. From their cheers when DC’s highly successful five-cent per bag program was mentioned (reducing plastic bags by over 70 percent) to groans at descriptions of how infant exposure to plastics can lead to smaller penises, they were an attentive (and engaged) audience who likely came to the Warner Theatre knowing little and now having an awareness of a real issue — with an idea that they, themselves, can have a role in solving it. Let’s hope more like these students see this film and take action based on that experience.
Comments Off on Energy FILMGOER: Don’t “Bag It” and get yourself to the DC Environmental Film FestivalTags:Energy · environmental · plastic · pollution
The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency — Energy held the ARPA-E Innovation Summit last week. As discussed last week, the ARPA-E summit had a number of speeches meriting a read and worthy of far greater audiences. The speech from the ‘governator’, Arnold Schwarzenegger ranks among them.
While the full text is below (and recommended), here are some key points, reaction, impressions …
Body-Building’s Relevance to Climate Change and a Clean Energy Future
Swarzenegger talks about the need to move beyond climate change science:
For too long we have been fighting over greenhouse gases, over global warming, or whether the oceans are going to rise, or whether the scientists are telling us the truth and if the science can be trusted, over whether we will soon be in another ice age. Where is this getting us, I ask myself? What has this brought us?
It reminds me so much of the first days and weeks and months when I came over to America in 1968 about bodybuilding, the sketchy image that it had. It reminded me so much of that. It had such a weird image that even the biggest Hollywood stars that were working out every day, like Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson and Kirk Douglas, didn’t admit they were working out because they didn’t want to be associated with the bad image of bodybuilding, of people with the skimpy bathing suits that were working out in those dungeons and popping 200 liver and yeast pills a day
The governator then spoke of how the ‘body building’ community undertook a campaign to change their sport’s reputation and how ‘body building’ has become truly part of American culture.
Anyway, people had been stuck on the old, narrow perception of bodybuilding. They were stuck on that. And today, in the same way, we are stuck on global climate change. Let’s face it; if we haven’t convinced the skeptics by now, we are not going to. So unless there is something drastic happening like the North Pole breaking off and floating up on the north shore of Long Island, let’s just move past the old arguments, I say. Let’s move past what Democrats and Republicans disagree on, and let’s move to areas where they agree on.
Seeking arenas for agreement … moving to a post-partisan world
Schwarzenegger moves on to articluate that there is an agreement on the need to focus on the economy and jobs. Sadly, this is an arena of great disagreement between the two parties. He states that
From my experience in California, it is absolutely clear that a green economy is the way to keep America competitive abroad and to provide economic growth and jobs at home. And this is not ivory tower thinking. This is not environmental ideology. This is a fact. Green jobs are the largest source of growth in California. As a matter of fact, in the green sector the job growth is 10 times higher than in any other sector.
Sigh. There is a near religious belief among libertarian ideologues that one can’t make green by going Green. …
The Governator moves beyond ‘green’ to the national security imperatives of reducing oil dependency, health issues, competitive positioning vis-a-vis China … “It is critical for the U.S. to lead in this, just like we have led in everything else. When it comes to human rights, we didn’t say to China, you go first.”
I know that we can change the debate and I know that we can win the debate if you start talking about those things. You can’t just keep talking about global warming because most people can’t relate to that, but when people are dying they can relate to that; jobs, they can relate to that; the economy, they can relate to that; national security, they can relate to that. This is why we need to talk about those things.
The benefits are so strong, across so many arenas, that there should be enough of a consensus to support action — even with disagreement about which factors or which issues should be paramount in justifying aggressive moves toward a clean-energy future.
He put it in terms that should resonate with almost all Americans.
I see the model for a competitive America in California right now. It is critical for the U.S. to lead in this, just like we have led in everything else. When it comes to human rights, we didn’t say to China, you go first. (Laughter.) When we landed a man on the moon we didn’t say to the Russians, you try it first. When we developed the computer we didn’t say to the Japanese, why don’t you do it first? No, we led. We were number one. And this is what we need to do also in this, in green technology. What American, Republican or Democrat, would disagree with that?
You believe in American exceptionalism, show it …
More than ‘talk’, need to be willing to fight
the important thing that we do in California is after we pass important legislation, we also protect it because it’s very important to recognize that at any given time the old order rises up and wants to undo our environmental progress
The Governor then turned to discussing how out-of-state fossil-foolish industries went all out to get voters to turn back the Califronia’s climate legislation. He spoke of how Republicans and Democrats worked together to battle these interests (and Proposition 23) who argued that “envrionmental laws were no good … lose jobs and the economy will go down, it will be terrible and California will fall into the ocean.”
The people didn’t buy in on the argument. As a matter of fact, the people recognized what they really wanted to do is continue polluting California. And so therefore, the people said, “Hasta la vista, baby” to all of those coal and oil companies and they “terminated” them 61 to 39.
Three things to change America …
As he put it, we can “see the model for a competitive America in California right now.” Schwarzenegger articulated three specific arenas (steps) which the nation could undertake — emulating California — to put people back to work, strengthen the economy, improve America’s competitive position, and address climate change.
Imagine if the United States as a whole adopted an energy policy that instituted just three of the policies from Califronia, three … just to make it simple. We don’t want to make it too complicated.
1. Match California’s energy efficiency.
California is 40 percent more energy efficiency than the U.S. “If the nation followed the same polices that made California more energy efficient, the average American electric bill would go from $1400 (a year) down to $840, a savings fo $560. Now, Republicans and Democrats would like that. And, you know what ould happen as a result? We would have a decgrease in greenhouse gases. … a decrease of a billion tons per year.”
2. Match California’s Renewable Energy Standard (RES)
If the United States matched California’s 33 percent clean electricity by 2020 standard, it would enabling shutting down 75 percent of the nation’s old coal plants.
3. Automobile fuel efficiency
The automobile fuel efficiency standards will “save motorists an average of $1300 a year” as opposed to increased fuel prices due to supply/demand pressures leading to increased costs of over $100 barrel oil of well over $1300 a year.
Now, do the math. Just those three policies from California would save American households thousands of dollars a year and it also will cut greenhouse gases a total of 50 percent, and we could close three-quarters of all of our coal plants. Now, that would be great policy. Why are we debating the science when we could be discussing the progress here?
The pleasure of watching people who can talk with each other
Schwarzenegger (‘Conan the Barbarian’ / ‘Terminator’) and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu (bike-riding Nobel-prize winning physicist) have developed, it seems, a comfortable and joking relations. In some ways, these two can be pointed to as representing the bookends of American culture from popular escapist violent movies to the pinnacle of the Ivory tower. While the clip starts with Schwarzenegger’s joking about how Chu corraled him into the speech, not there are Chu’s jokes about how he (Chu) had managed to walk off the stage with Schwarzengger’s speech at past events. Sitting in an audience, it provides a belief in meaningful dialogue between opinion leaders when they are so clearly comfortable joking about (and with) each other.
March 6th, 2011 · Comments Off on Is your glass of wine a canary in the coal mine?
This guest post from DWG provides a window as to how Global Warming is impacting and is reflected in one of the world’s oldest agricultural luxuries with, as well, some of the most extensive and detailed records related to harvests and weather. As I wrote several years ago in Sipping our way to a warmer world?
Canary in the coal mine? Perhaps, in part, because this is a canary we’ve been watching a long time. A canary that is sensitive to change. And, due to the financial (and other) implications, a canary where change is noticed … and noticed with concern.
Global warming sucks. You have to put up with ridiculous heat waves, intensification of precipitation events, disruption of the hydrological cycle, droughts, ocean acidification, and adaptive stresses on plants and animals. And then you have the army of politicians spouting talking points and pocketing cash from fossil fuels companies. Round that off with the belligerently stupid and gullible that want to believe everything is fine because they have money or think Jesus is coming back soon. It is just a dreadful buzzkill.
Good wine makes it all somewhat more tolerable or at least forgettable. But now comes more depressing news, this time from Bordeaux.
“The most pessimistic scenario says that the climate will no longer be suitable for Cabernet and Merlot wines by the middle of the century,” said Jean-Pascal Goutouly, a wine expert at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research in Paris, at a recent conference.
February 28th, 2011 · Comments Off on Buoyed by optimism …
Amid Peak Oil concerns (and spiking oil prices), ever-worsening news about our collective headlong rush toward catastrophic climate chaos, economic challenges, and … sometimes it can be hard to have optimism about America’s future (and, well, humanity’s …). Despair, to the point of looking toward bunkers, is not an uncommon feeling for those most knowledgeable about humanity’s energy practices and/or climate change science. Sometimes, however, opportunities exist to immerse oneself in reasons — substantive and meaningful — reasons for optimism
Today was the first day of the (second) annual Advanced Research Projects Agency — Energy (ARPA-E) Innovation Summit. And, spending a day with the 1000+ attendees provides reasons for feeling optimism.
ARPA-E staff: Without exception, every person associated with ARPA-E has impressed me. These are highly (extremely) competent and qualified people who, to a great extent, have given up more lucrative positions to give time in public service. These are very top-notch people who are serving a mission that they believe in.
The attendees are ‘problem solvers’, technological and otherwise. And, the room was filled with impassioned people seeking to engage with others to figure out how to foster movement forward in clean energy, energy efficiency, water desalination, etc …
This is a space of private-public, government-academia-industry cooperation and mutual respect that provides a window on (even though nothing is perfect) how well things can work.
ARPA-E is focused on fostering revolutionary change in key technology arenas that will enable leap forwards. These extremely competent people are targeting arenas where they see the possibility for real change.
ARPA-E has seen some 7000 applications from some of America’s best and brightest scientists and engineers. This provides ARPA-E a unique window on the state of energy technology development in the United States and the possible developments in the coming years. In response to a question, Dr. Arun Majumdar, Director ARPA-E, commented
We get a bird’s eye view of what is out there.
It is absolutely amazing how much innovation is out there.
This gives me great confidence about America’s future.
ARPA-E has programs underway to greatly improve building energy efficiency (such as targeting a halving of air conditioning power demands through developing new technologies), to develop cost-effective grid electricity storage, etc …
What Secretary of Energy called the ‘sunshot’ to react to the 21st Century Sputnik moment is ARPA-Es integrated effort to slash the cost of installing solar power. Solar costs are falling, fast, right now with costs about $3.40 per watt right now split between three areas: the photovoltaiic (PV) modules (about 50%); balance-of-systems (BOS — think permitting, inspections, installation, sales, etc) (about 40%); and power electronics (about 10% of costs). The just-formed (January 2011) team is laying out a path to cut solar photovoltaiic (pv) costs — installed — to less than $1 per watt leading to levelized-cost of electricity (LCOE) of 5-6 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) for industrial installations by 2020. Achieving this would boost, by 2040, solar PV electricity to over 15 percent of US electricity supply rather than the roughly 2 percent that is likely under ‘business as usual’ (BAU) scenarios.
ARPA-E received $400 million in the stimulus package — honestly, about a tenth of the amount that this author saw as merited. Let’s take this figure … what if ARPA-E received $400 million per year for the decade or $4 billion. What if every program failed (and there are many others with serious value that ARPA-E is funding and pursuing that will have successes) except the Sun Shot? $4 billion to lay the groundwork for American-made clean energy projects that can outcompete dirty energy systems even without accounting for external costs. That would be 4 billion extremely well spent dollars.
Faced with weather shocks knocking out electricity and Republican political ascendancy seeking to knock truth out of public discourse, Tidwell is “changing his life again.” As Mike put it in a Washington Post OPED today,
I’m not a survivalist or an “end times” enthusiast. When it comes to climate change, I’m just a realist.
While Mike will almost certainly continue his battle to foster societal climate mitigation efforts, he is turning (at least some of) his energy to preparing for battling through a climate devastated future.
For those aware of climate change (and Peak oil and …), there is a simple question to ask: have you reached this point?
Globally, humanity faces many serious challenges that relate to resource challenges. Writ large there is a calculation: # of people * resource use per capita = demand on resources. Very simply, that last (the “demand”) is overwhelming natural resources: we are overfishing, tropical forests are disappearing, top soil disappears in dust storms, acquifer water is being pumped ever faster, our atmosphere is changing composition (notably with increased greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations, such as Co2 and methane), and we are burning through fossil fuels in fossil-foolish means. As to the last, the typical term is “Peak Oil” — that, in a very simple factual statement, at some point we have used up half the reserves and that will drive a peak in production (with likely a plateauing of production for some time) that will inevitably turn to declining production year-to-year. Yes, there are plenty of carbon molecules in the ground, but ‘cheap and easy oil’ is running short and looks likely to have already peaked (or will so in the near future).
On the other side of supply, of course, is demand and the world’s economy (humanity) has shown an ever-increasing appetite for fossil fuels with notably fossil-foolish ways when it comes to oil. We have, almost certainly, avoided Malthusian type predictions as fossil fuels (primarily oil) have enabled The Green Revolution globally and the globalization of food supplies. Our transportation system is overwhelming oil based. (Especially in the developed world), a tremendous amount of our ‘daily routine’ is infused with oil-based products (not just ‘plastics’).
Thus, oil supply growth is slowing (if not already stopped) and headed, essentially inevitably, toward decline even as demand grows (through, for example, McSUV sales leading the U.S. car market … still). Even without turmoil, the situation is ripe for economic and other disruption.
Into this mix, we have Qaddafi’s threat to destroy Libya’s oil infrastructure as part of his effort to maintain his (and his family’s) control.
Oil prices are rising … And, in the face of this, the House Natural Resources Committee majority (e.g., Republican) sent out this twitter question:
“Offshore drilling to reduce the price of gas to spur truck sales.”
Yes, we should “drill” but how many times does it need to be said? Offshore drilling is, at best, a 1 cent, 1 percent solution 20 years off to the question of gasoline prices. According to (Bush Administration) Department of Energy analysis, offshore drilling would:
Lead to a 1.2 cent reduction in gasoline prices.
Provide 1 percent of today’s US oil demand and 0.25 percent of global demand (about 200,000 barrels per day of production compared to 20 million barrels/day of US demand and global demand (over 80 million barrels / day)
Do this by 2030 …
Yes, a 1 cent, 1 percent solution, 20 years from now would “spur truck sales” and adequately answer today’s challenge of Libyan unrest threatening world oil supply and the world’s economy.
Yes, we need to “Drill, Baby, Drill” … but the resource to tap is one staring them (and us all) in the face that they (and too many of U.S.) seem unable to see.
Very simply, we should drill the bottomless well of energy efficiency. We could, with reasoned and not emergency measures, reduce our oil usage (and other fossil-foolish dependencies) five percent per year (year-in, year-out) while improving the economy, putting more Americans back to work, reducing our vulnerability to foreign disruption of oil (Libya, anyone?), improving our national security, improving our balance of payments, improving our health, improving our productivity (healthier workers and students translates, directly, to better performance), and, oh by the way, reducing the damage to our planetary climate system (and other pollution impacts).
The world’s economy hangs on the precipice and we need to act seriously … and the first measure of ‘serious’ is whether we look to identify where the real problems are and where opportunities exist to address those problems. The United States has roughly two percent of the world’s oil reserves while burning over twenty percent of demand. To accelerate drilling to pull out our own oil, faster, while it remains relatively inexpensive (compared to where it will be the day after tomorrow) is not serious action. Consider this analogy: you are driving on the highway and your empty tank light comes on. Luckily, the next highway gas station is only a few miles away but you get there and see it is closed for repair. The next station isn’t for another 25 miles and you’re already concerned that you’re driving on fumes. Do you speed up to get there faster or do you drive for optimum fuel efficiency to improve the chances of arriving there. America shouldn’t be ‘accelerating’ toward an empty tank but should focus on making the tank last longer via ever more efficient uses of these resources.
For thoughts re opportunities to cut oil demand by 5+% per year, indefinitely, see after the fold.
Yes, Representative Whitfield pushed through this legislation because it removed coal out of the Capitol Power Plant (which, until then, was the greatest single polluter in Washington, DC, and causing asthma and other ailments) and, he claimed, because it had the audacity to be moving its efforts from the DC offices to helping Representatives green their district offices around the country.
Whitfield said today that he offered the amendment because he believes Pelosi’s greening program was more a political stunt than a real effort to save taxpayers money.
Hmmm …
Perhaps, Congressman Whitfield, this was not “political stunt” but tangible leadership. Executing a program that shows the value streams associated with Energy Smart measures from those ‘twisty bulbs’ that cut electricity demand by over 70 percent, bathrooms that work well with less water waste, and otherwise — energy and resource saving measures that improve the work atmosphere.
Today, we say that the Capitol will not only be just a shining example of our democracy, but a symbol of our commitment to the future. – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, June 21, 2007
As a result of aggressive implementation and extensive outreach and education, sustainability is becoming a routine part of life on Capitol Hill. Perceptions have adjusted and attitudes have shifted toward new business practices and workplace standards.
At the House, green has become the new normal.
Sigh … while this might have been true prior to November 2010, for the House, the “new normal” is far from a “symbol of our commitment to the future” but a dedicated readiness to “Eat the Future,” as per Paul Krugman. “The Republicans face a budget conundrum, and their answer is to sacrifice tomorrow.”
Green the Capitol had tangible, direct impact. What did the program achieve in 2010?
An expected 23 percent reduction in total energy consumption in all House Office Buildings
An anticipated 32 percent reduction in total water usage across the Capitol Campus
A savings of 265 tons of unused paper to date
A reduction of 375,000 watts of energy used in the House’s computer center
A total of 1,800 tons of paper recycled annually
An annual savings of more than 1.1 million kilowatt hours of electricity from the installation of 13,000 CFL light bulbs
The purchase of 120 million –kilowatt hours of clean, renewable wind-generated electricity
These numbers, however, provide only a shadow of a window on what the impacts were within the House for the U.S. taxpayer. Very roughly, energy costs total about one percent the costs of the people occupying an office building. Greening programs often lead, as per the bullets above, to direct financial savings from that one percent of the costs of the people in the building. More important, however, for anyone attuned to business thinking would realize that the 100 percent of personal costs are of much greater interest.
Greening programs save money due to reduced resource demands … however, they also provide value on that 100%. Real-world experience after real-world experience, study after study, financial accounting after accounting shows that greening office buildings (and factories and schools (also about House Republicans opposing a very high payoff program to help America’s future) and hospitals (pdf) and jails …) leads to improved productivity and improved results. A Rocky Mountain Institute study from the 1970s, by Joe Romm and Bill Browning, Greening the Building and the Bottom Line provides eight short case studies where ‘greening’ efforts led to significant productivity improvements, such as a Boeing case where daylighting reduced error rates on a production line by over 20 percent. A 2009 University of San Diego study examined over a hundred of buildings and thousands of tenants to differentiate between green and ‘non-green’ buildings. Overall, using very conservative standards,
when comparing “green” to non-green buildings, their work showed a reduction in sick leave of 2.88 days per year, on average, and a 4.88% productivity improvement. That translates, based on the salaries, to a value to the employer of $1,228.54 due to reduced sick leave and $5,204 due to productivity increases.
“Value to the employer” (e.g., to you and me — the taxpayer — for the Capitol) of nearly $6500 per year per employee, which is many times the costs of the greening. And, by the way, reduced utility costs more than paid for that greening.
The Greening the Capitol program essentially was a wash when it came to energy savings (due to efforts to clean up the Capital Power Plant, among other things) but it almost certainly has been an incredibly profitable investment for the American taxpayer through fostering a healthier and more productive Congressional staff.
The Republican House Majority is willing to through this profit into the drain with, it seems, utter disdain for the productivity and health of their own employees.
Well, in the 21st century, associated with prospects for killing off funding for those public outlets and for creating havoc for years to come through using a fossil-foolish butchers’ knives to the Federal budget, this guest post from JW Randolph suggests that perhaps we should be considering the neighborhood of another Mr. Rogers … and the implications of that Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood for America’s future.
Appalachia saw several new threats arise in Congress yesterday, as Representatives of Congress introduced bad amendment after bad amendment after bad amendment to the already dangerous Budget Resolution (H.R. 1) that is due to be voted on as soon as tonight. In all, more than 400 amendments were filed yesterday and an additional 180 have been filed today. Many of them reflected Congressman Hal Rogers’ own sentiments about how to govern – disregarding citizen protections and sound science, while encouraging the complete and utter deregulation of large polluting industries that are a threat to public health and well-being. We’ve seen what happens when Mr. Rogers’ policies are put into place, as they have been in eastern Kentucky for decades.
Hal Rogers’ neighborhood may be “dead first” in mountaintop removal, but out of the 435 congressional districts in the United States, his ranks:
– 435th in life expectancy (dead last)
– 435th in physical health (dead last)
– 435th in overall well-being (dead last)
– 435th in emotional health (dead last)
Kentucky ranks dead last in healthy behavior, and 49th in overall well-being, emotional health, and physical health (behind WV of course). More mountaintop removal will only make these problems with the health of Appalachian people even worse. Its hard to get worse than worst, but Hal Rogers is doing his darndest. [Read more →]
Perhaps my favorite line of all is when the young woman asks Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Exxon) a perplexing question:
I don’t understand why my generation has to suffer because you don’t like what you’re hearing.
There are several striking items here that merit highlighting, for example, the lobbyist who comments — almost certainly correctly — that “science doesn’t really matter in the policy debate,” but let us focus just on one: the value of taking Jim Inhofe at his word.
Embrace Inhofe
When questioned “what if you’re wrong?”, Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Fossil Fools) responds with “you need to think about what if you’re wrong”.
I hope that Senator Boxer or Kerry or … listens to Senator Inhofe. This would make a magnificent set of scientific hearings entitled “What if you’re wrong about climate science and policy solutions?”
These hearings could easily follow the simple quadrant proposed in What’s the Worst That Can Happen?: along the left column “climate science right or wrong” and along the top “action / inaction”.
What happens in a realistic and honest evaluation of ‘the worst that can happen’ in the four quadronts?
False/Action: We might slow economic growth enough to push back 2050’s achieved level of growth to June rather than January. We would, however, also reduce cancers due to burning fossil fuel, improve the balance of payment by reducing oil imports, and allow pregnant women to eat predator fish (such as tuna) because the mercury levels would fall as we reduce the burning of coal. If we listen (and accept at face value) the claims from fossil-foolish interests, this could create a recession or two in the decades to come. This might be like paying for health insurance (which provides some wellness programs as a side benefit) and not getting sick …
False / No Action: Status quo, business as usual.
True / Action: As per Greg Craven, we would have “saved our hides”.
True / No Action: Climate Change continues unchecked — even accelerated — with catastrophic implications on environmental, social, political, public health, economic, national security, and other terms.
The Democratic Senate leadership should, in true bipartisan fashion, embrace Senator Inhofe and hold hearing and hearing focused on “What if you’re wrong”? Let Senator Inhofe bring in his witnesses (Monckton???) and let reality-based witnesses testify as well (the Presidents of the World’s Academy of Sciences, perhaps???). The ‘story’ line — and truth — would be clear to see for all with even the most slightly open of eyes.
“If there’s a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping Al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.” Cheney contended that the U.S. had to confront a very new type of threat: a “low-probability, high-impact event.”
If there is 1 percent that the world’s leading scientists and scientific institutions are correct, that humanity is driving climate change and climate change presents grave risks for humanity …
We face a climate catastrophe that will define our generation and the future of our county, and the solutions to this crisis will create jobs and improve public health. So why aren’t we acting? Unfortunately, the answer is simple: Capitol Hill is swarming with “Climate Cranks” — politicians willing to trade our future for their own political gain. The science does matter. Our future is at stake, and our position is non-negotiable. We need strong climate legislation based on the facts, not the politics, and we need it soon. And we are willing to stand together again and again until our message gets through.
Some other areas meriting study
and is reflected in one of the world’s oldest agricultural luxuries with, as well, some of the most extensive and detailed records related to harvests and weather. As I wrote several years ago in 
simple quadrant proposed in 