Would Someone Please Pay Attention?

The EEI newsletter summarizes an important NYT article:

N.Y. Times Examines Commitments to Spending Money on Climate Change
The New York Times today reported that government budgets around the world are failing to keep pace with the need to address climate change issues. The newspaper interviewed more than four dozen scientists, economists, engineers, and entrepreneurs as part of its coverage of the issue, reporting that "unless the search for abundant non-polluting energy sources and systems became far more aggressive, the world would probably face dangerous warming and international strife as nations with growing energy demands compete for increasingly inadequate resources. Most of these experts also say existing energy alternatives and improvements in energy efficiency are simply not enough."

W. David Montgomery of Charles River Associates was quoted as saying: "We cannot come close to stabilizing temperatures" unless humans, by the end of the century, stop adding more CO2 to the atmosphere than it can absorb "and that will be an economic impossibility without a major R&D investment."

The Times quoted James A. Edmonds, a chief scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute of the University of Maryland and the Energy Department, with saying: "A sustained push is needed not just to refine, test and deploy known low-carbon technologies, but also to find energy technologies that don't have a name yet."

Wrote the Times: "At the same time, many energy experts and economists agree on another daunting point: To make any resulting alternative energy options the new norm will require attaching a significant cost to the carbon emissions from coal, oil and gas." Henry D. Jacoby, a climate and energy expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was quoted as saying: "A price incentive stirs people to look at a thousand different things."

In a sidebar article, the Times reported on research at Princeton University that focused on seven critical steps that should be taken to reduce "human influence on the climate. These included: Capture 90 percent of the carbon dioxide from 800 new billion-watt coal-burning power plants." In the short term, space should be left for equipment that could "be invented and installed later that could capture carbon dioxide. Scale up testing of existing plant designs that produce streams of storable carbon dioxide." In the long term, "conduct large- scale tests of systems for pressurizing and piping carbon dioxide long distances." The researchers suggested displacing planned coal-based plants with about 880 new nuclear plants that feature safer, more flexible, reactor designs. The analysts also said that the efficiency of 1,600 full-sized power plants should be raised from 40 percent to 60 percent while cutting 25 percent of the power used in homes, offices, and commercial establishments.
New York Times , Oct. 30.