Of course, the future looks busy as well.

I just received word that I would be the Lecture Co-Chair for the MIT Energy Club in the upcoming year.  I am so thrilled.  I will have more details in the coming months, but this post will hopefully serve as a tool in my new role in the MIT community.  My task is to organize a number of lectures for the greater MIT community addressing the issue of energy.  Big topic, I know.  And for that reason, I hope that this blog might help me develop ideas for speakers.  If all goes well, I will be posting about potential lectures, and providing a recap of the lectures that happen.  It should make for some good reading.

That’s it for now.

No Impact Man is one wing of Colin Beavan’s multi-format documentation of his year spent striving to not impact the earth.

I have not had a chance to read his book, and probably won’t, this shouldn’t be seen as a huge knock against Colin and his admirable quest to reduce his impact. However, I, like many others am growing a bit fatigued of the “Do something for a year and then sell a book about it” concept.

This isn’t to say that there haven’t been some great projects born out of this framework, but once I’ve read a half dozen or so, I’ve pretty well had my fill.  My personal favorite of this genre was “Not Buying It”, worth a read if you aren’t tired of this genre as well.

On to the movie itself. I believe this film is intended as a documentary of Beavan’s book writing more than his actual journey to no-impact land, and as such seems to have more of a focus on the impact of this project on his wife and their relationship. At one particular point in the film Colin himself even comments how “Reality-TV like” the conversation between he and his wife feels, and he is speaking the truth, many of their exchanges seem somewhere between survivor and a marriage reality show.

Relationship spotlight notwithstanding, it was interesting to watch the stages of the project unfold on camera as the Beavan household moves from a relatively standard middle-class Manhattan household to living a relatively primitive existence without cars, elevators, electricity, toilet paper, detergent (well, they do have Borax), and all the trappings of our current middle class lifestyle.

But in the end, I just couldn’t connect with the Beavans and was left wondering whether they give the environmental movement a bad rap.  As I watched their film I wavered in deciding whether to label them as fringe lunatics or spoiled yuppies and I just couldn’t get the thought out of my mind that despite all the publicity of their sacrifices, they are still living a life much more comfortable than many of the world’s citizens.

My final rating is 2/5 stars. There are some redeeming moments and the film is easy enough to watch, but it is nowhere near the best in class.  Topics covered will be familiar and almost rote to anyone with a background in sustainability.

I was impressed by the conference overall.  The organization for a student-run event was stellar.

As for the content, I found all of the lectures and panel discussions to be very informative, but not particularly incendiary.  And really, that’s probably a good thing given how serious the energy problem is.

This brings me to my take home message from the conference: What is the energy problem?

There is a huge number of people, a huge amount of energy, and a huge pile of money being spent on the “energy problem”.  But the real issue seems to be that the future is very uncertain with regard to energy.  Oil production may be peaking, but coal is still plentiful, especially in China, India, and the USA.  When will the market for clean energy become profitable?  Until people know the answer to this question, the clean technology sector is unlikely to make in-roads on a large-scale in the energy sector.

If you can predict what the future of energy entails, you might want to inform the “experts” in the field, who all seem to disagree with each other.  From my perspective, the uncertainty of the future is paralyzing progress on replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources.  This uncertainty stems from a combination of a lack of government regulation, a lack of a consumer demand, and a lack of economic profitability of new technologies.

I’ll address these issues more in future posts, but I cannot guarantee clear solutions.  Until one aspect of the situation takes the lead (be it governance, consumer attitude, or economics), little measurable progress will be made.

I wanted to give a quick plug for the MIT Energy Conference that is taking place today and tomorrow.  I’ll be attending, and will provide my thoughts on the event in a subsequent post this weekend.  It looks to be a good mix of technology and policy talks.

March 5th and 6th, 2010

On first glance, I’m most excited about the panel discussions on the water constraints in energy production and the rise of China in the clean energy sector.

Stay tuned for more.  Also, you can check out the conference via facebook.

The book itself is written very well.  I give Pollan high marks for his prose, which allows the reader to be engaged in a topic (food chains) that might otherwise be very dull.  His ability to intertwine numerical facts within the recount of his explorations is amazingly smooth; its like going on a guided tour/field trip without having to leave the comfort of your living room.  Overall, it was a pleasure to read.

Another strength of the book lies in the organizational structure utilized by Pollan.  Rather than try to do a side by side by side comparison, he breaks his experiences, and the book, into three sections: the Corn, the Grass, and the Personal.  He analyzes the food chain and concludes each section with a meal derived from that food chain.  In this structure, Pollan is emphasizing what is the base component of the food chain.  By dividing the book into such sections and almost allowing each of them to stand alone, my thoughts and opinions for each section were allowed to gel before being transferred into the next ecosystem.  By the end of the book, I had a very concrete sense of how to compare the three food chains, thanks mostly to this three part division of the text.

As for the subject matter, there is little doubt upon finishing the book that Pollan has a rather pointed thesis — Humans have a huge choice as to what they eat (this is the dilemma), and the current industrial agriculture behemoth that feeds America is unsustainable, and causing change within this industry will only occur if the consumer changes their eating habits.  The industrial food system uses too much energy derived from fossil fuels to transport goods and produce fertilizers.  The monoculture farming techniques deplete the soil of its vitality.  The pollution from over-fertilizing is damaging the environment on the farm, in the nation’s water supply and ultimately in the oceans where the run-off flows.  The massive feedlot style of raising cattle, pigs, and chickens results in unhealthy animals that live unnatural lives and are potentially less nutritious to eat.  Plus, the health and longevity of the nation are imperiled by a food industry that uses over-simplified science to convince us to eat more of less-nutritious food than we need.

That’s not to say that the industrial system is not without its merits — without it, many of the 6 billion people living on this planet would have fallen victim to famine.  Thus, the call for change needs to be measured with this in mind.

So, what needs to be done? As with many things in this rapidly changing modern world, the idea of sustainability is key.  We’re supplementing the bountiful energy of the sun with “cheap” fossil fuels.  Why?  Because we can, because it allows the food industry to extract more profit from every bushel of corn, and because we have become convinced that we need to.  Ultimately, the energy for growing food will have to be derived solely from the sun.  In the book, Pollan develops an argument that such a system is within the grasp of our society, if we decide to embrace some significant changes.  The changes in mind are nicely summarized in the Grass section of the book where Pollan works on Polyface Farm in Virginia.  The entire concept of the farm is to mimic nature through rigorous herd and crop rotation.  The farm is completely free of fertilizers and the animals are able to live symbiotically with each other to keep the land healthy.  The crops cost more for the consumer than an industrially raised analogue, but the hidden costs that tax the environment and the consumer’s health are greatly reduced.  Until the consumer realizes the true cost of choosing food from the industrial complex over the sustainable farm is far greater than they can afford, little will change.

Pollan ends the book with a meal that is constructed from ingredients that are hunted (wild pig) or gathered (mushrooms, cherries, etc.).  The meal, a labor of love, emphasizes the point that our society has come to depend on agriculture.  Returning to our roots of being the hunter-gatherer is not realistic for day-to-day life (feeding oneself would be a full-time job).  Pollan concludes that although this final meal was perfect in his mind, a true celebration of life, it is fantastical to think that this is how modern humans should eat.  Just as fantastical as eating a meal from McDonald’s while driving down the highway at 50 mph should be (this was his Corn meal).

In the end, the concept of sustainable farming is going to be a major issue in the coming century.  In a similar way that the Haber-Bosch process and the Green Revolution allowed for the population explosion in the 20th century, new methods and practices are going to be needed to keep feeding this growing population, but without harming the environment.  As Pollan argues in his book, until the consumer realizes the true cost of their choices, change will not occur.

I highly recommend this book to everyone.  Pollan reaches conclusions, but he does not preach at the reader.  Instead he presents his observations, draws his conclusions, and ultimately challenges the reader to honestly evaluate what they choose to eat.  It is this thought-provoking style that makes The Omnivore’s Dilemma such a worthwhile journey.

Silvia, J. S. and Cummins, C. C. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2010. “Ligand-based Reduction of CO₂ to CO Mediated by an Anionic Niobium Nitride Complex”

Three-step process for CO2 to CO conversion

To summarize briefly, the paper outlines our new contribution to the field of CO₂ chemistry.  Our motivation for this work is to find new ways for converting CO₂ into a useful commodity rather than view it as an environmentally harmful by-product.  The hard about CO₂ chemistry, and why it poses a real problem once it is released into the atmosphere, is that the molecule is incredibly stable and therefore very happy to being floating around freely as a gas. This means that if you want to use CO₂ productively, you have to be very clever to coax it to do what you want. Our approach was to trap the CO₂ using another molecule (here a molecule built around an atom of niobium, Nb), and then transform it into something we wanted. CO, a.k.a. carbon monoxide, is a useful product because it is much more reactive than CO₂ and can be used as either a fuel source or as a building block for more complex compounds such as plastics.

The important part of this paper is that we present a completely new paradigm for making use of CO₂. Such research is vital because if we are to solve the problem associated with producing CO₂ from the burning of fossil fuels, the fundamental aspects of transforming this incredibly stable molecule will need to be understood in as great of detail of possible.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama invoked the concept of confronting climate change as a national imperative.  I completely agree with that sentiment.  The nation cannot afford to stand by idly as the world changes in unpredictable and likely detrimental ways, especially when our actions may be a major cause of the change.

But this idea is not shared by everyone.  Even more problematic is that the concept of climate change being real is often wrongly regarded as only a slim possibility.  It is not only possible, it may already be underway.  The truly scary prospect of climate change is that it is already too late.  We humans tend to forget that we have only been on this planet for a sliver of its existence.  The climate has been in a constant state of flux long before we arrived, but only now has that flux been adversely affected by a species living on Earth.  We as a collective are altering the natural ebb and flow of the Earth.  This is the fact of the matter.

Nearly all (I’m thinking close to 98%) of scientists would support the idea that humans are going to be a direct cause of significant climate change that will occur in the foreseeable future.  And this is the problem.  People, for whatever reason, think that because they can find 2 scientists out of 100 who are skeptical of climate change being caused by human activity that means that climate change can be ignored.  Why would anyone be able to believe this?! This is like Russian roulette on steroids.  Someone with one gun with six cylinders and five bullets is trying to get lucky!

Climate change legislation is needed now.  The change may not seem drastic, but people have to remember that just because something happens slowly this does not mean that it is not happening at all.  This is no longer a problem for future generations, but a problem for the current generation.  Let’s hope that our leaders decide to embrace the sustainable and fruitful future that awaits us if we embrace the necessary change.

The Facts of Cap-and-Trade from Clean Energy Works on Vimeo.

And really this is how cap-and-trade should go down.  It limits emissions, but it does so over the course of time to allow the economy to adapt.  The parts of China and India following suit…that sort of hints at why opponents are so worked up about the idea of capping our carbon.  The fear is that we will be at a severe economic disadvantage if we start capping our emissions before anyone else.  However, if we don’t start capping our emissions, then it might not matter who has the best economy.

Now, the second video is a mind-bending, gut-punching, propaganda-esque piece about the Story of Cap-and-Trade. This is brought to you by Annie Leonard (acclaimed creator of the Story of Stuff).  She comes down hard on cap-and-trade, and offers a very vague notion of emission reductions being pursued through a combination of command-and-control regulation (EPA) and carbon tax.  Overall, I feel that this video is bordering on fear-mongering (although in a very cute way) and not truly informative.

The Story of Cap-and-Trade

Both bills approach climate change mitigation using a wide variety of tactics.  This includes overall improvements in energy use efficiency on multiple levels, research for developing renewable sources, and a cap-and-trade system for reducing the levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) that are being emitted within the borders of this country.

Cap-and-trade might be the least controversial method for lowering emissions because it allows the cost of the reduction to be determined by market forces.  GHGs producers would be allotted a certain amount of permissible emissions, and producers could trade emissions between each other depending on their needs. In an economic sense (and bear with me as I’m just beginning to learn the ins and outs of this), cap-and-trade works on the premise that the cost of reducing GHGs is variable between companies because of how they operate and what technology is available for them to adapt.  This cost is technically referred to as the marginal abatement cost.  Cap-and-trade takes advantage of this variation by allowing companies to trade GHGs emissions between each other to mitigate costs while bringing the overall amount of GHGs emitted to a prescribed level.  The overall economic cost is minimized (the companies with cheaper costs reduce emissions more) and the emissions reductions are maximized through market forces.

Of course, this is an ideal case.  It remains to be seen if Congressional legislation could actually be written that would take full advantage of a cap-and trade system.  Problems could arise if the restrictions are too lax, too strict, or simply impossible to enforce.

Cap-and-trade is just one part of the current Congressional bills tackling climate change.  But it is the most complicated, and is likely the part that is going to come under the most fire in debate.  The biggest criticism is that it will hinder economic activity by increasing the cost of doing business.  This is true, but at least the companies have a choice as to where that cost is spent.  A carbon tax would not guarantee a reduction in emissions, and the money spent would be put directly into the government coffers while not in producing a more sustainable company.

In the end, such legislation may never be enacted into law.  The Kerry-Boxer bill is stalled in the Senate, and our newly elected Senator from the state of Massachusetts is against cap-and-trade.  This could make a Republican filibuster very likely indeed.

Recently, I came across this short blurb on the website FastCompany. In the article they distill down a summary of study performed by:

Erb, Karl-Heinz, Helmut Haberl, Fridolin Krausmann, Christian Lauk, Christoph Plutzar, Julia K. Steinberger, Christoph Müller, Alberte Bondeau, Katharina Waha, Gudrun Pollack, 2009. Eating the Planet: Feeding and fuelling the world sustainably, fairly and humanely – a scoping study. Commissioned by Compassion in World Farming and Friends of the Earth, UK. Institute of Social Ecology and PIK Potsdam. Vienna: Social Ecology Working Paper No. 116. (This is the requested citation.)

Both the summary and the full study can be found here courtesy of Compassion in World Farming.

From the abstract of the full study, it would be “probably feasible” to feed an estimated world population of 9.16 billion in 2050 on a 2800 calorie/day diet using organic agricultural methods with protein consumption limited to 20% animal derived. This sounds good. Now, sacrifices will need to be made. Currently, the average American style diet is 3171 calories/day with 44% of protein derived from animal sources. Furthermore, there will need to be a massive redistribution of food since cropland is not distributed evenly across the globe.

Key findings include:

• Feeding the world in 2050 is possible without using the most intensive forms of animal and crop production or a massive expansion of land for farming
• Humane methods of farming animals can provide sufficient food to feed a growing world population
• Providing sufficient food for all would be helped greatly if rich countries adopt healthier, lower meat-based diets and food is distributed more equally
• Sufficient food can be provided in 2050 without further deforestation

I’ll leave the thorough reading of the study to you, but the basic conclusion sounds very promising for the future of sustainable agriculture.