Articles by Joseph Romm

The energy impact of web searches is very low

Some myths are hard to kill. The Times Online "reports":

Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research ...

While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. "Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power," said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon.

The overhyping of the internet's energy use goes back a decade, pushed by two right-wing deniers, Mark Mills and Peter Huber. They were actually using their easily-refuted analysis to argue against climate restrictions -- I kid you not. In this 1999 press release [PDF] from the laughably-named denier group, the "Greening Earth Society," Mills says:

While many environmentalists want to substantially reduce coal use in making electricity, there is no chance of meeting future economically-driven and Internet-accelerated electric demand without retaining and expanding the coal component.

I ended up writing a major report debunking this myth and then testifying in front of the Senate Commerce committee [PDF] (i.e. John McCain) and the House [PDF] on the subject. Jon Koomey and others at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) did even more work debunking this nonsense (click here for everything you could possibly want to know on the subject).

There are actually two mistakes in the Harvard calculation. The first, which was the focus of my research, is the big picture issue. What is the net energy consumed by the internet? I argue the internet is a net energy saver -- and a big one -- since it increases efficiency (especially in things like the supply chain) and dematerialization (it uses less energy to research online than in person). The fact that U.S. energy intensity (energy consumed per dollar of GDP) began dropping sharply in the mid-1990s is but one piece of evidence that internet- and IT-driven growth is less energy intensive.

I, for instance, am able to work at home and telecommute thanks to the Internet and a broadband connection. That saves the energy consumed in commuting and a considerable amount of net building energy: Most people's homes are an underutilized asset, which consume a great deal of energy whether or not they are there.

The other mistake just involves the more narrow question of how much energy is consumed by Googling. Wissner-Gross says it is 7g of CO2 per search. My LBNL colleagues say that is way too high, and Google itself has rebutted that analysis with their own, which I reprint here:

No to phony clean coal credits, yes to refundable, renewable tax credits

The green stimulus is beginning to take shape with mostly good stuff in the stocking, except one big lump of coal.

The package is getting bigger -- no surprise. The Washington Post writes:

Congressional leaders and Obama advisers are looking at including as much as $25 billion of energy tax credits in the economic stimulus package in an effort to bolster renewable energy projects, fuel-efficient cars and biodiesel production, said sources familiar with the negotiations ...

The main elements under consideration include a two-year, $8.6 billion extension of the production tax credit [PTC] for renewable energy, an item that favors wind power projects. Obama advisers are considering a proposal from the wind and solar industry that would make those credits refundable or count them against past taxes because many financial firms that provided capital for those projects no longer have taxable income and can't use the credits.

I understand why only a two-year PTC extension is being floated from a narrow stimulus perspective, but seriously, people, it's time for a much longer extension to give the industry firmer ground. The solar investment tax credit got an eight-year extension last year! Is there any possibility that an Obama administration with a Democratic Congress won't eventually extend the PTC that long? So don't play games with the industry. The idea of making the credits refundable is an important one I will elaborate on in part 2.

The bill could also include tax credits for service stations that install high-ethanol-content fuel pumps, a $7,500 tax credit for plug-in vehicles, an extension of the biodiesel credit, and one for coal-fired power plants that capture more than half of their carbon emissions or that could be retrofitted to do so later. There could also be clean-energy credits for rural cooperatives.

Apparently someone missed the memo that plug-ins already have a $7,500 tax credit -- which in any case won't be doing much stimulating since there aren't any plug-ins to stimulate!

Memo to Dems: Please, please, please, do not give a tax credit to any coal-fired plants "that could be retrofitted" for capturing carbon. So-called "capture ready" coal plants are nothing but snake oil, just like clean coal itself.

Congress does not want to be in the business of trying to pass regulations to determine how many angels are dancing on the head of a pin whether it might be easier or harder for some new climate-destroying coal plant to some day integrate carbon capture. Either a new coal plant captures and permanently sequesters the vast majority (not just half) of its carbon emissions now, or it should not be permitted in the first place. Stop trying to fool the public into thinking we can risk building any more new coal plants with unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions. We cannot.

One of the most exciting stimulus proposals is aimed at boosting clean-energy financing during this credit crunch:

Robert Mendelsohn says global warming is 'a good thing for Canada'

I asserted in Part 1 that economists don't understand climate science. Exhibit 1 would be Robert Mendelsohn, an economics professor at Yale University, whose "research" has prompted headlines in our neighbor up north like "A warmer climate could hold lots of benefits for Canada" and "The UP side of global warming":

Leading the charge is Robert Mendelsohn, an economics professor at Yale University, who says the benefits of global warming for Canada -- from a longer growing season to the opening up of shipping through the Northwest Passage -- will outweigh the negative effects.

"You're lucky because you're a northern-latitude country, Mendelsohn says. "If you add it all up, it's a good thing for Canada."

This series will have three recurring themes about Voodoo Economists aka Mainstream Economists who Opine on Weather (MEOWs):

1. MEOW's understanding of what global warming is doing to the planet now and what it is likely to do by 2100 on our current emissions path ranges from arrogantly incomplete to criminally ignorant. They really talk more about the weather than the climate.
2. MEOW's cost-benefit calculations ["if you add it all up"] are analytically unsound and qualify more as an opinion than a scientifically accurate statement.
3. The right wing loves what the economics profession is saying and publishing on climate, which is why they quote and cite them so giddily.

For instance, you would never know from this article -- or any of Mendelsohn's comments -- that Canada is already suffering widespread and completely unpredicted devastation from climate change:

"The pine beetle infestation is the first major climate change crisis in Canada" notes Doug McArthur, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.

The pests are "projected to kill 80 per cent of merchantable and susceptible lodgepole pine" in parts of British Columbia within 10 years -- and that's why the harvest levels in the region have been "increased significantly." One analyst calls the devastation "probably the biggest landscape-level change since the ice age."

Losing every harvestable pine tree in British Columbia is apparently not a big deal to arrogant MEOWs like Mendelsohn:

Forests will become more productive, Mendelsohn says. The northern forests will expand into the tundra and the southern forests will grow better. The types of trees in different regions will change. Fire and disease might well take out old forests, but Mendelsohn says forestry companies can also be allowed to go in and take out at-risk trees. "Rather than let it be destroyed naturally, you harvest it into the marketplace and then just let the natural systems replace what should be there next."

Yeah, cut down the "old forests" before the climate-driven pests get them and replace them with "what should be there" -- that's an economic plus for everyone! If you look up hubris in the dictionary ...

The reality on the ground is quite different than the opining from Mendelsohn's ivory tower (Note to self: Maybe the towers are made of ivory because in economist-land there ain't no friggin' trees left). As the Chicago Tribune reported this month in a story titled, "Canada's forests, once huge help on greenhouse gases, now contribute to climate change":

Half of world's population could face climate-driven food crisis by 2100

"Ignoring climate projections at this stage will only result in the worst form of triage."

The headline is from the University of Washington news release on a study in Science, "Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat" ($ub. req'd). The quote is the study's powerful final sentence. The release explains:

Rapidly warming climate is likely to seriously alter crop yields in the tropics and subtropics by the end of this century and, without adaptation, will leave half the world's population facing serious food shortages, new research shows ...

"The stresses on global food production from temperature alone are going to be huge, and that doesn't take into account water supplies stressed by the higher temperatures," said David Battisti, a University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor.

Worse, the study must also be considered a serious underestimate of likely impacts since, as is common in such analyses, they based their simulations on "the 'middle of the road' emission scenario, A1B." In 2100, A1B hits about 700 ppm with average global temperatures "only" about 3°C warmer than today. In fact, on our current emissions path, we are going to get much, much hotter.

Figure. "Histogram of summer (June, July, and August) averaged temperatures (blue) observed from 1900 to 2006 and (red) projected for 2090 for (A) France, (B) Ukraine, and (C) the Sahel. Temperature is plotted as the departure from the long-term (1900-2006) climatological mean (21). The data are normalized to represent 100 seasons in each histogram. In (A), for example, the hottest summer on record in France (2003) is 3.6°C above the long-term climatology. The average summer temperature in 2090 [assuming A1B] is projected to be 3.7°C greater than the long-term climatological average."

The results are still alarming: