Senators Seek CO2 Scrubbing Technology:
Senators John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, and Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, have joined in introducing a bill that would establish awards for researchers who develop technologies that can economically extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stash it away.
In doing so, they are potentially upping the ante offered in 2007 by Richard Branson, the aviation and music magnate, for such an advance.
Various researchers studying the interface of climate and energy policy have said that such technology is well worth pursuing, particularly given that oil and other liquid fossil fuels are almost surely going to be burned – particularly in vehicles or other dispersed sources – for many years to come, according to many assessments. The only way to retrieve the carbon dioxide produced this way is from the air, not tailpipes or smokestacks.
Others certainly disagree. Nate Lewis, a Cal Tech professor focused on advancing solar technology, said this kind of option should be last in line. When I sent him the senators’ news release, this was his response:
It makes no sense to remove CO2 from air when energy/electricity is not essentially fully decarbonized first (i.e., > 90% and likely > 95%). Otherwise to generate the energy needed to capture the CO2 from the air, one produces more CO2 than is captured.
If I’m in the US House or Senate, these Senators likely have my support, depending on the fine print in the bill.
I’ve made no secret of my distaste for geoengineering, and my fear that it will quickly be seen by voters and policymakers as an “easy solution” to climate change. Of the options commonly talked about, CO2 extraction, if we can find an economical way to do it on a useful scale, is by far the best option. Not only does it address sources that don’t lend themselves to direct capture, as the article mentions, but it directly helps do something about ocean acidification, something that orbiting mirrors or albedo modifications ignore. The key issue, as always, is timing: If we don’t try to develop it now, then it won’t be ready if and when we find out we desperately need it.
My gut instinct is that we won’t develop any flavor of CO2 extraction technology, aside from planting more trees, that could be even remotely worth deploying on a wide scale. It can’t be shunned as an alternative, though, because the cost of not having it, if needed, could be immense.
U.S., Japan to call for 80 pct emissions cut-media | Reuters:
The U.S. and Japanese leaders will call for an 80 percent cut in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in a post-summit statement on Friday, but no mid-term target will be mentioned, the Nikkei business daily reported.
I honestly wonder how many people, even among those who read sites like this one on a semi-regular basis, appreciate just how hard it will be for the US to get an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050, and then cut virtually all remaining emissions by 2100.
I plan to say a lot more about this in the coming days. For now, dust off your copy of George Monbiot’s Heat.
Coal Ash: A Clear and Present Danger:
The horror is unimaginable. A community suffering severe health effects, with more than a thousand residents blaming coal ash contamination for causing their sickness, including grisly birth defects in their children. This, according to a recent investigative story in the Miami Herald. This photo (published in the article) features Maximiliano Calcaño, a two-year old boy born with no arms. His mother is quoted: “When I was pregnant, I was dizzy, vomiting and could barely walk. Then my baby was born like that, with no arms.”
As reported, a Virginia-based power company, AES Corporation, is blamed for causing these health problems after illegally dumping 160 million pounds of coal ash in the Dominican Republic. The company is accused of hiring a contractor to ship the coal ash — a byproduct of burning the fossil fuel at power plants — to Samaná, on the Dominican Republic’s Atlantic coast, where it sat for two years. Later, villagers began to complain of children being born with horrible disorders, such as missing limbs or having organs on the outside of their bodies. Last week, a class action lawsuit was filed in a Delaware court alleging AES is responsible for the health problems in Samaná and should be held liable for correcting the situation.
Contaminated Coal Waste
If you think what pours out of power plant smokestacks is bad, consider what gets left behind. The waste from burning coal is packed with heavy metals such as arsenic, which causes cancer. Around the country, about 600 landfills and surface ponds are used to store leftover contaminated coal waste. When they break or leak, communities face the risk of contaminated farmland, wildlife and drinking water. And the coal ash stored in unlined landfills in communities all across the country — and around the world — can leach into drinking water supplies.
Every year, coal-fired power plants in the U.S. produce about 130 million tons of contaminated waste, which we know poses significant health risks. In fact, people living near unlined coal ash impoundments have as much as a 1 in 50 chance of getting cancer from drinking water contaminated by arsenic leaking from the sites, according to studies by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The non-emissions horrors of coal use are probably the least publicized “big” story in the entire energy and environmental realm.
