Showing posts from category energy.
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Weekly Reading
›In an Economist.com debate on population growth between John Seager of Population Connection and Michael Lind of the New America Foundation, Seager argues that rapid population growth is “the source of many of the world’s—especially the poor world’s—woes,” as it accelerates environmental degradation and “undermines both security and development.” On the other hand, Lind counters that “countries are not poor because they have too many people,” and asserts that “technology and increased efficiency have refuted what looks like imminent resource exhaustion.”
In Foreign Policy, David J. Rothkopf contends that actions to mitigate climate change—though necessary to avoid very serious consequences—could subsequently spur trade wars, destabilize petro-states, and exacerbate conflict over water and newly important mineral resources (including lithium).
The International Crisis Group (ICG) reports that “the exploitation of oil has contributed greatly to the deterioration of governance in Chad and to a succession of rebellions and political crises” since construction of the World Bank-financed Chad-Cameroon pipeline was completed in 2003. Chad must reform its management of oil resources in order to avoid further impoverishment and destabilization, ICG advises.
The Royal Society and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME)—both based in the United Kingdom—released independent reports on geoengineering the climate. While calling reduction of greenhouse gas emissions “the safest and most predictable method of moderating climate change,” the Royal Society recommends that governments and international experts look into three techniques with the most potential: CO2 capture from ambient air, enhanced weathering, and land use and afforestation. The IME identified artificial trees, algae-coated buildings, and reflective buildings as the most promising alternatives. “Geo-engineering is no silver bullet, it just buys us time,” IME’s Tim Fox told the Guardian.
In “Securing America’s Future: Enhancing Our National Security by Reducing Oil Dependence and Environmental Damage,” the Center for American Progress (CAP) argues that unless the United States switches to other fuels, it “will become more invested in the volatile Middle East, more dependent on corrupt and unsavory regimes, and more involved with politically unstable countries. In fact, it may be forced to choose between maintaining an effective foreign policy or a consistent energy supply.”
The Chinese government is “drawing up plans to prohibit or restrict exports of rare earth metals that are produced only in China and play a vital role in cutting edge technology, from hybrid cars and catalytic converters, to superconductors, and precision-guided weapons,” The Telegraph relates. The move could send other countries scrambling to find replacement sources.
In studying the vulnerability of South Africa’s agricultural sector to climate change, the International Food Policy Research Institute finds that “the regions most vulnerable to climate change and variability also have a higher capacity to adapt to climate change…[and that] vulnerability to climate change and variability is intrinsically linked with social and economic development.” South African policymakers must “integrate adaptation measures into sustainable development strategies,” the group explains. -
Connecting the Dots on Natural Interdependence
›September 3, 2009 // By Brian Klein
A vast symphony of natural processes sustains our life on Earth. Recognizing the complex interdependence of nature’s concert reminds us of a simple fact: the social, economic, and environmental challenges we face are not isolated from one another, and neither are their solutions. Tom Friedman drives this point home in a recent New York Times op-ed, “Connecting Nature’s Dots.”
“We’re trying to deal with a whole array of integrated problems—climate change, energy, biodiversity loss, poverty alleviation and the need to grow enough food to feed the planet—separately,” Friedman argues.
“[W]e need to make sure that our policy solutions are as integrated as nature itself. Today, they are not,” he says.
Take, for example, water scarcity—a looming problem that the increasing global incidence of droughts, floods, melting glaciers, and drying rivers will likely exacerbate.
“Droughts make matters worse, but the real problem isn’t shrinking water levels. It’s population growth,” says Robert Glennon, author of Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What To Do About It, in a Washington Post op-ed that points out the integrated nature of our environmental problems. “Excessive groundwater pumping has dried up scores of lakes,” many of which—including Lake Superior—can no longer “float fully loaded freighters, dramatically increasing shipping costs.” Companies reliant on rivers to run their factories or discharge their wastewater have furloughed workers as low flows disrupt normal operations. “Water has become so contentious nationwide,” Glennon continues, “that more than 30 states are fighting with their neighbors over water.”
In addition, while “more people will put a huge strain on our water resources…another problem comes in something that sounds relatively benign: renewable energy, at least in some forms, such as biofuels.” Growing enough corn to refine one gallon of ethanol, for example, can take up to 2,500 gallons of water.
“In the United States, we’ve traditionally engineered our way out of water shortages by diverting more from rivers, building dams, or drilling groundwater wells,” Glennon says. “[But] we’re running out of technological fixes.”
Global food security is also affected. We need the oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, and streams to provide habitat for fish and other marine life—a vital source of sustenance for the poorest segments of our population. Furthermore, wetland areas play a critical role in mitigating the consequences of natural disasters, buffering vulnerable coastal communities from storm surges.
Addressing water scarcity thus requires a complex understanding of the hydrological cycle, its relationship to other natural processes, and humanity’s place in that system.
For years, celebrated environmentalist and entrepreneur Paul Hawken has emphasized the interconnectedness of indigenous, environmental, and social justice movements. In his 2007 book Blessed Unrest, Hawken contends that groups as disparate as land rights reformers in the DR Congo and community members fighting to protect the Anacostia Watershed share fundamental values. Grassroots campaigns of a similar bent have sprung up across the globe, all seeking to right humans’ relationships with the Earth, and with each other.
Policymakers in the U.S. and abroad should take a page from Hawken’s book, recognize the natural interdependence of our problems, and design integrated solutions. Otherwise, our strategies to confront the myriad challenges enumerated by Friedman will fall flat.
Photo courtesy Flickr user aloshbennett. -
A Response to Will Rogers’ “Budgeting for Climate”
›I have a few responses to Will Rogers’ thoughtful critique of my report, “Military vs. Climate Security: Mapping the Shift from the Bush Years to the Obama Era.”
Rogers says that “the report could be read as inferring that the Department of Defense (DoD) has an unnecessarily oversized budget”: that’s true. I think a single country that spends 43 percent of the world’s total military budget—more than the next 14 countries put together—and whose spending has nearly doubled since FY 2000 to the highest level in real terms since World War II, could find some ways to provide for the common defense with less money.
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Weekly Reading
›The Population Reference Bureau’s 2009 World Population Data Sheet shows that global population numbers will reach 7 billion in 2011. Among its key findings, PRB notes that “population growth is one root cause of increases in global greenhouse gas emissions. But the complexity of the mechanisms through which demographic factors affect emissions is not fully taken into consideration in many analyses that influence governments’ climate change mitigation efforts.”
The Guardian reports that U.S. marines have launched an energy audit of American military operations in Afghanistan, the first such assessment to take place in a war zone. “Some 80% of US military casualties in Afghanistan are due to improvised explosive devices (IEDS),” the article elaborates, “and many of those placed in the path of supply convoys.” DoD’s Alan Shaffer recently told ClimateWire, “nearly three-quarters of what convoys move in Afghanistan’s treacherous terrain is fuel or water.”
The Department of State released an inspection of the operations of the Bureau of African Affairs that identifies a rift between U.S. diplomats and the U.S. military’s recently established African Command (AFRICOM). As the Wilson Center’s Steve McDonald told Bloomberg.com, “It got off to a hugely bad start…Part of it was tied up with policies of the Bush era, where our own security concerns far overrode any sensitivities to local considerations.”
T. Paul Shultz of Yale University’s Economic Growth Center evaluates population and health policies, looking specifically at “the causal relationships between economic development, health outcomes, and reproductive behavior.”
Oxfam’s “The Future is Here: Climate Change in the Pacific” includes recommendations for adapting and mitigating climate change in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific island nations—a region “where half the population lives within 1.5 kilometers of the sea.” -
Retired Generals, Admirals Warn of Energy’s Security Risks
›June 18, 2009 // By Rachel Weisshaar“Some, I think, probably are surprised to hear former generals and admirals talk about energy efficiency and renewable energy, but they shouldn’t be,” said General Charles Wald, USAF (Ret.), chairman of the CNA Military Advisory Board (MAB), a group of 12 retired three- and four-star admirals and generals. “Force protection isn’t just about protecting weak spots; it’s about reducing vulnerabilities before you get into harm’s way.”
Wald was joined by fellow MAB member Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, USN (Ret.), and CNA General Counsel Sherri Goodman for a discussion of MAB’s latest report, Powering America’s Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security, at a meeting on May 28, 2009. Two years ago, Wald, Goodman, and two other members of the MAB spoke at another Environmental Change and Security Program-hosted event on the MAB’s first report, National Security and the Threat of Climate Change.
Energy, Climate, and the Military“Our over-dependence on fossil fuels” and “our dependence on a vulnerable electric grid…present an urgent and serious risk to our national security,” said Goodman, who served as deputy under secretary of defense for environmental security from 1993-2000.
Powering America’s Defense argues that U.S. dependence on foreign oil “tethers America to unstable and hostile regimes, subverts foreign policy goals, and requires the U.S. to stretch its military presence across the globe.”
The U.S. military’s energy use presents unique risks. “Our inefficient use of oil adds to the already-great risk assumed by our troops. It reduced combat effectiveness. It puts our troops more directly and more often in harm’s way,” said Wald. “Many of our casualties—and you’ve all heard of the IEDs and EIDs that have done so much harm to so many of our young people—many of those people are in convoys carrying fuel to the battlefield” in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A major U.S. blackout in August 2003—which shut down water and sewage plants, gas stations, telecommunications outlets, and some elements of border check systems—emphasized the vulnerability of the nation’s electrical grid. “The situation can be exploited as a threat by those to wish to do us harm,” said Wald.
Innovative Solutions, With DoD in the Lead
The report recommends that:- Energy-security and climate-change goals should be integrated into national-security and military planning processes;
- The Department of Defense (DoD) should design and deploy energy-efficient systems on the battlefield;
- DoD should monitor its energy use at all levels of operations;
- DoD should improve the energy efficiency of its installations;
- DoD should increase renewable-energy generating capacity; and
- DoD should invest in the development of low-carbon liquid fuels—such as those produced by algae—that can replace oil.
A Direct Appeal
Recalling the sacrifices Americans made on the home front during World War II—saving scrap metal, conserving fuel, planting victory gardens—McGinn urged Americans today to take a similar approach to meeting the nation’s energy and climate challenges.
“There are individual steps that every American can take: using less energy, being more efficient with the energy that we do use, supporting new policies to help our country take a new energy path,” he said. “They may cost money, yes, but if we don’t spend the money now, primarily thinking of that as an investment, we’ll still pay, and we’ll pay much more later. In fact, very likely, we’ll pay in American lives lost,” he said. -
Weekly Reading
›In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement, launched at the climate negotiations this week in Bonn, represents a major step forward in the effort to determine how environmental shocks and stresses precipitated by climate change will compel populations to migrate.
According to Family Planning and Economic Well-Being: New Evidence From Bangladesh, a report from the Population Reference Bureau, “long-term investment in an integrated family planning and maternal and child health (FPMCH) program contributes to improved economic security for families, households, and communities through larger incomes, greater accumulation of wealth, and higher levels of education.”
A YouTube video from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) shows how Darfuri refugees are struggling to manage scarce natural resources in refugee camps in Chad.
Facing Global Environmental Change: Environmental, Human, Energy, Food, Health, and Water Security Concepts, the fourth volume of the Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace, was launched at a side event to the 17th Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development.
The Obama Plan for Energy and Climate Security: Conference Proceedings and Final Recommendations lays out the Center for a New American Security’s recommendations to President Obama for achieving his climate and energy goals. -
World-Renowned Inventor Dean Kamen Talks Water, Energy
›May 20, 2009 // By Rachel Weisshaar“If you tell the world you’re going to do something and they go, ‘Yeah…?’ it’s probably that you’re making an incremental change in something that the world is already doing reasonably well,” said renowned inventor Dean Kamen at a May 2009 meeting co-sponsored by the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program and Program on Science, Technology, America, and the Global Economy. “I’d rather work on the really big stuff.”
His track record proves it: He holds more than 400 U.S. and international patents, and his most famous inventions include an implantable insulin pump, a portable dialysis machine, and an artificial arm, as well as the Segway personal transporter.
Kamen now seeks to provide clean water to the 1.1 billion people who lack it with the Slingshot, a washing machine-sized device that uses just 500 watts of electricity to produce 10 gallons of clean water an hour.
Tackling the Big Problems: Water and Power
Kamen’s career as an inventor began in high school, when he would invent medical devices for his older brother, a doctor. The Slingshot grew out of a portable dialysis machine Kamen developed for patients with renal failure. After inventing a way to make perfectly sterile water for the dialysis machine, he explored whether he could adapt the water-purification technology for the developing world, where millions of people die each year from dirty water.
The data “take your breath away,” said Kamen. More than one billion people lack access to clean water, and 1.6 billion do not have access to electricity. Kamen thought he could address both of these problems with the Slingshot, which uses a Stirling-cycle generator to vaporize and condense the water, removing the impurities.
The generator runs on any kind of fuel, including the methane gas in cow dung, which is readily available in the Bangladeshi villages where Kamen conducted a six-month test of the Slingshot. The generator not only powers the water vaporizer, but also produces enough surplus electricity to power a light, cell phone, and computer for every household in a small village.
The Skepticism of Experts: A Bigger Problem?
In meetings with the World Bank and other international development organizations, Kamen was told that the Slingshot was more expensive than other ways of purifying water, including chlorine tablets, activated-charcoal filters, and reverse-osmosis desalination. But unlike these technologies, the Slingshot can remove any kind of contaminant from water; does not need filters, membranes, or chemicals; and does not require any technical know-how to use.
Kamen granted that the cheaper technologies might be more practical for urban areas, but argued that the Slingshot could have advantages in remote villages without access to technical expertise or a steady supply of chemicals or other components. He also suggested that microfinance might be a way to overcome the large initial cost of the Slingshot—although he emphasized that his expertise lies in developing the technology, and then partnering with experts who know how to surmount the various barriers to distribution.
“If everything I now say by way of recalling my history here seems to you like I’m frustrated, and angry, and disappointed, it’s mostly because I’m frustrated, angry, kinda disappointed,” said Kamen, adding, “But you’re going to fix all that.” Suggestions from audience members included learning from the experiences of venture capitalists who have invested in water technology in the developing world, as well as partnering with the military and defense contractors to manufacture and distribute the Slingshot.
Water, Electricity, and National Security
Kamen suggested that the Slingshot could be used to support U.S. foreign-policy and national-security objectives. For instance, the U.S. armed forces could bring water and electricity to an Afghani village with the Slingshot and Stirling-cycle generator. A telephone and camera mounted on the generator would provide communications technology.
“I would suspect that the Taliban…would be way more worried that everybody in town is happy, and healthy, and has light, and is communicating and showing pictures of everything going on” than about the threat of attack by the United States, said Kamen.
Photo: Dean Kamen. Courtesy of Dave Hawxhurst and the Wilson Center. -
Energy, Climate Change, National Security Are Closely Linked, Assert Retired Generals, Admirals
›May 18, 2009 // By Rachel WeisshaarThe United States’—and the Department of Defense’s (DoD)—dependence on fossil fuels poses a significant national-security threat, concludes Powering America’s Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security (summary), the second report from CNA’s Military Advisory Board (MAB), a group of 12 retired three- and four-star admirals and generals. At the report’s launch this morning, several members of the MAB were joined by several of the people they are trying to influence, including Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Ashton Carter and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Energy, Sanctions, and Commodities Douglas Hengel.
Carter outlined some of the ways DoD is attempting to increase its energy efficiency, from insulating air-conditioned tents in Iraq with foam, which can lead to a 45 percent reduction in energy usage, to incorporating the fully burdened cost of fueling vehicles into the acquisitions process, to tripling the amount of spending on energy research and development over the past two years.
Hengel echoed the report’s emphasis on the interconnectedness of energy, climate change, and security, explaining that President Obama added the Secretary of Energy to the National Security Council for precisely this reason.
On May 28 at 3:00 p.m., ECSP will host a discussion of the report’s findings, featuring CNA General Counsel Sherri Goodman; General Charles Wald USAF (Ret.), chairman of the MAB; and Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn USN (Ret.), a member of the MAB. ECSP also hosted a discussion of the MAB’s previous report, National Security and the Threat of Climate Change.
A vast symphony of natural processes sustains our life on Earth. Recognizing the complex interdependence of nature’s concert reminds us of a simple fact: the social, economic, and environmental challenges we face are not isolated from one another, and neither are their solutions. Tom Friedman drives this point home in a recent New York Times op-ed, “
“Some, I think, probably are surprised to hear former generals and admirals talk about energy efficiency and renewable energy, but they shouldn’t be,” said General Charles Wald, USAF (Ret.), chairman of the CNA 
“Our over-dependence on fossil fuels” and “our dependence on a vulnerable electric grid…present an urgent and serious risk to our national security,” said Goodman, who served as deputy under secretary of defense for environmental security from 1993-2000.
“If you tell the world you’re going to do something and they go, ‘Yeah…?’ it’s probably that you’re making an incremental change in something that the world is already doing reasonably well,” said renowned inventor 
