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Home > Community > Editor's Corner
Time for ActionJanuary 2010
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Tim Studt
Editor in Chief
| The United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen ended on December 18th with the issuance of a “Copenhagen Accord.” This non-legally binding Accord is mostly a face-saving political statement that the generation of greenhouse gases needs to be combated on a global basis. It “commits” developed countries to provide financial and technical aid to developing countries for their mitigation and adaptation efforts to the tune of $30 billion from 2010 to 2012. But where these funds would come from and who would administer them was conveniently left open.
Carbon dioxide has been singled out as the largest contributor to the greenhouse gas basis for climate change, even though other gases like methane have been shown to have a larger impact per unit volume on the furtherance of global warming. More than 28 billion metric tons (62 trillion pounds) of CO2 were emitted in the world from the burning of fossil fuels alone in 2006—with more than 40% of that produced by the U.S. and China combined.
A number of scenarios, including solar, wind, wave, geothermal, nuclear, and other power sources, are being considered to limit the amount of CO2 created. All of these sources combined, however, will only slow—and slightly at that—the continued growth of CO2 emissions, as projected by the Dept. of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Processes are needed to limit and possibly even control the growth of CO2 in the atmosphere. Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is one of those technologies. Obviously, there are natural ways to control CO2 flux, such as absorbance of CO2 in the oceans and subsequent burial in deep ocean sediments through natural processes.
More proactive ways for humans to develop CCS include capturing CO2 at point-of-source locations (power plants) and transporting the gases via pipelines to injection wells for burial (sequestration) in deep wells and mineral deposits. A recent report in Science on CCS listed a dozen such CCS global demonstration projects developed over the past 12 years. But the combined capacity of these projects is just 0.01% of the total CO2 generated—obviously far from having any effect on climate change at this time. Many CCS technologies also still need to be developed, including the specific CO2 capture mechanisms, efficient transport methodologies, secure storage facilities, and all of the political hurdles that come with these technology implementations.
The National Research Council recently issued a report calling for the creation of a suite of 15 to 20 power plants with CCS capabilities before 2020. Another report by the Asia Society and the Center for American Progress outlined a “Roadmap for U.S.-China Collaboration on CCS.” This three-pronged approach includes: 1) sequestering CO2 streams on existing commercial plants, 2) investing in R&D for retrofitting older power plants for CCS, and 3) catalyzing commercial markets for CCS.
There is adequate justification that we may already be “too late with too little” in the CCS “game.” As seen in the recent Copenhagen Climate Conference, there is a lot of talk on the consequences of continued growth in CO2 emissions but little action when it comes to making hard choices on areas that might limit economic growth. And now that the global recession has abated, economic growth in China, India, and other Asian countries has skyrocketed, along with sales of CO2-emitting automobiles and other transport systems.
With all of these factors—rising CO2 levels, continuing CCS technology challenges, global factions that cannot agree on a common course of action, and limited direct administrative actions—it’s difficult to imagine a scenario within the next 20 years that even includes stabilization of CO2 emissions, let alone reduction.
The Obama Administration supports technological development of CCS, but the current scale is far too small and there is no sense of urgency. Perhaps it would be wise to dedicate a portion of those funds to address the effects of continued global warming, rather than only trying to prevent it—a backup plan. There is currently no real indication that any short- or even medium-term efforts are going to slow the growth the CO2 emissions and the resultant global-warming effects.
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