Selecting the Right Technologies to Solve the Climate Crisis
By Michael Coppola and Nancy Williams
Where We Stand Solving the Climate Crisis
Under the Paris Agreement adopted in 2015, virtually all the world’s nations pledged, “…to limit global warming to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and also, if possible, pursue efforts to cap warming at 1.5C.” In the absence of large future emissions reductions, according to the latest generation of climate models used by the United Nation’s International Governmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, that goal will not be met.
Time Is Running Out
The world is now about 1.2C warmer than it was in the 19th Century - and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 50%. There is no way to undo the effect of that much carbon in the atmosphere anytime soon. The timeline for exceeding 1.5C falls between 2026 and 2042 in scenarios where emissions are not rapidly reduced, with a central estimate of 2031.
In the last few weeks several scientific papers have been published that present the possibility that climate change is progressing faster than predicted by the IPCC. The papers point out that several criteria were not included in the models used. They believe this is the reason the models underestimated the amount of heating that would occur and when it would occur. They also point out that the effects of climate change are more damaging then predicted. Most climate scientists are backing the projection of exceeding the 1.5C by 2030 if dramatic reductions in greenhouse gases are not achieved.
Which Technologies Can Help?
It is essential that we implement the technologies that are proven to work and are economically sound to make them commercially viable. At this time those technologies are wind turbines and solar photovoltaic panels. We can also limit the effects of methane in the atmosphere with better regulation and limit the heating of the atmosphere with surface cooling projects and environmental planning. The use of electricity is not going away but energy use can be conserved and reduced.
Is Nuclear Viable?
Currently, most of the electricity generated today is done by burning fossil fuels, oil, natural gas and coal, and to a lesser extent, by hydro, wind, solar, geothermal and nuclear. Nuclear power plants are considered a green source because their operation does not directly produce greenhouse gases, GHG’s, but it has so many other problems that very few have been constructed in the last several decades.
These are the problems; disposal and storage of radioactive waste; high construction cost and decommissioning cost; long construction time and higher operating cost. The existence of these problems is why so few have been built since the 1970’s. The recent attempts to build them have taken over 10 years and cost three times the original budget. Efforts to develop new designs and prove them to be commercially viable have failed. Additionally, their safe operation becomes more difficult as extreme weather events increase. One of the many problems is that they need reliable amounts of water. As droughts become more frequent and widespread it makes having a reliable source of cooling water more difficult for inland units. Locating plants on the coastline for access to ocean waters is no longer an option because more frequent and stronger coastal storms increase the chance of losing electricity which cooling systems for both the reactor and the spent fuel pool require. The door closed on nuclear a long time ago.
Carbon Capture and Storage
Direct carbon capture is not able to remove any amount of CO2 that would make any difference to the total amount of CO2 already in the atmosphere. The few currently operating plants cannot remove even a few seconds worth of the CO2 that is added to the atmosphere each day. The time frame that is needed to construct enough direct capture units to make any difference would take decades if all went perfectly and is far too costly. The only market available now that could bring down the cost is the enhanced oil recovery program that the oil companies use to get more oil out of the ground. That is certainly not going to help reduce the production of GHG’s. Injection of carbon dioxide into rock formation as a method of sequestration is untested and costly both in dollars and energy.
Hydrogen as a Fuel
So-called “Green” Hydrogen is made by using green sourced electricity to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen. However, today almost all hydrogen comes from a process that uses fossil fuel. Super heated steam is mixed with methane to break the hydrogen free from the methane molecule, CH4. This hydrogen is used primarily in the manufacture of ammonia that is then used to make fertilizer for our current monoculture farming practices. To make more hydrogen for use as a fuel or to replace that made by the fossil fuel method using the electrolysis method is currently not commercially feasible due to the very high energy needs of electrolysis. The energy costs come from the entire process involved in electrolysis; mining the rare elements used as catalysts; making the highly purified water that is needed and the electrolysis process itself. To make this expensive hydrogen accessible you still need more energy to compress, cool and pump it through a pipeline (that does not exist) and build multi-million dollar filling stations. The current cost using the fossil fuel method has the price to fill a tank in a fuel cell vehicle at $125. That $125 will get you around 300 miles of range. You can understand why there are only a few thousand Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles. To use such excessive amounts of green sourced energy to make a fuel that will be too expensive for any industry, when it could be used to replace fossil fuel generated electricity, makes no sense.
Let’s Stop Wasting Taxpayer Money
The private market is only investing in these three energy sources because the government subsidizes them. We need to stop government funding of unproductive projects like carbon capture, nuclear, and hydrogen, and direct that money to the REAL Green technologies, like solar and wind. We must use the resources and time we have to build the tried and proven technology that is working now, not what might work 20 years down the road. If we take this approach, we have a chance of reaching the goal of the Paris Agreement of not exceeding 2C and hopefully keeping the increase to below 1.5C.
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