The environment – Page 146 – a sibilant intake of breath

How to make a difference

If my aim is to make a positive impact on the emerging climate crisis, the least productive possible use of my time is spending 5-6 years in the U.S. doing a PhD in political science or international relations.

It could be argued that the best use would be getting an engineering degree. Then, I could either (a) contribute more intelligently to policy, by better understanding the physical dynamics of what we’re dealing with or (b) actually go off and try and build a better battery / solar panel / electricity grid.

Conversely, it could be argued that high-level direction is what is needed, serving to get more specific forms of expertise applied to a sufficient degree. Even if that contention is accepted, however, it seems unlikely that an additional degree in a social science would help.

Considering the future of oil

People frequently mention how, in the 17th and 18th century, lobster was so abundant in the eastern United States that it was used as a staple food for orphans, servants, and prisoners. Supposedly, Massachusetts passed a law restricting it to being served at most twice a week.

In the era of lobster scarcity, this seems incredible to us. The same basic ideas can be usefully applied to petroleum. There is a good case to be made that petroleum prices will continue to rise dramatically in the medium to long term on the basis of growing demand and flat or declining production. If that proves true, oil will be the new lobster. Where prior cheapness made it the fuel of choice in all kinds of applications, cost will gradually squeeze it out from everywhere something cheaper can do the trick. I am mostly talking about liquid petroleum here, but a similar market dynamic is likely to arise with natural gas (though it is tougher to export overseas), or even coal.

People used to grind up lobster to use as fertilizer for gardens. The oil equivalent is probably using petroleum to generate constant baseload electricity for the grid. Oil costs more to transport, burns less efficiently, and is much more import-dependent than natural gas. Oil for electricity is one of those uses that people generally switch from as soon as a viable opportunity arises. Barring some isolated communities and autocratic petro-states, I doubt anyone will be generating electricity from the grid using oil in a few decades’ time.

Moving up the value chain, there are two big ways in which oil is used: as a high-density source of energy and as a feedstock for industrial processes. In both cases, higher prices will start to produce substitution in areas where alternatives are possible. Electric lawnmowers are quieter and a whole lot less toxin-spewing than their gasoline counterparts; similarly, plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles are the best option for those city-dwellers who continue to demand a private vehicle.

Where only oil will do

At the top of the value chain are applications where nothing but oil will do. A fancy restaurant cannot serve a heap of flavoured tofu and call it lobster, though frozen dinner companies do something similar all the time. The essential uses for oil will ultimately relate to the two fundamental properties described above: energy density and chemical makeup.

The foremost essential market for the first remains aircraft. Ground transportation to migrate towards electric. Hopefully, someone will also be able to come up with a biofuel that solves more problems than it creates. Ships can return to coal or sails, or even be outfit with marine nuclear reactors. Planes – for the foreseeable future – will need to continue burning mostly kerosene.

The chemistry of oil makes it the basis for most of our plastics, but it is difficult for a non-expert like me to determine the degree to which that is the result of its historically low price. Certainly, permanently higher prices for oil will lead to some changes in the plastics industry. If prices rise, people will use less and will substitute less costly materials. Where possible, people will also make plastics from things other than oil. It seems likely, however, that there will be at least a few industrial processes where only oil will do.

Broader impacts

When it comes to prices for refined petroleum fuels, the world is broadly divided into three groups of states. There are those where oil has long been relatively expensive, such as in Western Europe. There are those where oil has been moderately subsidized, creating a mild culture of entitlement, such as the United States. Finally, there are those where subsidies are extreme. Gasoline in many European states is well above $2.00 a litre; in the United States, it remains around $1.00; in Iran, it is $0.09 and in Venezuela just $0.05.

In many countries within the third group, subsidies are already a huge expense. Iran may produce a lot of oil, but it refines relatively little into gasoline. As such, it needs to import gasoline in order to provide it to its citizens for pennies. A good number of them will then be tempted to re-export it and pocket the difference. That temptation can only grow in a world of ever-more-expensive oil. Governments then find themselves in the awkward position of having to either cut a popular and stabilizing policy or somehow finance a growing drain on the public purse.

While it is extremely difficult to predict what the overall effects of continually rising oil prices would be, two conclusions do seem highly probable. Firstly, uses of oil that produce little value or which could easily switch to another fuel will be priced out of the oil-buying market by high margin options with few substitutes. Secondly, more stress will develop in relation to wildly different prices for refined fuels, especially when it comes to states like Iran that subsidize domestic consumption heavily.

[Update: 8 March 2010]. BuryCoal.com is a site dedicated to making the case for leaving coal, along with unconventional oil and gas, underground.

Learning about lithosphere-atmosphere interactions from the cryosphere

The European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) has recently announced results confirming that the long-term regulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is largely a geological phenomenon. Carbon dioxide is naturally introduced into the atmosphere through volcanic activity and naturally removed through the weathering of rock and the deposition of carbon-laden rock in deep ocean sediments.

On the basis of evidence collected from a 3270 metre Antarctic ice core, the EPICA team determined that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide underwent a long-term change of 22 parts per million over the 610,000 years before industrialization. This period covers five complete glacial-interglacial cycles. Since the Industrial Revolution, however, concentrations have risen by about 100 ppm – an overall rate 14,000 times higher.

Probably the most important thing to take from this is that the current behaviour of the global carbon system is likely to be different from that which has been dominant across geological time, simply because such a huge volume of carbon dioxide has been released through the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

Oil prices and American politics

Robert Rapier, a petroleum engineer and blogger, recently posted an ‘Open Letter to Our Next President.’ He has recently been doing a good job of showing why ideas like a summer gas tax holiday or suing OPEC for the right to buy oil at the price we want are wrong-headed popularity stunts. He has also been doing a good job of highlighting the degree to which current petroleum prices are largely the product of long-term trends. If more and more people want ever-more oil, at the same time as existing fields are producing flat or declining yields and new discoveries are not keeping pace, prices are certain to keep rising.

The question is whether one of those four pillars will be eroded. It is possible we will finally get a handle on per-capita oil demand, and start along the long road to renewable energy use. It is also possible that economic conditions will reduce the growth in world demand for oil as people in India and China are forced to grow richer more slowly than at present. It is possible that new technology will significantly increase yields from existing oil fields for some period of time. Finally, it is possible that big new finds will keep the (planet destroying) party going a bit longer for everybody.

It is time to start thinking much more seriously about the possibility than none of those ‘outs’ will materialize.

Beetle-kill and carbon dioxide

Positive feedbacks are one of the most worrisome aspects of climate change. Viscious spirals could make controlling the problem far more difficult and, if we wait too long to act, potentially impossible to deal with. A new article in Nature suggests that the pine beetle epidemic in British Columbia has turned the forests there into net carbon emitters:

In the team’s model, a pine forest untouched by beetles but with a normal amount of logging is a slight carbon sink, sucking up more carbon (as carbon dioxide) than it loses (either as carbon dioxide or as timber). The only exception to this is when forest fires convert the forest to a net source, as they did in 2003. The beetles have an even bigger effect — in their worst year releasing 50% more carbon than the 2003 fires — and act over longer time scales, with additional logging making things even worse.

According to Werner Kurz, Natural Resources Canada’s senior research scientist, the total emissions associated with the outbreak will be about 990 megatonnes by 2020 – about 1.5 years worth of total Canadian emissions at present levels.

Eventually, the pine beetles will find themselves in the position of having nothing left to eat and the epidemic will taper off. What is nevertheless suggested by this situation is the possibility that climate change can lead to degraded ecosystems which hold less carbon dioxide, thus further contributing to climate change.

Romm’s fourteen wedges

Joseph Romm, whose book I reviewed previously, has a new blog post up outlining what would be necessary to stabilize global concentrations of greenhouse gasses below 450 parts per million of CO2 equivalent. It is explained in terms of ‘stabilization wedges’ – each of which represents a reduction of one gigatonne (billion tonnes) below business as usual projections. In total, he says 14 are necessary by 2050 and suggests the following list:

One wedge of vehicle efficiency — all cars getting 60 mpg, with no increase in miles traveled per vehicle.
One of wind for power — one million large (2 MW peak) wind turbines.
One of wind for vehicles — another 2000 GW wind. Most cars must be plug-in hybrids or pure electric vehicles.
Three of concentrated solar thermal — about 5000 GW peak.
Three of efficiency — one each for buildings, industry, and cogeneration/heat-recovery for a total of 15 to 20 million gwh.
One of coal with carbon capture and storage — 800 GW of coal with CCS.
One of nuclear power — 700 GW plus 10 Yucca mountains for storage.
One of solar photovoltaics — 2000 GW peak (or less PV and some geothermal, tidal, and ocean thermal).
One of cellulosic biofuels — using one-sixth of the world’s cropland (or less land if yields significantly increase or algae-to-biofuels proves commercial at large scale).
Two of forestry — End all tropical deforestation. Plant new trees over an area the size of the continental U.S.
One of soils — Apply no-till farming to all existing croplands.

No government anywhere has this level of ambition today. Just providing the nuclear wedge would require building 26 new plants a year, as well as ten geological repositories the size of Yucca Mountain. Providing the carbon capture wedge will require building a quantity of infrastructure capable of putting the same volume of CO2 into the ground as we are presently removing, when it comes to oil.

Romm does an excellent job of showing what a huge and civilizational challenge climate change really is. At the same time, while there is no technical reason for which fourteen wedges is impossible, one certainly doesn’t have the sense that anything like the necessary level of political will exists today. President Bush’s ludicrous announcement that the US will try to stop emissions growth by 2025 is closer to the mainstream of thinking in most places. At least a few people would rather doom future generations to an inhospitable planet than buckle down and make these changes.

Once again, we are left with the question of what might convince people to change. If fourteen wedges are what’s required, it seems virtually impossible that the rosy ‘it will all pay for itself’ possibility will play out. It is hard to imagine anything short of a catastrophe providing the necessary motive force, and it will take a catastrophe that unites the world in common effort, rather than divides it in fear or suspicion.

In short, the situation does not leave a person feeling optimistic.

Pollan on climate change

Michael Pollan (whose books I have previously reviewed: 1, 2), has an article in the New York Times about climate change. Essentially, the piece is about the need to change lifestyles in a way that goes far beyond making a few trivial gestures and waiting for technology to save us:

Here’s the point: Cheap energy, which gives us climate change, fosters precisely the mentality that makes dealing with climate change in our own lives seem impossibly difficult. Specialists ourselves, we can no longer imagine anyone but an expert, or anything but a new technology or law, solving our problems. Al Gore asks us to change the light bulbs because he probably can’t imagine us doing anything much more challenging, like, say, growing some portion of our own food. We can’t imagine it, either, which is probably why we prefer to cross our fingers and talk about the promise of ethanol and nuclear power — new liquids and electrons to power the same old cars and houses and lives.

It is refreshing to see someone else getting the big picture and accepting the reality that global emissions absolutely need to peak in the next 10-15 years, if we are not to live in a world transformed.

The whole article is well worth reading, though Pollan’s argument that growing a vegetable garden can significantly change a person’s outlook doesn’t strike me as hugely plausible. That said, it is not something I have ever tried.

McCain is wrong to suggest gas tax cuts

Following up on ‘hurricane insurance for all,’ John McCain has a new bad idea: suspending gasoline taxes over the summer. There are lots of reasons for which this is a bad move. Gasoline taxes are a partial recognition of the ways in which the price at the pump doesn’t include all the costs associated with driving: from road construction to keeping troops in Saudi Arabia. Also, it is important for people to realize that, in the long run, they will be paying ever more for gasoline. This is the result of three major phenomena: decreasing output from oil fields as they reach maturity, increasing demand from fast-growing states, and the increasing trend towards internalizing externalities associated with fossil fuel use. Creating a temporary dip in prices will obscure the broader message, while encouraging harmful behaviour.

If anything, the US presidential candidates should be sending a strong signal that the era of inexpensive gasoline in the United States is over. People should be bearing that in mind not only when they decide what sort of car to buy, but when nationwide efficiency standards are being set and urban transportation infrastructure decisions are being made.

Choosing nuclear

The flowchart above illustrates one process through which we could collectively evaluate the desirability of nuclear power, given the potential risks and benefits associated with the technology. In my personal opinion, the answer to the first question is probably “yes,” though perhaps not to as large a degree as commonly believed. The second and third questions are much more up in the air, and necessarily involve uncertainty. We cannot know exactly what will be involved in building a massive new nuclear architecture before it is done; similarly, it cannot be known with certainty what would result from choosing conservation and renewables instead.

As for the third question, there are major questions about risk evaluation and risk tolerance. If the world keeps running nuclear plants, it is a statistical certainty that we will eventually have another serious nuclear accident. No nuclear state is without its contaminated sites, and none yet has a geological repository for wastes.

This post definitely isn’t mean to settle the question initially posed, but rather to clarify thinking on the issue and dismiss the automatic logical leap from “climate change is happening” to “build more fission plants.”

Vat-grown meat

As discussed previously, meat eating is problematic in terms of the environment, animal welfare, and human health. One mechanism through which one of those concerns can be eliminated – and the others potentially mitigated – is to remove animals from the equation. This week saw the world’s first international conference on the industrial manufacture of meat. Arguably, that is what the beef, pork, and chicken industries already do but, in this case, the meat is to be grown in industrial bioreactors instead of inside animals that are subsequently killed.

It should be noted from the outset that there are some problems that this approach absolutely will not solve. It will always take more energy to sustain a meat diet than a plant diet, whether that energy is going into cows or industrial processes. Similarly, large amounts of energy use associated with transportation and refrigeration would be undiminished in the face of in vitro meat production. Given that plants will probably always be a feedstock to the process, concerns about water and fossil fuel use in agriculture, as well as fertilizer and pesticide runoff, remain in place. That said, it is possible that vat grown meat could be marginally more efficient, since calories would not be directed towards growing skeletal or nervous systems. Big vats would also have a higher volume to surface area ratio than animals, making it less energy intensive to keep warm.

The major problem vat-grown meat could solve is animal welfare, though that is probably the reason for avoiding meat that most people find least compelling. Even most vegetarians drink milk and eat eggs, most of which is produced under conditions equally awful for the animals. Arguably, vat grown meat would still be a kind of ethical violation – not because any animals suffer, per se, but because the whole concept is somehow monstrous and demeaning to nature.

All told, this doesn’t seem like much of a solution. The way slaughterhouse animals exist already approximates the character of an industrial meat factory. There is also little reason to believe that firms that happily feed all manner of drugs and hormones to animals would not similarly manipulate huge tanks full of artificial fat and muscle. As such, any hygienic concerns about factory farmed animals would probably translate readily to vat-grown meat.

The relevance of any of this is fairly questionable, given that vats are currently capable of producing the very lowest quality kind of meat (fodder for ground meat and nuggets) and can only do so at a financial cost higher than industrial agriculture. For all intents and purposes, we have already built industrial bioreactors on the skeletons of livestock. Shifting those to steel drums, as an alternative, will only make sense if the economics swing strongly in that direction for some reason.