One Size Does Not Fit All When it Comes to Generating Power

I was reading this article earlier today and came across this little quote from Eicke Weber, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems: "The impact of a nuclear disaster [like the one in Japan] is simply too great for the government to continue its support for nuclear [power]." I don't think the situation in Japan should drive every country to pull their support from efforts to produce nuclear power. Japan doesn't really need to have nuclear power plants. The country is located on a fault line, so they are especially prone to earthquakes and attacks by giant, fire-breathing lizards. The densely populated east coast of the United States probably doesn't need to have large-scale nuclear power production either, the cost of a meltdown is just too high. But if nuclear power was just a little less expensive to start producing on a small scale, rural communities in areas without major faults and less than regular monster attacks could build their own plants. The mistake I think this article's writer, along with many other people make, is they assume they can come up a blanket plan that works for the whole country. A country as big as ours with so many diverse ecosystems needs to be able to tailor power options to the areas where the power is being produced and consumed.

Mr. Toads Wilderness Lawsuit, Part I: An Economic Perspective

I've got nothing to do today. I'm waiting for a sensitivity analysis to finish on a genetic algorithm I'm working with for my research (what?); I started it last night at around 5:30 PM and when I got here at 9:30 this morning, it was only 25% complete. So, while I wait for this thing to finish running, I figured I'd play around on my new laptop and translate the most recent post by raftercm into economics.

Mr. Toad's Wilderness Lawsuit: Part I

When I worked at Frontier Pack Train, George Hay and I spent a good amount of my time putting up ugly electric fences in mountain meadows to protects the Yosemite Toad from our grazing livestock. Any spots in our grazing pastures that were wet had to be surrounded by the gaudy white electric tape so that our horses and mules wouldn't skoosh them. I wasn't defacing the back country because I love the look of electric fencing. A court had found that our livestock were smooshing the life out of these endangered toads, and so we had to take steps to save these poor toads. Eventually the court forced the Forest Service to stop issuing grazing permits, because that would save the toads from the hooves of death.

The court said that there was "sufficient evidence to link commercial packstock to... a reduction in the population" of these wretched toads. The only problem with this statement by the 9th Circuit is that there was no evidence at all that grazing livestock were causing a decline in the number of these toads. It would be about five years before the results of any study on the effect of livestock on toads would be published, and that study said that the toads were unaffected. The toads weren't being skooshed, smooshed, or even frightened to death by grazing animals. The study points out that the toads and livestock weren't even hanging out in the same places. The toads, being toads, hang out in the wet parts of High Sierra Meadows. Grazing livestock, animals that get all their calories from grazing off of grass, were eating the more nutritious grass from the drier parts of the meadow.

The Ninth Circuit, in all their wisdom, needed no study to show what effect the grazing animals were having on the toads. It was enough for them that the toads were in the meadow, the livestock were in the meadow, and the toad numbers were declining. They didn't need evidence, they simply knew what was happening in the High Sierra. As a result they totally stopped grazing in the High Sierra. This decision cost the packers in that area an untold amount of money because they had to pack in feed. And it put more animals on the back country trails because they needed to pack in that feed, or it forced the packers to take fewer trips because they needed more animals for each trip. This kind of arrogance is what distances the court from normal people, and in this case an environmentalist court was willing to believe whatever it was told without any proof, and without considering what the results of its actions would be.

My next post will examine what I think should happen next.

"'Cuz I got high, 'cuz I got high, 'cuz I got high": the story of corn prices in 2011

Farmers this season have seen insanely high prices for their corn grain. Although a new higher-than-expected estimate of corn acreage has driven corn prices down from their high of $8 per bushel in June to around $6.20, corn producers are still sitting pretty. (For comparison, when I started writing my thesis a year ago, corn was at around $4.80 per bushel!)

This is certainly great news for farmers, and they deserve it after a rough, wet spring that saw countless acres of good farmland underwater from record-breaking flooding. However, with corn prices nearly doubling, maybe this is a little too good, especially considering the amount of money farmers pull in every year from government coffers. TIME Magazine recently published an article aptly titled "Want to Make More than a Banker? Become a Farmer!" which discusses the resurgence in agriculture in terms of its profits. The article cites various experts who claim that these high prices are not an anomaly; with increasing wealth and preference for meat in countries like China and India, farmers can count on high prices from here on out.

A new Farm Bill is currently being written. In part, these bills help determine how much money goes to farm price supports such as counter-cyclical payments and direct payments. These high corn prices beg the question: how much do tax payers owe to farmers? Especially in this time of fiscal crisis, should we as a nation be handing over our dear government revenues to farmers who, by all accounts, are doing fine on their own?

A new poll has been started; you can see it on the top right portion of the main page. Feel free to vote and let us know the extent to which Uncle Sam -- and, by extension, you -- should be supporting our agricultural producers.

Cap-and-tirade: A look at Mitt Romney's environmental policy record

It's been awhile since I last wrote anything. I have the excuse that I've been busy, it's been a holiday, etc. But, really, I've just been watching James Bond movies.

Now it's time to get back on the horse and continue on with our current feature: Cap-and-tirade: A look at GOP candidates' environmental policy records. Last time, we took a look at Jon Huntsman, the younger, greener, less spray-tanned counterpart to today's superstar, Mitt Romney.

Just like last time, I find that I can't do a better job of outlining Romney's environmental bona fides than a real journalist, so once again I'll be pulling heavily from the analysis done by Andrew Schenkel from his blog on the Mother Nature Network.

Stupid Toads

So I will be doing a more in-depth analysis of this, but I would like to get this out as soon as I can. I had to put up so many miles of stupid, ugly electric fences in the back country to protect these wretched toads that were never in danger of being skooshed by our livestock. Screw you hippies.

I'm feeling lucky: Google calculates cost of delaying technological breakthroughs

Legalities and Externalilties has its first "request" post. A former classmate, Morgan Cox, brought this interesting article to my attention, so a special thanks goes out to him for being a loyal follower and active participant in our little project.

Cap-and-tirade: A look at Jon Huntsman's environmental policy record

Here is Part 1 of the series "Cap-and-tirade: a look at 2012 GOP candidates' environmental policy record". Today we look at Jon Huntsman, a promising up-and-comer who has, to this point, flown under the radar, but promises to be an apt opponent to Mitt Romney as well as a worthy spokesman for Rembrandt tooth whitening products.

It turns out that I'm a little late to the game when it comes to analyzing candidates' environmental records; other people have done it before I got to it, and I'm traveling for the next few days, so I figured I would just borrow from the analysis of Andrew Shenkel from the Mother Nature Network. The analysis is quite thorough, but I'll hit the main points here for expediency.

Small potatoes: EPA bullies Idaho landowners (A Legal Perspective)

Before I begin this post I would like to point out that Creeling’s title on this was hilarious.

I’m a little loath to comment too much about the viability of the couple’s possible suit against the realtor who sold them their property. This is mostly because its summer time and I really don’t feel like doing any formal legal research about what makes a title unmarketable in Idaho. I am confident that if the realtor knew about the regulation and misrepresented the situation to the couple then he would be liable for the shenanigans he pulled. But if that didn’t happen, then I think the buyer’s would have been expected to find that information themselves since it was a public regulation[1].

I do believe that this couple’s suit against the EPA is appropriate and that there is a possibility these people’s due-process rights were violated. Rather than suing on the grounds that the law that allowed them to classify their property as a wetland is unconstitutional, they are suing on the grounds that their rights were violated. The EPA denied them a hearing to contest the classification of their property; and while this may not amount to a taking by the government, the EPA has certainly curtailed their use of the land and these folks should certainly have the opportunity to contest it. If the Supreme Court finds against these homeowners, it is essentially giving the EPA the ability to act with impunity when it decides to regulate what a homeowner can and cannot do on his property. Citizens should always have the right to challenge what the government does in a public forum, and in this case they should have the administrative hearing they requested so they can demand to know why their land was classified this way. Even if the agency never even seriously considers these people’s case and had a perfectly legitimate reason for making their property a wetland, the owners should have the right to a hearing to contest the EPA’s decision because justice demands that government agencies be held accountable for the decisions they make when they affect the lives of citizens.

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[1] If I didn’t make it clear enough above I want to make it clear now: This is not a formal legal discussion of this case. I haven’t researched it and I’m doing the best my summer-baked brain can to remember last semester’s property class.

Presidential burn-out poll

 It's the week before the 4th of July, so, feeling both patriotic and curious, I'm trying my hand at a new feature here. On the right-hand side of the screen, you will see a poll that asks the question: which Republican hopeful's flame will burn out first?

If he takes half as much care of the country
as his immaculate facial hair, we're in good shape

There is no "undecided" option, because I'm loath to think that someone out there would actually take the time to log on to a site to declare that they have no opinion. The poll includes only the major candidates; however, for an interesting read, you can log on to Wikipedia's list of declared candidates to see who has actually registered. It's a bigger list than I thought and includes many candidates I've never heard of, including Jonathan "The Impaler" Sharkey, who is apparently the illegitimate offspring of Ron Jeremy and the "V for Vendetta" guy.

The poll closes on the 4th of July, so enter your answer now.

Small potatoes: EPA bullies Idaho landowners

I also found this during my morning news reading:

"When Mike and Chantell Sackett bought a half-acre lot in the Priest Lake area of Idahos Panhandle, their plan was to build a home in which they could raise a family. Four years later, there’s still no house on the lot. What the Sacketts have built instead is a high-stakes legal challenge against the Environmental Protection Agency over its enforcement of the Clean Water Act. After the Sacketts began grading the dirt lot in 2007, the EPA ordered them to stop, saying that their parcel was in fact a federally designated wetland and that by filling it, they had violated the Clean Water Act [even though] the property was sandwiched between two houses in a residentially-zoned neighborhood..." (Washington Times)

In the end, the EPA refused to grant the Sacketts a hearing; the couple is now waiting to hear whether the Supreme court will hear their case. Apparently, this whole thing started when their neighbor decided he didn't want anyone developing the land adjacent to his home, so he alerted the EPA.

Certainly, it makes no sense for the EPA to be so inflexible in enforcing this policy. According to the article, there is no standing water on the property, and therefore the land can't be a wetland if it's not wet. However, rather than railing against the EPA - as ideologically satisfying as that may be in this case - I believe that the real legal case should be against the realtor who sold them this property. The fact that the neighbor knew that the lot was on a federally-protected wetland means that the information was by no means secret. Had the Sacketts known that the land was going to be subject to restrictions on development or humongous fines in the case of development, they likely would have passed on the deal or, at the very least, demanded a significantly reduced price that reflects the loss in value of the land from not being able to develop it. Either the Sackett's are naive or the realtor withheld vital information regarding the property's value.

There are many benefits to suing the realtor rather than the EPA. Precedent is an important concept in law and helps to guide legal decisions in future cases. I imagine a judge would be much more likely to side with the Sacketts against a realtor than the EPA because, in ruling against the EPA, the judge would set a precedent that may make it much more difficult for the EPA to enforce wetlands conservation policy, which is truly valuable to society. Ruling against a realtor, on the other hand, sets a precedent that has unequivocally positive implications for society. By holding the realtor responsible for representing the true value and relating all relevant information of a property, the judge would help to lower transaction costs to homebuyers by increasing transparency in the market for houses (which is critical to maintaining economic efficiency).

In summary, it doesn't make sense to sue the EPA for enforcing the law, as stupid as the law may be. The Sacketts should be suing the bejeesus out of the realtor for not disclosing information vital to the property's value at the time of sale. I would imagine that they'd have a better shot at becoming whole or, at the very least, of a judge actually taking the case.

I know I'm treading on my colleague's turf a little, but there are some good economic reasons for my viewpoint. Maybe he can chime in a little, as this is an interesting case that is not nearly as cut-and-dry as the article would make it seem.

Delicious and Dangerous: The Canada Goose

I'm working on putting together the Jon Huntsman environmental record piece and will hopefully have that up today. In the interim, I thought I'd share more interesting bird-related news.

"New York City is working on plans to capture geese while they are molting and can’t fly in order to ship them to Pennsylvania, where they will be slaughtered and served at food banks. The plan is an attempt to improve air safety that was spurred by the U.S. Airways plane that ended up in the Hudson River after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport when some geese got caught in the engine in 2009." (Care2.com)

If only all invasive species were as delicious and easily-caught as the majestic Canadian goose. Increased air safety and food for the homeless? I'm on board.

Cap-and-tirade: A look at GOP candidates' environmental policy records

It's getting to be that time again -- the time where political adds fill up the airwaves, stirring up the both the thoughtful and primal urges that dwell within all red-blooded, freedom-loving Americans. Where fresh-faced volunteers go door to door soliciting votes, spending weekends sprucing up the local rec center or town hall auditorium with star spangled banners, all in an effort to get 37% of our collective, lazy, entitled rear-ends in the door to elect the man or woman who will steer our country into the next four years.

The TRAIN (Wreck) Act: A Legal Perspective

The TRAIN Act, which is a well-intentioned try to get some regulations out of the way of American business, will do more harm than good. Creeling already outlined his objections to the bill, pointing out its flawed decision-making mechanism. In addition to those flaws, it has legal ramifications as well. As I wrote a few days ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA alone is able to make federal rules about greenhouse gas emissions; so if people who want to sue somebody over greenhouse gasses in federal court they will have to sue the EPA. The TRAIN Act takes away the power of the EPA to do that, leaving the door open for environmental groups to sue utilities directly. This would mean more lawsuits between more parties in more courts across the country. This could result in a mess of differing outcomes in different districts, making it harder for businesses to know exactly what the law is in their area. Leaving these regulations to the EPA means that one agency is responsible for making these decisions, and means that one agency is accountable[1]. If people want to see change in these regulations, they need to work to get like-minded people into the EPA and lobby it to make what they consider the right decision.

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[1] If there is ever accountability in these agencies, but that’s a different post for a different day.

Mother nature roundly rejects Obama Administration's energy policy

The recent spat of attacks by birds of prey on the country's physical and intellectual energy infrastructure has been recognized by members of the GOP as nature's repudiation of the Obama Administration's energy policy.

"These birds are finally making clear that which we have been saying all along: the expansion of renewable energy, whether in the form of wind power or biofuels, not only kills jobs and raises energy prices, but also threatens natural ecosystems with clear and present danger," said a representative of the Republican National Committee, who is not authorized to speak to the press.

The incidents, which have taken place over the span of several months, have called attention to the environmental effects of U.S. energy policy.

For the past several months, red-tailed hawks have been attacking students and pedestrians near the agronomy and engineering buildings at Purdue University, one of the leading institutions in biofuels research. Director of Grounds Gary Evans warned students, staff, and faculty who frequent the area to "be alert and carry an umbrella, which when opened will provide a shield and deterrent should the hawks swoop down."

More recently, in Missoula, Montana, power to a portion of town was knocked out after a bald eagle dropped a baby fawn on some powerlines. "The symbolism of this event cannot go unheeded," said Andrew Jaeger, spokesperson for Greater Montana Water and Power. "This attack on our small town by the emblem of these United States is a clear rejection of our illogical efforts toward expanding wind power."

Biofuels are responsible for the expansion of agricultural production to lands that were previously retired from farming. This has led to increasing levels of farm chemicals and nutrients in waterways, damaging vital aquatic habitat that raptors rely on for food. Montana currently has nearly 50 wind power projects under development. While a theoretically infinite source of renewable energy, these projects have long been considered dangerous for avian wildlife as well as an expensive eyesore.

The Obama Administration has trumpeted the virtues of renewable energy, including wind power and renewable fuels, since coming into office in 2009. However, Republicans and their backers have provided plenty of resistance to further expansion of renewable energy efforts; a recent defeat of subsidies for ethanol producers shows that Congress - weighted heavily with Republicans following the electoral roundhouse-kick-to-the-face delivered to Obama in the midterm elections of 2010 - is firmly on the side of Mother Nature. However, these efforts may have arrived too late.

"These birds have shown us that we are clearly on the wrong path when it comes to responsible energy policy," stated Edhas Patel, an energy economist with the University of California, Davis. "We need to embrace the fact that we are extremely well-endowed with coal resources which provide cheap energy that does not threaten these birds to nearly the same extent as wind power and biofuels. We need to respect the warning that these creatures are giving us, lest we be left to the wicked devices of our avian overlords."

The Terror Continues

Creeling just pointed out to me that birds of prey have been attacking people at Purdue as well. These attacks cannot go unanswered. If any of you know what a viking shield-wall looks like, I think it's the only defense against these maniacal creatures.

Eagles Attack Montana

I was going to write about the shenanigans the FDA is pulling with the cigarette labels today, and I will get to that. But I think that a bald eagle knocking out a small town's power with a dead fawn is distressing enough to take precedence. This was just a small town in Montana, but what if this was just a practice run? What if armies of eagles start bombarding our power grid with dead baby deer? What if they clog up our hydroelectric dams with cottony-wooly sheep carcasses? What if they start dropping cows into transfer stations to knock them out?

This may just have been an accident, but I fear it is the start of something much darker... We need to start evaluating the ability of a species to wipe out humanity before we protect them.

The Thesis

After months of reading, writing, and 'rithmetic, I have successfully deposited my thesis and have fulfilled my official academic responsibilities to Purdue University. Here's the abstract for those that are interested: 

The nitrogen cascade concept indicates that agriculture serves as a significant link between emissions of the potent greenhouse gas (GHG) nitrous oxide and losses of nitrate to surface waters. Conservation practices have the potential to exploit this link, as their implementation is found to reduce fluxes of GHGs and nonpoint source (NPS) water pollution. Several studies have recognized this link and have documented the potential to improve environmental quality through the use of programs which retire land, the funding for which can be offset by the sale of carbon credits. However, the ability to use land for both agricultural production and environmental conservation is important. As such, this study examines the intensely-farmed Wildcat Creek Watershed in West-Central Indiana to evaluate the potential for implementing agricultural conservation practices to reduce NPS water pollutants and fluxes of GHGs in a working-lands setting. The extent to which carbon pricing can affect practice implementation costs and the optimal distribution of these practices throughout the watershed is also explored.

Results from this study indicate that carbon offsets can sharply reduce conservation practice implementation costs and therefore have the potential to reduce greater amounts of NPS pollution for a given cost of implementation. However, the extent to which various practices can be used to abate NPS pollutants and GHGs is heavily dependent on the implementation period considered. Further, this study found that fertilizer management, which is relatively difficult to enforce in practice, significantly influenced the optimal allocation of practices.

This study provides a novel framework for analyzing the impacts of conservation practices that may prove useful in formulating innovative policy tools aimed at improving environmental quality in multiple environmental media. The findings of this study indicate that the potential exists to use carbon offsets to improve water quality and reduce GHG fluxes in a working-lands setting.

The full text is available on my website for those who are interested in long-winded academic tomes. For the busy scholar on the go, a condensed version that will be presented at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting this July in Pittsburgh is available through U. of Minnesota's AgEcon Search.

Hippies Have to Sue the EPA if They Want to Talk About Greenhouse Gasses

While you, our loyal readers, have read through this blog you may have thought to yourself: “Creeling puts up a lot of interesting stuff regarding economics, but raftercm doesn’t really talk about the law that much. He seems to just put up random articles about stuff he feels like talking about. What a shitty blogger.” Today is the day I redeem myself in your eyes. Instead of just bitching about some environmental group filing a lawsuit, I can tell you about the outcome of a case where an environmental group sued someone.

You are not ready for this, but if you think you are, read on.

Today, in an 8-0 decision[1], the Supreme Court sided with the Obama Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority when it said that the environmental groups could not sue utilities like the TVA claiming they were a nuisance under the federal law. The environmental groups had sued the TVA and other utility companies, claiming that the greenhouse gas emissions from the utilities were a nuisance. The Supreme Court said that Congress had meant to give the ability to regulate greenhouse gasses solely to the EPA, and that if the groups wanted to sue the EPA they could, but they had no claim against the utilities themselves.

I support this decision partly because it helps hold the EPA accountable for the rules it makes regarding greenhouse emissions. If more decisions came out like this and these administrations were held accountable for the decisions they make, it would keep private businesses from being burdened by groups who just seem to enjoy filing lawsuits.

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[1] “But the Supreme Court has 9 members!” I know that. Justice Sotomayor recused herself from the case. Stop being nit-picky and keep reading.