News piling up

I was traveling for the month of June but of course the news doesn't stop! Here are a few highlights.

First, the always great Hannah Ritchie posted this blog listing energy sources by US state. That info has been on this blog before but it's a nice, clear formulation.

Also related to energy: I don't spend enough time talking about public utility commisions in my class. Yes, it may be efficient to allow one provider (who faces lower costs by virtue of operating at scale) to dominate the market, but that also creates its own problems, as shown at the above link. 

While I start off my class talking about successes like Norman Borlaug, we quickly turn to current problems. I enjoyed this other reminder of technical success: the way that lighting has become basically free where it used to be very expensive (centuries ago). (And speaking of Borlaug, I enjoyed this piece about how GMOs save cropland, and the new phosphate resource recently identified in Norway, which would undercut West Africa's stranglehold.)

Another technical development has been the increase of US petroleum production. The US is close to producing the most oil that it ever has. That's good and bad, I guess?

Transitioning from energy to urban transportation. This Brookings study finds that "activity centers" make a huge difference for vehicle miles traveled, and the conclusion is that urban centers should be built around these clusters to minimize transportation time. VMT are what this NYT article thinks we should be taxing more, arguing that it will be more efficient than a gas tax for the roads. Meanwhile, urban researchers found that having more urban density doesn't improve people's health, but it makes people more likely to be sedentary (my interpretation of the metabolic scores in the article). And finally Vox has a new piece up on the huge number of pedestrians who are killed by cars every year in the US. It's all very complicated, isn't it?

Resource Econ Movies

Students this semester produced the following documentary videos:

Towson Run Stream Restoration

Baltimore's Incinerator

Stormwater management

Effects of Cocoa Production

Economics behind recycling

Oil & Chemical Spills

Hydrogen Cars

Environmental costs of coal

Economics of Cervid Disease Control

How much does your trash cost?

Economics of oil painting

Costs & Benefits of Renewable Energy & Species Conservation 

Nuclear energy

Insects: Balancing Ecological Benefits with Costs for Control

Stream Restoration in Maryland

Economics of sea level rise 

Snakehead in the Chesapeake

Growing your own food

Economic analysis of natural gas usage in the Eastern US 

Eastern shore Agricultural Best Management Practices

Nutrient pollution in the Chesapeake

 

Power sources by state

Fun interactive article in the Post: see how the mix of power sources has changed in your state over the past 20 years. Almost all states are less carbon intensive in their power mix, for a variety of reasons. Many, including red states such as Kansas and Iowa, are using more wind and solar, and in other places such as Maryland natural gas has taken over for coal. Good to see progress!

Oil production and consumption

First, consumption: I had no idea that 10% of drivers are responsible for 28% of gas consumption (for cars- pretty sure those private jets are a problem too). Turns out that gas consumption is supercharged by a group of users that are mostly rural, mostly poor, and who spend an inordinate amount on transportation. If those users were given electric powered vehicles, that would make a much bigger difference than switching in Corollas for Priuses, say.

Also interesting is this summary of Willow project, recently approved by the Biden administration to start drilling in Alaska. The project is located outside of the National Wildlife Refuge, leading advocates to tout the jobs and other economic benefits, while others want all of the wilderness to remain untouched. Alaskan oilfields have been productive for decades, but there have also been notable spills in Prudhoe Bay, some issues along the pipeline, and of course the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. That said, on balance the pipeline has been quite successful, having increased income across the state of Alaska by 5 times. 

Data sources

I keep running across new websites offering access to data. Here are a few.

Opportunity Insights social mobility, based on US Census data

Data Commons environmental & climate change data

March News: Fracking, poverty, lithium and milk

While it would be quite a feat if I could actually make these three topics actually connect, those are just the issues that caught my eye recently.

First, on fracking for natural gas: I assigned Gasland and FrackNation in my Resource Economics class and they were not impressed. That's not a strange response, but it's rather new: I think before the pandemic, and before Trump, people were surprised to see journalists playing fast and loose with the facts, but today it's well known, even expected. Sort of heartbreaking, but maybe I don't need to make such a point about that anymore. Anyway, students recommended instead this BBC piece as an intro to fracking, and the 2012 movie Promised Land as better showcasing the dilemma. I will need to watch that one!

Second, milk: last year I assigned a variety of YouTube clips about meat and milk production, and while I'm letting that topic go this semester this Washington Post article caught my eye. It seems that milk protein is already being made without cows: yeasts and fungi can produce it without putting cows through the misery of repeatedly giving birth and then separation from their calves. I assume it's not quite cost effective yet, but hopefully the engineers will keep working on that front.

Third, lithium. As electric vehicles increasingly add market share, you'd think that the raw materials needed to produce them would be on the rise. In the case of lithium, you'd be wrong. Not sure that the low prices will continue, but for now prices are down a bit.

Finally, as we go into the public goods portion of the course, poverty reduction is often overlooked. We tend to think that people should take care of themselves, and that handouts are not sustainable. Just a reminder from someone who sees homeless people on the streets every day: it helps everyone if we can make people self-sufficient, including recognizing systems that keep people on the streets. WaPo link, for the article that reminded me...

Nutrition & human height

A six minute video posted on Vox shows how important a good diet is. This will be useful in my stats class, but it's also relevant for Resources: note that while Borlaug's work didn't have a direct effect on infant mortality rates, the changes he contributed to made a big difference for a lot of people. While genetics are important, diet can also determine as much as 20% of a person's height, which is why South Korea saw such impressive gains in height in the late 20th century. I always appreciate a little good news!

Chinese renewables

They may be working hard on their giant pig farms, but they are also working hard on adding renewable energy. According to Hannah Ritchie, their new capacity grows at an astounding rate: the amount of NEW capacity each year is more than the total capacity of large countries such as the UK. Wow.

No other large country is even close to adding this much renewable capacity. Go China!

Chinese pig farms

 Article in today's NYT: high rise CAFOs have been built in China. I'm not sure about how much antibiotics they use, but at least in this picture it doesn't look as awful as some of the American CAFOs. (Some pictures show cages, which I think I have heard are important to keep breeding pigs from crushing piglets, though again I am no expert.)

They even reuse some of the feces: "Roughly one-quarter of the feed will come out as dry excrement that can be repurposed as methane to generate electricity." That's the same thing they are doing in North Carolina, where Modern Farmer reports that biogas collection has run into some problems as the waste collection disproportionately affected communities of color.

Oil: in decline?

Hannah Ritchie of Our World in Data is one of my heroes, and her blog today considers a report by (oil company) BP that demand for oil is declining. No one can perfectly predict the future, and there are a few scenarios to consider, but overall patterns indicate decreased demand over time, which is great news from a climate perspective.

Boxing Day is over

A leading indicator for the health of the economy is the amount of cardboard used: when the economy is roaring along, demand for boxes is huge in this age of Amazon. If this leading indicator is to be believed, though, we may be in for some belt-tightening. This article shows that demand for boxes is way down.

Another indicator is the value of the US dollar. While that varies depending on what it's being compared to, in many cases the value of the grenback has been declining since September. Here's the US dollar vs. the Euro.

Long time no blog

Here it is the start of a new semester and I haven't posted anything for months: that's not good. Been a busy time: sorry!

First, a graphs caught my eye showing increased production of milk per cow 

 and increased US yogurt consumption.

Finally, the Washington Post posted this article today about the environmental impact of a variety of foods. There are many interesting graphics there including this one:

I knew that beef was up there, thanks to Our World in Data, but I didn't realize about groundfish. I need to learn more!

Eastern shore chicken plant fined

The MDE is on the job! Kudos to the Attorney General and to the MDE for holding Valley Proteins responsible. An efficient social outcome depends on internalizing externalities, and this seems like a great step toward achieving that end.

Climate Change and Food

First, and biggest, the good news: the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law just days ago, is a big step in the fight against climate change. Witness this very excited video detailing the bill, including the many ways it is poised to make a difference and a few, strange ways that pork barrel politics got some wins for Manchin. But also note with this Vox article that this big new policy seems to gloss over agriculture, an industry with issues.

Although the Beyond Burger hasn't been doing super well as of late, apparently failing to convince McDonalds that they should be on menus worldwide, there is still some room to be optimistic about "alt-meat." Building meat from raw (plant) materials results in less waste (i.e. animal parts), a lot of saved time waiting for animals to mature, and potentially may allow the same equipment to produce different products. 

Bottom line: Big Meat is still boss, but this fight isn't over....

NYC Congestion pricing still "coming soon"

Any policy is going to have winners and losers, though it sounds like the South Bronx is pretty much a guaranteed loser. There are a lot of cats to try to herd, but I'm impressed they're still at least trying!

Chicken in Maryland

In 2021 the chicken industry on the Delmarva peninsula produced 567 million chickens, 3 million fewer than in 2020. Still, local industry profits hit $4.2 billion which doesn't sound too bad, especially given that had to pay higher wages to workers in processing plants and higher costs for feed. 

However, the Biden Administration has taken notice of the way the industry is run, and they are trying to keep the few huge processors from taking all of the profits, as has long been done via the tournament pricing system, which pits growers against each other. In the face of those large profits (remembering that Delmarva is less than 10% of US production) the Feds imposed fines of.. 85 MILLION dollars!

That's got to be maybe half a percent of industry profits, imposed one time. 

Anyway, suffice to say I'm not too impressed. Meanwhile, an environmental group continues to complain about the many externalities of the industry, noting that the Maryland Department of the Environment inspected just 134 farms per year out of the 500 or so statewide. Of those inspected, most had some infraction found, but mostly the issues were dealt after a follow-up visit. Farms can often do a better job keeping the manure out of local waterways, but fines are rarely levied. Should they be levied more? I'm not sure: I certainly hope that not every inspection results in a fine. I do think that MDE should hire more inspectors: maybe paid for by a small additional tax on farms?

Nuclear waste

Just a twitter thread, but some interesting thoughts here. The author says that there just isn't much nuclear waste to deal with, making it not much a problem. Too bad mostly people don't think very rationally about nuclear energy: although the damages are much worse from coal, they are more incremental while the nuclear meltdowns that have happened a few times really capture people's imaginations.

Beef or fish?

I'm cheating, I'll admit, combining two posts that are only tangentially related. However, what do we think can replace the giant beef industry? While it's not in any danger, one thing taking a few acres of land in a way that wasn't done before is aquaculture. This video is produced by a news organization in North Carolina and is somewhat propaganda-esque promoting local businesses, but I still think it's interesting. Much of NC is lowlands, and more of the state may be available for this kind of business going forward.

Meanwhile water is an issue in the arid southwest, where lots of land is devoted to cattle ranching. Flows down rivers are down about 17% (alternate source) and irrigation used to grow alfalfa for animal feed all over. Basically that's repackaging water, which is a tough sell in places like the southwest. 

While the land and water aren't comparable, the food produced might be....

Natural gas

For a long time, advocates have praised natural gas as being "better than coal." That's still true: no argument from me! However, that's a pretty low bar. Coal creates all kinds of pollution from mining and burning it, and the impact on climate change is also large. So gas is better, right? Well, maybe.

First, extraction. While coal mining has a pretty bad reputation, researchers have also tied natural gas extraction to deaths of people near drilling sites and downwind. 

Second, emissions. An eight year study of gas emissions in the Boston area found that emissions were much higher than predicted by known usage patterns. This suggests that gas might be seeping out around pipelines, but more ominously in homes. 

On a semi-related note, in addition to the climate change impacts of air pollution, a study in India finds that smog hurts children's cognitive and academic performance. While pollution in India is likely worse than it is here, all damage is cause for alarm... and consider that 30 minutes with a two stroke leaf blower emits more carbon than a trip from Texas to Alaska in a pickup truck. Another study in Chile finds that particulate matter (a kind of air pollution) is associated with a small but significant increase in emergency room visits.

Finally, an interesting chart shows the sources of greenhouse gas emissions: about 3/4 are from energy, at least as of 2016.

Again, gas is definitely better than coal, but hopefully that isn't the comparison we continue to make. Remember, renewable sources are more than economic in many places: bringing them in makes profits and helps the environment. 

Rethinking the importance of food miles

A new article in Nature claims that the supply chain is responsible for a fairly large share of the emissions associated with food- as much as 19%, but the figure is 36% for vegetables and fruits. This runs counter to the more established wisdom from writers like historian James McWilliams that food miles matter little. This 2010 NYT editorial by Stephen Budiansky says that transportation accounts for 14% of the total energy consumed by the American food system. Clearly one big factor is exactly what counts in each number: are we including processing? Are we including transportation for the inputs such as fertilizer? (Not sure, but it seems like the Nature article might be.) 

As usual, Hannah Ritchie at Our World in Data provides an array of helpful stats, concluding that "eating local only slightly reduces your emissions." For a more general summary, Tamar Haspel has some words of wisdom: think first about your diet and second about where food comes from, and keep in mind that salad is silly. Not many calories or nutrients there: just more of a crunch experience for the global rich like many of us here in Baltimore.