Climate Capitalism

The White House released a key report on climate change this week. The report Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, (Thomas R. Karl, Jerry M. Melillo, and Thomas C. Peterson, (eds.). Cambridge University Press, 2009.) was the work of multiple U.S. agencies including NOAA and the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

What a difference a new administration makes.  Rather than the Bush administration’s technique of downplaying hard science in lieu of industry interest this report was accompanied by a full White House press release by Obama advisor John Holdren.  The report itself paints a bleak, but honest picture of the challenges climate change poses for the 21 Century world.  It is written in fairly plain language complete with plenty of graphs, diagrams, and examples to make the results of the science that went into the report, accessible to the average reader.

You can view the official press release YouTube clip below.  If you are in a hurry, you can skip the first 5-10 minutes which is largely introductions.  It gets a little more interesting when the authors present some of the key findings of the report.  One comment I found very apt to “Climate Capitalism” was by lead author, Tom Karl,

“… we designed and built our infrastructure for the climate we’ve had, not the climate we will have.”

This statement is exactly the kind of pragmatic thinking this country needs if we are going to lead the world out of the climate crisis.  The status quo of industry and infrastructure will not hold up to the rate of change we are now experiencing.

I was lead the this report and the video clip by Lisa Moore’s post on the Environmental Defense Fund’s blog. Drawing from the report,  Moore’s post includes some nicely summarized highlights of what a warmer world might look like.

NPR’s Planet Money discusses Russia’s state-run oil giant Gazprom on their January 7th podcast.  The show gives some perspective on the current natural gas crisis in Europe which has been in the headlines recently, but they also talk about Gazprom’s recent purchase of mineral rights in Algeria.  

Guest reporter, Geoff Porter, reports on a possible larger strategy at work, where Russia is interested in using Algeria as a transit country for the bountiful supply of natrual gas in Nigeria.

There is one particularly frightening statistic that Porter mentions in his report: Nigeria, which does not have the infrastructure to export their natural gas is currently flaring about 20 billion cubic meters of gas a year.  This is equal to about 1/3 of Algeria’s annual exports.  I did a quick calculation on this assuming: 

1.0 cubic meter natural gas (methane) = 0.49 kg carbon (http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/energy_conv.html)

This comes out to 10.8 million tons of CO2 that is emitted and completely wasted.  Most estimates I’ve seen for a sustainable level of carbon emissions for an individual range from 2-2.3 tons per person per year.  With this in mind Nigeria is flaring the equivalent carbon allowance of about 4.7-5.4 million people or which is roughly 0.08-0.09% of the world’s population.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2009/01/hear_russia_russia_everywhere_1.html

KUOW’s Steve Scher discusses the Western Climate Initiative, an effort between seven Western states and four Canadian provinces to set targets for greenhouse gas limits with organization co-chair Janice Adair.

Scher also talks with author and environmental activist, Bill McKibben, about a new effort to reduce the carbon dioxode levels in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million called 350.org.

You can listen to the hour-long program at: http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=16553

Ever hear about Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) Technology?  Mercury News contributor Steve Kirsch says it’s an old nuclear technology that offers a clean energy solution now.  The process involves reusing old nuclear waste as fuel.  Here’s some more links on IFR: 

PBS Frontline interview with Dr. Charles Till.

National Center for Policy and Public Research Q&A with George S. Stafford, Ph.D.

U.S. DOE Newton Ask a Scientist archive entry on IFR technology.

Dr. Charles Till article entitled Plentiful Energy and the IFR Story.

StrongForce.org definitions for next generation nuclear technologies.

Archived newsgroup discussion between Dr. Gregory Greenman and others.

Technical paper on IFR and proliferation resistance by Harold F. McFarlane of Argonne National Laboratory.

Wikipedia entry on IFR.

Atomic Insights blog entry on IFR.

Matthew Lockwood of the Guardian published an op-ed on Monday arguing that the free markets will never fix climate change and that government intevention is the only solution.  He makes several points that are difficult to dispute, such as that measures currently being considered are wholly inadequate to solve the problem, that that political pressures keep politicians from being able to make truly radical changes to energy policy needed to combat global warming, and that greatly increased investment in infrastructure to support green technology is essential.  He concludes that “the free market will not deliver.  We governments to take a lead.”

My only quarrel with the piece is the absolutist nature of the conclusion.  I don’t dispute Lockwood’s description of the issues.  Clearly more government intervention would be helpful.  Clearly more investment in technology and innovation are needed.  However, saying that we need more government intervention isn’t any more a solution to the problem than saying we need the free market to incentive green energy innovation. The difficulty in implementing radical governmental change is all the more reason why the free markets must deliver at least part of the solution.  We can’t rely on government alone to bail us out of this problem.

The November 21 broadcast of NPR Science Friday included a panel discussion of the future of electric cars and whether government bailout could be used to encourage automakers to focus efforts on improving electric car technology.  Here’s a link to a synopsis and audio.  You can also subscribe to Science Friday on iTunes, Zune, or other aggregators.