A lecture last week at the Oxford Martin School, by
Dan Kammen, climate adviser to President Obama, touched on the issue of
negative carbon technologies, and emphasised its importance, a point made
strongly in my
blog a week earlier. And a reader commented that I had previously understated
the task of introducing new technologies. Their observations have emphasised,
for me at least, the research priority attaching to negative carbon options,
and also the dangers of excessive reliance on a “silver bullet” to resolve the problems
of climate policy.
The need for negative carbon
Professor Dan Kannen pointed
to a particular category of research. Particle physics was fundamental in its
character but not always obviously useful in an immediate way. Developing
Edison’s light bulb had been usefulness driven but not fundamental. But
sometimes we need use-inspired basic research. (The lecture at the Oxford
Martin School can be viewed
on Youtube.)
The very challenging
objectives set in Paris, even if aspirational rather than obviously attainable,
set a clear premium on negative carbon technologies. Although there are known
processes that extract carbon dioxide, the most promising to date are those
that form part of the natural carbon cycle, or derive from finding means to enhance
it. The task is to replicate or improve
on a process with which nature and evolution have experimenting for hundreds of
millions of years, to speed it up, and then to convert to an industrial scale
of operation. All this suggests that
some research into basics, and some fundamental breakthroughs, are indeed going
to be needed.
The value of finding a means
of sequestrating carbon directly from the atmosphere is immense. It is a backstop technology, as Myles Allen
has also argued, that provides at least a partial insurance against the worst
consequences of excess GHG and climate change. But in the absence of carbon
pricing regimes that come remotely close to matching the value we should be
attaching to carbon concentration reduction, it also hard to see how it
translates into a product of immediate commercial value. It shares the
characteristics of other forms of basic research but is essentially use
inspired.
Moving from innovation to
realisation
A visit to the Ecological Laboratory
at Wytham Woods, and
discussions with biologists there, reminded me of the complexity of biological processes
and hence of “bio-solutions”. Bill Gates’
optimism over the breakthrough that will “save the planet” is a natural
extrapolation from the world of information technology, where a new algorithm
can sometimes translate almost instantly into a new solution for an old problem.
The biological world is both more complex and much less completely understood,
by an order of magnitude. This reinforces concern for reliance on a single “silver
bullet” drawn from development of processes in the natural carbon cycle. A biological
approach to carbon capture may be a major contribution but it may well turn out
to carry its own baggage in terms of unforeseen side effects, unanticipated
costs, competition for land use, and public acceptability.
The second comment simply drew
attention to the relatively slow pace of change that typically accompanies major technical
changes in energy technologies. Developments in solar energy and battery
technology have been remarkable, but progress to effective deployment will
still be a lengthy process. The world of energy, unfortunately, is more
physical and less virtual. Its stranded assets have longer lives, central
solutions with quantities of energy in concentrated form are almost by
definition intrinsically dangerous, and the solutions need to penetrate every
aspect of energy use. For these reasons we cannot depend on a single simple solution.
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