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Can We Really Stop Climate Change By 'Capturing' Carbon? (vox.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: The recently-ratified Paris Climate Accord calls on countries to keep the rise in average global temperatures under 2 degrees Celsius (a threshold which would bring extreme weather, water shortages and reduced agricultural production). But a recent article on Vox warns that "the world has to zero out net carbon emissions...for a good chance of avoiding 2 degrees, by around 2065. After that, emissions have to go negative... We are betting our species' future on our ability to bury carbon."
That's why everyone's watching the W.A. Parish Generating Station in Texas, which came online this week -- on schedule, and under budget. "The plant will use a newly installed system to capture 90 percent of the carbon dioxide created during combustion."
Alas, Slashdot reader Dan Drollette brings bad news from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: To fight climate change with carbon capture and storage technology, we'd have to complete one new carbon capture facility every working day for the next 70 years. It's better to switch to a diet of energy conservation, efficiency, and renewables, rather than rely on this technology as a kind of emergency planetary liposuction.
That's why everyone's watching the W.A. Parish Generating Station in Texas, which came online this week -- on schedule, and under budget. "The plant will use a newly installed system to capture 90 percent of the carbon dioxide created during combustion."
Alas, Slashdot reader Dan Drollette brings bad news from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: To fight climate change with carbon capture and storage technology, we'd have to complete one new carbon capture facility every working day for the next 70 years. It's better to switch to a diet of energy conservation, efficiency, and renewables, rather than rely on this technology as a kind of emergency planetary liposuction.
I just wish there were some way to genetically modify a plant that could suck CO2 out of the air and turn it into oxygen or something else harmless. You think with all our knowledge, someone could figure out how to make something like that.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I'm sick of wankers looking for excuses to use the atmosphere as their private dumpster. Bye now.
But what is going to change everything is when the rest of the US follows Texas which now gets at least 10% of the power from renewables, mostly wind. This is where the climate change problem will begin to decline.
Which is not to say the carbon capture technology is dead. In other developing countries it may be useful,and the US could be the supplier for those systems.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
That's not the only problem. We haven't yet experienced all the effects of the CO2 already emitted even if you don't include the knock-on effects like melting of permafrost causing emission of methane. So whatever we do, unless we actually decrease the atmospheric CO2 level, we're going to continue to get increased global warming, though some areas are predicted to experience the exact opposite. E.g. the gulf stream has been slowing, which may lead to Europe, especially Ireland and Britain, experiencing extremely cold winters (but probably hot summers). Also the temperature difference between the equator and the poles have caused the jet streams to weaken, which has already caused weather patterns to change more slowly, meaning longer heat, rain, and cold waves, etc.
That said, is we can just slow things up a bit it might help. But we aren't going to be able to hold things to a 2 degree rise.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
So what is it going to be: mess up the entire planet, or build the safest nuclear plants we can and perhaps mess up one tiny spot every few centuries? Keep burning coal in endless quantities, or choose a completely emission-free technology?
And no, pointing to decades old plants that were in at least one case made by people with zero safety standards does not count as evidence of danger. The true danger is destroying our world; we will certainly do better if we limit that danger to the best nucleair plants we can build.
"We are betting our species' future on our ability to bury carbon."
Seriously? What do 97% of climate scientists agree on? I'll tell you, it's not that.
This kind of hyperbole is what turns people into climate change deniers. Very few scientists think AGW will cause the destruction of the human race.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
First, we have to phase out CO2 by 2050 or 2040 (1.5 deg C). Second, we do not need fancy carbon capture tech. We can rely on plant growth and reforestation programs which actually work. We had a few of those. Also we have to help countries to protect their forests. Also helpful would be to reduce meat production.
So we're talking about 250 new installations per year. I'm assuming that's for the whole industrial world. That's something like 2 new plants per year per industrialised country. That is not a lot if you compare it with what the industrial world built built back in the 1950's and 1960's after WW2. Sounds reasonable in terms of volume of work.
I mean it sounds reasonable when you first think about it. But I don't know...
I mean it would take work. It would take actual investment in actual projects, and actual political decisions about actual things. You know, those old-fashioned secondary sector of the economy things that we're not suppose to have to bother with in the modern world. We'd even have to hire actual workers to do actual work. Like, physically do work. Like, non-office work.
And you'd have to train people to do it too! I you think about it, you'd have to train unemployed people so that they could take these construction and planning jobs.
Seriously? There ought to be a way to solve global climate change in some reasonable way. Like by inventing a new financial scheme, or by making a new smartphone app. Or at least by having drones or self-driving cars do all the work. I'm sure someone will think of something.
It takes effort to limit your energy consumption. Especially when it comes to vehicles. Get off your asses and stand at a bus stop instead, bike to work, carpool if you have to.
Lead by example and lay down the groundwork for others to follow in your footsteps.
Fight to the bitter end with your dollar. Don't be complacent.
Seriously. The only reason this shit is perpetuating is because of the choices that you're making right now.
Maybe some scientist may have predicted ice free by 2016, but most predicted the date as much later.
"Many scientists have attempted to estimate when the Arctic will be "ice-free". They have noted that climate model predictions have tended to be overly conservative regarding sea ice decline.[2][13] A 2013 paper suggested that models commonly underestimate the solar radiation absorption characteristics of wildfire soot.[14] A 2006 paper predicted "near ice-free September conditions by 2040".[15] Overland & Wang (2009) predicted that there would be an ice-free Arctic in the summer by 2037.[16] The same year Boé et al. found that the Arctic will probably be ice-free in September before the end of the 21st century.[17] A follow-up study concluded with the possibility of major sea ice loss within a decade or two.[18] The IPCC AR5 (for at least one scenario) estimates an ice-free summer might occur around 2050.[3] The Third U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA), released May 6, 2014, reports that the Arctic Ocean is expected to be ice free in summer before mid-century. Models that best match historical trends project a nearly ice-free Arctic in the summer by the 2030s.[19] However, these models do tend to underestimate the rate of sea ice loss since 2007. A 2010 study suggested that the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free sooner than global climate models predict. They chart the summer of 2016 as ice-free, but show a possible date range out to 2020.[20] This assessment was reported in the press as "US Navy predicts summer ice free Arctic by 2016" [21] In a study from 2016, the prediction uncertainty of an ice-free Arctic was quantified to be at around two decades, based on model simulations [22]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_decline
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
So let's get this straight:
Conserving living species biodiversity and habitat,
Preventing a wholesale shift of climate into a new regime 10 degrees F warmer
Slowing down the massive rates of fresh-water pollution and over-use
Preventing the oceans from acidifying due to warming and killing off all shellfish and many other ocean lifeforms
All of these things would be radical?
As opposed to continuing on our present accelerating course to a profoundly messed up life-support system on this planet and the attendant mass-scale misery and resource wars. Which would be, what, conservative?
Do you see quite how f**ked up your perspective is yet?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Human emissions of CO2 ~ 35 billion tons per year.