Title: A Plan to Keep Carbon in Check
Author: Robert H. Socolow and Stephen W. Pacala
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B:
A few years ago two Princeton professors, physicist Robert Socolow and ecologist Stephen Pacala, devised a practical, straightforward framework to look at how we can achieve the daunting task of stabilizing our climate. Using "wedges" to conceptualize the variety of methods that can be implemented to reduce carbon emmissions, Socolow and Pacala have created a way to visualize the climate issue so that we can begin to effectively approach a solution. This article, published in the September 2006 edition of Scientific American, provides an introduction to their approach and is indispensable for anybody interested in how we can achieve an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050.
C:
The side-effects of geo-engineering schemes will need to be reviewed as a means to buy time for building a zero-emissions society, a process that itself involves emissions. Considered outside of a massive effort to cut carbon emissions, geoengineering processes with foreseeable but unintended disruptive potential for ecosystem functioning or those that divert substantial real resources from mitigation efforts are unacceptable, unethical and potentially criminal.
So What?
Captured CO2 can be sold to an oil company that injects it into oil fields to squeeze out more oil. High price of oil means more valuable the capture CO2.To achieve another reduction of CO2, utilities need to equip 800 coal plants to capture and store all CO2 emitted. Renewable energy, geothermal energy can reduce emissions. Nuclear power was controversial. Oil accounted for 43 percent of global carbon emissions in 2002, coal accounted for 37%. Transportation must be decarbonized.
Say Who?
Robert H. Socolow and Stephen W. Pacala
What If?
Retreating glaciers, stronger hurricanes, otter summers, thinner poker bear: the ominous harbingers of global warming are driving companies and governments to work toward an unprecedented change in the historical pattern of fossil fuel use.
This Remind Me Of?
Oil and gas fields have developed more slowly because aircraft engines consume less fuel. Task of holding global emissions constant would be out of reach, were it not for the fact that all driving and flying in 2056 will be in vehicles not yet designed.Today's inefficient energy system can be replaced if the world gives unprecedented attention to energy efficiency.Dramatic changes are plausible over next 50 years.Efficiency in electricity use is most obvious substitute for coal.Of 14 billion tons of carbon emissions projected for 2056, 6 billion will come from producing power.Residential and commercial buildings account for 60% of global electricity demand today and will consume most of the new power.
Opinion paragraph: Education is the best thing we could do. If we unite as a whole, them we could become powerful, and change the world in positive ways! That's why we should share information and educate people, and yourself
Author: Robert H. Socolow and Stephen W. Pacala
A:
- The world's coal, oil and natural gas industries dig up and pump out about 7 billion tons of carbon a year, and society burns nearly all of it releasing CO2.
- It located near a doubling of the concentration of CO2 that was in the atmosphere in the 18th century, before the Industrial Revolution began.
- every increase in concentration carries new risks but avoiding that
- danger zone would reduce the likelihood of triggering major irreversible climate changes
- Ratio of emissions to dollars of gross world product fell about 1.5% a year.
- For emissions to be the same in 2056 as today, carbon intensity will need to fall not half as fast but fully as fast as the global economy grows.
- Deeply ingrained in the patterns of technology evolution is the substitution of cleverness of energy.
- Hundreds of power plants are not needed because the world has invested in much more efficient electronics than were available 2 decades ago.
- Cutting building's electricity use in half would reduce 1 billion tons of emissions
- Equipping them with super efficient lighting and appliances could reduce 2 billion tons of emissions. Another billion could be reduced if industry finds additional ways to use electricity more efficiently
- High oil prices are lowering cost of the transition to technology that can capture CO2 and pump it into the ground
- Reduced use, improved efficiency and detrity would, the transport system could become more carbon-intensive.
- Coal-based synthetic fuels provide a way to reduce global demand for oil
- Dramatic changes anticipated in fossil-fuel systems including the use of CO2 capture and storage will require institutions that reliably communicate a price for present and future carbon emissions.
- Governments may need to stimulate the commercialization of low-carbon technologies to increase the number of competitive options available in the future.
- Appropriate policies designed to prevent construction of long-lived capital facilities hat are mismatched to future policy.
- Utilities for instance need to be encouraged to invest in CO2 capture and storage for new coal power plants.
- To freeze emissions at the current level, if one category of emissions goes up, another must come down.
- Vigorous effort can prepare revolutionary technologies that will give the second half of the century a running start.
- Options could include scrubbing CO2 directly from air, carbon storage minerals, nuclear fusion, nuclear thermal hydrogen and artificial photosynthesis.
- One more of the technologies may arrive in time to help the first runner, although the world shouldn't count on it
- World will have confronted energy production and energy efficiency at the consumer level
- Electronic items, transportation and buildings will be transformed.
- The world will have a fossil-fuel energy system as large as today's but that is infused with modern controls and advanced materials that is most unrecognizable cleaner
B:
A few years ago two Princeton professors, physicist Robert Socolow and ecologist Stephen Pacala, devised a practical, straightforward framework to look at how we can achieve the daunting task of stabilizing our climate. Using "wedges" to conceptualize the variety of methods that can be implemented to reduce carbon emmissions, Socolow and Pacala have created a way to visualize the climate issue so that we can begin to effectively approach a solution. This article, published in the September 2006 edition of Scientific American, provides an introduction to their approach and is indispensable for anybody interested in how we can achieve an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050.
C:
The side-effects of geo-engineering schemes will need to be reviewed as a means to buy time for building a zero-emissions society, a process that itself involves emissions. Considered outside of a massive effort to cut carbon emissions, geoengineering processes with foreseeable but unintended disruptive potential for ecosystem functioning or those that divert substantial real resources from mitigation efforts are unacceptable, unethical and potentially criminal.
So What?
Captured CO2 can be sold to an oil company that injects it into oil fields to squeeze out more oil. High price of oil means more valuable the capture CO2.To achieve another reduction of CO2, utilities need to equip 800 coal plants to capture and store all CO2 emitted. Renewable energy, geothermal energy can reduce emissions. Nuclear power was controversial. Oil accounted for 43 percent of global carbon emissions in 2002, coal accounted for 37%. Transportation must be decarbonized.
Say Who?
Robert H. Socolow and Stephen W. Pacala
What If?
Retreating glaciers, stronger hurricanes, otter summers, thinner poker bear: the ominous harbingers of global warming are driving companies and governments to work toward an unprecedented change in the historical pattern of fossil fuel use.
This Remind Me Of?
Oil and gas fields have developed more slowly because aircraft engines consume less fuel. Task of holding global emissions constant would be out of reach, were it not for the fact that all driving and flying in 2056 will be in vehicles not yet designed.Today's inefficient energy system can be replaced if the world gives unprecedented attention to energy efficiency.Dramatic changes are plausible over next 50 years.Efficiency in electricity use is most obvious substitute for coal.Of 14 billion tons of carbon emissions projected for 2056, 6 billion will come from producing power.Residential and commercial buildings account for 60% of global electricity demand today and will consume most of the new power.
Opinion paragraph: Education is the best thing we could do. If we unite as a whole, them we could become powerful, and change the world in positive ways! That's why we should share information and educate people, and yourself