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Chapter 16: Future Climate Part 3—Economics and energy policy.
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Transcript of Chapter 16: Future Climate Part 3—Economics and energy policy.
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Chapter 16:Future Climate
Part 3—Economicsand energy policy
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• Reminder (point also made in An Inconvenient Truth):
Stabilizing atmospheric CO2 is extremely difficult! It requires huge cuts in emissions
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Target goals for atmospheric CO2 and associated emission scenarios
The Earth System (2010), Fig. 16-8
• We need to cut CO2 emissions in half (3 Gt C/yr) just to limit ourselves to 750 ppmv of CO2
• Stabilizing at today’s CO2 level would require negative emissions, i.e., net
CO2 uptake
1990emissions
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Cost-Benefit Analysis
• When evaluating whether or not a particular project, e.g. building a dam, makes sense economically, economists often employ cost-benefit analysis– Evaluate the economic costs of the project– Weigh these against the economic benefits
• This same type of analysis can be applied to global warming
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The “DICE” Model
• DICE model = Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy model– Developed by William Nordhaus at Yale
University– Weighs the projected economic damages
from global warming against the costs of mitigation
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(spending power)
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DICE model results
W. D. Nordhaus, Science 258, 1315, 1992
2CO2
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• The discount rate, , is a key factor• Nordhaus assumes a discount rate of 3%/yr
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• Recently, the issue of discounting, and of global warming policy in general, has been revisited in a British study called the Stern Review– These authors recommended using much
lower discount rates– Consequently, they suggested that we
should cut back much more sharply on CO2 emissions
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Projected CO2 emissions and concentrations for different strategies
The Challenge of Global Warming: Economic Models and Environmental Policy,William Nordhaus, July 24, 2007
(See Figures 16-12 and 16-13 in The Earth System, ed. 3)
Carbon emissions CO2 concentrations
Businessas usual
Kyoto
Nordhaus
SternGore
Nordhaus
Stern
Businessas usual
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Practical carbon policy implications
Nordhaus• $30/ton of carbon,
rising to $200/ton in 200 yrs. The initial tax is equivalent to– 9¢/gal on gas– 1¢/kWh on electricity
(~10% of current price)
• Stern– $100/ton initially, rising
to $950/ton in 100 yrs
Optimal carbon tax
The Challenge of Global Warming: Economic Models and Environmental Policy,William Nordhaus, July, 2007
Stern
Nordhaus
(Fig. 16-12a in The Earth System, ed. 3)
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• Moral of this story:
How one decides to discount future costs and damages is very important to the decision making process. Considerations of intergenerational equity suggest that the discount rate should be low
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Strategies for coping with global warming
• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially CO2
– Energy conservation can help– Requires development of alternative energy
sources (solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, etc.)
• Scrub the CO2 out of the atmosphere, or out of smokestack emissions, and bury it somewhere (carbon sequestration)
• Direct geoengineering of the climate
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Energy-efficient cars
Toyota Prius• Should we pass regulations, e.g., the CAFÉ (Corporate Automobile Fleet Efficiency) standards, requiring cars to get better gas mileage?• Alternatively, should we impose a stiff gas tax, or better yet, a carbon tax, to encourage car buyers to purchase fuel-efficient vehicles?
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Wind power
T. Boone Pickens
Wind is one form of alternative,and renewable, energy for producing electricity
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Ground-based solar power plant
http://bp1.blogger.com/_n6urvItzBdQ/RfGjte8V1_I/AAAAAAAAGkc/rnAthBDsnRw/s1600-h/Image9.jpg
Two distinctly different types of plants:1) Photovoltaic2) Solar thermal power
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High-voltage direct current (HVDC)
• For either wind or solar power, the best sources of power are often located far from where the power is needed
• HVDC is the best way to transmit power over long distances– Losses: ~3%/1000 km
• Hence, transmission from Arizona to New York (~2000 mi. or 3000 km) would involve losses of only ~10%
Long distance HVDC lines carrying hydroelectricity from Canada's Nelson river to this station where it is converted to AC for use in Winnipeg's local grid [Image and caption from Wikipedia]
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“War of Currents” (late 1880’s)
Thomas Edison favored a systemdesigned around direct current
Westinghouse
Tesla
George Westinghouse and Nikola Teslafavored a system based on alternatingcurrent. They obviously won..
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Existing and planned HVDC links
Xiangjiaba Dam to Shanghai(2000 km, in operation)
Amazonas region to Sao Paulo(2500 km, starting in 2015)
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Satellite solar power
Image from Wikipedia
• Satellites could be placed in geosynchronous orbit• One might also be able to do this from the Moon (David Criswell, University of Houston)
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Nuclear power plant
• Nuclear power is a known, but potentially dangerous means of producing electricity
• Waste disposal is an issue, if not a problem
• Reserves of fissionable 235U are limited need breeder reactors if you want this to last a long time. (Breeders convert 238U to fissionable 239Pu, i.e., plutonium)
The Susquehanna Steam Electric Station (image from Wikipedia)
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Nuclear accidents
• Public acceptance of nuclear power is a big issue
• Accidents like those at Chernobyl (Ukraine), Three-Mile Island (Pennsylvania), and Fukushima (Japan) do little to increase confidence
• Are the dangers acceptable, or, alternatively, can they be minimized?
Satellite image on 16 March of the four damaged reactor buildings at Fukushima,Japan[Image from Wikipedia]
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Nuclear waste disposal
• Disposing of nuclear waste is also a huge issue
• Currently, all of our spent nuclear fuel is stored on-site at power plants in ponds
• Opening of the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, ~100 mi. north of Las Vegas, has been postponed indefinitely– Funding was terminated in
2009 by the Obama administration, for political (not technical) reasons
Picture of Yucca Mountain[From Wikipedia]
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Carbon sequestration
• Klaus Lackner at Columbia University is a pioneer in this field
• One strategy: React coal with steam and produce hydrogen
CH2O + H2O CO2 + 2 H2
Then sequester the CO2 in deep underground aquifers, the deep ocean, or possibly in subglacial Antarctic lakes
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Subglacial lakes
• Lake type--subglacial rift lake
• Max length--250 km• Max width--50 km• Surface area--15,690
km²• Average depth--344 m• Max depth--1,000 m• Water volume--5,400
km³• Residence time
(of lake water)--1,000,000 yrs
Lake Vostok circled in redImage and information from Wikipedia
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Diagram of Lake Vostok
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_images.jsp?cntn_id=109587&org=GEO
• Liquified CO2 would be pumped down into the lake • CO2 would form a clathrate, which would remain stable as long as the ice remained above it
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Possible subglacial lake system
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_images.jsp?cntn_id=109587&org=GEO
• Lake Vostok is one of as many as 50 subglacial lakes lying beneath the Antarctic ice cap• Lake Vostok alone has the volume of Lake Michigan
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Geoengineering solutions
• Alternatively, we may wish to forget about the CO2 and simply try to compensate for the expected climate change– Need to worry about ocean pH!
• Different ideas for doing this
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Stratospheric aerosol injection
• One geoengineering strategy is to intentionally inject sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere, mimicking a large volcanic eruption
• But, the resulting uneven distribution of particles could result in massive weather disruption
Mt. Pinatubo, Philippines, 1991
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Seawater spray solution
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/wind-powered-yachts-sea-salt-climate-change.php
• Fleets of seawater sprayers could create additional tropospheric aerosol particles that could cool the Earth by increasing its albedo
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The solar shield: Lagrange points in the Earth-Sun system
• It is theoretically possible to build a solar shield at the (unstable) L1 Lagrange point. (One has to actively adjust its position because this is an unstable saddle point in the gravitational potential field.)
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The solar shield
• Rather than building a single large mirror, it is more practical to fly about one trillion smaller (2-ft. diameter) lenses (Roger Angel, PNAS, 2006)
• Technically, this is called a Fresnel lens
• Offsetting one CO2 doubling would require deflecting about 2% of the incident sunlight
uanews.org (Univ. of Arizona)
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• In my opinion, none of the geoengineering solutions are advisable, although we may need to resort to them if other measures fail
• Energy conservation and renewable energy sources (including biomass fuels) must be part of the solution
• Nuclear energy should not be ruled out as an option
• The best way to make all this happen is to impose a gradually increasing tax on CO2 emissions, i.e. a carbon tax
Your professor’s opinions
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Take-home lessons from this class
• We need to preserve our environment, as Earth is the only habitable planet that we know of
• Global warming is a real problem with which we will someday have to deal—and the sooner, the better!
• There may well be other Earth-like planets around other stars. Looking for them, and looking for signs of life on them, is a scientific endeavor that is well worth undertaking