Bush on Energy « The Washington Independent

<div class="mini gray">Illustration by: Matt Mahurin</div>

Last night, in his quick blurb on energy policy, Bush <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/01/20080128-13.html">talked</a> about "a new generation of clean energy technology" including those that can "generate coal power while capturing carbon emissions. "

Here’s what I want to know: when exactly is this new generation going to be born? And who’s giving birth to it? Because as it stands now, there are no commercially viable carbon-capture-and-storage plants anywhere in the world. And the technology may not be viable for years, if not decades.

"It is clear that Congress does not ‘get it,’" <a href="http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/1/13/194144/077">says</a> James Hansen, the leading climate scientist who directs NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "They stand ready to set a goal of 60% reductions, 80%, 90%! Horse manure."

Here’s more from Hansen, from his <a href="http://www.thebulletin.org/columns/james-hansen/20080124.html">essay</a> based on his testimony to the Iowa Utilities Board:

Over the past year, it’s become clear that the way the political and environmental communities are approaching global warming isn’t going to solve it. Books by Al Gore and Tim Flannery, for example, admonish people to use less energy and reduce carbon emissions; the Kyoto Protocol [PDF] calls for an emissions reduction of 5 percent below 1990 levels; and politicians around the world are mandating sizable reductions in carbon emissions by 2050. But without a plan of action that prioritizes tackling emissions from coal plants, such goals are ineffectual–and the politicians will either be in retirement homes or dead by 2050.

Here’s what needs to happen, says Hansen:

<ol>

<li>Enforce a moratorium on new coal power plants in developing countries until carbon-capture-and-storage technology is viable.</li>

<li>Do the same in developing countries.</li>

<li>Phase out existing coal plants and replace with wind, solar, and nuclear power (and coal with CCS when viable).</li>

</ol>

"All existing coal power plants without carbon capture must be bulldozed by 2050," he concludes.

jrbehrman

Here in Texas, Democrats and others are taking the sort of serious approach HANSEN recommends, perhaps because we, too, can look at the whole earth from low-orbit, even the moon.

A core concept is integration of complementary technologies. And, a specific example is integrated gasification of coal and sequestration of carbon dioxide.

There is actually a small-scale, non-earmarked, non-political, un-academic, actually practical project here to generate gas from a refinery by-product, called pet-coke, and feed it into an existing coal-fired power-plant. We already inject carbon dioxide into depleted oil reservoirs for tertiary recovery of oil.

This is exactly the sort of economic/engineering replacement called for by Hansen. It is a small step, to be sure, but not the mix of hype and deception that trickles down from Bush or, for that matter, from the Congressional Democrats.

My fear, of course, is that the bond-lawyers and paper-hangers will jump on this, bribe the politicians, and turn a process of trial-and-error engineering progress into just another fad/bubble.

We do not actually have the military-technical or political-economic institutions to address energy problems/solutions with on a large-scale or, more importantly, scalably -- meaning on a logistic curve going from small to large in financially sound increments.

On the contrary, we have state-sponsored Ponzi schemes that both rotten parties jump on, skimming on the upside and shifting on the downside. LTCM/ENRON/SIV ... The Beat Goes On!

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