Security, Climate And Technology
The world today depends on fossil fuels to meet over 80 percent of its energy needs, a simple fact of the way the industrial world has grown up. But dependence brings with it major challenges: rising demand because of economic growth and new consumers; the global distribution of resources; growing concerns about environmental impacts of energy production and use; and the timescales associated with transforming how we produce, deliver and consume energy.
All this places the United States and the world at an energy crossroads.
Meeting the world’s hunger for energy without fundamentally altering the global climate, increasing geopolitical tensions or causing serious economic dislocation begs for, indeed requires, new technology solutions.
There is, however, no simple or single technology option: In the coming decades we will need a host of new technologies to diversify our fuel mix and control greenhouse gas emissions, and at the same time not hinder economic growth.
The challenge is large but there is also good reason for optimism-largely fueled by a range of new technologies. Some are ready for deployment. Others, though promising, may be a decade away. And some, while more uncertain and higher risk, could have far-reaching impact.
But this optimism must be tempered with realism. The scale of the energy industry is enormous. Therefore, so must be the scale at which these technologies operate if they are to have a major effect. Scale also translates into time.
Policies will have to be thought through and aligned. Also, since both markets and environmental challenges are global, international cooperation must be integral to effective solutions.
Of special urgency is the risk of climate change from global warming. Using atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations before the industrial age as the baseline, a “business as usual” energy supply trajectory would nearly double those concentrations by mid-century, locking in average temperature increases of several degrees along with the expectation of severely disruptive impacts on human health and the environment. Such concentrations are thought by most engaged scientists to be at the upper limits of prudence.
Scenarios that address these challenges successfully, in response to policies that price carbon dioxide emissions, call for major advances in three key areas-energy efficiency, transportation fuels that are not petroleum-based and widespread electricity generation that yields little or no carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Greatly enhanced energy efficiency provides both the best short-term opportunity for addressing the major energy challenges and an essential component of a long-term strategy-perhaps a 40 to 50 percent reduction in primary energy use compared to mid-century “business as usual” needs, without a major impact on GDP.
But how to get there? The technology pathways for efficiency involve buildings, vehicles and industrial processes. Two-thirds of U.S. electricity is used for residential and commercial buildings.
Improved lighting, HVAC, appliances, active energy management, cogeneration and energy-efficient design could dramatically reduce our power requirements. Also, new approaches such as passive ventilation and daylighting can both reduce energy use and improve comfort.
In addition, new designs for the coming “gigacities” can minimize both energy use and pollution. We can also achieve dramatic improvements in vehicle efficiency. Options include advanced engine design integrated with new approaches to fuel utilization, hybrids and plug-in hybrids, “lightweighting,” hydrogen and fuel cells, and others.
Hybrid technology appears ready in the next couple of decades, with further advances in battery technology, to deliver both very good overall efficiency and a considerable reduction in oil requirements. The second technology category includes technology options for alternative transportation fuels. This can include biofuels, conversion of coal or natural gas to liquid fuels, electricity and hydrogen.
Biofuels are currently receiving a great deal of attention, as they are renewable and strongly supported by the agricultural sector. Scientific and technological advances are needed to utilize agricultural and forest waste products and “designer” energy crops effectively and economically.
Such advances look quite promising over the next decade or two. Challenging issues also remain in the design of the appropriate infrastructure from field to fuel and of the regulatory structure for assuring fuel quality. And plug-in hybrids would lead to electricity
becoming a major transportation “fuel.”
For the third technology category-electricity production without significant carbon dioxide emissions-we have to think across a wide range of options: nuclear power; renewables, including wind, solar, geothermal and waves; and fossil-fuel use with carbon capture and geological storage.
Nuclear power provides about a sixth of the world’s electricity. Expansion will be based on evolutionary improvements of current technologies, such as passive safety systems and new construction techniques. More advanced technologies may include modular gas-cooled reactors for the midterm and possibly,for the long term, novel reactors and fuels that considerably mitigate waste management concerns.
Wind and solar renewables are expanding rapidly and demonstrating considerable cost reduction. Eventually, direct use of solar radiation appears the most promising energy option given the large amount of solar energy reaching the earth.
However, many scientific and technical advances are needed to realize massive deployment: new manufacturing techniques, new materials, new solar conversion processes and new storage technologies that enable use of a large-scale, intermittent energy supply.
Nevertheless,the competitiveness of solar technology in significant markets with high electricity prices is improving rapidly.
Coal can also be a “carbon-free” energy source if most of the produced carbon dioxide is captured and stored geologically. With current technology, this is expensive, but there is much promising research on new ways of converting coal to energy and less expensive carbon dioxide capture.
A major governmentled effort is needed to resolve remaining uncertainties, both technical and regulatory, around long-term geological carbon dioxide storage at large scale. This array of promising technologies-some ready today, others with an excellent prognosis in a decade or so, and still others as higher-risk candidates for “home runs”-offers an optimistic view of our capacity to deal with our energy needs.
However, as already observed, this optimism must take into account other realities. First is the issue of scale. For many of these technologies, overcoming key scientific and technical barriers is only part of the story. If biofuels were, for example, to replace half of current U.S. gasoline use, we would need about a hundred thousand square miles of land.
This raises issues not only of land use, but also of water resources, ecological stewardship, etc. As another illustration of scale: If all of the carbon dioxide emitted by U.S. coal plants today were compressed to a liquid for geological storage, its annual volume would be about 50 percent more than a year’s worth of U.S. oil consumption.
These system challenges reflect the enormous scale of the energy enterprise. They will be met only through a complex interplay of multiple technologies, not some “silver bullet.”
Second, policies that are synergistic with societal objectives are essential. U.S. energy policy does not currently incorporate societal imperatives such as oil security or climate change risks into energy prices, as it does for a variety of pollutants.
Instead, we face a complex and somewhat idiosyncratic set of incentives and subsidies that advance introduction of “winning” technologies. Also transforming the multi-trillion dollar energy business, with its vast, durable, and rather expensive infrastructure, takes time-about a half century for significant change.
Finally, these key energy challenges are global in nature and will need far more international cooperation than has been evidenced. Climate change risks clearly have global implications and require global solutions.
However, the global nature of the oil market similarly means that increased demand and security concerns of any region ripple through the world’s economies.
Energy represents one of this century’s grandest challenges:global in scale, powering economic growth, reducing poverty in developing countries, threatening to the environment and to human health, risking geopolitical conflict. Technology is a necessary but not sufficient enabler for resolving these problems.
The right mix of sustained research, technology investments and policies will, however, empower the nation’s scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs to respond to these challenges. Getting that mix right will also present an opportunity for building a sustainable energy future for the 21st century and, considering the inherently long lead times, well beyond.
Daniel Yergin
http://www.articlesbase.com/environment-articles/security-climate-and-technology-136874.html
|
33 retired US military generals and admirals say climate change threatens US national security – do you agree?
Today 33 retired US military generals and admirals announced that they support comprehensive climate and energy legislation. Here is the text of the letter:
"Dear Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,
Climate change is threatening America’s security. The Pentagon and security leaders of both parties consider climate disruption to be a “threat multiplier” – it exacerbates existing problems by decreasing stability, increasing conflict, and incubating the socioeconomic conditions that foster terrorist recruitment. The State Department, the National Intelligence Council and the CIA all agree, and all are planning for future climate-based threats.
America’s billion-dollar-a-day dependence on oil makes us vulnerable to unstable and unfriendly regimes. A substantial amount of that oil money ends up in the hands of terrorists. Consequently, our military is forced to operate in hostile territory, and our troops are attacked by terrorists funded by U. S. oil dollars, while rogue regimes profit off of our dependence. As long as the American public is beholden to global energy prices, we will be at the mercy of these rogue regimes. Taking control of our energy future means preventing future conflicts around the world and protecting Americas here at home.
It is time to secure America with clean energy. We can create millions of jobs in a clean energy economy while mitigating the effects of climate change across the globe. We call on Congress and the administration to enact strong, comprehensive climate and energy legislation to reduce carbon pollution and lead the world in clean energy technology."
http://www.trumanproject.org/files/misc/Truman_Project_-_Clean_Energy_Ad.pdf
It was the largest such announcement of support ever, reflecting the consensus of the national security community that climate change and oil dependence pose a threat American security. I’ll be interested to see how deniers spin this one. Do you agree with these retired military experts that climate change threatens US national security and we should enact carbon regulation to address it?
jim says "Wow, I knocked that one out of the park."
I hope he’s joking, but knowing jim, he probably believes that.
Ah yes thank you bravozulu for chiming in with your expected brilliance. Retired generals are trying to advance their careers. You’re a regular Einstein.
While it may be true, I don’t believe that is the reason to address global warming and I don’t think it really helps the scientific case. Many people already think that everything is being blamed on global warming and this will just be more fodder for that sort of thinking.
References :
First, when it comes to war and conflict, food has always been a better motivator than energy.
(Explanation of food insecurity) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_insecurity
With the population increasing, a failure of the earth to warm up enough to open up agriculture in Alaska, Canada, and Siberia is a far greater threat than what is being proposed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_population
Second, when it comes to energy, if we our government is really fighting for oil, and was willing to accept more expensive energy, then the tar sands and shale in the USA alone would eliminate that problem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands#USA
Thus, if you believe that this war is over oil, you would have to accept that more expensive forms of energy (the ones that require legislation to get us to use them) will not solve the war problem.
http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCostOfNuclearPower
Edit @Paul B:
"difficult to blame *this* … on America-hating anti-capitalist communists."
I as well as the conservatives here, are tickled that Dana is providing evidence of a military/CIA conspiracy to use global warming to justify funding. So, why spoil a good thing with juvenile name calling?
"does Jack really think that these guys don’t know about tar sands…?"
Of course they do. The Canadians are exporting oil to us from Alberta tar sands now. It is a matter of cost.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands#Production
"The area possibly opened up [for agriculture] … is,…, smaller than the area threated by it."
Nope. Very little area is threatened by it,
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2010/02/24/update-on-global-drought-patterns-ipcc-take-note/
and not only would huge swaths of land become available, but the growing season would improve in most areas now farmed.
http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html#figures
References :
Agriculture last time it was warmer
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/vikings_during_mwp.html
It was warmer during the MWP in the NH
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/images/l1_mobergnh2.gif
Arctic Reserves
http://geology.com/usgs/arctic-oil-and-gas-report/table-lg.gif
Liberal Leanings
http://www.trumanproject.org/about/mission/threat
"Clean" Energy
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/nuclear-proliferation-1.jpg
and National "Security"
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/324/7333/356?view=short%29&fp=356&vol=324&lookupType=volpage
Can put us in serious Jeopardy
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http://www.dissident-media.org/infonucleaire/kychtym.html&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhgGsrhuCnjOYQORYZ6OVJCTfFb4mg
To answer your question (I never read your overly-long explanations): Yes, as Dr Lindzen illustrates (see link), panic inciting is a threat to security.
References :
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html
A little difficult to blame *this* turn of events on America-hating anti-capitalist communists.
And does Jack really think that these guys don’t know about tar sands, and just how sticky a problem (pun intended) it is to get useful fuel out of them?
Jack also mentioned food.
If he looks at a globe, he will see that the area possibly opened up by warming is, as a matter of geometry, smaller than the area threated by it.
George, you don’t have to read the question, but if you can’t be bothered to, then you shouldn’t pretend to answer it.
References :
The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) proved the most significant naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars and the pivotal naval battle of the 19th century.
The British Royal Navy led by Lord Horatio Nelson destroyed a combined French and Spanish fleet and in so doing guaranteed to the United Kingdom uncontested control of the world’s oceans for more than 100 years. Because the British won the Battle of Trafalgar, they, not the French, would rule an expanded empire that included India, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, around the world and a world economy with London, not Paris, as the pre-eminent financial seat of Europe. At the end of the battle, Lord Nelson passed away.
His final words were "Kiss me Hardy, the anthropogenic global warming is killing me!"
So, the answer is YES! Anthropogenic global warming is a threat to national security, look at what happened to Lord Nelson!
References :
Wasn’t that what the Iraqi war was all about, gaining control and access to Iraqi oil reserves. Anyone says differently are truly fooling themselves. Blood for oil.
Furthermore:
In a number of years it could well be control and access to fresh water, nations will fight wars to "protect" their interests as they see them…they always have, I don’t see that changing.
Everything from expanding deserts,rising sea levels, migrating insect populations, spreading of plant diease and molds, droughts from changing rainfall patterns and so on, will cause political instability as human populations also be come displaced and suffer from food and fresh water shortages.
Everyone’s security will be threaten.
References :
So does the CIA.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121352495
I suppose that just means that the CIA and DOD are part of the global conspiracy and that they, too, take their marching orders from Al Gore.
References :
Alright, you asked for spin so here it is.
It sounds like these generals (and other vets and vet groups) don’t like war and soldiers being killed (contrary to what most people think about military personnel). And it also sounds like they don’t like foreign dependence on oil either. Foreign oil dependence means sometimes you have to fight for oil, sometimes oil money gets into the hands of terrorists and none of that is good for military personnel (among others, i.e. national security).
Yes, they throw in the term climate change because they have to since that’s the primary reason for reducing carbon usage. But like I’ve said a thousand times, some people like the idea of carbon reduction regardless if the global temperatures go up, down or sideways. These guys like the idea of not giving trillions of dollars to Middle East countries (and the negative repercussions that go along with that). Actually, that’s a pretty good point.
If anyone reads that article as support for the science of CO2 causing disasterous warming, then they are better at spinning than I.
Yes, that’s entirely my point of view and entirely speculation. I have my grandfather who was killed in WWII to thank for allowing me to live in a society where I can openly speculate without fear of arrest or worse.
Edit: I’ll have to do some digging into the Trueman National Security Project. My initial impression is that they are a Liberal front group. (yes, speculation again, give me some time.)
References :
This seems more to be about the politics behind clean energy and the financial aspect of it then it really has to do with global warming.
References :
”military experts” eh! and retired at that! well there can’t be any arguing with that line of thinking!
References :
Jane’s Fighting Environmentalists (Retired)
Yes. And not only that but the climate refugees who will be swarming our borders in search of food.
References :
You will get generals and admirals on all sides of an issue. I remember Stansfeild Turner. The fact is most admirals and generals are conservative and against things like cap and trade. You can say AGW poses a threat. Rabid wambats pose a threat but it isn’t one I am going to lose any sleep over.
I just did a random search on your list. Lt. Gen Claudia Kennedy caught my attention since it is mighty impressive for a woman to reach that high and she was in fact the first. Look her up on Wiki and you will see an impressive set of credentials. here are her political credentials:
Kennedy endorsed Senator John Kerry for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination in September 2003, and served as an advisor to the Kerry campaign. She sometimes was mentioned as a possible nominee for Secretary of Defense in a Kerry administration.
She endorsed anti-war politicians Eric Massa and Patrick Murphy in 2006. In 2007 and 2008 she endorsed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Barack Obama in their respective campaigns for the presidency.[3] She was discussed as a potential vice presidential choice for the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama.[2]
No shocker there.
Wow, I knocked that one out of the park.
References :
It will be interesting to see the Rushes and the Becks spin this one. They’ll likely just ignore it. If the whole military was in on AGW they might have to become pacifists. Ultimately, their credo is "whatever it takes" to maintain cashflow.
References :
Thirty three out of how many thousands or tens of thousands. You get the ignorant and opportunists even in the military. Who cares if there are is a tiny percentage of generals that fall for the latest leftist political scam. They might just be prostituting themselves in hopes of getting some job. Democrats are known to sell favors like that.
References :
You should be worried when the military wants to solve climate change. A military solution usually involves blowing up or killing the percieved source of the problem.
References :