McLean Assembly 2008
On April 3, 2008, four distinguished speakers who currently deal with U.S. energy and environmental issues took the stage to discuss the future of American Energy.
Topic:
There is now a broad consensus among a majority of Americans: working to mitigate climate change is in our environmental, strategic, and economic interests. But consensus is only a first step. This year’s McLean Lecture focuses on a plan for action to deal with global climate change, moving the debate past what we already know by gathering four distinguished speakers dealing with energy and environmental issues in government, research, activism and business. Using the groundbreaking report from McKinsey & Company, Inc., Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions: How Much at What Cost, as a base for discussion, the speakers will address how can we feasibly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an economically responsible way. The McKinsey report has been distributed in both houses of the U.S. Congress and the offices of Fortune 500 companies. The panelists are, and will continue to be, influential voices in the critical policy decisions of the near future.Suggested Reading: The Cost of an Overheated PlanetShort New York Times Video: Thomas Friedman on The Power of GreenThis Week’s Time Magazine Cover Story: The Clean Energy ScamCNN News: Congress Grills Energy Executives on Tuesday
Moderator:
CARTER F. BALES is Managing Partner Emeritus of The Wicks Group, a leading private equity firm. Before devoting his full energies to Wicks, Mr. Bales was a Director of McKinsey & Company, Inc., the international business consulting firm. Beginning in 2006, Mr. Bales has concentrated his efforts on the issue of climate change and how greenhouse gas emissions can be abated in practical and cost-effective ways. He has written and spoken extensively on business and public policy issues and has been published by The New York Times and a number of business and academic journals, as well as by the Harvard Business School Division of Research. Over the past year, he has worked with McKinsey and a number of leading corporations and NGOs to produce the groundbreaking report entitled Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions: How Much at What Cost? He has also carried out several pro bono efforts for the Clinton Climate Initiative on forest carbon sequestration and containing methane gas emissions from sanitary landfills. Mr. Bales is Founding Chair of the North Shore Land Alliance, Governor Emeritus of The Nature Conservancy, a trustee of the Grand Canyon Trust, a member of the Advisory Council to the Center of Market Innovation at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a trustee of the Echoing Green Foundation, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Explorers club. In past years, he was a Governor and Vice Chairman of The Nature Conservancy.
Participants:
WILLIAM C. HORAK is chair of the Energy Sciences and Technology Department (EST) of Brookhaven National Laboratory. With a staff of 150 and an annual budget of $50 million, EST’s mission is “to perform basic science, analyses and technology development that provide innovative solutions to some of the world’s most important energy challenges.” Dr. Horack is an internationally recognized expert on energy issues and has served on numerous boards, committees, and panels, both in the U.S. and for international organizations, such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
NATHANAEL GREENE is a senior energy policy specialist at the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental non-governmental organization, who works on issues including utility regulation, renewable energy sources, energy taxes and energy efficiency. Greene has presented testimony before congress based on his expertise in biopower, wind and small, clean-generating technologies such as fuel cells, as well as the state and federal regulations and policies to promote these technologies. He writes a blog focusing on these issues, which is featured on NRDC’s “Switchboard” website.
PAUL GIARDINA currently serves as chief of the Radiation and Indoor Branch of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Region 2 Office. He has over 37 years of experience dealing with nuclear power issues, environmental management and radiation protection. He is the author of numerous technical papers and has presented testimony before various U.S. Congressional subcommittees on a variety of radiation protection issues. Mr. Giardina has led the Agency efforts in dealing with nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities, and radiation contaminated site cleanup. Mr. Giardina has previously held positions in private industry.
Comments»
Nuclear power plants require awesome amounts of cooling water to operate, and in the past several years there have been several instances of water shortages forcing nuclear power plants to temporarily shut down. As global warming progresses and droughts in many locations become more intense and more frequent, will nuclear power truly be able to offer a reliable solution to our energy crisis?
As of late, many politicians have made a big deal about biofuels, especially ethanol, with the premises that it can be grown in the United States and that it will support Midwestern corn farmers. However, in recent months, food prices have risen to record levels, and the world’s reserve of grain has fallen to its lowest level since 1945. Are other alternative energy sources, such as hydropower, solar energy, and wind power better options for a future American power grid?
The fight against global warming and against carbon emission is a more-than-potent snowball rolling down a hill, but it seems that the government, and we as its citizens, are not doing enough to prevent that snowball from melting. My question is twofold:
1) How long will it be before the US government provides the funds necessary for making our country environmentally safe, energy-efficient, and self-sustaining?
2) Isn’t that, after all, what we want? If not an environmentally safe country, at least one that is self-sustaining? What are the roadblocks or hypocrisies to the rhetoric of an administration that supposedly wants to reduce its dependence on foreign oil but does nothing about it–and what can WE do to add to the snowball?
On the radio I heard talk of the uncertainties of Global Warming. What scientific evidence is there to support that CO2 and other green house gases are responsible for temperature rises?
What do you think will be the most effective ways that our country can help prevent “Global Warming”? Do you think our use of cars is a main factor to this negative effect? By creating more train systems and public transportation nationally do you feel we can cut down drastically on the negative change we are having on the environment? Lastly I have been hearing about inventions that can use water currents to create, capture, and be ways to produce energy- what are the pros and cons of these news way of energy? do you think the pros out weigh the cons (Windmills, Solar energy, water energy)?
Along with stressing afforestation and reforestation initiatives, the McKinsey Report advocates carbon capture and storage as a way to offset carbon emissions, claiming that it has an abatement potential of 290 megatons within the decade of the 2020s. Given its uncertain economic potential, undeveloped technology, large cost, unknown amount of underground storage space, and danger of leakage, can we really count on CCS as a means of expanding and enhancing U.S. carbon sinks and mitigating climate change?
America has only created more emission problems for itself since the late 1900s: 20% increase of America’s carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels since 1990 and 15% increase of America’s carbon dioxide emissions forecasted by 2020 if America does not cap its pollution. How many federal bills/changes have been proposed to cut our total emissions and if none, what bill(s) would you propose for a logical solution to our problems?
According to projections by the Census Bureau, the United States population could come close to doubling in the next 100 years. There were 273 million people recorded in 1999, and the population is projected to be 404 million in 2050, and by year 2100, 571 million. With this tremendous growth, what do you think the correlation between population increase and environmental degradation is? Should we be focusing on controlling population growth in order to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions?
Americans will undoubtedly think twice about supporting initiatives that battle global warming when it is the difference between an 8% tax and a 16% one, or $3 for a box of cereal instead of $6; the price of development eventually must trickle down somewhere and be burdened by someone. How do you plan to explain and justify the delicate balance between controlling global warming and the deepening America’s deficit to the average American to whom it is not an immediate issue?
The Virgin Earth challenge was established by Sir Richard Branson and other private donors on 9/2/2007 in the hopes of awarding $25 million to the team that develops the most commercially-feasible way to literally take greenhouse gases out of the air. To what extent do you see funding and general encouragement from the private sector spurring the development of environmental technology?
Do you think that Collegiate’s step in helping to improve the environment with both CENIC and wind power will make a difference in other New York schools?
It seems as if most of the ideas and possible solution for slowing down the global increase in temperatures all lie on the basis of a target or goal. For example, in California, a policy was adopted to reduce their global warming “contribution” by 25% in 14 years. In the US and all over the world, policies and pledges alike are being made by both government and corporations. Do these goals offer a false promise of truly effective action in trying to reverse the effects of global warming?
According to many environmental specialists, it’s a sensible goal just to prevent the doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. Is it merely enough for us to stop carbon emissions from doubling or do we have to do more?
Of the major current presidential candidates (that is, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain), who do you think has the most comprehensive and/or commercially feasible plan for battling global warming? Whose plan do you support, regardless of personal alliances, if different from the aforementioned question?
Would convincing organizations currently opposed to significant envrionmental legislation that such legislation was necessary be enough to to finally enact meaningful environmentalist policy, or would the many divisions between environmental groups simply become the next major impediment to real reform?
Several years ago ethanol fuel and other biofuels were the darling of the media and consumers alike. However, it appears that in reality that we are for the most part unable to “grow fuel on American soil,” squeezed on three fronts between land use crises, the inefficiency of biofuel production processes, and resitance to GMO proliferation. Is there any hope for biofuels? How can we resolve the issues preventing the goal of affordable, home-grown fuels that can stimulate the economy?
“Building more reactors makes climate change worse than it should have been,” argues Armory Lovins, chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute, an energy think tank in Snowmass, Colo. “That’s because a dollar put into new reactors gives two to 10 times less climate solution for the amount of coal-power displaced than if you had bought cheaper solutions with the same dollars.” Does Mr. Lovins have a point?
Even if we recognize that corn-based ethanol is adverse to U.S environmental and economic goals, will Congress ever lose its taste for ethanol subsidies? Or will farm-belt states, each of which holds two votes in the senate, take second, third, and fourth helpings from the pork-barrel for their farming constituents?
Given that the nations that emit the greatest amounts of CO2 will be among the least affected by climate change whereas the poorest nations in Africa will be most affected, what incentives are there for the heavy emitters (including the US, China, and India) to reduce carbon emissions?
The UN IPCC AR4 synthesis report states, “Both bottom-up and top-down studies indicate that there is high agreement and much evidence of substantial economic potential for the mitigation of global GHG emissions over the coming decades that could offset the projected growth of global emissions or reduce emissions below current levels.”
First, why has there not been more investment in mitigation and adaptation technologies if there is such tremendous economic potential, and second, which will be more effective: reducing carbon emissions or engineering solutions to help cope with the changing climate?
The World Energy Outlook predicted in 2006 that China’s emissions will surpass the U.S.’s next year. Along with India, China is rapidly developing, with emmisions per capita rising quickly. Even though the emmisions per capita of both countries are far lower than most devoloped countries, do you believe that there should there be more focus accorded to these countries in order to curb their greenhouse gas emmissions? Also should the UNFCCC adopt some numerical restrictions on devoloping nations’ greenhouse gases?