Not-Quite-Daily Climate Awareness The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022

(It might take me a while to find a workable new title. Bear with me.)

Now that US President Joe Biden has signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, let’s take a quick look at the environmental provisions and see what they offer. The entire Act is in five parts: Subtitle A, Deficit Reduction; Subtitle B, Prescription Drug Pricing Reform; Subtitle C, Affordable Care Act Subsidies; and Subtitle D, Energy Security—that’s the one which concerns us right now.

A quick bullet list of what this bill does:

• Modifies and extends tax credits for commercial-scale renewable energy;
• Creates tax credits for commercial zero- and low-carbon energy like nuclear power, hydrogen and others, and for manufacture of renewable power components like PV cells and wind turbine blades, and mining of rare earth metals;
• Modifies and extends domestic efficiency and renewable energy tax credits;
• Modifies tax deductions for commercial building efficiencies;
• Creates a tax credits for clean vehicles (EVs, fuel cells and otherwise);
• Permanently increases the Superfund cleanup budget;
• Permanently increases funding for the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund;
• Increases research budget tax credits for small businesses;
• Enacts a fee on methane emissions;
• Provides a ten-year targer for oil and gas leases (62 million acres/250,000 sq km)..

A VERY incomplete list of what it doesn’t do:

• Fix the Roberts court’s sabotage of EPA regulatory authority over greenhouse gas emissions;
• Address cryptocurrency energy consumption;
• Establish a carbon tax;
• Finance global mitigation efforts.

Now, I will admit that those are a wish list, but they’re necessities for real progress against climate change. So they're sort of like wishing for food and clothes at Christmas.

Environmental justice is a significant aspect of this law. ManyMany of the tax credits are intended to help low-income communities, with higher incentives for renewable energy delivered there. There are tax incentives as well for carbon capture (both monoxide and dioxide, CO and CO₂). The tax incentives for nuclear power are aimed at currently operating stations, as there are no new plants under construction in the US (though two new reactors are being built in Waynesboro, GA, expanding an existing facility. Including these two, there are 53 currently under construction around the world.) Among the various biofuel and low-carbon fuel provisions is a tax credit for “sustainable” jet fuel which lowers greenhouse gas emissions by 50% over typical petroleum-based fuel.

The EV credit--$7,500 per vehicle--is complicated by one major condition: 40% of battery materials must be sourced within the US, currently not a reality. The credits also have income caps, excluding high earners ($150K and up for single filers). This and the tax incentives for domestic renewable installations are a welcome step against many recent backlash-type laws penalizing renewables, especially at the state level.

Meanwhile the bill does include concessions to the fossil fuel industry, guaranteeing 2 million acres (a bit bigger than Delaware) onshore and 60 million acres (a little smaller than Michigan) offshore of new leases over the next decade. 

The methane emissions charge is the first direct federal fee levied on greenhouse gas emissions, and is accompanied by tax credits for emission reductions. The bill also funds additional EPA staff and caps environmental permitting review periods to hasten the permitting process for all energy projects, renewable and conventional alike.

So, to address the question: is this new law a game-changer? Is it a BFD? My answer: yes and no. It depends on your frame of reference. Looking politically at our country, you can certainly say this bill is a really big deal. It’s the first substantive law addressing global warming in the nation’s history, if you consider the methane fee. Combined with the tax incentive-version of funding for renewable and efficiency projects, and the bill is a welcome step in the right direction toward sustainability. I’m certainly glad it’s law!

But it’s a game-changer, a BFD, only insofar as it’s the start of the journey. The United States has been lagging the developed world badly in terms of governmental action on climate change. Truly changing the global warming game would mean setting the stage to reduce emissions. In the meantime, the bill allocates $369B—51% of the 2022 defense budget--mostly in the form of tax incentives, to clean energy and efficiency. (And the defense budget is for one year only. The IRA’s tax credits are spread out over several.)

That’s good! But I try to stay realistic about economics and geopolitics, though I’m less than a neophyte at both. I don’t expect miracles. And I, like the rest of us, am all too painfully aware of the political limitations on Joe Biden and the forward-minded Democrats. So this bill is an admirable accomplishment. A BFD, even! Joe and the Democrats seized political victory from the jaws of defeat. I appreciate that.

But I’ll pour a bit of cold water on the parade by keeping my vision on the scope of the problem facing us. The planet is still headed, most likely, to a 3°C of temperature rise by 2100. This law will not lower emissions in the US, or the world. Despite the renewable investments and methane fee, the lease guarantees assure that. We face a world where economic development is still orthodoxy, where global warming is ignored when considering war, where climate justice for hundreds of millions is still a fantasy.

A true game-changer?

A treaty between the United States and China concerning the status of Taiwan and mineral rights to the East and South China Seas, paving the way to demilitarize the area and allow for expanded renewables development there. (Note I’m avoiding saying exactly what any terms would be! I wish I had the answers.) Even more than war-torn Ukraine, the ocean around China is the arena for the next potentially major world conflict, especially because it involves a rising power, China, and not a fading power, Russia. If we could somehow turn that international powder keg into a region of cooperative development, we would change the international game. If the US government were to budget more, every year, on education and renewables development than on defense, then we would change the domestic game.

Perhaps I have the poet’s hatred of reality. (I know one or two people who would nod their heads emphatically ‘yes’.) But I’ll put my overall impression of the global warming situation in pop culture terms, because I’ve been a big Lord of the Rings fan since I was about ten. If overcoming global warming is equivalent to dropping the ring into Mount Doom, with Biden’s signing of this bill, we’ve only reached Rivendell.

365 Days of Climate Awareness 366 – Conclusion

So, here we are! At the end of a year (plus a few days) of daily blurbs on science, climate, and climate’s impact on human life. When I think of the global situation, such as I’ve seen and learned of it, I think it’s grim but far from hopeless. We worry that, collectively, we humans can’t overcome our own natures to always want more. Even when it seems at times that most of the problem in global warming comes from a small subset of profiteers, even that is not entirely complete or honest. To borrow from a (REALLY) old Doonesbury cartoon, most of us don’t have the ability to create a massive oil shortage with a single phone call. Individually we don’t have that kind of influence. But collectively, we might.  

We certainly don’t have much time. A number of climate scientists have said that the next ten years will tell the story on whether our society can survive global warming mostly intact, or else suffer widespread, possibly catastrophic damage. As the IPCC’s latest report describes, averting global warming disaster will require effort around the globe, from the international down to the local levels. The political and economic realities are what they are. We can’t afford to fail.

G.B. Trudeau, "Doonesbury", 1979.

A little over a year ago I was invited to give a talk about global warming. I was a little haphazard, and tried to include too much (my usual problem). But at the end, one person asked, “What can I do, in my own daily living?” An excellent question which has usually frustrating, unglamorous answers. Mine that day:

1. Reduce
2. Reuse
3. Recycle

That’s a well-worn mantra by this point, but of those three, (1) Reduce is by far the most important. Reducing our consumption, in every way we can, is the biggest single key to averting catastrophe, and it’s something we each have the power to do.

I was struck by the four climate adaptation “enablers” published by the US Department of Defense:

1. Continuous monitoring and data analytics;
2. Incentives to reward innovation;
3. A climate-literate military work force;
4. Environmental justice.

As well as the five lines of effort:

1. Climate-informed decision-making;
2. Training and equipping a climate-ready force (i.e. prepared to handle environmental extremes);
3. Resilient infrastructure;
4. Supply chain resilience and innovation;
5. Enhancement of adaptation and resilience through collaboration.

In applying these principles to civilian life, among the enablers I find (3) A climate-literate populace the most important. In writing this series, I’ve tried to help make this more of a reality, by raising not just “awareness”, but people’s knowledge levels about the world around us, so we can all engage more meaningfully with others and make more informed decisions. Among the lines of effort, on an individual basis, I find (1) Climate-informed decisions in our daily lives, and (5) Adaptation and resilience through collaboration to mean the most.  

G.B. Trudeau, "Doonesbury", 1979.

I lost my home in the oil downturn a few years ago—yes, I’ve worked for oil companies offshore, even as I pursue a career in renewables—so I don’t own my own land right now. (How many more of us can say the same?) But I still think of myself as a survivalist at heart. A family member snickered at me once for saying that, but he has a very different definition from mine. My version of survivalism? A warm, dry house, enough land for a garden, access to water and wood, a library and some musical instruments, some basic hand tools, family and plenty of friends nearby. (I do still have the library, just packed in boxes for now, and three beautiful children.) Personal readiness is important, but community is everything. And thinking communally leads in short order to climate-conscious decision-making.

This is not to say we’re conceding the fight! Everything comes down to this November: whether we still have something like a democratic republic, and all the aspects of life which depend on that. Call, knock on doors, write, do what you can to ensure victory for Democrats this fall, so we can keep moving toward a more just future. Fighting climate change is only one, though perhaps the largest, in a whole range of issues we’re fighting for. Now is the time to steady ourselves with some deep breaths, and make the charge to win, so we can keep moving toward the future we hope for.

We are our own best hope. Let’s take care of each other.

Be brave, be steadfast, be well, and be generous with your love.

365 Days of Climate Awareness 365 – Natural Resource Economics

Economics is the study of the creation, transfer, and destruction of wealth. Natural resource economics (NRE) is a sub-discipline of this focusing on the interaction between human economic systems and the natural world. It grew out of the concern for operating the human economy within naturally sustainable bounds.

Ecosystems and components of nature like waterways, air, and plant and animal species, previously considered “externalities” unworthy of attention, are included in economic analyses. At its most fundamental level, NRE assigns dollar values to these aspects of the natural world, in order to include them in cost-benefit analyses. But more broadly, the entire discipline is the means to consider the impacts of human activities on the natural world, and vice versa, to aid in decision-making.

The environment, society, and the economy.

The current discipline of NRE has a number of different roots, including the “physiocrats” of 17^th and 18^th century France like Francois Quesnay and Anne Robert Jacques Turgot who argued that land is the foundation of all economic value. 19^th century British economists like Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo applied land valuation to their political economic thought, and Stanley Jevons focused on coal as a particularly important resource for Britain.

In the early 20^th century United States, land economics gained prominence with the ideas of Harold Hotelling, including that mineral resources like ores, coal and oil should be thought of as capital assets. He created what is known as the “Hotelling Rule”, that owners of nonrenewable assets (like fossil fuels) will produce only as much as will generate more profit than similar investments in financial markets. He explicitly tied resource extraction to economic realities like interest rates. The rule is still used to predict future oil prices.

One concept of sustainability.

NRE has since grown to encompass far more than questions of investment. Current researchers in the field work on comprehensive resource models including availability of ores and their substitutes. NRE modelers also address the destructive effects of waste on pricing. A goal of the discipline is to help guide humans toward perpetual resources, i.e. a perfectly sustainable economy. A noble goal, though the principles of entropy and greed are significant obstacles.

Tomorrow: conclusion.

Be brave, be steadfast, and be well.

365 Days of Climate Awareness 364 – US Department of Defense Climate Change Readiness

The Department of Defense (DoD) is charged with protecting US interests around the world. Part of that mission, as emphasized in several directives within the past decade-plus, is adapting to the changing climate around the world.

In 2010 the Quadrennial Defense Review declared climate change to be a national security threat. DoD Directive (DoDD)4715.21, “Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience”, went into effect on January 14, 2016, and it specifies three climate-related objectives for the US military:

• Assess and identify effects of climate change on the DoD mission;
• Take those effects into consideration when forming and implementing plans;
• Anticipate and manage risks in order to build resilience.

From the DoD report on climate risk, September, 2021. Climate hazards and impacts.

Executive Order 14008, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad”, tasks multiple federal agencies to work together, both in response to and anticipation of growing climate-related hazards globally and domestically.

 In its 2021 Climate Risk Analysis, the DoD identifies several broad areas where climate-related hazards—any dangerous conditions—produce risk, the likelihood of adverse events. A brief list includes categories we have seen many times:

• Rising temperatures causing widespread ecological change (desertification, permafrost melt, sea level rise) which puts installations at risk and makes operations difficult;
• Increased frequency and severity of storms;
• Changing precipitation patterns affecting the habitability and agricultural productivity of large regions, leading to food shortages and social unrest.

The report emphasizes the dangers of combined and cascading risks, such as drought enhancing the likelihood of wildfire, which then, with the lack of ground cover and increasingly severe rains, heightens the risk of flash flooding and damage to infrastructure. Protecting American commercial and diplomatic interests around the world makes global warming a consistent and ubiquitous threat.

From the DoD report on climate risk, September, 2021. Global climate-induced hazards and mission risk.

In its 2021 report on climate adaptation, the DoD identified four “enablers”, that is, areas of ongoing concern, to produce adequate climate adaptation:

• Continuous monitoring and data analytics;
• Incentives to reward innovation;
• A climate-literate military work force;
• Environmental justice.

These enable the five “lines of effort” in successful climate adaptation:

• Climate-informed decision-making;
• Training and equipping a climate-ready force (i.e. prepared to handle environmental extremes);
• Resilient infrastructure;
• Supply chain resilience and innovation;
• Enhancement of adaptation and resilience through collaboration.

From the DoD report on climate adaptation, September, 2021. Lines of effort and strategic outcomes.

The five lines of effort are, not surprisingly, equally applicable to peaceful civilian living.

Tomorrow: natural resource economics.

Be brave, be steadfast, and be well.

365 Days of Climate Awareness 363 – Life Cycle Assessment of a Wind Farm

Life cycle assessments (LCAs) for wind farms are like those for electric vehicles (EVs): there are many available (not as many as for the EVs, to be sure), so it would take some time to become familiar with the entire, or even most of, the body of work. For this installment I’ve chosen a 2015 study from Denmark, being reasonably recent, in a country which has led the charge toward both on- and offshore wind energy for several years, and is home to the European leader in wind power installations, Örsted.

European market share of various wind farm engineering companies, 2020. 

Share of electricity provided by wind power in Denmark, 2009-2020.

This study analyzes the effects on climate change and the physical environment of the construction of two onshore (2.3 MW geared drive and 3.2 MW direct drive) and offshore (4.0 MW geared drive, and 6.0 MW direct drive) turbines. (These are considered somewhat small now, with 8.0 MW turbines on the market and 13.0 MW turbines coming soon.) Denmark is highly dependent on wind power for its electricity: 42% of the country’s electricity came from wind in 2015, and 48% in 2020.

From the 2015 report by Alexandra Bonou et al.  System boundaries of the engineering study.

From the 2015 report by Alexandra Bonou et al.  Percentage of total materials by weight for each component of the wind turbine assembly, both onshore and offshore.

Review of previous LCAs showed very inconsistent treatment of the end-of-life (EoL) stage. This study’s results in that area are tentative because of varying equipment life spans, and that not all components, such as fiberglass, are commercially recyclable yet. In the main, construction materials were found to dominate the environmental impacts, with concrete for the foundation dominating the onshore installations, and steel for the foundation and tower dominating the offshore.

From the 2015 report by Alexandra Bonou et al.  Climate change impact\s and energy payback time for the four turbine types in the study. 

From the 2015 report by Alexandra Bonou et al.  Climate change impacts, as a percentage of the whole, for each phase of turbine life.

The cost in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions ranged from 5.0 (onshore) to 10.9 (offshore) g CO₂eq/kWh (grams CO₂ equivalent per kilowatt-hour). This is roughly one hundred times better than the climate impacts of typical coal or natural gas (990, 530 g CO₂eq/kWh respectively) plants. And in all four cases, the energy payback time (EPBT) was under a year, meaning the investments pay themselves off quickly.

From the 2015 report by Alexandra Bonou et al.  Modeled impacts of each turbine type on a range of specific aspects of the environment. 

The report looks at effects as specific as particulates, ozone (O₃) formation and eutrophication (organic pollution of water, leading to algal blooms and subsequent hypoxic effects). This is considered important because, even in the drive to make energy systems less carbon-intensive, these other environmental effects can be as or more severe in renewable than conventional energy.

From the 2015 report by Alexandra Bonou et al.  Detailed breakdown of component contributions to global warming.

Tomorrow: US Department of Defense reports on climate threats and readiness.

Be brave, be steadfast, and be well.

Life Cycle of an Onshore and Offshore Wind Farm, 2015 [PDF]

365 Days of Climate Awareness 362 – Life Cycle Assessment of Electric Vehicles

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) for electric vehicles (EVs—let’s hear it for acronyms!), and to be honest, I can’t claim to be any kind of expert in them, or in the relative merits of the many different ones available. The same premise in LCAs holds true of any peer-reviewed science: transparency in sources and methods allows other researchers to verify or dispute your work. Scientists can be a jealous lot, so this system works reasonably well. A number of LCAs have been suggested to me and I have to admit I’ve only gone through a few. With time, I’ll review more, but unlike Tony Stark, I didn’t become an expert overnight. So the rest of you Avengers can just lay off for now. I need an espresso.

All illustrations from The Fuel Institute LCA for electric vehicles (EVs). Categories of the literature review.

The Fuels Institute is a nonprofit organization funded by a range of corporate sponsors including large retailers like Wal-Mart and large oil companies like Aramco, Philips and ExxonMobil. A list like that might make the results suspect but I thought, not having a deep knowledge of the field, a report with likely more conservative associations would provide a useful baseline for comparison to other studies. Furthermore, the report contains side-by-side comparisons between internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), and battery electric vehicles (BEVs).

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions found by various LCAs for EVs throughout the 2010's (WTW = "Well to wheels", i . e. energy production and consumption.)

The report begins with a literature review of other LCAs of a range of passenger vehicles (from economy cars up to double-decker buses). The different studies showed a wide range of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions estimates, based on differences in vehicles and methods. Other reports focused specifically on battery life, efficiency and recycling, and the total operating cost (TOC) over the course of a 10-year or 1-200,000 mile span.

GHG emission estimates across the life span of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs), for 19,000 miles (right) and 200,000 miles (left). ICEs are less emissions-intensive through the first (approximately) 19,000 miles, and then fall progressively farther behind EVs the more they are driven. 

Possible progress in battery effectiveness versus trends in ICE efficiency.

The LCA itself breaks the vehicles down into three main categories:

• Glider (body, chassis, interior, exterior and components)
• Powertrain (battery to engine to wheels)
• Fluids

These categories are then applied to:

• Sourcing (extraction)
• Manufacture
• “Well-to-tank” (WTT), i.e. energy production (whether petroleum or electricity)
• “Tank-to-wheels” (TTW), i.e. energy consumption by the vehicle
• Disposal & recycling

Estimated Total Ownership Cost through ten years, ICE vs HEV vs BEV.

Impact of recycling on battery GHG impact.

This analysis shows that internal combustion (ICE) vehicles, hybrid (HEV) and battery-powered (BEV) vehicles are roughly similar in CO₂ equivalent (CO₂eq) emissions after 19,000 miles driven. But after 200,000 miles driven, HEVs are responsible for 28% less CO₂eq than ICEs; BEVs, 41% less.

Possible future trend in EV GHG emissions.

Life cycle emissions from buses.

Tomorrow: life cycle assessment of a wind farm.

Be brave, be steadfast, and be well.

The Fuels Institute

Carbon intensity of battery (BEV) vs hybrid (HEV) vehicles. 

365 Days of Climate Awareness 361 – Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs)

A life cycle assessment (LCA) is a systematic look at the environmental impacts of a product, installation, service or process. It focuses on energy and materials, both as input and output. Industries tasked with producing them complain about the time and expense, which has led to streamlining of the process through the decades. LCAs focus on one specific item, and its overall environmental impact from creation to decomposition. An LCA is not location-specific. It will examine the effects of resource acquisition, transport, manufacture, use, and waste disposal—wherever they occur. Essentially, an LCA answers the question: “how green is it?”

Components of a life cycle assessment (bear in mind that Processing and Manufacturing are frequently merged into one).

There is a close relationship between LCAs and Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), but they are not the same. EIAs are much broader, and designed to contribute to a decision-making process about the range of impacts of a potentially complicated series of activities (such as the start-to-finish preparation for and construction of an offshore wind farm). Critically, EIAs focus on one location: what will be the full range of environmental effects (biological, geological, air quality, water quality, noise, visual, and more), at that specific place, of a given construction? EIAs are required by federal and state laws in the US, and in many other countries around the world. LCAs are not, but they do provide valuable insight.

Components of an Environmental Impact Assessment, which go far beyond material and energy inputs and outputs. The EIA is also site-specific.

There are five basic parts to a Life Cycle Assessment:

1. Raw Material Extraction
2. Manufacturing & Processing
3. Transportation
4. Usage & Retail
5. Waste Disposal

Since LCAs are limited to inputs and outputs of matter and energy (and not other environmental impacts like noise, aesthetics, and effects on other species), they are properly engineering studies. The product, process or service is looked at as a system. And in engineering system analysis, much of the work is declaring where to “draw the system boundaries”—that is, what materials and energy to include in the system, and what to exclude.

These decisions go a very long way toward determining the results. Too narrow a system definition understates the impacts. Too large a system definition overstates them. Either way reduces the LCA’s effectiveness as a tool for understanding.

The assessment deals with the five life cycle steps in the following way:

• Compiling an inventory of relevant inputs and outputs,
• Evaluating the potential environmental impacts associated with those inputs and outputs,
•  Interpreting the results of the inventory and impact phases in relation to the objectives of the study. [ISO 14040]

In this way the LCA clearly states both its own objectives and the parameters—matter and energy inputs and outputs—of the system, and the potential effects. It is meant to be comprehensive, covering all impacts wherever and whenever they occur, throughout the lifespan (from raw material extraction to waste disposal) of the system in question.

Tomorrow: life cycle assessments for electric vehicles (EVs).

Be brave, be steadfast, and be well.