The IPCC's fourth assessment FAQ notes that carbon dioxide emissions reductions, even 100 percent in 2007, will only likely result in a drop of atmospheric CO2 by about 40 ppm by the end of the century. Cutting CO2 emissions and development of clean energy could be great for energy independence and our economy, but as a climate strategy it is a dud. As people become aware of this, CCS looks politically attractive.

To take CO2 from the atmosphere takes work, energy. It is the reverse of combustion. Our technology has not had a good track record in overturning the basic principles of thermodynamics, wishful thinking and massive R & D expenditures notwithstanding.

To go against the Second Law, biology fueled by free solar energy is the best bet (though the coal companies may not agree). Perennial grasses pull carbon out of the air using free solar energy. Unlike trees, which fix carbon into trunks which burn and rot, grasses can put respectable amounts of carbon-rich compounds into the soil, where complex microbial foodwebs can turn it into stable soil organic matter. This is not a waste product or a disposal problem, as with CCS, but an enormous benefit to water quality and supplies, moderating floods and droughts, feeding people and wildlife, and enhancing all kinds of biodiversity. And the best way to manage and encourage these grasses to build soil carbon is to graze them with livestock. So even poor people can be part of the solution, both locally and globally.

This simple solution lacks sponsorship or even awareness by a host of major groups and interests who often appear to be at odds with one another: commodity agriculture, energy interests, environmental organizations, universities, government agencies, and the media. Technology (or the regulation or prohibition of technology) is our conventional wisdom. To use biology would seem to require a mental transformation that is seemingly outside the repertoire.

I read the Greenpeace report and I certainly take issue with their assumption that energy demand can be dropped 3% while population rises to 8.9 billion. Such a per capita energy use would not likely lift developing countries out of poverty. Even with efficiency improvements, energy use will most likely grow and we will have to pick between some proverbial poisons while bridging the technology gaps.

I made a version of this comment on It's Getting Hot in Here earlier, but thankfully they seem to have taken your post down.
So I bring it up here:

"Greenpeace vs Expert Consensus" is, itself, a total misrepresentation. A better title would have been "Civil Society and Frontline Communities vs Theoretical Science." The point being that there is also broad-based opposition to CCS, not just Greenpeace.

And let's not forget what else the IPCC says about CCS: that it won't become viable until the second half of the 21st century.

Also, if you look a little more closely at who exactly is opposing CCS you'll notice something very interesting. Mostly it is groups from communities where the on-the-ground effects of coal mining are most severe. I highlight this because unless you have a new method for extracting coal from the ground that doesn't impact communities in such severe ways (maybe your "experts" can get to work on this) I don't think we can justify moving forward with expanding coal at all, even if the theoretical science behind CCS does, one day, prove viable.

The bottom line is that we simply do not need coal in our future. It is so damaging to the climate and to human communities that the only approach we ought to be taking is a moratorium as soon as possible.

The truly disturbing thing is that CCS isn't really even about science. It is a marketing technique. The coal industry just wants to convince the public that there is such a thing as "clean" coal so that they can keep building non-CCS plants.

So I have two main questions:

1. Do you support a moratorium on non-CCS coal plant construction? If so, then you're opposing all planned coal development, and thus I imagine you don't think coal is a necessary part of our energy future.

2. What is your view on the devastating impact of coal extraction on human beings? Just ignore it and do the best we can?

Robin,

1. If we care about stopping global warming, focusing on a moratorium on coal misses the bigger picture. To Breakthrough, a much more important issue is what will replace coal, because when we have reliable, affordable alternatives, coal will be a lot easier to dispose of.

It's unlikely that the public would accept the cost increases associated with replacing coal with wind, solar, and efficiency improvements. We need to be focusing first and foremost on ramping up these and other technologies. How to get big investments in R&D and deployment, which technologies to fund, improving the grid, how to quickly drive down the price of clean energy... these are the kinds of issues that should be driving the conversation, and focusing on a coal moratorium is reductive. It emphasizes what we're against rather than what we're for - a clean energy economy. That's a vision that all voters can get behind, and it's probably the fastest way to get rid of coal to boot.

So you can take my answer as a qualified yes - in a perfect world, we would love a moratorium on all coal plants that failed to capture less than 90 percent of their emissions. But the technology isn't there yet, and the best way to ramp it up is to deploy what we have now.

2. America needs CCS - nearly half our electricity is from coal. I agree with you that the effects of coal on communities are abhorrent, but the idea that CCS will expand coal is absurd. That would be like opponents of cars saying that catalytic converters on tailpipes will expand car use. It would be like saying we shouldn't have catalytic converters when what we really need is more mass transit. Fine, we need more mass transit. But in the meantime, can we please put catalytic converters on tailpipes?

Robin, I'm also curious why you support ItsGettingHotinHere censoring my post. Clearly you think this is a worthwhile discussion to be having since you not only commented on my post there, but also went through the trouble of expanding your comment and re-posting it here?

I do not agree with IGHIH to censor this post. We need to have a dialogue on these issues that is simply not a restatement of the standard positions. These questions are difficult and need to be sturggled with and not merely shrugged off.

Tip of the hat to Breakthrough for raising these issues. :-)

Two quick items:

1. In terms of the impact on communities and the massive planned coal expansion I'd like to point out that you still haven't addressed my central point. That the "debate" over CCS is really a smokescreen for industry to justify a big expansion of non-CCS plants--which is exactly what they're doing right now. I'm not saying that viable, cost-effective, CCS is a bad thing, I'm saying that the promise of CCS in the distant future isn't worth the cost of new coal expansion now.

2. As far as having your post removed from IGHIH, I think it was the right thing to do because that is supposed to be a blog from the youth climate movement and your view is so antithetical to the values of the youth climate movement. I comment on lots of blogs where I think conversations need to happen including the blogs of many of the giant companies I think are most responsible for damaging our climate. The fact that I think conversations need to happen doesn't mean I want to see Chevron posting on IGHIH either.

Robin,

1. I think coal is despicable, and I don't want it to expand any more than you do. But a moratorium on coal would entail an immediate and steep spike in energy prices, and if the recent (abhorrent) proposals for a gas tax "holiday" tell us anything, it's that the public doesn't want to pay more for energy. Should we remind people of the dangers of unchecked emissions, hoping that will rally broad-based support? That strategy has already failed: at the height of popularity of "An Inconvenient Truth," concern about global warming was low on the priority list of most Americans.

I think that a politics about creating a new clean energy economy will be much more successful than one focusing primarily on making dirty energy more expensive. People are willing to pay a little more for energy when they know the money is going directly to alternative technologies, driving down their long-term cost. I think that this strategy will get rid of coal a lot faster than what you're proposing, which seems to me to be a political dead-end. What is your political strategy for an immediate moratorium on the construction of new coal plants?

2. I do not see how my post was "antithetical to the values of the youth climate movement." If this is true, than the IPCC, James Hansen, and a number of other scientists whose only bias is a desire to deal with climate change, also express views antithetical to your values. My post simply pointed out that the conclusions of these scientists do not match the results of the Greenpeace study. I'd appreciate it if you could point out exactly which values my view, and the view of the aforementioned scientists, is so antithetical to.

Well, I think that if the Youth Climate Movement (YCM) is more interested in the ideological purity of energy sources rather than their carbon content or economics, there will be many in the general public who will disagree. Most folks I know are concerned about carbon, but they also do not want to pay any more than necessary to eliminate it (i.e., add a few $ to my bill to transition from carbon is fine, but triple my bill just to get rid of Exxon too?). Shouldn't those views be discussed on IGHIH rather than the YCM find out too late and lose relevance?