Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years

An interesting article in the August 13th issue of Science. Technically feasible, probably. Economically and socially, ?????.


Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies

S. Pacala1* and R. Socolow2*

Abstract

Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem for the next half-century. A portfolio of technologies now exists to meet the world's energy needs over the next 50 years and limit atmospheric CO2 to a trajectory that avoids a doubling of the preindustrial concentration. Every element in this portfolio has passed beyond the laboratory bench and demonstration project; many are already implemented somewhere at full industrial scale. Although no element is a credible candidate for doing the entire job (or even half the job) by itself, the portfolio as a whole is large enough that not every element has to be used.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/305/5686/968

(Subscription Required)

On edit: Science, Vol 305, Issue 5686, 968-972 , 13 August 2004

machines fixing the CO2 last time I got to talk to him.

Google my grandfather, he is quite famous when it comes to the study of the Earth.

Wallace S. Broecker, as impressive as he is, don't think for a moment his brains got passed to this DUer, my younger brother got all the goods.

you have a special type of intelligence..the kind that cares about what is happening to the planet.:yourock:

(mild gushing) Professor Broecker your grandfather, way to go! He did his pH.D dissertation work and some subsequent research not too far from where I live. His career is a lengthy list of wonderful, distinguished research and insights into the geophysical evidence of climates of the earth.

They can't possibly use fossil fuels if they want to create a net reduction in carbon. Kind of like a battery charger that only recharges its own batteries :-)

rather, just strategies to stabilize atmosphere levels at 500 ppm by 2054 (btw, a rather modest goal since that's already almost double historical levels) and then (if i understand correctly) go to net zero emissions by 2125.

Here are the nitty gritty details (sorry the table got all fucked up, but if you're really determined, you can glean some information from this jumble):

Table 1. Potential wedges: Strategies available to reduce the carbon emission rate in 2054 by 1 GtC/year or to reduce carbon emissions from 2004 to 2054 by 25 GtC.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Option Effort by 2054 for one wedge, relative to 14 GtC/year BAU Comments, issues

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Energy efficiency and conservation

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Economy-wide carbon-intensity reduction (emissions/$GDP) Increase reduction by additional 0.15% per year (e.g., increase U.S. goal of 1.96% reduction per year to 2.11% per year) Can be tuned by carbon policy
1. Efficient vehicles Increase fuel economy for 2 billion cars from 30 to 60 mpg Car size, power
2. Reduced use of vehicles Decrease car travel for 2 billion 30-mpg cars from 10,000 to 5000 miles per year Urban design, mass transit, telecommuting
3. Efficient buildings Cut carbon emissions by one-fourth in buildings and appliances projected for 2054 Weak incentives
4. Efficient baseload coal plants Produce twice today's coal power output at 60% instead of 40% efficiency (compared with 32% today) Advanced high-temperature materials



Fuel shift

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. Gas baseload power for coal baseload power Replace 1400 GW 50%-efficient coal plants with gas plants (four times the current production of gas-based power) Competing demands for natural gas



CO2 Capture and Storage (CCS)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. Capture CO2 at baseload power plant Introduce CCS at 800 GW coal or 1600 GW natural gas (compared with 1060 GW coal in 1999) Technology already in use for H2 production
7. Capture CO2 at H2 plant Introduce CCS at plants producing 250 MtH2/year from coal or 500 MtH2/year from natural gas (compared with 40 MtH2/year today from all sources) H2 safety, infrastructure
8. Capture CO2 at coal-to-synfuels plant Introduce CCS at synfuels plants producing 30 million barrels a day from coal (200 times Sasol), if half of feedstock carbon is available for capture Increased CO2 emissions, if synfuels are produced without CCS
Geological storage Create 3500 Sleipners Durable storage, successful permitting



Nuclear fission

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

9. Nuclear power for coal power Add 700 GW (twice the current capacity) Nuclear proliferation, terrorism, waste



Renewable electricity and fuels

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10. Wind power for coal power Add 2 million 1-MW-peak windmills (50 times the current capacity) "occupying" 30 x 106 ha, on land or offshore Multiple uses of land because windmills are widely spaced
11. PV power for coal power Add 2000 GW-peak PV (700 times the current capacity) on 2 x 106 ha PV production cost
12. Wind H2 in fuel-cell car for gasoline in hybrid car Add 4 million 1-MW-peak windmills (100 times the current capacity) H2 safety, infrastructure
13. Biomass fuel for fossil fuel Add 100 times the current Brazil or U.S. ethanol production, with the use of 250 x 106 ha (one-sixth of world cropland) Biodiversity, competing land use



Forests and agricultural soils

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

14. Reduced deforestation, plus reforestation, afforestation, and new plantations. Decrease tropical deforestation to zero instead of 0.5 GtC/year, and establish 300 Mha of new tree plantations (twice the current rate) Land demands of agriculture, benefits to biodiversity from reduced deforestation
15. Conservation tillage

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apply to all cropland (10 times the current usage)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reversibility, verification

capturing a certain portion of the CO2 produced at power plants or fuel plants and storing it in certain geologic structures or using it in an industrial process.

I first learned about Dr. Broecker when I was in college, back in the late 1970s, when he was publishing some of the first solid work on oceanic currents and climate change. "Famous" isn't quite the word -- Broecker is to climatology what Hawking is to physics. He's also one of the guys who made Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia into the world-class institution it is today.

Fact is, I would be quite unconvinced of the wedge/CO2 machine idea -- except that since Wallace Broecker supports the idea, I'll give it a second look. And keep in mind, I am not given to hero worship, even among scientists.

In addition, he writes for a lay audience as well as an academic audience, and does it far better than does Hawking!

Simply plug the name "Wallace Broecker" in Google and take an hour or so to catch up on modern climatology/oceanography. It will be an hour (probably more) well-spent.

I only have one question: How does he pronounce "Broecker"? I've been calling him "BRECK-er" (rhymes with "Checker") for years. Is this close? :)

--bkl

Stabilizing Global Warming Not Hard: Today's Tools Could Curb Global Warmi


http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/US/greenhouse_ca...

Gas Caps
Study: Stabilizing Global Warming Not Hard: Today's Tools Could Curb Global Warming Emissions

By Peter N. Spotts

Aug. 16, 2004 —
Humanity has the hardware in hand to halt the rise in heat-trapping greenhouse gases it pumps into the atmosphere and forestall the worst effects of global warming projected for the end of this century.

The goal could be achieved within the next 50 years by more widespread use of a portfolio of at least 15 approaches — from energy efficiency, solar energy, and wind power to nuclear energy and the preservation or enhancement of "natural" sinks for carbon dioxide such as rain forests, or the conservation tillage techniques on farms worldwide, say two Princeton University researchers in a study published Friday.

The list of technologies has been around for years, the researchers acknowledge. But past studies, such as one conducted by five U.S. national laboratories four years ago, tended to focus on whether these approaches could be used to reach the emissions goals and deadlines in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol without trashing the economy, as some critics of the pact have warned.


Legislative Logjam

Holding out for more research, Bush administration officials have argued that "we need a solution comparable to the discovery of electricity before we can get on with the carbon problem," says Robert Socolow, an engineering professor at Princeton University and codirector of the school's Carbon Mitigation Initiative. "But there isn't a Faraday in every generation. If you don't get started, you'll waive an opportunity" to use what's available.

The study, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, is short on policy recommendations.

"How do you get these into the system?" asks Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and Strategies for the Global Environment in Arlington, Va. The problem, she says, is more one of politics and cost than whether key technologies currently exist at industrial scales.

Yet by adopting a more scientifically defensible target and a longer time scale to achieve it, Stephen Pacala and Socolow hope the study helps break a logjam — at least in the United States — over when to begin efforts to stabilize and ultimately reduce the carbon-dioxide emissions that most atmospheric scientists say are contributing to a warming world climate.

The duo argues that applied globally, the approaches they identify could cap atmospheric CO2 concentrations at roughly 500 parts per million. This would be significantly lower than what is projected for 2100 if no actions are taken. And the means they have developed for analyzing the gap between business-as-usual emissions and the stable rate they seek — and the plausibility of using existing approaches to reach them — could help policymakers choose among options.<snip>

It's a poster-session paper from the authors.

It's from Princeton, and unlike the elitist greedheads at Science, it's been made available free of charge to us peasants.
http://www.princeton.edu/~cmi/research/ghgt/GHGT-7_poster_color_figures_7-1-04.pdf

Here's another introductory paper on carbon sequestration in general. It's big, so download it before opening it.
http://www.netl.doe.gov/coalpower/sequestration/pubs/presentations/04BajuraSequestration_Final_Rev3.pdf

This Google search turned up a lot of PowerPoint presentations, too.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Pacala+Socolow+Stabilization+Wedges&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N

--bkl

I'm not sure I agree with the "elistist greedhead" comment though, publishing a quality journal isn't free and I sincerely doubt the publishers are floating yachts on the profits from Science.

I have seen the homes and the electric bills.

If you want to go beyond that you need to use active systems...like PV, heating air and water with solar energy, thermal storage, and active ventilation.