No politician can afford to be really uncompromising: the best we can hope for is that our guy does the right thing, most of the time.  Obama is no different.  He has a strong backbone, he’s smart, well-informed, and he mostly picks good people like Stephen Chu for Energy Secretary.  But he isn’t Superman.

Exhibit A: Obama energy plan expands use of coal.  This part of the plan is based on industry promises that they’ll take all that CO2, put it in baggies, and bury it deep in the ground.  They’re calling it CCS, or “Carbon Capture & Sequestration”.  There are two problems with that idea, both of which I know Chu is aware of.

First, the carbon is already sequestered; it was in the atmosphere millions of years ago but it was buried as coal and oil, allowing the cooler, more livable climate we’ve enjoyed.  Digging it up and burning it in the atmosphere un-sequesters it.*  We need to stop doing that - literally, we need to leave the fossil carbon in the ground.  But no politician, Obama included, has the juice to insist on such a thing.

Second, the proposals for re-sequestering the CO2 after burning that fossil carbon (they really should call it CCR-S) are bunk.  Nobody has demonstrated that the process can be secure (carbon stays in the ground) or even possible.  So far it’s a lot of hot air, as James Hrynshryn explains in CCS is in the same league as fusion.

Coal power is cheap because it externalizes an enormous cost to the commons.  When someone says that concentrated solar is more expensive, or that wind power is more expensive, they are referring to up-front costs.  Unaccounted in that comparison is the cost of climate change, which is like burning Renaissance masterpieces to keep warm.

My only hope is that various clean energy technologies will come down to below the artificially low cost of carbon energy, so it would be obvious to even the most short-sighted, profit-driven Cheney clone that it they’ll make more money with clean tech.  Because otherwise, I just don’t know how to get there from here.

NOTES:

• Exhibit B would be Corn Ethanol.  Though an argument could be made that having an ethanol delivery infrastructure will come in handy for when cellulose ethanol becomes available.  Maaaaaybe…
• * (We know this because the isotopic balance of carbon currently in the biosphere, and that of fossil carbon, are different.  As we approach 385ppm CO2, the isotopic signature of the carbon in our atmosphere is changing, too.  There’s no doubt where the extra carbon is coming from.)

1. I can’t even talk about coal. Talk about “cost!”

   As for ethanol, I consider it a scam to help ADM make money (speaking of which, we lavish money on folks like ADM just for making ethanol!). I once read that if every bit of corn in our nation were turned into ethanol, it wouldn’t make more than a miniscule dent in our “need” to import petroleum.

   Ethanol is less energetic than gasoline, so you will get less gas mileage with it. So, for a given amount of driving, you will burn more of it. And, slice things any way imaginable, but CO2 is still a by-product of combustion.

   Posted by gerry rosser  on  06/22/09  at  09:19 AM

2. If one subscribes to the Gaia model of the earth, all of this is of no matter, since Gaia/Mother Earth will take care of herself in the long run.  The “disturbing” thing is that the upcoming generation(s) will have to deal with any climate calamity and huge die-offs.  (I heard James Lovelock state that he believes the carrying capacity of Earth is actually about 1 Billion.)

   That is a kind of moral/ethical choice being made that goes to the central illusion of humankind ... that there is separateness, that one’s ego is unencumbered by consequences/karma.

   It will be the job of the coming generations to somehow integrate into their collective memory and character not to do this again.

   Posted by WeeDram  on  06/22/09  at  04:09 PM

3. Well as my college biology teacher used to say; “population will be limited one way or another.”  By a few conscious choices, we could keep the unpleasantness to a minimum.

   Posted by George  on  06/22/09  at  05:31 PM

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Decrepitude

A few selected articles from the last few years. Feel free to nominate others because really, I can't remember what all I've written.

9/11: five years on
Story from a picture
The Authority Gradient
If our lives are to have any meaning
What was lost
Cold and broken alleluia
Mary Mallon: being evil vs. being an evil
Artifacts of the long-gone man
A message to Republicans
Apple software review:
Because nature isn't waiting for us to wise up

Creative Commons stuff

I tried to figure out the Creative Commons and Wikimedia stuff but it was like doing your taxes in another language. Short version: it's OK if you copy my stuff as long as you give attribution and you're willing to share what you make of it with others. Here's the little logo:

This work by George Wiman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.