Category: Global Warming

Taking “Capital Allocation Away From People Who Have Demonstrated Great Skill in Capital Allocation”

(p. 1) The richest people on earth typically devote a share of their vast resources to charity. That is the bargain and the expectation, anyway.

Jeff Bezos, until very recently the world’s richest human, has been applying himself dutifully if a bit cautiously to the task, giving money to food banks and homeless families while pledging $10 billion of the fortune he earned through the online retailer Amazon to fight climate change.

The latest richest human, Elon Musk, has taken a rather different tack. There was the public spat with the director of the World Food Programme on Twitter, for instance, announcing, “If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.”

. . .

And, of course, there is the ongoing insistence that his moneymaking efforts, running both the electric carmaker Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX, are already better-(p. 8)ing humankind, thank you very much.

Mr. Musk is practicing “troll philanthropy.”

That’s what Benjamin Soskis, senior research associate in the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute, has called it, noting that Mr. Musk seems to be having fun with this novel approach.

“He doesn’t seem to care much about using his philanthropy to curry public favor,” Mr. Soskis said. “In fact, he seems to enjoy using his identity as a philanthropist in part to antagonize the public.”

. . .

“The particular barrier for donors from a tech background is they don’t just think their genius has made them good at what they do, they also think what they do commercially also makes society better,” said Rhodri Davies, a philanthropy commentator who wrote a piece on Mr. Musk called “The Edgelord Giveth.”

Mr. Musk, for instance, has said that getting humankind to Mars through SpaceX is an important contribution and has written and spoken acerbically about what he calls “anti-billionaire BS,” including attempts to target taxes at billionaires.

“It does not make sense to take the job of capital allocation away from people who have demonstrated great skill in capital allocation and give it to an entity that has demonstrated very poor skill in capital allocation, which is the government,” Mr. Musk said on Monday at an event hosted by The Wall Street Journal.

At the same time, Mr. Kharas said a more charitable reading of Mr. Musk’s exchange with the World Food Programme is possible. He could just genuinely want to know how the money will be spent and is putting in public, on Twitter, the due diligence work that institutional giving does behind closed doors.

“I think this idea that he was willing to engage was really good,” Mr. Kharas of the Brookings Institution said of Mr. Musk. “I think his response was extremely sensible. It was basically, ‘Show me what you can do. Demonstrate it. Provide me with some evidence. I’ll do it.’”

For the full story, see:

Nicholas Kulish. “Elon Musk, Trolling Away.” The New York Times SundayBusiness Section (Sunday, December 12, 2021): 1 & 8.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Dec. 10, 2021, and has the title “Elon Musk’s Latest Innovation: Troll Philanthropy.”)

Bans on Natural Gas for Cooking and Heating Could Most Hurt Low-Income Citizens

(p. A13) This week, New York City moved to ban gas hookups in new buildings, joining cities in blue states like California, Massachusetts and Washington that want to shift homes away from burning natural gas because it releases carbon dioxide, which causes global warming.

Instead, developers in New York City will have to install electric heat pumps and electric kitchen ranges in newly constructed buildings.

. . .

But the gas industry is fighting back and has lobbied in statehouses across the country to slow the shift away from gas. It argues that gas appliances are widely popular and still cost less than electric versions for many consumers. Opponents have also warned that a rush to electrify homes could strain power grids, particularly in the winter when heating needs soar, at a time when states like California and Texas are already struggling to meet demand.

Karen Harbert, president and chief executive of the American Gas Association, an industry group, said efforts to disconnect homes and businesses from the extensive network of gas pipelines would make it difficult to supply those buildings with low-carbon alternatives that might be available in the future, such as hydrogen or biogas.

“Eliminating natural gas and our delivery infrastructure forecloses on current and future innovation opportunities,” she said.

The question of whether to use natural gas in homes has become part of the culture wars, pitting climate activists against industry and other interest groups. Some chefs and restaurant owners have argued that they won’t be able to cook certain dishes as well without gas.

. . .

In a statement, Bill Malcolm, a senior legislative representative at the AARP, said the group had “supported legislative and regulatory initiatives allowing customers to continue to use the fuel of their choice to heat their homes and cook their food.” He added: “Outright bans on certain fuel options would run contrary to that choice.”

. . .

For now, natural gas remains the dominant fuel in much of the country, heating nearly half of American homes. Electric heat pumps, by contrast, satisfy just 5 percent of heating demand nationwide.

. . .

Experts have warned that as more homeowners go electric, gas utilities will still have to pay to maintain their existing network of pipelines, which could mean higher costs for the smaller base of remaining customers, many of whom may be low-income.

For the full story, see:

Brad Plumer and Hiroko Tabuchi. “Gas vs. Electric Stoves Join Partisan Battlefield.” The New York Times (Friday, December 17, 2021): A13.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Dec. 10, 2021, and has the title “How Politics Are Determining What Stove You Use.” The online version says that the New York print edition had the title “Gas vs. Electric Stoves on a Partisan Battlefield.” My National print edition had the title “Gas vs. Electric Stoves Join Partisan Battlefield.” Where there is a slight difference in wording between the versions, the passages quoted above follow the online version.)

Return of New York City Oysters Are a Hopeful “Symbol of Resilience”

(p. A10) The restoration of New York Harbor has reached a new milestone as 2021 draws to a close: 11.2 million juvenile oysters have been added in the past six months to a section of the Hudson River off the coast of Lower Manhattan, where they are helping to filter the water and creating habitats for other marine life.

. . .

. . ., in addition to the ones being introduced, wild ones are being found on the bottoms of piers off the West Side of Manhattan and in the Bronx.

. . .

. . . the oysters are a symbol of resilience, and a rare hopeful sign amid ominous news about New York waterways in the age of rapid climate change.

If they grow big enough, the oyster reefs can even play a role in dissipating wave energy, helping to protect the city’s shorelines from storm surges and flooding in extreme weather.

. . .

The researchers at the River Project will track the oysters and their effect on the water. They run a small, free aquarium at Pier 40 that is designed expressly to educate the public about the abundant marine life in the area.

One very special oyster, named Big, lives under the pier. At 8.6 inches and 1.9 pounds, it was believed to be the biggest oyster found in New York Harbor in a century when it was discovered in 2018.

For the full story, see:

Karen Zraick. “11 Million New Oysters. Want to Eat One? Maybe in 100 Years.” The New York Times (Saturday, December 11, 2021): A10.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Dec. 10, 2021, and has the title “11 Million New Oysters in New York Harbor (but None for You to Eat).”)

Demand for Oil and Gas “Will Remain Robust for Years to Come”

(p. B1) The leaders of the world’s largest oil companies said Monday [Dec. 6, 2021] that demand for the products they make will remain robust for years to come even as the world attempts to transition to lower-carbon energy sources.

The chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Saudi Arabian Oil Co., speaking at the World Petroleum Congress in Houston, said that while the world needs to address the risks posed by climate change, global economies cannot function without fossil fuels.

“Oil and gas continue to play a central role in meeting the world’s energy needs, and we play an essential role in delivering them in a lower carbon way,” Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said Monday. “Our products make the world run.”

. . .

(p. B2) Jeff Miller, chief executive of Halliburton Co., said Monday that the world’s underinvestment in oil and gas since 2014—years in which international spending was 50% below historical norms—is leading global markets to an era of scarcity.

. . .

Just a few weeks ago, some market observers had predicted crude prices could soon hit $100 a barrel for the first time in seven years, on the back of a strengthening demand recovery and sluggish growth in oil supplies.

For the full story, see:

Collin Eaton and Christopher M. Matthews. “Demand for Fossil Fuels Seen Lasting for Years.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, December 7, 2021): B1-B2.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Dec. 6, 2021, and has the title “Demand for Oil, Gas to Remain Robust for Years, Energy Leaders Say.”)

Solve Future Crises by Allowing the Nimble to Innovate

Donald Boudreaux, on his Café Hayek blog, quotes a passage from my Openness book, saying that the best way to prepare for unknown future crises is to sustain a society where nimble innovators are allowed to nimbly innovate. Donald posted the quote on Mon., Dec. 6, 2021.

My book is:

Diamond, Arthur M., Jr. Openness to Creative Destruction: Sustaining Innovative Dynamism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Climate Change Infrastructure Subsidies Mainly Benefit the Rich

(p. A9) Mr. Biden has insisted that at least 40 percent of the benefits of federal climate spending will reach underserved places, which tend to be low income, rural, communities of color, or some combination of the three.

But historically, it is wealthier, white communities — with both high property values and the resources to apply to competitive programs — that receive the bulk of federal grants. And policy experts say it’s unclear whether, and how quickly, federal bureaucracy can level the playing field.

. . .

The new climate provisions in the infrastructure bill inject billions of dollars into competitive grant programs. These are pots of money that towns, cities and counties can access only by submitting applications, which federal agencies then rank, with funds going to applicants with the highest scores.

That system is designed to ensure that funding goes to the most worthwhile projects.

But it also hinges on something outside the control of the federal government: The ability of local officials to use sophisticated tools and resources to write successful applications. The result is a process that has widened the gap between rich communities and their less affluent counterparts, experts say.

The disparity begins even before the application process begins. That’s because local governments must be aware of the grant programs in the first place, which means having dedicated staff to track those programs. Then they need to design proposals that will score highly, and correctly complete the reams of required paperwork.

Even if they are awarded a grant, communities are required to pay a share of the project — often 25 percent, which is unaffordable for many struggling towns and counties.

Governments that can clear those obstacles face a final hurdle: Demonstrating that the value of the property that would be protected is greater than the cost of the project. That rule often excludes communities of color and rural areas, where property values are usually lower than in white communities.

. . .

The Biden administration has touted the program, called Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, as a model that should be expanded. The infrastructure bill provides billions more to the program.

But most of the first round winners were wealthy, predominantly white areas in a handful of coastal states, federal data show.

More than half the money went to California, New Jersey and Washington State. The largest single recipient was a $68 million flood-control project in Menlo Park, Calif., where the median household income is more than $160,000, the typical home costs more than $2 million and only one in five residents are Black or Hispanic. The project is in line to get $50 million from FEMA.

For the full story, see:

Christopher Flavelle. $50 Billion Conundrum: Who Gets Climate Protection?” The New York Times (Saturday, December 4, 2021): A9.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Dec. 3, 2021, and has the title “Billions for Climate Protection Fuel New Debate: Who Deserves It Most.”)

Electric Copter Ventures May Soon Provide Better and Cheaper Transportation Than Subsidized Bus and Rail

(p. B5) While urban air travel is currently out of reach for most customers (think: Uber Copter), improvements in battery technology have driven down the cost of developing electric-powered aircraft that are viable as urban passenger transportation. These companies are betting they can bring electric urban and regional air travel to the masses, and have developed new aircraft to compete for a slice of this nascent market within the next few years.

“We want to create something that is available to a lot of people, that can do the job of a high-speed train without requiring the infrastructure,” said Daniel Wiegand, chief executive and founder of Lilium, based in Germany. “We won’t be at the ticket price of a high-speed train in Germany on our first day, but if we don’t get there within 15 years I would consider our mission failed.”

. . .

Adam Goldstein, the co-chief executive of Archer Aviation, said his company hopes to offer fares in the range of three to four dollars per mile traveled. That would make the trip from Manhattan to Kennedy, typically 17 miles, between $50 and $80. Several experts predicted the price of regional flights would be around the same cost as the luxury car service Uber Black.

“The biggest cost is the batteries,” said Mr. Goldstein, which are “expensive, but get cheaper everyday.”

. . .

The largest area of investment is into electric vehicles that takeoff and land vertically, like helicopters or Harrier jets. Known as electric vertical takeoff and landing or eVTOLs, these aircraft can usually seat between two and 10 passengers and can travel up to 200 miles, making them ideally suited for traversing a metropolitan area or connecting two cities.

Mr. Wiegand of Lilium had a light bulb moment in 2014 when he watched a video of a military aircraft that took off vertically and realized that an electric version could solve all the traditional problems with using aircraft in dense urban areas: eliminating noise and air pollution, as well as the need for runways.

. . .

Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami said his city is embracing eVTOLs as a cost-effective, environmentally friendly alternative to legacy modes of transportation like buses and light rail, which are costly to build and rely on older technology. He said the city is looking at parking garages, rooftops and other potential takeoff and landing locations.

“We feel that one of the flaws in transportation planning and funding has been retreading yesterday’s ideas,” he said in an interview. “The sky obviously has multiple dimensions and gives you the ability to be creative.”

Mr. Suarez added that he has pushed Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to embrace urban air mobility rather than focusing on older modes of transport.

For the full story, see:

Gautham Nagesh. “Flight Instead of a Ride? Electric Craft May Alter Urban Area Commuting.” The New York Times (Saturday, December 4, 2021): B5.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Nov. 26, 2021, and has the title “Taxi! To the Airport — by Air, Please.” The print version of the first paragraph quoted above starts with the word “although,” instead of the word “while.”)

Entrepreneurs Explore Using Hydrogen to Fuel Future Airplanes

(p. B4) A fully fueled Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner can fly roughly 8,000 miles while ferrying 300 or so passengers and their luggage. A battery with the energy equivalent to that fuel would weigh about 6.6 million pounds. That’s why — despite environmental advantages — we don’t have battery-powered electric airliners.

But aviation companies working to make cleaner aircraft are exploring the use of hydrogen, the world’s most abundant element, to power both electric and combustion engines — and to make air travel more eco-friendly

. . .

When Val Miftakhov founded ZeroAvia to develop electric aircraft, he first considered battery power. A Siberian émigré and physicist, his earlier start-up converted gasoline cars to electric, then incorporated an improved charging system. But batteries can sustain only the shortest excursions, like training flights. . . .

ZeroAvia instead chose fuel cells, which are essentially a chemical battery that substitutes lighter-than-air hydrogen for the weighty lithium ion. Hydrogen is notable for its energy density — the amount of energy per kilogram — which is about three times that of jet fuel. The byproduct of burning hydrogen is water. Hydrogen can be made from water and renewable energy, although most is now made from natural gas, which is not particularly green.

Mr. Miftakhov acknowledged that hydrogen storage containers, which were generally designed for ground transportation, were not practical for aircraft. “We need to focus on reducing the weight,” he said, “We have some fairly low-hanging fruit.”

For the full story, see:

Roy Furchgott. “Will Hydrogen Be Aviation’s Eco-Friendly Fuel?” The New York Times (Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021): B4.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Nov. 22, 2021, and has the title “Can Hydrogen Save Aviation’s Fuel Challenges? It’s Got a Way to Go.”)

New Nuclear Designs Are “Cheap, Efficient, Extremely Reliable”, “Nearly Carbon-Free” and Much Safer

(p. A17) Jacopo Buongiorno, a nuclear-engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has calculated that over the life cycle of power plants, which includes construction, mining, transport, operation, decommissioning and disposal of waste, the greenhouse-gas emissions for nuclear power are 1/700th those of coal, 1/400th of gas, and one-fourth of solar. Nuclear also requires 1/2,000th as much land as wind and around 1/400th as much as solar. For any given power output, the amount of raw material used to build a nuclear plant is a small fraction of an equivalent solar or wind farm. Although nuclear waste is obviously more difficult to dispose of, its volume is 1/10,000th that of solar and 1/500th of wind. This includes abandoned infrastructure and all the toxic substances that end up in landfills. One person’s lifetime use of nuclear power would produce about a half-ounce of waste. Even including the Chernobyl disaster, human mortality from coal is 2,000 to 3,000 times that of nuclear, while oil claims 400 times as many lives.

Although the federal government tends to resist nuclear power, many nuclear technologies are being investigated and funded by private capital including molten-salt reactors, liquid-metal reactors, advanced small modular reactors, microreactors and much more. More than 70 development projects are under way in the U.S., with many designs intended to create assembly-line construction facilities to simplify and standardize testing, licensing and installations. One appealing approach is to replace large-scale facilities with many smaller but safer, cheaper and more-manageable ones. The $10 billion 10-year planning and implementation cycle for a large nuclear plant can be cut in half with a small modular reactor and another half with a microreactor.

. . .

Nuclear power is cheap, efficient, extremely reliable and nearly carbon-free. New designs, including smaller reactors, drastically reduce the risk of large-scale radioactive contamination.

. . .

Sacrifice isn’t always the path to progress.

For the full commentary, see:

Andrew I. Fillat and Henry I. Miller. “Nuclear Power Is the Best Climate-Change Solution by Far.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, Nov. 5, 2021): A17.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date November 4, 2021, and has the same title as the print version.)

California Labor and Environment Policies Reduce Nimble Response to Supply Chain Backups

(p. A17) The backup of container ships at the Long Beach and Los Angeles ports has grown in recent weeks despite President Biden’s intervention to get terminal operators to move goods 24/7.

. . .

The two Southern California ports handle only about 40% of containers entering the U.S., mostly from Asia. Yet ports in other states seem to be handling the surge better. Gov. Ron DeSantis said last month that Florida’s seaports had open capacity. So what’s the matter with California? State labor and environmental policies.

Some 20 business groups recently asked Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a state of emergency and suspend labor and environmental laws that are interfering with the movement of goods. Opening the Port of Los Angeles 24 hours a day “alone will do little without immediate action from the state to address other barriers that have created bottlenecks at the ports, warehouses, trucking, rail, and the entire supply chain,” they wrote.

One barrier is a law known as AB5. Before its enactment in 2019, tens of thousands of truck drivers worked as independent contractors, which gave them more autonomy and flexibility than if they were employees. As contractors, truck drivers can work for multiple companies, which allows them to nimbly respond to surges in demand.

. . .

Another problem: a shortage of storage space. “There is absolutely no available capacity in the warehousing sector due to the difficulty in developing any new capacity,” the businesses noted in their letter. The vacancy rate for warehouses near the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports was a mere 1%, compared with 3.6% nationwide.

If warehouses don’t have space in their facilities or parking lots to unload goods, drivers can’t make deliveries. Some truck drivers are leaving container boxes along with the chassis outside storage facilities and are picking them up later, but that results in a shortage of chassis at the ports. (About half of chassis are leased to truckers from a common pool supplied by private companies.)

. . .

. . . in California warehouse growth ignited opposition from environmental groups, which complain of pollution and noise. Many cities have limited new logistics facilities.

For the full commentary, see:

Allysia Finley. “California Is the Supply Chain’s Weakest Link.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, Nov. 5, 2021): A17.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date November 4, 2021, and has the same title as the print version.)

China Adds to Coal Use, While Already Burning More than Rest of World Combined

(p. B1) LINFEN, China — Desperate to meet its electricity needs, China is opening up new coal production exceeding what all of Western Europe mines in a year, at a tremendous cost to the global effort to fight climate change.

The campaign has unleashed a flurry of activity in China’s coal country. Idled mines are restarting. Cottage-sized yellow backhoes are clearing and widening roads past terraced cornfields. Long columns of bright red freight trucks are converging on the region to haul the extra cargo.

China’s push will carry a high cost. Burning coal, already the world’s single biggest cause of human-driven climate change, will increase China’s emissions and toxic air pollution.

. . .

China is expanding mines to produce 220 million metric tons a year of extra coal, a nearly 6 percent rise from last year. China already digs up and burns more coal than the rest of the world combined.

The effort is infused with patriotism. “Guarantee the supply” has become a national slogan, appearing frequently now in state media and official statements and even on red banners on the front of coal trucks.

. . .

(p. B4) Coal shortages were not China’s only electricity problem by September. A lack of rain in southwestern China meant hydroelectric dams generated less power. Calm skies in northeastern China meant wind turbines also contributed less.

Coal prices nearly doubled. Utilities, prevented from raising prices, began running power plants less. Blackouts followed as China’s factories ran flat out to meet strong demand. Heavy rains and flooding in Shanxi in early October briefly delayed China’s initial ability to dig extra coal. The Shanxi government said on Thursday [October 28, 2021] that all but four mines have reopened.

Officials have responded by partially deregulating electricity tariffs. Depending on the province, energy-intensive industries like steel or chemicals production now face cost increases of as much as 50 percent. That may prompt them to embrace energy efficiency, said Yan Qin, a lead analyst at Refinitiv, a data provider.

For the full story, see:

Keith Bradsher. “China Hurries to Burn More Coal, Putting Climate Goals at Risk.” The New York Times (Friday, October 29, 2021): B1 & B4.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Oct. 28, 2021, and has the same title as the print version.)