Hi All - I agree with Greg here, and I would venture to say that we need to pay far more attention to photosynthesis and restoring a healthy natural carbon cycle (and accompanying water cycles) on over 12 billion acres of land worldwide. I suggest that it's the best, safest, cheapest and most effective form of "geo-engineering" that we could ever hope for. We, including the IPCC, all know that emissions reductions are insufficient to avoid catastrophic consequences of global warming, some of which are already playing out. And in any case it's apparent, based on twenty-five years of experience, that serious emissions reductions, despite important progress in non-carbon energy generation, aren't going to happen in any reasonable time frame.
In light of current circumstances, I encourage everyone who is able to attend our upcoming ground-breaking conference, Restoring Ecosystems to Reverse Global Warming <http://bio4climate.org/conference-2014>, on November 21-23, 2014 at Tufts University in the Boston area. Please pass the word! We have a remarkable roster of speakers including scientists, land managers and activists in a weekend of discussions around the power and extraordinary benefits of supporting nature's carbon-capture "technology" of photosynthesis. We'll explore how living processes can bridge political climate conflicts, return legacy atmospheric carbon to soils, reverse desertification and drought, and revive local economies and food supplies worldwide. Collectively we will make the case of how we've grossly underestimated soil-carbon storage potentials and what to do about it. Come, learn, ask questions, bring your expertise, challenge us - together let's work this out! Early bird rates through November 10th; student, non-profit and other discounts as well as volunteer opportunities are available. Please contact me if you have any questions, publicly or privately - I hope to see you there! Cheers! Adam === Adam Sacks Executive Director Biodiversity for a Livable Climate <http://bio4climate.org> === On Saturday, November 1, 2014 5:14:25 AM UTC-4, andrewjlockley wrote: > > Poster's note : see images on Web > > > https://carbonremoval.wordpress.com/2014/10/24/does-cdr-provide-morale-hazard-for-avoiding-deep-decarbonization-of-our-economy/ > > Everything and the Carbon Sink > > Noah Deich's blog on all things Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) > > Does CDR provide “moral hazard” for avoiding deep decarbonization of our > economy? > > OCTOBER 24, 2014 > > No. But the fact that some environmentalists question the value of > developing Carbon Dioxide Removal (“CDR”) approaches for this very reason > merits greater analysis. The “moral hazard” argument against CDR goes > something like this: CDR could be a “Trojan horse” that fossil fuel > interests will use to delay rapid decarbonization of the economy, as these > fossil interests could use the prospect of cost-effective, proven, > scaleable CDR technologies as an excuse for continuing to burn fossil fuels > today (on the grounds that at some point in the future we’ll have the CDR > techniques to remove these present-day emissions).The key problem with this > “moral hazard” argument is the hypothesis that “cost-effective, proven, > scaleable CDR solutions” are poised to proliferate at greater rates than > GHG emission mitigation technologies (such as renewable energy and energy > efficiency) that are required to decarbonize our economy. Today, CDR > solutions remain largely in their infancy. Installed bio-CCS plants can be > counted on one hand, for example, and not a single commercial-scale Direct > Air Capture project has been built to date. Renewable energy, however, has > had a considerable head start on CDR technologies on reducing costs. Take > solar PV systems as an example. As the chart below shows, solar PV panels > have dropped in cost from over $75/W to under $0.75/W over the past four > decades. > > Source: Costofsolar.com > > This cost reduction in the price of solar PV panels happens to be exactly > what economic theory would predict. Learning curve models show that that > costs of energy technologies come down in a predictable fashion as > cumulative installed capacity increases. The graph below shows learning > curve estimates for a range of energy technologies. > > Source: http://energy.jrc.ec.europa.eu/Pages/ArticlesETD.htm > > So what does this mean for the “moral hazard” argument against developing > CDR solutions? > > For this “moral hazard” argument to be valid, we would have to believe > that CDR approaches will be able to not only catch up to other renewable > technologies in cost within a short-time frame, but then continue to reduce > costs more quickly. Otherwise, renewable technologies will continue their > inevitable march down their cost curve, and will continue displacing fossil > sources in our energy mix. > > Suggesting that CDR approaches will outpace other decarbonization > technologies doesn’t seem particularly plausible. This is because the > technologies that have the “steepest” learning curves are usually those > that can be manufactured and installed in assembly-line type manners (like > solar PV panels or fuel cells, for example). Most CDR technologies do not > fit this mold — for example, large scale bio-CCS projects frequently > require many bespoke designs to fit particular plants/geographies. Direct > air capture and small-scale biochar pyrolyzers fit this assembly-line model > better, but there is no reason to expect these technologies to come down > cost curves more quickly than their renewable complementors.In fact, this > learning curve analysis would suggest that CDR faces the opposite of a > “moral hazard” problem — because CDR remains so far behind other renewable > technologies, we will keep building more and more renewables and neglect to > develop CDR, which will seem expensive by comparison. Neglecting CDR in > this fashion would be fine if we didn’t need negative emissions as a > society. But if we find that negative emissions are necessary in a few > decades, and we haven’t started developing CDR technologies? Then we are > like to find that the initial CDR deployments are incredibly expensive and > thus not politically viable. So there is a strong argument to be made for > us to start developing CDR technologiestoday alongside renewable energy > technologies, so that if/when we need to start removing carbon from the > atmosphere, we have a suite of viable solutions to do so. > > In conclusion, it’s simply not worth worrying about a “moral hazard” > problem that we won’t have for at least decades, and are most likely to > never have all — especially when the problems of not developing CDR > solutions today could be much more severe. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. 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