Carbon
emissions continue to grow because our entire industry still heavily relies on
fossil fuels. Transition to renewable energy still mostly looks like a distant
dream and this is the main reason why there is so much talk and ongoing
research involving different carbon capture and storage technologies.
Capturing
carbon and then subsequently sequestering it underground would contribute to
less greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, therefore reducing the global climate
change impact.
The bad
news is that there are still no commercially viable power plants equipped to
capture carbon dioxide on a large scale, a few small-scale and pilot plants do
exist, but they are yet to become commercially utilized.
The
currently available carbon capture and storage technologies don't come cheap
because they are highly energy intensive and science is still on a lookout for
material(s) that would enable lower energy intensity and decrease total costs.
Highly
polluting coal power plants are still dominant in large part of the world and
are together with our cars major carbon emitters. There has been lot of talk
about „clean coal technologies“but coal still remains anything but clean energy
source.
The
transition to renewable energy still looks like the best option to stave off
the worst consequences of climate change. However, given the current rate of
transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy it looks like there won't be
enough time left for us to use renewable energy sources as our main weapon
against global warming and climate change.
Because of
this shortage of time carbon capture and storage looks like the only logical
way to reduce carbon emissions sufficiently in order to prevent worst climate
change scenario.
The ongoing
research should primarily focus on the energy costs of carbon capture because
this is the main factor that will determine the commerciality of these new
technologies.
The
governments should play their part too in offering incentives and tax benefits
to power plants that implement carbon capture and storage technologies.
We need to
speed things up because climate change won't give us too much time do something
about it.
READ beyond the “they say” headlines.
ReplyDeleteThe vast majority of scientists agree climate change is "real" but the vast majority of scientists do not have any REAL consensus that it is truly a deadly crisis for all. NONE! How can It be any kind of consensus of a deadly threat when thousands of lab coats have thousands of different lab coat opinions on the “effects”, not causes of climate change? They all study effects of a worst case scenario of an assumed to be real crisis.
@mememine69. Regardless of whether or not global warming is real (which it is), there are many bigger concerns that are even more detrimental to our planet than that, like the impeding concern for new efficient renewable energy sources that replace fossil fuels. Solar, biomass, wind, hyrdo, etc won't suffice and aren't a godsend to our problems as many undereducated and ill informed people believe; yourself probably included. The employment of these energies produce major problems of their own. There is always an negative exchange for any benefit new sources of energy provide, and as or right now there is no viable solution that will work. Also, population control, economy increase, etc all perpetuate these problems.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you should take your own advice and read a little more before you consider these problems to be of little concern.