Carbon Capture With Biomass

I know what you guys might be thinking. Here Cheney goes again with another technocratic solution to anthropogenic climate change that doesn't deal with the root cause of the problem. I am not going to deny that biomass carbon capture and storage deals with the root cause of excessive resource consumption. However, the climate problem has gotten to the point where we the political viability of science based climate action will require a technological fix given the likely long lead time for social attitudes related to materialism and resource consumption to lead to deep emissions reduction as much of what we consume is for the most part dictated by our capital items. Furthermore, decreasing emissions in the short-term at a global level is politically difficult as evidenced by the disagreement associated with international climate negotiations. Developing countries are likely to continue to increase there energy demand which in the short-term means more coal fired power plants and cars as they continue to attempt to drag themselves out of poverty. We have the solution to climate change... but the earth climate is essentially like a heart attack patient going into cardiac arrest and needs defibrillator and then a nutritionist. This is an emergency and we need an ER doctor, not a naturalpathic doctor.... they should and likely will comes later

The great thing about biomass with carbon capture and storage is that it deals with our other liquidity crisis which is the carbon liquidity crisis. Our economic and physical energy has already emitted a dangerous amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and we need to reduce carbon dioxide concentrations to a safe level of 350 parts per million. The current concentration is approaching about 390 ppm which is well in the danger zone. Climate scientist Hans Joachim Schellnuber and climate change advisor to fellow physicist German Chancellor Angela Merkel argue that we need negative emissions by 2070 and a 80 Global reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 to prevent a very dangerous two degrees of warming.

However, using renewable energy by itself to solve the climate crisis by itself in the short term would be a very expensive but otherwise desirable undertaking. The problem with that is that it requires a large amount of infrastructure to be built, something like a one-time, non-discounted cost of 18 Trillion if the US was to replace all its energy with wind power. Such a cost would have to be borne over a period of a decade or two as not all of the economic resources of the US or any other country could go into building wind turbines. Biomass with CCS will make meeting the global target of 350 ppm of CO2 by 2100 about 20 trillion dollars cheaper over the century at a discounted value at 5% a year.

The graph above shows that the 350 ppm CO2 target can be meet at relatively low cost provided we are able to find 200 Exajoules of bio energy which would be about 3% of the worlds land area in bio energy plantations. This degree of land commitment may be difficult but it is likely far better than other options available to us. Currently, the third world (such asChina) and even developed countries such as the UK are building new coal fired power plants which creates the issue of emissions lock in as those plants will emit carbon dioxide for 40-50 years and thus another generation is unavoidably going to have to clean it up.

The BCCS Vision from the paper. I find it fairly plausible although oil production might be over stated if the peak oil is indeed true. Also Solar H2 is a bit over the top. Direct electric using batteries is likely going to succeed before hydrogen. However, I will give the authors credit for finding a relatively plausible broad outline of an energy system which is likely to maintain some sort of planetary stability. The graph below with less biomass is what I really want but realize that there in not likely to be the political will currently to meet it, particularly in the developing world who are experiencing a coal lust that deserves to be left in Dickensian England.


The article that the information comes from is

CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE FROM FOSSIL FUELS AND
BIOMASS – COSTS AND POTENTIAL ROLE IN STABILIZING
THE ATMOSPHERE

CHRISTIAN AZAR1, KRISTIAN LINDGREN1, ERIC LARSON2
and KENNETH MO¨ LLERSTEN


Climatic Change (2006)
DOI: 10.1007/s10584-005-3484-7

http://www.environmental-expert.com/Files\6063\articles\6220\w30h4274h130580u.pdf