15 Jan “But Wait” — observations on Austin Energy and Climate Change by Susan Lippman (Unitarian)

The following comments have been recognized by various local leaders as crucial in the ongoing public / political discussion about how seriously to incorporate climate change considerations into Austin Energy's Generation Plan 2015-2025. Currently the key question raging over the plan is: Should Austinites spend +$1 Billion on a new natural gas plant, which will cost us +$2 Billion to fuel during its lifetime and continue spewing greenhouse gasses for 30 to 50 years into an otherwise clean, local energy economy? (Not to mention, the plant would also be fueled by "fracked" natural gas.) Or should Austin Energy commit to charting a course into the unknown? Following the directives City Council has already issued, Austin Energy would instead create a new business model: relying on a system of small, networked, cleanly-fueled power stations, relying heavily on locally-generated energy (keeping more money local), investing heavily in local energy storage systems (instead of large dirty power plants), investing in making all buildings (starting with low income homes) as energy conservative, energy intelligent and energy generating as possible (ala the Pecan Street Project), promoting demand and building infrastructure for- lots of electric vehicles and electric public transportation — all while keeping energy costs low, lights on, billing trustworthy, and 1/3rd of City services funded… Austin Energy's leadership says the latter can't be done. They think it's too soon to commit. Do they realize we have zero time to wait?

Local, grassroots energy advocate Susan Lippman made the following testimony on May 29th, 2014 to members of Austin Energy's Generation Resource Planning Task Force during the public comment portion of a public meeting. Her statements are not only a great example of how smart Austinites are, they are a reminder of how urgently we need paradigm shift and strong leadership on climate change, locally. Susan reminds us how powerful each of us can be in the public arena, and how today's decisions impact tomorrow's shared future. Bravo, Susan!

“But Wait”

My name is Susan Lippman and I’m with the Climate Action Team of the Wildflower Unitarian Universalist Church.   I’m also participating with the Beyond Coal group, but I’m not speaking as a spokesperson for any group; these are my own thoughts.

I’ve been following the activities of this Task Force since it started because of my interest in the Climate Protection goals set by the City of Austin, and I’m very impressed by the amount of effort and time and talent the Task Force members have been bringing to the task.   

Without getting into the detailed specifics of the proposals, I just want to say I’m pleased that the proposals generally advocate for a very rapid transition away from fossil fuels, even pushing the comfort zone in terms of how most utilities are run, out of a recognition that the state of climate change today demands that we expand what we conventionally think is possible into new territory. 

 So lest anyone think that any members of the Task Force are pushing too hard for fossil fuel reductions in the current planning time span, I’d like to share with you my efforts to understand the current state of the Earth’s remaining carbon budget; that is, the idea that there is a certain amount of carbon that we can still burn and still keep the climate in some range considered “safe.”

This is an attempt to update Bill McKibben’s math[1] by looking at the new IPCC report for 2013: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report for 2013, that is still coming out in 2014 as well, puts the so-called “safe” range at 2 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels, and found that to have a 66% chance of staying below the 2-degree limit, we can release no more than 1 trillion tonnes total from 1870 to the end of the century.  We have already emitted 515 billion metric tonnes as of 2011.  (That was first put at 531 billion in the materials that came out last fall, but it’s been revised.)[2]   So the remaining budget was 485 billion metric tonnes, or 485 gigatonnes as of 2011. [3]

Read Bill McKibben's "terrifying new math" here. 

Since the world’s proven fossil fuel reserves are thought to be about 3,000 Gigatonnes, by my math that means we can only burn about one sixth of that amount.  We’re burning carbon at the rate of roughly 10 gigatonnes[4] per year, so by the end of 2013 we had a remaining budget of 456 Gigatonnes. That would give us 46 years of burning carbon at the current rate, starting from 2014. This burn rate of 10 gigatonnes a year is measured as carbon; if it were measured as carbon dioxide emissions, it would be about 37 gigatonnes per year.

But wait, the IPCC says that when you account for the climate effects of other greenhouse gases such as methane, you would need to stay under 790 gigatonnes instead of 1000, so the remaining “budget” amount (790 gigatons less 515 used) was 275 Gigatonnes in 2011, or 25 years from now (2014) at 10 gigatonnes per year. That means, at current use rates, which are actually still increasing each year, we will have blown through the amount that we should stay under for this century, in just 25 years. And that is for just for 2 chances out of 3 of staying the “safe” zone of the climate. [5]  

But wait, many scientists dispute the 2-degree threshold as being safe.  Dr. Kevin Anderson of the University of Manchester, in Great Britain, calls 2 degrees Celsius the threshold between “dangerous” and “extremely dangerous” climate change[6].  Dr. James Hansen, recently retired from NASA, and our earliest and leading climate scientist, said that a 1-degree Celsius limit is needed to keep our climate just similar to the zone it has been in throughout human civilization.

I searched for a source that would tell me what carbon-budget amount would keep us under the 1-degree-of-warming target, but could not find one.  Then I returned to the graph in the 5^th IPCC Assessment Report, The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policymakers, which shows the that climate response to carbon emissions lies pretty much on a straight line, with the graph extending from 1870 to the year 2100. Reading across from the temperature anomaly axis, I discovered that, in order to keep the temperature rise below one degree Celsius by the end of the century, we will need to cut all our carbon emissions by the year 2010.[7]   

But wait, let’s say you are comfortable with the 2-degree target, but you don’t like the only-two-in-three odds that we would stay within that range, which is exactly the same odds as playing Russian Roulette with two bullets loaded in a six-chambered revolver.   Let’s say you would like to be 90% certain that we would meet that target.  In that case, we will need to cut all our carbon emissions by the year 2012.[8]

But wait, there is new information coming out about methane releases from fracked gas.  A March 2014 peer-reviewed publication by Dr. Robert Howarth of Cornell University has surveyed and analyzed the most recent studies on methane releases from shale gas and fracked gas.  (This work has also been featured in a recent episode of The Years Of Living Dangerously documentary series).  The amount of methane that is escaping from fracked gas operations, instead of being at one percent, which is what I think the EPA thinks it is; is more typically 3 or 4 percent,  and in some places as high as 8 or 9 percent.  Once you get up to 3 percent releases, it’s no better than coal in terms of climate impact.  When it is higher, it is significantly worse than coal, because methane is such a powerful greenhouse gas in the short run (a 20-year time span).[9] Overall, the study concludes that the greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas worse than coal over any time span, but over a 20-year time span it is at least 20% worse and perhaps 100% worse than coal. So I’m very happy with Cyrus Reed’s suggestion that to the extent we use gas, it should be sourced from sources that are not leaking methane, if at all possible. 

Clearly this is a difficult issue for the world to face, especially because the atmosphere is a commons; it takes all our emissions and spreads them around the world.  So, it presents a special ethical and moral problem, as we try to choose what path Austin should take away from fossil fuel dependency.  One wonders what policies we would adopt, and how fast, if Austin were under some kind of large clear dome, such that the consequences of our own greenhouse gas emissions would inescapably impact us.   It is sort of a moral-ethical thought experiment.

On the world’s current emissions path, it is becoming clear that drought on the scale of the dust-bowl,  but on basically permanent  terms, could affect the Southwest and Texas by the middle of the century.  In some countries that would mean mass migrations, but here we don’t have subsistence farmers, we are more urban.  I can only imagine food prices becoming unaffordable in the cities, and the people that are at the bottom of our economic ladder would probably be blamed for not working hard enough as they get pushed out of their homes and even have trouble finding food to eat.

But, we live in a city that is forward-looking and high-tech and all those good things.  So we have the next best thing to a dome where we could take care of our own future.   Part of the city’s goal for Austin is to lead on Climate Change, to be out in front.  Our response is crucial globally, because by taking this on and succeeding, it puts the lie to those who say it can’t be done, or that we can’t afford to save the climate. 

Ultimately, we have to take care of the climate globally, or it won’t take care of us.

Susan Lippman

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Foreword and editing by Chris Searles. 

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