This Sachs

We’ve got no choice but nukes and carbon-capture tech, says Jeffrey Sachs 35

Economist Jeffrey Sachs said carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology and nuclear energy will be necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change, comments made as part of a presentation at the Asia Society in New York Monday night.

Jeffrey SachsJeffrey SachsFile photo courtesy the Earth Institute at Columbia University“Carbon capture better work, because they [China] are not going to stop using coal,” said Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the author of The End of Poverty and Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, among other books.

He gave a lucid and thoroughly depressing talk on “China’s Role in the Global Climate Game,” describing a number of unpleasant options China, the United States, and the rest of the world will have to face in dealing with climate changes already underway.

“Any quantitatively realistic path for a fast-growing China will mean a tremendous reliance on coal,” he said. “They will have to use growing amounts of coal for decades to come.”

That leaves the U.S. with no choice but to develop and use CCS technology, despite the fact that it’s never been successfully implemented, he said. Renewable energy sources and improvements in efficiency won’t come close to meeting the world’s growing energy demand, he said.

“There’s no quantitative way to get this right without the nuclear industry playing a really large role,” he said. “It’s not a happy thought, but it’s unavoidable.”

And if you thought cleaning up the coal industry was politically difficult in the U.S., Sachs finds the Chinese political landscape “vastly worse” on that front.

Regarding Chinese leadership on climate he said, “China’s leadership takes this issue seriously, but China’s leadership also takes very seriously the issue of economic development. ... They want to catch up to the West.”

In other words, those coal plants won’t be shut down any time soon.

Jonathan Hiskes is a Grist staff writer. He reports, tweets, eats, asks questions, self-promotes, looks out windows, and wonders if it could be like this.

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  1. Spence's avatar

    Spence Posted 9:34 pm
    01 Jun 2009

    He has a point, in that as long as China's primary goal is for its people to reach the same "standard of living" as we have in the West, yeah, they will need that power.If, on the other hand, the West buys a hell of a lot less Chinese goods and economic growth takes a back seat to improving the quality of life on a model other then the Western consumerist one, then maybe not so much. China will need new energy, but if the Chinese think to consume energy in the same wasteful way we Westerners do, then we are all well fucked. It's not fair that the West was able to benefit from the cheap coal and oil energy that came before the crisis, indeed to create the crisis China is now stuck with, but history ain't fair. The Chinese need to leapfrog the West and go right to a post-consumerist way of life, with sustainability as the ethic, not growth.

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  2. adfasfdasfd Posted 9:37 pm
    01 Jun 2009

    Well at least get them to put scrubbers on them. Also, put a heavy tariff on Chinese imports until they start reducing their emissions.

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  3. enviroperk Posted 9:48 pm
    01 Jun 2009

    Expanding on a previous comment:We, the US, achieved a high standard of living via industrial dominance, using and abusing "cheap" forms of non-renewable resources, at the expense of the rest of worlds climate.Now, we have seen the light; yet do we have the right to deprive China and other developing nations the same privilege? Arguably, to not do so will result in more damage to the climate and environment. Yet, we cannot argue the advantage of cheap energy to improve a standard of living because that is our secret to our current success (or excess).China today is similar to the US in the 1960s. They do have the same right to grow by exploitation as we did. We have a responsibility to educate and relate our results for China to make a choice. If they choose to follow our path, ethically, we have little choice but to allow then the same privilege. One option we have is minimizing the bad things by finding ways for China to achieve the same results we have with much less environmental impact at the same benifit to their population. That may require trade-offs, but less so if we develop and share our best technology for them.
    One thing in China's favor, they tend to take a longer veiw of the future that we did in making strategic decisions. One thing in our favor, they copy us extensively; lets give them something worth copying that makes the future a better place.  

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  4. Spence's avatar

    Spence Posted 10:11 pm
    01 Jun 2009

    Our moral imperative is not to give the Chinese the same chance to screw up the planet as we had, out of some sense of fairness. Our moral imperative is to protect the planet, even if it means tariffs or embargoes on goods made in China. By all means put our house in order first, but we have to hold everyone to our new crisis-generated standard, no matter the historical injustice of it.On the other hand, there should be a system that benefits nations with lower carbon footprints. Poor nations that produce much less greenhouse gas should benefit and nations that pump out a lot should be punished. But that's another matter entirely.

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  5. enviroperk Posted 11:09 pm
    01 Jun 2009

    I agree. But in reality  our moral imperative collides with our moral authority.Hypocriticism, Glass houses, let he who is without sin cast the first stone, etc.  Do we really have the moral authority to demand China adhere to standards we did not? Yes, if we are willing to give back the wealth (at present value) and resulting standard of living we achieved as a result of that that abuse.
    Otherwise -- no!

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  6. hapa's avatar

    hapa Posted 11:17 pm
    01 Jun 2009

    you know, in one way, i DO think we have a population problem. the population is too big for me to go to these supremely retarded international leaders in their many splendid offices and beat each of them senseless with my own two fists.

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  7. Jinchi Posted 12:43 am
    02 Jun 2009

    If they choose to follow our path, ethically, we have little choice but to allow then the same privilege.That argument is absurd.Ethically, nobody has the "right" to follow in the same path as those who started ahead of them, particularly when we discover that certain actions cause grave harm. You couldn't ethically start a new car company without adhering to regulations Henry Ford never dreamed of. You don't get to start your own pharmaceutical company using 19th century standards. If you hope to make your fortune in agriculture or construction, as a restaurant tycoon or building high tech machinery, you'll have to follow a host of health, safety and testing procedures that came from decades of hard learned lessons.Likewise, China doesn't have a "right" to follow a path to cheap energy via 1950's vintage dirty coal plants, when we know that the consequences to the Earth's climate could be catastrophic.This has nothing to do with fairness or hypocrisy or rights or privilege.

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  8. Billhook Posted 2:02 am
    02 Jun 2009

    China, like every other sovereign nation, has a perfect right to do as it pleases. Americans who feel that they should be allowed, or denied, the "privilege" of fossil fuelled development out of massive poverty have merely fallen for the imperial propaganda of America's might, and thus its "right" to order the world as it sees fit.In reality, America is not only going broke (relative decline is slipping into absolute decline), its material power is so eroded that the latest bunch of tribal zealots it's chosen to suppress are well-experienced in imposing a lethal quagmire.America's moral power, the international respect for its ethical conduct, is in still worse nick. Not only has Obama chosen to continue Bush's policy of reneging on the Berlin Mandate(whereby Developing nations would participate in the UNFCCC in return for Developed nations making siggnificant cuts below their 1990 GHG outputs before Developing nations would be asked to follow suit )Obama has also now declared the goal merely of cutting US GHG output to around 1990 levels by 2020.And he's done this this when it is very plain that we need a cut in Developed nations' GHG output of 30% to 40% by 2020, just to have an even chance of avoiding catastrophic global climate detabilization.Here in Britain we know that when a storm drives 20ft waves onto our coasts, the energy flux is around 1.0 megawatt per metre of wave-front. And the Obama Admin's response to this knowledge ? Cut the funding on Wave Power technology from a mere $40 million to a pathetic $30 million, while pouring another $30,000 million into building GM motorcars.Not trams or light rail, just motor cars. So we can simply forget the idea of the world buying sustainable US tech en masse.America's moral authority was ousted during the coup against President Carter; it would be less depressing if more Americans realized this.
    Regards,
    Billhook     

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  9. randino Posted 4:26 am
    02 Jun 2009

    I think the problem is much more basic.  All of our societies, throughout the planet, operate on the assumption that the biological systems we depend on, and the pretty decent climatic status quo we have enjoyed since the last Ice Age, will always be there.  In short - they do not get it.  Go ahead, look at all our 24/7 news programs.  You see political scoreboards of who is up and who is down in the gotcha sweepstakes.  Everyone grovels before the latest economic data. But news on the environment is on the back pages.  The issue of the future viability of the planet is not an issue.  They are utterly clueless. One mistake we make is to believe that those who lead humanity are rational. I think we should consider the proposition that they are barking mad, and are possessed with an environmental death wish.  Heh, gang, as we have seen with the nuclear arms race, the only reason we have made it this far is dumb luck.  Our fatal mistake was not coal, nukes, or oil.  Our fatal mistake was the hubris to believe that the planet we lived on was an irrelevant externality.  That is what has cooked our goose. Randy Cunningham 

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  10. kandimba's avatar

    kandimba Posted 8:03 am
    02 Jun 2009

    Sachs was the economist responsible for the "shock therapy" that had terrible effects on the collapsing Soviet Union. He has no credibility to discuss poverty.This is just more nonsense, to think that we have to embrace dangerous technologies to save ourselves from climate change. If we invest in environmentally friendly technologies we will have the right to demand reductions from China and India.Ricardo Coelhohttp://cooltheearth.wordpress.com

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  11. Sean Casten's avatar

    Sean Casten Posted 8:42 am
    02 Jun 2009

    This strikes me as a classic case of Smart Dude worship, no different from academic PhDs who suddenly get podiums to opine on all manner of topics that have nothing to do with their specific expertise. Sachs is an extremely smart guy who knows a lot about poverty and economics.  But I'm not convinced he has a comparable depth of knowledge in energy & climate.  That's not a knock on him - just an observation that Sachs' opinions on what it takes on those fronts is no more meaningful than Freeman Dyson's.  Both have expertise in other areas, but that doesn't mean that their opinions in this area are uniquely informed.

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  12. Gar Lipow's avatar

    Gar Lipow Posted 8:55 am
    02 Jun 2009

    There is a simple (simple not being the same as easy) way to reconcile China's desire for growth with rich nation and Chinese obligations to the planet. China has plenty of opportunity for efficiency improvements, and plenty of potential solar and wind resources. But the solar and wind resources would require more money to build than continuing the path of dirty coal. So a fair deal would be for China to pay for its own efficiency improvements (because they would get good returns on the investment) in return for rich nations like the U.S. paying the difference between solar or wind and coal power. Given the rich nation responsibility for closing off the coal path by using up atmospheric space, this would be a reasonable demand on China's part. Of course the other reasonable demand on China's part would be rich nations actually reducing their own emissions.

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  13. guade00 Posted 9:05 am
    02 Jun 2009

    You know, the western model of development--governments and corporations working together to pillage as many resources as possible from what appeared to be an inexhaustible supply of them with the goal of ensuring the ongoing stability of the predominant nation-states and their ruling classes--worked really well for a long time.The jig's up. China and the rest of the developing world won't have the same good fortune the early industrializers did, with all those easy-to-exploit resources, but they'll certainly try. And with 6 billion (and growing) people on the planet, that means...
    ...we're toast.

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  14. Green Granny's avatar

    Green Granny Posted 9:11 am
    02 Jun 2009

    Sachs is an old "Chicago school" shock doctrine economist.  He's about as qualified to speak on environmental issues as George Bush or his old mentor, Milton F.  I wouldn't trust Sachs to ethically manage my IRA let alone the future of the planet.

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  15. Green Granny's avatar

    Green Granny Posted 9:19 am
    02 Jun 2009

    As long as any country tries to follow/continue the "western model of development--governments and corporations working together to pillage as many resources as possible from what appeared to be an inexhaustible supply of them with the goal of ensuring the ongoing stability of the predominant nation-states and their ruling classes. . .", we're toast.  We all must find a different model.  

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  16. neosapiens Posted 11:30 am
    02 Jun 2009

    China is in the process of learning it's limits. They're already starting to realize that there are indeed consequences for polluting their air and water and for stripping their land bare of every usable natural resource.  They do understandably resent our prosperity, but rather than waste our breath trying to convince them of anything, we need to fire  up their competitive drive by showing what we can achieve in clean energy, environmental quality and green technology.  Once their imagination and drive are focused on green = the good life, they will move more quickly than we can imagine.

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  17. neosapiens Posted 11:30 am
    02 Jun 2009

    China is in the process of learning it's limits. They're already starting to realize that there are indeed consequences for polluting their air and water and for stripping their land bare of every usable natural resource.  They do understandably resent our prosperity, but rather than waste our breath trying to convince them of anything, we need to fire  up their competitive drive by showing what we can achieve in clean energy, environmental quality and green technology.  Once their imagination and drive are focused on green = the good life, they will move more quickly than we can imagine.

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  18. Des Emery Posted 1:52 pm
    02 Jun 2009

    One obstacle to America's progress relative to "the rest of the world" is the generally unrecognized difference in national personalties.  The world view of those characteristics may indeed seem simple and typecast -- the French as aloof and highbrow, the Germans as militaristic, the Spanish as nonchalant and laidback, the Russians as volatile, the Chinese as inscrutable, etc.   But those attributes are based on centuries of observation by other nations and therefore require different approaches, different negotiations, different political stances.  Setting up many nukes could be seen by Americans as a logical way to reduce greenhouse gases, but North Korea and Iran could interpret such actions as "provocative irritations."  China legitimately sees American disapproval of coal energy (their ticket to ride) as a manifestation of the "dog in the manger" intent on keeping them in "coolie" status after using that natural resource recklessly to advance American industry in the past.Education is not just not "readin' writin' and 'rithmetic.  Interpretation of ideas is going to be the fulcrum upon which the world is moved. or it will be the stumbling block which trips us up.               

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  19. camilo Posted 10:12 pm
    02 Jun 2009

    Sachs is not one to listen to regarding energy policy, and he's not one I would listen to regarding economics, either.  "A smart guy who knows a lot about economics" -- who are these guys, the ones who drove our economy into the dirt?  Did he ever warn us that the bubble would burst?  I've never personally heard of him, so I can't say much more, but I/we have said for 20 years that Greenspan didn't know what he was doing, and last year he finally 'fesses up and says "the model we were using may have been flawed. . ."As far as choices, if we are to at all curtail man-made climate change, we have no choice but to end the use of coal in this country, refuse to allow development of oil shale and tar sands, and in general change to renewable sources.  We must also learn to use less energy and hope that the world follows our lead.  We never had the right to grow by exploitation, only the might, and as explained above, no one has the right to repeat what has gone before once it is proven wrong.  China does have the might, though, and what they will do remains a question. I, too, have heard some good news regarding their grasp of the reality of pedal-to-the-metal pollution, so maybe they will tone it down a little.  It would be a good thing if we helped them develop cleaner coal technology (there is no such thing as Clean Coal).Perhaps this would be a good time to curtail spending on Chinese goods.  Last I heard (2004 figures), Wal-Mart bought $18 Billion in Chinese goods, making it their 8th largest trading partner, ahead of Australia, Canada, and Russia.  Most of it cheap plastic crap that may not even work the first time (liberal exchange policy, though).  Oh, yeah, and our recycled toxic waste.Consumerism as a state religion, and a me-first attitude in general, coupled with a belief that people like Sachs are our leaders, is the main problem, and not likely to change soon (soon enough??).No nukes. 

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  20. drlapin Posted 7:02 am
    03 Jun 2009

    I'm just wondering why anyone would pay any attention at all to Jeffrey Sachs regarding climate change or environmental technology. (1) He's an economist. He has no special training in science or engineering. Most economists are totally incompetent regarding even their chosen field -- witness the current economic crisis, brought to us by the very likes of Jeffrey Sachs. (2) Jeffrey Sachs is the person who, almost single-handedly, it might be said (for effect), destroyed the Russian economy with his "shock therapy." See point (1).[From a Ph.D. economist.]

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  21. Cacaoatl's avatar

    Cacaoatl Posted 1:58 pm
    03 Jun 2009

    I'm getting pretty sick of this scapegoating of China. Instead telling the Chinese what they should do, Western countries should look to their own green house emissions and energy effeciency. If the West, especially the US, takes the lead, the other nations of the world will fall into place. The leaders and thinkers of the Western world act like little kids. Why should we clean up our emissions? China's not! Waah! Waah!

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  22. enviroperk Posted 2:06 pm
    03 Jun 2009

    Some people say that this is why China matters.

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  23. Carlos Guimarães Posted 2:08 pm
    03 Jun 2009

    I think most of the comments posted missed the point, already raised by J.Lovelock in "The revenge of Gaia" - we must take a decided shift towards nuke and CCS. If we are abble to do it others will have to follow, but that means we must share nuch tech, and that is an itchy subject.I do not  think we'll be abble to do it, and as so, we must prepare to survive climate change, that, on the other hand, is just around the corner (it's not a small 100 years shift, it's a short term huge change).

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  24. Des Emery Posted 6:03 pm
    03 Jun 2009

    Perhaps our problem lies in treating CO2 as if it is immutable and has to be sequestered somehow out of sight after we have produced it by burning various "fossil" fuels. We learned how to do that very thing with our food intake, burying our excrement somewhere in the backyard until we invented the flush toilet. CO2 is just carbon and oxygen. Breaking the two elements apart should leave us with a pile of graphite and allow the gas, oxygen, to disperse back into the atmosphere. Is the energy required to split CO2 more than the energy extracted from its production?

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  25. Sean Casten's avatar

    Sean Casten Posted 7:04 pm
    03 Jun 2009

    Des,Yes, massively.  The reason why CO2 is such a pernicious pollutant - other than it's environmental impacts - is that it is the "bottom" of the energy ladder.  The reason that coal (carbon) burns in the presence of air (oxygen) and gives off heat is because there's a lot less energy in CO2 than in carbon and oxygen, in an amount that is exactly equal to the energy released during combustion.  You cannot put it back together without putting all that energy back in, plus a bit more to ensure you don't violate the second law of thermodynamics (Thou shalt not build a perpetual motion machine.)

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  26. Des Emery Posted 5:40 pm
    04 Jun 2009

    Sean, tnx for the info on thermodynamics.  I can see that the cycle of carbon, oxygen and CO2 requires the same amount of energy input whether the cycle turns left or turns right.  I would just like to see the energy output somehow reversed to undo the combo.  Nature does it by making animal and plant life co-dependent, carbon-based animals inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide in conjunction with carbon-based plants taking in carbon dioxide and exhaling oxygen, using solar energy to drive the process.  Apropos the second law of thermodynamics, I remember asking a professor years and years ago why we couldn't "invent" a window that let in light but reflected heat outward during the summer and inward during the winter.   He gave the matter some thought but the conversation ended with him quoting the second law.  But we do have Low-E glass in our windows nowadays.  So perhaps some future day we will see little machines in our backyards busily pumping in carbon dioxide and pumping out oxygen, stabilizing our atmosphere.

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  27. Billhook Posted 1:19 am
    05 Jun 2009

    Des -the "little machines" you refer to are already widely available,and have the added advantages that they increase their intake capacity for several decades,and provide both a multi-yield fuel and a very fine construction material,among other benefits, such as providing shade while running on solar energy.They're called "trees", and are really cheap if you buy them young.Happy planting ! 

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  28. camilo Posted 3:19 am
    05 Jun 2009

    The big problem we have is a matter of depth of understanding.  We never understand the full impact, or the true nature, of those things that we do at the time we do them.This might serve as an illustration:  there is a quote going around the 'net these days along the lines of "suburbia will prove to be one of the biggest mistakes man has ever made" (I paraphrase, but it's close).Well, it will not be long before the flush toilet proves to be something along those lines, as well.  What seems to be a major innovation, is a major innovation in the literal sense ('"something new"), is actually not a "good" thing, if any of us actually gets to say what is "good" and what is not.  Using drinking water, which is not cheap by any measure, to flush away our waste, has got to be one of the most stupid things we ever invented, fell in love with, and then decided we can't do without.To pick up on your nature motif, that is not the way nature does it; nature recycles, and does so quickly.  And efficiently.  Waste products, or any other product of combustion (flesh, to a carnivore) go to the next guy in line (species) as a fuel (food). Our idea of waste to mean trash is an abomination; it should be seen simply as waste, as in wasteful.  Another paraphrase:  you can't throw anything "away" you just move it out of sight.  But that is another issue, and I'm sure we'll get on that at some point -- landfills.Back to "fuels," which we would be better off understanding as energy, but we deal with as fuel because that is what we put in the tank.  There will never be enough energy (read 'fuel") unless and until we stop seeing it as a commodity, something we buy and sell to each other.  Energy is what the universe runs on, it is simply there.  If not, neither are we or anything else.  Our species will not ever get anywhere, or avoid the "toast" scenario until we see it as abundant and free and a right of every living thing.  In our case, H. sapiens, 3rd stone from the sun, ALL fuel is stored solar energy, from coal/oil/gas, to nuclear, to wind, hydro (potential energy of water driven by precipitation on high flowing to down low, and that driven by solar heating), even the trees for burning in your fireplace.Somebody pull out a calculator and figure out how much juice we would be generating if we had spent a half a trillion (last I heard we spent on Iraq - I quit keeping up) on buying photovoltaics for America's roofs instead of wasting it on a needless, trumped-up war.  Add to that whatever we've spent since, plus any other outlays that make no sense -- the big banks, big auto, nuclear subsidies, it makes me sick to go on. . .I told a friend once, regular guy, had your basic half-assed American education, about the megawattage that the sun provides us daily, and how it does it whether we use it or not, and how what we receive is but a bit of the 360 degree circle you could draw around it (it is round) and how much more goes in other directions (it is after all a sphere) and how it's done it non-stop for billions of years and will do so for several billion more, so why not tap into that?  So he says, after a few seconds thought, what if did and we make it go out, or make it dimmer. . .I plant trees and give them away.  The Texas Forest Service will give you a thousand bare root babies for the asking, and there are other sources.  I find that 2-3 years in a bucket, where you can more easily control it's environment, before setting out greatly enhances establishment, but that may not be necessary in your area.  Scientists are finding that all of the biomass feedstocks being considered for bio-fuels (i.e. carbon neutral) actually give a better energetic return simply by burning.  With better and better exhaust scrubbers, and better and cleaner combustion, we might see another steam age.

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  29. hapa's avatar

    hapa Posted 3:56 am
    05 Jun 2009

     

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  30. hapa's avatar

    hapa Posted 12:58 pm
    05 Jun 2009

    sources of energy.the sun (one way or the other)local radioactivity (including geothermal)local fusion (someday!)gravity and motion"gravity and motion"? yes! tidal energy. --tho i'm open to argument that tides exist because we aren't a frozen rock in space.(sorry for blank comment. iphone commenting still miss-and-hit.)

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  31. Des Emery Posted 2:03 pm
    05 Jun 2009

    It's heartening to see positivity expressed so quickly here.  Bill - I'm a tree hugger and have been for years (I got free trees of various kinds to serve as windbreaks and stream erosion control back in 1946 and some of them are still in place).  But I'm thinking now of a literal "machine" operating at low volume but continuously 24/7/365 and working everywhere.  I have read of research involving CO2 being passed over some kind of crystals which suck the carbon out and expel the oxygen.  I only hope it's not as fictitious as the hundred-mile carburetor.Camilo - unfortunately the word "efficiency" no longer means  "efficacy" but "speed".  No one has the time to do the right thing, like building a compost pile instead of throwing stuff in the garbage.  And war returns faster publicity than installing rooftop sun panels.  Hapa - Defense Dept. is working on space-based solar power right now.   

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  32. vbstenswick Posted 10:50 pm
    05 Jun 2009

    This guy is wrong.  Nukes and CCS would make it easy, but I doubt it is necessary.  First, most power plants in the world could be upgraded with the organic rankine cycle.  That means we do not have to build ANY new fossil fuel power plants.  Second, many industrial processes produce significant waste heat.  This can be turned into electricity with the ORC.  Thus we could shut down a few coal plant fairly quickly with no loss of generating capacity.  This would be a stalling mechanism while wind and energy storage mature, along with enhanced geothermal or engineered geothermal.  The real problem is the people who have developed the technology for nuclear generation want to use it (sell it and make a buck) and the people who stand to lose trillions of dollars if ban burning coal.  Waste heat is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about.  It is more attractive to build a new power plant and employ several hundred workers, and employ coal miners to mine the coal and railroads to transport the coal, than to upgrade an existing plant and save tens of thousands of consumers a fraction of a cent per kwh.

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  33. SteveK9 Posted 9:13 am
    06 Jun 2009

    For me nukes are a 'happy thought' and I am confident will prove a lot more practical than 'clean' coal.  Fortunately for the world, China and India have figured this out.  China in particular has very ambitious targets for nuclear power plant construction, which they seem to be raising on a regular basis.http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN_China_to_set_even_higher_nuclear_targets_0106091.html  

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  34. justlou Posted 2:43 pm
    06 Jun 2009

    Two paths. One concentrated, centrally controlled based on high density sources.  Control by technocratic authority and elite professionals required. Another diverse, decentralized, based on low density sources.  Control by democratic, local communities, and lower order professionals and commoners feasible. Of one of the two paths there are short and long term questions about sustainability, finiteness of sources, and maintenance of cohesive political order, social stability, and technical/scientific/and educational capacities.  It is of this path that Sach's speaks.  I would not expect him or any other authority figure to speak freely of an alternative vision of freeing our bonds.  The technocratic order has us.  Freedom is an illusion.  The centripetal pull of high density energy sources may be just too damned intense to escape.  We are becoming one with the magma, the biosphere be damned.  I think we have discovered hell in the seductive embrace of the machine made on oil and coal.       

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  35. Brad Arnold's avatar

    Brad Arnold Posted 10:35 pm
    09 Jun 2009

    Mr Sachs:While I agree with you that any carbon diet strategy would be dependent upon clean coal: "The vast majority of new power stations in China and India will be coal-fired; not "may be coal-fired"; will be. So developing carbon capture and storage technology is not optional, it is literally of the essence." --"Breaking the Climate Deadlock," Tony Blair, June 26, 2008You are catastrophically wrong about the feasibility to CCS: Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, has estimated that capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fire plants at current rates would require moving volumes of compressed carbon d ioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide -- a massive undertaking requiring decades and trillions of dollars. "Beware of the scale," he stressed."In other words: "It will take more than a century to make the final massive shift to zero carbon energy, but the world doesn't have a century of time and will need geo-engineering technologies to cool the climate within the next 25 years, says one of the country's leading thinkers Thomas Homer-Dixon."  --"Canada has to tackle peak oil and climate change as one big carbon problem," The Hill Times, 1 Jun '09"I'm going to tell you something I probably shouldn't: we may not be able to stop global warming. We need to begin curbing global greenhouse emissions right now, but more than a decade after the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, the world has utterly failed to do so. Unless the geopolitics of global warming change soon, the Hail Mary pass of geoengineering might become our best shot." --Bryan Walsh, Time Magazine, 17 March 2008

    "The alternative (to geoengineering) is the acceptance of a massive natural cull of humanity and a return to an Earth that freely regulates itself but in the hot state." --Dr James Lovelock, August 2008

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