Save the World! Earn $25 million!
Guest commentary from Juliane Fry, UC Berkeley
On February 9, The Virgin Group chairman Sir Richard Branson announced a $25 million prize for anyone who can demonstrate “a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth’s climate.” At the press conference announcing this “Virgin Earth Challenge”, Branson was joined by Al Gore, and the panel of judges for the competition includes additional climate change celebrities: James Hansen, James Lovelock, Tim Flannery, and Sir Crispin Tickell.
The goal of the competition is to find a method that will remove at least 1 billion tons of carbon per year from the atmosphere. It will be very interesting to see what ideas come to the fore to scrub CO2 from the atmosphere. $25m should encourage some creativity! (and of course, once working should bring in a significant amount of carbon offset money). A ruckus was caused last year when discussion of injecting SO2 into the stratosphere to form reflective sulfate aerosols to mask global warming made scientists feel they needed to state their position on this controversial, poorly understood proposal. During the discussion, a New York Times feature (described here ) discussed various “geo-engineering” alternatives to exert a cooling effect to mask global warming. At least in this case, we are not seeking to add something new and uncertain to the atmosphere, but rather, remove something that we added.
19 February 2007 at 4:46 PM
I’ve been working with climate in politics for quite some time now, and this is maybe one of the ideas that worry me the most, except for sticking to BAU.
I’d like to know what kind of perspective you have on this though, but it sounds somewhat daunting to me. We can see what happens in the atmosphere when we fill it with carbon dioxide too fast, and I’m worried that we won’t know what happens if we suddenly remove it again. Do we know what kind of defense mechanisms the planet uses to mitigate our changes? Do we know that we’re not provoking reactions in a different way by removing CO2 abruptly? (any large amount over a couple of decades is “abruptly” in a planet point of view, in my opinion)
I would be very glad to hear some scientific responses on the matter
19 February 2007 at 5:07 PM
I think the link is bad… and as I said earlier I’m not so happy about sulphates in the air, our lakes don’t really like that.
But hopefully some cleaver bloke will solve this, can’t see it happening soon thou.
19 February 2007 at 5:17 PM
Caution is always a Very Good Idea with this much at stake, but I’m personally not worried that we’ll suddenly remove too much CO2 from the atmosphere. My biggest concern is that even a very modest effort like this would be used as an excuse to keep burning coal in the filthiest way possible and actually make things worse. After all, there are plenty of hard core deniers out there who will latch onto any excuse to avoid even the tiniest inconvenience or cost associated with the reduction of CO2.
19 February 2007 at 5:19 PM
Picking a fight with all the laws of thermodynamics is not a good career move. Better by far to start sequesterization by gathering the CO2 from smokestacks (one of the good things about plug in cars is that even if fossil fuel is used to generate the electricity, it moves CO2 generation to a place where the concentrations are very high and the efficiency is much higher than in a gasoline powered car.)
19 February 2007 at 5:23 PM
Save the world! Earn $500,000,000 for your research university! Ahem.
19 February 2007 at 5:57 PM
Isn’t Branson the guy who owns the airlines? Don’t planes burn fuel? Now he wants to award his well earned profits and take the co2 out of the air? Wouldn’t it make more sense to stop flying the planes?
19 February 2007 at 6:00 PM
I had a quick look at Juliane’s site and highly recommend a brief tour to all. I suspect anyone outside the field (atmosphere chemistry) has no hope of comprehending the content (although I was able to nicely expand my mental list of nitrogen compounds I know nothing about :)), but it’s nice to be aware of this sort of thing when the usual suspects make the usual point about model uncertainty due to clouds/aerosols. There are a lot of very smart people busting their butts to provide the modelers with the needed physical understanding, and we don’t hear much about their work.
In particular, I want to thank Juliane for going to the trouble of maintaining a web site with linked paper pdfs, and in particular the page describing her research and where it’s headed.
Oh, and welcome to the East Bay! Hopefully the reduction in personal exposure to your subject matter won’t set your research back too much.
19 February 2007 at 6:01 PM
Here’s my solution: just genetically engineer a plankton that first floats together as a small group in/near the ocean surface and uses solar enegry to break down CO2. The carbon is deposited in the interior of the mass. The plankton reproduce as neccessary to continually cover the surface area of the enlarging carbon ball. When the carbon ball grows to the size of a tennis ball (don’t want to damage ship propellers) the plankton stop making pure carbon and make something heavy. Eventually the mass sinks to the ocean floor. Problem solved.
The most important item overlooked in the discussion of any very long term problem like gloabl warming is this: Knowledge expands exponentially. By 2050 this solution (or 10 others way more creative) will be doable by any high school biology class.
19 February 2007 at 6:02 PM
We clearly are beyond the point where there is much hope for cutting emissions to any meaningful degree. Yes, a major concern is that a scheme to take the co2 out of the air will just encourage the proliferation of coal burning. However, I think it is crystal clear that nothing will cause humanity to exercise any restraint anyway. Certainly, the U.S. will not.
The sad part, though, is that we will probably end up with taking no co2 out of the air and we will continue to be profligate in our fossil fuel use.
19 February 2007 at 6:25 PM
Re: #1: I think that it is unlikely we will be removing enough CO2 to actually _decrease_ the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Given that we are adding 7 billion tons of carbon a year to the atmosphere (and growing) the removal of a billion tons per year would only slow the CO2 increase…
Re: Original post: Does the Competition actual state a billion tons per year? I can’t find the exact quantity stated anywhere (”significant volume” seems to be the criteria, and the statement seems to be broad enough that removal of methane, N2O, or other GHGs would also qualify).
19 February 2007 at 6:26 PM
Coal and energy burning made this country what it is today with the steel and rail era and giving the immigrants jobs back then. Now China wants to follow suit and make their country as prosperous as ours using the same model. Now we want to tell them they can’t? That to me is a slap in the face right there. We won, you lose, now let’s call the whole thing off by blowing eachother to smithereens.
19 February 2007 at 6:45 PM
This will be my last post for a while, I apologize for posting three times. My fear is this whole global warming crisis will bring out the worst of us, not the best. can anyone realisticly see humankind working together to kick this thing, or does the crisis have the propensity to bring out the Hitler like traits in us all? Idealistically I would like us all to work this out but realistically I see a horror that I will not spare any words on. May God have mercy on us all.
19 February 2007 at 6:59 PM
Carbon dioxide plus calcium oxide forms calcium carbonate, heat calcium carbonate to release concentrated CO2 and then sequester in an appropriate manner.
Where do I collect my money?
19 February 2007 at 7:10 PM
Dr. David Keith(keith@ucalgary.ca) has been working on sequestration of CO2 from the air for at least 2 years.
19 February 2007 at 7:14 PM
I have to say that the responses to this commentary so far are very odd. If we could find a way or ways to strip carbon dioxide it would be a great. Why all the misery and gloom at the possibility that someone may come up with a solution.
Re #1: The odds of a mechanism being found whereby we could suddenly remove quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere in quantities large enough to negatively affect the climate is minimal. Once/if solutions are found then we can worry about how fast to implement them.
Re #3: Power stations can be, and in many places are built so as not to be filthy. This is a separate issue to dealing with the CO2. It is nuts to suggest that we shouldn’t solve the CO2 problem because some countries will then continue to build dirty power stations. They will do it anyway.
Re #6: Yes Branson does own Virgin Airlines. He’s also into rail transport in the UK in a big way and has pledged $3 billion for the development of biofuels and in the short term is pushing to improve the air travel CO2 output efficiency by 25%. If he pulled his planes out of the air then other companies would instantly replace the market share. The remarkable thing is that he has pledged all profits from his airline and rail businesses over the next 10 years to address climate change! And he is a mover and shaker in the business world, pushing for other companies to start showing some responsibility for their emissions. Any individual or company making such commitments should be applauded.
Environmentalists can take on a victim mentality, winging and moaning about everything - in which case we become part of the problem, encouraging everyone else to bury their heads in the sand. Or we can be realistic about the problems, but get excited about possible solutions thereby accelerating their uptake.
Having said all that, I am a little disappointed in this commentary because it is really just a news headline. Perhaps someone at RC could write a piece that discusses the science behind the various CO2 sequestration technologies currently on the table - their feasibility, economics and potential environmental impacts.
19 February 2007 at 7:25 PM
CO2 credits are selling for about $10/tonne right now.
Whoever invented this method might be able to get paychecks of $10 billion per year compared to “selling” it (I’m sure there is fineprint) to Branson for $25 million.
[Response: I don’t think that anyone assumes the process will be cost-free. So the issue is not what the credits are now, but whether any new process can cost less than the credit. And of course, as well as the money economics, this has to make sense in energy economics too. i.e. you can’t release more CO2 in emissions producing the energy that is required than you take back. So either you have to use previously unused renewables for your energy source, or you need to be doubly effective. Neither of these hurdles are easy to bridge. - gavin]
19 February 2007 at 7:31 PM
Re: #12
I can.
It may bring out the worst in us, or it may bring out the best. I think it depends a great deal on leadership. Then next U.S. presidential election will be very important in this regard.
19 February 2007 at 7:36 PM
Craig, enthusiasm is nice, but you are like a baseball manager trying to rally the team that is down 22-1 in the bottom of the ninth. Instead of encouragement, it further adds to the sick feeling in one’s stomach of the predicament we are in. I applaud your attitude, but still feel it is too little too late.
19 February 2007 at 8:13 PM
I did see an Earth Day program last year in which a chemist father & his daughter had developed a “tree” structure (rounded-edge rectangle on a pole). The wind blows through it, and it captures the CO2, turning it into calcium carbonate, I believe. They did show the result….some calcium carbonate. The “tree” requires no energy to run, so it’s only the cost of the structure, plus it’s ugliness factor (maybe they could make it look better).
Every little bit helps, and along with alt. energy, reduce, reuse, recycle, and planting real trees, this type of thing may become a part of the overall solutions package. But it won’t solve the problem; it will only help a little.
19 February 2007 at 8:23 PM
Hi all,
Thanks for the interesting discussion so far!
The concern that figuring out how to sequester CO2 could act as a “license to burn” more coal is important, since dirty coal has such a negative impact on local air quality and human health, in addition to emitting CO2. However, I doubt any carbon removal solution would be so cheap and so easy that if we get serious about removing CO2 from the atmosphere we would simultaneously continue to burn the most carbon-intense fossil fuel without scrubbing CO2 (and other pollutants) at the smokestack.
Re #4: Eli, I agree that plug-in vehicles provide a great way to sequester vehicle-related CO2 emissions. Sadly, Virgin’s prize applies only to removal of CO2, not avoided emissions.
Re #8: Rick, I’m glad of your optimism that any high school student will be able to sequester CO2 by 2050. But I’m not sure we have that long - if we don’t act quickly, the amount of CO2 we’ll need to remove from the atmosphere might become insurmountable. The spectre of going past climate “tipping points” also looms large if we wait until carbon sequestration becomes cheap & easy.
Re #10: I also couldn’t find the 1 billion tons / year number on the Virgin Earth website - it comes from the press coverage of the announcement of the prize.
Re #15: Craig, I agree that amidst all the gloom and doom about climate change it’s good to get excited about possible solutions, regardless of what spurs their discussion. I also feel much more positively about a “geoengineering” approach that scrubs CO2 from the atmosphere than one that injects sulfate aerosol - the former keeps us much closer to the known world of climate states we can better predict. To your last point - a colleague and I are in the process of writing a short paper on geoengineering options that are being discussed which will include some of the analysis you request of carbon sequestration ideas. I’ll try to post that in some form here once we’re done to add some more scientific “meat” to the discussion of carbon sequestration.
19 February 2007 at 8:26 PM
Some of these concepts as well as geo-engineering ones featured on a BBC2 documentary tonight.
I’m quite intrigued by their one about manufacturing urea to feed into the oceans to seed algal blooms, which somewhat goes against what I’ve read about the problems we’re storing up synthesising nitrogen fertilizers.
19 February 2007 at 8:33 PM
I recall work done with electrical stimulation of coral reefs —- I wonder if anyone’s checked into that as a way of boosting removal of CO2 from ocean water.
19 February 2007 at 9:41 PM
I gave a series of presentations on energy to 10 classes at a local middle school, with some side discussion on the horrors of CO2 pollution and some other related topics.
I intended to do it purely as a way to contribute something to the educational process. What happened surprised me.
First, I found after the first couple of classes that when I got the part about global warming, nuclear waste, etc., that I was spontaneously apologizing for the incredible mess my generation and those that came before it had made for these kids. If you want to get a 7th or 8th grader’s undivided attention, tell him or her, “We screwed up about as badly as someone can screw up. Now it’s up to you to figure out how to fix it. That stinks, a lot, and I apologize.”
Second, I was stunned by how undaunted they were. These kids wanted to charge up the mountain, pass laws, invent technology, do the heavy-lifting science, you name it, whatever it took to remake their world and fix this compound mess. It was more endearing and inspiring than I can express here.
My point in all this? The best thing humanity has going for it right now is the relatively short human lifespan, because that ensures a constant turnover as the old guard shuffles off stage and these kids jump into the fray.
The current situation scares me spitless, but those kids make me keep fighting as hard as I can; there’s no way I’ll let them have all the fun.
19 February 2007 at 9:42 PM
Great summary of how global warming is perceived in the world. You are right how most people see global warming as an “environmental issue” and not an energy issue. However, there is one major aspect to global warming that most people also don’t recognize and its the livestock industry. A report by the Food and Agriculture organization from the United Nations says that other more harmful greenhouse gases Nitrous-oxide and methane have a more devestating effect on global warming than the transportation industry worldwide. If you click on my blog, there is more information on that. But just thought I would comment on your blog about that.
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JT
19 February 2007 at 9:51 PM
Has anyone offered a reward for finding a way to turn base metals into gold?
19 February 2007 at 11:03 PM
Not Until Dead, which body will know that planting tree on all the desert of earth is the best method to solve the climate warming up due to CO2 increasing? Who want to invest so much money in the desert while profit return may take 10 or 20 years which depend the need of the people and the earth?
A pipe line to let the water from sea to transpose to desert and a water filter factory are needed to do these job. A computerise controlled system to distribute the water to every tree planting is also needed like the Israel doing nowaday. Some type of tree which require fewer water and can get large money returned need to be developed through using gene technology nowaday or future. Mixing genetic of oil palm tree and varius economic plant with cactus may produce best result. This method may solve the problem of crisis of energy, hungry in Africa, climate warming up and the possibility of war.
19 February 2007 at 11:19 PM
Well, as Gavin pointed out, the problem might reside in the thermodynamics of CO2 removal. It would have to be examined throughout the entire process of manufacturing, operating and even eventually disposing of both the CO2 and the removal equipment. It’s not a bad idea but must go along with maximizing renewables and conservation.
19 February 2007 at 11:26 PM
If the contest is not limited to technological solutions, here’s my entry; a political one that will remove far more CO2 than the contest requires:
The time has come to criminalize obstructionism on global warming mitigation. During several talks available through Google Video, (i.e. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7482804513318278269 ) Pulitzer prize winning investigative reporter, Ross Gelbspan, quite appropriately referred to energy executives and others deliberately attempting to misinform the public about, and prevent necessary actions to mitigate, global warming as criminals against humanity.
On February 2nd, the IPCC made public what is now universally accepted (not counting the lunatic fringe) as the “smoking gun” report on global warming, thereby “officially” ending even the most remote serious notion that an on-going debate still exists on the matter or its urgency. As such, the stage has been set for a member of Congress to introduce legislation that would propose two specific actions.
First it would call upon Congress to issue a powerful resolution that formally acknowledges the scope and urgency of the global warming threat, and, equally importantly, designates the threat quite clearly and officially a national security threat of the highest magnitude. The bill should propose a law that considers it a felony for anyone,(including our President and other elected officials if such a clause is Constitutionally permissible) to deliberately, or through reckless negligence, attempt to advance the public perception that global warming is not as great a threat, or action on it not as immediately necessary, as Congress has officially resolved.
There are certainly precedents in our legal system for such a curb on First Amendment rights, the most notable having to do with aiding and abetting an enemy during war. I suppose an appropriate exemption from this proposed law would be that ONLY papers in major peer reviewed scientific journals would maintain the right to publish arguments that challenge certain specific findings on global warming, but not it’s basic nature and urgency.
19 February 2007 at 11:44 PM
There was a very good article on CO2 sequestration in Science a couple of years ago by Klaus Lackner (Maybe 2003).
A few years earlier (2001), I read about dumping liquid CO2 into the ocean. The thought was that the oceans would have the capacity to absorb whatever carbon we could dump in without problems. It didn’t take long for scientists to realize that if it were all dumped in as dissolved CO2 (carbonic acid) there would be problems with lowering the pH of the oceans. So the idea of dumping sequestered CO2 into the ocean seemed to die off (and alarm over acidifying oceans was born).
Recently I read about the discovery of natural lakes of liquid CO2 at the bottom of the deep ocean. Apparently, at the right pressure and temperature, the CO2 will remain a liquid separated from the water by a layer of solid hydrate. With this information, would CO2 sequestration in the deep ocean be back on the table?
19 February 2007 at 11:52 PM
From comment 4,
A misleading formulation. Capturing a CO2 molecule from its diluteness in air takes much less energy than is yielded by its formation from a CH_x in a fossil fuel.
Thermodynamics is very much on our side, if we are those who want to pluck out from the air already-dispersed CO2 molecules and those that will soon be dispersed. It is much more on our side than the people who constructed 102 GW of new coal-fired electric powerplant last year in China.
In comment 19,
Energy is required to calcine the calcium carbonate and sequester the pure CO2; as noted, this energy is much less than that yielded by the fossil fuels. Google “plumbostatic”.
This most certainly can solve the problem. So can several other approaches, but they depend on collective restraint; only one bunch of good guys is needed for this one.
The “trees” may be someone’s attempt at popularization through garbling; actually the quicklime would be strewn over fields, somewhat less than 1 m^2 per person with a present-day Western-style fossil fuel habit. One would not use Rhode Island for this purpose, but if I recall correctly, it’s big enough to capture all the world’s CO2.
20 February 2007 at 12:03 AM
Can I just say one thing about Branson. If this guy really cared , he could give the money to people who have been working on this for the last ten years. Instead he goes for the photo-op with Gore and Clinton promising a big cash prize that he will never have to pay out. He gets all kinds of press, the Virgin brand is highlighted, he gets to market himself as the green billionaire and what does it cost him? Nothing. He is a marketing genius.
If we do get a sequestration system up and running, the first billion tons removed will be from Branson’s own personal carbon footprint.
20 February 2007 at 2:02 AM
Hiya all,
re #28, i’ve been thinking something similar, why don’t we go for a class action, rest of the world vs the US govt. It would get an awful lot of publicity, even if it fell at the first hurdle, and americans seem to understand litigation better than science.(thats a AAAS joke!)
It might at least focus a few minds…
re #21 I saw the BBC2 prog, and thought that it just shows how rattled everyone is, that geo-engineering is getting a run out.
Still, if there is a ‘magic bullet’, it would be great to find it before Greenland/WAIS passes the tipping point… oops, looks like we might well be too late! (The Guardian UK Feb 19,’Climate change: Scientists warn it may be to late to save the ice caps)
My favourite was the sea-water yachts, on the basis that if it did work, i couldn’t see any serious side effects.
Finally, could Branson could win his own prize, if he sold his airline. Surely its not a tax dodge!
regards, and thanks 4 the thread Juliane
20 February 2007 at 2:40 AM
hello darlings, I did the math!
S’poze you took atmospheric concentrations of co2 at 250 ppm, and spoze you had a filter that was capable of removing all of that carbon in one single pass. You would need to pass the equivalent of three quarters of a billion cubic kilometres of air through your filter per year, for ten years.
Surely there would be a sizeable energy requirement.
20 February 2007 at 2:50 AM
Re #6
Yes. Yes. Yes. No.
20 February 2007 at 3:16 AM
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
20 February 2007 at 3:47 AM
In a nutshell, Post 31 is right. Branson is advertising for a janitor. Any scientist up for the challenge? When the problem is solved (in this case it won’t while humans exist) Branson will treat you like a janitor…….By continuing his lifestyle while never speaking to you again.
20 February 2007 at 3:51 AM
Re #19 - fully agree. Solutions to excessive emissions require first and foremost changes in behaviour by all of us. The unfortunate desire (which we all share) to rant and rave, to be right at the expense of others, and to keep fighting yesterday’s battles can stop us from achieving our goals. It closes the minds of those we argue with and thus they will not change their behaviour.
This is no longer about whether the science is right or not, it is about how to effect behaviour change in all of us. That requires co-operation, applauding of any initiative that might help or at least does no harm. It requires us to stop being cynical and start being optimistic: optimists and idealists can inspire change, cynics never do…
20 February 2007 at 4:39 AM
humankind has injected some 200+ billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere so far and shows no signs of abating as yet. Humans are increasing their energy use globally as the population is increasing globally, in the west we may be increasing our renewable/sustainable energy sources but we are also using more energy to and due to the way that energy is produced at the present time it is unlikely that fossil fuel usage will drop.
I would imagine that what has happenned here is that someone under Bransons employment has looked at the alternatives available to humankind at the present time and maybe 10 years into the future and had decided that humans are more thanb likely going to continue burning all of the available oil and gas over the next 40 years and that even if alternatives are found (second generation ethenol and other biofuels etc) then at best they will only reduce dependence and not replace it. Ethenol is some 30% less energy dense than Oil and is at least 10 years away from being economically viable (if it all). 10 years before its begine to supplement Oil and another 10 years before it is mitigating oil is any meaningful economic manner, ie 10 mbpd or so.
Wind turbines are showing some very real promise in terms of percentage replacement of coal electricity needs, however it will take very large scale events to replace fossil fuel by a economically viable margin, ie 50%. We would require massive winf turbines and massive amounts of them. Here in the UK a plan has been hatched to build two farms of 100 and 344 turbines that will produce 1% of our electricity requirements.
Who knows about Gas as it is used for heating. I am unsure as how we can produce enough by another means to offset it.
So that leaves two ideas left, energy efficiency and offsetting some other forcing to compensate for the one that we are pushing. Energy efficiency is the way to go. Cars that do 50 mpg are feasible and available now, light bulbs that use 1/5th of the electricity, cavity wall insulataion, all new buildings to pay special attention to energy conservation and use solar power as much as possible etc. Micro wind turbines of some descritpion where possible. And last but not least decelop wave and tidal power for coastal areas where possible.
Energy efficiency sounds like a better option that offsetting another primary forcing or attempting to absorb Co2 from the atmosphere en masse. Anyone heard of conservation laws?
Option 1 was reflecting the Sunlight by launching 000’s of tiny mirrors into space. This project is enourmous and would require so many roacket launches it is a non starter.
Option 2 was seeding the upper atmosphere with SO2 I believe in order again offset sunlight reaching the earth. This sounds like it could get the go ahead when all is lost in some 40 years time.
Option 3 was artificial trees, not sure exactly how this works but I guess that they would scrub CO2 from the atmohphere or turn it into something else via using wind power. One tree can scrub some 90,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum by using filters of sodium hydroxide and the CO2 injected into the earth.
Option 4 was seeding the oceans with additional plankton in order to soak up additional CO2. by seeding the oceans with liquid nitrogen apparantly.
Option 5 is to make clouds apparantly, firing droplets of seawater towards special clouds, marine stratocumulus would make these clouds more dense and more relelective thus mitigating the Sun.
Or maybe all of these. but the real concern here is that scientists and really concerned people who have looked at the worlds population growth and their need for prosperity and progress to continue apace and the solutions available to us now couple with the time lags of the infrastructure and the political will have decided that stopping polluting the atmosphere is unlikely to any significant degree, certainly not the 65% demanded by the experts in order to offset climate change and hence other solutions must be found not matter how unsound they seem.
20 February 2007 at 4:46 AM
The prize is not much more than the profit made by Virgin Trains 2005-06 (and is now getting a large subsidy). This is a rail franchise that is not exactly busting a gut to get many more people onto the trains (short trains, expensive tickets, etc.). I hope the prize does result in a good, efficient method, but this does smack of easy publicity.
20 February 2007 at 6:35 AM
There’s a fine line between healthy scepticism and downright cynicism. And in my opinion some respondents on this issue are the wrong side of that line. Be that as it may, on the sceptical front it should be remembered that the “fine print” of this announcement indicates that the prize is only open for 5 years; judges (who will include Branson, Hansen and Gore) will meet annually to determine whether any project merits the award. What happens to the prize after 5 years is a matter for future discussion. Since it’s a tall order to get from idea to practical industrial reality in 5 years, then perhaps Richard Branson’s money is safe … and the prize is his money, because the offer is from his personal fortune, not from any one of his companies. And he has asked that governments match his offer. No chance of being killed in the stampede there, then, I’d warrant. (Oops! Careful. Cynicism creeping in.)
What has not been made apparent here or at the recent prize announcement press junket (or perhaps it has been lost amongst the general prize hubbub) is that Branson, last year, committed himself/his (transport) companies over the next 10 years to giving all profits (according to press reports anyway) towards fighting global warming, which should amount to something in the region of US$3 billion. And at the launch of Virgin Fuels last year he committed £214 million (US$400 million) to invest in green energy projects over the next 3 years.
So, yes, the man is a business man, and yes it’s good publicity for him and his companies, but this man is genuine and he has given a serious commitment of serious amounts of spondulicks here. The right time for cynicism is 5 to 10 years down the road if the money committed in 2006-07 has not been forthcoming by ~2016-17, not now. At the very least this has put the subject of amelioration to the fore, as it is as certain as anything can be that air travel is not going to decline anytime in the next 15-20 years, and people are not going to give up their personal transit systems anytime soon either. Now, if only I had a viable idea …
20 February 2007 at 6:44 AM
If Mr. Branson’s challenge cannot be met, we can be pretty sure that the Greenland icecap will melt or slide into the Atlantic quickly raising sea levels perhaps 30 feet. The logistics of our modern society depend on the cheap transportation of raw materials, manufactured goods,food, and fuel. Seaports will be unusable with that kind of rise in sea level.
Floating oil terminals and compressed natural gas terminals have been designed and built and are in use. But most manufactured goods and much food is transported in multi modal containers on large ships and loaded and unloaded at huge terminals where these ships can be quickly turned around.
Someone needs to start working on a floating container ship terminal which can unload and reload a container ship with a comparable turn around time as today’s land based terminals. Scores of these terminals will be needed world wide if our civilization is to survive such a quick, catastrophic, and possibly, on going, rise in sea level.
20 February 2007 at 6:51 AM
Wouldn’t CH4 or N2O capture be cheaper and more immediately effective? 1 Billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year may even be being done by current Kyoto-funded capture projects. Or what about the invention of an additive to cow-feed that limits or stops their emmissions? That would win the prize hands down.
20 February 2007 at 6:56 AM
Two ideas for reclaiming carbon from the atmosphere and locking it away.
I’m afraid they’re both fairly lo-tech, but hey, as long as they work, who cares? It makes them all the more easily implementable.
Here they are:
1. Grow trees, harvest the wood, turn it into charcoal, which is an inert form of carbon and won’t decompose, and sell the charcoal as a soil enhancer/conditioner to farmers and everyone with a garden. This solution is the subject of an article in the Jan/Feb issue of Renew, the publication of the Open University’s NATTA, the independent national UK ‘Network for Alternative Technology and Technology Assessment’ (Though maybe not the online version). The solution is based on research conducted in the Amazon rainforest where charcoal hundreds of years old has been discovered and analysed, and its usefulness as a soil stabiliser revealed. The charcoal, as I say, is a permanent lock-up for the carbon, and by selling the charcoal the scheme becomes self-financing.
2. Grow hemp and use it as a building material, mixed with lime to form ‘hempcrete’. Hemp is fast growing and a very good absorber of atmospheric carbon. Once secure in the lime concrete, it gives the material great strength, and locks the carbon up for as long as the house exists. A conference is being held in April to discuss the technology at the Centre for Alternative Technology.
20 February 2007 at 7:59 AM
[[The bill should propose a law that considers it a felony for anyone,(including our President and other elected officials if such a clause is Constitutionally permissible) to deliberately, or through reckless negligence, attempt to advance the public perception that global warming is not as great a threat, or action on it not as immediately necessary, as Congress has officially resolved. ]]
You’re an agent provocateur for the deniers, right?
The solution to the other side arguing against you is to argue better, not to suppress debate. I don’t think fascist solutions to the problem are either needed or morally right.
20 February 2007 at 8:19 AM
“When the scientists manage to tell the story clearly, the public understands.” Susan Solomon, NOAA. (Ambiente Brasil)
I know this is not related to this particular post - but I thought it worthy of repeating. Just to say to y’all; Keep up the good work!
[Response: Thanks! -mike]
20 February 2007 at 8:28 AM
I am anxious and reluctant about any methods which involve massive and further human manipulation of the “natural” systems of the planet as a means of mitigating CO2, for the basic reason that we do not know what other awful consequences we may thus set in motion.
The comments and reactions by scientists on this site verify for me that the real problem, for human beings, is a social matter: can we formulate a society and way of life in which we live in voluntarily restrictrive circumstances? It’s never happened yet, and it goes against human nature. So, I remain resigned to my own hopelessness on this matter.
I am now reading a popular work, 1491, in which the author, Charles Mann, outlines current anthropological research on the first human inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere, and the current assertions that they, in small numbers and with limited techonolgy (fire, agricultural cultivars, human labor) manipulated vast landscapes which were previously considered virgin and prisitine environments (Eastern N. America, Amazonia, the Patanal). The effects, while large and noticeable, and having some negative consequences, were not overwhelmingly negative due to the relatively low population (I am supposing); forests remained intact as forests, e.g.
In the present day, the sheer numbers of human beings on the planet guarantee that our impact is great, carbon-loading and otherwise (I call this century the Global Era). If such small numbers of people really did have such a large impact on the environment in N. and S. America over one thousand years ago, then how much greater is the present impact worldwide?
All animal populations which exceed the carrying capacity of their environment eventually face a catastrophic collapse in numbers. Our intelligence allows us to jump our niche time and again, leaving me to conclude that the sum of all life on this planet is our “true” niche. When we exceed the carrying capacity of the planet’s life systems to sustain such an artificially high human population, then it will most likely crash down to near-zero. We might limp along for awhile as a species and then flicker out altogether, or be completely extinct before 2100. I term this auto-genocide.
These thoughts are not scientific, surely, and thus inappropriate for this blog. But while the dedicated and concerned (and respected) participants debate molecular minutiae here, I think that the real answer lies in the social realm, with a long-term perspective on human nature. We are what we are, and we shall endure the consequences of that. Mark
20 February 2007 at 8:44 AM
Re a claim to have done the math. now do the math for how much air flows over Rhode Island, within a reasonably thin turbulent boundary-layer.
20 February 2007 at 9:16 AM
It’s clear enough why Branson is doing this: aviation is both a large part of his business and a personal passion, and there’s no short or medium term alternative to kerosene as an aircraft fuel, nor any way of producing it using renewables or nuclear power. While aviation’s share of GHG emissions is currently only a few percent, its growing VERY fast, and will within a few decades, if projected growth occurs, account for essentially all the GHGs we can afford to emit. I imagine Branson has looked at the existing ideas for removing CO2 from the atmosphere and knows they won’t work economically in time to allow this continued growth (see below). So if he wants to keep doing what he’s doing and still feel good about himself, this is the only option.
Re #14 “Dr. David Keith(keith@ucalgary.ca) has been working on sequestration of CO2 from the air for at least 2 years.”, and #30. Keith and colleagues seem to be about the only people currently working on scrubbing CO2 out of the air. In the long term (22nd-23rd centuries) it might be a way of reducing CO2 concentrations, but even though he’s clearly an enthusiast, Keith doesn’t claim the technology is currently anywhere near competitive with other means of mitigation, and notes a possible (socio-political) problem. He says in DAVID W. KEITH, MINH HA-DUONG and JOSHUAH K. STOLAROFF (2006) “CLIMATE STRATEGY WITH CO2 CAPTURE FROM THE AIR” (Climate Change 74(1-3):17-45):
“Because air capture may provide some insurance against climate damages, it presents a risk for public policy: the mere expectation that air capture or similar technologies can be achieved reduces the incentive
to invest in mitigation. Yet, while air capture removes irreversibility in CO2 concentration increases, it does not protects against irreversibilities in the climate systemâ��s response to forcing.”
An editorial in the same issue points out additional problems.
Re #40 “it is as certain as anything can be that air travel is not going to decline anytime in the next 15-20 years, and people are not going to give up their personal transit systems anytime soon either.” Then we’re pretty much toast. Most people, of course, never fly, won’t in the next 15-20 years, and don’t have personal transport systems. If us rich keep on being selfish enough to insist on our “right” to these things and hence screwing up the climate, I can imagine a lot of them getting very angry indeed, and some of those angry people taking extremely violent action.
Re #42: Additives to reduce methane production from ruminants are already known, but a lot more research is needed. Similarly, land management systems to reduce nitrous oxide. See “U.S. Climate Change Technology Program â�� Technology Options for the Near and Long Term August 2005″ at http://www.climatetechnology.gov/library/2005/tech-options/tor2005-fullreport.pdf
20 February 2007 at 10:22 AM
The prize is actually to be awarded in two installments. $5 million is awarded upon demonstration of the potential of the design to achieve the desired level of GHG removal from ambient air. The remainder is to be disbursed after the technology has been used for 10 years. Given the scale of the effort to actually implement the technology, the operational cost would dwarf $20 million to the extent that the $20 million would almost be irrelevant. However, even millionaires sometimes win the lottery, so if this were to come to fruition, I’m sure the winner would still gladly take the rest of Sir Richard’s money.
As to the specifics of the targets, the award website does not spell this out. However, a reading of it clearly suggests it means ambient CO2 and probably quantities (the award refers to volumes, not GtC) on the order of billions of metric tons per year.
This rather quickly reduces the size of the field to almost nothing. Your choices are enhanced biological removal or artificial chemical absorption processes. The various ocean engineering schemes advanced to date, including the one on the BBC all fail due to lack of some limiting nutrient or the energy cost of producing the nutrient.
Add iron to iron deficient southern ocean water and you get plankton growth until silicon, nitrogen and phosphorous become limiting. Add nitrogen where iron isn’t limiting and you either create a big mess and/or the energy cost of generating the nitrogen (burning of natural gas to make ammonia in the production of urea) and GHG emissions wipe out the benefits.
The invite the salps over for dinner idea has yet to be shown doable (100 million plus giant drain pipes in the Gulf of Mexico that somehow utilize wave action to upwell nutrients) and would come close to a billion tons a year if it worked.
Planting trees and other land plants as has been discussed here before is a non starter for a host of reasons (land availability, nutrients, water) and trying to grow them outside of the tropics appears to worsen albedo feedback mechanisms.
This leaves (no pun intended) the artifical tree type ideas to remove CO2 from ambient air using natural draft towers and chemical absorbing solutions. Such ideas to remove CO2 from ambient air have been tossed around for 25 years and unfortunately, the same laws of thermodynamics in place in 1987 apply in 2007. It just takes too much energy to recycle the sorbent. There is no source of a single use sorbent in sufficient quantities to get around this limitation.
Thus, the Keiths and Lackners are faced with as of today, two seemingly insurmountable problems. The inefficiencies (<5% removal efficiency) associated with removing a valueless product (CO2) at dilute concentrations from a gas stream (the ambient air) and the high cost of sorbent regeneration, making the entire process cost more than $1000/ton carbon removed.
Breakthroughs in this area are likely to take a lot longer than the Virgin award period and cost a great deal more than the prize money is worth.
I have no problem at all with prizes as motivations. The site lists several examples of where this worked to move things forward. Lindberg’s flight to Paris (non stop, meal) in 1927 is another one.
But we’re not talking about delivering mail or building a car that drives itself to Las Vegas, parks at the Mirage and orders the buffet without human intervention or test flying a commercial rocket plane.
The funding for the kind of research needed to solve the GHG problem (and I don’t mean the geoengineering solutions that I and others have proposed to buy time) should be in the billions, not millions. If governments, industries and people are depending on the Virgin Earth Challenge to bail them out, they better prepare to do some bailing themselves as the ice sheets retreat.
20 February 2007 at 11:55 AM
Michael Crichton was on Charlie Rose last night.
http://www.charlierose.com/
He repeated the usual fallacies, albeit reluctantly. He seems to think he’s the only one who’s “looked at the data.” In fact he says so. Rose was persistent, and finally asked if he would come back and debate with a scientist. MC asked if he could bring charts with graphs. One of you guys ought to sign up fast. Gavin? Run over there and show him where’s he’s missing the boat. He says Gore is wrong on Kilimanjaro, and the 20 feet of rise in 100 years, and that no one can predict the future with models. Why can’t they predict 10 years if they can with 100? The man needs help.
20 February 2007 at 12:02 PM
My concern with these “techno fixes” is two-fold:
1) We won’t come up with any technology better from a thermodynamic standpoint than existing biological systems (i.e. photosynthesis). We’ll put too much energy into removing the carbon. Save the forests!
2) Techno fixes help some people maintain their state of denial — i.e. incorrectly thinking that we can keep growing forever. We should not be delaying the necessary changes in our growth patterns.
20 February 2007 at 12:13 PM
Re #32: Since the battle has clearly moved from science to politics, a class action suit against the U.S., and/or the fossil fuel industry, would certainly raise public awareness. I would still prefer to see legislation considering global warming misinformation a threat to national security because it would be far more effective as a mitigation strategy, and it would draw far more controversy (see #44), which would generate wider media coverage.
Re #44: [edit out inflammatory comments]
http://www.climateprediction.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=6711&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30
20 February 2007 at 12:13 PM
Save the planet, become a weedeater…..
Humans’ beef with livestock: a warmer planet
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0220/p03s01-ussc.html
20 February 2007 at 12:18 PM
Man, it seems like every time someone tries to help the situation, everyone yells “NOT ENOUGH!” or “You’re doing it for selfish reasons!” or the like.
All the talk about how this award won’t accomplish anything except advertise Virgin companies is counter-productive. All the talk about how it won’t work is also counter-productive.
To solve this problem we need as many resources and as many ideas on the table as possible. $25 million will help motivate funding for the people already working on the problem, and might get some innovative idea off the drawing board a little faster. Even if atmospheric carbon sequestration isn’t the most efficient solution, it might help, and even if it turns out a complete dud, the global warming fight only lost $25 million. There’ll be plenty more money in the coming years, and in the meantime, this prize has gotten global warming a lot more press. Seems like a good deal to me.
20 February 2007 at 12:32 PM
re: 50. The last thing anyone needs is a science *fiction* writer like MC getting more publicity via the media such as Charlie Rose to talk about global warming. Giving his anti-science, completely discredited voice a soapbox just furthers the misguided “balance” that the media fosters on the issue. Which is completely inappropriate to the science involved.
20 February 2007 at 12:56 PM
I don’t see how Branson’s offer can hurt. The thing is that people have to realize the realities we’re dealing with here. First, we will not stop climate change with only conservation measures and conventional strategies. Second, we cannot come up with technological fixes instantaneously. The hope is that conservation will buy us sufficient time to come up with technological innovations that will mitigate the problems caused by climate change–and one such technology is carbon sequestration.
Likewise, it is not a question of whether the required conservation, etc. will derail economic growth, since in order to pay for the technological infrastructure to confront climate change, economic growth will have to remain robust.
Richard Branson is doing his part to promote technological progress toward solutions. Millions of individual citizens are now trying to do their part by conserving more energy, planting trees (which can sequester carbon for hundreds of years), etc. It is now time for governments to do their part by funding research and implementing realistic policies that do not subsidize fossil fuels at the expense of cleaner technologies.
20 February 2007 at 12:59 PM
One seemingly promising approach I haven’t seen discussed would be to build upon the existing and proven air seperation unit (ASU) technology to develop CO2 extraction plants powered by wind/solar/tidal energy. Picture, if you would, a power plant sized CO2 ‘dehumidifier’.
The basic ASU process is straightforward. Outside air (or flue gas) is compressed and cooled to the point at which water vapor condenses and is removed. The dry gas is further compressed and cooled until the CO2 condenses, at which point it is removed for sequestration. (In industrial ASUs the gas stream is often further processed to extract liquid nitrogen, liquid oxygen and argon but the additional processing isn’t necessary for the CO2 extraction application.) As a side benefit the liquid CO2 produced would contain a percentage of the methane and other pollutants present in the input gas. The chilled compressed residual input gas is passed through heat exchangers and expanded through turbines to help power the compressors and to cool the incoming gases, increasing the efficiency of the process.
The key to making this sort of CO2 extraction plant viable would be optimizing the overall efficiency. Not simple, granted, but this is just engineering and wouldn’t require any scientific or technological breakthroughs. It would also make sense to develop a standard modular design to minimize the non-recurring engineering costs of customizing plants. A plus of this cycle is that it produces potable water that can be used for human or agricultural consumption. Using this ‘waste’ water to irrigate tree farms or orchards would increase the net CO2 removal and provide an additional revenue stream.
I envision plants of this type sited in desert areas such as the American west, central Australia, or Saharan Africa . . . anywhere with adequate renewable energy resources. Properly designed they could be ‘off the grid’ and largely self sufficient over their lifecycle.
Comments, anyone?
20 February 2007 at 1:05 PM
Since CO2, a trace gas, is vital to plant growth (something called “photosynthesis”) removing CO2 from the atmosphere would certainly have a negative impact on many people, like farmers.
It has been shown repeatedly that plants in semiarid regions do better with higher atmospheric CO2 because of less lost of water through leaf evaporation. This helps to prevent the spread of deserts.
I can see the day before the CO2 scrubbing plant goes into operation, some group will get a judge somewhere to issue a restraining order.
The Greens have escalated this debate from science to politics and the law. They may regret that.
Just think. One judge could stop the whole effort.
20 February 2007 at 1:10 PM
Re #32, #52, etc: As long as we’re talking about class action suits, why not one against anti-nuclear groups? If it weren’t for their disinformation campaign and obstructive tactics, we’d have far fewer coal-fired power plants to worry about.
Or indeed, why not a class action suit against all the actual end-users of fossil fuels? Except that’d mean some of us would have to move out of our glass houses
20 February 2007 at 1:18 PM
This reminds me of the woman who collected ferrets in her house. Eventually there were so many ferrets and cages and cages stacked one on top of eachother, and the rooms held about ten times more ferrets than they should have. After the ferrets got removed, they cleaned the place and a dull stench stayed behind. The earth is like that house. Unfortunately there is no one coming to clean.
20 February 2007 at 2:51 PM
<sarcasm>
I have a great idea for a machine that uses sunlight and water to efficiently convert CO2 into O2 and complex carbohydrates, sugars, and fibers. It only needs some additional nutrients to operate. I call it the TREE. I’ll sell my design along with a bridge and some swamp land I have, too.
</sarcasm>
I agree with the skeptics here — the only thing that scares me more than geo-engineering atmospheric chemistry is not doing it. BAU is obviously a worse plan, but if we start removing CO2, who decides when to turn the machines off? At what level do we set the CO2 “thermostat”?
20 February 2007 at 3:23 PM
Not as razzle-dazzle as Branson’s $25 million “prize”, but probably more important:
A number of the corporations mentioned above are also participants in the US Climate Action Partnership, which in January called for urgent action — including mandatory national limits on carbon emissions — in the USA.
Companies like Exxon-Mobil that continue to fund the global-warming deniers, and otherwise resist the urgent necessity of dealing with global warming, are becoming increasingly isolated in the corporate world.
I regard Branson’s announcement as basically a publicity stunt, that is at best unlikely to have any significant impact on anything and at worst diverts attention from where it really needs to be: on reducing carbon emissions.
20 February 2007 at 3:33 PM
I totally agree with you. It’s not like we would have a turn on/off machinery and just press a button when the co2 level is not within limits.
The way I see it, it’s not like we can do much to change current situation. But we can do much to evoid future climate changes of such gravity.
History shows us that in the past century, there have been other climate changes, that seem to be linked to certain events that affected the oceans in the same period. Naval wars, as small as they seem compared to the vaste spread of the oceans, are some of the more importants causes of the climate changes in the history
20 February 2007 at 3:36 PM
“completely discredited voice.” Crichton isn’t in some circles including the White House. Rose has extensive interviews with scientists, as well as authors of many genres. He was clearly perplexed by MC’s density on this issue. It was very telling and a climate scientist should correct the record in this fashion representing the position of science.
20 February 2007 at 3:40 PM
OK, serious idea here: I suppose most of you are familiar with the concept of ocean thermal power, which uses the temperature difference between the surface and cold deep waters to drive a generator. Consider also that warm tropical surface waters are in effect biological deserts because of their lack of nutrients, which are plentiful in the cold deep waters. (That’s why upwelling zones such as the west coast of the Americas were rich fishing grounds…)
So: build ocean thermal plants, designing the plumbing so that it brings cold deep water to the surface. This provides nutrients to the surface life, which absorbs carbon (part of which drops to the bottom and is sequestered), generates electric power, and creates a productive fishery to boot.
20 February 2007 at 4:30 PM
The solution is simple.
All new energy production plants should use nuclear, hydro or clean coal burned fuels. Existing fossil fuel plants should be phased out and replaced. Doing so in China and India alone will reduce emissions by over a billion tons per year. As an incentive to China and India, we should offer them our new clean burning coal technology as soon as it is perfected.
If the rest of the developed world followed, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions would be enormous.
When Richard Branson reads this post he can cut a check for the prize money.
20 February 2007 at 4:43 PM
Here’s a “simple”, cheap, and potentially very profitable method for carbon sequestration of gasses from a coal or natural gas plant: (1) extract pure oxygen from the air through liquidification or a membrane, (2) use to burn the coal, (3) compress the resulting gases (CO2, SO2, SO3), (4) sell the sulfur oxides, and pump the liquid CO2 underground.
Why use pure oxygen? The removal of the nitrogen makes the generator a lot more thermodynamically efficient. The increased efficiency creates way more than enough power to run the compressors, and you don’t have to extract the nitrogen from the flue gases.
The catch? A lousy 25 million doesn’t begin to cover the myriad costs involved in setting up a new, albeit improved power generation system. Pure oxygen burns hot. Would you like, as a responsible investor/engineer to be the first to bet your money/reputation that you get everything right? Especially when the popular inclination is to criticize, comment or even sue if perfection is not instantly achieved.
Google “pure oxygen” “power generation” for a sample. I.e: The Gas is Greener…
Also Wiki “MHD”.
The solution to our need to encourage good solutions?
(1) Understand the science, economics and politics involved
(2) Criticize constructively and carefully
(3) Lower entry barriers to good solutions; identify them, then help make them risk-free and profitable.
20 February 2007 at 4:49 PM
“One seemingly promising approach I haven’t seen discussed would be to build upon the existing and proven air seperation unit (ASU) technology to develop CO2 extraction plants powered by wind/solar/tidal energy. Picture, if you would, a power plant sized CO2 ‘dehumidifier’.”
I’d be skeptical of this, because of the thermodynamics. You’be be wasting a lot of mechanical energy to condense a small amount of CO2.
By contrast, the power plant CO2 capture schemes don’t use pressure-swing absorption, they use a CO2-absorbing solvent (like an amine) on a temperature-swing. You can use low-grade heat (~120-140 deg C) for the temperature swing. That reduces the loss of possible useful work from the system versus using pressure swing absorption or other such separation systems based on input of mechanical energy.
“Recently I read about the discovery of natural lakes of liquid CO2 at the bottom of the deep ocean. Apparently, at the right pressure and temperature, the CO2 will remain a liquid separated from the water by a layer of solid hydrate. With this information, would CO2 sequestration in the deep ocean be back on the table? ”
IIRC, there was a paper by MBARI a few years back where they looked at how liquid CO2 behaved a great depth in the Monterey Bay. The details escape me, but I remember there was weirdness with the hydrate formation that made me think “well, that screws the deep ocean CO2 lake idea.”
20 February 2007 at 4:51 PM
Re #66
beat you to it with post #53….
only 666,666,666 more people(out of over 6 billion) need to become vegetarians, mission accomplished….
I know, it is a scary number, but so are the consequences….
please contact me and I will give you my swiss bank account number.
20 February 2007 at 5:10 PM
W F Lenihan wrote: “As an incentive to China and India, we should offer them our new clean burning coal technology as soon as it is perfected.”
According to WorldWatch Insitute there are more than 150 coal-fired electrical generation plants already planned to be built in the USA. As I understand it, not a single one of them is anything resembling a “clean coal” power plant, and not a single one of them incorporates any form of carbon sequestration technology. The builders are going for cheap, conventional, 80-year old pulverized coal technology and hoping that these power plants will be “grandfathered” out of any new legislation mandating so-called “clean coal” and/or sequestration. That’s a gamble on their part — if such legislation is passed and the plants are not “grandfathered” out of it, then they will require very costly retrofits.
At any rate, the USA doesn’t really have any “clean coal” technology to offer India or China.
Both of those countries, on the other hand, are huge markets for wind turbines and photovoltaics, which are much more appropriate and cost-effective technologies for rural electrification in developing countries that don’t have and can’t afford to deploy the large power grids needed for distributing centrally-generated electricity to rural populations.
[Response: Actually this isn’t quite fair. There are plenty of ideas and technology developments in the US that could be utilised elsewhere - particularly in China. But the utilization of the technology even in the US is restricted because of multiple regulatory hurdles that do not rank reducing CO2 emissions as a priority. Thus even if utilities wanted to build lower emissions plants now, they cannot unless it is cheaper than any alternative (which it isn’t). This came up at the GROCC press conference this morning. Without a price for carbon emissions, state regulations preclude almost all experimentation with new carbon-capture related technology. -gavin]
20 February 2007 at 5:22 PM
“Why use pure oxygen? The removal of the nitrogen makes the generator a lot more thermodynamically efficient. The increased efficiency creates way more than enough power to run the compressors, and you don’t have to extract the nitrogen from the flue gases.”
Problem is that the temperature gets too hot if you just burn fuel & oxygen - you end up having to use a working fluid, and there’s issues with using a triatomic gas like CO2 as the working fluid versus a diatomic gas like N2 - different gamma, lower efficiency. Also, you’ve got a shedload of mechanical energy losses in compressing and condensing air for distillation.
In general, separation of O2 pre-combustion loses out thermodynamically to post-combustion capture of CO2 in air, or reforming of the fuel to hydrogen and CO2 and then capturing the CO2 pre-combustion. The post-combustion and pre-combustion capture of CO2 work out roughly equal in terms of economics.
There’s been work on ceramic oxygen-conducting membranes, but the materials issues in terms of materials and degradation of the membrane from higher carbon chains are practical problems when you scale up.
20 February 2007 at 5:24 PM
How about artificially increasing the pH of the ocean? This will naturally cause more CO2 to be absorbed into it. Indeed, isn’t dissolution of calcium carbonate the natural mechanism by which most of the current anthropogenic CO2 pulse would be absorbed into the oceans over the next few thousand years?
Also: the concentration (in moles/volume) of inorganic carbon is higher in the ocean than it is in the atmosphere, by a considerable factor. So instead of extracting CO2 from air, it might make more sense to extract inorganic carbon from seawater, convert it to CO2, and dispose of that CO2 somehow (underground? mineral carbonation?). The ocean would then pull more CO2 from the atmosphere to compensate.
20 February 2007 at 5:26 PM
#57 Phillip Shaw
ASU systems are like any other thermodynamic system based on a cycle. Such processes are not 100 percent efficient, i.e., the compression/decompression process and the heat transfer processes return less energy than added to make the cycle work. As you point out, such systems are available now. The energy to run them can be calculated. The idea of using renewable systems as a power source sounds great, but there is a cost of the electric power from these systems, even though the primary energy source may be free. Most of the cost is for the capital to build these machines and they have a limited life time.
The electricity from the renewable sources would be useful no matter where is is eventually consumed or what it’s source. The ultimate question is, who would pay for any of these sequestration approaches, even if the latest techno gadget can actually be made to work. How large a carbon tax would be required to remove a ton of CO2 from free air vs. the cost of removal from a waste stream, such as that from a coal fired electric power plant? Those ASU devices would likely be much more cost effective if they used a high CO2 content, therefore, what’s the incentive for building them out in the middle of some desert no where?
Here’s a bit more discussion on the subject:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000789some_simple_economic.html
20 February 2007 at 5:35 PM
That’s a gamble on their part — if such legislation is passed and the plants are not “grandfathered” out of it, then they will require very costly retrofits.
Perhaps not surprisingly, EPRI and Alstom have an effort to demonstrate a technology that could considerably reduce the operating cost of such retrofits. This technology would absorb CO2 from flue gas using a chilled ammonia solution, rather than the amines used in current solvent-based approaches.
20 February 2007 at 5:46 PM
The Earth Sciences Education Project (ESEP) presents its design of a carbon capture strategy for effectively reducing anthropogenic carbon emissions within the framework of climate change policy. ESEP is dedicated to the geophysical 3-state and 4-state modeling of planet Earth (http://www.EarthSciencesEducationProject.org). The ESEP Earth model transforms Earth’s atmosphere into an integral part of the planet.
The ESEP Earth model is based upon the deduction that the radius of Earth extends to the exobase at the top of the atmosphere. This far-reaching deduction derives from the definition of ‘planet’ and from the fundamental, but overlooked, geophysical fact that planet Earth exists under hydrostatic equilibrium conditions in all four states of matter. (See Definition of â��Planet,â�� http://www.EarthSciencesEducationProject.org/id32.html.)
Global solutions to global warming entail a sea change in our understanding of planet Earth. In 1988, while conducting rainforest canopy research in the headwaters of Borneo, I concluded that global biogeochemical cycles–including the global hydrologic and carbon dioxide cycles–physically couple the lower atmosphere to the land masses, ocean and biosphere.
This discovery, I realized at the time, is equivalent to assuming that the atmospheric gas-phase components of the global cycles are an integral part of Earth. This means, in the instance of the global hydrologic cycle, that Arctic jet streams and ITCZ cloud formations are integral parts of the planet and are not located, as conventional science holds, outside the surface boundary of the planet in the troposphere.
In the instance of the global carbon dioxide cycle, this means that the increasing parts-per-million concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide is an integral part of planet Earth and is not concentrated, as conventional science assumes, outside the surface boundary of the planet.
In the ESEP Earth model, climate and weather are recognized, for the first time, as taking place within the interior of planet Earth. The net result of analyzing climate change within the ESEP Earth model is that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are no longer viewed as being emitted into an ‘atmospheric dumping ground’ that lies outside the surface boundary of the planet and beyond the purview of policy makers.
The ESEP Earth model effectively captures and sequesters the entire volume of atmospheric carbon dioxide under the surface boundary of planet Earth. As a consequence, the anthropogenic sink concentration, in the atmosphere, and source emissions, near ground level, of the gas species carbon dioxide become amenable to the charter powers, governance, and stewardship of the international community�s institutions.
From source to sink, the atmospheric pathway of anthropogenic carbon becomes subject to transnational law and sound science policy. The carbon capture strategy and design of the ESEP Earth model leads directly to the language of an international declaration that recognizes the atmosphere as forming an integral part of Earth. The declaration would reach, a fortiori, to the anthropogenic parts-per-million concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Along with continued IPCC assessments and protocols recognizing the transnational status of the atmosphere, the international declaration could form the basis for an international, UN-sponsored atmospheric treaty on global climate change. This treaty would be the authorizing power for the source-to-sink green capture of carbon under mandated rates of reduction–initially of second-order magnitude–in anthropogenic carbon emissions.
20 February 2007 at 6:04 PM
#53, Lars has a good point. In my every effort to reduce my GHGs, I became a vegan (though I’ve backslid somewhat in recent years). If people could just cut their meat consumption in half, that would help, not only reduce environmental harms, but also improve health, and spare more food for the poor. Considerations include not only the methane emitted from livestock, but also the fossil fuel & water-intensive agriculture for growing grain for livestock; a much larger area of arable land for meat-eaters; and a host of other issues.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_vegetarianism
20 February 2007 at 6:17 PM
Those who commented on my suggestion regarding clean burning coal technology seem to ignore the fact that China has enough very dirty coal with which generate a significant portion of its energy requirements for several hundred years. Limiting China to nuclear and hydro power sources will not do. China will surpass our total CO2 emissions within a year or two. China will use its coal regardless of the consequences so long as it is cheaper than other fuels.
We have a lot of coal too. It is politically unacceptable for us to use it until the clean burning technology is perfected.
20 February 2007 at 7:34 PM
hey, can a country win the prize, maybe Australia ought to get it! Am i right in thinking that i can sleep a tiny bit easier tonight, knowing that some of the ‘low hanging fruit’ ie inefficient light bulbs, are being plucked, at last.
I wish the UK had been the first, because i hate to see the Aussies get the glory (its a cricket thing)!
Bless em tho, they are looking a bit like canaries, at this point.
20 February 2007 at 8:20 PM
“China will use its coal regardless of the consequences so long as it is cheaper than other fuels.”
Or not. China has much less coal than the US and much of it is low-grade and high-sulfur. Their air quality problems are a major development barrier as it’s killing the workforce. Sooner or later something has to give.
20 February 2007 at 8:59 PM
RE # 79 Roger You said
[China has much less coal than the US and much of it is low-grade and high-sulfur. Their air quality problems are a major development barrier as it’s killing the workforce. Sooner or later something has to give. ]
That is only your uninformed opinion.
China’s coal demand will rise, in 2007, to 2.5 billion tons. China’s coal capacity stands at 2.35 billion tons with 800 million tons of capacity under development.
China’s power generation capacity rose by 20.3 percent to reach 622 GW at the end of 2006; 484 GW of which is thermal power plants (virtually all coal-fired) Coal fired capacity is projected to rise to 557 GW in 2010 and 798 GW in 2020.
Sasol, S. Africa’s coal-to-liquids energy firm, signed agreements with China to build two coal liquefaction plants each having an 80,000 bpd capacity and costing $5 to $6 billion each.
The recoverable coal reserves in China are 114.5 billion tons; albeit at 30 percent recovery factor. Known deposits are estimated to exceed a trillion tons. Half the coal reserve has sulfur content average of .5; 30% has sulfur content between .51 and 2.0% and the remainder has over 2.0% sulfur. And, the majority of the coal deposits are bituminous rank (steam coal).
Finally, Australia is a ready source of coal to meet Chinaâ??s tight supply.
20 February 2007 at 9:04 PM
The notion that China is incapable of taking a positive position with regard to dealing with its CO2 emissions makes little sense. They’re not idiots.
20 February 2007 at 9:28 PM
Re: #55 and #50
I just watched that Charlie Rose interview with Michael Crichton http://www.charlierose.com.
Rose gave Crichton a roughing up (politely) over his denial of the scientific consensus on global warming. And Crichton pretty much agreed to most of the premises on anthropogenic global warming but refused to accept that the implications are likely to be as problematic as generally feared and therefore warrant urgent action. (Mind you he continues to pretend that his own ‘calculations’ of the predicted degree of warming are more accurate.
I really do hope that a climatologist with good speaking skills takes up the challenge to debate him. Rose clearly accepts that the the consensus is likely to be right and should be taken seriously. And I suspect that he would want the point to be made that the one-to-one interview gives a grossly misleading impression of the true weight of expert opinion. It would be great to see Crichton have to face the facts and it is important the climatologists take up such opportunities to present their case.
20 February 2007 at 9:50 PM
If we are adding 24 billion tonnes of CO2 (6 billion tonnes of carbon) to the atmosphere each year and the most efficient methods of CO2 reduction we have now are $10 per tonne per year (many of the above proposals would cost $100s per tonne), then the cost of stopping CO2 rise is $2.4 trillion per year.
That is a lot of money and people should understand that this is not an easy uncostly fix. You will have to pay much more for electricity and reduce your usage. You will have to pay much more for gasoline and reduce your usage. You will have to stop using plastic products. If you are a farmer you have to adopt Zero till techniques and cut your fertilizer usage considerably. Some mentioned going vegan (not required, methane levels have stabilized.)
You cannot ask Exxon to make all the changes. You have to reduce your demand of Exxon’s products so that less gasoline is used and Exxon’s emissions come down. It is not Exxon’s fault or your local electrical utility’s fault; it is yours; for using all that electricity and all that oil that your computer requires when you are reading this board.
You will pay much more and you will use much less.
[Response: Some arithmetic errors there. If we add about 9 gigatons of carbon to the atmosphere each year, then an abatement cost of $100 per ton is 900 billion per, or just short of a trillion. That’s an over-estimate of the cost, since that’s gross cost, not net. Carbon taxes can be plowed back into the productive economy, and there are jobs (and GDP) in building carbon sequestration plants or wind farms. Also, note we’re not talking about instantly decarbonizing the whole economy. The object is to first stabilize then ramp down emissions, to delay the atmospheric CO2 rise and buy time for emergence of technologies that could completely decarbonize the economy. –raypierre]
20 February 2007 at 10:10 PM
Re #78: Yep it’s official; Australia is set to ban the incandescent light bulb!
You do have to wonder though why it takes so long for such simple decisions to be made. The government here is starting to feel pressured by public opinion and the opposition party over it’s lack of serious action on climate, so it’s stating to cast around for minimal effort responses. At least it’s a start.
And yes Oz is starting to feel like a giant sunburnt canary. Flick through the other articles on the environment section on the ABC news website to get a feel for how things are going here in the parched Antipodes. Take note particularly of the fierce debates over water management.
20 February 2007 at 10:21 PM
Re #77: “China will use its coal regardless of the consequences so long as it is cheaper than other fuels.”
Why should this be any more or less true of China than of any other country, or indeed, of any group or individual?
Now rephrasing that to “group X will continue to use coal as long as those making the decisions perceive a net benefit in doing so” would be closer to the mark, and also gives ideas on how to change that behavior. In the case of China, there are plenty of options, such as selling them cheaper alternative energy technologies or imposing excess CO2 tariffs on imports.
Seems like the “China card” has become the last resort of the denialists. If they can’t convince people that AGW doesn’t exist, they claim that it’s futile for the rest of the world to try doing anything because China won’t. Which, of course, is silly: why should the Chinese be less amenable to education & persuasion than anyone else?
20 February 2007 at 10:27 PM
Hello,
The only way I can see that is even remotely feasible to actually remove CO2 from the air, is to plant trees. There are vast areas of arid or semi-arid land, some of which was probably forested at one time, that could be planted in trees. These would be irrigated by a sustainable irrigation system, with water coming from solar powered distillation plants. It is even possible that large scale reforestation like this will in turn affect the climate in the local area, as the atmosphere cools and water vapour is released into the air, so that after 50-100 years, or maybe even sooner, the forest will become self perpetuating. Tourist trips in renewable fuelled aircraft, the fuel being derived from the cellulose of these forests, would be very popular, with brochures tempting customers to visit the wonders of the Saharan jungles or the Gobi forests.
Of course, none of this would be worth attempting until we reduce our global CO2 emissions by 80-90%
20 February 2007 at 11:58 PM
“It would be great to see Crichton have to face the facts and it is important the climatologists take up such opportunities to present their case.”
I highly concur and my 1st choice is Gavin, but anyone on this group could do wonders, as Jim Hansen did in his response to Crichton’s scientific method.
http://columbia.edu/~jeh1/hansen_re-crichton.pdf
My recomendation is if the phone rings, answer it, and show up with a PPT presentation. I’ll be watching.
21 February 2007 at 12:07 AM
Hi
I know that non-scientists like Michael Crichton really aren’t credible about global warming, but I have a question about a statement he made. He said that there should be “double-blind” studies fo all environmental research. I’m not a scientist, but I know double-blind research is what medical doctors and medical researchers use, because of the placebo effect in patients receiving drugs or other medical treatments.
Now I realize Crichton doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he speaks out on climate science, but is that statement about double-blind research in environmental/climate studies as nutty or ignorant as it sounds?
I mean, how would you use double-blind studies when it comes to studying the planet? Wouldn’t that mean we need two earths?
I apologize if I’m missing something. Thanks for taking the time for this neat web site.
21 February 2007 at 12:22 AM
John,
I’m not a scientist, so hopefully someone who knows about this will soon reply, but in magazines like Scientific America they’ve had articles about how new technology might “scrub” C02 from the air. Basically it would involve some kind of filter that captures C02 particles and store it (usually underground, or perhaps the sea). I mayb be wrong but it’s my understanding, that while plants play a big role in cleaning the air, it’s unlikely they would be the solution to solving the carbon problem because once a particular tree or plant dies the carbon it stored up is released back into the ecosystem. Of course things like deforestation should be stopped, but apparently just planting a lot of trees or artificial forests wouldn’t stop global warming. The technology for the CO2 scrubbers also would be extremely expensive and it would take a large number of them to even have a miniscule effect on overal C02, so pretty much the only reliable “cure” is to massivel reduce CO2 emissions. Some people have proposed science-fiction like solutions such as a solar shade that blocks out some of the sunlight, but of course many scientists doubt things like that would be a good idea, and they don’t solve the underlying problem, and there are other problems with oil use like carbon acidification of the oceans and peak oil. Apparently there’s no quick fix or simply free lunch for this. Again, I’m not an expert just someone who’s read about this (mainly science magazines for a lay audience), so hopefully one will answer your question soon.
21 February 2007 at 12:42 AM
Paul M
“Isn’t Branson the guy who owns the airlines? Don’t planes burn fuel?…”
No offense, but deniers use some excuse like that all the time, “Doesn’t Al Gore own a plane, etc..” Well first just because someone’s a hypocrite does not mean the science is wrong. And you might want to be sure before you charge someone with it. For example, Al Gore uses carbon offsetting to neutralize the carbon he puts out. Branson only recently became a “believer” in global warming, I seriously doubt he’s going to bulldoze his hotels and sell his business and airplanes (even then, people wanting to fly would just use a different airline.)
China actually may soon actually be making more progress in this than the US, for example it’s proposing efficiency rules for its auto industry that are actually more stringent than ours. So one of the few remaining exuses “but, but China!” might not be viable anymore. China’s a totalitarian dictatorship that treats its citizens like crap, so I don’t think we should emulate them anyway. Also when the US was industrialized, fossil fuel was the only viable fuel source, there were no alternatives like there was today, and we didn’t realize the effects of all this then. Finally, virtually none of the measures proposed would “deny” China/India prosperity, such as transferring oil company subsidies to renewable energy to spur regulation, encouraging efficiencey in our own country, reseach prizes like this, etc. Despite what all the shills and deniers say, ther is NO reasonable justification, morally or economically for doing nothing. I also, personally find it a little humorous when the same people who otherwise don’t give a care about anyone else in the world suddenly are “concerned” when they realize their own lifestyle might be threatened (I’m not saying you’re like this, but many are). Kind of like when con-servatives who think all poor people are lazy bums who need to work harder, and oppose minimum wages, and any measures to help them, suddenly are “concerned” action on global warming might hurt the poor.
Global warming certainly has, and is, bringing out the absolute ugliest in human nature, and shown a lot of people for what they really are. Like when greedy already wealthy businessmen care so little about human life, even their children’s, they’re willing to lie and spread propaganda to prevent any action on this so they can make more money than they ever need. Certain people on the right have shown (not just in this matter) in the last few years they’ll put ideology over facts no matter what the cost. So while anyone who’s not biased and has been paying attentino knows, there certainly is a lot of ugliness but it’s certainly not coming from the scientists and people trying to solve global warming.
21 February 2007 at 2:32 AM
Re: #9 - Rick, weren’t we told that robots would be running our households by the late 20th century? We can hope that technology will eventually make a big dent in this issue via such things as carbon sequestration, but it seems unwise to bet the farm on it. Especially when the laws of physics still have some say in the matter. We should be doing what we can now, and then transition to new technologies as they become feasible and reasonable in the real world.
21 February 2007 at 2:35 AM
I do not know much about science, I will state that first off. And most of the ideas I throw out are completely stupid. Anyhow can’t CO2 be removed the an alkaline metal solution? instead of SO2 can’t you use calcium or potassium? both of those can be used to filter CO2. I know it’s not a device or method I am stating. I am just trying to give an idea of a filtering solution. I am not an engineer.
21 February 2007 at 3:41 AM
While we’re waiting for that $25 mill…
Here’s a click-to-donate site that appears kosher. Check it out on Wikipedia if doubtful. One mere daily click of your mouse saves over 11 square feet of rainforest and of course helps the CO2 imbalance.
http://www.therainforestsite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=4
Keep up the good work chaps and female climatologists.
21 February 2007 at 3:59 AM
Re 83, Raypierre, is that possible what you suggest? Can we stabalise our CO2 output when China and the USA plan or are designing and building new coal fired power stations during this decade? And then can we make it fall when no agreements or finance are yet available to do so and when the technology is not currently developed to assist in this?
I have read this morning that the EU 27 states have agreed 30 % cuts relative to 1990 levels by 2020 but I am doubtful that this can be achieved without large scale spending by the states themselves and that means diverting money other good causes such as health, roads, schools etc. In fact the only way to achieve this is to use energy conservation techniques that will have to be paid for by the state, ie lagging peoples houses and cavity wall insulation.
Surely any demonstration of cuts of this magnitude are more ideology than fact? Sustainable energy aside (germany has plenty of wind turbines and solar) can we really do it ?
21 February 2007 at 6:03 AM
re #58 “I can see the day before the CO2 scrubbing plant goes into operation, some group will get a judge somewhere to issue a restraining order.
The Greens have escalated this debate from science to politics and the law. They may regret that.
Just think. One judge could stop the whole effort.”
Believe it or not, even US judges do not yet have jurisdiction over the entire planet.
21 February 2007 at 7:10 AM
On #83, yeah sorry, my math was off there, the cost should have read $240 billion per year.
21 February 2007 at 7:35 AM
I’ve been shopping around the concept of constructing a GMO and seeding it into the ocean to improve nature’s ability to fix carbon. The reactions I’ve gotten back from governments and scientists is that it is a risky scheme.
Therefore, I think people need to first percieve how close we are to triggering a catastrophic runaway global warming chain reaction where mankind’s emissions rapidly melt the permafrost which cause the oceanic methane hydrate to melt.
Furthermore, I think people need to percieve that it is unlikely (and unrealistic) that mankind will cut their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions so deeply, so fast, as to avoid runaway global warming. Therefore, cutting anthropic GHG is a poor mitigation strategy.
When people realize how serious global warming is, and that trying to cut their GHG emissions is failing to solve the problem, they will come to the realization that only removing the GHG from the environment after it has been emitted is the solution.
This may sound too good to be true, but nature already removes about half of the carbon dioxide mankind emits each year (although that is expected to decrease 30% by 2030). We need to improve nature’s ability to fix carbon, and in my opinion the best way to do that is by seeding a GMO into the ocean (i.e. biosequestration).
21 February 2007 at 7:55 AM
Re #84 Re #78: Yep it’s official; Australia is set to ban the incandescent light bulb!
First of all one has to note that Australia has no incandescent light bulb manufacturers to complain. Secondly, Energy efficient lightbulbs were likely to be switched to in large numbers anyway. How many more with the policy change? Just the ones which had less reason to and very few more (most people are less lazy when it is about saving money). Wrongly, the government gets credit for an accelerating process of conversion that was happening anyway. Great politics, So-so environmental credentials.
21 February 2007 at 7:56 AM
Phillip — I think you have an interesting idea with the carbon sequestration plants working on the surrounding air. I don’t know whether it’s practical in energy terms or not, but if it is it might well be the way to go (aside, of course, from conservation and developing renewable energy sources). For sequestering the carbon, I’m wondering if it can’t be combined with some other substance to make a solid, which could then just be stacked or buried somewhere. If you could make bricks out of it it might be very useful.
21 February 2007 at 7:58 AM
[[History shows us that in the past century, there have been other climate changes, that seem to be linked to certain events that affected the oceans in the same period. Naval wars, as small as they seem compared to the vaste spread of the oceans, are some of the more importants causes of the climate changes in the history ]]
How? By what mechanism do naval wars change the climate?
21 February 2007 at 8:05 AM
[[ In 1988, while conducting rainforest canopy research in the headwaters of Borneo, I concluded that global biogeochemical cycles–including the global hydrologic and