Center for a New American Security

Over the past few days, we’ve been highlighting how space technology can be used to improve our understanding of climate and environmental change as we examine the security and foreign policy implications of these issues. Today we turn to a much more sci-fi-ready area of space tech and natural security: space weather disrupting electricity here on the ground.

Many are warning that we’ll see a major increase in electric system vulnerability to space weather events over the next few years as the sun enters a new solar maximum period. So I’ve dug through my archive of research on this topic to provide you with some good resources to look to as the media follows these events, especially as they pertain to energy.

Coronal mass ejections and other solar phenomena can indeed affect a variety of important technologies, including electric infrastructure and GPS systems. Generally, solar events are of top concern for things like electric infrastructure if they are aimed directly at the Earth; the one we saw a few weeks ago turned out to be quite mild, for example, because “the flare’s magnetic field happened to be aligned parallel to the Earth’s,” according to Wired Science.

The launch of NASA’s new earth observation satellite, Glory, was delayed today, but rest assured that it will not have to make the long trip into space alone when it does take off. The Taurus XL rocket that will be sending Glory into orbit will also be carrying three secondary payloads – CubeSats, to be specific.

As Christine discussed in three posts last week, the president’s budget showed much hope for those of us interested in natural security issues. One category particularly near and dear to the CNAS natural security team is earth observation capabilities, and especially the satellite systems that are critical for producing better projections of the effects of climate change. Today, as we are celebrating what we hope will be a successful launch of Glory, we thought we’d look back at several related earth monitoring satellite missions, and examine what might be in store to keep Glory company if the Obama administration’s budget finds Congressional support for these capabilities.

One beneficiary of the administration’s focus on earth observation capabilities is the Landsat program, co-led by the U.S. Geographical Survey (USGS) and NASA. Since the early 1970’s, the Landsat program has used remote sensing to understand how Earth is changing. Landsat was not always popular, and indeed it had to overcome a number of obstacles in its quest for funding. The Bureau of the Budget and the Department of Defense, for example, initially were against using satellites for such civilian purposes. Then, in 1984, Congress pushed through legislation that privatized their operation. In practice, privatization worked out so poorly that NOAA had to order the company to turn off its satellites. After some in Congress began putting pressure on then-President George H.W. Bush, the president agreed to renew funding for the Landsat program.

• The New York Times Green blog recounts some of the unsettling news on China’s and India’s reliance on dirty energy sources.
• UPI reports that a number of oil companies have announced plans to evacuate their employees from Libya amidst continued political unrest in the country. Meanwhile, the deteriorating situation in Libya pushed the price of crude to its highest level since the 2008 financial crisis on Monday, according to the BBC.  
• In the company’s second major deal under new leadership, BP announced a 7.2 billion dollar agreement with India-based Reliance, which gives BP a sizeable stake in India’s natural gas and oil fields, Reuters reports.
• Also from Reuters, U.S. climate change envoy Todd Stern told reporters on Monday that a legally binding global climate change agreement was unlikely to be signed during the U.N. Climate Change conference scheduled to take place in South Africa later this year, and he encouraged countries to start setting voluntary emission cuts.
• The Asia Sentinel outlines the different arguments of the debate on whether a global food crisis is imminent.

• The Egyptian military has deployed hundreds of troops to the Sinai Peninsula to protect the pipeline that carries natural gas to Israel, the Associated Press reports.
• Over at the New York Times, emissions of climate-harmful gases fell by 6 percent in 2009, putting them at their lowest levels since 1995, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

One question has persisted for me with most every reporter I’ve spoken with in the past few weeks: what will the administration do with regard to climate change in the budget? My answer was consistently that I expected it to appear in subtle manners, specifying related areas of research, energy and defense work. Labeling anything “climate change”-related seems likely to create an easy bull’s-eye for those looking to build anti-science cred or further politicize environmental change issues on both sides of the aisle. (This is already happening, though in part due to unrelated motives: a few Republicans have recommended reducing NASA’s earth sciences budget to maintain funding for human space flight; it’s not surprising that Florida and Texas are home states for at least two of these space flight proponents. Climate change just served as a convenient excuse.)

Given the current tone here in Washington, I was therefore surprised to see that the administration is not taking the easy way out and shrinking under pressure to avoid all things climate (as if it’s escapable). The Office of Science and Technology Policy even put out a summary on the U.S. Global Change Research Program (pdf) in the 2012 Budget. As this is an interagency coordinating program, it spells out how much each department is devoting to climate change, compares it to spending since 2000, and describes how this program functions. One notable program it highlights is funding to solidly establish a climate service in NOAA, a concept that’s been debated and in the works for years.

We’ve kept this mostly under wraps so far, but our team has been digging lately into cyber security issues related to the expanding smart grid infrastructure in this country. This is a big issue that we’ve been watching for years. The problem that prevented us from examining it closely is that no one could adequately wrap their arms around it: we heard vast amounts of threat inflation and conflicting information, and counted vast numbers of shoulder shrugs on the true scale of the cyber threat to the electric grid. We’ll give you more details as we move along in our own work on the topic, but for this week we’ll just point to a few important points in the budget.

Let’s start with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as that’s where much of this work and authority over cyber security of much of the nation’s critical infrastructure protection is headquartered. As I can find in its main budget overview (pdf) there are two important points to note.

First, DHS is requesting funding to support its ability to investigate cyber-related crime. On pages 21 and 121 of the overview, DHS categorizes “preventing attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure through Financial Crimes Task Forces” along with “targeting large-scale producers and distributors of child pornography” and a few other program areas. (Fair proof of the diversity of work this agency conducts – and I thought DOE was bad.) The administration is proposing $2 million in FY2012 for these cyber investigations.

Under its National Protection and Programs Directorate, which oversees critical infrastructure resilience and cybersecurity issues, the administration is proposing hundreds of millions for addressing cyber concerns overall. Specifically, $61.4 million is tagged for “Critical Infrastructure Cyber Protection & Awareness,” which would include extensive coordination and information sharing with the private sector on critical infrastructure cybersecurity.

Of all the things receiving a newly important role in the administration’s 2012 Budget, I honestly didn’t expect to see minerals make the list. Over the past few years we’ve been monitoring issues with rare earths trade issues, concerns over exploration in the Arctic, South China Sea territorial disputes heating up as countries begin to think more seriously about tapping the seabed resources there, and more. We even have a report coming out on minerals a few months from now.

And now, here we find minerals receiving much more attention than usual! Happy Valentine’s Day to the natural security team, eh?

To begin on the program development side, it appears that the administration wants to solidify its commitment to understanding how mineral supply chains will play into the development of America’s renewable energy sector. The Office of Science and Technology Policy decided to help us out with cheat sheets on science and technology issues in the budget. In its “Winning the Future through Innovation” (pdf) brief, OSTP points out (and the underlining here is all mine) that this budget aims to:

Bring the Best Minds Together to Advance Critical Energy Research. Innovation and breakthroughs often happen when scientists and thinkers from different disciplines collaborate on some of our toughest problems. That is why we are challenging America’s scientists and engineers to assemble teams of the best minds in their fields to focus on the hardest problems in clean energy. The best proposals will be funded as new Energy Innovation Hubs. Currently, we have three Hubs in place, which specialize in fuels from sunlight, energy efficient buildings, and modeling and simulation technologies for nuclear power. The Budget doubles the number of Energy Innovation Hubs, creating three more hubs across the country. These new Hubs will bring together top scientists to work in teams on cross-disciplinary research related to: critical materials, including rare earth elements; batteries and energy storage; and the development of new grid materials and systems to help SmartGrid technology and improve energy transmission efficiency.

President Obama will propose his fiscal year 2012 budget today with a number of proposed budget cuts to domestic spending programs, including, as The New York Times reported yesterday, forestry programs, funding for state water treatment facilities and an initiative to restore the environmental health of the Great Lakes. 

Given the attention that the president gave to energy in his State of the Union address, including hinting at reorganizing the Department of Energy (DOE), as well as new programs in support of clean energy technology, it is not surprising to see a lot of mention of energy and the president’s new budget proposal in the news this weekend.

In one headline on Saturday from The Washington Post it was reported that the Department of Energy will see 600 million dollars in cuts, part of the president’s plan outlined in his State of the Union address to reorganize some federal agencies in an effort to reduce wasteful spending and expenses.

In the same story, The Washington Post reported on Energy Secretary Steve Chu’s note about the budget cuts that he posted to the department’s blog on Friday. “According to Chu's note,” the Post reported:

The budget to be unveiled next week will propose cutting spending on department management by nearly 13 percent, slashing the office of fossil fuel budget by 45 percent by zeroing out four programs, and cutting a hydrogen technology program by 41 percent. It will shrink the department's vehicle fleet by 35 percent in the next three years and eliminate funding for two relatively small projects at two national laboratories. 

As the Post reported, “Chu said $418 million in savings would come from the office of fossil fuels, including an end to the Fuels Program, the Fuel Cells Program, the Oil and Gas Research and Development Program, and the Unconventional Fossil Technology Program.”

• A new report by McAffee Security firm says that Chinese hackers have been targeting oil and other types of energy companies, AFP reports via Yahoo News.
• AFP also details the Chinese Foreign Minister’s trip to Zimbabwe.  
• The Hill writes that Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for abolishing the EPA and increasing the use of domestic energy in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference yesterday.
• UPI details Europe’s reaction to Russia’s new diversification of its energy sources.
• Finally, Bloomberg reports that global wind turbine orders increased 75 percent in the second half of 2010.
• And don’t miss Jay Gulledge’s op-ed in The Hill on risk management around climate change.  

Last Thursday we inaugurated this new feature in which we ponder: if President Obama is considering federal government reorganization, what should he keep or cut with regard to natural security issues?  We began by recommending cutting the energy and climate czar position (though retaining its functions in a well-supported organization), so this week I’ll offer one in the “keep it” category. And as a reminder from last week, this is not commentary on people or the work that anyone has conducted. Consider it a Washington-style parlor game focused solely on debating government structure and organization.

Today let’s look at NASA’s Applied Sciences Program. This small office plays a role I consider crucial in helping our government’s investments in science and technology pay off for policy makers and decision makers at all levels. As its website describes:

“Where NASA data and modeling capabilities are evaluated to have potential application, NASA and the partner organizations collaborate to test and integrate the data and modeling capabilities into the decision making and/or products and services. These collaborations involve appropriate academic, business, nonprofit, and other entities to accomplish the project and extend the results.”

I’ll put this office in the category of functions that the federal government needs more of: people who leverage the science and technology work that the government already does by interpreting data into information relevant to policy makers and raising awareness of U.S. government capabilities to do really, really useful things that, sadly, often go unnoticed.  Anyone who examines environmental change, climate issues, and even things like migration and demographic stability likely use information derived from satellite systems run by NASA – often without have any idea what capabilities produced that data that produced the text they're relying on for academic or policy research.

In one of our major projects in 2009-2010, our team explored how to improve getting climate change information that actually makes sense to policy wonks like us. This is an age-old problem, but we’d had personal experience with it as we collaborated with Oak Ridge National Lab on a climate-focused future scenario, which was an often trying but enormously fruitful experience.

Bottom line: if the defense community, area specialists, et al. are going to integrate climate and environmental issues into their decision making, having intelligible (to the non-scientists among us) and useful information makes or breaks your ability to do so. And notice how the Quadrennial Defense Review, National Security Strategy (pdf), Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, and other high-level instruction documents indicate the importance to our national security of actually treating these topics like we do other fields, like global finance and demographic trends.

Over the long term, it would be even better if foreign policy and national security types were generally more conversant in science and technology. Name me a China expert, for example, who doesn’t need to understand space technology to properly contextualize that country’s space activities and future possibilities? That is a long battle though, and one that our readers are already ahead of the curve on. Until that happens, we critically need offices like NASA’s Applied Sciences Program to do some of the heavy lifting.