Cold Fusion and Population - Environmental Musings

The center of gravity on climate change/global warming/... on the left is pretty fairly represented by Dean Baker's recent blog saying it's lights out figuratively and literally if we don't change our profligate energy ways. And this is by far more important inter-generationally than the current aggregate-demand-deficit-led fiscal deficits. Dean's post is here.

And, given mainstream science, he's absolutely right. This leads to the growth-neutral advocates with whom I have a moral problem in that it condemns the poorer nations to less wealth than we living in advanced countries enjoy. If that is to be the outcome, we should be crystal clear sure of our environmental arguments. I do not challenge results like those from the IPCC.

However, there are a couple of mitigating things going on, one in the realm of economics, and one in the realm of heterodox science.

First, for a recent department seminar on environment, I put together some data using the Kaya model and UN population projections to project CO2 emissions. What this clearly shows is that among greening of energy sources, energy efficiency, and population growth, it's population growth, through GDP growth, that has the greatest impact on CO2, by a factor of at least three times.

And, the closer we are to the UN 2010 population low estimate of growth, the better off we are, in fact, my analysis shows we bend down the CO2 curve starting in about 2050. Fertility reduction is what we should focus on. Fortunately, it is clear in the literature that GDP per capita growth and female education both significantly correlate with reduced fertility rates, and those trends are in train around much of the world.

So the best solution for CO2 mediation in the current context is headed in the right direction; we should give it a major shove. Helicopter drops of books and family planning items. You can see my slides here. Make sure to check out the embedded motion chart to visualize the effects of GDP and education growth on fertility by country. There may be hope in the following sense.

Growth of per capita income is not necessarily that bad for the environment, and those defending De-growth (reduction of GDP) might understate the economic, social and environmental effects of their policy suggestions.

Second, I will talk a bit of non-mainstream science, and thereby prove myself crazy for doing it publicly.

Remember cold fusion? In 1989 Professors Pons and Fleischmann, right here at the University of Utah, reported experimental results for an over-unity chemical reaction in a press conference. They were immediately, viciously, humiliated and attacked by the scientific mainstream, especially those whose gored ox was pulling the generously funded hot fusion projects. The cover story was that this violates thermodynamic laws. Case closed.

Except physics has evolved theories in which such results are supported without violating thermodynamics.

And one of the many serious experimenters working in cold fusion since 1989, Andrea Rossi, has announced and shipped an over-unity megawatt heat generator that uses its modern incarnation LENR, which stands for Low Energy Nuclear Reaction. The mainstream science is still out on this, but if its commercially successful, who cares?

Well, Dennis Bushnell, the chief scientist at NASA Langley, cares, and has spoken. He thinks LENR is a revolutionary epoch-changing technology whose time has come, a true game-changer.

I have gone on further than most care to read in one blog, so will stop and not embed more word or links in this post. Depending on the interest and tolerance for these surprising ideas, I will offer to follow up on this and post more sources.

Let me finish by saying, if true, this will put us on the road to virtually unlimited, very cheap, zero pollution distributed and compact energy sources. That would change much that is wrong with our current economies on the physical (but not distributional) side. And Dean Baker would be freed of his inter-generational global warming dilemma, so can get back to creating jobs here and now.

C02 emissions and fertility rates

Finally, a short break. I have been working on my main topic, the nexus of energy and development. And eventually of course the implications for the surplus approach. As part of a recent department environmental sustainability seminar centering on the models of Armon Rezai (and Lance Taylor and Duncan Foley), I presented data and (gasp!) forecasts using the Kaya model of carbon intensity. Surprisingly, there is hope in the data.

One of the points that leapt from the data is that population dynamics are a far greater weight on carbon emissions than the greening of the energy supply ("carbon intensity") and efficiency of energy consumption ("energy intensity"). Respectively, population is seven and three times more important in carbon emissions than either of those.

So, fertility becomes an (the?) important issue in climate debates. The data on global GDP per capita growth are among the most stable, and therefore predictable, that I have seen in macroeconomic series. In one hundred years, each of us will be earning $70,000 in 2005 USD (up from $7,000). Every one of us. Place your bets. So how many will that be?

The great news is that global fertility levels are plummeting, headed toward population decreases. One can see that in this Hans Rosling inspired motion chart using mainly World Bank data (with a recent addition of Jamie Galbraith's world inequality data based on Henri Theil indices). For those who may be concerned, I have no data on global coitus rates; I presume they remain healthy.

The data indicate that per capita GDP increases, female education, and more equal income distribution correlate with reduced fertility. This is great news since the first two are clearly "in train" around the world based on the data. Distribution, the great economic problem, jeopardizes climate as it becomes less equal in major economies.

Note that China has a current fertility rate of 1.6, below the 2.1 population sustainability rate. The biggest surprise is India, whose fertility at 2.7 was achieved without autarchy, a powerful endorsement of economic progress in damping fertility rates.

So we can have growth with some hope for climate given declining fertility rates even at current projected levels of carbon and energy intensities. My data intensive slides are here (including a discussion of the Kaya model). I gladly take questions. I will defer policy proposals. I need to refine the idea of global Fed helicopter drops of family planning supplies. (the interrupter of last resort?)

In a future post, with some trepidation, I will investigate the possibility of radical energy regimes and their implications for our economic and respiratory future. Are we approaching the end of the fossil energy epoch? An incredibly interesting question.

Rich-country Energy Policies Unsustainable

My former boss at RIETI, Nobuo Tanaka, recently became the first non-European head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Sept. 1. Tanaka was always good at statistics, often carrying around dozens of pages of charts and graphs to illustrate his points on the Japanese economy.

So I wasn't surprised when he used his statistical capacity to illustrate that energy policies in most rich countries are unsustainable. Check out the coverage on a recent interview with Tanaka in the International Herald Tribune's article, "New energy agency chief sees household energy use rising in industrial countries."

The most important point is perhaps the ethical question of whether the United States, Australia, Canada, and Europe have the credibility to wag their fingers at China and India about their energy consumption. Tanaka suggests that these countries don't have the moral credibility to do so:

"The leading industrial countries are not on a path to sustainable energy future," said Tanaka, a Japanese economist and diplomat who became the IEA's executive director Sept. 1. "There was a big effort to increase efficiency during the 1980s because of the oil price shocks," he said. "But these efforts subsided over the 1990s."

How can we ask China to be a responsible stakeholder when our responsibility is in question?

Another interesting point is that globalization--so often blamed for problems--was the factor that helped increase efficiency in the global manufacturing sector. Energy consumption and CO2 emissions have fallen in manufacturing:

"The reason is competition," Tanaka said. "With globalization, manufacturing companies have had to become more competitive if they want to survive. That means cutting back on energy costs."

What's needed? A major adjustment in the way we live.