The environment – Page 171 – a sibilant intake of breath

Compressed air for mobile energy storage

All of a sudden, the air car concept is popping up everywhere. I hadn’t head of it before someone left a comment yesterday. Now, it is on Metafilter, Slashdot, and YouTube.

I must admit that the prospect of a $7,500 car that can run for 200-300km on $3 worth of compressed air sounds pretty amazing. Of course, the compressed air would just be a storage mechanism for energy generated in other ways. The advantage over hydrogen and fuel cell systems of biodiesel could lie in lower infrastructure costs. Installing compressors in homes and service stations already connected to the electrical grid is a lot cheaper than developing a whole new hydrogen infrastructure, leaving more money to direct towards genuinely renewable sources of energy. The compressors could also be powered directly by wind or water turbines, as well as solar power systems. As for biodiesel, once you factor in the energy required to grow the crops and process them, as well as the inefficiency of internal combustion engines and the continued reality of toxic emissions, it doesn’t seem like a hugely alluring prospect to anyone but corn farmers.

While it is unlikely that one technology will allow us to overcome fossil fuel dependence, it does seem sensible to think that something like this could be part of the mix. Especially if the energy being used to compress the air is coming from a renewable, non-greenhouse-gas-emitting source, these cars could make a big difference in the developing world. They could also help tackle urban air pollution, such as the kind plaguing Beijing.

PS. I got today’s photo of the day in Oriel College, as part of my initiative to photograph each college at least once. While there, I discovered a sizable conference on climate change ongoing, about which I had heard nothing. This goes to show just how many people are working on the issue, both here at Oxford and more generally.

IPCC summaries

Pretty much everyone has read news coverage on climate change, but it seems that relatively few people have read anything the IPCC has actually written. I recommend looking over the 21 pages of the Summary for Policymakers for the Fourth Assessment Report (PDF). It addresses a number of topics covered in the media, from global dimming to variations in solar output.

While few people who read it are personally qualified to gauge its accuracy, and even those who could would need the information from the full report text, it is nonetheless worthwhile to look at the source, rather than the versions processed by the BBC or the New York Times.

For those wanting to track what has changed over the last six years, within the IPCC’s conclusions, have a look at the surprisingly brightly coloured Summary for Policymakers from the Third Assessment Report. Note that, unlike the full reports, the summaries are vetted line-by-line by representatives from member governments.

Heading for the 40th Parliament?

After 15 months with a Conservative minority government, it looks like Canada is heading for a new general election.

For those not paying overly close attention, the Liberal Party held its convention back in December, choosing Stéphane Dion as their new leader. Dion beat out Michael Ignatieff who had, at times, seemed the front-runner. Back in January 2006, the Conservative Party managed to secure a minority government, ending Y years of Liberal control over the House of Commons.

Stephen Harper is obviously trying to consolidate his earlier victory into a majority government. The election should be an interesting one, primarily because of social and environmental issues. There is a lingering suspicion that the relative moderation the Conservatives have shown in power is a tactical choice for the period until they get a majority government (though those fears may simply be stoked by Liberals hoping to frighten a few votes their way). On the environment, nobody is looking too good at the moment. The Conservatives have all but abandoned Canada’s commitment to Kyoto, which the previous Liberal government had never put a sufficient amount of effort into. The heightened level of concern about climate change will probably make the issue front-and-centre in the campaign. Whether that will lead to anything meaningful or not remains to be seen.

Equilibrium ruminations

Working on chapter three, I have been talking a lot about different kinds of equilibria, and what implications they have for environmental policy. Uncertainty about which sort we are dealing with – as well as the critical points of transition between them – make it exceptionally difficult to consider global environmental problems in cost-benefit terms.

Stable equilibria

One common view of the characteristics of natural equilibria is that they are both stable and singular. An example is a marble at the bottom of a bowl. If you push it a bit in one direction or another, it will return to where it was. Many biological systems seem to be like this, at least within limits. Think about the acid-base conjugate systems that help control the pH of blood, or about an ecosystem where a modest proportion of one species gets eliminated. Provided you like the way things are at the moment, more or less, such stable equilibria are a desirable environmental characteristic. They allow you to effect moderate changes in what is going on, without needing to worry too much about profoundly unbalancing your surroundings.

Unstable equilibria

Of course, such systems can be pushed beyond their bounds. Here, think about a vending machine being tipped. Up to a certain critical point, it will totter back to its original position when you release it. Beyond that point, it will continue to fall over, even if the original force being exerted upon it is discontinued. Both the vertical and horizontal positions of the vending machine are stable equilibria, though we would probably prefer the former to the latter. For a biological example, you might think of a forested hillside. Take a few trees, wait a few years, and the situation will probably be much like when you began. If you cut down enough trees to lose all the topsoil to erosion, however, you might come back in many decades and still find an ecosystem radically different from the one you started off with.

Multiple equilibria

The last important consideration are the number of systems where there are a very great many equilibrium options. One patch of ocean could contain a complex ecosystem, with many different trophic levels and a complex combination of energy pathways. Alternatively, it could feature a relative small number of species. The idea that we can turn the first into the second, through over-fishing, and then expect things to return to how they were at the outset demonstrates some of the fallacious thinking about equilibria in environmental planning.

The trouble with the climate is that it isn’t like a vending machine, in that you can feel the effect your pushing is having on it and pretty clearly anticipate what is going to happen next. Firstly, that is because there are internal balances that make things trickier. It is as though there are all sorts of pendulums and gyroscopes inside the machine, making its movements in response to any particular push unpredictable. Secondly, we are not the only thing pushing on the machine. There are other exogenous properties like solar and orbital variations that may be acting in addition to our exertions, in opposition to them, or simply in parallel. Those forces are likely to change in magnitude both over the course or regular cycles and progressively over the course of time.

How, then, do we decide how much pushing the machine can take? This is the same question posed, in more economic terms, when we speculate about damage curves.

Presenting science

When thinking about the social roles of scientists, it is helpful when they come out and speak on the subject directly. As such, an article in the BBC headlines feed for today is interesting. Basically, it is about some scientists who feel that it is both misleading and a tactical error to play up the catastrophic possibilities of climate change. One, Professor Paul Hardaker from the Royal Meteorological Society, argues:

“I think we do have to be careful as scientists not to overstate the case because it does damage the credibility of the many other things that we have greater certainty about,” he said.

“We have to stick to what the science is telling us; and I don’t think making that sound more sensational, or more sexy, because it gets us more newspaper columns, is the right thing for us to be doing.

“We have to let the science argument win out.”

The first thing to note about this is the implicit position that it is up to scientists to actively tune what they say to the audience they are addressing. This is done for the explicit reason of retaining “credibility” and thus influence. What is suggested, furthermore, is that scientists basically know what is to be done (even if that is more research, for the moment) and that they should be saying the right things in public to keep things on the right track.

Of course, science cannot tell us how much risk we want to bear. While runaway climate change – driven by methane release, for example – may not be a probable outcome, the very fact that it is possible may be sufficient to justify expensive preventative measures. Science can likewise tell us what areas and groups are most likely to be affected, but hardly requires one or another course of action in response. Bjorn Lomborg has famously argued that general increases in foreign aid are the best thing the developed world can do for the developing world, so that the latter will be richer by the time the major effects of climate change manifest themselves.

The position of scientists is a somewhat paradoxical one. In the first place, their influence is founded upon their supposedly superior ability to access and understand the world. Their credibility relies upon being relatively neutral reporters of fact. When they begin dealing with data at the kind of second-order level embodied in the above quotation, they are seeking to increase their influence in a way that can only diminish the original source of their legitimacy. In an area like the environment this is inevitable, but it does render invalid the idea that science, in and of itself, can guide us.

Solar power and climate change

This is my last full day in Wales. Hopefully, we will have seen a bit of sunshine so far. One of the best things about climbing mountains is the view from the top. Speaking on illumination…

Intuitively, I have long had the sense that solar power makes a great deal of sense as an alternative power source. There are no greenhouse gas emissions, there is no need to operate any massive industrial processes, other than manufacturing panels, and the technology only needs to become incrementally better to be cost-effective against fossil fuels. This map of solar energy, which was used in C.G. Rapley’s presentation, shows the size of solar collectors of the present efficiency that would be needed to satisfy our present electrical needs.

Cost is the first big problem with solar, though it may be a temporary one. According to The Economist:

Decades of research have improved the efficiency of silicon-based solar cells from 6% to an average of 15% today, whereas improvements in manufacturing have reduced the price of modules from about $200 per watt in the 1950s to $2.70 in 2004. Within three to eight years, many in the industry expect the price of solar power to be cost-competitive with electricity from the grid.

Full article (subscription required)

The other big one is load balancing. Because solar output isn’t constant, there is a need to either store power or redistribute it across long distances. Storage across the daily light-dark cycle is of inescapable importance, and the means for doing so are not terribly clear. Batteries are costly and bulky, as well as of a limited lifetime. Solar energy could be used to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen, which could then be fed to fuel cells, but I expect that would increase costs a lot, while reducing efficiency. As with transportation, I think energy storage is a bigger long term problem than energy generation.

Of course, one technology is unlikely to be the solution, in and of itself. There are lots of places where hydro, wind, and geothermal power make sense. There may even be situations where biodiesel is an appropriate choice, despite the inefficiencies of production.

[Update: 3 May 2007] Antonia sent me an interesting BBC article about a solar thermal plant near Seville.

C.G. Rapley on climate change

The Earthwatch Institute lecture tonight was an educational experience, for a whole slew of reasons. I learned a lot about the organization, the talk itself was very well done, and I spoke with some unusually interesting people.

Earthwatch is a slick organization: corporate partnerships, wine receptions before and after talks given at the business school, and a 153-page full-colour glossy book distributed in a ‘treat bag’ to each attendee at the end. This all gives a really interesting glimpse into the world of relationships between private actors. These people aren’t lobbying the state, they are engaging with the scientific and business communities, along with individuals inclined towards certain concerns. Anyone who thinks that regulating carbon emissions is a matter for the leftist fringe should probably meet these people. In the ecosystem of contemporary international actors, they are an unusual species, worthy of further study.

The talk was given by Professor C.G. Rapley, the Director of the British Antarctic Survey. He was well chosen: articulate, funny, and capable of presenting technical material in an engaging and highly effective way. That this is an outset of an international polar year made the choice particularly timely. My transcript of the talk is available on the wiki.

Perhaps the most unusual thing he said – his greatest deviation from the Stern-Gore Axis – was the suggestion that we could (and should) jump-start the demographic transition. This is is transition from high birth and death rates, to massively lowered death rates (due to medicine, agriculture, etc), through massive population growth to the eventual lowering of birth rates and stabilization of the population overall. Rapley alleged that 76m unwanted pregnancies occur each year, worldwide. Giving these people effective contraception and social orders in which they can use it could accomplish a number of good things: he focused on the reduction of future emissions and a reduced push towards urbanization. Of course, the politics of birth control are fiendishly complex, and the possibilities for harm considerable. That said, a world where women have more control over how many children they have would, all other things being equal, be a much better one. Rapley seems to have written more on population for the BBC.

My thanks to all those – both employees of Earthwatch and fellow guests – with whom I spoke at the receptions. Altogether, this evening has reinforced my conception that climate change is the single greatest challenge facing the world today. It has also bolstered my hope that it is something that we can overcome.

No Mercator projection

Grabbed from Metafilter, this page of maps distorted to show relative rates of things like military spending is quite interesting. Unsurprisingly, the map of war and death is especially grotesque.

Some higher resolution versions are over at Worldmapper: by total population, landmine casualties, and wealth (per capita).

Looking at these, one is immediately struck by how heterogeneous the world is. Of course, we all knew that before, but seeing the information in a new way can change one’s perception of it quite a bit. While there is the danger of such data being misleading, I would say it counters the greater danger of extrapolating from personal experience. Aggregated statistics, while not perfect, are a lot better than on-the-fly human intuitions, when it comes to assessing massive problems quite beyond the scope of anyone’s personal experience.

Of group sizes and word counts

According to Malcolm Gladwell, something fundamental happens to human organizations once they grow beyond 150 people. This is called Dunbar’s Number. If you take the size of a primate’s neocortex, relative to the rest of its brain, you will find a close correlation to the expected maximum group size for that species.¹ This number corresponds to village sizes, as seen around the world, to the sizes of effective military units, and to the size at which Hutterite communities split up. It seems that, above this size, organizations require complex hierarchies, rules, regulations, and formal measures to operate efficiently.

I think that something very similar happens to pieces of academic writing, once they get beyond about 5,000 words. That is the point where my ability to hold the entire thing at once in my mind fails, often leading to duplication and confusion. Even with two levels of sub-divisions, things simply become unmanageable at that point and I go from feeling total control over a piece of writing (2,500 words) to feeling that it has sprawled a bit (3-4,000 words) to feeling rather daunted by the whole thing. With my revised second chapter at 5,700 words and three to seven hours left prior to submission, I am certainly feeling as though things have grown beyond the bounds of good sense and comprehensibility.

[1] Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Back Bay Books; New York, 2000. p.179

A disappointing presentation

If it had been an intellectual argument, Professor Timothy Luke‘s presentation on climate change tonight might have been subject to some strong criticism. As it was, it was essentially a smug collection of sniping ad hominem arguments directed at Al Gore, Nicholas Stern, and the concept of liberal environmentalism generally. He made clear that he holds these people in contempt – using a mocking tone of voice while quoting their work – but never really explained why, beyond some vague suggestions that ‘ecopopulism’ would be superior, and how the powerful and the plutocratic are aligned to remain in control. The idea that grassroots organizations will somehow directly access environmental science, then manifest their new preferences through the popular alteration of the political dialog seems rather unlikely. While you can certainly engage in argument with knowledge brokers like Nicholas Stern and Al Gore (starting that argument is much of the point of their work), simply attacking them for being part of existing governmental and economic systems carries little water.

One can hardly expect leaders of politics and industry to abandon their power and the standard economic system. That is especially true when you don’t seem to have any well-formed idea about what the alternative might be. By nor following up his scorn with substance, Professor Luke left us with little value for our time.