Tech to curb global warming? Yes, new proposal says

Kyoto Protocol still doesn't cut it, U.S. and Australian governments say. But clean tech will reduce pollution.

The story "Tech to curb global warming? Yes, new proposal says" published January 10, 2006 at 9:17 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

Content from Reuters expires after 30 days.

[sanenazok]

It's the only way to go

you say, dearest Europe. So why don't you comply with your own goals, thank you very much.

[ClimateRisk]

Recent research suggests new technology focus is flawed

As the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate meets in Sydney new analysis shows that if Asia Pacific adopts 'carbon capture and storage', greenhouse emission will increase by 70%. <br />Sydney, January 10th 2005<br /><br />The conclusions of analysis by the international energy think tank Transition Institute on the role of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) show that if CCS is used to meet the future energy needs in the Asia Pacific it will lead to emission increases not reductions. This is because fossil fuel plants with CCS are lower emission than conventional fossil fuel plants, but not zero emission. Therefore new power plants introduce new emissions.<br /><br />Relative to emission in the APPCDC Partnership countries in the year 2000, exclusive use of fossil fuel CCS plants to meet energy needs would increase greenhouse emissions by over 70%.<br /><br />"Our analysis sounds a note of caution about assuming that geo-sequestration is the silver bullet for climate change. For an existing power station, capturing and sequestering the carbon from proposed technologies may reduce emissions by over 80%. But for countries like India and China who are putting in completely new energy infrastructure, even low emission power plants are introducing new emissions. When we multiply these new emissions from CCS fossil fuel plants by the dramatic increases in demand as countries like India and China become more industrialized and wealthy, and also by significant increases in population, the net effect is not a decrease in emissions at all, it is a major increase in emissions." Said Dr Karl Mallon, director of the Transition Institute. <br /><br />If the expanding energy needs of countries like India and China are provided by new fossil fuel plants with CCS, then these will create new emissions &#8211; so the analysis shows that actual emission are not being reduced. Emissions will be less than if fossil fuel plants were used without CCS, but they will be much higher than if renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies are used to meet the expanding energy service needs. Based on a future population in the partnership countries of 3.5 billion and energy consumption levels consistent with those in the OECD today, emission would increase by 77% by 2050 assuming excluding use of fossil fuels with CCS. <br /><br />"There is an assumption in some quarters that India and China will use fossil fuels to meet their emerging needs, and that lowering the emissions from fossil fuel is better than doing nothing. However, India and China have many choices about the technologies they adopt and already have aggressive targets for non fossil fuel technologies like wind, solar and hydro electricity. Compared to these zero emission sources like renewables, promoting new fossil fuel plants, however low emission they are, is to promote increasing emissions. This may not be what you want to hear if you are in the business of selling fossil fuels, but the conclusions of our analysis are that adopting CCS as the major means to meet new energy needs in the Asia Pacific would make emission reductions and therefore arresting climate change impossible." Said Dr Mallon <br /><br />Dr Karl Mallon is director of the Transition Institute an international consultancy and think tank specializing in energy policy and climate change. Dr Mallon is author of "International Renewable Energy Policy and Politics" published by Earthscan, London. <br /><br />Contact Dr Karl Mallon at<br /><br />[e-mail]<br /><br />Cell phone number: 61 (0) 412 257 521

[spoonfish]

Let's hope so, Kyoto won't

Clean technologies are the only way global warming issues will be solved. Any agreement on greenhouse gas emissions will favor one nation's ecomonic health over another's. This is evident in the skewed Kyoto Protocol, which favors developing nations over industrialized ones. I would like to see how red this map gets if the Kyoto Protocol required 'all' nations to revert to their 1990 emission levels.<br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kyoto_Protocol_participation_map_2005.png#file" target="_newWindow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kyoto_Protocol_participation_map_2005.png#file</a>

[ericchappuis]

What about the forgotten aspects? No one dares to touch...

-"Tech to curb global warming? Yes, new proposal says"<br /><br />REALLY, REALLY so?<br /><br />NO, not quite, shure not...<br /><br />Everyone is speaking about Kyoyo's flaws, skews, etc... There is some truth, but what about them who now put themselves as the clean, pollution-free champs, trying the lure of tecnology. And who has these tecnologies in hand and will keep it's supremacy on it? Who is going to sell it?<br /><br />What are these people talking about? Isn't the aim clear: "Technologies do not just appear from nowhere; they have to be developed, mostly in response to new markets." echoed Jonathan Kohler, then : -"Five years ago, nobody but the United States really understood the logic of the market structure. In the interval, every other country has got it."<br /><br />Why is it a US led conference? Aren't the US the world-champs at marketing, along with Japan and the EU?<br /><br />Putting it simply, the lecture is: -"If there is a market we'll do something about it". Naturally, no one tells anything about cleaning the mess of the past polutions and there's only a "maybe" concerning the future mess we shure enough will produce!<br /><br />But everyone is speaking about using the very same types of energies we already have, patched up with filters, and pseudo non-polluting processes. How is all the raw material for these industries beeing produced, how is it transformed, how is it transported, how much infrastructure is needed on top of the already existing one, etc.? Where and how the by-products will be stored, disposed of?<br /><br />No one asks really, neither articulates real numbers for the cost of cleaning the mess and the wastes we're creating daily and store for our next generations!<br /><br />Nothing really is said about the care for the well-being, harmony, safety of the persons, the individuals, the comunities and about our brothers animals, plants, etc. Neither is anythind said about the well-being, harmony, safety and preservation of Nature, our only craddle, our only Space-ship!<br /><br />Now what... the real problems... ask questions...<br /><br />What about the dusts we produce... = physical &#38; biochemical effects, at what scale? Guess ho much and what it does...<br /><br />What about the population bomb? How many govt. are willing to talk about it? Guess why...<br /><br />Renewable energy? Wind, Sun, Tides, etc... Who's telling us they don't work, can't be applied at mass scale because of their non-continuous supplies, and worse, they don't store (Wind weakens or stop, light dims with clouds and stop at night, etc.)? And thus why do they threaten us with half cooked potatoes and vanishing football game on tele? What's the aim?<br /><br />Why have we to be made ****-scarred about falsely called "non-reliable energy supplies"?<br /><br />It's all a huge lie. These energies could well be used at large massive scale, the non continuous input is not a tec-problem at all!When there is not sufficient energy available from them, the nuclear and others can supply the demand. Or else, the existing system would not work when a power plant shuts down because of an accident or maintenance. The way energy is produced, distributed and redistributed is designed to handle these demands. There is a vast network of security switches at national and international levels that enable the supply continuity.<br /><br />With very little increase in size of this network, the alternative renewable energies could well be included.<br /><br />They also argue about transport. Wrong, for the same reason, the network exists and is transporting energy across huge distances.<br /><br />So what's the problem? Simple, these energies are "0 cost" supply sources. The only cost is their capturing infrastructure, turbines, panels, transformers,etc. and their maintenance.<br />There is not a single cent spent on supplies! and that's precisely what aches and troubles the money makers, you don't mine for them, don't transform, process nor transport them. So we would have a sustancial decrease in our energy bills and that doesn't interests the big money makers.<br /><br />Now, ask how much money is involved in mining for the nuclear industry, how much it cost to process, transport, transform, etc. Ask the same question for oil, coal, gas, etc.<br />And, how much does the safety and processing of their wastes cost and for how many generations? (Think a little, people, tens of generations ahead will still have to pay for the safety and treatement of our wastes, they may thank us, don't you think so?)<br /><br />Ah! The dear word in the mouth of the money makers, -"The COSTS!"-<br /><br />Who dares ask what are the politico-stragetical costs the countries that do have these minerals underfoot have to support? How many army-conquest-wars? How many economical-threat-wars?<br /><br />Ask Africa, Iraq, etc.<br /><br />and ask, on and on...

[lingsun]

You can't curb something that isn't happening

You can't curb something that isn't happening. The idea of manmade global warming is a joke. With Kyoto, India and China didn't have to participate and they produce more greenhouse gases than western europe. European countries aren't meeting their greenhouse gase quotas either. It should be easy with 10% unemployment in countries like Germany and France.

[ericchappuis]

Neither can you curb what is really happening...

Your lack of knowledge on the matter is clear. You should be more specific about it, a ten fifteen line proofs would serve... Not the gibberish from the anti-manmade help to blobal warming you repeat as a well trained parrot, which is what some interests want you to be! Unfortunately people who don't think, don'know but talk and have right of vote... are legion. The end result is "stupidity"... Only stupid people can't look straight at the face of the results of their actions... Neither face responsabilities!...<br /><br />I'm working in the field and I can tell you you're totally wrong and I may add:<br /><br />- Neither can you curb what is happening...<br /><br />The trouble is that for most people humans are just so great, so imbued with selfishness, just one step below God! that they think humans are beyond Nature and not a part, tiny, tiny part of it but awesomely powerfull and blindly destructive...