In Toyota: Plug-in Hybrids Will Have Limited Appeal, Jim Motavalli makes the world of the Toyota much more complicated, at least until we look at things a little further. I wondered what the Toyota people had in mind during their presentation. As a Prius driver myself, it seems to me that adding a large battery does not produce a difference in kind that would force a new brake design for example. More like having an extra passenger in the car, and that does not require redesign. Further, the extra weight only means that a driver adjusts his driving style once again. One of the wonderful features of the Prius and the Honda hybrid is that they offer enough instrumented feedback so that one can adapt one's driving patterns to get better mileage. One possibility is that they are trying to dampen some of the exaggerations about mileage. At an MIT symposium on the Smart Grid, I heard one speaker say that plug-in vehicles would get 150 miles per gallon equivalent. I did not believe that, and sought to clarify whether that number includes the inefficiencies inherent in production and distribution of electricity. The consensus in my area of the room was that it does not. Proper treatment of these inefficiencies would yield roughly 50 mpg equivalent, interestingly in alignment with the Toyota numbers. In other words, once again, it is very difficult or impossible to get something for nothing, but it is possible to create the illusion of getting something for nothing. Toyota is to be honored if it is bucking this opportunity.
On a more skeptical note, one may consider that the Prius "crossed the gap" to adoption around 2003. At least, this is how Toyota and the auto industry saw things at the time...although I thought that judgment was a little premature. Recognizing this, one can also hypothesize that Toyota has a vested interest in protecting its offering. Some of the things Toyota people say may therefore be biased by this effort.
More broadly and technically, I see opportunity for better gas mileage with my Prius, but am a little skeptical of simple notions of plugging into the Grid as the source for those increased miles per gallon. Illusory miles per gallon, yes. Real miles per gallon, no. What I recognize is that, as I drive, there are some opportunities for better mileage as a result of a larger battery. At most this would be a 10% improvement, consistent with Toyota's projections. However, if one spends a lot of time in heavy urban driving, then the extra battery capability could be very valuable. Such driving is very draining on the batteries, and they can then be recharged when one gets out of the inner city. I have found the Prius to be better at battery life during such driving than is the Honda, so optimization can be done differently by different manufacturers, and Honda may have more opportunity in this area than does Toyota. Again, this is consistent with what Toyota has stated.
Where this all becomes very interesting is in interaction with the eventual Smart Grid. The vision for the Smart Grid is that car batteries interact with the Grid, calling for electricity when they are recharged during low-demand periods, and providing on-peak electricity when in the parking garage during peak hours during the day. Optimizing this system is not simple, because it is large and fundamentally statistical. We certainly want to avoid demanding more electricity if the amounts and timing will increase the production of greenhouse gases. Nevertheless, the vision has a chance of being accurate and is worthy of exploration.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Methane from Cows
For some time now the anti-Green folks have been making a disproportionate issue about the methane issued by cattle breaking wind. The mere fact that methane is created and introduced into the atmosphere by natural means has served as an argument that there should be little or no effort to limit GHGs. Of course, this always was a bogus argument, because the mere fact that animals produce GHGs is of no account. If anything, it presents an argument for birth control, for limiting the populations of human beings and also of other animals. Now there is a lot more. A part of this is to do something about it, rather than using it as a trumped up excuse for doing nothing in any domain.
One approach is to recognize that the methane is a byproduct of somewhat less than efficient use the microbes in the cow's rumen. As with humans, microbes are a key part of the digestive process. No surprise there. It is the microbes that play a key role in converting the grasses indigenous to cow nutrition in to materials that can sustain the cow. In Australia, Dr. Athol Klieve noticed that another herbivore, the kangaroo, doesn't have a methane problem, presumably because it uses different microbes. So why not see if those microbes can be transfered to cows? This research is under way. See http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90031367.
Another approach is reported in today's New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/us/05cows.html?sq=Greening%20the%20Herds&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=all. We get back to the question of what the indigenous feed may be for cattle. Well, it isn't corn and soybeans, the feed that has become normal in industrialized farming, and which would also produce gas in human beings. Does it come as a surprise that digestion is inefficient and leads to undesirable gases when the feed is not natural? What is natural is grasses. This article reports that alfalfa and flaxseed are much closer to what dairy cattle naturally consume. Is it surprising that replacing corn and soybeans as feeds with alfalfa and flaxseed yields an 18% reduction in gas?
The magnitude of the issue is summarized by the Times article. 'Frank Mitloehner, a University of California, Davis, professor who places cows in air-tight tent enclosures and measures what he calls their “eruptions,” says the average cow expels — through burps mostly, but some flatulence — 200 to 400 pounds of methane a year. More broadly, with worldwide production of milk and beef expected to double in the next 30 years, the United Nations has called livestock one of the most serious near-term threats to the global climate. In a 2006 report that looked at the environmental impact of cows worldwide, including forest-clearing activity to create pasture land, it estimated that cows might be more dangerous to Earth’s atmosphere than trucks and cars combined.' Here we return to the issue of expectations that the human and animal populations will continue to expand during the next decades. Can this really happen? Will it really happen? If so, there will have to be some serious resolutions to the challenges that we can already identify.
The plot gets even more interesting when one considers that it is the Omega-3 fatty acids in the flaxseed that have been identified as being the significant contributor to this effect. This goes to the refutation of the industrial chemistry approach to foods, holding that all are just chemicals. The shortcoming of this approach is at least that the chemists do not recognize all the chemicals that may be necessary. We already know about such fatty acids, because good medical doctors urge older people in America to take fish oil to get their Omega-3 to help prevent cholesterol problems. Andrew Weil, M.D. writes about this and many other dietary matters in Andrew Weil's 8 Weeks to Optimum Health: A Proven Program for Taking Full Advantage of Your Body's Natural Healing Power. A key phrase in the NYTimes article comes in the third to the last sentence. The analysis of the effectiveness of the approach entails analyzing fatty acids in the cows' milk. If the new regimen leads cows to produce more omega-3 fatty acids in their milk, then milk might even become a significant source of these fatty acids. This would make them better for people.
One approach is to recognize that the methane is a byproduct of somewhat less than efficient use the microbes in the cow's rumen. As with humans, microbes are a key part of the digestive process. No surprise there. It is the microbes that play a key role in converting the grasses indigenous to cow nutrition in to materials that can sustain the cow. In Australia, Dr. Athol Klieve noticed that another herbivore, the kangaroo, doesn't have a methane problem, presumably because it uses different microbes. So why not see if those microbes can be transfered to cows? This research is under way. See http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90031367.
Another approach is reported in today's New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/us/05cows.html?sq=Greening%20the%20Herds&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=all. We get back to the question of what the indigenous feed may be for cattle. Well, it isn't corn and soybeans, the feed that has become normal in industrialized farming, and which would also produce gas in human beings. Does it come as a surprise that digestion is inefficient and leads to undesirable gases when the feed is not natural? What is natural is grasses. This article reports that alfalfa and flaxseed are much closer to what dairy cattle naturally consume. Is it surprising that replacing corn and soybeans as feeds with alfalfa and flaxseed yields an 18% reduction in gas?
The magnitude of the issue is summarized by the Times article. 'Frank Mitloehner, a University of California, Davis, professor who places cows in air-tight tent enclosures and measures what he calls their “eruptions,” says the average cow expels — through burps mostly, but some flatulence — 200 to 400 pounds of methane a year. More broadly, with worldwide production of milk and beef expected to double in the next 30 years, the United Nations has called livestock one of the most serious near-term threats to the global climate. In a 2006 report that looked at the environmental impact of cows worldwide, including forest-clearing activity to create pasture land, it estimated that cows might be more dangerous to Earth’s atmosphere than trucks and cars combined.' Here we return to the issue of expectations that the human and animal populations will continue to expand during the next decades. Can this really happen? Will it really happen? If so, there will have to be some serious resolutions to the challenges that we can already identify.
The plot gets even more interesting when one considers that it is the Omega-3 fatty acids in the flaxseed that have been identified as being the significant contributor to this effect. This goes to the refutation of the industrial chemistry approach to foods, holding that all are just chemicals. The shortcoming of this approach is at least that the chemists do not recognize all the chemicals that may be necessary. We already know about such fatty acids, because good medical doctors urge older people in America to take fish oil to get their Omega-3 to help prevent cholesterol problems. Andrew Weil, M.D. writes about this and many other dietary matters in Andrew Weil's 8 Weeks to Optimum Health: A Proven Program for Taking Full Advantage of Your Body's Natural Healing Power. A key phrase in the NYTimes article comes in the third to the last sentence. The analysis of the effectiveness of the approach entails analyzing fatty acids in the cows' milk. If the new regimen leads cows to produce more omega-3 fatty acids in their milk, then milk might even become a significant source of these fatty acids. This would make them better for people.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Clean Water Parallels Global Warming
The approximately twenty years we have to start making significant progress in addressing our pollution of coastal estuaries seems to parallel the urgency of the Global Warming issue. Here is the sobering and detailed treatment done by Frontline on April 21, 2009.
A lot of civilizations have failed because they have essentially drowned under their own pollution. Additional dimensions of our problem as a group of western civilizations seem to keep cropping up. To the extent that we are unaware of the problems, or we do not respond and tackle the problems in time, we would seem to be in danger of a similar fate. A deep issue is that there may be dimensions of which we are unaware that will cause the greatest difficulty.
A lot of civilizations have failed because they have essentially drowned under their own pollution. Additional dimensions of our problem as a group of western civilizations seem to keep cropping up. To the extent that we are unaware of the problems, or we do not respond and tackle the problems in time, we would seem to be in danger of a similar fate. A deep issue is that there may be dimensions of which we are unaware that will cause the greatest difficulty.
Monday, April 13, 2009
MIT Colloquium with Markey, Holdren, Browner
I am blogging in real time about this event.
MIT to host clean energy policy forum
Markey, Browner, Holdren to make case for new federal rules
April 7, 2009
Proposed federal rules aimed at promoting clean energy, combating climate change and creating new "green-collar" jobs will be the focus of a policy forum on April 13 at MIT featuring several of the key Washington players who are working to get them approved.
The event, "Clean Power: Building a New Clean Energy Economy," will feature remarks by U.S. Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, chair of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee; Carol Browner, the former Environmental Protection Agency administrator who is now President Barack Obama's assistant for energy and climate change; and John Holdren '65, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The forum comes ahead of what is expected to be a major debate in Congress over energy, global warming and economic policy. Last week, Markey and U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman of California introduced draft legislation in Congress that aims to spur the development of clean energy and reduce global warming emissions by establishing national standards for renewable energy and energy efficiency, and by putting a cap on carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping emissions.
In addition to the presentations by Markey, Holdren and Browner, the event will include remarks by MIT President Susan Hockfield, MIT Energy Initiative Director Ernest Moniz and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
The forum, which is sponsored by MIT in cooperation with Markey, runs from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Wong Auditorium. It is free and open to the public, and will also be webcast. The full agenda can be viewed here.
---------------------------------------
Susan Hockfield, President of MIT
A PCAT study sponsored by Holdren found that every dollar invested in the green economy will lead to a $40 return.
Green energy will not be something that can be financed without charging for carbon.
At MIT our faculty and students are passionately involved with finding green solutions.
MIT will continue to serve as an honest broken and an innovator.
Introduction of Ed Markey, who has carried the torch for years. Key to acid rain legislation. Standards for vehicles. Champion for Energy Bill in 1997. Chairs Select energy committee and energy subcommittee. Most important leader in the House on energy, environment, and climate at the present time.
-------------------------------
Ed Markey
Albert Einstein said that insanity was doing the same thing many times and expecting that different results will come out. This is what Americans have been doing. How many times do we have to go through an energy crisis before we learn.
Next Tuesday we begin legislative hearings on the Waxman-Markey bill. This will indicate to the workd that America is ready to take a leadership role in energy innovation.
Model for energy legislation will be the telecommunications act Markey spearheaded. When his legis entered law in 1996, no American home had broadband. Change the market dynamics. Same kind of revolution can be unleashed. How do we accomplish that goal? How to surpass obstacles?
Introduction of John Holdren
----------------------------------
Increase in global temp by 2 degree C (=almost 4 degree F) by 2100 under business as usual. Occurring faster than the models indicated. Tipping points happening more rapidly than anticipated.
Options: Mitigation, adaptaion, suffering the adverse impacts.
Mitigation possibilities are abundant. Increase forestation. Modify agricultural processes. Engage in geo-engineering. Scrub greenhouse gases from atmosphere.
Adaptaion: special crop varieties, new water projects, dikes, changing cropping patterns, etc.
There is no feasible amount of mitigation that can stop climate change in its tracks. Therefore must adapt. Therefore adaptation is part of the picture.
If we can keep carbon under 550 ppm Carbon equiv will allow stabilizing at about 3 deg C. For 450 ppm, 2 deg C.
2050 goals: CO2 20-50 million tonnes of carbon willbe reduction
The reductions in carbon to the atmosphere will have to be severe.
McKinsey has identified projects that can be done by 2030 in a cost effective manner in the business as usual scenario.
Policy:
Remove barriers to harvesting the low hanging fruit.
Incentives for reaching higher into the tree.
Supporting or promoting R&D to lower the highest hanging fruit so that it can be reached.
In all of these categories there are measures that will be big wins for our economy.
---------------------
Questions and Answers:
Holdren: Between 1970 and 2005, we cut in half the cost in energy of producing each unit of goods and services. Going to have to succeed at sequestration of carbon dioxide. Better batteries and fuel cells. These are going to create new jobs, new industry.
Need to shrink time until fusion can be done. Was 15 years to commercialization in 1965. Now thought to be 50-65 years.
Obama embracing this kind of thing. Now there will be a permanent tax credit to encourage business.
Q: Isn't it tim to declare war on climate change?
Holdren: President is aware of the seriousness of this issue. Holdren and Chiu have been talking with him about this. He has not taken the option of saying that the economy will supercede our climate situation.
Markey: We have just completed 8 years of denial on this.
Holdren: President is strongly committed to the education part of this as well.
Dan Greenbaum: What about conventional pollutants such as black soot>
Holdren: Cannot ignore these.
Lauri Zimmerman --
Markey: No floor on oil and gas prices, but there is a market. 25% of electricity to come from renewables by 2025. SmartGrid provided for. Shift structure of utility to encourage partnership with homeowners so that is not just a matter of increasing consumption.
d'Arbeloff: Nuclear plants as pillars of mitigation?
Holdren: This not a recommendation, but an example. Actual details will depend on how things unfold. Need to put right framework into place so that the details can play out favorably.
David Bugh of A123: $2B designated for advanced batteries in US. Batteries now work for under 40 miles per day. 80% of US drivers. Cost is the issue. Improved manufacturing is avenue for improving.
Markey: What do you say to people who continue to doubt the science of global warming?
Holdren: I've tried it in various ways and they have all failed. Explaining the science does not work. I ask them if they really think that all the scientific socieities throughout the world could have been fooled. To people who think that the costs of doing this will be too high, I ask them about the costs for not doing it. They are formidable.
-------------------------------------
Dan Yergin
More of an economic perspective. Has revised his book.
We need consistency of policy, consistency of investment, and consistency of commitment to R&D.
Ernie Moniz
Technology is clearly a major part of the solution.
Efficiency agency and carbon free electricity agenda are 4 star important. He mentioned sequestration and nuclear.
Three star: clean transportation and smart grid. Domestically produced natural gas as "carbon lite." Fusion. Water splitting with the sun.
Policy must be in synch with technology.
Need to harness the talents of all of the innovation centers in the US.
Need national policies that foster this.
Need to get these techs to scale very very quickly. Holdren mentioned the gigaton problem.
Need to break the code of how to link R&D to our entrepreneurial community.
Green jobs -- a number of studies show how job intensity of most renewable techs is substantially greater than for fossil fuel technologies. This is also a challenge, because it is mostly in the manufacturing domain, and we need to capture such.
Sec Bowles just came in, and works closely with MIT to advance the New England agenda.
-----------------------------
Q&A:
Yergin: Peak gasoline demand in 2007, and it will go down.
Markey: Can we achieve the needed tech breakthroughs?
Moniz: I am certainly very optimistic. Tech for sequestration is quite adequate for initiating demonstrations. Will need to develop new techs to lower the cost. This can be competitive in transition in the US. But then there is the China test. If we cannot get the price down, then China will not adopt.
Yergen: A lot of the energy issue is between US and China.
Markey: I talk almost weekly with T. Boone Pickens. National security issue.
Yergen: Price shocks in fuel represent the most serious threat to the auto industry.
Jeff Tarbin: We need social innovations as well as technical. Reducing number of vehicles or the distance that they travel. Imp0roved public transit. Can we do this? Second, we need to reduce geographic growth of population. Major driver the quality of urban schools. What can we do beside simply adding money.
Dan is pointing toward Markey who comments: Carol will address some of this. You should be gratified that we have a president who has already announced that he is going to focus on urban schools. In Telecommunications bill, we had an e-rate for the schools. This provided for urban school children. Thusfar, about $25B has been paid out of that for urban schoolkids.
Keenan, President of TIAX: Mitigation might be more cost effective than some other approaches. What emphasis do you anticipate placing on this?
Markey: Depends a lot on India and CHina. Indians are aware of the problem of CO2 impacts on such as the glaciers in the Himalayas. The CO2 are from India and China. Need you to take leadership role.
Moniz: We are in a race to reduce the carbon free tech costs.
Wm Rosenberg, Pres of E2 Gasification Co.: Developing several SNG plants in gulf coast and IL basin. Pretty comfortable that can make these projects work economically with Fed assistance. But there is criticalfactor: making enhanced oil retrieval work. Produce 5M tonnes CO2 per year along with SNG. Start construction in 18 months. Feels that EOR (enhanced oil recovery) is the only solution. [requires long distance piping of CO2]
Moniz: Saline acquifer is the longterm solution. There is a spectrum of short term approaches.
George Mokray of Cambridge: About three years ago, James Hansen said we had 3 years to get to 350 ppm. Bill McKibben will talk here later about that number. Disappointing and intellectually dishonest not to talk about that number. The future of the US depends on the sales acumen and integrity of the building efficiency industry. Need public education. Need motivation and urgency.
Yergin: requires investment.
Moniz: Confirms that Holdren talked about 350 ppm. Confirms importance of buildings. Also some of the advanced technologies will be important retrofits in the future.
Markey: Congress put legislation on President's desk a week after inauguration a bill to increase weatherization budget from $200M to $6B.
Where are we going in next year?
Moniz: Scale and speed. Reducing incremental costs.
Yergin: Scale and time. Consistency. Recognize that it is a pretty big ship we need to turn around.
-----------------------------------------
Markey Intro to Carol Browner
She says she is a policy person rather than a scientist or technical person.
At time of Earth Day there was a bipartison commitment in Congress to protect our environment. In each case there were the same complaints as exist now (too costly, have to choose between healthy environment and healthy economy, too difficult technically, unable to do it, etc.), but American ingenuity came up with solutions in each case.
President says that the first country to make clean energy economically successful will be the country that leads the 21st century.
When I was head of EPA I had the privilege of working with some of the best environmental engineers. But not one of them could reverse the damage that would be done to our drinking water supplies by a rising ocean. If something is not done about global warming our children will face a permanently changed environment.
Markey: What are your goals as you prepare for Copenhagen.
Browner: Re-establish the US as a leader on climate change. During his trip to Europe he spoke on this almost every day. What we can hope to achieve in Copenhagen will depend on what we can do here in the US.
I asked Ian Bowles to think about jobs. This lead to focus on energy efficiency, and certain new technologies, clean energy, renewables, smart grid. Heard from businesses that could not get access to capital. So put $65B in loan guarantees into the package. Put in tax credits. Create stability and predictability. Secured $600M for clean energy job training at DOL. An additional $100M so that people can be trained to be line workers, which people are growing up not wanting to do these days.
Phil McKenna from New Scientist Mag: What if carbon legislation does not get through.
Browner: I am quite confident that the Congress will act, under the leadership of Congressman Markey. We need Comprehensive legislation. Looking at all aspects.
Henrietta Davis, City Counselor of Cambridge: Difficult to get the startup costs for energy conservation in Cambridge. How do we get that first money?
Browner: There are cities that have set up revolving loans. There is a provision for this in Markey's legislation. Maybe can use some of the state efficiency block grant money.
Markey: reiterate how effic is lowest hanging fruit.
Seth Kaplan of Conservation Law: transportation challenge where facing service cutbacks and price hikes. There is funding for capital investment, but not for paying the bus drivers. One approach is to have the allowances apply. How soon and what percent?
Markey: Right off the top cannot option off all of those credits because the steel and other energy intensive industries could be taken advantage of by the Chinese and others. This is a long term goal. Idea re transportation is a very interesting idea that we should talk about more.
???: Fed gas tax is 0.18 per gal while in EU it is $2-3 per gallon. Is there any chance, without political suicide, to talk about raising gas tax in this country.
Markey: legislation I led addressed higher mileage standards rather than increasing the gas tax.
Browner: One of Obamas first actions was an internal memo to DOT about increasing fuel efficiency. 2012 was the first year that this could be implemented.
Greg Yurik of American Superconductor: playing a role in smart grid. AWEA and Solar Industry Asszoc reports about moving electric power. It is going to take a long time to get the 5 GW of power lines permitted. We have superconductor wires that carry much more electricity, so can transmit electricity without large wiring that causes permitting problems.
David Holzman: American communities are too sprawling to have efficient transportation. What are the costs per tonne of CO2 avoided? Sources?
Browner: There are many sources for this.
Markey: We are in the presence of an historic person. She will be the quarterback for this.
Hockfield: Closing.
MIT to host clean energy policy forum
Markey, Browner, Holdren to make case for new federal rules
April 7, 2009
Proposed federal rules aimed at promoting clean energy, combating climate change and creating new "green-collar" jobs will be the focus of a policy forum on April 13 at MIT featuring several of the key Washington players who are working to get them approved.
The event, "Clean Power: Building a New Clean Energy Economy," will feature remarks by U.S. Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, chair of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee; Carol Browner, the former Environmental Protection Agency administrator who is now President Barack Obama's assistant for energy and climate change; and John Holdren '65, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The forum comes ahead of what is expected to be a major debate in Congress over energy, global warming and economic policy. Last week, Markey and U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman of California introduced draft legislation in Congress that aims to spur the development of clean energy and reduce global warming emissions by establishing national standards for renewable energy and energy efficiency, and by putting a cap on carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping emissions.
In addition to the presentations by Markey, Holdren and Browner, the event will include remarks by MIT President Susan Hockfield, MIT Energy Initiative Director Ernest Moniz and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
The forum, which is sponsored by MIT in cooperation with Markey, runs from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Wong Auditorium. It is free and open to the public, and will also be webcast. The full agenda can be viewed here.
---------------------------------------
Susan Hockfield, President of MIT
A PCAT study sponsored by Holdren found that every dollar invested in the green economy will lead to a $40 return.
Green energy will not be something that can be financed without charging for carbon.
At MIT our faculty and students are passionately involved with finding green solutions.
MIT will continue to serve as an honest broken and an innovator.
Introduction of Ed Markey, who has carried the torch for years. Key to acid rain legislation. Standards for vehicles. Champion for Energy Bill in 1997. Chairs Select energy committee and energy subcommittee. Most important leader in the House on energy, environment, and climate at the present time.
-------------------------------
Ed Markey
Albert Einstein said that insanity was doing the same thing many times and expecting that different results will come out. This is what Americans have been doing. How many times do we have to go through an energy crisis before we learn.
Next Tuesday we begin legislative hearings on the Waxman-Markey bill. This will indicate to the workd that America is ready to take a leadership role in energy innovation.
Model for energy legislation will be the telecommunications act Markey spearheaded. When his legis entered law in 1996, no American home had broadband. Change the market dynamics. Same kind of revolution can be unleashed. How do we accomplish that goal? How to surpass obstacles?
Introduction of John Holdren
----------------------------------
Increase in global temp by 2 degree C (=almost 4 degree F) by 2100 under business as usual. Occurring faster than the models indicated. Tipping points happening more rapidly than anticipated.
Options: Mitigation, adaptaion, suffering the adverse impacts.
Mitigation possibilities are abundant. Increase forestation. Modify agricultural processes. Engage in geo-engineering. Scrub greenhouse gases from atmosphere.
Adaptaion: special crop varieties, new water projects, dikes, changing cropping patterns, etc.
There is no feasible amount of mitigation that can stop climate change in its tracks. Therefore must adapt. Therefore adaptation is part of the picture.
If we can keep carbon under 550 ppm Carbon equiv will allow stabilizing at about 3 deg C. For 450 ppm, 2 deg C.
2050 goals: CO2 20-50 million tonnes of carbon willbe reduction
The reductions in carbon to the atmosphere will have to be severe.
McKinsey has identified projects that can be done by 2030 in a cost effective manner in the business as usual scenario.
Policy:
Remove barriers to harvesting the low hanging fruit.
Incentives for reaching higher into the tree.
Supporting or promoting R&D to lower the highest hanging fruit so that it can be reached.
In all of these categories there are measures that will be big wins for our economy.
---------------------
Questions and Answers:
Holdren: Between 1970 and 2005, we cut in half the cost in energy of producing each unit of goods and services. Going to have to succeed at sequestration of carbon dioxide. Better batteries and fuel cells. These are going to create new jobs, new industry.
Need to shrink time until fusion can be done. Was 15 years to commercialization in 1965. Now thought to be 50-65 years.
Obama embracing this kind of thing. Now there will be a permanent tax credit to encourage business.
Q: Isn't it tim to declare war on climate change?
Holdren: President is aware of the seriousness of this issue. Holdren and Chiu have been talking with him about this. He has not taken the option of saying that the economy will supercede our climate situation.
Markey: We have just completed 8 years of denial on this.
Holdren: President is strongly committed to the education part of this as well.
Dan Greenbaum: What about conventional pollutants such as black soot>
Holdren: Cannot ignore these.
Lauri Zimmerman --
Markey: No floor on oil and gas prices, but there is a market. 25% of electricity to come from renewables by 2025. SmartGrid provided for. Shift structure of utility to encourage partnership with homeowners so that is not just a matter of increasing consumption.
d'Arbeloff: Nuclear plants as pillars of mitigation?
Holdren: This not a recommendation, but an example. Actual details will depend on how things unfold. Need to put right framework into place so that the details can play out favorably.
David Bugh of A123: $2B designated for advanced batteries in US. Batteries now work for under 40 miles per day. 80% of US drivers. Cost is the issue. Improved manufacturing is avenue for improving.
Markey: What do you say to people who continue to doubt the science of global warming?
Holdren: I've tried it in various ways and they have all failed. Explaining the science does not work. I ask them if they really think that all the scientific socieities throughout the world could have been fooled. To people who think that the costs of doing this will be too high, I ask them about the costs for not doing it. They are formidable.
-------------------------------------
Dan Yergin
More of an economic perspective. Has revised his book.
We need consistency of policy, consistency of investment, and consistency of commitment to R&D.
Ernie Moniz
Technology is clearly a major part of the solution.
Efficiency agency and carbon free electricity agenda are 4 star important. He mentioned sequestration and nuclear.
Three star: clean transportation and smart grid. Domestically produced natural gas as "carbon lite." Fusion. Water splitting with the sun.
Policy must be in synch with technology.
Need to harness the talents of all of the innovation centers in the US.
Need national policies that foster this.
Need to get these techs to scale very very quickly. Holdren mentioned the gigaton problem.
Need to break the code of how to link R&D to our entrepreneurial community.
Green jobs -- a number of studies show how job intensity of most renewable techs is substantially greater than for fossil fuel technologies. This is also a challenge, because it is mostly in the manufacturing domain, and we need to capture such.
Sec Bowles just came in, and works closely with MIT to advance the New England agenda.
-----------------------------
Q&A:
Yergin: Peak gasoline demand in 2007, and it will go down.
Markey: Can we achieve the needed tech breakthroughs?
Moniz: I am certainly very optimistic. Tech for sequestration is quite adequate for initiating demonstrations. Will need to develop new techs to lower the cost. This can be competitive in transition in the US. But then there is the China test. If we cannot get the price down, then China will not adopt.
Yergen: A lot of the energy issue is between US and China.
Markey: I talk almost weekly with T. Boone Pickens. National security issue.
Yergen: Price shocks in fuel represent the most serious threat to the auto industry.
Jeff Tarbin: We need social innovations as well as technical. Reducing number of vehicles or the distance that they travel. Imp0roved public transit. Can we do this? Second, we need to reduce geographic growth of population. Major driver the quality of urban schools. What can we do beside simply adding money.
Dan is pointing toward Markey who comments: Carol will address some of this. You should be gratified that we have a president who has already announced that he is going to focus on urban schools. In Telecommunications bill, we had an e-rate for the schools. This provided for urban school children. Thusfar, about $25B has been paid out of that for urban schoolkids.
Keenan, President of TIAX: Mitigation might be more cost effective than some other approaches. What emphasis do you anticipate placing on this?
Markey: Depends a lot on India and CHina. Indians are aware of the problem of CO2 impacts on such as the glaciers in the Himalayas. The CO2 are from India and China. Need you to take leadership role.
Moniz: We are in a race to reduce the carbon free tech costs.
Wm Rosenberg, Pres of E2 Gasification Co.: Developing several SNG plants in gulf coast and IL basin. Pretty comfortable that can make these projects work economically with Fed assistance. But there is criticalfactor: making enhanced oil retrieval work. Produce 5M tonnes CO2 per year along with SNG. Start construction in 18 months. Feels that EOR (enhanced oil recovery) is the only solution. [requires long distance piping of CO2]
Moniz: Saline acquifer is the longterm solution. There is a spectrum of short term approaches.
George Mokray of Cambridge: About three years ago, James Hansen said we had 3 years to get to 350 ppm. Bill McKibben will talk here later about that number. Disappointing and intellectually dishonest not to talk about that number. The future of the US depends on the sales acumen and integrity of the building efficiency industry. Need public education. Need motivation and urgency.
Yergin: requires investment.
Moniz: Confirms that Holdren talked about 350 ppm. Confirms importance of buildings. Also some of the advanced technologies will be important retrofits in the future.
Markey: Congress put legislation on President's desk a week after inauguration a bill to increase weatherization budget from $200M to $6B.
Where are we going in next year?
Moniz: Scale and speed. Reducing incremental costs.
Yergin: Scale and time. Consistency. Recognize that it is a pretty big ship we need to turn around.
-----------------------------------------
Markey Intro to Carol Browner
She says she is a policy person rather than a scientist or technical person.
At time of Earth Day there was a bipartison commitment in Congress to protect our environment. In each case there were the same complaints as exist now (too costly, have to choose between healthy environment and healthy economy, too difficult technically, unable to do it, etc.), but American ingenuity came up with solutions in each case.
President says that the first country to make clean energy economically successful will be the country that leads the 21st century.
When I was head of EPA I had the privilege of working with some of the best environmental engineers. But not one of them could reverse the damage that would be done to our drinking water supplies by a rising ocean. If something is not done about global warming our children will face a permanently changed environment.
Markey: What are your goals as you prepare for Copenhagen.
Browner: Re-establish the US as a leader on climate change. During his trip to Europe he spoke on this almost every day. What we can hope to achieve in Copenhagen will depend on what we can do here in the US.
I asked Ian Bowles to think about jobs. This lead to focus on energy efficiency, and certain new technologies, clean energy, renewables, smart grid. Heard from businesses that could not get access to capital. So put $65B in loan guarantees into the package. Put in tax credits. Create stability and predictability. Secured $600M for clean energy job training at DOL. An additional $100M so that people can be trained to be line workers, which people are growing up not wanting to do these days.
Phil McKenna from New Scientist Mag: What if carbon legislation does not get through.
Browner: I am quite confident that the Congress will act, under the leadership of Congressman Markey. We need Comprehensive legislation. Looking at all aspects.
Henrietta Davis, City Counselor of Cambridge: Difficult to get the startup costs for energy conservation in Cambridge. How do we get that first money?
Browner: There are cities that have set up revolving loans. There is a provision for this in Markey's legislation. Maybe can use some of the state efficiency block grant money.
Markey: reiterate how effic is lowest hanging fruit.
Seth Kaplan of Conservation Law: transportation challenge where facing service cutbacks and price hikes. There is funding for capital investment, but not for paying the bus drivers. One approach is to have the allowances apply. How soon and what percent?
Markey: Right off the top cannot option off all of those credits because the steel and other energy intensive industries could be taken advantage of by the Chinese and others. This is a long term goal. Idea re transportation is a very interesting idea that we should talk about more.
???: Fed gas tax is 0.18 per gal while in EU it is $2-3 per gallon. Is there any chance, without political suicide, to talk about raising gas tax in this country.
Markey: legislation I led addressed higher mileage standards rather than increasing the gas tax.
Browner: One of Obamas first actions was an internal memo to DOT about increasing fuel efficiency. 2012 was the first year that this could be implemented.
Greg Yurik of American Superconductor: playing a role in smart grid. AWEA and Solar Industry Asszoc reports about moving electric power. It is going to take a long time to get the 5 GW of power lines permitted. We have superconductor wires that carry much more electricity, so can transmit electricity without large wiring that causes permitting problems.
David Holzman: American communities are too sprawling to have efficient transportation. What are the costs per tonne of CO2 avoided? Sources?
Browner: There are many sources for this.
Markey: We are in the presence of an historic person. She will be the quarterback for this.
Hockfield: Closing.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
It's Time to Start a Digital Conservation Movement
A friend and colleague, Keith Gross, pointed me to this interesting article on greenness in cyber-reality.
http://www.newfangled.com//its_time_to_start_a_digital_conservation_movement
My comments to the author were these:
I think you make many excellent points, in support of the main point. It is not obvious what the answer is about how to proceed, because the business models for such companies as Google call for lots of storage and lots of CPU. Further, some people with whom I have talked seem to feel that the virtualization of information and communications will save us from climate change. Someone needs to do the numbers and see what makes sense. Maybe I will tackle that, but I also have many other things to do, and so perhaps someone else will do it first.
I do want to comment on your comments about digital pictures. This is a somewhat complicated area. Clearly 800 pictures attached to a Facebook site is excessive. As grist for the mill, I would suggest consideration of another scenario. Earlier this week I was on the roof of a building reviewing equipment with my business partner, a licensed professional engineer. We had limited time, and he went directly to key areas to document what we knew we had to have when we left the site. I clicked dozens of additional digital photographs of all the equipment. This made it feasible to retain information that otherwise we would not have retained. Later it turned out during the data analysis stage of the work that this extra information was essential. It was not that we were stupid about our narrow focus. It was that we focused where we had to focus and also captured as much of the periphery as we could. Why? Because, as anyone knows who has done video documentary, if you are filming in real time, and some key event happens, you often discover that part of that event occurs just outside the camera's frame. Thus, all those seemingly un-necessary photos turned out to be critically important. So the digital camera costs something in storage and battery, but it saves time and travel that would otherwise have been required to return to the site for more data. But then, taking it to the next level, the question is what do we do with all that rich extra data once we have finished using it. I again need to do the numbers, but I suspect that archiving it off onto a CD or DVD, labelling well, and storing the media efficiently goes a long way toward keeping it all as green as possible. Further, we fall even more deeply into agreement when I point out that such digital photographs should not be stored on a Google site simply because Google makes all those GBs of storage available for free.
One key lesson stands out for all of us in our time. We all need to restrain ourselves, even if it seems that we are partaking of unlimited resources. Those resources are not really unlimited. And they do have costs.
http://www.newfangled.com//its_time_to_start_a_digital_conservation_movement
My comments to the author were these:
I think you make many excellent points, in support of the main point. It is not obvious what the answer is about how to proceed, because the business models for such companies as Google call for lots of storage and lots of CPU. Further, some people with whom I have talked seem to feel that the virtualization of information and communications will save us from climate change. Someone needs to do the numbers and see what makes sense. Maybe I will tackle that, but I also have many other things to do, and so perhaps someone else will do it first.
I do want to comment on your comments about digital pictures. This is a somewhat complicated area. Clearly 800 pictures attached to a Facebook site is excessive. As grist for the mill, I would suggest consideration of another scenario. Earlier this week I was on the roof of a building reviewing equipment with my business partner, a licensed professional engineer. We had limited time, and he went directly to key areas to document what we knew we had to have when we left the site. I clicked dozens of additional digital photographs of all the equipment. This made it feasible to retain information that otherwise we would not have retained. Later it turned out during the data analysis stage of the work that this extra information was essential. It was not that we were stupid about our narrow focus. It was that we focused where we had to focus and also captured as much of the periphery as we could. Why? Because, as anyone knows who has done video documentary, if you are filming in real time, and some key event happens, you often discover that part of that event occurs just outside the camera's frame. Thus, all those seemingly un-necessary photos turned out to be critically important. So the digital camera costs something in storage and battery, but it saves time and travel that would otherwise have been required to return to the site for more data. But then, taking it to the next level, the question is what do we do with all that rich extra data once we have finished using it. I again need to do the numbers, but I suspect that archiving it off onto a CD or DVD, labelling well, and storing the media efficiently goes a long way toward keeping it all as green as possible. Further, we fall even more deeply into agreement when I point out that such digital photographs should not be stored on a Google site simply because Google makes all those GBs of storage available for free.
One key lesson stands out for all of us in our time. We all need to restrain ourselves, even if it seems that we are partaking of unlimited resources. Those resources are not really unlimited. And they do have costs.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Fall Zones & the Issue of Consistency
For obvious reasons, the fall zone for a wind turbine or met tower is an important concern for all stakeholders. The fall zone is defined to approximate the area around the base of the turbine that would likely receive the tower and turbine, or the met tower, if it were to fall. It is often set by local ordinance to be 1 or perhaps 1.25 times the height of the turbine.
Some years ago we were working with Upper Cape Tech Vocational Technical School, discussing the installation of a 660 kW turbine. Unfortunately, the only reasonable location for the turbine placed the fall zone too close to a neighbor's woods. It was OK with the neighbor that the fall zone include part of his woods, but it was not OK with the state funding agency. That was the end of the project.
In the past year this issue was rejoined for a project in Falmouth. The owner was proposing to install a GE 1.5mW turbine that would have a fall zone overlapping a neighbor's property. Again the neighbor was prepared to sign a document granting the right for the turbine to fall on his again unused property. This time the funding was private, so the discussion continued in front of the Zoning Board of Appeals for the town. The Board insisted that the neighbor write a codicil into his deed indicating that the fall zone would include this certain part of his property. The Board also pushed hard that the owner locate the wind turbine closer to his own building and further from the neighboring property, minimizing the overlap onto the neighbor’s property. All parties cooperated and the building permit was granted.
This perhaps demonstrates that some governmental bodies can be more legalistic and bureaucratic than others, and that time and the right circumstances can help in establishing a workable precedent among agreeable parties.
Now consider also that the are no fall zone restrictions for cell towers, per the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (http://www.cell-out.org/TCA704.html). On one hand this would seem to indicate that an unfair hand has been dealt to wind turbine developers. By that I mean to point out that fall zone restrictions represent one of a number of means by which those against change can prevent wind turbine installations in a town.
On the other hand, those against cell towers (for example, (http://www.cell-out.org/) would argue that the Federal government, or perhaps the mis-interpretations commonly given to Federal law, give the cell phone developers an unfair advantage over local people who do not want a cell tower looming over their house or their property. Mike M. at the above address argues that allowing cell tower owners to do this represents a taking of property without proper compensation, a violation of the 5th Amendment.
I do not know enough about law to be able to write a cogent opinion about Mike's arguement. However, I know from experience that it is problematic finding adequate space for a fall zone on densely built-up property in such places as Massachusetts. I also think that consenting parties ought to be allowed to work out reasonable accommodations with each other. (That does not mean that the health and safety of children in a school should be threatened by a neighbor's wind turbine.) It is also important for our country that renewable energy be supported and fostered. Thus, it may be reasonable and desirable that state or national authorities establish restrictions on local fall zone bylaws. The fall zone bylaws for wind turbines, and certainly for meteorological towers, should not be dramatically more strict than for cell towers.
Some years ago we were working with Upper Cape Tech Vocational Technical School, discussing the installation of a 660 kW turbine. Unfortunately, the only reasonable location for the turbine placed the fall zone too close to a neighbor's woods. It was OK with the neighbor that the fall zone include part of his woods, but it was not OK with the state funding agency. That was the end of the project.
In the past year this issue was rejoined for a project in Falmouth. The owner was proposing to install a GE 1.5mW turbine that would have a fall zone overlapping a neighbor's property. Again the neighbor was prepared to sign a document granting the right for the turbine to fall on his again unused property. This time the funding was private, so the discussion continued in front of the Zoning Board of Appeals for the town. The Board insisted that the neighbor write a codicil into his deed indicating that the fall zone would include this certain part of his property. The Board also pushed hard that the owner locate the wind turbine closer to his own building and further from the neighboring property, minimizing the overlap onto the neighbor’s property. All parties cooperated and the building permit was granted.
This perhaps demonstrates that some governmental bodies can be more legalistic and bureaucratic than others, and that time and the right circumstances can help in establishing a workable precedent among agreeable parties.
Now consider also that the are no fall zone restrictions for cell towers, per the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (http://www.cell-out.org/TCA704.html). On one hand this would seem to indicate that an unfair hand has been dealt to wind turbine developers. By that I mean to point out that fall zone restrictions represent one of a number of means by which those against change can prevent wind turbine installations in a town.
On the other hand, those against cell towers (for example, (http://www.cell-out.org/) would argue that the Federal government, or perhaps the mis-interpretations commonly given to Federal law, give the cell phone developers an unfair advantage over local people who do not want a cell tower looming over their house or their property. Mike M. at the above address argues that allowing cell tower owners to do this represents a taking of property without proper compensation, a violation of the 5th Amendment.
I do not know enough about law to be able to write a cogent opinion about Mike's arguement. However, I know from experience that it is problematic finding adequate space for a fall zone on densely built-up property in such places as Massachusetts. I also think that consenting parties ought to be allowed to work out reasonable accommodations with each other. (That does not mean that the health and safety of children in a school should be threatened by a neighbor's wind turbine.) It is also important for our country that renewable energy be supported and fostered. Thus, it may be reasonable and desirable that state or national authorities establish restrictions on local fall zone bylaws. The fall zone bylaws for wind turbines, and certainly for meteorological towers, should not be dramatically more strict than for cell towers.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Solar Energy, Small Farming, and Last Snow
Earlier today I went walking with my camera to capture some pictures that illustrate the relation of terrain and foliage to ambient and ground temperature. In one direction I discovered that I was a day late. I had missed the last snow before it melted. In the other direction I was going to lower ground, and I captured what I wanted.In the first picture we see snow on the north-facing rise to the south of the tracks. No surprise there. A question that might be asked is why the snow has melted on the other north-facing slopes.
In the second picture we see that there is still a small area of ice adjacent to the stream. You can see the sunlight and shadows playing on the ice, so this spot has not been entirely shaded during the winter and spring. This suggests that the remaining ice is on very low ground, where the cold air falls.
The next picture is of the stream, which typically is covered with ice during the winter. You can see remaining snow to the left, where it is both on low ground (remember cold air is heavier than warm air, and therefore goes to the low ground), partly shaded by evergreens, and on the north-facing side.Thus there are at least three factors in the temperatures for a particular location. When I was once looking for some land in New Hampshire for a house and field, the realtor showed me a plot with a pitch facing north and sloping down to the north. As would be predicted from solar energy calculations, this was cool during the summer, but was also a poor solar site -- the last area to be ready for planting. I rejected that plot. If I had only been concerned with a cool summer house, I might have made an offer. But I was concerned with raising food as well as warmth during the winter, so I rejected it.
These scenes may appear to be just what they are, but to a physicist there is more. When I get time, maybe I will write about the unseen things in these photos. These include various forms of electromagnetic radiation. Hmmm ... I did not see any birds either. I wonder why. I have seen birds such as geese migrating north, but maybe it is not yet time for the song birds.
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