Chapter 11: Save the Planet with a Website
This is Chapter 11 from free climate book?A Plan to Save the Planet.
The petroleum industry favors handing “red meat” to Climate activists. In other words, enact ineffective decarbonization legislation so that Climate activists fight less. This only works if journalists and lawmakers fail to understand the costs and impact of proposed legislation. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens since it is not well documented. This might seem absurd, because it is. However, this can be fixed, as we discuss in this chapter.
Calculating Cost and Impact of Proposed Climate Law
To calculate the effect of U.S. decarbonization legislation, one typically needs help from engineers at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). In theory, U.S. lawmakers can request a graph that shows projected U.S. CO2 emissions, with and without a government initiative. The difference between the two is the effect of the initiative. A theoretical example is shown below.
The difference between the two plots is the amount of CO2 reduced each year due to the initiative (e.g. GtCO2/yr). And one can divide this difference by the cost of the initiative ($/yr) to calculate the cost to reduce emissions by one metric ton of CO2 ($/mtCO2). Also, one can divide cost ($/yr) by population to calculate cost-per-person-per-year ($/person/yr).
One can calculate cost and impact of many different initiatives. For example, “What happens when 5% of electricity is required to decarbonize each year?” Or 3% each year? In theory, multiple reports could identify how to get to zero at lowest cost.
Change the Climate with a Website
A website could potentially analyze different policies in different countries. For example, it could look at what happens when electricity is required to decarbonize at X percent-per-year at lowest cost, over Y years, in country Z. Anyone with a web browser could then specify X, Y, and Z and instantly see cost and impact.
A website could also support individual states and metropolitan areas. For example, state and city officials might want to see the cost and impact of different amounts of required decarbonization.
Calculation models already exist. For example, the U.S. government has a model called “NEMS”, and it can be downloaded for free. However, website user interface, support for user input, support for different regions is lacking.
Trust is Required
Many models are not trusted and are subsequently ignored. However, much can be done to elicit trust. This includes: (a) building on top of existing models that are already trusted by government, (b) collaborating with government engineers, (c) requiring materials be made open source, (d) paying scientists to review models, (e) requiring reviews be made public, and (f) paying others to copy and improve.
Developing a trusted system might cost 10-times more than developing an ignored system.
Some Regions Make Money by Decarbonizing
Modeling different cities and regions is important since some make money by decarbonizing, and these need to be identified. For example, pipes that carry natural gas into the city of Boston, MA, USA are too small. And this has created a regional natural gas shortage, which has increased the price of natural gas and electricity. If Boston decarbonized electricity, the local price of natural gas and electricity would decrease.
States that import carbon-based fuels would probably benefit from lower fuel prices, and are therefore more inclined to support the Green Line. The same is true with nations that import fuel. For this reason, it would be helpful to have websites that identifies cities, regions and nations that economically benefit from decarbonization. They would then be more inclined to decarbonize locally, and to form coalitions that support decarbonization.
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Planet Saving Website
Below is an illustration of a website that calculates the cost and impact of a user defined climate strategy. This is not a real website, only a concept.
One might begin by modeling green electricity subsidies (e.g. subsidize green electricity by X ￠/kWh) and green electricity requirements (e.g. electricity is required to decarbonize at Y %/yr). And calculate cost of initiative, cost-per-person, CO2 reduced, decarbonization cost ($/mtCO2), natural gas price, coal price, savings-per-person due to cheaper fuel, number of carbon jobs-lost, number of green jobs-added, and locations of lost and added jobs.
The Green Line would be more feasible if voters had a better sense of cost-per-person and lawmakers had a better sense of how jobs-gained offset jobs-lost. Or in the case of regions that import fuel, how job-gained are local, and jobs-lost are elsewhere.
Creating databases, models, and simulations for many regions worldwide and many policy options would require hundreds or thousands of engineers. This might seem excessive. However, the alternative is to encourage people, companies and regions to decarbonize. And, as discussed previously, these entities rarely have the ability to do so at lowest cost. In other words, it is probably less costly to accurately model lowest-cost decarbonization, and have these models drive policy, than to operate blindly and pay more.
Also, high-cost decarbonization puts us at risk of paralysis due to fatigue, before achieving significant results.?
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