Climate for Life Presentation California Academy of Sciences

www.aclimateforlife.org/

A Climate for Life Presentation

at theCalifornia Academy

of Sciences

by

Michael Totten Conservation International

mtotten@conservation.org

February 3, 2009

4 TRENDS – Inextricably Interwoven

FOOD & WATER SHORTAGES

CLIMATE CATASTROPHE

MASS POVERTY

EXTINCTION SPASM

Humans put as much CO2 into the atmosphere every 44 hours

1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in Philippines

$2.5 trillionalmost a quarter of

the US economy is at risk from the

weatherlarge forest wildfires have tripled and area burned increased >5-fold since the 1980s, burning 5x longer, and wildfire season has lengthened 2/3rd.

Unintended Consequences – Geo-engineering

A significant fraction of CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere, and accumulate over geological time spans of hundreds of thousands of years, raising the lurid, but real

threat of extinction of humanity and most life on earth.

Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) Misleading

… a more illuminating and constructive analysis would bedetermining the level of "catastrophe insurance" needed:

"rough comparisons could perhaps be made with the potentially-huge payoffs, small probabilities, and significant costs involved in countering terrorism, building anti-ballistic missile shields, or neutralizing hostile dictatorships possibly harboring weapons of mass destruction…A crude natural metric for calibrating cost estimates of climate-change environmental insurance policies might be that the U.S. already spends approximately 3% [~$300 billion] of national income on the cost of a clean environment."

MARTIN WEITZMAN. 2008. On Modeling and Interpreting the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change. REStat FINAL Version July 7, 2008, http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/weitzman/files/REStatFINAL.pdf.

Contraction & Convergence “ . . . the logical conclusion of a rights-based approach.” IPCC Third Assessment - June 2000

Right-Sizing Humans’ CO2 Footprint

2008

2050

now 45GtCO2

reduce to<10 GtCO2

2100reduce to<4 GtCO2

3%/yr

19x2%/yr

7x

The Virtuous Cycle of Green Innovation

Noel Parry et al., California Green Innovation Index 2009, Next 10, www.next10.org/

agriculture5%

bldgs EE15%

transport EE15%

industry EE15%

solar15%

wind15%

biomass10%

geothermal1%

oil1%

gas2%

coal1%

forests5%

Wedges Scenario for 21st Century CO2 Reductions

Assumes:

1) Global economic growth 2-3% per year all century long;

2) sustaining 3% per year efficiency gains;

3) Combined carbon cap & carbon tax

IPCC LULUCF Special Report 2000. Tab 1-2.

Gigatons global CO2 emissions per year

0

5

10

15

20

25

Fossil fuel emissions Tropical land use

Billion tons CO2

“Leasing” CO2 Mitigation Services

5 billion tons CO2 per year in mitigation services available in poor nations, increasing their revenues by billions of dollars annually ; and saving well-off nations billions of dollars.

US GHG levels

13 million hectares burned each year

6th largest extinction – 1000 times the natural background rate

Direct yields from tropical lands converted to farming, including proceeds from the sale of timber are:

equivalent to less than $1 per ton of CO2 in many areas currently losing forest, and usually well below $5 per ton.

Avoided Deforestation offers one of the most cost-effective, immediately available, large-scale carbon mitigation and adaptation options. Unchecked, deforestation could increase atmospheric concentrations of CO2by as much as 130 ppm this century.

For example: it will require $40 billion to capture and store1 billion tons of CO2 from coal plants.

The same amount of money would prevent the release of 8 timesthis amount of CO2 through avoided deforestation.

Sir Nicholas Stern

$-$5

$10$15$20$25$30$35$40$45$50

CCS REDD

Geological storage (CCS) vsEcological storage (REDD)

Carbon Mitigation Cost

U.S. Fossil- fueled Electricity Carbon Offset cost nationally annually

(2.4 GtCO2 in 2007)

~$100 billion~3 ¢ per kWh

~$18 billion~0.5 ¢ per kWh

$ per ton CO2

Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS)

Reduced Emissions Deforestation & Degradation

(REDD)

Source: Michael Totten, REDD is CCS NOW, December 2008

Madagascar Makira Reserve - Protecting & restoring wilderness, while helping people, species & climate

Ecuador collaborative offset projects

Preserve habitat for threatened Andean Spectacled Bear, Howler Monkey, and Northern Naked Tailed Armadillo

FCCBForest Restoration

for Climate, Community and Biodiversity

1. Economically affordable2. Safe3. Clean4. Risk is low and manageable5. Resilient and flexible6. Ecologically sustainable7. Environmentally benign8. Fails gracefully, not catastrophically9. Rebounds easily and swiftly from failures10.Endogenous learning capacity11.Robust experience curve for reducing

negative externalities and amplifying positive externalities

12.Uninteresting target for malicious disruption

Desirable attributes of a Smart Energy system

DOZEN CRITERIA

including poorest of the poor and cash-strapped?through the entire life cycle?through the entire lifespan?

from financial and price volatility?to volatility, surprises, miscalculations, human error?

no adverse impacts on biodiversity?maintains air, water, soil quality?

adaptable to abrupt surprises or crises?low recovery cost and lost time?

intrinsic new productivity opportunities?

scalable innovation possibilities?

off the radar of terrorists, military planners?

A Defensible Smart Energy Criteria Scoring

Efficiency BIPV PV Wind CSP CHP Biowastepower

Geo-thermal

Nat gas

Bio-fuels

Oil imports

Coal CCS

nuclearTar sand

Oil shale

Coal to liquids

Coal no

CCS

Promote

CHP + biowastes

Economically AffordableSafeCleanSecureResilient & flexibleEcologically sustainableEnvironmentally benignFails gracefully, not catastroRebounds easily from failuresEndogenous learning capacityRobust experience curvesUninteresting military target

Align utility and customer financial interests to capture the vast pool of end-use efficiency,

onsite and distributed energy and water service opportunities.

KEY POLICY – UTILITY DECOUPLINGKEY POLICY – UTILITY DECOUPLING

Dr. Art Rosenfeld Amory Lovins Ralph Cavanagh

Envision 18 million coal railcars that would wrap around the world seven times each year.

Or, imagine 8,800 Exxon Valdez oil supertanker shipments per year.

Only 2 nations consume > 75 EJ per year: USA and China.

USA Efficiency gains 1973-2005 Eliminated 75 ExaJoules of Energy Supply

$700 billion per year in energy bill savings

BUSINESS-AS-USUAL TRAJECTORY 200 times this amount over 100 years –113,000 EJ (3600 TW-yrs). Fossil fuels will account for 75% of this sum.

CURRENT GLOBAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION ~ 475 ExaJoules (15 TW-yrs)

13.8 billion coal railroad

cars.

SMART ENERGY SERVICES (EFFICIENCY) can deliver 57,000 EJs (1800 TW-yrs). Save >$50 trillion. Avoid several trillion tons CO2 emissions.

OR 17 million LNG tanker shipments.

OR 10,000 giant offshore oil platforms.

Envision eliminating the need this century for:

OR 6,700 large nuclear

reactors.

In the USA, cities and residences cover 56 million hectares.

Every kWh of current U.S. energy requirements can be met simply by applying photovoltaics (PV) to 7% of this area—on roofs, parking lots, along highway walls, on sides of buildings, and in other dual-use scenarios. Experts say we wouldn’t have to appropriate a single acre of new land to make PV our primary energy source!

90% of America’s current electricity could be supplied with PV systems built in the “brown-fields”— the estimated 2 million hectares of abandoned industrial sites that exist in our nation’s cities.

Larry Kazmerski, Dispelling the 7 Myths of Solar Electricity, 2001, National Renewable Energy Lab, www.nrel.gov/;

Cleaning Up Brownfield

Sites w/ PV solar

Solar Photovoltaics (PV) satisfying 90% of total US electricity from brownfields

SunSlate Building-Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) commercial

building in Switzerland

+$11,024 1.702

+$15,373 1.892

NPV ($) BCR PBP (yrs)

Aluminum

+$14,237 2.141

+$18,586 2.331

NPV ($) BCR PBP (yrs)

Polished Stone

ShanghaiBeijingEconomic Measure

Material Replaced

Net Present Values (NPV), Benefit-Cost Ratios (BCR) & Payback Periods (PBP) for ‘Architectural’ BIPV (Thin Film, Wall-Mounted PV) in Beijing and Shanghai (assuming a 15% Investment Tax Credit)

Byrne et al, Economics of Building Integrated PV in China, July 2001, Univ. of Delaware, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy, Twww.udel.edu/ceep/T]

Economics of Commercial BIPV Building-Integrated Photovoltaics

Reference costs of facade-cladding materialsBIPV is so economically attractive because it captures both energy savings and savings from displacing other expensive building materials.

Eiffert, P., Guidelines for the Economic Evaluation of Building-Integrated Photovoltaic Power Systems, International Energy Agency PVPS Task 7: Photovoltaic Power Systems in the Built Environment, Jan. 2003, National Renewable Energy Lab, NREL/TP-550-31977, www.nrel.gov/

Economics of Commercial BIPV

Commercial New Construction Green Building Feebate

Proposed policy for adoption by Portland, OR, Jan. 2009

Vehicle-to-Grid

Convergences & EmergencesConnecting the 1 TW Grid with the nearly 3 TW Vehicle fleet

Electric vehicles with onboard battery storageand bi-directional power flows could stabilize large-scale (one-half of US electricity) wind power with 3% of the fleet dedicated to regulation for wind, plus 8–38% of the fleet providing operating reserves or storage for wind.

Kempton, W and J. Tomic. (2005a). V2G implementation: From stabilizing the grid to supporting large-scale renewable energy. J. Power Sources, 144, 280-294.

Vehicle-to-Grid PHEVs

Pacific NW National Lab 2006 Analysis SummaryPHEVs w/ Current Grid Capacity

Source: Michael Kintner-Meyer, Kevin Schneider, Robert Pratt, Impacts Assessment of Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles on Electric Utilities and Regional U.S. Power Grids, Part 1: Technical Analysis, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 01/07, www.pnl.gov/.

ENERGY POTENTIALU.S. existing electricity infrastructure has sufficient available capacity to fuel 84% of the nation’s cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs (198 million), or

73% of the light duty fleet (about 217 million vehicles) for a daily drive of 33 miles on average

ENERGY & NATIONAL SECURITY POTENTIALA shift from gasoline to PHEVs could reduce gasoline consumption by 85 billion gallons per year, which is equivalent to 52% of U.S. oil imports (6.5 million barrels per day).

OIL MONETARY SAVINGS POTENTIAL~$240 billion per year in gas pump savings

AVOIDED EMISSIONS POTENTIAL (emissions ratio of electric to gas vehicle)

27% decline GHG emissions, 100% urban CO, 99% urban VOC, 90% urban NOx, 40% urban PM10, 80% SOx; BUT, 18% higher national PM10 & doubling of SOxnationwide (from higher coal generation).

Corn ethanol

Cellulosic ethanol

Wind-battery turbine spacing

Wind turbines ground footprint

Solar-battery

Mark Z. Jacobson, Wind Versus Biofuels for Addressing Climate, Health, and Energy, Atmosphere/Energy Program, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, March 5, 2007, http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/E85vWindSol

Area to Power 100% of U.S. Onroad Vehicles

WEB CALCULATOR- VISUALIZER – COMPARISON OF LAND NEEDED TO POWER VEHICLES

Wind & Solar experts

Solar-battery and Wind-battery refer to battery storage of these intermittent renewableresources in plug-in electric driven vehicles

By 2100, an additional 1700 million ha of land may be required for agriculture.

Combined with the 800 million ha of additional land needed for medium growth bioenergy scenarios, threatens intact ecosystems and biodiversity-rich habitats.

Food, Fuel, SpeciesTradeoffs?

Global Web Mesh

Gathering Data & Harvesting

Collective Intelligence

Global Wired Mesh Resources

www.wikinomics.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Networks

http://www.shirky.com/

http://web2expo.blip.tv/file/855937/

And incredible video at:And incredible video at:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgYE75gkzkM

5000 days ago Pre-Web Pre-Commercial Internet

published content

published contentuser

generated content

user generated

content

“the mostly read only Web” “the wildly read write Web”

45 million global users 1 billion+ global users

collectiveintelligence

The WIKIPEDIA MODEL: In 6 years and with only 6 paid employees, Catalyzed a value-adding creation now 10 times larger than the Encyclopedia Britannica, Growing, Updated, Corrected daily by 80,000 volunteer editors and content authors, Translating content into 150+ languages, and Visited daily by some 5% of worldwide Internet traffic.

Cognitive Surplus

100 million hours to create Wikipedia – same as hours Americans watch TV ads each weekend.

The Internet-connected population worldwide watches roughly a trillion hours of TV a year.

One per cent of that is 100 Wikipedia projects per year worth of peer participation.

www.shirky.com/herecomeseverybody/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.html

http://calacanis.com/2008/04/30/clay-shirky-cognitive-surplus-talk-at-web-2-0/

Clay Shirkey’s

Large-scale distributed work-force projects are impractical in theory, but doable in reality.

2010-2012

Web3.0+

1 trillion sites

published content

Semantically-linked RW webCollectiveintelligence Smart Grid

3 billion global users

User generated content

5000 days ago Pre-Web Pre-Commercial Internet5000 days from now Global Cloud Network

Harnessing Collective Intelligence to:Prevent Climate Catastrophe

Avert Mass Species ExtinctionPromote Green Prosperity & Well-being

GREEN BUILDING, Laura Ingall Commercial Green Building Manager, SF Environment

LEED Certified Green Buildings

CA

Waste as Nutrient – Information Bitstream

Denver Neighborhood solar smart mini-grids – City Park West

Denver Neighborhood solar smart mini-grids – City Park West

Smart Grid Web-based Solar Power Auctions

Smart Grid Collective intelligence design based on digital map algorithms continuously calculating solar gain. Information used to rank expansion of solar panel locations.

Figures of MeritGreat Plains area

1,200,000 mi2

Provide 100% U.S. electricity400,000 2MW wind turbines

Platform footprint6 mi2

Large Wyoming Strip Mine>6 mi2

Total Wind spacing area 37,500 mi2

Still available for farming and prairie restoration

90%+ (34,000 mi2)

CO2 U.S. electricity sector40%

95% of U.S. terrestrial wind resources in Great Plains

The three sub-regions of the Great Plains are: Northern Great Plains = Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota; Central Great Plains = Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas; Southern Great Plains = Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. (Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis 1998, USDA 1997 Census of Agriculture)

Although agriculture controls about 70% of Great Plains land area, it contributes 4 to 8% of the Gross Regional Product.

Wind farms could enable one of the greatest economic booms in American history for Great Plains rural communities, while also enabling one of world’s largest restorations of native prairie ecosystems

How?

Wind Farm Royalties – Could Doublefarm/ranch income with 30x less land area

$0 $50 $100 $150 $200 $250

windpower farm

non-wind farm

US Farm Revenues per hectare

govt. subsidy $0 $60windpower royalty $200 $0farm commodity revenues $50 $64

windpower farm non-wind farm

Williams, Robert, Nuclear and Alternative Energy Supply Options for an Environmentally Constrained World, April 9, 2001, http://www.nci.org/

Wind Royalties – Sustainable source of Rural Farm and Ranch Income

Crop revenue Govt. subsidy

Wind profits

1) Restoring the deep-rooting, native prairie grasslands that absorb and store soil carbon and stop soil erosion (hence generating a potential revenue stream from selling CO2 mitigation credits in the emerging global carbon trading market);

Potential Synergisms

2) Re-introducing free-ranging bison into these prairie grasslands --which naturally co-evolved together for millennia -- generating a potential revenue stream from marketing high-value organic, free-range beef.

Two additional potential revenue streams in Great Plains:

Also More Resilient to Climate-triggered

Droughts

Thank you !

StarAppleMesh

Environmental/ health

externalities $10+ trillion

Military/ Security

externalities $10+ trillion

USA Energy expenditures 1975-2000

$25 trillion energy costs

$325 billion Dept of Energy

4% for all efficiency & 5% all renewables

Current Public R&D Priorities Do Not RepresentCustomer-focused, Retail-driven Solutions

$8 trillion losses price

volatlity

Status Quo Retail-driven Scenario

2/3 efficiency

solar, wind biofuels

• Lower energy costs

• Lower price volatility

• Lower Environmental & Health externalities

• Lower military & security externalities

DOE budget

Priorities PrioritiesOutcomes OutcomesOil industryUtility industryCoal industryNatural gas industryNuclear industryLarge Hydro industry

ConsumersRetailersSuppliersManufacturersNatural resource sector

High energy costsVolatile PricesSecurity vulnerabilityHigher pollution levelsLong-term environmental damage

• Shift of capital from utility sector to retail sector

• Greening supply chain out of avoided utility costs

• Tax-free reductions in air & water pollution

2007-2030

A Decade of Immense Financial Loss, Human Tragedy & Time Squandered