Can municipal energy achieve net zero carbon emissions?

As Boulder City Council holds a public hearing tonight on next steps to municipalization, I felt compelled to submit a guest opinion to Boulder Weekly...

Can municipal energy achieve net zero carbon emissions?

When Boulder signed on to the goals laid out in the Kyoto Protocol  we didn’t anticipate seeking net zero carbon emissions, just to rein in emissions as a starting point, then seek a sustainable energy future.  Since the turn of the century however [this century] a number of communities are leading the charge to net zero energy supply rather than solely pulling down overall emissions.  A big question in my head is whether all the trouble in wrestling for local energy control is worth it.  Boulder’s emission wedges show us that electricity supply contributes 57%, a good place to focus if we want to move the fulcrum.

So is net zero emissions even viable?  Is local control the best analog for other communities to follow?  If replicability is the overarching guiding vision then which is the simplest, quickest path? Let’s tackle the first question, and leave the second for another time.

There are a number of communities leading the way not just to Kyoto targets but toward net zero emissions in their energy supply.  Take Germany deciding that solar without nuclear base load is not only feasible but is achievable without a significant cost impact to their economy (a perceived competitive disadvantage to industry).  This vision is being accomplished through policy and financing solutions, all of which by the way are in support of local providers.  How about Australia deciding that 100% renewable supply is economically feasible, thru a carbon tax incentive of $50/tonne CO2.  Heck, Secretary Chu and NREL show that not only is 100% renewable energy [RE] feasible, they also modeled up that over built RE (to address the intermittency issue and high cost of energy storage) is economically viable!  A closer look at the local community question - Who is doing it and who is talking about it:  San Francisco (not the new Pope) has tried to municipalize more than once, and now has a 100% RE by 2020 goal supported through California’s Community Choice Aggregation law, which we don’t have here in Colorado; Palo Alto passed a ruling that their electricity must be 100% carbon neutral; Seattle also has aggressive net zero goals (of course that’s always easier with a liberal supply of hydro); Toronto is pursuing 100% RE by 2030; and of course our brothers and sisters up the street in Fort Collins are piloting projects to figure out 100% local generation.

Each of these cited is leading the way for others to follow.  Leaders choose to under take the risks, work through the kinks, and provide a set of learning’s for others to leverage for a faster smoother path to an end goal.  So we have to ask ourselves: is pursuing municipalization, the years and focus applied to this single goal, our shortest path to net zero emissions in our energy supply emissions?

Is Climate Change Really About the Science?

At a recent session with Auden Schendler at Hub Boulder the conversation rotated largely around how to convince the other half of our society of validity of the science behind Global Warming.  First let me point out that "the other half", or "53% makers", or whatever one chooses to point to those other people that don't think like they do, is aligned along a political stratification that is totally invalid when it comes to practical things like environment, and economics, and values.  Over the past year reports have emerged (Huffington Post Sep17,11; NYT Aug4,12) that show 70-80% of Americans believe the climate is warming and that this should be a national priority.  We have a consistent over 50% Republicans in line as well.  The only hold outs are largely Tea Partiers how trend Libertarian and although they subscribe to Ayn Randism economics (which maybe works well in a small population but is invalid economic theory with large crowded populations).. I think they missed some of the most basic philosophy of socio-economic structure namely -Tragedy of the Commons.  But I digress.  We believe the climate is changing, experience it every season now, and maybe even understand variability as we trend average warm (abnormal snows in the South but crazy hot summers).  Their is no disagrement among scientists on this subject.  Yet the media perpetuates in the face of the polls.  (The Union of Concerned Scientists just released a report on media over the last six months - 95% of Fox News reporting was 'misleading' on climate science; 80% of the Wall Street Journal reporting on climate science is 'misleading' while the 20% of reporting that isn't misleading is primarily op-ed write-ins or rebuttals to released articles.

So, we believe in climate change.  We are witnessing disruption to daily life on a regular basis these days.  The "once in a lifetime storm" or "500 year flood" is becoming a more frequent occurrence, every few years now.  And we surely can't cover our eyes from seeing glaciers disappear.  So what are we actually talking about?  Human induced climate change.  That's the sticking point because if we are not responsible, and natural occurrences are, then why would we want to be concerned about green house gases?  Well, this is a problem.  

So what motivates people to believe, to change behavior?  I argue that first we've got to be cognoscente of ones value system.  When people experience things in their environment that connect with the values, we have cognition.  Scientists and academics believe in data, studies, and well written journalism.  So it's very natural to believe the results of 30 years of modeling the climate which is based on data, observations and deep reaches back in time through core samples.  They get the complexity of it all and the prudence of science itself -to discover, not spout ideology.  Yet many people don't live in this realm.  If we look at two other value systems that define American's world view we see religion and also economics.  Religious based value systems believe in age old testament and current community.  Testament only gives us Revolutions as any future guide to humanity, definitely a problem.  How this fictional story ended up in good book will be debated for eons.  But closer to home is one's community and family, so when a religious values person experiences the pain of climate change upon their friends or family, they believe.  Likewise with a person who's value system is founded in economics -show me the money rains supreme.  They believe when they see the costs associated more deadly storms.

Behavior psychology informs us that we change when we feel the pain.  We're seeing the results of this everyday through evolutions laid out in the previous paragraph.  Learning theory also illuminates that we don't change instantaneously, that there are a serious of small changes in perception until the tipping point, where our views change permanently.  The point is that we are seeing a migration in belief in climate change and we weren't there just a few short years ago, now we are.  The next step we've all been working on is convincing the populace of human induced climate change.  But this has also got to be rooted in value systems and everyone doesn't believe in the numbers.. because they probably don't really understand the numbers.  I mean heck Fox News loves to use the term "calculus" when they are talking about simple addition and subtraction!  One step at a time.  We're largely there with climate change which gives us the opportunity to change behavior to conservation of depleting resources and prudent planning for risky events.  We are largely there with economics and the understanding of job scarcity and prudent investment on our future (ok, not quite but we're on the way).  

We are on the path forward with climate change even in all its struggles.  Which means we're that much closer to the tipping point in the learned psychology of human induced climate change. But, academics, cease insisting on the "science", we know we are under change.  Science doesn't have the appropriate language for sound bites and definitely can't project undeniably what will happen... nor what happened to end the last ice age only 11,000 years ago (when man kind spawned civilization).   Let's focus on the undeniable observations like the rise in CO2 during the industrial revolution, and the direct correlation to environmental devastation along the way.  Habitat!  Let's focus on devastation of super storms to commerce and productivity.  Costs!  And let's illuminate the changing landscape and widespread release of CH4.  GHG!  If we only say 'what if it is us?'; 'what if it isn't us?' Are you really going to do nothing as our world changes way too rapidly?  

Approaching Energy Independence?

When I read an article a couple of weeks ago in Bloomberg about the US nearing energy independence, I thought to myself -how could that possibly be?  What are we talking about anyway?  Fuel? Crude Oil? Natural Gas? Electricity??  (Ok not true, what I really thought to myself was: The US is no closer to energy independence than the world is to solving global hunger!!)  Back to the question at hand.  We can't be talking about crude oil for transportation fuels (the commodity at the origin of a number of foreign conflicts).  After all, we hit a 70% import ratio last decade; we're the world's largest consumer of oil.  We must be talking about natural gas... but we don't export LNG (liquid natural gas).  In fact, before the shale-gas revolution just a few years ago we were building up infrastructure to import significant amounts of LNG.  So what is being referenced in speaking of energy independence? 


I've been following the news since then on this topic of course, and we're now seeing 'energy independence' bandied around amongst the political right as some sort of proof that we are on the right course, and need take nor further action on energy, and that we'll return to $2.50/gal gasoline.  Ok!  At least in these perspectives I see proof that we are talking about crude oil.


Well a simple little fact checking, to remind me of our exact trade deficit shows 19 million bbl/day imported and we produce some where around 9 MMBD.  I darned sure wouldn't label a 50% import ratio as "approaching energy independence"; it may no longer be what I have previously referred to as energy ambivalence, but energy independence!? Come on.  (There is good information at the EIA site but these two summaries show the trends more clearly -Washington Post and -RigZone.)


Yes it is true that continued innovation in drilling techniques have recaptured previous depleted fields.  In fact in only 5 yrs US oil drillers have increased total production by 25%.  Awesome.  That's what high priced fuels will do for you.  When you add a 10% drop in US fuel usage, mostly due to the economic shock of the last three years, you get a nice narrowing of the gap.  No doubt, high prices have modified behavior and we should see more gains coming with increased fuel economy standards as well as switching to natural gas propulsion.


But back to the main point here: what in the world is behind the statement "Net Exporter"?  Refined fuels, that's what we are talking about, not crude oil.   We actually have more refining capacity than we need in the US.  Perhaps that's good.  I think it's actually a result of capital expenditure decisions early last decade to stay ahead of projected growth in consumption.  No wonder all the hubbub over the Keystone Project to pipe hard crude from the Alberta tar sands to the Texas refining mecca.


It's interesting how 'net export of refined fuels' gets lumped in with a 'narrowing oil import gap' and also crosses over to the topic of 'natural gas as a bridge fuel' to become Americans Gaining Energy Independence with US as Top Producer.  It is absolutely wonderful that the US has a bit more time  to become as efficient as possible given expected growth rates.  It's also noteworthy to look at the drop in CO2 emissions over the same time period.  But it is unethical to lead the public to a belief of energy independence -no doubt that has to be the goal however- when we remain the largest per capita consumer of all things disposable, by a wide margin.  We should live well, no question, but we have to do so in a sustainable manner... which can only happen with open discourse of real issues.