Comments from the Field
Because of space restrictions at the Wingspread Conference Center, only about 40 national leaders will attend the Energy and Climate Change Summit. To enrich their discussion, the Global Energy Center invited nearly 150 additional leaders in the energy and climate fields to offer comments and suggestions they'd like the Summit to consider. Here are the submissions we've received so far.
Former U.S. Senator Gary Hart: Thirty years ago I helped found the military reform movement. It's principles were based on a theory of Colonel John Boyd (US Airforce, ret.) who developed what he called the OODA loop. That stands for Observation, Orientation, Decision, and Action as applied to both combat and strategy. The "Loop" then returns to Observation of the results of one's actions.
I am thinking about a similar approach to resource reform. It might be called the AVDI loop. AVDI stands for Appreciation, Valuation, Decision, and Introspection. Appreciation is used in the old British sense, to "appreciate" a situation, to fully understand the complete picture. Valuation is to weigh all options critically. Decision is choosing an option that maximizes resource use and restricts negative consequences. And Introspection comprehends the outcome of the Decision and leads to another round of Appreciation.
Thus, energy use, for example, would involve an appreciation of the entire energy picture, a valuation of various energy and conservation alternatives, a decision for one alternative, and introspection of the consequences of that decision. The same process loop can and should be applied to a nation's, as well as an individual's, approace to an energy strategy.
These thoughts are preliminary and will be revised. But this effort to devise a theory is meant to impose a new rationality on resource issues.
United Nations Foundation: Thanks for your...menu of interesting ideas. Most important, it seems to me, is the needed overarching theme: Climate Change should be viewed as a great opportunity. Energy provides the opportunity for transforming our economy in the 21st century, much as the digital revolution in the second half of the 20th century. Below are a couple of items that might be helpful:
A statement from the recent Yale/Aspen Conference on Climate Change and the transcript of a talk I gave at Goldman Sachs last week.
- Tim Wirth, President
Summary Statement from Yale Conference on Climate and Science [WORD / 24KB] TEW Goldman Sachs Transcript [WORD / 56KB]
Posted 5/22/06
The Land Institute: We at The Land Institute do have a lot to say about the energy future. Our 10-year Sunshine Farm study under the direction of the late Dr. Martin H. Bender has been revealing in several ways and is now being written up. The farm used photovoltaic panels, grew the biofuels for the biodiesel tractor, included up to 70 head of cattle, and chickens for eggs and meat. A major problem was determining where to set the boundary on energy cost. For example, when we included the energy cost to mine the ore in the Minnesota Iron Range, processing in Gary Indiana, and assembly for the biodiesel tractor, we realized how soft the estimates are on embodied energy for everything.
We are convinced that the various energy ratios for biofuels found in the literature are far too optimistic in most cases. The boundaries of consideration NEVER overlap the boundaries of causation and so society is living with a great illusion about the potential of renewables from the landscape. Last week in New York at the corporate headquarters for Swiss Re I offered the following thought experiment. Since twenty-six gallons of gasoline has about the same number of calories as the average American eats in one year, let's assume that none of us eats for one year and that this food, mostly from our landscape, is turned into biofuels. This means we would have about two gallons of gasoline per month to meet all our needs. That is for airplanes, cars, boats, buses, trains, etc. To expect biofuels to do the job even if we assume two, four or 10 times what we eat for food is wishful thinking.
In addition, our soils are being seriously degraded now through chemicals and by erosion. Furthermore, I suspect that essentially all of the biofuels will come in at a negative energy balance but we will be a long time catching on. On our 10-year Sunshine Farm study about a quarter of the till acreage had to sponsor traction (tractor energy and acreage is about equal to horse) and about a quarter of the till acreage to sponsor nitrogen. Please keep me posted. - Wes Jackson, President
For more information, please see the follwing brochure.
[PDF 2.35 MB]
Note: correction to the PDF document - wind turbines are now 10-100:1 (Danish and German machines) Posted 5/15/06
Wallace Global Fund: I wanted to take the opportunity to suggest at least one area of discussion for you to consider at your Wingspread meeting. Melissa Dann and I just participated in a conference focusing on the relationship between peak oil and the environment. During that meeting it became frighteningly clear that the impulse to fill the energy gap in light crude oil production will, unless we are very careful, lead to development of unconventional oils and even worse, coal to liquids. We were shown a graph that depicted the energy balance of a variety of energy sources--oil, coal, tar sands, shale oil, and renewables (it showed renewables with a negative energy rate of return on investment). Based on energy balance alone on the production side, this graph looked just like the economic rate of return on investment (which has only worsened with the skyrocketing cost of crude oil). Looking for energy replacements based on either the economics or energy balances therefore, without the environmental impacts of their use, will lead us down the wrong path--the one committing us irrevocably to dangerous climate disruptions. I hope that we can generate more discussions about how to prevent this pathway while promoting conservation of energy resources and ramping up of renewable technologies. - Amy Saltzman
Posted 5/15/06