China and coal and CO2 reduction targets....

Today's post: Wednesday, 9-2-2009

We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.

At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.

And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.

Unfortunately, one resource many countries have turned to instead of using petroleum is burning coal. That both releases huge amounts of CO2; and, when the resulting exhausts allow particulates and other pollutants to escape when coal is burned, even worse problems are created.

Now China has added electric generation capacity by building new coal fired plants for this purpose so fast and for so long, China is now the largest emitter of CO2 in the world.

Now China is doing two things.:

1. They are delaying dealing with the problem much more than they should do for controlling global warming and insisting that the United States do more than is likely feasible in the next few years to lower its CO2 emissions before they fully begin.

2. They ARE beginning to ramp up decent looking long term programs to increase renewable energy enough to allow them to burn less coal or at least stop building new coal fired plants.

Here are my two conclusions:

First, I think that China needs to do far more in China’s own best interests alone than they have done or have in the pipeline to do now.

Global warming and huge amounts of particulates from the coal they burn and do not filter out of the exhaust generated are harming the health of China’s people; reducing the yields from their agriculture; & reducing their amount of sun enough to hamper solar sources of renewable energy.

Even if they weren’t harming the rest of the world also due to their size, they need to clean up the exhausts of their existing coal fired plants; begin building a huge amount of clean sources of energy -- renewable sources for sure and perhaps nuclear as well so that they can immediately stop building new coal fired plants; & begin adding some kind of CO2 sequestration to all their existing coal fired plants. (As I posted last time, since we may be running out of oil soon and need to be cleaning the exhaust of coal fired plants for other reasons, setting up immediate plans to sequester all the CO2 generated by burning coal to feed algae that would then be harvested to make biofuels and substitute for oil would also make excellent sense.)

Secondly, as a strategic way to avoid some of the political friction and make faster progress, I wonder if it might not make sense to set up international agreements based on:

a) setting up action programs now to get much more done that will lead to more renewable energy and less CO2 release;
and
b) to get agreement on very large reductions in C02 for 50 years from now;
and
c) begin to spend a LOT less time and emphasis on agreements on CO2 reductions sooner than that.

If we get agreement (& we don’t look at all likely to do so) for targets for 15 or 20 years from now; but do NOT get agreements that lead to massive action right away, the hassles of getting agreements for targets for 15 or 20 years from now; will be wasted anyway. Without the action to support them, they won’t happen on schedule. So why bother?

However, since it is the actions that will eventually do the job by 50 years from now and might reach the goals we’re hassling about now in 15 or 20 years, I think that asking for agreement on adding policies and programs similar to those used with great success in Germany over the last 15 years plus companion policies to clean up coal now in use and begin to stop using more of it is the set of goals where agreement is most needed.

And, this can be done by one country at a time or by small groups of countries. It may not be necessary or doable to get all countries to agree.

1. For example, both the United States and China now burn quite large amounts of coal.

Why not set up a joint venture between the United States and China to develop and roll out cost effective technologies to clean the exhaust generated and to sequester all the CO2 generated by burning coal to feed algae that would then be harvested to make biofuels and substitute for oil?

2. For example, United States, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Australia, and many other countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Southern Europe, and elsewhere have abundant amounts of sun generated heat that can be used to power solar thermal power plants.

Why not set up a joint venture between the United States, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Australia, and any other countries that wish to participate, to develop the relevant technologies and roll out large amounts of solar thermal plants?

3. Germany has put a set of policies in place that have produced great progress just in the last 15 years in building new solar photovoltaic installations, wind power installations, and innovative ways to become more energy efficient that have proven to work.

Why not have a program that every country in the world is invited to participate in to do the same in the next 15 years?

If we do those things right away, we will make the progress we need to make -- while if we continue to argue over short term goals, it seems unlikely to me that we will.

Since these same things also protect the economies of the countries that do them, the larger countries that have been hassling about goals, I think should work together on those sorts of programs and to take the lead in doing so.

And that specifically includes China, the United States, India, and the countries of Western Europe both individually and as a group.