Comments Earl Killian has made

The target 350 ppm comes from James Hansen's paper Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?

Your assertion "the 350 ppmv target was chosen for pragmatic rather than strictly scientific reasons" does not jive with Hansen's paper. Have you read it?

AlexD, you will find in the paper suggestions on how 350 ppm might be accomplished. Here is a quote from the paper, "In Supplementary Material we define a forest/soil drawdown scenario that reaches 50 ppm by 2150 (Fig. 6B). This scenario returns CO2 below 350 ppm late this century, after about 100 years above that level."

I support a plan to shut down old coal plants by buying them out. In the short-term that would mean more NG electric power, but with renewable portfolio standards catching on (perhaps even at the Federal level), and with NG lower in the dispatch order than renewables, we have a chance to replace that NG with non-fossil energy. Also, if the Federal government were to get serious about energy efficiency, we might see US power generation drop, despite the increasing population. Normally that would reduce NG first, and coal second, so getting rid of coal first is a good idea. Of course, the Federal government has yet to takl about efficiency as seriously as some states, so this is merely potential at the moment.

There is a push to electrify off-road diesel machinery. For example, the Port of LA is moving to electrify dredging and provide shore power to berthed ships (so they don't run their engines for electricity in port). The off-road emissions from diesel are significant, so this matters. Class 8 trucks are hard to electrify, but it we shut down coal plants, we will have a lot of spare rail capacity. Even diesel rail is much lower emissions than trucking, and of coure electric rail is much better (the US used to even have electric rail grossing the Rockies with trains braking on the way down helping to power trains going uphill). Thus one can substitute or reduce a lot of diesel without going to NG.

We passed 2°C a while ago, if you don't count air pollution. In other words, keeping under 2°C means a permanent committment to polluting our air. Read the abstract of http://www.pnas.org/content/105/38/14245.full for more information:

The observed increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) since the preindustrial era has most likely committed the world to a warming of 2.4°C (1.4°C to 4.3°C) above the preindustrial surface temperatures. The committed warming is inferred from the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates of the greenhouse forcing and climate sensitivity. The estimated warming of 2.4°C is the equilibrium warming above preindustrial temperatures that the world will observe even if GHG concentrations are held fixed at their 2005 concentration levels but without any other anthropogenic forcing such as the cooling effect of aerosols. The range of 1.4°C to 4.3°C in the committed warming overlaps and surpasses the currently perceived threshold range of 1°C to 3°C for dangerous anthropogenic interference with many of the climate-tipping elements such as the summer arctic sea ice, Himalayan–Tibetan glaciers, and the Greenland Ice Sheet. IPCC models suggest that ≈25% (0.6°C) of the committed warming has been realized as of now. About 90% or more of the rest of the committed warming of 1.6°C will unfold during the 21st century, determined by the rate of the unmasking of the aerosol cooling effect by air pollution abatement laws and by the rate of release of the GHGs-forcing stored in the oceans. The accompanying sea-level rise can continue for more than several centuries. Lastly, even the most aggressive CO₂ mitigation steps as envisioned now can only limit further additions to the committed warming, but not reduce the already committed GHGs warming of 2.4°C.

Pricing carbon should not be used to drive change; it won't do that very well. To see that, consider that improving our energy usage efficiency is one of the most important necessary-but-not-sufficient attacks upon our greenhouse pollution, and yet energy usage efficiency already yields cost savings, and yet remains undone. The market is not perfect, and never will be. However, incentives, policies, and regulations can make energy usage efficiency happen, even when cost savings are insufficient. Therefore we need more than just a price signal.

The purpose of putting a price on carbon is to close loopholes that companies might exploit until regulators get around to closing them (if they can—once a loophole is opened, it is hard to close it). For example, imagine regulations ban coal-to-liquids and oil sands as too greenhouse polluting, but then some companies discovers something new that is even dirtier; a carbon price keeps that off the table.

Closing loopholes is a pretty limited goal, though important. It consternates that Congress is making it the central strategy in the attack on greenhouse pollution.

Good point Sean.

Complex systems rarely work entirely the way their designers intend; there are certain to be unintended and unexpected consequences. Change or design of complex systems is really an exercise in directed evolution where both the system and designers respond and co-evolve. The problem is that systems tend to find stable local solutions to the forces of the system environment, and perturbing them from such states so they can evolve to a new (hopefully better stable local minima) requires a large initial force in the right direction. The goal in making changes is to restart system evolution that is stuck in a stable local solution that is inferior to nearby superior stable local solutions.

With that observation, it is a bit worrisome that some people are looking for "the" answer, instead of assuming that multiple mid-course corrections will be necessary. Compare the Waxman-Markey bill to the Clean Air Act (CAA). Waxman-Markey attempts to craft a 40-year program. The Clean Air Act instead directed the EPA to come up with a series of solutions, as necessary. It was general enough that the Supreme Court in 2007 (Massachusetts v. EPA) was able to say that the EPA had to regulate greenhouse pollution if it was a danger.

The only thing to be said for the Waxman-Markey approach is that we may not have the stomach for making mid-course corrections in a few years. For example, IMO, the Clean Air Act could have never been passed in any of the years after 1980. If we can pass something today, it doesn't mean we will have the leadership to do it again any time soon. However, that argues even more strongly for an approch like the CAA.

efficiency is necessary, not sufficient

The kinds of utility energy efficiency programs found in Massachusetts are arguably among the very few measures that can achieve the scale of emission reductions we need in the short amount of time we have. Nothing else -- carbon pricing, renewable energy, carbon sequestration -- is big enough and fast enough. So it's vital that legislators and energy planners understand the unique advantages of efficiency.

I am concerned with the above paragraph of the post. Electricity efficiency is perhaps the most important thing we can do, but contrary to the implication above, it too is not "big enough". Nothing is big enough by itself. We need to pursue dozens of things, in parallel, to have a chance of solving this problem. We've got to stop thinking in terms of point solutions.

To illustrate this, consider passing a massive electricity efficiency program in 2009 that makes 2010 lower than 2009, and 2011 lower than 2010, and so on. Suppose further (unrealistically) that 100% of the reductions are applied to coal power plants, our dirtiest. Suppose we do nothing else about our other GHG emissions during those years? Unfortunately population growth eats up the gains from efficiency. A detailed spreadsheet model of this confirms this. In a scenario where we get from 12,258 kWh per capita in 2005 to 10,065 in 2015, 8,622 in 2020, and 7,444 in 2025, total GHG emissions drop by only 1.8%, 5.3%, and 7.7% respectively from 2006 levels. This is nowhere near enough, and this is a very aggressive efficiency schedule.  You don't need the spreadsheet to understand this. Coal power plants are only 27% of our US total GHG emissions. Drive them to zero, and you've only gained 27% reduction, and kWh per capita numbers such as the above doesn't drive coal to zero (in my spreadsheet it is reduced 53% in 2025). If the other 73% of GHG emissions simply grows with population (by 8% in 2015, 12% in 2020, and 17% in 2025), then eat up most of the reductions.

We absolutely have to address other emissions in parallel with electricity efficiency.  That includes 16% from gasoline transportation, 6% from diesel transportation, 3% from jet transportation, 11% from natural gas residential/commercial/industrial combustion, 10% from methane emissions, 8% from coal/petroleum used in industry, 5% from N2O, and 2% from Hydrofluorocarbons, Perfluorocarbons, and SF6. We need renewables to replace the coal that efficiency cannot eliminate, and we need renewables to power the conversion of our transportation fleet from fossil fuels to electricity. We need high speed rail to replace air travel where possible, and we need more efficient air travel. Some of these things must be started in 2009 or 2010 because they take time to scale up. One cannot do efficiency first, and renewables second; they must be done in parallel.

To illustrate the scope of the problem, California is developing a plan to reduce 2020 emissions by 174 MMT CO2. There are items on the list that are as small as 0.15 MMT because many small things can add up to big numbers. You need to think this way to succeed. Similarly, you cannot ignore jet fuel consumption just because it is only 3% of emissions; you need to look for reductions even in sub-1% items.
On Report highlights vital fact on energy: Efficiency gets cheaper the more you spend on it posted 11 months ago 5 Responses

why first to go

What's your explanation for why green is always the first to go?

We live in a plutocracy with the dressed up as a democracy.  The status quo has power, and does not relinquish willingly. It uses Madison Ave techniques to keep people voting against their own interests. Mostly that works. Green is not the status quo, and is out of power, so it is fighting against Titans. Green may yet win because the Titans are fouling things up so badly that it may become apparent to the people despite the propaganda to the contrary. The only question is when it finally is apparent to the people, will it be too late?On Economic downturn and falling oil push green off the priority list, yet again posted 1 year, 1 month ago 8 Responses

CO2 leads and lags

You're completely missing the point.On Author and physicist Richard A. Muller chats with Grist about getting science back in the White Hous posted 1 year, 1 month ago 15 Responses

Why can't they learn from California's experience?

When California addressed its greenhouse pollution in legislation (e.g. AB32, SB1368, AB1493, SB107, AB1407, SB1, etc.), it didn't pass a cap-and-trade bill.  It passed a cap, but it left it up to state regulatory agencies to figure out how to meet the cap. Cap-and-trade is one option for the agencies, and not the one the regulatory agencies are working the hardest on. Congress should take note. They'll get a lot more done leaving the details to others.

Efficiency is a huge help, and that's why so much of California's regulatory agency efforts are directed that way.  However, at best it is only half of the solution.  That's why the alphabet soup above included SB107, California's Renewable Portfolio Standard.

Rather than try and pass cap-and-trade legislation, Congress and the White House should:

   1. Allow/require the EPA to enforce the Clean Air Act (as directed by the Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA), e.g. getting much tougher standards than the new CAFE;
   2. Adopt California policies, incentives, and regulations (e.g. Negawatts first) at the Federal level, including Title 24 and Title 20 and all the legislation listed above;
   3. Convert the US passenger fleet to PHEVs from 2010 to 2050;
   4. Fund Smart grid with V2G build out;
   5. Fund HVDC grid build out;
   6. Enact a Federal Renewable Portfolio Standard;
   7. Buy out and shutdown Fossil power plants to remove generation no longer needed from #1, #2, #6;
   8. Enact incentives for Reforestation;
   9. Improve US agricultural practices;
  10. Limit biofuels to Ag residue feedstocks;
  11. Use U.S. trade leverage to encourage countries that export to the U.S. to adopt greenhouse pollution policies such as our own.
  12. Use U.S. government purchasing power to jumpstart deployment where possible.
  13. Begin research on atmosphere to below ground sequestration of carbon (not CCS, but rather how to drawdown what is already emitted).

Efficiency is built into #1, #2, #4, and #5.On Ignoring efficiency, conventional wisdom holds that climate action will raise energy costs posted 1 year, 1 month ago 3 Responses

it would be nice, but how likely?

Go to http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/ and scroll down a lot and look for their probability graph for the Senate.  They project 56-42-2 right now (58-42 if you count Sanders and Lieberman as Ds).  The probability of ≥60 on the graph looks about 20%, ≥59 is about 33%, ≥58 is about 43%, and ≥57 is 53%.

The only good news is that on a few issues, Senators Collins, Snowe, and Specter might vote with the Ds.  A little less frequently Senators Voinovich and Hagel might join a vote for cloture.
On Republican congresscritters are in serious trouble posted 1 year, 1 month ago 5 Responses

CO2 leads and lags

They actually show that temperature leads CO2 levels and as such CO2 can't be the cause of temperature trends.

See http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm for more information.

The rest of your comment is outright false.On Author and physicist Richard A. Muller chats with Grist about getting science back in the White Hous posted 1 year, 1 month ago 15 Responses

US debt increased by 5 trillion 2001-08

If you go to the US Treasury website and ask for the history of US debt, it looks like it has gone up some 4.4 trillion. Add on the 0.7 trillion Paulson Cash for Trash plan and we're at a 5.1 trillion increase.  That's a lot more than 1.3 trillion used in this post.On The bailout, the war, and renewable energy posted 1 year, 1 month ago 2 Responses

sad when a Professor peddles bad information

A. The affordable [factor]'s a big issue. The issue is, is clean coal more affordable than solar? Solar is pretty expensive too, and it's not clean either. You've got to build the cells -- that uses carbon dioxide.

First, not all solar is PV, as in the answer given.  Second, the lifecycle emissions of PV and Coal+CCS have both been estimated.  One journal article estimates PV is 19-59 g CO2e/kWh, Coal+CCS is 255-442.  That is an order of magnitude difference.  You would think a Professor that has pretensions of advising Presidents would know this sort of thing before implying that these are on par because building PV produces CO2.

Second, the California Public Utilities Commission asked E3 to study emissions and costs of new power generation for California.  The levelized busbar cost per MWh were $89.10 for wind, $93.82 for Gas CCCT, $101.82 for Geothermal, $105.54 for Coal ST, $126.53 for Concentrated Solar Power, $153.16 for Nuclear, and $173.17 for Coal IGCC+CCS.  In other words, Solar is cheaper than Coal+CCS.  But you wouldn't know that from Professor Muller's answer.

A. There's a future for car batteries, but that depends on the development of battery technology that is not in the marketplace yet.

This is an improvement over the misinformation Professor Muller writes in his book, but it is still not accurate.  First, in his book Professor Muller slams batteries for having low Wh/kg compared to gasoline, but practical electric cars were built six years and sold to the public using 1990s NiMH battery technology with 61 Wh/kg.  Despite the low energy density, the 2002 Toyota RAV4-EV had 4.9 times the energy efficiency of the gasoline version (2002 RAV4 2WD Automatic).  The Lithium-Ion batteries for electric cars in the marketplace today are twice to three times that Wh/kg.  These batteries have lifetimes that in many cases are so long that the issue becomes will we have to invent ways to move them from our old vehicles to our new ones.

A. The whole idea of "drill, baby, drill" is not that you would actually get huge amounts of fossil fuel that way, but that you get enough so that we're no longer at capacity -- some excess capacity and the oil prices will drop. And I think that's probably true.

How does Professor Muller's opinion compare to the estimates of the US DOE EIA?  They write,

The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017. Total domestic production of crude oil from 2012 through 2030 in the OCS access case is projected to be 1.6 percent higher than in the reference case, and 3 percent higher in 2030 alone, at 5.6 million barrels per day. For the lower 48 OCS, annual crude oil production in 2030 is projected to be 7 percent higher--2.4 million barrels per day in the OCS access case compared with 2.2 million barrels per day in the reference case (Figure 20). Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.

It seems to me that Professor Muller is giving a political answer, not a scientific one.

A. Hansen I've known for many years. He's a very good climate scientist, but he's decided to do the politics. I feel that he's doing some cherry-picking of his own [when it comes to the science].

Professor Muller does plenty of cherry-picking in his book.  Having read both Muller's and Hansen's work, I would say that Hansen's is a lot more professional.

You can find more detail on Professor Muller's cherry-picking at http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/9/15/131736/938 and http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/9/15/133219/223
On Author and physicist Richard A. Muller chats with Grist about getting science back in the White Hous posted 1 year, 1 month ago 15 Responses

Natural Gas Vehicles

I don't understand the hesitance to use natural gas as a bridge fuel.

If you read the analysis, you will see it is not objecting to using NG to fuel cars, but that it shows that it is twice as good to fuel electric cars on NG via the grid, as it is to burn NG in internal combustion engines.

Why would you want to waste half of your NG and generate twice as much CO2 per mile?
On Pickens' natural gas plan makes no sense and will never happen posted 1 year, 1 month ago 16 Responses

shale?

I just thought of another possible explanation for McCain's claim about the U.S. having the largest oil reserves in the world.  What if he means Green River basin?  Perhaps some "Shale, baby, shale" oil executive got to him?  The oil there is estimated to be several times that of Saudi Arabia.  Of course it is climate death to extract it.On McCain claims U.S. has 'the world's largest oil reserves' posted 1 year, 1 month ago 5 Responses

Why H2?

I want to reduce pollution as much as anyone.

EVs do this better than FCVs because they are more efficient.

Honda is leasing FCX vehicles right now.

They are putting prototypes in the hands of drivers to get real-world data.  Most indications are that these vehicles cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce.  There are fuel cell lifetime and cost issues still to solve.

The follow up is adding wind-solar H2 generators to the H-grid, reducing back end pollution.

But if all the aggressive goals for electrolysis and fuel cells were realized, it would take twice as much wind and solar to power FCVs compared to BEVs.  This makes them a poor choice.
On Electric vehicles crowd out hydrogen brethren at sustainable driving conference posted 1 year, 2 months ago 27 Responses

Understanding hydrogen inefficiency

Because BEVs and FCVs are identical in most respects, and a FCV is essentially a BEV where some (but not all) of the batteries/capacitors have been replaced by a hydrogen tank and a fuel cell, and the plug is optional (but probably desirable), it is straightforward to compare the vehicles.  Use an identical 200 Whe/mi for motor to wheels.  The DOE's FreedomCar's goal for fuel cells at their peak efficiency is 20kWhe of electrical output per kilogram of hydrogen fed into it.  Thus to power the wheels one mile we need 10g of hydrogen (or 100 mi/kg).  FreedomCar's goal is still a ways off (the best current FCV is at 68 mi/kg).  Next, according to NREL, "An efficiency goal for electrolyzers in the future has been reported to be in the 50 kWh/kg range, or a system efficiency of 78%.".  Thus 10g/mi of hydrogen to operate a FCV of the future requires 500 Whe/mi at the electrolysis station.  This is a factor of two higher than the BEV requirement, which would be 229 Wh/mi at the plug and 247 Wh/mi at the power station.  If hydrogen production occurs at the renewable electricity plant, then we should factor in H2 pipeline efficiency (e.g. 4% loss), and if not we should factor in grid efficiency (7% loss), for delivering the electricity to distributed hydrogen fuel stations (making FCVs 539 Wh/mi).  At best, if the research goals are someday achieved, FCVs require 2.2× as much renewable electricity production.  Powering the US 2050 vehicle fleet with hydrogen and FCVs would require 2107 TWhe/year of renewable electricity production, compared to 964 TWhe/year for BEVs.  Using Concentrated Solar Power (Stirling dishes) as a renewable energy example, FCVs  would need 8226 square miles, compared to 3765 square miles for BEVs.  What is the justification for consuming this additional land and habitat?  Wouldn't this additional land be better used toward solving our electricity greenhouse gas emissions, instead of wasting it on inefficient FCVs?

FCVs will also cost us much more to drive.  Twice the renewable electricity requires twice the land area, and so the cost must be at least twice per mile.  However, this does not include the cost of the capital plant to produce hydrogen from renewable electricity.  NREL estimates this adds $1.74 per kg of hydrogen.  Using $0.07/kWhe as the power plant cost for renewable electricity, and adding in the $1.74/kg, gives 5.5 cents per mile, 3.2× times the BEV cost of 1.7 cents a mile.  These calculations are based upon the cost of production; retail markup for hydrogen is likely to be higher than the retail markup for utility electricity, which would widen the gap further.  Why should we burden our citizens and our economy with three times the cost?

Will improvements in technology make renewable FCVs more competitive? Basic physics suggests this is unlikely. FreedomCar's goals are already aggressive, at 78% efficiency (of HHV) for electricity to compressed hydrogen, and 60% (of LHV) for hydrogen back to electricity. The laws of thermodynamics do not allow such conversions of the form of energy to be perfectly efficient and in the case of hydrogen FCVs we are starting with liquid water and the exhaust of the vehicle is water vapor, and so the energy of vaporization (the difference between the LHV and HHV, 18% for H2) must come from somewhere.  Electric vehicles are fundamentally more efficient.

It may be that we eventually invent a technology that directly produces hydrogen from sunlight, bypassing the generation of electricity. Such technology and would not be subject to the above analysis, but other considerations apply. First, the Stirling Energy dishes are 30% efficient at converting sunlight into electricity; to match BEV renewable electricity land area, such technologies would have to be 60% efficient at converting sunlight into hydrogen.  Second, even if hydrogen is produced directly from sunlight and water, the most efficient use of it is to convert it to electricity in stationary fuel cells and ship it over the grid to BEVs.  Stationary fuel cells (e.g. for distributed generation) will always be more efficient than mobile fuel cells, having the advantages of:

• scale (MW vs. kW);
  
• higher feasible operating temperature (e.g. solid oxide or molten carbonate cells);
  
• weight insensitivity;
  
• less cost sensitivity; and
  
• the ability to recover energy lost as heat from steam turbines (as demonstrated in trials).
  

A few points

The cost increase for electric cars of comparable range speed and size is many times $2,000.

First, for pure EVs, the Better Place model is that you pay for the battery pack and electricity on a monthly basis for less than what you spend on gasoline.  This is a cost savings.

Second, plug-in hybrids reduce the battery pack size, so that up-front cost increase is minimized, and that increase is recouped in much lower per-mile costs.  For detailed data on CV, HEV, PHEV-20, and PHEV-60 costs, see  http://www.epriweb.com/public/000000000001000349.pdf
On Pickens' natural gas plan makes no sense and will never happen posted 1 year, 2 months ago 16 Responses

Meanwhile, back on planet earth...

Let's get some facts straight.  Electric cars charged from the US grid are much cleaner than gasoline cars.  The 4.9× efficiency advantage of EVs more than outweighs the dirtiness of coal.

Don't believe me?  Ask the US EPA.  Go to http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/sbs.htm and click on 2002, then Toyota, and then RAV4 EV.  Next click on Compare side-by-side, then 2002, then Toyota, then RAV4 2WD, and then Automatic.  You can't get much more apples-to-apples than this.  Note the efficiency difference: 112 MPG vs. 23 MPG (4.9×).  Note the Wells-to-Wheels greenhouse gas emissions: 3.9 tons/year vs. 8.0 tons/year.

Please also see Figure 2-4 of http://www.epriweb.com/public/000000000001000349.pdf which makes clear that plug-ins beat hybrids.

So cut-out with the EV misinformation please.On Electric vehicles crowd out hydrogen brethren at sustainable driving conference posted 1 year, 2 months ago 27 Responses

Batteries and discharge

edarnold41, you state that Li-Ion batteries have memory, which is not true.  You are thinking of NiCd.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-Ion_batteryOn Physics For Future Presidents twists facts on electric vehicles and nuclear blasts posted 1 year, 2 months ago 9 Responses

estimates of CSP+TES are published

There are many published estimates of CSP and CSP+TES cents/kWh.  For example, Ausra estimates that they could supply 92% of the US grid 365x24 using CSP+TES for 7.8 cents per kWh.  NREL has estimates for CSP of 5 to 7 cents per kWh in 2020.

TES has the potential to improve costs by allowing the turbines to be used more hours of the day (up to 24).

CSP without TES power plants are disadvantaged in cost per kWh than other plants because their capital investment must be charged against operation a fraction of a day, instead of over 24 hours a day.  In some sense this results from the artificial separation of conventional plants into baseload and peakers.  If you build a coal plant, a paired peaker is essentially required.  It would be more appropriate, IMO, to lump these two plants together, rather than keeping them separate.  It is the cost of power from the combination that is relevant.

One reason Ausra sees Thermal Energy Storage (TES) as important to bringing down the cost of their Concentrated Solar Power plants is that it allows them to amortize the capital cost of turbines over a larger number of hours per day.  For example, in a CSP plant without TES, the capital cost consists of the collectors (cost C) and the turbines (cost T).  Then C+T is amortized over 12 hours a day (and only at peak power for part of that).  The cost per kWh is proportional to (C+T)/C.  The cost is reduced if you add TES (cost S) where S<T.  For example, double the collectors, and now you can run your turbine, say, 8 more hours a day.  The capital cost is 2C+T+S and the cost per kWh is proportional to (2C+T+S)/2C.  Triple the field relative to the turbine, and now you're running 24h a day: (3C+T+2S)/3C (breakeven is still S=T).<p> The above is a simplistic analysis, but it should give the idea.  I would imagine, for example, that it would often be a good idea to have two turbines per field: you run both during peak load, and shut down one when load falls off.  Then you have (6C+2T+2S)/6C and you've got a combined baseload+peaker (breakeven S<2T).  This sort of CSP+TES should be compared to baseload+peakers, IMO.On So how much do renewables cost anyway? posted 1 year, 2 months ago 30 Responses

no mention of AB 493?

How about analyzing why the feebate bills in the legislature never get anywhere?  For example, there is AB 493: http://tinyurl.com/5au687
On How to reduce California auto emissions faster than Pavley posted 1 year, 4 months ago 2 Responses

Tragedy of the Commons

The ocean is our largest commons (though the atmosphere rivals it).  So it should not be unexpected, given the Tragedy of the Commons theory, that it is one of our largest tragedies.

The Aeschylus of the 21st century won't write about the house of Atreus; she'll write about the sea and the air.On Farm animals consume 17 percent of wild-caught fish posted 1 year, 5 months ago 13 Responses

So who dies?

Mad Mac said, "Because without modern farming techniques, there's no way to feed 7 billion people."

In 1910 the population of China was 410 million.  That was 43 per km².

In 2007, the world was 45 persons per km².  It might be feasible to feed the world with 1910 Chinese agriculture.  However, you might not like it.
On The costs of unsustainable agriculture posted 1 year, 5 months ago 31 Responses