Comments on: Debunking Shellenberger & Nordhaus — Part II, Breaking the technology breakthrough myth

By: David B. Benson

David B. Benson — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 18:06:40 +0000

I am not quite sure whether some of the developments reported by Biopact

are breakthrough-like, but the following one seems to be so to me:

http://biopact.com/ 2007/ 09/ microbial-fuel-cell-development-speeds.html

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:55:56 +0000

These type of breakthrough PR announcements are not worth the paper they are written on — call me back when they have a commercial product with significantly better cost and performance than whatever is in the marketplace.

Fuel cells are wildly overrated as a subject of breakthroughs because fundamentally 1) you can’t can beat electric drive (like a plug-in hybrd) in terms of efficient utilization of zero-carbon electricity for transportation and 2) fuel cells only represent a major advance in electric generation efficiency if they cogenerate — but the barriers to cogeneration are all regulatory not technological.

By: tidal

tidal — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:20:31 +0000

great post

By: Earl Killian

Earl Killian — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 21:48:19 +0000

I tend to think the one breakthrough in the last 30 years was efficiency, which you almost seem to agree with when you write “Perhaps that should be called a breakthrough”. You might also want to give credit to Arthur Rosenfeld and his team and the California Energy Commission, as described at:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/ commission/ commissioners/ rosenfeld_docs/ 2000-10_ROSENFELD_AUTOBIO.PDF
See Figure 3 on page 16 for example.

By: Paul K

Paul K — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:26:04 +0000

David B. Benson ,
Thanks for the CO2 website. Here’s the link for anybody else. It is part of the very interesting Oak Ridge National Laboratory site.
Joe,
Reading your critique, I wonder if there is any place for public spending in AGW policy.
The private sector can, should, and will fund technological advancements. The government’s contribution is taxation and regulation. As I understand it - actually, I don’t but am hoping you’ll explain it - this enables the establishment of a market mechanism by which CO2 will be reduced.

By: Paul K

Paul K — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:28:24 +0000

Butterfingers on that link

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:41:02 +0000

I am very much in favor of public spending for AGW. I don’t think it is one of the three most important things, but it can be valuable, especially when it is focused on deploying existing technology.

By: Paul K

Paul K — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:00:30 +0000

Government spending should be focused on deploying existing technology. Well said.

By: Vikingisson

Vikingisson — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 23:10:30 +0000

We have to keep pace with efficiencies however along with those improvements came increased usage. Does the efficiency of the car compared to 30 years ago offset the increase in the number of cars and miles driven? I doubt it and suggest that the pollution problem hasn’t changed at all. Same for appliances, they *are* better but we have so many more of them now in numbers and per capita. How many of those cheap power adapters do you have plugged in waiting for you to charge the phone, the laptop, the everything else? They waste huge amounts of energy doing nothing useful most of the time. We can do a lot in just the small things but if a Chinese “dumb” power supply costs $5 and a “smart” one that consumes a fraction of the power at idle costs $10 guess which one I’ll never see with my gadget?
Hoping for a switch in fuel while maintaining the status quo in everything else is certain doom even if the magic pill were to come along.
Don’t let anyone tell you they are doing the planet any favours by buying one product over another. They might be doing less harm but never doing it any good. Consider an all electric car that I’d be excited to see compared to fuel burners; they still take space, generate heat, and wear out. Where does all that worn out rubber and brake pads go to? The air as you drive. It is always cheaper to save a watt than to make one.

By: Mike Carrieri

Mike Carrieri — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:18:05 +0000

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