The Birth of Death, and the Hawaiian Sun
December 20, 2007 |
Hawaii is a dream. The warm air, the flowers, the hot sun on the ocean. My memories of it are so positive that I am suspicious of them.
Kauai was the birthplace of "The Death of Environmentalism," which we released at the Environmental Grantmakers meeting in 2004 at the decadently luxurious Hyatt in Kauai. It is hands down the most spectacular hotel I've ever been experienced. It's a toss up whether the best part about it is the fact that it is literally perched at the end of the beach, or the fact that it is surrounded by interconnected swimming pools.
Turns out the Hyatt, like much of Hawaii, is coal-powered. I say this not to shame anyone for going there. I for one feel not one whit of shame over swimming in its salt water lagoon and sipping its pina coladas. (Anyone who says they feel shameful for such behaviors are either lying or pitiable.) I'm not even accusing environmental funders of hypocrisy (at least not for going to the Hyatt). I point it out simply to ask a rhetorical question: what the hell is one of the sunniest places on earth doing getting its power from coal?
We need to start looking at sunny places powered by coal as an absurdity (Tucson, anyone?). I'll be the first to acknowledge that solar is more expensive than coal. But I'd bet that the Hyatt and most of the rest of Hawaii's affluent tourists can afford it.
How would it get done? The tourist industry could lobby the utilities and legislature to require increasing levels of solar. The state could subsidize solar directly. Or, given budget constraints, Hawaii could set up a self-financing solar revolving fund bond -- and a Homeowners Power Act allowing businesses and home owners to sell their solar power back on to the grid at full peak day-time prices.
Christine Thomas, Hawaii's Literary Lotus, did a Q&A with me in the Honolulu Weekly, where I suggested something similar:
Hawai'i's culture is rooted in love and respect of the land, yet paradoxically we depend on coal for energy, have limited mass transit, strong opposition to growth and change and have few environmental measures in place--not even curbside recycling. Are we thus in a great position to start creating a new politics in the "right" way, or do we have just as much work to do to eliminate the old paradigm?
It's crazy that such an incredibly sunny place like Hawai'i relies so heavily on coal. Going solar would allow Hawai'i to reduce its dependence on coal and would create thousands of new jobs for local electricians and builders installing solar panels. Solar is cost-competitive when the electricity costs are spread out over a 10 to 20 year period. One tool might be a "revolving fund" that lent money to homeowners and business owners seeking to finance their solar system. A small group of Hawaiians could probably convince the state Legislature to set something up like this -- the best argument is probably that it's good for the local economy and will clean up the air.
Christine asks about the reaction to Break Through.
Because of this, many environmentalists have labeled you and Nordhaus bad-boy naysayers--part of the problem, not part of the solution. Is this just defensive hyperbole in response to a call to change?
The negative reaction is coming from different camps. Some of it comes from people who believe that there just isn't enough planet Earth for everyone to live like we live--it's a mentality of limits, not possibility. Some of the negative reaction comes from the environmental establishment, which believes that new pollution regulations will solve global warming--a strategy that has already failed with Kyoto and in Europe. Still others are upset that we describe the ways in which environmentalism is too much like a religion and not enough like a church. Nature and science aren't "telling us what to do"--we have to decide for ourselves. And achieving that means creating new kinds of community that can create a new politics.
In the book we point out that there's nothing more "natural" about making solar panels from sand than burning coal. The decision to go solar isn't about getting right by nature, it's about getting right by a vision of the future that protects extraordinary gems like Hawaii, and all of its inhabitants, human and nonhuman. Doing so requires a politics focused more on a positive vision of ecological development than on nature protection.
Comments
All these words, but not one word about the two instances of the most dangerous word in ACES, nuclear!
By Harold One Feather on 2009 07 13
400 million dollars to develop technology that already exists. What a bargin! Does anyone in the government pay attention to anything that goes on outside of the beltway? Save the taxpayers some money and do some research on the internet.
By sohbet on 2009 07 10
I'm just passing by, having discovered this blog from another, but I wanted to point something out when it comes to oil prices that few seem to be aware of.
When priced in gold, the price of oil has been amazingly stable over the last 60 years, even during periods of extreme volitility, such as last years run up to almost $150/bbl and during the OPEC embargo. Just take the gold price in any given period, divide by oil price in the same period, then divide that result into a troy oz (approx 31.1 grams) to get the bbl cost in gold grams. It has remained around 3 grams over the last 60 years.
http://goldprice.org/james-turk/uploaded_images/Oil-Price-780567.GIF
http://goldprice.org/james-turk/2006/09/8-things-everyone-should-know-about.html
What we see is mostly the fluctuations of the currencies, namely the dollar. Btw, as of this writing, oil costs about 2.35g/bbl, well below the 60 year average.
By JustPassingBy on 2009 07 01
Thanks for this informative post.
By Photovoltaic Cells on 2009 04 20
Who pays for government investment? Taxpayers pay for government investment and the useage of electricity. The USA budget is way out of control and must be reduced before disaster strikes. Full effort on development of offshore oil and gas should be a part of any government policy.
By rdk on 2009 04 08
The world needs a new basis innovation for a 6th Kondratieff cycle. Nefiodow tells us that the long-waves are becoming more powerful and closer together. Just think of where the world would be without the informatics boom.
Thank you for this timely report. I learned about your think tank through your twitter account (thank you IT).
The next innovation must be in clean and cheap energy production. Oh yea, and we need it NOW.
By Jim on 2009 04 08
I wonder if part of the problem is that many of these groups are primarily lead by attorneys. I don't mean the usual criticism of too many lawyers, but simply the fact that without other professions in the leadership, the proposals will focus on new laws and regulations rather than on spurring new technologies.
By R Margolis on 2009 04 07
Nobody says a carbon price is sufficient in itself, but it is absolutely necessary. New technology has just created new ways for us to use more energy. More efficient cars mean more driving and more sprawl, and only a little less fuel burning.
An explicit, predictable, progressive carbon tax is the most effective first step. With it, the technology will follow. Without it, we perish.
Fortunately, the House Ways & Means Committee is getting the idea. See http://www.carbontax.org. Video, petitions and letters to Congress at http://www.pricecarbon.org.
By James Handley on 2009 04 07
Thanks for this article and for sharing the news of this report. Presents a pretty duanting challenge.
Your readers may also want to read the August 2008 report entitled The Coming Oil Supply Crunch by Paul Stevens
http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/papers/view/-/id/652/
Brendan Barrett
By Brendan Barrett on 2009 04 06
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Joannah
http://easypowerpaint.com
By Joannah on 2009 04 04
Thanks Robert. Enjoying getting comfortable with this new (for me) medium to communicate these things. Again, apologies for the (too) rapid speech. I swear I hadn't even had my coffee yet that morning! Cheers,
Jesse
By Jesse Jenkins on 2009 04 02
Very interesting segment. It certainly shows the differences in approach amongst the carbon activists. Thanks for posting.
By R Margolis on 2009 04 02
Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio seems to be taking a similar line, essentially arguing to "keep the cap, ditch the trade" in this op ed for the Oregonian this week.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/01/the_wrong_road_to_reducing_emi.html
Is this the new "populist" environmentalist position on carbon regulations?
By Jesse Jenkins on 2009 01 30
Jesse, you write a couple of things that I think miss the point I'm trying to make. First, you write you support:
"as high a price on carbon as is politically sustainable as well - both as a funding mechanism and as a way to help close those economic inefficiencies you mention."
The high price of carbon does not help close economic inefficiencies/market failures. The point of a market failure is that it is inefficiently impervious (or relatively so) to price changes. This is different than something that may be relatively impervious to price changes just because it has very low elasticity of demand (i.e. is a necessity). This is why I try to move away from the focus of "cost containment" and on to better market design, which allows the pricing to work.
and
"Do it with cap and trade or a carbon tax, you still are relying on as high a price on carbon as is economically necessary to drive reductions."
I'm going to refer to a cap/trade specifically, because I don't lump it with carbon tax as "carbon pricing." They're not as interchangeable as people make them out to be. The cap does not rely on a high price of carbon, rather the price relies on the dynamics (not just overall stringency) of the cap. As Kyoto's ETS has demonstrated, if you are obstinate enough you can engineer a very high price on carbon that accomplishes virtually nothing. But they can also be designed to systemically keep prices low without having to revert to artificial "cost containment."
It would be great if just throwing a bunch of money at "clean technology" could solve the problem, but that's a pipe dream. I mentioned the immediate consequences of a backlog of coal plants going up that will be next to impossible to get rid of for decades because of the basic economics that differentiate between costs that get something built and costs needed to shut something down.
Finally, I really just don't get the insistence that a cap/trade is a politically impossible sell. It's sorta like "who are you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" Virtually everyone following this assumes we'll have a cap/trade bill passed within 2-3 years. The next president will support one no matter who wins. Lieberman-Warner almost got 60 votes for cloture. While that's not the same as votes for passage, there's substantial room to improve not just policy, but political appeal of that bill. Plus there will be more democrats in both houses next session. Lots of senators were clearly unnerved by the modeling that indicated higher prices, especially in manufacturing. The EIA numbers carry a lot of weight, they were thrown around by both sides. Some pretty simple changes in the bill would lower those permit price projections, and more votes would materialize. We're not missing many votes and they're gonna get them. So why jump ship?
By Max Epstein on 2008 07 28
p.s. obviously there are poor people in all states, including California. My point was first, that there's a reason that some states currently pay less for electricity than others: their residents can't really afford to pay that much more. There's a pretty strong correlation between electricity price per kilowatt hour and median household income by state -- and between price per kilowatt hour and lower carbon emissions. So we shouldn't assume that just because some states pay less than California or New York for electricity already, and those states have the dirtiest electricity mixes, that there's more "room" for them to pay higher prices. In fact, quite the opposite is probably true.
I also wanted to make the point that even the perception of a carbon pricing scheme resulting in wealth transfers from lower average income states to higher average income states is a real political liability for any cap and trade scheme, and in particular for a cap and dividend program that advocates per-capita dividends.
Breakthrough is currently conducting what looks like it'll be a pretty robust analysis of the affects of carbon pricing by state and by income levels which should reveal a lot of these issues. So we're definitely taking a close look at this and we'll share it as soon as we're done.
By Jesse Jenkins on 2008 07 28
Hi Max,
There were several points you just raised, so I'll try to respond to each here:
First, I offered the Oregon examples as anecdotes. Clearly they won't map perfectly (or even closely) onto the federal scene. But I'd argue that you'll have much better luck convincing Oregonians or Washingtonians to pay more for regulations that mandate lower emissions or cleaner electricity sources than you will convincing just about any other state outside the Northeast. And the point was that even in Oregon, and even with hard cost caps on RPS bills, the battle was tough. I'll leave it to you to decide how that affects your judgment about the political likelihood of a cap-and-trade bill without any cost containment passing at the federal level. I was just sharing some of my past experiences and explaining why they make me skeptical of carbon pricing scheme's political viability.
Second, Obama's $150 billion clean energy investment plan would presumably be paid for by auctioning emissions allowances in a cap-and-trade, and I believe he's indicated that in campaign speeches before. But the campaign page is actually not explicit about that, and given the vicissitudes of campaign promises, I'd say it's pretty open where that gets financed from.
As I said above, I'm definitely open to paying for the investments with revenues from carbon auction. In fact, that's my preferred method for paying for it. As I wrote to Sam above, a $20 CO2 price would raise more than enough to fund something twice as big as Obama's $150 billion plan and still leave money left to help counteract impacts on America's poor. The point was that it's not critical where the funds come from for an investment centered approach to work.
I thought I was also clear but will clarify again that I and I think everyone here at Breakthrough is supportive of as high a price on carbon as is politically sustainable as well - both as a funding mechanism and as a way to help close those economic inefficiencies you mention. But let's be clear: saying it's economically inefficient not to price carbon fully doesn't really have any bearing on the political chances of a carbon pricing scheme without cost containment. This is politics and when was the last time politics maximized economic efficiencies?! So sure, in the vacuum of economic academia, pricing carbon to it's full societal cost sounds great to me. But this is the US Senate we're talking about, Americans are far more concerned about energy prices than carbon emissions, and we can't afford to let ideal economic scenarios stand in the way of the a politically successful solution to our pressing economic, climate and national security concerns. The moment is far too urgent. It's time for a new strategy.
I also never suggested we pay for a clean energy investment program by shifting spending from the Iraq war. I completely agree that those arguments are a completer mirage and really mean we'll just pay for it with deficit spending. Now I'd much rather go into deficit to invest in a clean energy future than the Iraq war, but deficit spending isn't my ideal funding source. Still, we shouldn't be afraid to go into deficit to solve the energy, climate and security crises we now face. If that's how we end up financing this stuff, I won't fall on my sword to stop it.
The main point here: when we're talking about an investment centered approach to igniting a clean energy future, we have options. The financing can come from a number of sources or combination of sources, which increases the likelihood you'll find a politically sustainable solution.
When you're talking about a carbon pricing scheme, you don't really have any options except pricing carbon, right? Do it with cap and trade or a carbon tax, you still are relying on as high a price on carbon as is economically necessary to drive reductions. And I am simply unconvinced that there's much likelihood of that kind of approach securing passage in the US Senate, now or in the next few years. There's not a moment to lose, so let's find something that works - and that starts with finding something that is politically sustainable.
My suggestion: a major public investment program designed to ignite a clean energy economy through targeted investments and financed by as high a price on carbon as is politically possible and sustainable over several decades. My guess is that's somewhere in the $10-$25/ton range, which would generate plenty of revenue for investment. If we can't get the price high enough to raise enough revenue, than we've got other options as to where to go to for funding. If the my guess is wrong and we can get a higher price, then great, we'll have extra funds to distribute in the most effective manner. In any case, the carbon price delivers as much reductions as it can at that price and the targeted investments augment that, most likely doing the heavy lifting.
By Jesse Jenkins on 2008 07 28
Also (responding to something a few posts back), not everyone in CA is rich Jesse. I know we have plenty of poor people in DC up through Massachusetts on the East Coast, and I'm pretty sure there are plenty out West as well. Plus the cost of living is higher, which distorts federal statistics on regional poverty. And on top of that, I'm pretty sure the average on the coasts is brought up by way more rich people, not a lack of poor people. So no, I don't think poor urban people on the coasts should have to subsidize electricity for rural America.
By Max Epstein on 2008 07 26
Jesse, the numbers I gave were reference case numbers, meaning assuming no carbon pricing. So obviously if you price carbon and you have fewer coal plants going up immediately that's less of a burden on the reductions you need from the clean sector. I don't get the logic that well, we need to transform our economy, so it will happen or won't but the difficulty in getting there shouldn't depend be exacerbated in any way by continuing to allow the free waste dump subsidy for fossil fuels. Strictly from an economic standpoint, if you acknowledge that carbon must be reduced, failing to price carbon is economically inefficient. And just because some private funds will flow to clean energy following public funds doesn't change the fact that substantially more would flow if a price on carbon was incorporated as well.
Also, Obama's $150 billion dollar clean tech plan is to be funded on a cap with full auction permit. Finally, I wouldn't really compare political prospects for passing clean energy legislation of Oregon state to the feds.
And on funding. It's easy to say well we'll get the money from bloated military spending, ending the war in Iraq. The war in Iraq would be ramped down under Obama, but all troop/funding levels will be decided based on mission needs and not as if those funds specifically are competing for other proposals. So whatever is saved would go to (incompletely) closing the deficit hole if not spent elsewhere. That means banking on that, or "general revenue" is deficit spending. That's paying for it, plus interest, in future taxes on labor/employment/investment. All which harm the economy.
These funds are not going to materialize without a carbon pricing scheme, and likely a cap/trade. Just my opinion, but I think you would be better served to lobby for including more of the carbon revenue for R&D in the cap/trade bills that keep coming up (and will continue in the next congress), as opposed to setting this up as an either/or.
By Max Epstein on 2008 07 26
BTW, for comparison, the Oregon Business Energy Tax Credit expansion sailed through the Oregon legislature while we were debating the RPS bill. It passed the House unanimously. And this isn't a tiny credit. It offers a 50% credit on up to $20 million in qualified project costs for energy efficiency investments, renewable energy installations, green building, and clean energy manufacturing facilities. I'm pretty sure it's now the largest business tax credit on Oregon's books. So I know the current Congress's partisan demogaugery has failed to pass the extension of the federal renewable energy PTC time and time again this year, but let's also remember that they have passed it, several times over the past several years. Federal RPS? Not so much...
That said, I don't deny there's a burden of proof on us and a true test may come next year, if Obama is elected and follows through on his $150 billion, ten-year clean energy investment plan, or if Congress pushes a new approach. I think, for now, polling, past history of government investment vs. regulation's political success, and current public focus on energy rather than climate (now the #1 political issue and energy prices are #2 on American's minds behind the ailing economy) points in the direction we're headed, and away from a carbon pricing regime.
By Jesse Jenkins on 2008 07 25
Max, if we can't deploy enough clean energy, we're sunk, regardless of what policy you use to drive deployment. If we can't fundamentally change our entire global energy grid to stop being reliant on carbon-emitting resources (as it overwhelmingly is now), then we're sunk. At the heart of all of this - both cap-and-trade and an investment-driven approach - is a clean energy deployment and energy efficiency challenge. We must fundamentally change how we make and use energy. Globally. Cap-and-trade is designed to drive that change just as much as an investment-driven regime, so if you're pessimistic about the chances of clean energy deployment, I don't see how you're optimistic about the chances of cap-and-trade's success (particularly at low costs for mitigation). Can you clarify?
Jesse
p.s. don't worry about the double posting. happens all the time.
By Jesse Jenkins on 2008 07 25
Sorry about the double post above.
Jesse, you still don't address the crucial issue: there's just too much market share. You could add enough clean energy worldwide in the next 22 years as the entire 2004 global consumption of coal, natural gas and nuclear combined, just covering new demand and so not even reducing emissions at all. The numbers from the EIA IEO 2007 are in the second paragraph of my original post.
By Max Epstein on 2008 07 25
Jesse,
First, if either one of us had the perfect politically acceptable solution it would be law and this argument would be moot. So in general I'm gonna stick to substance. But the $300 dollars is not just a gimmick, its more money than costs incurred, using Zach's numbers. The Congress can't even pass a 1.7 cent per kwh subsidy for renewable energy, so there's a burden of proof on you as well if you justify $30 billion a year largely on political feasibility grounds. And a production subsidy is easier to pass than a massive research program because the production subsidy directly puts cash in the pockets of campaign contributors.
Second, theres no reason why the carbon price would have to reach $50-100 a ton anytime soon at all. And by the time it would, we'd be much less reliant on carbon anyway. What would you rather have: your car today and $4 gas, or an electric car which requires no gas for 99% of the trips you take, with $10 gas? Your issue about lack of "cost containment" (though I didn't specify, I would in fact not have any traditional "cost containment") misses the point. "Cost containment" measures that get thrown around Congress are intellectually lazy desires of something for nothing. How to keep prices low? Just mandate they can never get high. If only things were that easy.
There are better ways to ensure prices never get that high, by instituting a well designed program with complimentary policies designed to address specific market failures that might otherwise introduce costs. Just a couple from each would include: 1) a fairly ambitious price floor (reserve) that would decrease uncertainty as to the path of prices, as well as accumulate a pool of extra allowances that could be released when demand spikes to mitigate potential price increases/volatility; 2) a multi-year instead of single year compliance period (retiring allowances every 3 years instead of 1, like RGGI proposes for example) which would mitigate the effect of short term price spikes on any one compliance expenditure; 3) higher fuel standards for cars; 4) higher efficiency standards for new residences and appliances.
By Max Epstein on 2008 07 25
Sam,
Good questions, one's we're definitely refining and would welcome anyone else to contribute to answering. Our research to-date indicates the following answers to these questions:
1) How much public money will it take to solve global warming? A public investment project in new American clean energy sources that was somewhere in the ballpark of $300-$500 billion over ten years would spur major development and deployment of clean energy technologies and infrastructure. The costs would more than pay for themselves with increased economic activity and job growth and could be financed through several means, including a modest price on carbon. They would also unlock even greater flows of private capital that would follow these public investments.
2)When would we begin to see reductions? Immediately. We should begin with targeted investments that spur the widespread deployment of existing clean energy technologies (as we scale up our efforts to make breakthroughs in the price and performance of next generation technologies). For example, the investment project could fund a major effort to train an energy efficiency core that could weatherize and retrofit our entire country's existing building stock over 10 years, resulting in huge savings for energy, money and emissions. We should start with a long-term extension of critical renewable energy tax credits that keep our wind, solar and geothermal industries booming and secure increased greenhouse gas reductions. We should deploy a new high voltage "supergrid" to tap our huge domestic reserves of renewable energy, including wind in the Great Plains and solar in the Desert Southwest, bringing large amounts of renewables online. We should make investments to help Detroit and the US auto industry retool and recharge to produce electric and high efficiency vehicles. Etc.
3) Where would the money come from? As I indicated before, the most likely (and probably effective) place for it to come is a modest price on carbon. A modest, $20 carbon price would raise over $55 billion per year just from the electricity and gasoline sectors alone (according to my estimates based on EIA data). That'd give us enough for the $30-50 billion a year we need for this initiative, plus enough to offset the impacts on low-income folks with targeted rebates and investments (i.e. weatherization assistance, incentives to purchase more efficient cars and appliances, etc.). Another place (that's probably just as politically challenging but would make sense): end the unnecessary subsidies to the oil and gas industry, which could raise $10-20 billion/year I believe. But when you frame this around investment and not carbon pricing, it really doesn't matter where it comes from. It could be carbon pricing, shifting subsidies from clean to dirty energy sources, charging royalties on new oil and gas production, deficit spending, new public clean energy bonds (like the war bonds of an earlier era), general budget money, or any combination of the above (or others). It doesn't really matter. I've got my favorites, you've probably got yours, but what counts is that we come up with the money, use it wisely and strategically, and ignite a clean energy economy.
By Jesse Jenkins on 2008 07 25
Max, you think we shouldn't underestimate the appeal of the kind of pitch you make for a cap-and-trade bill with $300/person rebates. My personal work history makes me highly skeptical that kind of pitch would work for something as expansive and widely-impacting as an economy-wide price on carbon.
In my last job, I worked as a renewable energy advocate in the Northwest where I helped pass the Washington Clean Energy Initiative and Oregon Renewable Energy Act - both of which established statewide renewable energy standards for the state's largest utilities.
We're talking about two of the greenest, most progressive states in the United States: Oregon and Washington. Both laws had hard, 4% caps on the cost of compliance with their new standards, meaning any utility would be off the hook if compliance with their new RPS targets would be more than 4% more expensive than meeting load with non-renewable resources. Each bill only required enough new renewables to meet just about the expected growth in electricity demand over the next couple decades (15% by 2020 for WA and 25% by 2025 for OR), and both exempted smaller utilities from the standard. Both also included complimentary measures for efficiency that would help reduce people's electricity bills and counteract any potential increase in rates from the RPS portion of the bills.
Even given all that: green, progressive states, hard cost containment (at just a few percent incremental cost), exemptions for small utilities and complimentary cost-saving measures. Even given all of that, these bills were VERY hard to pass. After outspending our opponents 2.5 to 1, the Washington ballot initiative passed by just 51.5%-48.5%. After a huge campaign in which basically everyone in the state, including the largest utilities were on board with the bill - everyone but big industry players and rural electric cooperatives - we were biting our knuckles to see if we got that extra vote that put us over a majority (once we got that one vote, several more followed, but beneath the final vote total, it was really just one or two votes that made it go).
Also keep in mind that a federal renewable portfolio standard failed to secure passage again last year, despite having a hard cost cap of 1.5 cents/kilowatt hour of incremental cost for renewables.
So when you say that we should be optimistic about the chances of passing a bill that internalizes an economy-wide carbon price of upwards of 50-100 dollars/ton (and ultimately higher), inherently causes major ramifications across the US market (that's the point right? to get people to change), ignores regional differences in equity and wealth (those states with the lowest electricity rates are also generally the poorest in the US, so no, we probably shouldn't ask them to pay what rich California's pay for electricity), and has no cost containment measures, forgive me if I'm skeptical... I also doubt that the promise of a $300 check in the mail is going to do that much to change the picture either (unless you can find some good research/polling that indicates that rebates are a political winner).
Jesse Jenkins
Associate Director, Breakthrough Generation
By Jesse Jenkins on 2008 07 25
I wonder if you could answer these basic questions:
How much public money will it take to solve global warming?
When could we begin to see reductions?
Where would the money come from?
I've never seen anyone from Breakthrough these simple questions. I would think BT would focus on figuring out how their plan will solve the climate crisis, before publishing even more half-baked analysis on why other plans won't work.
By Sam on 2008 07 25
Ugh, this came out long, sorry.
While you mention that scrubbers were an important technology for SO2, the point was that the cost effective mass deployed solution was scrubbers that do less scrubbing. This was not the direction anyone was planning and so not how any public deployment projects would have gone, which would have thus been less efficient. In addition no one saw reclassifying coal coming. So while I agree CO2 is a much bigger problem than SO2 was, I disagree that you can distinguish SO2 because it was simply a matter of deploying available technology.
Second, I
By Max Epstein on 2008 07 25
Jesse,
Yes, and P.V. on roofs will be a fad, as well as a structural obstacle.
Best, and now, is to advance knowledge of Thermal Mass within our schools. Afterall, the Egyptians spent many generations studying and playing with Thermal Mass.
Even amazing health benefits are assoicated with Thermal Mass. I call it the "Potato Cellar Effect." Yes, just look at a potato on the surface and one in the cellar, just 2 years later.
I hope that we are all aware that a conventional house can be designed to heat and cool itself for free. John Muir did a 100 years ago. Try searching this author and John Muir.
Governmental Agencies are not here to help, but to provide obstacles. If John Muir tried to get a Building Permit today-NO WAY!
And, I'm a Civil Engineer with many years within construction.
Thanks, now I feel better
By Bud on 2008 07 03
Very interesting post. One thing I've always wondered about is the disjunction between individual behavior and collective xenophobia on immigration. I am an immigrant living in the U.S. for more than a decade now. In my experience, I have found almost all individual Americans I've met to exceeding friendly and welcoming. On the other hand, I have found the "official" side of immigration - the USCIS (formerly INS), the US consulates abroad, etc., to be exceedingly hostile. The hostility and xenophobia towards immigrants is also obvious in the political debates, Lou Dobbs, etc.
I have been puzzled by this difference between friendliness at the individual level and xenophobia at the collective level. I usually explain away (to myself) this difference by thinking that, having spend all my years in the US either on university campuses or in the Bay Area, the people I've met are not representative of the average American. But perhaps there is another explanation: according to the study by Janus that you quote, even outwardly-welcoming Americans I've met may be having some deep anti-immigration feelings.
Also very interesting link between health-care and immigration xenophobia. How do Canadians view this? I would expect that Canadians would have some of same immigration related issues as Americans do.
By Sid Shome on 2008 04 30
You might consider two other underlying political themes we are seeing right now:
-- One is the growing attacks against 'outsourcing,' the latest being Hillary equating outsourcing companies with the Nazis. The idea that 'liberal' candidates can say foreigners doing work for American companies is wrong unless the foreigners are in the US illegally seems a tad contradictory.
-- Another is the class warfare theme. The underlying assumption of this is that there is a fixed size economic pie and the people's problems come from 'others' who have more than their share. Liberals focus on the rich, but it is difficult to see how this sentiment will not bleed over onto illegal immigrants.
By Robert L. www.neolibertarian.com on 2008 04 30
Clearly there are many potential clean energy solutions for Kauai and other islands to utilize. Developing a revolving fund to encourage clean energy adoption sounds like a great idea, but how do you inspire or mobilize entrepreneurs to see the revenue potential and start these types of businesses? Who is speaking to the Business community about this and are they listening? This question applies to other communities as well, not just Kauai.
By Kai Haley on 2008 01 02
With an abundance of solar, geothermal, wind and tidal power resources, as well as a relatively small population and limited area, Hawaii would seem well poised to achieve an almost complete break from dependence on fossil fuels (the principal exceptions being air and sea transport). Hydrogen fueled cars, and about which I'm generally quite skeptical due to limitations on range and the problems of hydrogen storage and transport, would actually make sense in Hawaii.
By E M Collins on 2007 12 27
Maui recently got wind power and plans to get more. Seems to be a natural for an island with two large mountains that get substantial wind.
One sugar plantation in, I think, Maui just decided to make biofuel to power their machines from the leftover bagasse from sugar cane processing.
Solar as well as wind could be used on most of the islands there. No need to ship in coal for power.
By Bob Morris on 2007 12 26
I would think that geothermal would be the way to go in Hawaii.
By JK on 2007 12 21