Drones (the good kind)

John Quiggin38 Comments

It’s now pretty clear that renewables can replace fossil fuels in their main uses, electricity generation and land transport, at a very modest cost or, as appears to be the case for electricity, with a cost saving. But that still leaves room for doubt over whether the economy can be fully decarbonized in time to hold CO2 concentrations to 450 ppm or below. Among the big gaps are air and sea transport.

I’ve tended to argue on the basis of the idea of induced innovation that, since there are plenty of possible options, at least one will work out, given some incentives to reduce CO2 emissions. That’s proved true for electricity (solar and PV worked, while other promising contenders like geothermal and Gen III nuclear haven’t), and more recently for storage. But it doesn’t seem to satisfy everyone.

So, I was struck to realize that drones (which I’ve always thought of either as toys or as particularly nasty weapons systems) may be on the way to displacing a good deal of air and sea freight transport in the relatively near future. Initially at least, the bigger ones are likely to use conventional engines, but with greatly reduced fuel costs, as with this proposal. But it’s easy to imagine a version that carries its own solar PV system being developed in the future – possibly slower but even cheaper than the current verison.

Moreover, the size and capacity of battery-driven electric drones is increasing all the time. The current leader appears to be the Griff 300, which can (as the name indicates) lift 300kg, including its own weight of about 65 kg. Apparently there is a Griff 800 either released or in the works. At least to my understanding, there’s no fundamental scaling limit here, although there will obviously be plenty of technical challenges. On the other hand, with batteries getting lighter every year, performance can be improved over time without any significant change in design.

None of this deals with passenger air travel which looms larger in the culture wars over energy policy that its objective significance as a source of emissions justifies. But again, in the absence of fundamental limits (the kind that apply, for example, to carbon capture and storage), a sufficiently strong incentive will in all probability bring forth a solution.

Heckling a criminal offence in the US? (crosspost from Crooked Timber)

John Quiggin10 Comments

In response to discussions about freedom of speech, particularly at university campuses, I started thinking about the question of heckling a speaker, and to what extent this is, or ought to be, protected by advocates of freedom of speech. I assumed that the correct formulation (both legally in the US context and in terms of what is appropriate) is the one attributed to Nat Hentoff

“First Amendment law is clear that everyone has the right to picket a speaker, and to go inside a hall and heckle him or her—but not to drown out the speaker, let alone rush the stage and stop the speech before it starts

It turns out, however, that Hentoff was wrong, as shown by the case of the Irvine 11.
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Debt and taxes

John Quiggin4 Comments

To misquote Benjamin Franklin and others, the only certainties in economic life are debt and taxes. Among the themes of political struggle, fights over debt (demands from creditors to be paid in the terms they expect, and from debtors to be relieved from unfair burdens) and taxes (who should pay them and how should the resulting revenue be spent) have always been central.

I mentioned in a comment at Crooked Timber recently, that Pro-debtor politics is always in competition with social democracy, and a couple of people asked for more explanation.
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Time to kill the debt bogeyman once and for all

John Quiggin35 Comments

Here’s a piece I wrote in the Guardian responding to Scott Morrison’s distinction between “good” and “bad” debt. Unfortunately, the comments included plenty of people who are under the impression that, thanks to Modern Monetary Theory, there’s no need for taxes and therefore no need to think about budget balance. That’s wrong, as I explain here, with an endorsement in comments from leading MMT economist, Warren Mosler.

My submission to the government’s Climate Change Review

John Quiggin25 Comments

Submission’s to the government’s review of climate change policy close on Friday (so there’s still time to send one to climatechangereview@environment.gov.au, even if it’s just “Stop Adani”). It’s obvious to everyone now, including the government, that energy and climate policy are in a complete mess. So, there must be some chance of a radical change, possibly even one for the better. And there are plenty of options on the table.
I just put in a very short submission, which is below.

Submission
The terms of reference for this review refer to the government’s commitment to addressing climate change and to ensuring the adoption of effective policies.  However, these supposed commitments are contradicted by the government’s failure to respond, as legally required, to the Special Review of Australia’s Climate Goals and Policies, undertaken at the current government’s request by the Climate Change Authority.  
The final report of this Review was delivered to the government on 31 August 2016. Under the relevant legislation, the Minister was required to table the government’s response to the recommendations of the Review within six months, that is, by 28 February 2017. This requirement has been ignored.
I was a Member of the Authority until March 2017. I resigned when it became apparent that the government had no intention of responding to, or otherwise taking account of, the comprehensive Special Review in which I had taken part.
The absence of any response reflects the inability of the government to offer a coherent alternative to the policy toolkit recommended by the CCA. The current review should adopt the recommendations of the CCA Special Review, particularly including the introduction of an emissions intensity scheme for the electricity sector.

John Quiggin
Professor of Economics, University of Queensland
Former Member, Climate Change Authority
This submission is made in a private capacity and should not be assumed to represent the views of the University of Queensland or the Climate Change Authority

Videocast questions?

John Quiggin11 Comments

Continuing on the multimedia theme, I did a video presentation for the TAFE section of the Australian Education Union a few weeks ago. I’ve always been keen on this as an alternative to air travel, and I got great help from the multimedia people in our faculty, but I’m still not sure how best to make use of this.

The videofile is here, but it’s 640 Mb, so I don’t suppose many people will want to download it. What’s the best way to distribute it so that lots of people can get access?

Update: Thanks to reader Peter Bayley a 58Mb version is now up on YouTube