Entries Tagged 'carbon footprint' ↓

On Earth Day, I announced I’d be be spending some time thinking about a ’sexy’ vision of the (bright green) future. When Jamais Cascio blooged about Feedback, Tipping Points, and Hard Choices I asked him about a better vision than the one offered by Monbiot. He pointed me to Joseph Romm’s Is 450 ppm (or less) politically possible? Part 2: The Solution.

Romm builds upon Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies. I don’t particularly like Romm’s proposal, and since he asks dissenters to read the Stabilization wedges paper before critiquing him, I gave it another read.

Now, the first time I read about stabilization wedges, the idea was very exciting. By breaking down the problem of carbon emissions into smaller, tractable problem, the authors gave us a credible, positive vision. While no single element or ‘wedge’ could solve even half the problem, any 7 of the many they proposed could do so.

The 15 proposed wedges are summarized on the Carbon Mitigation Initiative’s website, broken down into the four categories of Efficiency, Decarbonization of power, Decarbonization of fuel and Forests and agricultural soils

David Weinberger’s excellent book Everything is Miscellaneous has made me suspicious of such neat classification systems. It is one of those deceptively profound books that will permanently warp the way you see the world. Now I read about climate policy and think about the Dewey decimal classification system, or Linnaean taxonomy.

These classification systems not only fail at classifying important things (the inevitable ‘miscellaneous’), they also imply a certain worldview, which has political consequences.

Here’s a miscellaneous: sometimes planting a tree is not simply a mechanism for CO2 sequestration, but also a way to cut air conditioning costs. Does that fit under “Forests and agricultural soils” or “Efficiency”?

Another unclassifiable wedge is population. Yes, it’s a politically sensitive issue, yet right now there are governments encouraging higher birth rates, and others not giving women access to contraceptives.

There are other problems with the wedges. As the authors put it, wedges can not be combined willy-nilly:

Because the same BAU [business as usual] carbon emissions cannot be displaced twice, achieving one wedge often interacts with achieving another. The more the electricity system becomes decarbonized, for example, the less the available savings from greater efficiency of electricity use, and vice versa.

The wedge concept assumes linearity:

A wedge represents an activity that reduces emissions to the atmosphere that starts at zero today and increases linearly until it accounts for 1 GtC/year of reduced carbon emissions in 50 years. It thus represents a cumulative total of 25 GtC of reduced emissions over 50 years.

Of course, wind and solar have been growing at rates above 30%: not exactly linear.

Along with linearity, the very classification and sheer size of wedges, as well as the examples given favour bureaucratic solutions and state intervention. In fact, bureaucracies often can’t handle solutions like planting trees which have multiple benefits for health, environment, water management and energy use.

There’s a lot to like in Pacala and Socolow’s original paper: breaking down the problem into manageable chunks, insisting on stabilization with existing, ready technologies and a framework with which we can more sanely compare the cost of strategies.

What would be useful now is a way to think about solutions from the bottom-up. Maybe there’s a way to account for strategies with non-linear and multiple benefits.

Google has a post up about Helping others go green, including news that Google Transit is continuing its expansion.

If any Googlers are reading this, I’d like three green additions to Google Maps:

1. Lines connecting Metro stations.
2. Bike lanes. In Montreal, they’re faster than the metro.
3. Travel-time maps.

In the last couple weeks, I’ve finished reading Monbiot’s Heat and subscribed to organic food delivery by Le Jardin Des Anges. Today I asked Natasha for help with a vermicomposter, since I know I’ll have plenty of organic food scraps.

Still, it all feels inadequate given the enormity of the challenge. While scientists and the environmental movement have finally made us realize climate change is real and deadly, we have not yet seen a very compelling vision that could galvanize political change.

Talks of restraint, rationing and cuts aren’t sexy. And changing light bulbs to compact fluorescents or LEDs, eating less meat and offsetting air travel emissions - while necessary and good - just won’t cut it. In the coming months, I’ll be spending some time thinking about a ’sexy’ vision of the (bright green) future. If you have ideas to share, you can do so in comments. If you live in my neighbourhood, let’s meet up face to face.

Efficiency Measures Could Cut Data Center, Server Energy Use by Half, or how to get suckered by the anti-Kyoto crazies.

A few years back a story circulated meant to stir FUD against Kyoto. The gist went something like this: computers are using a huge percentage of our electricity consumption! If the US signs on to Kyoto, we will cripple our high-tech economy! oh noes!

The story keeps getting reused, recycled and repurposed. In that way at least, it’s green.

It makes for great marketing material if you’re selling SUN servers (see my comment: That VP is pulling numbers out from where the sun don’t shine). “Data centers alone, Sun calculates, account for 2-3 percent of total world energy use.” That of course is completely outrageous.

Now it’s the EPA’s turn to release numbers. They’re not quite as crazy as SUN’s: now US data centers only consume 1.5% of US electricity (as opposed to energy!). Even the usually sane Worldwatch Institute is being used as a megaphone for this ideologically-driven hack-job (it also got reprinted through Worldchanging).

First off, the EPA report clearly says they’re estimating these numbers:

These energy consumption estimates were derived using a bottom-up estimation method based on the best publicly available data for servers and data centers. The estimation was performed as follows:

• estimated the U.S. installed base of servers, external disk drives, and network ports in data centers each year (based on industry estimates of shipments and stock turnover);
• multiplied by an estimated annual energy consumption per server, disk drive, or network port; and
• multiplied the sum of energy use for servers, storage, and networking equipment by an overhead factor to account for the energy use of power and cooling infrastructure in data centers. (EPA report: executive summary)

Estimates multiplied by estimates, multiplied by an overhead factor. Makes you feel confident public policy is based on sound advice, doesn’t it?

If the numbers were true, it might matter. However many vendors are already trying to sell more energy-efficient servers, and data centers are also looking for cost-effective ways to save money. It’s unclear what the US government could do that the market isn’t already doing.

It’s also doesn’t matter in the sense that energy use in data centers shouldn’t be considered in isolation. Servers are also displacing other energy-intensive applications. If people file their income tax through a server, that’s energy that wasn’t used to transport paper - let alone pulp wood and printing costs.

The EPA report had two objectives. One was to create FUD, the other to delay action. It’s worked admirably well.

After reading about carbon offsets on davidsuzuki.org, I decided to check the prices for the “Gold Standard” vendors they listed*:

planetair.ca - $38, CAD $43.30 with taxes (site includes emission calculators for air travel, road travel and home)

myclimate.org - SFr. 40.00, about $35 CAD.

sustainabletravelinternational.org - $16.12

climatefriendly.com - $19.93

atmosfair.de -  $29.31

Not all carbon offsets are created equal, but these are the best in the world. Clearly, these organizations are still learning to find cheaper ways to finance green projects. This is both expected, and a good thing; it’s the whole point of creating a trade mechanism for these credits.

(*) Not all websites give you a straight price per ton. PlanetAir, MyClimate and ClimateFriendly were all easy to use. The other two required using their calculator to get a price per ton:

• For Sustainable Travel, I picked calculated a package of 4.2098 tons of emissions for $64.20, or $16.12 CAD per ton (today’s exchange rate).
• For Atmosfair, I picked a flight that resulted in 4.1 tons of emissions for 83 Euros, CAD $29.31 per ton.