Legal Niches

The Low-Hanging Fruit Pie

By Jim Holtkamp

Princeton University researchers have developed the "wedge model" for attacking climate change.  Each wedge is a separate strategy for dealing with climate change.  Although simplistic, the model illustrates the proposition that there is no single approach to mitigating man-made contributions to climate change.  The wedge strategies range from energy efficiency to switching from carbon-intensive fuels to nuclear energy development, and together form a complete strategy for attacking climate change.  I like to think of the model as a pie consisting of wedge-shaped pieces.  Unlike a pie, however, some climate change wedges go down easier than others.  The economics and physical logistics of geologic sequestration, for example, are much more challenging than simple energy efficiency.

It is a bit daunting to consider spending billions of dollars on a carbon sequestration system, with CO2 separation, pipelines, injection wells, inevitable legal wrangles over ownership of subsurface rights, etc. It is a lot easier to swallow the simple things your mother told you to do when you were a teenager: "Turn out the lights when you leave the room" and "Don't use up all the hot water."  There is something vaguely Californian about Australia's phaseout of incandescent light bulbs by 2010 in favor of compact fluorescents.  However, considering that only ten percent of the energy used for a typical incandescent bulb is converted into light, the phaseout will conserve a significant amount of energy at a low, manageable and predictable cost.  Australia is really not a bunch of would-be Californians, but a government of policymakers who listened to their mothers.

The ultimate drivers of energy development are not the major oil companies or big power companies or large coal miners -- they are the end users, the 6+ billion men, women and children on the planet.  Along with major investments in technology for less carbon-intensive fuels, research on geologic sequestration, and subsidization of remote projects in exchange for carbon reduction offsets, some companies are discovering that a dollar spent on educating their consumers in simple energy efficiency often results in a greater reduction in their "carbon footprint" than a dollar spent on more cosmic endeavors.

Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" was more about Al Gore than about climate change; however the best part of the entire movie is the credits, which are interspersed with simple, homely ways to save energy.  Al may get his Nobel Prize, but it was really earned by our mothers -- when you leave the room, turn off the light!

(Contributed by Jim Holtkamp, Environmental Compliance Attorney in the Salt Lake City Office)

Full post as published by Climage Change Law on July 25, 2007 (boomark / email).