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Harry Marks wrote:

Robert Tulip wrote:Saving the climate by cutting emissions is as futile as removing sewage by cutting defecation.

That analogy might be worth something if there was no choice about technology to be used powering space heating, transport and manufacturing.

The analogy holds up when we recognise that emission reduction alone simply cannot deliver climate stability, because it only slows the speed at which the problem gets worse. The reality is that emission reduction alone cannot save the climate, any more than constipation pills could work better than sanitation systems. All the efforts of the Paris Accord have delivered only a projected 10% slowdown in the rate of emission increase, at heavy political cost, when the climate security need is for a 200% slowdown.

Scientifically you are correct that we have choice of technology, and moving to low emission technology is generally a good thing. But at global system scale only token level changes are likely through emission reduction, nowhere near addressing the security problem of global warming, and with appalling opportunity cost. Only an industrial approach to carbon removal can save us.

Harry Marks wrote:We could have eliminated fossil fuel burning completely by now if we had set out to do so in 1992. We could certainly have contained it within tolerable limits at an affordable cost.

Political leaders did set out on that path in 1992 at the Earth Summit, but found the pushback was too strong in the face of the perceived economic disruption and cost of moving away from fossil fuels. And in any case, solar farms like the one DWill mentioned might mainly increase the total energy use, doing little to displace actual emissions within the necessary timeframes.

Only a sanitarian approach, physically removing carbon from the air, can displace emissions at the scale and speed required. Sanitarian environmental health engineers on the model of Joseph Bazalgette will achieve far more than economists in saving the climate. Bazalgette was responsible for building London’s sewers after the Great Stink of 1858, as a visionary engineer who responded to the final apoocalypse when shit made London uninhabitable.

Harry Marks wrote: Use of this kind of either/or rhetoric just discredits your cause.

You are welcome to such acerbic flourishes Harry, but I don’t see your point about either/or rhetoric. The reality is that climate politics and investment now have a more than 10:1 bias in favour of emission reduction over carbon removal. That ratio has to be reversed if we are serious about stabilising the climate. Discussion of carbon removal can only be helped by such mockery of the constipated politics of emission reduction. Sorry to get under your skin.

Harry Marks wrote:

Robert Tulip wrote:The model of emission reduction can't deliver climate security, and should be replaced by a practical sanitarian model focused on carbon removal.

Because only one "model" is allowed at a time? This flies in the face of everything we know about production.

You are just wrong here Harry. Emission reduction cannot deliver climate security at all. It can only slow the rate of increase of carbon in the air, while climate security requires a physical decrease in the amount of carbon in the air. All IPCC models recognise the centrality of carbon removal, but perversely push this off for decades due to the toxic politics.

We now have the trigger in place for a ten metre sea level rise. The trigger could be pulled in centuries or decades depending on unknown tipping points, together with a series of other major disruptive triggers. Climate security requires removal of those triggers, which means removal of the excess carbon.

In a functioning market of ideas, rival technologies are assessed by their outcomes. That is why biplanes are mostly obsolete. The concept of emission reduction for climate security is likely to become more obsolete than the biplane, because it is not fit for purpose, like leech collectors for bloodletting as a health measure. The conceptual framework of emission reduction only hangs on due to the absence of logic from politics, and the lack of investment in carbon removal. Emission reduction is great for economic efficiency and pollution control, but only marginal to the physical problem of climate security.

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Luckily our president is handling this dire situation...

EPA rolls back coal rule despite climate change warnings

Washington (CNN)The Trump administration will reverse an Obama-era coal emissions rule as part of its effort to loosen restrictions on the coal industry, just days after a US government report warned that aggressive action is needed to curb greenhouse gases and ease the impact of global warming.

cnn.com/2018/12/06/politics/epa-coal-an ... index.html

Andrew Wheeler is running the EPA. Suggestion: Do not research Mr. Wheeler's background.

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The draft communique from the Canberra Negative Emissions Conference stated what might be the only practical way forward. Emissions reduction and carbon removal would exist in partnership, without which the goals of the Paris Accord can't be met. The need for carbon removal is a fact. However, we are much further along in emissions reduction technology than we are in carbon removal--the communique also acknowledges that, so ER efforts should intensify as CR technology is scaled up. Robert has cited the opportunity costs of continuing to focus on ER, but it would be misguided to neglect ER with effective CR still perhaps several decades away. The world needs a lot of both, as frightfully expensive as developing and implementing will be.

What seems to be entirely the wrong way to look at carbon removal is as a way for us to maintain our linear economy of produce, use, dispose. Just take out the carbon spewed into the air and we're back to business as usual. Even if global warming were not the first environmental priority, we would be facing the imperative to achieve a circular economy not based on growth in production. That goal would necessarily include near-total reliance on sustainable energy, while having an even wider purpose of eliminating almost all waste. So, emissions reduction will be a key metric in the drive toward WE (waste elimination), to add an acronym.

On circular economies, edx has a couple of MOOCs on the topic. See the introductory course here: http://Catalog.mrlib.org/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/0/0/49

DWill wrote:What seems to be entirely the wrong way to look at carbon removal is as a way for us to maintain our linear economy of produce, use, dispose. Just take out the carbon spewed into the air and we're back to business as usual. Even if global warming were not the first environmental priority, we would be facing the imperative to achieve a circular economy not based on growth in production. That goal would necessarily include near-total reliance on sustainable energy, while having an even wider purpose of eliminating almost all waste. So, emissions reduction will be a key metric in the drive toward WE (waste elimination), to add an acronym.

I agree that for sapiens, there is no alternative to business as usual, especially during the coming decades or even into the next century or possibly beyond. The current technological drive is towards the greater efficiency of existing systems, which is fine if you have a fixed or limited human population growth, which is not projected to be the case.

Earlier in this thread Robert emphasized the need to engage industries such as mining, oil, gas, cement and chemicals into being proactive in the common cause of global waming as it appears that these industries are best equiped for such a challenge. There is a lot of truth in that thinking, the down side is the bitter pill of exoneration fore these industries as they are the foundational culprits of the current ecological decline.

As noted in a host of books on the subject: I'll list a few in addition to one already mentioned by Harry.(Merchants of Doubt-by Naomi Oreskes & Eric M. Conway)

There is also: Capitalism vs The Climate-by Naomi Klein, Plastic Ocean-by Capt. Charles Moore, The Planet Remade-by Oliver Morton, The Drug Hunters-by Donald R. Kirsh and Ogi Ogas ( both PhD's.).

There is a certain repugnance in attempting to enthuse these industries towards the cause of mitigating a problem they have embelished. It is something that can be done though, history showed the reintigration of the axis powers out of WWII, I think there can be similar reconciliation with industry but only if they accept their responsibility and admit that business as usual will not work in the comming centuries. We'll be dead, they will live on, It's on future generations to hold these culpable industries collective feet to the fire.

The economics of the thing as Harry correctly points out should have been delt with decades ago. There was and is still a path towards that goal. It's called "regulation". I find it interesting that the listed industries don't exibit a greater enthusiasm for mitigation when it seems so clear that they are the ones who will ultimately profit most, as I wrote; They will outlive all of us.

Geoengineering at the experimental level, is a sound place to start, Robert hits that nail squarly on the head. There is no down side to extensive small scale investigation and industry does possess the resources necessary. Evolved thinking, an ability to shift from finger pointing to shared values never comes easy it's infact time consumming and our world gets slowly more inhospitable.

The organisers of the Canberra Negative Emission Conference have put videos of all the speeches up on the internet.

Integrating negative emissions into the climate change policy discourse Henry Adams
Landscape regeneration: Food, ecosystem and climate Justin Borevitz
Plenary session introduction Philip Boyd
The utility of MCDA to evaluate the relative merits of negative emissions technologies Philip Boyd
Is Australian Law ready for negative emissions? Kerryn Brent
Technologies for maximising biochar's carbon sequestration potential Wolfram Buss
Carbon cycle fundamentals & the role of negative emissions Pep Canadell
The potential contribution of BECCS to negative emissions Peter Cook
Scoping a coastal blue carbon method under the Emissions Reduction Fund Sean Hart
Conference opening John Hewson
Moral challenges and opportunities of NETs Clare Heyward
The path ahead for negative emissions and the 1.5C target Mark Howden
Soils for life Michael Jefferies
Characterising the social aspects of negative emissions technologies Matthew Kearnes
SOLAS Science and the environmental impacts of marine geoengineering Cliff Law
Geoengineering and the Blockchain Andrew Lockley
Blue carbon in coastal wetlands Catherine Lovelock
Food, fish and carbon farming with kelp Todd Michaels
Multi centennial climate engineering challenges and sustainability Andreas Oschlies
Enhanced ocean productivity with macronutrients and the Sustainable Development Goals John Ridley
Land based carbon sequestration under the Emissions Reduction Fund Paul Ryan
Negative emissions in the context of Earth System Trajectories Will Steffen
Minimum CO2 removal requirements for achieving the Paris climate target Jessica Strefler
Governing BECCS and DACS: Three key challenges Aaron Tang
Ten premises for greenhouse gas removal Phil Williamson

At the climate summit in Katowice, Poland, the U. S. is pushing for continuing growth in coal production and reviving nuclear power. Are both "clean coal" and a new generation of safer nuclear plants chimeras? It's interesting to compare two stories on the U. S. approach at the conference, from the Washington Times and the Washington Post.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/20 ... op-24-un-/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-e ... 76d397bc94

DWill wrote: Are both "clean coal" and a new generation of safer nuclear plants chimeras?

Chimera is certainly an interesting word for the shimmering mirage that clean coal and nuclear offer. Perhaps the mythological meaning of chimera is more apt here, “a flame-spewing monster often represented as having two heads, one of a goat and the other of a lion; the body of a goat; and a serpent as a tail.”

Just sticking with the mirage meaning of chimera, defined as “a foolish, incongruous, or vain thought or product of the imagination,” both clean coal and nuclear are still ambiguous.

‘Clean Coal’ generally means Carbon Capture and Storage, which requires pumping emitted CO2 from power stations into the earth for geosequestration in permanently stable geological formations. The original and main ongoing commercial purpose for such pumping was enhanced oil recovery, which undermines most of the climate benefits of removing the carbon from the air when the oil is subsequently burnt.

I have strong doubts about the economic viability and climate value of CCS, whether using coal emissions or the variant based on bioenergy, known as BECCS. The only viable cases seem to be where governments require gas companies like Gorgon to return CO2 into the ground that they pump up together with the desired methane.

CCS is a technology that has built upon the momentum of the fossil fuel industry. My view is that an entire paradigm shift is needed to store carbon in non-CO2 form, including soil, plastic, concrete and hydrocarbons, mainly requiring photosynthesis. The point is that carbon is immensely valuable, and should only be stored as valuable commodity, which can be manufactured by treating CO2 with sunlight via photosynthesis, whereas CO2 is basically a harmful waste product at the volume we have to get rid of.

Nuclear is an equally tricky energy proposition. The combination of Homer Simpson, Pakistan and Fukushima makes people justifiably wary of ramping up nuclear energy. With excellent governance nuclear can work well, but the risks of poor governance are high. Again, the main problem with nuclear as a climate answer is the same as for renewable energy, that nuclear only displaces coal, which is a very slow way to address the climate crisis, deflecting attention from the main agenda of removing the dangerous excess carbon humans have added to the air.

To illustrate some issues at play regarding options and scale for carbon removal, a prominent recent article https://theconversation.com/cop24-heres ... 5-c-107968 said “Globally we emit around 40 billion tonnes of CO₂ annually, so net zero CO₂ by 2050 will require CO₂ removal of this scale, starting immediately.”

Not quite. For this science-based article to make this assertion is sloppy, showing how hard many people find it to wrap their heads around the simple big numbers in climate science. The goal of Net Zero Emissions requires that carbon removal equal total emissions. The primary focus of the IPCC remains reducing total emissions, so the political hope is that the Negative Emission Technology (NET) task could be smaller if emissions can be cut.

Unfortunately, all the emission trends are in the wrong direction, so it looks like the NET task will actually be bigger. As well, the equation must include CO2 equivalents. The IPCC projections are that by 2030 total CO2e emissions will be 60 billion tonnes (gigatons or GT) under Business as Usual, and that full implementation of the Paris Accord would cut that by 10% to 54 GT (New York Times 6 Nov 2017, World Emissions Far Off Course).

Therefore, the projected task for NETs to achieve net zero is to remove 54 GT of CO2e annually by 2030, unless emissions come down faster than agreed at Paris.

Further to this massive task, climate restoration requires an even bigger goal. In order to steer the planet away from the hothouse precipice, NETs should aim to remove double total emissions, 100 GT. And in the meantime, solar radiation management should be deployed to help avoid unforeseen dangerous tipping points. These are the primary planetary security problems.

My view is that nuclear will be marginal to this main game of climate stability. Clean coal could have a major role though, if the coal industry funds research and development of ways to use coal fired power station emissions as feedstock to grow algae as a carbon capture and storage technology.

Robert Tulip wrote: Therefore, the projected task for NETs to achieve net zero is to remove 54 GT of CO2e annually by 2030, unless emissions come down faster than agreed at Paris.

Further to this massive task, climate restoration requires an even bigger goal. In order to steer the planet away from the hothouse precipice, NETs should aim to remove double total emissions, 100 GT. And in the meantime, solar radiation management should be deployed to help avoid unforeseen dangerous tipping points. These are the primary planetary security problems.

But you're not saying, are you, that a 54 GT per year removal is possible by 2030? Even with an (unlikely) full-on wartime effort in NETs, 12 years is little time, as is 25, correct?

My view is that nuclear will be marginal to this main game of climate stability. Clean coal could have a major role though, if the coal industry funds research and development of ways to use coal fired power station emissions as feedstock to grow algae as a carbon capture and storage technology.

Therefore, emission reduction does have a place, but mostly, in your thinking, regarding carbon capture. Unknown, I assume, is how much of the carbon produced by dirty coal could be consumed in biofuel production. What if it's only a small percent? Reliance on coal in any way just strikes me as the worst choice environmentally. How many more mountaintops in West Virginia do we want to shear off? How many more million tons of coal ash do we want to put in lagoons that will leak or overflow when flooding happens? Coal represents a big dilemma for Australia, I realize, as economically vital as it is.

DWill wrote: you're not saying, are you, that a 54 GT per year removal is possible by 2030? Even with an (unlikely) full-on wartime effort in NETs, 12 years is little time, as is 25, correct?

President Kennedy said in 1961 that the USA would land a man on the moon and return safely within the decade. President Roosevelt successfully commissioned the Manhattan Project to build the atom bomb during the Second World War. The next US President should announce a goal of net zero global emissions by 2030. My view is that large scale ocean based algae production is the best available contribution to this essential goal. The only missing ingredient is political will. It involves a shift of thinking away from emission reduction toward carbon removal.

DWill wrote: Therefore, emission reduction does have a place, but mostly, in your thinking, regarding carbon capture. Unknown, I assume, is how much of the carbon produced by dirty coal could be consumed in biofuel production. What if it's only a small percent?

Emission reduction has a central place in technological innovation, pollution control and economic efficiency. Where renewables are the most economic power source they should be used. But we should not kid ourselves that this will fix the climate, it is a different thing. The climate task is to remove 100 billion tonnes of CO2 from the air every year, for which emission reduction is marginal. My calculation is that such a scale could be achieved using industrial algae farms on three million square kilometres, or one percent of the world ocean. So yes, all the carbon produced by dirty coal could be converted into productive form.

DWill wrote: Reliance on coal in any way just strikes me as the worst choice environmentally. How many more mountaintops in West Virginia do we want to shear off? How many more million tons of coal ash do we want to put in lagoons that will leak or overflow when flooding happens? Coal represents a big dilemma for Australia, I realize, as economically vital as it is.

I agree completely with your point here, since the externalities of coal should be factored into approvals, but governments are corrupted by quick money, in a syndrome called the resource curse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse I also suspect that the complex formation of petrochemicals has higher long term value than we get just by burning coal, just as whales have higher value than for oil burning. So the economics of coal should be transformed into a cyclic process, with the bulk of the fuel for coal fired power stations being recycled through algae. Coal ash has many uses, such as in road base, so it surprises me that it is allowed to be placed in badly built storage ponds. The mining industry is notorious for poor environmental standards, such as at Ok Tedi, Bougainville, Brazil and Canada