Friday Five: October 10, 2014...A New Hope

Although stories of hope appear regularly in the weekly news, this week saw an abundance of them, starting with improved air quality in Southern California...perhaps what we might call the birthplace of the modern air quality movement. Beijing 2014 reminds us of LA 1973...the moment of clarity when we figured out we couldn't just dump everything into the atmosphere and hope for the best.
Cancer risk from air pollution drops in Southern California
"The analysis found that exposure to dozens of toxic air contaminants could result in 418 cancer cases per 1 million people over 70 years, or a lifetime. That is down from an average risk of 1,194 cases per million found in the air district's study of the region in 2005.
Health experts recommend a limit of 10 cancer cases per 1 million people over 70 years.
Current state guidelines underestimate the true cancer risk, air quality officials acknowledged, and are expected to be revised upward next year based on new science that shows breathing toxic substances has more serious health effects than previously thought."

Economics does not improve without an increase in scale. An increase in scale does not happen unless there is a market. There is no market without education and innovation. There is no education without groundbreakers willing to change the way we do things. Thank you to all those who fought for a change in our energy systems....your efforts are finally paying off.
Two large forces moving business closer to climate action
"The We Mean Business report cites an internal rate of return of 81% (that’s a ridiculous payback) on energy efficiency in the U.S., and an IRR of 27% for those companies with the most aggressive, science-based goals and actions on climate. Even the most “expensive” options like renewables are becoming cheap so fast that it’s making CFOs’ heads spin. Even those hippies over at asset manager Lazard calculate that the cost of solar PV technologies has dropped nearly 80% in five years. Assuming that we’ll lose money by radically cutting carbon has become a radically outdated idea."

In 1999, the Chicago White Sox traded a young center fielder named Mike Cameron to the Reds. The Reds would turn around the next year and trade him to the Seattle Mariners who went to the playoffs that year. Mike would go on to win 3 Gold Gloves, make the All Star team, and finish in the top 25 in MVP voting twice. In return the Chicago White Sox got Paul Konerko...the Reds got Ken Griffey, Jr. Trades are good...especially when they benefit both parties.
Climate trades
"Liberia has much of what remains of West Africa’s rain forest, but logging is rampant. The initiative is not an act of charity but a trade: Liberia gets income, which it needs; Norway gets to preserve biodiversity and take a small step against climate change. A similar deal that Norway struck with Brazil years ago helped slow deforestation there. Economists call arrangements of this kind 'payments for ecosystem services,' and they follow a rationale known as the Coase theorem. In 1960, the economist Ronald Coase argued that bargaining between parties could, under certain conditions, produce a mutually beneficial and efficient solution to problems like pollution. Trying to force Liberia to stop chopping down trees (by using, say, sanctions) would be high-handed and probably ineffective. Paying Liberia to do so makes both sides better off."

We bet on humanity because we have an infinite ability to come up with solutions that allow us to adapt. The question is not whether we can, but whether we want to.
In virtual mega-drought, California avoids defeat
"Under that scenario, experts say, irrigated farm acreage would plunge. Aquatic ecosystems would suffer, with some struggling salmon runs fading out of existence.
Urban water rates would climb. The iconic suburban lawn would all but disappear. Coastal Californians would stop dumping most of their treated sewage and urban runoff from rain storms into the Pacific and instead add it to their water supply."

As we have had our faith shaken in government by the politicking of big business, we are left with only consumer-driven advocacy as our tool to combat unethical business practices. The irony is, sometimes, that advocacy works.
Bust out the LEGOs: The toymaker cuts ties with Big Oil
"LEGO’s move may prompt other companies to think twice about partnerships with Big Oil, but that doesn’t mean that everything is awesome quite yet. Shell still plans to drill offshore in the U.S. and explore off the coast of northern Alaska in 2015. Which makes us wonder: How many tiny, drowning LEGO fishermen would it take to put a stop to that?"

Happy Friday!

Friday Five: July 4, 2014

For decades, we have been told that burning fuels was safe (proven wrong), that transporting fuels is safe (proven wrong), that mining was safe (proven wrong), and most recently, that fracking was totally safe...every year we get more and more evidence that it is not.
Study shows how drilling wastewater causes quakes
"Combined, those wells daily pour more than 5 million gallons of water a mile or two underground into rock formations, the study found. That buildup of fluid creates more pressure that 'has to go somewhere,' said study lead author Cornell University seismologist Katie Keranen.
Researchers originally figured the water diffused through underground rocks slowly. But instead, it is moving faster and farther and triggers quake fault lines that already were likely ready to move, she said."

We do know that mining, transporting, processing, and burning carbon causes significant cost to our health and our economy.  It is about time that we force industry to accurately project those costs when developing or renewing projects.
One judge’s smackdown of a Colorado coal mine could help fight carbon projects everywhere
"This kind of bold decision will ultimately get appealed, appealed again, and maybe overruled. It establishes a precedent, but whether it’s the kind of precedent other judges will believe in remains to be seen. For now, the big winner in this – other than the conservation groups that first filed the suit and the people who like to hike, graze, and shoot things in the Sunset Wilderness Area — is the legal concept of a social cost of carbon protocol itself. It’s already getting a lot more attention than something with that long and boring of a name can reasonably expect to get — and that’s a good sign."

Kudos to the Unitarians for taking steps to divest from fossil fuels, but retaining enough interest to be active shareholders.  Even better, their divestment will be better for their financial interests.
At Unitarian Universalist assembly, a vote to divest from fossil fuels
"About 2.9 percent of the UUA’s $175-million endowment is invested in Carbon Tracker 200 companies, according to information Walden forwarded from the UUA treasurer.
The fossil fuels divestment vote stems from a resolution brought by the group, Unitarian Universalists for Fossil Fuel Divestment and Sustainable Reinvestment, Walden said. The UUA 'has a long history of shareholder activism on a variety of issues, including environmental justice.'"

It is positively crazy that we treat seeds as a patentable product from which a small group of people can gain great wealth while the farmers who put all the work into the actual food production languish in poverty.  Even more striking is that these companies that patent often times do much less work than that for which they get credit.
Linux for Lettuce
"Most classical plant breeders will tell you that their work is inherently collaborative—the more people involved, the better. Baggett had used versions of another broccoli called Waltham, released by the University of Massachusetts in the 1950s, as part of the foundation for his original exserted-head lines. Hoping to advance its evolution by letting others work on it, he and Myers shared their germplasm (an industry term for seed) with breeders throughout the United States. One recipient was the broccoli division of Royal Sluis, a Dutch company that had a research farm in Salinas, California. Through the channels of corporate consolidation, that germplasm ended up with the world’s largest vegetable-seed company, Seminis, which in 2005 was bought by the world’s largest seed company, Monsanto. In 2011, Seminis was granted US Patent 8,030,549—“Broccoli adapted for ease of harvest”—whose basic identifying characteristic was an exserted head. More than a third of the original plant material behind the invention was germplasm that Baggett had shared in 1983."

In order to make great strides against the "wicked problems" that we face, we need every available brain on hand to innovate, communicate, and activate solutions.  For the entire scientific revolution and Enlightenment, we have pushed half of our population away from such endeavors, and it has been to our detriment.  It is time we changed that.
This great ad reveals all the ways we hold girls back
"This all comports with the research that shows that girls and women shy away from riskier endeavors—including majors where getting B's and C's are more likely to happen—than boys and men do. It's not just, or even mainly, about looks. It's about these other pressures on women that leave them little room to screw up. Especially since science, as a field, is about experimenting with things and learning to pick yourself up again and start over if your hypothesis fails. So kudos to Verizon and Makers for getting it right, and hopefully this will encourage further efforts to tackle the real reasons girls find their natural curiosity so frequently stifled while growing up."

Happy Friday (and Fourth)!

Flashes: May 7, 2014

Stanford's divestment of coal seems like a groundbreaking environmental moment until you realize Goldman Sachs' long-term outlook for coal is bleak.

Mitch McConnell says carbon hypocrites should stop using climate change as a political tool.  By that logic, does that mean rich politicians will stop pretending they know about poverty?

Originally, we couldn't switch to renewables because they cost more.  Now they cost the same.
But now we can't switch because they are intermittent.  Except, this past winter proved conventionals are intermittent.
Now we have to make whole those who have invested in sunk, fossil fuel technologies before we can move forward?
When did the energy field move from capitalism to socialism?

I love the Jon Stewart commentary on government picking winners and losers:  (paraphrase)
"You say the government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers, they should be focusing on building roads, rails and bridges....except that's the government picking winners and losers!  That's the government picking cars, trucks and trains over other modes of transportation."

Enjoy the journey!

How to solve the problem of fossil fuels in fewer than 100 years.

Last week, I had a reunion of sorts with several colleagues whom I met during graduate school.  Among the pleasant conversations about family and work, we got onto the topic of fossil fuel energy and its place in our world.  As we all met working on "green energy" projects, we all agreed on the need to get away from fossil fuels, but disagreed on the timeframe.  One friend noted it would be one hundred years before we were able to eliminate them from the bulk of our economy, and challenged me to come up with the actions I would take if I had all the capital and power in the world to make them happen.  I considered the question for most of the week, and came up with the following:

1.  Buy up all leases for fossil fuel deposits, all American public utilities, and all the aging fossil fuel reliant infrastructure and capital.
Sunk costs for electricity-generating assets and infrastructure, as well as the expected profits associated with future development of fossil fuels weigh heavily on the economics of switching to an efficient and renewable future for energy.  The next great financial bubble will come from the over-valuation of the carbon resources in the earth, resulting in another potential - and perhaps even more devastating - market correction.  The need to recover sunk costs puts a cyclical burden on the transition to a green energy future.  First, we prolong the use of the infrastructure in order to allow the utility to make back its investment with a guaranteed return, then we make complementary investments in infrastructure that works with the existing in order to meet growth.  We need to break both of these cycles in order to move forward at a rapid enough pace.  In addition, I would buy up all the used parts and pieces I could, disassemble them into their constituent parts, and repurpose the raw materials for green energy development.

2.  Reissue the resource and utility leases as a package deal, with a twist.
In order to continue the services that the utilities facilitate, but with a minimum of damage to human health, I would auction off the leases to fossil fuels, but link them (by energy content) to management of a utility.  This would link production and performance.  Then, I would restructure the utility in two ways.  One, the utility would provide the end service (i.e. heat, light, access to entertainment) instead of energy.  Customers would pay for the service instead of the units of energy, and thus reward those who provide the best end result, not the ones whom they are forced to pay.  Then, at the end of each year, these new utilities would receive a bonus payment based upon the amount of resource remaining in the ground.  They would not only increase profitability by using fewer resources in efficiently delivering services, they would receive incentive payments for leaving more of the carbon resources in the earth.

3.  Carbon tax to meet the real cost of using the energy and eliminate all subsidies.
The mining, transporting, processing, transferring, and eventual releasing of energy associated with fossil fuels has myriad negative impacts, and currently receive almost $700 billion in worldwide subsidies.  Currently, the fossil fuel industry only pays direct costs (transportation, storage, processing) but does not pay for ecological restoration of mined areas, healthcare costs for those located near combustion sites, property damage associated with polluted air, or other similar indirect costs.  To start with, we would end any subsidy to a fossil-fuel based company, using the money to subsidize a transition for those who cannot immediately afford the increased costs that might result from the end of that subsidy.  Then, each year, the insurance industry would determine the tax level based upon the reinsurance costs for each of the indirect impacts.  Governments would collect the tax to continue to provide the services they do to make up for the slight from industry, and would offset the new tax collected by lowering the overall income tax to balance.  Companies could lower their tax burden by including some of the indirect costs into their direct costs.  They can do this by taking over ecological restoration of mined areas, implementing complete carbon capture and repurposing (the act of preparing the carbon or carbon dioxide for benign storage and reuse in a specific industry...this means no sequestration without a plan for reuse), completely scrubbing exhaust streams for particulates of all size, and reducing waste heat to benign levels.

Tar sands mining area

4.  Require 99.99999% reliability from fossil fuel infrastructure and complete restoration of ecological services.
Currently, we tolerate too many oil spills, coal ash pollution incidents, and mine collapses as "the cost of doing business".  Industries know what they need to do in order to ensure near perfect performance records.  We need, as a society, to expect that they deliver.  In addition, when they complete mining activities or do have an environmental issue, we need to expect the complete restoration of ecological services.

5.  Immediately implement ecological valuation into the world economy.
Perhaps the best way to make sure capital flows to poorer regions of the world without the extractive growth that fueled southeast Asia and continued our damaging ways comes from the concept of ecological valuation.  Scientists and economists working together determine the real-time value of watersheds, forest systems, plains, species, etc., then include that value in a nation's asset sheet.  This would provide incentive for investment and restoration, while providing a mechanism for richer countries to offset their activities by investing in the preservation of existing ecosystems.  This provides the resources for developing economies to increase quality of life without the health sacrifices we had to make.

6.  Capitalize a series of building and loans in each 50-75,000 person community whose investment portfolio carries only energy efficiency and renewable energy projects in that community.
These nearly 5,000 banks would provide the needed capital to drive the shift from extractive energy reliance to neighborhood energy reliance.  The development of local businesses, and the expansion of local manufacturing to meet this demand would build a more resilient economy while improving the quality of life.  The banks would remain independent entities, beholden to shareholders like any bank, with the only restriction being the boundary of their investment region.  They could link their risk through insurance products, or state/regional-government based loan guarantee programs, in order to minimize their exposure.

7.  Provide free college tuition to top students entering the field of clean energy research and development.
Currently, the top students go into the financial sector or into fields associated with the extractive economy.  Fewer enter the fields of medicine or engineering associated with life-supporting activities.  We want the best ideas to prepare us for a future without fossil fuel energy, and need to provide the incentive to get them into those fields.

8.  Place clean-energy-based restrictions on the not-for-profit status of university endowments.
University endowments represent a significant portion of the nations held wealth, and as such, they wield great power.  For the significant benefit they receive from their tax-exempt status, the universities can bear a certain level of restriction over what they can do with those assets.  First, all of them must divest from all fossil-fuel investments.  Second, they must commit one-third of their asset portfolio to clean energy or energy efficiency projects; they choose the ones that maximize their return.  Third, they must make all buildings on all properties that they own net zero impact buildings within a decade; this includes all existing buildings as well as new and recently constructed.  The knowledge base and technology exist to make this happen, and institutions that have a forty to one-hundred year horizon for building ownership have the ability to recoup their investment easily.

9.  Change the current way we discount future life value.
We need to make all energy and quality of life decisions providing equal value to a life seven generations from now as we do to a current life.  We conveniently employ a discount rate that makes positive impacts on the future have to save ten lives to have equal value to saving one life today.  For non-life threatening activities, discounting the future has merit, for it favors conservative allocation of resources.  For activities that damage human health, however, this practice amounts to a death sentence for the future.

10.  Manage a smart transition for developing economies.
In addition to the economic development incentives offered by ecological valuation, we need to provide reasonable support and incentives for the developing world.  Unlike the developed world, these economies cannot easily remove fossil fuels from their quality of life systems.  People in these parts of the world still have underdeveloped fresh water systems, little or no electrification, and must travel great distances for basic needs.  We do not need to enable reliance on fossil fuels for new development, but cannot pull the rug out from under their current way of life.  Pursuing the above strategies will free resources to help manage this process, and ensure that developing economies avoid our pitfalls while raising the quality of life for nearly half of the world's population.  People are resourceful, and right now they are finding the simplest way they can to develop with the most readily available technology.  If we put the right technologies in front of people, they will innovate and find the right solution with the best outcomes.  We do not need to do things for them, but we need to make the right pieces available to them.

The challenge presented to me gave me no limit on my power or wealth, so I have not concerned myself with the economic impact of these activities.  Over the coming months, I will investigate them further and evaluate the costs and benefits of them.  We need to pursue these, and all other ideas for realizing a clean energy future, with a great sense of urgency.  We do not have the one-hundred years my friend conjectures we need to fully transition.  From this point forward, we need to stop enabling our dependence on fossil fuels merely because it is hard to do otherwise.  We need to expect more of ourselves; we have the knowledge, resources, and ability...now all we need is the will.