Environmental regulations and jobs

This Atlantic article sums up some recent research on the relationship between environmental regulations and jobs. Although they soft-pedal it, their summary concludes that job losses are indeed associated with environmental regulations, though they also note that such claims are often inflated.

However, we must also consider some countervailing factors. First, it's often true that one person's loss is another's gain. Over the last 5-10 years, the coal industry has done a major faceplant as the fracking industry has increased operations. That means fewer jobs in West Virginia but more jobs in Pennsylvania, for example, and not everyone who lives in West Virginia is able to retool their skill set and easily move several hundred miles away to take one of the new jobs. So, there are winners and losers from this market change. Who do you think will make more noise: the losers or the winners? 

It's important to note that this change didn't happen as a result of regulations: as technology improved, it just got cheaper to frack than to mine, so the change happened sort of organically. Regulations can have similar effects, though, for example if they require coal to meet certain emissions standards.

Lastly, and most importantly, the other winners from environmental regulations- who often don't even realize they're winning, and therefore are even less likely to speak out- are the people living downwind. When comparatively clean-burning natural gas is used to generate energy instead of coal, less CO2 is emitted and less particulate matter as well, meaning that people living near and far will be healthier. Unfortunately, in most cases politicians don't benefit from these health improvements, so that makes them less valuable to policymakers.

In other words, it's not as simple as they'd have you believe!

Market forces and energy

Thanks to @BorensteinS for linking to this Bloomberg article. Wyoming wants to raise the cost of wind energy via taxes, just to promote coal and natural gas. This can of course do some damage, but it shows how market forces are arrayed against those legacy energy sources. Not surprising, but yet again sadly ironic how the pro-market ideology goes out the window when it's convenient. Populism run amok.

Update on lithium batteries

While yesterday brought the third in the Washington Post's series on the environmental ramifications of lithium batteries (focusing on lithium itself) today has some good news. A group of companies using lithium batteries in their products, including Apple, have created the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) with a goal of addressing social and environmental ramifications of their products. 

There's not a simple set goal yet, and that's because things are complicated. As the piece says, "Exactly what to do about the artisanal mining of cobalt is a matter of heated debate. The practice is rife with dangers. On the other hand, it also helps desperately poor people make a living, particularly in the rural areas of Congo."

Tradeoffs, tradeoffs. Welcome to the world of Economics.

(Here are links to the earlier WaPo pieces on graphite and cobalt.)

Pumping toxic stuff into the ground can pollute the water. Who knew?

If everything goes right during fracking, and the effluent that comes up the well is relieved of 100% of its gas and the resulting filth is injected in a carefully prepared well that goes deep, deep underground. The wells are to be lined and the material is to be shot far below any water, so it won't eventually seep into the water supply.

Well, it turns out it's not that easy, as the EPA announced today, no doubt on a sped-up timeline to avoid trying to put out a report under their new boss who surely wouldn't allow it.

It's actually pretty important to get this out there, since the EPA has said the opposite before. This is a bit of a win for environmentalists that has taken a lot longer than it should have to get out.

Government: needed to set up markets, & CH4 in the air

Great post today by a top environmental economist on how government is needed to let marketplace solutions work out. In other words, even libertarian economic theory doesn't suggest that destroying the EPA is a good idea.

In other news, environmental monitoring has revealed that although carbon dioxide emissions are declining, methane is actually up. This is really bad: methane does much more damage than CO2 once it's out there. The question now is where all that methane is coming from: some say it might be from emissions related to fracking, while others blame increased agriculture and increased livestock production. Undoubtedly both matter, and the question is how to make things better. Here in the US a good place to start would be by being a little more careful in our fracking: using natural gas is supposed to be less environmentally damaging than coal, but if we don't capture all the emissions done when we frack for gas, we could end up making things worse.

Electric cars

The need to gird ourselves for a Battle Royale on the environmental front makes me want to hide anything that might possibly be used by the other side, but that's not a useful impulse. As an academic it's my job to continue to evaluate the evidence fairly, and as the Guardian points out today, there are some flaws with the existing infrastructure behind electric cars.

First, they will only be as environmentally friendly as their fuel. If coal is burned to produce energy used to run a Tesla, it might as well be driving on gas (well, almost). Elon Musk's long-term plan for his vehicles includes solar-powered charging for the vehicles, but other electric vehicles aren't taking any such steps.

Second, making batteries can be rather nasty for the environment, imposing an additional burden.

If you start off at a deficit and don't get yourself out, you don't end up ahead. We need to take care that electric cars don't end up in that position!

EPA

I don't have the stomach to write much about this- I am literally nauseous- but the choice to run the EPA is profoundly disturbing. With no background in science, no background in economics, Scott Pruitt has spent his career fighting medical care for the poor, undermining same-sex marriage, advocating for environmental damage, and of course most prominently declaiming against climate change, in spite of the work of thousands of scientists.

While our society needs energy, we must also take into account cleanliness and safety in thinking about how we get it. Air pollution kills. Fracking in Oklahoma has caused earthquakes, damaging homes and property, The potential damage of climate change includes droughts, heat waves, more intense hurricanes and other major storms, and rising sea levels, damaging agriculture, infrastructure, insect outbreaks, wildfires, loss of species, and human health impacts.

I'm just stunned that all of those concerns are going to be ignored. I guess the rich will be less affected by all of those things, so why worry?