The View from Right Field

Covid-19. Ukraine. Do We Ever Learn Anything?

When Covid-19, then known as the coronavirus, hit in early 2020, we weren’t ready.  We didn’t have enough personal protective equipment, our medical systems were inadequate, the plans we had for pandemics didn’t work, etc.  Things were a mess.  On April 26, 2020, I wrote a long post entitled “Preparing for the ‘Next’ Coronavirus – Whatever It Is. But Will We?”  But the post was not talking about just the next virus.  It was asking about the next emergency, the next disaster, the next big problem, whatever it was.  In the conclusion of my post, I said this:

“Robustness.  Resiliency.  Nimbleness.  These are what we need if we are to be ready for the emergencies and disasters that will happen, though we don’t know which ones or when.  Most of all, however, we need leaders who understand the importance of these qualities and who can provide the leadership to help us secure them and maintain them.”

Here’s My Theory Why Self-Driving Cars Are a Long Way Off: Lawsuits

On Monday, the Financial Times had an article noting that driverless cars may create more traffic jams because more people will take cars if they don’t have to drive themselves.  But, the article also noted that “[p]redictions for driverless cars hitting the road en masse have repeatedly been proved wrong.”  The FT published my letter giving my theory why in Friday’s paper.  Here it is (there is no link because it is behind their paywall):

“Lex talks about how driverless cars may result in more cars on the road as people find car travel even easier if they don’t have to drive themselves.  (‘Driverless cars: jam tomorrow’, March 7)  But the article also notes that, ‘[a]fter a decade of hype and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment, you still can’t buy a self-driving car.’  As the article concludes, ‘[t]he future [of driverless cars] may also be further away that investors hope.’

Biden Is Looking for Oil Everywhere – Except Texas

The Biden administration energy policy reminds me a lot of Johnny Lee’s 1980 hit country song “Looking for Love (In All the Wrong Places)”, except it should be changed to “Looking for Oil in All the Wrong Places.”  With, first, inflation surging and, now, Russia invading Ukraine, the Biden administration is looking for oil.  Except it is looking in the wrong places.

Late last year, with gas prices up, the Administration asked Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states to increase oil production.  They wouldn’t.  According to some reports, one of the reasons the Administration is pushing to reinstate the Iran nuclear agreement is to get Iranian oil back on the world market.  The New York Times has reported that Administration officials are talking with Venezuela on ways to end on sanctions on their oil, to get supplies up and gas prices down.

Economic Illiteracy At the Top (Still)

It looks like the Biden administration has found a way to cut oil prices: Come up with a new Covid-19 variant.  More seriously, President Biden said, in addition to just about begging OPEC+ for more production (it’s not a good look for a U.S. president to be publicly asking Saudi Arabia and Russia for, in effect, political help¹), and this gets to the point of this post, that the problem of high oil prices was “because oil supply has not kept up with demand as the global economy emerges from the pandemic.”² 

Except that is wrong.  It’s not that supply is lower than demand.  Supply and demand will always meet³; it’s just that some people may not like where they meet.  Supply might not be high enough for supply and demand to meet at a price people want to pay, but that doesn’t mean they won’t meet.

Electric Cars, Ice Storms, and the Grid

I was driving home from Lincoln, Nebraska, last weekend.  (We were there to meet a beautiful new granddaughter.)  As I drove back, I remembered another drive back from Nebraska.  It was in 2006 or 2007.  This time we were in Omaha, visiting our son who was going to Creighton University.  We drove home the day after a massive snow/ice storm hit Iowa.  As we were driving on I-80 across Iowa, we saw the effects of the storm: piles of snow, semis in the ditch, etc.  It was sort of scary, except we were a day after the storm, so the roads were clear, and it didn’t affect our driving.  

The only real problem for us was that electricity was out all along I-80, and we were starting to run low on gas.  (Note to self: In the winter {or spring or fall}, don’t let your gas tank get too low.  You never know when stations might be closed.)  Fortunately, we finally found a gas station that was open: It had a generator, so it had electricity and its gas pumps worked.  To say we were happy – and relieved – is an understatement.

Cutting Carbon Now

New York is shutting down the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which in the past has supplied upwards of 25% of the electricity for New York City and Westchester County.  So where is the electricity going to come from, especially since New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has blocked the construction of pipelines that would bring natural gas to New York City?  Governor Cuomo has proposed building 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind power and a 250-mile transmission line from upstate New York to bring in renewable energy, but they aren’t ready yet - obviously.  Also, given the opposition there will be to such proposals, who knows when they will be built, if ever.  After all, the Biden administration has already withdrawn proposals for offshore wind power developments off certain parts of Long Island because ….  Well, there are always good reasons for not building such things in one’s own backyard.  (Here.)

But, don’t worry about power blackouts in New York because, even if there is a shortage of natural gas, gas-powered plants can switch to oil.  Huh?  We’re trying to cut carbon emissions, so the solution is to: (i) shut down an existing nuclear plant, which supplies, by definition, at least once it is built, carbon-free power; (ii) block natural gas pipelines because natural gas emits carbon and we want to be carbon-zero; and (iii) use oil, the most carbon-intensive of all three, as the back-up power source until we can get wind farms and transmission lines for renewable energy built.

Models, Calculators, and Certainty

Last weekend, The Wall Street Journal had an interview with Steven Koonin, who was chief scientist for the Energy Department under Barack Obama.  In the course of the interview, Dr. Koonin said some things about models and how they are used that resonated with me (probably because I have some of the same concerns.

Dr. Koonin said, of younger scientists today: “They have grown up with the models.  They don’t have the kind of mathematical or physical intuition you get when you have to do things by pencil and paper.”

Getting to Carbon-Free

Carbon-free.  That is the goal.  Companies, countries are setting a goal of becoming carbon-free.  Some are aiming at 2030.  Others 2040.  And others still 2050.  But regardless of the date, the goal is the same.  To become carbon-free.  To not only reduce the amount of carbon being put into the atmosphere each year, but to get to zero.

But how we get to carbon-free is important, too.   And that is where it gets tricky.  The point is that carbon in the atmosphere doesn’t go away (or at least not very fast).  While getting to carbon-free is important to minimize the effects of climate change, how much carbon we put into the atmosphere while we are getting to carbon-free is important, too. 

The Killing of Qassem Soleimani and the Dog That Didn’t Bark

“The Adventure of Sliver Blaze,” one of the most popular Sherlock Holmes stories, involves the theft of a famous race horse, Silver Blaze, and the killing of its trainer, just before an important racer.  In a conversation with a Scotland Yard detective, Sherlock Holmes explains a key clue:

“Gregory: Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?
Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
Gregory: The dog did nothing in the night-time.
Holmes: That was the curious incident.”

Youth Climate Activists Call for a Halt to Fossil Fuel Investment – Right Now

Greta Thunberg and twenty other youth climate activists have issued a letter in which they “demand” (their word) that, at the World Economic Forum meeting scheduled for later this month in Davos, Switzerland,

“all companies, banks, institutions and governments immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction, immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies and immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels.”

And they want these things done “right now” (their emphasis).¹

While they go on to say that they understand “that the world is complicated and that what [they] are asking for may not be easy”, they don’t seem to care.  The climate crisis “is an emergency”, and it seems like nothing else matters.