Re: [PEN-L] sequestration

[Eugene Coyle]

Gar,     Thanks for the clarification.  Let me be clear:  I'm not supporting putting resources into sequestration.  The US energy Bill passed last summer, howevcr, puts a billion or so into "clean coal" research.   And the states with coal resources -- Montana, Illinois, Wyoming, for example, are pushing hard for coal development, regardless of clean or dirty.  Both conventional coal power plants and coal-gasification or liquification plants are being built and/or subsidized.  Old technology coal is being built, a lot of it,  for it is the cheapest technology for electricity generation.  Industrial users of electricity -- the process industries especially -- push hard for coal development.  People should be confronting this at the state level in the USA.     I feel that we are almost past --if not already past -- the point of no return with respect to climate catastrophe.  A focus on technology is a mistake and too late.  The focus needs to change.  More, I hope, fairly soon. Gene Gar Lipow wrote: On 11/25/05, Eugene Coyle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: I strongly disagree with Gar Lipow's view of where we are in the horror of global warming. Gar Lipow wrote: < snip > Gene I replied in haste and should have said "more advanced". Right now the politics of the situation is that wordwide we are doing essentially nothing - oh small things, but overall emissions continue to rise, with the U.S. as the largest contributor. It seems to me insane to do sequestrations (in the conventional sense of burning fossil fuel and then removing the carbon we omit) while we are still increasing fossil fuel consumption, and destroying the sinks that are part of the sequestration cycle. We need to follow the first law of holes: when you are in one stop digging. In short, phase out fossil fuel, stop destroying the soil and the biosphere. But even if we started fullbore tomorrow feedback cycles have already started. Fossil fuel emissions, forest destruction agriculture that emits rather than sequesters carbon are ot things we can stop on a dime. First of all the politics are such that we cannot at the moment stop them, just as we can't stop other horrible things. But even if that changed tomorrow it would take time to make the conversion; I think a full phase out of fossil fuels and other types of greenhouse emissions and sink destruction would take 30 years. Maybe it could be done faster. But however fast or slow you do it, for the most part phasing out fossil fuels is cheaper than continuing to burn them and peforming artificial sequestration. So doing sequestration in the sense Michael orginally asked about it - removing carbon from fossil fuels either immediatly before or immediately after they are burned - uses resources that would could end global warming faster. Like I say there may be exceptions where burning fossil fuels and decarbonizing them is less expenive than institutiing efficiency measures and then supplying greatly reduced demand from renewable sources. But overall that is the way to go. But at the point where we are carbon neutral or almost carbon neutral, it will make sense to do sequestration in addition. It does not make sense to do put resources into artificial sequestration at the same time we are continuing to pour CO2, methane and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Natural sequestration is another question - because agriculture can be converted from a carbon source to a carbon sink while also greatly increase energy and material efficiency. That is worthwhile, but as part of a larger program.