Climate Climate & Energy

Review of climate change impact economics

Paul Krugman has a blog post about one of my favorite economists, Marty Weitzman. He has the central point right, which is that “on any sort of expected-welfare calculation, the small probability of catastrophe dominates the expected loss.” But Krugman’s general lack of understanding of global warming — and his willingness to believe anything Bjørn […]

Industry report touts potential for biotech crops to combat climate change

I am always a sucker for a catchy sounding report -- like the one the World Business Council for Sustainable Development released last week: "Agricultural Ecosystems: Facts and Trends." It had it all: the noble sounding "Council," the association between agriculture and ecosystems, and the appeal to my inner science-geek with words like "facts" and "trends." I printed it out enthusiastically and got out my highlighter, ready to read all of the fascinating new insights into agriculture, food, and the environment.

I was intrigued by the beginning section on consumer patterns which detailed the increased demand for meat in developing countries and the impact this might have worldwide. One section focused on the role of animal production in climate change. I skipped along to the climate section nodding my head in agreement the entire time: converting grasslands to agriculture is a huge source of carbon dioxide emissions; conventional agriculture can threaten biodiversity; and agricultural greenhouse gas emissions can be mitigated by integrated crop management and minimum tillage. I balked a bit when they cited that agriculture produced 14 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the year 2000 (since then the United Nations has stated that animal production alone produces 18 percent of our global greenhouse gas emissions), but I still felt confident that the report might be worth something.

Maybe I set my expectations a bit high.

The cheaper the power, the more we use

I'm going to geek out for a second. But first, check out this graph:

I suppose there are two lessons:

1. Price and consumption are not perfectly correlated. Clearly there are many non-price factors affecting electricity consumption. (These include, at least, the local climate, building size and type, and local energy efficiency policies.) But still ...
2. Price definitely affects use, and the fit gets better as you move up the price axis. The more expensive electricity is, the less likely consumers are to be profligate.

In energy circles it's sometimes alleged that consumers are price insensitive or economically irrational about consumption. There's some truth to that, but it's only a partial truth.

These charts help demonstrate why carbon pricing can be effective. Putting a price on carbon -- or a price on energy -- acts to reduce consumption. Price is not the only factor and it may not even be the biggest factor, but it does appear to matter. And it appears to matter more above about 10 or 12 cents per kilowatt hour.

This hooks into a larger debate in the Western Climate Initiative.

Richard Cizik and enviro religious leaders speak to Grist on climate leadership

Evangelicals have been absent without leave from the climate change discussion, failing to push the Republican Party to take the issue seriously, according to Richard Cizik, the vice president for governmental affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals. Evangelicals, Cizik said, are looking for "prophetic leadership" to champion the climate cause. Surprisingly, he said that voice may not come from traditional conservative circles.

"The advantage that Barack Obama brings to the equation is that he doesn't have the rest of his party -- a significant wing of his party -- telling him to go slow or do nothing," Cizik told Grist last week when he was in Seattle for an exhibition of wildlife photography at the Burke Museum on the University of Washington campus. He stopped by Grist's office with LeeAnne Beres of Earth Ministry and Peter Illyn of Restoring Eden to discuss the need for religion to engage in the climate debate and take responsibility for its lack of action on the "moral and spiritual problems" of climate change.

Evangelicals AWOL from climate debate

2008 presidential race

Though unwilling to endorse any political candidate and open about his personal alliances to the GOP, Cizik did express his disapproval of the Republican party's stick-in-the-mud attitude toward climate change. He called for "bold action," and rejected the "climate-light Bushisms" that the party has been dangling before the American people. He said he "always liked John McCain for his green stand," but recognized Barack Obama as the "greener" candidate who could take climate action without having to drag his party along kicking and screaming.

A pro-life view of creation

Known primarily for focusing on abortion and other social issues, Evangelicals are latecomers to the climate debate. However, as Illyn said, "creation care" can be considered a way to strengthen and enlarge the pro-life vision.

Illyn also acknowledged Barack Obama for his climate positions, but he's not eager to give up on John McCain:

Huge chunk breaks off Arctic ice shelf; 2008 Arctic melt not likely to break record

A 1.5-mile ice chunk broke off the Arctic’s largest remaining ice shelf last week. The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf in northern Canada has been thinning gradually since the 1950s, so the break-off was predictable but still relatively significant. “Once you unleash this process by cracking the ice shelf in multiple spots, of course we’re going […]

Short, medium, and long-term solutions to phase out oil

As opposed to emission or energy, what can we do about oil? As I've said in the past: not a lot. But "not a lot" is not equal to zero.

Here are some pretty immediate things we can do:

1. There have been some real drops in oil use in response to increased prices. I think Charles Komanoff once suggested that various types of conservation and efficiency measures could reduce oil use 10 percent more or less overnight [PDF]. Many of his suggestions are not exactly pain-free, but neither are the reductions we are making anyway in response $100 plus per barrel oil.
2. Alan Blinder's proposal to buy oil guzzling clunkers back from owner at a premium -- old, fairly cheap cars only. These tend not to be the cars driven the most miles. Still, there would be real savings.
3. Increased telecommuting. We are not going to switch everyone with an office job to 100 percent work-from-home mode. But putting in place some modest incentives, along with public education that help rebut some of the most common myths about telecommuting could get some modest immediate increases.
4. Increased subsidies to existing rapid transit. Existing buses and trains should not have to cut services right when more people want to use them.
5. Increased support for car pooling and van pooling. More incentives for companies to set up such pools, plus funding for services (such as the ones we already see) will make it easy for people interested in pooling private vehicles across companies to do so.

Below the fold you will find some things we can do that are not immediate, but can be done pretty quickly.

NYT: Consumers are complaining about ethanol-spiked gasoline

As ethanol continues to insinuate itself into the fuel supply — propelled by a slew of government goodies — ordinary folks are getting fed up, The New York Times reports: Many consumers complain that ethanol, which constitutes as much as 10 percent of the fuel they buy in most states, hurts gas mileage and chokes […]

The urgency to begin CO2 reduction via efficiency

If what you want to do is solve global warming, the core strategy is energy efficiency. Efficiency may have displaced more than half of all the new growth in electric consumption last year alone. It is already adding more capacity to the U.S. electric resource than all fossil and renewable fuels combined. It has done so for almost forty years, at least. So raising it enough to eliminate the new growth and some of the existing growth is not only fairly practical, it is cheaper than keeping the old coal plants operating.

Solar thermal expected to double every 16 months for the next five years

Solar baseload, concentrated solar thermal electric (with a few hours of storage), is a core climate solution. Earth Policy Institute has a useful update with lots of data,"Solar Thermal Power Coming to a Boil" (reprinted below). Key factoid:

With concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) capacity expected to double every 16 months over the next five years, worldwide installed CSP capacity will reach 6,400 megawatts in 2012-14 times the current capacity.

You can find the existing large solar baseload plants and the 50 or so currently proposed solar baseload plants here.

EPI has an astonishing goal of "cutting carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020," with a goal of 200,000 MW of solar baseload worldwide. I think the solar baseload goal is doable, but the carbon goal makes me a techno-pessimist -- heck, it makes Al Gore a techno-pessimist. Here is the update by Jonathan G. Dorn:

Note: The rest of this post is the EPI article.

Four encouraging signs from Big Oil’s backyard

After Nerdi Gras (Netroots Nation), I took a couple days off to dry-out and trotted over to Houston to visit my parents. It came as no surprise that Houston is booming due to the skyrocketing price of oil. But I also learned a few surprising things that gave me hope that brighter days are ahead for the rest of us well. Because if Houston can get it right, who can't?