Win-win Opportunity for Climate Prosperity and Life Op-ed 07-01-08

8/14/2019 Win-win Opportunity for Climate Prosperity and Life Op-ed 07-01-08

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July 1, 2008

Win-Win Opportunity for Climate, Prosperity and Life on Earth

ByMichael Totten

Eighty percent of Americans recently polled believe America is on the wrong course militarily, economically, socially and environmentally. The wrong course is being miredin a $3 trillion Middle East war that was avoidable, as was the deaths of a more than halfa million human beings. The wars other unintended adverse consequences include theU.S. dollars fallen value, a 500 percent jump in world oil prices, an economic recession,and declining government support for health, education and the environment. If thecurrent $120 cost per barrel of oil persists, Americans will pay out $1 trillion every 30months for foreign oil imports.

Americans also overwhelmingly believe the government is on the wrong course inrefusing to reduce planetary risk from a dangerously destabilizing climate. Humanprocesses now rival natural processes, emitting greenhouse gases equivalent to thevolcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo (one of the largest in the past century) every 44hours! The USA is the only country in the world refusing to ratify the Kyoto Treaty.President Bush also reneged on his 2000 presidential campaign pledge to cap emissionsof these radiatively active gases. Instead, the Administration and key members ofCongress have been defiantly opposed to emission reductions. They assume,inaccurately it turns out, the only available options are expensive clean-up systems whichdivert funds from generating more economic output.

This is evident in the current Congressional debate over climate legislation, as it wasevident in the U.S. Delegations opposition to reduction targets at the March 2008 UN

climate talks in Bangkok. In citing recession fears as a reason for taking no action norsetting any future reduction targets, the Administration and many Congressionalmembers are verging on willful disregard of or callous indifference to the immense andsteadily expanding pool of directly obtainable and financially attractive mitigationoptions. Actions so abundant they could result in saving half or more of the potential$200 trillion projected to be spent on energy worldwide over the century. Put moresoberly, failure to change course will squander this $100 trillion dollar bonanza on morecostly, polluting and insecure options, while also failing to capture a lodestone ofancillary benefits from deep CO2 reductions, rural and urban employment growth,poverty alleviation, cleaner air and water, and enhanced security.

A case in point is the 2004 Department of Defense-funded report, Winning the Oil

Endgame, American Innovation for Profits, Jobs, and Security. The military has goodreason to assess whether America can wean itself of vulnerable and risky foreign oilimports experiencing volatile price hikes that are hemorrhaging the nations economiclifeblood. Oil wars, as in Iraq, are costly, unpopular, and demoralizing. The reportshows they are also entirely avoidable.

In the wake of the 1970s OPEC oil embargo and gas price spikes the Congress mandateda doubling of vehicle fuel efficiency. That single action accrued U.S. consumers multi-


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hundred billion dollar savings at the gas pumps, was instrumental in collapsing OPECshigh oil prices, and lifting the nation out of a recession.

Advanced technology innovations now enable another doubling of the nations vehiclefleet efficiency, with similarly immense gas pump savings. Compared to oil at $120 perbarrel, the cost of the vehicle efficiency improvements can deliver oil services at a cost

equivalent to $15 per barrel. The efficiency gains could reprise their 1970s role indramatically lowering oil demand and, hence, collapsing skyrocketing oil prices.

Combined with comparably large energy and monetary gains by improving the efficientuses of natural gas, the Pentagon report concludes that three-fourths of U.S. oilconsumption could be eliminated. The U.S. transportation sector accounts for 30% ofCO2 emissions, so the efficiency gains not only save money, dampen the recession, andenhance national security, but achieve dramatic reductions in CO2 emissions and other airpollutants at no cost!

The remaining one-fourth of oil could be satisfied through reliance upon local andregional biological wastes to produce ethanol or biodiesel fuels. Most promising for the

long-term is the unfolding success story of ultra-efficient, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles(PHEVs) connected to the utility grid, and getting fuel economy over 100 miles pergallon-equivalent. Electric motors are more efficient than gas engines, and PHEVsharness this advantage by increasing a vehicles battery capacity and decreasing the gasengine size.

The electricity sector accounts for 40% of the nations CO2 emissions, and harborssimilarly vast energy efficiency gains. A 2007 deep-dive assessment by consultingfirm, McKinsey Global, found 75% of the nations electric demand growth through 2030could be satisfied with efficiency improvements at lower cost than erecting new powerplants. Highly successful states like California and Vermont have several decades ofmarket-driven innovative regulatory outcomes in this regard, by realigning the financial

interests of utilities so their profits go up when they implement efficiency improvementsresulting in customers energy bills going down. Remarkably, the efficiency gains havecut California household utility bills by $1000 per year, while Californias utilitysystems CO2 emissions are 50% lower than the U.S. average!

Taken together, efficiency gains throughout Americas stock of buildings, factories,vehicles, farms, and manufactured appliances, lights, office equipment, and consumerelectronics could cut in half the nations one trillion dollar annual energy bill. Theknock-on effect of deep reductions in CO2 emissions would be achieved, again, at no costto taxpayers and ratepayers.

Even more impressive system efficiencies can be captured by connecting PHEVs to the

grid. Combining the vehicle and electricity sectors through an increasingly advanceddigital grid, or smart network, provides one of the most compelling technical innovationsin the 21st century. A recent government assessment concluded that the existing U.S.electricity system has sufficient generating capacity (1 trillion watts) to power 84% of thenations 200 million cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs for 33 miles per day, whichencompasses the average daily driving cycle for most motorists, if the vehicles werePHEVs. This could result in the following potential benefits:


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Energy and National Security PHEVs could reduce gasoline consumption by 90 billiongallons per year, or more than half of U.S. oil imports;

Oil Monetary Savings more than $270 billion per year in gas pump savings;

Avoided Emissions reduce total U.S. CO2 emissions by 27%, as well as 80 to 100% ofurban smog, noxious pollutants, and lung-damaging particulates.

As grid-connected PHEVs become an increasing percentage of the U.S. fleet they alsoprovide critical battery storage for intermittent wind and solar electricity generation.Research indicates PHEVs comprising 8%-38% of the fleet could provide operatingreserves or storage for wind and solar. This would enable already competitive windpower to generate half of U.S. electricity as much as coal currently generates.

What about the existing 2 billion tons of CO2 emissions per year from Americas 330billion watts of coal-fired plants (plus 400 million tons of CO2 from natural gas-fueledpower plants)? Retrofitting existing coal plants with carbon capture and storage (CCS),when commercially viable in five to 10 years, is projected to double or triple thegenerating cost of electricity. The mitigation cost would amount to $100 per ton of CO2,or upwards of $200 billion per year for all coal-fired power plant emissions. It would becheaper for utilities to shut down the oldest and most polluting plants, especially sinceefficiency improvements can replace the electricity services at well below just the cost ofthe CCS retrofit.

New advanced coal plants with CCS systems, when commercially available in 5 to 10years, are expected to increase electricity costs by 75 percent. This would reduce the costto $40 per ton of CO2, or upwards of $50 billion per year nationwide.

In addition to efficiency services displacing many existing and proposed coal plants,given that reducing a molecule of CO2 has the same value anywhere on the planet, it isfiscally responsible to pursue other least cost emission reduction options for fossil fuel

plants. TheReport on the Economics of Climate Change prepared by former World BankChief Economist Sir Nicholas Stern highlighted an immediate and highly cost-effectiveoption to waiting for several-fold higher cost CCS: reducing emissions from tropicaldeforestation in developing countries.

Most people are unaware that 20% of total global annual CO2 emissions are releasedduring the burning down of tropical forests. This is an area the size of England, and aCO2 pollution level greater than released by the worlds entire transport sector. In thewake of this vast destruction scientists also estimate that some 16 million plant andanimal species populations go extinct.

Very little revenue is generated from a large percentage of the 30-plus million acres of

tropical forests burned down each year. So little in fact that farmers and ranchers wouldactually accrue several times more income by leaving the threatened forests standing, andselling the mitigation services of the stored carbon for as little as $5 to $10 per ton ofCO2 in the global carbon trading market. That is 10 to 20 times less expensive thanretrofitting existing plants, and 4 to 8 times less costly than new coal plants with CCS.

Some 300 to 400% more CO2 emissions are released from tropical deforestation thanfrom all U.S. coal plants. Even if a climate-friendly energy system is adopted worldwide,failing to halt deforestation is expected to increase the atmospheres concentration of


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radiatively active gases by nearly 130 parts per million in the coming decades. This willpush the world into extremely dangerous, potentially catastrophic, climate consequences.Yet, a payment by fossil fueled utilities of $5 per ton of CO 2 to reduce deforestationwould add just half a penny per kWh of electricity a tiny fraction of the cost of CCSover the coming decade.

This constitutes an immensely positive win-win outcome for cash-poor, carbon-richtropical farms and rural communities and for fossil-fueled utilities and their customers.The revenue gains for impoverished developing countries would help achieve theMillennium Development Goals, the lofty and ambitious targets agreed to by developednations to help developing countries pursue actions for eliminating poverty, hunger,sickness, premature deaths, stunted growth and illiteracy.

At the same time, it would prevent irreversible loss of wildly diverse plant and animalspecies. These awe-inspiring, biologically rich creations with lineages millions of yearslong, are treasures of knowledge yet to be scientifically understood. Future generationswill judge us harshly if we wantonly allow these great, irreplaceable mysteries of life tobe destroyed. More immediately, preventing the loss of these species would have directvalue for the cultural survival and protection of indigenous nations and nearly 1 billionpeople living in extreme poverty who are directly dependent upon forests for their food,fuel, shelter, fresh water, fiber, and genetic resources.

The worlds scientific community has unequivocally determined that climatedestabilization is a human-made crisis of the highest order, threatening our economicprosperity, international security, environmental stability, and the long-term survival ofoffspring. The urgency for immediate and sustained action was summed up by Dr.Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, If theres noaction before 2012, thats too late. What we do in the next two or three years willdetermine our future. There is no better time than the present to seize the embarrassing

richness of opportunities before us to transform multiple challenges of epic proportionsinto well-being and health for life on earth.

----------------------------Michael Totten is Chief Advisor on Climate and Water at Conservation International(www.conservation.org/) .

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Win-win Opportunity for Climate Prosperity and Life Op-ed 07-01-08