Dr. Schulling etal
1. I support the use of olivine to the maximum extent possible.
2. But, maybe naively, I still am persuaded by the arguments of Jim
Hansen and Bill McKibben that we have to get back to 350 ppm CO2 (or lower).
Better that we do that sooner than later, by all accounts - so I am unable to
accept the "impossible" view in your first sentence. Yours is too close to
being a self-fulfilling prophecy.
3. I have worked in various RE fields for 40 years, and see several
already cheaper than fossils - even before we include externalities -
especially in India and China. Those two countries are more apt to lead the
way on RE, than hold us back globally. China is already the global RE leader,
putting both the US and the EU to shame. Two-thirds of all solar thermal
systems are in China, for instance. The world view on the economics of RE and
fossils has probably changed a lot since your talk "a few years ago" in India.
4. But my main new message follows from the start of this thread, which
began with the subject of a lack of a transportation liquid fuels alternative,
through myself and Drs. Rau and Caldeira. I noted that the company "Cool
Planet" (CPES) was both projecting a very attractive price for drop-in (carbon
neutral ) biofuels from decentralized small refineries and providing a (carbon
negative) CDR biochar product as well.
5. New: over the past weekend, there was a lot of press in the state of
Louisiana that CP is opening three such refineries there in the next few years.
Total investment a few hundred million dollars - not huge in fuel-worlds, but
pretty big for the technologies this list talks about. They plan 2000 such
refineries in just the USA. Biofuels should be cheaper near the equator - so
this is just a beginning announcement. For details on this first (to my
knowledge) Federal incentive-free private sector incursion into a field
heretofore the purview of the fossil fuel folk, see (among many) this two day
old news release
http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2013/08/25/cool-planet-to-invest-168m-in-louisiana-stealthy-biotechnology-heads-for-scale/
6. The bottom of the diagram near the beginning of the above article shows
that CDR (biochar) is a key part of the process. Olivine and biochar can work
well together to improve NPP and alleviate hunger (the upper right part of this
figure explaining a new form of pyrolysis), while also performing the CDR
portion of this list.
Ron
On Aug 24, 2013, at 5:57 AM, "Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf)" <r.d.schuil...@uu.nl>
wrote:
> Why don’t you realize that zero emission is impossible. The first priority of
> China and India (and this holds also for Indonesia, Brazil and S.Africa) is
> to develop their economies and raise the standard of living of their
> populations. The most important condition to achieve that is access to cheap
> and abundant energy, and all these nations have huge coal reserves, so zero
> emission is impossible. If we can get these nations to compensate their
> emissions with olivine through enhanced weathering we reach the same goal.
> A few years ago I was invited speaker at a carbon management conference in
> India. At a moment I said “when we (meaning the Western industrialized world)
> say to you that you have to reduce CO2 emissions, just answer go to hell.
> That was the only time in my life that I was interrupted by a very warm
> applause! These are geopolitical realities, and it doesn’t work to close your
> eyes for them, Olaf
>
> From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
> [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ken Caldeira
> Sent: vrijdag 23 augustus 2013 21:31
> To: Ronal Larson
> Cc: Greg Rau; geoengineering; ui2...@columbia.edu
> Subject: Re: [geo] DAC vs CRD?
>
> "The transportation sector accounts for 28 percent of greenhouse gas
> emissions in the United States, according to U.S. EPA, so there is still a
> critical need for a way to reduce the overall carbon dioxide produced from
> mobile sources."
>
>
> There is a critical need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from mobile
> sources. For the most part, the transportation can be electrified and the
> electricity sector can be decarbonized.
>
> The transportation power needs that cannot be met by electricity (e.g.,
> perhaps aviation) can be met by biofuels.
>
> If air capture of CO2 can compete with emissions reduction on cost (broadly
> interpreted), great. But to get near to zero CO2 emissions, there is no
> necessity for air capture.
>
>
>
>
> _______________
> Ken Caldeira
>
> Carnegie Institution for Science
> Dept of Global Ecology
> 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA
> +1 650 704 7212 kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu
> http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira
>
> Assistant: Sharyn Nantuna, snant...@carnegiescience.edu
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 11:38 AM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlar...@comcast.net>
> wrote:
>
> On Aug 23, 2013, at 12:05 PM, "Rau, Greg" <r...@llnl.gov> wrote:
>
> Greg etal:
>
> This is to comment on a line in the EE report you posed, which said:
> "The transportation sector accounts for 28 percent of greenhouse gas
> emissions in the United States, according to U.S. EPA, so there is still a
> critical need for a way to reduce the overall carbon dioxide produced from
> mobile sources."
>
> I hope there are others, but the company Cool Planet <www.coolplanet.com>
> is proposing exactly this. Perhaps surprisingly, their concept goes beyond
> "reduce" (which it does); it also "removes" (via a co-product biochar).
> This is a well-funded company, with aggressive expansion plans, perhaps
> putting refineries in the field within a few years..
>
> Ron
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "geoengineering" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com.
> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "geoengineering" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com.
> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"geoengineering" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
