Burying CO2 – solution or pipe dream?
October 26, 2008 at 6:12 pm | Posted in Climate solutions | Leave a commentTags: carbon capture and storage, carbon sequestration, ccs, futuregen, international energy agency
We like to bury things we don’t know what to do with below the ground: garbage, toxic waste, nuclear waste, chemical waste and now carbon dioxide.
Carbon capture and storage – often referred to as CCS – has been hailed in some quarters as the solution to climate change. And why not? The largest source of carbon dioxide emissions are fossil fuels, which are literally the remains of carbon-based life forms from ages and ages ago that are found underground.
So, if we can find a way to capture carbon dioxide emissions once they’ve been released, why not return the carbon from whence it came?
It’s a question that will be the focus of an upcoming conference in Washington, D.C., when scientists meet to discuss the latest research into CCS technologies. The conference, taking place November 16 to 20, is a biennial event that was started in 1997. It’s being organized by MIT and the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), with support from the U.S. Dept. of Energy.
The viability of CCS technologies – both whether they can work and whether they can be deployed in time – is controversial.
Recently the IEA called on the Group of Eight industrialized nations to spend $20 billion over the next decade on CCS demonstration projects. Although the G-8 countries agreed to build 20 large-scale demo projects by 2010 at a July meeting, the IEA has said that current investment levels fall far short of what’s needed to get there.
PBS Gets “Heat”
October 22, 2008 at 5:44 am | Posted in Climate and economy, Climate and politics, Climate solutions | 1 CommentTags: carbon capture, carbon sequestration, clean coal, climate change, electric car, heat, Martin Smith, PBS
This is so HOT.
And I almost missed it. But I took a minute to visit SolveClimate, an excellent blog about climate change, earlier tonight and found a notice about the new PBS documentary “HEAT” just in time to tune in.
The full program, which was produced by the Frontline producer Martin Smith, is available to watch for free on the PBS Web site.
“I have reported on the Cold War, the breakup of the Soviet Union, the rise of Al Qaeda, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” says Smith. “But nothing matches climate change in scope and severity.”
The report, split into four chapters, investigates how governments and major companies, such as Exxon Mobil and General Motors, are responding to the threat of climate change.
Florida releases a climate-change action plan
October 19, 2008 at 11:46 pm | Posted in Climate and economy, Climate solutions | Leave a commentTags: adaptation, climate action plans, climate change adaptation, emissions reductions, florida, mitigation
While the U.S. Congress has failed to pass legislation that would establish CO2 emissions reduction goals, individual states have been getting busy.
According to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, at least 31 states have created plans that outline climate-change “mitigation” goals. The plans outline a mix of policies directed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, from forest restoration efforts to energy-efficiency improvements.
Last week, the state of Florida became the latest to jump on this new climate-planning bandwagon.
Continue Reading Florida releases a climate-change action plan…
Fixing the climate with big ideas?
October 12, 2008 at 5:48 pm | Posted in Climate solutions, Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Discovery Project Earth, geoengineering, Royal Society
Wrapping Greenland in a giant blanket, putting trillions of lenses in space to deflect the sun’s rays, using seed-bombs to replenish forests – these are just a few of the wild ideas examined in the new series “Discovery Project Earth.”
The series, which launched on the Discovery Channel in late August, looks at possible technology fixes for our current climate woes.
Unfortunately, the last episode aired on September 19. But you can still learn all about these ideas through an interactive Web project that was created as a complement to the series.
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