Tag Archives: carbon capture and storage

by | March 25, 2013 · 1:30 pm

Geoengineering is a dangerous solution to climate change

Note: Rachel Smolker is co-director of Biofuelwatch, and long time friend and former staff at Global Justice Ecology Project.

–The GJEP Team

By Rachel Smolker, March 22 2013. Source: The Huffington Post

As the realities of global climate change become ever more alarming, advocates of technological approaches to “geoengineer” the planet’s climate are gaining a following.

But the technologies that are promoted — from spraying sulphate particles into the stratosphere, to dumping iron particles into the ocean, to stimulate carbon absorbing plankton, to burning millions of trees and burying the char in soils — are all fraught with clear and obvious risks, and are most likely only going to make matters worse.

Yet zeal for these approaches continues unabated. According to right-wing think tank American Enterprise Institute, geoengineering offers:

“…the marriage of capitalism and climate remediation…What if corporations shoulder more costs and lead the technological charge, all for a huge potential payoff?…Let’s hope we are unleashing enlightened capitalist forces that just might drive the kind of technological innovation necessary to genuinely tackle climate change.”

Forget about cutting emissions: manipulating the atmosphere and biosphere through geoengineering is the only sensible option for business and thus policy makers, they claim. Continue reading →

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Filed under Biodiversity, Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Corporate Globalization, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, Geoengineering, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Tar Sands, The Greed Economy and the Future of Forests

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by | January 22, 2013 · 10:30 am

Mineral dust sprinkled in oceans could absorb vast amounts of carbon

Note: Dangerous false solutions like geoengineering  pose a massive risk to the planet.  The risks associated with dumping minerals into the ocean – many of which would be unknown and untested – far outweigh the benefits.  And considering this proposed technique would only require a 10 percent reduction in carbon in the atmosphere, and wouldn’t account for all the emissions used to create the needed materials, it hardly seems worth exploring.

-The GJEP Team

By Damian Carrington, January 22, 2013.  Source: The Guardian

Adding more silicate through mineral dust would alter the species of plankton that grows in the seas, the research shows. Photo: Wim van Egmond/Corbis

Adding more silicate through mineral dust would alter the species of plankton that grows in the seas, the research shows. Photo: Wim van Egmond/Corbis

Sprinkling billions of tonnes of mineral dust across the oceans could quickly remove a vast quantities of climate-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, according to a new study.

The proposed “geoengineering” technique would also offset the acidification of the oceans and could be targeted at endangered coral reefs, but it would require a mining effort on the same scale as the world’s coal industry and would alter the biology of the oceans.

“It certainly is not a simple solution against the global warming problem,” said Peter Köhler, at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, who led the study. It would require 100 large ships operating all year to distribute 1bn tonnes of the mineral olivine, although it might be possible to use the ballast water in existing shipping instead.
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Filed under Climate Change, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Geoengineering, Mining, Oceans

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by | January 14, 2013 · 9:00 am

Report: Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage a mistake

Note: Global Justice Ecology Project works closely with BiofuelWatch, which is also a fiscally sponsored project of ours.

–The GJEP Team

By Josh Schlossberg, January 6, 2013.  Source: Biomass Monitor, Energy Justice Network

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A new report by Rachel Smolker and Almuth Ernsting of Biofuelwatch condemns carbon capture and storage (CCS) as setting the stage for increased burning of climate-busting biomass and fossil fuels for energy, in effect keeping us from looking at the way the way we produce—and consume—energy.

BECCS (Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage): Climate saviour or dangerous hype? reveals the technical and financial unlikelihood of reducing carbon dioxide emissions through carbon capture and storage, how the technology will result in the burning of even more biomass and fossil fuels, and points out the “serious risks and hazards” inherent in the process.

BECCS involves capturing carbon dioxide from biomass power facilities by “using chemical and physical absorption, filtering membranes, or adsorption,” transporting the gas via truck, ships, or pipelines, “and injecting it into geological formations” beneath the Earth’s surface.

Smolker and Ernsting demonstrate that, instead of BECCS preventing runaway climate change, “promises of future CCS capability have been used as rationale for construction of new ‘CCS-ready’ coal and biomass burning facilities.” Oil, coal, and biomass developers are hoping to employ CCS to stay within CO2 allowances mandated by the European Union while continuing to burn their polluting product.
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Filed under Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests and Climate Change, Land Grabs

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