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rinselberg
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JAN 02, 02:50 AM
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Pentagon's Climate and Environmental Research Programs
As the White House and private sector rush to develop the next breakthrough in climate technology, two small offices inside the Pentagon are funding research into everything from solar panels to building efficiency systems that could someday be commercialized.
The Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) and the related Environmental Security Technology Certification Project (ESTCP) have a strategic aim for their work: to help defend US national security.
But “if we can get leverageable value out of our investment that we make for the military mission, that is a win for everyone,” said Kimberly Spangler, executive director of both SERDP and ESTCP. “That’s a win for the American people.”
SERDP funds research and development work done in the lab, and is the Defense Department’s only environmental R&D shop. ESTCP funds the demonstration and validation of environmental and energy technology in the field, to help technology developers overcome the barriers to commercialization, according to Dorothy Robyn, the Pentagon’s former deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment.
Together, the offices’ combined $211 million budget is a tiny fraction of the Pentagon’s budget of roughly $800 billion. Yet they provide a vast range of projects that seek to conserve coral reefs, protect military equipment from extreme temperatures and corrosion, quickly detect heavy metals in drinking water, model the impacts of saltwater intrusion in anticipation of sea-level rise, retrofit vehicles to reduce fuel use while idling, develop low-cost photovoltaic devices, and more.
Return on Investment
The ultimate goal of SERDP and ESTCP is to help projects get to the commercial market so the military can buy and use them, said Robyn, now a senior fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
“There are certain requirements that we know we’re going to need—let’s say, in volume or at scale—that we cannot afford to do alone,” confirmed Michael McGhee, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for environment and energy resilience. “We literally cannot afford to pursue boutique solutions to a unique set of requirements. So we’re looking to find the commercial applicability at the same time, to see if that technology is transferable, so that we can then find it in the marketplace and buy it back.”
“We have to have a return on investment dollars,” Spangler added. “It may be a different return on investment than the commercial sector would seek. Ultimately we’re looking for installations to be resilient so that we can project power from the homeland.”
In some cases, the Pentagon’s environmental work to support the military mission can cross into areas that don’t immediately seem relevant. For example, managing endangered species on DOD-owned land can help avoid regulatory restrictions that would limit the use of the land for military training, McGhee said.
Path to Commercialization
It’s notoriously hard to predict the commercial viability even of well-proven technologies, but the Pentagon has a strong track record of seeding research that later found wide use outside the military, such as GPS, satellites, jet engines, and microgrids, according to Robert Atkinson, a former program director at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
And while other agencies—most notably, the Department of Energy—may be bigger spenders on research and development that could help decarbonize the economy, the Pentagon’s advantage is that it has the buying power to prop up a new product or technology, Robyn said.
“The problem for DOE historically has been that they don’t have a clear customer,” she said. “They’re trying to anticipate the commercial market, and that’s hard to do. For DOD, you have supply and demand under one roof. And they’ve also got a budget with which to buy the stuff. It’s hard to beat that within the federal government.”
That strategy has worked in the past, according to William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
“Just because the Pentagon is such a big purchaser, if all they do is solarize their facilities and buy some EVs, that could bring some things to scale that would be harder to do otherwise,” he said.
Some of the military’s work has also been driven by Congress.
For example, lawmakers recently asked DOD to act on climate change issues, so the Pentagon produced a greenhouse gas mitigation plan earlier this year as a statutory reporting requirement. The military has also started developing tools to capture the possible impacts and consequences of climate change on its planning cycles, McGhee said.
Those types of investments are likely to grow even more in the future. The Pentagon started a new installation climate resilience program area in fiscal 2023, pouring $14 million into the development of advanced technology, and recently started a national innovation landscape network that looks at the impacts of different climate threats on military installations across the country.
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rinselberg
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JAN 02, 10:49 AM
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"Biden and the Pentagon Can Declare War on Climate Change"
| quote | | Global warming is a national-security risk, and the new administration will find a willing partner in the military. |
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James Stavridis for Bloomberg; January 13, 2021.
https://www.bloomberg.com/v...ar-on-climate-change
Access Restricted to Bloomberg Subscribers.
Bloomberg columnist and retired Navy admiral James Stavridis is a former NATO supreme allied commander. He is dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He has never used "Wichita" as a screen name or pseudonym.[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 01-02-2024).]
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rinselberg
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JAN 09, 05:50 AM
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| quote | | Offshore wind farms are causing (or will cause) whales to die in extraordinary numbers. |
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It' s a lie that's told by the Heritage Foundation, Heartland Institute and other people and groups.
It's a lie because there's no evidence to support it.
This easy-reading report eviscerates this lie, and describes how developers are working with public regulatory agencies to protect whales from the hazards of offshore wind energy construction and subsequent operations.
| quote | One reason [that] whale advocates [are pushing] for renewable energy [including wind energy] is that they say climate change is harming the animals—and less reliance on fossil fuels would help solve that problem.
Scientists say global warming has caused the right whale’s preferred food—tiny crustaceans—to move as waters have warmed. That means the whales have strayed from protected areas of ocean in search of food, leaving them vulnerable to ship strikes and entanglements.
Large whales play a vitally important role in the ecosystem by storing carbon, so some scientists say they are also part of the solution to climate change. |
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"Contrary to [some] politicians’ claims, offshore wind farms don’t kill whales. Here’s what to know."
Christina Larson, Jennifer McDermott, Patrick Whittle and Wayne Perry for AP News; December 23, 2023.
https://apnews.com/article/...f5ef9e1530564ff791a9
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82-T/A [At Work]
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JAN 09, 08:24 AM
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NY Offshore Wind Farm project cancelled:
https://news.yahoo.com/gian...-axed-223452129.html
It should be noted that there are a couple of them (contracts), but this was one of the bigger ones. BP and another company cancelled the project because of viability. Their "closing statements" were positive... but for anyone who's in business, this is to not bite the hand that feeds. They basically don't want to piss off the Biden administration, but are essentially saying it's not economically viable (meaning it will cost more than the return).
I still say we need more nuclear power... specifically, Gen-3 and Gen-4 power plants.
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olejoedad
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JAN 10, 07:03 PM
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ray b
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JAN 10, 07:51 PM
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open to CORP-RAT PROPAGANDA ????
DO THEY PAY YOU ?
MR [F s/b] ucker snarlson
sure gets paid to spew lies
he lies for putin
he really really really loves putin
even after the war started he still loves putin
and lied for putin
and lied for BIG OIL
OR ANY ONE WHO PAYS HIM
NOTE A TREND YET ?
i DO
BTW NEW RECORD 2.5 OVER F
SO SPIN AND LIE
THE TREND IS REAL
IT IS HOT
IT WILL BE HOTTER
IT WILL GET HOTTER AND HOTTER
THE TIPPING POINTS ARE FALLING
SHE IS A BETTER MAN THEN YOU[This message has been edited by ray b (edited 01-10-2024).]
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rinselberg
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JAN 11, 04:01 AM
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I scrolled through it. I won't say that I watched it attentively from start to finish, but I sampled enough of it to satisfy myself that it's a nothing-burger.
Tucker Carlson interviews Willie Wei-Hock Soon, and Dr Soon—PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Southern California, 1991—has nothing to undermine my confidence in what I guess could be called "canon" among mainstream climate scientists: that human-attributable greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet at an alarming rate, and that the "percentage play" is for governments and societies all around the world to strive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, always with an eye to "getting the most bang for the buck" in terms of how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. should strive for a leading role, internationally, and we should do our utmost to encourage other major greenhouse gas emitting nations like China and India to line up with us on this, and not against us.
I don't think that Dr Soon is saying anything important from a science perspective about global warming, and I don't think that he has any useful ideas for government and business leaders, or for the general public, in terms of how to think about global warming, and what to be for or against, where there are options to choose from.
"2023 Was the Hottest Year on Record"
| quote | | “Global temperatures reached exceptionally high levels in 2023,” said a new report out on January 9, 2024. The data is from Copernicus, the European Union space program’s Earth-observing program. We overtook the previous warmest year on record, 2016, by a large margin. We also had daily global temperature averages that surpassed pre-industrial levels by more than 2 degrees Celsius for the first time. And, in 2023, Earth had its hottest month on record. What drove the unprecedented heat? A combination of greenhouse gasses, El Niño and other natural variations. |
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[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 01-11-2024).]
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olejoedad
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JAN 11, 02:54 PM
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You are both so close minded....both of you believe everything the media tells you, no questions asked.
Live in your self induced ignorance.
🎣
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rinselberg
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JAN 11, 03:20 PM
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| quote | Originally posted by olejoedad:
You are both so close minded....both of you believe everything the media tells you, no questions asked.
Live in your self induced ignorance.
🎣 |
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I have specific disagreements with what this Willie Soon was saying to Tucker Carlson.
About the sun and solar energy, for example. Dr Soon was talking about variations in the amount of solar energy as if it were some "X" factor that mainstream climate researchers were purposely or maybe inadvertently overlooking. But the fact is that there's been continuous monitoring of solar energy for the last "umpteen" years, with ground-based observatories that are designed specifically for that purpose.
I can't get into all the details of this, without reallocating the rest of my day here to research what's online about it, but I think this Willie Soon is sounding a "false note" when he talks about variations in solar energy as a way to debunk or undermine the "canonical" consensus of mainstream climate researchers that human greenhouse gas emissions are the only significant factor behind the recent, current and continuing observations that confirm global warming
This Willie Soon is talking up the perspective that says "We don't know enough, yet, to justify aggressive national and international measures to try to reduce human greenhouse gas emissions."
I disagree. I think we already know enough to say with confidence that reducing human greenhouse gas emissions is the "percentage play." It's better than not reducing greenhouse gas emissions, because whatever else is coming our way, and whatever else may yet be discovered, reducing greenhouse gas emissions is more likely than not to hold up as having been a good decision, when people look back on it in year 2050 and again in year 2100. It's a better bet than just waiting on it, as if something is going to happen that makes reducing human greenhouse gas emissions either undesirable, or easier to achieve in the future if we hold off on it, instead of working hard on it right now.
Sam Adams reducing human greenhouse gas emissions... always a good decision!
 [This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 01-11-2024).]
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olejoedad
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JAN 11, 03:51 PM
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Progress in the understanding of science is derived by asking questions about things we don't know, and also about things we think we already know.
The current 'climate' in most of the science community is that one isn't allowed to ask questions, one is just to accept the answers.
BTW, solar observations have been ongoing for hundreds of years, we just have better instruments now.
You should quit accepting what you are told without question.
It really limits your outlook of the world around you.
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