Into the Details

A one-layer-deeper look into what we can and are doing about climate change.
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This podcast dives into a little more detail on many climate change subjects and related issues. We cover government policy at all levels (past present and future), personal effects you can have, specific technology and investment opportunities, and more. Each post goes "one layer deeper" to build a body of original and accessible research on relevant subjects, rather than simply a re-post of existing web content. Facts and assertions have their sources linked whenever possible, so that you can easily verify the material. This podcast is still young! Your thoughts and feedback are most welcome. P.S. Although so far climate is the main content piece, I hope to at some point tell some fun tales of clandestine piano parties. Going into the details, of course :-) pehrlich.substack.com

Episodes

  1. 10/11/2025

    The Loyalty Investigation

    Jakob & Irma Ehrlich My father’s grandparents Jakob and Irma (my great-grandparents) lived in Austria in the 1900s. Jakob Ehrlich was a well established lawyer and politician, known for helping Jews in a bigoted society, and was prominent in the Zionist movement which led to the creation of Israel 10 years after his death. In 1938, the Austrian Nazi Government raided their home while they were out, ransacked the place, and took their passports (in a coordinated raid that included Sigmund Freud’s house and others). Jakob refused to flee the country, believing in the work he was doing supporting his community. In her nineties, Irma told the story to a tape recorder. Here’s what she said about this moment: > It is hard to revive the feelings and agonies of the next weeks. I was in complete shock. There was certain protective numbness, which made it possible for me to function reasonably well, and also an outrage. Suddenly you have been transformed from a respected citizen into a non-person. Dangers were all around. People were picked up in the streets and disappeared. Nobody knew what was going on and what would happen next. Any moment anything could happen. I thought the world would not allow it. That Roosevelt would stop it. There were ominous knocks on the doors in the dark hours. Prominent people, mostly Jews, but also Marxist and noted Catholics were arrested. I heard of friends, political allies, who disappeared. Who would be next? Jakob was taken from his home, in front of his family. He was sent to Dachau. The closest Irma and their fourteen year old son Paul ever came to seeing him again was when his casket was returned two months later, sealed, hiding the beatings which killed him. The camp had been operating since 1933 to end political opponents, before being scaled up 100-fold in the Holocaust. > Long after the funeral people visited Jakob’s grave as that of a martyr’s to pray and leave small stones, an old Jewish custom. I was told it was covered with innumerable tokes from these visits. Irma stayed in Vienna in weeks of shock after that, until Paul asked one day “Everyone is leaving – when do we go?”. Their story out is a riveting one which I won’t detail here. One moment that stands to memory is when an old acquaintance comes back to help Irma escape through the Netherlands – someone whom she had spent an entire mountain hike with as he spouted hatred and death to Jews, before becoming quite abashed when Irma let him know she was one. Irma and Paul ended up on one of the last flights out before the state-sponsored violence of Kristallnacht. Their bank accounts, property, and passports were seized by the government. They arrived in Britain, and later the US, penniless and stateless, but with their story. Irma spent the rest of the war as a traveling speaker to help get kids out of Nazi-occupied Europe. Paul Ehrlich After coming to the states, Paul served in the US army in WWII. Thanks to being multi-lingual and having obtained a chemistry degree, his job was to drive a jeep behind enemy lines as part of T-force, stealing German secrets before they could be destroyed by the Germans or captured by the Russians. In a stroke of luck, this re-assignment kept him out of the Battle of the Bulge. In 1951, with a new PhD, he was working for the National Bureau of Standards and slated for a job designing new rocket fuels. That all changed when he was suddenly denied security clearance, and for decades he had no idea why. Harvard professors saw the opportunity, and hired him there instead. He went on to do much interesting work - including research on the polymerization of polyethylene at very high temperatures. Decades later, he put in a Freedom Of Information Act request. I am proud and unsurprised to learn from these documents that Paul was stubbornly against political persecution, and recognized McCarthyism for what it was, despite it being anti-communist, not anti-fascist. He did not like communism, and he did not think communists should be working for the US government. But he did not discriminate, kept communist friends, and called out war crimes and propaganda when done by his own country. That was enough to cost him his job. It appears that a pro-McCarthy grad student at University of Madison reported Paul to the FBI for the following: * Had a friend who was a Communist, but declined to tell the name because he feared that might cause them harm. * Commented on a photo of POWs killed by North Koreans that it was propaganda, that in a war all sides commit such acts. * Thought the South Korean authoritarian government was unworthy of our support. * Had a wife that did not support Communists in government, but also did not support “Hooverism” – spying on the American people (often in support of senator McCarthy) – which continues strongly to this day. America 2025 Too much today feels like evil playbooks of the past are being used by those countries which sacrificed so much to defeat them. ICE is one small example - Stephen Miller’s starting point for what may be his vision and Trump’s vision of a police state. Their military helicopters pull people out of their homes in the night, and deport them en-masse - sometimes to offshore torture & concentration camps. Deportation, and even denaturalization, is nothing new in the US – for example the Obama administration deported more than three million immigrants, where the focus was on those who had recently crossed the border, and were not yet embedded in US communities. Historically, courts have been very strict on denaturalization – limiting it to cases of fraud committed during the citizenship process. The current administration’s approach is far more violent and direct, seemingly built to test the limits on what a US police-state could be. Even citizens are being rounded up and held, even without warrants (170 temporary detentions, by a recent count). On Sept 25th, Trump issued a new directive to the three letter agencies, NSPM-7, (Also see: ACLU’s writeup and The Intercept’s). In it, the FBI’s ~200 task forces are directed to fight “terrorism”. > This “anti-fascist” lie has become the organizing rallying cry used by domestic terrorists to wage a violent assault against democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental American liberties. Common threads animating this violent conduct include- anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity;- support for the overthrow of the United States Government;- extremism on migration, race, and gender;- hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality If one were to write about how the United States Government may be illegal, which I did, could that be seen as supporting the overthrow of the current U.S. government? So far, their work to expand powers on removing citizenship has been through exploiting naturalized citizens (such as Mamdani), but in their words, Homegrowns are next. How many will be stripped of their assets and deported, on threat of being sent to an offshore concentration camp? Unfortunately, this is not unprecedented within the United States. 105 years ago, president and KKK supporter Woodrow Wilson unleashed the “Palmer Raids”, sending 4,000 American Citizens to prison because of “Hostility to American Values”. This was among a litany of abuses, including asking Americans to spy on one another (queue J Edgar Hoover), having postmasters ban magazines for being critical of the US, France, or Britain, and sending a competing presidential nominee to 15 years of prison. [Source: fee.org – The Palmer Raids: America’s Forgotten Reign of Terror] Hope for the Mid-terms? That depends on us. As these numerous outrages “flood the box” the one I keep coming back to is the simple fact – one which appears more likely every day – of the outright theft of enough votes to change the 2020 election outcome. > I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how.– Joseph Stalin Many Americans – particularly Democrats – hold unshakable faith in the security of our voting systems. We push to the 2026 mid-terms to change the balance of power. But to do so puts total trust in voting systems which are almost certainly crooked. In some of his latest work, journalist Scott Carney outlines a few things, including: * The research-backed psychology behind cheating in politics. If every candidate is committing fraud, new participants have to play the game, or become pariahs. This can create a hedonistic downwards spiral, which we are now in. * There are well known flaws in our voting machines, full stop. Published security vulnerabilities are well documented and have not been fixed. It is illegal for private citizens to test the security of our voting machines. This “security through obscurity”, an arguably flawed principle to begin with, has failed completely. At least one, if not both, of our main political parties have stolen both physical machines and their accompanying source code. * The reaction of people when they learn of Carney’s work. Generally: anger at the messenger, and disbelief that fraud happens in the US, which it does. And then: despondency. * In this video, he covers it all to a shocking (but not sensationalized) degree. With needing to discuss voter and vote manipulation, which is odious and rampant, there is enough scale of theft to potentially have changed the election outcome. There’s so much more on this topic. We have increasing evidence from the Election Truth Alliance. In one example they did a hand recount of paper ballots in MN, and found significant differences from the automatic vote tabulators. And on Friday, they filed suit for election audits in PA. And in the meantime, while we’ve seen most swing states using one brand of voting machine and p

    17 min

  2. 31/03/2025

    Making Sense of Election Fraud Claims

    Trump has claimed that the 2024 US Presidential election was rigged. In this post, I want to take that at face value, analyze the results shared by people looking for election fraud, and understand the context of election fraud at large. The scary part – perhaps even crazy-making – is that to a layman there does appear to be fraudulent data patterns. Understanding them fully, and what they mean (there may be boring explanations, or there may not), will take both time and heavyweight emotional processing. We place nearly blind trust in a system which has tremendous power over our future, and is meant to represent our personal choices. We have every right to understand why we should trust the results even when we are not technical experts. And regardless of what the data may show (personally, I expect seeing fraud from both sides), this right is what keeps our country democratic, not dictatorial. On March 7th 2025, Trump on video declared without context: “What happened is… they rigged the election, and I became president. So that was a good thing.” Well Mr. President, in whose favor was it rigged? Let’s take a look. 🫡 There’s four sections to this post: * Election fraud is possible in the US. There’s a court-proven track-record * Putin’s regime has expertise in election fraud, and we’ve learned how to see it * Looking at the data 2024: Weird things happened with the votes * How you can help Election Fraud in the United States Sources include Harpers - How to Rig an Election (2012), ChatGPT (which links to further sources in turn), and HBO’s 2006 documentary Hacking Democracy. The USA has both a long and rich history of election fraud, and has simultaneously maintained a virtually un-assailable reputation for election integrity. We are in many ways so conditioned to trust our elections that in earnestly questioning them we often must work through layers of fear, insecurity, shame, and re-evaluation. That has certainly been the case for me. It has helped to accept that one: there is always fraud, at least at some scale, and two: we have a right to demand open and scientific study of the data. Here are some examples of historical fraud, carried out by both parties: * [New York City’s Mayor’s Office] Tammany Hall was bought for more than a century. * [Lyndon Johnson’s] biography describes buying votes from his “fixer” to get his Senate seat in Texas * [2003, Mayor of East Chicago, Indiana] The mayor had such widespread absentee ballot fraud that it was nullified by the state supreme court. * [2009, Troy NY Primary] Four officials plead guilty in absentee ballot fraud in the party primary. * [2014-2016, Philly Primary] An election worker plead guilty to adding fraudulent votes in primary elections for years, focusing on specific precincts in which he was bribed. A congressman was indicted for organizing the scheme. * [2018, North Carolina U.S. House] Ballot tampering of absentee ballots led to a do-over of a U.S. House election. One of the rare elections invalidated due to ballot fraud. * [2000 Presidential Election] Touchscreens were on video, in mass, casting votes for a different candidates. Florida counties were caught changing vote totals and sending false receipts, including negative votes for one candidate. The entire Diebold source code leaked, and it turned out any election worker could change vote totals using a spreadsheet. * [2004 lost ballots] During the 2004 presidential election, North Carolina experienced an electronic voting machine malfunction that caused 4,438 votes to disappear​ forever. “Random” selections for spot-checks in Ohio were not actually random. Memory cards were able to be “preloaded” with negative votes. And the list goes on. The past 100 years of US voting machine technology goes back and forth between reliability and convenience. In the 1900s, the first machines which mechanically tallied votes were used, but they had no paper trail or way of auditing. These were switched out for paper ballots until the onset of touchscreen Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines in the 2000s, which again had no papertrail. Over the next 20 years those machines were decertified as fraud-ready and replaced with what we have today: paper ballots which are filled in, and then optically scanned by tabulator machines. Meanwhile, Europe skipped all this and just stayed on classic paper ballots. The ability to verify ballot-counting with one’s own eyes and without technical knowledge is even considered a German constitutional right. U.S. States have guidelines and thresholds for when to do a recount, when and how to do spot checks, how to test machines and verify results, and so on. These are not always perfect, as we’ll see below. Election Fraud in Russia It is widely believed by many analysts that electoral manipulation under Vladimir Putin’s leadership dates back to the early years of his presidency. Since his first presidential win in 2000 observers have noted unusual patterns in vote tallies. These include margins exceeding 70% in key contests, such as a constitutional amendment to allow him more terms. One of the most compelling indicators of potential fraud in Russian elections is what researchers refer to as the "Russian Tail." In a genuinely free and fair election, the polarity of one candidate across polling stations typically forms a smooth bell curve—a natural outcome of statistical variation. Most polling stations are near the average for the election, and a low number are heavily favoring one candidate or another. However, in several Russian and Russian-influenced elections, the shape of the curve instead appears to be made up of two bell curves overlaid. This indicates a second normal distribution consisting of false votes which were injected. An alternative explanation for the shape has yet to be found. The U.S. 2024 Presidential Election Without publicly available election audits being pursued by Kamala or (as far as we know) intelligence agencies, several volunteer organizations have sprung up in their stead. * Election Truth Alliance is a small volunteer group which has so far found the Russian tail in data available in the swing states of both Nevada and Pennsylvania. If their data is correct it would mean the election outcome should have been different. They’re running a petition to audit the votes, and a fundraiser for when the petition fails. * SMART elections is one of the first volunteer groups to have raised the alarm. They published the first findings of a phenomenon called ballot drop-off, which is a measurement of how often ballots vote entirely for one party, but the opposite party for president. When widespread, consistent, and with one-sided biases, this can be a sign of vote tampering. Let me be clear: these organizations are not claiming this is evidence of fraud. Weird data patterns alone are not enough for that. But they are reasonable cause to keep digging. And that requires time, money, and loud public demands. Per-Machine “Turnout” Analysis The data made available for analysis by counties is limited. They release the proportion of vote which went for each candidate, with the highest granularity ranging from the precinct level (Pennsylvania) to the voting machine itself (Nevada). When data is analyzed carefully however, one can learn a lot. One angle to look at the data from with a histogram. In the following chart, datapoints are lined up in percentiles left to right. A precinct all the way left would have had nobody show up to vote, and on the right would have gotten votes from everybody who’s registered. The Y axis is the number of votes which each candidate got in that precinct. Just mail-in votes first: Some things stand out: * Harris got a lot more votes. This makes sense, as cities are expected to lean heavily blue, as is mail-in voting. * This looks at total vote numbers, so as expected the right-hand side of each line is a little higher than the left-hand side. * There’s big spikes in the blue line. I haven’t looked at which counties those are, but I’m guessing some counties pull strongly towards Harris. Now, looking at election-day results: What stands out? * Still, Harris got more votes here. Also note the absolute numbers are different, topping out at ~30k votes, not ~10k. Curves are correspondingly less jaggy. * It’s hard to be sure, but there’s what could be a tail on the right hand side of the red votes. It looks like it’s dropping off, but around 60% turnout it spikes back up again sharply. This is far from conclusive, but I built a little tool so you can try for yourself fitting curves to these charts. This doesn’t really seem too crazy by itself, but it demonstrates a concerning trend. This same shape appears in precinct after precinct in Pennsylvania, and tabulator after tabulator in Nevada. The research is still ongoing. Counting Votes-Per-Machine in Nevada Election Truth Alliance’s analysis is able to look at the results of individual voting machines in Nevada. They look at each machine, count the number of votes on it at the end of the day, and look at the fraction per candidate. For machines with low numbers of votes, you should expect to see a wide range of percentage from each candidate, as a small number of polarized people in that area can make a big difference. There should be a convergence as number of votes per machines goes up. ..And it does cluster, but not in the way one would expect: * In a fair election, you would expect to see the right hand of the graph converging in about the middle of the dots on the left hand. In this graph, that would be at about a 50% share. * In a fair election, you would expect to see the convergence happen gradually as counts per machine go upwards. Neither of those is the case here. Around the 300 votes-per-machine mark, there’s a sharp upswing towards 60%

    27 min

  3. 26/08/2024

    When does electrifying a widget actually reduce emissions?

    For many people wanting to electrify something in their home - be it a car, water heater, or something else - there remains a burning question: do I do it now, or wait for my appliance to fail? The simplest way to answer this is by looking at the ratio of new pieces of equipment made in the world, and making sure as many of those are the clean version as possible.  I.e., the way to reduce the most CO2 emissions is to buy a new electric car, and sell your old car to someone who would otherwise buy a new ICE vehicle.  Not only does this maximize the electric equipment being deployed at home, but dollars spent frequently support new companies developing these products at a time when they need the sales the most. There are many other nuances to this question, from analyzing the emissions of a particular widget being manufactured, to gauging the cultural influence of someone seeing their peer make new technology choices - and be happy with them.  Let's dive in. Electric Vehicles Emissions from Manufacturing Large corporations will typically produce annual sustainability reports.  These are intended to be easy for anyone to read.  Partially thanks to pressure from ESG investor groups like Parnassuss this is becoming more of a reality.  (I'm linking to parnassus because their website has third-party vetting material, including their own impact studies.) Tesla's annual report shows their cars need to be driven about 13k miles for emissions of manufacture to be net-zero. This depends on a number of factors, such as where the vehicle was produced and the cleanliness of the grid where it is operated.  Bottom line - even if Tesla is padding by a factor of two, vehicles would be likely to be net-zero within two years for most drivers, and then just keep getting better as vehicles are used on increasingly clean grids.  When a vehicle reaches its end of life, that battery can be recycled (such as on Currents Marketplace) or used for static grid-storage. On average, EVs emit roughly a quarter more CO2 during manufacturing than ICE cars, but this quickly pays off even on the dirtiest electric grid, as the images below show.  Even mining itself is showing its first hints of electrification– this electric excavator has been operating in Australia since 2023, and has moved more than one million tons of ore. Global emissions are reduced the fastest if the ratio of new cars sold moves quickly to electric.  For someone in the position to do so, buying a new EV and selling a good used ICE car helps EV manufacturers on the one hand, while discouraging the purchase of new gas cars due to a healthy used-car market. Emissions from Driving It may be a surprise to hear that even an EV on North America's dirtiest electric grid is still a cleaner choice than operating a vehicle with an internal combustion engine. We can explore the data with CarbonCounter, a little gem out of MIT.  The tool creates a chart of emissions (Y axis) vs cost (X axis) of all sorts of cars, and even lets you see results set to the electric makeup of particular US states.   Even a grid with coal is more efficient than a gas car. This is partially due to the efficiency of industrial-scale generators, which can sometimes get to 50% efficiency compared to the 30% of a gas car, and partially due to the fact that every EV has regenerative braking, letting it charge up when slowing down or going downhills. Emissions from the Home Emissions from heating a home can be notoriously high – for most households, slightly more CO2 is emitted annually from heating than from driving.  Modern Heat Pumps are state-of-the-art, as they use electricity to move heat from outdoors to indoors at about 25-35% the cost of the traditional electric-resistance heating briefly popularized in the 70s.  For 98% of U.S. houses today, a heat pump will produce less emissions than what is currently installed. How it works: A heat pump can be thought of as a large sponge, soaking up heat outdoors and "wringing it out" inside.  You can learn more on my Homeowner's Guide to Cold Climate Heat Pumps. Manufacturing emissions of heat pumps is rarely talked about.  I suspect this is because they don't have a battery requiring co2-intensive mining.  Nonetheless, I took a quick look at Mitsubishi's sustainability report, and confirmed they do have Net-Zero commitments with milestones at 2050, 2030, etc. A secondary source of emissions occurs if a heat pump leaks high-pressure refrigerant into the atmosphere.  Even accounting for this, a heat pump is by far the preferable choice.  Also, modern refrigerants, such as R-454B, Propane, and CO2, are working their way to North America, reducing the cost of leakage. In New England, Heat Pumps + Wood Stoves are a popular combination, in part thanks to the sentimentality of woodstoves and the unreliability of the electric grid.  There's a huge range between the CO2 of a tree cut in your own lawn with emission-free tools, and wood trucked in with diesel, or even brought across the Atlantic ocean (shipping wood to England for their "green" bio-fuel has become a recent scandal).  Modern woodstoves have secondary burners and catalysts in their exhaust manifold, letting them burn all night, and pushing efficiency up to 80% or more. Cook-Stoves Induction and electric stoves may have a longer CO2 payoff period than a heat pump water heater or mini-split at home, as they typically use less fuel annually and don't have the greater-than-100% efficiency which heat pumps have.  Still, there's a strong rationale to switch, including well-documented asthma correlations. Cultural Effects A single homeowner cannot solve climate change on their own, but they can as part of a movement.  That only happens if one follows a piece of entrepreneurial advice I saw years ago: Do Things, tell people. Any new technology, from heat pumps to green steel smelting, will fall somewhere on the "market penetration" curve below.  As we electrify everything, myriads of people are working in every industry to move their particular puzzle piece forward and incrementally more "green".  And almost every one (perhaps outside of solar and wind) is in an early adopter phase.  And none of them get out of that phase without those early adopters buying in, trying the tech, and telling people. Right now US steelmaking is in its infancy – it's in the "innovators" phase for green steel.  Green steel plants have been being built across the US for years, with billions more in funding being awarded just weeks ago.  In a world perfectly optimized for fastest CO2 reduction, this curve for green steel might overlap exactly with that of electric stoves and other manufacturing – but trying to time your purchase to force that is guesswork at best. US households might be somewhere in the "Early adopters" phase with our electric or induction stove usage. Although the technology is mature, their popularity is more nascent.  Reasons for this range from from induction stoves having taken longer to invent and being more costly, to the more adversarial "Operation Attack" in which the American Gas Association, funded by your utility bills, went on the offensive to downplay stove emissions while glorifying the superpowers of cooking on gas (including an infiltration of Julia Child's wonderful TV show).   Contrary to the belief that gas cooktops can't be beat, If you ask a person who owns an induction stove they will probably tell you about how quickly it boils water and how easily it keeps constant heat. Electric vehicles are in the early majority, with Europe and China leading the way.  Back in 2022, 22% of vehicles sold in China were all electric! The Hard Part - Living with it Like it or not, the world we live in is built on fossil fuels.  It's the unfortunate truth that, as Bill McKibben says, to care about one's own emissions today is an uncomfortable exercise in hypocrisy.  There's usually no easy or fun way out.  But we can take some solace in the fact that every EV on the road, heat pump installed, or stove electrified brings down our own emissions and that of the fields we work in.  If it wasn't for the very first EV drivers, there would not be infrastructure for today's EVs to use. If it wasn't for the first homes with solar, we wouldn't see today's homes with negative power consumption. Special thanks to Jordan Angerosa for reviewing & contributing to this post This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pehrlich.substack.com

    10 min

  4. 28/01/2024

    An Address to the Jericho Affordable Housing Committee

    Six months ago, as my town was reviewing its town plan, I delivered a passionate (but somewhat limited in effect) public comment asking them to address climate change in our upcoming town plan. As projects wrapped up in the ensuing months, I had more time to think about how we as a town can be proactive in doing our part to prevent climate change, and I kept coming to the same conclusion - limit the usage of fossil fuels in new construction buildings. Over time I’ve learned that many cities/towns and even several states have passed laws requiring renewable or clean energy be used in any new buildings built. These include California, New York State, Colorado, Montreal, Quebec, and many others. These places see how much easier it is to build without fossil fuels in comparison to retrofitting existing buildings, and they see great benefit in being proactive. Burlington and South Burlington in Vermont have passed similar laws, but the state as a whole remains silent on how we build our buildings. (Vermonters are of course known for being both stubbornly independent and intentionally considerate – two competing & complementing elements in this decision). Over time I’ve gotten to know the stories of Seattle WA, Beacon NY, and South Burlington as citizens have enacted change in their cities. Those stories proved inspiring, and so I teamed up with my neighbor Maeve to give this a shot. In December we held a pot-luck for anyone curious about the conversation, and to our amazement, about twenty people showed up, of different ages, political parties, and knowledge levels on the issue. We shared a rough plan, designed in imitation of South Burlington: require that 85% of heating and water needs in a new building can be met with renewable energy (effectively that means installing heat pumps). Engaging discussion left us motivated to continue, and connected us with folks on the Planning Committee and Affordability Committee. In January I presented to the Jericho Affordability Committee – 30 minutes on the costs of new construction with heat pumps (in most cases there’s small savings, in almost no cases is it an outsized expense), and another 30 minutes of discussion with committee members. Some folks found it hard to believe that a heat pump is 300% or more efficient, while others had already gone fully-electric and were happy to share their experiences with the technology. From there we went to discussions with the Jericho Energy Task Force (which I’m a member of), where we met up with Andrew Chalnik from South Burlington to learn from his experience, and even one of our district’s house-members stopped by. At this point, the Planning Commission has agreed to a joint meeting between them, the Jericho Energy Task Force, and the Affordability Committee. Scheduling is to be determined. If that goes well, the Planning Commission would hold a series of public hearings, and eventually update our zoning. I’m eager to see where this goes, have met many lovely people, and have immensely enjoyed the process so far. There’s so much that I’ve learned about climate-friendly technology over the past year, so it’s gratifying to find that there are many folks who are eager to learn what steps are feasible for them to take as the whole world muddles through that same question. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pehrlich.substack.com

    4 min

  5. 08/12/2023

    How I decarbonized my home for $3,000

    From growing up on a small farm in upstate NY, I have vivid memories of holding the blow-torch for my dad on a plumbing project when I was probably 10 years old.  He did all the work on the house himself (with the occasional help from an offspring), and so when it came time to electrify my house, I decided to DIY it as well.  Here's how it went. The Stove We have a propane stove.  Perhaps some love them, but for me it means a dose of asthma and venting all the heat out of the house.  Fortunately, there's one very simple solution I got from a friend - we bought a couple of $50-$100 induction hot-plates online, and placed them on top of the stove.  They serve most of our cooking needs, and give us a chance to learn what pots work (cast iron: yes, enamel and steel: yes, glass and aluminum and copper: no). In some respects this is a poor facsimile to a proper induction stove-top, however.  The burners, although more responsive than either "classic" electric or propane, are still small.  At some point, we hope to finish our upgrade, either to a normal induction stove (perhaps keeping our propane camp-stove around in-case of multi-day power outages), or getting one of those swanky stoves with a built in battery and a 110V hookup which avoids requiring any electrical work. The Water Heater We looked at our water next.  It was right before summer, and some A/C in the house would be a nice perk.  Besides that, ditching our propane water heater in favor of one with a heat pump would save us money - $300-$400 or so a year, and so we wanted to start saving right away. Out-of-pocket cost was around $2k, with a few hundred more for tools.  We went from a 50-gallon tank to a 65-gallon one.  The small price difference seemed worthwhile to make sure we had a good experience with the new technology.  The heater comes with four buttons, which let you change modes from full heat-pump (most cost efficient, but puts out cold air you might not want in the winter) to full classic/resistance electric (more expensive, but doesn't remove heat from the house).  We've found the cooling effect to be mild. If I were to do this again, I would consider getting one of Rheem's 110v versions instead of a hybrid on 240v.  That wouldn't have the classic/electric heating element, but we've been fine only using the heat-pump mode, and that would have saved us the extra wiring as well as valuable space in our circuit-breaker box. Heating our House The trickiest job, saved for the end.  Our home has a wood-stove on one end, and a propane monitor on the other.  To do this by the book, one would first weatherize the home, and then have mini-splits installed to replace the propane, while leaving the wood-stove for backup.  We decided to take the Window Dressers approach for weatherization, and move on. We gathered a few quotes for the mini-split, which ranged about $6k-$7k, without including wiring from one end of the house to the other.  While I was obsessing over the technicalities, I discovered that Senville makes a decent cold-climate rated heat pump, available online.  (Note: make sure any heat pump you consider in this area is rated for full heat output at -13°F or below). (Second note: the current Senville heat pumps are unfortunately significantly less cost-effective to run than the Mitsubishi, Fujitsu, Daikin, and others. Typical COP of 2 vs 3). Joining forces with a friend, we undertook the significant task of teaching ourselves to become amateur HVAC technicians.  On the plus side, we'd get heat pumps for one third the cost for both of our homes.  On the downside, we would not have warranties on the completed projects, and if we messed up, we would run the risk of destroying the units, or venting refrigerant into the atmosphere with thousands of times the Greenhouse Warming Potential of CO2. After about a month of prep, $600 in tools, and a couple of days' install per-house, we have two units installed and holding strong as the winter months kick in.  Yes we messed up along the way, and no we didn't accidentally leak refrigerant. If I were doing this again, I would consider a monobloc unit. These are uncommon, but far friendlier to install DIY.  A monobloc heat-pump keeps all its refrigerant inside a single machine (the block), avoiding the need to run refrigerant lines into the house - the hardest part of the install.  Instead, air or liquid enters the house after being warmed.  These are far more common in the UK, but I'm not sure if they provide cooling in the summer.  Heat pumps in the US often have an efficiency factor (COP) of around 4.  They output four times the energy in heat as they take in in electricity.  This factor drops as outdoor temperatures drop.  A seasonal average for Vermont is typically around 3, or less if you're at higher elevation.  New heat pumps will eventually get here, with Propane, CO2, or R32 as refrigerants, which can push that COP up to 5x. Total costs: $150 induction burners + $2,100 water heater + $2,000 mini-split + $600 tools + $300 misc = $5,150 Subtract 30% tax credit and $650 Efficiency Vermont incentive for the water heater and we get: $2,955 total cost! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pehrlich.substack.com

    6 min

  6. 18/06/2023

    Meeting with 427 Congressmen in one day

    Six months ago I woke up at four AM, unable to sleep due to an overabundance of worrying about emissions.  That became a blog post on carbon pricing systems which taught me that there are more than sixty national & regional programs which exist in the world today.   Through writing that post I also discovered Citizens’ Climate Lobby, which exists to forward carbon pricing programs in the U.S.  Their approach intrigued me for being outspokenly civilized: bi-partisan, respectful, and earnestly valuing relationships over demands. As a CCL member, I recently made a trip to join a thousand other volunteer lobbyists on our annual visit to the offices of our Senators and House-members in Washington D.C.  Until talking with congressmen myself, I couldn't fully understand why we were invited back year after year to visit with red and blue representatives alike. After participating in our democracy for the day, I feel we played some small part in moving a constructive dialog forward in our country’s national decision making body: the U.S. Congress. Carbon Fee & Dividend Citizens’ Climate Lobby was founded in 2007 with the goal of advocating for one simple policy: put a fee on carbon emissions at the source: be that a coal mine, an oil-well, or a port-of-entry.  The funds raised will not go to the government but would be returned to citizens by a monthly check. This is carefully designed as bi-partisan through years of work to hear concerns across the political spectrum: the price on carbon is about as free-market as can be, leaving it up to businesses to transition fuel sources in the least wasteful (and most cost-saving) way possible. At the same time, the dividends go back to the American people rather than growing the size of government programs. There's a brilliant simplicity to the model.  Of course a fee on energy stands to increase the price of all goods which are transported or grown with energy.  This causes not only a push towards a clean energy transition, but also incentivizes domestic and local economies, narrowing the wealth gap.  While prices rise, citizens get checks to help offset these costs. The majority of Ameicans use below-average amounts of energy: the wealthiest Americans fly and consume many times more, and can more afford the increased costs of those things.  The majority of American households benefit under a Carbon Fee & Dividend. This model has been well proven time and again.  British Columbia has had a carbon tax since 2008, and has a well studied small economic gain relative to other Canadian provinces.  Alaska has a similar program whereby fees from oil leases are returned to Alaskan citizens by check.  New energy projects require predictable economic models in order to make large long-lead investments – such as Arkansas's investment into "green" Steel.  A price on carbon protects new businesses which are developing cleaner manufacturing techniques. Carbon Fee and Dividend is shown to be an incredibly effective climate policy.  Those curious about the science behind it can start with the MIT modeled EN-Roads online simulator of global temperatures. The EN-Roads simulator.  The black line represents our current future with no policy intervention of any sort, and the blue with a price on carbon. You may be concerned about countries without a carbon price undercutting the U.S. domestic market - and rightly so.  Europe, with one of the strongest carbon prices, is solving this by introducing in 2024 a tariff on imported goods according to their "embodied" carbon, which matches their domestic carbon price.   This is already having a pronounced effect.  The U.S. congress is considering its own Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) in response, with some groundwork being laid out in the PROVE-IT act in the Senate.  The People of Citizens’ Climate Lobby I find that one of the many valuable qualities a person can have is the ability to think about how the smallest details of action fit into a narrative far larger than themselves.  This, in addition to compassion, drive, and empathy, is what "CCLers" have in spades. When you think "environmentalist", you may think about someone chaining themselves to a bulldozer or throwing orange slime on a painting.  You may think of someone with a blind hatred of some development, but without the ability to work constructively within a system to manifest the change they wish to see. When you think "lobbyist", you may think about someone with two briefcases of money and a head for nothing but selfishness and greed, looking for the first representative he or she can buy.  I learned a new term this weekend - congressmen call them "Lizard Lobbyists". CCL bucks both of these ideas.  Instead, CCL embodies by-the-book de-escalation, nonviolent communication, and relationship-based negotiation. The proof of success is that CCL has been welcomed into the offices of the Capitol building every year for more than the past decade.   I didn't understand why this worked until hearing  second hand, and eventually first hand, about the positive reputation which precedes us to any office.  Legislators are used to being cursed out by those who feel angry and wronged by lack of climate action.  They are used to having their heartstrings yanked out of their chests by dying cancer patients.  And they are used to being bought and sold by companies who seek power over them.   Their job is to meet with the people they represent.  And when those people come in politely, interested in learning about their needs, and with an ask for a simple and well researched bi-partisan policy? It's music to their ears. Of course, it is not always like that.  There are 535 members of congress, and collectively we were only able to meet with about 80% of them.  Some of those meeting requests were canceled, cut short, or ignored.  But others were not.  It might surprise you to learn that the Conservative Climate Solutions Caucus is the second largest conservative caucus.  It might surprise you to learn that one conservative congressperson, to the lobbying team's shock and surprise, greeted them with beers, food, and a personal capitol tour.  What Works for Everyone As someone who's almost always lived in blue-leaning areas, I was interested in what conservative folks would say about this policy, and climate change in general, in a safe and educated environment.  I was certainly rewarded for my efforts, when at the start of a meeting with a conservative staffer, I was greeted with something to the effect of "Dems may not be used to this idea, but we're not a party of climate deniers". By and large, we saw immense relief from conservatives when they saw that our policy, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (or EICDA for short), does not put the funds towards residential weatherization, or clean-tech research, or anything specific at all - but just back into the pockets of Americans.  Given the sometimes even life-or-death effects of even marginal price increases for the many Americans living close to the poverty line, this makes a heck of a lot of sense. We also saw a strong desire from lawmakers, especially on the right, to build up American innovation.  They understand the cost of outsourcing our labor to the developing world in the name of cheap stuff, and the benefit of having our own local economy buoyed instead: our own steel making and other industries are already cleaner than the world average, and pricing for clean energy would have an immediate effect locally.   Heck, even speaking as someone who is like-as-not to be labeled as environmentalist, I would rather see battery-mineral mining happening on-shore where we can regulate the pollution caused.   "Environmentalists" Become Pro-Development Transitioning our nation to clean energy will require substantial new infrastructure, and CCL advocates a bi-partisan approach to developing it.  The clean energy sources we have to work with are solar (especially in the southern states), wind (especially offshore and on the plains), and maybe nuclear power (if we align new technology and public sentiment).  That's pretty much it.  Nothing new is going to appear and be scaled-up on the time-horizons at which we as a species must move. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, known as FERC, has the ability to site Natural Gas and other pipelines using eminent domain, with minimal input from the states through which the pipelines are built.  If that same amount of energy were transmitted electrically instead, the project could easily have an added 5-10 years of high-risk permitting negotiations. As a result, Pipelines are fast-tracked while fossil-free projects are faced with complex, often duplicative, bureaucratic delays.  Many states have ambitious clean energy goals by 2030, and the power transmission has to exist at significant scale at that point; current permitting rules make it unlikely we can reach the emissions reduction goals we have set for ourselves.  David Roberts has some more detail in one of his posts. Furthermore, research has shown that 80-90% of new projects blocked under environmental NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) review are clean-energy ones, and calls are strong to speed up the review process to approve and deny projects more quickly. In the halls of Congress we were chatting with one Democratic Senator when he asked us about these issues.  Hearing we were for electric transmission, he broke out in a wide grin and "Where have you been all this time?" Lobby-Day Weekend After a certain amount of climate reading, it feels almost impossible to stomach non-essential air travel.  Fortunately for us, Amtrak service in Vermont works well, and CCLers make good company on a day's train ride.  Once in D.C., Sunday and Monday were spent in all manner of talks and conferences, before a Tuesday of meetings with members of Congress. CCL did a superb job of wel

    18 min

  7. 23/02/2023

    A Sneak Peak of a New Project

    Hello! Welcome back to Into the Details. When I first started this blog, I did not have a clear single idea of how I wanted to be spending my time. But I figured if I tried enough different things, one clear motivating concept would show up – and it has. Over the past few posts I’ve enjoyed researching and writing about climate & energy. What I’ve enjoyed even more has been the numerous one-on-one discussions which have resulted as folks come with their own ideas and are happy to have someone to conference with. It has made me wish I could do a deep dive into each new technology, policy piece, or climate business idea which begins making waves - but there’s no way I could have time for that. But I can do something better: write a software platform — and build a community around it — which enables people to turn their own climate frustration into high-impact action on climate change. Three Hurdles of Personal Action There are three major hurdles which must be crossed before someone takes action on climate change. And because almost everyone uses fossil fuels to heat their home and move them around our planet, almost everyone must face these hurdles in the coming years. * Social acceptance: Will my neighbor or family judge me? And will I have the facts I need to stand up to scrutiny if necessary? * Time: Do I have time to learn what the problem is and how to fix it? * Finances: Can I afford the changes? What will I be giving up? The Zero Percent Club The Club fosters a community base which starts with social acceptance. When taking steps towards personal net-zero, it is easiest to move ahead with those who are already mission-aligned, rather than moving forward alone, or by trying to convince some who happens to be nearby, but not care as much. The Zero Percent Club will facilitate this by allowing the creation of small “accountability groups” of 5-10 people to support one-another as they learn about climate change, their impact, and their personal solutions. Many “personal infrastructure” projects are major projects like buying a new car, with the added difficulty of an entirely new set of evaluation metrics. Here we speak in terms of kWh instead of mpg, CO2 efficiency instead of fuel efficiency, and investment instead of cost. Both technology and regulation are changing rapidly, highly localized, and filled with mis-information and the fear of mis-information. In many cases, the best way to navigate these challenges is directly with the help of someone you know and trust who can share the load, coupled with access to the best resources available. We want the work you put in to have the largest decarbonizing impact possible. This can be done by showcasing your progress towards zero and helping others along the same journey. We’ll have a personal tracker you can share with friends, encourage members to write guides as contributions to a common knowledge base, and will even have lawn signs available to showcase your mission and the work you’ve done. Finally, changing personal infrastructure can sometimes be prohibitively expensive or require ownership of a residence. Our mission is to include everyone with a mission of decarbonization, even if they don’t have the means to do all of the upgrades, or even any of the upgrades, in rapid order. There are many ways in which a group of mission-aligned people, especially when sufficiently localized, can have a much larger impact that any one person could alone. Whether this means changing banks, having solar pay for itself, or showing up at your town council meeting with a voice for — and knowledge of — decarbonization, there are ways for everyone to make a dent. Demo Time Enough talk - let’s do a demo of the tracker. Here I show an example of what a personal tracker can look like. That’s it for now! A big shout-out to Ben Eidelson and Jordan Angerosa for numerous brainstorming sessions around this concept. Next we’re getting together a “Pod Zero” – the first group of folks interested in decarbonizing together, and we’d love to hear your thoughts. What project would you want to learn about or share your work on the site was live? (P.S. You can also check out the placeholder site at thezeropercentclub.org) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pehrlich.substack.com

    7 min

  8. 17/01/2023

    Glaciers, Electric Cars, and Austerity

    Welcome to Into the Details. My name is Peter Ehrlich, and in this post, I talk about when climate change became “real” for me, before going in depth on my everyday experience in 2022 as an EV driver, and how I carbon-offset flights. I wrap up with a related note on policies of austerity, and how the concept updated the way I understand the world. In the following posts, I’ll talk about decarbonizing personal finances and dwellings, and touch on some of the groups working to make the process easier. Also: I work fully remotely, and often miss many of the casual in-person interactions to be had among new faces and old. I invite you to book time on pehrlich.com/meet, or simply drop in and say hello on our brand new Discord Server. A Personal Note How my eyes were opened to the effects of Climate change. I was astonished when I visited a glacier in Alaska while on vacation in 2018. The following story made a huge impression on me at the time, and has stuck with me ever since. At the Harding Ice Field, my partner and I parked our rental car in the tidy National Parks lot, slathered on sunscreen on a hot July day, loaded up our Nalgene water bottles, and started our hike out from the trailhead. We were excited for our first chance to walk on a real glacier, but it wasn’t yet anywhere to be seen. Instead was a thick forested path, some typical Alaskan bear warnings, and a small wooden sign labeled “1926”. “That’s odd” I thought, and kept walking. About a half mile later, we passed another sign, this time labeled “1951”. Our perplexion led us to check the visitor’s pamphlet, which described the trail we were walking on as the old area of the glacier. The signs indicated how far the glacier had extended on a given year. The path was miles long. We continued walking, passing more signs, sweating, listening to the cicadas, and eventually wound up in the hills finally sighting the snow and ice. The next day we went on kayaks around the other side, and watched at a distance as blocks as big as buildings broke off and fell into the ocean every few minutes. Ever since then, I’ve been struck by the immensity of the problem before us. Is this proof of human-made climate change? Of course not. But it is proof of warming in this part of the world, which I regard as a tragedy and a personal responsibility not to be side-stepped. Today’s post is the first in a series on what I’ve found since 2018 which a person can do to impact climate change positively. The process at its core is very simple: find everything you do which emits greenhouse gases either directly or indirectly, and find an alternative to replace it. With this guide, you can personally hit net-zero far before the 2040 or 2050 national timelines. It falls on those who are already thinking about these issues to lead the way by showing this can be done. It is my hope that you will join me for the journey. Electric Cars - What’s on the market? If you, like many people, are considering the jump from an internal combustion (ICE) vehicle to an electric one, it is most likely you are considering one of two philosophies. 1) The two-car mindset. In this case, buy a lower-cost EV for daily use. Save money on lower range and slower charging, but maybe fall back to internal combustion for longer trips. The car will still be comfortable and nice to drive. 2) The one-car mindset. Pay 50-100% more for an EV which does “all the things” - long range, super fast charging, spacious, handles terrain, and whatever your requirements may be. To evaluate a vehicle, you will likely have to learn at least one new term: Level 3 “DC fast charging”. Level 3 charging works at a rate of more than 150kW, and can probably get your car charged in 20 minutes. Both car and charger need to support it, and vehicles supporting this are rare outside of Tesla today, as is the charging infrastructure. Level 2 chargers and car combinations are typically around 50-70kW, and a complete charge is measured in 1-4 hours. This vlog is less than flattering towards Electrify America's and EVGo’s charging infra in comparison to Tesla’s. (correction: level 2 is up to 20kW. "Level 3” charging covers a wide range in experience between that and 150kW.) Also know that charging rates are not constant for batteries - the rate is highest between 15% and 80% battery capacity, so you may see some variety in reported charging speeds online. The best standard is to use that midrange, as that is where most of the charging happens except for carefully planned single-shot trips or trip segments which use 90%+ of a battery. For the “two car mindset”, the Chevy Bolt and Kia Niro are good examples. They top out at 60-70kW charging speed, or about 150 miles (of range) per hour. Reports from acquaintances are that they love their Chevy Bolts ❤️ and that the Ioniq 5 is good for fast charging and large capacity, while making the ID.4 feel “heavy”. Note: In researching for this blog, I found ev-database.org to be a wonderful resource, particularly for European readers, as it has 184 EVs documented, quickly filterable by range, price, make, availability, and so on. They say US support is on their roadmap. My Tesla Experience In February 2022 I received my Tesla Model 3 Long Range. I chose this car because I wanted the cheapest zero-emission car I could find which would have access to the best charging infrastructure. The long-range version is recommended in colder Northeastern climates due to the 10-20% cold-weather drop in usable battery capacity. Because of that and some occasional trips across the country, the Model 3 Long Range is what I went with. By now I’ve gotten used to a standard set of questions from curious folks, which I will detail below. The Driving Needless to say, the car is stupidly fun to drive, as is universally reported. My experience was particularly good on the snow, with traction-controlled AWD being a huge step up from a 2wd Kia Soul. I can just drive on through conditions where I used to need chains. Although the car comes with two keycards, most of the time I just use my phone in my pocket as the key. The car feels somehow like driving a big smartphone: I just sit down and go. No ignition. Quiet electric hum. It is particularly nice when you want a warm space to sit in the winter - no need to keep the engine running to generate heat or cold. The Range In 2022, I drove more than fifteen thousand miles in the car. I’ve taken it to the shop zero times, and had zero issues more severe than figuring out how to operate the gear-shift lever on day one. I was worried about the build quality scare going around at the time, and need not have been. The pickup experience was, for me, exciting. I installed the app on my phone, pressed the “blink lights” button to find my car in the Tesla lot, and drove away. I didn’t even step inside to talk to anyone. Naturally I started with some range anxiety, but after a few trips I came to really trust the vehicle for the following reasons: * Estimated range has been spot-on, with a variance of a few percentage points at most. I’ve had stress only once when driving between multiple far-flung destinations in northern New Hampshire where I also was not able to charge overnight. This is the one time I had to wait for a few hours at a (free!) Level 2 non-Tesla charger at a grocery store. * To give you an idea of mindset: I very casually keep the battery at the recommended 80%, and make a two hour weekend trip, arriving at 40%. For longer trips, nothing really changes: If I’m on a four hour drive instead, it will automatically insert a charging stop on my route as I type it into the nav system. * Charging stops are fast. You might not realize it, but you can easily spend 5-10 minutes pumping gas when you need to fuel up and use the bathroom. This car charges in about 15-20 minutes (note: this a standard charge from 20 to 80%), which gives me time for a bathroom break and maybe a snack. After 3-4 hours of driving, a few minutes to respond to messages is a blessing. Finally, this may sound odd, but I really do not miss the smell of gasoline at the pump, or standing out in the cold waiting for the hydrocarbons to make their journey into my tank before the next step in their journey. I’ve driven from NY to CO and back twice now - once in a Kia Soul and once in the Tesla, each time doing the driving in just two days. The extra charging turns an ~18 hour day of driving into a little over a 19 hour day. Of course, about two hours are spent charging, not one, but it seems that I spend about an hour fueling and eating even with the gas car. I’m getting to know the charging stations well by now - and have a new love for the midwestern grocery store HyVee for its delicious sandwich fixins and on-site superchargers. Overall, my fuel stress is less than when I owned the Kia. Why? Because you always have to pay attention to fuel levels on a gasoline car. Sometimes, you need to go on an errand, and the amount of time it takes doubles because you parked on “empty”. On the contrary, even with only a 110v charger at home, I know I’m always going to have enough juice for my daily routine (see the grey bars in the chart in the “Cost” section below. Red bars were trips to CO and elsewhere). The Emissions Skeptics will be quick to point out the embedded cost of carbon in a Tesla. That is, the amount of CO2e emitted during manufacture. This is a little overblown. The carbon is offset within about 13,000 miles (See the Tesla Impact Report). For me, this is less than a year. What you don’t see mentioned often is that the purchase of a new electric car, when combined with the sale of an old gas car, replaces the purchase of a new gas car. For a full comparison of embedded carbon in different vehicles, see the charts in this article. (edit: Note of course Tesla’s impact re

    30 min

  9. 02/01/2023

    A Bi-Partisan Carbon Tax? [Part II]

    In Part I of this series, I talked about the European Union, their moderating effect upon Ukrainian corruption, and their carbon tax implemented as an Emissions Trading System about 10 years ago. Today I go on to discuss the surprisingly advanced state of carbon taxation around the world, including the US. As a reminder, ETS systems are a “Cap & Trade” — a budget for carbon emissions by industry. Emission Trading Schemes Go Global I’ve found the scale of Emissions marketplaces and carbon taxes to be surprising in scope. According to the 2022 World Bank Report, there are 68 (!) programs implemented today, covering 23% of global emissions, including a giant spike in 2021 as China’s program came online covering 5% of global emissions. Although the U.S. is not present nationally, New England (RGGI) and California each have their programs, as well as Canada. (Of course, this still leaves 75%+ of emissions as not-yet covered). In no cases are emissions credits fungible (exchangeable) between programs. I expect that will come much later, once the world has worked out practical and effective standards of quality. There is a wide range in prices (cost per ton CO2 emitted), but most fall short of the $50-100/ton estimated as necessary to hit net-zero 2050. For example, presently RGGI in New England comes in at $13/ton emitted, where it is capped. Compare that to Sweden and Switzerland’s >$100/ton prices, and the EU-ETS market price of about €90. Note that Germany also has a standalone ETS program, which additively covers land transport, which are not covered by EU-ETS. And here is the 2022 coverage map: Although ETS programs are slow to claim victory (conservatively, the price point needs to be $50-$100 in order to hit 1.5°. Estimates go as high as $100/ton), there are some little wins. In countries which are even considering starting a Carbon Tax or ETS program, companies are five times more likely to implement an internal corporate carbon price. The United States is leader in number of companies implementing or planning internal pricing. This is of course not the end of the picture. US H.R.2307 proposes a revenue-neutral carbon tax, and is advocated for by Citizens Climate Lobby. There are many more regional, state, county, and city resolutions as well - but will have to wait for a followup post. I thought this state-of-global-ETS overview given on a webinar for Indonesian climate policy was quite good: Video from Ernst & Young - April 2022. If you are surprised to see Indonesia here, it might be helpful to know that they burn a lot of coal, process on-site many raw materials necessary for batteries, and are, as an island nation with a high ratio of coastal to land area, going to be one of the nations most effected by climate change. The report also acknowledges both that both explicit policy as we’ve been discussing so far and implicit policy affect the carbon prices. Fossil fuel subsidies are one example of an implicit policy. A 2021 study published by Nature Finance shows how different country’s COVID stimulus packages have affected “green” goals. The Catch - International Trade Everything discussed so far has had to do with counties or regions enacting regulation within their own borders. This a powerful lever, and can have international leverage as well. For example, Ukraine has built its own ETS compliance with EU standards. However, Carbon Taxes & Marketplaces can be their own ruin if not balanced against foreign competition. As local taxes go up, business will leave the region. This effect, known as “Carbon Leakage”, is minimal so far as taxes are light, but in order to reach necessary levels, the effects must be stronger. Now like me you might be wondering: why in the heck would a country tax their own businesses when they could sling down a protective tariff which taxes everyone else instead? This has been discussed in some depth in a This 2010 World Customs Journal Paper. Indeed, the WCO Secretary General is quoted as saying Protection of the environment is often regarded as a policy matter of other ministries, but the customs community has the effective means to contribute to this increasingly important policy objective — Kunio Mikuriya And there is precedent with Ozone-depleting substances under the Montreal Protocol. In 1995 the US created what’s known as a Border-Tax-Adjustment (BTA) corresponding to the amount of a material multiplied by how strongly it depletes the earth’s ozone layer. Twenty years later and the ozone crisis is a thing of the past. The Customs Journal paper discusses how the same BTA mechanism could be used to push back against what’s called “Embedded Carbon” — a somewhat paradoxical term which refers to the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere during the manufacture of a raw material. The difficulty lies in the risk of WTO adjudication for an import tariff which is not coupled with a domestic tax of the same proportion, which could be found in violation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, established 1947). There is however a carveout: GATT Article XX, which is an allowance for rules necessary to protect human, animal, or plant life or health, but a tariff must not constitute “arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination between countries”, etc. Embedded Carbon Tariff’s have not been litigated at this point, and it is not known which decision would result. There is one other obvious drawback: Embedded carbon only covers a fraction of global carbon emissions. Even a BTA on Embedded Carbon there leaves significant room for additional incentivization. Europe’s New Tariff (CBAM) In July 2021 the European Commission presented a new proposal to reduce & eliminate carbon leakage: a tariff levied on the cost of Embedded Carbon products entering the EU which matches domestic carbon prices. This is called a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. The plan has gained significant momentum, and as of this article written the 13th of December, it is close to passing. EU-CBAM is designed to backstop the EU-ETS regulation for a meaningful impact on decarbonization, rather than letting industries leave the region and form pollution hotspots, as they say, outside of the environment. Until October 2023, reporting obligations would only apply. After that importers will need to purchase carbon certificates on an open market, just as domestic producers do on the EU-ETS. The U.S., in full predictably, is considering responding with both protest and its own version of an import tariff. Of course, the U.S. has much less of a leg to stand on as it would be doing a BTA without corresponding internal tax, but for those desperate for any climate change measure, it could be a step in the right direction. Congressional Research Report R47167 is actually not too dense a read on the subject. And, there are two relevant bills in congress currently: H.R. 2307 and S.2378. Notably (!), the US has instituted a price on methane emissions with the Inflation Reduction Act. It begins in 2024, starting at ~$30/ton Co2e, and going up to $60 over a few years. See the CRS report R47206. This is a great start. Closing Thoughts The case for “viral” tariffs on grid emissions Part I of post started with me not having an inkling of what ETS is, much less its growing global scope (despite needing higher prices in general). I would have thought that tracking embedded carbon would present an impossible task, and was thinking instead on how we might structure a tariff of energy, for which emissions are more easily tracked due a smaller number of large electricity-generating plants. This seems like a new idea, and in-line with much of what I’ve seen, so I’ll describe the concept here: Consider that Embedded Carbon only accounts for a fraction of emissions coupled with a product. Even the least energy-intensive product still is manufactured by people who use the electric grid when not at work — we can see on the chart above from Speed & Scale that fully a third of carbon emitted is from grid-based Electricity. Countries could adopt an import tariff according to the exporter’s grid’s carbon-efficiency. This could be made viral in nature by reducing the tariff on countries which implement a similar tariff on their imports. Ultimately, the tariff is self-limiting as grids become fully de-carbonized. There are some obvious downsides here of course - one would want to tune it so that trade restrictions don’t damage the global economy at a time when we need the largest possible per-capita productivity — the funds gained would have to be used in a way to offset their own cost. International trade is so important that even a very small rate would produce a large effect. Non-Partisan Values Although Climate Change Regulation is typically seen as a “Liberal” issue in the U.S., I see this kind of regulation as aligned with republican values for freedom (produce our energy domestically, don’t import it), and our ability to enjoy the natural world (especially for hunters and what-not). Citizens Climate Initiative has a bit on this: (Also worth a watch: Ted Halstead introduces The Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends in this talk). New Law in Values-Based Trade Regulation This whole area touches on a relatively new area in our legal system: punitive trade rules based not on the product, and not on the country, but upon the technique used to produce the product. One other similar area jumps to mind - California Prop 12: a ban on pork from pigs raised in crates, passed by referendum of the Californian people, and now being contested by the DOJ on behalf of industrial pig “farmers”. Both restrict the import of goods based on certain principles, as did the ban on imports of solar panels made with Chinese Slave labor. The connection between trade regulation and social or societal values, I thin

    18 min

  10. 17/12/2022

    A Bi-Partisan Carbon Tax? [Part I]

    Hello! In this post, I dive in to atmospheric carbon taxation as it exists in the world today, and what major initiatives are underway presently. Over the course or the research, I became pleasantly surprised with the extent in which systems are in place, and the rate of growth evidenced — mostly outside the U.S..  As the European Union has for a long time had the world's most extensive Carbon Tax, I start by with a preface about Ukraine and the EU as a (hopefully fun) tangent which explores the workings of EU power structures.  You can skip over this if just interested in Carbon. Standards Bodies What is humanity’s most powerful self-organizing tool? I believe it might be standards bodies. Here’s how I interpret the term: A standards body is a focused group of one or more people dedicated to the creation of a set of rules which may be followed at large, either voluntarily or by force. A standard can have as wide an effect as a national regulation or be as small as a household rule for dinner time. Standards affect every aspect of our lives. They define how web browsers choose to display web-pages, give us decentralized email as a backbone of the internet age, allow money to move around the world, allow you to plug in a printer, and the list goes on. This is a field which benefits greatly from a careful study of human incentives, and when the rules are right, can have a strong positive effect. I think two things are important for any standard * A rule should accurately reflect reality - such as by internalizing and externalized pain, in order to tighten a feedback loop * When the rule is “exploited” by humans with intentions not matching those of the authors, a positive outcome still results. Throughout this post, keep those two in mind as a litmus-test for well-designed policy. Ukraine’s Accession to the EU As the world has watched the war in Ukraine unfold, a continual theme has been Ukraine’s membership in the EU. A close look at what changes are required by Ukraine reveals the power of EU standards. The Istanbul Convention The Istanbul convention, signed in 2011, is “the first legally-binding instrument which ‘creates a comprehensive legal framework and approach to combat violence against women’ [It] is focused on preventing domestic violence, protecting victims and prosecuting accused offenders”.In summary of the wiki section: Ukrainian leaders have been trying to ratify the Istanbul convention since 2011, but faced opposition in parliament (apparently largely due to churches and some politicians disliking the use of the term “gender”). This passed in 2022 due to an increase in crimes in the occupied territories, and due to increased political will to join the EU. WTH is Anti-Corruption Law Anyway? For over two decades, Ukraine has consistently ranked ~120 out of 180 most corrupt countries. The EU requires that members have in place “Anti-Corruption” measures. But what does this mean exactly, and how can you actually fight corruption without getting corrupted? Well, there’s a French-based organization called the Group of States against Corruption, or GRECO, with 50 member states, including the EU states, the US, and others. They run a periodic round-based evaluation process whereby officials investigate and then rank a given country. A passing grade here is typically required for EU membership.Reports are typically publicly published after some months delay for evaluation, and I took a look at the Ukraine 2021 report (published on the Council of Europe website). If you’re inclined to read it yourself, here’s a couple of tips: 1) each recommendation has a premise in italics, followed by an evaluation from GRECO, a response paragraph, an acknowledgement, and a final grade. 🟠 An emoji grading system would really liven it up. To make things easier, you can 2) jump to the conclusions on page 26, which form a bit of an executive summary. Key sections include: * Judicial review (removing laws that could criminalize judges based on their verdict, providing physical security such as guards) * Parliamentary review (disclosure of assets, separation of entrepreneurial concerns, broadcast meetings and publicly posted plans), and * Prosecutorial office changes (adoption of concrete & actionable ethics standards & self-recusal standards, appeals for promotions or dismissals, and random assignment of cases). And in conclusion: Ukraine has implemented satisfactorily or dealt with in a satisfactory manner nine out of the thirty-one recommendations contained in the Fourth Round Evaluation Report. For those eager for Ukraine’s admittance, perhaps this should give some pause. I for one will be eager to see the 2022 report when it is released. In a narrative of international organizations from the past 100 years such as the League of Nations, the United Nations, and many Continental Unions, the EU forms the world’s only Supranational union — where governance by the union can take precedence over national government. Designed to entice Iron Curtain countries, it is this hard power which makes the union scope anti-corruption legislation enforceable, and this same power which gives membership such strong value. I can’t be alone in thinking it is a shame that such a powerful and novel anti-corruption force is self-limited to just a single continent. Carbon Taxes As They Exist Today A Carbon tax usually has two components: a bit which charges a fee for emitted carbon, and a bit which spends that money in a way which boosts the economy. There are many ways to implement these two components. Fees can be charged through carbon credits carbon price fixing.  Money can fund decarbonization efforts or backlogged local issues.  Despite the variety, it seems any sub type is better than no regulation at all, and the selection largely comes down to political ideology and implementation skill. “Cap and Trade” is perhaps a familiar term, and indicates a prescribed budget for corporate emissions, after which companies must purchase or sell allotments on an open or closed marketplace. This has gotten pushback sometimes for allowing emitters to skate by, but as we’ll see, that fear is lifted with a properly maintained system. Here’s a quick video introducing the idea of cap and trade: For the past decade, the European Union has been leading the world with their Cap-and-Trade / Emissions Trading System. Let’s see how it works and then compare it to the rest of the world. Europe’s Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS) Since 2005, the European Union has been operating a cap-and-trade emissions marketplace. Any factory emitting carbon must purchase allotments at a government auction in order to do so. The revenue goes to a decarbonization budget distributed among member countries. Unlike a fixed-price carbon tax, the price fluctuates according to free-market forces of supply and demand. Interestingly, speculators and investors have market access (this is not the case for all ETS markets), which have the Jekyll and Hyde effects of both smoothing volatility and creating it, at different times and for different reasons. The goal is to transition Europe away from fossil fuels, and the belief stated in the report is that by being a world leader and driving domestic innovation, Europe will have a strong competitive advantage in the long term. Every 2-3 years the governing body revisits how the system is working, and tune parameters which affect the market dynamics — much like the management of any other economic currency system (such as the U.S. Monetary Supply). These parameters include: * The total amount of carbon allowed to be emitted in Europe each year (specifically: the rate this decrements annually) * The amount of “free allocations” given out to keep European industry competitive with international industry * (Since Phase 4) The operations of their “Stability Reserve” in buying and selling surplus allotments. The April 2022 Annual Report describes the 2013 rollout as first cautious with many “free allocations”, a gradual per-year reduction, and a corresponding weak effect on emissions. As economic and political reactions have stabilized, the free allocations have been decreasing and rate of scarcity increasing. The report is careful to point out that their approach encourages stable markets, and recent energy spikes can be attributed to other causes. A couple of cases illustrate the effects of carbon pricing. * We can read a short 2020 interview with the CEO of a Swedish net-zero steel plant which was supportive of ETS, but was of the opinion that it didn’t go far enough. * According to the report, increased demand for coal in 2022 has pushed up both the price of coal (orange) and the cost of carbon permits, but the permit price was not sufficient to drive a switch to natural gas due to high prices there as well. (However, war with Russia made a nudge.) Where the money goes €14B is raised annually at 2020 rates, of which 70+% is budgeted towards emissions reductions. For comparison — this is 1.4% of the quoted €1 Trillion which Europe needs annually to hit net-zero by 2050. Where the funds are spent is particularly important because a carbon tax, which affects the cost of all goods and services in a broadly inflationary manner, is considered to be regressive. (Having an outsized impact on the lowest income earners). Particularly countries from Northern and Southern Europe used the funds mainly to develop renewable energy to meet the EU’s target, while Central and Eastern European Member States gave preference to encouraging a shift to low-emission and public forms of transport. Countries from Eastern Europe invested in energy efficiency measures. We commonly highlight (including in my previous post) Co2e-per-kWh, but that does short shrift to investments in reducing energy usage. In one measure, Germany (580g/kWh) is 4-

    16 min

  11. 17/11/2022

    Solar, the Grid, and NY's Next 20 Years

    Discussing solar installation in New York state - economics, policy, and planning This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pehrlich.substack.com

    20 min
  • 11 Episodes

About

This podcast dives into a little more detail on many climate change subjects and related issues. We cover government policy at all levels (past present and future), personal effects you can have, specific technology and investment opportunities, and more. Each post goes "one layer deeper" to build a body of original and accessible research on relevant subjects, rather than simply a re-post of existing web content. Facts and assertions have their sources linked whenever possible, so that you can easily verify the material. This podcast is still young! Your thoughts and feedback are most welcome. P.S. Although so far climate is the main content piece, I hope to at some point tell some fun tales of clandestine piano parties. Going into the details, of course :-) pehrlich.substack.com

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  • Creator
    A one-layer-deeper look into what we can and are doing about climate change.
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2025
  • Episodes
    11
  • Rating
    Clean
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    © Peter Ehrlich
  • Show Website
    Into the Details