The smart grid and climate change

Phil Carson | Mar 01, 2010

 

Many utilities implementing smart grid-related technologies and practices cite climate change as a driver of their efforts. Vendors echo this rationale; climate change, they say, drives their business case. The GridWise Alliance says climate change is a driver of their agenda. Climate change is even the new rallying cry of a resurgent nuclear power industry.

The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has rightly taken a beating for outright errors in reporting on the topic and, worse, apparent suppression of evidence contrary to its central findings. So when I chanced upon last Friday's news from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which featured four views on "How to Fix Climate Science Reporting," - clearly focused on the IPCC - I felt it would be useful to note some highlights for our readers.

According to Roger Pielke, Jr., a fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, and a critic of the IPCC: "Unless the IPCC brings its institutional policies and procedures into the 21st century through a wholesale institutional reform, it will continue to come out on the losing end of challenges to its legitimacy and credibility." Pielke suggested that the U.N. panel establish procedures for dealing with conflicts of interest among panelists and for allegations of error in its work. He also said that the U.N. panel has failed to adhere to its mandate to be "policy neutral." 
 
Michael Levi, the Council on Foreign Relations' director of energy security and climate change, found the IPCC process "sound," though "it's very worrying that a series of relatively minor errors has already had major political consequences. Those who are distorting climate science in order to defeat action on climate change deserve the bulk of the blame for this. But some of the IPCC leadership, along with many of its political allies, deserve blame for overselling the panel's findings, and for blurring science and politics, leaving themselves - and, as a result, efforts to deal with climate change - unnecessarily vulnerable to attack. [The resulting] problem will ultimately need to be dealt with on political, rather than technical, grounds."

John Christy, director of the Earth Science Center, University of Alabama and lead author of the IPCC's 2001 report, said: "[The IPCC's government-appointed] lead authors are given powerful control [over reports] by being vested with final review authority and thus are able to fashion a report that supports their own opinions while marginalizing countervailing views. This is not how the real uncertainties and difficulties of climate science may be established and communicated to policymakers. A fundamental problem here is that so much (in terms of unassailable facts) is not known about climate science, that opinion and arguments from 'authority' have unfortunately carried the day. The uncertainties are such that 'no action' may be the best route to take."

Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and lead author of the IPCC's scientific assessment of climate change reports (1995, 2001, 2007), said: "The IPCC process is very open. Two major reviews were carried out in producing the report and climate 'skeptics' can and do participate, some as authors. All comments were responded to in writing and by changing the report. The strength is that it is a consensus report, but the process also makes it a conservative report. The IPCC review and oversight process is very rigorous. Clearly there have been some lapses. I do not think the system is broken, it simply needs more attention to adhering to the process already in place."

My personal view is that the United States ought to take the lead in reviewing and airing the evidence for climate change. News over the weekend that the U.N. would appoint an independent board to review the IPCC's work will do little to clarify the situation or regain lost credibility. A national debate ought to ensue on the evidence for and the uncertainties surrounding human-induced climate change and what form a prudent response should take. Until the federal government adopts an unambiguous position on carbon emissions and its impacts and sends a clear signal to the market, investors in new power generation - and the smart grid - may waver. And that only encourages our international competitors in clean energy technology.

Phil Carson
Editor-in-chief
Intelligent Utility Daily
pcarson@energycentral.com
303-228-4757