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Trump’s attack on science isn’t going very well.
The first 200 days of the Trump administration have been marked by direct and consistent confrontations with the scientific community, and no area of science has been targeted more explicitly than climate science.
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EPA dismisses half of key board’s scientific advisers; Interior suspends more than 200 advisory panels
By Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis
May 8
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt speaks with coal miners at the Harvey Mine on April 13 in Sycamore, Pa. (Justin Merriman/Getty Images)
Both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department are overhauling a slew of outside advisory boards that inform how their agencies assess the science underpinning federal policies, the first step in a broader effort by Republicans to change the way the federal government evaluates the scientific basis for its regulations.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt decided to replace half of the members on one of its key scientific review boards, while Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is “reviewing the charter and charge” of more than 200 advisory boards, committees and other entities both within and outside his department. EPA and Interior officials began informing current members of the move Friday, and notifications continued over the weekend.
Pruitt’s move could significantly change the makeup of the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC), which advises EPA’s prime scientific arm on whether the research it does has sufficient rigor and integrity, and addresses important scientific questions. All of the people being dismissed were at the end of serving at least one three-year term, although these terms are often renewed instead of terminated.
EPA spokesman J.P. Freire said in an email that “no one has been fired or terminated” and that Pruitt had simply decided to bring in fresh advisers. The agency informed the outside academics on Friday that their terms would not be renewed.
“We’re not going to rubber-stamp the last administration’s appointees. Instead, they should participate in the same open competitive process as the rest of the applicant pool,” Freire said. “This approach is what was always intended for the board, and we’re making a clean break with the last administration’s approach.”
[EPA website removes climate science site from public view after two decades]
Separately, Zinke has postponed all outside committees as he reviews their composition and work. The review will effectively freeze the work of the Bureau of Land Management’s 38 resource advisory councils, along with other panels focused on a sweep of issues, from one assessing the threat of invasive species to the science technical advisory panel for Alaska’s North Slope.
“The Secretary is committed to restoring trust in the Department’s decision-making and that begins with institutionalizing state and local input and ongoing collaboration, particularly in communities surrounding public lands,” Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift said by email Monday. “As the Department concludes its review in the weeks ahead, agencies will notice future meetings to ensure that the Department continues to get the benefit of the views of local communities in all decision-making on public land management.”
Greg Zimmerman, deputy director of the non-partisan advocacy group Center for Western Priorities, said in an interview that “it just doesn’t make any sense they would be canceling meetings as they do this analysis.” BLM’s regional advisory councils include officials from the energy and outdoor recreation industry as well as scientists and conservationists, Zimmerman added. “The only reasonable explanation is they don’t want to be hearing from these folks.”
The moves came as a surprise to the agencies’ outside advisers, with several of them taking to Twitter to announce their suspensions.
John Peter Thompson, who chairs Interior’s Invasive Species Advisory Panel, tweeted Monday that he had been notified that “all activities are suspended subject to review by Depart of Interior.”
Members of EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors had been informed twice — in January, before President Barack Obama left office, and then more recently by EPA career staff members — that they would be kept on for another term, adding to their confusion.
“I was kind of shocked to receive this news,” Robert Richardson, an ecological economist and an associate professor in Michigan State University’s Department of Community Sustainability, said in an interview Sunday.
Richardson, who on Saturday tweeted, “Today, I was Trumped,” said that he was at the end of an initial three-year term but that members traditionally have served two such stints. “I’ve never heard of any circumstance where someone didn’t serve two consecutive terms,” he said, adding that the dismissals gave him “great concern that objective science is being marginalized in this administration.”
Courtney Flint, a professor of natural resource sociology at Utah State University who had served one term on the board, said in an email that she was also surprised to learn that her term would not be renewed, “particularly since I was told that such a renewal was expected.” But she added, “In the broader view, I suppose it is the prerogative of this administration to set the goals of federal agencies and to appoint members to advisory boards.”
[EPA just buried its climate site for kids]
Ryan Jackson, Pruitt’s chief of staff, noted in an email that all the board members whose terms are not being renewed could reapply for their positions. “I’m not quite sure why some EPA career staff simply get angry by us opening up the process,” he said. “It seems unprofessional to me.”
Yet Terry F. Yosie, who directed EPA’s Science Advisory Board from 1981 to 1988, noted in an email that the Board of Scientific Counselors does not report directly to the administrator or his office. “It’s quite extraordinary that such a body would receive this level of attention by the Administrator’s office,” he said.
And Rush Holt, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, expressed concern and said he hoped Pruitt reconsidered his decision. “Academic scientists play a critical role in informing policy with scientific research results at every level, including the federal government,” he said.
Pruitt is planning a much broader overhaul of how the agency conducts its scientific analysis, said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Pruitt has been meeting with academics to talk about the matter and putting thought into which areas of investigation warrant attention from the agency’s scientific advisers.
The agency may consider industry scientific experts for some of the board positions as long as these appointments do not pose a conflict of interest, Freire said.
Conservatives have complained for years about EPA’s approach to science, including the input it receives from outside scientific bodies. Both the Board of Scientific Counselors and the 47-member Scientific Advisory Board have come under criticism for bolstering the cause for greater federal regulation.
A majority of the members of the Board of Scientific Counselors have terms expiring this fiscal year, along with the terms of 12 members of the Scientific Advisory Board. GOP lawmakers have frequently criticized the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC)—a committee within the Scientific Advisory Board—for its recommendation that the EPA impose much stricter curbs on smog-forming ozone. The seven-person panel, which is charged under the Clean Air Act to review the scientific basis of all ambient air quality standards, is legally required to have a medical doctor and a member of the National Academy of Sciences as members.
Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who questions the link between human activity and climate change and has several former aides now working for Pruitt, said in an interview earlier this year that under the new administration, “they’re going to have to start dealing with science, and not rigged science.”
House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) held a hearing on the issue in February, arguing that the Scientific Advisory Board should be expanded to include more non-academics. The panel, which was established in 1978, is primarily made up of academic scientists and other experts who review EPA’s research to ensure that the regulations the agency undertakes have a sound scientific basis.
“The EPA routinely stacks this board with friendly scientists who receive millions of dollars in grants from the federal government,” Smith said at the time. “The conflict of interest here is clear.”
In a budget proposal obtained by The Washington Post last month, the panel’s operating budget is slated for an 84 percent cut — or $542,000 — for fiscal 2018. That money typically covers travel and other expenses for outside experts who attend the board’s public meetings.
The document said the budget cut reflects “an anticipated lower number of peer reviews.”
Joe Arvai, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board who directs the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, said in an email that Pruitt and his colleagues should keep in mind that the board’s membership, just like its standing and ad hoc panels, “already includes credible scientists from industry” and that its “work on agency rulemaking is open to public viewing and comment. So, if diversity of thought and transparency are the administrator’s concerns, his worries are misplaced because the SAB already has these bases covered.
“So, if you ask me, his moves over the weekend — as well as the House bill to reform the SAB — are attempts to use the SAB as a political toy,” Arvai said. “By making these moves, the administrator and members of the House can pander to the president’s base by looking like they’re getting tough on all those pesky ‘liberal scientists.’ But, all else being equal, nothing fundamentally changes about how the SAB operates.”
Chris Mooney contributed to this report.
More from Energy & Environment:
Scientists are conspicuously missing from Trump’s government
Trumps signs order at EPA to dismantle environmental protections
New EPA documents reveal even deeper proposed cuts to staff and programs
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Juliet Eilperin is The Washington Post's senior national affairs correspondent, covering how the new administration is transforming a range of U.S. policies and the federal government itself. She is the author of two books—one on sharks, and another on Congress, not to be confused with each other—and has worked for the Post since 1998. Follow @eilperin
Brady Dennis is a national reporter for The Washington Post, focusing on the environment and public health issues. Follow @brady_dennis
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Feds release final environmental impact statement for Atlantic Coast Pipeline.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concludes that, while the project’s construction and implementation is likely to result in “some adverse effects,” impacts can be reduced “to less-than significant levels.”
Federal regulators have released their final environmental impact statement for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a 600-mile natural gas line planned to cut through North Carolina by way of West Virginia and Virginia.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concludes that, while the project’s construction and implementation is likely to result in “some adverse effects,” by following mitigation recommendations, the ACP can reduce those impacts “to less-than significant levels.”
According to FERC, negative effects of ACP’s construction and operation could include its impact on steep slopes and adjacent bodies of water. The documents points to a handful of endangered species that could be impacted by the project, from the Roanoke logperch to the clubshell mussel to the Indiana bat.
In a prepared statement after the release, Leslie Hartz, Dominion Energy's vice president of engineering and construction, said the report "provides a clear path for final approval of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline this fall."
"The report concludes that the project can be built safely and with minimal long-term impacts to the environment," Hartz states.
The report comes a day after seven mayors, spearheaded by Linwood Parker of Four Oaks, put out a joint statement calling for the project to be built.
“We just wanted to make sure everybody is aware of the importance to eastern North Carolina to have natural gas and an abundant supply,” Parker said Friday in an interview. “The debate is not about whether you have gas, it’s about whether eastern North Carolina has gas.”
Parker and other advocates of the project hope it spurs economic development, specifically the interest of manufacturers who rely on natural gas to operate. While companies aren’t going to be connecting directly to the pipeline, they could benefit from cheaper Duke Energy prices and a more resilient system, advocates have said.
Parker said many critics live in the Triangle region, where there’s “plenty of natural gas.” “Yet my community doesn’t have it,” he said.
But, to several property owners along the route, the ACP means unwelcome trenching. Of the 2,900 landowners impacted by the project, 1,000 are in North Carolina.
A group of homeowners along Exum Road in Wilson County are among those fighting against the project, worried about its impact on their safety and property values.
They point to the demographics. Other than Johnston, the counties at play have a greater minority makeup than the state average. That includes Robeson County, which is unique because of its Lumbee Indian population.
“What are we all? Black folks who are retired,” said Alice Freeman, who expects to see the pipeline construction from her bedroom window. “They’re going to these communities because we are the people who have the least clout. We don’t have the money to fight them. We’re easy prey. And nobody is going to come to our defense.”
But proponents of the pipeline – including several economic developers across the state – point to different demographics.
Of the eight counties tapped for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, only Johnston County is not among the most economically distressed counties in the state. And the pipeline, they say, is critical to boosting their economies.
“For us, the overriding factor is the long-term economic development potential,” Patrick Woodie, president of the North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center said earlier this year, adding that it “outweighs” homeowner impact.
The project is a joint effort by Dominion (NYSE:D), Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK), Piedmont Natural Gas and Southern Co. (NYSE:SO).
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Showdown in Hamburg.
Leaders of the G-20 nations hope that President Trump will try to mend already frayed relations.
Showdown in Hamburg
By THE EDITORIAL BOARDJULY 6, 2017
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President Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, arriving in Warsaw on Wednesday. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
Stopping over in Poland on his way to the Group of 20 summit meeting in Germany gives President Trump a chance to briefly bask in the acclaim of a right-wing, illiberal Polish leadership before he starts taking flak from more powerful allies like Germany and France. The host of the gathering, Chancellor Angela Merkel, has made clear that she intends to focus on issues on which Mr. Trump has sharply parted ways with much of the European Union, including trade, climate change and migration.
Mr. Trump’s first visit to Europe in May left plenty of bruises, raising serious doubts among European leaders about his commitment not only to old and valued alliances but also to America’s traditional leadership role in the world, and it will be interesting to see whether he is in healing mode this time around. In Brussels, speaking at NATO headquarters, Mr. Trump lectured allies on their financial contributions and failed to reaffirm NATO’s mutual defense pledge. The Group of 7 meeting in Sicily shortly thereafter exposed further divisions over policy, and a week later Mr. Trump announced he was pulling the United States out of the landmark Paris agreement on fighting global warming.
Ms. Merkel, who declared after the G-7 meeting that American leadership can no longer be relied on, has been marshaling her forces, in tandem with President Emmanuel Macron of France, for the meeting of the G-20, a larger and more powerful grouping consisting of the leaders of 19 major powers and the European Union. In a speech to her Parliament last week she declared, in an unmistakable allusion to Mr. Trump, that “anybody who believes the problems of the world can be solved with isolationism and protectionism is making a big mistake.”
There could well be fireworks outside the meeting halls as well. Thousands of protesters have descended on Hamburg — a city with a long history of protests and riots, where the meeting will be held Friday and Saturday — to demonstrate against everything from globalization and capitalism to the controversial leaders who will be there, most notably Mr. Trump, President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.
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Side meetings are also expected to generate heat. The most keenly watched will be the first formal meeting of Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin. Though the White House says there is no formal agenda, the investigations underway in Washington into Russia’s election meddling, the continuing sanctions against Russia and differing goals in the Syrian war are potential minefields. Mr. Trump also faces ticklish encounters with the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean leaders over the North Korean nuclear threat, especially after its first successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
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But the overriding question is whether Mr. Trump can reach some sort of détente with other leaders, and not just the Europeans — the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has come out in favor of climate controls and open trade. Mr. Macron, though closely aligned with Germany on all major issues, has argued against isolating Mr. Trump in Hamburg, and in fact has invited him to Paris for Bastille Day celebrations on July 14.
A lot depends, of course, on Mr. Trump. No embrace from Poland’s leaders can hide the fact that, at least so far, he has rejected American leadership and participation in a rules-based, forward-looking world order striving to safeguard the planet, expand global trade and find room for the “homeless, tempest-tost.” The best outcome of the summit meeting would be for him to “return to reason,” as Mr. Macron recently put it. But with Mr. Trump or without him, the rest of the leaders should make abundantly clear that they remain fully committed to the Paris agreement on climate change and to what Ms. Merkel calls a “networked world.”
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Australia Climate Change Authority loses last climate scientist.
David Karoly says without an expert to replace him, the Climate Change Authority will struggle to fulfill its legal mandate.
Imagine, if you will, a government board to champion Australian arts without any artists on it, or an agency to advise on medical research without any medical researchers.
Or perhaps even, imagine a government authority set up to provide expertise on climate policy without any actual climate scientists.
Well you don’t have to imagine that last one, because that’s what we now have – the government’s Climate Change Authority is now sans climate scientist.
Prof David Karoly, of the University of Melbourne, has just finished his term on the authority’s board – the only member to stick it out for the full five years.
Karoly says without someone to replace him, the authority will struggle to fulfil its legal mandate. He told me:
I think that it is critically important that at least one member of the Climate Change Authority is an expert and experienced climate change scientist. Such a member is needed to provide information and interpretation on the latest climate change science publications and data.
In my view, it can only do that with a climate change scientist as a member, to provide expert assessment of the effectiveness of proposed greenhouse gas emission reductions nationally and globally, and the projected impacts on Australia from current and future climate change.
The Climate Change Authority Act 2011 states that, in conducting a review, the authority must have regard to environmental effectiveness among a number of other matters.
I asked the Department of the Environment and Energy if there were any plans to replace Karoly with another climate scientist. The department said:
Government appointments to the CCA are a matter for the Government under the CCA’s legislation. The Chief Scientist is an ex officio Member of the Authority and can assist on scientific matters and in providing access to the scientific community, including climate scientists.
So in other words, it won’t replace Karoly and will instead just rely on the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, to act as a go-between, which of course is much more efficient and logical than actually having a climate scientist right there in the room. That would be silly, right?
Remembering too that the CCA has always had the serving chief scientist on its board so, by this logic, Karoly was always a spare part.
In reality, the makeup and character of the CCA was fundamentally altered after Malcolm Turnbull made changes to the board in 2015.
So why did Karoly decide to stick it out this long, when colleagues including Prof Clive Hamilton, Prof John Quiggin and Danny Price were throwing in the towel out of frustration that the government was listening to rightwing anti-science advocates instead of actual expertise? Says Karoly:
I decided to stay on because I believe that the CCA was established by the Australian Parliament.
I believe that it is important that the Parliament and the Australian people are provided with the best possible independent science-based advice on Australia’s climate change policy.
Unfortunately, after six new members were appointed by the Government to the CCA in 2015, I do not think this continued to be the case, despite my efforts. That is why Clive Hamilton and I published our Minority Report in 2016. I did not resign at the same time as Clive Hamilton as I still wanted to provide the best possible science-based advice to the members of the CCA and to the Government.
Karoly’s account of a shift in the authority under the Turnbull government matches that of Hamilton, who told me this year that “the whole character of the authority changed”.
In its earlier years, the CCA had been forthright in its advice to the government. Simply put, the authority’s detailed reports showed targets to cut emissions were well short of what was needed if Australia wanted to mount any sort of claim to be doing its fair share globally.
Under the former Liberal leader Tony Abbott, the government vowed to axe the authority entirely – but couldn’t get enough support in parliament. So instead, if you believe its former insiders, the authority was carefully manipulated and undermined.
As Hamilton put it, the CCA became “dominated by people who want action, but not too much action”.
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Agency ruling on federal loan to Adani cites cyberbullying as reason for secrecy.
The federal agency considering a $900m loan to Adani has cited “substantial cyberbullying” of its directors to justify refusing a freedom of information request for basic details of its board meetings.
The federal agency considering a $900m loan to Adani has cited “substantial cyberbullying” of its directors to justify refusing a freedom of information request for basic details of its board meetings.
The Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (Naif) also raised concerns about “attempts to trace board members through unofficial channels” and protests outside its Cairns office to argue the time and place of meetings should be kept secret.
The Australian government solicitor last week relayed these and other concerns to the Office of the Information Commissioner, which is considering an appeal by Greenpeace after the Naif rejected its information request in January.
“I don’t think anyone seriously thinks there is going to be investment in new coal-fired generation in Australia,” Mark Butler, the federal shadow minister for climate change tells Katharine Murphy. In a detailed discussion on the recommendations from the Finkel review, they talk about the reasons no private investor wants to build a coal-fired power station and why the Adani mine is a bad idea for Australia
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It follows recent controversy around Naif board member Karla Way-McPhail, after it was reported she has an interest in mining services businesses that could benefit from Adani’s success prompted extensive questioning in Senate estimates by Labor and the Greens.
Way-McPhail – whose political support of the Liberal National party and personal ties with Matthew Canavan, the federal minister overseeing Naif, were also raised in estimates – appears to be the only director who has received widespread media and public attention.
An inquiry into the Naif was approved by the Senate on the day Jason Clare, Labor’s shadow minister for resources and northern Australia, told parliament there had been a “cover-up” around governance questions surrounding Way-McPhail.
Siobhan Stoddart, a lawyer with the Australian government solicitor, wrote to the OIC, saying one of the agency’s distinguishing factors was “ongoing media attention concerning whether Naif is considering granting a loan to Adani”.
“It is an established fact that anti-Adani protests have disrupted businesses and organisations in the past, and it is reasonable to expect they could also disrupt Naif board meetings if the dates and locations of the meetings were disclosed,” she said.
The decision to withhold that information “was also made in the context of actual physical protests which have occurred at the Naif office, as well as complaints of substantial cyberbullying against particular board members and attempts to trace board members through unofficial channels”.
Greenpeace’s climate and energy campaigner, Nikola Casule, said the environmental group rejected “any suggestion that increased transparency would lead to bullying of the Naif board”.
“Other government agencies manage to be accountable and open without such concerns. What makes Naif different?”
Casule said the agency’s “repeated refusal to reveal any information about their functioning is dismaying”.
When combined with the fact the Senate inquiry would examine the makeup of the Naif board, “it makes it look like they have something to hide”, Casule said.
“Excuses have ranged from the usual commercial-in-confidence to documents being changed after the request was submitted to fears of cyberbullying, and potential public opposition to Naif’s plans,” he said.
“What it amounts to is a refusal to have any form of accountability to the Australian public despite controlling $5bn of their money.”
Greenpeace in its appeal questioned Naif chief executive Laurie Walker’s reference to anti-Adani protests at the Commonwealth Bank, where she formerly worked in corporate finance, in her decision to refuse the FOI request.
But Stoddart said Walker was entitled to rely on “relevant factual information” in “identifying likely consequences of disclosure of the documents in issue”.
Stoddart said the “practice of not disclosing dates or locations of board meetings is also consistent with that of Australian banks and other ASX listed companies”.
“The considerations of those companies in taking that position are also relevant to Naif, given its role as a ‘gap’ lender,” she said.
Stoddart also asked whether Greenpeace might consider abandoning its appeal because the Naif document that fell within the scope of its FOI request was “now out of date” and “no longer accurate”.
A leading freedom of information law scholar told the ABC that blocking Greenpeace’s original request for meeting details amounted to “a level of secrecy that was not justified” for an agency handling $5bn in taxpayer funds.
Since then, the Naif has been inundated with more than 1,500 similar FOI requests from people using a “randomised request generation program” hosted on the Greenpeace website.
The Naif has issued a blanket rejection of these requests, citing a “practical refusal reason”, namely that “the work involved in processing the request would substantially and unreasonably divert the resources of the agency”.
Elaine Johnson, the principal solicitor with the Environmental Defenders Office NSW, said the number of applicants was “irrelevant” to whether an FOI request was unreasonable.
“The requests are legitimate requests and cover a range of important public interest issues, in relation to funding of Adani’s coalmine in the Galilee basin, managing climate change risk and investments in fossil fuels,” she said.
“The fact that more than 1,500 people have applied for documents held by Naif only serves to demonstrate the clear public interest in making that information publicly available.
“Naif is bound by these laws to respond in a way that favours access to information sought, yet it appears to be doing the opposite.”
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A bitter scientific debate just erupted over the future of America’s power grid.
A popular paper says the U.S. could leave fossil fuels behind by 2055. But some scientists argue it's riddled with errors.
t
A bitter scientific debate just erupted over the future of America’s power grid
By Chris Mooney June 19 at 5:39 PM
A man views solar panels on a roof at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, U.S., on June 18, 2007. REUTERS/Kimberly White
Scientists are engaged in an increasingly bitter and personal feud over how much of the United States’ power it can get from renewable sources, with a large group of scientists taking aim at a popular recent paper that claimed the country could move beyond fossil fuels entirely by 2055.
In 2015, Stanford professor Mark Jacobson and his colleagues argued that between 2050 and 2055, the U.S. could be entirely powered by “clean” energy sources and “no natural gas, biofuels, nuclear power, or stationary batteries are needed.”
That would be a massive shift from the current power makeup, as in 2016, the United States only got 6.5 percent of its electricity from hydropower, 5.6 percent from wind, and 0.9 percent from solar. Nonetheless, the paper excited proponents of renewable energy, and has been embraced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, celebrity backers such actor Mark Ruffalo, and many environmental groups.
But Jacobson’s idea was always contentious. And now, no fewer than 21 researchers have published a study in the influential Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (which also published Jacobson’s original study in 2015) arguing that the work “used invalid modeling tools, contained modeling errors, and made implausible and inadequately supported assumptions.”
“We thought we had to write a peer reviewed piece to highlight some of the mistakes and have a broader discussion about what we really need to fight climate change,” said lead study author Christopher Clack of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Laboratory. “And we felt the only way to do it in a fair and unbiased way was to go through peer review, and have external referees vet it to make sure we’re not saying anything that’s untrue in our piece.”
Clack is backed in the study by a number of noted colleagues including prominent climate research Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution, energy researcher Dan Kammen of the University of California, Berkeley, and former EPA Science Advisory Board chair Granger Morgan.
In a simultaneous letter in the journal, meanwhile, Jacobson and three Stanford colleagues fire back that Clack’s critique is itself “riddled with errors” and “demonstrably false.”
Jacobson also argued that his critics are biased in favor of carbon-based fuels such as oil, gas and coal, as well as nuclear energy.
“They try to falsify this thing by claiming that there are errors. This is what really bothers me with this paper. I don’t have any problem with people trying to quibble with our assumptions.”
The fight between researchers comes as the Trump administration has signaled it does not believe the nation’s electric grid can support a quick and thorough shift towards renewable energy, as Jacobson suggests that it can. As soon as this week, Energy Secretary Rick Perry is expected to release a study of the grid that renewable energy advocates fear will be used to criticize wind and solar and how they affect the grid.
The debate is crucial because, while it’s great to talk about wind and solar in theory, the reality is that the electrons that they generate have to be sent through wires and transmission stations to satisfy needs at particular places and at particular times — or else, we’ll have to come up with a way of storing electricity on a large scale, which remains a mostly unsolved problem right now.
And critics have contended that while you can add some wind and solar to the grid without any problem, if you add too much, it can be destabilizing and the electric grid will always require some so-called “baseload” sources of energy, like nuclear or coal or gas, which generate power continuously, rather than intermittently depending upon the availability of the sun or the winds.
In a 2015 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jacobson and his Stanford colleagues Mark Delucci, Mary Cameron and Bethany Frew laid out their clean energy vision. They used a model of the electric grid to show that the lower 48 United States could be entirely powered by wind energy, solar power, and hydroelectric energy, as long as there were various forms of energy storage available as well as “demand response,” in which major users of electricity are paid to curtail their use at key times when the grid is facing high demand.
The study also included a small role for geothermal energy and tidal and wave energy, the latter two of which are both quite fledgling technologies at this point.
Still, the study found that it could all work and moreover, would be affordable. “The resulting 2050–2055 US electricity social cost for a full system is much less than for fossil fuels,” they wrote. The research, said Jacobson and his co-authors, should put to rest fears that adding large amounts of wind and solar to the grid would be destabilizing because these variable or “intermittent” sources of electricity would not always line up their production with the times when people need them most.
Particularly notable in the study was what Jacobson and his colleagues didn’t include — nuclear energy, which does not produce any greenhouse gases and runs 24/7 without intermittency issues; carbon capture and storage, which could help reduce the emissions from coal and natural gas plants; and bioenergy, which has also often been held out as critical to greening the electricity and transportation sectors.
But Clack and his colleagues contend that the study fails to prove that such a dramatic energy transition can be accomplished in an affordable way, in light of the very real constraints that occur when you have solar energy unavailable at night and wind energy also unavailable at certain times. They say it assumes a massive adoption of energy storage technologies that may not be feasible, and the possibility of huge volumes of hydroelectric generation.
The researchers actually suggest that 80 percent of the U.S.’s electricity could be produced without carbon dioxide in the future if you include nuclear energy and bioenergy combined with carbon capture and storage to sequester the emissions from the burning of biomass. But their conclusion on the Jacobson study is quite blunt.
“The study’s numerous shortcomings and errors render it unreliable as a guide about the likely cost, technical reliability, or feasibility of a 100% wind, solar, and hydroelectric power system,” they write. “It is one thing to explore the potential use of technologies in a clearly caveated hypothetical analysis; it is quite another to claim that a model using these technologies at an unprecedented scale conclusively shows the feasibility and reliability of the modeled energy system implemented by midcentury.”
Jacobson has, in turn, published a response in the journal and shared a line by line rebuttal to the study. In addition to his objections to how they have characterized his work, he adds that the authors are more focused on cutting carbon dioxide emissions than other social benefits that he and his co-authors care about. “We’re interested in air pollution, health, energy security, nuclear weapons proliferation, reducing the risk to society of all the dangerous considerations,” he said.
But Jacobson also suggests that he is being unfairly treated, writing, in a rebuttal he shared with the Post, that “Clack’s analysis is riddled with intentional misinformation.” For instance, the critique asserts that Jacobson assumed that hydroelectric dams would have the capacity to generate over 1,000 gigawatts, or billion watts, of electricity, vastly more than exists today. Jacobson counters that that’s because the paper assumes that dams would add turbines, but only for peak usage; their average usage would still be much lower.
“They’re trying to make it as if it’s a model error,” said Jacobson. “And I have to respond to dozens of reporters who think that because they claim that it’s an error, it’s actually an error. It’s just ridiculous.”
Clack counters that it is indeed an error, “plain and simple.” “This notion that you can install 10 times the generating capacity at existing dams is a nonsense, because studies have been done to show that there is only about 12GW of capability for that in the US,” he said by email. There are numerous similarly complex claims and counterclaims at issue in the debate — which is part of the problem, says David Victor, an energy policy researcher at the University of California-San Diego and one co-author of the new critique.
“These are studies that seem to be anchored technically, lots of complexity to them, all of which point to the idea that the problem is solvable with a set of options that are frankly politically very palatable,” he said of Jacobson’s studies. That, says Victor, is why the research has been so influential.
“Our analysis suggests … that none of that work holds up,” Victor said. “So I can totally understand that emotions are high, but we have a duty as scientists to call the facts as we see them.”
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EPA dismisses half of its scientific advisers on key board, citing ‘clean break’ with Obama administration.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has chosen to replace half of the members on one of its key scientific review boards.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has chosen to replace half of the members on one of its key scientific review boards, the first step in a broader effort by Republicans to change the way the agency evaluates the scientific basis for its regulations.
The move could significantly change the makeup of the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors, which advises EPA’s key scientific arm on whether the research it does has sufficient rigor and integrity. All of the members being dismissed were at the end of serving at least one three-year term, although these terms are often renewed instead of terminated.
EPA spokesman J.P. Freire said in an email that “no one has been fired or terminated,” and that Pruitt had simply decided to bring in fresh advisers. The agency informed the outside academics on Friday that their terms would not be renewed.
“We’re not going to rubber-stamp the last administration’s appointees. Instead, they should participate in the same open competitive process as the rest of the applicant pool,” Freire said. “This approach is what was always intended for the Board, and we’re making a clean break with the last administration’s approach.”
But the move came as a surprise to members of the board, who had been informed both in January, before Barack Obama left office, and then more recently by EPA career staff members, that they would be kept on for another term.
“I was kind of shocked to receive this news,” Robert Richardson, an ecological economist and an associate professor at Michigan State University’s Department of Community Sustainability, said in an interview Sunday.
Richardson, who tweeted on Saturday, “Today, I was Trumped,” said that he was at the end of an initial three-year term on the board, but that board members traditionally have served two such stints. “I’ve never heard of any circumstance where someone didn’t serve two consecutive terms,” he added.
Courtney Flint, a professor of natural resource sociology at Utah State University who had served one term on the board, said in an email that she was also surprised to learn that her term would not be renewed, “particularly since I was told that such a renewal was expected.”
“In the broader view, I suppose it is the prerogative of this administration to set the goals of federal agencies and to appoint members to advisory boards,” she added.
The terms of at least 12 members of the board ended April 27, according to a federal database, making them eligible for replacement.
Ryan Jackson, Pruitt’s chief of staff, noted in an email that all the board members whose terms are not being renewed could reapply for their positions.
“I’m not quite sure why some EPA career staff simply get angry by us opening up the process,” he said. “It seems unprofessional to me.”
Pruitt is planning a much broader overhaul of how the agency conducts its scientific analysis, said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The administration has been meeting with academics to talk about the matter and putting thought into which areas of investigation warrant attention from the agency’s scientific advisers.
The agency may consider industry scientific experts for some of the board positions, Freire said, as long as these appointments do not pose a conflict of interest.
Conservatives have complained about EPA’s approach to science, including the input it receives from outside scientific bodies, for years. Both the Board of Scientific Counselors and a larger, 47-person Scientific Advisory Board have come under criticism for bolstering the cause for greater federal regulation.
Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who questions the link between human activity and climate change and has several former aides now working for Pruitt, said in an interview earlier this year that under the new administration, “They’re going to have to start dealing with science and not rigged science” at EPA.
House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) held a hearing on the issue in February, arguing that the composition of the Scientific Advisory Board, which was established in 1978, should be expanded to include more non-academics. It is primarily made up of academic scientists and other experts who review EPA’s research to ensure that the regulations the agency undertakes have a sound scientific basis.
“The EPA routinely stacks this board with friendly scientists who receive millions of dollars in grants from the federal government,” Smith said at the time. “The conflict of interest here is clear.”
In a budget proposal obtained by The Washington Post last month, the panel is slated for an 84 percent cut — or $542,000 — from its operating budget. That money typically covers travel and other expenses for outside experts who attend the board’s public meetings.
The reasoning behind the budget cut, said the document, reflects “an anticipated lower number of peer reviews.”
Chris Mooney contributed to this report.
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