Archive for the ‘energy’ Category
This one’s a little dark. You’ve been warned.
I’m amazed at how little attention is paid to climate change in the U.S. Sure, we talked about the Copenhagen summit for a news cycle, and we loved chirping about the dastardly U.K. scientists and their suspicious emails. But given the potential costs of climate change, it’s alarming how little attention it gets. Future historians will be utterly bewildered as they sift through the clues we leave behind and wonder how we so willingly brought collapse upon ourselves. We have completely failed at weighing the relative costs and benefits and have likely sealed our own fate.
Climate change critics generally start by [drastically] overstating the level of disagreement within the scientific community regarding the anthropogenic causes of climate change. I won’t waste much text here, but to be clear, there is no disagreement. Climate change is happening and humans are causing a large part of it; the only debate remaining is whether our share of the blame is 95% or 96%.
Once the seed of doubt is placed, the critics then scare us with dire predictions of a possible future. Dealing with climate change would require significant changes to the way we live, it would require significant investment in new infrastructure and technologies, and would alter the institutions we’ve been familiar with for the past century. Therefore, the theory goes, we should do nothing.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume there is a legitimate debate within the scientific community (remember, there’s not). I’ll even be so generous as to assume a 50/50 split. If that were the case, how should we respond?
The costs of unmitigated climate change are immense. The path we are on leads to massive population displacement, food shortages caused by flooding and draughts, accelerated species extinction, and (eventually) economic and civilization collapse. Yes, collapse.
What about the costs of attempting to stem the tide of climate change? These, too, would be large. The standard of living for developed nations would be altered forever. Air travel would no longer be available to the public. Nor would personal automobiles. Meat would be a luxury instead of a staple. Our cities and towns would contract and the massive suburban developments would transition back to agricultural land. The number of farmers would increase 10-fold (at least). Many industries would cease to exist and those that remained would look completely different. Our national wealth would have to go into buying things like wind turbines and solar panels instead of HDTVs and fancy cars. Make no mistake, life would be very very different. But we would have a real fighting chance at staving off the total collapse of our civilization.
When presented in these terms, is there really any question of which path to take? I’m so tired of hearing about the “energy tax” and the costs of transitioning to a carbon neutral energy mix. Money won’t buy you much if the global economy fractures under the strain of climate change.
[ . . . ]
Easter Island (the place with the giant stone heads) was once covered in thick forrest. Poor resource management and fanatical obsession with erecting the giant stone heads lead to 100% deforestation of the island. At some point, some one cut down the very last tree left standing. What do you suppose that felt like?
Soon, we all will know.
Filed under climate change, culture, economics, energy, politics : Comments (0) : Feb 27th, 2010
Minnesota takes aim at North Dakota
Minnesota (my beloved home state) has just fired a shot across their western border towards North Dakota. From Scientific American:
To encourage the switch to clean renewable energy Minnesota plans to add a carbon fee of between $4 and $34 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions to the cost of coal-fired electricity, to begin in 2012, to discourage the use of coal power; the greatest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
To provide some context, North Dakota is a state with dwindling population and abundant cheap coal. There are a number of coal-fired power plants that export electricity across their borders to the more populated (and less coal-rich) Minnesota.
Continuing the article,
State officials in North Dakota are mounting a legal battle against Minnesota. State officials argue that this would unfairly discourage coal-powered electricity sales in favor of renewably powered electricity.
Really, North Dakota. No shit.
Fortunately for their state, North Dakota is also blessed with an abundance of wind resources. The same high voltage lines that carry dirty coal electricity could be used to export wind power instead.
There’s two ways they can play this:
1) Use the tariff as a direct financial incentive to agressively build wind farms and increase local employment
Or
2) Spend millions of tax dollars fighting the tariff in court and continue down the dead-end of coal power plants.
I wonder which path North Dakota will take?
Filed under climate change, economics, energy, environment, politics : Comments (1) : Jan 6th, 2010
Bike to Work Week 2009
Summer has more or less come to Milwaukee so it’s time to get back on the saddle : Bike to Work Week 2009 is here!
We had nice weather on all but 1 day this week, and I’m on track to ride to work 3 of 5 days. I find that I consistently overestimate the “hassle factor” of biking to work and I underestimate how great I feel after 30 minutes of moderately vigorous exercise in the morning.
Since the 2008 season, I’ve made some observations and modifications to my bicycling routine that helped a lot:
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Dress the part – Bicycle shorts look silly but they really do help. Add a bicycling jersey or other top and you’ll notice the difference.
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Get a rack – A rear rack and pair of panniers (or saddlebags) can comfortably carry a lot of gear. I used to use my Timbuk2 messenger bag and found that the strap would get uncomfortable. With the panniers, I have full range of motion and can carry my work clothes, computer/supplies, and a lunchbox.
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Plan for flats – Ride long enough and you will get a flat. A spare tube, tire levers, and CO2 canister are very easy to pack in a small kit and will get you back on the road in no time.
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Winter training helps – After blowing out my knees from marathon training, I switched to stationary bike for the winter. Remarkably, the work I put in during the off season translated to much faster/easier cycling on the real bike.
To keep myself honest, I’m tracking my commute for the rest of the year based on transportation mode. (Using my new favorite data collection + display tool DAYTUM):
Filed under Milwaukee, energy, work : Comments (1) : Jun 11th, 2009
How long will it last?
Most of us know that natural resources are finite. Due to those pesky laws of physics, there’s only so much stuff on this little planet of ours. New Scientist poses (and then answers) an interesting question: How much do we have left? And how long will it take to deplete these resources at present rates?
Not surprisingly, we don’t have a lot of years left with many of our favorite natural resources given current consumption rates. The chart presents both the rate of consumption for the U.S. (we’re #1! in a bad way) and for the world, based on an assumption that global consumption goes up to half that of the U.S. (with developing nations striving to match our standard of living, it’s not a bad assumption).
The takeaway here is not that we’re going to all of a sudden run out of Indium and stop making LCD monitors. Instead, this should remind us all that we need to drastically change the way we interact with natural resources over the next century if we want to maintain anything close to our current standard of living.
At the risk of politicizing an otherwise apolitical post, I’ll also add this: When you hear politicians tell you that we can’t do anything to change the way we produce energy or to increase the efficiency of everyday processes because it costs too much, ask yourself this: what’s the cost of doing nothing?
Filed under energy, environment, technology : Comments (0) : Apr 24th, 2009
Rail and the 500 mile flight
The White House is adding some details to the plan for high speed rail in America. As I’ve written before, I’m a big fan of rail transportation. Sadly, our national transportation rail is extremely outdated and woefully inadequate. (Anyone who has traveled in Europe can attest to the efficacy of a good rail system.)
Looking at the map, I detected a subtle pattern. To flesh out my hypothesis, I drew a series of circles with a 500 mile radius. 5 of these circles fit nicely over the proposed high-speed rail corridors.
The 500 mile radius is not arbitrary. This is the distance where air travel is more time efficient than ground based transportation. For airlines, flights less than 500 miles are generally unprofitable.
To understand why, let’s compare two alternatives for travel between Minneapolis and Chicago :
Air travel:
- Drive from your home to the airport. [Time : 30 minutes]
- Check-in and navigate through security [Time : 30 minutes]
- Wait at the gate [Time : 30 minutes]
- Board plane and taxi to runway [Time : 20 minutes]
- Fly to destination [Time : 90 minutes]
- Land, taxi, and deplane [Time : 20 minutes]
- Claim baggage and exit airport [Time : 20 minutes]
- Drive to destination [Time : 30 minutes]
Total travel time : 4 hours 30 minutes
The above analysis is a best-case. Any delays in flights, traffic, baggage, etc. would add to the time.
High Speed Rail travel:
- Taxicab to train station. [Time : 15 minutes]
- Board train and wait for departure [Time : 15 minutes]
- Travel to destination [Time : 3 hours 20 minutes]
- Depart train and taxicab to destination [Time : 15 minutes]
Total travel time : 4 hours 5 minutes
How is it possible that rail travel is actually faster than flying? It’s all about the downtime. Air travel requires many steps along the way that don’t contribute to the primary goal of getting you to your destination.
- Driving to the airport – by necessity, airports are far from the city center.
- Check-in/security – standing in line @ 0 mph
- Waiting at the gate
- Taxiing
- All-too-ubiquitous delays
By contrast, a high-speed rail system takes you directly from city-center to city-center and minimizes wait time. Plus it’s cheaper and more energy efficient. Neat!
Filed under energy, technology : Comments (4) : Apr 19th, 2009
