Defining the Problem

What caused the Gulf oil spill? To describe how it happened is easy enough. Most people generally agree with the following series of events. On April 20, 2010, a huge fire erupted on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, killing 11 and injuring 17 others. The fire was most likely caused when a large pocket of methane gas came up the pipes from the underwater well and exploded on the rig. After burning uncontrollably for a day and a half, the rig sank into the ocean. Oil soon started flowing out of the uncapped well in large but undetermined amounts. To date, British Petroleum and its subsidiaries have been unable to stop the flow of oil despite several attempts.

This description of events does not, however, explain what went wrong deep in the Gulf of Mexico. Was the spill caused by a failed blowout preventer? Are regulators or oil companies to blame? Is this an inevitable outcome of a society dependent on fossil fuel energy? Which explanation we choose will have vital consequences for our response to the crisis. More than any other factor, how we come to understand the Gulf oil spill will structure how we attempt to solve it.

We are accustomed to thinking of problem-solving as a two-stage process where a situation is investigated first and solutions are developed afterwards. However, these two steps are not independent: the way that a problem is defined creates a particular view of what the proper solutions are and who is responsible for implementing them. Problems and solutions are mutually constitutive.

We can already see several possible explanations for the Gulf oil spill circulating through society. Here I lay out four problem framings with their accompanying solutions.

First, this could be considered a failure of technology: the blowout preventer is to blame. On this view, the safety device installed by BP and its subsidiaries to close the well in the case of an accident did not work correctly. If we understand the problem to be a failed blowout preventer, the solution is straightforward: design better safety devices and pass regulations requiring their use. The responsible parties would then be the oil companies (to develop the better technologies) and the relevant regulatory agencies (to develop stronger regulations).

Second, the situation could be explained as a result of capture: the cozy relationships between industry and regulators that lead to weak regulations and lax enforcement. The fact that the Mineral Management Service (MMS) was responsible for both regulating off-shore drilling companies and collecting revenue payments from them created a financial incentive against effective regulation. MMS officials encouraged drilling to increase revenues instead of enforcing strict safety regulations. The solution on this view is an independent regulatory structure, a reform that is already underway (on May 20, 2010, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar signed a secretarial order breaking MMS into separate divisions for energy development, enforcement, and revenue collection). This reading of the problem requires actions by government regulators.

Third, the oil spill can be seen as the result of corporate hubris: a rapacious company acting to maximize its profits at any cost. On this view, BP, in its ongoing quest to maximize shareholder value, rushed into deepwater drilling without adequate understanding of the potential risks. Moreover, the company cut costs by minimizing investment in safety equipment and overlooked the reports of engineers who raised warning bells. The proper solution under this framing is a series of punitive measures against BP and its subsidiaries including lawsuits to recoup the costs of cleanup, the revoking of off-shore drilling licenses, increased taxes, and boycotts of BP fueling stations. Most of these actions would be taken by Congress and regulators; consumers would be responsible for the boycotts.

Fourth, the oil spill can be seen as the result of excessive social dependence on fossil fuel energy. Given the world’s insatiable demand for oil, big spills can be seen as an inevitable outcome. No amount of safety equipment or measures can prevent some form of accident from happening when complex technological systems, unpredictable environments, and capitalism interact. On this reading, the proper response is to wean society from fossil fuel energy. Practically all members of society would be called to action: government agencies to fund renewable energy development, put a fair price on carbon, and require renewable energy use; corporations to develop new energy technologies; and consumers to alter modes of consumption.

If American history is any guide, it is fair to assume that policymakers will favor the technological fix. Americans have long been captivated by the potential of technology to fix problems. Moreover, such a solution has two substantial benefits. First, it deflects blame away from human actors, and second, it is easy to accept because it places responsibility on a relatively narrow set of actors to solve a clearly defined problem. If such a reading of the problem becomes commonly accepted, we can expect that the oil spill will play out similarly to the investigations of the NASA Challenger disaster in 1986. A defective o-ring was identified as the culprit, setting the stage for a set of technological fixes such as redesigning the rocket boosters. Although some investigations pointed out flaws in the organizational culture, NASA created a band-aid solution to these critiques by setting up a few oversight boards. The problem, and therefore the solution, was assumed to be technological in nature.

For those who believe there are deep interconnections between energy and society, a technical fix to the current crisis is clearly inadequate. As many critics pointed out, NASA’s failure to address deeper and more systemic organizational problems contributed to the disintegration of the shuttle Columbia in 2003. The current crisis is an opportunity for Americans to reflect on the interactions between their personal consumption decisions, several decades of neoliberal deregulation of energy markets, a pervasive ideology of economic growth, and the environment in which we live. Such an approach has the potential to lead to meaningful changes in the ways we produce, transport, and consume energy. However, this can only happen if society comes to accept that more went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico than a broken blowout preventer.

For better or worse, the solutions to the Gulf oil spill disaster will largely be a product of the way the problem is defined. If we care to get the solutions right, then we should pay close attention to how we define what went wrong.

(Note: this column was originally posted on H-Energy on July 7, 2010 as part of a roundtable on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill).

The Seduction of Innovation

Innovation is the watchword of our day. Listen to pundits on radios and televisions and you’ll hear a consistent message. We need innovative responses to urban poverty, the U.S. economy, and medical care. Name a hot topic, and you can find prominent spokespeople advocating the value of more innovation. Innovation has become our society’s default response to addressing social problems.

This is particularly true for our energy systems. Contemporary energy debates are littered with calls for more innovation. We need innovation because the United States is falling behind China in clean technology. We need innovation, we are told, in our collaborations between industry, government, and universities. We need innovation in small businesses, think tanks, and research institutions to generate the next generation of clean energy solutions.

On the surface, there seems to be little wrong with such claims. What is the problem with inventing better solutions, developing new technologies, or doing more with less? To take a position against innovation seems rather like being against puppies and apple pies. Well, to take this analogy further, puppies can pee on the floor and pie can make us fat, so perhaps such observations enable us to examine innovation more critically.

To put it bluntly, innovation is problematic because it has become a limiting perspective on the world around us. If you are a hammer, the world tends to look like a nail. Innovation has become our society’s hammer, and we are forgetting that we have other tools.

For example, appeals to innovation imply that we lack the knowledge, technologies, or skills to solve our problems. In today’s world, this is not always the case. We already know a great deal about how to address our energy problems. There are a wide variety of solutions we could implement today that require no innovation. We could pass a carbon tax, implement energy efficiency programs with existing technologies, and expand the distribution of renewable energy systems. None of these actions require innovation to implement. If we already know many things to do, then calls for innovation are problematic because they distract us from acting immediately on solutions already at our fingertips.

Another problem with innovation is that it advocates a particular set of relationships between government, the private sector, and the free market. In short, innovation is remarkably consistent with free-market principles, limited government, and a belief that the private sector will solve our problems. Innovation and neoliberalism complement each other to a surprising degree. However, this might not be the only set of relationships between government, markets, and industries that is beneficial. For example, many people have called for the U.S. to engage in a Manhattan or Apollo Project for renewable energy. The creation of the atomic bomb and the lunar mission, it should be remembered, were accomplished under a very different set of relationships between public and private than is popular in today’s rhetoric. Government officials directed large sources of capital, organized projects, and actively shaped the activities of hundreds of subcontractors. Centralized planning, rather than innovation, characterized these projects. Broadly speaking, such efforts succeeded and might work again. But the key point is that these projects were based on a different set of ideas about the right relations between public and private than are implicit in calls for innovation. An exclusive focus on innovation, therefore, diminishes the potential of other management approaches such as central planning to aid us in our efforts.

In sum, innovation is not a bad thing, but we need to use it more critically. In our current age, it is all too common to treat innovation as the solution to any problem. We would do much better if we retained a full set of tools and approaches for addressing issues. When the world calls for a hammer, we should use a hammer. But let’s not love the hammer so much that we turn the world into a nail.

Getting to the Heart of Climate Science Debates

The public release of a series of emails between climate scientists in November of 2009 created a widespread controversy. In and of itself, this is quite fascinating. In our anti-intellectual age, the fact that the correspondence of a small group of nerds became a topic of widespread debate is surprising, to say the least. For several weeks, the personal lives of climate scientists were discussed alongside the vacations, romances, and indiscretions of celebrities. In an unexpected twist, the climate scientists at the University of East Anglia and Paris Hilton suddenly had common ground on which to commiserate.

Climategate, as the scandal became known, provides no end of opportunities to reflect on the interconnections between science and society. Does the fact that scientists are not always nice people influence the ways we understand their knowledge claims? Why has there been so little media attention dedicated to the illegal hacking of private servers? When will society began to recognize more broadly that scientific knowledge production is a messy process and that deviations from the ideals of the scientific method are the norm, rather than the exception?

Here I want to focus on one particular aspect of climate science skepticism more generally: the curious focus by broad groups of people on the epistemological correctness of scientific claims. In most domains, the claims of scientists are largely ignored. When was the last time you overheard people talking heatedly about the protein folding patterns? In climate science, such claims are at the forefront. Why are people so animated about the alleged massaging of statistical data, the accuracy of tree ring evidence, and the soundness of Himalayan glacier melting estimates? Does this represent a sudden uptick of interest in science across broad segments of the public?

I doubt it. Instead, I think it is more useful to understand the debates over climate data as a proxy for deeper questions about the proper role of science in a democratic society.

Science is not simply a method for asking and answering questions about the natural world we live in. Our views about what science should be performed, who should fund it, and what we should do with the results reflect broader notions about what type of world we should live in. When we hear someone ask “how accurate are the models?” we should realize that they may be asking “who has the right to make policy-relevant knowledge?” as well. “Do predictions of glacial melting incorporate the latest findings?” can also mean “what type of local, national, and international governance is appropriate for addressing climate change?”

Let me spell out these distinctions with two hypothetical examples of how a climate scientist and a climate skeptic might approach the role of science in society. According to our imagined climate scientist, the following claims make sense: knowledge should be made by the best and the brightest; policy makers should base their actions on scientific facts; international government agencies are best capable of addressing a problem that is global in scale; society should act aggressively when scientists report risks; governments should impose whatever tax burden on society is deemed necessary to address the risk.

Our hypothetical climate skeptic adheres to a different view of the relationships between science and society: knowledge that can only be created and understood by a few is elitist and therefore untrustworthy; scientific evidence is one among a broad set of criteria for determining policy; actions taken by international governmental agencies may undercut local autonomy and self-rule; a conservative policy agenda will address the wide range of social problems better over time than knee-jerk reactions; the social costs of policies must be weighed against any potential benefits.

Clearly, there are many actors in climate science debates and they hold a wide variety of opinions not captured by this simple schematic. However, the point of this example is to show that how people understand facts is intimately linked to their conception of a good world. In other words, facts are normative. As a result, when we hear debates over the facts, we should be listening for the underlying conversations.

With these thoughts in mind, one of the unfortunate aspects of our current climate debates is that because the discussion is about scientific facts, we are missing chances to have broader discussions about a shared future. While humans have rarely managed to reach consensus about the best ways to live together in the world, such dialogue is all too rare in this day and age. If we were to discuss the relations between science and the state, our commitments to ourselves and future generations, and the best ways to achieve these goals, we might come a lot closer to addressing climate change than by focusing narrowly on the accuracy of scientific facts.

A Weightier Analogy

Americans, we are being told, are energy addicts. Even George Bush has declared that Americans are addicted to oil. With the surge of interest in energy resulting from high gasoline prices, the energy addiction analogy is all over the newspapers, television, and Internet.

Analogies are important. They help us make sense of a complex world. By framing issues in familiar ways, they tell us what is wrong and how we might go about fixing them. However, this is where we need to be careful. Because analogies shape how we think about problems, we need to be sure their suggested solutions will actually work.

At first glance, the energy-dependence-as-drug-addiction analogy makes sense.  It evokes a sense of crisis. It also implies irrational dependence. Just as drug addicts know the dangers of using yet feel unable to stop, we continue to pump gas into SUVs, overcool shopping malls, and leave the lights on, even though we know we shouldn’t.

The analogy breaks down, however, when we try to solve the problem. The solution to drug addiction is to kick drugs completely, but this won’t work for energy. Human life depends on it. Without a minimum amount of energy for heating, cooking, and growing food, we’d all be dead. Instead, we need an analogy that distinguishes between uses of energy that are essential and those that are wasteful.

A better analogy is that Americans are “energy obese.” It’s as if Americans are consuming the energy equivalent of an 8,000-calorie diet every day. Our energy bingeing is leading to all kinds of problems, such as high grocery bills (economic problems), less food for others (geopolitical tensions), and damaged bodies (environmental pollution). But, now that we are used to 8,000 calories a day, we have trouble imagining how to live with less.

The solution for an energy-obese nation is not going cold turkey: it’s starting a healthy and sustainable diet. What would this mean?

First, we need to get rid of the excessive energy we consume every day. No more energy junk food-—goodbye large SUVs, air-conditioned stores that leave their doors open and inefficient appliances. Just as a doctor would tell us to grab an apple in the afternoon instead of a donut, we need to take advantage of all the energy-saving activities we can, such as replacing incandescent light bulbs with fluorescents and turning down the thermostat in the wintertime. And we’ll need to exercise. We can replace some of our demand for fossil fuel with muscle power by biking to work, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, and walking to the store. This may have the extra benefit of reducing both physical and energy love handles.

Learning to live without all these extra calories will not be easy. It may require the political equivalent of stomach stapling. We’ll need laws that encourage energy-efficient behaviors and align the price of fossil fuels with the costs of global warming and foreign wars. Strategies could include placing caps on carbon emissions, developing renewable energy resources and enhancing public transportation systems. Such measures would be difficult and expensive.  However, in the richest nation in the world, we have the resources to do this.

Second, we need to figure out a sustainable supply of energy that would provide people with the energy equivalent of a 2,000-calorie diet. As in nutrition, not all calories are alike. Right now, almost all our calories come from fossil fuels, which are the energy equivalents of trans fats. Only 7 percent of our energy comes from healthy and sustainable renewable energy sources. We need to change this ratio by planting and eating more energy vegetables (wind), whole grains (solar) and fresh fruit (hydropower). As with food, we should get as much of our energy from local sources as possible. We can do this by
increasing government support for research into emerging technologies, providing incentives for renewable energy entrepreneurs and making conscious decisions to live with less.

Although calling Americans “energy obese” doesn’t suggest the same sense of crisis as “energy addicted,” it better captures how we should treat the problem. We don’t need a detox program; we need a healthier relationship with energy consumption. A new energy diet is just what the doctor ordered.

A Holiday from Sanity

We should call recent proposals for a “gas tax holiday” what they are: a holiday from sound thinking, responsible governance, and any tenable solution to our widespread energy problems. Or, as Thomas Friedman has recently written, it is just plain “dumb.”

It may not have been a great surprise when John McCain recommended that the government suspend its tax on gasoline (18.4 cents per gallon) for the summer driving season. Hillary Clinton’s recent decision to join him is much more deplorable, given her history of working with, rather than against, policy experts (those experts largely suggest the gains to individuals will be quite minimal). Now several states are joining in the discussion as well.

In explaining their support for this measure, various politicians claim to care about the negative consequences high gas prices have for many Americans (a cynic would note they likely care more about their poll numbers than regular people, but that is another matter). Their claim of caring for people is powerful politically, but we need to look at it more closely if we want to actually address the roots of suffering.

There are a lot of things we should care about. We should care that the increasing cost of gasoline is negatively impacting the lives of millions of Americans who need their cars to drive to work, drop children off at school, and run errands. For these people, the increasing price of gas impacts their ability to work, seek medical care, and support their families. Moreover, these impacts are often felt most acutely by the poorest members of society, who often have the longest commutes and lowest levels of savings.

We should care about other issues as well. We should care that our dependence on oil has led us into a disastrous war in Iraq. We should care that the transportation sector is one of the major contributors to global warming. We should care that Americans drive more than anyone else. We should care that America is addicted to oil and that these types of problems will only get worse unless we address this dependence.

In other words, we cannot separate caring about people from caring about solving the issues that are causing the problems. Our caring must extend beyond the short term. This can only be done by connecting relief efforts with long-range policies designed to alleviate the structural conditions that created the problems in the first place. Bottom line: if we are offering short-term relief, it had better include long-term answers.

Along this line, here are some alternative proposals that make a lot more sense:

First, if we are committed to a gas tax holiday, it should be linked with one or more of the following conditions: a) an increased tax on the purchase of vehicles getting less than 25 miles per gallon; b) every dollar saved by the gas tax holiday is matched by a dollar-for-dollar investment in renewable energy technologies; and/or c) a significant increase in the fuel economy standards for all classes of vehicles.

A second set of policy considerations would look at why Americans drive so much. One of the reasons is that real estate developers and corporations have been establishing living and working spaces that are increasingly far apart. To counter this trend, we should provide incentives for developers and companies to create houses and offices that are centrally located to one another and to public transportation hubs. By contrast, we should discourage suburban sprawl through measures that penalize such developments. Call this the “McMansion tax.”

Third, we can begin work to revitalize public transportation systems so that Americans have alternatives to driving. Given that it is extraordinarily unlikely the price of gas is ever going to return to its low levels of a decade ago, the economics of public transportation are looking better and better. However, these systems require significant public investment to develop the infrastructure that makes their smooth operations possible. We should begin these investments now.

None of these policies will solve our energy problems alone. However, they will go a lot further than the chicanery of a gas tax holiday. We should use the present crisis as motivation to solve our problems, not just wave a populist flag at them.

The Nuclear Lesson

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine just announced an ambitious new energy plan designed to reduce the state’s carbon dioxide emissions. Many are supportive of New Jersey’s efforts, in particular its goals to derive 20% of its power from renewable sources and to decrease overall consumption. However, one part of the plan has caused considerable consternation: the recommendation that New Jersey build a new nuclear plant.

The fact that nuclear power is being counted on to improve the health of the planet should give us pause. For several decades, environmentalists identified nuclear energy as one of earth's greatest dangers due to the handling and storing of radioactive waste and the possibility of plant meltdowns. In addition to its environmental risks, nuclear power has never been competitive economically. No nuclear power plant has been built in the United States since 1973, largely because public utilities have chosen to invest in cheaper options.

Even though nothing has been done to alleviate these environmental and economic concerns, nuclear energy is poised for a resurgence, as exemplified by New Jersey’s energy plan. The obvious explanation is global warming. Fears of a warming planet have reframed the environmental and economic worries of nuclear energy. The industry has been given new life because of the ability of nuclear energy to produce large quantities of electricity with comparably few greenhouse gas emissions (provisions in recent energy bills promising subsidies for nuclear power plants have helped as well).  

However, we should not lose sight of the fact that nuclear energy is only attractive because it is the lesser of several evils. This is not the same thing as being a good option. We need to ask ourselves how we got into a situation where our energy options are so limited that building an incredibly expensive and environmentally risky nuclear power plant makes sense.

How did we get here? Three sets of historical decisions have shaped our present position: heavy government subsidy of nuclear energy, a failure to make proactive decisions surrounding climate change, and a lack of investment in renewable energy technologies.

First and foremost, the only reason nuclear power can enter contemporary energy debates is that the industry has received tens of billions of dollars of investment from the U.S. government over the last sixty years. Much of this funding was political in nature: after dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. government was eager to show that the most destructive technology ever constructed could also help society. The idea of a nuclear “swords to ploughshares” program justified the investment of billions of dollars in nuclear energy programs to elite policymakers. Even though the results rarely matched the hype, the continued government support of nuclear power ultimately enabled the industry to become relatively well-developed, if not fully financially solvent. The critical point to keep in mind is that without huge quantities of government funding, nuclear power would not be an option today.

The second historical thread is the failure of the United States and other industrialized nations to proactively address global warming. By the 1970s, and certainly by the beginning of the 1990s, there was an emerging scientific consensus that the atmospheric effects of burning fossil fuels were leading to a warming of the planet. The United States has paid almost no heed to these warnings (some nations, such as Europe and Japan have taken more aggressive steps towards reducing emissions, although rhetoric has exceeded reality most of the time). The failure to begin taking proactive steps despite clear scientific evidence has exacerbated the present situation, forcing us to investigate all options for reducing greenhouse gases, even nuclear power.

Third, and related to the above point, one of the most effective interventions would have been to invest heavily in renewable energy technologies to lessen dependence on fossil fuels. The ability of the government to invest heavily in developing energy technologies is proven by the example of nuclear energy. If some of those billions of dollars over the past sixty years had been invested in developing solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, and other renewable technologies, these technologies would be much more commercially developed. As a result, we could be in a position to derive a much greater part of our energy requirements from renewable technologies. Such investments would likely have made a goal of achieving 20% of New Jersey’s energy from renewables seem as pathetic as Bush’s latest climate policy.

These past decisions have shaped today’s reality. Since we cannot go back and change the past, the best we can do is to learn from it. The nuclear lesson is that whatever we do today will structure the options available to our children, for better or for worse. If we choose to continue on our present course, our children will inherit a world of resource scarcity and a considerably warmer planet. Hopefully we can do better. If we invest heavily in renewable energy technologies that have minimal environmental risks (and not all renewable energy technologies are equal in this regard—see my post on the problems of ethanol, for example) we have a chance to give the next generation a legacy of solutions to accompany the challenges we will undoubtedly leave them as well.

The past dealt the present a bad hand for dealing with climate change. It’s up to us to take proactive steps to stack the deck in favor of the future.

The Return of the King

King Coal ruled the nineteenth century.  Marx and Engels were on to something when they identified the dark and satanic mills of England as emblematic of a new era.  The ability of coal to provide heat, power steam engines, and forge iron enabled the rise of an industrial society that would forever change the world. 

Coal disappeared from the popular imagination during the twentieth century.  Oil and nuclear power took its place as both the automobile and the atom became symbols of a new world.  However, it is a mistake to regard coal as a relic of the past.  When historians look back at the twenty-first century, a major theme is likely to be the return of coal to its status as king of energy sources.

Of course, coal never went away in the twentieth century.  In absolute terms, its consumption steadily increased.  However, people have much less direct contact with coal these days, and as a result, its visibility has diminished.  The main reason is that most coal in industrialized nations is burnt in electric power plants far away from consumers.  It is easy to forget that coal provides over half the power used in electric devices like laptops, refrigerators, and television sets.

While coal has been a crucial part of the twentieth century, its importance is likely to increase during the twenty-first as a result of two related trends.  The first is the ratio of coal reserves relative to other hydrocarbons.  The second is China and India.  

The first major factor encouraging the rise of coal is supply.  Simply put, there is a lot more coal out there than anything else.  Estimates of global reserves vary from source to source, but are consistent in emphasizing that coal reserves exceed those for oil and natural gas.  The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that there are 164 years of coal remaining as opposed to 65 years for natural gas.  There is greater controversy in citing oil reserves, but virtually all cite a figure of less than 100 years at current rates of consumption.  Barring unprecedented gains in non-hydrocarbon resources, by the latter half of the twenty-first century, coal will once again be the most widely available and used energy source.

The second factor is China and India.  These countries have three important things in common: huge populations, booming economies, and large coal reserves.  The consequences of this are pretty straightforward.  China and India will consume massive quantities of energy in the twenty-first century, largely through burning coal.  As these nations begin to represent an increasing percentage of global energy use, it will cause a corresponding shift in the make-up of the world's energy mix towards coal.

The increasing use of coal will not be good for the environment.  Most coal in its natural state contains many more impurities, such as sulfur, than oil or natural gas.  Increasing our consumption of coal will mean more carbon dioxide and more particulates in the air.  More than just our mills may be dark and satanic.  

What should we do about this?  First, we need to recognize the trends so that we can act accordingly.  One approach is to invest in clean coal technology.  While "clean coal" may be an oxymoron, there is no doubt that technologies such as stack scrubbers have significantly lessened the environmental impacts of coal-burning power plants.  Whether it is carbon sequestration or other approaches to reducing the environmental impacts of coal burning, we should be investing in them now.  At the same time, we should increase our investments in renewable energy resources to lower the demand for coal.

Once these technologies are developed, it is important that developing nations like China and India get free access to them.  Global warming can only be addressed from an international perspective.  However, many of these technologies, at least initially, are likely to be expensive and beyond the reach of developing nations.  Industrialized nations like the United States must realize that much of their wealth has been derived by burning hydrocarbons and accept a disproportionate role in paying for solutions.

King Coal will return.  It's up to us to be prepared.  

Carbon Caps

Carbon caps are coming. The pressure for some form of regulation of greenhouse gases in America has reached a critical threshold. The question is no longer if we will have such regulation, but what form it will take.

To review the basic economics, carbon dioxide emissions can be thought of as an externality, or a cost to society that is not paid by the manufacturer or the consumer. There are several possible ways to address an externality, including taxing carbon dioxide production or placing absolute limits on emissions. The Kyoto Protocol has been the most widely promoted method, and the European Union has implemented legislation based on its model. A compelling article titled "The Carbon Calculus" in today's New York Times offers a good overview of the issues.

The federal government has done a remarkable job of sidestepping the carbon issue. However, this neglect is about to end. Simply put, there is too much pressure coming from too many angles to stonewall the issue for much longer. People are increasingly skeptical of attacks on the science of global warming and the Nobel Prize won by Al Gore and the IPCC has brought renewed attention to climate change. More importantly, energy companies themselves are joining the party. They recognize that some form of regulation is inevitable, and they would rather have the rules set so that they can adapt their long-term business plans accordingly versus operating in an uncertain world.

All of this is good news. However, we must stay vigilant and realize that all carbon capping bills are not created equal. Industry and their Republican allies have become very adept at controlling debates on political issues. My favorite example of this is the bill sponsored by the coal industry known as the “Clear Skies Initiative.” Under a seemingly environmental name, this proposal was designed to increase the pollution coal plants would be allowed to emit. Another example is when President Bush increased fuel mileage standards, but did so by such a small amount that the measure has had little discernable effect on oil consumption.

As citizens, we must watch the debate to ensure that the legislation that emerges from this process is not a paper tiger. It will not be easy. Billions of dollars are at stake for energy companies and they will spend correspondingly to protect their interests. However, we can improve our chances by asking the right questions, such as: how stringent are the regulations? Are the requirements informed by scientific consensus on climate change? Is support built in for the development of alternative energy technologies? Do the regulations let Big Coal and Big Oil off the hook through grandfathering clauses, subsidies, or exceptions? What are the enforcement mechanisms?

Carbon capping may be inevitable, but the form it will take is not. One battle has been won but a much larger war is about to begin.

Missing the Point

Georgia has just declared a state of emergency. The reason? Water, or more accurately, a lack thereof. The state’s governor, Sonny Perdue, issued the order this past Saturday and is hoping to receive federal help in alleviating the crisis.

Why is Perdue requesting government help? Because he is blaming the problem on federal bureaucracy. Back in the 1980s, the state reached an agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Fish and Wildlife Service to release 5,000 feet of water per second from Lake Lanier (the main reservoir for Atlanta and north Georgia) to the Chattahoochee River. This extra water provides hydroelectricity for Florida power plants and for endangered river species including mussels and sturgeon. Perdue is blaming these bureaucratic requirements for North Georgia’s current predicament and wants to be freed from the regulations, labeling them as “silly rules.”

Perdue’s analysis is misleading and, as is common in politics, misses the fundamental point. Blaming bureaucracy is a convenient political strategy that identifies a scapegoat rather than addressing difficult underlying issues.

The big story here is the relationship between natural resources and regional growth. Water, as well illustrated by this week’s New York Times Sunday Magazine article, is emerging as a great limiting factor across the United States and the rest of the world. Since 1980, the population of Atlanta’s metropolitan area has doubled, dramatically increasing the demand for water. At the same time, almost nothing has been done to expand the water supply. Unchecked urban development without a plan for sustainable water usage is what has turned the current drought into a state of emergency, not the water needs of a few fish and mussels.

This story is particularly important since it is not isolated to Georgia. Urban development has proceeded throughout the entire United States over the last half-century with relatively little consideration for sustainable development. This can be seen most clearly in the case of the southwest, where cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas import water from hundreds of miles away for golf courses and industrial enterprises. However, the current crisis in Georgia reveals that this is a much more widely spread phenomenon.

We cannot continue building unsustainable cities and expect to avoid resource crises. We must require new urban developments to be sustainable and create plans for retrofitting our existing infrastructure. Only then can we address the underlying issues.

However, a solution cannot emerge until we ask the right questions. Blaming Georgia’s water supply on federal bureaucracy is not only wrong, it prevents the type of dialogue that would be necessary for a solution. Sonny Perdue has missed the point. Let’s not make the same mistake.

Blog Postscript (posted Thursday, October 25, 2007)

The differing perspectives on the drought have been replicated in various news forums. Compare the news coverage at CNN.com, CBS News, and the New York Times. Only the third article presents a critical perspective on the issues.

This blog is cross-listed at Science Progress.

Bio-fuels and Human Rights

Brazilian ethanol produced from sugar cane is one of the most promising stories in renewable energy technologies. For those committed to shifting away from fossil fuel dependence, the idea that we can grow an oil substitute is a very attractive idea. Moreover, Brazilian sugar cane ethanol is an established industry that offers a far better return on investment than American corn ethanol.

So, renewable energy advocates and environmentalists should support the rapid expansion of this industry, right?

Well, not exactly and certainly not unconditionally. The key thing to realize is that land is finite and there are competing demands for its use. In many cases, using land for energy means not using it for other human needs. Nowhere is this clearer than in the history of the Brazilian sugar cane industry.

Sugar has long served as an important cash crop for the Brazilian economy. In the 1960s and 1970s, many sugar cane plantations consolidated and expanded their operations—often using foreign capital—with the result that poor workers were pushed off lands they had used to supplement their food intake. As described in devastating detail by Nancy Scheper-Hughes and others, losing these small plots led to famine, poverty, sickness, and in many cases, death.[1]

This story is not particular to Brazil. Throughout the world, particularly in areas colonized by European powers, there has long been a tension between using land to grow food for locals versus using land to grow cash crops for foreigners. Sadly, cash crops have won this battle more often than the needs of locals. In many areas, this has created slow starvation, cyclical poverty, and environmental degradation.

We must not repeat this history. If Brazilian ethanol—or any other bio-fuel—is to be part of our energy solution, we must ensure that it does not come at the expense of the world’s rural poor. President Bush visited Brazil this past March to discuss an ethanol agreement with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Any trade agreement emerging from these discussions should require limits to the overall land use of the Brazilian ethanol industry, ensuring that sufficient land remains for the rest of Brazil’s population.

Solving global fossil fuel dependence is a tricky issue that will require some hard choices to be made. However, outsourcing these costs onto the world’s poor is not the answer. We should only support bio-fuels as part of the solution if human rights are protected.

[1] Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).

Note: this blog was inspired by reading other posts at Science Progress and has been cross-listed at their web site.

The Moral of the Moa

About 800 years ago, a group of traveling settlers came across an ideal new home. The group was the Maori, the place was New Zealand, and the reason it was such a lucky find was the presence of moa. Moa were large, flightless, and defenseless birds—up to 3.5 meters tall and 250 kilograms—that offered the Maori an abundance of tasty, nutrient-rich, and easy food.[1]

The Maori responded to their resource-rich world in a predictable manner. They began eating moa. Lots and lots of moa. Archeologists have found huge Maori camps with scores of ovens and the remains of tens of thousands of moa carcasses. It’s not hard to imagine why the Maori ate so many moa. It was simple—moa had almost no defenses, and we find no evidence that the Maori had hunting weapons more complex than spears and clubs. Many of the skeletal remains of moa show that their necks were wrung. Without much exaggeration, it seems one could walk up to a moa, club it, and drag it back to the campground.

The ease with which moa could be hunted led to incredibly inefficient use of the birds. The Maori preferred the meat from the haunches and often abandoned the rest. Moreover, archeologists have found unopened ovens with entire moa inside. With such a wide availability of moa, resource-conservation must have seemed a low priority.

The Maori had a good thing going on, and milked at as long as they could. After arriving in New Zealand, they essentially had a three or four hundred year moa barbeque. And then the moa began to run out. We don’t know how the Maori tried to respond to this decline—Did they limit hunting? Did they search for other types of food? Did they consider leaving New Zealand for a new land?—but we do know the results. They continued to eat moa until there were no more left.

Transitioning from a moa-rich environment to a moa-poor environment dramatically changed the culture of the Maori. Whereas the Maori came from the relatively peaceful Polynesian culture, by the time of the decline of the moa, the society took a decidedly militaristic turn. The Maori started to build large forts beginning in the 15th century, and by 1642, when the first European explorer arrived, cannibalism was a common practice. The Dutchman Abel Janzoon Tasman sent a boat of men to meet a canoe of Maori, and the Maori proceeded to slaughter the men in the boat. By the time Captain Cook arrived in 1768, he was greeted by Maori chanting: “Haere mai ki uta kia patua” or “Come ashore and be clubbed.” Violence between Maori groups was endemic—Cook noted that the first thing any group asked for in trade was help in destroying their neighbors.

We have much to learn from the Maori and their relationship to resources. If we substitute fossil fuels for moa and present-day Americans for 17th century Maori, some disturbing parallels arise. Americans have feasted on fossil fuels for nearly two centuries, transforming coal, oil, and natural gas into heat, light, better food through fertilizer, extended life spans, and dramatic improvements in overall quality of life. We have also used the over-abundance of fossil fuels very inefficiently. Just like the early Maori, we have had a great run thanks to a resource-rich world.

Unfortunately, our world will not remain fossil-fuel rich forever (whether this is a matter of decades or centuries is up for debate, but the ultimate depletion of fossil fuels is inevitable if current patterns continue). Here the lessons of the Maori grow darker. They suggest two important questions. First, can we make social changes that preserve a valuable but dwindling natural resource? Second, will we have the grace to enter a resource-poor environment without resorting to factionalism, violence, and cannibalism?

For the Maori, the answer to these questions was a resounding no. A quick look at our fossil fuel consumption practices indicates that we are not doing much better in the twenty-first century. Those of us interested in our planet and society would be wise to learn more about the fate of the moa and how we can make different choices for the future.

[1] The evidence for this piece comes from the excellent book by Tim Flannery on the historical relationships between Australasian peoples and their environment: Tim F. Flannery, The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People, (New York: Grove Press, 1994).

The False Idol of Energy Independence

U.S. energy independence is a false god upon whose altar many of our energy experts worship. We should reject this approach because it does not tackle the most pressing energy problems, is not a sustainable solution, and will not generate long-term security for the United States.

Energy independence advocates recommend that the United States pursue policies that seek to eliminate the importation of energy. In most cases, the focus is on oil imports from the Middle East and Venezuela. As a policy, this has obvious appeal. Both conservatives and liberals can agree that sending billions of dollars to nations that threaten the United States, repress human rights, squash democracy, and treat women as second-class citizens is a bad idea. Moreover, as the cost of the Iraq War in dollars, loss of international prestige, and human lives has demonstrated, dependence on foreign oil can be disastrous.

From this perspective, energy independence seems like an obvious answer. Unfortunately, the picture is not so rosy.

First, energy independence fails to address climate change, which is the most pressing energy problem our world faces today. From the perspective of our ecosystem, the problem is that there is too much fossil fuel energy left, not too little. If we continue to burn fossil fuels at current rates—and we have enough left to do so for many decades—then the resulting greenhouse gases will substantially alter the climate of the planet. In all likelihood, this will increase sea levels, make drought conditions more common, and threaten the food supply chain. Millions of lives will be lost due to famines and epidemics caused by climate change. Any proposal that focuses on energy independence to the exclusion of climate change is comparable to putting a band-aid on a broken bone.

Second, energy independence proposals generally favor the expansion of U.S. energy production (pumping more oil, mining more coal, raising more corn). However, these proposals ignore a significant way of reducing energy imports—conservation. We need to dramatically increase the attention given to reducing energy consumption and improving efficiencies in existing processes.

Third, it is not clear that energy independence actually increases national security. If the United States pursues a “we’ve got ours” attitude and forsakes the rest of the world, it will only enhance global inequalities. These inequalities will become a direct threat to national security by creating billions of disenfranchised people with little to lose. The terrorist acts of September 11th reveal to us the dangers these conditions can create. America can only become safe by reaching out and working with the rest of the world, not in opposition to it.

How should we proceed? Instead of focusing solely on energy independence, U.S. energy policy should be globally oriented. It should recognize climate change as a pressing problem and should emphasize reductions in energy consumption, rather than developing new sites of production. Only then will we be worshipping in a temple that has the potential of delivering us to the promised land.

The Prices Others Pay - April 24, 2007

The widespread use of fossil fuel energy has transformed the world, with mixed results. However, it is essential to realize how one-sided both the benefits and the costs of world energy use have been. In broad strokes, those in the industrialized West have gained much, while those in developing nations have borne most of the burdens.

Two world-historical events show this pattern clearly, one from the nineteenth century and one that is about to happen: industrialization and climate change. Beginning in the eighteenth century in Britain and extending in the nineteenth century to parts of Western Europe and America, industrialization transformed fossil fuel energy into new manufacturing processes, new products, and a new economic order. Industrialization brought many benefits to these nations including longer life spans, economic growth, an abundance of material goods, less physically demanding labor, and more leisure time. There have certainly been some costs associated with industrialization—uneven distributions of the wealth, great poverty existing next to great wealth, sickness due to pollution—but on the whole, the benefits in these nations have outweighed the costs. If you doubt this, ask yourself whether you would really expect to have a better quality of life in England in 1750 than in America today.

However, outside of Europe and America, industrialization has had a much more ambiguous record. The nineteenth century saw a great advance in European colonization of Africa and parts of Asia. While germs were always important to these forays, the industrial technologies of the nineteenth century—steamboats, machine guns, telegraph wires—were essential to maintaining colonial holdings. For much of the world, the direct result of industrialization was subjection to colonial rulers, which led to the extraction of wealth from the countries, repressive government regimes, and slavery. The period of decolonization has been little better, as the withdrawal of colonial governments left decimated infrastructure, weak economies, and power voids that have often been filled by military dictatorships.

In the 21st century, the negative effects of climate change will also be disproportionately felt by developing nations. While climate change is not likely to bring major benefits to anyone—the possible exceptions being northern lands such as Canada and Siberia that might expand agricultural output—the worst will be experienced in poor, low-lying countries. The United States, the biggest contributor to global warming, will get off relatively easily. Even though parts of Florida and the Gulf Coast will likely be covered in water, this loss will be minimal compared to the devastation experienced in other parts of the world.

Many of the nations of the developing world will pay the costs of global warming in human lives. For low-lying countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines, much of the land will be lost to sea. By losing farmland, malnutrition will be exacerbated. Standing water also provides ideal grounds for the spread of diseases like cholera and malaria. Even in inland countries, the effects will be significant. Over a billion people depend on the water from the Himalayas. As the glaciers begin melting, this may leave millions without essential fresh water. In mainland Africa, more variable weather conditions will disrupt agricultural patterns and may lead to famine conditions. Famine, malnutrition, and disease are all preventable occurrences, but history shows us that as a global society we have lacked the will and commitment to address these issues. There is little reason to think that it is about to change.

The message is clear: those who have received the benefits of industrialization must stop ignoring the costs of our actions just because they are easily transferred to the rest of the world. Climate change must be addressed, and those countries that have benefited the most must lead the charge. If $100 billion can be dedicated towards rebuilding New Orleans, surely similar resources can be directed towards alleviating the known sufferings—and possible deaths—of millions that will be displaced from their homes and livelihoods by our fossil fuel dependence.

The Corn Confusion - April 7, 2007

Corn ethanol is not the answer to the critical energy challenges facing the world today. Current efforts to develop corn ethanol risk devoting scarce resources towards an energy approach that offers marginal returns. Instead of pandering to interest politics and focusing on energy independence to the exclusion of climate change issues, we need to devote our energy investments towards more promising options.

Corn ethanol suffers from at least three critical shortcomings. The first is that it offers a limited, at best, return on energy investment due to the costs of growing, transporting, and processing corn. Whether ethanol offers any return at all is a current topic of debate. Recent review articles in Science and Environmental Science and Technology find that on the whole, most research reveals that ethanol contains a slight return on investment—a range of 1.29 to 1.64 is cited by the latter article.[1] The one researcher consistently reporting negative values is David Pimentel, who argues the energy return of ethanol is 0.84.[2] The variety of numbers reflects the authors’ varied assumptions. Pimentel includes more energy inputs in his equation, such as energy used by workers to travel and in the manufacture of capital equipment. His critics, however, contend that he uses old data that over-inflates certain energy costs and that he does not include the energy-value of the by-products of ethanol production.[3] Regardless of the exact value, the important point to keep in mind is that the energy return is at best mediocre. Corn ethanol requires too many fossil fuel inputs to be the basis of a renewable energy system.

Second, ethanol does not address the issue of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which is arguably the greatest energy challenge we are facing at present. While fossil fuels are depleting, the more immediate energy problem the world faces is climate change, which has the potential to seriously disrupt ecosystems and devastate poor, low-lying countries. Estimates of the GHG emissions associated with the production of corn ethanol vary depending on how it is produced and used, but the authors of the Science article find a range varying from a 32% decrease to a 20% increase in GHGs, with an average saving of around 13%.[4] Just like the modest returns of energy from ethanol, its benefits for alleviating the perils of global warming are mediocre as well.

A third consideration is the land needed to grow corn. There are natural limits to the extent we can expand corn production in order to increase ethanol output based on land availability. It is not clear that it will be possible to dramatically increase the total supply of ethanol given competing demands on agricultural land. In addition, there are serious questions about whether this is good idea. It may create environmental impacts on the land that is brought under cultivation. The best land is already under cultivation, so the additional fields planted will likely yield an even lower return on energy investment. More seriously, it brings into question whether land that could be growing food to feed people around the world would be devoted to ethanol instead.

The news is not completely bleak for ethanol, however, if we look past corn. The most intriguing possibilities in the ethanol world come from cellulosic ethanol. Whereas corn ethanol produces fuel only from the kernels of corn, cellulosic ethanol transforms entire plants, including leaves, stems, and stalks into fuel. The main benefit of this approach is that the lignin within plant cell walls includes energy that can be used to break down the plant materials and generate ethanol. This energy savings has resulted in studies promising an energy return of 4.40 to 6.61, while some suggest values over 10 might be achieved.[5] However, such technology is at the early stages of development and cellulosic ethanol cannot be manufactured in significant quantities. Supporting this technology would be a much wiser policy than feeding more pork to Midwestern corn farmers.

Given all the problems with corn ethanol and the limited upside, why does it continue to garner such attention? The first reason is that people are not accustomed to viewing energy cycles holistically and asking questions about the energy required in the production of ethanol. The second reason is that energy independence is often discussed separately from climate change and sustainability. Corn ethanol can help us reduce imports of oil, which is certainly a desirable goal. However, energy independence that does not address the issue of climate change is not a wise policy, as it leads us out of the frying pan and into the fire. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, corn ethanol is being driven by Midwestern politicians who see it as an opportunity to bring money and industries to their states. While politicians have always sought to serve their constituents by attracting funding to their regions, we cannot allow such approaches to determine energy policy. Instead, we need to identify energy solutions that are sustainable, environmentally-friendly, and economically promising instead of pandering to interest politics.

So what should the future of ethanol be? Well, to quote a familiar phrase, it depends. If the government is truly committed to pursuing solutions to the pressing problems of energy, then ethanol should continue to receive some support. It can help us achieve a bit of energy independence and support Midwestern agriculturalists. However, in the current political environment where there are limited funds available for the development of new technologies, scarce resources should be shifted away from ethanol and towards technologies that offer greater promise, such as wind and solar power. By drawing money and attention away from more promising approaches, ethanol might actually make our energy problems worse.

[1] A value of 1 implies that there is no energy gain or loss in the production of ethanol. A value above 1 indicates a net positive gain and a value below 1 indicates a net energy loss. Alexander E. Farrell et al., "Ethanol Can Contribute to Energy and Environmental Goals," Science 311, no. 5760 (2006), Roel Hammerschlag, "Ethanol's Energy Return on Investment: A Survey of the Literature 1990-Present," Environmental Science and Technology 40 (2006).
[2] David Pimentel and Tad Patzek, "Ethanol Producting Using Corn, Switchgrass, and Wood; Biodiesel Production Using Soybean and Sunflower," Natural Resources Research 14, no. 1 (2005).
[3] Farrell et al., "Ethanol Can Contribute to Energy and Environmental Goals.", Roel Hammerschlag, "Ethanol: Energy Well Spent," (National Resources Defense Council, 2006).
[4] Farrell et al., "Ethanol Can Contribute to Energy and Environmental Goals," 506.
[5] Hammerschlag, "Ethanol's Energy Return on Investment: A Survey of the Literature 1990-Present."

Crude Thinking - May 5, 2007

Oil dominates the headlines. Of all the energy sources we use in our world, oil is the most visible. It has been clearly linked to geopolitical struggles, questions over its continuing supply, and global warming. These are real problems and they deserve our attention.

However, focusing on oil to the exclusion of other energy sources is crude thinking. It blinds us to the full range of issues we must address as a society. Oil represents only about 40% of total world-wide energy use, meaning that to have a comprehensive view we must account for the other 60%.

Where does this other 60% come from? A mix of coal, natural gas, hydroelectricity, and a few renewable sources. Each of these energy sources comes with its own set of political, environmental, and social consequences. For example, coal has the highest carbon dioxide emissions of any fossil fuel, the use of natural gas has helped lower emissions but its supplies are dwindling, and hydroelectric dams disrupt ecological habitats.

Yes, oil is important. But it is not so important that we should blind ourselves to the pressing issues associated with other energy sources.