The energy marketplace in general is crucial; the amount of energy that it takes to remove and sequester a given amount of carbon must be substantially less than the amount of energy releeased when burning the carbon.
This, however, does not applpy to guilty consciences and/or appropriate regulation in the airline industry. In aviation, people will want to continue to fly, even if the price goes up a bit. Capturing CO2 at the exhaust of a jet is pretty much a non-starter. So a net energy loss is not a showstopper to the airline industry. They will require surface based plants to remove CO2. These MUST be powered by non-carbon intensive sources and MAY be operated intermittently, so on site wind power makes a lot of sense for this appplication. mt On 2/22/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > It's clearly looking for free air capture, rather than using smokestacks > > as a starting point. As Eli has pointed out, that isn't necessarily the > > best choice, but OTOH it has the advantage of being location-free. > > Given that carbon capture and storage is mature, for example, many > ethanol and ammonia plants routinely capture CO2 and sell it to the > fizzy drinks industry; we have no problem storing huge volumes of > natural gas underground for the winter season, I've been wondering why > there's only a few demonstration projects to date. > > I think a major reason is that carbon capture and storage has a very > obvious monetary and energy cost, which can be easily alloacted > directly to the CO2 reduction benefit. > > Efficiency measures or renewables are stuff where the cost is much > more difficult to pin down, and where there are other benefits besides > CO2 storage. > > So, it's neither clear that there is a cost, or how high it is, and > how much of it pays for things other that CO2 reduction. People in > favour of renewables or nuclear often claim that these technologies > are either cheaper than the competition, or are cheaper when taking > into account say energy security benefits. > > ---------------------- > > Just saw this article in German, which fits into this thread: > > > http://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article729976/Die_Katastrophe_ist_kaum_noch_aufzuhalten.html > > "The catastrophe is barely avoidable now > > If greenhouse gas emissions don't go down substantially by 2020 at the > latest, global warming will bring about irreversible processes, like > the melting of Greenland's glaciers ... This is the conclusion of the > so far unpublished report of the third IPCC working group" > > (Translation mine) > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. 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/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
