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OCR for page 73
Environmental Issues
OCR for page 74
OCR for page 75
Energy: Production, Consumption,
and Consequences. 1990.
Pp. 75 84. Washington, D.C.:
National Academy Press.
Global Environmental Forces
THOMAS C. SCHELLING
Greenhouse warming is global in at least two respects. First, carbon
dioxide (CO2) and the other gases released or withheld anywhere on earth
disperse rapidly into the global inventory. The location of origin makes
no difference. Second, the effect will be a change in global circulation
of air and water. Although the mean rise in atmospheric temperature is
commonly used as an index of climate change, the change in temperature
differential between equatorial and polar regions may be a better measure
of global environmental forces.
The standard point estimate of global warming for a doubling of the
concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is 3° C (National Research Council,
1982~. But it is usually estimated that the warming in the polar regions
associated with this 3-degree average change might be 8 or 10 degrees,
whereas the change in atmospheric temperature near the equator might be
closer to 1 degree (National Research Council, 1982~. Offhand this sounds
like a welcome dispersion of temperature change: it will mainly get warmer
where it is already very cold and warm up the least where it is already
hot. But more significant is that it is the temperature gradients between
equatorial and polar regions that drive the winds, which in turn drive the
oceans, and a change of 7 or 8 degrees in the mean temperature difference
will change the atmospheric and oceanic circulation much more than would
a uniform global rise in atmospheric temperature. Most climates may get
warmer, some will undoubtedly become cooler. But the observed changes
will include not only temperature and temperature variation from season to
season and year to year but also, probably more importantly, the amounts,
. 7s
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76
llI0~4S C SCHELLING
the seasonal distribution, and the year-toyear variation in rainfall, snow,
wind, fog, sunlight, humidity, and storms.
For the purpose of comparing forthcoming changes in climate with
changes experienced in the past, the mean global atmospheric tempera-
ture is probably not only a reliable index but something of a measure of
magnitude. Using the commonly accepted 3-degree rise from a doubling
of the atmospheric concentration as an approximation to what may be
forthcoming, the ensuing temperature will not only be well outside the
range of atmospheric temperatures experienced in the past 10,000 years
but may be several times the range of temperature variation experienced
in that time. This observation is frequently expressed, and correctly, as
a change in climate greater than any that mankind has experienced since
the dawn of history. It is expressed more accurately as changes in cli-
mates—plural not singular because different climates around the globe
will change differently.
Without belittling the unprecedented nature of such climate changes
or the prospect of some change that is not gradual but catastrophic, it is
fair to point out that most people will not undergo in the next 100 years
changes in their local climates more drastic than the changes in climate that
people have undergone during the past 100 years. No climate changes are
forecast that compare with moving from Boston to Irvine, California, or
even perhaps from Irvine to Los Angeles. The Goths and the Vandals, the
Romans and the Vikings, the Tartars and the Huns migrated through more
drastic changes than any currently anticipated; Europeans who migrated to
North and South America similarly underwent drastic climate changes. In
this country in 1860 barely 2 percent of the population lived outside the
humid continental or subtropical climates; in 1980 the percentages outside
these zones had increased from 2 percent to 22 percent.
Furthermore the microclimates of urbanized lblyo, Mexico City, and
Los Angeles have not deterred their population growth; the microclimates
of London and Pittsburgh changed dramatically during the century before
1950 and have changed again almost as dramatically since then. Even
urbanization itself, without the associated air pollution, changes the condi-
tions created by climate. Most Americans, Europeans, and Japanese never
experience muddy roads anymore.
The expectation is that climates will change gradually, both over time
and over space (National Research Council, 1983:Ch. 1-3~. The climate
of Nebraska may gradually change into the current climate of Kansas, not
into the climate of Massachusetts or Oregon. Climates will "migrate." This
expectation is on the whole reassuring, but it could be mistaken. The models
used in the computer simulation of climate may be incapable of producing
discontinuities because the current state of meteorological knowledge is
confined to continuous processes. There may be no reason to expect
OCR for page 77
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL FORCES
77
discontinuities, but the fact that the models produce no discontinuities may
reflect an inability to design models based on the state of the art that can
discover such phenomena.
Aside from a possible rise in ocean level, which I shall discuss presently,
the most predictable physical and economic consequences of climate change
will be in agriculture. By "predictable" I mean not that the actual changes
can be predicted but that it can be reliably predicted that there will
be changes. These will be changes in rainfall, winter snow for summer
irrigation, humidity, daylight and cloud cover, and perhaps the health and
comfort of livestock
There is no reason to believe that the revolutionary improvements in
agricultural productivity that have developed over the past 75 years and that
in many cases have spread worldwide will not continue. Depletion of soils
may continue, but control over plant and animal genetics and the possible
production of new proteins may drastically change for the better what crops
people will grow and what foods they will eat 50 or 100 years from now.
An increase in the cost of food production by 5 or 10 percent, even 20
percent, which would be a somewhat extravagant estimate, may easily be
offset many times over by another century's improvements in agricultural
productivity.
There will undoubtedly continue to be parts of the world that are
intractably poor and dependent for a livelihood largely on local production
of food or other climatically dependent crops. These countries may have
little of the capacity to adapt that the more advanced countries can afford.
So even if the damage to food production may not average enough on
a global scale to be cause for alarm may not even be noticeable—there
may be particular areas in which the damage to agriculture coupled with
population growth could severely retard progress. (Population growth may
be the more serious.) This situation may demand foreign aid to the poorest
countries. I would neither expect nor recommend foreign aid directly
related to hardships induced by climate change, but rather aid to the
poorest.
What I have said so far will sound to many readers as insufficiently
alarmist. "Optimistic" it may appear. One reason for the unexcited tone,
which I shall elaborate shortly, is pessimism, not optimism. I do not believe
that serious measures will be taken over the next quarter century to curtail
the emissions of carbon into the atmosphere. I do not believe that even an
alarmist appraisal will lead to a substantial policy response. I therefore do
not believe that exaggerating the dangers will serge a useful purpose.
But there is, I acknowledge, another reason why my assessment is so
mild. As I mentioned earlier, I am attempting to assess predicted changes,
and it may be that our climate models predict only what we understand well
enough to include in the models. Maybe we are also good at adapting to
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78
THOA{4S C SCHELLING
phenomena we understand, as well as good at predicting them; and the ones
we do not understand well enough to predict will cause difficulty because we
do not understand them well enough to adapt. In other words, there is bias
in our assessment of dangers: those we understand well enough to perceive
we understand well enough to overcome, those that we have no hints of
may be the dangers we would least know how to meet and overcome.
Reduced rainfall in Kansas 25 or 50 years from now we may adapt to
with moisture-conserving agricultural techniques, genetically altered crops
that require less moisture, or the acquisition and transport of water. The
phenomenon is familiar, the adaptations are familiar, and the predictions
are based on familiar principles of meteorology. The "collapse" of the West
Antarctic Ice Sheet would be an altogether different phenomenon.
As recently as 15 or 20 years ago, the accepted estimates were that
the grounded ice ice resting on the sea bottom and rising a kilometer
or more above sea level might, with a warming of the oceans attendant
upon a warming of the atmosphere, slide or glaciate into the ocean within
75 years, causing a 20-foot rise in sea level. Like seismology in response
to the test-ban controversy of the l950s, glaciology has advanced in the
past decade or two, assisted by satellite sensing, and the currently accepted
estimates are that if that grounded ice should be added to the ocean level
it is likely to be gradual and to take several hundred years. The urgency
of that particular danger is thus reduced by an order of magnitude (unless
further rapid advances in the relevant glaciology bring comparable changes
in estimates back in the opposite direction). What is worrisome is that
there may be other phenomena, perhaps, like the ocean level, not being
perceived as "climatic," that could be as devastating as a 20-foot rise in
sea level and that will not, upon further inspection, yield to more benign
estimates.
When asked for an example, I can of course protect myself by pointing
out that predicting the unpredictable, foreseeing the unforeseen, especially
as an amateur, cannot be demanded of me. But when I am in a mood to
worry I think about possible changes in the Gulf Stream and the Japanese
current. The current global circulation models, as I understand it, do not
include changes in the direction and velocity of ocean currents, and I am
not sure that enough is known about the response of ocean currents to
changes in wind patterns to predict whether there may be catastrophes, that
is, flipflops from one equilibrium to another, rather than gradual change.
Thus, there may be a missing feedback loop from warming to winds to
currents to climate that, when added to the current models, will produce
something more worrisome. than the migration of the climate of Kansas to
South Dakota.
As I said at the outset, the problem is global; and that is why it is
exceedingly unlikely that anything substantial will be done to curtail fossil
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GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL FORCES
79
fuel emissions. Any nation that attempts to mitigate changes in climate
through a unilateral program of energy conservation or fuel switching
(or expensively scrubbing CO2 from smokestacks) in the absence of some
international rationing or compensation arrangement, pays alone the cost of
its program while sharing the benefits with the rest of the world. Consider
the Federal Republic of Germany, which accounts for about 4 percent of
world's energy consumption and just about 4 percent of each of the three
fossil fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas. If that country took the drastic
step of reducing by one-third its consumption of fossil fuels, the cost in
lost productivity and consumer welfare, even if it were done gradually
over a period of two decades, could be equivalent to 3 - percent of its
gross national product while the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere
would be reduced by barely 1 percent. Even for the United States, the
largest energy consumer of all, phasing in a one-third cutback in fossil fuel
consumption over the next 20 years at a cost perhaps equivalent to $150
billion or $200 billion per year at today's prices and income levels, would
reduce emissions worldwide by less than 10 percent. The time to a doubling
of CO2 in the atmosphere might be reduced from something like 85 years
to 80 years. I think it is a fair estimate that for no individual country, with
the arguable exception of the United States, is it economical to curtail CO2
emissions unilaterally in the interest of retarding climate change.
Any significant effort to curtail emissions would require an inter-
national rationing regime, covering the larger fraction of world energy
consumption, to ration the consumption of energy, or the consumption of
fossil fuels, or the consumption of carbon, in some manner that could con-
fidently be expected to remain in force long enough to be effective, say 50
years or more. It would have to include the Soviet Union, it would have to
include the People's Republic of China, and it may well have to include the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). It would require
mandating compliance on the part of scores of nations that would greatly
prefer to be outside the regime. And it would require for many nations
trading urgently needed economic growth now for the dubious future ben-
efits of a rationing scheme that depended on a more disparate membership
than even that of OPEC. Eventually, because most of the world's known
coal resources are in the Soviet Union, China, and the United States, the
scheme would require those three nations to collaborate effectively and
indefinitely as a cartel.
The political likelihood of solid and confidently expected collaboration
of that kind would be approximately zero if energy were a homogeneous
commodity consumed uniformly worldwide. But to put in effect a rationing
scheme the impact of which will begin to hurt and be effective only after
several decades of energy growth would require dealing with economic
growth itself, and that in turn requires attention to things like population
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80
lots C SCHEMING
growth (Ausubel and Nordhaus, 1983; Nordhaus and Yohe, 1983~. Do the
Chinese claim that a policy of zero population growth is more than sufficient
as a curtailment of energy use and that their country should therefore be
exempt? Do the countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development participate as a unit, negotiating long-term shares in
energy growth? Is there any chance they could be more successful than
they have been with defense budgets, oil imports, or agricultural trade?
My pessimistic conclusion is that nothing of the sort is going to hap-
pen. I do not believe the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete
the Ozone Layer, signed in September 1987, is any harbinger for sup-
pression of CO2. Economically what is at stake is two or three orders of
magnitude greater for fossil fuels than for chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and
the prospects for technological replacement of CFCs are much brighter.
(The Ozone Protocol does illustrate the need for worldwide collaboration
to make restrictions worthwhile: the treaty takes effect only when ratified
by nations representing two-thirds of world consumption.)
If world politics change as much in the next 75 years as in the past 75,
a global fuel regime of some kind may become possible, but none is now
foreseeable. If I am wrong, and world rationing of fossil fuels becomes
economically and politically feasible, we shall still face the prospects for
climate change. There is absolutely no possibility that fossil fuel emissions
can cease altogether in the foreseeable future, and even the most optimistic
could hardly hope that fuel emissions would stop growing within the fore-
seeable future. A most ambitious goal might be to reduce by half the growth
rate in fossil fuel emissions. (As the fraction of fossil fuels represented
by petroleum and natural gas declines over the coming century, fossil fuel
consumption will have to increase at less than half the unrestricted growth
rate in order that carbon emissions be only half what they might otherwise
be.) A not unreasonable estimate, for purposes of illustration only, of
growth in fossil fuel consumption over the next half century might be 2 per-
cent per year, a rate at which the atmospheric concentration of CO2 might
double in about 85 years, reaching 50 percent elevation in about 50 years.
Holding emissions to 1 percent growth would carry us beyond the middle
of the next century before we reached concentrations half again as great as
today's. The implied curtailment in emissions, at 1 percent compared with
2 percent, would be 10 percent at the end of the first decade, 25 percent
at the end of three decades, and 40 percent by the end of five decades.
That seems to me to be the outside limit to what might be economically
acceptable worldwide. (How that 40 percent aggregate curtailment would
be shared among consuming nations I hesitate even to conjecture.)
National programs to phase in nuclear power to replace fossil fuels for
electricity, even for the production of hydrogen fuels, may again become
popular. But it is still hard to measure the half-life of anxiety resulting from
OCR for page 81
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL FORCES
81
the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Any new reactors will
have to be economical as well as clean. Cutting the growth of emissions
from 2 percent to 1 percent may well require all electric power capacity in
the future to be nuclear.
Energy conservation measures deserve emphatic attention, but invest-
ments in conservation will mainly be limited to what the private economy
finds economical. National or international policy will probably be limited
to research, development, demonstration, and technology transmission.
Energy-efficient investments may yet get a boost from another doubling or
more of the price of crude oil, but that is probably not a boost to be hoped
for.
What else may be done to cope with the greenhouse problem? CO2
can be removed from the atmosphere by increasing the mass of living
vegetation or by "refossilizing" timber, burying it underground or in the
ocean or coating it so that it cannot oxidize. And CO2 can be scrubbed from
smokestacks at very substantial expense. Probably at enormous expense,
some attenuation could be achieved in this fashion. (Some small increase in
the carbon density of forests may result naturally from the enhancement of
CO2 in the atmosphere.) The concentration of CO2 will therefore certainly
increase, and at an increasing rate, and I consider it unlikely that we shall
be rescued much before the concentration has nearly doubled.
The main response will be adaptation, and most of that by ordinary
people and businesses. Some of the adaptation will be by governments, but
local and regional governments as much as national governments. There
will be changing climates to cope with, changing urbanization, changing
population densities, and in most countries probably drastic changes in
the ways that people live and work and transport themselves, perhaps
s~gn~ncant changes In what they eat. Much of the adaptation will seem
generally "environmental" rather than specifically climate oriented. And,
of course, there is continuous adaptation to climate even when it is not
changing: we change the technology and the efficacy with which we heat
ourselves and cool ourselves and clean our air and protect ourselves from
storms and cope with droughts and floods and dispose of snow. The pace
of change may be such that people will find themselves adapting to climate
rather than to changing climate. Just as businesses shift to take advantage
of better productive climates, they will keep shifting to better climates
with perhaps small regard for the prospects of changing climates in given
locations.
~ ~ ~ . . . ..
There remains to be discussed a response to climate change that re-
ceives so little attention that it deserves emphasis here—direct intervention
in weather and climate. When Thomas F. Malone was chairman of the
Committee on Atmospheric Sciences of the National Research Council, he
wrote, 20 years ago, "The possibility that large effects may be produced
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lots C SCHELLING
from relatively modest but highly selective human interventions opens up
the possibility that weather and climate modification may some day be
operationally feasible" (Malone, 1968:1136~. And of the modification of
hurricanes he said, "If five years are allowed for the development of an ad-
equate mathematical model, five more years for assessing the consequences
of interventions of various kinds, and then ten years of field experimenta-
tion for validation, it seems unreasonable to expect much before 1990, with
the probabilities fair to good that a proven technology will exist by the year
2000." He added, "The probability of success in broad climate modification
is likely to exceed 50 percent by the year 2018" (1968:1138), that being the
50-year mark from the time he wrote.
Most experiments with weather modification or with changing geo-
graphical features that may lead to climate change have been local and
regional. That has been true of cloud seeding and would be true of the
manipulation of hurricanes. In a discussion of greenhouse warming, the
possibility of global intervention has to be considered. An important kind
of human intervention in global climate may be efforts to change the ra-
diation balance itself. We know it can be done: we are doing it. That is
what the greenhouse discussion is all about. The fact that we are doing it
unintentionally, and the fact that the consequences may not be welcome, do
not contradict that we know how, at some expense if necessary, to change
the world's climate more than it has changed in the last 10,000 years.
Warming the atmosphere currently is more economical than cooling
it because it happens as a by-product of energy consumption that would
be costly to reduce or terminate. If we were faced with a "little Ice Age"
over the next century, we might be glad to get some of that CO2 in the
atmosphere at no cost and without having to negotiate climate change
diplomatically.
But we know that, in principle, cooling could be arranged. Volcanic
eruptions have done it. Discussions of "nuclear winter" took seriously the
possibility that human activity might lower global temperatures cataclysmi-
cally. Considering the development of nuclear energy in both its explosive
and its controlled uses and the feat of landing a team on the moon and
returning it safely, and that we now know how to warm the earth's atmo-
sphere and possibly to cool it (though through unacceptable means), we
should not rule out that technologies for global cooling, perhaps by inject-
ing the right particulates into the stratosphere, perhaps by subtler means,
will become economical during coming decades.
A more benign example, compared with nuclear winter or induced
volcanic eruptions, may be the manipulation of cloud cover. Let me again
quote Thomas Malone (1968:1135~.
A characteristic of the atmosphere that frustrates the weather forecaster while
providing a basis for optimism on the part of the weather modifier is a tendency
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GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL FORCES
for the processes in the atmosphere to demonstrate certain traits of instability....
For example, a small pulty-type cloud may grow to a towering thunderstorm
in a matter of hours; a gentle zephyr in tropical latitudes may develop into a
"killer" hurricane in a matter of days; and a small low-pressure center may grow
to a vigorous extratropical cyclone within a single day.... An avenue may be
opened up by which great erects may be produced from relatively modest but
highly selective human interventions.
83
If somebody learned in the next 50 years how to affect the extent and global
distribution of certain kinds of cloud cover, incoming radiation may become
manipulable by nations, international agencies, or even interested private
organizations, depending on the nature of the technology, its expense, and
perhaps geographical considerations.
It is difficult to mention such a possibility without appearing to rec-
ommend it, or to use it as a "technological fix" in the future to divert
attention from some need for immediate policy intervention. I am not rec-
ommending, I am predicting. Independently of CO2, we have to consider
that weather and climate modification may become feasible in a period of
time no longer than the elapsed time since electronics, genetics, antibiotics,
and nuclear fission were unimagined. The greenhouse warming may gen-
erate an interest among most nations in moderating the changed radiation
balance, and if it proves more expensive to facilitate outgoing radiation
than to obstruct incoming, there may be powerful motives for considering
it. And if the technique for moderating incoming radiation were globally
uniform or nearly so, an international agreement would have only to decide
how to share the costs, a unidimensional problem compared with sharing
the reduction of emissions.
If intervention is more regional than global, or global but not uniform
in its distribution, intervention could become exceedingly controversial.
Mexico and China are counting on those hurricanes they are an essential
source of rainfall for crops—whereas the Cubans, Filipinos, Japanese, and
residents of the Texas coast would suppress them if they knew how.
In closing I must say a word about sea level. I believe the current
wisdom is that we may be in for rising sea level that could be on the
order of a meter per century for several centuries (Robin, 1986~. Anything
upwards of a meter, perhaps even half a meter, would primarily be due
to the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The full hotfoot rise
corresponding to the complete disappearance of that body of ice would put
the White House rose garden under water, make Beacon Hill in Boston
an island, and isolate the southern third of Florida by making the middle
third disappear under water.
A country like the United States should be able to adapt (eventually by
doing, perhaps, what the Dutch have been doing for centuries~onstructing
dikes). No such "easy" solution is available to a country like Bangladesh,
which is densely populated in large areas that would be inundated by the
OCR for page 132
132
TABLE 3 Muliiday Study Simulation Manx
JOHN ~ SHINER
FUEL TYPE
.Gasoline
Methanol
Case 1:
V Current conventional vehicles
E (nodal fleet turnover)
.
H Case 4:
I M85 @ 100 percent substitutions
C 15 mg/mi formaldehyde, ? HC
Case 2:
L 199~2000 model year vehicles Case S:
E (additional regulations, M100 @ 100 percent subsiituiiona
nonnal fleet turnover to 2000) 55 mg/mi fonnaldebyde, no HC
T Case 6:
M100 @ 100 percent substitution
Y 15 mg/mi formaldehyde, no HC
P
Case 3:
E Advanced vehicles (technological break-
through) and 100 percent substitution
aComplete replacement of methanol vehicles for both highway and off-road mobile vehicles and re-
placement of methanol for gasoline in die retail fuel distribution system.
the base case into compliance (100 percent) and appear in Figure 9. For the
base case scenario, the maximum peak ozone level was calculated to be 0.27
ppm. Because 0.12 ppm is the value specified by the ozone standard, a 57
percent reduction in ozone level would be required to achieve compliance;
this is represented by the top bar of Figure 9 plotted at 100 percent and
0.27 ppm. From Table 4, we note that cases 2 and 3 were found to reduce
ozone levels by 3 and 9 percent, respectively; this corresponds, respectively,
to 5 and 16 percent of the reduction required to reach the 0.12 ppm level
(greater by the ratio of 100/574. These two cases are indicated by bars 2
and 3 of Figure 9. The next three bars indicate percent of achievement
for the three methanol cases. Note that the best methanol case, M100
with low formaldehyde, achieves only 29 percent of the reduction required
to reach 0.12 ppm. These preliminary results of this study are consistent
with previous research; however, the reader is again reminded that these
OCR for page 133
133
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OCR for page 134
134
Conventional Vehicle
Base Case
1900-2000 Model Year
Vehicles
Maximum Advanced
Conventional Vehicle
MB5, Low F
M100, High F
M100, Low F
No Mobile HC
No Mobile NOX
No Mobile HC and NO
0.12
x
No Man-Made Sources
JOHN ~ SHILLER
Peak O3 Level (ppm)
0.27
~ 1
;;;;.;;;;;;;; _-
.. 2 . ~
,,.,., ,,,, ......... , ..................... ~
_ 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1
2
3
4 ~
m
5 ~
of
6 'L
7
0 20 40 60 80 100
UNACHIEVED O3 REDUCTION (% of 0.15 ppm)
FIGURE 9 Companson of ozone reduction strategies for the South Coast Air Basin for
the year 2000. The solid bars show the percent of unachieved reduction of ozone levels
from a base case value of 0.27 ppm to the 0.12 ppm level required by the ozone standard.
Case numbers are the same as in Cables 3 and 4 and are described further in the text.
These results suggest that no strategy limited to the motor vehicle transportation system
alone will be sufflaent to achieve the ozone standard in the Los Angeles area. SOURCE:
California Air Resources Board, 1988.
findings depend on the plausibility of the emission rate assumptions and
initial conditions.
The bars below case 6 in Figure 9 show the reductions achieved by
eliminating all ozone precursor emissions due to the motor vehicle trans-
portation system, that is, emissions from all retail gasoline and diesel
distribution centers, all petroleum refining operations, and all motor vehi-
cles (both highway and off-road vehicles) except motorcycles. The three
cases studied were as follows: the removal of all HC with reduced NOR
achieved a reduction of 16 percent, the removal of all NOR with reduced
HC achieved 20 percent, and the removal of all HC and NOR (case 7)
achieved 24 percent, far short of the 57 percent required. Further, a peak
ozone level of 0.139 ppm was estimated for the extreme case of removing
all in-basin emissions (all sources) and assuming low-level initial conditions
(low pollutant concentrations entering the basin). Even for this case, only
87 percent of the reduction required to achieve the ozone standard was
attained, as shown by the bottom bar of the figure.
These results suggest that achievement of the ozone standard in the
OCR for page 135
THE AUTOMOBILE AND THE ATMOSPHERE
135
Los Angeles area will not be possible with any strategy that targets mobile
sources alone. It may not be possible even with the removal of all man-
made sources.
The results further indicate that methanol-fueled vehicles do have some
potential to reduce ozone in the Los Angeles area but that the magnitude
of the reduction during multiday episodes is likely to be smaller than
that of earlier single-day modeling results (see Able 2 for Los Angeles).
The emission assumptions for the M85 case are considered to be more
realistic (for either the M85 or the M100 case). This suggests a 6 percent
ozone benefit (9 percent versus 3 percent, respectively) for methanol-fueled
vehicles over conventionally fueled vehicles (with additional controls) may
be possible if the assumed optimistic emission rates can be achieved. More
work is needed to examine the accuracy of the emission assumptions and
the general applicability of these results to other modeling conditions.
Public Health and Direct Formaldehyde Emissions
For any ozone control strategy, it is vital to consider the possibility of
undesirable effects that may arise as a consequence of the control strategy
itself. In other words, we must make sure that the "cure is not worse than
the disease.'' Thus, it is necessary to evaluate the effect of direct emissions
of formaldehyde on public health, particularly in confined spaces such as
parking garages. Work is being done to gain a better understanding of
this concern. For example, the Health Effects Institute (HEI) has under-
taken a study of formaldehyde to complement their earlier study on the
health effects of direct methanol emissions (HEI, 1985~. The earlier study
indicated that adverse human health effects due to methanol at projected
exposure levels associated with a move to methanol fuel are unlikely. In
another study (Gold and Moulis, 1988), EPAs proposed methanol vehicle
emission standards (U.S. EPA, 1986b) are shown to prevent concentrations
of methanol and formaldehyde from reaching toxic levels in most com-
monly encountered driving scenarios. However, further analysis of parking
garages and other areas with restricted air dilution is needed before all
concerns can be fully resolved. As for open and unrestricted spaces, the
Carnegie Mellon study (Computers in Science, 1988) showed that 90 percent
of atmospheric formaldehyde is created by photooxidation of hydrocarbons
and that only 10 percent comes from direct emissions. Thus, a significant
increase in average ambient formaldehyde levels with methanol vehicles is
unlikely.
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136
JOHN ~ SHILLER
PUBLIC POLICY STRATEGIES
In recognition of the difficult task of achieving standards in the Los An-
geles Basin, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD)
and the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) have
announced a three-tier strategy to attain air quality standards over the
next 20 years (SCAQMD and SCAG, 1987, 1988~. The plan, which was
proposed in June 1988, acknowledges that full-scale implementation and
advanced development of known technology will be inadequate to achieve
the standards in Los Angeles. Significant technological breakthroughs are
required.
To illustrate the magnitude of the situation, Figure 10 shows the 1985
emission inventory for both mobile and stationary sources of reactive hydro-
carbons and oxides of nitrogen in the South Coast Air Basin (SCAQMD
and SCAG, 1987~. Based on estimates by SCAQMD and SCAG, am
percent reduction in reactive hydrocarbons from the 1985 inventory would
be necessary to attain the air quality standard for ozone. Elimination of
highway vehicle hydrocarbon emissions would only provide a 43 percent
reduction, far short of the required 79 percent. Therefore, the demands of
attaining the ozone standard in Los Angeles would exceed even the most
aggressive application of current motor vehicle technology. Note that this
conclusion is consistent with the multiday computer simulations described
above.
The three-tier strategy proposed by SCAQ to reduce emissions to the
point where all air quality standards are achieved by 2007-2010 requires
a full-scale implementation of known technology (tier 1), significant ad-
vancement of known technology (tier 2), and technological breakthroughs
(tier 3~. In the second phase of the plan, it is assumed that 40 percent of
passenger cars, 70 percent of freight vehicles, and 100 percent of buses will
use clean-fuel technologies (Acurex, 1986~. In January 1988, SCAQMD
adopted a five-year $30-million Clean Fuels Program, which includes 19
mobile source related demonstration projects for technologies, such as
electric vehicles, methanol, and compressed natural gas. Tier 3 assumes
full electrification of all motor vehicles and stationary combustion sources.
That assumption relies on new technologies such as superconductors and
improved electrical storage devices and either the building of new infras-
tructures or the elimination of existing infrastructures or both. Tier 3 is
clearly beyond current capability.
CUSTOMER VALUE AND FUEL STRATEGY
If a conversion to alternative fuels is to be successful, the vehicles that
use these fuels must represent value to the customer or they will not sell.
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THE AUTOMOB LE AND THE ATMOSPHERE
137
Customer surveys, such as the 1987 Automotive Consumer Profile survey
of 5,000 members of the driving-age public, show that reliability and quality
lead the list of consumer '~wants" (see Figure 11), with safety and service
(availability of parts and labor) also high on the list (Power Report, 1988~.
About 70 percent or more of the respondents said that these features
were "very or somewhat important" in the purchase of their next vehicles.
Purchase price, operating cost, and resale value (a factor in operating cost)
are also perceived as important. Based on new car buyers' perceptions of
how these features would be affected by a switch to methanol fuel (see
Figure 12), the perceived benefits of methanol are in areas of relatively low
importance to consumers.
Vehicles that use alternative fuels must be fully competitive in value
with current transportation alternatives. In fact, it could be argued that
they must offer an advantage to overcome any concerns a customer might
have. This advantage may have to take the form of buyer incentives (at
least in the beginning) to induce consumer risk invesunent by compensating
for the perceived potential disadvantages associated with the convenience,
reputation, and resale of alternative-fuel vehicles in relation to gasoline-
fueled vehicles. It is critical that consumer concerns be addressed at the
outset.
1 400
1 200
>`
a, 1 000
Q
CO
Hi;
In
z
o
In
CO
400
Level for Ozone
Attainment -
200
HO
_ Nonhighway
Automobiles Vehicles
Trucks ~ Petroleum
Operations
NOxi
O Residential ~ Electric Power
Manufacturing O Service-
Commerce
FIGURE 10 South Coast Air Basin emissions lay source for 1985. In 1985 the ozone
produced by precursor sources unrelated to transportation was sufficient to exceed the
standard.
Level for NO
Attainment
OCR for page 138
138
Reliability
Quality
Safety
Service
Comfort
Reputation
Low Price
Fuel Economy
Appearance
Power
Technology
Small Size
JOHN ~ SHILLER
1 '1
~:q
.:.:.:.:.1 1987-1988 Buyers
n Potential New-Car
I I Consumers
0 50 1 00
PERCENT SAYING VERY/SOMEWHAT IMPORTANT
FIGURE 11 Important factors affecting new-car purchase decisions.
From the customer's point of view, the availability of vehicles capable
of using alternative energy sources will alone not produce a change in the
present transportation system. There must also be a substantial increase in
the production capacity for the alternative fuel in question and a distribution
network to make such fuel readily available. Therefore, the development
of vehicles having "fuel flexibility" seems imperative in any program to
introduce a new fuel.
CONCLUSIONS
Significant advances have been made in reducing emissions from
current-technology vehicles. Further reductions are expected as newer
vehicles replace old. Even with the progress to date, certain areas of the
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THE AUTOMOBILE AND THE ATMOSPHERE
139
country still did not attain all air quality standards by the August 1988
congressional deadline. The Los Angeles area faces the most difficult task
to achieve the national air quality standards.
Because of the special air quality situation in Los Angeles, the potential
environmental benefits of alternative fuels are being studied to determine
what can be accomplished. 1b date, the relatively low cost of gasoline
and diesel fuel and their other inherent advantages have restricted the
use of other fuel sources. The renewed interest in alcohol as a fuel in the
United States results mainly from a hope that it may reduce environmentally
undesirable emissions. Studies suggest that conversion of light~uty vehicles
to methanol fuel has some potential to reduce ozone levels if emission
assumptions are correct, but they also suggest that in certain areas it is not
possible to achieve the ozone standard with any strategy that targets only
the emissions from the motor vehicle transportation system. Much remains
to be done to ascertain the validity of the assumptions that underlie the
conclusions reached thus far and to gain a better understanding of currently
Reliability
Quality
Safety
Service
Comfort
Reputation
Low Price
Fuel Economy
Appearance
Power
Technology
Small Size
~//.///////~/////////~////////////~
/////
Perception of
Methanol Impact
Positive
Neutral
1
Unknown
Negative
1 0 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
PERCENT SAYING VERY/SOMEWHAT IMPORTANT
FIGURE 12 Consumer perceptions of the effect of methanol-fuel capability on factors
important to a new-car purchase.
OCR for page 140
140
JOHN ~ SHILLER
unregulated emissions. The improvements made in conventional technology
also need careful evaluation for comparison.
Surveys of motor vehicle consumer preferences indicate that the per-
ceived benefits of methanol are relatively less important than other vehicle
attnbutes. This situation poses an even greater challenge for vehicle man-
ufacturers and governmental regulators to deliver these new technology
vehicles in a way that provides equal, if not greater, value to the customer.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
environmental forces
