Climate Change Experts "Lose Faith" In Renewable Technology

The Guardian:

Support for renewable energy technology to fight global warming is weakening in the face of worldwide economic problems and the true scale of the carbon reductions required, a survey published today has suggested.

Figures presented at the UN climate talks in Poznan, Poland, show that climate experts have less faith in alternative energy than they did 12 months ago.

Read the whole story: The Guardian

Comments

[Tunghoy]

The single biggest use of fossil fuels is the gas tanks of cars and trucks. To combat global warming, we need to reduce those emissions, but wind, hydroelectric, biomass and geothermal don't make vehicles go.

[racetoinfinity]

But electricity from wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass will run electric (or hybrid) vehicles.

[CaptainVideo]

With sufficient funding of R & D, plug in hybrids will become economically feasible in a few years. As batteries, due to agressive R & D development, can store more and more electricity, the distances the plug ins can go without turning the gasoline motor on will become greater and greater until a point is reached at which cars can run exclusively on batteries.

In the meantime, standard gasoline-electric hybrids, which are ready for prime time now, will produce a reduction in the demand for gasoline.

[Stilts9]

I've always been suspect of wind power because as the climate changes aren't the winds also going to shift in overall harmony rendering some installations windless? How often might this happen? Geothermal power seems more reliable to me in the long run.

[StopGlobalWarmingBeVegan]

Fossil fuels is part of the problem. The main problem is raising billions of livestocks, every year. Eat less meat and more fruits to save the planet.

[leevntheus]

1) The study remarks opinions about "individual" technologies, not all of them working together

2) Look who funded this crap.

3) Autonomous energy homes w/ Honda Hydrogen/S­olar/Batte­ry combined with 2010 energy efficiency standards are going to cut warming factors in U.S. by 25% alone. One company, one technology.....


gimmee a break

[mergina]

We are going DOWN with fossil fuels. Humanity is too dimwitted to change enough QUICK ENOUGH to make a difference.

[Hypatia63]

The headline is misleading. The article doesn't say they're losing faith in renewable energy, per se. It says they're losing faith in the ability of renewable energy to solve the global warming problem.

Many reasonable people have been saying for some time that solving the problem was going to require a mix of solutions involving renewable sources, conservation, societal changes/redesign, non-CO2-producing sources (such as some role for nuclear, hydroelectric, etc). Absent any breakthrough technology, that concept is probably going to continue.

Considering other energy-related problems, such as nuclear waste, dammed-up rivers, peak oil, etc, renewables still hold promise of helping to alleviate some of these problems, or at least holding the line in the face of increased energy demand. Granted most renewable solutions also have drawbacks, but those drawbacks are often much less severe than the alternative of continuing down our current path.

[Viper]

If the world population keeps increasing... then most efforts can not succeed.

Regards

[KillTheMessenger]

Nonsense. The majority of greenhouse gases is released by the minority of people.

Cheers

[GEE]

Greenhouse gasses? Pollution and massive eco-system damage have always followed population explosions. Starvation and disease will take out everyone regardless of their greenhouse gas issues. Population is the problem. Everything else is pure distraction.

[derekc06]

exactly...

[ErnestineBass]

Yep...too many folks on the boat.

[DrVeruju]

Nature will sort out the population problem if we don't. We (or our grandchildren and their children) can look forward to hunger, thirst, disease and short, miserable lives. Much better that we take charge. One child per family for a two or three generations would cut the population to a level where renewables would easily provide for our needs.

[kelisawood]

sorry - first post - hit submit too many times...

[kelisawood]

Sounds like someone at the top has been listening to the oil brokers and their lullabies of status quo. These huge organizations think like%2

[kelisawood]

Sounds like someone at the top has been listening to the oil brokers and their lullabies of status quo. These huge organizations think like, well, huge organizations. Renewable energy needs to be decentralized to take effect quickly. Of course... energy suppliers would choose ANY option than that. Because it effectively puts them out of business - big business that is. If energy devices supplied only the house or neighborhood, or device it's "in charge" of (lil energy pun) - then we wouldn't need to tap the grid at all. We wouldn't need a global council or industry dictating the energy sources or devices or innovations we choose to run our retrofitted homes and cars, our schools and our computers on. Further, we would be protecting ourselves from terrorist meddling of our energy supplies or our pocket books with manipulations in the market. If the power brokers could find a way to make renewable energy a highly centralized, hugely profitable industry, it would be a different world. Decentralization will capture and distribute renewable energy technology more quickly than these mammoth bureaucratic organizations can.

[racetoinfinity]

Right-on. Shades and solar panels of "Small is Beautiful" by E.F. Schumacher!

[kelisawood]

Sounds like someone at the top has been listening to the oil brokers and their lullabies of status quo. These huge organizations think lik

[rockyersocksoff]

Screw renewable energy.

We need to harvest the FREE energy.

And it doesn't have to be extra-fancy, or create a new "bubble."

Build infrastructure that collects energy; not just roads and bridges that encourage expending energy.

Passive solar heat is easy to DIY. Relatively.

(And quit wasting a trillion dollars ayear on a military mega-octopus.)

[KillTheMessenger]

"Passive solar heat is easy to DIY. Relatively. "

But why stop at a lousy passive system if you can buy a really well working active one? Too cheap to save the planet, are we?

[Hypatia63]

You hit the nail on the head:

The powers that be ARE too cheap to save the planet. That is why the main article in question here notes that the development of renewable energy sources is likely to slow down because of the economic situation.

I think rocky does have a good point: look around you and you will notice that very few buildings or residences take advantage of passive solar opportunities.

[kelisawood]

Sounds like someone at the top has been listening to the oil brokers and their lullabies of status quo. These huge organizations think like, well, huge organizations. Renewable energy needs to be decentralized to take effect quickly. Of course... energy suppliers would choose ANY option than that. Because it effectively puts them out of business - big business that is. If energy devices supplied only the house or neighborhood, or device it's "in charge" of (lil energy pun) - then we wouldn't need to tap the grid at all. We wouldn't need a global council or industry dictating the energy sources or devices or innovations we choose to run our retrofitted homes and cars, our schools and our computers on. Further, we would be protecting ourselves from terrorist meddling of our energy supplies or our pocket books with manipulations in the market. If the power brokers could find a way to make renewable energy a highly centralized, hugely profitable industry, it would be a different world. Decentralization will capture and distribute renewable energy technology more quickly than these mammoth bureaucratic organizations can.

[racetoinfinity]

A very good comment bears repeating.

[kelisawood]

Sounds like someone at the top has been listening to the oil brokers and their lullabies of status quo. These huge organizations think,

[SCG]

"The Baking Soda Carbon Fix " - by Nichole Wong Mother Jones magazine Nov/Dec 2008 Issue

Excerpt:

"If the Austin-based company Skyonic has its way, we will one day have tons more baking soda on hand that could fill cakes or fight fridge odors. CEO Joe David Jones, a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) pioneer, discovered a simple process to turn power plant carbon dioxide emissions into the ubiquitous household powder. His "SkyMine" technology combines a plant's emissions with lye—created on-site with little more than salt, water, electricity, and waste heat from the plant—to produce food-grade baking soda. The byproducts are hydrogen and chlorine from lye, which plants can sell for a profit along with the baking soda. The process removes 97 percent of the heavy metals that power plants belch, and 99 percent of acid-rain gases, meaning companies can offset costs by bypassing expensive scrubber systems and avoiding carbon emissions taxes."

Continues: http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2008/11/bright-idea-baking-soda.html

[ErnestineBass]

Cooooooool. Another promising technology I've heard about involves a particular algae that converts carbon dioxide into a form of ethanol. There are solutions out there! We just have to stop hemmin' and hawin' and start looking for them.

[KillTheMessenger]

You do realize that the energy you need to create the lye mostly offsets the energy created by burning the coal to begin with, right? There ain't no free lunch and everybody who tells you otherwise is not to be trusted.

Well, it is very likely that you failed thermodynamics in school (if you ever had it). But let's assume you want to do better and actually do a reality check on this. Right? You DO WANT an reality check? You are not going to reject the reality check just because a guy like KTM told you that you are naive?

OK, in that case look at what this guy has to say:

http://cbll.net/weblog/post/index/414/Baking-Soda-Carbon-Sequestration

Try to follow his argument. Get yourself the chemical tables from the web which contain the chemical enthalpies for these reactions steps and calculate the net energy yourself...

If you can't do that... stay a skeptic, apply the free lunch rule and ask yourself why we haven't been having a free lunch since the 1860s when the Solvay process and similar carbon sequestering reactions were discovered. And under no circumstance invest money in the skymine process. You will be losing it and someone will probably go to jail.

[Hypatia63]

I admit I haven't read the article but I wonder how well this idea has been thought through.

First, I have a hard time believing that existing industries can absorb the resulting massive oversupply of baking soda. That means it will have to be stockpiled.

Secondly, if it is stockpiled, it is inevitable that it will become exposed to acidified water in some form (polluted humidity, for example), leading to the release of.......CO2 back into the atmosphere.

[Hoelder]

Why not jump right now. My faith in humanity is confirmed: humanity will do diddlely about global warming because destroying the economy is more than all humans times the value of a life of a human according to the EPA. That is about $4900 Trillion. That of course attributes the value of an American to everybody. Which is ludicrous. Under current economic models it would never be important enough or cheap enough until we stand in front of extinction.