I also go along with the idea that combating global warming will be good rather than bad for the economy, in the long run at least. This, incidentally, is an idea borrowed from Arthur Shumpeter, who would argue - if he were still around - that combating global warming could initiate a radical and energetic new cycle of investments.

But on the other hand, as economists are always saying, are you really sure that the good Al Gore knows what he's talking about. Frankly I think that the guy knows less than I do about this topic, and I've recently come to the conclusion that I hardly know anything. Of course, I buy the Gore-Hunt-Terminator line because they agree with a large consensus of climatologists and other scientists, but.... For instance, you say that Science is the premier scientific journal in the U.S., and you are probably right, but I wonder if they would accept a paper which disagreed with the GHT position. There has been some talk about this you know, and I have heard some very ugly tales about the refereeing that occasionally takes place for the top scientific publications.

I'm curious to learn more about Science refereeing published articles - certainly there is the possibiilty of the tyranny of the majority in any endeavor.

I take the position that we are currently conducting a huge experiment with unpredictable outcome on the only habitat known in the universe to be capable of supporting our species. One which has a proven history of treating dominant species quite badly, eg. dinosaurs and ferns.

Perhaps the logic is not quite so obvious.

So who is "High Park Group?" Basically a PR firm representing the Canadian electric utility industry.

The following is an excerpt from a PDF I located while searching the Internet for "High Park Group".

Timothy Egan, President, High Park Group, Senior Advisor, Canadian Electricity Association Mr. Egan is president of the High Park Group, a public policy consulting firm that focuses largely on energy issues out of its offices in Toronto and Ottawa. He is retained by the Canadian Electricity Association on a range of issues, including US advocacy (monitoring the US Congress and the Administration on issues of interest to the Canadian electricity industry).

Increasing resource energy efficiency will certainly reduce operating costs as well as reducing emissions. However, this statement is not the same as the statement: "That is, combating climate change will probably be good for the economy, not harmful." Increasing efficiency and reducing emissions both involve incremental capital investment. The savings may or may not represent a reasonable return on the incremental investment. If they do, then the investment is good for the economy; if not, the investment is not good for the economy.

This issue is of less concern for the necessary replacement of equipment or facilities which are no longer functional or reliable than for the replacement of existing, functioning, reliable facilities which have remaining useful life.

"A goal without a plan is just a wish.". Antoine de St. Exupery.

I was not able to find the plan for this ambitious "goal". I would appreciate it if you could provide a link to the plan.

http://www.sepp.org/

enjoy!

"Natural resources--whether oil, minerals, water, timber, or fisheries--are best managed when property rights can be clearly defined. Markets can then determine the price and handle the allocation of the resource."

How would this apply to eg. atmosphere? Should everyone be put into a bidding war to purchase rights to breath? Innitial ownership determined by a bidding process?

One only needs to observe the moonscape when approaching Sudbury, Ontario from the south to become aware of how private interests will treat commons if unrestricted.

CCNET (do a google search) puts out a newsletter that almost daily references scientific papers that disagree with the premise that current global warming is "anthropogenic." They quote abstracts of numerous papers and scientific magazine articles. A short example from a CO2 Magazine article from 2003 is below:

"...utilized 200 different sets of phenological and meteorological records to produce a 2000-year history of winter half-year temperature for the region of China bounded ... This study provided evidence for the existence of ...the Roman Warm Period, the Dark Ages Cold Period, the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age, and the Modern Warm Period. In addition, it indicated that although the temperature of the region rose rapidly during the twentieth century, especially over the period 1981-1999, temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period rose higher still, and remained higher for several 10- and 30-year time periods..."

The case isn't closed, and evidence that temperatures have been increasing since 1600 (the Little Ice Age) only show that temperatures get warmer after they have been cold. Nor do current climate models explain the peaks and valleys mentioned in the article quoted above.

What confuses me about critics to GHG emissions is how strident they WEREN'T when the whole CFC ozone layer debate went on. From a layman's viewpoint, that was the same kind of gobbledy-gook science that no one could understand, and the potential economic consequences were also severe, but apparently, that was accepted without too much fanfare. True, a reasonably economic alternative strategy was developed, but I'm sure the changeover was still costly to some sectors.

This leads me to think that the severity of the criticism (of the science) is proportional to the implications of the finding. I guess to some extent this makes sense, but I think that the scientists tend to be aligned the other way; the severity of the implication leads to (or should lead to) more double- and triple- checking of the results.

It's true that a certain bias can infiltrate scientific organizations, even Science Magazine. If you don't believe me on this specific point, then look at all the hydrogen energy articles they have published (though to be fair, they have published some articles, though not many, critical of this viewpoint.) But no conspiracy within the scientific community can ever last for long, because of the incentive to publish contrarian results if they can be established.

Those advocating aggressive GHG reduction programs generally come from the upper ends of the economic spectrum. Most of them do not seem to understand economic reality at the other end of the spectrum -- i.e., the huge segement of population living in subsistence economies. People with virtually nothing will do anything they can to improve their lifestyles. Asking them to forgo improvements while we in the Western world "do our part" by cooling & heating our buildings a little, buy smaller cars, and switch to more efficient light bulbs is not a viable position. Asking people in developed countries to voluntarily slash energy consumption and/or pay a lot more for what they consume is another pitch that will fall on deaf ears.

I think those who are pushing for the world to "do something" to combat global warming should focus on 1) coming up with better science to quantify the potential impact (i.e., validate all of those unsubstantiated assumptions and questionable analytical techniqes) and 2) figure out how to deal with any warming that truly is likely to happen.

Crises drive people to act. Most people would agree that not having any food, being unable to get fuel to heat your house, being unable to get gas to drive to work, and similar problems are crises. In most peoples' minds, the impacts of global warming are benign (e.g., longer growing season), neutral (melting polar ice, changing vegetaton patterns) or at worst urgent needs (droughts, violent weather). A crisis always trumps an urgent need. We facing plenty of energy and political crises in the next few decades which makes it hard to get people to focus on urgent needs. I recommend being realistic about what people will be willing to do and act accordingly.

http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/climate_action_team/reports/2006-04-03_FINAL_CAT_REPORT_EXECSUMMARY.PDF

Re investments in energy efficiency, my point in the piece is exactly what you raise: such capital investments pay for themselves quickly and yield continued savings typically far in excess of the initial investment. For exampe, in California, the PUC approved last year $2 billion in funding for energy efficiency programs over three years, yielding a projected $3 billion in net benefits for Californians.

Re the WSJ piece, check out www.realclimate.org for substantial quality information rebutting the usually poor arguments the far right WSJ editorial board puts out. Re Lindzen, he is the most respectable of the climate change skeptics, but he is in a tiny minority on this issue. Doesn't mean we shouldn't listen to him, but read the rebuttals and decide for yourself.

On the technology side of things, we have many technologies that are already ready for prime time, such as wind power, concentrating solar power, biomass, hydro, and geothermal. Such technologies, combined with good policies, will lead to very substantial shifts in our energy equation here in California over coming decades. If other states, and other nations, matched CA's policies, we'd be well on our way to solving the climate crisis.

But how do you think these up-market climate scientists would react if you suggested that nuclear energy should be left out of the electric generation mix that you think so much of - knowing as both you and I and they know that the Japanese can construct a nuclear installation in 4 years with a life of at least 60 years. The goal is to get cost down to $2000/kW, and even if that hasn't been reached yet, I have no problem at all convincing myself that cost-wise this arrangement is unbeatable.

Thank you for the link to the executive summary. Two points: the executive summary contains no information regarding the plan to the 80% reduction wish; and, the document acknowledges that the economics of the reduction get progressively worse when it says that CA must enlist other states to avoid having CA companies move out of state and take their emissions with them. If the economics of the reductions were as you suggest, there would be no reason to move out of state to avoid the program.

and to Mr. Gould your comment that "One only needs to observe the moonscape when approaching Sudbury, Ontario from the south to become aware of how private interests will treat commons if unrestricted" illuistrates a lack of understanding of free market environmentalism AND the fact that property rights are NOT well defined in Sudbury" The only proven approach to protecting the commons is to remove it from common hands.

Mr. Gore can be forgiven for his irrelevant faux pax events over the years because, even though he is in a high 'position' in our society, he just does not know that he doesn’t know.

Our real tragedy is that we have spent many hundreds of billons of public dollars on energy research over the last 50 years and have yet to come up with a practical replacement for fossil fuels that can withstand level-field competition in the national marketplace for Joe and Jane Sixpack.

Unquestionably research creativity needs room to explore basic science in areas that do not have immediate applicability, but there is equally an unquestioned knowledge that many heavily funded academic researchers abhor ‘directed research’ as being beneath them. I suspect the real underlying issue is that this imperial abhorrence just hides the fact that they do not have the focus or chops to understand and solve pressing, scientific problems. It is much easier to work in a more ‘interesting’ nook. It is not good to become irrelevant.

Don’t get me wrong, I think pentaquarks are fascinating, but right now our country is economically hemorrhaging ... directly to adversaries that believe that the solution to their problems is to end the lives of US Citizens in mass quantities. In this environment, building web pages and video documentaries are not moving us ahead. Likewise research that is not creating real value is skating on thinner and thinner ice.

If you think about it for a moment, a academic/scientific breakthrough for the replacement of foreign oil will help the climate and cut off funding for our adversaries. Surely this is something both sides to this argument can agree upon.

The key point to scientists and researchers: There has never been a greater opportunity for an immortal hero to emerge from the research community than with our energy problems. Pentaquarks need to wait…they will be there later…we need the research community to do their job and come though for our country.

I do not point this out just to be a pain, but the storm clouds that were on the horizon are now directly overhead.

Thomas Edison of Energy … where are you?

Bruce Cavender

There are MANY MANY 'inventors' of Energy out there. (Sorry, but I abhor Edison) The sad truth is that there's too much money floating to the right people to ensure that none of the viable solutions make it to market. As just one example, take a look at the US research into Solar Thermal over the last 20 years. It was doable then but further research on it has since been shut down. Our government even tried to buy out Spain's research ito this area to drag that out too. We've got very little going in now and the deals are hush hush. We've certainly endured the required patience for PV or wind turbine enhancements to move from too expensive to economic. Maybe we should give all these other solutions the same benefit.

If you need further points to look at, try this. Most in this discussion make a well founded point of contention or two. Others in the big industry, mostly the nuclear industry, are outright calling the author on being false. While I don't agree with his percentages exactly, I do think Tam has done a good job in making the case and backing it up with facts and balanced provocation. IMHO, this article is at least indirectly fighting for the global warming cause, the ecology, people's health, national security, extreme energy prices and just plain chaos in general. I can only see one motivation to arguing such an article.

* The Southeast is the region of the US whose economy is arguably most fragile, and which is most dependent on coal. The typical C tax or cap-and-trade programs would prove devastating to these states; prices of energy could double, and - worst case - older coal plants would be forced to close leading to major shortages of electricity. In this case, the cure would likely be worse than the disease.

* There are plausible cases being made that it may be more cost-effective to deal with the effects of global warming as they arise, rather than try to prevent it. This depends on the magnitude of the effects. Until these are better understood, action seems weak.

* The best-proven method of carbon control is a good old-fashioned economic depression. That's a little drastic.

While that last is a little tongue-in-cheek, it is also a fact.

So I must disagree with your "instant action" approach, Tam; more wisdom is needed.

More conservation and energy efficiency are good things, that can and should be pursued. Use of renewables moves money within the US, reducing our obscene mis-balance of trade. But before we commit to any quantitative targets in any specific time frame let's do the following:

* Take a step back, take our ideological blinders off, and pray for wisdom. * Realize that global warming is a global problem, and its solutions will have to be global. * Remember that the impacted will not be statistics, but people. * Make sure we have the information we need to make a wise decision. This means not only the good science, but the economic analyses, and considerations of the impacts as a function of time of the actions we take.

As an example of the latter, many point out that nuclear power does not emit GHGs. But if we were to mandate going to nuclear power for all of our generation tomorrow, it would be 10 years before we would have the first plant. The drain on our credit markets of replacing the ~55% of the US electric generating stations that run on coal would be tremendous between now and the time they began providing a return on their investment. The impacts on our overall economy in terms of stifling economic growth could be huge (but I certainly defer to Prof. Banks on this).

This is a somewhat facetious example, but I mean it to point out what I find lacking in much of the "debate" about global warming - wisdom, and a willingness to admit that we don't yet know enough to determine how best to respond.

Thomas Taunton: Could you please enlightent me on how rectifying " the fact that property rights are NOT well defined in Sudbury" could rectify a situation where a large privately-owned nickel smelter's sulphur emissions have acidified the entire landscape for many miles around Sudbury to the point where even acidophilic evergreens cannot survive, and their primary remedy under minimal duress has been to increase the height of the smokestack? Is the shortcoming, as I hypothesized above, that no private company owns the air over Sudbury?

The Swedish firm Vattenfall is now building a small coal installation in Germany that ostensibly does not emit any CO2. Notice the term "ostensibly", because as far as I am concerned this project and everything connected to it is a 'play for the gallery'. What the directors of that firm should be doing instead is patiently explaining or trying to explain to the Swedish and German governments that it was criminally stupid to begin a nuclear retreat at the present time - although, admittedly, expanding the nuclear inventory is a very complicated matter politically.

I don't understand how to make any progress even nationally (let alone globally) without some requirements. It seems like you don't want any possible solution to materialize too soon. Can you please tell us what non-fossil fuel, non-nuclear waste related energy product has resulted from your research team(s)? All I seem to find is a bio-fuel burner & gassifier combination that Dial contracted testing on.

The simplest geo-engineering mitigation approach seems to be to undo the change in atmospheric [CO2] that we've done --

A typical extraction facility that could extract all current carbon dioxide emissions would require only an area of one square yard per person in the developed world. A facility of sufficient size could be located in arid regions, since discharged air that is deficient in carbon dioxide could have consequences on nearby plant life.

Large expanses of desert would not be affected by the CO2 deficit however, and could provide the wide-open spaces necessary both for the facility and to allow the discharged air to become well mixed with the atmosphere again.

Rounding up to one square metre per person, we get for each 100 million persons in the developed world the need to capture CO2 over an 11.3-km-diameter circular patch of desert. This means the developed world could be the whole world long before much of Mojave was spoken for.

--- Graham Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Boron: internal combustion without exhaust gas

I suspect that we may be contributing to the current warming to some limited extent. That is a long way from "causing" the warming. I know that increased solar activity is contributing to some extent. I have also read that slight variations in earth's orbit are contributing to some extent.

I agree that reasonable efforts to increase efficiency and thus reduce emissions make sense, for a variety of reasons. Developing technologies which can increase efficiency and/or reduce emissions is a sensible goal.

However, taxing one set of activities and transferring funds to other "preferred" activities is an invitation to massive waste, fraud and abuse. The government's history of success in "picking winners" is hardly stellar.

My biggest issue with the entire Global Climate Change "anvil chorus" is that very few of them are willing to talk publicly about the end point. The CA "wish" for an 80% reduction by 2050, at least based on the link Tam provided to the ExecSum, is so ill defined that it is not possible to determine whether the steps CA intends to take in the short term are on the path to the longer term "wish". This approach could well result in the investment of $billions in facilities which are not consistent with the long term requirements, resulting in massive economic "dead losses".

In the immortal words of the great American philosopher, Yogi Berra: "You've got to be careful, if you don't know where you're going, because you might end up someplace else."

The secret to long term success is contained in a bit of wisdom from Wayne Gretzky (who, by the way, knows a lot about hockey sticks). When asked about the secret of his success in hockey, Gretzky replied: "I always skate to where the puck is going to be." I remain unconvinced that we know "where the puck is going to be"; or, even, where we hope it will be. That would be a very good place to start.

Why bother with going beyond limestone? It would seem carbon dioxide is successfully "sequestered" at that point. All one need do then is find a cheap non-carbon producing source of quicklime. Electrolysis of calcium chloride or calcium flouride, anyone?

The Berkeley report: http://calclimate.berkeley.edu/managing_GHGs_in_CA.html

The CCAP report: http://www.ccap.org

Re knowing "where the puck is going to be," I believe CA knows exactly where it wants the puck to be: an 80% reduction in climate emissions by 2050. AB 32 (Pavley) is a piece of major legislation pending that will provide the initial roadmap for getting there. A prior bill, also Pavley's, will come into force in 2009 and will require vehicles sold in CA to have fewer CO2 emissions. This bill is of course facing legal challenges by the auto industry, but let's hope the courts see the merit in allowing states to regulate CO2.

That, of course, is not a valid point because the CO2 released during the calcination is concentrated, while that trapped from the atmosphere is dilute. Calcium that cycles between a calciner and a large piece of land where it is exposed as CaO or Ca(OH)2 is therefore a way, and I don't see how any other way could be cheaper or anywhere near as cheap, of separating pure CO2 out of air.

Once it is so separated, keeping it from remixing with the air is, I think, not that big of a deal. Inject it deep enough underground or underwater and the pressure makes it a stable liquid; or combine it with a CO2-hungry mineral such as serpentinite. Not quite so grabby as quicklime, but that's why it exists in huge deposits and quicklime does not. It is waiting for us to catalyse its CO2-grabbing, just as the coal waited for us to catalyse its conversion to CO2.

--- Graham Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Boron: internal combustion without exhaust gas

The point is that "naysayers" - (a word meaning anyone that disagrees with me must by definition be a fool) who challenge conventional wisdom need to be encouraged. If conventional wisdom which supposes that global warming is entirely caused by the human production of Carbon Dioxide is right it will withstand all such challenges. The (unfortunate for some) fact is that conventional widsom is showing all the signs of having might big flaws in it.

The difficulty for us all is that those challenges are very credible and offer definite alternatives to the conventional wisdom. These alternative hypotheses also explain historical events of climate that have not been satisfactoily explained by the computerised global warming models. We should not be dismissing those with alternate ideas but using their knowledge to challenge what we think.

If human beings were the predominant factor in climate change as is now supposed then how does one explain all the various temperature changes that have occurred in the past when there were no humans. Clearly there must have been other forces at work. The question is what are those forcers and why are they NOT at work this time around.

Obviously we do not fully understand the interraction of the Sun on our planet to anything like the degree that is necessary to rule Solar variations as a possibile cause. That is much like the scientists of Columbus day who could not get their brain around the world being a sphere and not flat.

On a more practical note I have great difficulty in believing computer models of climate change when the most sophistacated computer models of our day cannot predict the weather even a few days ahead with any accuracy. In my own area weather forecasts even with satellites and Doppler Radar are consistently unable to predict when it will rain to any degree of accuracy. Why should I be foolish enough to believe that they have it right 20, 30, 40 or even 50 years into the future.

And finally the pronouncements of a one time actor, porn star, body builder and Governor of California on climate change do not fill me with a single ounce of confidence that the consensus science of our day is any better than the concensus science of the flat earthists of Columbus era.

Tam we need more naysayers my friend not less. Furthermore we need to carefully listen to what they are saying and not dismiss them because their ideas do not fit what you and some others have convinced yourself is correct.

Malcolm

Too often we forget the temporal aspects of any solution to global warming, i.e., it took us at least a century to get where we are, and it will take a very long time (decades) to get where we want to be. It's easy to talk about redressing disproportionate impacts when the actions you're taking are only lasting a year. But action will be needed over (possibly) generations. The impacts of those actions are not well-recognized, and not politically attractive. Most subtly, those impacts may well be felt in different regions at different times. To me, that's a flashing yellow light - proceed, but with caution.

In comparing Columbus' episode with today's, there are a couple differences that make your case basically a moot point.

The status quo of his day didn't proliferate any problem. Today, however, if we let this issue go AND if anthropogenic global warming is valid, we stand to be in for quite a bit of problems. The majority of all science leans toward it being valid, but as you state, it's bad science to believe consensus so I remain skeptical myself. However, It is well known that there are many 'positive feedbacks' that accelerate the temperature rise if we pass a certain threshold. Each of these put us farther into the muck than we can predict and no one knows how many there are. I see no reason to wait until they begin to kick in and speed up the warming process before doing something about it. The antichange crowd is sure going to look stupid if it ends up being real and gets away from us because they convinced us to 'wait for the definitive results to come in'. Unfortunately we'll all be paying the price for it then.

We are currently mixing two seperate debates into one with confusing results. Aside from the entire gw debate are many other issues that support a switch from fossil fuels to renewables. These include 1) peak oil causing economic, political and national instability, 2) pollution affecting the health of the populace, 3) ecological issues arising from both ends of the process (the mining, transporting and the waste product disposal), 4) supporting the developing nations' energy needs, 5) and excalating prices that are out of the consumer's control. Promoting renewables can alleviate or totally eliminate mankind's contribution to each of these.

The single downside to renewables is the reduced market share for the entrenched energy companies. Hmmm... Aren't they the ones always knocking gw or renewables? Coincidence? ;)

Don, I think that the transmission 'shortage' you cite is in fact benefitting us by indirectly promoting local distributed generation as opposed to large wind farms. I don't know about other states like Colorado, but didn't the Cal PUC just change the rules to allow utilities spread out the capital costs to all that used it with the remaining passed to the customers? Pre and post this decision, the renewable energy generator is paying at least their fair (fare) share of the costs to upgrade the transmission system. Either way, local DG doesn't have this problem since it simply reduces transported electricity on all lines. Promoting customers to impliment their own DG capacity helps all the way around.

Todd

--- Graham Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Boron: internal combustion without exhaust gas

Consider the third paragraph in the above comment by Todd McKissick. This is gold medal class. Of course, I would have said 'a PARTIAL switch', because I know that a thoroughgoing switch is unrealistic, and also I want to see nuclear in the picture; but it should be clear that once we get the new energy economy we need and deserve, the GW 'debate' might lose some of its contentiousness.

'Emphasizing' nuclear and renewables is the way that I would have finished that paragraph.

I'll never live that one down, wll I?

To answer your question, I don't particularly care for "traditional" carbon taxes. They raise costs, and generally have little inducement to go beyond minimum-essential compliance. I much prefer market-driven solutions or a system of decreasing tax credits, particularly for infrastructural changes, because these can make it more likely that higher-risk.higher-ROI solutions get a chance for implementation. For example, tax breaks for pipelines to carry CO2 from the point of generation to point of use. For example, from Muscle Shoals, AL, to the coal fields to the south for enhanced coal bed methane recovery; from Arkansas to southern Misissippi for enhanced oil recovery (this would result in a relative reduction in the net CO2 pushed into the atmosphere by that oil - we currently mine additional CO2 out of the Jackson Dome to do EOR in the Gulf region); from Columbia, SC, to the Continental Shelf to metathesize methane hydrates to CO2 hydrates. I believe tax credits are necessary to pay for the infrastructure necessary to do something that will ultimately prove profitable. Kind of government's way of reducing the energy of corporate activation. In the EPAct, the federal government has effectively taken this approach for nuclear (rather than paying part of the cost of the infrastructure, Congress reduced its cost), and this is already sparking positive results.

Similarly, work done by SECARB has shown that if pine trees are allowed to grow another five years (up to about 35 yrs), then we can get a net increase in the amount of CO2 they capture of about 10-15%. Again, tax credits for eqpmt able to handle these larger trees at lumber mills would be relatively modest, but could have an impact on gw.

John, How long did it take the satellite industry to put in millions of large, ugly dishes in the back yards of America at a cost of $2000-3000 each with only the benefit of watching TV? How about the computer industry and it's $1000-3000 entertainment/library/communication device? You greatly underestimate the power of consumer drive. Mark my words, when a home based solution hits the market that's economically advantageous, easily maintained and actually solving the aforementioned 'problems', it won't take 10 years before there's a large demand for them. Satellite dishes and PCs didn't even solve 'problems' for the most part. They were simply extravagances.

Malcom, By the way, weren't you saying 'nay' to this exact system a month ago? ;)

Fred, Thanks for the comment. There is one thing though that seems to get missed in these discussions and you brought light to that. People in every side of this discussion seem to feel that a 'switch' means that all (or an enormous percentage) of our future energy needs will be coming from the source we switch to. This has never been the case in our industrialized times and will never be in the future. If you drop by the midwest US sometime, you will find that there are many farmers who converted their pickups to run from propane because it was more economical for them. This has been the case since long before I started adulthood as a mechanic in the 1970's. Of course that's only one example in a long list, but it illustrates the point that the market is self correcting in this 'choice' that our policymakers are doling out today. (econ 102?) Too many times, these discussions get sidetracked by knocking one option or another because of the fear that said option will become the only one available. I see no way possible for our future (hundreds of years from now) energy supplies to come from anything less than an availability-based mix of nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, wave, tidal, etc, etc. I think it is a narrow view to discount any source simply because it is not to become the most major player in the future. If looking at the 50 year window, you can add oil and natural gas and coal. We humans seem to have no problem citing history for thousands of years, but planning the future rarely involves more than 40-50 years. What a shame.

1) Al Gore signed the Kyoto Treaty for the US. President Clinton never sent it to the US Senate for ratification. Why? The Byrd Hagel Resolution of 1997, which said that Kyoto would not be good for the US, passed by a vote of 95-0. That is not a misprint. Every Democrat and Republican voted against the Kyoto Protocols with that vote.

2) The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, in terms of parts per million, has grown on a linear path since the early 1800's (at a growth rate of 1-2 PPM per year). With the rapid increase in CO2 emissions due to world economic growth, why hasn't that growth rate increased to an exponential level, or a higher linear slope (e.g., 5-6 PPM increase per year)?

3) Since the industrial revolution started in Europe, doesn't it make sense for the Europeans to show that big reductions in CO2 are possible?

Oh, wait a minute. Most countries in Europe aren't even meeting the Kyoto targets, except for maybe England and Germany, for the following reasons: 1) England power plants and factories switched from coal to North Sea natural gas in the 1990's. 2) Germany, using a base year of 1990, a couple of months after the Berlin Wall fell. By combining the emissions of the former West Germany and East Germany, the "baseline" was much higher. In the 1990's, most of the old "socialist paradise" East German factories (some of the most polluting in the world) were shut down for good.

So if the sophisticated advanced European countries can't do it, how is the rest of the world going to do it?

4) The US and Europe have phased out the use of CFC's refrigerants, and are phasing out the use of HCFC's, as part of the Montreal Protocol on ozone depletion. However, as part of this agreement, developing countries were exempt from these provisions (sound familiar?). The result? I remember reading articles about the US EPA having people arrested and companies fined for the illegal import of CFC's from countries like China and India that were still producing and exporting the product. At one point, CFC's were the #2 illegal import in the US, behind drugs.

5) According to the US EIA, the annual CO2 emissions of China and India will exceed those of the US in 2009, and with their economies growing at a 8-10% rate per year, will vastly exceed US emissions by 2012-2015. Before anyone starts saying "look at the per capita numbers" all I can say is: does the atmosphere care? If Kyoto just results in shifting emissions due to policies that encourage industry to go to areas with lower labor and energy costs, what has it accomplished?

6) Suppose the US and Europe spend 10's of billions of dollars on Kyoto. From what I have seen the current CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is about 370 PPM. Without Kyoto, it goes up to about 500 PPM by 2100? With Kyoto, it only goes up to 495 PPM? How much less "damage" is there with the CO2 concentration growing by 125 PPM rather than 130 PPM? What will spending 10-20 (or maybe 50) Billion $ US per year accomplish?

When this game shakes out, we will see much more technology integrated into home DG inverters than we have today. It will be no problem for them to provide steady power or even be tailored to produce their peak excess in a matched profile to grid load. When this becomes dependable and more the rule, not the exception, lots of options open up. Remember, it's much easier to instantaneously tailor that 1-5 kw of DG than on the 800 mw generator. And with sufficient onsite storage, that output profile can be a 'daily profile'. But of course, this comes back to the short sightedness of only wanting to use ideas that are available now or in the next 2-3 years. How would we look back on history if we had legislated DC into our society 2-3 years before Tesla gave us AC?

If you have other points regarding optimization of the grid via capacity/diversity/demand factor, please just state them here so everyone can read the point without driving to the library twice. It's not a topic that hasn't already been discussed in this circle.

My assessment of PC and dish markets was to make the point that when a technology becomes simple enough to use and provides a benefit, it doesn't take 20-30 years for the public to adopt it. Both of those industries made tremendous growth in under a decade and they did not solve any world crisis on the scale of today's looming concerns. Sure telecommuting is nice, but I venture a guess that's not the reason you brought your first PC home, is it? As far as this 'big ugly dishes' in people's back yards, I've never heard of anyone using them to telecommute, so let's keep the discussion targeted.

But, following the lines of reasoning from our other commenters, the heart of the issue is not science, but governance. That is, how do we predict the future and organize human behavior.

The science is clear that at some level CO2 levels will increase the greenhouse effect and perturb natural climate processes. If not at 370 ppm, what about at 1000 ppm? That's physics and has a far more solid scientific foundation that climatology modeling. Current climatological models are, in my opinion, extremely weak in predictive power - they can't even explain current climate. Yet, it's not "if", it's "when."

So much of the advocated coercive proposals seem more cover for special economic and political interests that the proponents are justly discredited. Kyoto would ignore the countries with the biggest delta in CO2 emission? That's bogus on the face of it.

Anyone who claims to be serious about global warming and who does NOT advocate crash building programs for nuclear power plants has likewise shown themselves unserious about governance. Any other course is a waste of time and resources (ie money) since no other solution is at hand and as effective. New nukes can stand on their own merits.

As to Governor Swartzenegger, I loved the guy but his state energy policies have shown him politically floundering in surrender to liberal special interests. I thought I was voting for a man with courage but I was wrong.

1) there is a quite easily calculable upper limit of annual GHG emissions which my country can safely emit if we hope to maintain a stable atmospheric GHG ppmv level in the long term, say 100 ppmv higher than it has ever been in the past 420,000 years (280 + 100 = 380). Alternatively, pick your own target within reason.

2) it is safe to assume that most developing regions capacity to emit GHG's will quickly (in relative time terms) reach that level on a per capita basis.

3) to achieve 1) above given 2), then my country's GHG emissions level in future must be DRAMATICALLY less than that allowed by Kyoto.

4) to continue status quo rates of GHG emissions in long-term future will very likely require economic (or more likely military) supression of developing nations aspiring to our current std. of living.

Given all these, THEN ratifying of Kyoto is an obvious no-brainer regardless of what ANY other country does or does not do. {Period} The argument that "some other developed country won't suffer as much as us" is meaningless. If you need to reduce your own emissions liability, then just do it. Kyoto provides several helpful means to do so.

The "contraction and convergence" advocates believe an ~ 95% reduction in US per capita emissions would be necessary to stabilize CO2 concentrations below 500 ppm. If that is the case, ratifying Kyoto is insane, because many of the investments made in marginal technologies to satisfy Kyoto reduction targets are not on the path to a 95% reduction, and would represent an economic "dead loss". For example, IGCC coal plants, natural gas CCT plants, Hybrid gasoline vehicles, etc. are not on the path to a 95% reduction.

The reason I pushed Cam about the CA 80% reduction target is that they have no idea how they will get there, but much of what they will require in the short term is not on the path to that "wish". They have wirtten a prescription for major economic "dead losses". They will discover this as they get into the detailed anlaysis of their shorter term goals.

I am still waiting for someone to publicly paint the "life after a 95% reduction scenario. I expect to wait a lot longer, because I believe that faced with the realities of such a reduction, the public would rapidly lose interest in pursuing CO2 emissions reductions. Therefore, instead of painting the real picture, I expect the "smoke and mirrors" to continue indefinitely.

There are many reasons to wean off fossil fuel that are each civilization-as-we-know-it-altering.

There are 3 scales of renewables - home DG, localized medium scale and large centralized scale.

The jury is still out for many people on including nuclear in the last two categories although many are fully convinced on both sides. (please note that I did not takes sides in that statement)

The only way to achieve the 95% reduction that Len and Ed are discussing (or possibly a full 100%) is a 100% fully renewable source.

The only type of home sized DG that's going to be acceptable in the quantity needed must be fully compatable with grid optimality. The only way that's possible is if it is seen by the grid as a battery which requires enough storage or backup to smooth out the power to one constant value. The more it fluctuates, the smaller the percentage the grid can tolerate it.

The only way any home DG is going to be fully accepted is when it provides the tangable benefits to the consumer. When this happens, demand will facilitate rapid adoption. This adoption will be financed by the end consumer with local benefits, not large corporations. The other two forms of renewables need to be financed by the middleman which will sell the electricity in perpetual monthly terms... which will always be subject to taxes etc.

The other scales of renewables will make up the difference. The may happen prior to the DG market or post, and nuclear may or may not be a part of it, but fossil fuels' percentage will depend on its price. Anything less than a very unexpected decrease in demand will keep those prices in the high range.

My personal reason to choose DG over nuclear only stems from forseeing where centralized electricity costs are headed in the near term. I see prices consistantly going higher until there is a net surplus of generation out there (not soon). I don't care if it's from nuclear or old dirty coal, the price is still going to climb for quite a while. On top of that, since roughly half of my bill is fees and taxes and funds, those will increase as well. If I compare a DG system with it's capital only interest in 2006 dollars to those central based prices over 10-40 years, it becomes a no-brainer. How can the nuclear crowd pursuade me otherwise? Can you guarantee that with a tremendous increase in nuclear, the price of its fuel won't skyrocket to 100 or 500 times current prices? ...what about the shortage of skilled nuclear labor?

Of the energy supply mediums (electricity, H2, Boron, gasoline, propane, methane, etc...), there's only one resource that we can't tolerate too much of and that's electricity. Fortunately, it's also the one that's easiest to match. If my home system produces too much at a given time, I can easily switch on a load. With this becoming a regular occurrence, I will quickly find that making H2 for my hybrid auto becomes much more cost effective than selling that power back to the grid. Of course, that's only one example, but it shows how easy it is to regulate tiny scale DG down to where it looks like an AC battery to the grid.

Oh, and if you notice, I referred to the "big ugly" dishes, meaning the 6 to 12 footers of the mid 80's. Since I did quite a bit of work on those, I know they weren't bi-directional like today's versions can be. I find it hard to see any use for them other than watching TV. However, I do concede the possibility of that being your profession. ;)

Kyoto is acknowledged to be step 1 of a multi-step process, with step "X" still undefined. The "contraction and convergence" folks are talking about a reduction to ~5% of current emissions rates on a per capita basis. That will not be simple or cheap.

US energy consumption has not grown since 1990, on a per capita basis; however, it has grown by ~18% and will probably have grown by a total of ~25% by 2012, if current trends continue.

My major concern is massive investment in technology which is not on the path to the ultimate reductions required. IGCC coal and CCT natural gas, as well as current technology hybrids are not on the path. Nuclear/renewable electric plug hybrids may be on the path, if the gasoline consumption percentage is low enough in general use. Nuclear/renewable electric/hydrogen plug hybrids are on the path, but not yet within reach.

Can you guarantee that with a tremendous increase in nuclear, the price of its fuel won't skyrocket to 100 or 500 times current prices? ...what about the shortage of skilled nuclear labor?

In thermal barrel-of-petroleum equivalents, petroleum itself is today near US$73 and uranium is near US$1.20, note the dot. So the lower end of McKissick's hypothetical uranium price increase would make it 60 percent more costly than petroleum today. If forced to replace petroleum exclusively with this bizarrely expensive uranium, we'd get by. If it went up to US$600 per TBOE, the high end of the range McKissick thinks worth discussing ... well, the thermal yield of uranium is subject to adjustment.

That the price rise should happen in less time than it takes people starting training to be nuclear workers today to complete their training, and indeed their successors complete their training, seems unreasonable to me. What if thick lumps of solid evil as big as the Empire State Building fall from the sky, one for each of us. Wouldn't we be stuck then, eh? Eh?

Is the price rise reasonable at all? 4000000000 tonnes of uranium in the sea provides a reassurance. Actually it provides two.

(1) $70 may never again buy a barrel of petroleum, but for centuries to come it will buy 35 to 70 barrels-of-oil-equivalent in uranium taken from the sea by means already demonstrated.

(2) It and marine radiopotassium together have about ten times the radioactivity of all our nuclear waste aged 25 years or more. So the latter's conversion to a soluble form, and its deep sea dumping in that form, has always been a known safe and effective solution to the permanent-disposal problem, although not the best one.

--- Graham Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Boron: internal combustion of fuel that won't burn

Thanks for your comments above. I can see your point. The only consequence of Columbus ignoring conventional wisdom was to Columbus and really not much consequence to us if we got it wrong wrt the Earth moving around the Sun. More consequences to be sure of we get the Earth warming issue wrong.

But what are the consequences to us if the world gets warmer? I don't know the answer to that but I suspect that a warmer world has many benefits as well as many problems. I suppose it depends on how warm you think it is going to get. One thing is for sure whatever happens and whatever the cause mankind will adapt to it.

When I am sitting here in Canada in winter freezing my buns off at -30 C I can definitely see the benefits of a warmer climate!!!!

I like your ideas about distributed energy. I don't see this having a big impact in the short term but definitely a trend to watch because it will grow as the priceof electricity increases and small scale plants become more economic. From a security perspective this has much merit. Not sure how controllable a grid system would be with millions of small generators instead of a few really large ones but in general I like the idea.

Thanks for the comments - your points re Columbus are well taken and understood.

Malcolm