Didn't David Keith claim realistic costs of a small fraction of that?
What am I missing? What did Keith miss? What id Schellnhuber miss. Some
sorting out seems needed
On 12/24/2011 1:43 PM, Ken Caldeira wrote:
On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 3:26 AM, Rau, Greg <r...@llnl.gov
<mailto:r...@llnl.gov>> wrote:
This came to my attention via Adam Cherson.
More from our esteemed colleagues at the PNAS:
http://www.pnas.org/content/108/51/20277
Unfortunately, subscription required. Can anyone out there
facilitate distribution of the whole story (link or pdf) to the
masses?
Thanks, happy holidays, and wishing the globe a lower carbon
footprint in '12.
Greg
Geoengineering: The good, the MAD, and the sensible
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber1
+ Author Affiliations
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Telegraphenberg
A31, 14412 Potsdam, Germany
After the collapse of international climate policy in Copenhagen
in December 2009, the tale of geoengineering, promising
end-of-the-chimney fixes for anthropogenic global warming, has
become increasingly popular (1). This is essentially a tale of two
fairies (2): the rather wicked one conjures up solar radiation
management (SRM), and the tolerably good one delivers CO2 removal
through schemes like industrial “air capture” (IAC).
Unfortunately, a study by House et al. (3) pours lots of cold
water on the hot IAC stuff. Most notably, the authors maintain
that the total systems costs of IAC (factoring in all pertinent
processes, materials, and structures) might well be on the order
of $1,000 (US$) per ton CO2 extracted from the atmosphere. This is
tantamount to forecasting a financial tsunami: for making a
tangible contribution to global warming [and ocean acidification
(4)] reduction, several Gt CO2 should be “scrubbed” every year in
the last third of the 21st century (see below), thus generating a
multitrillion-dollar IAC bill.
House et al. arrive at their important cost estimate by blending
existing bits of scientific and technical information into a
convincing common-sense analysis. The take-home message is that
the energetic and economic challenges of IAC systems design and
implementation have probably been underestimated by previous
studies promoting that climate-fix option (5–7). The House et al.
argument rests on five cognitive pillars, namely (i) an evaluation
of the pertinent Sherwood-plot approach to dilute streams (8);
(ii) a realistic thermodynamic efficiency assessment of the
processes involved in IAC; (iii) a rough quantification of the
power costs for IAC, which can achieve significant carbon
negativity only by tapping nonfossil energy sources; (iv) an
analogy assessment of the work required for chemical removal of
trace gases from mixed streams, exploiting rich empirical data
available for SO2 and …
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