A few weeks ago, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) published a report on carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies for coal-fired power plants.According to CRS, commercialization and widespread deployment of CCS will require “demand pull” regulation, such as Clean Air Act New Source Performance Standards, combined with cap-and-trade or carbon taxes; and it will require support for “technology push” RD&D (research, development, and demonstration) via government grants, tax preferences, and loan guarantees.
CCS will not be deployed on an industrial scale without “demand pull” regulation, because burning coal with CCS will always be more expensive than burning coal without it. Yet “technology push” RD&D to reduce CCS-related cost penalties is also critical. Although CRS does not explicitly say so, it implies that if CCS costs do not decline dramatically, carbon caps or taxes would make coal generation uneconomic.…
Continue ReadingThe National Wildlife Federation released a report last week that began:
Overwhelming scientific evidence supports reducing carbon pollution* that causes global warming as much as possible and as quickly as possible.
Why such a stark verdict? Because…
Global warming is happening faster than predicted even several years ago, with many natural systems already seriously impacted.
This is an odd contention given that we are now in a multi-year period (12 years and counting) period during which time the global warming has been preceding much more slowly than the climate-model mean projections of the expected rate of temperature rise. And, what’s even worse (for the models anyway), is that the rate has now dipped near the lower bound of the 95% confidence range of model projections. If the slowdown continues much longer, it will be a clear indication that something is amiss with the temperature projections—and thus with alarming claims that depend upon them.…
Continue ReadingIn hearings recently held by the House Science and Technology Committee, new Secretary of Energy Dr. Steven Chu remarked that energy- intensive companies were seeking to save energy because it could result in large savings (so what’s new?). But then the DOE head said, “the more forward looking companies … see in the long term energy costs just increasing because in the long term, as noted before, oil, natural gas production will eventually peak and decline, plateau and decline” (emphasis added). [Note: this is a paraphrase from the recording, at about 1:32.]
Apparently, Secretary Chu has taken to heart the arguments of the Hirsch report, which was essentially a survey of expectations by various forecasters, primarily peak-oil advocates, …
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