Re: Carbon Mining
Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2017 6:25 pm
I appreciate why you and the entire climate lobby consider my view to be wrong, but in agreeing with the climate pariah Lomborg on his proposed paradigm shift in climate science, I can only fall back on Einstein’s comment in defence of relativity against the hundred scientists, which is to study the numbers. When a paradigm shifts, the emotional commitment to the old way of thinking prevents adherents from studying the numbers and the theory of change. The scientific paradigm shift in climate science from emission reduction to carbon mining is based on the premise that if we mine twice as much carbon as we emit then we can save the fossil fuel industry. That is something that should be very attractive to the Trump administration. But people have not even studied or discussed it as a real prospect, precisely because it destroys the emission reduction paradigm beloved by the climate lobby.DWill wrote:This is your own escape from logic, one that you'd be better off admitting to.Robert Tulip wrote:Trump and Tillerson offer far better prospects of delivering climate results, paradoxically despite their withering scepticism about climate science.
No, the equivalence is to Trump seeing nuclear weapons as the basis of peace and stability and security through strength. Disarmament is not an end in itself, whereas peace and stability and security are ends. And disarmament is not a means to the end of peace, despite the communist advocacy of that piece of illogic. Weakness leads to war. The good comparison here is how liberal politics confuses emission reduction and climate stability, very similar to how they also confuse nuclear disarmament and world peace. Liberals have convinced themselves of their own delusional moral propaganda and become incapable of discussing facts.DWill wrote:What you've said is equivalent to choosing the politicians who want to build more nuclear weapons as the best path to disarmament.
They don’t have to. It is not up to governments. What is needed is private investment in research and development. Governments should steer not row, so should set a technology-neutral regulatory framework for business investment. My view is that recycling carbon emissions from coal powered energy using ocean based algae factories is going to be the only economic thing that will save the coal industry.DWill wrote:If Trump and Tillerson think climate change is bunk, they're not going move toward any means of addressing warming. Why would they?
You have misread my statement. I said “at” not “as”. My point was that solar and wind do nothing to repair the climate. So they could hardly be the only things working to repair the climate. To do that we need carbon mining.DWill wrote:No one ever said that solar and wind need be seen as "the only thing needed for climate repair."Solar and wind technology is useless at the only thing needed for climate repair, namely removing carbon from the air. Solar and wind crowd out R&D by soaking up hundreds of billions in annual subsidies.
And that is a great thing, a source of clean innovative energy, as long as it does not get politicised through subsidy. I understand that solar has reached the takeoff point where it is economic without subsidy. That Moore’s Law result is a superb thing, but we should not pretend that solar or wind have any prospect of helping stop climate change, given the numbers I have quoted from Lomborg. You may not be familiar with the fiasco in the state of South Australia, where wind subsidies have destroyed energy security and are driving investment away. It is disgusting.DWill wrote:Both technologies happen to be means that are currently practical and rapidly expanding. In some areas and countries, they are making a huge difference.
As I said, investment and regulation should proceed on a level playing field. I am an advocate for my own inventions, which is perfectly fair enough. I only criticise other technologies when they make false claims, such as the false idea that a shift to solar and wind power can help with climate stability this century. Over the longer term they are essential, but we have things butt-about, pushing on a string by pretending wind and solar are the main game to address warming. They are not, as the numbers from Lomborg prove.DWill wrote:To move toward carbon neutrality will take several different technologies. You appear to offer a carbon-mining panacea.
I am very glad and appreciative DWill that you say algae technology should be pursued, since (to only mildly exaggerate) that is the opposite of the mad fatwa issued by the United Nations, who seem to class all “marine geoengineering” as a devilish denialist plot, and are actively dissuading investment through their corrupt focus on wind and solar alone. I am looking forward to Ambassador Haley draining that swamp.DWill wrote:While the technology, unproven though it is, should be pursued, to screen out all other technologies suggests an agenda of a different sort.
”Embrace” is such a romantic word. The only reason that our embrace should be less intense is that there are things we want to do (eg stop global warming) which other commercial technologies may be able to do better than solar and wind.DWill wrote:There is simply no reason to not embrace solar/wind.
Sure, it is just a guess. Guesses can be tested. That is all I am suggesting. Industrial algae production is the best way to save biodiversity, and also save the coal industry.DWill wrote:Yes, both have drawbacks, even environmentally, but a totally benign, cost-free source of energy is nowhere in sight. Advocates might claim carbon-mining will provide such a source, but with the technology at such an early stage, that is just a guess.
The incentive for President Trump to support carbon mining is in its capacity to save the coal industry. Building infrastructure from plastic made from recycled carbon emissions will help to make America great again.DWill wrote:I would think that R & D should heavily invest in nuclear fusion as well. This is a goal Trump could embrace, but he hasn't had the incentive. Where he'd find incentive to do what you want him to is extremely unclear.Instead, climate policy should focus on energy research and development. It is unfortunate that the liberal left claims ownership of climate policy, since the stupidity of the left polarises the debate and makes it harder for carbon mining to be a keystone for Trump’s turn to infrastructure as a growth strategy.