Let’s Talk About Immigration

It’s environmental and energy policy day, but today we’re going to think a little broader about the impact of non-environmental policies on the environment. I’m participating in a seminar this semester on human population growth and consumption and we spent this week discussing the implications of immigration on population growth and rising consumption. Few people, including environmentalists, think about the implications of immigration on the environment and on energy usage.
First, it is important to draw the distinction between immigrants and immigration. I, and other environmental writers on this topic, do not want to point a finger at individual immigrants and blame them for rising consumption and environmental damage due to population growth in the US. We are speaking instead about the general trend of increasing immigration rates. The US population continues to increase, despite reproduction being at a replacement rate, due to high levels of immigration (around 1 million people annually). Although there are moral arguments to allow people from less fortunate, developing countries the chance at a “better” life in the US, we must consider the moral implications of such opportunities. Is it moral to allow over-consumption of resources? Or increased energy demand, leading to increased emissions of harmful gases and dependency on foreign sources of fuel?
The “better” life promised by migration to America is highly dependent on consumption. Although it is not true for all immigrants, many move to the US with the goal of getting a better job. A better job means more disposable income to be spent on consumption, unless the money is sent back to their home country. The American way of life involves significantly greater energy use than other countries of the world. Per capita, the US used 312 million BTUs (British thermal units) in 2010, compared to the world average of 74 million BTU the same year (1). The same is true for many other resources, including freshwater and meat consumption. The UN reports that Americans use 215 cubic meters (7593 cubic feet) per capita per year, compared to 4 cubic meters (141 cubic feet) per capita per year in Mali (2). In 2002, Americans consumed an average of 124.8 kilograms (275.1 pounds) of meat per capita, compared to 79.6 kilograms (125.5 pounds) in the United Kingdom and 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) in Bhutan (3). It is likely that new immigrants take some time to assimilate into this culture of high consumption and have lower consumption levels than Americans born and raised in this culture. However, as they live here longer and raise the next generation, they and their children are likely to have comparable rates of energy and resource consumption.
Additionally, higher population levels create environmental degradation. More people need more homes, leading to urbanization, urban sprawl, sub-urbanization, and subdivision of rural properties. More people and more consumption lead to higher levels of waste, requiring larger landfills and greater waste-water treatment capacity. More people means more food production leading to greater soil erosion, as well as higher levels of fertilizer leaching and pesticide spread. Tom Horton, a blogger in the ecologically fragile Chesapeake Bay area, argues that while granting amnesty to immigrants currently living in the US is laudable, the current immigration bill will end up encouraging greater immigration into the US, ultimately increasing the US population by 40% by 2050 (4). He makes the important point that concentrating our efforts on decreasing per capita consumption will not make a difference if the number of people is continually increasing. And, my favorite point he makes, “we’ve also learned that like the essential plant nutrients such as nitrogen which are degrading the Bay, too much of a good thing – including humans with aspirations for a better life – can overwhelm the rest of nature.”
It’s difficult for me to take a stand against immigration, as I strongly believe that immigrants contribute greatly to the cultural melting pot of this country. In a nation of immigrants, it is difficult to draw the line and prevent others from coming here and benefiting as we have. I don’t think Americans have a greater right to consume than non-Americans or immigrants. It is extremely important, for both environmental and moral reasons, to decrease American per capita consumption. However, I do think it is important in debating immigration policy to at least consider the environmental implications of allowing more people to come to the US and live like Americans when the world can barely sustain Americans living like Americans.
(1) http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=85&t=1
(2) http://www.unwater.org/downloads/Water_facts_and_trends.pdf
(3) http://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/meat-consumption-per-capita-climate-change
(4)http://www.bayjournal.com/article/immigration_reform_needs_to_be_handled_very_carefully

Administration Sets Stricter Carbon Emissions Standards: The End of Coal?

President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced new restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions from new coal and natural gas plants. A current state-of-the-art coal plant emits about 1,800 pounds of CO2 for each megawatt-hour of electricity it produces, but new plants will be required to emit less than 1,100 pounds per megawatt-hour (1,000 pounds per megawatt-hour for new natural gas plants)(1). The president and the EPA expect new plants to achieve this drastic reduction in emissions using carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. CCS technology involves “scrubbing” carbon dioxide from smokestack emissions and then injecting that CO2 into reservoirs underground or beneath the ocean. The technology is relatively young, with few industry-scale projects (75 in the world, according to the Global CCS Institute(2)) and slow growth. This latest announcement is a part of the administration’s climate action plan to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases, which are the likely cause of global climate change. Power plants account for around 40% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States(1). But what are the actual consequences of these restrictions going to be? There are many potential answers to that question.
The coal industry claims that these restrictions will essentially destroy demand for coal (3). Although currently operating plants do not have to abide by these restrictions, the administration has made it clear that they will not be safe for long. With CCS technology still in a young stage of development, it is expected to be very expensive. Coal and natural gas are currently inexpensive fuels for electricity production, but if CCS needs to be installed in plants the cost of electricity associated with the new plants will increase. If the cost of CCS remains prohibitive, new coal plants may not be built at all. In the future, when currently existing plants are also required to limit emissions, the price increases will affect all coal (and likely, gas) electricity prices.
In fact, some are arguing that the new restrictions are so prohibitively expensive and the technology is so unproven (it is still hotly debated whether sequestration will be adequate in keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere), that the requirements violate the Clean Air Act(3). The Act stipulates that new technology requirements cannot be unreasonably costly to industry and need to be demonstrated adequately at a large-scale. The EPA stands by its announcement, claiming that CCS is viable as a technology.
Increased prices of electricity from coal and natural gas might make production of electricity from renewable sources (i.e., wind, solar, tidal, biomass) cost-competitive with the fuels that are currently significantly cheaper. While this is bad news for the coal industry, environmentalists and the renewable energy industry are very excited about this prospect. Cheap coal and natural gas are difficult to compete with but the costs do not account for the environmental externalities (i.e., greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and ecosystem destruction associated with mining). Increased costs from the installation of CCS will at least provide a fairer playing field for other technologies.
Another possible outcome of the new restrictions could be a minimal reduction in carbon emissions due to a legal technicality. Brian Potts writes that the Clean Air Act allows the EPA to create standards for either entire industries (e.g., the coal electricity industry) or on a case-by-case basis for single power plants (4). The Act requires that the case-by-case standards be more stringent than those for all sources. However, the EPA has recently imposed case-by-case standards on existing and proposed coal plants which required very low reductions in emissions (around 5%) and generally just required improvements in efficiency and fuel type (higher quality coal) rather than the installation of expensive technologies like CCS. This could mean that the new restrictions will not go into effect. On the other hand, Potts writes that carbon emissions have been and will continued to be reduced naturally through the regulation of other pollutants, such as mercury, and due to low natural gas prices leading to the shutdown of older coal plants that cannot compete.
It is yet unclear how these new restrictions on carbon emissions will affect the electric industry, but with the power of the coal industry and the continued attractiveness of this cheap and abundant fuel (as long as externalities are disregarded) it seems as though coal will remain king for quite some time (5). However, these new policies from the administration may be the first step to reining in our dangerous emissions levels and helping renewable sources of electricity become cost competitive with the currently cheap fossil fuel sources. Additionally, if the new restrictions lead to the implementation of CCS, economies of scale will hopefully work to lower the cost of the technology and allow the use of abundant coal resources to produce electricity somewhat more sustainably. We will see what direction this story takes over the next several years.

 

(1) http://www2.epa.gov/carbon-pollution-standards/2013-proposed-carbon-pollution-standard-new-power-plants
(2) http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/publications/global-status-ccs-2012/online/47976
(3) http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/18/us-usa-energy-coal-idUSBRE98H0ZD20130918
(4) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/us/politics/obama-administration-announces-limits-on-emissions-from-power-plants.html?pagewanted=all
(5) http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-a-environment/315527-obamas-climate-plan-for-power-plants-wont-significantly-lower-emissions
(6) http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/18/us-usa-energy-coal-idUSBRE98H0ZD20130918