« December 2005 »

David Keith on Air Capture

David Keith sends in this thoughtful response to my recent post on air capture.

Author: David Keith

While Roger raises some interesting points, I think the original post overstates the near-term importance of air capture. In speculating about the potential importance of air capture, I find myself caught between two very different possible futures.

In one future, which we might call the linear future, I assume that we live in a world in which carbon prices/constraints are (roughly) equal across economic sectors and in which they increase gradually, and in which they gradually apply to a larger and larger set of countries. This world is the subject of most economic models of the climate problem. In this world, it will be a very long time before air capture technologies become economically competitive, if indeed they ever do.

There is however, an alternative, nonlinear future. It has been 40 years since the climate problem was first brought to the attention of policymakers (the first report to a US president that stated the climate problem in modern terms was to Johnson in 1965). We have done very little. Despite the best efforts of many of us, it seems to me plausible that little but talk will be achieved in the next few decades. This may be particularly likely if some other major problem (e.g., a global pandemic) helps to keep climate off the front burner. When the world finally ask seriously to manage the climate problem, it may do so in a climate of crisis. Perhaps spurred on by scientific findings such as evidence of impending ice sheet collapse and rapid sea level rise. In such a world we might manage the climate problem by spending 5% or 10% of world GDP for a decade or two rather than addressing the problem slowly and smoothly at a rate of 1% of GDP over most of the century as is typically assumed in climate policy discussions. In such a world, options like air capture might be useful because they could be implemented comparatively quickly precisely because they are partially decoupled from the worlds energy infrastructure.

While I, of course, prefer the first world. The second seems plausible, however, given that governments often find themselves able to manage only a few problems at once and operate by ignoring problems until some combination of circumstances puts them at the top of the policy agenda.

Such a world might well consider not only air capture but more radical approaches such as albedo geoengineering. I think geoengineering is among the more credible claimants to the title of "the third rail of climate policy"

Roger: thanks for getting this discussion started.

Cheers, David

N.B., Our Air Capture paper is now available on the Climatic Change website.

For some thoughts on geoengineering see: 37. D. W. Keith (2001). Geoengineering. Nature, 409, p. 420. PDF 26. David W. Keith (2000). Geoengineering the Climate: History and Prospect. Annual Review of Energy and Environment, 25, p. 245-284. PDF here.

Responses to Emanuel in Nature

Chris Landsea and I each have brief comments on Emanuel (2005) in this week's Nature. Emanuel offers a response. We'll have more to say on these soon, but for now, please have a look at the exchange here in PDF.

Sarewitz on Mooney

Center affiliate and long-time collaborator Dan Sarewitz has posted an advance copy of his review of Chris Mooney's book "The Republican War on Science," forthcoming in Issues in Science and Technology. The review can be found here in PDF.

Sarewitz writes, "The Republican War on Science offers a catalog of Republican-led confrontations with mainstream science, ranging from attacks on evolution and denial of climate change tocthe stacking of government advisory committees with industry scientistscand the blocking of federal funds for stem cell research. As an unapologetic critic of the Bush administration, I was eager to read a penetrating political analysis of how the current regime has sought to wring partisan advantage from the complex and difficult relationship between politics and science. Alas, what I found was a tiresome polemic masquerading as a defense of scientific purity."

For a contrasting viewpoint see this favorable review of Mooney's book by John Horgan in the New York Times, which finds agreement with Mooney that Democracts seek truth, while Republicans seek God and money. Horgan writes that telling good science from bad, "can indeed be difficult, especially if all the scientists involved are trying in good faith to get at the truth, and Mooney does occasionally imply that demarcation consists simply of checking scientists' party affiliations. But in many of the cases that he examines, demarcation is easy, because one side has an a priori commitment to something other than the truth - God or money, to put it bluntly."

Sarewitz picks up on this point as well and rejects it in no uncertain terms, "Mooney tells a story of bad, duplicitous, politically motivated scientists and policymakers on the Republican side, and good, honest, disinterested scientists and policymakers on the Democratic side... Yet Mooney never confronts the reality that scientists on his side of the fence must have values, interests, and personalities just as surely as those on the other side, whom he portrays as consistently corrupt. There can be only one of two reasons for this neglect. Either Mooney has chosen not to portray the values of scientists who line up on the Democratic side because he knows it would weaken his argument and undermine his claim that he is only defending the purity of science, or he actually believes that the scientists on his side are uninfluenced by their values and interests. The reader must therefore decide if the narrator is unreliable or just hopelessly naive."

Get Ready for Air Capture

I have often joked that the solution to increasing greenhouse gases was simple: simply invent a tabletop device (solar powered of course) that turns the CO2 in ambient air into diamonds and releases oxygen. While I am still awaiting this invention, the issue of "air capture" of CO2 is becoming less and less far-fetched. Whether or not air capture proves technologically, economically, or politically feasible in the long run, the technology, or more precisely the idea of the technology, has the potential to fundamentally transform debate on climate change.

The idea of air capture of CO2 is simple in principle: ambient air is taken in, CO2 is taken out, and air is released. (Those interested in an introduction to the technical details should see this PDF by David Keith and Minh Ha-Duong. For a look at a a prototype system see this PDF.)

Currently air capture of CO2 is a political third rail of climate policy. Here is why:

For most of those people opposed to greenhouse gas regulation advocating air capture would require first admitting that greenhouse gases ought to be reduced in the first place, an admission that most on this side of the debate have avoided. When so-called climate skeptics start advocating air capture (which I have to believe can't be too far off), then you will have a sign that the climate debate is really changing.

If such a transformation occurs, then we have the irony of seeing the climate skeptics become the technology advocates and the greenhouse gas regulation advocates become technology skeptics. Why? For most of those people who support greenhouse gas regulations, even admitting the possibility of air capture is anathema, because it would undercut the entire structure of the contemporary climate enterprise. Consider that the Kyoto Protocol and all of its complex mechanisms would largely be rendered irrelevant. So too would be most research on carbon sequestration (though point source sequestration would likely remain of interest) and management, as well as much of research on reducing emissions in autos, homes, cities, etc.. As well, because among many much of the motivation for climate mitigation lies in changing peoples lifestyles, securing advantages in international economics, and changing energy policies, air capture represents a tremendous threat to such agendas. As a 2002 Los Alamos National Laboratory press release trumpets, "Imagine no restrictions on fossil-fuel usage and no global warming!"

Now for a moment imagine that the technological, economic, and political obstacles to air capture could be successfully overcome. For the record, I have no idea if this is in fact the case, however some very prominent researchers think that it is possible, see e.g., this PDF. What would this mean?

This would mean that policy makers could then tune the atmosphere to whatever concentration of CO2 that they desired, and people around the world could continue to consume fossil fuels with abandon. (The entire prospect of geoengineering would of course require some very, very careful thought that I am obviously overlooking for the moment.) Now of course, this argument presumes that the climate problem is one of stabilizing CO2 concentrations at a particular level, such as described in the Climate Convention, a framing that I have critiqued (e.g., here in PDF), but let's go with it for purposes of discussion. The problem of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere would then simply be turned into a technical exercise in scrubbing the atmosphere clean, of course, at some cost.

Critics of air capture that I have spoken to dismiss air capture almost reflexively as undoubtedly forever remaining too costly and technologically infeasible. But given its potential to reshape the climate debate, I am amazed that air capture has not captured more attention from researchers and, especially, policy makers. For example, the recent IPCC report on Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage discusses capture from point sources, like power plants, but not from air. Should air capture start getting attention you can just about predict who will argue against it as being infeasible and work to keep it off of technology research agendas. (Question: Does anyone know how much research money is currently devoted to air capture?)

According to estimates by David Keith and colleagues, the costs of air capture are about one order of magnitude higher than the price that carbon trades for in the European carbon exchange. In the history of technological innovation, this is really not very far apart (think computers). Imagine if governments around the world set up a $50 billion prize for the first technology that demonstrated economic viability for air capture of carbon dioxide at, for instance, $20 per ton, $5 per ton or $1 per ton. The resulting investment in innovation would be massive. To scale the cost of awarding such a prize, it is a fraction of some projections of the annual costs of implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, which would deal with about 99% less of the problem than cost-effective air capture.

Can air capture solve the problem of increasing greenhouse gas emissions? I don't know. But if scientists and policy makers frame the climate problem as one of stabilizing concentrations of atmospheric CO2, then given the potential payoff, air capture deserves to be at the center of international climate policy debate. Presently it is not, but I'd bet that it will be soon.

(Note: Thanks to David Keith for providing useful background information on air capture!)

Inside the Policy Sciences

For those of you interested in the intra-community discussions among scholars who study policy, I have a paper just out (it has a 2004 date, but it is just released) in the journal Policy Sciences about the sustainability of the tradition of scholars who are self-described policy scientists, which is the community in which I received my graduate training in the early 1990s and a perspective that I continue to teach today. The paper is part of a special issue of the journal on the future of the Policy Sciences.

My view is that while the academic policy movement is perhaps as strong as ever, the tradition of the policy sciences proposed by the policy movement's founder Harold Lasswell mid-twentieth century faces extinction. My essay motivated three lengthy responses and a chance for a rejoinder.

If you are interested in such stuff you can find the whole exchange here.

Matt Nisbet on Framing Science

Matt Nisbet, a professor at Ohio State, has set up a very interesting blog on "framing science". We look forward to reading, responding to, and engaging with Matt and his readers.

Hurricanes and Global Warming FAQ

We've set up a very basic "Hurricanes and Global Warming FAQ" here. It is designed to be updated as interests request and events warrant. So if you'd like to suggest a question or comment on an answer please do so and we'll continue to update it as readers find it useful. We'd welcome suggestions for other topics for which a similar FAQ might be of interest.

Exchange in Today's Science

I have a letter in Science this week reacting to an article by Evan Mills in the 12 August 2005 issue of Science, which I comprehensively critiqued here. My letter is accompanied by a lengthy response from Mills. You can find both my letter and the response here in PDF.

I wrote the letter is in response to claims made by Mills (2005) about the role of climate change in the increasing losses related do disasters. Mills stated in the August paper that "climate change has played a role in the rising costs of natural disasters," and on the "relative weights of anthropogenic climate change and increased exposure" in the loss trend Mills concludes "quantification is premature." My letter concludes, "Presently, there is simply no scientific basis for claims that the escalating cost of disasters is the result of anything other than increasing societal vulnerability." Mills response does nothing to question this statement about the current state of the science.

Mills' lengthy and rambling response to my letter essentially confirms this assertion by discussing many things, but avoids engaging the points that I raised in my letter. Here are a few reactions.

1. First, Science for some reason did not include my page proof changes to the letter. This is not a terribly big deal. But I did update the letter to reflect some more recent literature on hurricanes, and a citation that was "in press" but is now published. I've emailed to see where things broke down. You'd think they wouldn't at Science.

2. Mills writes, "The disaster attribution literature upon which such assertions are based is fraught with data and measurement uncertainties and is decidedly incomplete, especially concerning events outside the United States (1)." To support this claim, he once again cites a paper that has no relevance to the point being made, referencing a study that does not discuss trends in disasters or their attribution (here). Mills seems unaware of actual work that seeks to quantify measurement uncertainties in disaster loss data, like this paper: Downton, M. and R. A. Pielke, Jr., 2005. How Accurate are Disaster Loss Data? The Case of U.S. Flood Damage, Natural Hazards, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 211-228. (PDF). He doesn't seem to realize that if the data are really as bad as he suggests they are, that this doesn't support his claim to be able to identify a greenhouse gas signal in the loss record.

3. Mills goes on an on about issues that are far removed from his original claims about natural disasters or my reaction to those claims. He discusses "noncatastrophic processes such as small storms, lightning, soil subsidence, permafrost melt, the effects of mold and airborne aeroallergens on human health, coral reef decline, coastal erosion, or crop diseases." He also mentions "energy prices" and "changes in temperature and precipitation extremes, continental drying, and a range of associated impacts on physical and biological systems." He also discusses "atmospheric and ocean circulation and elevated ocean heat content, as well as sea-level rise and associated coastal erosion." Wow, neat stuff. But what do these things have to do with natural disasters or the clear focus of my letter? Nothing.

4. Mills raises some questions, "Why are losses from weather-related events rising faster than those from nonweather events? What are the offsetting effects of human efforts to curb losses (building codes, early warning systems, f ire protection, flood defenses, land-use planning, crop irrigation, etc.)? How do we explain rising economic losses (e.g., those to crops in the heartland or physical infrastructure built on melting permafrost) that are only weakly linked to oft-cited demographic factors such as populations clustering around coastlines? Lastly, why would rising numbers of events not translate into rising costs?" My reaction to this laundry list of uncertainties is to wonder how it can be that in the face of such unanswered questions Mills can so confidently conclude that greenhouse gases are responsible for some part of the historical trend in economic losses from disasters.

5. Mills mischaracterizes one of my papers when he cites a paper of ours to support the following, "Assuming that only socioeconomic factors-rather than rising emissions-influence losses may yield ill-founded policy recommendations that focus exclusively on adapting to climate change while dismissing energy policy as a legitimate part of the toolkit for responding (11)." Here is what our paper (PDF) actually said about energy policy, "Recognizing that climate impacts are best address through adaptation rather than prevention need not undercut he goals of increased energy efficiency and reduced greenhouse emissions." Dismissing energy policy? Hardly.

I could go on (but I won't!). Mills concludes with a line that I might have written, "Rather than "proof " by vigorous assertion, the constructive approach is to better understand the compounding roles of increasing vulnerability and climate change, and take affordable precautionary steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the changes rather than waiting for unaffordable consequences." Given that Mills cites essentially none of the relevant literature and once again engages in unfounded assertions, misdirected citations and far-reaching distractions, I am confident that for the thoughtful reader this exchange will go a long way toward clarifying where the state of science lies on this issue.

Science Studies in Science Policy

My latest perspective in Bridges is now online here. It is titled, " The Role of Science Studies in Science Policy." It starts out like this:

"In recent decades, science has been increasingly called upon to forge closer connections with the broader society. The days of the basic researcher toiling away in a laboratory with little concern about or accountability to external influences seems to be growing more distant every day. The trend toward a more societally-responsive scientific enterprise has been well documented by scholars who study science in society. Concepts describing this trend such as "Mode 2 science," "use-inspired basic research," and "well-ordered science" will be quite familiar to anyone well-acquainted with the discipline of "science and technology studies." But this trend is not just something that affects natural scientists. It also affects scholars like myself who study science in society. This leads me to ask: What is the relationship between science studies and science policies? And how should that relationship be shaped?"

The rest can be found here. Comments welcomed.

Preview of AGU Presentation -- The $500 Billion Hurricane

On Wednesday at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, along with Kerry Emanuel I'll be presiding over a special session on hurricane Katrina. As part of that session I will be presenting preliminary results of a comprehensive update of a 1998 paper that Chris Landsea and I collaborated on titled, "Normalized Hurricane Damages in the United States: 1925-95" (available here as PDF). On the update I am collaborating again with Chris, and also Joel Gratz from here at the University of Colorado.

First, some of the features of the updated analysis.

1. We have extended the dataset forward to 2005 from 1995 and back to 1900 from 1925, representing 35 years of additional data. (Our analysis of the period 1900-1924 is still in process.) NOTE! This data has not been peer reviewed and is preliminary. But it does give a sense of where we are at in the analysis and some early numbers.

2. We used updated inflation for all factors used in the normalization: inflation data (source: 2005 Economic Report of the President), population data (source: 2000 U.S. Census), and wealth data (Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis).

3. We have included 2005 storms damages as twice the current insured loss total, following the conventional practice of the National Hurricane Center (NHC). These numbers will be closely looked at, particularly Katrina. Generally, flood damage is not included in the hurricane damage tabulation, so how exactly to deal with New Orleans will be a subject of considerable attention. In what you see below, consider 2005 numbers preliminary, but are an effort to make an apples-to-apples comparison with the data 1900-2004.

4. We will be paying close attention to uncertainties in the data. In particular, we are investigating the possibility that pre- ~1960 data may significantly underestimate the actual losses for two reasons. One is that in this period there was very little or no public assistance provided after disasters (e.g., federal disaster assistance) and thus such costs would not have appeared in the totals during that period, yet they do appear in every large event today. Second, at some point before 1987 the NHC began using insured losses as the basis for calculating total losses, multiplying insured losses by a factor of two to arrive at a total estimate. This raises the possibility of a step function in the loss data when this practice began, meaning that earlier losses could in fact be significantly higher than we report, perhaps by as much as a factor of two. We are confident that the data since 1960 is fairly robust. Note that all of these errors work in the direction of magnifying losses earlier in the century. The possibility exists that we may continue to underestimate the hurricane loss potential

Some Data

Top 10 Damaging Storms 1900-2005 (note 1900-1924 incomplete)

Note that Katrina I ranked number 2 here. Even with a larger estimate for Katrina this would hold. The 1926 Miami storm estimate may be conservative for reasons discussed above. Note that none of the 4 storms from 2004 or Wilma appears in the top 10. Andrew is ranked 4th. Andrew and Katrina are the only storms in the top 10 that occurred in the past 35 years.

Top 10 Years 1900-2005 (note 1900-1924 incomplete)

Looking at yearly damages, 1926 is number 1 with 2005 not far behind. 2004 is in 7th place and 1992 is in 4th. The next most recent year in the rankings in 1954.

Top 10 10-Year Periods 1935-2005

When we look at the cumulative damages over 10-year intervals 1935-2005 we see the effects of many large events in the 1940s and 1950s. When we eventually extend the database back to 1900 comprehensively, I expect to see additional years in this listing around 1926 and before 1910. The take-home point here is that single large events are not the only way to look at hurricane losses, but decadal periods with consistently high losses. The 1980s and 1990s appear at the bottom of such a ranking. Our thinking about hurricane damage is shaped by our experiences in an anomalous several decades of very low losses when considered in historical perspective.

Differences between 1998 and 2005 analyses, and a look to the future

Across the board the average per-storm increase in losses between our 1998 study and the present effort is 104%. Inflation accounts for about 13% of this increase, meaning that losses have increased in real terms by 91% or in other words, have just about doubled.

Consider this, if the pace of population growth and increasing wealth continues at these rates until 2020, then in 2004 dollars (i.e., today's dollars) we should expect a repeat of the 1926 storm to cause about $500 billion in damages in 2020, all else being equal. Katrina would be $320 billion, Andrew $200 billion. These numbers boggle the mind, but provide some indication where we are headed.

A Report from Montreal

Author: Marilyn Averill

Andy Revkin’s Dec. 4 article in the NYTimes presents a discouraging picture of the climate negotiations in Montreal. No country wants to take on the economic injuries expected to accompany a reduction in use of fossil fuels, making an effective international agreement on climate change difficult or impossible.

The Kyoto Protocol was intended to be a first step rather than an adequate response in coping with climate change. If nothing else, it has demonstrated the difficulties the countries of the world face in agreeing on and complying with standards for greenhouse gas emissions. Many are discouraged at the lack of will to continue the fight for voluntary international agreements.

But wait, there is hope! We can rely on science and technology to rescue us, as they have so often in the past! As Revkin says, the emphasis on technological solutions is growing. China is calling for development of carbon capture and storage methods while others emphasize the discovery of alternative energy sources. Many stress the value of nuclear energy, at least as an interim measure, although several environmental groups loudly oppose any nuclear talk, and clearly have done homework on the dangers of nuclear energy sources. Again, S&T is expected to save us from nuclear disaster by developing ways to reduce accident risks and to deal with nuclear waste issues, especially the dangers associated with reprocessing waste to produce weapons grade materials.

Revkin says some science groups here are asking for more R&D money. They wisely warn, however, that much of the research will be unsuccessful. While some stress the huge magnitude of the problem and the difficulty of developing adequate solutions, possible unintended consequences are rarely mentioned except in the context of nuclear power.

The COP spotlights the extensive adaptation work currently underway. Some presenters are calling for more adaptation science as well as mitigation science, although specific needs are rarely described. Adaptation may require as much research in social science as in natural science or engineering, as adaptation will require a better understanding of how social systems can be encouraged to adjust to changing climatic conditions. Of course, the same can be said of mitigation, where behavioral change is required to reduce dependence on greenhouse gas emitting energy sources. Better understanding of social, political, and economic realities is required before the world can hope to respond adequately to the challenges of climate change.

Science and technology have always played a critical role in climate change. What is a little scary here in Montreal is the increasing reliance the entire world seems to place on S&T to bail us out of a difficult situation by developing a silver bullet. Let’s hope that S&T are up to the challenge.