The Hard Look

Cool Counties False Expectations – Electric Cars

Frankly without much surprise, the national press ignored the launching of Gerry Connolly’s signature “Cool Counties” program this month.  My contacts in the media say the program didn’t get press because the promise of the program was ludicrous on its face. 

They admit all the hype about trying to get an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 has worn thin, not because the media thinks there isn’t a coming catastrophe, but because it has become obvious that technology is not going to get us out of this problem, and they don’t want to publish “the rest of the story.”   We gave you some of that story in an earlier article (See: Cool-headed Counties ) -- a story about giving up cars, meat, daily bathing, air conditioning and the like.  The public doesn’t like that story and the media knows it can’t sell papers that report such news. This leaves the media in the dreadful position of not covering stories about potential energy-saving advances because these advances will never be enough.  You deserve to hear about these advances, however, because they give a realistic peek into the future, telling us how far technology can go in addressing global warming.  So how much can zero-emissions electric cars do for us? 

In a report published late last week,  the Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) announced that if by 2050, 80 percent of all automobiles were electric cars you can plug into your home outlet, then their greenhouse gas emissions would decrease by 45 percent.  This takes into account the greenhouse gases caused by generating the electricity needed to charge the cars.  Unfortunately, the maximum distance you could drive one on electricity alone is from 20 to 40 miles.  After that, the car would operate on a normal gasoline engine and emit greenhouse gases just like any other car.  (The same things happen with today’s hybrids if they move faster than 45 miles per hour.)

To reach the cool counties 80 percent reduction by 2050 target, however, cars would have to reduce their emissions by more than 95 percent (because, with population growth, there would be more of them).  In other words, we still need a technological breakthrough to meet the cool counties target and neither the electric utility industry nor the environmental activists believe that will happen.   It gets worse. 

Using electric cars reduces some global pollution, but it also increases local pollution in areas near coal-fired electric power plants.  In an emerging battle of the environment versus the environment, NRDC is prepared to sacrifice global warming goals in order to ensure local air pollution does not increase.  (See their report at page 10.) 

Well, when NRDC refuses to compromise local air quality to ensure survival of the planet for our children and grandchildren, then the press won’t cover the story.  This is “the environment versus the environment” story you won’t see in the media.  This is why good news on energy conservation doesn’t get media attention.  This is why the cool counties program is a media non-starter, a technological non-starter and a disappointment in the making.

The New County Welcome Sign

 

'nuff said.

The Cool-Headed Counties Program

A week ago today, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors committed the County to a goal of reducing greenhouse gases, like CO2, by 80 percent. They did this so that Gerry Connolly could stand up today and announce before his fellow-travelers at the National Association of Counties that Fairfax County has adopted the “Cool Counties” program to combat global warming.  A better name would be the “Codswallop Counties” program.  In any case, there’s a better way for counties to address global warming.  It begins with actually looking at the predictions and using them to point the way.  We might call that the “Cognitive Counties” program, but that’s too high falutin’ for most, so lets just call it the “Cool-headed Counties” program.  Step one is understanding the threat behind all this concern. 

According to James Hansen, Director, NASA Institute for Space Studies, if global warming increases by two or three degrees this century, we and our children and grandchildren will all be living on a different planet, because the climate will have gone beyond a “tipping point” that will result in climate change so large that, among other things, the planet will never again have an ice age.  Research conducted by Hansen, et al, has estimated that to avoid this two degree centigrade increase, heat trapping gases need to be stabilized so that their net climate change effect is less than 450 parts per million CO₂ equivalent.

To avoid reaching this tipping point, Dr. Hansen says the industrialized world must cut current emissions by 60 to 80 percent. (See testimony given on May 30, 2007l, before The United States Environmental Protection Agency, by former California Air Resources Board Executive Officer Catherine Witherspoon.)

The problem is that this isn’t politically or economically achievable.  Here’s why.

According to the IPCC, the “industrialized” world, produces 78.6 percent of global CO₂ emissions.  Thus, the industrialized world has to cut from 47 to 63 percent of global emissions to avoid the tipping point.  Unfortunately, China, Russia and India refuse to make cuts, and worse, they are accelerating their emissions.  This means the U.S., Japan, Europe, Canada and Australia have to make all the cuts (and get no growth).  The problem is, these nations only contribute 47 percent of global emissions. 

To avoid a tipping point, the U.S., and friends, would need to eliminate ALL their emissions, China, Russia, India and the non-industrialized rest of the world could never increase their emissions above 2005 levels – forever. 

This isn’t hard math.  Indeed, last week, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program reached the same conclusion.  (See: Final Report entitled “Scenarios of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Atmospheric Concentrations”.) 

So what’s left?   Adaptation to expected change.  The cool-headed county would not waste time chasing an ephemeral goal.  Rather, it would look ahead and take those steps necessary to prepare for the inevitable.  Here is the Cool-headed Counties Program, a set of sensible policies all counties could use.  The Fairfax County Environmental Quality Advisory Council now has these policies before it.  Time will tell if Fairfax County is going to step up and be a Cool-Headed County.

THE COOL-HEADED COUNTIES PROGRAM

• Concentrate the County’s global warming response resources on adaptation to inevitable warming, to include projects on:
  • Modeling of consequences of significantly increased or decreased rainfall events;
  • Land use planning to prevent development in at-risk locales;
  • Flood avoidance engineering projects for existing at-risk development;
  • Establishment of zoning and abandonment principals for existing at-risk development;
  • Development of a significantly increased emergency response fund for unusual episodic climate events;
  • Develop a strategic plan for condemnation and “wetting” of private lands needed to replace lost tidal wetlands; and,
  • Identification of any carbon emissions reduction projects that also reduce county expenditures.
• Require county staff to prepare and submit an annual, detailed climate change spending plan to include a description of proposed projects and an explanation of their ranking, with the ranking principally based on the following criteria:
  • the degree to which the project contributes toward meeting adaptation and stabilization goals;
  • the cost-effectiveness of the proposal as compared to alternative projects;
  • the magnitude of the projects’ other public benefits (beyond global warming response).

• Require the County Executive to use the most cost-effective alternatives to accomplish the annual adaptation or stabilization goals.