Biophysical Economics: A Different View

One of the things that I have felt for a while is that mainstream economics isn't really the best way to look at free software, or any of the other intellectual commons or - even more importantly - the environmental commons, since economics is really about consumption. And now, it seems, some academics are beginning to call into question basic assumptions about that consumerist, consumptive viewpoint:

The financial crisis and subsequent global recession have led to much soul-searching among economists, the vast majority of whom never saw it coming. But were their assumptions and models wrong only because of minor errors or because today's dominant economic thinking violates the laws of physics?

A small but growing group of academics believe the latter is true, and they are out to prove it. These thinkers say that the neoclassical mantra of constant economic growth is ignoring the world's diminishing supply of energy at humanity's peril, failing to take account of the principle of net energy return on investment. They hope that a set of theories they call "biophysical economics" will improve upon neoclassical theory, or even replace it altogether.

Here's the heart of the problem:

Central to their argument is an understanding that the survival of all living creatures is limited by the concept of energy return on investment (EROI): that any living thing or living societies can survive only so long as they are capable of getting more net energy from any activity than they expend during the performance of that activity.

Great to see some new thinking in this area; I'm sure in time it will have knock-on consequences for the way we look at the commons, too.

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How Open Source Will Save the World (Really)

Apparently, I'm not the only one to think that open source will save the world - literally:

Could open source software save the planet? Steven Chu, the US energy secretary, says it can certainly help, by making it easier for all countries to access tools to design and build more energy-efficient buildings.

More specifically:

[It] should be open source software, so companies can add to that and put whatever they want on it but then you get this body of programmes, computer aided design programmes, as a way of helping design much more efficient buildings.

Now if we develop this with China together so that this intellectual property is co-owned, co-developed, free to be used by each country, you get away from this internal discussion of ‘we’re not going to do anything until we get free IP’.

Fantastic to see someone with considerable power making the connection between intellectual monopolies and the problem of mitigating climate change - and seeing that open source is a practical way to get around the problem.

Globalisation's Upside

Yes, there is one:

The European Union is moving forward with regulations that will significantly restrict the amount of power electric appliances can consume in standby, or "vampire," mode.

...

As far as I can tell, the United States has nothing similar at a federal level. The 2007 Energy Act only requires that the Department of Energy "incorporate energy use in standby mode and off mode" in "future standards for covered products."

But no worries -- if the Asian manufacturers who currently produce the bulk of the world's appliances are forced to rejigger their designs for the EU market, they'll probably do so as well for products aimed at the U.S.

One of many examples where the global nature of production means that the *most stringent" rules get applied to everyone.

Internalising Externalities

One of the problems with most everyday economics is that pollution tends to be regarded as an externality:

An externality occurs when a decision causes costs or benefits to third party stakeholders, often, although not necessarily, from the use of a public good. In other words, the participants in an economic transaction do not necessarily bear all of the costs or reap all of the benefits of the transaction. For example, manufacturing that causes air pollution imposes costs on others when making use of public air.

But externalities have a habit of coming home to roost:

China's rising energy demand isn't just leaving its mark on the country's heritage. Every 30 seconds, an infant with birth defects is born in China, according to Jiang Fan, deputy head of the country's National Population and Family Planning Commission. The rate of birth defects nationwide has soared 40 percent in the past five years, from 105 defects per 10,000 births in 2001 to nearly 146 in 2006. The problem now affects nearly 1 in 10 Chinese families, the Commission stated in a recent report .

Birth defect rates are highest in the northern province of Shanxi, an area that is also home to some of China's richest coal resources. "The incidence of birth defects is related to environmental pollution," An Huanxiao, director of Shanxi's provincial family planning agency, told Xinhua News. "The survey's statistics show that birth defects in Shanxi's eight large coal-mining regions are far above the national average."

Open TTT and Openness

One of the central themes of this blog is that the ideas behind free software can be applied much more widely - indeed, that open source is really just the beginning of something much bigger. I've written about many of the experiments in applying open source ideas outside software, but there are now so many of them that it's hard keeping up.

So I was particularly pleased to find out about this extensive listing of such activities, put together by the Open TTT consortium, itself an interesting project in openness:

OPEN TTT is a EU-funded project (SSA-030595 INN7) that aims at bridging the separate worlds of technology transfer and open source software (OSS), by introducing novel methodologies for helping companies in the take up of technology and innovation and leveraging the peculiarities of the open access model. The approach is based on the creation of mini-clusters, interest-driven group of SMEs and the matching of suitable open source software adapted to the cluster needs. The project covers four thematic areas: Logistic & Transport, Industrial production, Energy & environment and Public Administrations. On these areas, suitable open source software will be examined and assessed, and a mediation will be created between companies interested in its use and software developers or commercial entities that provide suitable support.

Corrections and additions are welcome, apparently. (Via Carlo Daffara).

Gating Technology: The E-Factor

I'm starting to write more posts about energy efficiency, since it obviously feeds into issues surrounding various environmental commons. But it's increasingly clear to me that its impact is going to be much more direct on the technologies I consider on a regular basis.

Take this, for example:

In a piece of research that could have implications for the future of mobile broadband, a US analyst firm has claimed that new mobile applications will make pure cellular technology too energy-inefficient to be practical in the future.

This is going to happen again and again, changing the course of technology development just when everyone thought they knew where it was going....

Energy Worries: Not Just Virtual

Following the recent excitement about Second Life's energy consumption, it seems that people are beginning to realise that it's not the only one with problems:

The nation's biggest technology companies sat down with federal regulators Wednesday to assess the industry's thirst for power amid fears that volatile and expensive energy could hinder the growing sector.

The fierce competitors at the table -- including Google, IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard -- rarely gather to talk strategy. But they were lured by the chance to influence the development of national energy standards.

"I think we may be at the beginning of a potential energy crisis for the IT sector," Victor Varney, a vice president for Silicon Graphics, told the regulators. "It's clearly coming."

(Via Slashdot.)

What a Waste of Energy

The official Curmudgeon of Computing, Nick Carr, stirred up a little excitement recently by pointing out that Second Life, for all its virtuality, really does use quite a lot of electricity. But before we start grabbing the digital pitchforks and descending upon Linden Lab for being such an ecological extravagant bunch, it's probably best to put things in context.

That's exactly what this post from KnowProSE.com does. It points out that the problem is not really Second Life's, it's the Internet's - ours, in other words. And it's certainly a big problem.

But it seems to me that the solution is less finding all the energy, than reducing the amount used by computers. It's a bit like cars: it's not really hard making them more fuel efficient, but until there are incentives to do so, you carry on using the old, inefficient technologies. We need to re-engineer our thinking, not just out technologies.

A Lightbulb Goes on in My Head

Yes, of course:

A global switch to efficient lighting systems would trim the world's electricity bill by nearly one-tenth.

That is the conclusion of a study from the International Energy Agency (IEA), which it says is the first global survey of lighting uses and costs.

The carbon dioxide emissions saved by such a switch would, it concludes, dwarf cuts so far achieved by adopting wind and solar power.

Relatively easy and painless, too: what are we waiting for? Let there be light.

Distributed Energy Generation

This looks eminently sensible from just about every angle:

Energy suppliers should make it easier for people to generate power for their own homes, the gas and electricity regulator, Ofgem, said today.

Why has it taken so long for the idea of distributed power generation to get going?

CIOs Will Turn Green...

...because they will have no choice. As this Reg piece explains, the worlds of computing and the environment are inexorably becoming more intertwined. From the story:

"Today, energy costs typically form less than 10 per cent of an overall IT budget. However, this could rise to more than 50 per cent in the next few years. The bottom line is that the cost of power on this scale would be difficult to manage simply as a budget increase and most CIOs would struggle to justify the situation to company board members."

Enough to make anyone go green.