This is all going some where. It is going to take two more posts to explain why the Nature article and Pielke are wrong, dangerously wrong, I think.

This issue of insisting we must wait for energy technology breakthroughs that rarely come (as explained here) vs. deploying our existing or near-term technology as fast as is humanly possible is perhaps the central climate debate of the day, one we can’t afford to lose. That’s why I blog so much on it.

I also think readers of this blog probably want to use technical terms correctly and perhaps want to understand why some people choose not to.

As for the Breakthrough Institute, that is a more powerful and dangerous entity than Pielke, and it will take some time to debunk them. The thing to ask yourself is — if they are really on the side of solving this problem, why do they keep attacking Al Gore, one of the biggest allies the climate-savers have (see here)? Why do they say things like:

From development to deployment, there are still many hurdles to implementing new clean energy systems, and it is going to take technological breakthroughs to clear those hurdles.

How can breakthroughs overcome the classic hurdles like utility regulations that favor generation over efficiency, or hurdles that favor large central generation over more distributed generation, or that grandfather dirty coal plants or a thousand other well-documented hurdles that can only be fixed by chaning policy?

Why do they keep attacking a straw-man Rush Limbaugh view of environmentalists (and me):

In this debate, the traditional environmental remedies of lifestyle change and pollution regulations will be revealed as so massively inadequate to the climate challenge we face as to be largely irrelevant. Thanks to folks like Joe Romm and the editors at Grist, environmentalists will be the last to know.

Does any reader think that this describes most of the environmentalists pursuing climate action? Of course not. It doesn’t describe a single environmentalist or energy person I know. Does it describe my proposed solutions or those of Dave Roberts at Grist? Of course not. It describes the exact opposite of what I (and Dave) are trying to do.

So why does B.I. keep saying things that are so clearly wrong?

I’m gonna have to deal with that next week, since I have two more Pielke posts, plus the solution to global warming (!) to blog on the rest of this week.

The IPCC wrote in 2007 in its Working Group III summary (p. 16):

The range of stabilization levels assessed can be achieved by deployment of a portfolio of technologies that are currently available and those that are expected to be commercialised in coming decades. This assumes that appropriate and effective incentives are in place for development, acquisition, deployment and diffusion of technologies and for addressing related barriers (high agreement, much evidence).

This range of levels includes reaching atmospheric concentrations of 445 to 490 ppm CO2-equivalent, or 400 to 450 ppm of CO2. The first sentence does beg the question, what exactly does “expected to be commercialized” mean — I’ll return to that in Part 2

So what exactly are these climate-saving technologies? You can read about every conceivable one in the full WGIII report, “Mitigation of Climate Change.” But the Summary lists the “Key mitigation technologies and practices” (pg 10) in several sectors divided into two groups — those that are “currently commercially available” and those “projected to be commercialized before 2030.” I will simply list them all here. In a later post, I’ll discuss which ones I believe could deliver the biggest reductions at lowest cost — my 14+ “wedges,” as it were — and the political process for achieving them.

It is worth seeing them all, I think, to understand exactly how we might stabilize below 450 ppm CO2 (and to understand why the recent Nature article and the “technological breakthrough” crowd is wrong). Also, one of the technologies is the closest thing we have to the “silver bullet” needed to save the climate, as I will blog on in a few days.

Energy supply now commercial: Improved supply and distribution efficiency; fuel switching from coal to gas; nuclear power; renewable heat and power (hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal and bioenergy); combined heat and power; early applications of Carbon
Capture and Storage (CCS, e.g. storage of removed CO2 from natural gas).

Energy supply projected to be commercial by 2030: CCS for gas, biomass and coal-fired electricity generating facilities; advanced nuclear power; advanced renewable energy, including tidal and waves energy, concentrating solar, and solar PV.

[Note to IPCC: Concentrating solar is commercial now -- it better be with nearly 6000 MW running or under contract now.]

Transport now: More fuel efficient vehicles; hybrid vehicles; cleaner diesel vehicles; biofuels; modal shifts from road transport to rail and public transport systems; non-motorised transport (cycling, walking); land-use and transport planning.

Transport by 2030: Second generation biofuels; higher efficiency aircraft; advanced electric and hybrid vehicles with more powerful
and reliable batteries.

[Hmm, hydrogen fuel cell cars didn't make the 2030 cut, but plug-in hybrids did.]

Buildings now: Efficient lighting and daylighting; more efficient electrical appliances and heating and cooling devices; improved cook
stoves, improved insulation; passive and active solar design for heating and cooling; alternative refrigeration fluids, recovery and recycle of fluorinated gases.

Buildings by 2030: Integrated design of commercial buildings including technologies, such as intelligent meters that provide feedback and control; solar PV integrated in buildings.

[Note to IPCC: Those are all already commercial. Heck, some companies are doing real-time over-the-internet monitoring of their buildings, continuous commissioning, now!]

Industry now: More efficient end-use electrical equipment; heat and power recovery; material recycling and substitution; control of non-CO2 gas emissions; and a wide array of process-specific technologies.

[I would have singled out efficiency motors and variable speed drives here. Sad footnote: President Bush gutted the Energy Department program that had devloped technology roadmaps with the energy intensive industries and was funding accelerated development and deployment of the key technologies.]

Industry by 2030: Advanced energy efficiency; CCS for cement, ammonia, and iron manufacture; inert electrodes for aluminium manufacture.

[A short, boring list. I might have thrown in solid oxide fuel cells just to spice things up. The DOE program that Bush gutted was working on a lot of sexy stuff, including the inert electrodes.]

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Yesterday — the final day of the 2008 Maryland legislative session — Maryland’s House Economic Matters Committee killed landmark global warming legislation “after lobbying from industry and from factory workers fearful for their jobs.” The bill (SB 309) would have given the Maryland Department of the Environment the authority to set regulations necessary for a 25% reduction of greenhouse gases from 2006 levels by 2020, with a goal of a 90% reduction by 2050.

Supporting the bill was a diverse climate coalition. Opposition was driven by the industrial manufacturers and energy utilities who would have to reduce emissions, as well as the local unions who feared the loss of jobs.

Opponents of the measure reiterated the classic polluter complaints that compliance would cost too much, it can’t be done, and it kills jobs. Maryland Chamber of Commerce’s Allyson Black claimed the legislation would “make it extremely difficult for businesses to survive.” Her argument was echoed by representatives for the NewPage paper mill — “It would basically put us out of business” — and the ArcelorMittal plant — “That plant is not going to survive.”

Supporters debunked the polluter arguments. Gov. O’Malley responded: “But what sort of increased costs will come from a four-foot rise in sea level for businesses located at Sparrows Point or in Annapolis or in downtown Baltimore?” Rex Wright of the building efficiency company Johnson Controls responded:

The soon to be completed energy efficiency initiatives between Johnson Controls, Inc. and Baltimore City Public Schools, for example, created over 200 jobs, over 50 of which were created for minority and women-owned businesses. Sustainability works; it creates jobs.

As recently as March 21, the Washington Post predicted passage was “likely in the House of Delegates.”

But in the end, the “two buses of workers from the Sparrows Point steel mill in Baltimore County, along with some workers from Baltimore’s Domino Sugar plant” who came to the capitol yesterday and pledged to “stay until midnight to lobby lawmakers” proved to be the decisive factor. Advocates were simply out-lobbied and out-organized by opponents.

After eight years of right-wing policies destroying our economy and dismantling the economic and heath safety net, fear can easily outweigh hope. The climate movement will only succeed when it builds a vast coalition to convince politicians to pursue a course of action that supports progressive interests, not the interests of the polluters who got us into this mess and claim we can’t change for the better.

UPDATE: The Baltimore Sun notes that despite the defeat of the Global Warming Solutions Act, “lawmakers passed all five of the O’Malley administration’s energy bills, including an ambitious plan for reducing energy use 15 percent by 2015, plus a doubling of renewable power, such as wind and solar, to be generated in the state by 2022.”