BRIC Nations Driving Global Warming

After the American Century

I recently spent two days at the University of Michigan, attending a conference dealing with sustainability and the US / China relationship. My brief was to deliver a plenary lecture on the history of US energy use, and what that history suggests about the future.

The background for this discussion is the major shift in the sources of pollution that has taken place during the previous five years. In c. 2006 the United States released more CO2 into the atmosphere than any other country. Since then the US has reduced its carbon footprint, and at the same time its total energy use has stopped growing. In contrast, China's economy has been growing at a rate of 9 or 10% every year, and its energy use has shot well beyond the US level. In fact, China alone released more CO2 last year than the United States, Germany, and the UK combined.

When one adds the CO2 from Brazil, Russia, and India, the other "BRIC" nations, the pollution balance shifts even more dramatically. These four emerging economies taken together are demanding more and more energy and they are satisfying this demand mostly through the older polluting technologies. Alternative energies receive lip service. Indeed, the many Chinese delegates to the meeting in Michigan kept repeating that the pollution was created to manufacture things for the West, and therefore the CO2 releases should not be counted against China. 

This is a curious argument. Chinese factories choose to be highly polluting of their own water and soil in order to keep prices down, a subject that was dealt with at the conference. These factories also choose to pay workers poorly in order to keep prices down, a topic that however was scarcely mentioned. Exploiting their own land, air, people, and energy resources in a short-sighted manner, the Chinese are making  a good deal of money. But the CO2 somehow, they think, is not their responsibility.

In contrast, almost all the large western economies have managed to reduce their CO2 levels in the last decade. One must admit that they start from an entirely different position. Per capita, Americans, Germans, and Brits all use far more energy than the average Chinese and enormously more than the average Indian. Starting from a position of excessive energy use, the West can cut back largely by adopting new technologies that are more efficient and less polluting. 

The overall trend is worrisome. The BRIC national economies are growing rapidly, and their CO2 emissions are keeping pace. This is not a sustainable situation. Nor is it a necessary situation.

I explained why in my lecture. Drawing on my  Consuming Power, I briefly summarized the previous American energy regimes from colonial times to the present: muscle power, water power, steam power, electrical power, gas and oil, and the never entirely realized nuclear regime. 

I then drew several conclusions. 

First, that the US has had little or no historical experience with shortages. Shifts in energy use were driven by consumer demands for more rather than the need to replace disappearing sources. 

Second, that since c. 1820 there have been new energy regimes roughly every 40 years. This strongly suggests that the shift to alternative energies will also take four decades, and that it will not entirely replace but rather supplement previous energy sources. 

Third, statistics show that since c. 1940 the largest growth in energy use in the US has been in the consumer sector. Industry has been much better at curbing its appetites. The good news is, that, based on studies of best practices - i.e. using existing technologies - the US could cut its total energy use by 50%. This would not entail any hardships or major changes in lifestyle. Rather, this would mean that per capita US energy use fell to the level of Germany or Denmark. The existing technologies include improved housing insulation and heat exchangers, already in use in Germany, that come close to eliminating the need for most domestic heating or cooling. Heat pumps, passive solar, solar panels, geothermal, burning waste, and wind power together provide a good mix of alternatives. Utilized together with pumped storage of hydro power, they eliminate the bogus argument raised by the oil, gas, and coal companies, who claim that alternative energies cannot provide energy around the clock, because the sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow.

Fourth, half of the reduced US energy demand could be met though a mix of alternative energies, including far more than wind and solar power. Again, new technologies are not necessary. What we already have is sufficient to achieve this result. But note that the cost of solar power has been steadily falling, at a rate that economist Paul Krugman estimates to be 7% every year.

In other words, rather than set a goal of unchanged total use, of which 25% is to be alternative energy, I firmly believe that the US goal should be to reduce its energy consumption by half and satisfy the  remaining energy demand by using alternative energies. Moreover, the BRIC nations could do the same thing. Rather than adopt old-fashioned technologies, such as coal-fired electrical plants, they could move directly toward the sustainable goal. Their models should be Denmark and Germany. They should not measure themselves against the US, whose energy use is indefensible and unsustainable. Indeed, there is some evidence that the Chinese have begun to understand this more quickly than the US itself. Certainly China has moved to be a global leader in solar energy.

The fundamental problem of excessive energy use is not technological, but social and political.

Global Warming NOT the Only Problem with Fossil Fuels

After the American Century

During the next three weeks we will hear a great deal about the problem of global warming. I do believe that global warming is taking place, that the actions of human beings contribute to it, and that it lies within our power to do somethning about it. But put aside that entire discussion for a moment, and consider what other reasons there might be to cut back on burning fossil fuels.

Not all countries produce oil, coal, and/or natural gas. Advanced industrial nations that lack supplies are not coincidentally in the forefront of finding alternatives. Germany has virtually no oil or natural gas, and its more accessible coal has already been mined. Therefore Germany finds it highly interesting to develop wind turbines and solar power, and indeed has been one of the leading countries in both sectors for years. France, in much the same energy situation, has more nuclear power than any other nation. More than 80% of its electricity comes from nuclear plants. Sweden has no oil, and it relies on nuclear power and hydroelectric dams.

In contrast, countries like the United States and Britain which have oil fields and coal mines have been far slower to develop alternative energies. One can take this argument further, and say that within the US, places without fossil fuels like New England, New York, Oregon, and Washington are far more supportive of wind and solar energy than are states with coal fields. Montana, Illinois, Wyoming, and West Virginia together supply 55% of US coal production, and they are not supporting the shift to alternatives. One finds the same resistence to change in the biggest oil producting states, Texas, Alaska, and Lousiana.

Without going into arguments about global warming, it seems obvious that the current energy regime favors fossil fuel exporting regions and in effect imposes a tax on those who import oil, gas, and coal. Half a century ago the cost of these energy sources was so low as to be almost a negligable part of the total cost of production. This is no longer so. Fuel prices, over the long term, have risen and can only continue to rise as demand increases. Already in Russia, more than 20% of the gross national product (GNP), comes from oil and gas exports; in Nigeria 35%; in Venezuela 27%; and so on for all the major oil producers.

It is always a good idea to "follow the money." Most of the world's powerful economies - the US, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, South Korea, Japan, Australia, China, and India - are all net importers of oil and gas. The United States imports almost 12 million barrels of oil every day. Japan imports a bit less than half that. China imports "only" 2.9 million barrels a day, but this figure is rocketing higher, as its citizens now buy more cars every month than consumers in the US. The major industrial nations need alternatives, and in the next two decades they will probably develop them.

There is one other argument in favor of a shift to alternative energies. Quite simply, the world's reserves of oil, coal, and gas are not infinite. Why keep paying a premium to use someone else's well, when it is drying up?

Unsustainable Cheney vs. Sustainable Gore

After the American Century

In recent weeks two vice-presidents have been in the headlines. If either of them were a prospective presidential candidate, this would hardly be unusual. But Dick Cheney is too old to be considered realistically as a candidate, and his health is also a question. And Al Gore clearly does not want to run for president again, after passing up the 2008 campaign.

Both men are in the news because they can be taken to represent opposed elements in American politics. Cheney the former oil executive who is a hard-liner on foreign policy stands in stark contrast to Gore, the advocate of green energy who won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Both men have been willing to "put their money where their mouth is," by which I mean they have invested their personal fortunes in the kinds of industries they believe in. Curiously, however, only Gore seems to be in the spotlight this week. He has been criticized for investing in the green technologies that he wants governments to adopt. This is no different than Cheney, who vigorously defended the coal and oil industries while serving as vice-president, except that Gore is not in office. He is a private citizen, and there is no conflict of interest in his case. Gore has never worked as a lobbyist. So the charge that Gore might profit from green energy investments seems idiotic coming from Republicans. Do they have something against business now?

It would be in order, however, for Congress to hold an investigation into Dick Cheney's relationship to Halliburton while he served as Vice President. Cheney retained many personal ties with Halliburton while in office, and that corporation was given multi-billion dollar contracts to rebuild Iraq - often with no competitive bidding - on the grounds that the response had to be rapid and asking for and evaluating bids took too much time.

Then there was Dick Cheney's big gift to Halliburton in the 2005 Energy Bill. A provision was added to that bill, at Cheney's request, which took away from the Environmental Protection Agency the right to regulate some forms of oil drilling. In particular, a process invented by Halliburton called hydraulic fracturing was exempted from EPA control. And, yes, hydraulic fracturing can lead to pollution of the water table, as toxic chemicals are involved. For more on this, see the article in the New York Times. This addition to the 2005 Energy Bill is often called the Halliburton Loophole.

This then is the contrast. On the one side, Dick Cheney, a vice-president who used his office to protect and enrich the company where he used to be chief executive. On the other side, Al Gore, a former vice-president who as a private citizen has put his own money into green technologies. Is it really impossible for Republicans to see that Cheney is a reprehensible self-serving pawn of special interests? Apparently so. Is it really impossible for Republicans to see that Gore is an idealist working within the capitalist system, risking his own money on what he believes in? Again, apparently the Republicans really are this inconsistent and blind.

The persistence of such Republican misconceptions helps us to understand why they are able to see "drill baby drill" Sarah Palin as a feasible presidential candidate.

Is Anyone Really Saving Energy?

After the American Century

Is anyone really saving energy? Time for a little reality check, as all the green rhetoric might make one believe the use of electricity and gasoline is falling.

The Kyoto Protocol was intended to help reduce pollution and CO2 levels. Signed by most of the world's nations beginning in 1997, it went into effect in 2005. However, during this eight-year interval, the signatory nations failed even to restrain consumer demand, which galloped ahead each year by an average of 500 billion additional kilowatts.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, in 2005 the world was using one third more electricity annually than it had in 1997. This growth was by no means evenly distributed. Japan, whose economy was not growing much anyway, nearly achieved zero energy growth (4%) in contrast to China's rampant 223% increase. Germany (10%), France (17%), and the United Kingdom (12%) grew rather than shrank their demand, but they were less profligate than Ireland (51%), India (40%), Argentina (39%), or Brazil (27%). Almost everywhere the consumer wanted more and no nation had managed to reverse the trend.

The failure to reduce energy use cannot be explained by cost-benefit analysis. US energy efficiency could be improved by 23% through off-the-shelf technologies such as better insulation, replacement of inefficient appliances and light bulbs, and the like. The cost of making these changes would quickly be recovered through large savings on electricity bills. But consumers do not want to invest up front to get the longer term benefits.

Likewise, automobiles are on sale that are twice as efficient as the average car on the American road. Moreover, Europeans and Asians, who once could sneer at Americans for driving so much have adopted the car in ever increasing numbers. Indeed, earlier this year for the first time the Chinese topped the US in new car sales, with more than 1 million new vehicles sold each month. Not much help for global warming there.

Do not be lulled by green rhetoric into thinking that politicians have actually done anything much to stop global warming. CO2 emissions are rising along with consumer demand. This is a global problem and no nation has yet really demonstrated that it can reduce its level of emissions and consumption to below the 1997 level - which was the idea of the Kyoto Protocol. So far, it is all wishful thinking.

Danish Awareness of "Earth Hour" Dim

After the American Century

Across the world, in 88 countries, cities turned out their lights last night for one hour, starting at 20:30 local time. The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, dark. The Eiffel Tower? Noir. The Chinese Olympic stadium, Sydney's harbor bridge and opera house, Atlanta's Coca Cola Building, dark. Toronto reduced its total electricity consumption by 15% during "Earth Hour," more than twice as much as last year. It may have been the biggest global demonstration in history.

In most of the participating 2800 cities and towns, the local newspapers and politicians were actively promoting Earth Hour. However, I looked in vain for anything about Earth Hour II in two Danish newspapers this morning. Last night, the City of Odense turned out its streetlights at 20:30, as we did at our house. Yet, as I walked around our neighborhood, few others seemed to have done so. Using the simple test of looking for lighted candles showing in windows, it appeared that most people had lots of light bulbs on, and that perhaps one in ten actively supported "Earth Hour." I hope I am estimating incorrectly, but in the last week I have not sensed any awareness of this event. Not a single student, colleague, or neighbor has mentioned Earth Hour to me, or showed any interest in it when I mentioned it. Not one journalist has called or written an email asking for my view of Earth Hour, from the viewpoint of an energy historian.

This morning, the local newspaper (Fyens Stiftstidende) has not written a single word about "Earth Hour" that I can find. The front page features a photograph of two girls eating ice cream. The three stories on page one are about increasing service charges on house loans, Conservative tactics for the next (hypothetical) election, and an extremely important piece on the development of a cardboard, biodegradable "Paradise coffin" for pets, available in five sizes. On the plus side, the same newspaper has five pages about energy-saving forms of electric lighting in its second section, without, however, mentioning Earth Hour anywhere that I can see.

Apparently, for all-too-many Danes, global warming is only an issue of concern for thousands of cities in other parts of the world. Judging by this event, you would never know that Denmark is hosting a major climate conference that will seek a replacement for the Kyoto Accords. Political parties paid lip service to the event, but except for a single concert in Copenhagen, the event was a non-event in Denmark. For 2009, the clear message from Denmark seems to be that hardly anyone cares very much about Earth Hour or about forging a world consensus to reduce global warming. To anyone familiar with the current government, this should come as no surprise. Maybe next year they will use their wall switches to vote for change, to proclaim the solidarity with others, and to send their politicians a message.