MIT Colloquium with Markey, Holdren, Browner

I am blogging in real time about this event.

MIT to host clean energy policy forum
Markey, Browner, Holdren to make case for new federal rules
April 7, 2009
Proposed federal rules aimed at promoting clean energy, combating climate change and creating new "green-collar" jobs will be the focus of a policy forum on April 13 at MIT featuring several of the key Washington players who are working to get them approved.
The event, "Clean Power: Building a New Clean Energy Economy," will feature remarks by U.S. Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, chair of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee; Carol Browner, the former Environmental Protection Agency administrator who is now President Barack Obama's assistant for energy and climate change; and John Holdren '65, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The forum comes ahead of what is expected to be a major debate in Congress over energy, global warming and economic policy. Last week, Markey and U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman of California introduced draft legislation in Congress that aims to spur the development of clean energy and reduce global warming emissions by establishing national standards for renewable energy and energy efficiency, and by putting a cap on carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping emissions.
In addition to the presentations by Markey, Holdren and Browner, the event will include remarks by MIT President Susan Hockfield, MIT Energy Initiative Director Ernest Moniz and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
The forum, which is sponsored by MIT in cooperation with Markey, runs from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Wong Auditorium. It is free and open to the public, and will also be webcast. The full agenda can be viewed here.
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Susan Hockfield, President of MIT

A PCAT study sponsored by Holdren found that every dollar invested in the green economy will lead to a $40 return.

Green energy will not be something that can be financed without charging for carbon.

At MIT our faculty and students are passionately involved with finding green solutions.

MIT will continue to serve as an honest broken and an innovator.

Introduction of Ed Markey, who has carried the torch for years. Key to acid rain legislation. Standards for vehicles. Champion for Energy Bill in 1997. Chairs Select energy committee and energy subcommittee. Most important leader in the House on energy, environment, and climate at the present time.

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Ed Markey

Albert Einstein said that insanity was doing the same thing many times and expecting that different results will come out. This is what Americans have been doing. How many times do we have to go through an energy crisis before we learn.

Next Tuesday we begin legislative hearings on the Waxman-Markey bill. This will indicate to the workd that America is ready to take a leadership role in energy innovation.

Model for energy legislation will be the telecommunications act Markey spearheaded. When his legis entered law in 1996, no American home had broadband. Change the market dynamics. Same kind of revolution can be unleashed. How do we accomplish that goal? How to surpass obstacles?

Introduction of John Holdren
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Increase in global temp by 2 degree C (=almost 4 degree F) by 2100 under business as usual. Occurring faster than the models indicated. Tipping points happening more rapidly than anticipated.

Options: Mitigation, adaptaion, suffering the adverse impacts.

Mitigation possibilities are abundant. Increase forestation. Modify agricultural processes. Engage in geo-engineering. Scrub greenhouse gases from atmosphere.

Adaptaion: special crop varieties, new water projects, dikes, changing cropping patterns, etc.

There is no feasible amount of mitigation that can stop climate change in its tracks. Therefore must adapt. Therefore adaptation is part of the picture.

If we can keep carbon under 550 ppm Carbon equiv will allow stabilizing at about 3 deg C. For 450 ppm, 2 deg C.

2050 goals: CO2 20-50 million tonnes of carbon willbe reduction

The reductions in carbon to the atmosphere will have to be severe.

McKinsey has identified projects that can be done by 2030 in a cost effective manner in the business as usual scenario.

Policy:
Remove barriers to harvesting the low hanging fruit.
Incentives for reaching higher into the tree.
Supporting or promoting R&D to lower the highest hanging fruit so that it can be reached.

In all of these categories there are measures that will be big wins for our economy.

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Questions and Answers:

Holdren: Between 1970 and 2005, we cut in half the cost in energy of producing each unit of goods and services. Going to have to succeed at sequestration of carbon dioxide. Better batteries and fuel cells. These are going to create new jobs, new industry.

Need to shrink time until fusion can be done. Was 15 years to commercialization in 1965. Now thought to be 50-65 years.

Obama embracing this kind of thing. Now there will be a permanent tax credit to encourage business.

Q: Isn't it tim to declare war on climate change?

Holdren: President is aware of the seriousness of this issue. Holdren and Chiu have been talking with him about this. He has not taken the option of saying that the economy will supercede our climate situation.

Markey: We have just completed 8 years of denial on this.

Holdren: President is strongly committed to the education part of this as well.

Dan Greenbaum: What about conventional pollutants such as black soot>

Holdren: Cannot ignore these.

Lauri Zimmerman --

Markey: No floor on oil and gas prices, but there is a market. 25% of electricity to come from renewables by 2025. SmartGrid provided for. Shift structure of utility to encourage partnership with homeowners so that is not just a matter of increasing consumption.

d'Arbeloff: Nuclear plants as pillars of mitigation?

Holdren: This not a recommendation, but an example. Actual details will depend on how things unfold. Need to put right framework into place so that the details can play out favorably.

David Bugh of A123: $2B designated for advanced batteries in US. Batteries now work for under 40 miles per day. 80% of US drivers. Cost is the issue. Improved manufacturing is avenue for improving.

Markey: What do you say to people who continue to doubt the science of global warming?

Holdren: I've tried it in various ways and they have all failed. Explaining the science does not work. I ask them if they really think that all the scientific socieities throughout the world could have been fooled. To people who think that the costs of doing this will be too high, I ask them about the costs for not doing it. They are formidable.
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Dan Yergin

More of an economic perspective. Has revised his book.
We need consistency of policy, consistency of investment, and consistency of commitment to R&D.

Ernie Moniz

Technology is clearly a major part of the solution.
Efficiency agency and carbon free electricity agenda are 4 star important. He mentioned sequestration and nuclear.
Three star: clean transportation and smart grid. Domestically produced natural gas as "carbon lite." Fusion. Water splitting with the sun.
Policy must be in synch with technology.
Need to harness the talents of all of the innovation centers in the US.
Need national policies that foster this.
Need to get these techs to scale very very quickly. Holdren mentioned the gigaton problem.
Need to break the code of how to link R&D to our entrepreneurial community.
Green jobs -- a number of studies show how job intensity of most renewable techs is substantially greater than for fossil fuel technologies. This is also a challenge, because it is mostly in the manufacturing domain, and we need to capture such.
Sec Bowles just came in, and works closely with MIT to advance the New England agenda.

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Q&A:

Yergin: Peak gasoline demand in 2007, and it will go down.

Markey: Can we achieve the needed tech breakthroughs?

Moniz: I am certainly very optimistic. Tech for sequestration is quite adequate for initiating demonstrations. Will need to develop new techs to lower the cost. This can be competitive in transition in the US. But then there is the China test. If we cannot get the price down, then China will not adopt.

Yergen: A lot of the energy issue is between US and China.

Markey: I talk almost weekly with T. Boone Pickens. National security issue.

Yergen: Price shocks in fuel represent the most serious threat to the auto industry.

Jeff Tarbin: We need social innovations as well as technical. Reducing number of vehicles or the distance that they travel. Imp0roved public transit. Can we do this? Second, we need to reduce geographic growth of population. Major driver the quality of urban schools. What can we do beside simply adding money.

Dan is pointing toward Markey who comments: Carol will address some of this. You should be gratified that we have a president who has already announced that he is going to focus on urban schools. In Telecommunications bill, we had an e-rate for the schools. This provided for urban school children. Thusfar, about $25B has been paid out of that for urban schoolkids.

Keenan, President of TIAX: Mitigation might be more cost effective than some other approaches. What emphasis do you anticipate placing on this?

Markey: Depends a lot on India and CHina. Indians are aware of the problem of CO2 impacts on such as the glaciers in the Himalayas. The CO2 are from India and China. Need you to take leadership role.

Moniz: We are in a race to reduce the carbon free tech costs.

Wm Rosenberg, Pres of E2 Gasification Co.: Developing several SNG plants in gulf coast and IL basin. Pretty comfortable that can make these projects work economically with Fed assistance. But there is criticalfactor: making enhanced oil retrieval work. Produce 5M tonnes CO2 per year along with SNG. Start construction in 18 months. Feels that EOR (enhanced oil recovery) is the only solution. [requires long distance piping of CO2]

Moniz: Saline acquifer is the longterm solution. There is a spectrum of short term approaches.

George Mokray of Cambridge: About three years ago, James Hansen said we had 3 years to get to 350 ppm. Bill McKibben will talk here later about that number. Disappointing and intellectually dishonest not to talk about that number. The future of the US depends on the sales acumen and integrity of the building efficiency industry. Need public education. Need motivation and urgency.

Yergin: requires investment.

Moniz: Confirms that Holdren talked about 350 ppm. Confirms importance of buildings. Also some of the advanced technologies will be important retrofits in the future.

Markey: Congress put legislation on President's desk a week after inauguration a bill to increase weatherization budget from $200M to $6B.

Where are we going in next year?

Moniz: Scale and speed. Reducing incremental costs.

Yergin: Scale and time. Consistency. Recognize that it is a pretty big ship we need to turn around.
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Markey Intro to Carol Browner

She says she is a policy person rather than a scientist or technical person.

At time of Earth Day there was a bipartison commitment in Congress to protect our environment. In each case there were the same complaints as exist now (too costly, have to choose between healthy environment and healthy economy, too difficult technically, unable to do it, etc.), but American ingenuity came up with solutions in each case.

President says that the first country to make clean energy economically successful will be the country that leads the 21st century.

When I was head of EPA I had the privilege of working with some of the best environmental engineers. But not one of them could reverse the damage that would be done to our drinking water supplies by a rising ocean. If something is not done about global warming our children will face a permanently changed environment.

Markey: What are your goals as you prepare for Copenhagen.

Browner: Re-establish the US as a leader on climate change. During his trip to Europe he spoke on this almost every day. What we can hope to achieve in Copenhagen will depend on what we can do here in the US.

I asked Ian Bowles to think about jobs. This lead to focus on energy efficiency, and certain new technologies, clean energy, renewables, smart grid. Heard from businesses that could not get access to capital. So put $65B in loan guarantees into the package. Put in tax credits. Create stability and predictability. Secured $600M for clean energy job training at DOL. An additional $100M so that people can be trained to be line workers, which people are growing up not wanting to do these days.

Phil McKenna from New Scientist Mag: What if carbon legislation does not get through.

Browner: I am quite confident that the Congress will act, under the leadership of Congressman Markey. We need Comprehensive legislation. Looking at all aspects.

Henrietta Davis, City Counselor of Cambridge: Difficult to get the startup costs for energy conservation in Cambridge. How do we get that first money?

Browner: There are cities that have set up revolving loans. There is a provision for this in Markey's legislation. Maybe can use some of the state efficiency block grant money.

Markey: reiterate how effic is lowest hanging fruit.

Seth Kaplan of Conservation Law: transportation challenge where facing service cutbacks and price hikes. There is funding for capital investment, but not for paying the bus drivers. One approach is to have the allowances apply. How soon and what percent?

Markey: Right off the top cannot option off all of those credits because the steel and other energy intensive industries could be taken advantage of by the Chinese and others. This is a long term goal. Idea re transportation is a very interesting idea that we should talk about more.

???: Fed gas tax is 0.18 per gal while in EU it is $2-3 per gallon. Is there any chance, without political suicide, to talk about raising gas tax in this country.

Markey: legislation I led addressed higher mileage standards rather than increasing the gas tax.

Browner: One of Obamas first actions was an internal memo to DOT about increasing fuel efficiency. 2012 was the first year that this could be implemented.

Greg Yurik of American Superconductor: playing a role in smart grid. AWEA and Solar Industry Asszoc reports about moving electric power. It is going to take a long time to get the 5 GW of power lines permitted. We have superconductor wires that carry much more electricity, so can transmit electricity without large wiring that causes permitting problems.

David Holzman: American communities are too sprawling to have efficient transportation. What are the costs per tonne of CO2 avoided? Sources?

Browner: There are many sources for this.

Markey: We are in the presence of an historic person. She will be the quarterback for this.

Hockfield: Closing.

It's Time to Start a Digital Conservation Movement

A friend and colleague, Keith Gross, pointed me to this interesting article on greenness in cyber-reality.

http://www.newfangled.com//its_time_to_start_a_digital_conservation_movement

My comments to the author were these:

I think you make many excellent points, in support of the main point. It is not obvious what the answer is about how to proceed, because the business models for such companies as Google call for lots of storage and lots of CPU. Further, some people with whom I have talked seem to feel that the virtualization of information and communications will save us from climate change. Someone needs to do the numbers and see what makes sense. Maybe I will tackle that, but I also have many other things to do, and so perhaps someone else will do it first.

I do want to comment on your comments about digital pictures. This is a somewhat complicated area. Clearly 800 pictures attached to a Facebook site is excessive. As grist for the mill, I would suggest consideration of another scenario. Earlier this week I was on the roof of a building reviewing equipment with my business partner, a licensed professional engineer. We had limited time, and he went directly to key areas to document what we knew we had to have when we left the site. I clicked dozens of additional digital photographs of all the equipment. This made it feasible to retain information that otherwise we would not have retained. Later it turned out during the data analysis stage of the work that this extra information was essential. It was not that we were stupid about our narrow focus. It was that we focused where we had to focus and also captured as much of the periphery as we could. Why? Because, as anyone knows who has done video documentary, if you are filming in real time, and some key event happens, you often discover that part of that event occurs just outside the camera's frame. Thus, all those seemingly un-necessary photos turned out to be critically important. So the digital camera costs something in storage and battery, but it saves time and travel that would otherwise have been required to return to the site for more data. But then, taking it to the next level, the question is what do we do with all that rich extra data once we have finished using it. I again need to do the numbers, but I suspect that archiving it off onto a CD or DVD, labelling well, and storing the media efficiently goes a long way toward keeping it all as green as possible. Further, we fall even more deeply into agreement when I point out that such digital photographs should not be stored on a Google site simply because Google makes all those GBs of storage available for free.

One key lesson stands out for all of us in our time. We all need to restrain ourselves, even if it seems that we are partaking of unlimited resources. Those resources are not really unlimited. And they do have costs.

Fall Zones & the Issue of Consistency

For obvious reasons, the fall zone for a wind turbine or met tower is an important concern for all stakeholders. The fall zone is defined to approximate the area around the base of the turbine that would likely receive the tower and turbine, or the met tower, if it were to fall. It is often set by local ordinance to be 1 or perhaps 1.25 times the height of the turbine.

Some years ago we were working with Upper Cape Tech Vocational Technical School, discussing the installation of a 660 kW turbine. Unfortunately, the only reasonable location for the turbine placed the fall zone too close to a neighbor's woods. It was OK with the neighbor that the fall zone include part of his woods, but it was not OK with the state funding agency. That was the end of the project.

In the past year this issue was rejoined for a project in Falmouth. The owner was proposing to install a GE 1.5mW turbine that would have a fall zone overlapping a neighbor's property. Again the neighbor was prepared to sign a document granting the right for the turbine to fall on his again unused property. This time the funding was private, so the discussion continued in front of the Zoning Board of Appeals for the town. The Board insisted that the neighbor write a codicil into his deed indicating that the fall zone would include this certain part of his property. The Board also pushed hard that the owner locate the wind turbine closer to his own building and further from the neighboring property, minimizing the overlap onto the neighbor’s property. All parties cooperated and the building permit was granted.

This perhaps demonstrates that some governmental bodies can be more legalistic and bureaucratic than others, and that time and the right circumstances can help in establishing a workable precedent among agreeable parties.

Now consider also that the are no fall zone restrictions for cell towers, per the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (http://www.cell-out.org/TCA704.html). On one hand this would seem to indicate that an unfair hand has been dealt to wind turbine developers. By that I mean to point out that fall zone restrictions represent one of a number of means by which those against change can prevent wind turbine installations in a town.

On the other hand, those against cell towers (for example, (http://www.cell-out.org/) would argue that the Federal government, or perhaps the mis-interpretations commonly given to Federal law, give the cell phone developers an unfair advantage over local people who do not want a cell tower looming over their house or their property. Mike M. at the above address argues that allowing cell tower owners to do this represents a taking of property without proper compensation, a violation of the 5th Amendment.

I do not know enough about law to be able to write a cogent opinion about Mike's arguement. However, I know from experience that it is problematic finding adequate space for a fall zone on densely built-up property in such places as Massachusetts. I also think that consenting parties ought to be allowed to work out reasonable accommodations with each other. (That does not mean that the health and safety of children in a school should be threatened by a neighbor's wind turbine.) It is also important for our country that renewable energy be supported and fostered. Thus, it may be reasonable and desirable that state or national authorities establish restrictions on local fall zone bylaws. The fall zone bylaws for wind turbines, and certainly for meteorological towers, should not be dramatically more strict than for cell towers.

Solar Energy, Small Farming, and Last Snow

Earlier today I went walking with my camera to capture some pictures that illustrate the relation of terrain and foliage to ambient and ground temperature. In one direction I discovered that I was a day late. I had missed the last snow before it melted. In the other direction I was going to lower ground, and I captured what I wanted.

In the first picture we see snow on the north-facing rise to the south of the tracks. No surprise there. A question that might be asked is why the snow has melted on the other north-facing slopes.


In the second picture we see that there is still a small area of ice adjacent to the stream. You can see the sunlight and shadows playing on the ice, so this spot has not been entirely shaded during the winter and spring. This suggests that the remaining ice is on very low ground, where the cold air falls.






The next picture is of the stream, which typically is covered with ice during the winter. You can see remaining snow to the left, where it is both on low ground (remember cold air is heavier than warm air, and therefore goes to the low ground), partly shaded by evergreens, and on the north-facing side.

Thus there are at least three factors in the temperatures for a particular location. When I was once looking for some land in New Hampshire for a house and field, the realtor showed me a plot with a pitch facing north and sloping down to the north. As would be predicted from solar energy calculations, this was cool during the summer, but was also a poor solar site -- the last area to be ready for planting. I rejected that plot. If I had only been concerned with a cool summer house, I might have made an offer. But I was concerned with raising food as well as warmth during the winter, so I rejected it.

These scenes may appear to be just what they are, but to a physicist there is more. When I get time, maybe I will write about the unseen things in these photos. These include various forms of electromagnetic radiation. Hmmm ... I did not see any birds either. I wonder why. I have seen birds such as geese migrating north, but maybe it is not yet time for the song birds.

Governor Patrick's Transportation and Economic Security Plan

Some notes on Governor Patrick's Transportation and Economic Security Plan which Reforms Big-Dig Culture, Rebuilds Trust and Transparency to Help Secure the Commonwealth's Economic Future. Fundamentally, I agree with the vast majority of what is mentioned below. That being acknowledged, here are my concerns and disagreements.

• We need even a larger gas tax. There are many improvements that are critical to accomplish soon in our public transportation systems. These, like all the other items already in the budget, will cost money, and we must support them. It will also set the price of gas to be what it would have been if there were not Federal subsidies for gas and diesel. This in turn will move our marketplace economy to manifest reality better.
• We need to start now to expand the subway and rail systems by establishing mega-stations at the crossing points of the commuter rail lines and Route 128. These stations need much more parking and capacity than was designed into the Alewife station, which was initially so very successful that it was overwhelmed with demand within a few years of its completion.
• I do not yet have enough information to know what the impacts will be for the proposed personnel plans. Although many of us pay electronically with transponders for our use of the Massachusetts Turnpike, there continue to be long lines at the manual booths to pay tolls. Is the proposal really to eliminate these manual booths and oblige everyone to pay by transponder? Some will object merely on the basis that they do not use the Pike enough to warrant investing time and perhaps money in a transponder. Others will object to Big Brother being able to track our driving.
• My impression is that the MBTA, if it is to serve its purpose, needs to be funded more reliably with more money each year. As a society we need to make a commitment to mass transportation to bring the MBTA to the level of the Montreal and Washington D.C. mass transit systems.
• To me a key part of the purpose of the mass transit system is to get people out of their polluting cars. Right now it is apparent that the Boston area automotive system is broken. During the extended rush hours, cars spend 40% of their travel time, sometimes much more, idling while waiting for lights or traffic jams. This is very much not green, and not energy efficient. If we are to tackle the global warming situation, this is a key place to change things. Low hanging fruit.
• We need to start projects now, because it takes many years to plan them and execute them. We cannot achieve our carbon goals if we wait to the last minute.
• A longstanding issue is the willingness of us suburbanites to fund or pay for infrastructure in the Big City. While we want enough of our money to go to our local communities, we do use Boston facilities, and we want them to be strong. We do not want to break our axles on poorly maintained Boston streets, we would be alarmed to see the Salt and Pepper Shaker Bridge" crumbling, and we do not want public transportation to be unrealiable. We want our money to be used frugally and wisely, and we want an adequate amount used to maintain the infrastructure in Boston.

I asked three public questions of the Governor during the Town Hall Meeting. One was the statement about megastations. One was about the need for enough money to go to Boston. Finally, I posed the question that emerged from my discussion with the conservative blogger sitting immediately to my left. I did this because by happenstance he was not going to get his chance.

So I asked, in my words, whether adequate effort had been made at this point to assure that there was no more fat in the transportation budgets, before we start adding taxes. My conservative colleague squeeled with delight and thanked me for asking the question. When I was back home I shared with my wife that I might have turned to him and said, "That is part of what being Liberal and Christian is about." (This is not to say that many Liberals are not concerned with cost effectiveness and wise use of resources. It is to say that too many on the Right seem to be so concerned with their own causes that they lack empathy for others' concerns and needs, which may well become their own all too soon.) In any case, the Governor was very ready for the question and hit a home run.

From http://youmovemassachusetts.org/reform.html
Governor Patrick has announced a plan to end the "Big Dig" culture and build a long-term, sustainable transportation base to support job growth and economic development in Massachusetts.
The plan includes:
Restructuring and simplifying our transportation bureaucracy, including abolishing the Turnpike Authority
Ending the "23 and out" special perk in the MBTA pension system
Bringing the Turnpike and MBTA employees into the state health care system
Increasing accountability and transparency throughout the transportation system
Making our transportation system more environmentally-responsible
Streamlining operations and eliminating 300 positions
Working to move MassHighway personnel off the capital budget and back onto the regular payroll
Providing a responsible, long-term funding source to fix our roads and bridges, pay down our existing debt, and secure our economic future
The plan is transparent and accountable on the new revenue from a 19-cent increase in the gas tax, accounting for and dedicating each new penny to a specific transportation initiative:
4 cents to roll back the proposed toll increases on the Turnpike
6 cents to preserve current MBTA services and prevent a fare increase
1 cent for Innovative Gas and Toll Solutions
1.5 cents for Regional Transit Authorities
1.5 cents for targeted regional road projects
3 cents for rail projects outside of Boston
2 cents to address the costly practice of paying for personnel with bond funds
The gas tax has not been increased since 1991. The plan embraces all of the Transportation Finance Commission reforms, which they estimated would save $2.5 billion over 20 years.
The TFC stated that "the real cost of this neglect will be felt in our regional economy and in our way of life," and that "business as usual will not suffice."
This plan builds on our existing reforms, including:
Joining 49 other states in using civilian flaggers on construction projects
Streamlining by 40% project delivery time at MassHighway
Saving $47 million at the MBTA by reducing overtime costs and staff levels and increasing employee health care contributions
Saving $31 million at the Turnpike by eliminating middle management and toll takers
With the legislature's support, launching the Accelerated Bridge Repair Program to address the backlog of maintenance projects left by previous administrations

Preparing for the Boston Marathon without a Shirt

This continues my thread on human thermal response and performance, a topic of interest because it offers flexibility in dealing with thermal inflation, energy use, and global warming. A word of warning as you read this post. The person I interviewed is in outstanding shape and knows exactly what he is doing, having done it for years. If one is going to try it, it makes sense to approach it a little bit at a time, and bring along backup protection. One of the things that prevents me from moving my experiments in this direction is recognition that, even if I might do fine in the first mile, I might have a problem in the second mile, and not be able to get back safely home.

February 28, 2009. On the way riding my bicycle back from the library this morning, I happened to see a man running in runner's shorts and shoes, athletic socks, and gloves. His top and legs were exposed to the elements. After a brief consideration about whether to reach out to him, I caught up to him on the left side of Route 20 going in toward Boston, and rode along with him about a half mile. At first he was a little reluctant to talk because, he said, a lot of people think he is nuts. I did not think he was nuts at all, and the conversation I had with him indicated he was certainly not nuts, unless all marathoners are nuts, which some might argue is true. To me this is further validation of my theory about thermal inflation, a topic about which I posted earlier this year, and have written about since 1979.

He explained that he was out on his "long route," 17 miles, in preparation for the Boston Marathon which is not so many weeks from now. The other striking things about him were his age and the way he bent his knees to cushion his body from the shocks of running on pavement. He explained that he had started his experiment with temperature about 40 years ago. At first he had run during winter in heavy clothing and had sweat profusely. Then he realized that this did not make a lot of sense, so he started experimenting with varying levels of clothing, obviously less and less.

What he had learned was that the body generates a lot of heat, which is a disadvantage in excess, and which is retained more if you do not start sweating. He also learned, as he put it, that the pores in one's skin shut down if the skin is exposed to the cold. Much as I have found in my experiments, he found that one can "fool" oneself about how warm or cold one is, by focusing on the perceived temperature of one's skin. What counts is the internal temperature. So after being something of a wimp about the cold when he was a boy, he had to work his way through his expectations and beliefs about his skin being cold. Those cold sensations are good rather than bad.

Also an important factor is never to sweat, because when the sweating begins the skin temperature and body temperature become regulated in a very different way. This modifies the skin barrier between the elements and the core of the body. He commented that he had learned about a remarkable woman who swam competitively in cold bodies of water such as the English Channel, without a wet suit or grease to provide thermal insulation for her body. Her body had adapted by developing a layer of thick subcutaneous fat that serves as that layer of insulation. Indeed, the human body is able to adapt in all kinds of interesting ways, if we foster its doing so!

Then we got to the gloves. I explained that I live at 45-52 degrees, and that when I start to get cold, the first sign is that my hands get cold. He exclaimed, "Yes," the same thing happens for him. This is the reason that he runs with thick winter gloves on his hands.

More later after I get the chance to interview this insightful man who has been willing to experiment for decades.

Does Algae Plus Wind Power Equal Biofuel

Use of algae for generating fuel is one of the leading edges of thinking about alternative energy. Some of the benefits and problems have been pointed out in other comments at the New York Times (http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/does-algae-plus-wind-power-equal-biofuel/). I have been on the roof of the MIT co-generation plant, where there is a small-scale pilot algae project for extracting CO2 from exhaust. Because I was there on an overcast wintry day, I saw it at a time when I would be skeptical that production would be very high or that very much CO2 would be extracted. On the other hand, production and extraction should be quite high on a hot summer day when the sun is burning down. One might draw from this that the effectiveness of such approaches would depend on environmental factors, although one might conceive of algae that are very active without much sun. Of course, the warmth can come from the exhaust, but for ocean-based algae will require some other source of heat.

I would be concerned about the fate of these large vats for algae, and possibly for the wind turbine towers to which they are tethered. Those who work with the ocean have universally come to be humbled by its power. It does not take a major storm to destroy ships that are much more seaworthy than any large vat that can be readily designed and built. Their very size makes them very vulnerable. At the same time, indeed, there are better uses for farmland than growing corn for ethanol. Farmers have benefitted financially in important ways from the ethanol initiative. However, there are better ways to offer farmers economic opportunity and fairness in the larger economy. I applaud the willingness of some to invest their private resources to address the challenge and, if it goes to a pilot, will be interested to see how it comes out.

A key bottom line that we approach is one that I have stated to many people over the past two decades. It is fine to live in a world dominated by engineering and science rather than by nature, but we had better know what we are doing. Proposals like this make me nervous that we know enough of what we are doing. At the same time, we need not get too nervous about it, because the ideas have now entered the bright sun of day. Time and effort will determine whether they are realistic.