Soooo Smooth

In the New York Times's Dot Earth blog, Andrew Revkin writes 13 March 2013 about a new study, Examining the Feasibility of Converting New York State’s All-Purpose Energy Infrastructure to One Using Wind, Water, and Sunlight.





This graphic comes from the report. It reminds me of the Socolow and Pacala wedges. What's wrong with the wedges and this picture? It's soooo smooth, which gives the viewer the notion that all that is required is a gentle transition in policy and technology. What's actually required to make the transition is to make every single decision to be the most deliberate and dramatically effective. That's because -- as Revkin points out in arguing against rapid action -- in New York City "80 percent of the buildings that will exist in 2050 are already here today." A similar issue exists for of cars, and their infrastructure of roads, water, sewer, energy. etc.

Revkin strikes a skeptical stance and challenges the authors in an email exchange.

A couple of items standout in a reply:

1) Instead of upgrading, maintaining, and replacing deteriorating existing infrastructure, invest in new infrastructure. If we don’t appreciably accelerate retirement, there is no “extra” (early-retirement) cost to consider.
2) Retrofit and rebuild for maximum efficiency and minimum environmental impact. The correct basis for evaluating this economically is a full social lifetime cost-benefit analysis with a near-zero discount rate. On this basis, I believe that most improvements will be economical.

It is a goal-oriented way of thinking, "What will it need to be like?", not back-looking, "Where can we go from here?"

Ditching the discount rate is necessary. It inhibits good decision-making.