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Say It Ain't So

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Robert Tulip

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Re: Say It Ain't So

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LanDroid wrote: Carbon mining has also "lost before the vast power of myth," the concept that there is no problem requiring either emission reduction or sequestration.
Climate stability cannot be achieved by reducing carbon emissions. A focus on emission reduction is like saying that sanitation requires a reduction of defecation. Is enforced constipation a solution to cholera? No. But that is the practical equivalent of the false idea that reducing carbon emissions will slow global warming.

If we mine carbon using industrial algae farms on one percent of the world ocean, scaling up NASA’s OMEGA pilot, we will produce hydrocarbons and other valuable commodities with double the quantity of carbon compared to the ten gigatonnes of carbon we add to the air and sea every year. That would rapidly reduce atmospheric carbon to a safe level and remove the point of reducing emissions or sequestering CO2.
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Re: Say It Ain't So

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DWill wrote:I'm unsure what Robert's scenario is. If algae farming at sea is the answer, would we need to have carbon mining?
Algae farming at sea is carbon mining. Algae is half carbon. If we sink algae sludge in pipes to the bottom of the sea, we can break the cell wall with heat and pressure using a process called hydrothermal liquefaction to make crude oil. My view is that this source of oil would be economically competitive and good for the climate, but it has not been tested.
DWill wrote:Or would carbon mining be what we do to remove the excess CO2 and then let algae farming take over when levels are safe again?
Carbon mining could involve piping all of the emissions from high efficiency low emission coal fired power stations into LNG bulk carriers, and shipping it to sea where it can provide feedstock for high yield industrial algae manufacture, driven by sun, wind, wave, tide, current and thermal power. This would close the loop in the carbon cycle, producing fuel which is suitable to burn again for electricity, instead of our current wasteful and dangerous haemorrhaging of carbon into the air and sea.
DWill wrote:If carbon mining is the viable industry that Robert claims, energy companies wouldn't want to just drop it, would they? For sure they'd want to continue extracting and burning every gallon of oil and cubic foot of gas just in order to capture the valuable by-product, carbon.
It is perfectly fine to keep burning fossil hydrocarbons if that is economic. All of that carbon stored in the crust could be used after it is burnt to make valuable products like plastic, bitumen, fabric, etc in algae farms, as the basis of a new global economic paradigm. I think such a new framework is far more likely to be introduced by Trump than by Democrats, because it requires support and investment by big business and rejection of the failed emission reduction model for climate security.
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Re: Say It Ain't So

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Robert Tulip wrote:Algae farming at sea is carbon mining. Algae is half carbon. If we sink algae sludge in pipes to the bottom of the sea, we can break the cell wall with heat and pressure using a process called hydrothermal liquefaction to make crude oil. My view is that this source of oil would be economically competitive and good for the climate, but it has not been tested.
Although it sounds crazy, I actually think it is possible this would work. The thermodynamics are against it, so I suspect it is not commercially viable without subsidies based on its reduction of externalities. But, like storage of electric power by pumping water up hills, it might be worthwhile as some kind of arbitrage between convenient power (e.g. at peak periods), which is rather valuable, and available but inconvenient power (e.g. from capacity which exceeds momentary demand), which can be cheap.
Robert Tulip wrote:Carbon mining could involve piping all of the emissions from high efficiency low emission coal fired power stations into . . . high yield industrial algae manufacture, . . . producing fuel which is suitable to burn again for electricity,
I had a feeling we were talking about producing energy. I don't see what else could be generated by the process that could provide enough value for it to be worthwhile, despite other mention of feedstock uses like polyester and road tar.

However, "closing the carbon cycle" applies just as well to producing ethanol as switchgrass, sugar cane or several other crops, and they turn out to require as much energy input to create and transport as the amount of fossil fuel saved by fixing the atmospheric carbon. Some calculations have them as a net loss to the carbon cycle. It is hard for me to convince myself, without seeing the numbers, that algae production at sea would somehow solve this "net input" problem.
Robert Tulip wrote: It is perfectly fine to keep burning fossil hydrocarbons if that is economic. All of that carbon stored in the crust could be used after it is burnt to make valuable products like plastic, bitumen, fabric, etc in algae farms, as the basis of a new global economic paradigm.
You are still leaving the externalities out of the calculation. When you say "if that is economic" that has to include calculations of the externality costs to make it valid.

It is surprisingly difficult to justify high-cost interventions. Nicholas Stern, in the most comprehensive calculations done so far, imposed a zero discount rate so that all future costs count as much as current costs. Without that imposition, high-cost current interventions are more costly than moving all of the earth's coastal cities onto higher ground, and all the other "adjustment costs" which would be forseeable. The theory is that capital invested now could generate enough economic growth to pay for such adjustment costs in the future.

However, it is now pretty clear that we do not need to impose high-cost interventions to remain below 375 ppm. The most cost-effective intervention was accidental - the restriction on CFC's to save the ozone layer has repaid itself many times over in reduced greenhouse trapping. The cost of solar electricity has dropped dramatically since Stern's calculations, and other renewables likewise continue to get cheaper. Furthermore, damages which Stern was unaware of, like beetle infestations creating forest fires, keep cropping up. The "unknown unknowns" are killing us.
Robert Tulip wrote:I think such a new framework is far more likely to be introduced by Trump than by Democrats, because it requires support and investment by big business and rejection of the failed emission reduction model for climate security.
Based on its business involvement? The difference between Trump and Clinton, for the swing voters and Tea Party-ist Trumpers, was the sense that Clinton is too beholden to big business. If rationality will save us, it will much more likely be through the Dems.
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Harry Marks wrote:I guess I could just read Tim Flannery, but this is the first I have heard of it.
Harry, I responded in this thread to the eye rolling laughter expressed at the idea that actual results for the climate could be better with a Trump Presidency than a Clinton Presidency. In fact that seems clear to me.

However, climate is a very complex topic, and the simplistic claim that the climate will be better under left wing policies naturally has the broad support of the whole IPCC and its UN Paris Agreement. Both Clinton and Trump operate on the basis of spin and deception, due to the depraved corruption of politics. The Trump Presidency however provides an opportunity to analyse the qualities of delusion that infest the whole false claim that emission reduction is the key to climate salvation.

I mentioned Flannery, the head of Australia’s Climate Council, because he cites research of the Ocean Foresters, a science-engineering group that I am a member of, about the potential of seaweed to play a decisive part in stabilising the global climate. The Guardian headlined this seaweed point in its review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/ ... m-flannery of Flannery’s book, An Atmosphere of Hope, but the New York Review of Books review http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/10 ... the-worst/ described Flannery’s citation of our Ocean Forest research as fringe. Such groundless dismissal is symptomatic of the arrogant way the emission reduction ideology treats scientific and economic debate, and why climate science is viewed with contempt by conservatives.
Harry Marks wrote:Are people supposed to eat the algae, as soylent green?
No. Charlton Heston gave algae a bad name. Algae nutrient comes from upwelling deep ocean water, not from murdered young human corpses as in that dysto-pic. Algae provides fish food, which can be eaten by humans, saving the ocean from mass extinction and supporting global food security. Algae also provides fertilizer for land based use as in biochar, as well as being the base of crude oil, with all its various uses.
Harry Marks wrote: Will it be burned?
Algae can be burned as biodiesel or coal or gas substitute, as a way of converting our current carbon haemorrhage into a sustainable ecological economy while retaining the fossil fuel economy for transport and electricity.
Harry Marks wrote: Is this the proposal to seed plankton growth with iron particles spread over the oceans (actually being tried, I understand).
I am friends with Russ George, who is mercilessly attacked by the emission reduction ideologues for proving them wrong. He has proved that ocean iron fertilization is the best way to protect fish stocks, but his work gets ignored and lampooned by the maniacs at the UN. Ocean Iron Fertilization is a very pointed example of the hostility of the UN to entrepreneurs. See http://russgeorge.net/ for a very clear explanation of this scandal, how OIF doubled salmon stocks and the refusal of the UN to allow improvement of ocean pasture is killing the seas.
Harry Marks wrote: It matters a lot how it is supposed to be made commercially viable.
True. My observation of the climate debate is that the most commercial sense comes from Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Institute, and the large number of Nobel Economics Laureates who support him, but this whole agenda of commercialisation gets systematically ignored by the UN for ideological reasons. The inability to engage commerce effectively for large scale research and development as proposed by Lomborg is a scandal and a disgrace, showing the emission reduction ideologues have failed to provide a workable theory of change for climate security.

Initiatives with commercial potential include Mission Innovation and the Global Apollo Programme.
Harry Marks wrote: At the moment, large-scale emissions reductions are not at all a false hope.
Yes they are. First lets just leave aside the backlash from the American electorate who have demonstrated in making Trump President that they will not support emission reductions. That political reaction, based on economic impact, makes emission reduction a false hope by itself. Your forehead is not an effective tool to demolish a brick wall.

However, the scientific reason why emission reduction is a false hope is even worse than this political context, justifying Trump’s view that emission reduction is a hoax. Climate science is not a hoax, but the idea that emission reduction is a useful mitigation strategy most definitely is a big hoax.

Even if we successfully reduced net emissions to zero we would be in a situation where the planetary geological drivers put sea level about sixty feet higher than at present due to the amount of carbon already in the air. That is catastrophic, and such a Sword of Damocles should be unacceptable. We have to work out as a matter of urgency how to remove carbon from the air, inventing scaleable negative emission technology. Emission reduction is a useless distraction from this primary global security emergency.
Harry Marks wrote: My own estimate of the necessary carbon tax to reduce emissions by 80 percent (needed within 10 years - the Paris targets are really inadequate) would only be roughly equivalent to two and a half times the current cost of gasoline, natural gas and coal. Compensated by tax reductions or other means, this would impose a fairly small cost on the average consumer. At most 10 percent of their income, probably more like 2 percent.
And my own estimate of the amount of sea required to reduce emissions by 200% is 1% of the world ocean covered with algae farms, with the result of increased income, not imposition of costs. I think that is feasible, whereas the carbon tax model is not feasible.
Harry Marks wrote: Let's see, would I pay 10 percent of my income to save the planet? If not, why not?
No in this case I would not, for three reasons. Emission reduction will not save the planet, will impose frictional costs like sand in gears, and is a waste of money on something that will not work for its stated purpose. By contrast, a focus on the negative emission technologies of carbon mining using large scale ocean based algae production will increase incomes, not decrease them, and will rapidly stabilise the global climate.
Harry Marks wrote: There are three ways public goods have been financed. The ancient way was to tap large landowners to pay. The modern ways are government and advertising. If you think algae farming is going to be financed by advertising, I would love to see the plan.
You are defining public goods too narrowly. Many public goods are funded by profit, as Adam Smith explained in The Wealth of Nations. Large scale ocean based algae production can produce food, fuel, feed, fabric, fertilizer and infrastructure, while delivering the public goods of cooling the sea, removing acidity, protecting coral and other biodiversity and mining carbon from the air. It will be funded by profit, providing a readily scalable and innovative new global industry aiming to transform CO2 from dangerous waste to useful commodities.
Harry Marks wrote: Government protection of the environment is not central planning.
Imagining that emission reduction will fix the climate involves a very heavy dollop of central planning. The lead role of science in environmental policy has unfortunately supported the false idea that governments must have a central vanguard role in fixing the climate. Unfortunately this has produced the false theories of emission reduction as the dominant left wing climate ideology.

Trump and the other denialists only says climate science is wrong because they have not found a more popular way to give voice to their doubts about emission reduction. My goal is to convert them to recognising that fixing the climate is good and necessary for the capitalist system.
Harry Marks wrote:
Bernie Sanders polled better against Trump right from the start of the primaries.
Sanders would have been crushed by Trump if the Democrats had been foolish enough to make him their candidate. He is so far away from mainstream values that the prospect of him becoming President would have created widespread alarm, far outweighing the alarm among liberals about Trump.
Harry Marks wrote: Emission trading is sufficient to provide incentives. This has been amply demonstrated on SO2. The number of permits can be gradually reduced to match environmental carrying capacity, to provide needed adjustment time.
Acid rain from sulphur dioxide is a far smaller and more manageable problem than global warming. The economic harm from reducing CO2 emissions by making energy more expensive is only partly offset by the benefits of reduced pollution. The sand in the gears of the world economy caused by making energy more expensive as a primary climate strategy will never be politically acceptable.
Harry Marks wrote:Sinks, like algae farms, need to be able to earn permits, which they have not always been able to do, but certainly can be in principle.
Algae farms are not a carbon sink but rather are a new profitable industry. A carbon sink is a place of permanent useless sequestration. The algae model is very different from forestry or geological burial of CO2.Algae grows about a hundred times faster than trees, and provides useful products which can enable all that carbon to be constantly recycled in the world economy, or stored in very useful places like roads and buildings and algae farm fabric.
Harry Marks wrote: If the coal companies cannot generate enough value from consumers to pay for their damage to the rest of the economy, then they should go out of business. Otherwise they are just thieves with a good lawyer.
Harry, my comment that you respond to here was in answer to your statement that “Solid economic analysis shows there is literally no reason for business to oppose charging for externalities.” I was pointing out that businesses routinely oppose paying for their externalities. Another example is that the sugar industry do not pay for the harm caused by obesity. Your “literally” statement is rhetorical.
Harry Marks wrote:why aren't they getting on with it? Or, more to the point, why don't we just give them the incentives so they can get on with it?
The scale of global transformation required to move to an algae based energy economy is so big that people have not yet been able to take the first steps.

In Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins, he points out that evolution moves by tiny incremental steps building on existing precedent, and that a better system which lacks an incremental evolutionary path will never arise. The incremental evolutionary path to an algae economy requires recognition that ocean algae systems will only operate effectively on a big scale, but can be tested and proven on small scale, with eyes on the prize.

I think this system will be commercially profitable, so a shareholder prospectus is a better investment path than public subsidy, given that governments are idiots when it comes to entrepreneurial activity, albeit with a necessary role to ensure safety. NASA and a range of other inventors have made a start on the components, but the overall John Galt new system for ocean based algae production has not yet been presented. We are at the Kitty Hawk stage of the new global algae energy industry.
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Re: Say It Ain't So

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Harry Marks wrote:
Robert Tulip wrote:The language of climate change denial is about signalling political positions, not arguing matters of fact. The point the deniers are making is that they see fossil fuel use as central to prosperity and stability, and will do whatever it takes to destroy any critique of the fossil fuel industry.
It's still false, and intentionally so. Spread just to sow confusion. "Merchants of Doubt" spells it out fairly clearly.
The latest edition of the New York Review of Books discusses Merchants of Doubt at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/12 ... -vs-exxon/ If there is interest I will start a new thread on Trump and Climate.
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Robert Tulip wrote: Ocean Foresters, a science-engineering group that I am a member of, about the potential of seaweed to play a decisive part in stabilising the global climate. The Guardian . . .described Flannery’s citation of our Ocean Forest research as fringe. Such groundless dismissal is symptomatic of the arrogant way the emission reduction ideology treats scientific and economic debate, and why climate science is viewed with contempt by conservatives.
Climate science is viewed with contempt by conservatives because they have been thoroughly corrupted. I don't always appreciate the skeptical responses to people like Lomborg, but then he is pretty dismissive as well. The main reason geoengineering and other "fringe" approaches are not given much attention is that their proponents do not seem to take seriously the scale of the problem. I must say you seem to fit in that category.

When (not "if") China has a standard of living like that of Europe and Japan, they will be able to put as much carbon in the air every year as Europe, Japan and the U.S. combined. If there is no incentive to switch to a non-carbon-based consumption system, people will not switch. But the switch can be done without major disruption, except to the fossil fuel industry. Refusing to acknowledge any role for consumption modification is a quick way to get yourself considered fringe, and for good reason.
Harry Marks wrote: Is this the proposal to seed plankton growth with iron particles spread over the oceans (actually being tried, I understand).
Robert Tulip wrote:I am friends with Russ George, who is mercilessly attacked by the emission reduction ideologues for proving them wrong. He has proved that ocean iron fertilization is the best way to protect fish stocks, but his work gets ignored and lampooned by the maniacs at the UN. Ocean Iron Fertilization is a very pointed example of the hostility of the UN to entrepreneurs. See http://russgeorge.net/ for a very clear explanation of this scandal, how OIF doubled salmon stocks and the refusal of the UN to allow improvement of ocean pasture is killing the seas.
All the treatments I have seen of his proposals have been respectful and even admiring. I will look up his website, but the only objections I would expect to find to "ocean pasture improvement" are the problems of the commons: no one is able to own the fish stocks, so no one has an incentive to improve the pastures or to conserve the stocks. If he is proposing that we ignore any need to manage overall fish catch, then I think he is borrowing trouble, because it is pretty clear that our consumption is rising exponentially and with demonstrable market failure issues, the Malthusian result of trying to stay ahead of demand is inevitable.
Robert Tulip wrote:this whole agenda of commercialisation gets systematically ignored by the UN for ideological reasons. The inability to engage commerce effectively for large scale research and development as proposed by Lomborg is a scandal and a disgrace, showing the emission reduction ideologues have failed to provide a workable theory of change for climate security.
Well, to be precise the right wing has always argued that if something is commercially viable it requires no government involvement. Government involvement is justified on the grounds of overall value creation only if there is a problem of non-excludable public goods (like a stable climate) or of externalities (like pollution).

I think the Paris talks demonstrated significant commitment to funding adjustment to climate change: the UN is not fixated on only one possible approach. Addressing commercial approaches is primarily a matter of giving them the appropriate incentives with a carbon tax or a system of tradable permits. It is also fine for governments to fund the research, even if it will eventually become commercial. Pure science is a classic example of a public good. But proposing that there is a dichotomy between carbon mining and emissions reduction is wrong if you do it or if the UN does it. Both, and other strategies besides, are needed.

What you tend to see as "left-wing" is just practicality. Mandated conversion of light bulbs, for example, has eliminated massive waste with a net savings to consumers. By contrast, leaving the conversion to consumers was getting nowhere. There is no intrinsic reason to avoid government regulation for change, and every reason to support it on the question of GHG emissions.
Robert Tulip wrote:
Harry Marks wrote: At the moment, large-scale emissions reductions are not at all a false hope.
Yes they are. First lets just leave aside the backlash from the American electorate who have demonstrated in making Trump President that they will not support emission reductions. That political reaction, based on economic impact, makes emission reduction a false hope by itself. Your forehead is not an effective tool to demolish a brick wall.
Political popularity is an issue of knowledge, and the fraud perpetrated by climate deniers has played more role than "a brick wall" by voters.
Robert Tulip wrote:However, the scientific reason why emission reduction is a false hope is even worse than this political context,
We have to work out as a matter of urgency how to remove carbon from the air, inventing scaleable negative emission technology. Emission reduction is a useless distraction from this primary global security emergency.
The problem is a matter of urgency, as you say. Proposing a dichotomy, in which the strategy may have only one type of element, is foolish and morally suspect. Whether the UN does it or you do it.
Robert Tulip wrote: And my own estimate of the amount of sea required to reduce emissions by 200% is 1% of the world ocean covered with algae farms, with the result of increased income, not imposition of costs. I think that is feasible, whereas the carbon tax model is not feasible.
So you say it is being demonstrated. I presume there is commercial interest being expressed. Who is backing it, and who is reviewing the results?
Robert Tulip wrote: Emission reduction will not save the planet, will impose frictional costs like sand in gears, and is a waste of money on something that will not work for its stated purpose.
The "frictional costs" of previous interventions for the environment were vastly overstated by conservative opponents. Clean air (sort of), clean water (sort of) and an end to destruction of the ozone layer all had high ratios of benefits to costs, despite predictions to the contrary. We are now in a situation in which renewable energy costs less than most fossil fuels, and is being adopted rapidly. Government incentives help, but government mandates would, as with light bulbs, move the process at a speed more appropriate to the actual nature of the problem.
Harry Marks wrote: There are three ways public goods have been financed. The ancient way was to tap large landowners to pay. The modern ways are government and advertising. If you think algae farming is going to be financed by advertising, I would love to see the plan.
You are defining public goods too narrowly.
Robert Tulip wrote:Many public goods are funded by profit, as Adam Smith explained in The Wealth of Nations.

It is pretty difficult to fund a non-excludable public good by charging for use ("profit"). When the East India company had a dominant share of shipping they funded a series of lighthouses, but Parliament gave them the ability to tax other companies for benefiting from them. The best example I know of private provision is Wikipedia, (which is excludable, but has chosen not to charge) and "profit" would hardly describe their "business model". Quasi-public goods such as roads and bridges can be funded by denying access to those who do not pay, but there is no way to do that for climate stability.
Robert Tulip wrote:
Harry Marks wrote: Emission trading is sufficient to provide incentives. This has been amply demonstrated on SO2.
Acid rain from sulphur dioxide is a far smaller and more manageable problem than global warming. The economic harm from reducing CO2 emissions by making energy more expensive is only partly offset by the benefits of reduced pollution.

Size of issue does not influence relevance of incentives. Business engages if there is money to be made, and does not take it on itself to remedy market failures. That's why they are market failures.

I don't understand why you accept, on one hand, that the problem is urgent, and on the other hand claim that compensated carbon taxes are more expensive. Uncompensated carbon taxes, yes, but not if compensated.

It looks to me like a case of "idee fixe", in which to you the only acceptable way to address a proven problem is your (unproven) way, and so you denigrate all other approaches. If I understand correctly, this is what you are accusing the IPCC and the COP's of.
Robert Tulip wrote:Algae farms are not a carbon sink but rather are a new profitable industry. A carbon sink is a place of permanent useless sequestration. The algae model is very different from forestry or geological burial of CO2. Algae grows about a hundred times faster than trees, and provides useful products which can enable all that carbon to be constantly recycled in the world economy, or stored in very useful places like roads and buildings and algae farm fabric.
A carbon sink is anything that provides a net reduction of atmospheric carbon. Forestry for furniture counts. You do understand the difference between the existence of "useful products" and the existence of "sufficient demand" right? Do you have any numbers on the extent of demand for this algae?
Robert Tulip wrote: my comment that you respond to here was in answer to your statement that “Solid economic analysis shows there is literally no reason for business to oppose charging for externalities.” I was pointing out that businesses routinely oppose paying for their externalities.
I guess I should have been clearer. The general principle of paying for externalities is pro-business. Like technological change, any particular business has an incentive to oppose it if it hurts them, but the general benefit to business will outweigh their particular harm.

Of course, some businesses take this more seriously than others. Dentists have relentlessly promoted dental hygiene even though it reduces their income. Tobacco companies and fossil fuel producers have not had the same sense of public spirit.

The term for a sub-group refusing to accept beneficial policy changes because of the harm to their group is "holdup" (taken from a term for armed robbery).
Robert Tulip wrote: The scale of global transformation required to move to an algae based energy economy is so big that people have not yet been able to take the first steps.
Are there reasons to think that the costs and demand will shift dramatically as the market develops? If so, what are they?
Robert Tulip wrote:The incremental evolutionary path to an algae economy requires recognition that ocean algae systems will only operate effectively on a big scale, but can be tested and proven on small scale, with eyes on the prize.
I think this system will be commercially profitable, so a shareholder prospectus is a better investment path than public subsidy,
I wish you and the Ocean Foresters all the luck in the world.
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Looks interesting.

http://omegaglobal.org/

No assessment of commercial viability seems to be in evidence, but California is backing it.
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