Category Archives: Web Article Review

Washington State carbon tax on the ballot

Washington State has a carbon tax on the ballot in the November election. The oil industry is fighting it tooth and nail, but it also has high-profile backers.

A $3 million boost in spending is largely due to an influx of cash from BP America, one of the major oil companies operating refineries in the state. Phillips66, formerly the led donor, has given $7.20 million, followed by Andeavor (the former Tesoro) at $4.3 million.

Supporters of the carbon fee have raised over $12 million, or half of what Big Oil has put into defeating the measure. Its backers include businesses such as Microsoft, the American Lung Assn., Gov. Jay Inslee, environmentalist and labor leaders.

The latest infusion to the “Yes” side is a $1 million donation from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates has donated $1 million.

Interesting that the oil industry is tentatively supporting a national carbon tax at the same time they are fighting this so aggressively. It suggests they are afraid of these state-level taxes and would rather do some wheeling and dealing in Congress to get a weaker deal in place that would block stronger taxes like this one.

more jobs doesn’t lessen poverty?

This article digs into a study on correlations between poverty, job creation and social mobility (along with several other factors). Unfortunately, just creating new jobs in low-income areas didn’t seem to increase the chances of children moving up the economic ladder compared to their parents. However, living or moving to a neighborhood where most people are employed does increase the chances of a child moving up the economic ladder compared to their parents.

It’s puzzling. The explanation that is easy to jump to is that cultural factors are very important and can’t be changed overnight. I’m sure there is some truth to that. I can think of other potential factors though – maybe parents in low income areas are taking those jobs, but whatever extra income they are pulling in is not enough to offset spending less time with their children. Maybe they are more likely to be single parents, lack extended family support, struggle with substance abuse and mental illness, not be able to afford high quality health care and child care, and live in low-performing school districts. Under these circumstances, it wouldn’t be too surprising that their children are not getting ahead. Those middle class professional parents in the neighborhoods where everyone is employed are probably scraping together enough to pay for decent health care and child care, and are probably demanding more from their school systems.

illegal oil trade

This article from Yale says there is a large illegal trade in oil. My first thought was that if countries or companies are producing oil, don’t they have the right to sell it to whoever they want? It turns out, oil is being stolen and sold by groups or even individuals who are not the actual producers in some cases, and in other cases it is being smuggled or laundered by producers who are under international sanctions.

In some cases, subnational actors openly export oil despite official prohibition by central governments. The Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq maintains it is their region’s constitutional right to export oil independently, in defiance of the central government. With Baghdad withholding the region’s 17 percent of budget share, the regional government sought economic independence through hydrocarbons and found a degree of international sympathy, given its role in combatting ISIS and hosting 1.9 million refugees and internally displaced people. The unrefined product was sent via pipeline through Turkey’s Ceyhan port, loaded by various Greek shipping companies on tankers, then stored in Malta or Israel until buyers were found. Shifting routes of Kurdish oil tankers can be observed on sites like tankertrackers.com…

With 90 percent of the world’s goods, 30 percent of which are total hydrocarbons, traded by sea, much of the illegal fuel trade is conducted on water. Two thirds of global daily oil exports are transported by sea, reports the UN Conference on Trade and Development, and a staggering 64 percent of international waters are areas beyond any national jurisdiction. Non-state actors offshore West Africa, Bangladesh or Indonesia take advantage of loopholes created by international law and the law of the sea. Transfer of illegal fuel is often done ship to ship on neutral waters – with one ship commercially legal, recognized as carrying legitimate imports at the final port of destination. Thus, illegal crude from countries such as Libya or Syria finds its way to EU markets.  Recently Russian ships have been found involved in smuggling oil products to North Korea through ship to ship transfers.

Armed theft and piracy also occurs. Hijackings off the coast of Somalia resumed in 2017, the first since 2012, after the international community reduced enforcement. Beyond jurisdictional issues, many governments are overwhelmed by other maritime security threats and cannot prioritize the illegal trade. In fact, fuel traders have reported that the problem is so pervasive that many companies calculate in advance for losses up to 0.4 percent of any ordered cargo volumes.

 

degree in automated science

Carnegie Mellon now has a degree in automated science.

CMU’s Computational Biology Department will offer the Master of Science in Automated Science: Biological Experimentation beginning in fall 2019 and is accepting applications for its initial class through Dec. 1.

“Automation has disrupted numerous industries and is poised to radically transform the pace and economics of scientific research in academia and industry,” said Robert F. Murphy, head of the Computational Biology Department and co-director of the new master’s degree program. “We will train students to become leaders in this new field, where automated instruments and artificial intelligence combine to produce scientific discoveries.”

Automation such as high-throughput screening is a standard means of experimentation for drug discovery and of basic biological science. Advances in AI and machine learning now make it possible and — given the complexity and scope of today’s experiments — even preferable for computers to choose which experiments will fill gaps in knowledge and which only duplicate knowledge and can be skipped.

more on Americans for Carbon Dividends

This group, which includes Exxon Mobil, is proposing a four-part plan:

  1. A $40 per ton tax on carbon rising annually at a gradual rate;
  2. Tax revenues generated would be refunded to all citizens (hence the name, “Carbon Dividends”);
  3. This plan would terminate the EPA’s regulatory authority over carbon emissions and specifically terminate the recently enacted Clean Power Plan;
  4. Require “border carbon adjustments to level the playing field and permit American competitiveness.” (Other relatively high CO2 emitting countries apart from the US are China and Russia).

This article I am linking to is highly skeptical, as are some prominent environmental groups, due to the restrictions it would place on EPA regulation. I’m not sure yet whether I would support it. So far EPA regulation has not accomplished anything. Oil and gas companies must be afraid that it eventually will, and see this as a choice between a predictable and manageable business cost versus an unknown but potentially unlimited risk. What isn’t mentioned here is protection from litigation, which I have heard might also be part of the deal. They might be afraid of that too.

I support pollution taxes in general. I have made a career of helping regulated entities (water utilities in my case) deal with EPA regulations, and I don’t see them as particularly rational, effective, or economical even when the underlying laws are well-thought-out. It might be worth trying something different. Once we have a carbon tax on the books, the actual amount can be adjusted until it is effective, and the concept can potentially be applied to other types of waste and pollution.

The Onion weighs in on Saudi killings

This one is pretty brilliantly on the mark, in my opinion.

“The potential murder of a high-profile journalist critical of their regime raises grave concerns for us, and we appeal to the leaders of Saudi Arabia to restrict their extrajudicial murders to Yemeni people who don’t have any public platform,” said President Trump, adding that the White House would not sit idly by as the Saudis caused the deaths of innocent people unless they were Yemeni children in a school bus or a group of Yemeni people attending a wedding. “The United States asks Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to content himself with killings that don’t affect business deals or call our diplomatic ties into question, such as airstrikes on Yemeni infrastructure, fueling mass cholera outbreaks, or blocking food and medical supplies from reaching civilians. Look, we don’t even mind if you dismember and murder people inside the Turkish consulate, as long as they’re unknown Yemenis whose deaths won’t cause an international scandal. For the sake of all parties, we demand that the Saudis only kill people who hardly anyone in America cares about.”

democrats likely to run for President in 2020

Five Thirty Eight has a list of who they think is currently serious about a run for President in 2020. It’s a long list. I’ve added their ages in parentheses.

  • Lawyer Michael Avenatti (47)
  • South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg (36)
  • Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (52)
  • former Vice President Joe Biden (75)
  • New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker (49)
  • former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro (44)
  • Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (66)
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (47)
  • New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (51)
  • California Sen. Kamala Harris (53)
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder (67)
  • former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu (58)
  • Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon (61)
  • former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (55)
  • Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts (39)
  • Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio (45)
  • Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (77)
  • Rep. Eric Swalwell of California (37)
  • businessman and pro-impeachment activist Tom Steyer (61)
  • Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (69)

To break it down a little:

  • 20 candidates
  • by age: 3 in their 30s, 5 in their 40s, 5 in their 50s, 5 in their 60s, 2 in their 70s
  • by gender: 3 women, 17 men
  • by ethnicity: 4 black or Hispanic people, 16 white people (from a very quick scan, and I could easily have missed someone)

I can really only say I am familiar with five of these names: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Eric Holder, Elizabeth Warren, and Cory Booker. At least there is some variety in the list. Maybe the DNC learned a lesson last time – not to put their thumb on the scale and try to force a particular candidate, rather than just letting the primary process play out.

Trump still has a number of challenges between now and when he faces one of these people in two years: criminal prosecution of close associates and possibly even family members or himself, possible impeachment by a majority Democratic House of Representatives, and possible challengers in the Republican Primary. It seems like a lot, but you have to admit Trump is a man who has tended to get his away against the odds and I have learned not to underestimate him.

making people disappear is wrong

This article in Project Syndicate is called The New Disappeared and is about dictatorships around the world that are making political opponents disappear, including Saudi Arabia. It’s certainly wrong, but it’s not only dictatorships doing it. Let’s not forget “extraordinary rendition”, where the U.S. kidnapped people off the street in friendly democratic countries, drugged them and bundled them onto airplanes, then delivered them to be tortured and murdered in secret prisons in places like Thailand and Egypt, all without any sort of due process.

can we use energy again and again?

I’ve had a few colleagues mention this story on making jet fuel out of industrial waste.

“This fuel takes waste, carbon-rich gases from industrial factories, and gives them a second life so that new fossil fuels don’t have to be taken out of the ground,” Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson told The Guardian. He added that this flight was a big step toward making the new fuel blend part of the mainstream…

Jennifer Holmgren, LanzaTech’s chief executive, said that her company has shown that recycling waste carbon emissions into jet fuel is possible. She added that we should look at waste carbon as an opportunity, because it can be reused again and again.

I did a little more research and what is happening here is that “waste” from the factories contains hydrocarbons that can be distilled into ethanol. This is a good idea, clearly. I just want to point out that there are only two possibilities here: either these people have come up with a perpetual motion machine allowing the same fuel to be “reused again and again”, or else the second law of thermodynamics is still in effect. I would tend to bet on the latter. Snark aside, what it must mean is that the energy source was always there, but technology has improved to the point where it can now be recovered economically. If that’s the case though, I wonder why the factories involved wouldn’t want to make use of the technology to improve their own efficiency while reducing their waste. If that is now an economical thing to do, it seems like that might be more efficient to do onsite rather than capture the waste somehow, concentrate it, transport it, process it, then transport it again. Unless there is some significant economy of scale involved that makes it all work. Anyhow, you can’t really be against energy efficiency or reduced pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, so bravo everyone.