What is intellectual honesty and why is it important?

This article about the politics of mandating disclosure of campaign contributions got me thinking about what intellectual honesty means and why it’s important.  Someone who is intellectually honest follows the facts where ever they may lead, and does so in spite of discomfort, inconvenience, or self-interest.  That means that someone’s opinions may shift as the facts change, but if there is no change in the situation, then there’s no cause for an intellectually honest person to change positions.

There are at least three recent examples where members of one political party, after previously holding one idea, became diametrically opposed to that same idea within just a few years.  The first is disclosure of campaign contributions, the second is the individual mandate in the 2010 Affordable Care Act, and the third is the use of cap and trade to address environmental problems.  All three of these ideas were developed by Republicans because they solved particularly thorny public policy problems in ways that seemed to be more conducive to their ideology, but have since been abandoned by most members of that party, for no apparent reason other than political convenience.

In the arguments leading up to the 2010 Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court, contribution disclosure was almost always paired with advocacy for unlimited donations, which were seen as an expression of free speech.  There is of course an issue about whether corporations should be treated in the same way as people, but if you put that question aside as not germane to the current discussion, disclosure is a healthy and sensible way to counterbalance the potentially corrupting influence of unlimited contributions.

As Hiatt points out, however, as soon as Citizens United unleashed unlimited contributions, the Republicans abandoned support for disclosure, because it was to their political advantage to do so.  The same thing happened to the individual mandate for health care, as Ezra Klein recently documented and to cap and trade, which was a Republican idea to put market mechanisms to work reducing emissions.   In all three cases, the facts on the ground didn’t change, but the politics did.

On cap and trade, one of the most fervent Republican proponents of the use of such market mechanisms is former Treasury Secretary and Secretary of State George Schultz.  At a recent event at Stanford, Schultz decried the demonization of cap and trade:  "That was our idea, and the environment is our issue!“ he said.  But in today’s Republican party that is at best a minority view.

Intellectual honesty is one way to judge the actions of politicians (or anyone else, for that matter).   An intellectually honest position is one that has a fair chance of actually solving the problem that a policy proposal claims to address, and that is both consistent with the evidence and internally coherent (i.e., not self-contradictory).  While it is not always possible to know in advance if a policy proposal will work, intellectually honest positions always have significant evidence supporting them.

On campaign finance, it is incoherent to argue for unlimited donations without immediate disclosure.  The public policy problem is corruption in elections, and there’s no reasonable basis for believing that donations without disclosure will have anything other than a corrupting influence (any student of history could tell you that)..

For health insurance, if you choose to require private health insurance companies to insure everybody regardless of pre-existing conditions, the only way to preserve the private health insurance system in anything resembling its current form is to have an individual mandate.  It is incoherent (and intellectually dishonest) to argue for universal coverage in such a system without a mandate, because the whole thing will fall apart quickly.  Healthy people will not pay into the pool until they get sick, and then they’ll buy in, driving up costs for everyone.

The same goes for cap and trade for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The use of market mechanisms can substantially reduce the costs of improving environmental quality.  There are certainly legitimate arguments against cap and trade, but most of them point towards a carbon tax, something equally distasteful to most Republicans.  So the question here comes back to the public policy goal.  If the goal is environmental protection, then market mechanisms like taxes and cap and trade can reduce the costs of accomplishing it.

It is possible that the core disagreement relates to the public policy goals, with many Republicans not even acknowledging that these issues (corruption, lack of access to health insurance, and climate) are something to worry about. But it’s not politically safe to disagree with fixing those problems, because they are popularly acknowledged to be important, so perhaps the demonization of financial disclosure, the individual mandate, and cap and trade was solely a political tactic used to slow action on these issues.  If so, that points to the failings of our media (and to the people fighting for solving these problems); neither apparently explained the broader context of these issues in a way that people could understand.  If true, it would also point to the intellectual dishonesty of those advocating such positions solely for political gain.

Now I’m sure there are some examples where members of the Democratic party could stand to be more intellectually honest as well, and I’m eager to hear from readers with additional ideas.  The three examples cited above are so clear and well documented that they are hard to ignore, which is why I highlight them here.  If you have some other proposed examples about intellectual honesty in the political sphere, please email me and I’ll post them.

Addendum, June 19,2012:  Dave Roberts of Grist wrote me an email about the post above (an excerpt of which he’s given me permission to publish below):

I actually disagree with your post a bit. GOP shifts make perfect sense – not in terms of policy put in terms of tactics. Their primary goal is to defeat Democrats. Supporting any major Democratic initiative, even if it is similar in substance to things they’d supported before, does not advance that goal. Intellectual honesty, as you define it, does not advance that goal. But they are perfectly consistent in pursuit of their goal.

Dave and I agree:  the Republicans are pursuing a strategy that they believe will result in victory.  But this just proves my larger point.  The argument above makes it clear that someone who actually cared about solving people’s problems wouldn’t (couldn’t!) change his position on these issues solely for political gain.  It reveals the Republicans as craven opportunists, and if the news media did its job (which is admittedly a lot to expect nowadays), that would be clear for all to see.

Now there are surely some Democrats who are also craven opportunists, but it’s hard to make the argument that Democrats in general don’t care about solving these problems. The fact that they have attempted to pass cap and trade and did actually pass health care reform (flawed though the final product may be) is evidence for this idea.  And this conclusion is an important one that should make its way into the political process.

2nd Addendum, June 19, 2012:  Jonathan Bernstein at the Washington Post takes up this issue, and quite appropriately quotes Monty Python:

Again: some of this is normal; some of it, in fact, is healthy — part of what parties do is provide alternatives, and it’s not at all a bad thing that the out-party reexamines things a bit if they find the president embraces a position they used to hold. But it’s the difference, as the Pythons explained long ago, between an argument and contradiction. What we’re seeing, as Michael Palin explained, is “just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.” And as long as that’s all that Republicans are doing, the political system isn’t going to function very well at all. And the fact that the parties are just not at all the same on this is one of the key things to know if you’re trying to understand American politics right now.

And of course, this issue also reminds me of the famous Groucho Marx song:  I’m against it!.

3rd Addendum, June 24, 2012:  Ezra Klein just yesterday posted this video of his dissection of the Republican switch on the issue of the health insurance mandate.  Over the span of six months or so (during the 2nd half of 2009) the Republicans went from being supporters of this idea to being unanimously opposed, which is further evidence that this change of position has nothing to do with the merits of the argument.  As I indicated to Klein in an email earlier today, the issue is deeper than hypocrisy, it’s about whether Republicans are honest when they say they want to solve problems that the public is concerned about.  The evidence cited above indicates that they are not (I await evidence to the contrary).

4th Addendum, October 17, 2019: I just saw this excellent article from January 2014 summarizing how the Heritage foundation health care plan differed from the Affordable Care Act. The main similarity was the individual mandate, so the discussion above is still valid, but there are key differences between the Heritage plan and the ACA, and it’s important to make those clear in any discussion of these issues.

Our work on long-term trends in the efficiency of computing made InfoWorld's "Green 15" list

InfoWorld and CIO Magazine listed me as one of their “Green 15”, the “2012 Superstars of Sustainable Information Technology”.   I was the only individual human who made the list, but I’m in good company, along with familiar IT names like eBay, Google, and Facebook, and some big IT users like United Airlines and the US State Department.  Infoworld says that those on the list “devised innovative ways to slash waste, save energy, and reduce CO2 emissions.”

It’s nice to have our work highlighted in this way, and it does make a difference, because others who might not have heard of our analysis are then prompted to look it up and get in touch.  You can read more about the work in a recent article I wrote for Technology Review, and in the research article itself.  You can download the research article if you are at a university and have access to refereed journals online–if not, email me and I’ll send you a copy.

A brilliant short summary of the problems with popular media: Balance, controversy, and replication

My friend Alex Zwissler over at the Chabot observatory did a nice post that begins with an experiment you can do at home:

This will be really exciting. …Today we’re going to do a real life SCIENCE experiment! … OK, well sort of.  For those of you nice enough to have read my previous posts, you’ll recall I’ve often woven in the impact of the media on our perceptions of science related issues. Today we’re going to get really sciency and dig way deeper.

So for our experiment we need to set up our “lab”, which will physically reside inside of your mind.  In order to ensure there is no danger of external contamination, turn off the TV and set your digital devices to airplane mode or something (admit it, you never really turn them off when taking off anyway).  Find a quiet place to sit, and close your eyes.

Now I want you to think back to a time when you had the occasion to read or see a news story about a topic or event with which you had personal experience.  You may have been one of the subjects of the story, or your company or family member was, or maybe you were just a firsthand witness to the circumstances that were being reported.  Now, quickly, think about the reporting …were all the facts correct, and perhaps more importantly, were all the facts included?  Was the context and meaning for those facts accurately portrayed?  Again, was anything missing or misrepresented?

According to my precise calculations based on the replication of this experiment many times, I can reliably predict the following…the story that you read or saw got it all wrong.  The journalist left things out, misrepresented the facts, got the context wrong, and just plain blew it.  You questioned the professionalism of that journalist, and perhaps even their intent.  And most importantly, the more you knew about the actual facts, the worse the story was.

So let’s deconstruct this…there are many things going on here at once.  First on the media side (we’ll came back to you later) there are a number of factors at work.  I won’t get into an exhaustive list here, but for me the top three are “balance”, “controversy” and “replication”.

Read more…

Alex’s explanations mirror my own experience and are both evocative and concise, so I heartily recommend his exposition.  I’ve certainly talked with great reporters who do get the story right most of the time, but those are an exception to the general rule.  With the decline of expert journalism, it’s only going to get worse, so it’s important to be a savvy consumer of modern media-don’t take action on important issues based solely on what you read in the news without lots of independent investigation!

Piss-poor prior planning about sea level rise (repost of funny op-ed within)

TMP Muckracker has reported that

“Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are circulating a bill which would limit their state agencies’ ability to calculate sea-rise levels, a proposal that one member of the state’s Coastal Resources Commission science panel has termed “bad science.”

The bill has not yet been introduced, but the language in the version being circulated would make the Division of Coastal Management the only state agency allowed to produce sea-level rise rates, and only at the request of the Coastal Resources Commission, and then only under the following conditions:

These rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time period following the year 1900. Rates of sea-level rise may be extrapolated linearly to estimate future rates of rise but shall not include scenarios of accelerated rates of sea-level rise.

In other words, instead of taking into account global warming to predict higher seas, as expected by most scientists, the bill would have the state rely only on the historical record.”

This is, of course, playing with fire (or water, in this case).  Sea level rise is one of the most well studied of the impacts of climate change, and it’s going to be a serious issue. As I wrote in Cold Cash, Cool Climate

best current estimates MIT no-policy case

The craziness embodied in the North Carolina proposal made me think of an op-ed I wrote with Elizabeth Brown in 2003 to make fun of a ballot initiative that would have prevented the state from collecting data on race and ethnicity for any reason.   It appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on September 18^th, 2003, p.7B.  The article no longer appears on the SJ Merc’s web site—I’ve reposted here so others can have a chuckle.    If someone from the SJ Merc can give me a link, I’ll happily post it here (and shorten the posted op-ed on this site).

Who needs numbers? Not California

Stomp out `facts and figures’ that only hurt sensitive ears

By Jonathan G. Koomey and Elizabeth A. Brown

At a press conference in Los Angeles last month, Arnold Schwarzenegger declared that ``the public doesn’t care about facts and figures.” We think Arnold touched a nerve with this comment, because people are downright sick of reality intruding into public debates. This explains why many support Proposition 54, which will prohibit the state from collecting and reporting data on the racial origins of California residents. It is a first step toward eliminating inconvenient data from California life, but lawmakers could do more to complete the job.

First, California corporations should no longer be required to report their profits, losses and other large numbers to the state. After all, it was just this kind of reporting that caused the downfall of corporations like Enron and Worldcom. Instead, detailed income statements should be replaced by a simplified one-page form that looks like this:

How did your company do last year? (choose one):

a) Well

b) Not so well

Please indicate how much you are willing to contribute to California’s state government this year (choose one):

a) $100

b) $1,000

c) $100,000

d) $1,000,000

e) We prefer to contribute only moral support this year.

California politics would also be simpler with this approach. Voters would no longer have to keep track of, say, whether the state’s deficit is $8 billion or $38 billion, which are numbers too big for most people to grasp anyway.

Second, those food labels that have proliferated in recent years cause all sorts of harm. Listing the amount of carbohydrates, fat and protein right on the food itself effectively discriminates against companies whose products are made with perfectly natural ingredients, like lard. Moreover, these labels encourage worry among health-conscious citizens, providing them and the rest of society with more information than they can handle. To stop these data from wreaking havoc, the California border patrol should dedicate part of its personnel to placing self-adhesive smiley faces over the nutrition labels of all foods entering California. Our citizens are quite sensitive, and there is no need to impose disturbing statistics on them.

Finally, it’s time for California to stop collecting statistics on pollution from industrial facilities. After all, knowing about pollution means that companies might have to spend millions of dollars cleaning it up. Better that this money is spent on political campaigns, where it can do some real good.

We shouldn’t stop there. Our next governor should petition the federal government to omit California statistics from all future U.S. government reports and excise them from previous ones. If we’re going to adopt the core philosophy behind Proposition 54, we should go all the way.

Analysts, number-crunchers and geeks of all kinds will find their employment options somewhat restricted if these measures occur, but that is a price we’re sure the public will be willing to pay.

Proposition 54 is a crucial first step in California’s data reduction campaign. The additional proposals outlined here, while simple in concept, will have dramatic effects. No longer will so-called “problems” rear their ugly heads. Instead, our citizens will be able to make decisions unencumbered by inconvenient facts – and that’s a notion that Californians of unspecified racial origin should be proud to support.

My visit to Makani Power, May 4, 2012

Photo credit:  Jonathan Koomey

I like site visits—there’s nothing like seeing a company’s innovations in person.  In the case of Makani Power, I harbored some core misconceptions about their technology, and the visit set me straight.

Corwin Hardham, CEO and one of the co-founders of Makani, invited me to visit in Fall 2011. An intern of his was taking the class I taught that semester, and he heard me mention the company’s efforts in lecture, so he put Corwin in touch with me.  Things have been so busy that I wasn’t able to arrange a visit until a few weeks ago, but I’m sure glad I stopped by.

When I drove up to Makani’s building, which formerly housed the control tower for the Alameda Naval Air Station, the first thing I saw was three rusted artillery guns.  That was a jarring sight, but the location makes sense.  Corwin explained that this site was the largest available open space in the Bay Area and was perfect for building and testing Makani’s prototypes.

The old Alameda Naval Air Station control tower, repurposed for the 21^st century (Photo credit:  Jonathan Koomey)

Artillery! (Photo credit:  Jonathan Koomey)

Others had told me about Makani’s technology, and the words “kite” and “high altitude” always come up, but these terms are misleading.  When I think of kites, I think of Ben Franklin flying the traditional diamond-shaped kite with a tail.  The Makani turbine is a carbon fiber wing with propellers (see photo), which Ben Franklin wouldn’t have known what to do with.

Photo credit:  Jonathan Koomey

And the words “high altitude” made me think of kites flying in the path of airplanes at 10,000 feet, which isn’t at all right.   Makani’s turbines fly at about 300 m (roughly 1000 feet) above the ground.

Instead, imagine building and operating just the most important part of the wind turbine, the outer part of the turbine blade (which generates most of the power) without the rest of the supporting structure.  In essence, that’s what Makani’s tethered flying wing is—the end of a turbine blade that flies in a circle and generates power.  The initial prototype generates 20 kW— the next version should generate 600 kW, assuming they get the money to build it.

Time lapse photo of Makani’s tethered wing flying in a circle (Photo credit:  Makani Power)

The wing itself (without the generators and propellers) is incredibly light—I could easily pick it up with both hands, even though it’s about 20 feet long.  That’s the beauty of carbon fiber.  Super strong, without much weight for the wing itself.

The wing has four propellers mounted perpendicular to plane of the wing.   Each is attached to a generator that can reverse itself to serve as a motor.  This capability is needed because the wing starts from a cradle on the ground and lifts itself off to achieve the needed altitude, then switches to generator mode once the wing starts its normal circular path.  If the wing needs to come down for maintenance, the process works in reverse (and the wing can go from normal flight to sitting in its cradle in less than 5 minutes, which means that it can safely avoid adverse conditions on the ground.

The full wing in flight here showing the four generators/ propellers (Photo credit:  Makani Power)

Complex computer control technology is critical to the wing’s functioning.  My friend Saul Griffith, one of the cofounders of Makani, told me that the control technology was similar in complexity to that found in missile guidance systems.  It’s sophisticated enough to keep the wing on a path with meter level precision, and that’s awfully good.

Power is sent down the tethers.  Better to move electrons than to worry about mechanical parts in such a complex environment.

Because the wing flies at higher altitudes than a typical wind turbine, and because it can operate at lower wind speeds, the capacity factor for a Makani turbine will be more like 50-60% (instead of 30-40% for new traditional wind turbines in good sites).  And with capital costs typically half of a traditional turbine, the Makani technology should have a significant economic advantage over traditional wind power plants (and competing fossil technologies).

Makani’s technology is yet another example of what I call substituting smarts for parts.  It’s a form of dematerialization that allows us to do more clever things using substantially fewer materials but with better performance than traditional efforts.

Makani’s technology is also a beautiful case study of the power of whole system design.  Focusing on incremental changes in the design of traditional turbines can yield cost reductions, and we’ve seen that occur since the 1970s (with recent increases in the cost per kW attributable to scaling up to larger turbines with higher capacity factors, among other things). But to create game changing innovation, it takes a comprehensive rethinking of the problem starting with a clean sheet redesign, and that’s exactly what Makani’s innovations represent.

I started out as a skeptic about this technology, but my visit, and conversations with Saul and others convinced me that it holds the real promise of revolutionizing the production of electricity from the wind.  My friend Gil Masters, emeritus professor at Stanford and one of the giants in the renewable energy world, wholeheartedly agrees (we just had lunch this week).   The trick now, says Corwin, is to raise the funds to create the 600 kW prototype and show that it works.

And that means real money (like $20M).  Any billionaires with vision out there who want to move the electric power industry to use significantly more renewable power?  Funding further development of the Makani turbine would be a great place to start.

We're still on track for 2 doublings of greenhouse gas concentrations by 2100

Joe Romm at Climate Progress today reported on a new International Energy Agency report showing that carbon dioxide emissions hit a new record in 2011 or 31.6 billion tons (CO2).  The key point that Romm makes is that these emissions increases are consistent with the MIT no-policy case, and that means two doublings of greenhouse gas concentrations by 2100.

Students of climate science know that every doubling will likely yield 3 celsius degrees of warming, so two doublings means committing the earth to 6 celsius degrees of warming.  As Cold Cash, Cool Climate points out, such increases will push the earth well outside the comfortable range in which humanity evolved (the envelope defined by the 2 celsius degree warming limit), and will raise the possibility of nasty positive feedbacks leading to even higher warming (like releasing methane hydrates from the ocean floor, melting permafrost, and burning peat bogs).

At least US carbon dioxide emissions are down 7.7% since 2006, but those improvements were offset by emissions increases in China and other developing countries.  Time to get serious about global emissions reductions!

People believe weird things: Case in point, Federal spending and taxes in the Obama years

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/obama-spending-binge-never-happened-2012-05-22?pagenumber=1

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/federal-deficit-barack-obama-spending-stimulus-budget-historic-trends.php

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/federal-spending-taxes-and-deficits-are-lower-today-than-when-obama-took-office/257256/

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/06/09/business/economy/20090610-leonhardt-graphic.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/business/economy/10leonhardt.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/the-big-deficit-lie-every-gop-debt-plan-leaves-us-with-more-debt/253501/

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/government-jobs-bouyed-bushs-economy-and-sunk-obamas-chart.php

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-reality-behind-obama-and-bushs-spending-binge/2012/05/25/gJQAK8ItpU_blog.html?hpid=z3

My first post on CSRwire introducing Cold Cash, Cool Climate is now up

CSRwire just posted the first of 11 short essays that I adapted from material in Cold Cash, Cool Climate:  Science-based Advice for Ecological Entrepreneurs.  This essay summarizes the main findings from climate science and explains why I chose to write for entrepreneurs and not the usual policy crowd.

The main page that will contain a list of all the posts as they appear is here.

Review of Cold Cash, Cool Climate by Rick Piltz of Climate Science Watch

Rick Piltz of Climate Science Watch today posted a review of Cold Cash, Cool Climate.  Here’s his top line summary:

Jonathan Koomey’s new book, Cold Cash, Cool Climate: Science-Based Advice for Ecological Entrepreneurs, offers a concise, compelling analysis of why innovative entrepreneurial approaches are needed in order to limit global climate change, and to improve the quality of life while doing so.  Koomey’s analysis has more integrity than those who promote energy alternatives while evading the daunting constraints that follow from climate science, and opens into a creative and integrative way of thinking about paths forward.  Highly recommended.

Rick has asked me four follow-on questions that I’ll address in some upcoming blog posts, so stay tuned.

Update:  On Tuesday, May 22, 2012, Joe Romm reposted the review on Climate Progress.

Yet another example of corporations putting profits ahead of the public interest

Nicholas Kristof wrote a summary article this past Sunday about a series in the Chicago Tribune showing how flame retardants came to be in furniture and other household products.  This is yet another example of corporate interests putting their own profits ahead of the public interest, and it’s no surprise to anyone who has followed the tobacco industry (Brandt 2007) or the deniers’ disinformers’ tactics to derail climate science (Oreskes 2011).

Of course, I don’t object to profits (I love them as well as the next business person) but when companies force costs onto society that are not paid by customers of their products then society as a whole is damaged (even though the perpetrators make out like bandits). It’s both unfair and inefficient, and  if we can avoid it, there’s no legitimate justification for allowing this to happen for climate, consumer products, or anything else.  In addition, such behavior damages people’s faith in the free enterprise system, which is another systemic cost of such bad behavior.  Of course the only way to enforce rules to correct such problems is through government, which is why I talk about “The central problem of governance” and “What kind of government do we want?” in Chapter 7 of Cold Cash, Cool Climate.

References

Brandt, Allan M. 2007. The Cigarette Century:  The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Koomey, Jonathan G. 2011. Cold Cash, Cool Climate:  Science-Based Advice for Ecological Entrepreneurs. Burlingame, CA: Analytics Press.

Oreskes, Naomi, and Eric M. Conway. 2010. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Press.

"The end of fish" is one more reason to believe humans are powerful enough to affect the planet

The Washington Post today summarizes findings on the decline in global fish stocks from a recent World Wildlife Federation study, a situation that Daniel Pauly at the University of British Columbia has called “the end of fish”.  The report documents declines in many different species on both land and sea, but the Post’s article focuses on fish.  Figure 10 (page 19) in the booklet summarizing the report tells the story vividly, portraying the expansion of humanity’s ability to scour the entire ocean for fish.

There are still those who doubt that humanity is powerful enough to affect the natural environment in irreversible ways, but the WWF report is one more strong piece of evidence to the contrary.

References

Donner, Simon D. 2011. “Making the climate a part of the human world."  The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.  vol. 92, no. 10. October. pp. 1297-1302. [http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2011BAMS3219.1]

WWF. 2012. Living Planet Report 2012:  Biodiversity, Biocapacity, and Better Choices. Washington, DC: World Wildlife Fund.   [http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/living_planet_report/]

A brief synopsis of Cold Cash, Cool Climate on CSR Wire, with more to come

Corporate Social Responsibility Wire (CSR Wire) just posted a short synopsis of Cold Cash, Cool Climate in advance of a series of eleven blog posts of mine that will appear there in coming weeks.  In those posts I’m boiling down the key lessons from the book in bite-sized chunks, and I’m hopeful they will be useful to a wide audience.   I will write a short post on Koomey.com each time one of the articles appears on CSR Wire.

Here’s the intro to the synopsis:

Jonathan Koomey’s book, Cold Cash, Cold Climate provides a more robust and detailed set of arguments for entrepreneurs who want to be green – or for consultants to use in building the business case for sustainability. (Stay tuned for our new series with Koomey starting next week!)

A scientist and entrepreneur, Koomey brings the full weight of his experience to Cold Cash, Cool Climate. In cogent, fact-filled prose, his chapters on climate science lay out the case for action now, providing a welcome antidote to the hysterical propaganda of the climate cranks – like the Heartland Institute, whose latest campaign of intellectual perversion compares climate change believers to mass murderers.

Subtleties in comparing fossil fuel reserves to CO2 concentrations

As reported in Climate Progress, climatologist James Hansen has done comparisons of fossil fuel reserves from two sources to concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, using a conversion factor of 2.12 GtC per ppm of CO2.  For example, see Figure 1 from Hansen’s more detailed writeup:

Figure 1. CO2 emissions by fossil fuels (1 ppm CO2 ~ 2.12 GtC, where ppm is parts per million of CO2 in air and GtC is gigatons of carbon). Alternative estimates of reserves and potentially recoverable resources are from EIA (2011) and GAC (2011).

Such comparisons are fraught with pitfalls.  In this case, Hansen appears to be comparing the carbon content in fuels with CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere assuming that all of the carbon from burning the fuel would go into the atmosphere. This is fine as long as it is clear what is being assumed, but this detail is not included on the graph, in the caption, or in the paper I link to above.  (There may be a more detailed paper of which I’m not aware, so if anyone knows of it, please send me a link.  I’ve also tried to find the EIA (2011) and GAC (2011) references without success.)

In reality, some fraction of emitted carbon (called the “airborne fraction”) will stay in the atmosphere and the rest will be absorbed by the oceans and biota on land.  The exact value of the airborne fraction varies.  Right now it’s roughly 50% but if we continue on our current path, it will rise.  For example, in the MIT no-policy case, the airborne fraction measured cumulatively in the 21st century would be about 65%, which demonstrates the declining ability of the oceans to take up carbon in a high emissions world.

It would be better when making graphs like Figure 1 to assume an airborne fraction (say 65% for a world in which we exploit many fossil fuel reserves) and to note that the conversion to ppm assumes that factor.  Otherwise this way of presenting the data, which has many good reasons to recommend it, may be misleading to those unfamiliar with the subtleties.

In my post on the illusion of fossil fuel abundance, I use the lower-bound reserve and resource estimates from the IIASA Global Energy Assessment to make different but related points, but don’t make the link to concentrations explicitly.  I’m working now to add ppm estimates to give the context in the graphs for that analysis.

An interesting example of innovative low-power sensing technology

According to the MIT news, researchers at MIT have created a sensors using carbon nanotubes that can tell grocers just how ripe their fruit is.  This is an interesting example of innovative low-power sensor technology that will help enable a revolution in applications of information technology to business (as I describe in this article in Technology Review).

Here are the first few paragraphs of the article:

Every year, U.S. supermarkets lose roughly 10 percent of their fruits and vegetables to spoilage, according to the Department of Agriculture. To help combat those losses, MIT chemistry professor Timothy Swager and his students have built a new sensor that could help grocers and food distributors better monitor their produce.

The new sensors, described in the journal Angewandte Chemie, can detect tiny amounts of ethylene, a gas that promotes ripening in plants. Swager envisions the inexpensive sensors attached to cardboard boxes of produce and scanned with a handheld device that would reveal the contents’ ripeness. That way, grocers would know when to put certain items on sale to move them before they get too ripe.

“If we can create equipment that will help grocery stores manage things more precisely, and maybe lower their losses by 30 percent, that would be huge,” says Swager, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Chemistry.

This example is one way that information technology can help us better match energy services demanded with those supplied, as I describe Chapter 6 of Cold Cash, Cool Climate.

A review of why new coal plant construction has slowed to a crawl in the US

Dan Lashof compiles findings from some studies analyzing why the utility industry in the US has shown little recent interest in building new coal plants.  The main causes relate to market forces, not EPA’s recently announced new source performance standards (although those will have some effect if natural gas prices reverse their recent decline and coal becomes economically competitive for generating electricity again).  These reasons overlap strongly with the reasons why utilities are now retiring many very old coal plants.