Below are a few letters received at EnergyBiz Insider on topics that appeared in the past few weeks. They capture the essence of how many readers say they feel.
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Reinventing Carbon Dioxide - December 04, 2009
Very interesting. I have long felt that sequestering CO2 is a dead end (I think expecting a compressed gas to stay in an artificial geologic formation is Pollyanna), and so some form of carbon recycling is the long term solution. Beginning with that prejudice, I found the article very interesting.
You properly point out that this is energy intensive. Your readers may be interested in just how much energy can be required to recycle CO2. Using the simplest chemistry, making methanol, CH4O, from CO2 requires some hydrogen atoms, initially probably from natural gas CH4. The heat content of natural gas, methane, is 889 KJ/mol, for methanol it is 726 KJ/mol. That is right, this process LOOSES 123 kilo-joules per mole produced. Starting with H2 the process is much better, but making H2 has its own energy issues. All of that said, society is getting a liquid fuel, some value added, and we recycle some carbon, maybe more value added. My bottom line -- recycling carbon will be an expensive, energy consuming alternative that society may decide we want to pursue; but it will be expensive and energy consuming.
David Dixon
Energy Commentator
Presumably some or a lot of this research is being financed directly by the government (as to Sandia) or by grants to private companies. How adequate in terms of lengthy expertise and highly-acknowledged scholarship in their fields, is the staffing of the scientific and engineering panels that will direct the creation of RFPs, and review responses to RFPs? I think everyone has a real stake in the answers to this question.
Public money and private capital in general are at a premium -- we have to bet them on the absolutely best horses and with the best proportionate odds that can be identified. I suggest this is an area where cooperation and shared information ought to be brought in. A panel and administrator might take two RFP responses, and negotiate with the two companies / institutions for a different divvying up of the investigation or project than was first envisioned. An incentives structure to jointly achieve the "win" desired would, of course, be critical.
Peter Cross
Turning CO2 back into hydrocarbon?
Thermodynamics is a useful method of calculating the energy cost of accomplishing work and anything related. To reverse the oxidation of CO2 will unavoidably require more energy than can be obtained from later re-oxidation of the carbon. To further convert the carbon into hydrocarbons will significantly increase the net deficit of energy. These are inescapable facts. No matter the path of reactions and mechanisms used, the least possible energy loss is significant.
If the "reverse oxidation" is part of a process to capture and utilize solar energy, that is a different story for the solar input may possibly result in a net increase in energy in the fuel. However, it is unlikely to achieve an overall net gain. One MUST consider all the energy required to build and maintain the conversion equipment and capture the solar energy, harvest the reaction products, and then refine/convert those materials into usable fuels. After all, all fossil fuel energy results from capture of solar energy.
Keith E. Bowers
Do the math. If sunlight is the source of the energy used to convert the CO2 back into usable products, and you get 100 percent efficiency in that conversion, it will still take something like 7 square miles of solar energy collectors to handle the output from your 500 megawatt plant, and you will have to figure out what to do with the flue gas produced at night when the sun is not shining. If the actual process used is photosynthesis, which is much less efficient, the figure becomes more like 70 square miles.
And if you propose to use some other source of energy, the question is why not put that energy directly into the grid rather than trying to convert the CO2 from another source?
Jeff Gerken
Europe's Leadership - December 07, 2009
Europe's leadership on climate change is bunk. We are, at best, being naive and conned by the Europeans. The whole climate change issue is a phony cover-up for their real agenda. We are being amateurs for allowing this.
What this whole climate change issue is about is simply a way to weaken the U.S. economy because the Europeans cannot compete with anyone in the world because their economies and productivity are anemic. Their goal is to make us less efficient because the U.S. is the only country they will be able to compete with if they can reduce our productivity and the best way to do that is heap the cost of the climate change hoax on us.
When are people going to get wise to this obvious attempt at reducing our economic standing in the world?
Ron Corso
I'm sorry but no one has provided positive proof that the change in climate is definitely man-made. Even if it is impacted by carbon emissions, etc., the change in climate coming cannot be changed by man but a lot of money can be spent and raising our heating and cooling bills in the name of saving the environment.
Barry Kimsey
It is unclear whether Obama's proposals in Copenhagen will get the type of legislative backing at home that they need. It is truly doubtful that the Senate version of the Waxman-Markey bill will face a filibuster-proof majority, particularly given the fact that skeptics in the Senate and in their constituency are fired up over "Climate-gate".
Proponents have dismissed the significance of "Climate-gate" claiming the scientists are only human. However, the behavior exhibited in the hacked emails confirms to many the suspicions that the infamous "Hockey Stick" projections that were given to the IPCC years ago as evidence of Global Warming, and later discredited, were not constructed out of naivete or incompetence. That type of scientific activity, conducted on an FDA new drug application, would put people in jail. We should hold our researchers, paid by our tax dollars, to a higher standard, particularly when their work is input to trillion-dollar decisions. The researchers accused of cooking data are leading authors in the IPCC reports.
For Copenhagen, China is throwing out proposals that commit only to reducing emissions relative to previous baseline forecasts of future emissions, not reducing emissions below historical levels. Since the baseline forecasts were likely based on unrealistic expectations of economic growth, their promises only amount to lip service. Such lip service, however, serves as a tool that would hopefully prevent the U.S. from applying the differential tariffs in the current proposed legislation on goods imported from China.
George Santamaria
Sifting through the Fog - December 09, 2009
I rarely hear it mentioned -- and it was absent from this article as well -- that the greenhouse gas emissions being considered as the cause of possible global warming have other undeniable effects. Acid rain (which is measurable and undeniable), the rising proportion of CO2 in the air which all of us breathe, the medical problems caused and exacerbated by air pollution, the continued release of mercury and other heavy metals by coal burning, and resulting food and water contamination -- these are also on the list of ills caused by the unchecked use of fossil fuels.
Can anyone deny that we need to limit the pollution of our air and water?
Margaret Fiore
Project Analyst - Electrical Engineering
Nerac, Inc.
Thank you for a generally balanced article. A few quotes and comments:
"Critics, however, say that the science has shortcomings and that the earth's warming -- and cooling -- is all part of natural climate cycles."
The science always has shortcomings. We continue to revise our understanding of evolution and of the laws of gravity, among many other scientific theories, as we collect more data and as our models become more refined.
Of course there are natural climate cycles that cause warming and cooling. It is not an either/or situation. The challenge is to build models that account for both natural and man-made effects that are consistent with the data.
"Now, though, they are arguing that the some of the leading climatologists who espouse man-made global warming have not been entirely upfront."
There are thousands of scientists working on this. They are all human and some have failings. But that does not change the data that has been presented by the thousands whose honesty is not in dispute. According to the critics' argument, one should not vote Republican if any of the thousands of members of the Republican Party are crooks.
"This writer takes no position on the merits of any global warming theories."
Really? The stakes are high. In a democracy we all need to inform ourselves and take a stand.
Chris Noble
MIT Energy Technology Licensing Officer
Foggy it is getting. It is truly difficult from the layman's perspective to simply know whether or not temperatures have or have not gone up in the last 10-15 years.
The agencies of record would do us all a favor if they would simply release all raw data to all scientists instead of withholding it, as the overseers of the three (East Anglia, NASA, British MET Office) databases to date have done. Why they refuse to do so is a mystery.
Bill Asbury
Product Engineer - Pressure Products Division
Peerless Mfg. Co.
The climate-change skeptics should have the courage of their convictions. They have an affirmative obligation to come up with a coherent hypothesis that accounts for the thinning and shrinking of the ice cap that is more cogent and compelling than the GHG theory, and put it in front of the scientific community. The constant repetition of "no" and the rationalization of responsibility avoidance is just plain childish.
Ray Welch
Associate Director - Energy
Navigant Consulting, Inc.
Nice job sorting through the issues of both of the sides of this monumental political battle. I was not surprised by the partisan alignments that you noted of those who believe and those who do not. I guess I'm certainly in one of those groups too.
It will take a long time to sort out which side is right although I'm not sure it matters in the long run. Unfortunately there is a limited supply of natural resources to fuel our future energy needs. Unless we discover the Holy Grail, such as cold fusion, we need to live within our means so that those of future generations can also.
As such, should be making every effort as a population to efficiently use our natural resources to help ensure an adequacy of supply for those future generations. Until we find other sources of energy on our planet or elsewhere, we will have to live with what we have.
Pete Acimovic
There has been a great deal of popular speculation that the emails call into question the science of global warming. They don't -- but they do call into question the integrity of the scientists involved. Effectively trying to blacklist skeptics -- or journals who publish less than supportive articles -- reeks of Lysenkoism, or some of the worst excesses of the McCarthy era. Those involved should quickly be shown the door by their scientific institutions -- not for bad science, but for being bad scientists.
M. J. Plodinec
Science Advisor
Savannah River National Laboratory
Obama's Pledge - December 11, 2009
I haven't taken the time to point out to any audience what should also be obvious. Eliminate CO2 and one eliminates life on earth. Our entire food chain depends on abundant and plentiful CO2. Take it away, and we are doomed.
You would think that moderately intelligent folks would recognize the need for balance. Too much water, we drown. Too little water, we die. The list goes on infinitely on the too much's and the too little's. However the whole conversation on CO2 seems to miss the beneficial aspect. While I know we won't run out tomorrow, I wonder how good the science is relative to "sequestering in biomass." I question the ability to predict both the kinetics of CO2 utilization in biomass as a function of concentration and the total biomass using CO2.
Maybe you will choose to throw out some of these points in your column just to get folks thinking more clearly. It seems to me that the beneficial effect of planting more biomass (trees), harvesting it for lumber so we store carbon in houses (framing) could have a better overall environmental benefit for mankind that most of the sequestering techniques now being discussed. I could go on to more similar ideas.
William Quapp, P.E.
VP of Project Development
InEnTec Chemical LLC
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