Climate Climate & Energy

Does the IPCC dangerously assume ‘spontaneous’ decarbonization?

No.

The central point of the recent Nature article "Dangerous Assumptions" (available here [PDF]) is that the IPCC made dangerous assumptions in their reference scenarios:

... the scenarios assume a certain amount of spontaneous technological change and related decarbonization. Thus, the IPCC implicitly assumes that the bulk of the challenge of reducing future emissions will occur in the absence of climate policies. We believe that these assumptions are optimistic at best and unachievable at worst, potentially seriously underestimating the scale of the technological challenge associated with stabilizing greenhouse-gas concentrations.

That would be a powerful conclusion, if it were true. But it isn't, as this post will make very clear. In fact, I suspect most people will be quite surprised at how clear it is that this conclusion is not true, given that it appears in a major science journal.

First, I think it is worth noting that the head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, said late last year:

If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.

Does that sound like the head of a group that has underestimated the scale of the climate challenge?

Notable quotable

"It's a crime against humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels."

-- Palaniappan Chidambaram, India's finance minister

(via)

Methane hydrates: What’s the worst — and best — that could happen?

Methane hydrates (or clathrates), "burning ice," are worth understanding because they could affect the climate for better or worse. You can get the basics here on ...

... a solid form of water that contains a large amount of methane within its crystal structure [that] occur both in deep sedimentary structures, and as outcrops on the ocean floor.

The worst that could happen is a climate catastrophe if they were released suddenly, as some people believed happened during "the Permian-Triassic extinction event, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum." The best that could happen is if they could be recovered at a large scale safely -- then they would be an enormous new source of natural gas, the lowest-carbon and most efficient-burning fossil fuel.

A recent workshop was held: "Vulnerability and Opportunity of Methane Hydrates," International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, March 13-14, 2008. You can find most of the presentations here. Science magazine recently ran a summary ($ub. req'd) of the meeting, which I will reprint below [unindented]:

Notable quotable

“Emissions are growing much faster than we’d thought, the absorptive capacity of the planet is less than we’d thought, the risks of greenhouse gases are potentially bigger than more cautious estimates, and the speed of climate change seems to be faster.” — Nicholas Stern, author of the seminal Stern Review on the Economics of Climate […]

Nicholas Stern says climate change worse than he thought

Nicholas Stern, the British economist known for a major report in which he declared that combating climate change would cost less than ignoring it, has announced that he was wrong — about how bad the problem is. “We badly underestimated the degree of damages and the risks of climate change” in the Oct. 2006 report, […]

Notable quotable

“So what can one conclude from environmentalists’ insistence that coal be removed from the country’s energy portfolio? That their focus has moved from reducing pollution to abolishing human development and prosperity.” — the Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial board, exposing the conspiracy once and for all

American filmmakers arrested in Niger Delta

Four Americans working on the documentary Sweet Crude, about the impact of the petroleum industry on the economy and environment of the Niger Delta, were arrested in Nigeria this weekend and are still being detained. A Nigerian man accompanying them was also seized. Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil exporter and the fourth-largest exporter to the […]

Skeptic stage dad to impressionable teen daughter: ‘MOTIVATION!’

This is the saddest, creepiest story I’ve seen in a long while.

Concentrated solar thermal power: a core climate solution

Other than energy efficiency (see here), I don't believe any set of technologies will be more important to the climate fight than concentrated solar power (CSP).

I have a long article on CSP in Salon: "The technology that will save humanity: The solar energy you haven't heard of is the one best suited to generate clean electricity for generations to come."

OK, maybe "will" should be "may help" (I'm an optimist, sue me!) and readers have heard about CSP for a while. But I do think CSP deserves much more attention:

It is the best source of clean energy to replace coal and sustain economic development. I bet that it will deliver more power every year this century than coal with carbon capture and storage -- for much less money and with far less environmental damage ...

How much less? Many industry experts told me CSP will likely deliver power for well under $0.10 per kilowatt hour fully installed in the next decade.

What is its market potential? I think it could be more than two wedges, which is several thouand gigawatts:

Gore’s Law

Modelled after Godwin’s Law, here is Gore’s Law: As an online climate change debate grows longer, the probability that denier arguments will descend into attacks on Al Gore approaches one. (via Deltoid)