Energy and Climate – Abu Dhabi and Europe.

[iconoclast]

I’ve argued elsewhere that in order to address the extinction threats now bearing down upon us, humankind must form a global government constitutionally bound to honor a scientific understanding of reality, and employ science and technology on merit to balance human welfare and environmental sustainability.

In the last few days Abu Dhabi has announced $15bn for hydrogen research and Europe has announced a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. These may seem like hopeful signs, and I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but don’t be fooled.

Such signs tempt one to hope that other regions will match or even surpass the EU effort – and that hydrogen research in Abu Dhabi makes links with, and encourages like-minded efforts around the world. Despite our best and most reasonable hopes however, Abu Dhabi will seek to protect oil revenues and the commercial value of any research. Similarly, and by the same logic, Europe’s reduction of greenhouse gas emissions will provide a competitive advantage, and therefore an incentive to other regions to continue to pollute.

Science doesn’t merely provide the tools, but provides us with the rules for their use – the right thing for the right reasons. A sustainable energy basis for human civilization cannot be provided by nation states acting in their capitalist interest – for it is too large an undertaking to be written off, but can be provided by a global government constitutionally bound to honor a scientific understanding of reality, employing science and technology on merit.

Renewable energy is perfect for the production of hydrogen. Liquefied hydrogen has 2.5 times the calorific value of petroleum – and when burnt (oxidized) turns back into (H2O) water. Using renewable energy to produce hydrogen, and then burning hydrogen in a conventional power plant the necessary base load can be generated. Just providing mains electricity from this source will massively reduce greenhouse gas emissions – thereby addressing climate change, leaving further scope to replace mains gas and transportation fuel as capacity comes on-line, as necessary, and/or as fossil fuels are depleted.

In short then, but for the system of nation states and capitalism, humankind might live well into the foreseeable future, rather than, quite predictably nuking each other into non-existence in 40 or 50 years when the lights go out. These false, divisive and unjust ideas must be put aside and humankind cooperate in discovering and applying the answers provided by science, but I see no hopeful signs of ideological revision.

Rather than being cheered by these laudable efforts therefore, I am disheartened, for they obscure the real problem – mans backward approach to scientific truth. It’s time to accept an evolutionary conception of ourselves, and that we are a single species occupying a single planetary environment – and on that basis do what’s necessary to survive, for very soon it will be too late.

[Aedes]

I think there is a lot more to accomplish than fuel and energy and pollution issues if there really were a central governing body in the world. The horrible asymmetries of wealth and poverty in this world speak louder to me, and I feel like a centralized constitution would still marginalize Africa.

That said, the people who have most at stake in the energy industry are those with the most money. If Exxon-Mobil and BP and Shell, etc, aren't pouring billions of dollars into renewable energy research, then they're morons. They know better than anyone what the world's oil supply is like, and how vulnerable it is to war and unrest. So they probably want to be the one that floats out on top if there is an energy crisis. I'd hope that the oil and automotive industries get incentivized to do this research, because they have a lot more resources at hand than do universities for this kind of undertaking.

[Didymos Thomas]

Do we really want oil companies to come out ahead? Their reputation isn't exactly the best (recall Standard Oil). Perhaps the move away from fossil fuels is an opprotunity to cut out these giant corporations.

[Aedes]

It's not about the oil companies per se -- it's about who has the financial power, infrastructure, and sheer need to make it happen. Only the oil companies have all of the above. If the end result is they're doing good for the world, then we'll live with their past sins.

[Didymos Thomas]

My concern is not past sins, but future sins. Despite their ideal position for developing better technology, their track record shows that they will use this much to their advantage, with little regard for anything other than profit and power.

[Aedes]

Perhaps, but if not them it will be whoever else mass markets the new technology.

Past sins are not, however, necessarily tied to future sins. If so, then we'd have to look pretty closely at Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Messerschmidt, Mitsubishi, and Chase Bank for their own various sins during WWII.

[Didymos Thomas]

So, technological progress requires that someone or group exploit the rest of the world? And if so, how is this progress?

[Aedes]

Well, let's set aside the words progress and exploit here. Let's use the most practical possible language.

We need a new technology that is more abundant, less expensive, and less polluting. This technology, even if it's developed in a sort of pure research domain like at a university, will need massive amounts of funding, infrastructure, and global reach for it to be deployed in a way that displaces petroleum-based technology. This is outside the hands of anyone other than governments and major corporations. Whether it's progress or not is something we can only hope. People who get exploited in this kind of endeavor are usually the poor people of the world who provide cheap natural resources for pennies an hour and with no labor protection -- but do we know that that will be the case when we don't even know what technology we're talking about? Exxon-Mobil and Shell and BP and Hess and all the rest have done and continue to do a tremendous amount of harm, especially in Africa; but this comes out of their sheer opportunism and indifference. Even if they are still indifferent opportunists in the future, that doesn't necessarily mean that they will be bowling people over in practice.

[iconoclast]

$15 billion for hydrogen research was the best Abu Dhabi could do, and 20% was the best Europe could realistically aspire to. Even then, within the bounds of a capitalist rationale it's going to be very difficult to achieve. This is the point of accepting science and forming a global government to apply technology on the basis of merit - otherwise, allowing capitalism to dictate the application of technology it won't happen.
Aedes, you talk about the horrible asymetries of wealth, but how can these be addressed without first establishing a sustainable non-polluting energy basis? If 5 billion new consumers add thier unsustainabvle demands to ours the world will go up in a ball of flames from climate change. As the rest of your arguments follow in the course of this misunderstanding i'll just say this: we need no new technologies. we have the technologies availablke to achieve a sustainabale and pollution free energy basis and they've been available for since 1890 when Professor Paul La Cour used wind generated electricity to electrolze a solution of sodium hydroxide to produce a hydrogen/oxygen gas he used to heat and light the high school at Askov in Denmark where he worked.
The technology has not been applied because we do not value truth, but value our fond illusions: religion, nation, capitalism, and allow our behaviours to be bound by these ideas. Because they are NOT TRUE to reality, the energy crisis and climate occur as externalities of action in the course of these ideas. Forget big corporations and little governments - the future is global,collective and valid - anyhow, goto go, regards, iconoclast.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by iconoclast

Aedes, you talk about the horrible asymetries of wealth, but how can these be addressed without first establishing a sustainable non-polluting energy basis?

Because energy availability is nearly irrelevant to this. Deal with the asymmetries in infant, child, and maternal mortality, child nutrition, hygiene, and sanitation first. The strongest predictor of population growth is child mortality. Reduce child mortality and population growth slows. This has been shown again and again without fail. The people I'm referring to are so poor that their energy demands are negligible anyway compared with the energy demands per capita in developed countries. And their little energy demands, incidentally, are met in many cases by cutting down trees and burning the wood, which is not only polluting but it leads to desertification, less arable land, and pulmonary diseases from smoke exposure (remember that pneumonia is the leading cause of death in children in developing countries according to the WHO).

If 5 billion new consumers add thier unsustainabvle demands to ours the world will go up in a ball of flames from climate change.

Except that the bulk of those new 5 billion people will be born into extreme poverty and their demands will pale in comparison to people in developed nations. The US has 4% of the world's population and consumes 25% of its annual natural resource production. The population of all Africa is around 2.5x that of the US and overall uses far fewer resources, not just per capita but overall.

You're right that the world's resources can't sustain 5 billion new people who live like Americans. But for other reasons the world can't sustain 5 billion people who live like Somalis and Sudanese and Angolans. Part of the reason is that as resource demands increase there will be more of an attempt by developed countries to get resources from poor countries. Guess what, this is already happening in central and western Africa, which have among the largest undeveloped oil reserves in the world. Juxtapose a huge, impoverished population with rich, foreign corporations, and you get Nigeria. The new Chad-Cameroon pipeline goes through some of the poorest areas on earth, and it's only because of World Bank threats that the oil industry has been impelled to devote most of their revenues to develop those areas (which is the capacity in which I've been involved in this, on a consulting team for malaria control in these areas). But our resources are going to be more and more at the mercy of stability in desperately impoverished places, at the mercy of diseases like HIV, malaria, and TB that impair the productivity of indigenous workers, and the increased global commerce will expose us to a number of microbiologic imports (recall that we've already imported HIV, West Nile encephalitis, Ebola, and monkeypox from Africa -- fortunately the latter two have not developed a foothold here).

As the rest of your arguments follow in the course of this misunderstanding...

Well, considering my career is global health and tropical medicine, I've spent a lot of time in developing countries, and I've personally talked with everyone from consultants for the WHO and UN, Exxon-Mobil and Marathon executives, and Jeffrey Sachs himself about this issue, I object vehemently to your accusation of misunderstanding.