Comments View as Flat

1. 

   BILL HANNAHAN Posted 5:13 pm
   02 Apr 2009

   Ahhh, now I understand. If cavemen had simply mandated smoke
   free energy they would have gone directly to windmills and solar cells.

   Permalink

   1. 

      David Roberts Posted 3:42 pm
      03 Apr 2009

      Bill (and everyone): please do not paste directly from Microsoft Word into the comment box. It produces all kinds of gibberish formating (I edited your comment to remove it). If you must paste from Word, use the "paste from Word" button at the top there -- the one with the little W on it. That will remove most of the weirdness. (I think!)As for your comment, it is such a left-field strawman I scarcely know how to respond.

      Permalink

2. 

   Pangolin Posted 8:55 am
   04 Apr 2009

   This is the myth, or rather, misdirection that ticks me off the most. When I hear some purportedly green-friendly politico announcing that since climate change is so serious they're going to fund research right away. Usually followed by the phrase 'clean coal' and me throwing bits of pencil and junk mail at the offending piece of electronics.
   
   We don't need to research squat.
   
   We know how to keep buildings heated, cooled, lighted and cleaned for a fraction of the energy we now use to do this. All parts strictly off the shelf and boring. A bit of installation cost sure, but all gravy from there. Ditto with public transportation for anything from pallets to people. We understand how to get chickens, beef, pork and fish without turning the waterways into open sewers. We even know how to grow corn without dumping supertanker loads of nitrates into the soil and atmosphere. Double the mileage of almost everything that doesn't float or fly. Energy harvesting methods from rooftop solar to landfill biogas galore.
   
   We're just not going to admit it in public.
   
   Wall Street just wants a few more quarters of total global looting before they play nice. So they tell their bought politicians to nod their heads, smile and say "research" a lot.
   
   Off to teeth grinding therapy.....

   Permalink

3. 

   Jesse Jenkins Posted 11:01 am
   09 Apr 2009

   David, I'm not sure why you are compelled to view this as a "myth." Maybe you take issue at the word "required."  As in, we shouldn't pin all of our hopes on "required" breakthroughs in energy technology. Well, while we should certailny not wait to begin rapidly deploying off the shelf technologies immediately, the tone and implications of this post are that "we have all the technologies we need, all we lack is the political will."  That, my friend, is the real myth, according to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu.  Certainly, if the world could summon untold political will to do whatever is necessary to tackle climate change, we would make do with the technologies we have today.  That much is basically a truism.  But while many technologies on the shelf today are ready to be scaled up dramatically, anyone with a clear-eyed view to the scale of the climate and energy challenge sees a a clear imperative to accelerate the pace of technological innovation in the energy sector, including efforts to spark transformational, non-incremental developments (aka "breakthroughs"). And there's nothing inconsistent about that position.  The absurd position would be that we need to have all the technologies on the shelf today to transform the entire global energy system over the next fifty years in order to get started.  That's the myth you should be assaulting.  But by implying that innovation in the energy sector is not required, beyond minor incremental changes to on-the-shelf technologies, you ignore the scale of the energy challenge and do a disservice to those, like Chu, trying to summon the political will to tackle that critical aspect of the climate challenge.Whether speaking before reporters or the United States Senate,
   Secretary Chu has not been afraid to directly challenge the myth that
   today's energy technologies are all we'll need to power a sustainable
   and prosperous 21st century global economy, nor is he shy about calling
   for transformative technological innovations in the energy sector - even while he calls for the rapid deployment of current technologies at scale. Testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in a hearing in which the Secretary defended President Obama's plans to significantly increase public spending on clean energy innovation, Dr. Chu had this to say (sounding quite familiar): "Our previous investments in science led to the birth of
   the semiconductor, computer, and bio-technology industries that have
   added greatly to our economic prosperity. Now, we need similar breakthroughs on energy. We're already taking steps in the right direction, but we need to do more... Just as the Breakthrough Institute has repeatedly advocated,
   Secretary Chu called for public investments in both "transformational
   research" (as in, "game-changing, as opposed to merely incremental" -
   Chu's words, not mine) as well as "efforts to demonstrate
   next-generation technologies and to help deploy demonstrated clean
   energy technologies at scale." He then went on to pledge: "We will move forward on all of these fronts and
   more, as we invest in the transformational research to achieve
   breakthroughs that could revolutionize our Nation's energy future."You see, while Steven Chu understands clearly the scale and urgency of the climate challenge and can advocate immediate action, he also recognizes the potential of innovation to open drammatic new options in our efforts to build a sustainable and prosperous global energy system.  Secretary Chu simply has a faith that even as we begin to deploy the
   technologies available today, "science and technology can generate much
   better choices" in the critical effort to build a sustainable and
   prosperous global energy economy. "It has, consistently, over hundreds
   and hundreds of years," the new Energy Secretary said.  That faith in the potential of transformationla innovation stands in sharp contrast to the pessimism Joe Romm exhibits in the post you link to above.Chu's obviously not alone in this position. President Obama's chief science adviser John Holdren in a "required-reading" essay entitled "The Energy Innovation Imperative," sums up the energy/climate policy challenge this way: "The multiplicity of challenges at the intersection of
   energy with the economy, the environment, and international
   security--led by the oil-dependence and climate-change challenges just
   described--add up to a need for policies designed for two
   ends:
   1) to help society find and implement a satisfactory compromise
   among competing economic, environmental and security objectives--which
   includes trying to leave the biggest margins of safety against the
   biggest dangers--given the resources and technologies available at any
   given time, and 2) to accelerate the processes of energy-technology innovation that,
   over time, can reduce the limitations of existing energy options, can
   bring new options to fruition, and thereby can reduce the tensions
   among energy-policy objectives and enable faster progress on the most
   critical ones. ... Without an accelerated transition to improved technologies,
   societies will find it increasingly difficult-- and in the end probably
   impossible--either to limit oil imports and oil dependence overall
   without incurring excessive economic and environmental costs or to
   provide the affordable energy needed for sustainable prosperity
   everywhere with-
   out intolerably disrupting the Earth's climate.I'm sorry David, but when it comes to energy innovation, you should probably take your queues from Steven Chu John Holdren and the wide body of other energy experts who recognize that both transformational innovation and the rapid deployment of existing technologies will be required to solve our energy challenge, not Joe Romm.

   Permalink