Hi Robert--First, when I refer to mitigation, I mean reducing CO2 (GHG)
emissions toward zero, not slowing their growth. To stop climate change,
we need to go to zero emissions. At the present rate of emissions, so no
growth, the CO2 concentration is going up something like 3 ppm per year
and the temperature is increasing at order 0.2 C/decade. So, again,
stopping growth is not nearly enough.
I separate CDR from mitigation because to get back to an acceptable
temperature increase (say 0.5 C so hopefully starting to freeze up the
ice sheet ice stream flows, etc.), we not only have to go to zero
emissions, we have to ALSO pull a lot of CO2 out of the atmosphere and
offsetting the warming influence via SRM until we accomplish this.
I wholeheartedly agree that Paris is not enough--not nearly enough--and
the IPCC FOD of their 1.5 C report (and IPCC Chair Lee said the same at
the RFF interview) does not show any plausible pathways that do not
overshoot not only 1.5 C, but, I think 2 C, and by a good bit.
Given the Manhattan/Apollo project level you propose, that seems far
short of what I am talking about.
Mike
On 11/13/17 12:40 AM, 'Robert Tulip' via geoengineering wrote:
Dear Mike
On terminology, your use of "mitigation" may reflect common usage but
has a problem. Mitigation
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_mitigation> means
slowing climate change, so includes carbon removal. Restricting
mitigation to slowing emission growth wrongly leaves out the main
agenda required for climate stability.
Full implementation of Paris by 2030 would only remove 1% of the 6000
GT of carbon the world must get out of the air this century to achieve
the 2° target, according to Bjorn Lomborg
<http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/global-paris-climate-failure-article-1.3591807>.
I have not seen any refutation of his calculation, although he is
comparing the 14 years of Paris to the 83 years of the century, so a
like for like comparison might be more like 6%, but still effectively
nothing, and risking a Permian Great Dying repeat.
By contrast, my calculation is that a Manhattan/Apollo type project to
remove carbon could remove 200% of emission growth by 2030, putting us
back on a path to retain the stable Holocene climate, addressing the
top security threat facing our planet.
Robert Tulip
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* Michael MacCracken <[email protected]>
*To:* [email protected]
*Cc:* Douglas MacMartin <[email protected]>; Greg Rau
<[email protected]>; geoengineering <[email protected]>
*Sent:* Monday, 13 November 2017, 5:42
*Subject:* Re: [geo] Climate science foe Lamar Smith - geoengineering
is ‘worth exploring.’
Hi Peter--Interesting--a couple of questions that might be covered in
the type of assessment that you suggest (and I agree) is worth doing:
1. Were the world to get serious enough to be taking on the issue in
the way you suggest, what are the relative costs and benefits of
investing the same amount of money and effort on mitigation, so not
putting the materials into the atmosphere in the first place? Would it
make more sense to just be investing in CDR research until the
cost-benefit leans to CDR versus mitigation (and considering other
effects, such as job creation, etc. (this point/plateau might vary a
great deal by location, etc.)?
2. Once one captures the C, what does one do with it all? Where does
one put all the captured CO2? What is the cost of
disposal/storage/sequestration, etc. and what are the implications and
risks of the various approaches?
Best, Mike
On 11/12/17 6:15 AM, Peter Eisenberger wrote:
Hi Mike ,
The key issue is your sentence "While CDR can get started now,
scaling up seems likely to take a bit of time, though this depends
mainly on level of commitment." .
A serious Manhatten Project Level Project or Going to the moon effort
would make an assessment of the time versus commitment level for the
only known solution at this time that can scale -DAC where the
carbon is either stored in a material (carbon fiber or cement and
sequestered or sequestered directly
The number of units needed are comparable and less than many things
we already mass produce by sigificant ratios - a shipping container
sized unit of GT technology captures 2000 tpy and is amenable to mass
production .
:For 40 giga tonnes pyr capacity one would need 20 million units
-there are currently 17 million shipping containers used in the
world . Today GT has made two such units in a year say which is
conservative estimate for installed capacity for the industry as a
whole .To make the 20 million one would need would take 22 doublings
of capacity. If one had a conservative 2 yr doubling time this would
take 44 years and if it was a global emergency so one had a high
doubling time of 1 year it would take us only 22 years to install 40
gigatonnes per year capacity with us making 4 million units per year
at the end - we currently make 60 million new cars per year . The
capital cost to make a DAC 2000 tpy unit is about $500,000 which in
the end would cost 2 trillion dollars or close to 1 % of GGDP at that
time and like solar it would create jobs. My only point is that
these are not unreasonable numbers and most importantly no one has
tried to do a serious assessment , yet many make statements as if it
is obvious that the needed capacity cannot be reached in a timely
fashion . But even more significant is that we seem content with a
research effort rather than an implementation effort yet we claim we
are in an emergency .
As I am prone to say - the only barrier to CDR to remove the needed
capacity (we know how to do it and that it is affordable) is to
decide to do it.
Peter
On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 4:27 PM, Michael MacCracken
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi Peter--You might be interested that at the hearing Rep. Veasey
(ranking Democratic member on one of the subcommittees at the
hearing--see https://veasey.house.gov
<https://veasey.house.gov/>) indicated that he would soon be
putting forward a bill pursuing CDR research/efforts. He has a
Subcommittee on Energy minority staffer, Joe Flarida, working on
this issue who sounds both quite well-informed and also
interested in getting input ([email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>). While there was discussion
about might be done on SRM, I did not get the impression that a
bill on that was as far along.
On SRM & CDR issue, both are certainly needed. While CDR can get
started now, scaling up seems likely to take a bit of time,
though this depends mainly on level of commitment. SRM is indeed
not a long-term approach, but it can be an approach that I think
could be applied early in low deployment levels while mitigation
and CDR are building up and getting emissions toward zero. I
think this notion of waiting decades to get started makes little
sense, because of the climate change and impacts that will occur
in the interim, the shock that sudden and significant SRM
deployment would induce, and that by that time it would be nice
to have mitigation and CDR phased up a good bit (so CO2 emissions
down, or at least no longer rising). Ultimately, we of course
prefer having CDR be the dominant approach--for me the question
is having a comprehensive effort that recognizes what needs to
get done and what the capabilities are and deployments can be
over time.
Mike
On 11/11/17 2:24 PM, Peter Eisenberger wrote:
Hi Doug,
I wish your statement was factually true but I can provide if
you want many examples of people adovcating SRM using the
status of CDR to justify its need . Furthermore with all respect
even your statement that CDR is in the same state -eg need for
research as CDR is just factually incorrect . CDR is ready to be
implemented , it does not carry the risk of unintended
consequences , and as opposed to SRM it can
address the climate challenge whereas the best SRM can do is
provide more time to address it. This is why I wrote that I too
support research on SRM but do so making clear that CDR is both
a higher priority and more advanced by far than SRM
If we were as we should be all on the same team focussed on
addressing the threat we all agree exists than all who support
research on SRM would also make clear that it is a lower
priority than CDR .
Furthermore as i wrote the failure to do that will result in a
diffusion of effort so that we will make incremental progress on
many fronts without a commtted response on any single effort
thus unwittingly
delaying the critical large scale effort needed while we do
research and thus losing precious time we can ill afford to do .
Unfortunately this is not an academic issue and in the future
experts will look at what we have done and what was really known
at the time and come to their own conclusion. I hope we do not
have to wait for that judgment and somehow develop the internal
capability to develop a consensus on a prioritized plan to
address the threat we face. At this time we need to go beyond
letting a thousand flowers bloom which in itself is paradoxical
with the argument that we have no time to waste .
I of course am willing to be shown that my logic is flawed and
engage in respecful dialogue with you or anyone that would argue
against 1 that CDR is higher priority than SRM , and 2 we need
to have an internal effort to develop a prioritized program for
addressing the threat we face.
Peter
On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 10:02 AM, Douglas MacMartin
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Peter - I think that the risks of future climate change are
sufficiently concerning that it would be premature to stop
all research on some options on the assumption that other
options are 100% guaranteed to suffice. I think that
pretty much everyone who thinks we need to research SRM also
thinks we need to research CDR quite aggressively. So when
you try to set things up as an “us vs them” framing, I don’t
think you are doing justice to anyone’s perspective that I
know (and I think I can safely say that I know pretty much
everyone who works on SRM). Relax; we’re all on the same
team, and this isn’t a competition.
Doug
*From:*[email protected] m
<mailto:[email protected]>
[mailto:geoengineering@googleg roups.com
<mailto:[email protected]>] *On Behalf Of
*Peter Eisenberger
*Sent:* Saturday, November 11, 2017 12:46 PM
*To:* Greg Rau <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
*Cc:* [email protected] m
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: [geo] Climate science foe Lamar Smith -
geoengineering is ‘worth exploring.’
The sophisticated opposition to climate change initiated by
George Bush Senior is to appease by supporting imcreased
knowledge
and thus avoid the need to act. This is just the most
awkward and least nunanced of this pattern -or may I say
another example of how far from knowledge based our
political dialoque has become .
I have stated my view that those who make the case for SRM
by diminishing the status and potential for CDR to address
the challenge of climate change are unwittingly
playing into the hands of those opposed to action. A
coordinated community focussed on the threat and not their
individual idea would insist that CDR be funded and
aggressively pursued
before pursuing SRM - or at least would begin every
interaction with the statement that CDR is a much higher
priority.
On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 9:21 AM, Greg Rau
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>
> http://grist.org/briefly/clima
te-science-foe-lamar-smith-
says-geoengineering-is-worth- exploring/
<http://grist.org/briefly/climate-science-foe-lamar-smith-says-geoengineering-is-worth-exploring/>
>
>
“Despite Smith’s endorsement of geoengineering, his
opening statement made it clear that he’s still
unwilling to talk about the reasons why the technology
is being researched in the first place: “The purpose of
this hearing is to discuss the viability of
geoengineering … The hearing is not a platform to
further the debate about climate change.”
GR Just in case the climate change hoax is a hoax?
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