Global Warming of One Kind or Another

The arctic ice near Alaska has receded so far that shippers are now starting to send cargo through the Northeast passage, something previously impossible even in the height of summer. The shippers, a German company called "Beluga", had to traverse not just detached flows (e.g. icebergs), but also the Russian permitting authority, which has never before had to issue permits for such a crossing. The Russians, seeing the opportunity to supplant the Suez canal for certain routes are making noises about reducing cost and permit paperwork. Sure, the route is eco-friendly in that it cuts 3,000 miles out of the trip from Rotterdam to Yokahama, but that seems to miss the real ecological point, doesn't it?

And on to a more direct form of global warming. One patch of sand in Utah got particularly warm at the hands of NASA's new Ares 5 first stage booster. It doesn't look like much, until you realize that the rocket is the size of a warehouse - larger than the current shuttle boosters - and packs 22 million horsepower. Hi ho NASA away!

Cash for Free

Politicos have had mostly plaudits for Cash for Clunkers - the magnanimous government subsidy plan that pays $4500 for your trade-in when you decide you want something newer and sitting-forever-in-inventorier. Car dealers were far more enthusiastic, taking orders and making sales on the plan well before it was fully implemented. Now, having racked up thousands of sales and fronted rebates in the millions, they are wondering why the government can't process their claims fast enough. Seems to me that the government reasonably expected a conveyor belt of claims and instead got an upturned dump truck. I sympathize with Uncle Sam to this point.

But Uncle Sam and I parted ways on this program from its inception. While this stimulus clearly stimulates buying, the sheer number of people to take advantage of it indicates to me not that it is wildly successful, but rather that it is too generous. If I gave out one dollar bills in Washington Square Park in NY at lunch, I might have maybe 10,000 show up from a few square blocks. But if I gave out $100, you can expect that many times that would show up. Same thing here. Clearly Americans needed a kick in the pants to show up and buy, but I think we may have kicked too hard. I think it is a good thing that dealer inventories are finally shrinking, but this is a blip. It doesn't mean that car sales next year or the year after will return from the current 6M/year level to the prior 10M/year level. It means that, for the next few weeks, there is a fire sale on cars.

What is a Congress to do? This is populism at its best - giving the people bread and circus in the same bite. Having fed the masses and been lauded for it, Congress can't stop now. They can't lower the incentive or risk cries of "unfair!" On the other hand, they can't give away money forever. Representatives took one look at this and 2010 election and voted "Yea" for $2B more. Senators with a little breathing room are doing just that and asking, if they can't lower the amount, whether perhaps they tack on a few riders. $4500 requires a certain improvement in fuel efficiency. Under the plan, people are already trading down in fuel consumption by themselves - prompting Sen. Schumer to quip, "If it ain't broke..." But I say it is broke and we can't fix it because the backlash will be too great. Instead, let's tweak it to get what we can for our money. Let's restrict the rebate to cars achieving over a certain MPG and those with ULEV ratings (ultra low emission vehicles). That's your small cars, small SUVs, cross-overs and most Hybrids (I am looking at you Escalade). Perhaps we can salvage something from this program after all.

Occam Switchbacks [Edited thanks to MS - pinko!]

Origo announced that they'll recapture CO2 from your car's exhaust, store in on-board in a tank, and have you offload that to an algae-rich unit at home which will feed on the gas and convert it to Bio-fuel. Simple, isn't it?

This makes little sense.

Economically, they claim it produces a max of 2500 liters, or 660 gallons. That sounds a bit high - but we'll see. $660 gallons are worth $2640 at $4/gal. If the unit costs less than that great - trouble is, it won't. More likely, the unit will cost at least double that and will incur costs in upkeep. Moreover, the diesel produced has less energy than petrol, so you won't get as far on it.

For users, there is the added hassle of emptying the CO2 tank every day when you get out of the car. I just don't see people doing that.

Environmentally, how much of a car's emissions can you really trap? If it isn't a large portion, we aren't reducing the carbon signature that much. We'd just be reducing the amount of new oil needed to fuel cars, but they'd still be spewing the gasses.

Further to that point - syphoning the exhaust will likely require an air pass-through more strenuous than an exhaust. When you slow the air from the motor, you hurt performance and efficiency. We are ok with the trade-off now because the noise pollution would otherwise be atrocious. Add this device and the loss in efficiency from the motor may cause you to use even more gas per mile, which will have to offset your bio-diesel miles gained.

Finally, there are safety and engineering problems. If your exhaust goes to a tank, how do you prevent the system from backing up into the motor when you are idling? What energy do you use to compress the gas in the tank? How do you seal the tank? How big is the tank? How heavy is it? and so on and so on and so on.

Bottom line: the solutions for efficiency that will work will also be simple and elegant. Let's not forget that.

Carbon Credits.

The FTC is investigating companies that sell "carbon credits." These companies purport to do good for the environment in one place, and then offer to sell companies a share of that good so that they can offset pollution in another place.

This is a more exaggerated form of the carbon credit marketplace that failed and is undergoing major retooling in Europe. (wiki).

First, the idea of trading credits only works when companies that were polluting anyway, manage to beat emissions standards by enough of a margin that they can sell that margin to other polluters (who are slower to catch up) to help them reach the same standards. It provides an economic incentive to clean more, faster, and creates a higher cost for larger polluters. When you insert companies that do nothing but generate credits, you undercut this system by eliminating the incentive to clean up and replacing it with just an increased cost to meet emission standards.

Second, from a practical perspective, does planting trees or releasing algae into the ocean really help? If I am polluting in N. Carolina, a release of algae in the North Sea might help the globe, but it does nothing for N. Carolina or the United States, which is what the regulators really care about.

Finally, carbon offsets present something of an ethical dilemma. Accepting that pollution is bad, the solution is to require people to reduce, not to enable them to offset it with good acts elsewhere. For example, if cap and trade were permitted in the legal system, Jack Abramoff could have been able to argue that his extortive and corrupt practices were offset by the fact that so much of the proceeds went to charity. That doesn't make sense to us because we don't want people to rob the rich to pay the poor -- we don't anyone to rob anyone else, period. Same goes here.

Sail. Boats. Together Again.

European companies are looking to reduce cargo ship power consumption by 30% through the use of sails. Well, kites. Really foils. Just watch the video.

Cato Kern'lin

CATO blasts the notion of Ethanol as our energy panacea. [PDF] Better yet, they aren't doing it with policy, but with raw numbers. The amount of corn we can produce doesn't reach the level we require to adequately replace oil. 3/4 of every liter of the stuff has to be used just to create it, and corn supply, it turns out, is more volatile than oil. Why? Because draught, pests, and the need for corn to fight hunger worldwide affect corn a lot more than a cartel affects oil. You can't negotiate with a blizzard.

Any chance we can stop this insanity? Hey you! Over there in Iowa! Turn in your subsidy and retrain!

Thegameiam asks the right questions about enviro-fads: What about the fact that compact flourescents are low-level hazmats? In the same vein, here's one for you (and me) city-dwelling car owners:

Doesn't owning a car in the city create the very congestion we abhor? Or, put economically, isn't urban parking massively underpriced, creating crowded parking lanes instead of open, drivable ones? Slate reports in the "Everyday Economist."