The environment – Page 101 – a sibilant intake of breath

The Desertec solar plan

As reported in The Economist, Munich Re has invited 20 large companies to form a consortium, intended to build concentrating solar power stations in Africa and the Middle East, as well as the high voltage direct current (HVDC) lines required to bring that power to Europe. The stations will use molten salt heat storage, so as to be able to generate power day and night. Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurer, is motivated by concern about its exposure to climate change. Fully implemented, the scheme would cost $560 billion and provide 15% of Europe’s projected energy demand in 2050. The complete system would cover 17,000 square kilometres of territory.

Desert solar as a renewable energy option has come up here before.

All told, the plan is very promising. It is refreshing to see companies thinking strategically about the long-term harm climate change could do to them, as well as the long-term opportunities associated with renewable energy. A report produced by the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy and the Club of Rome determined that the project could produce 240,000 jobs in Germany, as well as €2 trillion worth of electricity by 2050.

Even more importantly, it could demonstrate the feasibility of the desert concentrating solar / HVDC option, which could be extended to the Southern US and elsewhere. As David MacKay explains, this is one of the renewable options where the figures add up, and it could be possible to generate the kind of energy societies demand. Here’s hoping the Desertec plan helps lead the way.

Ranking the quality of carbon offsets

Carbon offsets have been a contentious subject on this and other environmental blogs. On one side, people argue that their sale produces better outcomes than would otherwise arise, since people voluntarily help to eliminate emissions where it is cheapest to do so. On the other, people argue that many offsets are of dubious quality, and that the very idea of offsetting perpetuates harmful behaviours and the false sense that climate change can be addressed without lifestyle changes. Not everyone can offset, after all.

In response to the former concern, about the quality of offsets, the Pembina Institute and David Suzuki Foundation has produced a survey of 20 Canadian vendors of offsets. According to Pembina, offsets from renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects are the most credible sort available. Others have pointed out that forestry-based offsets and those based on Kyoto Protocol CDM credits are among the most dubious.

In the end, I think buying offsets is a much less worthwhile exercise than reducing your own emissions or lobbying for political action on climate change. That being said, if there is going to be a market in offsets, it is good that the various firms providing them are being subjected to outside scrutiny.

Exporting pollution

The government of Brazil is demanding that the UK take back 1,400 tonnes of hazardous waste that have been shipped to three Brazilian ports. The incident illustrates the broader phenomenon of rich states exporting pollution, both in the form of directly shipping hazardous materials abroad and by eliminating highly polluting industries domestically and importing their products from developing countries. All this helps to sustain the illusion that lifestyles in developed states are sustainable, since both resource and waste problems are shifted to places where they are less immediately visible.

Whether the issue is ozone depleting substances, persistent organic pollutants, or greenhouse gasses, distance alone is no real protection for the population of developed states. Fundamentally global problems like these require coordinated solutions involving states at very different levels of wealth, and with different internal political arrangements. The negotiators at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting in Copenhagen this December have quite a challenge ahead of them.

Projecting sea ice minimums

Over at RealClimate, there is a discussion about projecting the summer sea ice minimum in the Arctic. As readers may recall, the 2007 minimum was unexpectedly low. 2008 was still worse than projected by the IPCC, but not as bad as 2007. All indications are that this year’s minimum will still be below even the most pessimistic IPCC projections.

In addition to being less extensive than before, the Arctic sea ice is also thinner and newer – less and less consists of multi-year ice, and an increasing share consists of ice that forms in the winter and vanishes during the summer months. All this is bad news for species that depend on the sea ice, such as polar bears.

Driving action on climate change in Cambridge

A friend of mine sent me a link to a Guardian article about making people take action on climate change. The article argues that emotional engagement is necessary to translate concern into action:

The psychotherapist Rosemary Randall observed that even among those individuals who fully understand the risks of climate change, very few have taken steps to meaningfully reduce their carbon footprint.

I think focusing on the carbon footprint of participants may be a faulty approach. What we need now is active citizens pushing for government action, not a few isolated individuals making small contributions. Still, it is good to see people working on the issue of turning knowledge into real engagement.

The project being discussed – Carbon Conversations – conducts seminars in Cambridge every two weeks.

Differential electricity pricing

Some forms of differential prices based on time are entirely artificial: for instance, telephone companies that charge more for calls made before 6:00pm or 7:00pm. They do this because it is profitable. It lets them charge high prices during the day to business users, while offering cheaper plans to social users later. That being said, there are situations where the economic basis for prices varies considerably depending on time of day (and year). Electricity production is one.

In the future, spikes in electricity demand may be partially mitigated through the combination of variable pricing and smart appliances that can inform users about the costs of operating at different times, or even make autonomous choices to stay within a budget. This video from General Electric provides more information.

While getting rid of daytime minutes would have little real effect on cell phone networks, shifting electricity demand from high-demand to low-demand times could have a significant impact on the electrical system, partly by reducing the need for inefficient ‘peaker’ plants, which top up supply during periods of maximum strain.

The costly nuclear option

Writing in The Toronto Star, Tyler Hamilton reveals that the AECL bid to add two new Advanced CANDU reactors to Ontario’s Darlington nuclear station was approximately $26 billion. That works out to a shocking $10,800 per kilowatt of electricity, compared with the $2,900 per kilowatt reference figure the Ontario Power Authority was using for planning back in 2007. The French firm Areva apparently put in a lower bid – $7,375 per kilowatt – but was unwilling to take on as much risk as AECL. The article also notes the untested nature of the Advanced CANDU design, which is especially worrisome given the failure of AECL to deploy two planned isotope reactors, due to design failures.

If this is the true contemporary cost of nuclear power, it seems plausible that we shouldn’t be bothering with it, given all the other associated risks. For $10,800 per kilowatt, it is quite possible we could get more value by funding energy efficiency, conservation, and renewables. Taking some cost figures from MacKay, we can compare $26 billion for 2,000MW (2GW) of nuclear with other options:

Onshore wind: $2.8 billion for 2GW
Offshore wind: $3.0 billion for 2GW
Concentrating solar in deserts : $31 billion for 2GW
Solar photovoltaic: $14.5 billion for 2GW

We also wouldn’t be taking on the additional risks associated with proliferation, accidents, wastes, and so forth. Admittedly, MacKay’s figures are approximate and there are other considerations to be made. Even so, the staggering cost of the AECL bid has to give pause to anyone who hopes nuclear could be a cheap and relatively easy solution to climate change. It may be that The Economist will be proved correct in saying: “Since the 1970s, far from being ‘too cheap to meter’—as it proponents once blithely claimed—nuclear power has proved too expensive to matter.”

More cycle-friendly Burrard Street Bridge

The Burrard Street Bridge – one of Vancouver’s prettiest – has been modified so as to be more friendly to cyclists. One of the two sidewalks has become a dedicated corridor for cyclists heading north into downtown. Meanwhile, one traffic lane has been converted for use by cyclists heading south toward Kitsilano. Pedestrians will be restricted to the other sidewalk.

The move is a very welcome one. The bridge offers nice views of the mountains, False Creek, and downtown. Making it cycle-friendly also contributes to a beautiful cycling arc extending from the University of British Columbia, along the beaches to the Granville Island area, then across the Burrard Street Bridge and along the waterfront path to Stanley Park.

Cyclists in Vancouver should definitely give this ride a try, while the six month bridge trial is ongoing.

Palin’s content-free opposition to carbon pricing

Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska, has produced an op-ed for The Washington Post attacking the Waxman-Markey bill, and the idea of using cap and trade to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. She argues:

It will prevent economic recovery.
It will make energy too expensive.
Job losses will result.
Costs of agriculture, transport, and manufacturing will rise.
Drilling in Alaska and building pipelines is a better option.
The US has lots of coal, and could build a lot more nukes.

Notably, she doesn’t even pretend to offer a solution to climate change, the primary problem the Waxman-Markey bill aims to address. This is remarkably myopic. Even if we accept that all of her assertions are true, this op-ed brings us no closer to making an intelligent decision on climate change and energy policies, since it doesn’t really contemplate alternative mechanisms through which climate can be stabilized and dependence on non-renewable fuels can be overcome. To imply that the US can get by with a bit more drilling is deeply fallacious. Similarly, it is misleading and dangerous to suggest that the American economy would keep ticking happily along indefinitely, even if climate change was totally unrestrained and allowed to follow its most destructive course.

We can only hope that the US Senate will be a bit more far-seeing in its analysis and deliberations, more willing to consider the key motivations for energy policy, and ultimately seized of the importance of sending a strong and growing price signal, so as to progressively and deeply curb the release of harmful and threatening greenhouse gasses.

Privatizing the sea to prevent overfishing

One standard solution to overfishing offered by economists is to essentially privatize the sea by creating individualized transferable quotas (ITQs) that give individuals and firms an incentive to fish at a sustainable level. Where intellectually coherent, the approach can be criticized on a number of grounds.

This Grist post does a good job of doing so. It points out the importance and difficulty of setting an appropriate Total Allowable Catch (TAC), the enormous problem of subsidized overcapacity, as well as bycatch and social justice issues.

ITQs may well be part of a sustainable global fisheries regime, especially where it comes to well-studied coastal fisheries off the shore of a single state with a strong regulatory capacity. When it comes to dealing with the pillage of the open ocean, however, they don’t really stand a chance.