It's Just Good Engineering....

It's rather interesting that on the heels of the Climategate email controversy the World Meteorological Organization publishes a report stating that the decade from 2000 to 2009 was the warmest on record. No, I don't think that this was intended to deflect the public's attention from the controversy although it may seem that way to some. It is, however, seriously disappointing to learn that some climate scientists apparently suspended their belief in true scientific discourse in favor of manipulating data that conflicted with their advocacy.

One of the most cogent arguments that I have seen in favor of dealing with climate change was recently published in a New York Times op-ed column by Thomas Friedman entitled Going Cheney on Climate. Frankly, he could have made the point about the need to plan for low probability, high impact events quite well sans the Cheney analogy, but I suppose it made for a good headline. Aside from the fact that it is simply prudent to plan for such events, he notes that there are several benefits that society would realize from transitioning to clean energy, not the least of which would be greater innovation and energy independence.

But, beyond that, I look at it another way. My engineering training tells me that it is simply good engineering to make the most efficient use of the inputs to production. Why exhaust depletable resources for energy production when there are nondepletable alternatives available? What I'm suggesting here is that there may be a higher economic use of petroleum than setting fire to it (such as creating plastics and other high tech materials). This all comes back to the multiple reasons for promoting renewables and energy efficiency that seem to have been lost in the global warming debate: technological advance, economic development, conservation of scarce resources (including water), etc. This is not just about CO2, or shouldn't be.

In my last column, I noted that climate change was not the only serious issue facing society, and that is still true. But, it doesn't mean that we don't begin to work toward dealing with it, and whether or not there will be a catastrophe in 2050 or whenever is beside the point. We should be good stewards of the only planet we have to live on. That is just good engineering. But, in terms of the contradictory evidence, it is far from clear to me that there are not other natural events beyond our control that may suddenly raise or lower the temperature of the earth more than our actions. For instance, it has been theorized since the mid-1960s that sudden small changes in the orbit and tilt of the earth were the principal cause of successive periods of glacial advance and retreat. If true, all of our mechanations to strictly maintain the temperature of the earth at the levels known in the short time span of recorded history may be for naught. Perhaps adaptation would be a better strategy. Nonetheless, logic and good engineering should tell us that we cannot significantly alter the composition of the atmosphere without some impact. And, while it seems clear that human activities have resulted in a dramatic increase in CO2 within a relatively short time span, the presumed correlation between CO2 and temperature and the notion that it is irreversible is less clear. The fact that one of Kevin Trenberth's emails in the climate controversy noted that it is a "travesty that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment" illustrates that point.

I have written previously about the religious fervor that permeates the debate on global warming, renewable energy development, and related issues. What I expect from scientists is that they will pursue new knowledge regardless of the direction it leads them. When scientific skepticism and inquiry is replaced by advocacy in pursuit of a largely political agenda, that is when scientists lose credibility. And, we cannot afford that because there are more than enough advocates of one agenda or another espousing their beliefs and publishing studies in support of their position.

One final thought about the continuing discussion of cap and trade and the supposed incentive that it provides as a mechanism to reduce greenhouse gases. This approach merely promises to enrich those that trade in allowances and offsets and the inevitable derivatives that some smart guys will devise to take advantage of the opportunities. In another op-ed piece in the New York Times entitled Cap and Fade, James Hansen identifies the problem well:

"Because cap and trade is enforced through the selling and trading of permits, it actually perpetuates the pollution it is supposed to eliminate. If every polluter's emissions fell below the incrementally lowered cap, then the price of pollution credits would collapse and the economic rationale to keep reducing pollution would disappear."

Let's come back to the basics of regulation. If greenhouse gases are to be considered a criteria pollutant, simply tax or restrict their emissions. Period. And, if you think that offsets are a helpful component of cap and trade schemes, you may be interested in a somewhat tongue and cheek website on this topic called Cheat Neutral.

So, in summary, the science is not settled and the proposed market based solutions are a wrong-headed approach to dealing with the issue. It comes down to just doing the right thing, and that is just good engineering.

Some additional thoughts on renewable energy and rationality

While taking a look back at some of the presentations from the Solar Power 2009 Conference in Anaheim last October, I started thinking about solar industry consolidation, recent issues with transmission, Climategate, and other matters. Overwhelmingly, there is far too much whining over who is getting what subsidy. If you get your costs down and become competitive, this issue goes away. As I've noted elsewhere, this is a matter of technology and economics, not religion. And, if nothing else, the recent issues with Climategate point out the dangers of turning it into a matter of religion. Certainly the revelations from the East Anglia emails demonstrate how the global warming theocracy and its ecclesiastical followers have subverted scientific inquiry and discourse.

Driven partly by the recession and partly by the competitive pressures that virtually all industries eventually experience, the solar industry is now experiencing significant consolidation. Thin film, which seemed destined to be the clear cost leader not so long ago, is now being challenged by cost reductions in crystalline silicon that threaten its growth. And, though it seemed unlikely only a short time ago, some PV manufacturers and suppliers are actually laying off workers. Others are moving production from the US offshore. This competition is precisely what is needed to make solar energy competitive and we should welcome it. Increase the value and everything else will follow.

Transmission is another area that has succumbed to a dogmatic theology. The argument that transmission is a limiting factor on renewable generation is simply a red herring. Virtually all states have some renewable energy potential, whether it be wind or solar or biomass, etc. -- some in more than sufficient quantities. But, do we really need to power the entire U.S. from a 75-mile square portion of the Mojave Desert or from mega wind farms in North Dakota? We need to analyze the trade off between the cost of high capacity factor resources that are dependent on transmission to move the energy and lower capacity factor local resources that don't require it. Moreover, we are now beginning to see resistance from some environmental groups and land owners who do not believe that high voltage transmission lines are necessarily the highest use of pristine land. Thank you.

But, while distributed generation (DG) has its place, it too is not the solution to all of our energy needs. There are tremendous opportunities for the creative and more efficient use of space to deploy renewables -- unused roof tops and awnings over parking lots to name just two. And these don't need to be unattractive if designed well. But the notion that we must deploy black panels along every highway right of way or wherever there are a few square feet of vacant land is also nonsense. The line of thought that if some is good, more is better has unfortunately become the canon of the solar theocracy. I am looking forward to more creative uses of thin films and new technologies in BIPV designs.

If nothing else, consolidation in the solar industry, the turmoil over Climategate, and debates over transmission lines and land use promise to return some balance and rationality to discussions of energy and climate change. That will be a welcome change.

Geoengineering

Among the topics that get lost in the debate about climate change and the measures that we must take to curb greenhouse gases (GHG) are 1) adaptation strategies and 2) the prospects that innovative technologies may be developed to a) cool the planet or b) scrub GHG from the atmosphere. Those innovative technologies are often collectively referred to as geoengineering, and I believe they will be equally important in helping us avert a planetary crisis. In no way do I mean to imply that we should not develop and deploy energy and transportation technologies that produce fewer GHG emissions, but I prefer to work the other side of the equation at the same time.

With respect to global warming, speakers often paraphrase Eugene Kleiner, cofounder of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, who said "There is a time when panic is the appropriate response." I'm sorry, but this is not true. It is never true. Respond with urgency, of course. But panic clouds one's thinking. It diminishes one's ability to accurately assess the nature of the situation and develop rational responses. It was a lack of foresight and reason that created the problem. Responding similarly is unlikely to solve it. Moreover, I take exception to those who imply that global warming is humanity's only, or even most pressing, problem (we have enough to fill up a blog).

Fortunately, there appear to be a number of researchers seeking to develop active geoengineering solutions in addition to the more passive strategy of simply reducing emissions. On July 13, the British newspaper The Guardian reported on the Manchester International Festival's search for Twenty Ideas That Could Save the World. Now, the top 20 were not all geoengineering solutions -- they included the often cited carbon-free renewable electrical generation technologies such as concentrated solar power and geothermal energy. But, they also included new methods to capture and sequester carbon such as biochar, creating algal blooms in the oceans to increase CO2 uptake, and schemes to increase the earth's reflectivity to cool the planet.

And, while it is certainly better to take prudent measures now to avert a calamity in the future, we should also begin a serious investigation of the more active approaches to mitigating climate change and its first cousin, acidification of the oceans, now. Otherwise, those technologies may not be suitably developed if and when we need them. And, given the Law of Unintended Consequences we need to discover what deleterious effects there may be before rolling them out on a grand scale.

So, invest in carbon-free energy technologies and energy efficiency, absolutely. But, let's look seriously at strategies to actively reduce GHG concentrations and mitigate their effects.