JK, Climate Change and Coal-fired Power Plants in Texas
During his chat with Ed Schultz on Monday, JK referenced the 16 coal-fired plants that are on the planning board in Texas—11 of them being proposed by one company, TXU. Ed didn’t know about it but said he’d look into it after JK noted that due to the Bush administration’s dismantling of environmental protections, they are all scheduled to be built under old pollution control standards. This, in spite of the incredible need for curbing carbon emissions.
Here’s another look at what’s going on in Texas from Fortune Magazine.
A $10.4-billion-a-year energy company based in Dallas, TXU is staking its future on coal-
the dirtiest of all fuels used to generate electricity. Last spring the company announced plans to build 11 new coal-fired power plants in Texas at a cost of nearly $1 billion apiece… One environmental group calculated that the new plants would generate 78 million tons of CO2 each year-more than the emissions of Sweden, Denmark, or Portugal. Texas already ranks first in the U.S. in carbon emissions....But TXU is just getting started. The company says it will soon unveil plans to build another eight to 15 coal-burning plants outside Texas, counting on economies of scale to hold costs down. TXU also operates strip mines, which supply 70% of the coal it burns.
Marc Gunther, the article’s author interviewed Mike McCall, “the company executive in charge of selling the coal plants to Texans. A burly, easygoing 49-year-old, McCall is a coal man to his core. He went to the college at the Missouri School of Mines with the financial help of Peabody Coal, the nation’s largest producer, worked in coal mines in Illinois, ran a private railroad that shipped coal, and climbed the ladder at TXU to become head of its wholesale electricity unit.”
When questioned about climate change, McCall responded:
...that it’s an “important and long-term issue” and says TXU’s plants will be designed so that someday they can be retrofitted to capture and store carbon. Right now, there’s no way to capture carbon from coal-burning plants. But, McCall says, “we have confidence that technology will come along.”
That, say TXU’s critics, is hokum.
TXU is fighting not just the usual activists from the Sierra Club and Public Citizen but environmental groups like Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which are ordinarily business-friendly. (With GE, DuPont, and others, they formed the coalition of big companies to lobby for carbon caps.) Opposing the plants, too, are the Democratic mayors of Dallas and Houston, Texas celebrities such as rocker Don Henley, and prominent businesspeople, including real estate scion Trammell S. Crow and Garrett Boone, the chairman of the Container Store. Albert J. Huddleston, a pro-business Republican who helped finance the Swift Boat television ads against John Kerry in 2004, is funding a lawsuit against TXU because he’s concerned about mercury contamination of lakes and fish.
...”TXU is becoming the poster child for why we need mandatory federal legislation,” says Jim Marston, who runs Environmental Defense’s Texas operations.
Someday? Someday will retrofit not-yet-built plants to curb carbon emissions? Someday?
Sounds like Mr. McCall should have been sitting in the Commerce Committee hearing on Climate Change Research & Scientific Integrity on 2-7-2007. Chris Mooney of scienceblog.com’s Intersection noted here:
<!The hearing ended on a very strong note, as Senator John Kerry essentially eviscerated a hapless representative of the Bush administration, acting Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) chairman Bill Brennan. With Kerry terming the administration’s approach to climate change science and policy “the most serious dereliction of public responsibility that I have ever seen,” Brennan-
who tried to stick with talking points-was massively outgunned....Kerry’s cross examination towards the end of the hearing completely stole the show.
Note: This link has been working intermittently—so if it doesn’t work now, try again later. We are trying to get a video clip of the relevant portion and we’ll update here if/when we get it.
Just in case the video link isn’t working, here’s an excerpt from the transcript of the hearing:
KERRY: ... I was here with Senator Hollings and Senator Inouye was, when we passed the global change research bill, in 1990. And we specifically set out the following.
We said that at least every four years to give us the National Scientific Assessment, to integrate, evaluate, interpret research findings on climate change, scientific uncertainties; analyze the effects of global climate change on the natural environment, agriculture, energy, production use, land and water resources, transportation, human health, welfare, human social systems, biological diversity; analyze current trends in global change, both human inducted and natural.
Don’t you think that if the IPCC report comes out in 2001 if you guys were serious about this that you might have reported to the Congress after that your judgments about that report?
BRENNAN: Sir, as you know, the administration utilizing the CCSP process is advancing the 21 synthesis and assessment reports to advance our understanding of a science that is developing and evolving very rapidly, and it provides a very direct way to get advances to…
KERRY: Well, let me ask you about your understanding. Do you accept the scientific consensus that since the Industrial Revolution, the planet has warmed up by 0.8 degrees centigrade? Do you accept that?
BRENNAN: I accept the scientific consensus that unequivocally indicates that the Earth is warming and that there are anthropogenic causes for that.
KERRY: Do you accept the science that says that that carbon dioxide that is already in the atmosphere, coupled with other greenhouse gas will continue to do damage for its half-life of whatever, 70 years or more and that, therefore, no matter what we do there will be another add-on of temperature increase to somewhere in the vicinity of 1.5 degrees centigrade, do you accept that?
BRENNAN: I accept that we are continuing to add emissions to our environment…
KERRY: Not what I asked you. I asked you whether or not the existing levels, no matter what is added up till now, just what is there now, preordains a continued increase in temperature up to about 1.5 degrees. Do you accept that?
BRENNAN: I accept that we have carbon increasing in our atmosphere, sir, yes.
KERRY: All right. So, you accept that we’re stuck with that increase in temperature, no matter what we do?
BRENNAN: No. I believe that the temperature will continue to increase.
KERRY: Fair enough. And, do you accept the consensus of the scientific community, now ratified by what was put out in Paris last week, that we can no longer afford the cushion of a temperature increase up to 3 degrees centigrade. We are now stuck with a 2 degree, sort of precautionary level, which leaves us now a margin of from 1.5 to 2 degrees, that everything manmade that we do in India, in China, here, the entire cushion available to us is a .5 degree, do you accept that science?
BRENNAN: I agree that the cushion available to us is narrow, sir. And the administration supports the IPCC report.
KERRY: If that’s the case, where is the plan for this administration to cut carbon, to cap carbon, to reduce carbon to the levels that will hold us to 450 parts per million, which is the scientifically agreed upon level that we must accept? Where’s the plan?
BRENNAN: Sir, the administration has been developing, and has a plan, and has been working to reduce greenhouse gas intensity, it has been working to address the fuel side, to reduce emissions, to stop emissions and then to reverse it.
KERRY: Sir, with all due respect, that’s just talk. There’s no real plan to hold carbon emissions to a 450 parts per million level. The president’s State of the Union message suggested some gasoline savings, and he suggests that that’s good. And he suggested some alternative fuels, none of which get you close to the level of 450 parts per million.
And, I just talked to a number of scientists last week who confirmed that we can no longer afford the 550 parts they thought we could. They’ve ratcheted it down. Why? Because of the evidence of the breakup of the ice and what is happening across the planet. Now, do you guys take that seriously, or don’t you?
BRENNAN: Absolutely, sir.
KERRY: Well, if you take it seriously, where’s the assessment to the American people of what we have to do to deal with this?
BRENNAN: Sir, as I said, the administration is producing the 21 synthesis and assessment products to advance our understanding of these impacts.
KERRY: With all due respect, it’s been five years since the last report. And, it is unclear when 19 further reports of those 20 whatever are going to be due. Totally unclear. Do you really believe that two reports on two separate areas is sufficient to say that after six years you’re doing the job here?
BRENNAN: Sir, these reports are on a schedule for completion that will be submitted to you in a timely fashion to address the issues that have been raised and to support the administration’s view that this is the most appropriate way to advance the scientific understanding.
KERRY: But, look, I will acknowledge that there is no computer model that tells us precisely what’s going to happen. I understand that. I also have read enough to understand that there’s a certain cooling that takes place, there are particulates in the atmosphere, the cooling is now neutralized and equals, if you take all the greenhouse gases, except for carbon dioxide, there’s sort of an equilibrium.
But then you’ve got the carbon dioxide outside of that. There’s been a 35 percent increase in carbon dioxide since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
And, you know, I’m not a scientist but I know enough to sort of connect the dots here, that when I’ve got all these scientists screaming at me saying, precautionary principle, you got to do this, we’ve got to hold it to 450 parts per million, we’ve lowered our estimate we’re now looking at devastation, permafrost melting in Alaska, you know, a huge 66 square mile sheet of ice breaks off, creates its own island.
You know, it’s all accelerated. The glaciers of the planet are melting. Not just in our own park, all over the planet. And every indicator is leading to this. An Arctic bird was discovered down in San Diego a few weeks ago. I mean, you run the gamut.
You guys aren’t responding to it. I have to tell you this.
BRENNAN: Sir, I believe we share a common goal in reducing these emissions and the appropriate…
KERRY: No, I don’t think we do share that. Because you fought against McCain’s and my efforts to have CAFE standards a few years ago. The most we could get was 35 votes in the Congress. You weren’t there, you didn’t stand for it. The president didn’t. You’re not supportive of this. And I think it is the most serious dereliction of public responsibility that I have ever seen. Ever.
When scientists are told, “Don’t tell the American people the truth,” I mean, this is serious stuff. In all the years I’ve been on this committee, I’ve never seen something like this where an administration is unwilling to pull people together and say, “How are we going to do this?”
[...]
KERRY: [T]his is deadly serious stuff. This is the most serious thing that I’ve seen. I mean I, you know, this is what, how many years now of hearings on this committee, since 1987. Almost 20 years. Almost 20 years of hearings on this committee, when we’ve been talking this very science.
We need a carbon cap. We’ve got to reduce carbon. We’ve got to get serious about putting incentives in our automobiles to be hybrids and plug-ins and all kinds of things. We’ve got to move now to clean coal technology.
There are 16 coal-fired plants that they’re planning to build in Texas under TXU, without new source performance standards. They’re going to put 78 million tons of additional CO2 into the atmosphere. China’s building one coal-fired plant per week. That can’t happen. And we better show the global leadership to prevent it from happening.
And I don’t care if people get tired of me ranting on this, I am going to rant on this every day I can for the time I’m here, because this is the most serious issue we have.
Rant on, Senator. We’re listening.
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This is depressing. The building of these coal plants flies in the face of all reason. But then again, since when has greed ever been reasonable.
Why can Europe be ahead of the curve in fighting global warming with federal guidelines and we here in the US have a government that is asking scientists to lie to us about the urgency of the issue.
‘Fortunately’, we are not alone in our ignorance, as evidenced by the one-a-week coal mine building frenzy in China.
Lovely. Humankind is trying very hard to kill itself off, and at this rate, it might just succeed.
I hope that John Kerry and his like-minded colleagues will affect some sort of federal guidelines that forces these greedy companies to adhere to some sort of standard.
TXU is planning 5 coal-fired plants for PA, too (or are those included in the number mentioned?):
http://www.pennenvironment.org/PEair.asp?id2=29974
Meanwhile, SEPTA will probably have to hike fares and/or cut back on routes to deal with a large budget shortfall…thus putting MORE cars back on the road, I’d imagine.
No, the Pennsylvania plants are not included in the count of 11 plants by TXU for Texas. Per JK, there a 16 total currently proposed for TX, 11 of the 16 are proposed by TXU.
According to the Fortune magazine article, the “company says it will soon unveil plans to build another eight to 15 coal-burning plants outside Texas”. I’m guessing that the Pennsylvania plants may be included in that count though the article did not identify the individual states.
The rest of the Fortune article is notable and worth reading for what it highlights about other states’ efforts and the contrast with Texas. In particular, California.
Seems that W is still making his mark on Texas even though he’s no longer governor there. The highest state in carbon emission and destined to go higher yet.
While his administration has argued that the EPA does not have the legal authority to regulate carbon emissions and has withdrawn the agency from all efforts to do so.
W’s legacy is alive.
This MSNBC article from yesterday highlights the case that is about to go before the Supreme Court in which individual states are suing to force the EPA to reverse the decision and move forward with carbon emission regulation.
JK on the Senate floor right now speaking about body armor.
JK saying in the Senate that the surge is even more questionable because troops will precede the humvees they need - armor will not arrive until JULY.
“You may go into war with the army that you have, but then, smart people adapt to your enemies tactics. You exploit their weaknesses. And you certainly attempt to minimize your own.
Technology of our enemies outpaces us. We need better technology, not more troops.
“The technology exists to keep our troops safer.”
Americans are not asked to behave as though we are at war.
There has never been adequate funding for armored vehicles. This will not be the last war in which troops are targeted in vehicles - this is a long-term investment.
No CIC or Congress should put troops in danger unnecessarily, and that’s what’s happening.
We know how to produce the armor, but we don’t do it. The surge is negligent and unfair. JK will re-introduce legislation that includes summit, diplomacy, and a deadline.
The job must be finished at the negotiating table, not by the troops.
Full text of JK’s speech will be placed in the record.
Having watched the video of Sen. Kerry’s questioning of Brennan, I agree completely with Chris Mooney that Kerry’s cross-examination stole the show. Actually, evisceration is probably a more accurate term than cross-examination. Just thrilling.
This is a must-see hearing, which can be accessed at:
http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=1812
Click on webarchive to see the hearing. You can scroll through the video to get to the cross-examination, which is in the last 1/2 hour. (Kerry’s opening statement can also be seen there, in the first 1/2 hour) .
(Suggestion to webmaster: can’t you post this video link in the story, so everyone will see it?)
You know, it’s absolutely disgusting that this is allowed to happen. Here we are, trying our best to stop the damage we’ve caused to our environment, buying CFLs and energy efficient appliances and the most fuel efficient cars we can find, and yet this sort of abuse is permitted.
I grew up in Pittsburgh, and I remember what it was like to see black smoke billowing from the stacks at the mills. I didn’t know what it was doing to the planet back then, but I knew it wasn’t good. Now that we have the scientific evidence, I hoped those days were behind us. Sadly, it seems they are not.
Related, I understand Sen Kerry spoke at a climate change forum today. Does anyone have additional information?
Like Vi says, Rant on, Senator!
I was very happy to hear that Senator Kerry is proposing a bill to stop the construction of the Texas coal power plants.
These issues are so important for the future of our kids. People have to do something about this and we all have to do our part.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/sen-kerry-bill-halt-texas/story.aspx?guid={97C40A5E-3D60-41B9-A652-CFDCB5B2D3D7}
It’s really great to see movement on the climate change issue. Just read Senator Kerry’s speech at the GLOBE International Washington Legislators, good stuff.
Notice in the Fortune article on TXU:
Interestingly, Former Congressman Harold E. Ford, Jr. is Merrill Lynch’s new vice chairman and senior policy advisor.
http://tinyurl.com/2tymqo
Hmm.
(a) TXU’s plans to build 11 eco-unfriendly coal-fired power plants in Texas is attracting all kinds of political controversy (citation here).
(b) Mega-corp investment banking firm Merrill Lynch is underwriting TXU’s efforts to build 11 eco-unfriendly coal-fired power plants in Texas (citation here).
(c) And now Merrill Lynch has announced that it has hired former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford to be its “vice chairman and senior policy advisor, effective March 5. Mr. Ford will advise senior management on domestic policy issues, serve as a member of the firm’s public policy and social responsibility management committee, and support a variety of business development initiatives in the institutional and retail markets” (citation here).
Hmm, hmm.
Coincidence? You make the call.
MBK… I did.
GV,
I’m a Pittsburgher also. Although I’m too young to have firsthand experience of those old smoking mill stacks, I’ve written about the history of how Pittsburgh implemented smoke control back in the 1940s and made the switch from coal to natural gas.
There are some remarkable similarities and intersections between that earlier energy transition in the mid-twentieth century and what is happening today. Then as now, it took a combination of local, grassroots activism and federal policy to make the change. Environmental concerns, economic-development concerns, and national-security concerns all played a part.
One continuity, obviously, is that coal is still a problem. I agree that what TXU is planning to do both in Texas and here in Pennsylvania is excessive and unhelpful. I also suspect that coal-fired power plants are going to be around for quite a while longer and we have to figure out better ways of dealing with them.
TXU is right about one thing: New coal-fired power plants are much cleaner and more efficient than old ones are, and getting the old ones off-line is very important. Here in the Ohio Valley, we are currently stuck with numerous outdated power plants that are heavy polluters and that are hard to retrofit with emissions-control technologies. Some of these plants are making progress in cleaning up their act, but we would be much better off if we could speed up the process of improving or replacing them.
Economic incentives will probably be necessary to help companies (and local governments, for cities that have public power) move more quickly to upgrade existing energy technologies and support new ones. I’m working right now on an article about a somewhat parallel situation, involving Pennsylvania’s earliest water-pollution regulations a hundred years ago and the beginnings of sewage treatment in local communities. What I’m seeing is that the costs and uncertainties of adopting a new way of doing things can be really daunting, even to people who want to do right by the environment. We should think creatively about carrots as well as sticks.
AFP article:
Civitas,
Some of what you say about the coal-fired plants would be true if, and it’s a big IF, they were being built according to the regulations that were put in place prior to the Bush administration’s deconstruction of the EPA’s regulation of carbon emissions.
But as JK pointed out on the Ed Schultz show, these yet-to-built plants are going to be built under the old regulations, not the new ones, according to TXU’s current plans.
Despite the technology that is currently available, they will not be incorporating the new technology, in particular, with regard to the carbon emissions which the Bush administration had the EPA declare itself unable to regulate.
About clean coal,
The problem with coal these days is “Global climate Change”, and the release of CO2 in the atmosphere. Clean coal technologoy does not do anything when it comes to this. Coal, clean or not, is worst than oil when it comes to releasing CO2 in the atmosphere. Actually, it is the worst offender, which makes it very frightening that China and India would build even more coal power plants.
So, clean coal or not, allowing more coal power plants to be built is bad for the environment, bad for us, at the very least until we master sequestration, which is not something we are close to be able to do at this point without risk.
Front page of the Metro this morning: SEPTA may layoff up to 1000. Goes on to say that with no resolution to the budget shortfall by this July, they will be faced with (worst case, no funding increase at all):
Can’t link to the Metro article, but here is a press release that gives those figures and more details (plus the option if $100 M of the $129 M shortfall is received as a subsidy):
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY;=/www/story/02-15-2007/0004528644&EDATE;=
I keep mentioning this because it seems to me this is exactly the WRONG time for cutbacks in public transit. There is an “acceptance curve,” that is, it takes time for people to contemplate the thought of sacrificing personal control of their transit time. Every rider lost is a rider that will be harder to win back, i.e. a “stickier” car on the road.
One of the Philly mayoral candidates at a debate yesterday proposed implementing a congestion fee (similar to what was implemented in London) and it sounds like the others flatly rejected even the notion, on the grounds it will hurt the ability of the city to attract business. Well, if the city retains a reliable transit system, that objection could arguably be overcome. But if transit service has to be cut so that many people lose even the option to take public transit, then the hole is dug so much deeper for innovative and effective solutions like congestion fees.
This may seem like a local issue but PA’s failure will certainly impact the entire region economically, and in terms of climate change the reach is even broader - a big step back instead of holding ground. If we are to effectively deal with carbon emissions, we have to address the transit issue. Imagine if the federal budget had some way of incentivizing public transit over new roads. (Yeah, I know - dream on!) Just imagine…$600B down the tubes in Iraq (and counting)...what else we could have done with that kind of money, huh?
Stopping those TXU power plants must be a top priority in the battle to save our planet. They are a blatent attempt to “get in under the wire” before legislation can be passed.
The need for more power remains a problem which can only partially be solved by building more wind power. Our best hope for baseload power to replace the coal is geothermal power. Unfortunatly, the President’s energy research budget cut funding for geothermal to zero! Particularly insulting just after an important MIT report recommended increased research.
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=47192
Geothermal is here, now and is competitive with coal in the West, where there are geothermal outcroppings. With research in deep drilling it may become practical in the East. Ormat (ORA) is a $1.4 billion company profitably building geothermal plants all over the world.
The reason I’m not ready to say that no more coal-fired power plants should ever be built, even though I don’t like the TXU plan, is that we don’t yet have a really good substitute for them. In many parts of the country, including Pennsylvania, coal is still the least expensive, most reliable fuel for baseload power generation. That’s what TXU and other coal-reliant energy companies are banking on. Tom Blakeslee rightly points out above that alternatives are on the way, but they’re not quite here.
What we need is a steady focus on making coal more expensive and less attractive while concurrently making alternative sources less expensive and more attractive. That dynamic—a shift in relative prices, consciously aided by public policy—was what drove coal out of the home-heating and transportation-fuel markets in the mid-twentieth century and ended Pittsburgh’s notorious smoke pollution. It can work again to curb the use of coal in power generation.
The fight to end dependence on coal, and to halt and reverse coal’s damaging environmental effects, has been going on for a long time. We just have to keep working at it.
Civitas, do you really think we have the luxury of time? You say that Pittsburgh implemented smoke control measures in the 40s, and I don’t doubt that, but I vividly recall asking my mom, as we passed the mills in the late 60s and early 70s the difference between the various colors of smoke rising from the stacks (My parents had both worked at Edgar Thompson. I don’t think she knew the answer, but that was a time when I thought mom knew everything.). I remember driving through Hazelwood in the 60s, and having to put the car windows up in the heat of the summer to escape the pollution. Despite whatever standards were put in place in the 40s, it was pretty bad long after that, at least to my recollection.
I’d love to read what you’ve written. I’m only going on my own personal memories here. As a kid, I grew up in a coal town in the heart of the Klondike field, walking distance from the nearest ‘patch’, where the homes were heated with coal and a lot of my friends dads carried their lunch pails every morning to work in coal related industries and literally brought their work home with them at night. It was both life and death to us, and wiping the coal dust from practically everything was as vivid a memory as playing wiffle ball in the back yard.
So, if history is a lesson here, we’ll feel the effects of what’s not stopped today for a very long time. I guess the point of telling you my story, is that we’re still fighting a battle we should have won a very long time ago. We don’t have decades this time for things to change drastically.
IMO, we can’t afford to wait. We need sticks. Big ones.
Related, did you hear that Mayor Ravenstahl has signed on to the Sierra Club’s Cool Cities Campaign? Luke wasn’t born yet when the city was as I remember it, but I’m sure he’s heard the stories, it’s good to see he’s paying attention.
GV,
I did hear Mayor Ravenstahl’s announcement. It’s encouraging. Cities are way out ahead of the federal government on these issues right now, and as an urbanist I’m glad to see that.
You said it right: In this region, coal is a matter of life and death. It has brought both life and death, intertwined, for generations. It has been a source of jobs, prosperity, and technological creativity—and it has also injured and killed people, poisoned the environment, and blocked social and economic progress. There’s a good book about our tormented regional environmental history: Joel A. Tarr, ed., “Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental History of Pittsburgh and Its Region” (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003).
What you experienced in the Monongahela Valley during the ‘60s and ‘70s were the problems that remained after smoke control. The original local legislation dealt primarily with particulates (soot and ash) from furnaces, boilers, and railroads. Once those highly visible pollutants were diminished, mostly by substituting other fuels instead of coal, people became more aware of other pollutants that weren’t “smoke.” A host of toxic gases and other emissions from the industrial processes used in manufacturing and power generation were still with us. So was a rising level of pollution from motor vehicles.
These things were much harder to deal with. There were no good substitutes, and often there were no quick technical fixes. When there were technical solutions, industries balked at the cost of adopting them. A lot of industrial-pollution problems couldn’t be handled at the local level alone; that was a main reason for the federal Clean Air Act. Even then, many issues were not really solved but rather postponed, or exported out of town when Pittsburgh’s steel industry collapsed in the 1980s.
An example of a postponed problem is Cheswick Station, the coal-fired power plant that is most likely generating the electricity I’m using as I type. Cheswick Station is a typical old pre-Clean Air Act facility. It’s the worst point source of sulfur-dioxide pollution in Allegheny County. If all goes well, work will begin this year on a scrubber that will drastically cut the plant’s sulfur-dioxide and mercury emissions. The scrubber will be completed in 2009. It will be a great improvement—but one that has been a long time in coming. Scrubber technology has been around for forty years. Until recently, the plant’s owners found that it made more economic sense first to do nothing, and then to purchase emissions credits from other regions, than it did to undertake this costly modernization.
Historically, every step in reducing coal-related environmental damage has required years, often decades, of effort. We do need to get to work quickly on the next chapter, the one that will be about carbon dioxide and finding other energy sources to substitute for coal in its last stronghold of power generation. I agree that government mandates will be needed. I’m also making an empirical observation that actually implementing mandates has always taken time. We will have to think creatively about what economists call the “structure of incentives,” especially if we want change to go faster than it has in the past.