Thanks to John McGrath for bringing this major policy shift to our attention.

More commentary and explanation about this major policy shift: A new kind of energy for China (Energy Bulletin):...the Chinese adoption of a policy that supports methanol production via CTL is one of the most important stories in the energy-using world.

It is now official. China is embarking on the world's largest synthetic fuels program. This has immediate implications for energy planners everywhere, for worldwide finance and capital expenditure, for the global coal markets, for the ecological footprint of Chinese development, for emissions of greenhouse gases, and so much more.

I do have a continuing quibble with John McGrath about the moral that he draws from the story: Yet another example of the problems of emphasizing security of supply rather than the climate crisis.This isn't a problem of public relations; it's reality. Where is China going to get its energy?  Where are we all going to get our energy?  

There are two issues about energy supply (in addition to global warming): Political tensions (e.g., vulnerability to countries that export oil and natural gas). Physical limitations (increasing price - peak oil).

Somehow, one has to address these issues if one is to make a convincing argument about combatting climate change.  

One set of answers is tar sands, coal and nuclear.

Another set of answers is efficiency, conservation and renewables.  

We need to have a good solid case ready, as these issues heat up.

This is no doubt bad news unless someone can come up with a way to fuze the coal vapor into a solid that can then be recycled or stored instead of being put into the air.

Alice

Recycling a posting from 20 November,

Manvendra Dubey and Klaus Lackner are two names associated with the idea of getting quicklime and pure CO2 out of limestone, sequestering the CO2, and then strewing the quicklime over about 1 m^2 per person to suck dilute CO2 out of the atmosphere on his behalf.

This means if the inhabitants of India, China, and other very populous far-east nations insist on getting around in two or three billion Hummer clones fuelled with coal-derived gasoline, we can cover for them. The land that must be strewn with quicklime is less than that which would be used by biofuel plantations totalling 3 GW output.

Using a leaky-lifeboat analogy, we can bail quickly enough -- it's not even all that hard -- to keep our end of the boat afloat, and back the sea back down the gunwales to where it was in 1900, even if it means also keeping those slackers in the other end dry. Of course, I would prefer they not slack, see below.

--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Burn boron in pure oxygen for vehicle power