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Danny Cullenward@ghgpolicy.org |
1246 followers 703 following 827 posts
Forensic climate economist and lawyer // ghgpolicy.org
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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If you are familiar with the carbon removal commercial ecosystem, this whole Stanford funding portfolio is fascinating because several of the projects already exist in nearly identical form as commercially backed ventures.
sustainability-accelerator.stanford.edu/focus-areas/...
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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I will see you your alma matter and raise you mine.
Here's a funded faculty proposal that positions Stanford to help sell nature-based removal offsets:
sustainability-accelerator.stanford.edu/risk-managem...
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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And FWIW I think that we are at the point where research on solar radiation management is warranted. Not making an argument about this complicated topic, just flagging my concern as being focused the willingness to shift one's ethical lines in response to what appears to be funders' interests.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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This is one of the more craven things I've heard a prominent climate researcher voice out loud. And it's hard not to notice this pivot in connection with the growing interest in solar radiation management among wealthy tech elites, i.e. the kinds of people who are now funding this work.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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This is an important and carefully reported story on geoengineering research from @jessimckenzi.bsky.social, which came out in @bulletinatomic.bsky.social a couple of weeks ago and was just republished in Mother Jones. Well worth your time to read.
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Moira Birss
@moira.bsky.social
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I'm thrilled to share my new LPE blog on insurance, where on take on the prevailing media & policy narrative that the answer to the US's home insurance crisis is protecting insurance companies. Instead, we must focus on ensuring housing safety & affordability.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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She is wildly underappreciated, it is crazy how good her music is
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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I believe it has been merged into and succeeded by the Judicial Branch?
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Costa Samaras
@costasamaras.bsky.social
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Do Something About Climate Change Starter Pack go.bsky.app/Aa1sErQ
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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They have pizza, too :)
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Today I was referred to as a "carbon removal person" in an official United Nations meeting — and to be clear, it was a friendly shorthand in the middle of a technical conversation on carbon markets, not a critique. Reader, I am having a lot of different feelings today.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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I am in Germany this week and was reminded of @adapalmer.bsky.social's wonderful post on how to spot the best gelato — I'm partial to the hazelnut method, but that's mostly because I love hazelnut the most.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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As Lisa suggests, this is basically the same thing as offsets — but in this case, internal to an industrial production process with multiple "co-products." Offsets are everywhere.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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The story includes a great animation walking through how life cycle analysis methods get abused to concentrate the low overall percentage of recycled content into single products, in order to justify marketing a higher percentage of recycled content than they deserve. Here's a screenshot.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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This is such an important story on plastics recycling. I wanted to echo Lisa's description of the games being played with "mass balance" and "free attribution" methods — the means by which the plastics industry makes weak claims about recycled plastic content — as similar to offsets.
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Josh Lappen
@jlappen1.bsky.social
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I've got the new email address, so it's official: I'm joining @gruberte.bsky.social at Notre Dame! I'll be bringing my historical work to bear on questions of energy-network shrinkage and just managed transitions. Feeling excited and lucky to keep learning from a climate thinker I admire so much
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Somebody should write a history of how universities got interested in commercialization as a primary orientation and/or the emergence of a particular style of thinking that can be applied, however superficially, to all complex problems :)
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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My pleasure! And yeah, a little earth system science goes a long way in climate policy. My written testimony is linked in the thread above in case you are interested in more.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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It’s even a little more complicated to think about rates vs fixed quantities of emissions. A constant rate of CH4 emission is similar to a fixed pulse of CO2, which is really hard to get one’s head around. Best explanation I’ve seen is here.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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That latter effect is described here in case you are interested.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Oh sure, it makes sense to cut the methane pollution, but not to give credit to burn more fossil fuels in the process. That’s the problem. Plus methane’s pronounced radiative forcing is transient so you always get higher net warming when you emit CO2 based on cutting CH4.
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Josh Lappen
@jlappen1.bsky.social
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It's a hotly-contested title, but I think "coalbed methane" -> "sustainable aviation fuel" might be Lightweight Champ of the Greenwashing World Cup.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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MIT doing Stanford things again, I see.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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I gave testimony on hydrogen loopholes to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives yesterday, in case you prefer your Policy Insights™ in written form.
www.ghgpolicy.org/s/2024-06-17...
Or if you want to hear me ramble about it live.
youtu.be/EQyVCeEHNPA?...
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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And here's the story, which features me complaining loudly about * waves hands around wildly * all of this.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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I am begging academic economists, please consider what happens when you combust the "sustainable aviation fuel" in a plane. Offsets don't reduce net emissions, and giving innovation tax credits to incumbent fossil fuel companies for commercially mature activities is economically inefficient.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Can confirm, thanks to Tim and others for checking in!
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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I love how in these debates the burden of proof gets reversed, i.e. "you can't possibly tell us NOT to offset until you have a precise strategic plan for transforming the entire global sector," the absence of which is the best possible evidence for doing something other than offsetting …
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Yeah I do not have any great answers, other than to implore people to move beyond magical thinking about biomass energy.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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And to be clear, that EPRI number is a modeling projection of cumulative expenditures into the 2040s, so significantly smaller than the global annual subsidies you cited. But still very big money.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Air travel is right up there with agriculture as "hard to decarbonize" in my book. Not pretending I have all the answers, though I can tell you that corn ethanol is not among them.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Ah, but what's a few hundred billion dollars (per year) between friends? All of the estimates for IRA implementation are US only, prospective, and depend on final rules (which are done for SAF but not H2/electricity). So still TBD.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Federal tax credit expenditures under hydrogen tax credit (45V), electricity tax credits (45Y/48E), and sustainable aviation fuel tax credits (40B), all based on customized GREET models. Here's an EPRI finding that some $380-760 billion could flow through 45V alone.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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okay, but what if you — and hear me out on this — based something like a trillion dollars of tax credits on it?
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Have you considered abusing life cycle analysis, that we might better pretend our way around uncomfortable questions that lack satisfactory answers?
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Someone fire the writers, this is too hackneyed to be believable. And that this is all wrapped up with a school-wide focus on carbon removal is just … *chef’s kiss*
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Here's a thread with a link to a talk Wim recently gave on the upcoming book release. Should be a great read!
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Looks like @wimcarton.bsky.social's new book with Andreas Malm is now available for pre-order — I just put in an order and encourage others to do the same.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Hey Ketan, do you (or does anyone else) have a sense of whether The Nature Conservancy was particularly involved in the savanna burning projects? I recently saw something from them that suggested a strong connection, but wasn't sure if it was just a handful of projects or something bigger.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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How many whales-equivalent?
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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What I will say about this story is that it is riveting, detailed, and very much worth your time to read. You need to register with the website (for free), which is easiest in Chrome (which will automatically detect and translate from Icelandic).
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James Temple
@jtemple.bsky.social
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Exclu!: Foundations are sharply increasing funding for solar geoengineering research, including the UK's Quadrature Climate Foundation & Mike Schroepfer's new nonprofit, Outlier Projects (which will also support work on glacier resilience & carbon removal)
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Oh this is great! Congratulations.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Have you met the United Nations?
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James Temple
@jtemple.bsky.social
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The IRA's boosted tax credits have triggered a carbon storage boom that should ensure more & more CO2 winds up back underground. But the projects, which could cost the US hundreds of billions, raise thorny questions about net benefits & community risks. www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/12/1...
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Kelly Hereid
@kellyhereid.bsky.social
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Good take here from @ghgpolicy.org -
"What industry is looking for in a lot of this is a legal shield"
🎁 link:
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Bit of a sequencing issue here — if you're the first person to call it wacky, you can easily get voted off the island for being early. But of course the solution to that is more people calling out the wackiness, I'm totally on board.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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I feel like you have a few more of these stored up, no?
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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Anyway I am losing my mind over here that these absolutely insane and unjustified assumptions are being recycled by for industry advocacy purposes with the cavalier attitude that caused groups like the Clean Air Task Force to go nuclear on Mark Jacobson's bad 100% renewable energy math.
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Danny Cullenward
@ghgpolicy.org
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I don't think this came through as clearly as it might have in the story, but the regulator assumes CCS will be deployed in sectors where companies aren't planning to deploy CCS and the advocates are pointing to other, questionable CCS applications and saying the regulator is planning on them.
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