What's Next? Take One

The end of every year brings 1) a retrospective of accomplishments and failures in the current year; and 2) a look ahead to expected developments in the coming year and the longer-term future. Herewith is my review of the past year and prognostication for the coming year.

The movement against global warming reached critical mass:

Going back to the early 1970s, issues of ecology have been discussed, debated, and slowly evolving. Anyone remember Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)? How about The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich (1968)? These books had a profound impact on me, but concern about the environment has been slow to develop. Indeed, the current administration discounts much of the concern even today. However, over the last year, it would appear that a critical mass has been reached where individuals, institutions, and governments now understand the dire consequences and have taken steps to remediate the damage already done. Whether it will be too little, too late remains to be seen. However, from Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize to the accords signed in Bali, action appears to be gaining strength.

Central to the environmental discussion is carbon emissions. Combustion, whether coal in a power plant, gasoline in an automobile engine, or propane gas in our bar-b-que grills, they all generate carbon emissions into the atmosphere. When released, they combine with the free oxygen in the atmosphere to form carbon dioxide (CO2). It's great for dry ice, but bad for global warming. The reason is that increased CO2 in the atmosphere creates a barrier much like the glass in a greenhouse. The result is the same as a greenhouse, increased warming. Therefore, global warming is all about CO2.

Today, the passions around reducing carbon emissions take many forms. First is a movement to make it no worse than it is today. These are the people pushing "carbon credits." Since countries are in the process of committing to limiting carbon emissions, their approach is to continue doing what they have always done, but trade their "excess" carbon emissions to a country that emits carbon at a rate less than they are allowed by treaty. These are usually underdeveloped nations where there are high levels of agriculture and free forests. The deal is that developed, carbon spewing countries will pay money to underdeveloped countries in exchange for their excess carbon credits. The approach is doomed over the long-term as underdeveloped countries become developed and need their carbon credits for themselves. The rich countries keep spewing carbon, only the they feel better about it because they can point to the offsets they have bought at the expense of some underdeveloped country. Unfortunately, this seems to be the U.S.'s approach.

A second approach is to recapture the CO2--remove it from the atmosphere. On paper, this sounds good. The problems are 1) how do you recapture it; and 2) what do you do with it? Recapturing CO2 takes energy. Most likely, that energy consumption emits carbon. Recapturing CO2 is like creating an infinite block of dry ice. It takes up room. Therefore, one solution is to bury it. Evidently, there is plenty of room for excess CO2 dry ice blocks underneath the numerous trash landfills, but above the buried spent nuclear fuel that is also being buried. Does anyone else see a problem with this?

A third approach is being investigated at Sandia National Laboratories. This one is to break down CO2 into carbon monoxide (CO) and oxygen. In turn, the CO could be reprocessed into burnable fuels, thus emitting the CO2 back into the atmosphere. Nowhere in the discussion is it mentioned how much energy will be needed to break down the CO2, but something tells me that it will involve more CO2 than will be reprocessed.

The fourth approach is evidently the least attractive--decrease CO2 emissions. This one does not require more energy. This one does not require reprocessing CO2. This one does not take the lazy path of buying off poor countries in exchange for their carbon credits. All that is required is simply don't emit CO2 in the first place. So committed are we to petroleum, internal combustion engines, coal-fired power plants, and industrial-age manufacturing processes, the U.S. evidently sees this as the least attractive option. Who knows, if we play our cards right, all our manufacturing will move overseas and we will once again become an agrarian economy. The only problem is no one will need our excess carbon credits.