This week, I’m going to post a series of NEPA papers for discussion. But I’d like to start out with a fairly wild idea. Last month, I attended a conference put on by The Breakthrough Institute titled “Slouching Toward Industrial Policy.” For the past years (20 or more), the US has been debating how exactly to decarbonize. In the Obama and Biden Administrations, the tendency has been to go for solar and wind and hope for batteries. During the Trump Admin, the focus was on “all of the above” , domestic production of oil and gas and hope for CCS technologies. The IRA was called “the Most Important Climate Action in US History” by Forbes.
And yet, the IRA is something of an “all of the above” as well. So, as I call them, all the technological horses in the horse race are getting extra grain via the bill, from batteries to CCS. And yet, when it comes to permitting or where what stuff will be built, there doesn’t seem to be a plan. Perhaps an analogy is PODs versus “random acts of restoration.” Or when I worked in genetically engineered plants, a company wanted to grow pharmaceuticals in outcrossing food plants. I asked them to begin with the end in mind, in that case, doing an EIS.
Thinking about a more coherent semi-industrial policy, I developed the three A’s which I think are necessary to any such policy. The first is to develop Agreement, the second is Alignment and the third is Accountability. I sometimes wonder whether, like some other environmental issues (say ESA reform), some powerful political figures prefer jabbing the other political party to actually solving the problem. So we’d need an open and transparent mechanism to develop Agreement outside partisan bickering- perhaps some kind of collaborative process writ large? And hey, I know that Congress doesn’t need to do NEPA, but heck, it’s a process that works for the most part. It’s, as some Congressfolk say, a bedrock environmental law that shouldn’t be tampered with. But there’s no reason, in my mind, to restrict NEPA-like processes to small problems, and leave large problems to random political windshifts or flipflops. The structured analysis, transparency (FOIAble) and opportunities for public engagement seem to me especially appropriate to our biggest problems that require big solutions (across the landscape).
What if the US approached decarbonizing by doing an enormous programmatic EIS? As we’ll see later this week, there’s a divergence between what NEPA practitioners generally think of programmatics (not worth the time) versus others like CEQ and some law profs, so maybe CEQ should be in charg? So I think we’d have willing volunteers from the “programmatics are good” commuity. Or like the NW Forest Plan, we could have a FACA committee with representatives from different energy producers, distribution systems and so on, unions, economists, national security folks and so on. Alternatives could be developed with realistic scenarios of future demand, supply chains, and labor needed with the people currently working on such things brought in. Of course, specific locations of new infrastructure (power plants, transmission lines, etc.), and sources of raw materials would need to be included.
Research funds would be focused on trying to answer questions needed by this group of analysts. We could have a moratorium on “bad things could happen in the future based on models” climate research, and fund this kind of work, using whatever mix of disciplines and practitioners would be needed to shed necessary light in the dark corners. And all the information would be publicly peer reviewed.
Sidenote: a foundation funded the Society of Environmental Journalists webinar with Stanford Prof Mark Jacobson. He did a study that showed that 139 countries could go to all wind solar and hydro by 2050. Right now, if reporters wonder about that study, they have nowhere else obvious to go. If this EIS existed, they would. We all would.
Things like permitting difficulties due to local concerns, or even “whoops, our offshore wind economics models turned out wrong” or “gosh, it turns out that those Europeans need our LNG” might show up in scenarios, and uncertainties would be in the open, and in some cases handled by formal sensitivity analysis or other procedures. And of course, there are unknown unknowns, but they exist whether or not the US tries to develop a cohesive and coherent set of policies, or just randomly picks things that sound good to powerful interests of various kinds. I think all of us would learn a lot; and our chosen policies might be more realistic. And think of all the agency NEPA practitioners for decarb projects who could simply tier to that EIS! What’s not to like?
I thought carefully deciding what we want to accomplish before doing something was unamerican? Or at least uncongressional?
There was the Person on the Moon, the Manhattan Project and others.. perhaps this is more like the Interstate Highway system https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/summer-1996/federal-aid-highway-act-1956-creating-interstate-system.
I’m all for the NEPA process as a problem-solving tool. But don’t you have to have consensus about the goal (purpose and need) of decarbonizing first? Or at least a way of marginalizing those who want to pull in the other direction?
Hmm. I don’t think so.. do we agree on the p&n for mechanical thinning for fuel treatments?
If we follow the analogy, people who don’t agree with the p&n would have their day in court to microscopically examine the analysis.
But my idea was not necessarily to make the Great Decarb Decision for once and for all.. it would be to honestly and openly look at physical realities and trade-offs instead of funding an endless series of competing ideas and analysis among folks with no real world experience in building and maintaining infrastructure.
Dear Jon,
Yes, you will certainly need a way to marginalize those who disagree with you. Why not start with name-calling? You could call those who oppose you “Deniers,” or “Far Right Wing,” or “Racists,” or anything else completely derogatory. That way you might get some opponents to cower.
But in the long term such strategies backfire, as all decent people (and especially scientists) cringe and eventually fight back.
Gordon J. Fulks, PhD (Physics)
Corbett, Oregon USA
To be clear, I wasn’t suggested doing that – just that it would be necessary if there is no agreement about the goal of decarbonization. Sometimes marginalizing could be considered legitimate, such as where the facts to do not support someone’s position.
Dear Jon,
Anytime you try to marginalize someone with ad hominems, you are trying to subvert rational discussion.
Science and engineering work because scientists are free to object to the constant stream of nonsense we hear from those purporting scientific knowledge but having none.
This is not to say that scientists always get it right. They do not. But the process eventually gets it right, as long as it is not subverted by those attempting to marginalize educated perspectives.
Conflicts of interest also pay a huge role in corrupting science. Too many are willing to serve their own financial interests rather than the objective truth.
Gordon J. Fulks, PhD (Physics)
Corbett, Oregon USA
A possible example of someone with financial interests:
“He also serves on the Board of Directors of the CO2 Coalition, an advocacy group dedicated to “educating thought leaders, policy makers, and the public about the important contribution made by carbon dioxide to our lives and the economy.” The CO2 Coalition was formerly known as the George C. Marshall Institute, a group that received substantial funding from companies including Exxon to cast doubt upon climate science and fight environmental regulations. [3]
https://www.desmog.com/gordon-fulks/
Dear Sharon,
I am surprised that you as a scientist are willing to sign up for such rubbish. Decarbonization is an umbrella term for all the schemes designed to divert vast sums of taxpayer money to those who play along in the hope that it might have some positive effect. But all of the trillion dollar boondoggles like Wind, Solar, Sequestration, etc have not improved our weather one bit. They have not even slowed the increase in atmospheric CO2. That means you should suspect that they are frauds.
The biggest fraud of all is the demonizing of carbon dioxide. As someone with training in the biological sciences, you should know that life on this planet depends on atmospheric CO2. Too little and life starts to die. We clearly see this in the ice core records.
What is the ideal amount of CO2 in the atmosphere? From the work of Sherwood Idso and many farmers who grow crops in greenhouses, we know that an ideal level of CO2 is 1,500 ppmv. Our current level of 400 ppmv is far below optimum. Will we ever be able to achieve this level? Berner (2001) showed that we had 2,500 ppmv 140 million years ago. And life thrived at that level.
But the natural CO2 removal processes into the oceans and biosphere today make it impossible to reach such levels again. Humans currently put about 10 GtC into the atmosphere each year with only 5 GtC showing up on Mauna Loa. That sucking sound you are hearing is Mother Nature sequestering half of our “carbon emissions.” Some of the CO2 absorbed by the oceans ends up in the vast graveyard at the bottom. That is where most of the 2,500 ppmv in the atmosphere 140 million years ago has gone.
We should be delighted that we have been able to boost CO2 in the atmosphere to 400 ppmv. Without that much, many people would be starving today.
Carbon dioxide is beyond beneficial. It is essential to our existence. You should be able to understand this much science.
Gordon J. Fulks, PhD (Physics)
Corbett, Oregon USA