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An I n t e r v i e w w i t h James MacKenzie Lawrence J. Drew

James MacKenzie is a physicistand a senior associatewith the World Resources Institutein Washington, D.C. The World Resources Instituteis concerned with identifyingsolutionsto the dif6cultproblems of naturalresource depletion and environmental impacts of economic growth. The goal of the Instituteis to promote policiesfor sustainabledevelopment that are compatiblewith preservationof the environment. Drew: Is the World Resources Institute an environmental lobby group?

James MacKenzie

MacKenzie: Not in a legal technical sense. W c do, however, often testify before Congress at itsrequest.For the most pan, we are involved with national and internationalpolicy projects,such as the Intergovcrnmental Panel on Climate Change. The goal of the Instituteis to identifypoliciesthat support sustainable economic growth. The environment is a principalissue in the sense that we're very concerned about climate change, air pollution,biodiversify,tropicaldeforestation,population,and naturalresourcemanagement. W e alsoare tryingto improve nationalresourceaccounting to more accurately gauge the effectsof economic growth on nonrenewable resources.

Drew:. Arc there two major camps in the environmental movement--one that wants the user of resources to pay the "full cost" and another that wants heavy restraints placed upon the ability of an economy to produce? Or is the movement more fragmented than that? MacKenzie: Historically, environmentalists have favored command and control; that is, regulation to reduce environmental impacts, such as the Clean Air Act and water-quality legislation. This attitude still exists among many environmental organizations. However, in the last 5 to 10 years, there has been a definite shift in thinking among environmental groups to favor the use of market mechanisms and economic incentives to solve environmental problems. At the World Resources Institute, we advocate the use of market tools to solve problems rather than having government agencies design all emission controls for powerplants, automobiles, and everything else. Unfortunately, we run across the problem that Americans do not want to pay their bills. As a result, the use of market mechanisms is not very popular. This was the underlying problem that we saw reflected in the Presidential debates, where, for example, Ross Perot advocated a 50-cent-pcr-gaUon tax. I advocate a dollar-a-gallon tax to be phased in over, say, I0 years. The chance of this happening, though, is very small. In effect, this country still favors regulation over pricing mechanisms, and that's unfortunate. In a just-

completed study on subsidies to motor vehicle drivers, we found that costs of road construction and repair, road services, free commuter parking, plus a whole range of externalities, such as climate and air pollution, are not paid for directly by the drivers and amount to about $300 billion a year. The chances of internalizing these costs are remote. D r e w : Are you saying that the American people favor regulation over market mechanisms to solve environmental problems?

MacKenzie: I don't know whether they say it out right, but yes, you see it in the statements that politicians make and the people like to hear, such as "No new taxes; never, ever, new taxes.'" The quickest road to oblivion for a politician is to advocate new taxes. Drew: Will fundamental structural changes have to be made in production

and consumption to protect the environment? MacKenzie: This is another way of asking if our economy is sustainable; that is, can we continue on the present course without significant impacts on the environment and without robbing the future? We use two types of resources, some of which can be recycled and recovered and others that cannot. Energy is a terribly important product that is nonrecyclable. Our sources of energy are 90 percent fossil and, therefore, deplvtable and nonsustainable. Drew: How much of this statement is rooted in your knowledge of ther-

modynamics? MacKenzie: It is a thermodynamic argument that energy is nonrecyclable.

However, with regard to our large resources of coal, the restrictions are going to come from global warming rather than from scarcity. Sustainability occurs only if the sources and the sinks in our resource system are basically the same; if that does not occur, then eventually you have to mine the sinks, which would require an enormous amount of energy. This is the situation with fossil fuels and many minerals. Drew: How ditficult is it to document scientifically global warming? Ozone

depletion? MacKenzie: The problems of climate change and ozone depletion are the most serious environmental problems we face. There are some uncertainties about global warming and its effects. We are more uncertain about ozone depletion. The chemistry of ozone depletion is established beyond a reasonable doubt, and the world has moved toward reducing and eventually eliminating emissions of these chlorine-containing compounds to preserve the ozone layer. I f there were no ozone layer, then we wouldn't be here. There would be very little life on Earth. We would all live in the oceans, and I think that's well understood. Scientifically, there is no question that there is a greenhouse effect, without which the Earth would be 60 ~ Fahrenheit colder and would be ice-bound. The Earth has warmed over the past century, but the warming is not in synchronization with the buildup of these gases. There was a cooling period from the 1940's through the 1970's. Since then, warming has increased, and the 1980's were a very warm decade indeed. The problem

is to establish that the occurrence of warming is, in fact, not just a fluctuation and is a result of these gases; needless to say, there is a lot of legitimate controversy and disagreement. The fundamental issue is whether to take action now or wait. Taking action requires an enormous change in how we use energy. The world economy depends on energy, 90 percent of which comes from fossil fuels. So, if we have to cut energy at least 50 percent or as much as 80 percent, then enormous changes will occur. I f it didn't cost anything to deal with global warming, then there wouldn't be any controversy. D r e w : Our economy is based on cheap energy and mineral commodities. H o w will our lives change if we have to pay the fulluser cost--lesstravel and air conditioning and more book reading and perspiration?

MacKenzie: I f things are given away at an artificially low price, then you tend to overuse them in place of substitutes, such as good designs in the use of other materials. We have cheap energy in this country. For example, gasoline prices are cheaper than they've been in five decades. It's an artificial cheapness; it doesn't reflect the costs that oil really imposes on society. If we paid prices that begin to reflect these costs, then they would be closer to the European and Japanese prices and would be three or four times the prices we pay. The result of this cheapness is that we use twice as much gasoline per capita as Europeans. We are exacerbating problems like national security, global wanning, and air pollution. Artificially cheap energy leads to a host of problems that are difficult to deal with. If we started to pay the full price, then we would change the way we move around. I f we started to pay the full price for oil, then things like hydrogen or electrically powered vehicles would become attractive economically. D r e w : Could you speak to the last part of my question? Are we going to

have to live a less comfortable lifestyle? For example, people who lived in Washington, D.C., 30 years ago before air conditioning remember summer as an unpleasant time. MacKenzie: No. There's no reason that a sustainable economy has to be less

pleasant. Look at some of our renewable energy resources. Pacific Northwest Laboratories estimated the wind resource in this country to be 100 quads per year of primary fuel equivalent. That is enough to meet our present electric needs. It's a matter of erecting the windmills, transmitting the power, and storing it when necessary so that it's available on demand. It would take about 0.5 percent of the surface area of this country covered by 15-percent ei~cient solar cells to supply all of our energy needs. We've paved over four times that amount for cars. It is a matter of getting the pricing right and getting over the conceptual problem of making the transitionto other sources.There is a lot of money tied up in conventional energy sources. They are worth almost $500 billiona year in retailsales.Changes are going to happen, but they're not going to happen gracefully. D r e w : Is population growth a fundamental underlying problem?

MacKenzie: Yes. Ultimately, we need to have a stable population; otherwise all these problems will continue to grow. So, I would say that it is the fundamental long=term problem.

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Drew: H o w does nuclear energy stack up against energy from the carbon

fuels? MacKenzie: It is impossible to quantitatively compare fossil fuels and nu-

clear fuels. Qualitativcly~ one can examine the problems that each of these technologies poses. Ultimately, it's a political decision as to which one we're going to use. Nuclear power requires a very high level of care to avoid major problems along the entire fuel cycle from uranium production and enrichment to burning and waste disposal. This country has not done that well in my view, and nuclear energy has been involved in controversy for many years. The Atomic Energy Commission allowed buildings to be constructed on uranium railings, which led to high radon exposures. The problem of waste management at the other end of the fuel cycle includes leaking tanks and dumps, such as Maxey Flats, Kentucky, that have leaked plutonium offsite. The fuel processing disaster at West Valley, New York, will cost billions of dollars to clean up. The net result of poor fuel cycle handling is one reason nuclear energy is at its present stage. Also, the safety problem has not been dealt with well, although it's getting better. If nuclear energy had been dealt with properly, if the fuel cycle had been handled responsibly by the kind of designs now being planned, then it would be environmentally more benign. Nuclear power does not pollute the air; however, it requires a high level of technological sophistication to manage. In principle, it could be very clean, but in fact it poses many problems. We have fossil fuels, which have problems of known character involving land use, air pollution, and spills, versus nuclear power, which has the unrealized potential for being environmentally very clean. Drew: What might the costs be to develop new clean technologies to replace

the old dirty technologies? To make coal attractive? MacKenzie: There's no question that coal could be mined cleanly with few impacts if we wanted to pay the price. Coal mines can be made safer; strip mine lands can be reclaimed. Coal can be satisfied and burned almost as cleanly as natural gas. However, if the global warming problem is real, then the use of coal cannot expand to ensure a long-term domestic source of energy. It's not whether the stuff can be mined or burned cleanly, but that it's a carbon-based fuel. Drew: Then we are almost certainly going to use more nuclear energy. Are you optimistic that we can isolate high-level nuclear wastes for the tens of thousands of years required? MacKenzie: We have to store these wastes. We have tends of thousands of tons of high-level waste, most of which is in the form of spent fuel, as well as reprocessed waste, which is mostly defense waste. We've got to find a way of isolating it from the environment. There is so much politics involved. In the selectionprocess for sites,for example, the Department of Energy did not look at the sites that were geologically most attractive;they looked at the Federal siteswhere they thought they had control over the land in Texas, Nevada, and Washington. As a result,almost every State that the Federal Government considered for a high-leveldepository sued the Department of Energy for a whole variety of reasons. So, what's possible in principle and

what's possible in fact are two different things. Still, we have to find a way of isolating these wastes. Drew: Does the long-run nature of this isolation bother you? MacKenzie: No, in principle the long-term nature of the problem does not bother me. We have to do a lot of things forever, including growing food, supplying energy, and providing all the services to live. We do those things day by day, and, in the same sense, we have to manage these wastes day by day forever. What bothers me is that historically, this problem has not been given high priority, and, as a result, it has been mismanaged and continues to be mismanaged. Drew: What is your opinion of the idea that we should use up our cheapest

sources of energy as soon as possible in the expansion of economic growth? Economists argue that substitute sources always exist and that we can proceed from one source to another. They also assume that technology will drive costs of more expensive sources downward. MacKenzie: Unconstrained exponential growth is pathological. In natural systems, it leads to eventual collapse. Somehow, we think that there are no limits, that it's just a matter of changing the technology and keeping the boilers going at full steam, and everything will be fight. Unfortunately, human institutions seem not up to coping with growth. We see it in worldwide death from famine and inadequate food supplies. If world population continues to grow, then mean per capita consumption has to decline to keep total consumption constant. Otherwise, we will overwhelm the natural systems upon which we depend. Drew: Do you see an intrinsic limit to economic growth? MacKenzie: I do not see any intrinsic limit on economic growth in itself. Economic growth can range from music-making to steel-making. I think you have to look more carefully at the elements of growth to see the problems. In agriculture and energy, we are already in trouble as far as I'm concerned.

Drew: You would argue against the rapid depletion of resources to create additional wealth? MacKenzie: I do not advocate the rapid depletion of resources to create additional wealth if we don't have ready substitutes for those resources as they are depleted. It takes 50 to 100 years to introduce new energy sources. The peak in world crude oil production could occur within three decades at the rate we're going, if you accept the estimates of the U.S. Geological Survey that 2,000 billion barrels are ultimately recoverable. We've consumed 700 billion barrels of oil and know where there's another 1,000 billion barrels. So, we're nearing the midpoint, in my view, of the oil era, and it really behooves us to take a longer term perspective of the use of this resource and the realistic rates at which substitutes can be made. Substitution is not something that is done easily, as we learned in our attempt to make synthetic fuels I0 years ago in this country. It failed because of the enormous costs involved. Substitutes for oil have to be found, but they won't come cheap. I think the more time we have to deal with them, the better off we're going to be.

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