Assets For Life Chapter DRAFT Version Nov 2012 Michael P Totten PDF 52pp PDF

DRAFT Version
ASSETS FOR LIFE

Generating Legendary Legacies
chapter 1
We Are the Future of the Past, We Are the Past of the Future
Good News, Bad News
As the story goes, a large two-engine train was crossing the continent. After traveling some
distance, one of the engines broke down. "No problem," the engineer thought and throttled on at
half power. Farther on down the tracks, the other engine broke down and the train came to a halt.
Informing the passengers about why the train had stopped, the engineer made the following
announcement, "Ladies and gentlemen, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news
is that both engines have failed, and we will be stuck here for some time. The good news is that you
decided to take the train and not fly."
Like the better good news bad news jokes, this one makes you chuckle meaningfully. We enjoy
good news bad news jokes because they often contain grains of truth, a pearl of wisdom, or a jolt
of reality. Like this particular joke, Assets for Life also provides abundant good news to deal with
the terribly bad news. And like the folks on that stalled train breathing a sigh of relief they weren’t
on a stalled plane, I believe readers will find great relief from the resilient options available.
Humanity’s unceasing ingenuity is generating vast economic gain for billions of people with goods
unavailable to even royalty and aristocrats throughout most of history.
Fossil fuels have admirably served humanity in this capacity, fueling the engine of economic activity,
especially access to cheap oil over the past century.
However, in deriving and consuming these fossil energy resources, they have unwittingly, but now
knowingly with a vast accumulation of empirical evidence and scientific findings, become a primary
driver of most of the global risks and threats
confronting humanity. Planetary Boundaries 2050
Collapsing Safe Operating Space for Humanity
✖ Fossil fuels are the primary driver of climate
CLIMATE
CHANGE
destabilization. DEAD CORAL REEFS
✖ Fossil fuels are the primary driver of marine

acidification.
✖ Fossil fuels are the primary driver of acid rain.
✖ Fossil fuels are the primary driver of smog,
particulates, and air pollution.
✖ Fossil fuels (oil) are a primary driver of international DEAD ZONES
wars and conflicts, which are contributing to

ethnocide and genocide.
✖ Fossil fuels are a primary driver of water and land contamination.
✖ Fossil fuels are responsible for large releases of mercury, heavy metals and toxic chemicals.
✖ Fossil fuels are a major contributor to illness, premature morbidity and mortality.
✖ Fossil fuels are major extractors of freshwater for their operations.
Copyright Nov. 1, 2012 by Michael P. Totten, founder & principal, AssetsforLife.net p.1
DRAFT Version
Taxpayers pay good money for accelerating all of this destruction of the planet -- a staggering $700
billion to $1 trillion per year in subsidies.1, 2 These debilitating impacts are quite like that of
humans paying good money to ingest enormous quantities of solids and liquids known to trigger
debilitating and deadly diseases. The diagnosis and prognosis from humanity’s “medical community”
of planetary physicians3, 4 , 5 -- earth scientists -- is a wake-up call for humanity to change its
consumption habits.
Just one assessment among a number profiled in succeeding

chapters reveals this in damning details. According to a
comprehensive analysis by Harvard Medical School, the
externality costs of coal use in the U.S. amounts to upwards of
$500 billion per year. 6
[Photos: top right - the U.S. releases 57,000 tons of CO2

emissions every hour; middle right view of massive ash spill
from TVA coal facility near Knoxville, Tennessee; bottom right
map locations of 18 million tons of contaminated coal waste
from new coal plants]
If these costs were factored into the delivered price of

electricity consumers would be paying 37 cents per kWh.
That is 12 to 40 times more expensive than end-use efficiency
improvements, six times more costly than wind power, and
more than twice the price of solar PV delivered electricity.
Unfortunately, failure to include these costs means citizens are

forced to incur the costs through sickness, illness, and
premature mortality.
In the case of bad eating habits humans have an uncanny

capacity to remain in willful ignorance of their ailing
conditions, failing or refusing to face the facts that need
attending to if health and well-being is the desired long-term
1GSI, How-to Guide: Measuring subsidies to fossil-fuel producers, Policy Brief, July 2010, The Global
Subsidies Initiative, www.globalsubsidies.org.
2Oil Change International, No Time to Waste: The Urgent Need for Transparency in Fossil Fuel Subsidies,
15 May 2012, at http://priceofoil.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/1TFSFIN.pdf , pp. 1–2.
3See, Richard J. Sommerville, Medical Metaphors for Climate Issues, Climatic Change, Springer, 2006, DOI:
10.1007/s10584-006-9084-8.
4 William B. Stewart, Physician, Heal Thy Planet, Western Journal of Medicine, 1991 Nov; 155:538-539.
5James Lovelock, The Earth is About to Catch a Morbid Fever That May Last as Long as 100,000 Years,
January 16, 2006, Independent.
6 Paul R. Epstein, Jonathan J. Buonocore, Kevin Eckerle, Michael Hendryx, et al., Full cost accounting for
the life cycle of coal, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1219 (2011) 73–98, 2011 New York
Academy of Sciences.
DRAFT Version
outcome.
The same case holds for a large percentage of humanity when it comes to ignoring planetary
illness. There is a refusal to acknowledge the unprecedented challenges of historical and global
magnitude regarding the rising risk of planetary collapse from increasing frequencies and severities
of catastrophes throughout the biosphere.7
The fossil fuel “food” humanity has been engorging to swell and metabolically maintain the global
economy has turned out to be a false economy.
The costs and consequences are now undeniably immense and clearly indicate business as usual is
driving the economy, society, humanity and the biosphere towards accelerating (premature)
morbidity and mortality. We are collapsing the safe operating space for humanity (graph right). 8
SIDE BOX Cognitive Bias, Dissonance and Distortion 9,10 ,11 ,12
Cognitive science and research have shown that readers’ cognitive biases prompt a continuum of
reactions that are framed and filtered through prior belief systems. This make it very probable the
response to the planetary-scale illness and catastrophe metaphors used above will be immediately
dismissed by some, readily recognized and embraced My daytime profession
by others, with a sizable percentage (hopefully)
waiting to formulate opinions based on the evidence
presented.
The implications for communicating social

understanding are all-important when it comes to
establishing public support for policy making. Several
of the most prominent cognitive issues regarding
planetary-millennial scale perils are summarized by
law professor Karl Coplan:13
Avoidance of cognitive dissonance -- People will generally

reject new information that conflicts with their
overall beliefs about how the world works and their
7Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Reports. Washington,

District of Columbia: Island Press; 2006.
8Rockstrom J, Steffen W, Noone K, Persson Å, Chapin F III, Lambin EF, Lenton TM, Scheffer M, Folke C,
Schellnhuber HJ, et al. A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 2009, 461:472–475.
9See, Coplan, Karl S., Climate Change, Political Truth, and the Marketplace of Ideas (January 26, 2012),
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1992632 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1992632.
10A Visual Study Guide of Cognitive Biases, http://royalsocietyofaccountplanning.blogspot.sg/2010/04/new-
study-guide-to-help-you-memorize.html.
11Maxwell Boykoff, Who Speaks For The Climate? Making Sense of Media Reporting on Climate Change,
Cambridge U. Press, 2011.
12 Cognitive Distortion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion.
13Coplan, Karl S., Climate Change, Political Truth, and the Marketplace of Ideas (January 26, 2012), http://
ssrn.com/abstract=1992632 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1992632
DRAFT Version
place in the world. People generally believe that they are “good” – that is, that their lifestyle and
choices are not malignant and do not cause harm to others. Climate science tells Americans that
their basic lifestyle choices – automobile and energy dependency and consumption oriented social
values – are causing catastrophic harm to humans and the environment.
People cannot accept climate science and at the same time believe that their basic lifestyle choices
are “good,” or at least morally neutral (and not evil), without suffering extreme cognitive dissonance.
Similarly, people with strong religious beliefs (or even strong beliefs in the power and resilience of
natural ecosystems) cannot accept that an all-powerful God created the world and controls its
function and at the same time believe that human beings, even collectively, are a sufficiently powerful
force to disrupt a god-created climate. This factor, together with the loss-aversion and status quo
preferences, works against acceptance of climate science.
Loss-aversion and Status Quo Preferences -- These cause people to prefer avoiding the loss of something
they currently have and enjoy compared to an equivalent future gain of something they do not
currently have. When it comes to climate science and the changes necessary to respond to climate
change, current American lifestyle choices represent a benefit in-hand that the loss-aversion factor
will make the public loathe to sacrifice in exchange for an improved future environment.
Optimism bias/Misapplication of Probability-- People tend to discount the risk of bad things happening to
them personally, and over count the likelihood that good things will happen.
The optimism bias will cause people to reject the conclusions of climate
science that catastrophic climate change will in fact occur, as long as there is
some uncertainty about these impacts.
Confirmation bias – Similar to the avoidance of dissonance, people reject new

information that is inconsistent with their pre-existing beliefs and prefer
information that reinforces those beliefs.
Climate science runs counter to pre-existing beliefs that humankind is
not powerful enough to change the nature of the global ecosystem, and
runs counter to pre-existing beliefs that the American lifestyle does not
cause undue harm.
Self-serving Bias – Social science researchers have identified a clear “self-

serving” cognitive bias. This self-interest factor also works strongly
against acceptance of climate change science.
Not only would acceptance of climate science (and its necessary

response) require significant changes in the American lifestyle, the
most catastrophic burdens of global climate change will fall upon
cultural others – the large coastal populations of Southeast Asia
or the Nile Delta at greatest risk of flooding and sub-Saharan
Africans at greatest risk of climate change induced drought.
Compounding the cognitive remoteness of these impacts is the

fact that the most severe impacts are not forecast to occur for
many decades, making the suffering temporally as well as culturally
remote (including the argument that current generations owe no moral “duty” to persons not yet in
existence). These “others” are not part of the American polity. The participants in our marketplace of
ideas suffer a cognitive bias against giving their interests equal weight with our own.
Such cognitive biases are socially-based, accounting for people’s paradigm beliefs, whether religious,
political, economic, or combinations thereof. They account for the recurring episodes of herd
DRAFT Version
mentality, group think 14, i1.2

rra7onal exuberances,15 and misguided cer7tudes that are con7nuously
Climate change as a priority
propagated. A similar concern was revealed when people

were asked if “dealing with the problem of
climate change should be a priority, even if it
causes slower economic growth and some loss of
Cognitive distortions are at the core of the political impasse in the United States, blocking all
jobs.” Half or more of the public in all 15
and wealthy countries.” Majorities in nine countries out countries
of the agreed, either strongly or somewhat, that
attempts to commit the nation to any reductions in GHG emissions, let alone setting a schedule
15 saw harm to be distributed about equally between
countries—Bangladesh (64%), Senegal (59%) and Turkey
climate
poorchange should be
and wealthy
were(49%)--was
such economic
addressedIneven
countries. onlyif three
costs.common answer “more
the most
there
for achieving zero emission levels. Less toxic, but still highly contentious debates are raging in
harmful to poor countries.” Iranians were divided with 41% saying “about equally,” and 37% saying
“more harmful to poor countries.” Kenyans were divided, Underlying
with 47%this support in all countries
saying “about equally”for dealing
and 43%
saying “more harmful to poor countries.” Egyptians were withdivided,
climatewithchange are some
31% saying clearharmful,”
“equally country
China and India, South Africa and elsewhere, where all are heavily dependent on fossil fuels but all
differences. Vietnam (63%), Bangladesh
30% saying “more harmful to poor countries,” and 29% volunteering that both rich and poor countries
Kenya (53%) and Senegal (46%) were the
(54%),
will be affected, but in different ways.
possessing immense renewable resource opportunities as well.
countries with the highest proportion saying
“strongly
Across all countries polled, an average of 55% of respondents saidagree.”
that poorThe
and US (14%),
wealthy Japan will
countries (18%)be
equally harmed, and only 30% said climate change would and Russia
be more (18%) weretothe
harmful poorcountries withThis
countries. the
lowest
finding (arguably a misperception) raises interesting issues proportion
about saying
what beliefs “strongly
about agree.”
the impact In the
of climate
Given the neuroscience findings that cognitive biases and distortions are extremely persistent and
change will be more likely to influence policy views:US, are46%
people
changetogether
responsibility to poor countries or a sense that all countries
disagreed
should will
that dealing
more motivated
be asuffer
priority
out ofwith climate
a sense
fromif climate
a consequence
change?
of
difficult to change, one could draw pessimistic conclusions. There are, however, so many hopeful
Further analysis of these data can examine this question.would be lower growth or job loss.
some low-income countries being willing to
The pattern of
support addressing the problem, even in the face

signs coming from
2.4 Responsibility and government action of economic harm, echoes the findings on
seriousness of the problem discussed above.
very diverse
In all 15 countries, clear majorities thought their 1.2 Climate change as a priority
country has a responsibility to take steps to deal
directions that
with climate change, although clear majorities
thought their national government is not doing
1.3 Urgency: when the effects of climate change
will occur
A similar concern was revealed when people
were asked if “dealing with the problem of
continuing to
enough to address climate change. All publics
were asked whether “to deal with the problem of Views differed across countries about how
climate change should be a priority, even if it
causes slower economic growth and some loss of
cultivate and
climate change, do you think your government is
doing too much, not enough, or about the right
imminent the damages of climate change
nine of the 15 countries, a majority of the public
are. In jobs.” Half or more of the public in all 15
countries agreed, either strongly or somewhat, that
climate change should be addressed even if there
replicate these
amount?” In 12 of 15 countries, majorities thought
their government was not doing enough. In one
thought climate change is substantially harming
their fellow citizens now. Some of the largest were such economic costs.
seeds of innovation
country a plurality thought the government was
doing either the right amount or too much; in
majorities on this question appeared among
people in the low-income countries: in Kenya Underlying this support in all countries for dealing
with climate change are some clear country
(88%) thought people in their country are being
and inspiration
another, views were divided. On average, 63%
thought their government was not doing enough; harmed now, in Vietnam (86%), Senegal (75%), differences. Vietnam (63%), Bangladesh (54%),
Kenya (53%) and Senegal (46%) were the
just 10% thought it was doing too much; and 18% and in Bangladesh (67%).
suggest, at the very
thought it was doing the right amount.
In six countries, fewer than half thought the
countries with the highest proportion saying
“strongly agree.” The US (14%), Japan (18%)
least, some very
The numbers seeing their government as not doing
enough were highest in Mexico (87%), Japan
negative impact of climate change on their
country is occurring now: Russia (27%), the US
and Russia (18%) were the countries with the
lowest proportion saying “strongly agree.” In the
vibrant future
(78%), China and Vietnam (both 77%), and
Indonesia (74%). They were also high in
(34%), Egypt(35%), Indonesia (39%), Iran (42%),
and France (47%).
US, 46% disagreed that dealing with climate
change should be a priority if a consequence
would be lower growth or job loss. The pattern of
prospects.
Bangladesh (72%), Kenya (69%), and Egypt
(62%). Among developed countries, France In addition to showing fairly divided opinion on some low-income countries being willing to
the seriousness of climate change, the US public is support addressing the problem, even in the face
(60%), the United States (58%), and Russia (55%) of economic harm, echoes the findings on
all had clear majorities thinking their governments were doing too little. This sentiment was lower in seriousness of the problem discussed above.
Senegal (a 35% plurality, with 33% not answering), and in India, where 44% thought the government was - 5 -
Regardless of
not doing enough but 43% thought it was doing either too much (19%) or the right amount (24%). In
pervasive ignorance, indifference, self-serving greed, willful blindness and deep-seated cognitive
Iran, a 46% plurality saw the government as doing the right amount (35%) or too much (11%), while 38%
said it was not doing enough.
1.3 Urgency: when the effects of climate change
will occur
biases blocking challenging new knowledge, periodic surveys
Views differed across of citizens
countries about how in countries around the
world indicate most people are concerned about imminent
climate change and environmental
the damages of climate change are. In
nine of the 15 countries, a majority of the public destruction. A
-9- thought climate change is substantially harming
survey of citizen attitudes in nations around the world
their fellow on the
citizens now. threat
Some of theof climate destabilization
largest
majorities on this question appeared among
found: people in the low-income countries: in Kenya
(88%) thought people in their country are being
harmed now, in Vietnam (86%), Senegal (75%),
and in Bangladesh (67%).
1) The vast majority of citizens think climate change willfewerharm
In six countries, than halfpeople
thought the now or within the
decade; negative impact of climate change on their

country is occurring now: Russia (27%), the US
(34%), Egypt(35%), Indonesia (39%), Iran (42%),
2) More than two-thirds agree that dealing with the problem of climate change should be given
and France (47%).
priority even if it causes slower economic growth

In addition to showing fairly divided opinion on
and
the seriousness some
of climate change, job losses;
the US public is and,
3) Citizens overwhelmingly think their country has a responsibility to take -5-
steps to deal with
climate change (see 3 charts above). 16
While international negotiations are stalled and stuck in the Horse Latitudes of hoarse attitudes,
there is, nonetheless, vibrant leadership being exemplified in many localities, state, national and
regional governments (see National cases, appendix, pp.. XX).
14 Janis, I., Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes, Cengage Learning, 2nd edi7on, 1982.
15 Schiller, R., Irra7onal Exuberance, Crown Business, 2nd edi7on, 2006.
16 World Bank, Public attitudes toward climate change: findings from a multi-country poll, December 3, 2009,
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/btenvironmentra/649.php .
DRAFT Version
These leaders are more and more conscious of the reality that even if climate destabilization was
not occurring there are still multiple important reasons for harnessing the vast pool of efficiency
gains as the primary engine of economic growth, in synergism with scaling the use of the smallest
composite footprint energy options, which turn out to be mainly wind and solar power. 17
There is a rich literature grown in the wake of innumerable energy crises over the past half
century that emphasizes important attributes which should be sought in energy services in order
to achieve a high probability of not giving rise to adverse impacts and unintended negative
consequences. 18, 19
A dozen criteria that recur as important attributes to covet in each option include:
◆ Economically affordable - including for the poorest of the poor and cash-strapped?
◆ Safe - through the entire life cycle?
◆ Clean - through the entire lifespan?
◆ Risk is low and manageable - from error, financial instability and price volatility?
◆ Resilient and flexible - to volatility, surprises, miscalculations, human error?
◆ Ecologically sustainable - no adverse impacts on biodiversity?
◆ Environmentally benign - maintains air, water, soil quality?
◆ Fails gracefully, not catastrophically - adaptable to abrupt surprises or crises?
◆ Rebounds easily and swiftly from failures - low recovery cost and lost time?
◆ Endogenous learning capacity - intrinsic new productivity opportunities?
◆ Robust experience curve for reducing negative externalities and amplifying positive
externalities - scalable innovation possibilities?
◆ Uninteresting target for malicious disruption - off the radar of terrorists, military planners?
These were all identified prior to public concerns over climate change that began taking place in
the late 1980s, although it turns out that the energy options with the composite of least impacts
and multiple benefits rank at the top for climate mitigation actions as well.
Among the range of available energy options only energy services from efficiency gains rank at the
top in every attribute. All other options are deficient or weak in one or more of these attributes.
The vast expansion of coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, large hydropower dams, and biomass
consumption over the past century have revealed a series of serious problems. Some appear
intractable or intrinsic to the energy option, and unequivocally have been costly to human well-
being and ecological health.
Succeeding chapters discuss these points in more detail.
17Jacobson M. Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Energy Environ Sci
2009, 2:148–173, http://cee.stanford.edu/faculty/layout_publications.php?sunetid=jacobson .
18Lovins, Amory B., and L. Hunter Lovins. (1981). Brittle Power, Energy Strategy for National Security.
Prepared for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Civil Defense Preparedness Agency, www.rmi.org/.
19 Smil, Vaclav, Energy at the Crossroads, Global Perspectives and Uncertainties, MIT Press, 2004.
DRAFT Version
Gains from GAIN - again and again

One very positive dimension is the exponential growth rates in the 21st century technologies that
are superseding last century’s smokestack industrial processes. They are encapsulated under the
acronym of GAIN -- Genetics, Auto-robotics, Informatics and Nanotech.
Each of these tech-knowledge domains are

GAIN Science, Technology, Engineering experiencing phenomenal rates of innovation.
At the same time, there is the growing
recognition that synergisms among and
between the four technologies will accelerate
even more innovation more rapidly. 20
They no doubt will have their dark, shadow

GENETICS AUTOROBOTICS sides that society will have to address.21 And
there is every concern that among the vast
pool of new inventions and economic options
that could emerge from GAIN options,
promoting endless, often mindless
consumerism will prevail over wise application
INFORMATICS NANOTECH to resolve the mega challenges confronting the
world’s citizenry.
But on the promising side they are already revolutionizing the manufacturing processes for
producing energy-powered appliances, equipment, vehicles, etc. with radically less resource input
and waste output over the product’s lifecycle.
And similar advancements have been

instrumental in sustaining the declining costs of
producing solar photovoltaics and wind
turbines.
The photos at right show two machinery and

manufacturing facilities processing high-volume
20Ray Kurzweil popularizes GAIN growth curve implications in his books, The Singularity is Near (2005) and
The Age of Intelligent Machines (1990). GAIN is alternatively referred to as NBIC, nano-bio-info-cogno,
technologies. NSF/DOC, Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance, NBIC, 2006, U.S.
National Science Foundation and Dept. of Commerce. The U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is one of the world’s largest funders of GAIN/NBIC
technology synergisms research. See, RAND, The Global Technology Revolution 2020, In-Depth Analyses
Bio/Nano/Materials/Information Trends, Drivers, Barriers, and Social Implications, RAND National Research
Security Division, prepared for National Intelligence Council, 2006.
21See, for example, Joel Garreau, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our
Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human, Broadway Books, 2006.
DRAFT Version
throughput of solar PV modules. Auto-robotic factories

have been instrumental in collapsing the cost of PV panels
to below 80 cents per Watt -- a 40-fold reduction since
1975.
How fast how far such cost declines will go is inherently

uncertain. Technical limits are one obvious constraint, but
remain a long way off. More immediately it is political,
economic and financial factors that determine to a
considerable extent the pace of innovation.
These variables are discussed in later chapters, and they all

turn on preventing discontinuity and abrupt disruptions in policies that undermine stable markets
for transitioning from a fossil-fired to solar-powered economy. And, instead, promoting continuity
in setting and sustaining wisely crafted policies, incentives, standards, regulations, enforcement,
access to capital finance that catalyze this transformation in a timely manner.
The pace and depth of cost reductions in manufactured goods like ultra-efficient LED lights, solar
panels or wind turbines, is reflected in an industry’s progress ratio. Recent research on the
progress ratios and learning curves of different energy technologies indicate greater opportunity
for solar PV technology to sustain higher learning curves than technologies like coal or nuclear
power.22
The findings suggest that within

five doublings of global solar PV
production the costs should
decline to a level competitive with
coal anywhere on the planet.
Solar PV is already competitive in
many localities with high energy
prices.
It is also ubiquitously competitive

when coal’s externalities are
factored into the cost). 23
Increasing Information & Knowledge - Decreasing Energy, Materials &

Pollutants
22Bela Nagy, J. Doyne Farmer, Quan M. Bui, Jessika E Trancik, Statistical Basis for Predicting Technological
Progress, July 5, 2012, arXiv:1207.1463v1
23 op cit., Paul R. Epstein.
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Perhaps the most intriguing development holding out promise for addressing climate and
environmental degradation is the emergence of the Internet global network.
Nearly half of humanity already is connected, and with the incredible pace of proliferation of web-
accessible mobile phones throughout the developing world, even impoverished villagers earning
just two dollars a day are gaining access.
The implications are profound, especially given the

rapid rise over the past decade of ad hoc
collaborative innovation networks (COINs).
These are creating global-scale, open-source,

publicly-shared knowledge assets, self-organized and
maintained outside the confines of corporate or
governmental institutions.
Knowledge networking is a new form of capital

asset that is examined in more detail in the chapter
on the wealth of networks capital assets (pp. XX).
Mobile wireless information, computer and telecommunication (ICT) technologies, such as the
smartphone, are also several orders of magnitude more energy efficient and lower cost than
vintage ICT devices (chart below). 24
Ultra-efficient mobile phones, smartphones and

tablets also readily lend themselves to being
charged by a solar PV panel and other distributed
Tectonic Shift
power technologies (e.g, small-scale wind turbines
and micro- and pico-hydro).
Mobile
This is already the case for more than a hundred
million developing country households, small
businesses and farmers, obtained through micro-
credit loans.
24Barry Fischer, How much does it cost to charge an iPhone 5? A thought-provokingly modest $0.41/year,
September 27, 2012, Outlier, http://blog.opower.com/2012/09/how-much-does-it-cost-to-charge-an-iphone-5-
a-thought-provokingly-modest-0-41year/.
DRAFT Version
Micro-powered mobile phones are proving to be

powerful “vehicles” for connecting vast populations
of the poorest individuals on the planet to access of
economically valuable information: when to take
farm goods to market for best prices; health
treatment via telemedicine; micro-banking; learning
skills for increasing livelihoods; etc. (discussed in
more detail at pp. xx).
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Rising Risks Demand Rigorous Due Diligence
Given the unimaginable financial damage from climate destabilization and ecosystem destruction
that are, finally, being imagined by large institutional investors, especially pension fund investors
responsible for tens of trillions of dollars, there is the emergence of another promising
development: due diligence.
The Investor Network on Climate Risks, and the Institutional Investors Group on Climate
Change, representing asset managers and pension funds with more than $20 trillion in assets, are
calling upon corporations to publicly disclose their financial exposure to the risks posed by climate
change. This includes corporate CO2 emissions (extending to emissions in the supply chain) and
the vulnerability of their value chain to increasingly more frequent and severe weather-triggered
disasters.25, 26,27
Just what are some of the major current and future costs confronting society? According to the
assessment issued by Principles for Responsible Investment and the UNEP Finance Initiative,
Universal Ownership,Why externalities matter to institutional investors, the externalities from human
activity amounted to $6.6 trillion in 2008 -- 11% of Global GDP. Some 3000 of the largest publicly-
listed corporations accounted for $2.2 trillion of these externalities. The proportion of company
earnings that could be at risk from environmental costs in an equity portfolio weighted according
to the MSCI All Country World Index amounted to more than 50 percent.28
Of this vast sum, the estimated cost due to energy externalities exceeds $4 trillion per year.
The social cost of carbon -- the marginal damage caused by an additional ton of CO2 emissions
from global fossil fuel emissions (34 Gt CO2 in 2011) -- amounted to $3.4 trillion in 2011(at $100
per t CO2).
Social cost of carbon (SCC) estimates range widely due to the inherent uncertainties regarding
climate sensitivity, the shape of the damage function, and discount rate applied. The U.S.
government uses an SCC of $21/t CO2 (2007$). However, recent analyses incorporating new
scientific findings indicating higher climate sensitivity (i.e., significantly higher temperature increases
from a doubling of CO2e emissions), and higher damages, combined these with a low discount
rate, and concluded the social cost of carbon could be almost $900/t CO2 in 2010, rising to
$1,500/t CO2 in 2050. 29
25CERES, Climate Risk Disclosure by Insurers: Evaluating Insurer Responses to the National Association of
Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Climate Disclosure Survey, 2011, www.ceres.org/.
26IIGCC et al., Global Investor Statement on Climate Change, report on report, Investment-Grade Climate
Change Policy: Financing the Transition to the Low-Carbon Economy, Institutional Investors Group on
Climate Change (IIGCC), and INCR, IGCC, PRI, and UNEPFI, 2011, www.iigcc.org/ .
272011 PRI & UNEPFI, Universal Ownership, Why externalities matter to institutional investors, 2010, UNEP
Finance Initiative (UNEP) and Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), Trucost: London; 2011,
www.unepfi.org/ .
28 ibid. Universal Ownership.
29Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth A. Stanton (2011). Climate Risks and Carbon Prices: Revising the Social
Cost of Carbon. Economics Discussion Papers, No 2011-40, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. http://
www.economics-ejournal.org/economics/discussionpapers/2011-40.
DRAFT Version
Adding the SCC into gasoline would, for example, increase the pump price $1per gallon for each
$100/t CO2, while coal or natural gas fueled electricity would increase ~$0.05 per kWh for each
$100/t CO2.
Assuming $900/t CO2 as an upper level for determining cost-effective “climate catastrophe
insurance” would increase a gallon of gasoline $9 and each fossil-fueled kWh by $0.45. Clearly at
these price levels an enormous pool of lower cost, lower carbon options would displace an
immense percentage of fossil fuels.
This reveals one of the most serious concerns regarding current energy decision-making: the
failure to properly and adequately account for the probability of risks with catastrophic destruction
and irreversible losses to the myriad sources of capital assets -- natural, physical, financial, social and
human.
Harvard Economics Professor Martin Weitzman has been a persistent critic of his profession in this
regard, noting the enormous disparity between the minimal results from applying conventional
cost-benefit analyses to inter-generational perils stemming from “fat-tail” probabilities of planetary-
scale devastation and annihilation of a large percentage of life on earth.
Cost-benefit analyses (CBA) are useful for well-bounded, relatively near-term assessments. For
example, in the case of climate change, CBAs are helpful in producing marginal cost estimates that
provide useful rankings of the cost-effectiveness and risk profiles for a range of CO2 mitigation
options. However, CBAs intrinsically exclude long-term catastrophic impacts occurring over multi-
century and multi-millennia timeframes.
A significant fraction of CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere, with an average lifespan of
30,000 years. This accumulation, which extends over geological time spans of tens to hundreds of
thousands of years, raises the lurid, but real threat of extinction of most life on earth. 30
There have only been half a dozen major extinctions during the course of life on earth, and
volcanic mega-eruptions have been the cause of most of them. Humans are now playing the
volcanic role, emitting every 26 hours the equivalent of the 1992 Mount Pinatubo eruption, the
worst eruption since the 1882 Krakatoa disaster. Pinatubo eruption photos above equivalent to
168 hours of global human CO2 emissions.
By the end of this century humanity will have emitted more than 20,000 such
volcanic eruptions, with global atmospheric concentrations of CO2e exceeding the level when
several past major extinction events occurred.
From this vantage point, Weitzman cautions, depending on CBA's are "especially and unusually
misleading" in dealing with extreme threats, especially very long-term threats that can lead to
irreversible consequences like extinction.
30Archer, David. 2009. The Long Thaw, How Humans are Changing the Next 100,000 years of Earth's
Climate, Princeton Press.
DRAFT Version
The USA invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, for example, estimated to cost $6 trillion, 31 was not
based on the conventional CBA. Weitzman meticulously argues that a more illuminating and
constructive analysis regarding the threat of human extinction from uncapped GHG emissions is
determining the level of catastrophe insurance needed:
"rough comparisons could perhaps be made with the potentially-huge payoffs, small
probabilities, and significant costs involved in countering terrorism, building anti-ballistic
missile shields, or neutralizing hostile dictatorships possibly harboring weapons of mass
destruction...A crude natural metric for calibrating cost estimates of climate-change
environmental-insurance policies might be that the U.S. already spends approximately 3% of
national income on the cost of a clean environment."32
The U.S. GDP stood at $15 trillion in 2011, suggesting a catastrophic insurance annual premium of
at least $450 billion (roughly $90 per t CO2). The 2011 global GDP amounted to $70 trillion,
indicating a funding level of more than $2 trillion per year (roughly $60 per t CO2). By contrast,
the USA and the world annually expend $700 billion and $1.6 trillion, respectively, on “defense
insurance” against uncertain military risks.
As noted above, taxpayers worldwide currently spend $750 billion to $1 trillion a year subsidizing
the fossil fuel industry. Shifting these expenditures into a catastrophe insurance fund would satisfy
nearly half of the global insurance premiums.
The other half, $1 trillion, could be derived from incorporating roughly one-fourth of the estimated
costs incurred by current fossil fuel externalities.
By comparison, globally pledged climate funds amount to the embarrassingly small sum of $30
billion.33 It remains paltry even when including global renewable energy subsidies ($60 billion in
2009), 34 although the majority of the renewable subsidies go to questionable large hydropower
projects and biofuel plantations.
These two renewables have large associated costs and risks relative to efficiency, wind and solar
power, and hence, represent gross misallocations of incentives (discussed in the chapter on natural
capital, pp. xx).
Taking actions of shifting subsidies and some of the externality costs into catastrophe insurance
represent a straightforward application of the polluter pay principle.35
It adheres to the fiscally prudent premise that a polluter should assume the costs and not be given
free rein to externalize their pollutants onto others’ capital assets (human, social, natural, physical),
which poses risks and threats in eroding the values of those assets.
31 Stiglitz, J. and L. Bilmes, Five Painful Lessons from the Iraq War, November 25, 2011; and, Stiglitz &
Bilmes, The Three Trillion Dollar War, True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, W.W. Norton, 2008.
32Weitzman, M., Fat-Tailed Uncertainty in the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change, Review of
Environmental Economic and Policy, 5(2): 275-292 doi:10.1093/reep/rer006, May 2, 2011.
33 Climate Funds Update, http://www.climatefundsupdate.org/global-trends/size-spending .
34 IEA, 2010, World Energy Outlook, OECD/IEA, Paris.
35 The polluter pays principle has found expression in various jurisdictions: (1) the principle is an economic
principle; a principle of efficiency; (2) the principle is a legal principle; a principle of “just” distribution of costs;
(3) the principle is one of international harmonization of national environmental policy; and (4) the principle is
a principle of allocation of costs between states. See, Hans C. Bugge, “The Principles of ‘Polluter Pays’ in
Economics and Law,” in Law and Economics of the Environment, 53, 54 (Eide & van den Bergh eds., 1996).
DRAFT Version
The obvious stumbling block is that while military expenditures are sold to and embraced by the
public as essential for real and imagined immediate and ongoing threats, climate catastrophe
insurance is for the most part inter-generational threats. Most, but not all.
A 2012 assessment commissioned by 20 governments, calculated that five million deaths occur
each year from air pollution, hunger and disease as a result of climate change and carbon-intensive
economies, and that toll would likely rise to six million a year by 2030 if current patterns of fossil
fuel use continue.
Climate change effects, the report noted, has lowered global output by 1.6 percent of world GDP,
or by about $1.2 trillion a year, and losses could double to 3.2 percent of global GDP by 2030 if
global temperatures are allowed to rise.36
Regardless of these immense current and future losses to life and economy, these perils are heavily
discounted to virtual inaction, as evident in non-action by the USA as well as in the stalled
international climate negotiations,
As a society we are akin to those families and businesses who forego insurance while constructing
buildings on flood plains and hurricane pathways.
We persuade ourselves that the inevitable will never occur; despite ongoing evidence to the
contrary.
The main challenge in assembling a healthy energy portfolio can be gleaned from finance portfolio
theory, where the core insight is to assemble the portfolio so as to make it robust and resilient
("anti-fragile") to volatility and black swan events.
History is replete with black swan disasters, most recently the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors
disaster triggered by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011 (photo below left).
The planners made multiple mistakes
ranging from inaccurate risk analysis and
poor siting,37, failure in government
oversight and enforcement, 38 to
performing sub-optimal operations and
maintenance procedures.
The hundred billion dollar disaster has
“vaporized the balance sheet of the
world’s No. 4 power company, TEPCO
[Tokyo Electric Power Company]”,
effectively making them a ward of the
36DARA Group, Climate Vulnerability Monitor: A Guide to the Cold Calculus of A Hot Planet, September
2012, http://daraint.org/.
37 Joaquin Rodriguez-Vidal, Jose M. Rodriguez-Llanes and Debarati Guha-Sapir, Civil nuclear power at risk
of tsunamis, Natural Hazards, vol 63:2, 2012, Springer.
38
Norimitsu Onishi and James Glanz, Nuclear Rules in Japan Relied on Old Science, New York Times,
March 26, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/world/asia/27nuke.html?_r=1&hp
DRAFT Version
state. 39
But they also entirely failed to think through the financial consequences of such a disaster
collapsing the overnight value in the Japan’s fleet of 54 nuclear reactors.
Nor did the global nuclear industry contemplate the viral spiral to other nations in the wake of
such a disaster.
The accident was of sufficient magnitude to serve as a tipping point for a number of nations to end
their nuclear programs.
Germany immediately and permanently closed six nuclear reactors, and the remaining nine are to
be permanently shut by 2022.40
To the fat-tail black swan disasters due to human error or natural disaster must now be added the
long-term threat posed in a post-911 world by terrorists with access to cyber-weapons of mass
destruction (cyber-WMD).
This potential risk entered the world consciousness in 2010 when Iran’s nuclear facility was
attacked by the Stuxnet virus.
The ultra-sophisticated virus revealed generic aspects that could be applied to attacks on a wide
range of critical infrastructure, in addition to nuclear reactors.
Nor is this the only virus malware that poses such threats, as discussed in three TED talks by
cyber-WMD experts Ralph Langner, Mikko Hypponnen and Guy-Philippe Goldstein (video images
below).
Another black swan of mega consequence, the global financial crisis of 2008, reduced gross world
product by $30 trillion in a matter of months.41
To get a sense of what financial analysts wrongly assumed about their supposedly safe hedge fund
and derivatives investments leading up to the 2008 crisis, Goldman Sachs chief financial officer
39Mycle Schneider, Antony Froggatt and Steve Thomas, Nuclear Power in a Post-Fukushima World, World
Nuclear Industry Status report 2010-2011, WorldWatch Institute, April 2011, http://www.worldwatch.org/
nuclear-power-after-fukushima.
40 Nuclear Phase-Out, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out .
41Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Future Has Thicker Tails than the Past: Model Error As Branching
Counterfactuals, presented in honor of Benoit Mandelbrot at his scientific memorial, Yale U., April 29, 2011.
DRAFT Version
David Viniar said ‘We were seeing things that were 25 standard deviation moves, several days in a
row’ (Financial Times, 2007B, p. 25).
The Director for Financial Stability of the Bank of England noted that, under a normal distribution,
“a 25-sigma event would be expected to occur once every 6 million lives [recurrences] of the
universe.” Even a 7.3 standard deviation event should occur only once every 13 billion years. And
Goldman Sachs experienced 25-sigma events several days in a row!
A major underlying error leading to the 2008 financial meltdown, as it is in the case of most black
swan disasters, is a false assumption on the part of planners and modelers that fat-tail probability
distribution curves with ultra-rare but extreme impact occurrences fall so far outside the normal
distribution bell curve as to be statistically impossible, hence irrelevant and ignorable. 42
Time and again, however, planners’ and investors’ statistical models are unable to account for all
the levels of uncertainty and ignorance of hidden risks, unsurprising given the reality of the world’s
nested hierarchies of non-linear, complex dynamic systems that defy accurate predicability.
This leads to unanticipated or unknown exposure to explosive stochastic shocks called “Black
Swan” effects, as they are not part of the common risks foreseen by the institution or the entity
involved.
A more effective, resilient, and least fragile risk management approach has been referred to as a
'barbell' strategy, which is based on avoiding the middle in favor of linear combination of extremes.
These are deemed more robust to estimation errors.
This strategy bypasses 'medium risk' investments because risk is difficult if not impossible to
compute, and strategically investing in both hyper-conservative and hyper-aggressive options at the
same time. 43
As complex systems expert Robert Ulanowicz explains, “The measure of indeterminacy is largest
for probabilities in the middle range because outcomes with probabilities near either extreme are
assumed to be under strong constraints keeping them near those extremes.” 44
For the barbell investment strategy, put 80 to 90% of investment in extremely safe instruments
with the remainder going into highly risky and diversified speculative bets. An alternative
suggestion is to engage in highly speculative bets that are insured against losses of more than a
specified amount.
By adopting these strategies a portfolio can be "robust", that is, gain a positive exposure to black
swan events while limiting losses suffered by such random events.
This anti-fragile, or fragile-minimizing, capital asset portfolio strategy is directly applicable to
addressing the multiple, unprecedented global perils confronting humanity and nature.
The pool of end-use efficiency opportunities comprise the extremely safe investments, along with
mainly wind power and, increasingly, solar power (discussed in greater detail in the following
chapters).
42 Nassim N. Taleb, Why Did The Crisis of 2008 Happen?, 2010.

43 Nassim N. Taleb, Anti-fragility, Robustness, and Fragility inside the "Black Swan Domain", February 2011.
44 Robert Ulanowicz, The Third Window, Templeton Press, 2009.
DRAFT Version
In sharp contrast, fossil and nuclear resource options are not insured against the mega-losses in
the fat-tail mega-catastrophes they will propagate.45
Several decades of technical-engineering assessments on the material requirements of scaling solar
and wind to generate several tens of TW-years projected for global consumption this century have
not revealed any show-stopping, negative fat-tails that could loom on the horizon.
On the contrary, there are potential positive fat-tails that could emerge. One would be
manufacturing breakthroughs capable of accelerating the speed of production of ultra-high
efficiency, longer-lifespan solar modules (factor four to five times better than today’s 10% efficient
PV panels) at dramatically lower cost.
Core to the innovation
opportunities of solar PV
is that it is not just one
technology but diverse
families of technologies.
The chart at right on solar
cell efficiencies indicates
the diversity arising from
the application of different
metals, minerals and
materials from the table
of periodic elements
See chapter on physical
capital assets -
renewables, pp. xx, for
more details.
Another positive fat-tail could arise from mainstream adoption of building-integrated photovoltaics
(BIPV). BIPVs would replace costly building materials (roof shingles, wall cladding, glass-wall
assemblies), eliminate the need for new land area, eliminate the massive water extraction
requirements of fossil and nuclear thermal power plants, and provide the most robust and resilient
energy systems from human error, terror, or natural disasters.
Based on country-specific data on building characteristics and solar irradiation, one research
assessment estimated the BIPV technical potential in the European Union (EU-27) at 951 GWp.
Installed it can deliver about 840 TWh of electricity, which is equivalent to more than 22% of the
expected European 2030 annual electricity demand.46
Climate catastrophe insurance
45For critiques of the misuse of probability see Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly
Improbable, 2nd edition, 2010, Random House; as well as Robert E. Ulanowicz, A Third Window, Natural Life
beyond Newton and Darwin, 2009, Templeton Foundation Press.
46P.R. Defaix, W.G.J.H.M. van Sark, E. Worrell and E. de Visser, Technical potential for photovoltaics on
buildings in the EU-27, Solar Energy 86 (2012) 2644–2653, Elsevier Ltd., http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.
2012.06.007
DRAFT Version
It is ironic that while half of surveyed Americans discount climate concerns and ignore the need for
climate catastrophe insurance, most people do purchase life and property insurance. This is
puzzling since the risk of a building fire is one in 200 years (half a percent), while the probable risk
of catastrophic climate disasters is many times higher. 47
Climate-related disasters are now recurring so frequently and severely around the world that
public attitudes for taking action are bound to change over time (see Munich Re trend charts
below). 48
Global Natural Catastrophe Update

Global Natural Catastrophe Update
Natural Catastrophes Worldwide 1980 – 2011
Natural Catastrophes Worldwide 1980 – 2011 Overall and insured losses Number of Federal Disaster
Number of events
Declarations, 1953-2011*
Number Overall losses totaled $380 billion; Insured losses totaled $105 billion 120 There have been 2,049
The number of federal
federal disaster
1 200 (bn US$)
declarations since disaster declarations set a
2011 Total 1953. The average new record in 2011, with 99,
99
400 100
820 Events number of declarations shattering 2010’s record 81
1 000 per year is 34 from
declarations.
81
350 1953-2010, though that
80
75
75
few haven’t been
69
recorded since 1995.
65
63
800 300
59
56
60
52
50
49
48
48
46
46
45
45
45
250
44
43
42
38
38
600
36
40
34
32
32
31
30
29
28
27
200
25
25
25
24
23
23
22
22
21
20
19
18
17
17
17
20
16
16
15
400
13
12
12
11
11
11
150
7
7
100
0
200
11*
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
00
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
50
The Number of Federal Disaster Declarations Is Rising and Set a New
1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 Record in 2011
Geophysical events Meteorological events Hydrological events Climatological events
1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010
*Through December 31, 2011.
(Earthquake, tsunami, (Storm) (Flood, mass (Extreme temperature, Source: Federal Emergency Management Administration: http://www.fema.gov/news/disaster_totals_annual.fema ;
Overall losses (in 2011 values) Insured losses (in 2011 values)
volcanic eruption) movement) drought, forest fire) Insurance Information Institute.
Source: MR NatCatSERVICE © 2011 Munich Re 36

Source: MR NatCatSERVICE © 2011 Munich Re 37
Mainstream economists’ obsession with cost-benefit analyses (CBA) exhibits a “Pernicious

tendency for the convenient assumption to become unquestioned dogma,“ to use J. Scott Turner’s
felicitous phrase from another context. 49
In his pithy, brief book, Can We Afford the Future?, economist Frank Ackerman expertly challenges
this dogma as being unwise, woefully inadequate and deplorably myopic in regards to the long-term
mega-threats posed by climate destabilization.
CBAs have an inherent bias towards the status quo and business-as-usual as the default conditions.
This is most blatantly manifested in discounting, which essentially reduces future lives and life on
earth to insignificance. It imposes an intolerably higher burden of proof for change, which is an
obsolete notion in a world on a collision course with unparalleled disaster.
Similar to Weitzman’s analysis, Ackerman shows that CBAs may be useful for private decisions in a
single lifetime, with well-bounded problems lacking high levels of uncertainty. But CBAs are not for
public decisions spanning generations and centuries, and fraught with multiple uncertainties. And
CBAs are clearly misapplied when probabilities of “worst-case outcomes, potentially sufficient to
end life as we know it, may now be likely as events that people insure themselves against.”50
When it comes to to costing out climate policy, here again, mainstream economic theories act as
dogmatic deterrents. Mainstream theories of market equilibrium for example, deny the existence
of costless or negative-cost efficiency opportunities for preventing and reducing CO2 emissions,
despite the empirical reality and accumulated evidence to the contrary.
The theories also exclude many ancillary benefits, principally net employment generation,
reduction of a chemical soup of other costly, health-impacting pollutants, contaminants, and
47 Frank Ackerman, Can We Afford the Future? The Economics of a Warming World, Zed Books, 2009
48 Munich Re, 2011 Natural Catastrophe Year in Review, January 4, 2012.
49 J Scott Turner, Tinkerer's Apprentice, Harvard University Press, 2007.
50 op cit., Ackerman, Can We Afford the Future?
DRAFT Version
hazardous wastes, enhanced energy and national security, reduced exposure to price volatility, and
other reduced risks and accrued benefits from many carbon mitigation actions.
Perhaps most egregiously, these theories disregard the phenomenal pace of innovation that is
transforming the way to deliver utility, mobility and industrial services for the user at lower cost,
risk, and externalities.
While the worst of climate destabilization will occur in the decades to come, already the 1℃ of
global warming that has occurred are rudely awakening climate skeptics from their dogmatic
slumbers.
In recent years the economic toll of disasters are being felt by

families, communities and companies in every part of the
world. Often these same regions suffer back to back years of
disasters, as well as season-after-season disasters.
The United States has not experienced the worst compared to

other nations, but certainly profound for the communities
suffering from these natural disasters. Six of the seven worst
U.S. wildfires in the past half century occurred since 2000, each
burning more than three million hectares. 51
The devastating drought in 2012 was worse than anything in

recorded weather records. It afflicted 78% of the United
States, collapsing yields of corn, cotton, soy crops and livestock,
sending food prices soaring. Scores of cargo shipments were
stranded on the Mississippi River because of low water levels.
It was preceded in 2011by scorching droughts in one region, and

freak rainstorms that dumped water up to 600 percent over normal
levels in other regions, swelling the Missouri River and wiping out
farmland.
This has left farmers in the Missouri

River Valley in 2012 dealing with
more than drought.
They had to deal with piles of sand -- in some cases 3-4 feet deep
— covering their fields after the flood waters receded.
These farmers are looking at tens

of millions of dollars in damages. It
is just one among many examples of the one-two, and increasingly
three, punches that extreme weather brings.
In the wake of fires, droughts and floods come infectious diseases,

devastating insect attacks to crops and animals, and invasive weeds.
As the atmosphere warms due to accumulating greenhouse gases, it
51 http://wildland-fires.findthedata.org/saved_search/Worst-Fires
DRAFT Version
holds more water vapor.
Therefore, when storms come, the rain is stronger. But in drought conditions, the impacts can be
exacerbated by higher evaporation rates.
Weather-triggered disasters have been increasing many-fold over the past 3 decades, the level of
increases depending on the type of weather incident:. For
example, average thunderstorm losses have increased five-fold
since 1980. In 2011 nine thunderstorms occurred in the U.S.
between April and August causing $43 billion in economic losses
(both insured and non-insured).
It is not at all surprising that the Property & Casualty Insurance

industry has been in the forefront in tracking global weather
trends and natural disasters.
The steady rises in the frequency and severity of disasters in terms of economic damage and the
toll of human life led the insurance industry to be one of the earliest industry leaders calling for
concerted action on mitigating climate change.
The impact on the insurance and finance industry was summarized by John Coomber, former CEO
of Swiss Re, the world reinsurance leader, who stated that “climate change is the number one risk
in the world ahead of terrorism, demographic change and other global risk scenarios.”52
According to Munich Re’s 2012 NatCatSERVICE
report, the number of global Natural catastrophes worldwide 1980 – 2011

Number of events with trend
natural disasters has increased
by nearly 250% over the past Number
1 200
three decades.
1 000
Overall losses during this time

period more than tripled, while 800
insured losses have soared 600
more than 10-fold.

400
Insured losses in the U.S. in

200
2011 were the 5th highest on
record, exceeding $35 billion.53
1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010
This is being repeated in 2012 Geophysical events Meteorological events Hydrological events Climatological events
(Earthquake, tsunami, (Storm) (Flood, mass (Extreme temperature,
(at the time of this writing). volcanic eruption) movement) drought, forest fire)
© 2012 Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft, Geo Risks Research, NatCatSERVICE – As at January 2012
As the Munich Re graph

indicates (upper right) the past decade has experienced a series of record breaking economic
losses from weather-related disasters.
52 Swiss Re, Climate Risk Group Interview with John Coomber, 2006, www.swissre.com .
53 Munich Re, 2011 Natural Catastrophe Year in Review, January 4, 2012.
DRAFT Version
Of the ten costliest disasters in United States history, eight were hurricanes with six having taken
place since 2000—Hurricane Katrina ($41.1 billion in 2005); Hurricane Ike ($12.5 billion in 2008);
Hurricane Wilma ($10.3 billion in 2005); Hurricane Charley ($7.5 billion in 2004); Hurricane Ivan
($7.1 billion in 2004); and Hurricane Rita ($5.6 billion in 2005).54
2004 inflicted about $113 billion in economic losses, the second most devastating year since 1960.
And 2005 alone inflicted twice as much loss. In fact, 99.7 percent of all catastrophic losses
worldwide in 2005 were due to weather-related events.
In 2005, insured losses from Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma alone amounted to over $85
billion (including the $23 billion for flood claims paid by the government-run-and-founded National
Flood Insurance Program). Over $120 billion was supplied in federal relief — another historical
record.
The paradox of inaction on the part of the United

States to seize the opportunities to prevent the
rising tide of natural disasters, creating economic
growth and new employment in the process, is that
inaction is proving to be very costly.
People who favor inaction fail to recognize that this

freezes in place past decisions, perhaps appropriate
for past conditions, but now woefully out of synch
with current and looming threats to all of
humanity’s accumulated capital assets -- natural,
physical, social, human and financial.
The private insurance industry is raising the cost of casualty coverage (as well as denying coverage
in peak-disaster regions), while the federal government confronts seasonal disaster declarations by
Governors that require increasing sums of tax dollars for emergency relief. And the nation
experiences a steady erosion of competitive edge as other nations, notably China, assume world
leadership in producing and exporting low-carbon solutions, including the myriad high-efficiency
end-use devices, solar PV, solar thermal, and wind
power systems.
Black Sunday (left photo) hit Oklahoma and Texas

on April 14, 1935, with 60 mph winds, sweeping up
topsoil loosened by the great Dust Bowl drought
that began in 1934. Scientists project this as a
common occurrence in the Great Plains in the
decades to come.
The other paradox, is the relative indifference of

people opposed to climate action to the weather-
triggered disasters occurring outside the United States, mainly in developing countries where more
than 90 percent of human injury and death occur.
54NAIC & CIPR, Natural Catastrophe Response, National Assoc. of Insurance Commissioners and the
Center for Insurance Policy and Research, http://www.naic.org/cipr_topics/topic_catastrophe.htm, June 14,
2012.
DRAFT Version
While cognitive biases can explain the lack of empathy for the plight of non-Americans, the reality
is that America’s economy is inextricably interwoven with the global economy. The failure of the
U.S. to demonstrate global leadership in pushing an aggressive timeline for achieving zero CO2
emissions by every nation is myopia at its worst. Both U.S. exports and imports will be negatively
impacted, as will companies’ customer bases and supply chains (see discussion, pp. XX).
Take one example, the vulnerability of supply chains to natural disaster disruptions, which was
quite visible during the Bangkok floods of 2011 and the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2009.
For retail companies, logistics and supply chains face seasonal volatility to weather variability.
Below is a map showing the countries most vulnerable to climate-triggered weather disasters, with
the countries in 2004 supplying more than 85% of Walmart products. Since 2004 there have been
major natural disasters in most of these supplying nations.
Global Distribution of Highest Risk Disasters South

Korea
Mortality Risks by Hazard Type
Guatemala
Top 15 Countries Walmart Imports – 2004

Honduras
China
India
Taiwan
Hong
Pakistan Kong
Thailand
Brazil
COUNTRIES AT RELATIVELY
Sri
HIGH MORTALITY RISK FROM Lanka Bangladesh
MULTIPLE HAZARDS
(Walmart Country Suppliers in Malaysia Philippines
Top 35 in Population)
1. Taiwan & China 5. Philippines
7. Guatemala 12. Indonesia Indonesia

14. Honduras 16. Bangladesh
32. Pakistan
THE INNOVATION TRANSITION
Scientific findings from a myriad of research disciplines are in strong agreement that fossil fuels
must be phased out if climate destabilization and marine acidification are to be halted before
triggering mega-catastrophic, irreversible disasters unparalleled in the history of Homo sapiens. 55
Marine acidification, for example, while due to CO2 emissions similar to climate destabilization, is
projected to cause its own tipping points than those triggered by climate destabilization. Most
notably, large-scale extinction of marine life by the end of this century. In combination with ocean
temperature rise from climate destabilization, marine acidification poses an unparalleled disaster to
ocean life.56 (See chapter on natural capital assets, pp. xx).
55Michael P. Totten, GreenATP: APPortunities to catalyze local to global positive tipping points through
collaborative innovation networks, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews, Energy and Environment, August 2012, 1:
98–113 doi: 10.1002/wene.40
56Paul Harnik, Heike Lotze, Sean Anderson, et al, Extinctions in Ancient and Modern Seas, Trends in
Ecology and Evolution, August 22, 2012
DRAFT Version
Marine scientists are loud and clear on this point: the phaseout of fossil fuels needs to begin
immediately, proceeding at roughly five percent per annum, including existing and new energy
growth, until zero CO2 emissions are achieved. 57
Even then, further CO2 reductions are likely to be needed for catalyzing removal of CO2 from the
atmosphere through various technical options, until atmospheric concentrations of CO2e stabilize
at below 350 parts per million58 (versus concentration of 395 ppm in 2012 and increasing annually
by 2 ppm).
Contrary to the widespread notion that the global economy would inevitably stagnate without a
continuous infusion of fossil fuels, it is simply incorrect that fossil fuels are a necessary evil. In
reality, there already exists a vast pool of lower-cost and lower-risk energy service options very
capable of displacing fossil fuels, well documented by experts in industry, government, research,
academic, civil and independent institutions. That is what this report presents.
High Quality Multi-Benefit
Time is of essence, because such a phaseout will take a century. And each year humanity delays in
capping CO2 emissions and pursuing reductions results in increasing the cost of action by $500
billion.59
McKinsey Global Institute has consistently shown in their global carbon abatement cost curve
assessments the enormous opportunities for achieving deep GHG emission reductions at zero net
costs over the next several decades.
Up to 38 Gt CO2e can be reduced by 2030 at zero cost. A critically important insight is that
delaying action for 10 years would reduce the technical abatement potential in 2030 by half.
The other critically important insight is that reducing deforestation, restoring ecosystem
degradation, and regenerating agriculture systems represent the largest pool of cost-effective
options (see chapter on natural capital, pp. xx, and chapter on spiritual capital, pp. xx).
It is several fold less costly than carbon capture and storage (CCS) of fossil GHG emissions into
geological caverns, and immediately available unlike CCS still a decade away from
commercialization.
57Bernie D, Lowe J, Tyrrell T, Legge O. Influence of mitigation policy on ocean acidification. Geophy Res Lett
2010, 37:L15704–L15709.
58 Hansen J, Sato M, Kharecha P, Beerling D, Berner R, Masson-Delmotte V, Pagani M, Raymo R, Royer D,
Zachos J. Target atmospheric CO2: where should humanity aim?. Open Atmospheric Science Journal; 2008,
http://arxiv.orgabs0804.1126.
59Joe Romm, UPDATE: Without Carbon Controls, We Face Many More Dust Bowls; 2002-2004 Western
Drought Was Worst In 800 Years, July 30, 2012, www.climateprogress.org/
DRAFT Version
If society is to sustain hope of keeping the global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius in
order to avoid the worst climate-triggered catastrophes, it needs to heed the scientific estimates
to limit fossil fuel burning (plus deforestation) to 886GtCO2 between 2000-2050.
Already in this first decade the world has used over a third of its 50-year carbon budget leaving
565GtCO2.
This limit is well below all of the proven reserves owned by private and public companies and
governments, which are estimated to be 2,795 GtCO2. Fossil fuel reserves owned by the top 100
listed coal and top 100 listed oil and gas companies represent total emissions of 745GtCO2.
Only 20% of the total fossil fuel reserves can be burned unabated, leaving up to
80% of assets technically unburnable.60
It bears remembering that all energy supply options impact the earth, but to lesser and greater
degrees, with the possible exception of most end-use efficiency improvements.61
A major caveat to keep well in mind, is that not all lower-cost, lower-carbon energy service options
are worth pursuing, let alone receiving preferential priority, given serious externalities associated
with their large-scale production and consumption.
And secondarily, even those relatively positive energy supply options, notably solar and wind
power, are not without concerns 100 percent of the time.
They may pose ecological impacts on terrestrial or marine life at some point during the lifecycle of
their operation, or be unacceptable in specific localities for cultural reasons.
When scientific and social assessments indicate unacceptable health, ecological or cultural impacts
will result, then action is clearly warranted in locating facilities elsewhere, and/or attenuating the
problems (as has been the case in redesigning wind turbine towers to dramatically reduce
accidental bird kill). Solar and wind resources are so huge that there is no reason they need to be
improperly located.
Two renewable resources plagued with concerns are

large-scale biomass plantations and large-scale hydrodams.
As further documented in other chapters, land-,water-,

and chemical-intensive biofuels are not a long-term nor
large-scale solution to humanity’s energy needs, especially
when biofuels displace carbon- and biodiversity-rich intact
60CTI, Unburnable Carbon – Are the world’s financial markets carrying a carbon bubble? 2012, Carbon
Tracker Initiative, http://www.carbontracker.org/carbonbubble .
61 Even efficiency improvements can be ill-conceived, incorrectly implemented, improperly disposed, or have
some unacceptable aspect to their production or lifespan operation. For example, tightening up buildings
while also reducing ventilation resulted in serious deterioration of indoor air quality and increased “building
sickness syndrome” in the 1970s and 1980s (fortunately leading to innovative solutions).
DRAFT Version
ecosystems. 62
Consider, for example, displacing half of the diesel fuel demand of the ocean shipping fleet with
biodiesel.
It would require a 40-fold increase in oil palm plantations (the most productive biodiesel feedstock
plant in the world), from 10 million hectares to 400 million hectares.
This would require roughly one-third of the currently cultivated land worldwide for all crops.
And the maritime shipping fleet only represents one-fifth of CO2 emissions from the total global
transport consumption of fuels, or about 2.7% of all global emissions.63 Total global biofuel
production is projected to reach 66 billion gallons per year by 2021 (ethanol 50 billion gallons and
biodiesel 16 BG). This doubling of production will comprise 7 percent of total fuel consumption.
In a recent global assessment of available the authors warn, “If every chloroplast of the remaining 5
Petagrams (Pg) of [the planet’s available] Net Primary Productivity (NPP) were used for bioenergy,
only 40% of current global primary energy consumption would be satisfied.”64
Biofuel expansion is being artificially driven by taxpayer subsidies amounting to tens of billions of
dollars worldwide each year.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that, on a global scale, biofuel subsidies, including
the support provided through consumption mandates, amounted to US$22 billion in 2010. 65
In the U.S., the cost of supporting the biofuel industry through biofuels mandates (assuming they
are met), is estimated at US$159 billion over 2008–2022. 66
Under IEA’s New Policies Scenario subsidies will increase to US$67 billion per year in 2035.
Thus the IEA estimates the cumulative cost of biofuels subsidies at US$1.4 trillion between 2011
and 2035. 67
62 German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (2012), Bioenergy: Chancesandlimits, Halle (Saale),
http://www.leopoldina.org/.
63Vaclav Smil, Prime Movers of Globalization: The History and Impact of Diesel Engines and Gas Turbines,
2010, MIT Press.
64W.K. Smith, M. Zhao, S. W. Running, Global bioenergy capacity as constrained by observed biospheric
productivity rates, Bioscience,
65 IEA. 2011. World Energy Outlook 2011. Paris: IEA/OECD.
66Koplow, Doug. A boon to bad biofuels: Federal tax credits and mandates underwrite environmental damage
at taxpayer expense, April 2009, http://libcloud.s3.amazonaws.com/93/ac/e/635/Boon_to_bad_biofuels.pdf
67GSI, State of Play on Biofuel Subsidies: Are policies ready to shift? June 2012,Global Subsidies Initiative,
published by International Institute for Sustainable Development, www.iisd.org/gsi .
DRAFT Version
Like other crops, yields of biofuel

feedstock depend on weather
conditions, and are forecasted to
become increasingly vulnerable due to
more frequent droughts and extreme
weather events caused by climate
change, as happened to U.S. corn and
soy farmers in 2012.
Moreover, coupled with fluctuations in

the related food markets, prices for
biofuel feedstock are volatile.
The transition from petroleum to biofuels may involve

more GHG emissions than anticipated at the stage when
the current biofuel subsidies were designed.
For instance, emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), a potent

GHG associated with the use of nitrogenous fertilizers,
can make up the majority of GHG emissions from some
biofuels.68
GHG emissions resulting from direct change of land use

have also been significant in the cases of clearing rain forests for bio-feedstock plantations in
Malaysia and Indonesia as such land conversion may disrupt any future potential for storing carbon
in biomass and soil.69, 70
However, even in cases where biofuels generate GHG emissions reductions, they present a very
costly option for meeting this policy objective compared to other means, such as purchasing
carbon credits on the international market.
This conclusion has been consistent through all country-level studies undertaken by the Global
Subsidies Initiative.
Over 2008–2009 in the EU, the cost of avoided CO2 emissions was estimated at EUR1422/ton for
ethanol from grains. By comparison, the price of CO2 emissions allowances under the European
Emissions Trading Scheme averaged only EUR16.25/ton over the same period. 71
68Ackom, Mabee, & Saddler, Backgrounder: Major Environmental Criteria of Biofuel Sustainability, IEA Task
39 Report T39-PR4, June 24, 2010, http://energycenter.knust.edu.gh/downloads/5/51254.pdf.
69Gregore Pio Lopez and Tara Laan, Biofuels at What Cost? Government support for biodiesel in Malaysia,
Global Subsidies Initiative, 2008, http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2008/biofuels_subsidies_malaysia.pdf.
70Harbrinderjit Singh Dillon, Tara Laan and Harya Setyaka Dillon, Biofuels at What Cost? Government
support for ethanol and biodiesel in Indonesia, 2008, http://www.globalbioenergy.org/uploads/media/0812_GSI_-
_Biofuels_-_At_what_cost_-_Government_support_for_ethanol_and_biodiesel_in_Indonesia.pdf.
71Jung, A., Dörrenberg, P., Rauch, A. & Thöne, M. (2010) Biofuels – At what cost? Government support for
ethanol and biodiesel in the European Union – 2010 Update. Winnipeg, Canada: IISD.
DRAFT Version
The complexity of direct and indirect impacts of biofuels expansion on water use is comparable to
those on land use. Some biofuel feedstocks, for
instance sugar cane, require significant quantities
of water, particularly in hot and changing
climates.
This means that, in countries already

experiencing water stress, particularly China,
India and many African countries, development of
biofuels will exert additional pressure on water
systems, with feedback into global food markets.
Food Security: The “food versus fuel” debate
The debate over the impact of subsidized biofuel-production on food prices spiked in 2006–2008
when, in spite of worldwide record crop yields, global prices for traded food commodities, such as
staple cereals and sugars, reached record highs.72
These hikes in food prices corresponded with the introduction of biofuel consumption mandates
in the U.S., Europe and some other countries and the rapid increases in global biofuel production.
Food prices decreased in 2009, but then resumed their growth through 2010–2011.
Several studies by influential intergovernmental organizations examined this phenomenon and

concluded that biofuels’ expansion explained between 12 to 75 per cent of the food price rises in
2006–2008, depending on the food commodity,
country being analyzed
Conventional biofuels are predominantly

produced from the crops that are the source of
cereals, sugars or vegetable oils used as food or
fodder for livestock and also compete with other
food and feed crops for the same inputs or factors
of production such as land, capital, labour,
fertilizers, water, and so on.
In particular, in 2007–2009 biofuels accounted for

a significant share of global use of several crops—
20 per cent for sugar cane, 9 per cent for both oilseeds and coarse grains, and 4 percent of sugar
beets.
72
World Bank, Food price watch, August, 2011, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPOVERTY/News
%20and%20Events/22982478/Food-Price-Watch-August-2011.htm .
DRAFT Version
Large-scale Hydropower Dams
Nor are large-scale hydropower dams vital in

many cases, notedly those that require large
land reservoirs through flooding, which are
shown to trigger high emission levels of the
greenhouse gas (GHG) methane from decaying
vegetation. 73 , 74,75,76, 77,78
The emissions can greatly exceed those from

fossil fueled power plants, as occurred with the
Balbina dam near Manaus, Brazil, (left photo)
that emits 58 times more emissions than a
natural gas power plant.
There are also immense losses of biodiversity and Net Emissions from Brazilian Reservoirs compared with
Combined Cycle Natural Gas
ecosystem services stemming from many major large-scale
Emissions: Emissions:
hydrodam schemes.79, 80,81 DAM
Reservoir
Area
Generating
Capacity
km2/
MW
Hydro
(MtCO2-
CC Gas
(MtCO2-
Emissions
Ratio
(km2) (MW) Hydro/Gas
eq/yr) eq/yr)
Nor should such hydrodams be allowed to displace Tucuruí 24330 4240 6 8.60 2.22 4
indigenous nations from their territorial lands. Curuá-

72 40 2 0.15 0.02 7.5
Una
There is a long history of displacing indigenous peoples Balbina 3150 250 13 6.91 0.12 58
and rural communities occurring on all continents.

Source: Patrick McCully, Tropical Hydropower is a Significant Source of Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Interim response to the International
Hydropower Association, International Rivers Network, June 2004
73Philip M. Fearnside and Salvador Pueyo, Greenhouse-gas emissions from tropical dams, Nature Climate
Change, Vol 2, June 2012, Macmillan Publishers Limited, www.nature.com/natureclimatechange.
74Abril G., Guérin F., Richard S., Delmas R., et al., 2005. Carbon dioxide and methane emissions and the
carbon budget of a 10-year old tropical reservoir. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 19: http://www.epoc.u-
bordeaux.fr/indiv/Abril/Scientific_papers.html.
75Fearnside, P.M. 2004. Greenhouse gas emissions from hydroelectric dams: controversies provide a
springboard for rethinking a supposedly “clean” energy source. Climatic Change 66(2-1): 1-8.
76Fearnside, P. M. 2012. Carbon credit for hydroelectric dams as a source of greenhouse-gas emissions: the
example of Brazil’s Teles Pires Dam, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer.
77Kemenes, A., B. R. Forsberg, and J. M. Melack (2011), CO2 emissions from a tropical hydroelectric
reservoir (Balbina, Brazil), J. Geophys. Res., 116, G03004, doi:10.1029/2010JG001465.
78Fearnside, P.M., Do Hydroelectric Dams Mitigate Global Warming? The Case of Brazil’s Cuará-Una Dam,
Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 10: 675–691, 2005, Springer.
79 Finer M, Jenkins CN (2012) Proliferation of Hydroelectric Dams in the Andean Amazon and Implications
for Andes-Amazon Connectivity. PLoS ONE 7(4): e35126. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0035126.
80Greacen, C. and Palettu, A. 2007. Electricity sector planning and hydropower in the Mekong Region. In
Lebel, L. et al. 2007. (Eds), Democratizing water governance in the Mekong region. Mekong Press, pp.
93-125. Chapter 5. www.palangthai.org/docs/ElectricitySectorPlanning&HydropowerInMekong.pdf.
81Arthington, A.; Bunn, S.; Poff, N. and Naiman, R. 2006. The challenge of providing environmental flow
rules to sustain river ecosystems. Ecological Applications 16(4): 1311-1318.
DRAFT Version
Forty to 80 million people worldwide have been displaced as a result of hydroelectric schemes.
It remains a major problem in Asia, (notably throughout the Mekong River, Papua New Guinea, and
China), Africa (notably the Congo Basin), and South America (especially the Amazon region), where
most of the remaining wild rivers are located.
In Brazil it is currently occurring to the Kayapo nation in the Brazilian Amazon.
The Kayapo have declared war

against the Brazilian government
over the forced placement of the
Belo Monte and Altamira hydrodam
schemes on the Xingu River.82, 83, 84
Half of the proposed large-scale hydrodams are questionable when transparently compared to the
least-cost-and-risk alternative options.85
India is another large nation traditionally and conventionally focused on large-scale hydrodam
construction.
The World Commission on Dams estimated that dam construction submerged 4.5 million hectares
45,000 km2) of Indian forest land between 1980 and 2000.86
82Philip M. Fearnside, 2012, ‘Belo Monte Dam: A spearhead for Brazil’s dam-‐building attack on
Amazonia?’ GWF Discussion Paper 1210, Global Water Forum, Canberra, Australia. http://
www.globalwaterforum.org/2012/19/belo-monte-dam-a-spearhead-for-brazils-dam-building-attack-on-
amazonia/.
83Sousa Júnior, W.C. & J. Reid, 2010. Uncertainties in Amazon hydropower development: Risk scenarios
and environmental issues around the Belo Monte dam. Water Alternatives 3(2): 249-268.
84Philip Fearnside, Dams in the Amazon: Belo Monte and Brazilõs Hydroelectric Development of the Xingu
River Basin, Environmental Management Vol. 38:1, pp. 16–27, 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.
DOI: 10.1007/s00267-005-0113-6.
85
Totten, Killeen and Farrell, Non-Dam Alternatives to Water and Electric Utility Services, special issue of
Water Alternatives, June 2010.
86
Rangachari, R., Sengupta, N., Iyer, R. R., Banerji, P. and Singh, S., Large dams: India’s experience. A
WCD case study prepared as an input to the World Commission on Dams, Cape Town, 2000; www.dams.org
Salal 1986 Chenab 9.4 690
Baglihar 2009 Chenab 8.1 0.15 450
Linganamakki 1965 Sharavathy 316.6 4.29 1090
Supa 1987 Kalinadi 123 3.76 970
Koyna 1964 Koyna 115DRAFT Version 2.64 1960
Rihand 1962 Rihand 468 8.90 300
Thirty-eight
Totladoh GW1989
of Hydropower
Pench plants provide
77.71 about 22 percent
of India’s total
1.09 electricity.
160
Another
Only dams78
thatGW are now
were primarily builtunder development,
for hydroelectric with are
power generation a projected
included. total potential of 150 GW.
Hydropower requires immense land area. The

bar chart on right indicates mean values of
direct land transformation associated with
coal, nuclear, hydro and solar energy
sources.87
For comparison, a recent energy assessment

conservatively determined that 38,813 km2 of
land would be required to meet India’s total
projected annual power demand of 3.4 trillion
kWh in 2070.
That is 4% of the total uncultivable land

area, excluding forests and net area sown, is
Figureenough
1. Meanto meet
values thearea
of land projected demand
required to set bypower
up a typical Figure 2. Mean values of direct land transformation associated with
plant solar energy
for different energyalone.
sources. coal, nuclear, hydro and solar energy sources.
withThis
coal.isIna small
fact, thearea relative
land requiredto for
theatotal
solararea occupied
power by food
sary for waste lands and
production andthe ‘land not the
maintaining available for
ecological
plantcultivation’
is small compared to hydro power. It should also be balance. Hence, it would be judicious
in India, which is more than 950,000 km , or 31% of the total land area. Solar’s small
2 to
88consider only the
noted here that the values considered for coal are US aver- waste lands for installing the solar electricity generation
land footprint is also matched by its ultra-small water footprint, which requires 95% less water
age values. As Indian coal is inferior in quality compared to systems. Table 4 shows that the total area occupied by
than and,
US coal thermal
aroundor 70%
hydroof power
coal inplants.
India is surface- waste lands and the ‘land not available for cultivation’ in
9
mined , the life-cycle land use will go up for this energy India is around 951,860 sq. km, i.e. 31.1% of the total
It isif also
source some
we take these 30factors
to 60into
times less land
account. Eventhan would
though bearea.
land required if biofuel crops were used instead.
nuclear power is effective in terms of land transformation As suggested by Sukhatme1, it would be wise for a
(life-cycle
Nuclear value),Power
it is the highest when it comes to land densely populated country like India to target at a simple
occupation (Figure 3). In addition, the recent estimation of lifestyle pattern with an annual per capita electricity con-
required land area for Indian nuclear power plants by Chok- sumption of around 2000 kWh, i.e. 3400 TWh per annum
shi2 Nuclear
is higher thanfission
the power is also
one we have not vital,
assumed here.nor desired.
Hence, for the country as a whole by 2070. Assuming that the
there is a need for further work in this direction. installation of a solar power plant, both photovoltaic (PV)
This is due to a combination of concerns, high costs and being
thermalthe most immediate
technologies, requiresshowstopper.
around 2 ha of 89
land
area and redoing the calculations by keeping all other
HowWhile muchnuclear
of India’s land would
generated be required
electricity is a low-carbonassumptions
alternativethe tosame
coalasand
thatnatural
by Sukhatme 1
, we that
gas plants, deter-
to meet the future electricity demand by solar mine that 38,813 sq. km of land would be required to
is not the same as being the least-cost option.
energy? meet the projected annual demand of 3400 TWh. That is,
1.3% of the total land area or 4.1% of the total uncultiva-
The The bar chart
percentage at below
distribution left compares
of India’s land area various
by land-options where
ble land area,each dollarforests
excluding spent andon electrical
net area sown, is
services
use type back to
according outthecoal-fired
Ministry ofCO 2 emissions.
Agriculture, New enough to meet the projected demand by solar energy
Delhi, is given in Table 4. As India is a densely populated alone. This is less than the land that has been covered by
country,
Based theonagricultural
2007 costs, landnuclear
and forest cover can
power displace permanent
are neces- pastures and
about 8 kilograms ofother
CO2grazing land (Table 4).
per dollar.
CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 103, NO. 2, 25 JULY 2012 165
Wind power can displace nearly twice as much per dollar, and cogeneration in industry and
buildings can displace from 50 percent to 200 percent more than nuclear.
87H. Mitavachan and J. Srinivasan, Is land really a constraint for the utilization of solar energy in India?
Current Science, 103:2, July 25, 2012, http://www.currentscience.ac.in/cs/php/toc.php?vol=103&issue=02.
88 ibid., Mitavachan and Srinivasan.
89Lovins A, Sheikh I. The Nuclear Illusion, Rocky Mountain Institute, E08-01, 2008, http://www.rmi.org/
Knowledge-Center/Library/E08-01_NuclearIllusion .
DRAFT Version
End-use efficiency, however, is the clear runaway least-cost favorite.
The average cost of delivered utility services from efficiency is around 1 to 3 cents per kWh.
Each dollar spent on efficiency displaces four to 12 times more CO2 emissions than
nuclear power!
If fiscal prudence and

financial common sense 1¢/kWh 93 kg
prevail, then expenditures Coal-fired CO2
should go to efficiency not
nuclear. emissions displaced
An obvious step for
per dollar spent on
policymakers is to quit electrical services 2¢ 47
skewing subsidies to
nuclear, which historically
has received 100 times
more than either efficiency
or solar and wind power.
The nuclear industry

continues to receive lavish
federal subsidies, most
recently with the U.S.
Amory Lovins & Imran Sheikh, The Nuclear Illusion, May 2008, www.rmi.org
Congress passing legislation
underwriting up to 100
percent of the cost of a new round of reactors, since Wall Street has not been forthcoming with
private financing.
Without these subsidies nuclear power simply is uncompetitive to a large pool of other zero and
low carbon energy options. Cost escalations continue to nag new nuclear construction programs.
The launch of the flagship nuclear power station in

Finland, Olkiluoto 3 (photo right), has been delayed
three times and five years, and costs have
skyrocketed.
The delivered cost of electricity will exceed 25 cents

per kWh, triple the cost of wind power and 12 times
the cost of end-use efficiency.
Nor is this an isolated example. A recent review

(chart below right) of projected cost for new
reactors show dramatically higher costs than either
past construction or what academic studies claim is achievable.
DRAFT Version
Nuclear Risks - Not just error, but Terror
Nuclear power also has intrinsic risks of being

targets for terrorist or military attack.
This includes reactors, their onsite pools of spent
radioactive waste, and the hundreds of rail and truck
shipments of radwastes to permanent storage
repositories.90,91, 92
A typical nuclear power plant contains about 1,000

times the long-lived radioactivity released by the
Hiroshima bomb. The spent fuel pools at nuclear
power plants typically contain some multiple of that
—several Chernobyl’s worth.
Professor George Bunn at Stanford University's

Center for International Security and Cooperation,
posed a key question in the aftermath of the 911
attack:
"Suppose that the 19 [World Trade Center airline

hijackers] had formed into teams to drive four vans with large high-explosive bombs into the
power reactors and spent fuel ponds for a large nuclear facility. Does any civilian facility's
design . . . suggest protection against such threats?"93
As former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Peter Bradford wrote in the aftermath of the
September 11th World Trade Center attack,
“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will have to reexamine its assumptions about truck
bombs, armed attack, and sabotage from within; about the transportation of nuclear waste;
about terrorists' ability to acquire nuclear weapons through power reactor programs
abroad. In all of these categories, it will have to update its safety assumptions to include
attacks by large trained groups willing to become martyrs.”94
90Bennet Ramberg, Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy: An Unrecognized Military Peril, 1992,
University of California Press.
91Rear Admiral (rtd.) Eugene Carroll, ‘Nuclear Plants Could Be Next Targets of Terrorists,’ September 18,
2001, St. Paul Pioneer Press, www.commondreams.org/.
92Daniel Hirschman, The Truck Bomb and Insider Threats to Nuclear Facilities, Committee to TP PT
Bridge the Gap, posted at www.nci.org/, n.d.
93George Bunn and Fritz Steinhausler, Guarding Nuclear Reactors and Material from Terrorists and Thieves,
Arms Control Today, October, 2001,http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2001_10/bunnoct01 .
94 Peter Bradford, ‘Too Close for Comfort,’ OnEarth, Winter 2002, http://www.nrdc.org/.
DRAFT Version
Civilian nuclear reactors also are an ever-present source of weapons-grade plutonium

proliferation.95, 96,97, 98
Princeton nuclear proliferation expert Harold Feiveson

has described a future in which the much touted 100
MW pebble bed modular (PBM) reactor, operated on a
once-through fuel cycle, becomes the norm in a nuclear-
power-intensive energy future for displacing coal and
natural gas power plants. (image right)
He envisions that “500 ton Separated Working Units

(SWU) per year” enrichment plants would be deployed,
each serving about 24 PBM reactors.
About 2300 such enrichment plants would be needed

to support the 55,000 reactors (5,500 GW) of nuclear
capacity. 99
Assuming a critical mass of 15 kg, the enrichment

requirement would be 3.4 tons SWU per bomb, so
that each enrichment plant would have the
capacity to make about 150 atomic bombs per
year from natural uranium (photo left of the
controversial Iranian fuel enrichment plant,
producing 150 ton SWU per year).
More troubling still is that, for the 8% enriched

uranium prepared for each PBM reactor, 84% of
the enrichment required to make 90%-enriched
uranium for a bomb has already been carried out.
This means that, starting with 8% enriched

uranium, a 500 ton SWU per year enrichment plant could make 875 bombs per year. Feiveson
concludes:
95Holdren, John P. 1989, “Civilian Nuclear Technologies and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation.” In C. Schaerf,
B. Holden-Reid, and D. Carlton, eds., New Technologies and the Arms Race. London: Macmillan.
96 Mark JC. 1993. Explosive properties of reactor-grade plutonium. Science & Global Security 4(1):111–128;
97Miller MM. 1990. Are IAEA Safeguards on Plutonium Bulk-handling Facilities Effective? Nuclear Control
Institute, Washington, DC, www.nci.org/mmsgrds.htm.
98David Albright, "Civilian Inventories of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium," in Leventhal and
Alexander, Preventing Nuclear Terrorism, The Report and Papers of the International Task Force on
Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism, op. cit., p 268.
99Harold Feiveson, The Search for Proliferation-Resistant Nuclear Power, F.A.S. Public Interest Report,
Federation of American Scientists, V. 54, No. 5, Sept./Oct. 2001, http://www.fas.org/ .
DRAFT Version
"So, the bottom line? Lots of enriched uranium too close to bomb quality, lots of separation
plants, lots of incentive for innovation to make isotope separation cheaper and quicker. To me
this is an unsettling prospect."
Nobel physicist Luis W. Alvarez once noted, “Most people seem unaware that if [highly enriched
uranium] is at hand, it's a trivial job to set off a nuclear explosion . . . even a high school kid could
make a bomb in short order.”
A similar conclusion was reached in a 1977 report to Congress on nuclear proliferation issued by
the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment:
“A small group of people, none of whom have ever had access to the classified literature,
could possibly design and build a crude nuclear explosive device. They would not necessarily
require a great deal of technological equipment or have to undertake any experiments. Only
modest machine-shop facilities that could be contracted for without arousing suspicion
would be required. The financial resources for the acquisition of necessary equipment on
open markets need not exceed a fraction of a million dollars. The group would have to
include, at a minimum, a person capable of researching and understanding the literature in
several fields and a jack-of-all trades technician.”100
And as noted above, reactors are vulnerable to errors and cyber-WMD terrorism incurring fat-tail
probability events (e.g., the Fukushima reactors accident), that can lead to sudden collapse of not
only the failed reactors’ assets, but a nation’s entire fleet of reactors. 101
Some investors, like Bill Gates and his

former chief technology officer, Nathan
Myrvold, are spending millions of dollars
promoting a radically different kind of
reactor from the current new versions
being promoted (photo right).
Called the “traveling wave” reactor, the

theoretical concept claims to be
proliferation resistant, incapable of a
serious accident, and consumes existing
nuclear waste materials.
However, they acknowledge that without

the government actually mandating a
large-scale demonstration of the concept it stands a very remote chance of breaking into the
market.
Moreover, there are strongly competing non-nuclear concepts being worked on in the labs of
companies, research centers and universities around the world, focused on anticipated
100Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, Nuclear Proliferation and Safeguards, June 1977,
posted at www.fas.org/spp/starwars/ota/.
101Germany National Academy of Science Leopoldina, June 07, 2011, Ad-hoc statement Energy- and
research-policy recommendations following the events in Fukushima, http://www.leopoldina.org/.
DRAFT Version
breakthroughs for mass-producing solar PV power systems several-fold more efficient and several-
fold lower cost than today’s 10 to 20 percent efficient solar modules now being manufactured at
less than $1 per Watt.102
The confidence in such Quantum-dot solar PV cells

breakthroughs being achieved
stems in large part from the
continuous spillover from solar
PV’s conspecific and sympatric
industries (e.g., digital, microchip,
nanotech, solid state chemistry and
materials science). Cerium Solar reactor (Haile caltech)
Nano pillar solar cell arrays
Given the robust learning curves

the solar industry is experiencing
(see chapter on physical capital
assets renewable energy, pp. XX), it
Quantum dot solar cells useSolarquantum dots as the photovoltaic material, as op
roll 50 sq meters(Ascent)
is highly unlikely any kind to bulk materials such as silicon, copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) or Ca
of new nuclear power Solar cell nanodomes and plasmonics
Telluride (CdTe). Quantum dots have bandgaps that are tunable across a wide
plant will be energy levels by changing the quantum dot size, in contrast to bulk materials
competitive . the bandgap is fixed by the choice of material composition. This property ma
quantum dots attractive for multi-junction solar cells, where a variety of diffe
(And current new energy levels are used to extract more power from the solar spectrum.
nuclear orders are only
occurring in the U.S.
because federal subsidies
underwrite 100 percent
of the cost and risk).103
Titania within the solar cell is imprinted into a honeycomb pattern by the silicon
nanodomes like a waffle imprinted by the iron. A thin layer of batter is spread on a
transparent, electrically conductive base. This batter is mostly titania, a semi-porous metal
Efficiency - the low-hanging
that is alsofruit thattokeeps
transparent light. growing back
Next, they use their nano waffle iron to imprint the dimples into the batter. Then layer on
The good, best and great news,
someisbutter
the abundant pool dye
– a light-sensitive of ultra-low
– which oozescost-and-risk end-use
into the dimples energy
and pores of the (and
waffle.
water and resource) efficiency gains.
Lastly, someThey
syrupare unparalleled
is added – a layer ofin immediate,
silver, ongoing
which hardens and
almost long-term
immediately.
opportunity for addressing the
Whenmyriad ofnanodimples
all those negative externalities associated
fill up, the result is a patternwith fossil fuels.
of nanodomes on the light-ward
side of the silver. The silver acts as a mirror, scattering unabsorbed light back into the dye
End-use energy, water and for anotherefficiency
resource shot at collection, plus, the light
opportunities leadinteracts
the listwith
of the silver nanodomestop-
most-preferred, to
produce plasmonic effects.
priority investment opportunities because of their unrivaled combined attributes: delivering a
resilient, reliable, secure, safe, clean pipeline of least-cost-and-risk (LCR) energy services to the
point of use.
This massive, and continuously expanding, pool of LCR energy services emerged over the past half
century with the rise of profound scientific breakthroughs, technological advances and engineering
102
Notably at the solar research labs at Caltech, Stanford, UC Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, the National
Renewable Energy Lab, and scores of other private, national, and academic labs worldwide.
103
UCS, Nuclear Subsidies in American Power Act and American Clean Energy Leadership Act, http://
www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/Nuclear-Subsidies-in-APA-and-ACELA.pdf.
DRAFT Version
innovations in the way energy, water and resource consuming devices are designed, manufactured,
used, and disposed.
Most notable in this ongoing transformation are solid state chemistry and physics breakthroughs,
combined with superior digital design tools and engineering software, enabling greater
understanding of the dynamics and dimensions of harnessing energy, materials and information
integration in far more efficient combinations.
The net effect is a better bottom line for citizens, companies and countries (natural, physical,
financial, social and human capital asset savings, value and benefits), whereby greater information
and knowledge applications allow for radically less resource input and waste output throughout
the entire production/product lifecycle.104, 105,106,107, 108,109
With an upper estimate of half to three fourths of all new global energy services capable of being
delivered this century through efficiency gains, this global-size energy “resource” rivals in sale
most supply options, with the great advantage of being LCR over its lifecycle.
Efficiency and Resilience
Efficiency gains set one of the two major lifecycle benchmarks in determining the composite
impacts “footprint” of delivered energy services.
As noted above, there are upwards of a dozen key attributes to consider in ranking energy
services.
Traditional and conventional energy decision-making has overwhelmingly concentrated on one

attribute of efficiency, cost, and particularly lowest first cost (not lifecycle costs). The other major
lifecycle benchmark, resilience (in design, operations and practices), when synergistically connected
104
Robert U. Ayres and Benjamin Warr, Useful Work and Information as Drivers of Growth, November 4,
2002, Center for the Management of Environmental Resources, INSEAD, http://terra2000.free.fr/downloads/
endogro.pdf.
105Lovins A. et al., Reinventing Fire: Bold Energy Solutions for the New Energy Era. White River Junction,
Vermont: Chelsea Green Press; 2011, www.rmi.org/.
106 Robert U. Ayres, Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, Reiner Kümmel, Dietmar Lindenberger, Benjamin Warr,
The Weight of Energy in Economic Growth, June 2009,http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/imprint_downloads/
informit/bookreg/9780137015443/EnergyinEconomicGrowth.pdf.
107Robert U. Ayres and Benjamin Warr, The Economic Growth Engine: How Energy and Work Drive Material
Prosperity, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009.
108
Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins, Natural Capital: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution,
2008, Back Bay Books, http://www.natcap.org/sitepages/pid5.php.
109Lovins A, Datta K, Feiler T, Rabago K, Swisher J, Lehmann A, Wicker K. Small is Profitable: The Hidden
Economic Benefits of Making Electrical Resources the Right Size. Snowmass, Colorado: Rocky Mountain
Institute; 2002, http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/U02-09_SmallIsProfitableBook.
DRAFT Version
with efficiency opportunities, offers the winning combination for delivering lifecycle LCR utility and
mobility services (energy, water, materials). 110,111,112
Resilience is the rebound capacity of a system or network, that is, the ability to fail gracefully, not
catastrophically, or to retreat elegantly and safely to fallback positions, and to access a diversity of
options to meet the needs of unexpected disturbances.
The research into complex networks, like ecosystems, find two structural variables govern the
degree of efficiency versus resilience for a sustainable, fit and healthy systems. One element is
diversity, the existence of different types of agents acting as nodes in the network. The other is
interconnectivity, which measures the number of pathways between the given agents.113, 114
A system’s resilience is enhanced by both greater diversity and connections, as they provide more
agents and channels to fall back on in times of trouble or sudden change. Efficiency, on the other
hand, increases through streamlining, which typically implies reducing diversity and connectivity.
However, systems overdependent on efficiency by reducing diversity and interconnectivity leads to

brittle systems, more vulnerable to disruption. And systems overdependent on resilience get
entangled and mired in too much diversity and connections, leading to stagnation.
Increasing the efficiency in delivering utility services at the point of use provide the bedrock for
creating local microgrids networked to other microgrids.
The leaders promoting highly efficient, resilient, and secure microgrid systems are the U.S. military.
Their major initiative, SPIDER, "Smart Power Infrastructure Demonstration for Energy Reliability
and Security," is being rolled out to military installations around the world.
Given the reality of cyber-WMD terrorist threats to critical infrastructure, microgrids make
obvious sense to rapidly evolve into civilian utility systems as well.
110Lovins A, Lovins H. Brittle Power, Energy Strategy for National Security, prepared for U.S. Civil Defense
Preparedness Agency. Hanover, NH: Brick House Publishing Company; 1981, http://files.uniteddiversity.com/
Energy/BrittlePower.pdf.
111 Ann Marie Healy and Andrew Zolli, Resilience, Free Press, 2012.
112
Carl Folke, Steve Carpenter, Thomas Elmqvist, Lance Gunderson, CS Holling, Brian Walker, J et al.,
Resilience and Sustainable Development: Building Adaptive Capacity in a World of Transformations, April
2002, Scientific Background Paper on Resilience for the process of The World Summit on Sustainable
Development, www.sou.gov.se/mvb/pdf/resiliens.pdf .
113 Sally J. Goerner, Bernard Lietaer, Robert E. Ulanowicz, Quantifying economic sustainability: Implications
for free-enterprise theory, policy and practice, Ecological Economics 69 (2009) 76–81, http://
people.biology.ufl.edu/ulan/pubs/Goerner.pdf.
114
Brian Walker and David Salt, Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing
World, Island Press, 2006.
DRAFT Version
The National grid

image (left) illustrates
a microgrid design
integrating buildings,
factories, electric
plug-in vehicles, with
cogeneration, solar,
wind and traditional
power systems.
Microgrids
Microgrid Deployment Tracker 2Q12
significantly enhance
1.4
the resilience
Future of the Microgrid Deployment Tracker Database
of the
As market activity increases, Pike entire network
Research intends to further segment data by both
application and region. Of particular interest is collecting data for projects in Latin America,
the Middle East, and Africa. system, while also
being able
Pike Research encourages direct suggestions to fractally
and research requests from subscribers.
Also welcomed are microgrid project leads and any insights, updates, additions, and/or
corrections to this database. At link to
present, theother
Microgrid Deployment Tracker 2Q12
represents the most comprehensive and up-to-date database of microgrids in the world.
Note that the depth of coverage isnetworks intothe world’s leading microgrid
best in North America,
market. Data on microgrids in the developing world, however, are in need of greater depth.
supergrids, if and where necessary. Even if the supergrid fails, most regional networks still operate,
As for application segments, interest in remote microgrids is accelerating in Asia Pacific
and the developing world. The remote systems segment already represents the largest
as do the myriad local microgrid systems. sheer number of microgrids (but features the smallest average capacity and loads).
1.5 Summary
The lack of government and industry data on microgrids creates a need for this sort of
Cascading power failures, like the blackout in 2012 impacting 600
database. It is million Indians,
the hope of Pike orthethe
Research that sagging
Microgrid Deployment Tracker database
provides a good glimpse into an emerging market whose modularity and diversity of
tree limb that shorted a utility wire in the midwest U.S. causing a
technologies power
renders failure
it a constantly throughout
moving target. Whetherthe considered as part of the
smart grid or an alternative to other aggregation structures such as VPPs, the commercial
Northeast corridor in 2003, become inconsequential threats appealin a highly resilient distributed projects (and large and
of microgrids is in dramatic ascent. Therefore, the list of
small companies engaged) will continue to grow, as evidenced by this third update to the
network model. Microgrid Deployment Tracker. These trends, in turn, serve to boost the need for this
Tracker product offered by Pike Research, especially for those companies looking to
expand project portfolios, zero in on development hot spots, and find strategic partners. If
you have questions, additions, or corrections to this database, please contact
But designing such end-use efficient, resilient Peter Asmus, Pike Research Senior Analyst, at peter.asmus@pikeresearch.com.
distributed network systems requires thinking in Chart 1.1 Microgrid Capacity by Region, World Markets: 2Q 2012
terms of non-linear complex systems and Rest of World, 391

processes, comprised of nested hierarchies
dynamically interacting at different scales.
Asia Pacific, 280
Instead, conventional market decisions and policy

governance are made in relative isolation, in many Europe,
386
North America,
silos, assuming linear processes, and operated in 1,550
compartmentalized ways. (MW)
Actions are taken piecemeal, one time perhaps (Source: Pike Research)
addressing import price volatility and energy

security. Another time focusing on acid rain and smog. © 2012 Pike Research LLC.
All Rights Reserved. This publication may be used only as expressly permitted by license from Pike Research LLC and may not otherwise be accessed or used, without the
express written permission of Pike Research LLC.
Concerns about water dependency get talked about, then action is postponed until an event forces
actions that are typically shortsighted and counter-productive to solving long-term concerns.
Vulnerability to terrorist attacks gets taken up after an attack, and then forgotten until another
attack.
Threats to endangered species and ecosystem habitats get partially addressed, then relaxed, and
some even repealed. Action on climate change emissions get delayed, indefinitely.
DRAFT Version
This balkanized behavior, building layer upon layer of ad hoc solutions as each problem forces
addressing, consistently fails to grasp the major, preferable opportunities when viewing energy
issues from a composite of least impact footprints and accruing multiple benefits perspective.
The great news is that pioneering states like California, New York and Vermont, and nations like
Denmark and Germany, plus hundreds of cities worldwide, are demonstrating economically robust
market and governance practices and policies for pursuing LCR energy services with the smallest
composite impacts footprints.
Global Efficiency Opportunity
What if nations worldwide were to embrace this superior opportunity for delivering LCR utility,
mobility and industrial energy services to the point of use?
INTRODUCTION
To illustrate the immense opportunities available through efficiency improvements in the
PART 1: THE ENERGY REPORT way we
consume energy services, let’s use the estimates from Energy [R]evolution, the 2012 blueprint
500
report jointly produced by the European Renewable Energy Council, Global Wind Energy Council
400
Final Energy (EJ/a)

300
200
100
0
2000 2010
and Greenpeace
Evolution ofInternational.
Figure 1 115
energy supply in the Energy Scenario,
showing the key developments.
Based on the best available assessments of existing efficiency opportunities plus what is emerging
Source: The Ecofys Energy Scenario, December 2010.
from the R&D pipeline, the assessment indicates the following level of energy services can be
delivered through efficiency gains by 2050 (see graph above):
Figure 1
Evolution of energy supply in the Energy Scenario,
100 PER CENT RENEWABLE
ELECTRICITY delivering equivalent of 12,800 TeraWatt-hours per year [12.8 trillion kWh]
showing the key developments.
Source: The Ecofys Energy Scenario, December 2010.
ENERGY

BY 2050to 20,000 TWh consumed in 2009 worldwide
compared
WWFHEAT delivering
has a vision equivalent
of a world that is of 46,500The PetaJoules (PJ) per
Ecofys scenario yeara
raises The world needs to
powered by 100 per cent renewable energy seriously consider

sources compared
by the middle of to
this160,000
century. PJ consumed challenges. inThe
2009 worldwide
Energy Report what will be required
Unless we make this transition, the investigates the most critically to transition to a
100 PER CENT RENEWABLE

world is most unlikely to avoid predicted important political, economic, sustainable energy
escalating impacts of climate change. environmental and social choices
ENERGY BY 2050
115 Energy [R]evolution, the 2012 blueprint, and challenges – and encourages solutions to the
their A Sustainable
further debate. World Energydilemmas Outlook,raised2012 in report jointly
produced by the European
renewable energy supplies for everyone Renewable Energy Council, Global Wind Energy Council and Greenpeace
onInternational
the planet by 2050? WWF called
http://www.energyblueprint.info/. How are Thewe going to providechart
accompany for is taken
these challenges
from a - the
comparable
upon the expertise of respected energy all ofEnergy
the world’s future WWF
needs,Renewable has ato
solutions
vision
theby
of a worldreport
energy
that is The Eco
prepared in 2011 by Ecofys for WWF, The Report, 100% powered Energy
by 100 per 2050,
cent http://
renewable energy
consultancy Ecofys to provide an answer needs of current and
wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/climate_carbon_energy/energy_solutions/renewable_energy/
to this question. In response, Ecofys has others, without running into sources
futureby the middle of this century.
generations challen
sustainable_energy_report/
produced .
a bold and ambitious scenario - Unless we of
– is one make this transition, the
the most investig
which demonstrates that it is technically demands on land/water world is mostchallenging
important, unlikely to avoid predicted importa
possible to achieve almost 100 per cent availability and use; rising, and escalating and urgent political
impacts of climate change. environ
renewable energy sources within the next in some cases, unsustainable tasks ahead. and cha
four decades. The ambitiousCopyright
outcomes Nov. 1, 2012 consumption of commodities;
by Michael P. Totten, founder & principal, AssetsforLife.net p.39 their fu
of this scenario, along with all of the nuclear waste; and regionally
assumptions, opportunities, detailed data appropriate and adequate renewable energy supplies for everyone
and sources, are presented as Part 2 of this energy mixes? on the planet by 2050? WWF called How ar
report. upon the expertise of respected energy all of th
DRAFT Version
TRANSPORT
delivering equivalent of 80,000 PJ of liquid fuels per year

compared to 80,000 PJ consumed in 2009
Supply displaced
To put these massive figures into understandable context, these efficiency savings would displace
the need for ALL OF THE FOLLOWING SUPPLY (illustrative purposes only, not in these exact
quantities):
18 million rail cars per year carrying 2 billion tons of coal

comparison: 17.4 million China rail cars carrying 2 billion tons and 7
million U.S. rail cars carrying 810 million tons in 2011, with the two nations
consuming more than half of global production
5 million LNG supertanker shipments (200,000 m3 per shipment)

For comparison: 1.7 million LNG shipments worldwide in 2011
640 nuclear power plants each 1000 MW in size (total 640,000 MW)
comparison: 372,000 MW of global installed nuclear capacity in 2012
50 mega-sized hydrodams each equivalent to the Three Gorges Dam (total

of 910,000 MW)
comparison: 1 million MW of global installed hydroelectric capacity in 2010
24 million barrels per day

For comparison: 30 million barrels/day (from 4,000-plus offshore oil rigs
worldwide in 2011)
44 million hectares of oil palm plantations for diesel fuel

For comparison: 15 million hectares total global oil palm production in 2011
DRAFT Version
68 million hectares of sugar cane for ethanol

For comparison: 24 million hectares total global sugar cane production in
2010
82 million hectares of corn for ethanol

For comparison: 162 million hectares total global corn production in 2011
Direct monetary benefits

Tremendous financial benefits also accrue from these efficiency gains. Given the several-fold lower
cost of efficiency improvements compared to supply expansion, the direct monetary savings
amount to trillions of dollars per year.
In addition, several-fold more jobs are created for each dollar of energy investment.
Indirect monetary benefits -- Social cost of carbon benefits

The indirect monetary benefits are equally compelling. The efficiency gains are responsible for half
of the CO2 emission reductions by 2050 under the Energy Revolution blueprint.
Under business-as-usual, global CO2 emissions increase from 30 billion tons (gigatons, Gt) of CO2
in 2010 to 45 Gt CO2 in 2050. The level of CO2 emissions resulting from the Energy Revolution
shift to efficiency gains and renewable energy supplies declines to just 3 Gt CO2 by 2050.
This is 85% below 1990 levels, the estimated reductions essential for keeping future global
temperature rise not exceeding 2 degrees Celsius.
Given social cost of carbon ranges between $100 and $1500 per ton CO2, 116 this amounts to an
annual value between $4.2 trillion and $63 trillion in 2050. Efficiency gains are responsible for
capturing half of these social benefits.
Supply Augmenting Efficiency
After aggressive, ambitious, continuous and comprehensive harnessing of efficiency gains, the next
LCR options are proving to be wind and solar power (detailed below).
Important roles can also be played by a variety of locally abundant renewable options, notably
geothermal, biowastes, wave and tidal power. Some hydro expansion and natural gas can serve as
effective storage systems to backup and augment the solar and wind resources when unavailable.
116
Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth Stanton, Climate Risks and Carbon Prices: Revising the Social Cost of
Carbon, Stockholm Environmental Institute, Report for the Economics for Equity and the Environment
Network, 2011, http://sei-us.org/publications/id/399
DRAFT Version
This report, Assets for Life, presents the substantial evidence buttressing this statement that is
news to most people who do not follow these cross-disciplinary developments.
There has been considerable misinformation reported about the economics and viability of wind
and solar power, unfortunately a considerable amount driven by major dis-information campaigns
funded by the fossil fuels industry.
This should not be surprising given the hundreds of trillions of dollars at stake this century.
However, there also is considerable confusion and misrepresentation spread by specialists who are
using out-of-date facts, making inaccurate assumptions, or basing opinions on incomplete and
unverified data. Renewable energy supply is discussed in the chapter on physical capital assets - RE
technologies (pp. xx).
But to quickly highlight one among a

number of global economic-
engineering assessments that have
been conducted demonstrating the
feasibility of a CO2-free, sustainable
energy future, these two visuals
(right) sum up the work of Stanford
Professor Mark Jacobson and UC
Davis Professor Mark Delucchi.117
Jacobson, M. & M. Deluchi, A Plan for a Sustainable Future by

2030, Scientific American, Nov 2009
117 Jacobson, M. & M. Delucchi, A Plan for a Sustainable Future by 2030, Scientific American, Nov 2009.
DRAFT Version
Beginning at End(-Use)
The end-use-oriented energy strategy

recommendations noted above have been
recognized for half a century as key and critical
to tackling poverty head-on, while spurring
ecologically sustainable economic growth.
It focuses first and foremost on providing

improved end-use services that are essential for Jacobson, M. & M. De
more rapidly satisfying the economic services Future by 2030, Scient
most needed by the poorest half of humanity (3

to 4 billion citizens).
These include ultra-low-cost ways of providing

safe drinking water, better illumination, cleaner
cooking devices, refrigeration for preventing
food storage, mobility, telecommunication, shaft power for threshing, pumping and other labor-
intensive tasks.
By starting at the end-use there arises the opportunity to combine high-efficiency devices with
onsite solar, small-scale wind, and biowaste gasification, with micro-credit and aggregate financing
schemes to cost-effectively deliver energy services at the household and village scales. 118
There is also evidence and strong correlations that this end-use-oriented energy strategy can help
expedite improvements in women’s lives, leading to less need for large families, resulting in more
rapid population stabilization.
The bottom line is that there are no intrinsic constraints - technically, economically, financially -- to
shifting from the fossil fuel-dominated era to a solar-powered era, unfolding over the next half
century. The only uncertainty is the wild-card regarding the amount of time it will take to achieve
this transition.
If this largely occurs within 50 years then humanity can avert the unimaginable disasters that will
irreversibly afflict humanity and the biosphere if, instead, humanity remains indifferent to attaining
even modest gains over the next century.
118
Thomas B. Johansson, Amulya K.N. Reddy, Robert H. Williams and Jose Goldemberg, Energy for a
Sustainable World, Wiley: India, 1984.
DRAFT Version
As world respected energy expert Amory Lovins

recently concluded in his detailed assessment
(Reinventing Fire) of making this transition in the USA
by 2050, the nation could be $5 trillion (net) richer.
Prosperous growth would be occurring while having

phased out all coal and oil, plus one-third of natural
gas. It would also include the phaseout of the nation’s
existing 100,000 Megawatts of nuclear reactors as they
come to the end of their operating lives.
Global technical-economic energy assessments,

disaggregated to regional and national levels, indicate similar opportunities. 119
Generating Legendary Legacies
This book would like to leave you with one simple, profound question: what kind of legacy do you
want to leave for your great grandchildren’s great grandchildren? A question with multi-century
implications.
Assets for Life - Generating Legendary Legacies addresses this questioning of our legacies through the
lens of energy consumption. Energy clearly serves as the engine for humanity’s ongoing economic
growth, as essential and fundamental as standard economic theory’s two-factor fixation on labor
and capital.
Last century was an era of unusually cheap fuel, which enabled harnessing water and natural
resources very cheaply, driving the engine of vast economic growth for billions of people.
The 21st century, however, is completely different. Global consumer energy expenditures have
already increased 240% between 1990 and 2010, to $6.6 trillion (in 2005$), comprising 10 percent
of the global economy.
Oil experts are in agreement that peak (cheap) oil is a reality now unfolding, and while there is still
an abundance of oil it will all come at a significantly higher cost, risks, and environmental burden.
In addition to the burden of more expensive fuels, these high energy costs are driving costs higher
to harness scarce water supplies, food supplies, and other natural resources.
Inextricably interwoven to these costly fuels are their costly externalities with which we are forced
to cope, and our children and grandchildren’s children will face ongoing devastation.
These externalities are driving two unprecedented challenges of historical and global magnitude:
mega-costly climate disasters, and massive, irreversible loss of the planet’s marine and terrestrial
wildlife and ecosystem services that underpin much of current economic well-being.
Debilitating, multi-trillion dollar impacts on commerce will also recur, given the ever-present
vulnerability to ongoing oil wars and sudden supply disruptions.
119 GWEC, Greenpeace, R(e)volution; Jacobson and Delucchi; Fthenakis et al; and others.
DRAFT Version
This blend of trends unfolds while billions of impoverished people will very likely still remain
remote from attaining healthy, sustainable livelihoods.
The good news is that these dire outcomes are not inevitable. Thanks to inventive waves of
continuous innovation in, and stemming from, solid state electronics and space-age materials, the
energy-, water-, and resource-consuming devices permeating the economy are undergoing radical
efficiency makeovers. There are immense savings ready to be harvested (as corporations like Dow
are demonstrating, image below right), as well as a long future of abundant harvests from new
efficiency opportunities.
These efficiency gains result from:
1) applying new knowledge and better design practices

that enable devices (appliances, electric motors,
lamps, vehicles, windows, buildings, etc) to CO2 reductions at
negative cost
2) deliver their “utility services” (e.g., shaft power,
heating, cooling, light, refrigeration, mobility) with
 Dow slashed energy intensity by ~40%
3) less input of natural, physical and financial capital and between 1990-2005.
less output of pollutants, emissions, effluents, waste,  $9.4 billion savings between 1994-2010
toxics, and contaminants.  940% ROI
Ongoing technological spillover from breakthroughs in

the semiconductor and materials industries are playing instrumental roles not only in driving the
radical efficiency revolution, but also in advancing ultra-clean, highly secure, increasingly
competitive, and multi-sustainable ways of generating power from the Sun’s daily onsite fuel
delivery system120.
Moreover, the innovation flood is accelerating automation advances throughout the supply chain.
Quantum leaps in economic

productivity are anticipated from the
widespread application of solid state
electronics and ultra-light-and-strong
materials enabling integration of
“smart” buildings and appliances
converging with electric plug-in
vehicles and smart utility grids in the
coming decades.
There is compelling evidence that the

latter half of the 21st century could
find most energy-efficient urban areas
generating most of their energy from
the sun distributed through linked
clusters of highly resilient micro-grids.
120A stream of solar photons lands on the earth every 90 minutes equivalent to humanity’s total annual
global energy consumption (~15 TerraWatts per year).
DRAFT Version
This would result in radically shrinking humanity’s destructive impacts on the planet’s biosphere
while simultaneously expanding sustainable livelihoods for billions of families locked in poverty.
Sadly, the pace of innovation in this preferable direction has been slowest in the utility and oil fuels
sectors.
Over four trillion dollars a year continue to be spent combusting fossil fuels; a
practice reinforced and encouraged by last century’s encrusted regulatory
practices out of touch with today’s multi-benefit cleaner and lower cost-risk
opportunities.
Fortunately, robust financial models have emerged, implemented by imaginative entrepreneurs and
market-oriented policymakers, proving effective in transforming the sluggish energy landscape.
Assets for Life provides you with the most-up-to-date understanding of the perils these negative
trends pose to the health and well-being of humanity and life on earth, as well as sharing with you
the extraordinarily rich pool of positive opportunities available for delivering cleaner, greener,
cheaper, safer and more secure energy services to humans worldwide.
The book need not be read in any particular order, whether you start with the perils and then
move to the solutions, or vice versa.
In describing these far preferable energy Assets for Life, I have tried to provide the reader with
multiple lenses for viewing this quite complex realm of activity. Deep dives on any one aspect are
not feasible in this rapidly prepared publication, although there are plans to take the document live
online for continuous updates and expansion of resources.
The purpose being to provide a dynamic roadmap, set of guides and handbooks for global-local
(glocal) practitioners. In the interim, readers will find a copious list of resources at the end of the
publication guiding them to useful assessments and documents (most web accessible) that do
perform deep dives.
Transformation of the global energy system through a more benign design that largely prevents the
massive externalities and costs now imposed on humanity and the biosphere will not come easily.
Taxpayers are paying good money to accelerate destruction and collapse of the world's
atmosphere, rain forests, coral reef wonders, and marine life -- $7 to $10 trillion per decade in
subsidies just to the fossil fuel industries worldwide.121, 122
The other major source of energy combusted emissions, biofuels, is projected to receive $1.4
trillion in subsidies over the next two decades.
121
GSI, How-to Guide: Measuring subsidies to fossil-fuel producers, Policy Brief, July 2010, The Global
Subsidies Initiative, www.globalsubsidies.org.
122Oil Change International, No Time to Waste: The Urgent Need for Transparency in Fossil Fuel Subsidies,
15 May 2012, at priceofoil.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/1TFSFIN.pdf, pp. 1–2.
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Of course this arguably immoral sum of expenditures is dwarfed by the TEEB123 and PRI124
estimates of roughly $40 trillion per decade in CO2 pollution externalities from the fossil fuels
industry that our elected officials officiously and unethically fail to regulate by internalizing these
massive costs into the delivered price of energy (the same holding true for biofuels, nuclear and
large hydro subsidies).
This ethical lapse has many negative consequences US$ 6.6 trillion
including premature morbidity and mortality of Estimated annual environmental costs from global
human activity equating to 11% of global GDP in 2008
people, animals and ecosystems now and for

millennia to come. US$ 2.2 trillion
Cost of environmental damage caused by the world’s
3,000 largest publicly-listed companies in 2008.
An immediate consequence is retarding the >50%

recognition and actionable insights that fossil fuels The proportion of company earnings that could be at risk
from environmental costs in an equity portfolio weighted
are among the costliest, NOT cheapest energy according to the MSCI All Country World Index.
options.
Is "immoral" too strong a characterization? Perhaps so a quarter century ago, when I drafted the
Universal Ownership: Why environmental externalities matter to institutional investors, Trucost Plc, commissioned by UN-backed Principles for Responsible
250-page, 12-title, Global Warming Prevention Act, introduced by Republican US Congresswoman

Investment (PRI) and UNEP Finance Initiative, 2011, www.trucost.com
Claudine Schneider, with strong bipartisan cosponsorship by nearly a third of the US House of
Representatives.
At that time the emphasis was on the great gains that could be made in national productivity
enhancement, competitive export opportunities, and expansion of skilled jobs, all achievable
through high efficiency products; and in addition, had compelling ancillary reasons for doing so to
reduce oil import dependency, increase energy security, and accrue clean air and acid rain
reduction benefits at zero cost to taxpayers and ratepayers.
Now, a quarter century later, a call for being morally responsible seems most appropriate, given
the vast, diverse disciplinary scientific insights and accumulating evidence that climate
destabilization is taking place; and decades of inaction are raising the probability of catastrophic
fat-tail disasters to human existence that can only be expressed in the religionists' lexicon of
apocalyptic consequences. This is hardly new news to those following the cutting edge climate
literature of the past half decade.
This goes to the core of another form of capital asset, spiritual capital (discussed in the chapter on
spiritual capital assets, pp. xx). As ethicists and leading religious figures argue actively opposing
climate actions, typically with cost arguments, ignores a host of ethical concerns: the failure to see
the ethical limitations on cost arguments when climate change creates human rights violations, (b)
ethical limitations of exclusive use of " willingness-to-pay." as justification for non-action, (c)
procedural justice problems with cost arguments, (d) ethical problems when cost arguments try to
123
Kumar P. (ed.), The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Ecological and Economic Foundations,
2010, Earthscan: London and Washington.
124Trucost, Universal Ownership: Why environmental externalities matter to institutional investors, UNEP
Finance Initiative (UNEP) and Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), Trucost Plc: London, 2011.
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calculate the dollar value of harms avoided by climate change, and (e) ethical problems with
discounting future generations.125
Economic arguments are relevant, as noted throughout this book regarding the importance of
ranking and prioritizing least-cost-and-risk options for achieving a zero emissions global energy
system. However, many cost arguments in opposition to climate change policies are both ethically
and factually flawed, often deliberately, many times ignorantly. Costs, while an essential component
of decision-making on what actions to take, is grossly insufficient. They ignore the many other
forms of capital assets, not least of which are the manifold dimensions of spiritual capital. These
are discussed in the chapter on spiritual capital assets, pp. xx.
Authentic ethical concerns can and do collide. Professor of Applied Ethics, David Brown, Sc.D.,
describes ethical dilemmas as typically arising in situations where “obligations are in serious
conflict” and that ethics is about “the fair resolution of dilemmas.”126
An ethical resolution framework, he argues, must include three central principles: beneficence (“do
well, do not do harm”); respecting the humanity of other people (“do not lie, mislead, hide
information”); and justice (“a responsibility to protect the interests of society”). Professor Brown
offers the acronym DISORDER to describe the steps required for an ethical approach to analyzing
problems:
Dilemma: Define what is at issue;

Information: Identify what information is needed;
Stakeholders: Identify them all;
Options: Identify what they are;
Rights: Identify what they are and who has them;
Decision: Make a decision and then defend it;
Evaluation: Assess the new situation based on the core principles;
Review: Repeat the process via review.
It offers a valuable framework for making critical choices—especially in cases where organizations
need a method for identifying and addressing issues that seem to offer immediate benefits but may
lead to environmental disaster in the long run. 127
125Donald. A. Brown, Ethical Problems With Cost Arguments Against Climate Change Policies: The Failure
To Recognize Duties To Non-citizens, August 21, 2010, Climate Ethics, Ethical Analysis of Climate Science
and Policy, http://rockblogs.psu.edu/climate/2010/08/ethical-problems-may-the-nations-rely-on-excessive-
costs-to-it-as-justification-for-non-action-on-cl.html .
126 Donald A Brown or David E Brown? find source
127
Richard MacLean. 2009. The Road to (Environmental) Hell is Paved with Good Intentions, Environmental
Quality Management, Winter 2009, Wiley Periodicals, http://www.competitive-e.com/Current/
Good_Intentions_MacLean_EQM_Winter09-MacLean.pdf
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There is a substantial literature and ongoing discussions about the ethical and moral claims for
assuming responsibility in confronting the threat of climate destabilization.128 129,130, 131,132
The issue is definitely not one of whether it is even possible to do anything. The rich portfolio of
market and governance solutions and steps to take have been known for decades. Rather, it is
absolutely a question of willingness to act, since the available opportunities only await scaling more
rapidly, locally and globally (glocally).
This diverse portfolio of market and policy solutions have accumulated empirical real-world
evidence of what works and what doesn’t, adaptively evolving over time so that results like energy
efficiency improvements can be delivered with bigger savings at lower costs.
Awakening from our dogmatic slumber, wherein we continue encouraging carbon pollution and
poisoning to profit, would allow the full realization already known by efficiency, wind and solar
power experts.
The realization that these clean energy options actually generate economic prosperity, while
avoiding the massive externalities of CO2 poisoning and other immensely costly air, water and soil
contaminants that will burden our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and descendants for
thousands of year to come.
It is a sad commentary on the American public that the fossil

fuel industries' $500 million media disinformation campaign
over two years (a pittance of the trillions of dollars in fossil
fuel subsidies and unregulated externalities) effectively
derailed both US climate legislation and US clean energy
legislation.
Immoral corporate actors have learned well that it is very,

very cheap to sow misinformation, public confusion and
political indecision. Their manacle-forged cognitive biases
prevent them from even considering their actions immoral.
Most Americans seem unaware that national level politics is

fraught with difficulties because self-interested lobbyists
outnumber elected legislators 300 to one.
128
Donald A. Brown, Ethical Obligations of Individuals to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, in Laura
Westra, Colin L. Soskolne and Donald Spady (editors), Human Health and Ecological Integrity: Ethics, Law
and Human Rights, 2012, Routledge.
129Brown, D., N. Tuana, et al. (2006). “White Paper on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change.” 17
January 2009. <http://rockethics.psu.edu/climate/whitepaper/whitepaper-intro.shtml>
130Jane Williams, Climate Change as Ethics, Climate Cartographic, the visual communication of climate
change, Jan. 2009, http://climatecart.wordpress.com/climate-change-as-ethics/.
131 Interfaith Moral Action on Climate Change, http://www.interfaithactiononclimatechange.org/index.html
132Climate Change Statements from World Religions, The Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale, http://
fore.research.yale.edu/climate-change/statements-from-world-religions/ .
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This explains a lot on why national legislative action continues to stall even while consistent public
opinion surveys find overwhelming support across the political spectrum for accelerating a shift
away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency, solar, wind and other renewable energy options. 133
The dysfunctional situation of national politics explains why more action is now occurring at the
city level by Mayors and clusters of citizen groups around the world to move their local economies
towards the long-term goal of 100% solar-driven energy systems.
The new action

model is
occurring glocally
(global-local).
Taking actions
locally, sharing
them globally,
self-organizing in
the process an open source, public knowledge asset to help inspire and engage citizens in their
communities around the world.
With this new action model in mind the book’s concluding chapter focuses on web-accessible
knowledge ASSETs -- a mnemonic acronym standing for “Apps for Spurring Solar & Efficient
Technologies.”
Virtually instantaneous flow of information worldwide is a sine qua non of the 21st century. Local
officials and citizens, companies, educational institutions, and other civic organizations now have at
their fingertips, literally, access to prodigiously rich veins of knowledge resources. These are
combined with and grown by globally distributed ad hoc collaboratives of innovative networking
practitioners.
The emergence of web-accessible voluntary collaborative innovation networks (COINs) over the
past two decades are new forms of capital formation. They operate alongside markets and
governance structures, assisting in self-organizing, growing and maintaining open source knowledge
resources and public assets.
What better time and better purpose to catalyze one for making the transition to resilient,
vibrant, clean, safe and secure local and regional energy systems.
I hope that reading this book launches you on a lifetime commitment to play a key role as a change
agent in some fashion in advancing the solar transition. In doing so, you will play an instrumental
role, as well, in healing and promoting the health and well-being of the biosphere for humans and
life on earth, now and for your descendants for generations to come.
133Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Roser-Renouf, C., & Hmielowski, J.D. (2012) Climate change in the
American Mind: Public support for climate & energy policies in March 2012. Yale University and George
Mason University. New Haven, CT: Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. http://
environment.yale.edu/climate/files/Policy-Support-March-2012.pdf
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CAPITAL ASSETS -- LEGENDARY LEGACIES WORTH SEEDING,

CULTIVATING, & PRESERVING
In financial accounting, assets are economic resources. Anything tangible or intangible that
is capable of being owned or controlled to produce value and that is held to have positive
economic value is considered an asset.134
A functional definition of capital in general is: "a stock that yields a flow of valuable goods or
services into the future".
Historically and conventionally, the standard economic model excluded energy as a factor of
production. This is a peculiar and gross oversight, given the prominence of energy as an asset
humans consume to derive economic benefits.
As Ayres et al persuasively document, “According to neoclassical economic theory, growth can –

and will – continue at past rates regardless of the availability or cost of energy. This bizarre
conclusion follows from the widespread assumption in economic models that capital and labor are
the only important factors of production.”135
Since at least the 1960s economists have increasingly focused on broader forms of capital that have
proven instrumental to increasing the overall portfolio of capital assets.
For example, investment in skills and education can be viewed as building up human capital or
knowledge capital, and investments in intellectual property, public libraries, and now web networks,
can be viewed as building up intellectual capital.
The 21st century era of continuously expanding knowledge generation influences and is influenced
by these various capital assets. Essential outcomes include new value creation occurring from new
ways of combining them.
The theme of Assets for Life is about harnessing new combinations of these diverse capital assets.
Citizens, institutions and communities worldwide can accelerate the scaling of the more benign
energy solutions to the “wicked problems”136 posed by our current massive dependence on fossil
fuel combustion.
It simply requires being done effectively and learnedly, with scrupulous foresight and, implemented
by reflective practitioners garnering insights and lessons from both failures and successes.
Doing so can also radically diminish a number of unprecedented risks that threaten to erode,
undermine and collapse a significant fraction of these diverse capital assets over the coming
century.
134 Asset, Wikipedia.

135
Robert U. Ayres, Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, Reiner Kümmel, Dietmar Lindenberger, Benjamin Warr,
The Weight of Energy in Economic Growth, 2009.
136Conklin J. Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems. Chichester, England:
John Wiley and Sons; 2005.
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ASSETS FOR LIFE

Good News, Bad News

destabilization. DEAD CORAL REEFS

✖ Fossil fuels are the primary driver of marine

wars and conflicts, which are contributing to

Just one assessment among a number profiled in succeeding

[Photos: top right - the U.S. releases 57,000 tons of CO2

If these costs were factored into the delivered price of

Unfortunately, failure to include these costs means citizens are

In the case of bad eating habits humans have an uncanny

The implications for communicating social

Avoidance of cognitive dissonance -- People will generally

7Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Reports. Washington,

Confirmation bias – Similar to the avoidance of dissonance, people reject new

Self-serving Bias – Social science researchers have identified a clear “self-

Not only would acceptance of climate science (and its necessary

Compounding the cognitive remoteness of these impacts is the

mentality, group think 14, i1.2

propagated. A similar concern was revealed when people

support addressing the problem, even in the face

decade; negative impact of climate change on their

priority even if it causes slower economic growth

15 Schiller, R., Irra7onal Exuberance, Crown Business, 2nd edi7on, 2006.

Gains from GAIN - again and again

Each of these tech-knowledge domains are

They no doubt will have their dark, shadow

And similar advancements have been

The photos at right show two machinery and

throughput of solar PV modules. Auto-robotic factories

How fast how far such cost declines will go is inherently

These variables are discussed in later chapters, and they all

The findings suggest that within

It is also ubiquitously competitive

Increasing Information & Knowledge - Decreasing Energy, Materials &

The implications are profound, especially given the

These are creating global-scale, open-source,

Knowledge networking is a new form of capital

Ultra-efficient mobile phones, smartphones and

Micro-powered mobile phones are proving to be

Rising Risks Demand Rigorous Due Diligence

42 Nassim N. Taleb, Why Did The Crisis of 2008 Happen?, 2010.

Climate catastrophe insurance

Global Natural Catastrophe Update

Source: MR NatCatSERVICE © 2011 Munich Re 36

Mainstream economists’ obsession with cost-benefit analyses (CBA) exhibits a “Pernicious

In recent years the economic toll of disasters are being felt by

The United States has not experienced the worst compared to

The devastating drought in 2012 was worse than anything in

It was preceded in 2011by scorching droughts in one region, and

This has left farmers in the Missouri

These farmers are looking at tens

In the wake of fires, droughts and floods come infectious diseases,

As the atmosphere warms due to accumulating greenhouse gases, it

holds more water vapor.

It is not at all surprising that the Property & Casualty Insurance

According to Munich Re’s 2012 NatCatSERVICE

report, the number of global Natural catastrophes worldwide 1980 – 2011

Overall losses during this time

insured losses have soared 600

more than 10-fold.

Insured losses in the U.S. in

© 2012 Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft, Geo Risks Research, NatCatSERVICE – As at January 2012