Global Warming and Evolution

[True_Blue]

Very interesting concept. Seems thermodynamically disfavorable but that's because I'm always thinking of oxidation as an energy source and since CO2 is about as oxidized as C gets, it doesn't seem to be a workable item.

Maybe you are using for some photosynthetic?

Never mind. This is probably your trade-secret or proprietary topic. Just an interesting side line.

Thaumaturgy, you're clearly a smart guy, and you're putting a lot of thoughtful time into your posts. You're right--there's a lot of trade secrets involved, so there's little I can tell you, but I'm convinced that CO2 emissions will form the basis at least one wholly new industry, and it need not involve wasting good carbon by pumping it into the ground. I appreciate your support on genetic engineering, but most environmentalists don't have your enlightened mind.

The reason why environmentalism is a twisted religion and not a cogent philosophy is because environmentalists have no DESIRED END STATE. How much pollution are environmentalists willing to tolerate? None? If every law environmentalists desired were implemented, what would society and the economy look like? The truth is that almost no environmentalist has ever considered these questions because they've never thought their religion through. Environmentalism is about feelings and emotions, not about logic, data, and public policy. I talked to an otherwise extremely smart guy a month ago, a law school graduate, who wants to pass a law outlawing cars. He has no clue how much devastation and human misery such a law would create (disease from horse dung, overly dense cities, little or no trade & commerce, etc, etc). The environmentalist public policy platform, if implemented, would turn the US into North Korea and cause the resulting disease, starvation, and totalitarianism.

With respect to population growth, the growth rate for the world population is already declining. It was 2% per year 40 years ago, and now it's down to 1.2%. The UN projects the population will level off at 9-10 billion or so by the year 2050. There's no cause for alarm, especially considering the earth could comfortably accommodate at least a trillion human beings.

With respect to economics, good economists know that people and governments don't need to do anything with respect to energy, merely act according to their own self-interest. As oil becomes more scarce, its price will rise. That gives investors an economic incentive to give innovative companies money to come up with ways to capture renewable energy and bring the price back down. As long as the government stays out of the way, mankind will never run out of energy. The economy will naturally desire to be more energy-efficient without any intentional, overt push by the government. It's distressing me that people are so worried and get so worked up over energy shortages. Those worries have been going on for a 100 years, and we're nowhere close to running out. We should feel free to consume all the oil we want without worrying about the next generation. People worried about the next generation should learn about Social Security and Medicare, not energy.

 

[Tenka]

There's no cause for alarm, especially considering the earth could comfortably accommodate at least a trillion human beings.

A trillion people living like your average American or like your average Ethiopian?

 

[thaumaturgy]

The reason why environmentalism is a twisted religion and not a cogent philosophy is because environmentalists have no DESIRED END STATE. How much pollution are environmentalists willing to tolerate? None? If every law environmentalists desired were implemented, what would society and the economy look like? The truth is that almost no environmentalist has ever considered these questions because they've never thought their religion through.

I think you may be painting the whole idea with the ideas of the few. It would be like assuming all Christians are like the old Jimmy Swaggart and all of them preach one thing while meeting with prostitutes in sleazy hotels on Airline Highway. Or assuming all Christians are like Fred Phelps. It's unfair to the idea of environmental responsibility to assume we are all radical morons with no understanding of the science but just neo-luddites who would rather destroy society than see one tree die.

With respect to economics, good economists know that people and governments don't need to do anything with respect to energy, merely act according to their own self-interest. As oil becomes more scarce, its price will rise. That gives investors an economic incentive to give innovative companies money to come up with ways to capture renewable energy and bring the price back down.

That is how the ideal works, yes. And that is a good thing. However, it does require that we moderate our intake enough so that new technologies can come on-line.

I am really fond of this graph, so I'll show it again:

Note the energy return on investment (the amount of energy one gets after investing the necessary energy to create energy). Right now all the sexy new technologies; biodeisel, photovoltaic, tarsands are down in the lower left corner below 10:1. Even tar sands, a concept that we pretty fully understand how to extract the energy from is being considered, yet it is nearly a net negative for EROI.

The point of this is, that unless we moderate our thirst for petroleum wewill run out before the new stuff comes on line in an economically viable fashion.

Energy use has two keys: rate of use and environmental impact. Right now the stuff that is easy to get is among the most damaging to the environment. Indeed, if oil runs out your car will be only one little pain. Petroleum underlies so much more than just energy. It forms the core of the organic chemistry industry. Plastics, polymers, you name it. That nice plastic case on the computer you're using right now will cost you a lot more in a future where oil is scarce.

Getting that stuff from coal will be a lot more expensive.

Does your research lab use any lab equipment? Think about the filtration units, the lab gloves, the tubing. Some of that stuff will either be too expensive to ever buy in the future or it will be irreplacable. If either of those things happens, then no amount of wishful thinking will allow you to generate the next breakthrough.

Rational environmentalism is the pursuit of a sustainable future, and a sustainable society.

As Tenka asked in the prior post: 1 trillion people living like we do or living like Ethiopians?

Americans have a responsibility to live in such a way as to allow for the poorest countries to see a better day and for future generations to live well. At our current rate your great grandchildren may live in a time when polymers and plastics are more precious than gold and twice as expensive.

As long as the government stays out of the way, mankind will never run out of energy.

As long as we live in Utopia and it doesn't take any time to bring new tech on-line.

The economy will naturally desire to be more energy-efficient without any intentional, overt push by the government.

Perhaps you have never seen one of these on a city street here in the U.S.

It's distressing me that people are so worried and get so worked up over energy shortages. Those worries have been going on for a 100 years, and we're nowhere close to running out.

The easy stuff is getting hard to get at.

We should feel free to consume all the oil we want without worrying about the next generation.

Wisdom. That is insanity. We will deserve to be listed as the most evil generation that has ever existed by all future generations.

 

[thaumaturgy]

It's distressing me that people are so worried and get so worked up over energy shortages. Those worries have been going on for a 100 years, and we're nowhere close to running out. We should feel free to consume all the oil we want without worrying about the next generation. People worried about the next generation should learn about Social Security and Medicare, not energy.

Energy may be available, but it will cost. Until your company produces a breakthrough that is as easy to achieve and as economically "hot" as fossil fuels we are stuck with oil.

Worried about petroleum? I am. As I said in the earlier post my car is the least of my worries. The chemistry I do is underlain by a huge amount of organic polymers. My lifeblood will be decimated if oil runs out. I can always walk to work, but if I don't have raw materials and equipment I can't do it.

How serious is it?

(The following is extracted from the OILDRUM.com
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3726#more )

Well, we in the U.S. passed our peak oil about 1970-1972:


We used to be the world's largest producer of oil! Now as an economically savvy person, surely you realize the seriousness of this turn around.

And note that in the 38 years since we hit peak and started to decline we have yet to develop a newer, cheaper source of energy. The most powerful economy full of the best and brightest and we take the easy route of buying oil from countries we inherently don't trust.

As we added more production, it too started to decline:


What about new oil discoveries on Earth?


They're falling.

Oil Production is flat for the past 2 years.


What does that tell you about where this curve goes?

The Saudis are sitting on the dying parts of the last of the Super Giant fields. They are hardly being up-front about what their reserves are and we have no way to determine their numbers' veracity. They are either currently playing a game of "moderated production" in order to extend their cash-cow or they truly are on the downslope of the peak.

This is the story: In the early 1980s, OPEC oil countries were all vying for high quotas. To get those high quotas, they believed that publishing high reserves would be helpful. One by one, OPEC oil countries raised their reserve estimates, in an attempt to make it look like they had more oil, so deserved higher quotas. To further this illusion, they kept the reserve numbers at the new high level, even when oil had been pumped out, and no new oil had been found.
The practice has continued for years. OPEC leaders found that by overstating their reserves, they gained new respect, both within their own countries and abroad. They also found that the practice was very easy to do, since no one is auditing the reserve numbers they provide.(SOURCE)

Do you believe that opening ANWR will help significantly? Remember how much oil we use.

"
Comment: This slide is from a presentation of Dr. Sam Shelton of Georgia Tech. The oil from ANWR is expected to provide only a small upward "bump" to US production.
Quite a few of the other much-hyped solutions are expected to provide equivalently little benefit. We will likely need to reduce consumption to better match supply.
It might be noted that the Y scale on this graph should say million barrels a day, not thousand barrels a day. Since [oildrum.com] did not make the graph, [oildrum.com] can't fix it." (SOURCE)

THe point of all this side-line down Peak Oil is that oil is currently the most economical of easily available organic material including fuel and energy. We know economically "cheap" oil is coming to an end and possibly within the next couple decades. It will only get more expensive. We need not only to support companies like yours to develop new technologies, but we also need to moderate our carbon footprint, not just for environmental reasons.

 

[True_Blue]

A trillion people living like your average American or like your average Ethiopian?

The average American. Everyone on earth could live comfortably in the state of Texas, assuming a standard suburban lifestyle, and all the food could be grown in another state the size of Texas.

 

[True_Blue]

I am really fond of this graph, so I'll show it again:

Your chart is flawed because photosynthesis is both an energy source and a catalyst. Electrons provide an additional source of energy, so your photosynthesis line should be moved to the right. More fatally for your chart, sunlight conveys more exploitable energy than organisms can capture via photosynthesis, and there are organisms that capture sunlight in wavelengths beyond the the standard 400-700 nm. Each of these effects is fatal to the chart you displayed. I want to reiterate that the next generation has nothing to worry about, as long as the governments don't squander the wealth we do generate from petroleum by paying hundreds of millions of people not to work. That's far more important for the next generation than anything related to environmentalism. For the consumption of oil to be "worth" it, the economic value and technology generated from the oil consumption must not be wasted--that's why it's important governments not squander wealth through socialist economic models.

 

[True_Blue]

Energy may be available, but it will cost. Until your company produces a breakthrough that is as easy to achieve and as economically "hot" as fossil fuels we are stuck with oil.

Worried about petroleum? I am. As I said in the earlier post my car is the least of my worries. The chemistry I do is underlain by a huge amount of organic polymers. My lifeblood will be decimated if oil runs out. I can always walk to work, but if I don't have raw materials and equipment I can't do it.

I don't doubt that peak oil is coming. In the US, many of the unexploited oil deposits in Alaska and on the continental shelf are sealed off by the federal government. According to the president of Shell, those deposits would be sufficient to reduce the price of oil to $50-60 per barrel, though only in the intermediate term, after which prices would rise again. But oil is not the only fossil fuel. Depending on assumptions, we have enough coal to last us 150-350 years. Coal is the only long-term, cost-effective solution. My company's technology is positioned around coal. Of course, it will not be easy to achieve. As with any ambitious commercial venture, there are hundreds of ways to fail and only a vanishingly few ways to succeed.

 

[Vene]

The average American. Everyone on earth could live comfortably in the state of Texas, assuming a standard suburban lifestyle, and all the food could be grown in another state the size of Texas.

This is one big [citation needed]

 

[thaumaturgy]

This is one big [citation needed]

Vene,
This is a standard cannard of the Conservative anti-environmental responsibility crowd. Technically speaking it is true if you run the numbers.

Of course its ridiculous trash because it ignores the reality of actually putting billions of people in the state of Texas and supplying them with water and sewerage and livable space.

Sure there's sufficient space to pack trillions of people on all dry land across the globe. But it doesn't really make a viable point of any real merit.

 

[True_Blue]

Vene,
This is a standard cannard of the Conservative anti-environmental responsibility crowd. Technically speaking it is true if you run the numbers.

Of course its ridiculous trash because it ignores the reality of actually putting billions of people in the state of Texas and supplying them with water and sewerage and livable space.

Sure there's sufficient space to pack trillions of people on all dry land across the globe. But it doesn't really make a viable point of any real merit.

Thaumaturgy, there's no need to vent and use hyperbole. Of course you're right that isn't realistic to put everyone in Texas--it's more economical for people to be scattered all over the world. We are disbursed geographically for a reason. But it also isn't realistic to suppose that the world is somehow bursting at the seams with people, because it isn't, and it never will. My reason tells me that we have no reason to worry about human growth and economic development, and people who have preached environmental doom and gloom have not had their predictions come true for at least 200 years, possibly longer.

Vene, I wish you and others would stop making reflexive requests for citations. This forum is best suited for people to reason together and think for themselves, and consider ideas without taking polls or adding up years of tenure at universities. Here's some math about the Texas thing:
Texas has 268,820 square miles. There are 27,878,400 square feet per square mile (5280^2). Texas has 7,494,271,488,000 square feet. The world population is currently 6.7 billion. Assume each person lives in a family of four and shares the same living space. Each family could occupy a plot of land of 4474 square feet. You could easily reduce that living space to add in roads and other infrastructure. I live in a condo with 36 stories, so that space could be reduced hugely by an order of magnitude or more.

The alternative to the ideas I've laid out is to fret and wring hands about problems that you have no control over. Not only do we have no control over global warming and overpopulation, but those problems aren't even problems. However, the solutions those problems, like China's One Child policy, are the real problems.

 

[Tenka]

Here's some math about the Texas thing:
Texas has 268,820 square miles. There are 27,878,400 square feet per square mile (5280^2). Texas has 7,494,271,488,000 square feet. The world population is currently 6.7 billion. Assume each person lives in a family of four and shares the same living space. Each family could occupy a plot of land of 4474 square feet. You could easily reduce that living space to add in roads and other infrastructure. I live in a condo with 36 stories, so that space could be reduced hugely by an order of magnitude or more.

So basically, Megacity 1. You are going to need new guardians of society with the power to dispense both justice and punishment. They make the laws, the enforce the laws and the punish the law-breakers. They will be the Judges....

The average American.

I don't think you could even keep up the American level of beef consumption for the rest of our current population, let alone 1 trillion people.

Are you a member of the RaptureReady community?

 

[thaumaturgy]

Thaumaturgy, there's no need to vent and use hyperbole. Of course you're right that isn't realistic to put everyone in Texas

Pray tell who is being hyperbolic? Why even bring up the Texas thing? Honestly, it is disingenuous at worst and meaningless at best.

--it's more economical for people to be scattered all over the world.

Again with the economics. It's also about the only way the system works.

We are disbursed geographically for a reason. But it also isn't realistic to suppose that the world is somehow bursting at the seams with people,

The point isn't that the world is currently bursting at the seams, but rather that given a finite amount of resources and an exponentially growing population you will hit a wall. But before that wall it is likely that everyone's standard of living falls. ESPECIALLY when one "special group" gets to suck up resources at 5X the rate of any other group on the planet.

because it isn't, and it never will.

Of course it won't. At some point we will cause our own gruesome extinction. Either we destroy the surface by pollution or global climate change we cannot adapt to, or we run out of food and resources. It happens in nature.

Do you want to see that happen by simply doing "nothing" because it might harsh your "economic mellow" for the short term?

Vene, I wish you and others would stop making reflexive requests for citations.

Oh please, don't start this Juvenissun-like stuff. You are talking to scientists. We believe things because we have proof and references to check. Personally I am desperately afraid I'll make a factual error on this forum so I always attempt to provide references so others can check my work out.

Why is it the anti-environmnetalists and ostensible Christians are the ones with difficulty with transparency and ground-proofing of facts???

This forum is best suited for people to reason together and think for themselves,

I would no more take your word for something than I'd take the word of Kevin Trudeau in regards to a healthcare question! No offense, but I place immense value in provable and supportable facts.

and consider ideas without taking polls or adding up years of tenure at universities.

There's the stuff! Some dig at politicians when politicians have nothing to do with this (strawman tactic #1) and then having a dig at "intellectual elitism" (Patented U.S. Anti-Intellectualism).

Here's some math about the Texas thing:
Texas has 268,820 square miles. There are 27,878,400 square feet per square mile (5280^2). Texas has 7,494,271,488,000 square feet. The world population is currently 6.7 billion. Assume each person lives in a family of four and shares the same living space. Each family could occupy a plot of land of 4474 square feet. You could easily reduce that living space to add in roads and other infrastructure. I live in a condo with 36 stories, so that space could be reduced hugely by an order of magnitude or more.

Hey Vene, note how "roads and infrastructure" are just thrown in there as an aside. Part of Infrastructure usually includes: water and sewerage. Try that in this new Texas-Utopia with the world's population living in one state. This why this example becomes a meaningless thought experiment.

The alternative to the ideas I've laid out is to fret and wring hands about problems that you have no control over.

No control over? Are you trying to hide from our responsibility??? Take a look at the isotopic signature of the carbon being pumped into the atmosphere lately. Do you think the farm animals are burning fossil fuels?

Do you think the birds about 80 years ago decide to start causing the globe to warm by their mighty will at just about the same time the industrial revolution started? Those craft birdies!

Not only do we have no control over global warming and overpopulation,

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with this book:

but those problems aren't even problems.

Enjoy your planet!

 

[Vene]

Oh please, don't start this Juvenissun-like stuff. You are talking to scientists. We believe things because we have proof and references to check. Personally I am desperately afraid I'll make a factual error on this forum so I always attempt to provide references so others can check my work out.

Sure, just take away my point. Keep it, you can have it.

Hey Vene, note how "roads and infrastructure" are just thrown in there as an aside. Part of Infrastructure usually includes: water and sewerage. Try that in this new Texas-Utopia with the world's population living in one state. This why this example becomes a meaningless thought experiment

I just want to add, where is the office space, where are the factories, where are the hospitals, where are the courthouses, where are the marketplaces, etc? And the problem isn't necessarily space for living, it's a lack of nonrenewable resources. That, and considering that there are over 6,000,000,000 people, I don't think that the world is even close to underpopulated. That 'be fruitful and multiply' passage, that has been fulfilled, mission accomplished.

 

[TemperateSeaIsland]

True Blue

I'm curious about something ... Why did you choose to start a Biotech company? What is your company focused on (I know you've mentioned CO2 and coal)? What kind of biological/chemical education have you been through?

I know it's off topic but it's been mentioned a few times so I thought I might as well ask... Back to my lurking.

 

[thaumaturgy]

There is a discussion of an EIA report about energy and environmental impact at THIS site, I found this to be a propos of the current discussion:
(I have emphasised what I think are important)

Only under the report's "stabilisation scenario" — described as a "notional pathway" to long-term stabilisation of levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — would global carbon dioxide emissions fall sharply below 2005 levels by 2030. This would be achieved through improved efficiency in industry, buildings and transport, switching to nuclear power and renewable-energy sources, and the widespread deployment of carbon dioxide capture and storage.

But this will require "unprecedented technological advances, entailing substantial costs". Indeed, one of the main recommendations in the report is for "a substantial increase [...] in public and private funding for energy technology research, development and demonstrations, which remains well below levels reached in the early 1980s."

As they go on to say in this review, this is not unheralded. We've done great things before. But the key is that we don't think of it as something that isn't a worry. We must act now, ergo we must find these topics of energy consumption and utilization as well as environmental issues to be very compelling. Something indeed to worry about.

Just like we worried about our enemies getting an atomic bomb that spurred us to do the Manhattan Project and make a revolutionary weapon and energy source in record time.

Further they state in relation to greenhouse gas impact:

But developing new technology to meet the terms of the stabilisation scenario will not be enough. Equally important is the political task of making people worldwide move away from high energy-consuming practices, the only way to create a globally sustainable society.

And then there's this:

Global warming is increasingly recognised as possibly the biggest "market failure" the world has experienced. The Economic Outlook report — produced by an organisation that, as part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), represents the energy interests of the world's leading capitalist societies — implicitly acknowledges this. As Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the IEA, put it last week, "All countries must take vigorous, immediate and collective action to curb runaway energy demand."

 

[thaumaturgy]

True Blue

I'm curious about something ... Why did you choose to start a Biotech company? What is your company focused on (I know you've mentioned CO2 and coal)? What kind of biological/chemical education have you been through?

I know it's off topic but it's been mentioned a few times so I thought I might as well ask... Back to my lurking.

I suspect he will not be able to discuss his concept in detail, but I am guessing his company is working along similar lines to this technology (???)

It sounds like, from the few statements True-Blue has made, that their technology is somewhat different, but I get the impression it is the goal to sequester CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels or other comubstion of carbon that would normally produce energy and instead of the CO2 going up the stack the CO2 might be used by photosynthetic biomass (plants or algae?)

I don't know, but it does sound intriguing. It would be helpful. Certainly not a perfect answer, but helpful in making coal a bit less unpalatable. Coal also spews out a lot of other nasties including by not limited to mercury and some radioactive materials going up the stack.

I recall once reading that people living near a coal fired powerplant are exposed to more radiation than from a well-functioning, regulatory compliant nuke plant (link)

I'm no expert on nuclear, but I have done some work with coal. I like coal, but I realize the damage it can do when burned.

If True-Blue's company can make it cleaner it will be helpful, but will it be fast enough on-line to bring us to a stable state of greenhouse gas emissions?

I hope his technology or related technologies work.

The fact that these technologies are valuable and currently funded is an indication that environmentalism DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN THE DESTRUCTION OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY. It opens up new avenues of technology and wonderful new opportunities. Maybe this time around we're going to be "responsible" about it for the long game.

 

[True_Blue]

So basically, Megacity 1. You are going to need new guardians of society with the power to dispense both justice and punishment. They make the laws, the enforce the laws and the punish the law-breakers. They will be the Judges....

I don't think you could even keep up the American level of beef consumption for the rest of our current population, let alone 1 trillion people.

Are you a member of the RaptureReady community?

I definitely liked Judge Dread--I need to rent it on Netflix and watch it again.

If farming technology remained as it was during the 1700s, when Thomas Malthus stalked the earth, mankind would be in trouble. But every couple of decades or so, agriculture undergoes massive efficiency improvements, and land yields far more food per acre than it used to. As food prices go up, humanity begins to substitute capital (investment dollars) for human labor, and we develop technology that brings food prices back down again. There is a ton of excellent technology waiting in the wings that will be employed as soon as food prices reach certain thresholds such that we will perpetually produce more and more food per acre. Energy works precisely the same way. For example, we will never run out of water because as soon as water prices reach a certain threshold, we will invest the capital needed to turn salt water into fresh water, giving us access to the oceans as a water source. Shortages of food are really shortages of capital. So at some point, when beef gets too expensive, we will figure out ways to grow beef more cheaply, or will will get our protein from a more cost-advantageous source.

 

[True_Blue]

True Blue

I'm curious about something ... Why did you choose to start a Biotech company? What is your company focused on (I know you've mentioned CO2 and coal)? What kind of biological/chemical education have you been through?

I know it's off topic but it's been mentioned a few times so I thought I might as well ask... Back to my lurking.

My company shares many things in common (corporate structure and business approach) with Amyris Biotechnologies. http://www.amyrisbiotech.com/news.html. We're complimentary with Amyris, not competitors, and either my company and its investors will buy Amyris, or Amyris and its investors will buy us.

 

[True_Blue]

I suspect he will not be able to discuss his concept in detail, but I am guessing his company is working along similar lines to this technology (???)

It sounds like, from the few statements True-Blue has made, that their technology is somewhat different, but I get the impression it is the goal to sequester CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels or other comubstion of carbon that would normally produce energy and instead of the CO2 going up the stack the CO2 might be used by photosynthetic biomass (plants or algae?)

I don't know, but it does sound intriguing. It would be helpful. Certainly not a perfect answer, but helpful in making coal a bit less unpalatable. Coal also spews out a lot of other nasties including by not limited to mercury and some radioactive materials going up the stack.

I recall once reading that people living near a coal fired powerplant are exposed to more radiation than from a well-functioning, regulatory compliant nuke plant (link)

I'm no expert on nuclear, but I have done some work with coal. I like coal, but I realize the damage it can do when burned.

If True-Blue's company can make it cleaner it will be helpful, but will it be fast enough on-line to bring us to a stable state of greenhouse gas emissions?

I hope his technology or related technologies work.

The fact that these technologies are valuable and currently funded is an indication that environmentalism DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN THE DESTRUCTION OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY. It opens up new avenues of technology and wonderful new opportunities. Maybe this time around we're going to be "responsible" about it for the long game.

My company will hopefully help companies like Linc Energy, GreenFuel, and BioCleanCoal succeed to a far greater extent than they expect. Happily, the CO2-to-liquid fuel market is so huge that there is room for many companies to succeed, and I believe that success by one company or combination of companies is inevitable.

If you look at the energy market and the various types of energy out there, coal is the only "scaleable" source of fuel. We would have to build one new nuclear power plant EVERY WEEK to accommodate the growth in demand for electricity. The other popular renewable energy sources, like wind, solar, ocean waves, etc. are too dilute to make them cost effective--the energy supply has to be at a point source to allow it compete with coal. You have to look at the ratio between energy output and capital costs, so the source of energy has to be compact to make it useful. And the only scaleable point source of energy is coal, so "green" technology should focus on extracting more usable energy from coal-based CO2 and certain other major anthropogenic emissions.

Companies hoping to profit from CO2 emissions should not expect a subsidy from governments seeking to control global warming. The European governments talked a big talk about global warming, but when push came to shove, they were not interested in regulating CO2 emissions at the economically destructive level needed to properly abate emissions. The price of CO2 credits on the European exchange is the perfect measure of regulatory pressure. In 2006, the price of CO2 per ton crashed from $36 to $10, indicating that the Europeans "gave up" on CO2 regulation. The European regulators aren't taking global warming seriously, and neither should you. My company is assuming we will have to pay for the CO2 rather than having the government force the coal companies to give it to us for free. Companies that assume otherwise will go out of business.

 

[sbvera13]

Would economic pressures and subsequent investment of capital be adequate to replace fossil fuels as a primary energy source? That's what I want to know before we worry about carrying capacity. Otherwise we won't get to a point to challenge that capacity.