A couple of weeks ago the usually conservative International Energy Agency predicted that world oil production would peak by 2020. Peak oil has moved in a short time from an obsession somewhere between the Warren Commission and the Yeti in reputability, to the stuff of mainstream news reports. You don't have to look far on the Internet to find nightmare scenarios of a post-cheap-oil world--abandoned suburbs, idle factories, no cars.
But what does peak oil really mean? There are two post-peak futures that each seem more likely than the total collapse of civilization as we know it. A climate scientist named Ken Caldeira recently presented them at a meeting of his colleagues.
In one, we switch to wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, and nuclear. (Relatively) clear skies ahead.
In the other, we switch to cheaper, more abundant, and far dirtier coal, and "unconventional" oil shale and tar sands, thus hastening the destruction of land, pollution of water and air, and catastrophic global warming.
What path does the outgoing administration support?
"On Oct. 31, Congress allowed a moratorium on oil shale leasing to expire. That paved the way for the Bush administration to finalize leasing rules last month that opened 2 million acres of federal land to exploration."
"The president-elect has called for 10 percent of all electricity to be generated by renewable sources—wind, solar and the like—by 2012 and 25 percent by 2025.
He also would reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change by 80 percent by 2050, an ambitious goal."
The race is on. Shell Oil is digging pits under the Rockies as you read this.
This is the most amazing story I've read in months and I hadn't heard boo about it in the mainstream US press.
About two weeks ago a single activist breached the security of one of the most heavily guarded power plants in Britain, climbed two 10-foot electrified razor wire fences, and shut down a 500 MW turbine--enough to power an entire city. He left a calling card reading "no new coal" and left the same way he came. The UK papers say that for the four hours the plant was shut down, Britain's climate change emissions were decreased by about 2 percent. They're calling the unknown activist the "green Banksy" after the renowned, anonymous (until recently) street artist, which is a hint to the media's barely concealed admiration for this enviro-saboteur.
What's even more remarkable than the astonishing success and daring of his feat is that there's recent British precedence for a legal defense of it. In September a British jury found that the clear and lethal threat of global warming is urgent enough to justify the vandalism of six Greenpeace activists who caused $50,000 worth of damage to another coal plant. Under the "lawful excuse" doctrine the jurors decided that the activists, who painted the prime minister's name on the plant's chimney, acted to save lives, analogous to breaking down the door of a house in order to put out a fire. The world's leading climate change scientist, James Hansen, actually flew in from America to testify as an expert witness on behalf of Greenpeace.
Al Gore has also gone on record as calling for "civil disobedience" by young people to stop new coal plants from being built.
I don't know whether to be amazed by the power of individual direct action to stop global warming, or dismayed at the idea that Nobel Prize winners are leaving it up to individuals to do what international governments seem unwilling to agree on.
In the downturn, more companies are cutting labor costs without layoffs by scaling back the amount of time their employees work: four-day workweeks, unpaid vacation, and forced furloughs.
Unlike the disappearance of 401(k) contributions, this development has a silver lining. Environmentalists, feminists, and work-life balance advocates have been saying for decades that Americans’ breakneck work schedule is bad for people and the planet. There’s a “Take Back Your Time Day” movement; Moms Rising, an advocacy group started by one of the founders of MoveOn, has as one of its principles “open and flexible work;" and the UN’s Environment Program, in a major recent report on green jobs, concluded:
“In the future, not only do jobs need to be more green, their very essence may need to be redefined. A number of countries and companies have wrestled with proposals to reduce individuals’ work time in order to share available work better among all those who desire work.”
For jobs that pay less than a living wage, going part-time is no boon. But for the middle class and above, more time off can be valuable in many ways. Families can save on child-care costs. We could use the time to shop for fresher produce and cook healthy meals rather than grab takeout, to bike or walk rather than drive, or even to exercise, lowering healthcare bills. We can strengthen social capital and community ties by shopping at local markets rather than one-stop big box stores and by volunteering. And of course, we'd have more time to spend with friends and family.
We’re one of the few countries where the richest people actually have less leisure time than those on lower rungs of the ladder. If the merry-go-round were to slow down just a little, we’d have a chance to close the gap on inequality while improving the quality of life for more Americans. Sounds pretty productive for a day off.
Which green companies are best positioned to weather the downturn?
"Well established, international companies like Vestas [one of the world's largest wind turbine manufacturers]." says Newsweek. "It's a very tough time for earlier stage companies."
CNet’s Green Tech blog says the opposite: "Smaller companies are more likely to survive the current — and coming — lean period... "because younger firms, in general, demand less capital to operate."
Where you really don't want to be is caught in the middle, needing a big infusion of capital to get to the next stage.
Both sides do agree that the recession will produce a shakeout, putting weaker companies out of their misery, but that green tech is not another dot-com. These companies are aimed at solving real problems and the outlook over the next decade is strong.
Will the US and the world learn from the mistakes of the European Emissions Trading Scheme, or will we just repeat them?
Carbon credit cap-and-trade market systems (which I wrote about in July's Fast Company) have long been touted as the solution to efficiently reduce greenhouse gases. Yet four years after the EU unveiled its emissions trading scheme, the most polluting industries in the region have seen multibillions in windfall profits. Total reduction in emissions? Almost none.
Cap-and-trade worked well in the US for acid rain. The key problem with the European approach seems to be the decision to give out permits for free rather than auction them off. To simplify: Under an auction system, a coal-burning power plant would immediately have to buy the rights to emit each ton of CO2 equivalent; the money would go to the governments, like a tax. The market signal is swift and clear. Under the free-pass system, that same coal plant will get, well, a free pass to pollute the current amount. Reductions come only when companies decide to trade their permits.
Even worse news? Given the economic crisis, Europe agreed today to an even more weakened version of their plan, with even more free passes.
FT: "Under the accord, industrial sectors such as cement, chemicals and steel will receive free carbon emission permits at least up to 2020, instead of having to buy them under an auction scheme, as envisaged in a Commission plan published last January."
Will the the Obama-led US have the cojones to learn from Europe's bumbles to draft stronger future climate accords? Well, the US is not exactly known for its resistance to corporate influence in politics.
A bottled water company threatens to sue a public utility for infringing on its marketing claims. Seriously, guys?
This should go down in the annals of bad sustainability marketing . Nestle Waters, a $4 billion branch of the giant food conglomerate, threatened to sue Miami-Dade County in Florida after the county aired radio spots featuring a cute talking faucet telling people the county’s public tap water was cheaper and safer than bottled water. This claim, by the way, is backed by research. No matter, Nestle Waters called it an “attack on the integrity of the company”; the International Bottled Water Association, a trade association representing the bottled water industry, is considering similar legal action.
A water company suing the public water department is like Gymboree and McDonald’s Play-Place suing the city parks department, or a tanning salon suing the sun. Bottled water has enough problems with its carbon footprint, trash, and BPA issues--even citywide bans--without this kind of hysterical overdefensiveness. It's so great for the industry's public image that it landed Nestle Waters CEO John Harris on a “Corporate Scrooges” list alongside Rick Wagoner (GM), Charles Prince (ex –Citigroup), and other more notorious corporate scapegoats. Not the sparking-clean image Nestle Waters is probably going for.
But they're missing the big picture: a whole new solution to one of the economy's most pressing problems.
Sara Horowitz started the Freelancers Union (where, full disclosure, I once held a fellowship) to prototype a new social safety net for the new independent workforce. They now have 92,000 members in all professions from attorneys to yoga teachers, and provide health coverage at group rates to 19,000 of them in New York; other activities include political advocacy and an online social network. They raised a total of $17 million to start the Freelancers Insurance Co from big foundation donors including the Rockefeller Foundation, the New York State Health Foundation, the Ford Foundation & the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
FU didn't handle the transition to ownership perfectly; after making the initial announcement, they raised premiums and cut benefits on their most expensive plan, and they had a shortage of customer service reps. But Horowitz emphasizes in a phone call to me that only 50 people have actually terminated their coverage, while 8000 have reenrolled, on track to exceed the original number by the end of 2008. Of course, this may be because even the disgruntled don't have any better options for health care. Then again, isn't that the point?
The collapse of the Big Three is putting another nail in the coffin of employer-based benefits. Horowitz's vision is a new social safety net of membership-based nonprofits like hers that can provide portable, flexible benefits while aggregating risk--and not incidentally, political power. She says the new administration is watching the FIC's model closely. "This is a first in a 100-year-old strategy of labor. We're trying something new."
What do you think is the best solution for covering freelancers and the rest of the uninsured masses?
The prices once commanded by paper, metal, and plastic are collapsing along with the stock market. A main factor: China, factories idle, is no longer accepting so much of our old stuff as raw materials. Is recycling headed for the scrap heap?
Well, no. It's a compelling irony to think this new age of thrift might produce new piles of waste, but the economics of recycling still beat the hell out of conventional disposal.
"In Boston, one of the hardest-hit markets, prices are down to $5 a ton [from $50], and the city expects it will soon have to pay to unload its paper. But city officials said that would still be better than paying $80 a ton to put it in a landfill."
Got that? That's a total difference of $85, or a factor of 17.
Communities are rallying in support of their recycling programs, and maybe they can find new ways to finance them. Last month I profiled CEO Ron Gonen of Recyclebank, whose system rewards homeowners for recycling and then collects fees from municipalities based on the improvements in recycling rates. They've added at least a dozen communities to their list since the article was published.
"It should not have much of an impact on our business," Gonen told me today of the dip in prices. "Our revenues (and value prop for municipalities) are tied to the value of diverting waste from the landfills. The complete equation on recycling includes the fact that even if you get paid $0 per ton for recyclables, you would need to pay an expensive disposal fee at the landfill. An additional externality is that you will need to drive (in a big fuel guzzling truck) that ton much farther (sometimes across state lines) to find landfill space, whereas the recycling facility is usually operated locally."
As the Times points out today, farm animals generate an astonishing 18 percent of the world's most ill-smelling greenhouse gas emissions, more than cars, trucks and buses combined. That includes the impact of rainforests being cleared in the Amazon, primarily for cattle and cattle feed. The nascent technological solution being debated at the UN's Poznan conference this week is methane-capture projects. When they work right, they're awesome--transforming barnyard waste into fuel, fertilizer, and fungible carbon credits.
Yet the size of this solution right now is nowhere near adequate to the size of the problem. According to the US EPA's AgStar program, which promotes methane capture projects, there are currently 111 such systems around the US. That's out of .... 70,000 dairy and swine farms. Smithfield Foods alone, the nation's largest hog farm operator, in 2005 slaughtered 27 million animals. Each one produces three times as much excrement as a human being, approximately none of which is treated or filtered in any way before being released into the land and water. The fumes alone can literally kill people.
Methane capture remains a pie-in-the-sky solution for a pies-on-the-ground problem. The true answer for those concerned about the future of the planet is simple: eat less meat. The appetite for meat has increased with affluence, up 200 percent in developing countries since the 60s, and of course Americans eat more meat than any civilization in history except maybe the Mongols or the Masai. Dr. Rajenda Pachauri, the Nobel Laureate and head of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, mentioned when I heard him speak at Yale last spring that he has started to recommend a vegetarian or near-vegetarian diet outright to anyone who is concerned about the future of the planet. For every pound of beef replaced with a pound of carrots you'll save 19 pounds of CO2, and fight an industrial-food system that "In Defense of Food" author Michael Pollan deems "broken."
It's been 17 years since I chowed my last burger, and I've learned the hard way that suggesting a meatless diet is still a grave social taboo in the country that invented McDonald's. However, maybe eco-preaching can be avoided in favor of a clever marketing campaign to connect filet mignon in the collective consciousness with "flatus."
I’ve written in this space before about the Smart Garage idea—linking electric cars, charging stations, and an intelligent electric grid. But the system has a chicken-and-egg problem—it seems to require massive, unlikely coordination to get utilities, car companies, software companies and real estate developers all on board.
Shai Agassi, formerly of SAP, came up with a simpler version of the idea called Better Place. His one company says they can do it all—like a cell phone company they will sell the cars relatively cheap and charge for charging—the “minutes.” He signed up the government of Israel to test it out.
Then Denmark. Australia. Northern California. Now Hawaii.
An island is a great place to try this out since energy costs are high and driving distances are limited. 2012 is the estimated time horizon to actually get cars on the road, with a minefield of potential financing and technology problems between here and there.
I believe some version of networked electric vehicle will come to pass. What's not yet clear is the business model. Commercial fleets like those powered by Valence here and in the UK are an obvious first place to start.
