Archive for May, 2009

Extreme Efficiency in the Waxman Markey Hearings

May 21st, 2009

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

From the Waxman Markey hearings, a few moments of bipartisan levity (h/t TPM):

Waxman Markey as Cover for Business as Usual

May 21st, 2009

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

Last week I argued that the offset provisions in the various versions of the Waxman Markey bill were likely to allow the US to continue its business as usual carbon dioxide emissions, making the idea of a “cap” a charade. Congressman Rick Boucher (D-VA) said much the same (emphasis added):

[Congress will] provide two billion tons of offset each year during the life of the program. Those offsets would enable electric utilities like AEP (American Electric Power) to invest in forestry, agriculture and projects like tropical rain forest preservation in order to meet their CO2 reduction requirements under legislation. Therefore, they can comply with the law while continuing to burn coal.

Now over at the Breakthrough Institute (where I am a senior fellow) Jesse Jenkins has done some math on the consequences of the offset provisions, finding (see figure above):

. . .the offset provisions in the bill — combined with the ability to bank allowances during the major oversupply likely in early years of the program — would allow economy-wide U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to rise at projected business-as-usual rates through the year 2030. Emissions in capped sectors could exceed business-as-usual projections by nearly 9% in 2030 if the full two billion tons of offsets are routinely utilized.

Above is a figure from Jesse’s analysis, and he helpfully provides a spreadsheet showing his work along with his post.

Not A “War on Science,” Again

May 21st, 2009

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

The New York Times editorial page takes the Obama Administration to task for not “following the science” on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

The administration’s budget for the Energy Department raises a disturbing question. Is President Obama, who has pledged to restore science to its rightful place in decision making, now prepared to curtail the scientific analyses needed to determine whether a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada would be safe to build? . . .

We have no idea whether Yucca Mountain would be a suitable burial ground for nuclear wastes. But after the government has labored for more than two decades and spent almost $10 billion to get the site ready for licensing hearings, it would be foolish not to complete the process with a good-faith evaluation. Are Mr. Obama and Mr. Reid afraid of what the science might tell them?

Surely the NYT editorial writers understand presidential politics and how well the Yucca Mountain issue played in Nevada, which happened to go for Obama in the 2008 election. Are we now at a point where, whenever possible, political differences are to be instantaneously mapped onto questions of science?

NIH to Start Drug Development

May 20th, 2009

Posted by: admin

No, the National Institutes of Health are not going up against Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and the other companies of Big Pharma.  They are going to start drug development research on so-called “neglected” diseases (H/T ScienceInsider).  The $24 million program (less than .1 percent of the total NIH budget) to establish a drug development pipeline will trigger a new initiative called Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) coordinated through the NIH Office of Rare Disease Research.  The NIH defines a rare disease as one that affects fewer than 200,000 Americans (less than .067 percent of the population), and estimates there are 6800 rare diseases affecting 25 million Americans (nearly 1 in 10 of us).

I think this is a perfectly reasonable thing for government to take on – fill in the gaps in biomedical development that are not currenlty being addressed by the private sector.  Given the costs of pharmaceutical research, companies often focus on diseases or conditions that affect millions of people.  Government can also make any drugs developed for these diseases available relatively cheaply, as they are not motivated by profit in these endeavors.

US CO2 versus GDP 1990 to 2008

May 20th, 2009

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

Data is now available from EIA and BEA to allow for a preliminary assessment of US carbon dioxide emissions in relation to economic growth (h/t JJ). US GDP grew by 1.1% while carbon dioxide emissions decreased by 2.8%. Now if the rate of emissions reductions can be doubled while economic growth is tripled, and we can sustain that for about 40 years, we might be on to something.

EPA Issues Its Own Scientific Integrity Memo

May 19th, 2009

Posted by: admin

On May 9, EPA Administrator Jackson issued a memo to all EPA employees about scientific integrity in the agency (H/T OSTP Blog).  Keeping in line with the Obama Administration’s scientific integrity memo, scientific integrity is not defined in this memo.  While referencing the agencies previous efforts in this area, including whistleblower protections, Administrator Jackson notes that she has asked the EPA Science Council to assess EPA efforts and gaps in this area:

“The SPC at my request is inventorying all our guidelines and policies that relate to scientific integrity to look for gaps and possible areas for improvement. One SPC focus, for example, will be updating and reaffirming EPA’s Peer Review Handbook and recommending how we can improve implementation of our peer review policies across our programs and regions. I also have asked the SPC to work the National Partnership Council to reaffirm the Agency’s Principles of Scientific Integrity and update the Principles of Scientific Integrity online training.”

(more…)

Tell us How You Really Feel

May 19th, 2009

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

The Financial Times gives its impression of the cap and trade proposals now being debated in the U.S. Congress:

On the drawing board is a vast and unfathomably complex new system, which fosters corruption, raises little revenue and tries to suppress the incentives that are its entire purpose. Otherwise, it all looks quite promising.

The Double Counting Problem

May 19th, 2009

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

As I showed this morning, the Obama Administration’s new fuel economy standards result in an expected emissions reduction of about 46 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Since the implementation fuel economy policy will have occurred (assuming it does indeed go forward) prior to the passage of Waxman-Markey, shouldn’t this imply that the emissions allowances in the Waxman-Markey bill should be reduced by 46 million tonnes per year? After all these emissions will no longer occur and thus no longer need to be reduced.

If the allowances are not reduced, then the cap and trade program will have 46 million extra allowances per year that might have seemed to be necessary yesterday, before we learned of the fuel economy policy, but are not needed today since those reductions are already “on the books”. And with 46 million extra allowances, the cap and trade program, ironically enough, will allow extra emissions exactly offsetting Obama’s fuel economy program, making its net effect on emissions reductions just about zero.

Cap and trade has all sorts of interesting outcomes. There will be more.

Sizing Up the The Direct Approach

May 19th, 2009

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

[UPDATE: DH writes in to note that there are only 19.6 gallons of gasoline per barrel of oil, which contains 42 gallons. Numbers corrected below. Thanks!]

The Obama Administration’s announcement this afternoon of tightened fuel efficiency standards provides an excellent example of what the Congressional debate over cap and trade does not — a direct and obvious connection between the policy and the outcome, in this case reduced use of gasoline and by extension greenhouse gas emissions. If emissions are to be reduced then efficiency gains will necessarily have to be a big part of the equation. Speaking on a morning news program White House official Carol Bowner had this to say:

The new limits will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the program’s seven-year life, President Obama’s climate czar said Tuesday. Well the price of a car will increase, the Obama adviser also said consumers would save money in long run on lower fuel costs.

“[T]he American public — when they go to the pump, will actually save money. Their cars will drive further on a gallon of gas, and ultimately we’ll reduce our oil use by 1.8 billion barrels over the life of the program. Now, that’s good news,” White House energy and climate change advisor Carol Browner said on MSNBC Tuesday morning.

What are the carbon dioxide emissions consequences of 1.8 billion barrels of gasoline?

At 20 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon and 19.6 gallons of gasoline per barrel the answer is 706 billion pounds of carbon dioxide or 0.32 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (a gigatonne is a billion metric tons, and a metric ton is about 2,200 pounds, so 0.32 Gt = 706 billion pounds = 706/2,200). Over the life of the fuel economy program (7 years) this equates to a reduction of about 0.046 gigatonnes per year (i.e., = 0.32/7). In 2007 the US had about 7.28 Gt of greenhouse gas emissions, so the effect of the new emissions regulation on greenhouse gas emissions from a 2007 baseline are a reduction of about 0.6%. If this seems like a small number consider that the U.S. consumes 390 million gallons of gasoline per day (!), meaning that 1.8 billion barrels represents about 90 days worth of gasoline usage, or 13 days per year for the 7 years of the program.

So if the program actually saves 1.8 billion barrels of gasoline then the new standards over 7 years will free up 90 days of gasoline and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (from a 2007 baseline) by 0.6%. These numbers may seem small, but they are actually quite significant. Piece by piece, step by step are how efficiency gains are achieved in practice, and perhaps more importantly, when established as performance standards can be made permanent so the benefits continue (and indeed increase) indefinitely.

Scientific Integrity Trumps Stem Cell Research?

May 18th, 2009

Posted by: admin

That’s an interpretation of this analysis in Cell Stem Cell (no, that’s not a stutter, but a journal title).  In short, there is a significant concern that the consent standards required by the new NIH guidelines (currently under public comment) would preclude using most existing stem cell lines, including those that were accepted under President Bush’s stem cell research guidelines.  Of course, we are talking about federal funding for these stem cell lines; private entities will be free to continue to fund stem cell research.  The new guidelines were drafted in response to President Obama’s Executive Order removing the guidelines of the previous administration.

The issue is the retroactive application of informed consent standards.  For reasons listed in the piece that are primarily legal/judicial in nature, the authors of the analysis consider retroactive regulations to be an unfair infringement, equivalent to an ex post facto law which is specifically proscribed in the Bill of Rights.  From a research perspective, such retroactive regulations are problematic where consent procedures are concerned because it is usually difficult, if not impossible, to conform old consent actions to new consent procedures without violating subject confidentiality (or anonymity), or the validity of the experiments in the research.  As a result, most current NIH grants in this area would have to be stopped.

Given that President Obama’s actions on stem cell research and scientific integrity were issued on the same day, I find it ironic that an effort to preserve one could serve to undercut change in another.  The comment period on the stem cell guidelines should close soon, and we will see whether or not the final regulations will manage to have a chilling effect on stem cell research that could rival the effect following President Bush’s 2001 limitations.  If this is the case, some comfort could be taken in the Obama Executive Order, which allows for the NIH to review and update the guidelines as appropriate.  This ought to be a lesson to those who thought the issue was resolved with the March Executive Order.