THE SIMITIS BLOG

Costas Simitis, PM of Greece 1996-2004: 

The man who left a significant political legacy and put Greece in the Eurozone. He also played a critical role for the accession of Cyprus to the EU. 

For me personally, he was the man responsible for my 5 ½ year tenure as CEO of the port of Piraeus (1996-2002). This has been the non-academic part -but surely an important part- of my overall professional career*. 

He was not afraid to pick someone who had zero connections to the political establishment (including himself) and zero prior experience in running a port. 

I am grateful for the opportunity and for his support. May he rest in peace.

* More on Piraeus when I was there can be found HERE.

THE GEOMETRY BLOG

Among the numerous scientific topics that I have dealt with in my academic career (thus far), which one do I like the best? The answer may surprise you.

GEOMETRY!

I have NEVER published a paper on geometry. I have only taken courses in geometry in high school and during my early undergraduate studies.

Was I good at geometry? I can not claim that I was a superstar, however I was not stupid either. I owe this to some teachers and professors who were brilliant enough for me to get interested.

I can still remember the geometry question in the 1969 contest of the Hellenic Mathematical Society (HMS), which went as follows:

Let AB be a given arc on a known circle, which is less than half a circle, C any point on that arc and E a point on the linear  segment AC such that (AE) = (2/3)(BC). Prove that as C moves on arc AB, the locus of point E is a known line (curve). 

(Note: let me know if you want to know the solution)

I also remember the statement of the President of the HMS Aristides Pallas that young people should be more interested in mathematics than in the Beatles.

1969 was my last year in high school and later that year (after that contest) I was accepted (after exams that also involved geometry, among many others) at the National Technical University of  Athens (NTUA) for my undergraduate studies.

I got an award in the HMS contest (which also included a question in algebra and one in trigonometry), but not the top one. I do not remember the geometry problems of the NTUA exams, nor do I remember the algebra and trigonometry problems of the HMS contest.

The pic below is from the HMS 1969 award ceremony, including Aristides Pallas (second from left), other luminaries, and other award recipients. Can you spot me in it?

My NTUA studies (in naval architecture and marine engineering) included projective geometry and some non-Euclidean geometry topics. I have forgotten most of them. Courses in marine hydrostatics and ship design had some geometrical content.

Later at MIT, when I switched to operations research, I encountered problems in graph theory which also had some geometrical content. For instance, Euler’s Seven bridges of Koenigsberg problem and the Chinese Postman problem. Also the vehicle routing problems that I dealt with in my PhD thesis as well as afterwards had some geometry content. My most exciting project at MIT was a project to develop graphics software for mathematical optimization courses on campus. I liked graphics because I liked geometry.

I may also say that the fact that I like (and practice) painting MAY be connected to the fact that I like geometry.

Why do I like geometry?  

Because it is a no nonsense, no-bullshit (no-BS) discipline. There are no “ifs, ands, or buts” in geometry. There is nothing more scientifically rigorous (and, I would say, mentally exhilarating) than proving a geometric property, or theorem.

A very simple example of the beauty of geometry is the 9-point circle, also known as Euler’s circle, which is a circle that, for any given triangle, passes through (a) the midpoint of each edge of the triangle, (b) the foot of each of the altitudes, and (c) the midpoint of the line segment from each vertex of the triangle to the orthocenter (where the 3 altitudes meet), as shown in the figure below.

For the fascinating properties of the 9-point circle (there are many), and for many more in geometry, there are no ifs, ands, or buts. No one can challenge them with squishy, BS arguments. BS has zero value here.

Geometry is not the only no-BS discipline. Mathematics, physics, and many engineering disciplines also have this property. I only mentioned geometry because I like it very much.  

Unfortunately, “no-BS” is not the case with some other topics. I have encountered such topics in my academic career (thus far), and the question which one may be the worst is a tough one. Yet, I would venture my opinion, and it is the following one:

 

SCROLL DOWN

 

SCROLL DOWN

 

SCROLL DOWN

 

 

 

 

SCROLL DOWN

 

 

 

 

SCROLL DOWN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SCROLL DOWN!!

AND THE ANSWER IS....

DECARBONIZE SHIPPING!

Decarbonization of shipping (read: maritime transport) involves efforts to reduce greenhouse (GHG) emissions from ships all the way to “net zero”, as per policy decisions at the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the UN agency tasked to regulate shipping. These emissions are currently around 3% of all anthropogenic GHG emissions and on the order of 1 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions per year.

This happens to be the area, among many others, in which I (either alone or with several co-authors) have channeled most of my research energy over the last 15 or so years and published most of my recent papers and other publications, outcomes of funded and non-funded research. These publications are (depending on what counts) over 60 (a sample of these papers can be found at this Dropbox link.) My co-authors and I did our very best to publish in good peer reviewed journals, and most of these are considered top journals. We also did our very best to make our methods and models transparent and make concrete and non-fuzzy recommendations, useful to industry and policy-makers alike. I actually invite anybody to read these papers and challenge the above statement, which may obviously entail some personal bias.

To be fair, shipping decarbonization is not a pure discipline like geometry. It involves an array of many interlinked topics, including various areas of engineering, various areas of economics, various areas of environmental sciences, and various areas of law and regulation. It also engages a rather wide and diverse set of stakeholders, who have multiple and many times conflicting interests. So there is no Euclid or Euler here, and there are few or no “no-BS” theorems.

The objective to decarbonize shipping is a laudable one. But it would seem self-evident that any plan to achieve that goal should be based on a combination of two basic prerequisites: 

(a) a strong political will and 

(b) sound and solid scientific results, that would allow policy makers to know where we stand and to rigorously evaluate alternatives and their impact before making policy decisions on where we should go.

Yet, and in spite of lots of discussions and good intent by some people, sadly we are a long way to securing prerequisites (a) and (b) above. By and large, the process is plagued by the following deficiencies (list below is only indicative, and order is random):

1.   GHG emissions estimates are purely based on modelling, but the intricate models that are used by the IMO are non-transparent and involve billions of assumptions, several of which are hidden and/or dubious.

2.  Much of the policy process is driven by studies that are also based on non-transparent models, which have undergone only superficial peer review, or no peer review whatsoever.

3.  Instant credibility is given by media (social or other) to many of the studies that are mentioned in #2.

4.  The decision making process is highly political with lack of consensus on key issues.

5.  Key responsibilities are placed on wrong stakeholders (for instance ship owners instead of shipbuilders or fuel producers).

6.   Decarbonization indices (such as EEDI, EEXI, AER, EEOI) are dubious and may actually increase GHG emissions. 

7.    Guiding principles at the IMO (CBDR, NMFT) are conflicting.

8.    Lack of consensus leads to deliberate fuzziness on key decisions.

9.  Many of those decisions, fuzzy as these may be, are based on the lowest common denominator.

10.  Lack of sound governance and transparency principles pervades the IMO policy making process.

11.  Regional measures (eg EU ETS) may create distortions, loopholes and risk of carbon leakage.

And then, it got suddenly much worse!

THE FINAL NAIL IN THE SHIPPING DECARBONIZATION COFFIN: The outcome of the 2024 US Presidential election.

Trump is a sworn denier of climate change. Under him it is inconceivable that the US will agree to any form of carbon pricing (or levy) to reduce GHG emissions, which is in my opinion, the only way forward. The US did not agree to it under the Biden administration either, even though they were surely more proactive than under Trump 2016-2020 (note: the US did not agree to the IMO 2018 Initial Strategy). China and a bunch of other countries do not agree to carbon pricing either. They never did, and are adamant against it. That makes the prospect of any sensible agreement by 2025, the year the IMO is supposed to agree on how to achieve net 0 by 2050,  all but impossible. 

The key word above is "sensible". Any agreement that does not include a substantial carbon levy is not, in my opinion, sensible. 

So here is how I think it looks, sadly (obviously I hope I am wrong): 

So for the time being, and as far as I am concerned, I prefer geometry.