Climate Progress

I have a new article in Salon on perhaps the most misunderstood subject in energy — peak oil.

Here is the short version:

1. We are at or near the peak of cheap conventional oil production.
2. There is no realistic prospect that the conventional oil supply can keep up with current projected demand for much longer — if the industrialized countries don’t take strong action to sharply reduce consumption, and if China and India don’t take strong action to sharply reduce consumption growth.
3. Many people are expecting unconventional oil — such as the tar sands and liquid coal — to make up the supply shortage. That would be a climate catastrophe, and I (optimistically) believe humanity is wise enough not to let that happen. More supply is not the answer to either our oil or climate problem.
4. Nonetheless, contrary to popular belief, the peak oil problem will not “destroy suburbia” or the American way of life. Only unrestrained emissions of greenhouse gases can do that.
5. We have the two primary solutions to peak oil at hand: fuel efficiency and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles run on zero-carbon electricity. The only question is whether conservatives will let progressives accelerate those solutions into the marketplace before it is too late to prevent a devastating oil shock or, for that matter, devastating climate change.
   

That last sentence has been a major focus of this blog. I discuss it briefly in the article, but let me elaborate on it here. For more than two decades, conservatives have put up almost every conceivable roadblock to a sane energy policy. They have essentially said to peak oil — and catastrophic global warming, for that matter — “Bring it on!”

No one should be surprised we are now mired in a tar pit of growing dependence on oil imported from unstable or undemocratic regions, oil prices over $100 a barrel, a trade deficit in oil alone approaching $500 billion a year, and, of course, the very serious threat of catastrophic climate change from burning an ever-increasing amount of fossil fuels.

Many of us have predicted for a very long time that a quarter century of ignoring or underfunding the key solutions to our addiction to oil would have consequences. For instance, an April 1996 article I coauthored warned about what the Gingrich Congress was trying to do:

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If you’re interested in a Green Jobs 101 (from the media, anyway), a good place to start is Wednesday’s New York Times article, “Millions of Jobs of a Different Collar.” But it’s not a perfect start, because the article fails to demonstrate an understanding of the scale of this movement, and the author could have taken heed to one of his co-worker’s pieces on green education and job-training.

Here’s how the article describes green jobs (emphasis added):

Presidential candidates talk about the promise of “green collar” jobs — an economy with millions of workers installing solar panels, weatherizing homes, brewing biofuels, building hybrid cars and erecting giant wind turbines. Labor unions view these new jobs as replacements for positions lost to overseas manufacturing and outsourcing. Urban groups view training in green jobs as a route out of poverty. And environmentalists say they are crucial to combating climate change.

For those reasons, the issue of green jobs is something the Center for American Progress has given a lot of attention. This is the creation of a workforce to power a low-carbon economy.

However, in the same places the article shows skepticism of green jobs, the article reveals that it does not entirely understand or convey the concept of a green workforce for a green economy.

Two cases in point. The article writes, “Welders at a wind-turbine factory are viewed as having green jobs, but what about the factory’s accountant or its janitors?” And later it quotes Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute: “There will undoubtedly be a lot of jobs created in industries that are considered green or fashionable. Some will last a long time, and some will go like the dot-coms.”

What you have to understand about green jobs is that they’re part of something much, much larger, and that’s the transition to the low-carbon economy. Another person quoted in the piece is Lois Quam, who commented, “When I first started looking at this area, many people commented on how this will be as big as the Internet. But this is so much bigger than the Internet. The only comparable example we can find is the Industrial Revolution. It will affect every business and every industry.”

She has a much better grasp of the notion. The earlier two are so focused in details that they’re missing the larger picture. Mr. Ebell is right, dot-com jobs disappeared, but the Internet (the essence) revolutionized. The same is true here, some green jobs may fall as fads, but so many of our fundamentals about the economy will have to change that the argument holds its own. (The same applies to the relevance of the janitor at the turbine factory.)

A perfect example of how such a dramatic, yet subtle shift occurs also ran in today’s New York Times, “Majoring in Renewable Energy“:

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William Chandler, director of the Carnegie Energy and Climate Program, has borrowed my phrase for the title of his new study– “Breaking the Suicide Pact: U.S.-China Cooperation on Climate Change.” It begins:

Together, China and the United States produce 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Their actions to curb or expand energy consumption will determine whether efforts to stop global climate change succeed or fail. If these two nations act to curb emissions, the rest of the world can more easily coalesce on a global plan. If either fails to act, the mitigation strategies adopted by the rest of the world will fall far short of averting disaster for large parts of the earth.

These two nations are now joined in what energy analyst Joe Romm has aptly called “a mutual suicide pact.” American leaders point to emissions growth in China and demand that Chinese leaders take responsibility for climate change. Chinese leaders counter that American per capita greenhouse gas emissions are five times theirs and say, “You created this problem, you do something about it.”

Great factoid from the report:

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the United States has produced 1,150 billion tons of carbon from fossil fuels, compared to China’s 310 billion tons.

Key Recommendations for U.S.-China Cooperation:

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Sundance Channel today announced that programs from THE GREEN, the Tuesday night destination devoted entirely to the environment, are now available for download on the iTunes Store (www.itunes.com). Programming from THE GREEN includes the award-winning documentary series “Big Ideas for a Small Planet” and the first episode from season two is available as a free download, beginning March 26 through April 1. Each additional episode will be available for purchase and download from the iTunes Store for $1.99 the day after it airs on Sundance Channel.

Additionally, THE GREEN interstitial series, “EcoBiz,”™ exploring financial aspects of environmental innovation, and “The Ecoists,”™ featuring active and recognizable environmental activists sharing ideas and information, will be available for free from iTunes Podcast on the Wednesday following its premiere on Sundance Channel.

THE GREEN, Sundance Channel’s programming destination devoted entirely to the environment, offers entertaining sources of information and inspiration about the planet we call home. THE GREEN original programs and interstitial segments provide viewers with ideas and tangible opportunities for all facets of their lives, demonstrating how to work green, play green, eat green, dress green and live green.

“Big Ideas for a Small Planet”

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I know it seems hard to believe sometimes, but this blog is actually titled Climate Progress. I only see two major, quantitative areas of sustained progress — clean energy deployment (especially in Europe) and private sector clean-tech funding.

Those folk at Clean Edge, who wrote the best 2007 book on clean tech, The Clean Tech Revolution, have quantified these gains — and made predictions about the future — in a new report you can read here. Some interesting factoids:

• Clean-energy markets — revenue for solar photovoltaics (PV), wind, biofuels, and fuel cells — grew by 40 percent from $55 billion in 2006 to $77.3 billion in 2007. They project revenues will reach $254.5 billion by 2017. [Yes, lame (if not counterproductive) biofuels are about a third of those numbers, and I personally wouldn’t count them as “clean tech.” Then again Clean Edge isn’t counting energy efficiency.]
• New Energy Finance does a slightly different calculation, showing “New global investments in energy technologies — including venture capital, project finance, public markets, and research and development — have expanded by 60 percent from $92.6 billion in 2006 to $148.4 billion in 2007.”
• “U.S.-based venture capital investments in energy technologies more than quadrupled from $599 million in 2000 to $2.7 billion in 2007…. As a percent of total VC investments, energy tech increased from .6 percent in 2000 to 9.1 percent in 2007. Between 2006 and 2007, venture investments in the U.S. clean-energy sector increased by more than 70 percent.”
• “Last year’s global wind power installations reached a record 20,000 MW, equivalent to 20 large-size 1 GW conventional power plants.”
• “Annual installations [of PV] were just shy of 3 GW worldwide, up nearly 500 percent from just four years earlier

In Europe, renewables have become the dominant form of new power generation — which just shows you what happens when governments become (relatively) serious about global warming:

Europe provides a great example of this transition. Since the beginning of the decade the EU has added 47,000 MW of new wind energy compared to just 9,600 MW of coal and only 1,200 MW of nuclear, according to Platts Power Vision and the European Wind Energy Association. Perhaps even more telling, 2007 saw net capacity additions of 8,505 megawatts of wind, whereas both coal and nuclear saw net capacity reductions of 750 megawatts and 1,023 megawatts, respectively.

Climate Progress, albeit in fits and starts, can be found if you look hard enough.

Please.

So as Andrew Leonard writes in his “How the World Works” blog, this all began with a column by

Toronto Star energy reporter Tyler Hamilton that itself had summarized the conclusions of a study raising questions about whether it always makes sense to replace incandescent light bulbs with CFLs. The nub of the argument was that in some cases the heat generated by the incandescent light bulbs could be useful.

Tyler is a friend of mine and a great reporter, so I sent him an email explaining why this is not true, which was not written for publication. Then Leonard himself summarized the column on his blog. So, as Leonard explains:

This excited a storm of comment, and even inspired Joseph Romm, author of “Hell and High Water: Global Warming — The Solution and the Politics,” energy expert, blogger extraordinaire, and regular Salon contributor, to pass on a copy of an e-mail he sent directly to Hamilton.

[That Leonard comment is, I believe, the blogging equivalent of make-up sex — note to parents, that link is PG-13 — but I digress.]

Anyway, here is my email:

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That is the breaking news today from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and the British Antarctic Survey:

Satellite imagery from the [NSIDC] reveals that a 13,680 square kilometer (5,282 square mile) ice shelf has begun to collapse because of rapid climate change in a fast-warming region of Antarctica.…

In the past 50 years, the western Antarctic Peninsula has experienced the biggest temperature increase on Earth, rising by 0.5 degree Celsius (0.9 degree Fahrenheit) per decade. NSIDC Lead Scientist Ted Scambos, who first spotted the disintegration in March, said, “We believe the Wilkins has been in place for at least a few hundred years. But warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing a break-up.”

You can see a video of the ice-shelf post-disintegration taken from an airplane here.

Satellite images indicate that the Wilkins began its collapse on February 28; data revealed that a large iceberg, 41 by 2.5 kilometers (25.5 by 1.5 miles), fell away from the ice shelf’s southwestern front, triggering a runaway disintegration of 405 square kilometers (160 square miles) of the shelf interior (Figure 1 — click to enlarge).

That is “seven times the size of Manhattan” as Seth Borenstein of the AP helpfully points out. He notes “The rest of the Wilkins ice shelf, which is about the size of Connecticut, is holding on by a narrow beam of thin ice.” The ice shelf is floating, so it won’t add to sea level rise. Such occurrences are “more indicative of a tipping point or trigger in the climate system,” said Sarah Das, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Back to the NSIDC:

The edge of the shelf crumbled into the sky-blue pattern of exposed deep glacial ice that has become characteristic of climate-induced ice shelf break-ups such as the Larsen B in 2002. A narrow beam of intact ice, just 6 kilometers wide (3.7 miles) was protecting the remaining shelf from further breakup as of March 23 (Figure 2 — click to enlarge).

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Innovest, a firm that researches investment and risks, released a report today that concludes that the proposed expansion of the Holcomb coal-fired power plant in western Kansas is not a financially sound or well thought-out decision.

From their press release (emphasis added):

Innovest examined the economics of the transaction and determined that under the most plausible regulatory scenarios the decision to build new coal generating capacity will put Sunflower Electric’s ratepayers — who in this particular case are the actual owners — at significant risk. The report concludes that Sunflower’s management has not adequately addressed the competitive and financial risks associated with climate change in deciding to pursue the expansion of its Holcomb Station power plant.

BUT, Secretary Bremby’s decision DOES adequately address the risks associated with the expansion in the context of climate change and its policy implications. As does Wall Street’s latest verdict in February, when a few of the country’s major investment banks announced that they will be making their financial backing decisions in the context of global warming legislation.

With Innovest’s conclusion that the ratepayers themselves are at ’significant risk,’ I’m just not sure how any of the arguments for these coal plants (like energy prices) hold up any longer. Hopefully Innovest has a memo to send to KS legislators before the vote to over-ride Sebelius’ veto.

The Toronto Star reported an alarming factoid earlier this month:

No gasoline-powered car assembled in North America would meet China’s current fuel-efficiency standard.

That’s mainly because

1. Their standard is much higher than ours is currently.
2. Their standard is a minimum-allowable efficiency standard, not a “fleet-average” standard like ours.
3. Our lame car companies don’t make their (relatively few) most efficient vehicles in this country.

As for our much-hyped new 35-mpg (average) standard — it will take us in 2020 to where the Chinese are now (but not even to where Japan and Europe were six years ago). If we don’t rescind it, that is.

So whether you believe in human-caused global warming or peak oil, America remains unprepared to capture the huge explosion in jobs this century for clean, fuel-efficient cars.

Oh, and by 2010, China will be the world leader in wind turbine manufacturing and solar photovoltaics manufacturing. No worries, though, our TV and movie sales overseas still kick butt. For now.

Probably the biggest source of confusion and errors in climate discussions concerns “carbon” versus “carbon dioxide.” I was reminded of this last week when I saw an analysis done for a major environmental group that confused the two and hence was wrong by a large factor (3.67). The paragraph I usually include in my writing:

Some people use carbon rather than carbon dioxide as a metric. The fraction of carbon in carbon dioxide is the ratio of their weights. The atomic weight of carbon is 12 atomic mass units, while the weight of carbon dioxide is 44, because it includes two oxygen atoms that each weigh 16. So, to switch from one to the other, use the formula: One ton of carbon equals 44/12 = 11/3 = 3.67 tons of carbon dioxide. Thus 11 tons of carbon dioxide equals 3 tons of carbon, and a price of $30 per ton of carbon dioxide equals a price of $110 per ton of carbon.

I confess that in my books I have tried to consistently use CO2, for clarity’s sake, but have failed to embrace that strategy in the blog. I now realize that was a mistake after receiving an e-mail from a long time a reader who was confused as to whether the price I quoted in a recent post was dollars per ton of carbon or carbon dioxide (even though I had said in the post it was “the price of carbon”).

The reason this confusion arises so much is that scientists usually use carbon, because they are studying the carbon cycle, and governments also usually use carbon, because the scientists do. But “carbon” is not intuitive, whereas carbon dioxide is what we all emit — that is why businesses and the public typically report numbers in terms of carbon dioxide. “Point Carbon” for instance, reports prices in the European market for CO2 allowances (in euros, of course).

And, indeed, the central climate number in this whole area is the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. The media is typically caught in between, sometimes using one and sometimes using the other, and sometimes making a mistake or not being clear.

So I am going to try to be consistent and use CO2. Where relevant I will also include one conversion to carbon, too, without bombarding you with too many numbers. So hopefully, from now on, if I fail to be clear, you should make the default assumption I am talking carbon dioxide.

I would recommend all blogs and journalists clearly state their “carbon dioxide policy” – and be sure to check when reporting on studies or articles or business action that they know whether they are talking carbon or carbon dioxide.