Capturing bright ideas is a challenge!

From an Article by Michael I. Kotlikoff, Emmanuel P. Giannelis and Glenn C. Altschuler, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, April 27, 2021

America’s dominance is currently at risk, and a new model is needed now more than ever.

More than a century after Thomas Newcomen, a miner, and John Calley, his plumber assistant, invented the first useful steam engine, the French scientist Sadi Carnot developed the theory of thermodynamics to explain it. And in 1903, the bicycle makers Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first powered flight, but the underlying mathematics of aerodynamic theory were explained by a university scientist — Ludwig Prandtl at Hannover University — almost two decades later.

These examples from The Code Breaker, by Walter Isaacson, convey an important lesson about the relationship between application and theory that is relevant for future technological innovation — and for research in universities in the United States.

Vannevar Bush, the director of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development in the 1940s, articulated the inverse relationship between basic and applied research: universities play a critical role in developing the fundamental science that industry deploys to create products. Bush’s linear approach, which led to the establishment of the National Science Foundation, has powered innovation in the United States for decades. But America’s dominance of the innovation economy is currently at risk, and a new model is needed now more than ever.

Bipartisan concern about the erosion of America’s innovation dominance has led Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, and Senator Todd Young, a Republican from Indiana, to co-sponsor the Endless Frontier Act to invest $100 billion in research for emerging technologies. Echoing their apprehensions about “our national research and innovation enterprise,” Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, added his support for “the infrastructure that we need to support technology development.”

To more effectively harness the potential of research universities, whose basic research has enabled the development, among other products, of the iPhone, RNA vaccines and self-driving cars, we need a paradigm shift in higher education.

The new approach begins with an affirmation of the centrality of discovery, but it explicitly recognizes the role of the marketplace in driving innovation and the marked decrease in the timeline between concept and product. It supplements and complements basic research with investments and expertise in feasibility assessment, design and transitions to commercial markets. This model does not treat exploratory (basic) and translational (applied) research as silos but, as Sethuraman Panchanathan, director of the National Science Foundation, has proposed, like double-stranded DNA, multidirectional and mutually reinforcing.

Dependent on a shift in culture, hiring and allocation of resources within the academy, as well as a new kind of partnership with government and industry, this model calls for unified discovery and commercialization engines, or “D&CEs.” D&C engines in the university are transdisciplinary teams integrating expertise in physical and biological sciences, social sciences, engineering, humanities, business, and entrepreneurship, and which work with government, corporate and venture capital partners to develop next-generation products. Such teams are essential if we are to address global crises, including climate, energy, food, water, health, inequality and poverty.

In practical terms, the shift should be accompanied by changes in pedagogy and curriculum that expose students to business strategies, intellectual property concepts, patent protocols, marketing and supply chains, and experiential learning in companies.

Catalyzing the development of diversified local economies consisting of start-ups, step-ups and established companies will also yield opportunities for students and drive economic development in university towns and beyond. To encourage companies to stay local, universities should work with government officials to identify tax and other incentives.

As universities encourage collaborations between private companies and innovative faculty members, they need to find new ways, where appropriate, to “share” faculty with companies. Such partnerships retain talented faculty in the academy while providing them with opportunities to fully develop and commercialize their ideas.

Universities must also develop investment funds through a combination of philanthropy and venture capital to support the development of new discoveries, provide incubation space for the early proof-of-concept and de-risking stages, and work to identify co-location space for established companies. Seed and gap funding are crucial for validating early-stage technologies, strengthening intellectual property and bringing technology to the inflection point for further development.

Finally, where appropriate, as it increasingly is in computing and information science and genetics, universities should adopt “translational” achievements as metrics for faculty tenure and promotion and include commercialization as part of Ph.D. theses. This new emphasis will not compromise indispensable institutional values, including independence of thought, dispassionate discovery and transparency. But adapting to the indivisible nature of discovery and application will be necessary to increase the volume and velocity of technology commercialization and start-up creation, nurture the next generation of innovators, catalyze economic development, and provide the wished-for returns on federally funded programs like the aptly named Endless Frontier.

>>> Biographical Sketch — Michael I. Kotlikoff is professor of molecular physiology and provost of Cornell University. Emmanuel P. Giannelis is Walter R. Read Professor of Engineering and vice president for research and innovation at the university, and Glenn C. Altschuler is Litwin Professor of American Studies there and the co-author, with Isaac Kramnick, of Cornell: A History, 1940-2015 (Cornell University Press).

The Paris Accords were agreeded to by 196 parties to become effective on 4 November 2016

Book Reviews by Bob Ward, The Guardian (UK), February 14, 2021

Two eminent voices on the climate crisis present clear strategies for tackling emissions, deniers and doomsayers.

President Joe Biden has promised a new era of American leadership on global climate action, after four years of unscientific denial and misinformation under Donald Trump. Two important new books by prominent American authors, both written before the result of the presidential election was known, should help to capitalise on the new spirit of cautious optimism by laying out bold but well-argued plans for accelerating action against climate change.

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by presents a compelling explanation of how the world can stop global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions effectively to zero. Gates and his wife, Melinda, are well known for tremendous work on improving health and tackling disease around the world, particularly in poor countries. It is this concern for the most vulnerable people on the planet that has meant Gates has occasionally appeared equivocal about climate and energy policies that he thought could undermine the fight against poverty and illness.

However, this book lays out forcefully his understanding that the impact of climate change poses a far bigger threat to lives and livelihoods in developing countries – it is thwarting efforts to raise living standards because poor people, in every country, are the most at risk from droughts, floods and heatwaves.

Gates rightly emphasises the importance of improving the resilience of both rich and poor countries to current and future climate change that cannot now be avoided. But his book leaves no doubt that adapting to the impact is not a solution on its own – we must also eliminate global emissions of greenhouse gases.

His strategy for reaching zero emissions is laid out in a very straightforward way, using numbers to help guide the reader to the magnitude of the challenge. He notes that annual emissions of greenhouse gases before the Covid-19 pandemic were well over 50bn tonnes worldwide, and rising. Getting to zero within the next few decades will be no mean feat.

The book breaks down the sources of these emissions into a few broad categories – making things, plugging in, and getting around – and Gates knows how to frame issues in terms with which everybody should be able to engage, without dumbing down the material.

At its highest level, his strategy is simple: make power generation zero-carbon by replacing fossil fuels with renewables and nuclear power, and then electrify as much of our activities as possible. This works in theory, but creates significant challenges, such as how to manage the intermittency of supply from sources such as solar panels and wind turbines.

A key device used by Gates is to calculate the cost of clean alternatives relative to fossil fuels, and where they are currently more expensive, to quantify the difference as a “green premium”. He then explains how this premium can be reduced through innovation and government policies.

The credibility of the strategy is strengthened by references throughout to technologies in which Gates is investing his own money, such as novel ways to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and then store it. He also acknowledges that his sincerity will be doubted by some because of his wealth and use of private jets, for instance. But I think readers will discover from his book that he is a serious and genuine force for good on climate change.

Prof. Michael Mann says that, far from needing a miracle, we could achieve 100% clean electricity with current renewable technologies!

The only major concern I have is that in emphasising, correctly, the importance of rich countries reaching zero emissions by 2050, he appears to suggest that cuts in greenhouse gases over the next 10 years are less important. In fact, the amount of warming we face depends on cumulative emissions, so countries such as the US and UK need to be cutting sharply from now, and for the next 30 years.

Gates is also caught in the crosshairs in Mann’s book, The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet, which criticises the 2016 edition of the billionaire’s annual letter, written with Melinda, for highlighting the challenges of cutting emissions and declaring “we need an energy miracle”. Mann, America’s most famous climate scientist, points out that many zero-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels are now cost-competitive with fossil fuels. He even suggests that, far from needing a miracle, we could achieve 100% clean electricity with current renewable technologies alone.

The main focus of Mann’s book is a call to arms in the new war against “inactivists” who are using new tactics of “deception, distraction and delay” to prevent the phase-out of fossil fuels. Mann is a robust character, and has fought off several disgraceful onslaughts against him and his work by climate change deniers in US politics and the media over the past 20 years.

Prof. Mann warns that vested interests and ideological extremists who oppose efforts to eliminate fossil fuels no longer deny outright the reality of climate change because people can now see the evidence for it all around them. Instead, opponents of action now rely on slightly subtler arguments, and Mann reveals how they are sometimes unwittingly assisted by clumsy communications from climate scientists and campaigners.

He cautions against highlighting in particular the need for action by individual citizens and consumers. As important as personal efforts are, they can distract attention away from the critical role of governments and companies in making systemic changes.

Mann criticises the practice of flight-shaming climate researchers, because it creates the false impression that experts have to experience personal sacrifice and deprivation to be taken seriously, regardless of how successful they are in persuading politicians to act. Despite the attention devoted to it, .

Mann also attacks “doomsayers”, including some members of , who claim that we have already passed the point of no return, condemning us all to imminent climate destruction. Such claims are not based on science and have the effect of making people give up on efforts to rid the world of fossil fuels.

Mann does not pull his punches, but his aim is usually strong and true. This book will no doubt prove controversial for some climate campaigners, as well as the deniers, but I hope it will be read by everybody who is engaged in making the case for action.

Both Mann and Gates appear optimistic that the world can stop climate change, but they are also under no illusions about the scale of the challenge we face and the many obstacles that lie in our way. They also show just how wrong those people are who think we cannot or should not succeed.

>> Bob Ward is policy and communications director at the at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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NOTE — The following TED TALK VIDEO by Bill Gates is still relevant although eleven years old ….

Bill Gates: Innovating to zero (TED Talk 2010) – February 2010

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUEza10beMY

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See also: DOE Awards $160M to TerraPower and X-Energy to Build Advanced Nuclear Plants, Jeff St, John, Green Tech Media, October 14, 2020

With up to another $3.2 billion earmarked for federal support, the race for smaller, more flexible nuclear reactor designs is heating up.

Galileo Galilei (1564 — 1662) could see beyond the horizon

Essay by Peter Dykstra, Editor, Environmental Health News, May 2, 2020

Make no mistake, Americans didn’t invent this form of persecution. If you don’t believe me, ask Galileo. But when it comes to war, peace, racial equality, gender equality, marriage equality, pollution, climate change, and many more issues, damn, we’re good at it.

Martin Luther King, Jr. got red-baited, wiretapped, spied upon, and, of course, murdered before his complete vindication.

Nearly six decades after the publication of her book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson still has the distinction of being accused of mass murder for inspiring the ban on the pesticide DDT. Linked to the endangerment of bird species ranging from peregrine falcons to ruby-throated hummingbirds, DDT rose to international fame as a mosquito killer during World War II.

Back in the early 1960′s, the chemical industry led the assault on Carson, led by a young public relations executive named E. Bruce Harrison.

From his perch at the Chemical Manufacturers Association, Harrison steered a whisper campaign that suggested Carson was a Communist and a lesbian — twin kisses of death in early 1960′s American culture. Carson soon succumbed to breast cancer. The U.S. banned DDT in 1972. The bald eagle and others recovered, but attacks on the late Rachel Carson continued. In 2010, noted publisher and former Presidential candidate Steve Forbes charged that the mild-mannered Carson was a mass murderer who helped birth “environmental barbarism.” His reasoning was that DDT had helped curb malaria’s death toll in the developing world.

Today, Rachel Carson has a bridge named after her in Pittsburgh. Bruce Harrison went on to a lucrative career in anti-environmental public relations. He was a founder of the original climate-denying lobby group, the Global Climate Coalition. For his labors, he was elected to the National Capital Public Relations Hall of Fame in 1999.

Hanoi Jane and Ralph Nader are well known cases of dissent

Jane Fonda was part of a Hollywood acting dynasty, with her dad Henry and brother Peter. She was also an outspoken activist on women’s and Native American issues, and, perhaps most notably, for her opposition to the Vietnam War. In 1972, she visited North Vietnam and the men who were fighting, killing, and imprisoning U.S. troops. One photograph, with Fonda astride an NVA anti-aircraft gun, has lived forever.

Fonda has apologized for the North Vietnam visit repeatedly, but with little apparent impact. Despite an exemplary life of supporting subsequent causes, notably fighting teen pregnancy and advocating for action on climate change, she’s still known to millions of Americans only as Hanoi Jane. No American before or since has developed such an immunity to Christian forgiveness.

Of course, Fonda was right about the lies and amorality of American leadership’s lies over Vietnam. But to millions, she’s still Hanoi Jane.

Ralph Nader was a crusading young attorney, bent on haranguing major American companies to stop killing so many of their workers and customers. His 1965 book “Unsafe at Any Speed” was a devastating indictment of the Chevrolet Corvair, which he argued was the deadliest American car on the road.

Nader also headed a successful effort to make seat belt use mandatory. Nader led the charge against the Big Three automakers’ “planned obsolescence” — the business strategy of building less reliable cars to force consumers into a cycle of buying replacement vehicles every few years. Ralph Nader the gadfly saved an incalculable number of lives.

Alas, forgiveness has its limits. In one of her many apologies, Jane Fonda herself called her Hanoi trip “unforgivable.” And Ralph Nader enraged many of his staunchest admirers with his third-party presidential run in 2000. He tallied more than 2.8 million votes, including 97,000 in Florida, where Bush won by less than 200 — turning a likely Al Gore victory into eight years of George W. Bush.

Climate scientists have been subject to ridicule

And what of Al Gore? He took the lead in climate advocacy as early as 1988, when his congressional hearings prompted some of the first headlines for global warming. But even as climate change hastens its conversion from startling theory to tragic reality, Al Gore is still more punchline than prophet to conservative ideologues, including President Trump.

Let’s not forget climate scientists. Last week, climatologist Mike Mann was elected to the exclusive National Academy of Sciences.

His path there included years of attacks from well-funded political operatives accusing him of only being in it for the money; lawsuits—none successful—intended to muscle a vocal scientist into silence; and a hallucinatory attack likening Mann to a child molester because he works at Penn State, the former workplace of the infamous convicted child-molesting football coach, Jerry Sandusky. Ever the good-natured warrior, Mann is suing back on that one.

Mann is not alone. Other climate scientists endure personal attacks; some have to cope with online harassment, including publication of their home addresses.

Scientists studying endocrine-disrupting chemicals have to dodge incoming rhetorical fire from ideologues or corporate hired guns. Many environmental journalists cope with similar flak or worse. In some cases, activists get it worst of all, with international activists in places like Brazil and Honduras paying with their lives.

In 1633, the Roman Catholic Church wrapped up its persecution of Galileo, commuting his prison sentence to house arrest. In exchange, Galileo agreed to recant his heretic view that the Earth revolved around the sun.

In 1992, the Church finally got around to formally acknowledging that Galileo was right. If there’s a 339-year vindication timetable for the likes of Al Gore and Michael Mann, we’re toast.

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See also: Welcome to Kent State University’s 50th Commemoration of May 4, 1970

On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard fired on Kent State students during an anti-war protest, killing four students and wounding nine other students. In keeping with the commitment to honor and remember those tragic events, Kent State is hosting a virtual program to mark the historic 50th Commemoration of May 4, 1970.

Virtual Commemoration Events — The May 4 50th Commemoration includes the virtual noon program on May 4, 2020, the virtual candlelight vigil, special videos, online exhibits, interactive mobile apps and more.

Ray Kurzweil, well known futurist and inventor

Editorial from the Concord Monitor, Concord, Mass., August 29, 2019

Last week, BNP Paribas, the world’s eighth largest bank, announced that it is ending all investment in fossil fuels.

“We conclude that the economics of oil for gasoline and diesel vehicles versus wind and solar-powered EVs (electric vehicles) are now in relentless and irreversible decline, with far-reaching implications for both policymakers and the oil majors,” Paribas said in its announcement.

Is the bank right, and how soon might the transition happen?

Ray Kurzweil, futurist and inventor of the flatbed scanner, the first print-to-speech machine, a musical synthesizer and more, made many predictions, including this one in 2001: “We won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century, it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate).”

Technological progress proceeds at an exponential rate as new tools like artificial intelligence create even better tools quickly, Kurzweil said.

The batting average of the former MIT professor, now director of engineering for Google, is good. Trackers say that 115 of the 147 predictions Kurzweil has made since the 1990s have proven to be essentially accurate.

If Kurzweil is even half right, technological change and its impact on the world’s economies, the nature of work, advances in medicine and alternative energy will occur far faster than most people and policymakers realize.

The pace of climate change is also proceeding far faster than scientists expected, and the race between technologies that will slow climate change and the continued or even increased burning of fossil fuels is happening on many fronts.

The fires burning in the Amazon rainforest – the lungs of the planet – are being set largely by farmers and cattle ranchers bent on expansion. The planet is home to nearly 1 billion cows, each of whom makes multiple contributions to climate change daily. Meanwhile alternatives to meat are multiplying, improving and winning consumer favor at a rate that alarms the beef industry.

Word is that Concord’s Burger King restaurants are selling as many plant-based Impossible Whoppers as beef Whoppers.

And a spokesman for German automaker Volkswagen said, earlier this month, that the day when its electric vehicles reach price parity with internal combustion vehicles is only a few years away.

The tipping point that slides gas and diesel vehicles toward history’s trash heap is approaching. Charging stations will replace gas stations.

Reinhard Fischer, head of strategy for Volkswagen in North America, told attendees at the Center for Automotive Research in Detroit this month that range anxiety has now been replaced by charging anxiety.

“A hundred years ago, gasoline was sold at pharmacies,” Fischer said. “Today we have 122,000 gas stations in the United States. It’s transformed from a bottleneck to a commodity. Electric charging is going to be exactly the same.”

When it comes to transportation, to compete with energy from solar and wind power, according to the French bank Paribas’s analysis, “the long-term break-even price for oil for gasoline to remain competitive as a source of mobility is $9 to $10 per barrel and for diesel $17 to $19 per barrel.”

After bouncing around in the $60 range, yesterday’s price for a barrel of crude was $55.68.

The lower the price goes the less it makes sense to drill for oil in the Alaskan wilderness and other environmentally sensitive places. The faster meat alternatives replace beef the less need for the slash-and-burn agriculture that worsens climate change and threatens the survival of many of the Earth’s species.

Let’s hope Paribas, Volkswagen and Kurzweil are right.

Methane is increasing in the atmosphere

Letter to the Editor by Tom Bond, WVNews, June 16, 2018

West Virginia leaders have an unmatched talent for delicious, self-serving fantasy. Take the picture with the article “Atlantic Coast Pipeline construction begins with ground breaking in Lewis County.” Obviously unfamiliar hands on golden shovels, with a State Trooper arms akimbo in the background in case reality should pop up.

Born in Wheeling in the middle of the Civil War, West Virginia was conceived to deliver the coal of western Virginia to the Union through the new railroads. After emancipation, coal led directly to a new and more complicated kind of slavery. Company houses, company stores, scrip money, work from boyhood to death under horrible conditions devoid of safety rules. It lead to a war in southern West Virginia with a battle line miles long.

The money and the ideas came from out of state, and the capital gained went out of state to build industry elsewhere. The local benefit was marginal at best and it left behind broken communities, hills still collapsing today, bleeding red water. Where coalmining continues mountains are truncated, and huge areas of surface are essentially left useless, no longer able to produce the magnificent forest of the past.

Now extraction comes in a new form, fracking. The final result of fracking would be a regular pattern of well platforms, access roads and pipelines over much of the state, so from high altitude it will look like a pox on the earth. It would preclude future agriculture and forestry on those pox affected areas.

We desperately need jobs in West Virginia, so they claim jobs. But drilling is a mature industry requiring a small amount of highly skilled labor and huge investment. Several companies are advancing on automating drilling, so that only one man and robots can do the work. Once the well is drilled it only needs a small amount of labor to maintain, and the well lasts 6 to 8 years. Once the pipelines and compressors are in place only a few jobs are provided by them to take the gas to market, too.

Its present permutation of drilling, called fracking, involves harmful chemicals which are widely believed to be dangerous to people living in the area. Hundreds of scientific, peer reviewed research papers confirm it too.. It is true some don’t, about 20%, just enough to make the situation confusing. People and local doctors know, however.

Surface property is made less useful, and consequentially less valuable, which goes unrecognized by drillers, tax collectors and much of the public. What you work a lifetime to get is lost without compensation.

And there is the “great white elephant” in the room that can’t be gotten around. Carbon dioxide causes the temperature of the earth to rise, and so does methane lost into the atmosphere, even more. It is just as deadly as nuclear warfare, just slower. We don’t need to expand burning hydrocarbons, the investment should go to renewables. The blithe claim gas is a “transition” fuel is belied by the buildup of pipelines like the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. It will have to be paid for by customers regardless of when a transition occurs, resulting in an very high rate of return, guaranteed by law. Great investment for big banks.

Citizens should callout the golden fantasy pushed by some commercial eager beavers. West Virginia needs good education to attract modern industry and a governmental plan to provide infrastructure. Then we could become more than a resource colony stripped of the goodies too cheap to be respected by other states.

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See also:
Pennsylvania, for first time, sets methane requirements on natural gas wells | StateImpact Pennsylvania, June 7, 2018

Marcellus Well Pad in Doddridge County, WV

From an Article by Ken Ward, Jr., Charleston Gazette-Mail, September 9, 2017

Photo: The natural gas well pad, shown during the construction phase, was the subject of the lawsuit in Doddridge County.

Two Doddridge County residents have won a court ruling and a jury verdict that advocates for surface owners’ rights say provide a boost in the ongoing struggle over the impacts of the Marcellus Shale gas-drilling boom in Northern West Virginia.

Last week, a circuit court jury awarded Beth Crowder and David Wentz a total of $190,000 in damages in a case brought against EQT Production Company over a well pad that EQT constructed on the residents’ property — without their permission — in order to drill horizontally underground to reach natural gas supplies located beneath neighboring properties.

David Grubb, a Charleston lawyer who represented Crowder and Wentz, said it is believed to be the first verdict in which plaintiffs were awarded “fair and reasonable rental value” in a such a case against a natural gas producer.

“This is a victory for surface landowners,” Grubb said Friday. “It represents a recognition that drillers cannot use a surface landowner’s property to drill horizontally into neighboring tracts without express permission.”

Jurors determined that the residents deserved $95,000 for the rental value of the property and another $95,000 for “annoyance and inconvenience.” The jury declined to award any punitive damages to punish EQT for its behavior.

In the case, Crowder and Wentz were arguing that EQT had trespassed on their property when it built the 20-acre well pad to drill nine horizontal wells, a process that took 16 months and contemplated another three wells would eventually be drilled.

Doddridge Circuit Judge Timothy Sweeney had previously ruled for the residents, saying in a February 2016 order that EQT’s right to do what was “reasonably necessary” to produce gas it owns or leases, that right did not include the authority to drill from the Crowder-Wentz property into mineral tracts that do not underlie that property.

“While EQT clearly has the right to do what is necessary to plaintiffs’ surface land in order to drill well bores into the underlying oil and gas reservation to produce gas from its acreage, it does not have the legal right (absent consent) to drill from plaintiffs’ surface lands horizontally into neighboring mineral tracts,” Sweeney wrote.

The West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Organization has praised Sweeney’s decision, but also indicated it would be more comfortable if and when a similar legal ruling is spelled out by the state Supreme Court.

“So you are now more likely to win a case to block a well pad on your land, and it certainly strengthens your bargaining position if you want to negotiate with the driller,” the group told surface owners on its website. “This is as good as it gets until the West Virginia Supreme Court makes a decision on this issue that would be binding on all circuit court judges.”

The issue is one of many legal controversies that continue to be debated as the boom in natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale region has companies rushing to put together large tracts of minerals they say are needed to make large-scale drilling economical, and as residents push back over the on-the-ground impacts that the industry is having on their daily lives. The issues are complicated by the complex ownership patterns in which many surface owners don’t also hold the minerals under their homes, and because of split ownership of both surface and mineral tracts that has occurred over the decades.

Industry technology has fueled an economic boom in the Marcellus Shale gas fields of West Virginia’s northern counties, but it has also has created problems for surface owners who worry about damage to their homeplaces and peaceful rural lifestyle. The drilling boom also has generated conflicts between gas companies and mineral owners over how the wealth created is being divided.

Earlier this year, those kinds of issues brought another push by the gas industry for a “forced pooling” bill at the Legislature, but the measure died in the House when supporters were unable to build a consensus of support for the legislation among either Republicans or Democrats. The issue will undoubtedly surface again in next year’s session, and was among the topics last month during the initial meeting of a new Joint Committee on Natural Gas Development set up by legislative leaders.

In the Doddridge County case, the plaintiffs had sought between $500,000 and $2.1 million from EQT, arguing for rental value that amounted to a relatively percentage of the projected revenues for the wells on the pad.

EQT argued that those amounts were excessive and a company spokeswoman said EQT “respects that the jury factored in EQT’s position with its decision and is pleased with the outcome.”

“We are concerned that EQT will appeal the judge’s underlying ruling on trespass to the Supreme Court in order to continue to abuse the property rights of surface owners,” said David McMahon, another of the lawyers for Crowder and Wentz and a founder of the Surface Owners’ Rights Organization.

The scientific method is well established!

From an Essay by Prof. Adam Frank, 13.7 Blog, NPR, July 18, 2017

Just before joining other leaders at the G-20 summit, President Donald Trump gave a speech in Poland where he asked: “Does the West have the will to survive?”

Since then, a lot of ink (and electrons) has been spilled asking about the value, and values, of Western Civilization.

Far be it for me to pass judgment on entire civilizations — but as a whole I’m all in with the best parts of Western Civilization. That’s because one of the “best parts” of this thing that happened in the West was this other thing we call science.

What we call science had its roots in the achievements of the Hellenistic Greeks. It began with Thales of Miletus who first attempted to apply reason as a means of understanding the world. Later, Greek thinkers would expand on this reason-based method to map the stars, reveal the laws of geometry and establish the first classification schemes for life.

It’s important to note after the Greeks (and to some degree the Romans) the story of science’s progress moves away from what historian Ian Morris calls the “Western Core” of civilization. Beginning with the fall of Rome, “The West” goes fairly dark with respect to science for almost 1,000 years. Progress shifts in an easterly direction.

The Muslim empires take the lead in astronomy. Look at a star chart, where you’ll find a mess of Arab names like Algol, Deneb and Rigel. These cultures were also a force pushing mathematics forward. Look up the origins of the word “algebra.” Meanwhile, over in India, mathematicians were doing their own important work including figuring out how to deal with “0″ in calculations. And further to the east in China, the Tang and Song dynasties were piling up inventions and discoveries such as the compass, gunpowder, paper-making and printing.

So the story of science can never be seen as just the story of Western Civilization. But it was the West’s particular version of genius that gave us science’s all-important methodology and institutions.

It’s from these that science as we know it emerges with all its insight, reach and power.

From Galileo, Francis Bacon, Sir Issac Newton and others we got the mix of direct experimentation and mathematical description that is the hallmark of modern science. Together, these approaches would let us hear nature speak for itself. In the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment, these practices became codified into norms of behavior for science’s practitioners. Then, with the foundation of the Royal Society of London (1662), the Paris Académie Royale des Sciences (1666), and the Berlin Akademie der Wissenschaften (1700), a distinctly new kind of force was established in society.

As human institutions, each of these scientific academies had their deep imperfections. But, ultimately, each was dedicated to a way of knowing that would rise above prejudice, cronyism and the dictates of the powerful. Most importantly, this new way of knowing would be self-correcting. The Royal Society’s motto says it all: Nullis in Verba. Take no one’s word for it.

In other words, rely on evidence.

That scientific method for relying on evidence — on facts — was one of the supreme achievements of Western Civilization. The material wealth and power that stemmed from the codification of the scientific method is exactly why Western Civilization has been so successful over the last 500 years.

So given that history, you would think science would be worth defending. Given the success it has granted us, you would think those institutions of science would be cherished as a foundation on which Western Civilization rests.

Yes, that’s what you’d think. That’s what you would hope.

But just as the administration was asking about defending Western Civilization, it was being forced to defend its own decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord. At the root, this move was driven by the administration’s continued denial of climate science’s principle conclusion: that the Earth’s climate system is shifting due to human activity. It simply does not take climate science seriously.

But if climate science is hoax then what do we make of the fact that all of Western Civilization’s major scientific institutions affirm its overwhelming scientific evidence? The entire scientific community of the West (and everywhere else) is unanimous on climate change. How else could we have gotten something as difficult as the Paris Accords signed by practically every nation on Earth?

So what, then, does it mean to deny the conclusions of climate science or worse — call it a hoax?

To deny climate science is to deny the rest of science that it stands upon. And to deny all the rest of that science is to deny the network of institutions, practices and values that make science itself possible. And, finally, to deny those institutions and practices is to deny the values we all cherish about Western Civilization itself.

So, I agree with the administration: We should defend Western Civilization’s best achievements. Let us start with something obvious from which we all benefit. Let us defend science: the root of our prosperity, strength and well-being.

>>> Adam Frank is a co-founder of the 13.7 blog, an astrophysics professor at the University of Rochester, a book author and a self-described “evangelist of science.”

Photos can't do justice to MVP & ACP damages

New research exposes how Dominion’s proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline would decapitate 38 miles of ridgelines in VA and WV

Press Release from Chesapeake Climate Network & Friends of Nelson County, April 27, 2017

Richmond, VA — A briefing paper released today details how Dominion Resources intends to blast away, excavate, and partially remove entire mountaintops along 38 miles of Appalachian ridgelines as part of the construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Engineering and policy experts have examined documents submitted by Dominion to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and, using GIS mapping software, found that Dominion would require mountaintops to be “reduced” by 10 to 60 feet along the proposed route of the pipeline. For perspective, the height equivalent of a five-story building would be erased in places from fully forested and ancient mountains.

Furthermore, Dominion has yet to reveal how it intends to dispose of at least 247,000 dump-truck-loads of excess rock and soil—known as “overburden”—that would accumulate from the construction along just these 38 miles of ridgetops.

“In light of the discovery that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline will cause 10 to 60 feet of mountaintops to be removed from 38 miles of Appalachian ridges, there is nothing left to debate,” said Mike Tidwell, Executive Director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “Dominion’s pipeline will cause irrevocable harm to the region’s environmental resources. With Clean Water Act certifications pending in both Virginia and West Virginia, we call on Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and West Virginia Governor Jim Justice to reject this destructive pipeline.”

Dominion has submitted a proposal to FERC to build a 42-inch diameter pipeline that would transport natural gas from West Virginia into Virginia and North Carolina. Dominion has attempted to paint the Atlantic Coast Pipeline as an “environmentally-friendly” project. However, its proposed construction method and route selection across and along steep mountains is unprecedented for the region—if not the country—and is viewed as extreme and radical by landowners, conservationists, and engineers.

Similar impacts – although not yet fully inventoried – could come from the construction of a second pipeline to the south: the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) led by the company EQT Midstream Partners, LP.

“The Atlantic Coast Pipeline could easily prove itself deadly,” said Joyce Burton, Board Member of Friends of Nelson. “Many of the slopes along the right of way are significantly steeper than a black diamond ski slope. Both FERC and Dominion concede that constructing pipelines on these steep slopes can increase the potential for landslides, yet they still have not demonstrated how they propose to protect us from this risk. With all of this, it is clear that this pipeline is a recipe for disaster.”

The briefing paper released today was prepared by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network in coordination with the Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance, Friends of Nelson, Appalachian Mountain Advocates, and the Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition. It cites data from the Draft Environmental Impact Statement prepared by the Federal Energy Regulatory Council (FERC) as well as information supplied to FERC by Dominion. It also compiles information from GIS (Geographic Information System) mapping software and independent reports prepared by engineers and soil scientists.

Key findings include:

>>· Approximately 38 miles of mountains in West Virginia and Virginia will see 10 feet or more of their ridgetops removed in order to build the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

>>· This figure includes 19 miles in West Virginia and 19 miles in Virginia.

>>· The majority of these mountains would be flattened by 10 to 20 feet, with some places along the route requiring the removal of 60 feet or more of ridgetop.

>>· Building the ACP on top of these mountains will result in a tremendous quantity of excess material, known to those familiar with mountaintop removal as “overburden.”

>>· Dominion would likely need to dispose of 2.47 million cubic yards of overburden, from just these 38 miles alone.

>>· Standard-size, fully loaded dump trucks would need to take at least 247,000 trips to haul this material away from the construction site.

“It is astounding that FERC has not required Dominion to produce a plan for dealing with the millions of cubic yards of excess spoil that will result from cutting down miles of ridgetop for the pipeline,” said Ben Luckett, Staff Attorney at Appalachian Mountain Advocates. “We know from experience with mountaintop removal coal mining that the disposal of this material has devastating impacts on the headwater streams that are the lifeblood our rivers and lakes. FERC and Dominion’s complete failure to address this issue creates a significant risk that the excess material will ultimately end up in our waterways, smothering aquatic life and otherwise degrading water quality. Without an in-depth analysis of exactly how much spoil will be created and how it can be safely disposed of, the states cannot possibly certify that this pipeline project will comply with the Clean Water Act.”

“Even with Dominion’s refusal to provide the public with adequate information, the situation is clear: The proposed construction plan will have massive impacts to scenic vistas, terrestrial and aquatic habitats, and potentially to worker and resident safety,” said Dan Shaffer, Spatial Analyst with the Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition. “There is no way around it. It’s a bad route, a bad plan, and should never have been seriously considered.”

Evidence shows that this  project is OPPOSITE of “environmentally friendly” and States must reject it.

>> Denise Robbins, 240-396-2022, denise@chesapeakeclimate.org

>> Anne Havemann, 240-396-1984, anne@chesapeakeclimate.org

>> Joyce Burton, Friends of Nelson, 434-361-2328, joybirdpt@gmail.com

The full briefing paper is available here.

The best thing since sliced-bread

‘A Conservative Climate Solution’: Republican Group Calls for Carbon Tax

From an Article by John Schwartz, New York Times, February 7, 2017

A group of Republican elder statesmen is calling for a tax on carbon emissions to fight climate change.

The group, led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, with former Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Henry M. Paulson Jr., a former secretary of the Treasury, says that taxing carbon pollution produced by burning fossil fuels is “a conservative climate solution” based on free-market principles.

Mr. Baker is scheduled to meet with White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, Jared Kushner, the senior adviser to the president, and Gary D. Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, as well as Ivanka Trump.

In an interview, Mr. Baker said that the plan followed classic conservative principles of free-market solutions and small government. He suggested that even former President Ronald Reagan would have blessed the plan: “I’m not at all sure the Gipper wouldn’t have been very happy with this.” He said he had no idea how the proposal would be received by the current White House or Congress.

A carbon tax, which depends on rising prices of fossil fuels to reduce consumption, is supported in general by many Democrats, including Al Gore. Major oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, have come out in favor of the concept as well.

The Baker proposal would substitute the carbon tax for the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, a complex set of rules to regulate emissions which President Trump has pledged to repeal and which is tied up in court challenges, as well as other climate regulations. At an initial price of $40 per ton of carbon dioxide produced, the tax would raise an estimated $200 billion to $300 billion a year, with the rate scheduled to rise over time.

The tax would be collected where the fossil fuels enter the economy, such as the mine, well or port; the money raised would be returned to consumers in what the group calls a “carbon dividend” amounting to an estimated $2,000 a year for the average family of four.

The plan would also incorporate what are known as “border adjustments” to increase the costs for products from other countries that do not have a similar system in place, an idea intended to address the problem of other “free-rider” nations gaining a price advantage over carbon-taxed domestic goods. The proposal would also insulate fossil fuel companies against possible lawsuits over the damage their products have caused to the environment.

Attacks on the plan can be expected from many quarters, even among supporters of a carbon tax in theory. Supporters of the Clean Power Plan are likely to oppose its repeal. Democrats also tend to oppose limitations on the right to sue like those envisioned in the Baker proposal. And the idea of a dividend will no doubt anger those in the environmental movement who would prefer to see the money raised by the tax used to promote renewable energy and other new technologies to reduce emissions.

Whatever the fate of the plan, it is a notable moment because it puts influential members of the Republican establishment on the record as favoring action on climate change — a position that is publicly held by few Republicans at the national level, though many quietly say they would like to throw off the orthodoxy in the party that opposes action.

“This represents the first time Republicans put forth a concrete, market-based climate solution,” said Ted Halstead, an author of the paper and social entrepreneur whose organization, the Climate Leadership Council, is posting the memo outlining the plan. Mr. Halstead, who also founded the New America research institute, said the political left and right had stalled on climate action in part because they disagreed about the means to fixing the problem, even though they might find common ground.

Some popular environmentalists take stands that those on the right can never embrace, Mr. Halstead said, citing the works of Naomi Klein, who attacks capitalism itself as the root of climate change. “That is so at odds with the conservative worldview, of course they’re going to walk away,” he said. “The only way for this solution to come about is if it gets a start on the right.”

The other co-authors of the memo include N. Gregory Mankiw and Martin Feldstein, former chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Rob Walton, the former chairman of Wal-Mart. (See yesterday’s FrackCheckWV.net).

A survey taken just after the 2016 election by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found that 66 percent of registered voters supported a carbon tax on fossil fuel companies, with the money used to reduce personal taxes. The party breakdown for that support was 81 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of independents and 49 percent of Republicans. Even among Trump voters, 48 percent support taxing fossil fuel companies, according to the Yale program.

Mr. Baker said it was time for the Republican Party to engage in the discussion of global warming beyond simple denial.

“It’s really important that we Republicans have a seat at the table when people start talking about climate change,” Mr. Baker said. He said that, like many Republicans, he was skeptical that human activity was the main cause of warming, but that the stakes were too high for inaction. “I don’t accept the idea that it’s all man made,” he said, “but I do accept that the risks are sufficiently great that we need to have an insurance policy.”

As for the likelihood of success of his plan, “I have no idea what the prospects are.”

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See also:  Citizens’ Climate Lobby for detailed descriptions.

Sabine "Bee" Hossenfelder

Physics is good for your health, now and in years to come

From an Essay by Sabine Hossenfelder, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Germany, December 25, 2016

Book Sandwich for Sustenance

Yes, physics is good for your health. And that’s not only because it’s good to know that peeing on high power lines is a bad idea. It’s also because, if they wheel you to the hospital, physics is your best friend. Without physics, there’d be no X-rays and no magnetic resonance imaging. There’d be no ultrasound and no spectroscopy, no optical fiber imaging and no laser surgery. There wouldn’t even be centrifuges.

But physics is good for your health in another way – as the resort of sanity.

Human society may have entered a post-factual era, but the laws of nature don’t give a shit. Planet Earth is a crazy place, full with crazy people, getting crazier by the minute. But the universe still expands, atoms still decay, electric currents still take the path of least resistance. Electrons don’t care if you believe in them and supernovae don’t want your money. And that’s the beauty of knowledge discovery: It’s always waiting for you. Stupid policy decisions can limit our collective benefit from science, but the individual benefit is up to each of us.

In recent years I’ve found it impossible to escape the “mindfulness” movement. Its followers preach that focusing on the present moment will ease your mental tension. I don’t know about you, but most days focusing on the present moment is the last thing I want. I’ve done a lot of breaths and most of them were pretty unremarkable – I’d much rather think about something more interesting.

And physics is there for you: Find peace of mind in Hubble images of young nebulae or galaxy clusters billions of light years away. Gauge the importance of human affairs by contemplating the enormous energies released in black hole mergers. Remember how lucky we are that our planet is warmed but not roasted by the Sun, then watch some videos of recent solar eruptions. Reflect on the long history of our own galaxy, seeded by tiny density fluctuations whose imprint we still see today in the cosmic microwave background.

Or stretch your imagination and try to figure out what happens when you fall into a black hole, catch light like Einstein, or meditate over the big questions: Does time exist? Is the future determined? What, if anything, happened before the big bang? And if there are infinitely many copies of you in the multiverse, does that mean you are immortal?

This isn’t to say the here and now doesn’t matter. But if you need to recharge, physics can be a welcome break from human insanity.

And if everything else fails, there’s always the 2nd law of thermodynamics to remind us: All this will pass away (over time, sooner or later).

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NOTE: Plan to attend the WV Book Festival in Charleston on October 28 & 29, 2017. The Virginia Festival of the Book is set for March 22 thru 26, 2017 in Charlottesville, a huge event!