RE: _[geo]_Does_CDR_provide_“moral_hazard”_for_av oiding_deep_decarbonization_of_our_economy?_|_Everything_and _the_Carbon_Sink

[markcapron]

Robert,Great arguments for countries to adopt simple carbon fees on both domestic fossil fuels and imports of fuel and the carbon footprint of imported goods.Minor edit - We don't want to stash whole algae at the bottom of the ocean in plastic bags.  At full scale, the algae would also be storing over 10 times the global production of fertilizer nitrogen (ammonia and nitrite) plus similar proportions of other nutrients needed to keep growing algae.  Better to separate the carbon and the nutrients out of the algae.  Use some carbon to replace fossil fuels.  Store some carbon.  Recover all the nutrients to grow more algae.  For quick high-volume carbon storage, it is hard to beat storing CO2-hydrate in plastic bags on the seafloor.  During the few thousand year life of the appropriate geosynthetic membranes, we react the CO2 with silicate minerals for more permanent storage or recover the carbon for other uses.Mark Mark E. Capron, PEVentura, Californiawww.PODenergy.org


 Original Message 
Subject: Re:_[geo]_Does_CDR_provide_“moral_hazard”_for_av
oiding_deep_decarbonization_of_our_economy?_|_Everything_and
_the_Carbon_Sink
From: "'Robert Tulip' via geoengineering"

Date: Sat, November 01, 2014 11:45 pm
To: "gh...@sbcglobal.net" ,  geoengineering


The 'decarbonisation' theme discussed by Noah Deich has become a central concept in advocacy for emission reduction, but in my view it is not a good way to understand the CDR agenda.  And the 'moral hazard' of CDR can more usefully be framed as a moral opportunity.The central problem of global warming is summarized in the McKibben Stock Price Problem (link).  This is the fact, as noted by leading climate scientist Bill McKibben, that the stock prices of leading energy companies all factor in plans to move enough carbon from the crust to the atmosphere to cook the planet, without any remediation strategy.  This is not possible, because the business as usual scenario would lead the world economy to collapse before the ecosystems collapse. Climate stability is a prerequisite for economic stability. The solutions to deliver climate stability are either to either move less carbon into the air (reduce emissions) or stabilise it once it is moved (Carbon Dioxide Removal).  Current plans to move carbon without stabilising it are not possible due to the constraints of physics.  And Solar Radiation Management is more an emergency tourniquet than a climate solution. Reducing emissions is the primary focus of global warming politics, supporting the premise of decarbonisation of the economy.  But emission reduction faces massive, apparently insurmountable, problems, seen in the steady 2.5 ppm per decade acceleration of the CO2 emission increase rate.  The economic incentives to burn coal and gas and oil are more powerful than the political incentives to switch to sustainable energy. And in any case, emission reduction still assumes ongoing increase in CO2 level in the air.  Ongoing increase should be unacceptable, because we need to drive CO2 levels down through negative emissions.   Political agreements around emission targets are useless, essentially serving as a cover for failure of will and vision.  The political targets of ongoing warming build in massive danger of phase shift from the stable Holocene climate pattern that has prevailed for the ten thousand years of the growth of human civilization on our planet.  The implication is that there must be a technological focus on CDR, or we cook.  An end to Holocene stability is an unacceptable risk with a planetary population of ten billion people, given the likelihood it brings of conflict and collapse of civilization and loss of biodiversity. In London in 1850, the problem of cholera was solved by pumping sewage out of the city.  Global warming is like a cholera epidemic for the twenty first century.  We need new sanitarians to work out how to pump carbon out of the air to solve the problem of global warming.  Funding that process means establishing economic and scalable methods to convert the harmful extra CO2 into useful forms.  That means finding practical commercial uses for more than ten billion tonnes of carbon every year.  The only way to do that, in my view, is to apply solar and ocean energy to grow algae on industrial scale. This call to focus on algae as a useful form of carbon requires understanding of the distinction between carbon storage and carbon utilization.  Storing CO2 through geosequestration is not an economic contribution to stopping global warming.  Carbon stored as CO2 has no value, except to help pump up more fossil fuels.  But if CO2 is converted to algae, and the algae is then held in large fabric bags at the bottom of the sea, we have an enduring resource, a carbon bank.   The ocean is a perpetual motion machine driven by earth’s orbital dynamics.  1.3 billion cubic kilometers (teralitres) of wat

[geo] Counteracting the climate effects of volcanic eruptions using short-lived greenhouse gases - Fuglestvedt, GRL, Wiley

[Andrew Lockley]

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL061886/abstract

Counteracting the climate effects of volcanic eruptions using short-lived
greenhouse gases

Jan S. Fuglestvedt1, Bjørn H. Samset1,*and Keith P. Shine
doi: 10.1002/2014GL061886

Keywords:

volcanic eruptions;short-lived greenhouse gases

Abstract

A large volcanic eruption might constitute a climate emergency,
significantly altering global temperature and precipitation for several
years. Major future eruptions will occur, but their size or timing cannot
be predicted. We show, for the first time, that it may be possible to
counteract these climate effects through deliberate emissions of
short-lived greenhouse gases, dampening the abrupt impact of an eruption.
We estimate an emission pathway countering a hypothetical eruption three
times the size of Mt Pinatubo in 1991. We use a global climate model to
evaluate global and regional responses to the eruption, with and without
counter emissions. We then raise practical, financial and ethical question
related to such a strategy. Unlike the more commonly-discussed
geoengineering to mitigate warming from long-lived greenhouse gases,
designed emissions to counter temporary cooling would not have the
disadvantage of needing to be sustained over long periods. Nevertheless,
implementation would still face significant challenges.

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RE: [geo] Does CDR provide “moral hazard” for avoiding deep decarbonization of our economy? | Everything and the Carbon Sink

[Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf)]

I support Greg that CCS is a poor and too expensive way to reduce CO2, see 
attachment, Olaf Schuiling

From: Greg Rau [mailto:gh...@sbcglobal.net]
Sent: donderdag 6 november 2014 5:23
To: voglerl...@gmail.com; Mike MacCracken; Greg Rau; Robert Tulip; 
adam.sa...@bio4climate.org; me...@footprintnetwork.org; 
feedb...@thenextgeneration.org; geoengineering; Ronal Larson; Schuiling, R.D. 
(Olaf); Andrew Revkin; nathan currier
Subject: Re: [geo] Does CDR provide “moral hazard” for avoiding deep 
decarbonization of our economy? | Everything and the Carbon Sink

Just to clarify, my view is that CCS is too expensive whether it's FFCCS or 
BECCS. There are cheaper ways to capture and store point source CO2, and those 
are what we should be discussing in the context of C-negative BE, not 
perpetuating the myth that expensively making concentrated CO2 and putting it 
in the ground is our only option. Yes, there can be co-benefits of C-negative 
BE, my favorite being generation of ocean alkalinity, as you've heard before.
Greg


From: Michael Hayes mailto:voglerl...@gmail.com>>
To: Mike MacCracken mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net>>; Greg 
Rau mailto:r...@llnl.gov>>; Robert Tulip 
mailto:rtulip2...@yahoo.com.au>>; 
adam.sa...@bio4climate.org; 
me...@footprintnetwork.org; 
feedb...@thenextgeneration.org; 
geoengineering 
mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>>; 
Ronal Larson mailto:rongretlar...@comcast.net>>; 
"Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf)" mailto:r.d.schuil...@uu.nl>>; 
Andrew Revkin mailto:rev...@gmail.com>>; nathan currier 
mailto:natcurr...@gmail.com>>
Sent: Tuesday, November 4, 2014 7:55 PM
Subject: [geo] Does CDR provide “moral hazard” for avoiding deep 
decarbonization of our economy? | Everything and the Carbon Sink

Hi Folks,

This email is related to the geoengineering group discussion thread found 
here. 
Those who are not current list members have been CC'ed due to your potential 
interest in the subject(s) found within the thread. As we find many times 
within that forum, the initial starting point of the discussion often gives 
rise to a wide spectrum of relevant subjects. After all, the subject of 
geoengineering, itself, should take into consideration virtually every aspect 
of life on this planet.

On the subject thread of CDR/Moral Hazard/Soil Carbon/Combined Land and Marine 
BECCS/Funding and Governance: My views.

1) The CRD Moral Hazard Red Herring:

The specious argument of a 'moral hazard' issue, within the specter of CDR 
based mitigation, is seemingly no more than a useless reductionist distraction 
(i.e. red herring). In that, the concept of carbon negative biofuels (i.e. 
BECCS) is 
one concept, among a few,  which simply makes the entire issue of a moral 
hazard moot, as it relates to CDR.

The soil based CDR approaches (i.e. biochar, olivine, pasture 
cropping etc.) 
also renders the issue of a moral hazard moot due to the many out-year C 
sequestration benefits as well as the significant reduction in agro FF and 
chemical uses. Also, it is important to keep in mind that many of these soil 
based CDR approaches are adaptable to the BECCS regiment, in that they are 
compatible technologies.

2) BECCS efficaciousness at the practical and ethical levels:

Greg puts forth the premise that BECCS (i.e. carbon negative biofuel) is too 
expensive. Yet, one has to ask the basic question of; Relative to what? The 
most fundamental premise of BECCS (per IPCC WG 3) is that it must be profitable 
at all stages and thus offers one of the few mitigation concepts which can 
actually earn its own keep. In fact, not employing BECCS/carbon negative 
biofuel, in our current situation, is actually a true and significant moral 
hazard, in of itself, due to the multiple benefits of;

1) replacing FFs while utilizing/sequestering carbon

2) supporting important ancillary biotic processes beyond BECCS

3) providing far greater equitable distribution of the economic and 
environmental benefits than non-BECCS related options

Even PV does not achieve this important blend of technical, policy, profit, 
ethical advantages. Due to the robust list of benefits offered by BECCS related 
operations, not employing BECCS operations is seemingly as unethical as the 
un-abated continuation of FF use.

3) Energy First with Carbon Utilization/Sequestration Being the Other First:

Mike's opinion of "I am all for encouraging land uptake of carbon, but if we 
are not simultaneously pushing for cutting emissions sharply, it really 
degrades all the effort that needs to be put into land carbon buildup." is 
achievable once we adopt the broadest possible holistic view of the potential 
solutions. One imp

[geo] Re: Republican "Wave" in today's elections

[Michael Hayes]

Ron et al,

One way to work around the upcoming dismantlement of climate mitigation 
work is to couch the work as a form of economic expansion, which is a 
cornerstone of the Rep. party platform. Fortunately, biochar, olivine, 
industrial agro improvements in general as well as marine BECCS can all be 
rightfully couched as economic expansion projects. This is a realpolitik 
approach which will allow those in the party, who actually do understand 
the science of climate change, to support climate change mitigation while 
not outing themselves to the extreme (simple minded) faction within their 
party.

The profit potential of the above mentioned mitigation concepts is 
substantial and thus the profit motivation can potentially attract support 
from the extreme faction much like a hungry predator is attracted to rotten 
meat hung in a tree. Viewed from this perspective, this election outcome is 
not as bleak as one might first imagine. 

Also, I would highly recommend that any and all mitigation project not be 
designed to be reliant on governmental money for long term operations 
simply due to the unpredictable nature of politics. As such, those 
mitigation projects which can become economically self supporting, from the 
start, may actually have a substantial advantage over those mitigation 
projects which can not find a market niche which will support the work over 
the long run. This economic self reliance factor was a strong influence on 
the initial IMBECS Protocol work. I'm confidant that the work on biochar 
can also adapt to these political whims.  

Best regards,

Michael  

On Tuesday, November 4, 2014 9:54:45 PM UTC-8, Ron wrote:
>
> List: 
>
> My guess is that climate-related funding and action in the US has 
> been set back by at least two years because of the US election results that 
> are now in.   I was amazed at what has happened - and have no insights as 
> to why it happened.  Much blame being placed on Obama - which seems unfair, 
> since his views seem mostly to be those of a majority of the electorate.  I 
> have heard not one view that it had something to do with secret “dark” 
> money - but suspect that was influential. 
>
> I think those of us in the US would appreciate hearing guidance on 
> how to get R’s to change their views on the seriousness of our looming 
> climate mess.  I have heard nothing that is working on how to convince 
> deniers.  Today’s sweep will make the job even harder. 
>
> Ron

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Re: [geo] Re: Republican "Wave" in today's elections

[Ronal W. Larson]

Michael and list

See inserts below.

On Nov 5, 2014, at 7:09 PM, Michael Hayes  wrote:

> Ron et al,
> 
> One way to work around the upcoming dismantlement of climate mitigation work 
> is to couch the work as a form of economic expansion, which is a cornerstone 
> of the Rep. party platform. Fortunately, biochar, olivine, industrial agro 
> improvements in general as well as marine BECCS can all be rightfully couched 
> as economic expansion projects. This is a realpolitik approach which will 
> allow those in the party, who actually do understand the science of climate 
> change, to support climate change mitigation while not outing themselves to 
> the extreme (simple minded) faction within their party.
[RWL:   All true, but few of “those in the party” are going to be 
willing to seem to be supporting anything related to mitigation.  After all, 
the person  (Sen.  James Inhofe) with the most possible legislative power to 
support mitigation is adamant that there is no problem.  And if there was, God 
would take care of it anyway.

> 
> The profit potential of the above mentioned mitigation concepts is 
> substantial and thus the profit motivation can potentially attract support 
> from the extreme faction much like a hungry predator is attracted to rotten 
> meat hung in a tree. Viewed from this perspective, this election outcome is 
> not as bleak as one might first imagine. 
[RWL:   Agreed there may be some of that, but ny hope is that a few 
countries (or citizens of those countries) will say they are thinking of a 
boycott of all US manufactured goods.  There might be a few R’s that would 
worry about that.   Past boycotts have helped change a few beliefs.

> 
> Also, I would highly recommend that any and all mitigation project not be 
> designed to be reliant on governmental money for long term operations simply 
> due to the unpredictable nature of politics. As such, those mitigation 
> projects which can become economically self supporting, from the start, may 
> actually have a substantial advantage over those mitigation projects which 
> can not find a market niche which will support the work over the long run. 
> This economic self reliance factor was a strong influence on the initial 
> IMBECS Protocol work. I’m confidant that the work on biochar can also adapt 
> to these political whims.
[RWL:  Thanks for a chance to make a plug.   Save for a few being 
helped by small voluntary credits, most biochar companies are already now 
operating in that non-governmental-funding manner.  I am afraid I don’t know of 
any other “geo” approach with existing and growing sales.  That is happening 
because biochar seems to be the only geo approach that can be viewed as a long 
term investment with energy output, not energy input, and with income from 
continuing out-year soil improvements.  Both those advantages are independent 
of non-conflicting atmospheric improvement.To add to the recent BECCS 
comments by yourself and Drs. Rau and Schulling,  BECCS’ claimed advantage of 
larger energy output and first year carbon sequestration potential fails to 
take account of these out-year atmospheric and non-atmospheric-financial 
attributes.  And if BECCS somehow takes off, biochar can precede it for at 
least some of the electrical and thermal markets.

Going back to the main changed-politics theme of this short thread:  
the good news could be that many R votes are from farmers and rural America.   
They are beginning to understand the importance to their pocketbooks of the ASE 
(Atmospheric, Soil, and Energy) advantages of biochar as a whole new way to 
think about Ag and Forest land. The US ethanol program has had bi-partisan 
support.

Still talking to non-US list members, I can also report that several 
pundits have noted that we are now in a situation where D’s and R’s are likely 
to split the Executive and Legislative responsibilities for a long time - 
because of our Electoral College system of electing a President.   The D’s have 
a big advantage every four years.  They also have a future advantage with 
future votes from today’s youth.  From a climate action perspective, all is not 
lost.

Ron
>  
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Michael  
> 
> On Tuesday, November 4, 2014 9:54:45 PM UTC-8, Ron wrote:
> List: 
> 
> My guess is that climate-related funding and action in the US has 
> been set back by at least two years because of the US election results that 
> are now in.   I was amazed at what has happened - and have no insights as to 
> why it happened.  Much blame being placed on Obama - which seems unfair, 
> since his views seem mostly to be those of a majority of the electorate.  I 
> have heard not one view that it had something to do with secret “dark” money 
> - but suspect that was influential. 
> 
> I think those of us in the US would appreciate hearing guidance on 
> how to get R’s to change their views on the