Thanks for your response. Your "alternative-world answer" gives me hope.
Why would it make sense when it's cheaper to cut emissions? I'm not seeing it as an either-or. We would have to cut emissions drastically, pursue energy efficiency, conservation and renewable energy options on a wartime footing along with deploying no-risk geoengineering (such as air capture) -- simultaneously. The gap between where we're going and where we need to go is so huge that multiple approaches will have to be pursued once the leadership seriously begins to address the challenge. Manu On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 7:14 AM, David Keith <[email protected]> wrote: > Short answer: no, not with business-as-usual rules for permitting and > siting. Even with money, it’s all but impossible to develop deployable > industrial hardware of the kind we are talking about here in five years. > > > > Alternative-world answer: Under wartime style system in which multiple > independent technological pathways were pursued at once and if local > planning and environmental permitting rules were suspended, then yes. > > > > Question: why would it ever make any sense to do this? The carbon cycle > inertia is large. It is cheaper to get started by just cutting emissions > using tools we already have from efficiency to carbon free electricity by > wind, nuclear or coal-with-capture. Air capture is useful only after some of > the easy stuff has already been done. > > > > -D > > > ------------------------------ > > *From:* Manu Sharma [mailto:[email protected]] > *Sent:* December 10, 2009 7:54 AM > *To:* David Keith > *Cc:* Geoengineering > *Subject:* Re: [geo] Prof. Klaus Lackner + air capture demo at AGU in SF > > > > Having read your overview in Science now, please disregard my second > question about cost. > > > > I'd re-frame the first question as: > > > > If government funding is made available to the existing labs and new > research institutions around the world, with the aim to make a concerted > effort focussed on large-scale deployment, is it foreseeable to imagine air > capture ready to be deployed within five years? > > > > Thanks, > > Manu > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
