Slicing Up Global Warming: Princeton Professor Uses Wedge Model to Offer Solutions to Problem

By Brian Nearing, Albany Times Union, N.Y.

Jul. 20–ALBANY — When Robert Socolow thought about ways to stem global warming, he imagined it like wedges left when cutting a pie.

Each effort — energy efficiency, renewable fuels, or more nuclear power — would be one “wedge” in an array to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide — a known greenhouse gas that is driving global temperature increases.

His wedge stabilization model, unveiled with a colleague at Princeton University in 2004, is part of the global warming lexicon after being picked up by Al Gore and others who argue CO2 emissions must drop if the earth’s climate is not to be permanently changed.

Socolow, a Princeton mechanical and aerospace engineering professor, spoke Thursday at a state Public Service Commission forum at Albany Law School. The PSC is considering a directive by Gov. Eliot Spitzer that the state reduce electrical consumption by 2015.

“What once seemed too hard has become what simply must be done,” Socolow said, likening the fight to stem global warming to earlier struggles to ban child labor, protect rights of disabled people and reduce air pollution.

He came up with the wedge model, which relies on existing technologies, after hearing a Bush administration official claim the sheer immensity of problem made action futile.

Socolow’s model is found at http://www.princeton.edu/~cmi/ resources/stabwedge.htm. Each wedge represents a billion tons of reductions in annual carbon emissions by 2050.

There are many ways of reaching that, each with its own political impacts and degree of realism.

Some examples: Triple nuclear electricity production with 700 new 1,000-megawatt plants. Boost wind production 30-fold by building nearly 2 million 1-megawatt wind turbines. Halt deforestation and plant 300 million hectares of unforested land. Cover an area the size of New Jersey with photovoltaic cells. Double car and light truck fuel efficiency. Replace every incandescent light bulb in the world with a compact fluorescent bulb and change building codes, including in the developing world.

So far, the federal government has done little to reduce CO2, leaving states to come up with solutions, like New York’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which will impose CO2 limits on power plants, which account for about a third of CO2 emission.

“The goal is to provoke the federal government into action. A lot of the homework has already been done. The feds should be grateful,” Socolow said. Nearing can be reached at 454-5094 or by e-mail at bnearing@timesunion.com.

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