February 22, 2006
Taking the Next Step to Avoid Global Warming
By Froma
Harrop
We all know what
must be done to save our planet from global warming: Stop loading
the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. If we do nothing, entire
ecosystems will collapse. The ice sheets will melt, and much of
our coastline will disappear under the waves.
Understanding that
is the easy part. The hard part is taking steps to avoid this
future. Many environmentalists think they have the answer: Replace
fossil fuels that emit carbon dioxide with clean sources of energy
-- and find ways to make more efficient use of petroleum, coal
and natural gas. But one of the planet's top earth scientists
sees that plan as dangerously inadequate.
Wallace Broecker
says he likes windmills and fuel-efficient cars to the extent
that they can buy time against global warming. But the ultimate
solution has to be technology that can actually extract carbon
dioxide from the air and power plants, and bury it.
The whole thing sounds
fantastical, but the people behind it are firmly grounded on this
planet. Broecker is Newberry professor at Columbia University's
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. He won the Vetlesen Prize, considered
the Nobel equivalent for geology, and holds the Presidential Medal
of Science. He is famous for identifying the "great conveyor
belt" of ocean currents that affects climate.
Backing him is hard-nosed
businessman Gary Comer, who started the Lands' End mail-order
empire in Dodgeville, Wis. Comer has funded a company -- Global
Research Technologies, in Tucson, Ariz. -- that is building a
prototype device that can take carbon dioxide out of the air for
storage or eventual burial in salty aquifers.
The machine sounds
very sci-fi, but sucking out carbon dioxide is no big deal, according
to Broecker. Submarines and space capsules already do it. The
challenge comes in the enormous amounts of CO2 involved.
Still, the question
persists: Why can't we just stop belching carbon dioxide in the
first place, by moving to solar, wind, vegetation and other carbon-free
energy sources? The answer is that these promising technologies
can't be developed in time to confront the rapid accumulations
of carbon dioxide now heating the planet.
"If the poor
of the world were to achieve a standard of living similar to Portugal's,"
Broecker says, "you would need a billion windmills -- and
you need places where they can go." Wind power could supply
5 percent to 10 percent of the world's energy, at best.
"That's good,"
Broecker notes. "It means that that problem shrinks by 5
or 10 percent. But we have to go essentially to zero CO2 emissions."
This may surprise
some environmentalists, but Broecker sees coal as our near-term
energy future. "We have enough coal to fuel everything we
do for centuries," he says. Gasoline can now be produced
from coal for $40 to $45 a barrel. The trick comes in making coal
kind to the environment. If we tack on the cost of capturing and
storing the carbon dioxide that coal emits, its price would rise
by 20 to 30 percent, according to Broecker's rough estimate. We
can handle that.
Carbon-dioxide removal
can take place anywhere in the world. Deciding who does it would
require very complicated international agreements. But there can
also be money in the work.
Iceland, for example,
is built on basaltic lava, which would be a good place to store
carbon dioxide. Iceland's government has asked Broecker to help
arrange tests in which massive quantities of carbon dioxide are
injected into the island's lava flows.
President Bush now
has a fine opportunity to take serious action on global warming
-- without disrupting the economy. "If the Bush administration
were smart," Broecker says, "they would announce that
we're going to put a lot of money into getting ready. They could
tune up the technology, and figure out how to pay for it."
The goal is to stop
the net buildup of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere by
2075. If we succeed, humankind might even be able to start cutting
the amount of greenhouse gases in the air. That would put us in
an interesting position, according to Broecker: "We as a
planet would have to decide what CO2 level gives us the best --
quote, unquote -- climate."
But the business-as-usual
route would be a highway to disaster. Babies born today will see
our failure.
Copyright
2006 Creators Syndicate
