Fun with Graphs

In the introductory lecture to my class on sustainable energy this semester our professor went through a bunch of graphs from the BP report on energy that show the distribution of energy use, CO2 emissions, and energy intensity across the globe. One thing about several of the graphs stuck me and I've put them below with a brief explanation.

Graph 1: Primary Energy per Capita

Note where India is on the graph. This is primarily due to their relatively small industrial base and extremely large population (the same reason that China, even with massive amounts of energy use, is small as well. Between the two of them they have somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five percent of the global population). The next graph follows from this one and shows roughly what you'd expect.

Graph 2: Per Capita CO2 Emissions

As I said, this shows roughly what you'd expect. India has the smallest per capita energy use of the countries shown and thus has the smallest per capita CO2 emissions. As a side note, Norway drops off the graph because, while they use an enormous amount of energy, something like 90% of their electricity comes from hydro power, which for all its other environmental problems, is an extremely clean source of energy from a CO2 emissions standpoint.

The final graph is the kicker and what really caught my attention in class. It shows the per kilowatt hour emission of CO2. Basically how efficiently, from an emissions standpoint, you produce your electricity. As I've already said, Norway does this extremely efficiently.

Graph 3: CO2 Emissions per kW of Electricity

It should be obvious now that India does not produce electricity efficiently in terms of emissions. Nor does China (this most people knew already and is due to the massive number of coal power plants they are building). It's worth noting that Brazil, who also gets huge amounts of its electricity from hydro, is so low on the list and Norway isn't even on the list.

So what does it all mean? A lot of economists think that in the next 30 years India will overtake China as the fastest growing economy due to demographic reasons (China's population, due to the one child policy, has peaked and will start to decline. India, on the other hand, is still growing). Right now India's per capita emissions are so low because it's per capita energy use is so low, which is due to the fact that most of the population still lives an agrarian lifestyle. As Dani Rodrik points out here, as countries develop labor moves from agriculture to industry. Industry requires significant increases of energy inputs over pre-modern agriculture. A lot of this energy comes in the form of electricity (factory lights, urban street lights, factory machines, etc). Thus, as India's population urbanizes and industrializes their per capita use of energy, and therefore per capita emissions, will increase. What the third graph says is that for every unit increase in energy usage, their emissions will increase more than anywhere else in the world. So the least efficient country in the world in terms of emissions from electricity will also be the fastest growing country in the world. A wonderful combination.

Big picture? It means that global CO2 emissions will increase even faster as India industrializes than they did while China was industrializing. A terrifying thought for anyone who is concerned about atmospheric concentrations of CO2. It also underlines the absolute necessity of getting developing countries on board with any climate agreement. I'm not sure about the scale impacts of India's emissions relative to the developed world but it isn't inconceivable that their development could negate any unilateral efforts to reduce emissions undertaken by the developed world.

Long term implications of the Oil Spill

The announcement that BP has successfully completed the static kill of the Macondo closes the first chapter of the story of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the largest marine oil spill in history. Taken with the Obama Administration’s announcement that the majority of the oil in the Gulf has dissipated it would appear that the disaster is coming to a close. But, like the oil that has contaminated the Gulf for the last four months, appearances here are slippery. Although the oil is no longer spewing into the Gulf, the United States will be dealing with the environmental costs of this disaster for years to come.

The costs of this disaster are far from being completely calculated but are likely to run into the tens of billions of dollars. Many of these costs are obvious or easily predictable – the jobs lost due to the drilling moratorium, the lost tourist dollars as people fled the coast, the jobs lost in the fishing industry – but the most lasting costs may be to the environment. Anyone paying attention to the disaster has seen images of oil coated birds and heard stories of turtles burned alive. The media has focused on these images and the damages to coastal estuaries and wetlands as oil contaminated these incredibly fragile ecosystems. But it is the hidden effects on the breeding cycle of many of the marine animals that call the Gulf home that may, in the end, be the most damaging.

The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon could not have come at a worse time for the marine animals which spawn in the Gulf of Mexico. These animals return to the Gulf each spring to breed and release eggs into the water. This year they did this ageless ritual in heavily polluted and contaminated water that significantly reduces the likelihood of the new generations survival. Even in a normal year only a very small percentage of the eggs released grow to be mature fish. The oil and chemicals released to fight it this year could dramatically increase the mortality of the new generation. While the exact impact on the survival of this year’s spawning is unclear, experts fear that it could be devastating.

Many of these species are already dangerously threatened from over-fishing. Species like the blue-fin tuna are already at levels low enough to be considered threatened by the U.N. These species – along with the sword fish and yellow fin tuna – have long life-spans and correspondingly long sexual maturation. As a result, the destruction of an entire generation could have serious long term implications on the population as a whole.

The most similar historic example is the impact that hydropower installations had on salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest in the early 90s. Like many of the species in the Gulf, the salmon return to the same locations each year to spawn. The installation of hydropower facilities in many of these rivers prevented their return and, as a result, they did not spawn. This did not have an immediate impact. Instead, populations remained steady for several years but 4-5 years after the installation of the dams – the time when the first generations not to spawn because of the dams would have been maturing – the population crashed.

Why does this matter? Because if this happens in the Gulf it could have a devastating impact on the fishing industry in the region. Many of the species that return to the Gulf each year, the Yellowfin Tuna for example, are already struggling at dangerously low population levels. A significant drop-off in production in one year could have permanent long-term effects on the vitality of the population. If this were to happen the short term pain that the fishing industry is currently going through could become a much more permanent phenomenon.

The fishing industry is clambering for Obama to lift his ban on fishing in areas affected by the spill so that they can return to fishing. Precisely the opposite needs to happen. The ban should be continued until more information is available about the survival rate of this year’s spawning generation. To do otherwise risks permanently damaging one of the most productive fisheries in the world.

The exhaustion of dozens of other fisheries the world over proves that fishers struggle to manage these resources in the best of times. Too often the short term considerations of profit outweigh long term management considerations. Combined with a disaster like the Macando spill whose effects may not be fully felt for five years or more, this mindset could have terrible consequences for Gulf fishing. And if fishing in the Gulf collapses the economic pain the region will be just as harsh as the pain they are currently feeling but even more permanent.

Reflecting on the Wall

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2009/11/12/wall-environmental-change-climate/

True Value

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=529800

Concentrating on Carbon

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=529519

Column #2

The Supreme Court began it's new term on Monday. Here's my take.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=529266

Transition

Because I was recently given a column in The Crimson the role of this blog will be modified slightly for the time being. Most of my longer pieces are going to be written in the context of the column and the links will be posted here as entries. The column will appear on alternate Thursdays so check back every other Thursday afternoon and there will be a new post - I think that's a better model than the current I post when I feel like it model. It will at least ensure that there are more posts.

However, this blog is not going to serve only as a link aggregator. I'll be moving to NC for the fall and, assuming I have time, I'll use this to post my thoughts as I'm living there. These will be shorter entries that I post whenever inspiration strikes me.

In the meantime, here is the link to the first column:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=528984