Center for a New American Security

New climate data published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Sunday show that global carbon emissions hit a record high in 2011 and could increase in 2012 without a concerted international effort to reduce emissions. According to the analysis published by the study’s authors, the prospect for keeping global warming below 2 ⁰C – the threshold above which scientists expect irreversible climate change to take effect – is increasingly dim. “A shift to a 2 °C pathway requires immediate significant and sustained global mitigation, with a probable reliance on net negative emissions in the longer term,” the authors concluded.

The climate data were released as international delegates meet for four final days of negotiations at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) Conference of Parties 18 in Doha, Qatar. According to a report from The New York Times on Monday, those negotiations are not expected to result in meaningful international progress: “Their agenda is modest this year, with no new emissions targets and little progress expected on a protocol that is supposed to be concluded in 2015 and take effect in 2020.”

The executive secretary of the UNFCC Christiana Figueres said in an interview that countries need to do more at the domestic level in order to build momentum toward a comprehensive global agreement. “We won’t get an international agreement until enough domestic legislation and action are in place to begin to have an effect,” Figueres said in an interview, according to The New York Times. “Governments have to find ways in which action on the ground can be accelerated and taken to a higher level, because that is absolutely needed.”

Last week the Department of Energy (DOE) announced its decision to award the first company to receive government funding in support of commercializing Small Modular Reactors (SMR), a new generation of nuclear power plants. Funds were awarded to a consortium of companies responding to a funding announcement in March 2012; the consortium is led by Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) in conjunction with the Tennessee Valley Authority and Bechtel. The Department of Energy established the Small Modular Reactor Licensing Technical Support Program to provide federal support of up to $450 million to expedite the licensing process of SMRs Originally, two projects would receive funding; so far only one has, leaving other initiatives such as Westinghouse, NuScale and the Holtec HI-SMUR out of luck for now.

The SMR initiative is part of the Obama administration’s efforts to have low-carbon nuclear energy play an important part of America’s energy future. SMRs are defined as having power outputs of up to 300 megawatts of electricity, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. They are touted for their compact scalable designs that offer a host of safety, construction and economic benefits. According to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, SMRs have the potential to create new export and job opportunities for many Americans as the world is increasingly demanding nuclear energy to fulfill its energy needs, despite recent retreat from nuclear power by some countries. Developing countries that do not have the capacity or expertise are looking for more modular and cost effective power sources and SMRs may be an increasingly attractive option.

SMRs also present a unique opportunity for the United States to restore leadership in the global nuclear energy market. As U.S. SMR businesses grow the share of the market, the United States is positioned to play a leading role in future negotiations on nuclear reprocessing and spent fuel. More countries will be eager to reinstate 1-2-3 negotiations and the United States will have subsequently more leverage in these discussions. U.S. leadership in the nuclear energy markets can go a long way in ensuring safeguards can go in place of nuclear stockpiles which are critical to non-proliferation goals.

While SMRs could usher in a new wave of nuclear renaissance, many hurdles still lie ahead. First, the Nuclear Regulation Commission (NRC) still has to approve all of the design certifications before any nuclear reactor becomes operational. The NRC hasn’t issued a license for a full-scale nuclear reactor since 1976, which is in part a reason the U.S. influence in the nuclear energy market has eroded. The NRC has more experience and familiarity with large light water reactors and has thus taken a more cautious role in studying the safety of SMRs. This presents a problem for manufacturers because the uncertainties of NRC regulations make it so they won’t invest in SMR production. Whether the Small Modular Reactor Program established by the DOE will be able to overcome NRC licensing costs is still unclear as negotiations for the exact cost of its partnership with B&W is still being negotiated.

Some have argued that the Department of Defense (DOD) would be a unique testing ground for an SMR demonstration. While this might be true, there does not appear to be enough political will for using the DOD as a site for energy experimentation. A DOD SMR program might also entail high political costs due to the larger defense cut negotiations that are taking place in Congress as part of the fiscal cliff.

The bottom line: the administration’s recent moves are a sign that SMRs are poised to play a large role in any nuclear energy future. 

Annie Snider of Greenwire confirmed on Monday that after more than three years the CIA has closed its Center for Climate Change and National Security, the office responsible for the intelligence agency’s analysis of the national security implications of climate change.

According to the report, the center was closed due to continuing pressure from congressional representatives and dwindling internal support for the work. “Especially since Panetta left, there wasn't a lot of love for this at the CIA," one former defense official told Greenwire.

“The exact timing of the closure and the reasons behind it are not clear. Those close to the center speculate that the move may have been intended to pre-empt cuts from Congress. The total U.S. intelligence budget has declined for the past two years, dipping to $75.4 billion for fiscal 2012 after peaking at $80.1 billion in fiscal 2010,” Greenwire reported.

Nevertheless, the agency has a continued stake in assessing the impact of climate change on U.S. national security interests and will continue the work “under other auspices,” the report said.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta traveled to the Asia Pacific this week ahead of President Obama, who will travel to the region tomorrow to visit Thailand, Burma and Cambodia. On Thursday, Secretary Panetta and Thai Defense Minister Sukampol Suwannathat reaffirmed the U.S.-Thai military alliance. “Today the minister and I moved this alliance into the 21st Century by signing a joint vision statement that will help pave the way for even stronger military to military ties as we adapt to the shared threats and challenges that we will face together in this region and in the future,” Panetta said. “As we focus on these areas of cooperation, I want to convey that the United States remains committed to helping the Thai military further develop its already impressive capabilities so that it can assume even greater security responsibilities in this region, particularly in maritime security and in humanitarian relief and in peacekeeping operations.”

Photo: Secretary Panetta toured the Grand Palace in Bangkok on Thursday. Courtesy of Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo and the Department of Defense.   

New York National Guard soldiers and airmen continue to play an important role in helping victims in the northeast recover in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, a reminder that the National Guard is critical to homeland resilience. In this photo, members of the New York National Guard distribute fuel to areas suffering from shortages. Elsewhere, the Department of Defense set up mobile fuel stations to provide free gas (10-gallon limit per person) to individuals in the New York metropolitan area.

 Photo: Courtesy of SFC Jon Soucy and the U.S. Army. 

More than 2.5 million are still without power in the northeast, just one of the many enduring impacts of Hurricane Sandy.

On Thursday, the Department of Defense launched a “significant airlift event” to assist in recovery efforts, including dispatching airlift equipment from the U.S. Air Force’s Air Mobility Command to deliver electric utility vehicles to the distressed region. The Air Mobility Command deployed 12 C-17 Globemasters and five C-5 Galaxy aircraft to transport personnel and equipment from Southern California Edison Utility Company to New York City, according to American Forces Press Service.

The Department of Defense also dispatched about 60 fuel trucks carrying 200,000 gallons of fuel to the northeast to assist first responders that are also vulnerable to the fuel shortages plaguing recovery efforts in the region.

Photo: U.S. Air Force crew offload Southern California Edison power repair equipment from a C-5 Galaxy on Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, NY on November 1, 2012. Courtesy of Master Sgt. Corine Lombardo and the U.S. Army. 

Tonight is the third and final presidential debate, and it will focus exclusively on foreign policy. Viewers can expect to see significant attention given to Afghanistan, China, Iran and Libya. CNAS published a “National Security Guide to the 2012 Presidential Election” earlier this month that lays out some of the key decision points on a range of issues, such as the defense budget, cyber security and Afghanistan.

One issue that has received very little attention in the debates so far is climate change, which is disappointing when one considers that some of the most important decisions regarding U.S. policy on climate change will need to be made in the next administration in order to avoid potential climate tipping points that scientists say could “lead to increasingly rapid and irreversible destruction of the global environment.” Indeed, the International Energy Agency has already warned that – even with the recent global recession – global carbon emissions continue to rise, pushing the world closer to irreversible damage to the environment. The IEA added last year that unless serious efforts are taken in the next five years to curb global greenhouse gas emissions the world may be unable to avoid “dangerous climate change” and its attendant consequences, including more frequent and severe drought like the kind witnessed today in the American midwest.  

But policymakers don’t need to wait five years or more to see how climate change may take its toll on U.S. security and foreign policy interests. One need only look to the Arctic – which recorded record low sea ice this summer – to see where climate change is already complicating U.S. foreign policy. The opening of the Arctic is placing increased pressure on U.S. policymakers to assess U.S. interests in the region and to navigate potential international challenges that could manifest from increased activity in the High North.

One of the knocks against advanced algae biofuels is that they are not cost competitive with conventional petroleum – which is true.  But science may eventually offer a way around this particular challenge.

Writing recently in Yale Environment 360, Marc Gunther lays out the potential for science to revolutionize the biofuels business. “By far the biggest opportunity to reduce the costs of algal fuels lies within the algae,” Gunther writes. “Just as crop scientists have bred corn and wheat to improve yields, with spectacular results, the algae companies are using conventional breeding and genetic modification to develop strains of algae to grow faster, yield more oil, and repel pests.”

The biggest opportunity may come from synthetic genomics, a relatively nascent field that enables scientists to build living organisms with special characteristics from scratch. By closely studying strains of algae, scientists can map entire genetic sequences and identify the genes tied to specific physical properties like growth and oil yield. Using the building blocks of the genome – DNA nucleotides – scientists can then build from scratch the most efficient algae strain for producing oils that can be refined into gasoline and jet fuel, lowering the costs for producers.

In an interview with Scientific American in November 2011, J. Craig Venter, the man behind mapping the human genome, described the effort this way:

Everybody is looking for a naturally occurring algae that is going to be a miracle cell to save the world and, after a century of looking, people still haven't found it. We hope we're different. The [genetic] tools give us a new approach: being able to rewrite the genetic code and get cells to do what we want them to do.  

By using synthetic genomics to create novel strains of algae, engineers can focus not just on making the algae more efficient oil producers, but also making them resistant to viruses that destroy whole ponds of algae and can drive up production costs. “The same genetic engineering and genome engineering we have, we can make cells that are resistant to viruses,” Venter told Scientific American. “Getting algae that are really robust and can withstand true industrial conditions on a commercial basis. You can't afford to shut down a plant for contamination. Most algae growers have to do that at a fairly frequent pace.”

In a speech last night aboard the USS Intrepid in New York, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned a meeting of Business Executives for National Security about the cyber challenges the United States faces.

“A cyber attack perpetrated by nation states or violent extremist groups could be as destructive as the terrorist attack of 9/11,” Panetta said. “Such a destructive cyber terrorist attack could paralyze the nation.”

Panetta recalled a recent attack against the Saudi Arabian state oil company ARAMCO caused by a computer virus known as “Shamoon” that he described as “probably the most destructive attack that the private sector has seen to date.” In that attack, Secretary Panetta said, the virus self-executed itself and “replaced crucial system files with an image of a burning U.S. flag. It also put additional ‘garbage’ data that overwrote all the real data on the machine. The more than 30,000 computers it infected were rendered useless, and had to be replaced.”

The challenges create a “profound new sense of vulnerability,” Panetta noted. “An aggressor nation or extremist group could gain control of critical switches and derail passenger trains, or trains loaded with lethal chemicals,” he said. “They could contaminate the water supply in major cities, or shut down the power grid across large parts of the country.”

To learn more about America’s cyber challenges, check out CNAS’s Election 2012 National Security Guide to the Presidential Election. 

We are still on holiday and won’t be posting any new content to the blog today.

But we did want to remind our readers that on Wednesday, October 10, CNAS will hold its final Election 2012 event from 1 PM to 2:30 PM at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington.

RSVP here!

CNAS, wtih the New America Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, will host a debate between top-level surrogates of the Obama and Romney presidential campaigns. Dov S. Zakheim, Special Advisor on Foreign Policy and National Security for the Romney campaign, will join Rich Verma, member of the National Security Advisory Committee for the Obama campaign, to discuss the defense and foreign policy agendas of the two candidates.

Also, before the Vice Presidential debate on foreign policy this Thursday, don’t forget to check out our new National Security Guide to the 2012 Presidential Election and learn a bit more about the foreign policy and national security issues that the next administration faces. 

Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton participated in a roundtable on water security while visiting the United Nations in New York, raising the security profile of water among delegates at the UN General Assembly meeting.

In a speech in March honoring World Water Day, Secretary Clinton said that water is “an essential ingredient of global peace, stability, and security.” She added: “We think it actually is our duty and responsibility to make sure that this water issue stays at the very top of America’s foreign policy and national security agenda.”

Secretary Clinton’s remarks earlier this year coincided with the release of the intelligence community’s Global Water Security report, a study commissioned by the State Department to analyze the effect of water on U.S. foreign policy and national security interests. “This assessment is a landmark document that puts water security in its rightful place as part of national security,” Secretary Clinton said of the report.

Yesterday, Secretary Clinton reiterated her clarion call for action to address the growing global water crisis, drawing on the intelligence community's findings to frame water as a security issue. 

“Now, this year alone in the United States, we’ve experienced extreme drought conditions in some parts of our country and devastating floods in others. We are well aware that Europe, Asia, and Africa have all experienced similar challenges. Now, you’ve already heard about our Intelligence Community Assessment on Global Water Security, and I hope that you will have if you didn’t today have a chance to really study it, because water scarcity could have profound implications for security,” Secretary Clinton said yesterday.

“The report found that dwindling supplies and poor management of water resources will certainly affect millions of people as food and crops grow scarcer and access to water more difficult to obtain. In fact, in some places, the water tables are already more depleted than we thought and wells are drying up.”

Read Secretary Clinton’s full remarks here. 

While the United States should make better use of space technologies to advance U.S. interests (particularly for improving U.S. disaster warning and response, as I argued this week in a new policy brief Sentries in the Sky: Using Space Technologies for Disaster Response), ground-based sensors will continue to be important for providing a holistic view of environmental, climate change and other important global trends that can affect U.S. security. The U.S. government needs a suite of tools that include ground- and space-based remote sensing technologies, not one or the other.

In this photo taken on September 4, 2012, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute prepares to launch its research vessel with these buoys that will help scientists measure saline concentrations at sea. According to NASA, “The NASA-sponsored expedition will sail to the North Atlantic's saltiest spot to get a detailed, 3-D picture of how salt content fluctuates in the ocean's upper layers and how these variations are related to shifts in rainfall patterns around the planet.”

This type of expedition can help advance scientists’ understanding of ocean chemistry, which may help improve climate modeling that can provide security practitioners more actionable data about the impact of global climate change on particular regions.  

Photo: Courtesy of Bill Ingalls and NASA.