Blog Post: 10 Climate & Energy Things I Should Have Written About

Blog Post - 10 Climate & Energy Things

I Should Have Written About

Hi There ….

It’s me – after another long non-blogging absence. But back I am and back I will be in the coming weeks. Hope you are still tuned to this station and that you will stay tuned. (Also hope you will ask your friends and colleagues to subscribe and have my thoughts delivered directly into their inbox).

For this re-entry post, I decided the best thing I could do was to think of 10 things that I wished I had written about over the last several months. That makes this piece a bit longer than one of my usual send-outs would normally be, but you can certainly pick and choose based on the titles for each of the 10. Here they are:

Everyone Knows a Miracle Will Save Us - Right?

Could Secondary Impacts from Climate Change Cause Problems Among Nations?

Some Big Guys Are Finally Losing Money to Climate Change – and are Pulling Out of the Game

The NIMBYs Are More Organized Than You Think

The Supremes Apparently Think Congress Can Do Anything

So…. I Bought An EV

And…. Now I’m Looking for A Charger

COP28 Is Ramping Up - Despite My COP27 Report (:

Are People Eating Enough Carrots - And Doing It Fast Enough?

I Was Wrong About Gasoline Taxes. Am I Also Wrong on Carbon Taxes?

You Need to Understand What Wet Bulb Is

So read the ones you want or read them all now or later. I am just glad to be back at you sharing my thoughts and observations. I have several lined up and will be doing this more often – I promise.

Best,

Dan

PS - If you want to reach me these days, don't use my Wedgemere email address. Use delureydan @ gmail.com or ddelurey @ vermontlaw.edu.

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Blog Post: 10 Climate & Energy Things I Should Have Written About

Everybody Knows that a Miracle Will Save Us – Right?

A few weeks ago, for a couple of days, the third headline on the online Edition of Washington Post was “Scientists Discover Way to Make Energy from Air Using Nearly Any Material”.

(https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/05/26/harvest-energy-thin-air/)

At first, I thought I was reading “The Onion” and I normally just read the headline when I am on that site. But I was on the WAPO site. I continued to read. As you guess, the story was filled caveats about embedding the process into technology, scaling it, etc. To the Scientists credit, however, they did not tout it as ready for prime time. Yet the Post irresponsibly had it as a headline above the virtual fold.

When I finished reading it, my mind instantly recalled a news item from last year about one of the National Labs making a breakthrough on Fusion, whereby they had finally created a reaction where more energy was produced than was put in. You all saw the news. If only the same media attention was being paid today to the fact that scientists have yet to replicate that result.

And then there is Carbon Extraction. Unlike the two above, this one has been proven to mechanically work, and I have full faith that it will have a place in the long-run solution to reducing emissions and concentrations. But the one commercial operation existing today in Iceland is small ((very small) and it seems we are not on the verge of large, widespread deployment of large-scale extraction. Therefore, it is not a short-term solution, and what happens with emissions in the short run is what matters in where we end up on the scales for temp and sea level rise.

The commonality of the three things above is this. People love the idea that something will come along and save them from having to sacrifice or incur any pain or inconvenience. I run into this all the time. It always comes up in NIMBY talking points against wind and solar farms, i.e., why not do these other things, or there are other things just around the corner that will make us wish we had not ruined this piece of land with turbines and panels.

Miracle technologies are not going to do the trick. They will not be ready in time. And we already don’t have enough time.

Could Secondary Impacts from Climate Change Cause Problems Between Nations?

During the days of Acid Rain, it was easy to trace the sulfuric acid falling in the Northeast back to plants in the Midwest with no SO2 pollution controls on them. Climate change is different because greenhouse gas emissions go into the atmosphere and get mixed together with all the other emissions. One country cannot accuse another country that the latter’s emissions are causing a specific problem in its country. But what about a neighboring nation’s responsibility to prepare for climate change and adapt for its impact so that those impacts are limited.

What made me think about this is the Canadian Wildfire situation. As far as I know, no one is accusing Canada of neglect or doing anything wrong in terms of handling its wildfires. It would certainly be hard for the US to do that given our own wildfire problems. But there is no question that smoke from fires in Canada, presumably having been enabled is whole or in part by climate change, is adversely affecting our country in significant ways.

Military and other International Strategists have (thankfully) been study the geopolitical issues and problems that might arise from climate change. Chief among their focus is climate migration as an escape from heat, lack of food & water and related famine. They also look at the possibility of countries using force to get the food and water they need from their neighbors.

But maybe a country is not taking care to prepare for wildfires and a neighboring country is impacted? And what if a country decides to cloudseed to steer rain its way instead of where it normally falls? Or what if a country sprays massive amounts of sun-deflection materials over itself to cool down its temperature. (This is a real thing on many drawing boards right now).

Let’s hope everyone can keep their eyes on the prize of limiting temperature rise. Let’s hope on that and with everything else I see on the horizon that everyone can get along.

Some Big Guys Are Finally Losing Money to Climate Change – and They are Pulling Out of the Game

I have long viewed the insurance industry as one of the canaries in the cold mine in terms of an industry suffering actual financial hurt from the effects of climate change. I am only surprised that it took so long for the insurance industry to wake up. But wake up they have. Did you see that Allstate and Farmers have pulled out of CA in terms of writing new policies? Did you see that so many companies have pulled out of Florida that the state has had to create a state fund to provide coverage. (It is not the only state to have to do this). Furthermore, where people and businesses are still able to get insurance to cover their property and assets, the prices are skyrocketing.

Insurance is a bellwether for the rubber hitting the road. It is the area where “show me the money” is rapidly playing out. Keep your eye on it.

The NIMBYs Are More Organized Than You Think

I don’t know how widely it was reported (I saw it in a few pubs) that there is a national organization now supporting and coordinating NIMBY groups that are against renewable energy deployments. Even before I saw that I had been putting together a plan to coordinate efforts to push back against knee-jerk NIMBYism across the nation. But all my pitches to people to do this fell on deaf ears, with most of those ears (and eyes and wallets) focused on the permitting problems at the state and federal levels. Those are indeed problems, but if you surmount those hurdles, it won’t mean much if you can’t get past the local NIMBYs who have outsmarted you through zoning and ordinances.

As part of my focus on this issue, I have been actively attending local hearings on solar farms and looking into the NIMBY efforts related to them. From what I have seen, they are well-organized while active support for the projects is practically non-existent and left to the project developer. There is no one stepping out to rebut the misinformation and misstatements from the NIMBYs.

If any of you want to know more about what I have been up to, let me know.

The NIMBY problem is big, as evidenced by the recent survey report released by Columbia University. It should not be underestimated.

The Supremes Apparently Think Congress Can Do Anything

I cannot remember a session of the Court that produced decisions that resulted in so many of my friends wanting to talk about them over lunch, drinks, dinners, etc. But the one that jumped out at me was not as high profile, at least in terms of it directly impacting Americans.

I refer to the decision on the case involving the authority of EPA to regulate the Clean Water Act. If you did not hear about that one, you may have indirectly heard of it when commentators and news reports mentioned the Major Questions Doctrine and the Chevron Doctrine. In brief, these refer to how much authority and flexibility federal agencies have in interpreting a law passed by Congress as they produce specific regulations to implement that law.

During the many years I have spent as a Lobbyist on Capitol Hill, I have interacted with many members of Congress – both House and Senate – as well as their staff. I have been in the “room where it happens”. (Once I was the only one in the room where it happened. Thing about that for a moment. Ha!) The people on the Hill come in all flavors. Some are dedicated public servants, some not so much. Some are smart as a tack, some are knuckleheads. Some know a lot about the topic their committee is working on. Some don’t. (That is where Committee staff thankfully come in)

But the fact is that pretty much everything in our modern and tech-based society and economy is very complicated, and most areas require some time and effort to understand well. The way Congress works (now and in the past) does not allow for the people in Congress to spend that time. Therefore, we should not expect Congress to be able to write the kind of expert detail that a regulation requires. Let Congress do its thing: Pass Laws that are clear in their intent and impact, and also provide guidance to the Executive Branch to write regulations to make those laws work, and then practice oversight to make sure those regulations reflect what the law was intended to.

Do not look to Congress to get too specific to the point of writing regulations. It will slow the passage of the law because of more opportunities for political bickering and then due the lack of needed expertise, they will get the law wrong.

So…. I Bought An EV

Since you last heard from me, my 2008 Beemer had started to rapidly die, with something new happening to it almost every week. My plan had always been to drive it into the ground and buy an EV. So early in 2023 it was time to my plan into action.

Starting in January I became an active shopper. The first thing I encountered was confusion on the tax credits. It doesn’t matter now, but you may remember that there was a window from January 1 to April 18, when the Inflation Reduction Act’s requirements only partially kicked in. This meant that in a strange perversion, more cars were eligible during that window than are in the full implementation period we are in now. So, I made my first objective be using the temporary window.

I spent a lot of time test-driving many makes and models and talking to conventional dealers. I basically liked all the EV models I tested. But buying an EV from one of those dealers was the same experience I remember loathing in all my past car-buying days. But now added to that salesroom floor crap was a lot of ignorance about their own EVs and the tax credits.

When I started out, the one car that was not on my shopping list was a Tesla. That was solely because at this point, I have no positive regarding the Founder, who seems to have jumped the shark in many, many ways. But Tesla is also a solar and storage company, and whether you like the guy or not, they are making happen the thing that we all want to happen – electrification. And you know what, not only has that company changed the nature of cars themselves, but it has also changed the entire buying experience. I basically bought the car using an app on my phone, and it worked out quite well. There was also a lot of handholding from competent Tesla staff when necessary. Everything went well, and I am now driving a Model 3. I am happy.

And…. Now I’m Looking for A Charger

Several years ago, about the time that many auto manufacturers were announcing timelines for phasing out ICE vehicles, I started to think about the chargers. When I learned that approximately half of the autos in the country don’t have a permanent parking place, I really began to focus on how that was going to work out. And by work out, I mean specifically for me, who was parking on the street in DC. Recognizing a problem, I tried to start a Working Group to figure out how to address it. Surprisingly I could not attract enough interest.

In the case of my EV shopping, I really didn’t think much about where I was going to charge my EV. I thought a lot about what the range was on a full charge, but otherwise just assumed that I would charge at home and otherwise have no problem finding a charger on the road. I also didn’t think about how long it takes to charge depending on the different types and levels of chargers.

Well, the good news about charging at my house in Vermont is that my utility there, Green Mountain Power, is sending me a free Level 2 charger. I just have to pay for it to be installed. But otherwise, I must admit to being underwhelmed at the number of charging locations that are out there when I am on the road.

At least in my experience, I have not had any experience with unreliable or malfunctioning, broken chargers. That is apparently not the case everywhere. The long piece on PBS Newshour last month that featured their science correspondent Miles O’Brien driving around California was incredibly bad PR for EVs and EV charging. And then there was an equally incriminating piece in the New Yorker. And then there was the piece I heard on NPR's Morning Edition this morning just before I sent this out..

When I am sleuthing, I like to look for where dots have not yet been well enough connected. The timeline for EV growth – a key element to emissions reduction – does not look the same as for one for growth in chargers. It does not look like things are synched up right now.

COP 28 Is Ramping Up - Despite My Report on COP27 (:

As you may remember, I went to COP27 in Egypt and then reported on it in a Blog Post. In brief I talked about how the Annual COP Meeting in the Fall (as distinct from the COP process in between meetings, has for all practical purposes turned into a big trade show. Make no mistake, it a good trade show. But it no longer should be seen as something that is going to solve our climate problems, in particular emissions. The COP Process is still important as a way of countries working together on climate issues and problems. But that is all we should expect from it. We should not expect major impactful agreements or mandates. And the worst thing we can do in the climate fight is to count on things that can’t be counted on to produce results.

Are People Eating Enough Carrots and Doing It Fast Enough?

Greenhouse gas emissions and climate change are likely the penultimate example of the Tragedy of the Commons. And prevention of that kind of tragedy rarely happens on its own, because of its very nature – i.e., when people get a benefit from doing something, and don’t have to pay for gaining that benefit, then why would they stop doing it, even as the resource they are using begins to show signs of stress. Preventing this kind of tragedy is one of the best cases one can make for the role of government in society and the economy. That is why we have things like a Clean Air Act and a Clean Water Act.

Government traditionally tries to solve a problem by using carrots or sticks, or some combination of the two. In the case of the Inflation Reduction Act, it is pretty much a big bunch of carrots in that it relies on incentives to get people and businesses to reduce emissions, and not mandates to make them do it.

I know it may have been the only politically acceptable approach in the Congress. But I am nervous. The thing about the climate battle these days is that we don’t have a lot of time to experiment with things to see what works. We wasted that time over the past two decades. If the carrot approach doesn’t work, by the time we know that for certain, the amount of emissions released during that time will put us that much closer to the various catastrophic scenarios that are being predicted.

I am also nervous about another related thing which I wrote about last year – the two different timelines in the climate fight. One is the timeline that scientists say we must be on to not use up the carbon budget that keeps us below 1.5 and 2.0 degrees respectively, and other is the timeline we are on with our actions, pledges, and commitments to reduce. There seems to be a total disconnect between them. We can do all sorts of the right things to reduce emissions, but if we don’t do them fast enough, then emissions keep going up in the interim. It is not just quantity of emissions-reducing actions that is important. The speed of those actions is also important – perhaps even more so because the earlier an emission is avoided, the better chance we stand in meeting our targets.

I Was Wrong About Gasoline Taxes. Am I Also Wrong on Carbon Taxes?

When I was younger, I was very much focused on the energy efficiency of vehicles (as in mpg), I firmly believed that by raising the price of gasoline via fees or taxes (that were dedicated to funds which would then be disbursed to fund more efficiency actions) the effect would be that people would want to buy more efficient vehicles, switch to mass transit, etc. I wasn’t the only one thinking and talking about what a significant effect could be had by just adding a dollar or a couple of dollars on the current price of gasoline. But guess what, the prices went up anyway to the levels they would have gone up to with the gas tax. And it didn’t lead to a massive change in driving habits or driver choices for vehicles. In fact, the vehicles got bigger and less efficient by way of SUVs and Pickups.

Around 2016, even though I had some qualms because of what I said above, I climbed fully aboard the carbon tax/fee/price bandwagon. It seemed like a no-brainer to me. And the rest of the world was doing it - embed a carbon price component throughout the economy and have it be embedded in every decision that is made in the supply chain and ultimately by the consumer. I so believed in it that I approached DC-based groups working on it and offered to help them pro bono (that is a story for another Post sometime).

But the struggle to pass the Inflation Reduction Act showed what a political third rail a carbon price can be and maybe the carbon tax ship has sailed and for practical reasons other things should get priority. I am unsure on this, and I would like to know more from any of you who want to restore my faith here. I also realize that I need to know more about how a carbon price is working in other countries that have been using it for a while. But I am not in the same place I was.

You Need to Know What Wet Bulb Is

OK…Be honest … could you explain to someone right now what a Wet Bulb Temperatures is? Yet it is perhaps a more important piece of weather and climate data than the one we use day in and day out, which is formally known as a dry bulb reading.

Wet Bulb Readings bring in humidity, and the ability of humans to accommodate combined levels of heat and humidity. It is a different measurement. It is the wet bulb temperature that has a sharp line above which it is fatal to humans who experience it. That line is at 35 degrees Celsius and 95 degrees Fahrenheit. After that wet bulb temp is reached, the body just can’t evaporate away any more heat. (So, you are clear, dry bulb temps often get above 95 F, and we all bear that, but that is because the wet bulb temp on that day is not that high.

In the current heat wave in the American Southwest and West, the wet bulb temps have been getting dangerously high, and the media is starting to report on it.

Those of you who have read Kim Stanley Robinson’s fine climate fiction “The Ministry of the Future” will remember that the book begins with a massive death event in India due to high wet bulb temps. Since the book was published, such events have actually happened in South Asia, although not in anything close to the magnitude predicted in the book. (And I have not given anything away by revealing how that book begins. Trust me)

While I am on this topic, let me offer another recommendation. If you consider yourself a climate person, you not only need to know about wet bulb, but you need to be able to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit when on the spot. That is because most Americans don’t have a clue what Celsius means. They live their life in Fahrenheit. If you are talking to an American about Celsius-based climate numbers, you need to know or instantly be able to calculate the F number to get them to understand it. So, remember …the 1.5 C target is a 2.7 F target. Also, the cheat trick to go from C to F is: Multiply the C number by 2 and then add 30 to get F. Not close enough for lab work but good enough for talking purposes.

Links to Past Posts:

So I Went to the COP - Here Are My Top 10 Takeaways.

Efficiency and Clean Energy - Faster vs More

Efficiency & Clean Energy - More vs. Faster

It's Time For A Climate Vote - On the Record

Good COP, Bad COP .....Thoughts Before Glasgow

One of These Things is Not Like the Others

What I Should Have Written About

The Serenity of Being a Climate Voter

Decarbonization Dilemma: 10 COVID Impacts that Worry Me

COVID Conundrum: Looking for Clean Energy "Twofers"

Clean Energy Conundrum: The Slippery Slope to BANANAs