A truly classic quote, as reported in the Year in Review, came from Fred Krupp, influential president of the Environmental Defense Fund, in referring to the White House talks on climate change in September: "It was a lost opportunity. America needs to lead, and we can lead, but now the spotlight shifts to the Congress because the president has refused to accept the only path that's ever solved an air pollution problem ‚ and that's mandatory legal limits."
Krupp and EDF have been a powerful force in getting the mainstream environmental movement more in tune with the realities of the private sector. Instead of always confronting big business on issues of energy and the environment, they have very often worked with business to effect positive change. That does not mean, in any sense, that organizations as powerful as EDF, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which bears many of the same attributes as EDF, don't take their shots at irresponsible and dangerous actions by industry in the courts and in the offices and lobbies of government when industry's actions merit it. It does mean that EDF recognizes the value of getting business to act responsibly in whatever ways are effective. Hell, even Greenpeace works with Coca-Cola and Unilever these days. (See that story toward the end of this from July.)
Krupp and EDF made an enormous breakthrough in February of 2007 when they negotiated the shelving of eight coal-fired power plants in Texas. Former EPA administrator William Reilly and Krupp were the architects of a deal that permanently altered the map of power production in this country. You can see this segment from Frontline's "Hot Politics" to get a bigger picture.
Now Krupp and the journalist Miriam Horn have come out with a book, Earth: The Sequel , The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming. It looks at some amazing initiatives that are being aggressively pursued: the use of "concentrators" to intensify the sunlight directed at solar thermal arrays or photovoltaics, colocating solar and wind farms to get the maximum generating potential of those two, bottling heat in giant thermos-type containers as a storage mechanism, using biotechnology to produce biofuels and nanotechnology to radically improve the properties of silicon for use in PV cells, power-generating buoys, geothermal units that can be deployed all over the world to take advantage of the crust of the earth's tremendous heat and also the hot water that comes up with oil at wellheads, and underground coal gasification, among many others.
My favorite is the pilot in Arizona that is using carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plant stacks to feed algae which, in turn, can then be converted to a potent biofuel. The process is water-intensive but it can tolerate wastewater so that is another waste stream that is incorporated. This scheme would also use nitrogen from the emissions as fertilizer. Eventually, the coal in the plant could be replaced by the algae, leading to a carbon-negative situation. (See also this recent piece from Matt Wald at the "NY Times.") I've been writing about Renewable Energy since the beginning of this blog and I continue to find these ideas and initiatives, as Mr. Spock would say, "Fascinating."
One of the leitmotifs of the book is the entrepreneurial, even frontier spirit of the innovators bringing some of these solutions into being. Venture capitalists get their due here. But what drives capital? The promise of a return on its investment. What then is the single-most important driver in the quest to realize a good "return on capital"? Krupp and Horn iterate (and reiterate) it's setting a price on carbon. Why? To "level the playing field" with the fossil fuel and nuclear suppliers of energy. What's the best mechanism for doing this? A cap-and-trade system. This brings us back to Krupp's quote above regarding the necessity to institute "mandatory legal limits." That's the cap. The trade part is what you do when you've gone below your capped emission limit and can then sell the difference between what you've achieved and what you've been mandated to achieve. (I've written about this mechanism a number of times at Carbon Markets.)
EDF, led by economist Dan Dudek, was one of the pioneers of cap-and-trade back in the 1980's in order to effect dramatic reductions in acid rain precursors. (I had the privilege of working with one of their senior scientists, Michael Oppenheimer, back then on the acid rain problem when I was an activist with the Sierra Club. Michael has been a critical figure in bringing the science of global warming to the fore. He was right there with James Hansen at that epic hearing in Washington in the summer of 1988 that brought global warming fully into view for the American public. See from about 2:45 in this segment from "Hot Politics.")
Earth: The Sequel also discusses other critical approaches to confronting global warming such as halting tropical rainforest destruction. A post-Kyoto international regime that set a reasonable price on carbon ($30 a ton) would allow Brazil alone to realize $168 billion profit from protecting its rainforests while preventing emissions of six billion tons of carbon dioxide, according to the Woods Hole Research Center. (Pop quiz: After the US and China, which two countries are the biggest contributors to global warming? Brazil and Indonesia – because of rainforest destruction.)
The book also notes the critical importance of energy efficiency. (See my post Energy Efficiency for Fun and Profit.)
The book is engaging, informative, and hopeful. It gives us the perspective of those scientists, policy innovators, entrepreneurs and, in some cases, visionaries, who are going to make the earth a safer, more prosperous, smarter, and more equitable place for us all to live. It's a stimulating read, to say the least.
For more, go to the book's website and also see the trailer.
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