The state of the union is... denial 02 February 06

Your comments are correct about Bush’s flawed strategy and America’s lifestyle.

Peak Oil will change cheap energy into expensive energy and Americans will adjust to it out of necessity.

I do think that sequestering can be a viable strategy to be used along with other measures. As an engineer, I see no valid reason why a gas cannot stay trapped deep underground. Getting the carbon there from the power plant is the real technical challenge.

To explain further why this is a non-issue:

Carbon dioxide is very dense and even becomes a liquid at ambient temperatures when subjected to the pressures which exist deep underground. It is likely to stay there and simply capping the well head securely is all that is required! No Big Deal!

Methane is also a gas and is trapped underground and it remains there until we drill for it. Methane is lighter than carbon dioxide and is more likely to leak. If leakage were a problem, then we would not be able to drill for methane because it would have escaped millions of years ago via leakage! So there is your absolute and undeniable proof!

Mark, I agree with your overall assessment but let us not create a false assumption on sequestered-carbon leaking. We have enough confusion already and this is what I meant before when I said an honest unbiased approach is required. Worrying about leaking carbon dioxide stored deep underground is complete nonsense.

I just hope the money poured into sequestration becomes fruitful. We need all the help we can get and the sequestering of carbon dioxide deep underground may be more viable than growing plants which decay and release their carbon back into the air.

In any event, if you are against nuclear and also against carbon sequestration (based on a false assumption), then how do you think we can save the climate? I do not think that energy efficiency and renewable energy can be developed quickly enough to make a difference. We need just about every viable option we have.

The only reason you hate sequestering is your hatred for fossil fuels. It is not the fossil fuels which are evil or even the fossil-fuel companies but the excess emissions from fossil fuels and also the fact that fossil fuels are not a sustainable energy source.

If sequestering becomes effective, then a coal power plant would be equal to a renewable energy source in terms of emissions at least and that is a good thing. So what if Bush supports that. I am glad he supports something of merit.

Almuth mentioned in a post on your blog where Germany built more coal power plants to replace nuclear ones. Now, is that a smart strategy? I think not! The reverse would be better at this time.

It is either sequestration or nuclear to supplement the renewable energy during this transition period in order to reduce carbon emissions. I do not think we have the luxury of a perfect fix to save the climate. It may take half a century to change from a fossil fuel/nuclear base completely. From my vantage point, I think we need to become more pragmatic and use all the viable options we have to reduce emissions.

I hope that emerging technologies add more viable options to our list and that sequestering carbon can work on most of the existing power plants. I think we can prevent building more power plants but may not be able to eliminate most of the existing ones any time soon. Sequestering carbon dioxide from an existing coal power plant may be required to save the climate.

I would also like to see more power-plant waste heat utilized as a resource as well. That wasted energy is a potential resource greater than all the electricity produced. If effectively utilized, it would double the efficiency of every fossil-fuel power plant in the world!

If we employed all our solution options that inhibit emissions, increase our long-term supply of fossil-fuel resources, increase efficiency, and reduce our consumption, then we have a better framework and more time to develop the sustainable renewable options.

A multi-dimensional approach is required.

All the best,

Dan

Hurray that Bush addressed the oil addiction! I hope for national security and economic strengths sake that the US can go to alternative forms of energy…

Hurray that Bush addressed the oil addiction! I hope for national security and economic strengths sake that the US can go to alternative forms of energy…

I hope too, but I only wish he’d actually addressed it, instead of eyewashing it.

Best,

D

I know you like Bush, and I’m really glad he did mention our oil addiction & how we need to get into alternative energy.

We should keep us the pressure on him to lead the way in energy efficiency as well, since this will save money, which can then be plowed into the alt energy. Also subsidies should be tweeked so that wind energy is cheaper than fossil fuel energy, and we can drive our plug-in hybrids (I’d really like to have one) nearly all the time on wind.

Other oil industries are diversifying into solar and wind (BP, Arco, etc). It’s just Exxon that’s being stubborn & trying to influence government & science to deny global warming. With their record profits this year, I suppose they’ll have lots more money into “GW deniability.”

Dan, you are right in that we should not completely dismiss sequestration. However, it does have a few significant problems:

-it’s very expensive to sequester carbon dioxide. Because of the cost factor, as was mentioned on this board earlier, power companies would have an incentive to cheat. CO2 is not traceable to a particular plant (unlike nuclear fuel), making enforcement quite difficult.

-sequestration is not necessarily underground; some have proposed injecting CO2 into deep ocean water. This would increase the acidity to the harm of ocean life.

Sequestration will work only if power companies, consumers, and society in general all become more committed to emission prevention than they are to saving a buck.

Hope you’re keeping well.

I hope that the comitment GWB gave towards investing in new technology is followed through. Not just clean coal and Nuclear, but concentrating solar, wind and biofuels, and using the US phenomenal R&D and manufacturing capacity to make the huge efficiency gains that are possible.

The US could be energy self-sufficient in a short span of years, and if your energy security is the trigger that sets that process in motion, all well and good.

I have a sneaking suspicion that his words ‘America has an addiction to middle eastern oil’ refer to the likely disclosure in the coming months that many of the OPEC gulf states have been overstating their recoverable reserves since the 1980’s.

Kuwait admitted last week that its recoverable reserves are nearer 48bn barrels, rather than th 92 bn previously declared. That’s a 50% cut and 5% of the world’s reserves gone.

Perhaps the iminent and inescapable reality of Peak Oil has finally sunk in.

take care

Colin

Remember coal gas? Well BBC News reported that one option that personally excited Bush is “coal-to-diesel” being pioneered by a company called… Ultra Clean Fuels (www.ultracleanfuels.com). You couldn’t have made this stuff up.

Then there’s the threat of a further push for biofuel imports that displace tropical rainforest, specifically palm and soya oils and bioethanol from Brazilian sugarcane. In the last 2 weeks, 79 MPs have been hoodwinked, it seems, into signing EDMs 1434 and/or 1528 whose direct consequence is more rapid clearance of Malaysian rainforest for oil palms. And the bioethanol is already right back in Brazil.

I think the idea of ocean sequestration may have many problems which make it too dangerous to do. I do share your caution on that completely. However, I do think we need to be absolutely certain of this.

I say that because the carbon we place into the atmosphere is also being absorbed by the ocean surface so carbon is acidifying the ocean anyway at some levels because of our atmospheric emissions.

Frankly, I am not sure about which is the lesser of two evils with respect to carbon absorption in the deep ocean versus carbon absorption at the ocean surface. I admit I know little about sequestration. I think Martin Lord who posts on this blog can enlighten us more about it.

I do know that the carbon in the total ocean is many times more than the carbon in the atmosphere and that the fraction of human-induced carbon would be very small in comparison to that.

On ocean sequestration, I do think we need to know precisely if it can be done safely or not at all. In that light, I do favor more research into this area if there is a chance it allows us a means to keep carbon out of the air safely. I see this as being a prudent measure if we simply need more information on this idea.

Again, my only point here is we need to be absolutely certain if it can be made safe so we know either to get rid of the idea altogether or develop it correctly so it posses no harm. It helps to reduce ambiguities so we are always certain of what we are doing. In this light, the most prudent decisions can prevail.

As I said before, it appears to me at face value that sequestration deep underground posses little risk and a great benefit. I would feel better about doing it that way unless a safe ocean technique is found to be more cost effective. I simply do not know.

On economics, I think all good ideas should compete equally on that basis with a focus on the most cost effective and safe means to reduce our emissions.

For me, direct conservation and change of lifestyle is the best way to achieve quick results. Then, energy efficiency is next. Then we have renewable energy, sequestration, nuclear, and other ideas. I think for the next few decades, we may have to use some combination of all these until we establish the best path. I think whatever combination serves to make us successful in saving the climate is the path we must take.

As an engineer, we can never do anything without a high level of certainty. In all my statements on this blog, I qualify them in the light of thorough analysis over a mere opinion. Sometimes, an idea can be made to work and the inherent problems with an idea can be solved.

Enforcement should be a minor problem to effective sequestration. A way must be found to insure cheating does not occur and this is technically feasible. I am glad you brought this point up because sequestration must be monitored and government oversight is required.

This can be done. For example, a trace gas is added to methane fuel which is an odorless gas. This is done so any leak is quickly detectable by the human smell. This enables one to discover the leak quickly and correct it.

Likewise, a trace chemical can be added to the carbon stream which diffuses into it. Measuring the concentration of this trace chemical in the sequestered site may be one means to prevent cheating.

Carbon-14 dating has been used to help us know the percentage of human-induced carbon in the atmosphere and in the ocean because fossil carbon contains no carbon-14. This reliable method has helped to insure certainty of our carbon buildup and where it came from. This level of certainty has never been questioned by even Norbert-type contrarians. I guess this may be an example of why “knowing” is more important than “guessing”.

With the advent of even more coal power plants being built, I still think we may need sequestration to help save the climate. I am of the theory that we may need all the viable options we can create and we should be doing our best to make all of them work for us.

Based on your earlier comments, I really do not see any disagreement over what we truly want. We want to prevent a climate disaster and we want to do it in a manner which causes the least harm. We want success.

We also want others to care about it in the same way. I think this will happen. I say this because when the effects of climate change become apparent, then most everyone will care about seeing these problems solved. It will move into the mainstream.

Sadly, I feel we have to taste more of the horrors of climate change like the hurricanes we have experienced in the last 2 years. Reality will eventually convince people that they need to care.

With that said, I hope we have thoroughly researched all our options so a workable plan can be possible. I guess our activity in our own personal research and blog discussions have merit and I appreciate your comments.

My personal focus is more on energy efficiency and conservation. I like all ideas which have merit. My favorite ideas usually include a combination of zero emissions, dissipating earth’s heat through reflection or transfer to a sink, and sequestration.

In that light, I am hopeful about a technique for sequestering carbon as a reflective mineral (calcium carbonate) to be used to pave over black tarmac which reflect solar energy back into space and eliminate urban heat islands. This idea reflects heat away, reduces cooling loads from reduced temperatures, and provides a storage site for a stable sequestration.

This is a total win! In addition, with reduced cooling loads we use less energy during peak heat waves which prevents the need for more power plants. This reduces peak loads which often cause blackouts!!

I think that anyone who prematurely tosses this reflective pavement idea out is not really thinking about saving the climate. In fact, research should be done on the entire system of benefits I have outlined and if this is done, then I think that this idea may prove worthy of implementing especially in the warmer urban areas of our southern states.

Sequestered calcium carbonate is my favorite sequestration idea of all so you know my bias. Still, this technology has not yet been developed. I think if more money can help, then it should be provided those researchers.

I prefer its implementation over both land and sea ideas. I hope it proves to work because I think the total concept has many merits including enforcement because it occupies physical space and can be easily measured!

Thanks again for your comments because you added another benefit to one of my favorite ideas. Mineral sequestration provides an easier detection against cheaters! Also, solids do not leak!

All the best and thanks so much for this great dialogue! Discussing solution concepts is much more invigorating than complaining or sparing with Norbert! I gained much from this! Thanks so much!

Best Wishes,

Dan

Sorry if I have totally misunderstood this. When I read The End of Oil, I understood that the expensive bit is carbon capture, not carbon sequestration. In theory, surely it should be possible to measure this, although it would require a watchdog. After all, when a power plant has burnt 100 tons of coal they either have x many tons of CO2 captured or they have cheated. Or am I getting this wrong?

The main problem is that it will always require more energy and thus more money to capture the CO2 than to pump it into the atmosphere. Which means that it can only compete if a price is put on carbon (ie on the CO2 put into the atmosphere). So, without strict targets and either carbon capping or a carbon tax, I just cannot see this ever taking off. Except for experimental power stations currently funded by some governments. It seems to all get back to targets and policies, not to the technology, as far as I can see.

Almuth Ernsting

Finding better ways to use transportation in the US could significantly alter the amount of petroleum that the US consumes on a daily basis. I never knew the amounts of petroleum that were used for transportation and 67% dedicated to transportation needs is a huge percentage. I think that if the technologies such as hybrid vehicles were further refined that daily use could be significantly cut.

Bush is a leader for what direction the country moves in yes but congress ultimately holds the purse strings and passes the laws to mandate things. Congress could easily provide more incentive to consumers who buy hybrid or other vehicles to enhance the sales in that direction. This would move the auto industry in that direction as well.

source http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/infosheets/petroleumproducts.htm

“In 2004, petroleum products contribute about 40.2 percent of the energy used in the United States. This is a larger share than any other energy source including natural gas with a 23 percent share, coal with about a 22 percent share, and the combination of nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal and other sources comprising the remaining 14 percent share.

Transportation is the greatest single use of petroleum, accounting for an estimated 67 percent of all U.S. petroleum consumed in 2004. The industrial sector is the second largest petroleum consuming sector and accounts for about 23 percent of all petroleum consumption in the U.S. Residential/Commercial and the electric utility sectors account for the remaining 8 percent of petroleum consumption.”

Dan, I agree carbon sequestration needs to be seriously considered. I’m no geologist but Jeremy Leggett author of “Half Gone” is. In discussing the deep burial of nuclear waste under Sellafield he challenges NIREX (the disposal agency) on the geology of the area pointing out that “the rocks under Sellafield … were shot through with faults”. (p224 and 225.) This rings alarm bells for me. A documentary on the tsunami showed a new 30 foot high step in the ocean floor where tectonic plates had shifted. I’ve also read that over extraction of oil can damage the reservoir leading to less production. More alarm bells – you get the picture.

So can the corporate experts convince me (1) that there are enough voids for all the CO2 we’d like to sequester (2) these voids are accessible (3) the rupturing of these reservoirs to extract the oil hasn’t compromised their integrity – I’m thinking multiple bore holes – vertical, horizontal – some of these voids must be like sieves (4) all other non-oil/gas voids are in areas which are safe geologically for extended periods of time – that is centuries …. ?

And for Jim Roland I’d appreciate more on the ED Motions. Norman Baker has backed them and he’s no mug on these issues. On the coal to diesel issue Ultra Clean Fuels seem to be big coal repositioning for the future – no surprise there. Is the process this; mine coal, use lots of energy to convert to diesel, burn diesel in vehicles, emit lots of CO2 … etc?

Douglas Coker

Dan,

I know nothing about engineering, but I wonder if you have looked at a couple of relevant comments on Real Climate: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=169 (commetn to 3) AND http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=164

Both are by David Archer and he is optimistic about its potential – and he really has great expertise with regard to the interaction of carbon and oceans, and methane hydrates, etc.

I generally think that, if both the Royal Society and the IPCC (ie a lot of real experts) endorse a technology as potentially making an important contribution to reducing CO2 emissions, then I, as a non-expert, find it hard to be too sceptical about it. By the way, the Royal Society’s response to the UK Government’s Energy White Paper is very interesting, even if not everyone will agree with all it says. It says that the government should invest in nuclear power, carbon capture and sequestration and, also massively, in a range of renewable technologies – and in fuel efficiency, and that only all those choices combined can get our emissions down.

Almuth Ernsting

which also relate to Mark’s offering about the State of the Union address. There is more at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/02/02/do0201.xml&sSheet=/portal/2006/02/02/ixportal.html, should anyone be interested.

“I feel I cannot possibly disagree with Lovelock, or with the overwhelming body of scientists who attest to the reality of climate change. I am sure that they are, in some sense, right; and it feels instinctively true that we are a nasty, over-polluting species; and there is something horrifying, when you look at those pictures of the world at night, to see the phosphorescent sprawl of humanity.

“But the more one listens to sacerdotal figures such as Lovelock, and the more one studies public reactions to his prophecies, the clearer it is that we are not just dealing with science (though science is a large part of it); this is partly a religious phenomenon.

“Humanity has largely lost its fear of hellfire, and yet we still hunger for a structure, a point, an eschatology, a moral counterbalance to our growing prosperity. All that is brilliantly supplied by climate change. Like all the best religions, fear of climate change satisfies our need for guilt, and self-disgust, and that eternal human sense that technological progress must be punished by the gods.

“And the fear of climate change is like a religion in this vital sense, that it is veiled in mystery, and you can never tell whether your acts of propitiation or atonement have been in any way successful. One sect says we must build more windfarms, and these high priests will be displeased with what Lovelock has to say. Another priestly caste curses the Government’s obsession with nuclear power – a programme Lovelock has had the courage to support.”

Classics scholar, journalist, politician and occasional chair of “Have I Got News For You” Boris is a very funny man. But he is also a bit eccentric, a performer, very clever and has a pretty well honed “act”. Much better than Clarkson’s.

He is emphatically not an expert on climate change. No doubt David Cameron and Zac Goldsmith will have seen his Torygraph piece and the whips will be pulling him into line.

Buy the DVDs with him chairing HIGNFY by all means (I hope the humour travels) but best to ignore his mutterings on AGW/CC.

Douglas Coker

in fact, if you will read the piece you will see that he specifically disavowed any climate expertise.

What he has done is make an observation about human behavior, which I find compellingly accurate. His observations are similar to Michael Crichton’s observations. I realize that most who post here disparage Mr. Crichton’s climate expertise, but no one appears to acknowledge his anthropology credentials.

What both men have observed is that the behavior our species is presently exhibiting is similar to the behaviors that we wish that our primitive (and not so primitive) ancestors had not displayed. They observe (and I agree with them) that much of the support for the call to action over AGW is religious and based upon our angst about our success and comfort and that the proposed solutions amount to self-flagellation.

How many times have we seen articles condemning the Indians, Chinese and other disadvantaged populations for their refusal to participate in our proposed solutions? Could it be that their recalcitrance has less to do with selfishness and more to do with their lack of angst about the success and comfort that they do not share?

Douglas you ask about the biofuel Early Day Motions. Two of the motions ask the Government to quickly implement the EU’s directive on vastly increasing the use of biofuels. That directive specifically includes tropical soya and palm oil, ie the activities which threaten tropical forests and peat swamps. Sadly, awareness of those dangers is currently very low, so I am not surprised that even very good and supportive MPs might sign them.

I have commented on Real Climate before why I am extremely worried about those impacts:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=236

I really suggest you read the sources I quoted there – they are most alarming!

Also, there has been lots of discussion ont he Climate Change Campaign’s activists’ portal (both under Biofuels and also under Topics for National Planning Meeting).

Almuth

Thanks Almuth. I’m better informed now and clearly the pursuit of large scale commercial bio-fuel farming in the Amazon and other parts of the world is alarming.

But – I’ve checked the wording of both EDMs at issue (they Google up easily) and I see no reference to a EU directive whereas I do see a reference to “British biofuel producers”.

Now is some, small scale, properly eco-managed, bio-fuel production maybe OK? I note FoE welcome with “caution”.

Douglas Coker

And from today’s Sindy.

“Tesco already quietly blends 5 per cent of ethanol with the petrol sold on 40 per cent of its forecourts. Drivers using its 185 supermarket petrol stations – in London, the South-east and the North-west – have no idea that they are partly filling their tanks with fermented Brazilian sugar cane. Soon this will be replaced with ethanol made from British sugar beet. And Britain’s first big plant to produce biodiesel from oilseed rape is to open on Teesside next month.” Whole article here http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article343301.ece

This biofuel issue is quite complex. We need transparency as well as caution!

Douglas Coker

Douglas,

I am quite sure that the MPs who have signed the two EDMs in favour of more biofuels have done so because they genuinely want to help to get a British biofuel sector off the ground.

Unfortunately, the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation will have to have regard to the EU directive on biofuels, which provides that it will have to include palm oil and soya. The government’s consultation paper on the RTFO acknowledged the dangers of those imports but ominously stated: “EU and WTO trade rules condition the extent to which requirements could be placed on fuels used to meet the obligation”. In other words, we regret we will be burning palm oil (and contributing to what will more than likely be the world’s largest ever single CO2 release come the next major El Nino!), but trade rules mean that if we implement the RTFU, we can’t do otherwise.

The largest UK-based biofuel refinery currently being built by Biofuels Corporation, in Teeside, is expected to draw heavily on palm oil.

Under those circumstances, the RTFU will almost certainly contribute to accelerated climate change from tropical soils – even though most the people supporting it are really well-meaning and would like to see something quite different.

Almuth Ernsting

Thank you Almuth. I’m even better informed now! You do need to do a fair amount of digging to get the whole picture on an issue like this. I very much appreciate your guidance and understand you’ve done lots of valuable research on this.

Your reference to WTO rules and regs made me sit up. I’m currently reading “Green Alternatives to Globalisation – A Manifesto” by (the late) Mike Woodin and Caroline Lucas. She is a star and I was very impressed with the way she dealt with Eddie Mair when he used his “cheekie chappie” “smart alec” approach (which I quite like actually) in an interview on imports from China. As they say in Scotland “she put his gas to a peep”. Their analysis is very useful and thought provoking.

We really do need a thorough debate on the future shape of world trading. The dominance of the WTO, World Bank and IMF (with much string pulling by the US of A) is frightening. A re-invigorated UN with substantial powers to set us on a more sustainable trajectory would be very welcome.

I’m getting up to speed on this. My foundation of Marx and Andre Gunder Frank is very useful and points me in the right direction but subsequent generations have moved us further forward.

Douglas Coker

The Teeside plant is operated by the Biofuels Corporation plc, who began with a business plan centred on importing and refining palm oil, as it produced the cheapest biodiesel. Competitive pressures will inevitably push in this direction both in the UK and wider EU, unless the authorities will defy the WTO protocol, or claim an exception, to restrict such imports.

I also recall reading somewhere about the UK, at least, having some deal with the US not to grow too much biofuel or vegetable oil so as not to hurt US producers. Can anyone tell me more?

I agree with you again that some of the apocalyptic visions for the future have more to do with a kind of technophobic guilt trip and a desire for mystical retribution than a basis in certainty but, and it is a big but, I am afraid that you seem to have a kind of reactionary complacency that says that the planet will get along fine, no matter to what extent we industrialise it.

We have some friends that got quite involved in a ‘born again’ Christian evangelist group and who became quite radically committed. Unfortunately, after a while personality and governance-related issues caused a major bust-up within the group and our friends left, having suffered considerable hurt and disillusionment. As a result, they are violently opposed to any kind of church involvement and dismissive of even the benefits they gained at the time.

I rather feel that you have undergone something similar in that you have become disillusioned with the ‘New age’ style of eco-fundamentalism which does attract media attention and often distracts from the more serious main-stream messages. As a result you seem to be in denial that there can be any limits other than total planetary physical resource exhaustion that will curb what mankind can do.

This perplexes me: you are obviously intelligent and a skilful manipulator of arguments, yet you seem reluctant to admit that their is elegance in efficiency, and satisfaction in having created a solution that is based on an evaluation of all the dynamics, including environmental ones.

Despite being the unknown algebraeic quantity, I suspect you still have a heart and would admit that, Maslow’s heirarchy of needs notwithstanding, there is a lot more to human well-being than just having material posessions.

As for Boris…......well. He’s an amiable guy (I met him when he stood as Tory candidate for the Clwyd West constituency in 1997) and has had a, how shall we say, slightly accident-prone career with the media, despite being editor of the ‘Spectator’ magazine.

If you find his kind of social comment persuasive, I would suggest that you don’t voice your opinion should you ever visit the city of Liverpool.

regards

Colin

Can you give me some reason to believe that the planet will not be fine if we continue to industrialize it? It seems to me that the societies that are hardest on the environment are the poorest societies, that industrialization, and the improved standard of living that it brings, leads societies to clean up their environments. I do not believe that my attitude is complacent. I think that my attitude is based on impartial observation of what has happened since the beginning of industrialization.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that zealots cause most of the pain in the world. Be they Medieval Crusaders, Al Qaeda, Earth Liberation Front, or radical anti-abortionists, they all lack the capacity for compromise that is necessary for the existence of civil society.

You also are correct in that I do dislike the direction that the environmental movement has taken. You attribute that to my reaction to the eco-fundamentalists and their hold on the mainstream media. However, nothing is more mainstream than the US EPA and they too have forsaken science for activist hyperbole.

Was the Club of Rome report main stream? Is the millennium report main stream? If so, you are correct, I despair for the loss of logic and science in our decision-making process. It seems to me that fore casts all share the same fatal flaw; they all assume that the future will be a large version of the present. I cannot imagine how anyone could look back over the past 40 years, or the 40 years before any time in the past 2 centuries, and predict stasis. I find that mind-boggling.

It is droll to say that the Stone Age did not end because we used up all of the stones, though I suspect that a Stone Age serial alarmist might have predicted such a thing. Think about bronze, brass, cast iron and look at what is happening to steel. Compare a new car to a 1960s car. Composites, ceramics and high-impact plastics are slowly replacing the steel in cars. Do you think that 2100 model personal vehicles will contain any steel? I don’t. (Will they even be cars?) We have run out of whale oil for our lanterns, but it does not matter.

I am persuaded by Julian Simon, who observed that humans are our most valuable and only enduring resource. New humans will find new and better ways to do old things and invent new things to do.

I do not know if there is any limit to what humans can do. I think that it is folly to make predictions. We do not know what are the limits to the physical universe, how can we know how much of what is physically possible will be beyond human capabilities? Time travel? Or, from Star Trek, transporters? Who can know?

All indications are that the population is going to peak at somewhere around 8 billion and then begin to decline. That appears to be because comfortable members of successful societies control their birth rates. It is the poorest humans who do not. Birth rates are falling in both India and China as those countries prosper. Some might claim that the draconian policies of the Chinese government might be having an effect, but how do those persons explain the decline in India?

I love efficiency. I have never denied its elegance. What I resist is State imposed concepts of efficiency on creative entrepreneurs. No State has ever created anything new. (Allow me a bit of hyperbole here.) Change is inimical to States. States require stasis. Stasis is the opposite of progress.

Here’s a site that will help you write a letter to NASA to tell them to stop muzzling scientist – which they’ve tried to do with Jim Hansen. And who know how many junior scientists are silenced by the chilling effect that their jobs & promotions are at stake. Or who’ve gone over to the dark side of towing the denists’ line (I’ve known of mid-level EPA people to do so).

http://www.environmental-action.org/gw.asp?id=1319&id4=ES

As Roy Rappaport, an environmental anthropologist said, we should have a religious awe & reverence for the environment since it is so complex that science cannot completely understand it.

While it’s possible GW consequences might not turn out to be so dire, there’s the possibility that they might. So we need to act with prudence & mitigate it, even if one doesn’t believe in the science, or believe the science is certain enough. At least that’s the stance of the Cathollic Church.

that would help reduce consumption & spur invention. I too think the government is harming us & the planet through many of its programs. And it is patently unfair that I have to pay for my own meager oil consumption, and on April 15th pay for other people’s extravagance & profligacy.

Of course, we would also have to make the oil & other companies (with stakes) pay at least in part for the Iraqi war & other wars & military operations (including stand-by) that have as part of their mission the security of oil & other resources. I guess that might bring gasoline up to maybe $30 a gallon or more. That would really spur some fast thinking & new inventions.

So I too see our gov as a block to progress.

Oil & other companies should also pay for all harm done, including acid rain harm, global warming harm, and local pollution harm. If this cannot be appropriated efficiently to the actual victims, then the money should be collected anyway & put into some harm-mitigation programs—as in promoting alternative energy & efficiency.

Yeah, free market, right on, but it should be kept an honest (not gov rigged to help oil) free market.

Then a gallon of gasoline would probably shoot up to $200 a gallon. That’ll really spur change. And I’m not even suggesting we add in harms hundreds of years from now due to that lingering CO2 (1/4 of which scientists say can stay in the atmosphere up to 100,000 years).

I think I’m right in saying there is not an excess of cornucopians on this planet. This is a good thing.

I know I’m right in saying there is an excess of our externalised CO2 in the atmosphere. This is a very bad thing.

We need collective action to protect the commons.

Douglas Coker

Momochan,

The CO2 may not be traceable to a particular power plant at the point of injection, but it can be at the source.

If you know how much coal is burned, you know how much carbon dioxide has been generated.

You can install a flowneter in the carbon dioxide line downstream of the plant, so you can ascertain how much has been sent for sequestration.

The difference has been emitted.

My answer is rather simplistic, but I believe the IPCC and various national bodies are looking into the traceability issue.

all the best Martin

Douglas,

Most, if not all, of the issues you have raised have been looked at by the international energy agency.

The answers to most of your questions can be found in their Energy Technology Analysis “Prospects for CO2 Capture and storage”. Follow the link below….

http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2004/prospects.pdf

All the Best Martin

I just spent 3 weeks in Atlanta for a customer. I stayed in a hotel that was very close to their offices. It would have been a very nice 10 minute walk from the hotel to the office, if there hadn’t been a 4-lane highway between the two with no way to cross it. Similarly, it was impossible for me to walk to any restaurant or shop from the hotel because the highway had no footpath along it. As a result, it meant I had to be picked up by a colleague in the morning, order a taxi to go 500 metres, etc.

One of the guys I worked with admitted that for most Americans, walking or cycling is out of the question, they use their car. He also said that the one thing that made him change his mind about that was visiting London, where he discovered what a real public transport system was all about.

The reason why America is addicted to oil is that Americans are addicted to their car.

There is hope though: most people I talked to out there had an interest in sustainable development and wished they could “go green” but had no idea where to start.

So what can be done to change this? Should things be done at the local community level? Like getting local authorities to build foot and cycle paths? How do you convince people to use them rather than their car? It’s a complex problem but the more I think about it, the more I think that we can only change it by working with the people of the US rather than lobbying a government that has vested interests in the oil industry.

So what can be done to change this? Should things be done at the local community level? Like getting local authorities to build foot and cycle paths? How do you convince people to use them rather than their car? It’s a complex problem but the more I think about it, the more I think that we can only change it by working with the people of the US rather than lobbying a government that has vested interests in the oil industry. [emphasis added]

It’s already happening. The public health folks are noticing that walkable environments mean the folks living there have lower BMIs and VMTs than in non-walkable environments.

Best,

D

No seriously, thanks Martin. The IEA CO2 sequestration report is both useful and impressive.

I won’t pretend to have read every page closely (yet) but I think it is fair to say they address the kind of questions I was asking but … the answers are some way off. This is work in progress with few (as yet) examples of trial sequestration actually being pursued.

I was struck by the costs and time scales involved. In some ways sequestration is as far off as more nuclear what with lead times and so on.

And as I was reading it I was thinking of “Planet Woking”. The link is below somewhere. Here we have an example of a series of cost saving measures resulting in a dramatic reduction in CO2 output from an English town hopefully to be replicated London wide soon.

One test of the viability of various measures is to check how keen big capital is to invest. They do not like the prospect of pumping gazzillions into the nuclear black hole. Developments in sequestration are being pursued by industries with an interest in continuing as energy suppliers. Big coal and big oil typically.

Is it barriers to entry and perverse subsidies for existing fossil fuel industries that are preventing renewables really taking off?

The economic system we have does not serve us well.

Douglas Coker

Douglas,

Yes, absolutely, it is very much work in progresss & the timescales are long. But probably shorter than most in the UK due to depletion of our oil and gas fields. It could well happen here first on a large scale.

It is NOT the UK oil industry who is giving this the strongest backing here (they’ve been fairly cool about it – probably because most of our wells are ‘sweet’ so significant investment would be required to impliment Enhanced Oil Production here in the UK) – rather, it is the government, who can see massive balance of payments issues & security of energy supply issues when the oil & gas runs short – and an ailing engineering sector which would be boosted…... and a technology which could eventually be pallatable to nations who will remain dependant on coal. Future Chinese emissions have the biggest impact – on us, a relatively small island surrounded by the sea. If we don’t encourage something to happen in China, we have a problem.

Essentially, it is renewables which have the ‘perverse’ advantage (Renewable Obligation)in the UK at the moment

(Which incidentally, I see as an absolutely necessary ‘perversion’ )

since it was seen that market forces alone would not produce renewable results quickly enough, the government introduced the renewable obligation.

Even with a massive subsidy (the ROC – whose value is higher than the electricity produced by renewables – ROC is worth around 5p subsidy, wholesale electricity price is around 3.5p/kWh i.e. unit), renewables haven’t take off as quickly as hoped – partly (mostly?) due to good old fashioned british NIMBYism… and an over reliance on wind as a renewable source.

I’m not aware of any substantial subsidy for the fossil fuel industry other than research and demonstration funding???? I am, however, aware of substantial taxation. In fact the chancellor recently added a windfall tax for oil and gas pumped out of the North Sea.

Unless you mean the granting of carbon dioxide National Allocation Plan quotas of course – but if you go from no carbon cost to a whacking great one instantly, the shock would kill the economy. The idea is that NAP quotas are gradually reduced to encourage phase in of renewables/clean technologies with true renewables getting a whacking great boost in the form of the ROC…..without damaging the economy (The European carbon dioxide price is relatively low compared to the Renewable Obligation incentive in any case).

In a market based system, it all comes down to how the government fudges the system to make things happen.

Based on current EU carbon prices, it is not yet economic to introduce carbon capture and storage with currently available technology. (hence only smalll scale R&D plants). But advances on the horizon should be able to deliver this.

Than we need the answers!

Incidentally, the government is currently in the process of drawing up the next energy white paper. The outcome of this will largely decide what happens with Nuclear, Carbon Capture and Storage, the energy mix in general and renewables support.

(I personally expect marine current renewables to figure more prominently than the have done before – they deserve to!)

All the best Martin