An earlier post set out the climate change problem. This post sets the role of nuclear power, or nuclear energy, in addressing that problem. My argument is that nuclear power (with renewable energy) is an important option for achieving electricity production with a small carbon footprint – for reducing emissions.

2. The role of nuclear power in addressing the climate change problem

Climate change mitigation involves reducing emissions, reducing the rate and magnitude of global warming. Adaptation means coping with or adjusting to climate change. With mitigation, adaptation becomes easier. It has been said that the need to mitigate, to reduce emissions, to address the climate change problem has ‘given a whole new lease of life to – or at least one new argument for – nuclear power.’ James Hansen, perhaps the world’s pre-eminent climate scientist, has said that

“[t]he scientific method requires that we keep an open mind and change our conclusions when new evidence indicates that we should. The new evidence affecting the nuclear debate is climate change, specifically the urgency of moving beyond fossil fuels to carbon-free energy sources.”

Nuclear power, as the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies’ David Buchan notes, is the only major source of carbon-free electricity with a proven record of power generation on the scale required.

As of January 2011 there are 441 nuclear reactors in operation. Today there are 62 nuclear reactors under construction, mainly in Brazil, Russia, India and China, with 158 more on order or planned and another 324 proposed, according to World Nuclear Association data from just before Fukushima. China, with 13 reactors in operation, has 27 more under construction and was planning or proposing another 160. India was planning or proposing 58, and Russia 44 (see Muriel Boselli and Geert De Clerq, ‘Nuclear’s trillion dollar question,’ for these figures).

I don’t plan to revisit arguments for and against nuclear power, but I would like to make some brief observations regarding three of those arguments.

(a)        Expense and cost

It is claimed that producing nuclear power is too expensive compared with alternatives.  As Alex Coram and I have argued, however, this is correct only if the claim is taken to mean that it costs roughly the same as power produced by coal if the damage to the environment from coal is passed on as a hidden cost to society as a whole.  It’s incorrect if it is meant that it is more expensive when the social benefits are included.

It is also claimed that private investors are reluctant to build nuclear power stations because they are not commercially viable if only short run returns are considered.  This is correct. One reason is that most nuclear power stations have a life span in excess of 60 to perhaps 80 years. Although society can receive the benefit of this long production life, it’s difficult for private investors looking for a return on capital in 10 to 15 years to capture it.  Short run private returns from low capital cost alternatives like coal, oil and wind are better for profits. In this context a good deal of the so-called ‘subsidy’ for nuclear power is simply an attempt by governments to capture this long-term return.

(b)       Waste from nuclear reactors

As Professor David MacKay of Cambridge University notes,

“the volume of waste from nuclear reactors is relatively small.  Whereas the ash from ten coal-fired power stations would have a mass of four million tons per year (having a volume of roughly 40 litres per person per year), the nuclear waste from Britain’s ten nuclear power stations has a volume of just 0.84 litres per person per year – think of that as a bottle of wine per person per year …

Most of this waste is low-level waste.  7% is intermediate-level waste, and just 3% of it – 25 ml per year – is high-level waste.”

Professor MacKay calls this high-level waste ‘the really nasty stuff.’ 

High-level waste needs to be secured for about 1000 years. As Professor MacKay notes, however, “the volumes are so small … [that] nuclear waste is only a minor worry, compared with all the other forms of waste we are inflicting on future generations.  At 25 ml per year, a lifetime’s worth of high-level nuclear waste would amount to less than 2 litres.”

(c)        Civilian versus military exploitation

Another argument made is that it is impossible to distinguish between the civilian and military exploitation of nuclear energy and that, as a result, ‘any promotion of civilian nuclear power will inevitably promote its use for military purposes.’ As Griffith University’s Professor Andrew O’Neil argues, however,

“there are serious flaws in this argument. Since 1945, global nuclear proliferation dynamics have remained largely disconnected from the civilian nuclear industry. Every nuclear weapons program since … the US Manhattan Project has been the product of dedicated military reactors rather than an offshoot of civilian programs. Fissile materials for nuclear weapons development programs are the product of special-purpose reactors, not a corollary of civilian reactor programs, whose mix of nuclear fuel is specifically calibrated for generating electricity and other utility outputs … There is simply no historical evidence to support the proposition that civilian nuclear reactor programs fuel weapons proliferation.”

3.  Maximising our options

Nuclear energy is viewed as a means to power economic growth without carbon emissions. But there are costs and issues. These include effective and efficient legal and regulatory frameworks; financing; capacity to construct nuclear power plants; and management and disposal of radioactive waste.

Commonwealth Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson released a report late last year suggesting nuclear power would be cheaper than coal-fired power stations and renewable energy. Nonetheless, as John Daley and the University of Melbourne’s Professor David Jamieson have noted, it’s not certain how much nuclear will cost to set up in Australia, and whether – at some future point – it will be more or less expensive than renewables.  Daley and Jamieson argue that

“[t]he optimal response to uncertainty is usually to maximise your options (provided they are cheap to buy), and then try to delay exercising these options until the outcome is clearer …

Australia doesn’t have a nuclear option.  Basic institutions and regulations are not in place; planning has not been done.  Given the inevitably long lead times for setting up nuclear power regulation, planning and construction, it will take at least 15 years … before the first nuclear power plant comes into operation [in Australia].  And this start date will be delayed if we do not develop the institutions, legal and regulatory frameworks and skills base today, and start resolving concerns about safety, security and waste.

Getting these things in place does not commit Australia to nuclear power, but does enable us to start building more quickly if it emerges that nuclear power will indeed be substantially cheaper than the alternatives.

The concern is, if we do not prepare a nuclear option, then when the world gets serious about deep cuts to carbon emissions, Australia may be forced to use relatively expensive renewable technologies that can be deployed more quickly, resulting in significantly higher power prices than the rest of the world.”

4.  Conclusion

David Buchan argues that only the combined efforts of the nuclear and renewable energy sectors are going to take us to a low-carbon economy. He also makes a good case – as others do, of course – for natural gas, if only on a transitional basis. ‘Pragmatism,’ he says, ‘rather than dogmatism’ is necessary. ‘Remember, too,’ he says,

“that a properly workable energy policy for the future will be composed of a multiplicity of energy sources and efficiencies. It will be a policy of this … and this … and this …”

In the context of international climate change negotiations this bears some resemblance to what Keohane and Victor refer to as a climate change ‘regime complex’ – a loosely coupled set of specific regimes rather than a ‘single, central over-arching treaty’ such as the UNFCCC’s Kyoto Protocol. And perhaps momentum now favours a ‘bottom-up’ outcome; the Cancun climate change conference might suggest a shift away from a top-down, ‘Kyoto-style’ architecture for international climate action, to a more bottom-up approach in reducing emissions, to action by individual states.

Cambridge University’s Professor MacKay, to whom I referred earlier, writes that ‘getting off fossil fuels requires big, big changes’ and that, given the tendency of the public to say no to nuclear power and ‘anything other than fossil fuel power systems,’ he is worried

“that we won’t actually get off fossil fuels when we need to. Instead, we’ll settle for half-measures: … a fig-leaf of a carbon trading system; a sprinkling of wind turbines; an inadequate number of nuclear power stations … We need to stop saying no and start saying yes. We need to … get building.”

It’s a sentiment with which Professor James Hansen, a supporter of third and fourth generation nuclear power, would agree:

“If human beings follow a business-as-usual course, continuing to exploit fossil fuel resources without reducing carbon emissions  … the eventual effects on climate and life may be comparable to those at the time of mass extinctions.  Life will survive, but it will be a far more desolate world than the one in which civilization developed and flourished during the past several thousand years.”

Fresh on the heels of our “in the news” items, we introduce another type of post, called “Point and Counterpoint”, identified by this icon:

This icon identifies posts that are followed by a related post on the same topic with a different, usually opposing opinion.

Once a counterpoint has been published, clicking on this icon next to each of the posts involved will take the reader straight to the opposing viewpoint.

The first post appears below, by David Hodgkinson, and argues for nuclear power as one way in which climate change can be mitigated. There will be two posts in this series, and they will be followed by at least one counterpoint post that will raise difficulties with nuclear power as a solution.

PART I

I set out here the climate change problem and the role of nuclear power, or nuclear energy, in addressing that problem. My argument is that nuclear power (with renewable energy) is an important option for achieving electricity production with a small carbon footprint – for reducing emissions. As a report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2009 makes clear,

“the motivation to make more use of nuclear power is greater [than ever], and more rapid progress is needed in enabling the option of nuclear power expansion to play a role in meeting the global warming challenge. The sober warning is that if more is not done, nuclear power will diminish as a practical and timely option for deployment at a scale that would constitute a material contribution to climate change risk mitigation.”

The climate change problem: ‘How rapidly can we cut carbon emissions if civilisation is at stake?’

In explaining the science of climate change, the Australian National University’s Professor Andrew Glikson – an earth and paleo-climate scientist – states that the recent history of the atmosphere, which includes human-induced global warming, may lead toward mass extinction of species: On a ‘business-as-usual scenario,’ continuation of greenhouse gas emissions ‘will result in global warming of 3°C over the 21st century, eliminating a majority (60%) of species on the planet.’ He asks whether the human species is leading the biosphere to its sixth mass extinction.

A US study by MIT finds that, absent policy action, also on a business-as-usual course, the median probability of surface warming is 5.2°C by 2100, with a 90% probability range of 3.5 to 7.4 degrees, compared to a median projected increase in an earlier 2003 MIT study of just 2.4 degrees – that is, twice as severe.

And while there is no international consensus on what levels of climate change might be defined as ‘dangerous,’ there is widespread support for containing the rise in global temperature to 2°C above pre-industrial levels (known as the ‘2°C guardrail’); parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have adopted this global warming limit, with some of the most vulnerable states – small island states, for example – calling for temperature targets as low as 1.5°C. Even with temperature rises of less than 2°C, however, impacts can be significant, and beyond 2°C, ‘the possibilities for adaptation of society and ecosystems rapidly decline …’

The urgency of all this is further reinforced by a study by Meinshausen and others which finds that GHG emissions must be cut by more than 50% by 2050 as against 1990 levels if the danger of exceeding 2°C is to be limited to 25%. Meinshausen has said that

“[i]n principle, it is the sum of all CO2 that matters. In practice, substantial reductions in global emissions have to begin soon, before 2020. If we wait any longer, the required phase-out of carbon emissions will involve tremendous economic costs and technological challenges – miles beyond what can be considered politically feasible today. The longer we wait, the more likely our path will lead us into dangerous territory.”

For the Royal Society, sufficient climate change mitigation actions might well not be introduced in time:

“It is likely that global warming will exceed 2°C this century unless global greenhouse gas emissions are cut by at least 50% of 1990 levels by 2050, and by more thereafter. There is no credible emissions scenario under which global mean temperature would peak and then start to decline by 2100. Unless future efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are much more successful then they have been so far, additional action may be required should it become necessary to cool the Earth this century.”

Such additional action according to the Royal Society might involve geoengineering – deliberate, large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climate system ‘in order to moderate global warming.’ And ‘geoengineering’ in the form of techniques for extracting atmospheric CO2 has also been considered by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber who, in the course of reviewing an article by Ramanathan and Feng in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences –  in which they suggest that the earth is already committed to anthropogenic warming in the range of 1.4-4.3°C (where 2.4°C is the most likely amount) and that no conceivable international strategy can avoid largely unmanageable climate impacts – says that

“[m]y conclusion is that we are still left with a fair chance to hold the 2°C line, yet the race between climate dynamics and climate policy will be a close one … However, the quintessential challenges remain, namely bending down the global Kyoto-GHG output curve in the 2015–2020 window (further procrastination would render necessary reduction gradients too steep thereafter) and phasing out carbon dioxide emissions completely by 2100. This requires an industrial revolution for sustainability starting now.”

Finally, the importance of early (or shorter-term) reductions is made by Parry and his colleagues:

“[W]e now have the knowledge to make a more informed choice regarding the optimal balance between mitigation and adaptation, and we know that immediate investment in adaptation will be essential to buffer the worst impacts. This does not mean that mitigation can be delayed, but quite the opposite: the longer we delay mitigation, the more likely it is that global change will exceed our capacity to adapt.”

As Gwynne Dyer asks, ‘how rapidly can we cut emissions if civilisation is at stake?’ And it’s that question, and the need to mitigate, which puts into context any examination of the role of nuclear power in cutting emissions. 

This post (with footnotes omitted) is based on a paper delivered last week in Perth at the Australian Uranium Conference. Please contact the author for details of sources cited.

A second post by the same author, forthcoming here shortly, will expand on this theme and will specify how nuclear power can help address climate change. This post, in turn, will be followed by one or more “counterpoint” posts.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science reports today:

House Bars Funds for International Climate Adaptation Efforts. The House Committee on Foreign Affairs voted to prohibit the use of funds to assist developing countries adapt to climate change or transition to sources of clean energy. The Committee passed H.R. 2583, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, with an amendment from Rep. Connie Mack (R-FL) to prohibit the use of funds for the Global Climate Change Initiative, which is part of the United Nations’ effort to help provide assistance to developing countries. The House Agriculture and Homeland Security spending bills also contain similar provisions.

Right.

So, the country that bears greater historical responsibliity for carbon emissions than any other is barring funding for adaptation by countries who now do the suffering.

The medical journal Lancet (Costello et al., 2009) had an informative graph on this issue recently:

The top panel shows carbon emissions, the bottom panel the expected fatalities from climate change.

Coincidentally or otherwise, this period in human history coincides with a severe cutback of funding to the Humanities and Social Sciences at most universities; areas of scholarship which in the past have tackled issues of ethics and morality.

References

Costello, A.; Abbas, M.; Allen, A.; Ball, S.; Bell, S.; Bellamy, R.; Friel, S.; Groce, N.; Johnson, A.; Kett, M.; Lee, M.; Levy, C.; Maslin, M.; McCoy, D.; McGuire, B.; Montgomery, H.; Napier, D.; Pagel, C.; Patel, J.; de Oliveira, J. A.; Redclift, N.; Rees, H.; Rogger, D.; Scott, J.; Stephenson, J.; Twigg, J.; Wolff, J. & Patterson, C. Managing the health effects of climate change: Lancet and University College London Institute for Global Health Commission. Lancet, 2009, 373, 1693–-1733????

Given the mass of conflicting information surrounding Australia’s climate change policy; one might want to try to find out what the rest of the world really is doing.  Unfortunately, currently missing from the online information about climate change policies around the world is one non partisan website that compares and contrasts the policy action being undertaken by governments around the world. However, there are various Wikipedia sites that do a reasonable job of aggregating ETS, RETs, carbon tax and other policy instruments commonly utilised around the world. These include;

Emissions trading

Carbon tax

Renewable energy targets.

But to really learn about climate change policy around the world you have to visit each country’s government site and then compare for yourself. So in this post we provide links to some of these websites and briefly outline the policies they describe.

Starting with New Zealand, you might be aware that NZ has had an operating ETS since 2008. If not you can read about the NZ ETS and other measures here.

In the EU, overlaying individual country policies is the EU ETS which you can read about here. The ETS in operation since 2005 covers emitters which are collectively responsible for close to half of the EU’s emissions of CO₂. The EU ETS alone aims to deliver emissions cuts of 21% (based on 2005 levels) by 2020.

In addition to the EU ETS most European nations have individual emissions reductions policies that include renewable energy targets, CO₂ or energy taxes, feed in tariff policies and renewable energy certificates. A selection of these follow.

For example in the UK you can read about the Climate Change Act which puts in place a framework to achieve a mandatory 80% cut in the UK’s carbon emissions by 2050 (compared to 1990 levels), with an intermediate target of between 34% by 2020. Other policies include renewable energy obligations, a nation-wide cap and trade scheme that goes beyond the existing EU ETS, and low carbon buildings programmes.

Sweden’s climate change policy website leads with the announcement that Sweden is spending SEK 5 Billion (AUS$ 1 billion) between 2009 and 2011 on climate change mitigation policy. Other existing climate change policy instruments which include a CO₂ tax in operation since the 1970’s, a renewable energy certification scheme requiring consumers to buy 7% of their energy from renewable sources since 2003; and an oil phase out programme with the following 2020 goals; consumption of oil in road transport to be reduced by 40-50 per cent; consumption of oil in industry to be cut by 25-40 per cent and heating in buildings with oil, a practice already cut by 70% since the 1973 oil crisis, should be phased out completely.

Germany is committed to a 40 per cent cut in emissions from 1990 levels by 2020; and through a huge investment in renewable energy, together with participation in the European ETS; Germany is well on its way to meeting these targets, despite also promising to phase out nuclear power.

In the US, while there is no national policy as yet, many states have climate change policies; for example California. Under the AB 32 act of 2006, California aimed to cut emissions by 11 percent by 2010 (which it achieved), 25 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. To deliver these targets California will install a million solar roofs, develop a high speed rail network, launch tough new vehicle emissions standards (already among the toughest in the world) and the state has already launched a cap and trade programme that covers 85% of all emitters.

There is a Northeast US regional cap and trade programme called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). This program launched in 2009 with the aim to reduce the carbon “budget” of each state’s electricity generation sector to 10 percent below their 2009 allowances by 2010. The iniative includes nine Northeast states.

Japan’s carbon change policies can be found here. Like the US, Japan’s current cap and trade schemes operate at a city or regional level.

In 2007 China’s published its’ first National Action Plan on Climate Change. Since then there have been more announcements; for example just this week China announced it will pilot an emissions trading scheme in eight Chinese cities starting in 2012, to be then rolled out nationally in 2015. And estimates suggest it is on track to meet its UN target of a 40-45 per cent cut in emissions intensity by 2020. (Note than intensity is different from absolute cuts).

So a quick tour of online climate change policy information from around the world, clearly indicates there are many policies being implemented to mitigate climate change. The facts clearly contradict claims in Australia that we will be acting ahead of the rest of the world. Even with our planned 5% reductions on current emissions levels at 2020 are delivered, it appears we will still be the highest emitter per capita in the developed world.

So to wrap up, here is Australia’s own climate change policy website. The site leads with a ‘click through’ to Australia’s ‘Clean Energy Plan”. From here you can download key policy documents outlining the overall climate change plan. What you realise from the site is that the emphasis is more on what the government is doing to assist consumers and industry; rather than the goals, objectives and vision guiding Australia’s climate change policy; in fact these performance metrics are hidden in the accompanying documents. I guess this very much reflects the political reality of the issue in Australia at the moment.

What is clear, however, is that Australia does not run any risk of taking leadership in carbon abatement—on the contrary, we are lagging behind many other nations despite the fact that our emissions are historically very notable and that we are one of the world’s “dirtiest” generators of energy.

A reader recently emailed us and posed the following very good question: “The jump from academic and worthy discussion to our daily discourse is so vast a leap. How do we go about infusing our daily conversations with real information and thoughtful opinion.”

This is a crucial question and one we continually struggle to get right. We welcome input from readers to help us in this endeavour, and we are happy to respond to specific queries and comments on posts.

After all, the whole point of Shaping Tomorrows World is to engage in informed and civil debate, and we recognize that this is definitely a two-way street.

In addition, we have introduced a new type of post, called “in the news”, which is identified by this icon:

Those “in the news” posts aim to raise interesting issues that our authors have picked up in the news and that may stimulate a thought or even a conversation in the local coffee shop.

We will be posting those “in the news” items on an irregular basis, and we welcome your input on them as much as we value input on our regular posts—which will of course continue as per usual.

Our first “in the news” post follows right after this one, by my colleague Steven Smith from UWA.

Three seemingly unconnected news items caught my attention this week, but they each tell us something about the stresses on our world.

First is the news that Air India is in big financial trouble and in need of a bailout.

Bailouts seem to be in fashion these days. We saw the need to bailout big banks and financial institutions in the USA and Europe during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008/9. More recently we have seen whole countries in need of financial bailouts to keep the Eurozone functioning. As I understand it, the USA’s ‘war on terror’ in Iraq and Afghanistan has been funded by borrowed money.

All of this tells me that the wealthy countries are living far beyond their means.

It raises the question whether institutions or countries should opt for austerity to ride out the tough times (as in Southern European countries), or try to grow their way out of financial trouble as is favoured in the USA (which means borrowing more, presumably). Ultimately we hit the buffers of resource constraints – the price of oil for example – which is presumably where Air India feels most pressure.

My choice is to live within my means.

Second is a wonderfully sharp quote from Professor Graham Farquhar from the Australian National University Climate Change Institute. When asked about the effectiveness of Australia’s new carbon tax, he said:

 “The aim of the carbon tax is to reduce Australian emissions by five per cent. In turn, the aim of that reduction is to put political or economic pressure to encourage or shame other countries to reduce their emissions by five per cent. If we are successful and all the countries of the world reduce their emissions to five per cent below what they would have been, then the anthropogenic climate that we would otherwise have seen in 2031 will be postponed until 2032.”

Now, this statement can (and will!) be interpreted in two completely opposite directions, depending which ‘side’ of the debate you come from. Either it means the effect of the carbon tax will at best be insignificant and we should abandon it. Or, we need to do far far more to cut carbon dioxide emissions so let’s increase taxes and introduce new legislation.

Take your pick!

Third, the news that scientists from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) found three long-legged Borneo rainbow toads up a tree during a night time search.

Why so interesting? This toad is absolutely beautiful, has not been seen since the 1920’s and had never before been photographed. Check out the picture on the BBC website! The Global Search for Lost Amphibians in 2010, had listed the toad as one of the “world’s top 10 most wanted frogs”.

Dr Robin Moore of Conservation International said “It is good to know that nature can surprise us when we are close to giving up hope, especially amidst our planet’s escalating extinction crisis. Amphibians are at the forefront of this tragedy, so I hope that these unique species serve as flagships for conservation, inspiring pride and hope by Malaysians and people everywhere.”

My conclusion is that even if curtailing carbon dioxide emissions is too big a challenge, working to save forests and natural ecosystems is something that we can and must do.

Well before the recent fuss about increases in energy prices, the reduction of electricity use by households and businesses had already been identified as an important national policy goal, with benefits for the climate, the electricity supply sector, business costs and household budgets. However, despite increasing costs to both users and producers and warnings about the impacts of climate change, consumption of electricity continues to rise and is predicted to continue rising over the coming decades. This increased demand, and the need to shift away from fossil fuel sources, is driving costly investment in the electricity generation and distribution networks, further increasing the cost of power. These higher electricity prices, in turn, are causing heightened community sensitivity to price, and problems for some household budgets, particularly those of low income earners (although as a proportion of household budgets, power costs are not rising). While the probable effects on prices of the introduction of a price on carbon are being wildly exaggerated by the tabloid press and political opportunists (and the compensation overlooked), it is clear that helping households and businesses cut their electricity consumption would assist in reducing the impact of rising prices. And by all accounts, there is plenty of room to move without compromising current standards of convenience and comfort.

Since price increases alone do not appear to be moderating demand (people are apparently unaware that their use is increasing and believe they are already doing enough[1]), other approaches to curtail household energy use are needed. To date, most of the attempts to reduce energy use have taken the form of mass media campaigns based on the assumption that information about how to reduce use and persuasive advertising will motivate the necessary behaviour change. However, systematic evaluation of such campaigns indicates that they are largely ineffective; and even when people become more aware and concerned about a particular problem, and express the intention to change, they do not necessarily act – the well-documented “attitude-behaviour” gap (Staats et al., 1996).

Evidence is accumulating that interventions based on social influence can result in similar effects on consumer behaviour to those achieved by large changes in relative prices (Bertrand, et al., 2010), but without the negative consumer reaction. Among the most promising and least costly of these interventions are those which employ comparative normative information (Cialdini et al., 2006).

An extensive literature in psychology shows that we are influenced by other people’s actions and opinions, even when we think we are not. People are very sensitive to information which suggests that they are different from the majority in any way. This information may cause them to feel uncomfortable and can motivate them to change their behaviour in order to align more with what others are doing. People have been shown to be influenced by information about what other people approve or disapprove of (injunctive norms); e.g., that littering is bad. They are also influenced by their perception of what others typically do in certain situations (descriptive norms); e.g., putting rubbish in the bin.

Numerous studies attest to the power of social norms in influencing environmental behaviour, including energy conservation. For example, Schultz (1999) found that normative feedback increased recycling rates in his participants, especially among those who were informed that others in the community recycled at higher rates. Similarly in a Swedish study of what influenced the intention to choose “green” energy (Ek & Soderholm, 2008), householders were presented with two scenarios of others’ behaviour – viz. others contribute little (8%) or others contribute a lot (75%). People were more likely to choose “green” energy when they believed that it was the majority decision.

Some energy reduction programs have specifically sought to harness the effects of descriptive social norms to decrease energy consumption. Typically, people are provided with data about their own behaviour relative to the average of members of their community as a whole or of a more narrowly defined group, such as near neighbours; for example, how much energy they use compared with the average, comparable household (the effect is stronger when the comparison is made to people who are similar and/or with whom identification is strong; Alick et al., 1995). To illustrate, an experimental field study by Nolan et al. (2006), in which householders were provided with energy tips and one of four appeals to reduce energy use, found that providing people with normative information about others’ energy use (“the majority of your neighbours conserve energy”) was significantly more effective in achieving reductions than appeals based on protecting the environment, benefitting society or saving money.

Further development of this approach has resulted in an extensive – and relatively low-cost – roll out of programs which provide feedback to customers about their electricity and gas use compared with their peers. One such program, conducted for an electricity utility in California, took the form of a randomized controlled field experiment. Fifty thousand households were assigned to the control group and 35,000 to the treatment group, which received “home energy reports” on a periodic basis. The reports contained energy efficiency advice with tips based on the household’s energy use pattern, housing and demographic characteristics; bar charts comparing the household’s recent and 12 month electricity use with that of average of comparable neighbours and “energy efficient” neighbours (the lowest 20%) as well as injunctive messages (emoticons) depending on whether households were above or below these groups; and charts comparing the household’s use in the current month with the same month from the previous year. The result was a significant drop in electricity consumption of the treatment households relative to the controls of 2.35%, a result confirmed in two independent analyses (Allcott, 2009; Ayers et al. 2009). Overall, 80% of households decreased their use and the highest energy users reduced their energy consumption the most – 7% more than high energy users in the control group. While the magnitude of change may be lower than that achieved in some smaller scale – and typically more expensive – interventions, it was still strong, and growing, after three years of the households receiving the reports.

To date, there has been no systematic assessment of the effects on electricity consumption of feedback about the level of energy savings people achieve over time compared with similar households. Such information may encourage greater emulation than data on averages which simply convey current use and say nothing directly about other people’s success in cutting energy use. There is some evidence that in group settings, such as workplaces and offices, the greatest savings are made when employees compare their energy savings with that of other groups, adding a competitive edge to energy savings. Siero et al. (1996) for example, found that workers in a metallurgical factory were more likely to turn off computers at night, turn off lights not in use, report compressed air leakages, and disconnect electrical appliances when their success in making cuts was compared with that of other similar factories. Similarly, in an office setting, Staats et al. (2000) were able to decrease natural gas use by providing graphic feedback to office workers on their performance relative to other offices. As the authors commented, a remarkable feature of these results was that “behavioural change took place with hardly any change in attitudes or intentions” (p. 235). Although they did not measure actual energy use, Gockeritz et al. (2010) found that the more people believed others were making efforts to conserve energy, the more likely they were to report intending to conserve energy themselves.

Several possible pathways have been suggested to explain why information about others’ energy use may affect electricity demand.  It may be that some people gain satisfaction from being seen as more thrifty than their neighbours, from seeing themselves as playing a part in the public good or to avoid censure for failing to conserve. Research within behavioural economics on “conditional cooperation” shows that people are more likely to contribute to public goods when they are informed that others are doing their bit. It is also likely that such feedback increases people’s attention to and knowledge about the amount of energy they are actually consuming. It seems that normative feedback is particularly powerful in conditions of uncertainty, when people are more likely to attend and respond to information about what others are doing. Providing feedback about others’ behaviour may be particularly significant when people have imperfect information and are searching for clues about the right way to act. Electricity is a case in point – it is invisible – and most people have a relatively limited understanding of how much energy they are using or how to save energy. They usually make decisions about comfort and convenience, about which “energy services” such as heating, cooling, lighting, cleanliness and entertainment to use, not about electricity use per se. As Backhaus and Heiskanen (2009) observed, “because we rarely make a conscious decision to use energy, it is also difficult to make conscious decisions to save it” (p. 3).  Knowing what others are doing provides some guidance for these decisions. Providing people with evidence of what others have done may also make it harder for them to construe themselves as exceptional; harder to justify their own inaction

Although much has been made of the need to reduce household electricity use, affordable interventions such as those described above, have not been trialled or evaluated in Australia, despite the potentially substantial savings to both household budgets and the business bottom line. Not to mention the effects on Co2 emissions.

 References

Alicke, M. D., Klotz, M. L., Breitenbecher, D. L., Yurak, T. J., & Vrendenburg, D. S. (1995). Personal contact individuation and the better-than-average effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 804–825.

Allcott, S. (2009) Social norms and energy conservation. Report of the Centre for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, MIT & Sloan School of Management.

Ayres, I., Raseman, S., & Shih, A. (2009). Evidence from two large field experiments that peer comparison feedback can reduce residential energy usage. NBER Working Paper Series.

Backhaus, J. & Heiskanen, E (2009). Rating expert advice on how to change energy behaviour. Research Note 2, Changing Behaviour Project, European Commission, www.energychange.info.

Bertrand, M., Dean K., Mullainathan, S., Shar, E. & Zinman. J. (2010). What is Advertising Content Worth? Evidence from a Consumer Credit Marketing Field Experiment.  Quarterly Journal of Economics. 125(1), pp. 263-305

Cialdini, R. B., Demaine, L., Sagarin, B. J., Barrett, D. W., Rhoads, K. L., & Winter, P. L. (2006). Managing social norms for persuasive impact. Social Influence, 1, 3-15

Ek, K. & Soderholm, P. (2008). Norms and economic motivation in the Swedish green electricity market. Ecological Economics, 68, 169-182.

Göckeritz^, S., Schultz, P., Rendón, T., Cialdini, R., Goldstein, N., & Griskevicius, V. (2009). Descriptive normative beliefs and conservation behavior: The moderating roles of personal involvement and injunctive normative beliefs. European Journal of Social Psychology,40, 514 – 523.

Nolan, J., Schultz, P. W., Cialdini, R. B., Griskevicius, V., & Goldstein, N. (2008). Normative social influence is underdetected. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 913-923.

Schultz, P. (1999) Changing behaviour with normative feedback interventions: A field experiment on curbside recycling. Basic and Applied Psychology, 21 (1), 25-36.

Siero, F., Bakker, A., Dekker, G & Van Den Burg, M (1996). Changing organizational energy consumption behaviour through comparative feedback, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 16, 235-246.

Staats, H.J., Wit, A.P., & Midden, C.Y.H. (1996). Communicating the greenhouse effect to the public: Evaluation of a mass media campaign from a social dilemma perspective, Journal of Environmental Management, 45, 189-203.

Staats, H., Van Leeuwen, E., & Wit, A.P. (2000). A longitudinal study of informational interventions to save energy in an office building. Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis, 33, 101-104.

Examples in the media of regular beachgoers who see no evidence for sea-level rise, farmers trusting long-term experience over Bureau of Meteorology forecasting, and Antarctic sea-captains whose memories of pack-ice from years past conflict with reported trends in ice-contraction, all provide grist to the mill for those who are skeptical about the scientific basis of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

But how reliable is our personal experience when making decisions about climate change?

Decades of research in psychology has documented the vagaries of memory: the biases that can creep in when we try to recall information, the limited capacity of memory, the greater influence of recent events on recall – the list goes on.

With respect to climate change these issues loom large. Not least because to make informed judgments about the state of the climate, one needs to consider data from a wide range of locations – not just from the perspective of one individual – and over periods of time that typically exceed those for which human memory can considered reliable (e.g., 50-100 years; see Newell & Pitman, 2010).

Biased Memories

A clear example of how reliance on experience can lead to different perceptions about climate change comes from a study by Weber (1997, cited in Weber 2010). In the study American farmers were asked to recall significant rainfall and temperature events from the growing season of the preceding seven years. Farmers who believed that the climate was changing in their region recalled temperature and rainfall trends consistent with this belief; in contrast, those who believed the climate to be static recalled temperatures and rainfall consistent with an unchanging region.

Thus our prior expectations and beliefs can influence not just the events that we recall but the interpretation of the significance of those events.

Fluctuating Beliefs

It is not just recall that can be affected – even current experience (e.g., the weather outside) can have an impact on our beliefs. Consider the following two scenarios:

Imagine that you are relaxing in a tropical paradise with the sun blazing down, your tan improving nicely, and the thought that perhaps it is time for yet another dip in the pool to cool off.

Now switch to a scene where you are standing freezing by the side of the road, waiting for a never-coming-bus wishing you’d worn that extra thick overcoat to ward off the sleeting rain.

If you’d been asked in these two situations: “How convinced are you that global warming is happening?” your answer should – of course – not depend upon the circumstances.

But it appears, at least for some people that it is. Li et al. (2011) found that participants showed elevated levels of concern and belief in global warming when they perceived the outdoor temperature (at the time when they answered the survey) to be warmer than usual. 

Such results provide a salutary warning to those who raise doubts about the science of AGW on the basis of personal perceptions that ‘everything appears to be alright’ or that ‘nothing has changed’.

Negative Experience but Positive Outcomes

Some unlucky people are rapidly disabused of the idea that ‘everything is alright’ when they suffer the impacts of extreme climate events (floods, droughts, tornadoes, etc.). But does this negative experience change attitudes and beliefs?

In an intriguing recent study Spence et al.(2011) hypothesized that the observed reluctance to engage in efforts to mitigate climate change might be driven in part by the lack of personal experience (as per our beachgoers and sea captains) – and that therefore those unfortunate people who did have personal experience might be more likely to endorse mitigation strategies.

This is indeed what they found. UK residents who had been severely affected by floods expressed more concern over climate change, saw it as less uncertain and felt more confident that their actions could have an effect on climate change. Even more importantly, they exhibited greater willingness to save energy to mitigate climate change.

Combining Experience and Description

Making up one’s mind about climate change and the need (or not) for action requires integration of our own experience with the descriptive information contained in the numerous reports and reviews of climate change science. This is no easy task. Obtaining information in these two different ways can have a marked impact on the choices we make – such as whether or not to endorse a carbon tax (see Dutt & Gonzalez, 2010). But we must be aware of the limitations of experience and not shy away from the advantages of statistical models and descriptions of phenomena.

The reluctance of some people to accept the predictions of climate models or to dismiss analytic approaches to understanding climate is reminiscent of another venerable debate in the psychology of judgment. In 1954 Paul Meehl created controversy by showing that simple statistical models could outperform the predictions of many clinicians, in for example, the diagnosis of mental disorders.

The superiority of these statistical techniques has been corroborated by hundreds of studies in diverse contexts (e.g., Dawes et al., 1989). Two key factors leading to the superiority are, first, a statistical method will always arrive at the same judgment for a given set of data. Humans, on the other hand, are susceptible to the effects of fatigue, information presentation (framing), and recent experience. Second, humans are often exposed to a skewed sample of evidence – like our beachgoer visiting only one beach – making it difficult to assess the actual relation between variables and a criterion of interest.

Thus while the evidence before our eyes (or the temperatures that we feel) may seem to conflict with what hear and read about the globe warming up, we should be sanguine about relying solely on our own experience when making an informed judgment.

References

Dawes, R. M., Faust, D., & Meehl, P. E. (1989). Clinical versus actuarial judgment. Science, 243, 1668-1674.

Dutt, V. & Gonzalez, J. (2010). Why do we want to delay our actions on climate change? Effects of probability and timing of climate consequences. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, DOI: 10.1002/bdm.721.

Li, Y., Johnson, E.J., & Zaval, L.( 2011). Local warming: daily temperature change influences belief in global warming. Psychological Science, doi:10.1177/0956797611400913.

Meehl, P. E. (1954). Clinical vs. statistical prediction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Newell, B.R., & Pitman, A.J. (2010). The psychology of global warming: Improving the fit between the science and the message. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 91, 1003-1014.

Spence, A., Poortinga, W., Butler, C. & Pidgeon, N.F. (2011). Perceptions of climate change and willingness to save energy related to flood experience. Nature: Climate Change,1, 46-49.

Weber, E.U. (2010) What shapes perceptions of climate change? WIREs Climate Change, 1, 332-342.

News outlets have recently been busy reporting a new paper in Nature Geoscience from a Japanese team documenting very large amounts of Rare Earth Elements (REE) in the mud at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

REE are essential for many new developments in electronics and future energy technologies, including solar voltaic cells, LED’s, electric motors, wind turbines and computers. They include lanthanum, praseodymium, neodymium, europium, terbium and dysprosium. A single wind turbine may contain a tonne of neodymium. The electric car industry cannot take off without REE.

Currently China produces 97% of global supplies of REE, and available resources for some REEs are measured in terms of just a few decades, even at today’s rate of consumption. It is expected that demand will soon outstrip supply.

Processing of ore can require leaching with hydrochloric acid or sulfuric acid (both of which are products of the petrochemical industry), ion exchange separation, solvent partitioning and crystalisation.  By-products and contaminants can be environmentally damaging. Among these are thorium and uranium which are risks to animal health and the environment. China currently produces most of the world supply of REE because it has cheap labour and low safety requirements.

There is concern that the replacement of fossil fuel energy throughout the world could be scuppered by a shortage of REE for alternative energy infrastructure.

The new study reports that at some sites the oceanic mud hold about 25,000 tonnes REE per square kilometre of ocean floor, so theoretically a mere 6 square kilometres would be enough to meet current world demands for a whole year. The total sub-oceanic REE resources could be about 100 billion tonnes, which is 1000 times more than the known terrestrial resources. The authors from Japan point out that such mud ‘may constitute a highly promising resource for the future’.

 So, is this discovery the saviour of the future energy industry?

A couple of things to note are firstly that so called ‘Rare Earths’ are not that rare. They are very abundant in the Earth’s crust (in similar amounts to cobalt and nickel). The problem is that they are distributed at low concentrations and are difficult to refine.

The second thing is that REE in ocean sediments have been known about for decades. What is new is the more detailed analysis of the distribution, amounts and complexity of theses elements in the mud.

The concentrations of REE in mud are not particularly high compared to terrestrial deposits, but if the mud is brought to the surface it may be easier to extract than terrestrial deposits, and the mud contains much less of the damaging thorium and uranium.

So if deep oceanic mud has potential advantages, does it have disadvantages?

Yes, the mud deposits are at depths of about 5000 meters. What will be the costs of developing technology and infrastructure to collect cubic kilometres of mud every year and transporting it to land for processing?

What will be the impacts on ocean floor life and ocean ecosystems of scraping up the mud?

Where will the waste be deposited?

 My conclusions:

The optimistic view of this ‘news’ is that a vast resource of REE has been documented, giving hope that we have the resources for large-scale alternatives to fossil fuel energy.

The more objective view is that this report in Nature Geosciences changes little, since we have known all along that there are vast amounts of REE in the Earth. If anything it highlights the fact that REE will be increasingly challenging to find, mine and refine.

Whether terrestrial or oceanic in origin, the mining of REE deposits and the processing into purified elements is fossil-fuel-dependent, potentially damaging to the environment, a health risk to workers, and expensive. As the price of fossil fuels increases in future, so will the cost of REE and the alternative energy sources on which they depend.

So called ‘clean’ or ‘green’ energy is more of a ‘muddy green’ and will be increasingly expensive to build and sustain in the long term as oil prices rise.  

Humanity should be looking at ways to reduce the demand for all resources, rather than scrabbling in the ocean floor mud for resources in a vain attempt to sustain the current model of growth and consumption. This will inevitably drive the continued consumption of fossil fuels and continued GHG emissions into the atmosphere.

Of course our industrialised societies will not willingly contemplate a deliberate slowing of growth. Mother Earth will take that decision for us.

 Reference and links

Y. Kato, K. Fujinaga, K. Nakamura, Y. Takaya, K. Kitamura, J. Ohta, R. Toda, T. Nakashima and H. Iwamori. Deep-sea mud in the Pacific Ocean as a potential resource for rare-earth elements Nature Geoscience. Published online 03 July 2011. doi:10.1038/ngeo1185.

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ngeo1185.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14009910

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/impact_asia/9530309.stm