Internship Opportunity at NREL

The Strategic Energy Analysis and Applications Center (SEAAC) at NREL is looking for interns at the graduate level (or last year of undergraduate studies) with backgrounds in engineering, physics, operations research, economics, or business. NREL’s SEAAC aims to increase the understanding of the current and future characteristics, roles, and interactions of government, markets, and technologies. The acquired understanding is used to inform research and system installation decisions as energy-efficient and renewable energy technologies advance from concept to commercial application. For more information visit: http://ei.colorado.edu/resources/NREL-SEAAC%20hiring%20interns.pdf.

Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment

This issue of the Energy Initiative Newsletter focuses on the 8th National Conference on Science, Policy, and the Environment titled “Climate Change: Science and Solutions”, which was held January 16-18 in Washington, DC.  For details, read on!

Who attended?

Overall Impressions of the Conference

The CU participants felt that the conference as a whole was decidedly gloomy.  Speakers were long on problems and short on specific solutions.  That reflects, in part, the conference organizers and participants:  the NCSE conference seems largely to be one of academic scientists rather than policy practitioners or engineers.  In the case of climate change, science points to the problem, while technology and policy will be the solutions.  Nevertheless, it was not an upbeat event. 

One participant described the conference as “a mix of sobering if not depressing assessments of the state of the science and amusing but discouraging tales of political and media confusion about the topic.”  The conference served as a stellar opportunity for networking, catching up with cohorts and being inspired by youth who have, through programs like envirolution.org and climatechallenge.org , tapped the youthful enthusiasm and creativity that gives a boost of hope for the future.

CU-Led Sessions

The CU participants convened the following sessions:

CU Participant Feedback on Sessions/Speaker

The most impressive aspect of the conference was the broad range of topics discussed in 25 workshops and 35 breakout sessions. The breadth of these presentations and discussions emphasized how energy production and use affects every aspect of society and how the complexity of energy requires input from multiple disciplines.  The CU participants were impressed by Arizona State President Michael Crow who presented ASU’s model for universities to take an integrated approach to climate change (and sustainability as a whole).  All ASU undergrads are required to take a “module” on sustainability.  Crow suggested that federal support was needed to establish “schools of sustainability” at major universities that would be similar to medical schools in order to address climate change and energy issues. 

The presentations from climate scientists, many who are involved with the IPCC, were either pessimistic or alarming.  Climate change is truly at an “emergency” level.  The science is getting more gloomy—and the politicians are getting more committed to addressing it.  Most of the recent data suggest that global warming is occurring faster than the average scenarios reported by IPCC and effects of climate change are being observed world-wide.  The ocean ecosystem is sinking as it loses it buffering ability, while energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions grow at a trajectory at the high end of the IPCC scenarios, heading toward a tripling of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere.  These observations suggest that the urgency associated with reducing GHG emissions is even greater than what was believed even a few years ago.  Some speakers suggested that global temperature increases of 3 degrees C from pre-industrial values are already “in the cards” and that immediate global mitigation efforts will be required to prevent catastrophic 5-6 degree increases.   The latest thinking is that we should be looking at 80% reductions in GHG emissions by 2050 or even 2030, but we need not shirk from saying how serious it is so that we mobilize people to take it on with the level of commitment we apply to emergencies.  A lot of our research up to now has had an “individual” or “us against them” bias—prolonging human life and improving our capacities for war.  We need to switch to a “collective” focus to address this common problem.

Military consultant Sherri Goodman of CNA Corporation described the alarm of military leaders as they realized the extent to which climate disruption is a destabilizing factor with high risk and high probability.

The speakers who discussed US and international political solutions to climate change were mostly negative and cautionary.  Despite the attention paid to climate change in the media, very little has been accomplished in terms of meaningful governmental regulations to limit carbon emissions. Developing countries are generally unwilling to accept mandated GHG emission reductions. Reported reductions in developed countries are largely due to changes in population or other factors that affect reporting. Globally, GHG emissions are still increasing at 3%/year, 10%/year in China.

Speakers from the business community certainly seemed to accept the importance of improving energy use efficiency and reducing the carbon intensity associated with energy production.  However, these speakers also mentioned numerous economic and regulatory obstacles associated with rapid, widespread development and acceptance of low carbon energy.  One participant noted that the non-business participants criticized the business speaker (Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy) for being overly glib and optimistic.

The “Setting a Price for Carbon” workshop was particularly helpful to one participant in addressing policy questions and answering a key question regarding the relative value of a carbon tax versus a cap-and-trade system—and, again, the implications for business.

The session on carbon legislation devolved into an argument between an academic and industry representatives.  The industry reps argued that carbon emissions permits should be distributed for free rather than auctioned.  They also argued that the Clean Air Act should not be used to regulate carbon, and that national carbon legislation was vastly preferable to a “patchwork” of state regulations.  What’s significant here is that industry seems to have moved from a position of no carbon regulation, to one of wanting federal regulation as a way of avoiding state regulation.  A short discussion with a Hill Staffer indicates there is considerable interest in Congress, although little agreement yet on just what carbon legislation should look like. 

The session on energy efficiency was disappointing to one participant.  Although several conference speakers flagged energy efficiency as the lowest cost and simplest partial answer to climate change, the session speakers and attendees had little to say that hadn’t been said before.  Session participants spoke mostly of ‘barriers’ and public apathy, rather than innovative ways to implement energy efficiency.  There is in fact new thinking in energy efficiency, but you wouldn’t know it from the NCSE session. 

The session titled "The Role of Philanthropic Foundations: Promoting Strategic Initiatives on Climate Change," included moderator Sharon Alpert (Program Officer of the Environmental Program, Surdna Foundation), Andrew Bowman (Director of the Climate Change Initiative, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation), Kathleen Welch, (Deputy Director of the Environmental Program, the Pew Charitable Trusts), Elizabeth Chadri (Program Officer for Conservation and Sustainable Development Program on Global Security and Sustainability, MacArthur Foundation), and Eric Heitz (President, the Energy Foundation). Representatives from philanthropic institutions at the conference discussed their interest in funding efforts focused on mitigating and adapting to the impact of ongoing and future climate change; motivating policy changes; and market-based strategies to stimulate a change to more sustainable public behavior.  They discussed how their funding goals related to climate change have evolved over time and their current focus.  

Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio (Rockefeller Foundation) led the breakout session, “Climate Change Adaptation for the Developing World: Expanding Africa’s Climate Change Resilience”. Jeff Clark, Wendling Strategies, attended the conference as a representative of an unnamed foundation.

For more information visit the conference website at http://www.ncseonline.org/2008conference/.