Al Gore and Richard Branson have finally touched it. What is the third rail? Ways to actually extract CO2 from the atmosphere, or CO2 capture. Why is capturing and extracting CO2 the third rail? Once again I turn to the younger Pielke from way back in 2005. First the climate skeptics:
For most of those people opposed to greenhouse gas regulation advocating air capture would require first admitting that greenhouse gases ought to be reduced in the first place, an admission that most on this side of the debate have avoided. When so-called climate skeptics start advocating air capture (which I have to believe can’t be too far off), then you will have a sign that the climate debate is really changing.
I’ll admit, I am not sure how fair that is, because I have heard from a number of skeptics that since the science is uncertain, it made more sense to concentrate on growing our wealth and technology so that we could either solve the problem or adapt to it more effectively should CO2 be the primary issue after all. That being said, it has not received nearly the attention as arguments that CO2 is not the problem. I think some of what Roger is saying plays into that.
What about on the other side? For all the talk about conflicts of interest on the side of skeptics, the interests are overwhelming for technology companies, scientists and policy makers running against anything which would solve the problem. That doesn’t even include the far larger ideological and emotional attachments. Global warming is a statists dream, with the potential for planning and reordering the worlds economy on a global scale. The specter of being part of the vanguard of history has animated millions and given them a way to feel part of an intellectual and moral elite. For many people the environmental and specifically the global warming movement has provided another such creed with the decline in the influence of communist and fascist thought (though both ideologies are well represented within the environmental movement.) This tendency explains a large part of the strain of visceral suspicion of conservatives and libertarians to the early claims of global warming and the environmental movement in general.
Still, less ideologically driven incentives based on political power, prestige and money are ever present:
If such a transformation [ed. a move to seriously look into the ability to capture CO2 from the air] occurs, then we have the irony of seeing the climate skeptics become the technology advocates and the greenhouse gas regulation advocates become technology skeptics. Why? For most of those people who support greenhouse gas regulations, even admitting the possibility of air capture is anathema, because it would undercut the entire structure of the contemporary climate enterprise. Consider that the Kyoto Protocol and all of its complex mechanisms would largely be rendered irrelevant. So too would be most research on carbon sequestration (though point source sequestration would likely remain of interest) and management, as well as much of research on reducing emissions in autos, homes, cities, etc.. As well, because among many much of the motivation for climate mitigation lies in changing peoples lifestyles, securing advantages in international economics, and changing energy policies, air capture represents a tremendous threat to such agendas. As a 2002 Los Alamos National Laboratory press release trumpets, “Imagine no restrictions on fossil-fuel usage and no global warming!”
The present tendency of the environmental movement and policy makers to confuse energy and economic policies with climate policy would disappear with CO2. Since energy and economic policy is what really appeals to many people in the first place they are likely to resist and quite adamantly. [Note:to his credit James Hansen is on the Branson team] Thus, the IPCC devotes no space to CO2 capture from the air despite the work of many scientists who claim it is possible:
According to estimates by David Keith and colleagues, the costs of air capture are about one order of magnitude higher than the price that carbon trades for in the European carbon exchange. In the history of technological innovation, this is really not very far apart (think computers). Imagine if governments around the world set up a $50 billion prize for the first technology that demonstrated economic viability for air capture of carbon dioxide at, for instance, $20 per ton, $5 per ton or $1 per ton. The resultinginvestment in innovation would be massive. To scale the cost of awarding such a prize, it is a fraction of some projections of the annual costs of implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, which would deal with about 99% less of the problem than cost-effective air capture.Can air capture solve the problem of increasing greenhouse gas emissions? I don’t know. But if scientists and policy makers frame the climate problem as one of stabilizing concentrations of atmospheric CO2, then given the potential payoff, air capture deserves to be at the center of international climate policy debate. Presently it is not, but I’d bet that it will be soon.
I hope so as well. Here is a link to a paper on air capture of CO2 (pdf.)
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