The Future is Now My first assignment as a senior analyst at Tesla Motors is to evaluate the changing relationship between our environment and the energy we use ever since the company was established. Since the largest automobile company in the world was founded on the principle of decreasing the environmental impact of the automobile, I find that such an assignment must be taken seriously and with careful consideration. While searching for some ideas, I stumbled upon in my bookshelf a book entitled Taking Sides, written by Thomas Easton. This book, which was the 2009 edition, was right around the time Tesla began its prominent ascent. It touches on three key points which I feel to be most prudent even to this day – global warming, new electricity sources such as wind, and automobile standards. It is amazing that just 20 years ago there was still a virulent debate on the existence of global warming. Even after all the scientists agreed on the detrimental effects of fossil fuel consumption, some politicians and many others in the United States were still arguing otherwise. In Issue 8, Seth Schulman argued that this was due to the oil industry’s brilliant “disinformation campaign.” Modeled after the tobacco industry’s strategy to fool the public on the harmful effects of smoking, ExxonMobil employed tactics such as creating uncertainty, laundering information, hiring fake scientists to back their efforts, shifting the focus of the debate, and lobbying government officials to stir up doubts on global warming. With regards to the opposition, Ivan Osorio used those same tactics previously mentioned to refute the scientific fact. Instead of focusing on the actual climate changes due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases, Osorio shifted the focus to the people who believed in it. He used inflammatory words such as “jihad” and associated them with the scientists who just provided the facts. Osorio asserted that the liberals were in a vast conspiracy to promote their wild views. He cited irrelevant information such as personal political contributions (which he fails to mention were the people with whom they agreed the most on issues of the environment). I find it interesting how this “debate” went on solely in the United States (in the Western World) at the time. Countries in Europe – at both sides of the political spectrum – had recognized the potential impacts of global warming for decades by then. Only in the United States was the debate still going on. Such dispute was to be soon squandered after Barack Obama, President at the time, began to change everything. He finally appointed real scientists, not politicians swayed by lobbyists, to assess the problems and consequently helped to bring around a 180-degree shift from the middle[1] Bush Administration like Steven Chu as the Energy Secretary. The United States was playing “catch up” at that time to the other industrial nations who had already established clear climate change policy. Slowly but surely, the United States took the lead in the fight against climate change as it always has when confronting major global issues of the time. In this case, climate change deniers protracted their views after it was realized that tremendous economic growth could be benefitted from employing climate change policy. One of the most important players in the reinvigorated economy was the renewable energy industry – most notably wind power. Now providing over 20% of the US electricity demands, wind energy alone has helped to curb carbon dioxide emissions more than any other initiative thus far. Charles Komanoff discussed the potential of wind power and its advantages in Issue 9 of the book. He argued that wind power was available in most areas of the country and could provide for hundreds of thousands of jobs in the US, most of which could not be outsourced. It would not hinder agricultural productivity in areas where wind farms are located since they take up little actual land space (but do take much air space which is not utilized anyways. Smart wind farm placements where migratory birds are known to fly have been zoned off to wind farms and are not a problem (disregarding the point Komanoff makes when he states that commercial buildings kill many times more that wind turbines). The argument Jon Boone asserts against wide implementation of wind energy was also taken into consideration. Property values can be hurt with wind turbine installations. The noises wind turbines make can be disturbing to some people. Birds and bats do occasionally collide with wind turbines. Wind is intermittent, and thus wind farms would not always produce electricity. What Jon Boone did not take into account was the tremendous potential of offshore wind farms. Offshore wind farms effectively refuted all his arguments against wind energy production. Offshore wind does not reduce property values. The noise produced is never heard since no one is close enough. Most migratory birds and bats do not travel over the oceans. Coupled with the advancement of wind power technology such as the 10 megawatt wind turbine, wind became the most cost-effective alternative energy, which became heavily desired after broad legislation limited carbon emissions. Boone also liked to point out the fact that electricity generation only accounts for 40% of our total energy production, and as such, wind energy does not help to solve the other energy problems. While he makes a good point, Boone assumed one tragic misconception about our climate change solution – that it was going to be solved by one solution. Wind energy is a part of the overall strategy to the climate change/energy problem. Besides, Boone would have never guessed that the future of the transportation sector in the United States, another major source of energy consumption, would be the electric vehicle. Transportation has long been regarded as the backbone for the modern industrial world. In Issue 10, a debate arises over the question of whether or not to implement higher fuel efficiency standards. David Friedman argues that if CAFE Standards (raising the fuel economy standards of cars and trucks to about 34 miles per gallon by 2017) are put in place, significant benefits could arise. He argues that such benefits include the mitigation of global warming, the creation of jobs, saving money, and cutting the reliance on foreign oil. Charlie Coon argued for repealing the CAFE Standards and provided numerous reasons to do so. One, he stated that forcing automobile companies to improve fuel economy would cause them to make their cars lighter. I find this to be poor logic because if automobile manufacturers can find a way to make cars cheaper (to which lighter cars almost always are), then in order to increase profits, they will do that anyways. Coon also stated that increased efficiencies inevitably lead to increased use and therefore increased, or at least equal, greenhouse gas emissions. While this may appear to be true, the example of the improved steam engines of the 19th century Coon gives to support his assertion is misleading. Watt’s improvement of the steam engine was the catalyst for an entire Industrial Revolution during a period of time where such transportation was barely existent. By the early 21 century however, modern transportation was already saturated in the United States along with the other developed nations. Picking a side to this argument is more complicated than the two previous issues. Friedman asserts as one of his reasons for backing the CAFE Standards to be reducing the reliance of foreign oil; well, I believe that more important would be the decrease of oil dependence as a whole. While increasing fuel efficiency standards would help to reduce carbon emissions, it would also in effect maintain the reliance on oil as the transportation fuel. The CAFE Standards were eventually put into place and enforced by President Obama (in fact, even more strict standards were set to be achieved by 2016)[2], but after the second rise of oil prices that occurred in the 2010s, most people realized that oil supplies are diminishing, will continue its erratic price shifts, and as such cannot remain as the only fuel to modern transportation, one of the most important sectors of the economy and contemporary life as a whole. Around the time between the two oil peaks, two things began to occur. One, we saw the decline of the great US automobile industries since they, unlike their foreign counterparts, had not embraced future technologies such as plug-in hybrids. While Ford Motors survived, Chrysler and its cars vanished into history. General Motors also managed to survive, but only after a long and tedious bankruptcy procedure that only left its Chevrolet and Cadillac companies intact. The second thing to happen was the emergence of the electric vehicle (and plug-in hybrid as the transition) as the successor to the internal combustion engine. With the unveiling of the Model S in 2009[3], Tesla would begin to revolutionize the car industry. A relatively affordable vehicle at the time, the Model S had a 300 mile all-electric range and attractive body. Such a combination proved to be just what Americans had been hoping for, and soon enough, Tesla became the preeminent electric car company in the world. The issues discussed in Taking Sides have proven to be crucial issues of the last twenty or so years. With the acceptance of global warming, the nations of the world began and are continuing to employ strategies to save our delicate planet from our energy needs. One key solution to such a dilemma has been the power extracted from the wind. After fuel efficiency standards reached a peak in the 2010s, another key innovation has been the emergence of electricity as the new, more adaptable energy source for transportation. Thomas Easton compiled what he felt as the most pressing issues of his time, but I have shown how his past has been the key to our future.
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[1] Just a bit of comic relief: imagine a third Bushie as President.
[2] Http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Announces-National-Fuel-Efficiency-Policy/
[3] Http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/tesla-motors-model-s-electric-car-information-specifications-photos-performance-range-speed.php