`The Quest' by Daniel Yergin: A great job but we need more

By Ajay Shah, on November 4th, 2011
I recently read Daniel Yergin’s fascinating book The Quest. It’s a panoramic view of the global energy industry. For me personally, many parts were familiar territory. But many parts were new to me, and the overall integration of the story was valuable. I encourage every non-specialist (like me) who is curious about energy to read the book.

But I was left thirsty for two more books.

The first book would be a more technical treatment of the same material.

I repeatedly found myself wanting more technical detail. The pollution from cars has come down by 99% between 1970 and 2010. How was this done!? New nuclear reactor designs are fundamentally safer than the reactors that got into trouble at Chernobyl or Fukushima. What are these designs and why are they fundamentally safer!? Hybrid cars give you much higher mileage than ordinary cars. What are the key innovations which make this possible and how much did each of these new ideas contribute? The oil industry is doing incredible things digging deep into the sea. What are these engineering challenges and how are they being overcome?

And so on. The Quest is a good book but the The Quest for Geeks which would be a great book.

The second direction in which I was curious and unsatisfied was India. The book has roughly nothing about India. It talks a bit about about Suzlon and has some political stories about India’s views in global climate negotiations. For the rest, there is nothing about India’s energy industry. It would be great if a comparable panoramic treatment was done, focusing on India. Perhaps Girish Sant and/or Rangan Banerjee should embark on such a project.



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Is a Great Big New Tax Such a Bad Idea?

By Winton Bates, on February 26th, 2010

‘Where have you been? Have you been hiding from me?’ I saw it was Jim speaking when I looked up from reading the paper. I hadn’t exactly been avoiding him, but then I hadn’t really missed not seeing him for a few months.

Jim asked me if I could give him a lift home. He gave me some long and convoluted explanation about why he needed a lift, but I thought he was probably just looking for a captive audience – someone to talk to about something that was on his mind.

He certainly did have something on his mind. As soon as we started off he asked me what I thought of the outcome of the Copenhagen climate change summit. I admitted that I thought it was fairly predictable. Given the way western governments were approaching the issue it would have been hard for China and India to accept that they were serious about achieving concerted action even if the science was settled. I said that if governments thought the stock of greenhouse gas emissions was a serious problem they would be focusing on the incentives needed to develop technologies that would reduce the stock of emissions, rather than just attempting to cap the growth of emissions.

Jim said: ‘I thought that emissions trading schemes, like the one Kevin Rudd is proposing were meant to provide appropriate incentives for firms to develop better technologies.’ I responded that in my view Rudd’s ETS stood for Enormous Transfer Scheme. I suggested that the Australian government was attempting to confuse welfare issues with environmental issues in order to smuggle income redistributions into the scheme. I added that it was crazy for Australia to go it alone without concerted international action and that if we are concerned about incentives for developing new technologies we should be thinking in terms of explicit taxes rather than cap and trade systems.

Jim said: ‘Ah, that’s Warwick McKibbin’s view isn’t it.’ While I was still pondering whether I had under-estimated Jim’s knowledge of the topic, he pointed to a house we were just passing. ‘Look at that abomination’ he said. I assumed that he was referring to the solar panels that covered a substantial part of the roof. I said: ‘I don’t think they look too bad, actually’. ‘It’s not how they look’, he replied. ‘Every time I pass that house it reminds me that the government subsidies that encourage people to put those things on their roofs are an abomination. Solar panels are about the most costly method there is of generating electricity. If governments were really serious about climate change they would be spending taxpayer’s money more wisely so we get bigger bangs for our bucks.’

I observed that Jim’s comment must mean that he was obviously not a fan of Tony Abbott’s winner-picking proposals to reduce CO2 emissions. Jim said: ‘I wouldn’t mind so much if Abbott could actually pick a winner to subsidize. The technologies that he has picked so far are either proven losers or have no track record. If he really wanted to pick a technology that had some hope of competing with fossil fuels without huge subsidies he would advocate the nuclear power option.’

I couldn’t help asking: ‘Does that mean that you would support revival of the proposal to build a nuclear power station at Murray’s beach on Jervis Bay?’ When I glanced across to see how Jim was reacting to the idea of a nuclear power station in his own back yard, he growled: ‘Look where you are going!’

After what seemed like a long silence, Jim asked: ‘What do you think of no regrets policies?’ I replied: ‘What, like the federal government’s home insulation scheme?’ Jim replied: ‘I think the government might actually be regretting introducing that scheme with so much haste last year. No, what I meant was a great big new tax on carbon emissions’.

I was dumbfounded. When I asked Jim to explain how this could be a no regrets policy he asked me whether I had supported the introduction of the GST as a broad-based tax to replace less efficient forms of taxation. When I nodded he then asked: ‘Do you think a tax on carbon emissions would be a more efficient way of raising revenue than existing taxes on insurance and stamp duties on property transfers?’ I had to admit that it would probably be more efficient than some other taxes. Jim then said: ‘So wouldn’t it make sense to introduce a great big new tax on carbon emissions as a no regrets policy? If we do this we might even be able to have an impact on global emissions by persuading governments in some other countries that this is a good idea’.

While I was pondering how to respond Jim laughed and said: ‘I don’t expect you to see anything about this on your blog. Judging from what you have written there about climate change I expect that the polar ice caps would need to melt before you would support introduction of a tax on carbon emissions as a precautionary measure’.



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McCain, Obama and the Future of Science

By R. C. Anderson, on October 2nd, 2008

Although many in the science community have longed to see the presidential candidates debate their stance on numerous science topics, other problems have taken precedence. There are some things, however, that we know regarding how the major-party candidates believe scientific issues should be handled in the coming years.

Climate Change

Climate change, for instance, is a concept that has taken root in the public consciousness and grown with every year. The enormity of this topic has led Senators Barack Obama and John McCain to take it seriously. Both have said that they believe greenhouse gases, which are thought to be primary causes of climate change, should be regulated with emission limits and a cap-and-trade system. With this, the overall greenhouse gas emissions would be limited, or capped, at a certain amount each year. Then, companies would be given permits to allow them to produce only a certain amount of greenhouse gas per year. If a company finds a way to decrease its emissions, it can sell its excess permits to other companies that may find it difficult to limit their emissions. It is hoped that emission permits would allow for decreased emissions that could potentially begin to arrest or turn the tide on climate changes, such as global warming, increasingly violent weather patterns and melting ice caps.

Stem Cell Research

A second issue that has long been in the news is stem cells. Stem cells reached such fame due to their ability to transform themselves into any cell in the body with the correct inducements. A stem cell could become a lung cell, heart cell or any other needed cell. Originally, these were only able to be obtained and manipulated if they were embryonic stem cells, namely, blastocyst cells. A blastocyst is a small ball of approximately 70-100 cells only four to five days old that eventually grow large enough to create the fetus. Since embryos are constantly growing, forming new organs and developing, they were thought to be the best and only source for these cells.

While President Bush has restricted embryonic stem cell research, Obama would not. He would reverse these restrictions and open the door for increased research and development. Many scientists and people afflicted with incurable diseases see these stem cells as a cure, a way to replace organs or cells that may be dysfunctional with something that is healthy. If one considers only the number of patients awaiting heart transplants, for example, the anticipation of the day when organs can be grown in the laboratory becomes palpable. Others, however, see the increased acceptance of scientific research with embryonic cells as a doorway to disaster for the unborn. Since this area is so new, many worry that scientists might create embryos in the lab only to destroy them for research, all in the name of science.

Although McCain voted for embryonic stem cell research, he now seems to hope to avoid this moral dilemma by avoiding embryonic stem cells in favor of adult or induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. While some believe embryonic cells are the only way to move ahead, adult and iPS cells have shown increasing promise in the last few years.

Adult stem cells are found in any adult tissue. Skin, for example, is made of adult cells that are able to regenerate themselves. iPS cells also have the ability to turn into any type of cell. The benefit of cells of this nature is that, since they can be taken from a patient and used to create a new, healthy organ, there is no risk of rejection; the body recognizes the cells of the organ. Another benefit is that an embryo does not need to be created or destroyed when using adult or iPS cells.

So far, adult stem cells have been used to treat leukemia and other cancers. According to the September 25 issue of Nature, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is looking to propel this technology forward by introducing a program to loan money to private biotechnology companies wishing to create and advance treatments possible with stem cells. Price Waterhouse Coopers, a global accounting firm, has estimated CIRM could make $100 million by 2018 if it provides loans of $700 million. Since CIRM’s establishment in 2004, it has already loaned $614 million in grants to support research of this kind.

The Vice Presidential Candidates

As for the vice presidential nominees, interestingly, neither Senator Joe Biden nor Governor Sarah Palin believe in abortion, yet Biden supports it while Palin believes it should only be allowed if the mother is endangered. They are also on opposite sides when it comes to embryonic stem cell research: Biden is for it, and Palin is not. They differ on the question of if intelligent design should be taught in the classroom. Biden said on Bill Maher’s talk show, “I refuse to believe the majority of people believe this malarkey,” while Palin said in 2006, “healthy debate is…important.”

Regardless of the similarities and differences between the candidates, however, the real question is if any policy will be passed at all, considering Democrats currently hold a slight majority in the Senate, and one-third of the Senate seats are up for election in November. Whatever the outcome, it will be significant for any policy the next president hopes to push through.



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