Using Nordhaus’ Book Review to Outline Flaws in U.S. Carbon Tax Narrative
The more I study climate change economics, the more astounded I become at the chasm between reality and what has been sold to the American public. I give another example in my IER analysis of a recent book review by William Nordhaus. Here’s an excerpt:
What is fascinating is that if you go to the actual book review and read the full discussion, you will see that people like Weitzman and Nordhaus are discussing whether people should even be conducting cursory research into geoengineering options.[New first paragraph:] What is fascinating is that if you go to the actual book review and read the full discussion, you will see that Nordhaus wonders whether scientists should even be conducting cursory experiments to learn more about geoengineering options.
Why in the world would interventionists who think the fate of humanity hangs in the balance not want scientists to broaden the options at our grandchildren’s disposal? What they fear is that if the public realizes there are techniques “on the shelf” that could very quickly and cheaply bring down global temperatures, then it would be hard to get humanity whipped up into a frenzy in spending trillions of dollars to merely reduce the probability of a future unlikely “fat tail” catastrophe.
Remember, the cutting-edge case for aggressive intervention against emissions has stopped trying to claim that a high carbon tax will likely produce large net benefits….
So already the aggressive interventionists have to make the “fat tail” argument of Weitzman and others—they have to say a disaster might occur if humans keep pumping lots of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But then in that case, it becomes very relevant to know that one of the leading geoengineering proposals would cost $250 million total to limit Earth’s warming. That’s less than Al Gore’s foundation is spending to “raise awareness” on the issue of climate change.
In contrast, if governments around the world implemented Nordhaus’ suggested “optimal carbon tax,” then his own model (in the 2008 calibration which I study here) shows that it would impose economic costs on the world of $2.2 trillion (see Table 4 at the link) in present-value terms.
Does anyone like that deal? Spending $2.2 trillion (in the form of forfeited conventional economic growth) merely to reduce the probability of catastrophe—because after all, we still might have a disaster even with a carbon tax—rather than waiting a bit longer to get more information, knowing that we’ve got the ability to indefinitely postpone global warming for a total cost of $250 million?
Man is changing the climate!
So man can change the climate?
Yes!
So should we try to change the climate?
No! It is bad when man changes the climate.
What if we could fix it or make it better?
Look, little boy, when you can give me a grant I will tell you whatever you want to hear.
“What they fear is that if the public realizes there are techniques “on the shelf” that could very quickly and cheaply bring down global temperatures.” There are no techniques on the shelf that can do this, so it is not possible for the public to “realize” that there are.
What is feared is that the public will be persuaded that a speculative and extremely uncertain technique is a solution, and therefore cease worrying about temperature increase, only later to realise that the so called solution turns out to be no such thing.
We do actually have a relatively cheap and simple on the shelf solution – cut back on CO2 useage. No other solution is likely to be anywhere near as simple as this one.
The hose in the sky proposal is not as simple as suggested. The design pressure at the bottom of the tubes would be something like 6000 bar. Have you seen even a 1000 bar pipe? A steel 4.5 inch pipe needs a wall thickness of 2 inches by simple calculation. In order to use this method an entirely new pipe technology would be needed that so far no industry has been able to do – despite spending loads of money on pipe. That is one barrier, but there are massive technological problems with stability of the tallest man made structure ever by far, and huge political problems with altering the climate – there will always be winners and losers. The UK Govt funded a project called SPICE to test the technological apects of the idea. Unfortunately a 1km test (pressure 120 bar) was cancelled due to a political rather than scientific issues (over patenting).
The artificial trees are surely a joke. We have places where CO2 is present at 25% contained in a tube – a much simpler task to concentrate this than to suck it out of the atmpophere where it is a very diffuse 400ppm. Yet the cost of CCS is too high to be viable. Sucking CO2 out of the air and pumping it underground will be a far more costly solution than CCS at power stations.
Relatively cheap, you’re a hoot and a half, Harold.
The artificial trees project is vanishingly unlikely to be relatively cheap compared to carbon capture, and stratospheric sulfates may not even be possible.
Ocean seeding does seem to have more promise – that one looks at least possible, but requires testing to see how much carbon gets sequestered at the bottom as well as possible side effects.
“What is feared is that the public will be persuaded that a speculative and extremely uncertain technique is a solution, and therefore cease worrying about temperature increase, only later to realise that the so called solution turns out to be no such thing.”
What I fear is that the public will be persuaded that a speculative and extremely uncertain hypothesis is correct, and therefore ceaselessly worry about temperature increase, only later to realise that the so called hypothesis turns out to be wrong.
Harold, I don’t believe global warming will be bad. Svante Arrhenius over a hundred years ago proposed global warming to feed the teeming millions in the coming century. The IPCC predicts extreme weather, tornado, hurricanes, and typhoons, but it is all lies. Weather, on a minute by minute basis, is analyzed by mechanical engineers not Paleoclimatologists. Weather is a power cycle, heat moving from the surface to the upper atmosphere and outer space. If global warming is caused by the reduction of the heat flux due to CO2 in the atmosphere (i.e. an insulating layer), that reduction of the heat flux HAS to mean milder weather (at least on average). If the present warming trend is cause by Natural causes (increased output of the sun or the nuclear reactions in the Earth’s core) then the IPCC predictions may be correct because we will be seeing an increased heat flux. In this case, irrespective and regardless of what you may believe; natural is bad and “man made” is good.
PBS had a special, which looked at the temperature variation during the week after 9/11 when planes weren’t flying . Showed that the temperature variation increased significantly when there was no buffering layer of jet contrails. Large temperature variations cause large storms, small temperature variations cause mild weather. I pray that any temperature rise we are seeing is man made global warming. Think of the millions of acres in North America and Russia that will be able to be used to grow corn and soybeans (at ten times the energy density per acre) where only oats and wheat can be grown now. Millions of acres of permafrost where nothing grows but moss and lichen that will grow oats and wheat. The opening of inexpensive transportation routes across the arctic pole to ship oil and grain from the Ural Mountains of Russia and Siberia, a time of mild weather and universal prosperity. http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/301627/hillary-arctic-finds-900-trillion-untapped-oil-reserves-greg-pollowitz. This is not to say that it will all be good. Arrhenius went on to point out that during periods of global cooling a million species would die being replaced by only half a million new ones (think 65 million years ago). In periods of global warming the million species that would die would be replaced by TWO million new species. (You have four times the opportunity to be a winner during periods of global warming vs. cooling)
Harold how about a link to the 6000 bar (90,000 psi) pipes? I thought they were using the “pipe” as an analogy to explain the concept and were actually going to add the sulfur compounds to jet fuel, I mean how much dispersion can you get from a pipe?
“Milder” is not a good term – it means warmer. There will certianly be beneficial effects of warming and I agree that it is essential to include these in our calculations.
Link to SPICE project
http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~hemh/SPICE/SPICE.htm
For water, each 10m of depth is roughly 1 bar of pressure, so a 20km column would be 2000 bar. Liquid SO2 is 2.6 times as dense as water, so design pressure of 6000bar sounds about right.
It is no trivial matter to make such a pipe 20km long light enough to be suspended from balloons.
Harold,
The system you have described is for cloud whitening and you are correct to conclude that there are costly engineering problems with pumping H2O into the atmosphere. The proposal for pumping SO2 into the atmosphere is broadly similar but does not have the same issues unless you insist on forcing SO2 to remain in a liquid state.
Please check before saying I have got this wrong. The system is exactly the one in Freakonomics.
“The project investigates the feasibility of one geoengineering technique: solar radiation management using stratospheric sulfur aerosols.”
The key here is stratospheric aerosols. This is the hose to the sky system that is described. As part of the feasibilty they (SPICE) were going to do a test with water at 1km, requiring only 120 bar.
The proposal described in Freakonomics to get sulphate into the stratosphere in sufficiant quantity required pumping liquid SO2 20km upwards. One subject discussed was whether this would be done using one super pump at the bottom, or lots of booster pumps attached to the balloons. Each has its own problems.
Harold,
I didn’t say that you have this wrong. I am confused about the liquid SO2. It literally needs to be forced into a liquid state in order to keep it in a liquid state under standard atmosphere. The SPICE test is with water in a liquid state at standard atmosphere, a barrel of Liquid SO2 will start to vaporize once you open it up. If you are dealing with vapor, I think, you can push it through the tube with far less force. If you have to keep it liquid then the tube itself would have to be under immense pressure before you even introduce the liquid SO2. I don’t know, it sounds odd to me.
It is nonetheless the case. Here is Freakonomics page where they refer to “liquififed SO2”
http://freakonomics.com/2011/09/02/finally-a-garden-hose-to-the-sky/
Pushing gas along very long tubes is difficult, and as the density is something like 1/1000 that of a liquid, the flow rates need to be very fast. Air ventilation ducts are very large diameter and shift relatively low mass of air compared to a liquid pipeline.
This technology is highly speculative. No tethered balloon has ever been deployed at the required altitude. There is no way this can be referred to as “off-the shelf.”
Harold,
it looks like you’re screwed no matter what you are trying to deliver to the stratosphere by means of a ground based pumping station. It is definitely not off the self but I don’t think the problem is speculative technology, rather, speculative science.
Think I forgot to put my email in previous post, so this may appear twice.
The system I describe is exactly the one in Freakonomics. SPICE is investigating stratospheric sulphates not cloud whitening., The problems are exactly as I have described. In order to get sufficient sulphate into the stratoisphere it is necessary to pump it as a liquid.
SPICE : “The project investigates the feasibility of one geoengineering technique: solar radiation management using stratospheric sulfur aerosols.”
#1. When I used the term “milder” I meant “less violent”. My dictionary defines it as “gentle in nature or behavior, moderate in action or effect, temperate in effect”.I think it is a good word for what I want to describe. The difference between the gentle rains of a warm front vs the tornadoes and thunderstorms of a cold front.
#2. As to your “pipe” it is really silly. I didn’t read the article just looked at the picture but industry standard is that processing pipe CANNOT be used as its own pipe support. The only way to design the system shown would be a multi-strand cable (like on suspension bridges) from the balloon to the ground to support the process pipe (act as the pipe support). Then you would use standard high-pressure process piping (3000 psi) and every half a mile or so add a booster pump to drive up the next level. You would need twenty or so lift pumps, can’t be a big deal, all standard components. But then again you can’t make fun of it can you? Next thing you will be telling me that there are no pumping stations in the Trans-Alaskan pipeline or there is only one proposed for Keystone.
#3. Link for PBS .
“As to your “pipe” it is really silly.” Please, it is not my pipe. You either need a very big pump on the ground or as you suggest lots of smaller pumps as boosters on the way up suspended from balloons. There are problems with either design. Spice obviously felt that one big pump on the ground was better, but who knows? They have looked into it more than I have and they proposed the high pressure single pump system, which appears silly. But they thought it better than the alternative.
“Next thing you will be telling me that there are no pumping stations in the Trans-Alaskan pipeline” I think you will find that that one is more horizontal than vertical, which makes a big difference.
“When I used the term “milder” I meant “less violent”” In that case it is the wrong word, as basically if you put more energy in you get a more violent system.
Earth / space is in equilibrium. Heat radiates in from the sun and the same amount radiates out into space. Otherwise the temperature changes. CO2 reduces the energy radiated to space. For the same heat input, that means the temperature goes up UNTIL you get the same amount radiated out. The overall heat flux is the same with the new equilibrium, but the Earth is at a higher temperature. That means more energy to drive the weather.
Bob,
i read the report from the whitehouse report. they show various discount rates, including the OMB mandated 5 and 7%. thats also part of the OMB report — its ok to use lower discount rates:
“Circular A-4 states, “If
your rule will have important intergenerational benefits or costs you might consider a further sensitivity
analysis using a lower but positive discount rate in addition to calculating net benefits using discount
rates of 3 and 7 percent.”
So bob, whats the problem? they DID use the prescribed rates.
Not to do Bobs job for him, but the bit you quote says you may wish to use *additional* sensitivity analysis. It does not relieve you of providing the 7%.
My argument is that the rules are designed for general applications, and these cross genereational ones would not be expected to fit into the same analysis. While the regulations do indeed call for 7% discounting, that is a fault with the regulations, since there seems to be genreral agreement among economists working in this field that that discount rates should be lower than this, as pure time preference discounting makes no sense when talking abput people who have yet to be born.
That is not to say there should be no discounting, but it does say that discounting should be lower than that used for shorter term assesments.
GabbyD wrote:
i read the report from the whitehouse report. they show various discount rates, including the OMB mandated 5 and 7%.
OK, according to the White House, what’s the social cost of carbon in 2015 using a 7% discount rate? I emailed the Working Group and they said they didn’t run those numbers, but apparently you found it…?
ur right, there is no 7%. i was wrong. thanks.