The Politics of Climate Change (2009)

 

Regardless of how convinced you are by the science of climate change, it cannot be said that a failure to reach scientific consensus has been the primary force preventing a meaningful redress of the issue. 

Instead, political reticence to advocate for short-term sacrifices, for fear of losing popularity and economic standing, has been the obstacle most ardently preventing progress.  In reviewing The Politics of Climate Change, I hope to illuminate some of the points Anthony Giddens forcefully makes about the issues surrounding political inaction on climate change and hopefully encourage a dialogue about how we can overcome such procrastination.

By way of introduction, author, Anthony Giddens, is a former Director of the London School of Economics and a current member of the British House of Lords, who has had plenty of experience trying to advance legislative solutions to climate change.  Unfortunately, he has only been relatively successful in bringing such foresight to fruition (through no fault of his own, I may add).  Consequently, Giddens is a credible source when discussing the roadblocks faced by those who attempt to implement such statutory advances.

For those familiar with the issues, the first half of the book retraces the well-worn arguments of the threat of climate change, together with its economic and social consequences.  If you are reading this blog then I believe I shall assume that, whether it is at the top or bottom of your list of priorities, you have an informed opinion on the matter and I won’t beat the horse to death by replicating the arguments.

The discussion of political action on climate change can be overwhelming, so I shall start by breaking it down into the following categories, which I will then discuss in turn:

1.      International Agreements

2.      National Policy

3.      Control of Energy Companies

4.      Public Psychology

International Agreements

The first problematic dynamic encountered when examining any global negotiation on climate change is the struggle between ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ countries.

The ‘developed world’ has attained a satisfactory standard of living by developing strong economies, which by and large, are powered by non-renewable fuels that have contributed the lion’s share of the climate change effect. 

On the other hand, the ‘developing world,’ by its very nature, has contributed fewer emissions, causing less of the problem.  Naturally, they seek to develop their economies as rapidly as possible in order to provide humane living standards for the majority of their populace (with little regard to what fuels are used to achieve such ends).  Consequently, ‘developing countries’ have traditionally been wary of restricting their own behaviour in order to address a problem primarily created by the ‘developed world,’ especially when those measures are likely to inhibit economic growth in the short term.

The moral weight of an effort to alleviate poverty is hard to argue against.  To restrict the behaviour of nations that did not significantly contribute to the problem, who seek to improve the lives of those who have so little, makes any effort appear unjust, paternal and authoritarian.  We therefore see that right off the bat, an international consensus is hard to achieve due to differing historical degrees of culpability and moral arguments about basic human rights.

Nonetheless, the history of international environmental agreements started out amicably enough with the Montreal Protocol initiated by the UN in 1987 (a multilateral agreement to reduce the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), prevalent in hairspray and other products, which were damaging the ozone layer).  No great economic sacrifice was necessary to change the active ingredients of deodourant, so the international community was rightly ebullient and self-congratulatory when it could address such a problem after the scientific consensus had emerged.

Negotiations between ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ nations began to bear fruit with the invention of the doctrine of “common but differentiated responsibility.”  The idea being that those with the best economic ability to address the problem take the lead and allow poorer nations to concentrate on economic advances with concessions on emissions output. 

But no sooner had instruments been put in place to address the tensions between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ nations (through mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and differentiated responsibility), than ‘developed’ nations recognised the second problematic dynamic of international environmental negotiations: international jockeying for economic advantage.

At the UN Rio Earth Summit in 1990 we saw the first occasion on which ‘developed nations’ opposed action on climate change.  U.S. President George Bush Sr unambiguously announced the position when he stated that, “the American way of life is not negotiable,” in response to suggestions that non-renewable fuel consumption would have to be curtailed.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol attempted to mandate that ‘developed’ countries to reduce emissions by 5.2 % over 1990 levels by 2012.  Such a mission was scientifically understood to be an essential mitigation strategy should the worst effects of climate change be avoided.  However, Russia, Australia and the U.S. were all notable dissidents.  Vast countries, heavily dependent on fossil fuels to transport goods throughout their economy, they were obviously disturbed by the short-term detriment this would cause their economies.

American industrial lobbies notably increased the pressure on successive US governments to refrain from signing up to binding targets, arguing that joining such an agreement would lend a competitive advantage to China.

Furthermore, Giddens explains the lengths to which EU diplomats had to go to obtain Russian agreement when summarizing that, “Russia at that point wanted EU support for its bid to join the World Trade Organisation; while the EU, the leading force in climate change negotiations, needed Russian participation in Kyoto to salvage the whole thing.  So in effect a bargain was struck.”  Evidently, there are no free lunches in international negotiations, even when we are dealing with a global problem of manifest importance.

Even with Russian support however, the U.S. and Australia pushed for voluntary emission reduction commitments over binding targets and consensus was obfuscated.

Thus we see that climate change negotiations cannot be removed from the competitive world.  Despite the agreement over the need for meaningful action, international treaties on climate change are always likely to be held to ransom by the effects they will have on each country’s relative standing in the global economy.  No country will be willing to bind itself to a target that confers a competitive advantage on another nation or a greater detriment on itself.

Unanimous action will thus be nigh on impossible when the consequences of such an agreement cannot be distributed equally.  The result of such negotiations will therefore always be that a compromise must be found and the ability to make a serious impact on climate change will inevitably be diminished.

Consequently, it was no surprise when the Bali Summit negotiations proved unfruitful in 2007.  Giddens noted that such economic protectionism has become increasingly entrenched, and despairs, “If this is success, give me failure!”

Giddens argues that we need the confluence of four factors if international environmental treaties are to make the necessary in-roads:

1.             Universal participation

2.             Binding emissions targets

3.             Integrated emissions trading schemes (however, carbon emissions trading schemes have to be designed very carefully since the wrong policies can produce perverse incentives that distort the market and promote protectionism) and;

4.             Compensation to poorer countries to get their cooperation.

This is without even considering the major issue of energy security which threatens to deteriorate international cooperation. Scarcity of energy could lead to climate change issues becoming increasingly militarized and dominated by security risks.  Giddens notes that “China’s growing influence in the Middle East and Africa is a particular concern.  Russia’s return to geopolitical prominence has been driven almost entirely by the rise prior to 2008 in the price of oil, gas and industrial materials.”  Climate change negotiations are thus inextricably linked to international politics, as well as economics.

The confluence of these four factors is proving no easier with time, yet the EU continues to lead the way in relation to climate change policy.  Such leadership is commendable and necessary; however, it walks a fine line between heroism and cannibalism.  This is because increasing energy costs are making it harder for European companies to compete in the global market place when not all parties are committed to the same emissions reduction objectives.

Furthermore, within the EU, this global leadership/sacrifice is creating additional tension with Germany.  Germany has the strongest economy within the EU, yet one that is still heavily reliant on the competiveness of their car, chemical and steel industries (all fuel-intensive).  The EU Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, remarked on the current conundrum when stating, “There is no point in Europe setting up demanding regulations if the result is simply that production shifts to countries where there is an emissions free-for-all.”

Giddens concludes the fraught EU position when remarking, “The EU placed a gigantic bet that economic interdependence and the collaboration of nations would triumph over traditional concepts of sovereignty.” However, the EU appears to be losing that bet as Russia attempts to undermine EU solidarity by continuing to strike bilateral energy deals with individual member states in an attempt to broker power away from Brussels. 

Unfortunately, these competing economic and political objectives have all been exacerbated by the global financial crisis of 2008, leading to a significant relapse in the global priority of climate change action.

The EU, through the UN, will have to continue to work towards achieving global consensus on climate change action.  However, with such unwillingness to make sacrifice by many major players, it is evident that international agreement will be the finishing touch, and not the driving force, of a climate change solution.

Consequently, we must now look to what influence national governments can have within their own respective borders.

National Policy

The role of national government, in relation to addressing climate change, is one of macroeconomic steering.  Governments must look to address climate change issues by rethinking industrial policy, energy markets, infrastructure and education. 

Giddens makes a compelling case that, in order to do so, we need to enter a new era of greater state intervention.  Such language is often unthinkable to those who support the notion of free markets; however, we have seen that to date the mass deregulation of markets has not had the intended effect.  Instead, we are currently witnessing unprecedented economic disparity between societal classes and unacceptable levels of environmental degradation.  Furthermore, national and global markets are significantly distorted by the unaccounted externalities of emission-intensive goods and services leading to a situation where companies are not properly penalized for polluting the atmosphere and the tax payer is left to foot the bill.  Governments worldwide have yet to address the problem by providing adequate price signals to effect the needed transition to a low-carbon economy.

Such distorted price signals are exacerbated by the reluctance of the governments to repeal fossil-fuel subsidies.  Governments are primarily pressured into keeping such subsidies by the strength of commercial lobbyists and the political necessity of keeping energy bills artificially low.  At the time of writing, Giddens notes that the fossil-fuel subsidies in OECD countries still total over $30 billion.

Subsidies are supposed to provide emerging technologies a helping hand to make it to mass market, when those technologies have the capacity to provide significant benefits to the general population (therefore, in time, repaying the investment of the taxpayer).  Their current use, artificially driving down the price of an increasingly expensive good (fossil fuel), is neither prudent nor sustainable.

To combat such inertia, the UK has recently set up the Infrastructure Planning Commission and empowered it with ability to override local governments in order to enforce a top-down transition to modern, energy efficient infrastructure.  This kind of authority is necessary to realize the ambitious goal of a low-carbon economy, however, we must always be careful that such power is not abused or indiscriminately applied.

Control of Energy Companies

In the UK, we are currently seeing what I believe to be the inappropriate use of government power on energy firms.  The leading six UK energy firms (E.on, EDF, British Gas, nPower, Scottish Power and SSE) are being called to account for their energy prices and coerced into lowering prices.  This short-term jockeying for political favour, in the run-up to the 2015 general election, fails to appreciate the larger forces acting upon these companies. 

Energy companies recognize better than most that a transition to low-carbon energy sources is necessary.  However, such a transition will take time and their ability to set appropriate prices to reflect the true cost of carbon-intensive energy sources should be left relatively unfettered.  Vilifying energy companies with rhetoric about grandmothers who cannot afford to keep their houses warm in the winter will only serve to delay the transition.

Nevertheless, no all government initiatives are so misguided.  Governments throughout the world are implementing carbon emissions trading schemes to stimulate technological innovation and redistributing funds for education in the sciences in order to unleash the dynamism of capital markets on the problem of energy transition.  This is a necessary measure, as Giddens notes, “without substantial government intervention there is virtually no chance of effective transformation in the electricity market.”  However, those who receive such support/subsidies cannot treat it as a natural right and resist the natural change of the market – dinosaurs must die.

What we really need is a Green ‘New Deal’ akin to the ‘New Deal’ implemented by Franklin Delanor Roosevelt after the stock market crash in 1929.  Giddens advocates a £50 billion investment in renewable technologies with the aim of turning every building into a power station.  Such a deal would emulate Germany where a similar programme has created 250,000 jobs in renewable technologies industries in just a few years (for further information, try “The Green Economy” by Van Jones).  

Whether or not Giddens specific plan is the correct one and whether or not any political party will finally have the courage to address the issue of carbon taxes is to miss the point.  The question really is, if the problem is so cogently understood and such a plethora of low-carbon economy transitions strategies exist, why do politicians have such a hard time implementing them?

Public Psychology

Giddens argues that the problem is primarily one of public psychology.  “Public enthusiasm for a given policy agenda rarely lasts long, even when an issue is of continuing and manifest importance…cynicism, unwillingness to make sacrifices, the perception that the costs are too great, or simply boredom can supplant the initial burst of public concern and support.”

It is therefore self-evident that the environmental agenda cannot simply rely on anxiety about a future risk as the sole motivator of political change as focusing incidents commonly steal the limelight.  Consider how often the national public discourse is regularly distracted by issues political scandals and celebrity affairs.  It’s not that some of these events are not newsworthy; it is simply that we must find a way to train ourselves to disregard the trivial.

Consequently, one of the major obstacles to climate change action is simply that it has to compete for public and political attention with issues that are basically more sensational and/or easier to fix.  This idea dictates that we (the public at large and public interest groups) must be more focused and vigilant if we are to take meaningful action.  Furthermore, we must demand more of the news media; mandating that they spend less time pandering to the celebratory culture and more time asking us to critically engage in public discourse about long-term problem solving.

Giddens notes, “Worries not linked in the public mind with clear modes of response quickly slip down peoples’ ratings of what disturbs them most.”  Consequently, the environmental agenda must find a way to engage with people by connecting the effects of climate change with their day-to-day life.  At present the effects are too far removed: rising energy prices, increasingly erratic weather patterns, increasing dependence on oil-states whose dictators frequently encourage corruption and commit human rights abuses, etc.

In order to cope, governments will have to resort to a range of strategies while at the same time trying to foster a more widespread consciousness of the need for action.  The habits and routines of everyday life stand in the way, in addition to the difficulty of getting people to accept that the risks are real and pressing.

In order to address these problems, Giddens suggests what he calls ‘radicalism of the centre.’  We must generate widespread support for radical action that can be removed from the traditional political terrain.  We must find a way to remove the temptation for parties to sacrifice longer-term goals in pursuit of immediate political advantage, especially when unpopular decisions have to be made (as we are currently seeing in the UK with the debate on energy prices/state control of the six major energy companies).

Furthermore, we need to advocate a return to planned communities.  Communities in which constituents take it upon themselves to effect the necessary change prior to the mandate of some bureaucratic edict.  We must call for civic pride and shared sacrifice. Britain has already created 10 eco-towns that are entirely self-sufficient, yet these are too few and far between.

Conclusion

International agreements on action over climate change appear to have ground to a halt.  Russian attempts to disrupt EU solidarity by exploiting their natural gas reserves are very counter-productive.  The reticence of developing nations to commit to binding emissions reductions targets is understandable; consequently, we must implore the remainder of the ‘developed’ world to get serious about sharing the sacrifice.  Unfortunately, this is unlikely to occur while the global economy is still in recovery mode.   

Instead, national governments must take the reins.  Unfortunately, it will continue to be politically suicidal to ask constituents to make sacrifices (such as paying higher energy bills) in order to begin the transition to a low-carbon economy while national economies are still in recovery.  Consequently, it is up to the voting populations of each country to generate enough political will to remove climate change from the traditional political fighting ground.  Can such a cross-party agreement ever be reached in the requisite number of countries?  Only time will tell, but I would argue that it will become inevitable once the effects of climate change become more visible in ‘developed’ nations.

The current politics of climate change pose a real and significant threat to genuine progress on the issue and only time will tell if we can act collectively before it is too late.  However, the conclusion I took from this book is actually quite uplifting.  Though climate change is a hugely complex, global problem, the solution lies in local action.  Petition your local government, initiate your own green schemes at work, invest in renewable energy and energy-efficiency measures at home (hopefully with a little government help) and together we can create a movement that bypasses the bureaucracy of international politics and generates the political will to effect change in your neighbourhood, your country and then our world.

 

Score: 88

 

Superfreakonomics (2009)

 

Conventional wisdom got in a fight with economics in the best-selling first instalment of Freakonomics in 2005, and naturally, economics won.  Now, Steven D. Levitt, the acclaimed young University of Chicago economics professor, and Stephen J. Dubner, the New York Times writer, are back again to fuse the weird and the wonderful, under the ‘unifying theme’ of how people respond to economic incentives and their unintended consequences, in the follow-up: Superfreakonomics.

Though Freakonomics never even flirted with anything close to the environmental, preferring instead to focus on cheating school teachers and sumo wrestlers, how real estate agents are similar to the Ku Klux Klan (don’t worry it’s nowhere near as nefarious as you might first think), and the economics of drug dealing, Superfreakonomics is breaking the ELR blog bank with a couple of eye-opening chapters on the lesser discussed solutions to Climate Change (though true to form, the book still explores the hidden economics of prostitution, suicide bombers and altruism!).

The first chapter that caught my attention started by discussing the devastating consequences hurricanes have increasingly had on coastal economies.  As Climate Change raises the ocean’s temperature, hurricanes are becoming increasingly common and increasingly destructive.    Hurricanes are formed as the ocean water rises in temperature and the winds gather that thermal energy from the ocean’s surface and convert it into physical force.  These hurricanes are hard to predict and for those unfortunate enough to live in their path, their lives are changed for years if not forever.  Of particular concern to Americans is Hurricane Alley, a stretch of ocean running from the West coast of Africa through the Caribbean and up towards the South-eastern United States (think Hurricane Katrina (New Orleans, 2005) and Hurricane Sandy (New York, 2012)).

Enter Nathan, a plucky man with a curious and intellectual mind, who has come up with an ingenious idea.  It’s called the Salter Sink (a.k.a. the Hurricane Killer).  Unassumingly referred to as “an inner tube with a skirt” that sits on the ocean surface, the Hurricane Killer works by rupturing the process that warms the ocean winds by using wave power to continually sink the warm surface water down to mix with the significantly colder subsurface waters.

Below is a mock-up of the design: quite simply a large floating ring, anywhere from 30 to 300 feet across, with a long flexible cylinder affixed to the inside running 600 feet deep into the ocean’s subsurface.

As warm waves splash over the top of the ring, the water level inside the tube rises above that of the surrounding ocean creating a ‘hydraulic head.’  The force this hydraulic head creates pushes the warm water down and out into the cold water below, therefore causing it to mix with the cold water and lowering the temperature of the surface water as it rises again.  This cyclical process is low-impact, non-polluting, scalable and slow (taking about 3 hours to push a molecule of warm water out of the bottom).

Nathan’s solution is thus to prevent the water in Hurricane Alley from getting warm enough to form a destructive hurricane in the first place.  A couple of thousand could be deployed (the most expensive version of which would cost a maximum of $100,000) to prevent hurricanes in the Caribbean and the Gulf.  A picket fence from Cuba to the Yucatan could theoretically negate the billions of dollars’ worth of damage that wrecks coastal areas every year (hurricane alleys also exist in the South China Sea and the Coral Sea off the coast of Australia).  Deploying 10,000 world-wide would cost $1 billion and would require relatively little maintenance, freeing hundreds of coastal cities to develop without the threat of regular destruction (furthermore, they could be moved in reaction to weather patterns).

In addition to cooling category 5 storms into less destructive ones, the salter sinks could also possibly be used to smooth out the boom-or-bust nature of rainfall in Africa and thus help to develop agriculture and address food-supply shortages.  When considering the expense that the majority of Climate Change mitigation strategies advocate, this solution is devilishly simply and cheap, but as Levitt and Dubner reveal, Nathan is only just getting started.

As the next chapter reveals, Nathan is Nathan Myrhvold, the former Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft and, at one time, one of the wealthiest men in the United States.  Nathan left Microsoft several years ago to set up “Intellectual Ventures,” (IV) a social enterprise gathering some of the brightest scientific and technological minds (including renowned climate scientist, Ken Caldeira) to work towards solving the world’s largest problems (without much concern for commercial payback).  In addition to what I am about to discuss, IV are also working on a eradicating malaria by designing a laser system that kills mosquitos as they cross a boundary,  amongst other amazing projects:

http://www.intellectualventures.com/index.php/inventions-patents/our-inventions

But more pertinent to this blog is the fact that Myrhvold has his sights set on addressing Climate Change.  Rather strangely, the ‘eureka’ moment came on June 15^th 1991 when Mount Pinatubo erupted.  The eruption was the second largest of the 20^th century and caused 20 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide to be spewed into the atmosphere.  What scientists noted over the following decade, contrary to popular belief, was actually a significant cooling of the earth’s atmosphere (0.5 ⁰C).  Nathan’s observation was one that is scarcely uttered in environmental circles: we’re too concerned with carbon dioxide!

The effect sulphur dioxide has on the earth’s atmosphere was first noted by Benjamin Franklin in his 1784 publication, Meteorological Imaginations and Conjectures, when he noted that recent eruptions in Iceland had caused a particularly harsh winter.  Though Franklin could only postulate at the time, as we now understand, the reason was because sulphur dioxide reduces the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth’s surface.  Thus, while carbon dioxide (and actually more potently, methane and water vapour) warm the earth’s atmosphere by trapping heat, sulphur dioxide has the ability to cool the earth by decreasing the amount of heat entering the atmosphere.

But those of you who paid attention in chemistry class may rightly be thinking, don’t we already emit a lot of sulphur dioxide into the air when we burn coal? In fact we do.   In the UK, in 2011, we emitted 379,000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere (National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory website).  However, when you consider that in 1970 the UK emitted 6,370,000 tonnes, sulphur dioxide is actually one of the gases for which we have been extremely successful in reducing emissions.

In spite of this trend, the important question is not how much sulphur dioxide we are putting into the atmosphere, but where are we putting the sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere?  You see, emissions from coal plants go into the troposphere (the layer of the atmosphere closest to the ground) where it falls back down to earth, in the form of acid rain, within a week or two.  Why volcanic eruptions were so effective at cooling the planet is because they shoot the sulphur dioxide all the way up into the stratosphere (about 7.5 to 32 miles above the earth’s surface) where it absorbs water vapour and will form an aerosol cloud that can linger for up to a year.

So Myrhvold set his team of self-proclaimed geeks the following puzzle: how do you get sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere, and how much would you need to put up there to mitigate the temperature rise caused by Climate Change?

After a series of costly, complex and impractical ideas (including firing artillery shells full of sulphur dioxide into the sky, or launching a fleet of jet fighters using high-sulphur content fuel into the stratosphere), Myrhvold’s team at IV came up with another fiendishly simple and cost-effective method: a garden hose to the sky!

By using a series of high-strength helium balloons (one every 300 yards) and pumps (one every 100 yards), you could extend a hose 18 miles up into the stratosphere where it would spray a fine mist of liquefied sulphur dioxide out of a nozzle that would then be carried by the wind.  

But how many hoses and how much intentional pollution are we talking about?  Rather surprisingly, Myrhvold has calculated that we would only need two hoses (one at the north pole and one at the south pole) emitting 100,000 tonnes per year (0.05% of global sulphur dioxide emissions) to effectively reverse the warming effect.

Now, geo-engineering projects have traditionally been written off as science fiction (e.g. the space mirror scheme sending 55,000 reflective sails to orbit around the earth), but this is an idea that is backed by sound science, that is not incredibly expensive and let’s face it there’s something childishly fun about it.  If Myrhvold’s predictions are correct, the project (referred to Budyko’s Blanket, after the Russian climatologist, Mikhail Budyko) could be up and running within three years, for a start-up cost of $150 million and an annual operating cost of $100 million.  When you consider the findings of the UK Government’s Stern Report that estimated the cost of addressing Climate Change to be $1.2 trillion per year for the foreseeable future, this would be an incredibly cost-effective strategy.  In addition, it effectively repurposes existing pollution and provides the potential to avoid anti-carbon initiatives that could seriously hinder the global economy.

But this is where my showering of praise and optimism ends unfortunately.

Firstly, I recognise Myrhvold’s arguments that current Climate Change mitigation strategies are too small (alternative energy will not yet scale to a sufficient degree to address emissions problems), too late (the half-life of atmospheric carbon is roughly 100 years) and/or too optimistic (creating a carbon-free energy infrastructure will actually require a lot of emissions, effectively making Climate Change worse every year until we’re done building the necessary infrastructure, which could take thirty to fifty years), but I do not accept that they are lost causes. 

Pumping sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere should be a plan of last resort.  It is comforting to know that we have a potential back-up plan should other plans fail, but two wrongs do not a make right.  Wouldn’t such an unnatural counter-emissions strategy create apathy towards the environment, providing industry a free pass to pollute the atmosphere as much as desired now that we have the means to reduce the temperature?

Even if the answer to that question is ‘no,’ this is a strategy to negate “global warming,” not Climate Change.  Reducing the earth’s average temperature does not address the related problems of pollution, habitat destruction, biodiversity loss, energy profligacy, energy security, geo-politics and the squandering of natural resources.  This is not a solution to the problem; this is more like someone cranking up the air conditioning in your house when it is scorching hot outside causing you to forget that you’ll still need sunscreen when you step outside.

Furthermore, the fact that we cannot know the unintended consequences of this plan until after commencement should be enough to give pause to even the staunchest proponent.  Sulphur dioxide in the troposphere is already a known cause of respiratory problems and acid rain.  Moreover, the earth operates a complex feedback system regulating the concentration of gases in each eco-system and such a plan would fail to respect the delicate balance the earth’s forces constantly work to achieve.

Lastly, the practicalities of implanting such a strategy would be incredibly complex.  Who would pay for such a scheme (it could not plausibly be a commercial venture as it generates no revenue)?  Who would own it?  You could not alter the earth’s atmosphere unilaterally, so who would give permission to implement such a plan?  International agreement at the UN is hard to come by, even without regard to how easy it would be to scaremonger people on such a strategy  (most people feel uneasy with intentionally altering the earth’s atmosphere – note the irony here!).

Nonetheless I commend the provocative thinking and the desire of Myrhvold’s team at IV to do something big (see also the DESERTEC plan in the previous blog – Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air).  Within the next few decades it will be essential to drum up political support for a big idea, implemented on a global scale, if something meaningful is to be done.  The problem is that the political capital will be wasted if the wrong plan is proposed.

With that said, Superfreakonomics is a fascinating and fun read.  I was pleased that Levitt and Dubner took the time to unearth one or two of the exciting ideas surrounding Climate Change mitigation; I just want to caution that if a solution sounds too good to be true, it generally is.  Nonetheless, I implore everyone to keep a close eye on Nathan and his team at IV, they are undoubtedly one of the most ingenious and humanitarian organisations I have ever encountered.

 

Score: 70/100

 

Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air (2009)

A lot of the previous writers I have reviewed have used great rhetorical skills or grand verbiage to convey their message and unique slant on the multifaceted environmental movement.  In Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air, author David JC MacKay (Professor of Physics at the University of Cambridge) attempts no such ingratiation or smooth posturing.  To his credit, MacKay has quite simply written an extremely practical, numerical investigation of the energy debate.  He has taken the question of renewable energy, plugged it into the conceivable UK power supply, and calculated a no-nonsense renewable energy debaters’ handbook.

MacKay explains that as an empirical scientist he became interested in the renewable energy debate when he read two seemingly credible books that came to shockingly differing conclusions – David Goldstein’s Out of Gas and Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist.  Consequently, Professor MacKay admirably decided he would put that physics doctorate to further good use and write a freely downloadable book that, devoid of emotions, asks the question: How much renewable energy could the UK theoretically produce and would it be enough to power the country/achieve energy independence? http://www.withouthotair.com/

What follows is a source by source dissection of the theoretical sustainable energy production this country could achieve versus current energy consumption levels here in the UK.   In order to do so, MacKay helpfully converts everything into a single unit of measurement that we can then use to easily compare all the variables.  This is where you’ll have to take my word, or alternatively check the science for yourself (if, unlike me, you studied physics past the age of 18); the magic unit we shall use to further the discussion is:

kWh/day/person (kilowatts per day per person).

Now, before the bespectacled jump on my back, it is worth noting that all the following calculations are approximations, rounded to whole numbers for ease of understanding and discussion.  So take a moment to consider the two following tables so that we can begin to investigate the interesting implications of MacKay’s findings.

Energy Consumption Source	Energy Used in kWh/day/person	Comments
Cars	40	Assuming the average person drives 30 miles per day, obtaining a fuel efficiency of 33 miles per gallon (without considering the energy used to manufacture the vehicle).
Planes	30	Assuming 1 trans-continental flight per person per year (for the frequent flyer – 60 kWh/day/person)
Heating & Cooling	37	This includes the heating & cooling related to the home, workplace and cooking.  More specifically hot water is responsible for 12 kWh, hot air 24 and cooling 1 kWh (this is so low only because the UK has so few days per year when we require cooling).
Lighting	4	Including lighting at home, in the workplace, street lights and traffic lights.
Gadgets	5	Here we’re talking about fridges, freezers, computers, TVs, Xbox, etc.
Food & Farming	15 E.g. Eggs – 1,  Meat – 8, Fertiliser – 2.	This includes the energy used to grow a crop and the energy spent/consumed by the animal that provides/is the food (but not the energy of transporting or processing the food).
Stuff	48 E.g. Drinks containers – 3 Other packaging – 4 Car-making – 14 Road freight – 7 Shipping – 4.	This includes the extraction of raw materials and the production, use and disposal of consumables.
Public Services	4	This primarily consists of the energy used in providing for the country’s armed defence (Army, Navy, etc.).
TOTAL	195	In comparison, the U.S. total for energy consumption is roughly 250 kWh/day/person.

Before moving on I would like to mention that this list demonstrates the effect of what I call “token environmentalism.”  Don’t get me wrong, using energy efficient light bulbs and becoming best friends with your “bag for life” is the right thing to do, it’s just that they don’t really make that big of a dent in the total!  The above list demonstrates that such behavioural changes likely do more to reduce cognitive dissonance rather than actually addressing the problem in a meaningful way.

 

Anyway, I digress.  We now have an idea of what consumption behaviours take up the largest proportion of our energy use (travel, heating, manufacturing, etc.) but it doesn’t really provide much context until we understand how much energy we can generate.

Renewable Energy Source	Conceivable Output in kWh/day/person	Comments
Wind	20	This calculation presumes that we cover 10% of the entire country with wind farms (extremely optimistic given that the current global wind power generation is 10 kWh/day/person).
Solar (Photovoltaics)	5	This is assuming that every person in the country could install 10m2 (south-facing) of 20% efficient (high-end) solar PV panels.
Solar Thermal	13	Where normal solar panels convert sunlight into electricity (a high-grade energy), solar panels can do a much more efficient job of converting the energy into heat (a low-grade energy) to heat water and thus produce more output but with fewer applications.
Biomass	24	This is again a very optimistic calculation based on using all current crops (neglecting the need for crops as food) as biofuel.
Hydroelectricity	1.5	Hydroelectricity requires altitude and rainfall.  The UK actually already receives 0.2 kWh/day/person and the exploitation of the remaining areas would be potentially expensive and disruptive.
Offshore Wind (Shallow)	16	Shallow mean coastal areas less than 30 miles from the coast, which actually means you would have to build in international waters, presenting several legal problems.
Offshore Wind (Deep)	32	Deep means more than 30 miles from the coast.  At present no such windmills exist.  Their economic viability is questionable due to transmission and maintenance costs.
Wave	4	This calculation assumes that we line half of the Atlantic coastline (500km) with deep sea wave absorbers.
Tidal	11	Using a mixture of barrages, lagoons and tidal stream farms, it would be possible to harness the tidal power of the sea and ocean should land owners agree and public opposition be minimal.
Geothermal	1	Unfortunately the UK does not have too many geothermal sources (being so far from tectonic boundaries).  Currently a geothermal plant in Southampton produces 0.1 kWh/day/person.
TOTAL	180	Other predictions of total conceivable renewable energy production include: 27 – Institute of Electrical Engineers (2002) 38 – Centre for Alternative Technology (2007)

CONSUMPTION 195 v THEORETICAL RENEWABLE PRODUCTION 180

Thus we can clearly see that even with the most optimistic of calculations the UK could not shut off the energy supplied by coal, oil and natural gas tomorrow and be able to power the country with clean electrons.  As a staunch environmentalist I wish I could deliver different news, but the numbers must be respected and the pragmatists must prevail over the idealists at this moment in time.

So what conclusions can we draw and where can we go from here?

• Firstly, to make a difference, renewable projects need to be country-sized!  I am a big proponent of micro-generation (e.g. installing your own solar panels/ decentralising energy generation), but it appears that at present levels of efficiency, the best an individual could hope for would be to cover then own electricity bill.  Micro-generation could not currently provide for the energy needed for transportation, manufacturing, etc. 
• Every little does not help! Well it does, but what I mean is that if we are to balance the energy budget (either by reducing consumption or increasing renewable production), we must do something big.

Before we give up on renewable energy technologies, there are however some exciting technologies and plans (even if two of them aren’t technically renewable) that could buoy the mood:

1. The DESERTEC Plan – just because the UK doesn’t have great potential for solar energy production doesn’t mean we couldn’t buy some.   MacKay analyses an exciting plan to create 65 solar parks each of which consists of 1500km² of solar panels in northern African desert (97,500 km² in total).  Enough sunlight falls on the North-African desert that, using a High-Voltage Direct-Current (HVDC) transmission line, renewable energy could then be distributed to the majority of Europe and Africa to provide 125 kWh/day/person.  Such a plan is obviously incredibly ambitious but nonetheless incredibly appealing.  Issues regarding the covering of such a large area with man-made objects, international agreements on how to pay for the manufacture, installation and maintenance of the solar panels, and how the energy would then be shared would all need to be carefully considered and negotiated.  Nonetheless, an incredible humanitarian goal that I think everyone should learn more about: http://www.desertec.org/concept/ .
2. Nuclear Fission – hate or love it, nuclear fission is a form of energy that could produce an extremely helpful 420 kWh/day/person for the next 100 years if we extracted all available Uranium and all countries agreed to the safe and ubiquitous deployment of nuclear plants. Currently, Sweden and France lead the world in nuclear production, generating 19 kWh/day/person.  Of course concerns regarding the safe disposal of radioactive Uranium after use and the effective safeguarding of these materials so as to prevent the proliferation of nuclear arsenals across the world are problems that cannot be ignored, but from a mathematical point of view it is clear that our fears of nuclear power must be kept in perspective as the potential is just so great.
3. Nuclear Fusion – now we enter the realm of science fiction and can begin to talk about some truly mind-blowing numbers.  At present scientists are not confident that the science of nuclear fusion, in which Lithium or Deuterium are used instead Uranium, will ever be perfected.  But if the theory is correct and the technology could be successfully developed we are talking about an energy source that could provide 30,000 kWh/day/person for 1,000,000 years for 60 billion people!

Should we be able to perfect nuclear fusion then all bets are off and we’ll have such an abundance of energy on this planet that no one would every pay for, or fight over, energy again.  Yet, the pragmatist in me is screaming not to get carried away; we must push forward without the magic bullet in mind.

With that said, I think MacKay has written an extremely helpful book.  Regardless of how optimistic the numbers presented are it is essential to create context in any debate.  Having studied the numbers he has presented I have come to grips with the reality that fossil fuels will have to part of our energy portfolio for many decades to come should the country wish to maintain its current economic  output and standard of living. 

I hope MacKay updates this book every decade and we can see how technology improves and whether we will ever be able to achieve energy independence.  For now, I encourage everyone to read Without the Hot Air this year.  No matter your political persuasion or motivation, this book forms an excellent starting point for debate on a topic that has become far too stifled by grand rhetoric and out of context numbers.  It’s time we all started talking about renewable energy, without the hot air.

Score: 82/100