- Introduction by Energy Change Institute Director Ken Baldwin
- Andrew Blakers, ANU College of Engineering & Computer Science
- David Stern, Crawford School
- Tom Faunce, ANU College of Law
Monday 26 September 2011 5.30 – 6:30pm, followed by light refreshments.
Tours of ANU energy research facilities at 4:30
Building 131 Finkel Lecture Theatre, John Curtin School of Medical Research, Garran Road.
The official launch of the new ANU Master of Energy Change will follow the event.
What is energy "change"? I look forward to the details of your reformulation of Einstein's E=MC^2, to what, E=MC^-2?? or why not E=1/m^2?
ReplyDeleteWhat I am really complaining about is the proliferation of pejorative terms in ANU's vision of science, eg Climate "Change" Institute, etc. How much DCCEE funding is in sight for this Master's title so obviously aimed at the Dept of CCEE?
Meantime I assume the courses for this Master's will continue the Crawford School's embargo on any mention of price and income elasticities when attempting to promote "energy change" (eg Jotzo 2011 passim). Here is a link to my brief note on elasticities published today at OLO:
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12604
What they mean by this term is shifting from fossil fuels to alternatives, and a lesser degree energy efficiency, carbon sequestration etc. I'm not that enthusiastic about it because it is not widely used at all. But maybe they'll start a trend :) My planned energy economics course (http://stochastictrend.blogspot.com/2011/07/energy-economics-course.html) will certainly talk about elasticities. Most of the courses will be coming from an engineering perspective. I will check out your piece.
ReplyDeleteFair enough, perhaps I could enrol for your course?
ReplyDeleteBut would I be allowed to mention the following equations in my thesis or course work, absent as they are from everything produced by Garnnut, Howes, Jotzo Steffen et al in all their dissertations on Energy "Change", thereby deleting all social benefits (positive externalities) on RHS in (2) from RHS of hydrocarbon combustion in (1)?
C3H8 + 5O2 → Energy + 3CO2 + 4H2O …(1)
2CO2 + 2 H2O + photons → 2CH2O + 2O2 ...(2)
Note that use of wind/solar to produce the Energy in (1) does not generate the pollutants CO2 and H2O that happen to have social benefits! You know that, but Garnaut et al deny it.
I don't have any problem with that used in context though you're not being very clear, but I'm pretty sure the net benefit is negative on a global basis...
ReplyDeleteDavid, you said "I don't have any problem with that used in context though you're not being very clear, but I'm pretty sure the net benefit is negative on a global basis..."
ReplyDeleteWhat is your evidence? Mine is that (1) at the simplest level [CO2] is a NECESSARY condition for photosynthesis to occur, and (2) since 1960 the FAO shows enormous increases in world cereal production (X 166% against 114% in population) not to mention livestock and forestry and fisheries, all of which involve photosynthesis.
The nul hypothesis is that [CO2] is NOT a limiting condition for photosynthesis. So the 1750 level of 280 ppm that barely supported a world population of less than 1 billion would be enough to support today's 7 billion?
Have you any idea how much CO2 is stored in the bones of all animal life including us? Clearly not, for what you are saying is that animal populations at 7X 1750's are storing no more carbon now than then. Sure, animals die and respire, but in the context of growing populations the standing stock is huge and growing - and the flow of their annual consumption likewise, despite respiration.
Name anybody at Crawford and its CCI who cares a jot about any of this!
Nobody denies that a moderate level of climate change has some benefits. But your argument doesn't say anything about costs. The net benefit is the difference between them.
ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteYou said Nobody denies that a moderate level of climate change has some benefits. But your argument doesn't say anything about costs. The net benefit is the difference between them.
I think it is more incumbent on you, the Crawford School, and its CCI to quantify that difference than me, given the many $1000s they collectively receive from DCCEE et al. The real question is, why has your Crawford/CCI team conspicuously failed to do so?
For example, your School’s Garnaut team abetted by Stephen Howes and Frank Jotzo has NEVER ever admitted there are ANY benefits from higher atmospheric levels of CO2 and H2O resulting from human activity, as per these equations:
C3H8 + 5O2 → Energy + 3CO2 + 4H2O …(1)
2CO2 + 2 H2O + photons → 2CH2O + 2O2 ...(2)
In fact, those equations, totally beyond the ken as they are of Garnaut, Howes, and Jotzo, tell you all you need to know about the Crawford School and its collective incapacity to perform the kind of cost-benefit analysis you ask me to do.
Nevertheless, I have done some work in that direction, at my ACE2011 paper, available at its website (www.ace2011.org.au).
A short version of that paper is currently under peer review, but I have every reason to believe that the luminaries of the Crawford School will do everything they can to suppress it.
I'd prefer to look at the literature on this in general rather than this stuff about chemical equations that we all know but that doesn't actually say anything about impacts and costs. For example this paper by Richard Tol reviews the literature:
ReplyDeletehttp://ideas.repec.org/p/esr/wpaper/wp377.html
Thanks for the link to the new version of Tol. I have not space here to list all its defects, which include inadequate attention to Mendelsohn who alone of those cited by Tol has seriously studied the effects of climate on agricultural productivity. Tol's Table 1 is a joke, treating Africa as a single region, and in the text referring to climate effects being worst in the "tropics" - like Kenya, which is bang on the Equator? My joint book just out (Land Law and economic development in PNG) has a section on tea output in Kenya (compared with PNG), Kenya's is centred on your Kericho and increased sixfold in the 30 years to 2007, and smallholders' yields increased by 25% over just the 5 previous years. Proof positive of global warming wrecking the tropics? Perhaps not - I wish you were as sceptical about Tol's conversion to gloom and doom since he went to Dublin as you are about climate chanage and malaria.
ReplyDeleteI have published some econometrics on food production vis a vis rising [CO], improved varieties, and fertiliser use - and it's all good news, with [CO2] leading the way. But not good for a grant application in either Dublin or Canberra!