December 2009 Archives

In today's Wall Street Journal they're blogging about Paul Mc Cartney - bashing him for trying to make a difference. And when you look at the list of all the blog entries for today, there's not one mention of Copenhagen, not one mention of the very real issues at stake for the world.

Instead we see a concert of ignorant swift-boating going on, targeting the masses with false claims and irrelevant chatter - in order to obstruct the work that needs to get done. This type of obstructionism is not going to help business interests, only hurt them.

The science historian (and physicist) Spencer Weart says in the WaPo:

The theft and use of the emails does reveal something interesting about the social context. It's a symptom of something entirely new in the history of science: Aside from crackpots who complain that a conspiracy is suppressing their personal discoveries, we've never before seen a set of people accuse an entire community of scientists of deliberate deception and other professional malfeasance.

Even the tobacco companies never tried to slander legitimate cancer researchers. In blogs, talk radio and other new media, we are told that the warnings about future global warming issued by the national science academies, scientific societies, and governments of all the leading nations are not only mistaken, but based on a hoax, indeed a conspiracy that must involve thousands of respected researchers. Extraordinary and, frankly, weird. Climate scientists are naturally upset, exasperated, and sometimes goaded into intemperate responses... but that was already easy to see in their blogs and other writings.

The Copenhagen diagnosis is bleak.  It documents the key findings in climate change science since the publication of the landmark Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report in 2007.

The new evidence to have emerged includes:

• Arctic sea-ice has melted far beyond the expectations of climate models. For example, the area of summer sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40% greater than the average projection from the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
• The sea level has risen more than 5 centimeters over the past 15 years, about 80% higher than IPCC projections from 2001. Accounting for ice-sheets and glaciers, global sea-level rise may exceed 1 meter by 2100, with a rise of up to 2 meters considered an upper limit by this time.  This is much higher than previously projected by the IPCC.  Furthermore, beyond 2100, sea level rise of several meters must be expected over the next few centuries.
• In 2008 carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels were ~40% higher than those in 1990. Even if emissions do not grow beyond today's levels, within just 20 years the world will have used up the allowable emissions to have a reasonable chance of limiting warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius.
  

The report concludes that global emissions must peak then decline rapidly within the next five to ten years for the world to have a reasonable chance of avoiding the very worst impacts of climate change.And here we have the Wall Street Journal bashing Sir Paul.  The press has abdicated its responsibility, it seems, and so have far too many businesses. 

The US Chamber of Commerce has also laid out an aggressive agenda of obstructionism, causing several of its members to resign.

On the other side, some scientists, like James Hansen for example, point out that the "cap and trade" regime being advocated in Copenhagen is faulty from the outset. Hansen's point is solid: "only a direct tax on fossil fuels as close to the source as possible would succeed in stopping the rise of emissions."

So what's the big deal about Copenhagen, anyway?  

What should business be doing?

If you believe that there are important reasons to reduce CO2  levels in the atmosphere, or even to stop the growth of CO2 levels, then Copenhagen is crucial. You should hope that most of  the world's CO2-emitting countries cobble together individual targets and commit at Copenhagen to put teeth into individual company targets for future CO2 emissions. Let's call these the Copenhagen Rules.

The organizers of Copenhagen correctly emphasize that two other results will be important.  First, that all of us rich, developed countries agree to fund specific CO2-related activities by poorer, developing countries.  A series of big, important arguments going on there, since most of the increase by 2050 in the Global Middle Class will be in such countries.  And the global middle class drives CO2 emissions. Second, that recipients countries commit to a set of listed actions to use that help to minimize their emissions of CO2.  That negotiation will go on long after Copenhagen closes.

Instead of beating around the bush, businesses need to face the reality of climate change and craft new, innovative strategies to meet the challenges ahead.  Burying their heads in the sand is not exactly a business strategy.

Here's what needs to happen:

• A carbon tax must become a reality: the free-lunch is over. Emissions must be controlled world-wide.
• Businesses must invite all stakeholders to the table and look for collaborative solutions. Yes, that means Big Coal needs to sit down at the same table with Judy Bonds.
  
• Collaborative does not mean industry-led.
  
• Countries will not reduce CO2 emissions!  Innovators must reduce CO2 emissions.  Countries set either arbitrary, bureaucratic rules which incentivize and constrain innovators; or countries create economic incentives which guide innovators to the desired goal, in this case slowing and eventually reversing the CO2 content of the atmosphere from the current 380 parts per million (PPM), back toward the 19th century level of 280 PPM.  Until Copenhagen Rules have be agreed upon and later made effective, thousands of innovators are partially hamstrung in launching thousands of actions designed to reach that CO2 goal.
  

We have a strong bias against the individual governments getting in the way of innovators.  Applying a variant of Occam's Razor, the best way is probably the simplest way to guide innovation to reduction in CO2 concentrations.  We strongly suggest that, to make a difference, all emissions of CO2 must be taxed and economic mechanisms used to adjust the distortions and any unintended consequences. 

The truth (plus a simple carbon tax) will set innovators free!

If Copenhagen Rules emerge and are ratified and given teeth, then innovators will have a defined playing field for "getting the ball rolling."  Sustainable energy development needs to know that it will be allowed to create returns on a very large investment.  Taxing unsustainable energy will stabilize returns on any sustainable energy.  Currently, such projects are dependent on large, inefficient subsidies, funded by governments which would rather pick winners than let the innovators make and lose money by creating winners.  Well-intentioned people have for years agreed to use sustainable energy subsidies, and the ball is indeed rolling is some places. 

Copenhagen Rules are about freeing up global innovation, which should not be limited to those rich countries who have been generous enough to pay for these large subsidies.  Copenhagen Rules will transfer the responsibility globally and cause the solution to also be global.

So even though Copenhagen Rules are certainly not optimal, they are a crucial first, global step.  Reducing CO2 emissions will not only help lead to lower CO2 levels and therefore help (by an amount yet to be determined) slow global warming, but it produces the following desirable results:

• It will make coal mining and burning pay its own way, which probably will slow or reverse environmental damage.  If there is a viable technology called "clean coal," the Copenhagen Rules will replace dirty coal with clean coal, and replace all coal at the margins.  This is critical in China and India.
• The Copenhagen Rules will quantify the incentives for better Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) technologies.  Innovators are working on these, but they need clear signals.
• The potential for new natural gas supplies will be aided by Copenhagen Rules, since natural gas will be favored over liquid petroleum and especially over coal.  And new natural gas is apparently quite abundant at a "middling" price relative to petroleum.
• Since new "shale gas" technology shows promise of domestic gas supplies in many countries on the Earth, the Copenhagen Rules will assist this new, domestic gas in displacing imported, OPEC-priced petroleum.  The economic influence of slowing the need for new liquid petroleum will improve the living standard of many poor and some rich petroleum importers.  
• Development in emerging economies does not have to follow the same road we took in the west.  New alternatives can and will work, if the price is right to encourage technology transfers.
• But maybe the biggest, vaguest impact of new, domestic gas production could be the geopolitical influence.  If the global community is less vulnerable to importing more petroleum, the Middle East might be a more stable region.  Or maybe not, given history. And the Copenhagen Rules are a step in this direction, away from petroleum addiction.
  

One final observation on swift-boating: we know that drama sells. In the American media, "climategate" is beginning to push Sarah Palin off the front page.  But it is also a big, fat, smelly red herring.  Throw out all that theater (for now) and Copenhagen Rules are still justified and important - for all the reasons above.

We are running out of time, and there are no bail-outs for the Earth.

With Copenhagen around the corner, let’s begin with a statement for the deniers of global-warming: despite a few overzealous scientists who have fudged their data, the science does overwhelmingly point to the burning of carbon-containing fuels as being partially responsible for increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 - and causing global warming. 

Instead of getting caught in this silly, finger-pointing, pointless debate, let’s look for real solutions. 

Here are the sources of greenhouse gases by industry sector (via BBC):



And let’s look at the breakdown of greenhouse gases:




We know that we have to deal with the carbon dioxide problem, and to do so, let’s look at carbon capture & sequestration.

Wikipedia descibes carbon sequestration as a “geoengineering technique for the long-term storage of carbon dioxide or other forms of carbon, for the mitigation of global warming. Carbon dioxide is usually captured from the atmosphere through biological, chemical or physical processes.”
 
Across the globe, we are seeing the rise of “carbon storage” projects, often at unsustainable costs, and sometimes with an accompanying set of issues. 



In my view, for any process which accomplishes carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), to remain sustaining, it would also need to be financially rewarding. This reward might flow either through the markets or directly by politically-powered subsidies. And second, rural areas and agriculture use more fossil fuels and generate more CO2, both directly and indirectly, than do urban areas and services, CCS processes would, therefore, ideally be located in such rural areas.

But most importantly, we must treat carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) as a business process, as a core competence for sustainable industry.

Capturing carbon from CO2 and storing it for a century or longer (CCS) needs to be treated as a separate business process practiced all over the world. Developed areas will need to develop improvements on the schemes being proposed today, such as the CO2 absorption and deep earth injection that is being put forward as “clean coal.” The components of this technology are relatively mature, yet the process is still capital- and energy-intensive, which suggests that only massive scale can drive down the cost.  With a mature technology, we cannot expect that this economics will change with foreseeable experience gains. Therefore, the CCS business will not be profitable at carbon taxes of $20 to $50 per ton, the range usually projected. So far, all such projects are dependent on heavy government subsidies and we do not expect this to change in the near future. We conclude that a new approach, descending a new experience curve, is the only way that the CCS business will ever be viable. Therefore, a lot more work needs to be done in this area to address the questions being raised.

A possible and sustainable solution is Bio-CCS. Interestingly, there are islands of scientific enquiry suggesting that Mother Nature has already provided us with the elements for this new CCS approach.

For instance, there is a global cottage industry to enable production of “bio-char” (smallish particles of carbon produced from plant material by pyrolysis a process involving burning in an oxygen deficient environment). Refer to Dr. Johannes Lehmann’s work at Cornell University, Ithaca, for example:



This bio-char industry has studied the soil productivity effect of dispersed bio-char, emphasizing that since microbes do not decompose bio-char that the projected half life of this carbon in soil is probably in the centuries. Apparently, water and nutrients are absorbed into the carbon, dispersed in the soil, serving a similar function to plant matter (hummus). This makes bio-char a perfect form of fertilizer since nutrients are released over an extended period of time.

Fuel gas or liquid can be a co-product, useful for generating electricity or as a chemical feedstock. This bio-char is capable of upgrading secondary or distressed land to higher productivity, therefore, adding real value to the land. Thus, growing plant material by absorbing CO2 combines with pyrolysis to bio-char, creating a BioCCS process with side benefits.

In our next post, we examine this BioCCS process in detail, and address both environmental and business issues simultaneously. 

We must explore these alternatives with open minds. That much we owe to our children and grandchildren - whose future we have changed by our inconsiderate use of the Earth. 

And being distracted by ethical lapses in studies - that’s treating the symptoms while ignoring the disease!