As an economist, a big part of my career has been spent trying to understand trends and changes to the status quo, and how their impacts are felt. I recently began looking at power generation fuel substitution and some of the changes occurring in this area.
For many decades, the U.S. has been slowly decarbonizing the fuel mix it uses to generate power. Here’s a chart I put together that shows the relative shares of coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, hydropower and non-hydropower renewable sources over 50 years, between 1960 and 2010.
As you can see, coal, oil and hydropower lost market share, while natural gas, nuclear and non-hydropower renewables gained. Overall, the carbon intensity (carbon/BTU of energy) of the U.S. power generation mix dropped by roughly 15 percent from the beginning of the period till the end.
We can also see from the chart that the trends were particularly strong in the first decade of the 21st century, from 2000 to 2010. But what’s happened since then? A second chart shows the same trends from the beginning of 2011 through May, 2012 (the latest available data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration).
Over this short time period, coal continued to lose market share while natural gas and renewable sources other than hydro gained. Because of this substitution, the carbon intensity of the U.S. power generation fuel mix dropped by another 13 percent.
What is likely to happen to this carbon intensity in the future? The Department of Energy has projected the future U.S. power generation fuel mix through 2035 and believes that it is likely to continue towards higher proportions of natural gas and renewable sources and a reduced share of coal. If that happens, U.S. power generation fuel carbon intensity will continue to decline.
Though this declining carbon intensity doesn’t solve the greenhouse gas problem, it helps. And a lot of it is happening because market forces in the U.S. are pushing power generators to make the indicated fuel substitutions. Things aren’t necessarily the same in every country, but in many the same market forces likely will push local power generators to make similar substitutions.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Media roundup
A few media leftovers for a slow summer’s day...
On the heels of Rachael Jonassen’s recent post on why corporations are addressing climate change, a quick piece by the Weather Channel’s Carl Parker on what some of the private sector’s most prominent members are saying.
On the heels of Rachael Jonassen’s recent post on why corporations are addressing climate change, a quick piece by the Weather Channel’s Carl Parker on what some of the private sector’s most prominent members are saying.
Here's a great (albeit long) discussion of our recent weather, including a nice explanation of how this fits in with the climate change discussion by comparing the recent weather to Major League Baseball's "Steroid Era."
Finally, while I was doing some housecleaning, I remembered that I hadn’t yet shared the audio of an interview I did with WNEW-FM (99.1), the new CBS NewsRadio station here in the Washington, DC area. Here are the two pieces done by WNEW’s Chas Henry, in which we discuss the national security implications of climate change.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Why Companies Address Climate Change
Arne Mogren spent over two decades at Vattenfall Energy Company in Sweden. He remembered when he began work at Vattenfall there was just one person working there on wind energy. Today there are 500! Wind is just one of the areas where employment in climate-related industries has exploded. Solar, energy finance, carbon trading, biofuels, energy retrofits, automobiles, carbon capture… all are growing opportunities for employment, and profit.
Not too many years ago, it was unusual for companies to hire climate change experts at the senior level. Now, companies looking for growth opportunities look for a senior level picture of the landscape. And all companies need a strategic vision of how they fit in this new landscape, how they can shape it to their needs, and how they can benefit from the new opportunities.
And even as agile companies jump on the new opportunities for growth through new products and services, they must respond to new internal needs and new structural challenges posed by climate change.
Let me give just three examples that help to illustrate why your company needs to rethink internal process and infrastructure issues.
Absenteeism is always a concern in a company but successful companies have found ways to address it. Employee health is a leading cause of missed workdays and heat stress is one important contributor. This summer a record setting heat wave extended from Washington DC to the middle of the country. The average temperature for the entire US in June was 2°F above the average for the 20th century. The most recent twelve months was the warmest ever observed (back to 1895). Such great heat, and for such long periods, is the real culprit in heat stress related illness and employee missed work. How will your company, and your employees deal with this?
This heat hurts employees, and it hurts logistical operations for companies. If you rely on railroads to transport your products, or to get raw materials, you probably noticed some issues in delivery as rails buckled in the heat and trains were slowed, redirected the long way around, or simply unable to operate. Even the Metro here in Washington had to adjust to buckled rails. Smart companies understand that this may become the new normal and have planned for it. Indeed, really smart companies are planning ways to offer new goods or services because they see this as an opportunity.
The Metro Green Line in Washington, DC, is inspected for ‘heat kinks’ that cause the tracks to buckle dangerously. |
But it’s not just your employees and logistics that the heat affects. It also can impact your infrastructure in many ways. Certainly the cost of cooling was a big issue this month. And if you are dealing with perishable goods such unplanned expense impacts your competitive position. You may have heard of all the restaurants giving away food that was going to spoil. Did they plan for the heat? Did they plan for lots more months like this? Did they think about increasing insurance for this? Do the insurance companies have products for the increased risk? Well, it turns out that the big reinsurance companies like Swiss Re and Munich Re have been developing risk models that incorporate climate change for two decades. They might be a winner in this new world. The restaurant owner: he or she might be a loser. Which do you want to be?
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Balancing Act: Technology and a Changing Climate
We love our
technology.
Consider how we follow it, with blogs and
columns devoted to following the top
innovators in the same way we follow our favorite sports team. Consider how it
permeates all facets of our lives, from home to work, from the car we drive to
the way we shop. And when you realize what technology means to us, it’s
abundantly clear that we need to protect it, and while keeping its impact on
the safe side of harmful.
So that’s the double-edge sword: we can leverage
technology, information and emerging processes and platforms to help answer a
changing climate’s mitigation and adaptation questions. And at the same time we
must be acutely aware of what our technology does to the environment.
In the
book, we used Google as a good example of how computing can drive
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Granted, there’s
some disagreement as to how much CO2 is put into the atmosphere—but no one
disputes the fact that it does. But for the sake of this discussion, let’s stick
with Google’s
assertion that a single web-based search generates about 0.2 grams of CO2.
According to the search engine giant,
“...the average car driven for one kilometer (0.6 miles for those in the U.S.) produces as many greenhouse gases as a thousand Google searches.”
So how much data is being used, if we accept that the
many, many Google searches that take place each day are just the tip of the
usage iceberg? Consider this infographic, which can be mind-blowing.
It probably took you more than a minute to digest this, meaning the numbers are now bigger. |
Still, our technology must be protected, certainly from
the impacts of a changing climate. It’s central to so much that we do. A recent
post on the WashingtonPost.com Wonkblog
reinforced just how much air conditioning has revolutionized our lives, from
our economy to our comfort to our diets. It cites this study by Northwestern
University researchers that makes the case that high temperatures left
unchecked by the magic of central air can result in severe cuts to economic
output, worker productivity, political instability, and in severe cases,
fragile states that become threats to our national security. So there’s that to
consider. As the
recent Super Derecho of 2012 taught us, we need our technology intact to
power the electrical grid, to help us maintain contact with critical services
and loved ones, and to avert a public health crisis when temperature either
drop or skyrocket.
Also, consider that the Google searches that I mentioned
earlier could in fact be providing people with the information they need
without driving to a library—so it’s not all bad to have this capability in
hand.
The balancing act comes to a head when a company makes a
decision that seems to fly in the face of sound environmental policy. The
world’s most valuable company, Apple, Inc., is itself dealing with that
quandary right now.
Until last week, 39 of Apple’s products sat comfortably
on the list of devices certified by the Electronic
Product Environmental Assessment Tool. That is, until Apple requested that
the organization remove those 39 products. Why is this significant? The move
effectively removes Apple from being part of some public sector procurement
efforts—San Francisco, for one, whose Department of Environment sent
a letter to their government agencies announcing that Apple laptops and
desktops are no longer qualified purchases.
Apple
responded by explaining their frustration with the EPEAT standards, which
even the governing organization admits are old. And to Apple’s credit, they’ve
been at the forefront of positive news for their efforts to develop green data
centers to support their various cloud-based services. Apple’s not alone—Google
and a host of other tech companies have been very open about their efforts to
lessen the GHG impact of their operations.
Apple recently won approval to build a 20-megawatt solar farm at their new data center in North Carolina |
We can’t run from technology just because it’s a burden
of the environment; it’s just too important to what we do, and what we need to
accomplish on a day-to-day basis. And we need to ensure that the infrastructure
is in place to keep our world running (that’s the adaptation side of this). But
much of the mitigation efforts that some think is still a means for slowing
climate change impacts can be fueled by technology, just as it can be
inhibited. So a conversation needs to happen now. We need stakeholders at the
table to figure out what works best—and how we’re going to make it happen.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Lessons Learned from an Epic Storm
At LMI’s annual Family Picnic on Saturday, the hot topic
of conversation was the devastating impacts that the region endured beginning
with Friday
night’s epic storm. On a day where temperatures easily exceeded 100°F,
many, if not all the people I spoke with didn’t yet have power at home. Today’s Monday Tuesday and
many of them still don’t.
We can’t say this event, labeled an “in-land hurricane”
by some, a “super
derecho” by others, is related to a changing climate. I’d just as soon
rather not dwell the cause, and focus on the facts.
This event:
·
Lasted 12 hours during its 700 mile run from
Indiana to the mid-Atlantic coast
·
Featured gusting winds in excess of 70mph, with some
places experiencing 91mph gusts
·
Left more than 1 million without power in the
Washington, D.C. area alone (and 2.2
million overall, with “catastrophic damage” to the electrical grid).
The ferocity and timing are amazing to consider. That a
storm could sweep through (And quickly! At my house it was a violent half hour
and then it was over) and coincide with record high temperatures, is something
few could have expected.
Consider the broad impact: the storm damage has disrupted
infrastructure and the supply chain, along with regional IT and communications
capabilities—parts
of Northern Virginia were without 911 services for the entire weekend, and major
cloud-based services operated by Amazon, Netflix, Instatgram and Pinterest were
among the casualties. These were not small fish that were knocked out, reinforcing
just how bad things were.
Add to that the public health issues. Already, the region
was bracing for high temperatures—with the standard alerts and warnings that
come with a forecasted heat wave. But no one envisioned such an event in which
people would be forced to deal with the heat without the benefits of power for
air conditioning, cell
phone service for checking in on loved ones and coordinating activities, or
clean
water to drink.
A woman and her great-granddaughter at a Red Cross cooling shelter in Lynchburg, Va. Photo credit: Parker Michels-Boyce/AP |
Again, whether or not climate change is at the root of
this remains inconsequential so much as what
organizations are prepared to do to adapt to these types of events.
This is the type of cross-functional impact that we talk
about in our new climate change
book—events with impacts that cross over to other areas and demand
collaborative action from a multitude of agencies and stakeholders on every
level. Whether they represent the private or public sectors, organizations have
got to begin developing plans of action to account for their people, processes,
and assets when debilitating events occur.
Whether it’s a better system for early warnings, using
social media for first response, building hardened infrastructure, or adapting
your supply routes, these are wise strategies that should be adopted by state,
local, and federal governments, and supported and adopted by private sector
organizations. It’s the smart thing to do. And if we do have an event that we
can definitively chalk up to climate change, then we’re that much better
prepared to respond.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Early to Rise
I don’t like talking about the weather. I have plenty of meteorologist friends that can ably do that on my behalf. In fact, our book about climate change isn’t as much about the climate as it is about its impacts and what can and should be done to prepare and respond. (If you’re looking for a great discussion on the weather aspect of climate change, Heidi Cullen’s book is a very accessible, and thought-provoking, text on where we could be headed.)
But the weather is the easiest frame of reference when it
comes to climate change—it’s right there in front of us, relatable, and people
have a pretty good feel for what it means—and certainly what lessons can be
learned from our current environment. And when I see something in June that’s being
monitored as a possible tropical depression, I think about what kind of
mindset a functional manager needs to adopt in order to do their job.
“And they shall call her ‘Debby.’ |
See, hurricane season
in the Atlantic technically runs
from June 1 through November 30, so anything is possible during that timeframe when
it comes to tropical storms. But anyone who has ever booked a Caribbean cruise
knows that your cheapest rates are in August, primarily because that’s when
severe storms and hurricanes are most likely to rain on your (tropical) parade.
Traditionally, hurricane season isn’t in full swing until the late summer.
But
NOAA has already looked at things from a historical perspective, and what
they found was that Hurricane Season 2012 jumped the gun, noting that
The Atlantic season has already gotten off to a quick start...with tropical storms Alberto and Beryl forming during the month of May. This is the first time since 1908 that two tropical cyclones developed before 1 June.
Consider the other severe weather events 2012 has already
delivered to the United States. March was the setting for a rash of powerful
storm systems, something that research
meteorologist Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storms Laboratory noted
was a result of optimal tornado conditions arriving earlier than in previous
years.
March 2, 2012, tornado in Henryville, In., part of a system that killed 7 people. |
In the
book, we pose the question of risk on each of the seven functional
chapters. One thing we found over the course of this discussion is that
organizations must assess associated
risk that come with discrete events, along with vulnerabilities to their assets
and processes. These factors will vary from place to place, but risk assessment
process remains the same: understanding the event and its impact, looking at
potential damage to what you do, and then determine its overall likelihood.
This isn’t a novel way of looking at things, but rather a good method to apply
to the climate change issue, and the unique set of problems it could bring with
it.
Is this a cultural shift? I don’t know. I don’t think
it’s the same jarring consideration as how a flu pandemic might
force people to forgo shaking hands. But if we’re to really adapt to a
changing climate, that means shifting the way we think—or at least broadening
the things we’re considering in order to help safeguard our way of life.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Climate Change on the Mind
In 1985, David Lee Roth began extracting himself from Van Halen’s shadow by releasing his EP Crazy from the Heat, with cover art of Roth waste deep in the waters off of the Seychelles Islands.
Twenty-seven years later, one has to wonder if Mr. Roth,
even then, had climate change on the mind.
Seychelles, of course, is at
significant risk to the impacts of a changing climate. Rising temperatures
present a number of issues that must be adapted to, certainly from a public
health perspective. Less obvious among them, though, is mental health.
The June 20 official start of summer arrived with
furnace-like temperatures all along the east coast. This, after several
weeks of awful wildfires in the western United States, which have forced
evacuations from California to Colorado. And as firefighters valiantly work to
stop thousands of acres of wildfires, and cities activate their health systems
designed for severe heat events, there’s been no break from a stressful
sequence of events—which certainly falls under the area of mental health—and
the need to consider how public would deal with these events in extended and
rapid succession.
The High Park fire west of Fort Collins, Colo. is being called one of the worst fires in Colorado history. Photo courtesy of PBS.org. |
You can call it the mental
aftermath. A 2011
study by Australian researchers found that several years of continued
catastrophic weather events on that continent have resulted in Cold War levels
of anxiety and insecurity in children.
This extreme anxiety and stress are logical responses to extreme weather events—this on top of well-documented stressors like lack of access to food and water. A recent report by the National Wildlife Federation outlines how the uncertainty caused by unpredictable weather causes people to become depressed, even suicidal. The report, developed from conclusions of a high-level panel of psychiatrists, psychologists, and public-health and climate experts stated two hundred million Americans will be subject to stress because of climate change.
Think about Hurricane Katrina and the doubling of mental
health issues that occurred post-Hurricane Katrina. A 2005 study of
283 children displaced by Hurricane Katrina revealed that they were nearly
five times more likely than a pre-Katrina national comparison sample to have
"serious emotional disturbance." This mental health category is
similar to PTSD—post-traumatic stress disorder—and accounts for children's
distress and social, behavioral and functional impairment.
Hurricane Katrina’s wake left four states with disaster areas, including all of Louisiana and Mississippi. |
Public managers have an opportunity to view each of these
events as case studies as they move forward in developing a response strategy.
There is critical information to be gleaned with regards to how their
communities respond to those problems unique to their area.
Stakeholders in the public and private sectors will need
to ensure adequate community health services with enough capacity to handle a
wide array of mental health challenges, including displacement, death,
depression and anxiety.
One community’s heat wave is another community’s wildfire,
but the common element is that people will be confronted with stressful
situations—and that’s a pretty good baseline to start with.
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