Joe Romm on Air Capture Research
April 7th, 2008Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Joe Romm, whose voluminous, hysterical attacks on me and my co-authors Tom Wigley and Chris Green have become somewhat cartoonish, has far more in common with my views than he thinks. Here is what he says on a recent Real Climate post on air capture:
But we should surely do a fair amount of research on air capture, since, by not later than the 2020s, we’re going to get desperate for emissions reductions, and by the 2030s, we’re going to be very desperate and willing to pursue expensive options we that aren’t yet politically realistic.
Investment in research to support a potential breakthrough new technology — what a great idea Joe!
April 7th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Some new technology for CO2 reduction:
* plant trees and grass in urban areas
* drive clean diesel powered vehicles instead of gasoline or ethanol powered vehicles
* require all government buildings to be retrofitted with geothermal heating and cooling, solar cell/batteries/wind turbines for electricity, and thermostats set to 67° in the winter and 78° in the summer
* eliminate 2/3 of senators and representatives – biggest reduction of hot air and CO2
Ironically, if there is global warming and it follows the scenario of increased minimum temperatures [because we have not had an increased frequency of maximum temperature records], CO2 will be reduced because heating requirements [burning of fossil fuels] will be reduced.
We can have our warming and reduced CO2, too!
April 7th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
“Joe Romm, whose voluminous, hysterical attacks on me and my co-authors Tom Wigley and Chris Green have become somewhat cartoonish…”
He sure writes some bizarre things.
For example, when he called me a “Delayer-1000,” I had no idea what it meant. I thought it was like the top 1000 Delayers he’d come across. So I was disappointed I couldn’t crack the “Delayer-100″ list.
But then I found out that “1000″ referred to “1000 ppm” (as in CO2 concentration). He apparently actually believes that 1000 ppm of CO2 is a potential future concentration. Considering that this would require an average increase of 6 ppm per year for ***100 straight years***, it’s hard to take anything else he writes very seriously.
Especially considering today’s quote:
“I assert the United States will never do a manned mission to Mars this century because by the time such a mission is possible, around 2030, the nation and the world will be desperately engaged in a life-and-death struggle that uses all its brainpower and resources to try to 1) stop catastrophic global warming and 2) minimize the misery for billions of people. I’d take a bet on that if I had any chance of living long enough to collect…”
That’s truly bizarre, since:
1) He apparently thinks that there is a 50/50 chance of warming of 0.15 degrees Celsius from 2005 to 2015. So he thinks 2015 will be about 0.15 degrees Celsius warmer than 2005. That hardly seems alarming.
2) So he must think that something really dramatic will happen in the 15 years from 2015 to 2030, such that, “…in 2030, the world will be desperately engaged in a life-and-death struggle that uses all its brainpower and resources to try to 1) stop catastrophic global warming and 2) minimize the misery for billions of people.”
But he doesn’t say what in the world that would be.
3) The year 2030 is (only) 22 years away. It’s puzzling that a guy who is apparently only 48 years old would think that there’s no chance he will live to age 70. If this were 1708, that might seem more reasonable.
I think Michael Crichton is wrong on a lot of things. But when he writes about “environmentalism as religion” he may be on to something:
http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html
That’s the most logical explanation I can think of for Joe Romm’s views.
April 7th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Mark Bahner wrote:
“He apparently actually believes that 1000 ppm of CO2 is a potential future concentration. Considering that this would require an average increase of 6 ppm per year for ***100 straight years***, it’s hard to take anything else he writes very seriously.”
I’m shocked by the confidence in this statement, particularly because of the assumed linear projection path. As a scientist, I’d rather provide more evidence before ruling outcomes out as extremely unlikely.
This comment reinforces that people have a very poor understanding of the stock and flows bathtub dynamics of greenhouse gases. (see MIT’s John Sterman paper, “Cloudy Skies: Assessing Public Understanding of Global Warming”, http://scripts.mit.edu/~jsterman/On-Line_Publications.html#2002Cloudy
The IPCC also “actually believes” that 1000 ppm is a potential future concentration scenario, ISAM model scenario A1F1 in fact. Is it hard to take anything that Nobel Prize winning body publishes seriously?
Of course Mark’s linear 6 ppm per year constant growth rate for 100 years path is extremely unlikely! I’m sure even Romm would agree with such a projection. Of course its unlikely! It glosses over the dynamics and the many reinforcing feedbacks at play in the system. Like most natural systems, growth in atmospheric conc would occur at an exponential rate until balancing feedbacks bring a stock to saturation. Like a pond in which algae bloom area doubles each week, the pond cover is only 1/16 the area 4 weeks prior to being full penetration.
Let me be clear I’m not saying a 1000ppm concentration is likely. I just think we should be careful not to rule it out so casually.
April 8th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I wrote, regarding Joe Romm, “”He apparently actually believes that 1000 ppm of CO2 is a potential future concentration. Considering that this would require an average increase of 6 ppm per year for ***100 straight years***, it’s hard to take anything else he writes very seriously.”
Derek Supple writes, “I’m shocked by the confidence in this statement, particularly because of the assumed linear projection path.”
I wasn’t assuming a linear path. I was simply showing the absolutely inexorable arithmetic. For example, suppose one sets out to run a 4 minute mile. But then one runs the first 1/4 mile in 1 minute and 20 seconds. Well, the odds of actually running a 4 minute mile drop to almost nothing even as early as that quarter-mile mark.
Suppose the first 20 years of this century average a 2.5 ppm per year increase. That would mean that the next 80 years would have to average not “merely” 6 ppm per year, but 6.9 ppm per year, just to get to a 600 ppm increase.
And suppose the next 20 years average 3.5 ppm per year. That means the final 60 years have to average **8** ppm to get to a 600 ppm increase.
“Like most natural systems, growth in atmospheric concentration would occur at an exponential rate until balancing feedbacks bring a stock to saturation.”
Growth in atmospheric concentration is not a “natural system.” The atmospheric concentration of CO2 is overwhelmingly dependent on human emissions of CO2. (Note that human decisions to remove CO2 from the atmosphere may be important before the end of the century, if not the middle of the century. But that’s another story!) So let’s not pretend–or be fooled into thinking–that atmospheric CO2 concentrations are not closely tied to human technologies. The CO2 concentrations will depend on human (fossil fuel) CO2 emissions. Not “nature.”
“The IPCC also ‘actually believes’ that 1000 ppm is a potential future concentration scenario, ISAM model scenario A1F1 in fact.”
How do you know that the IPCC “actually believes” that the A1F1 scenario is plausible? What is the IPCC’s estimate of the chances of the A1F1 scenario occurring?
“Is it hard to take anything that Nobel Prize winning body publishes seriously?”
The IPCC won a Nobel ***Peace*** Prize! Do you honestly think that in any way reflects whether what they’ve done is scientifically valid or invalid?
And regarding the IPCC’s “projections.” No, I don’t take them seriously. They’re pseudoscientific rubbish. I would expect a class of undergraduates in any technical course related to energy and the environment to do a better job in a week’s worth of work. But then, I would expect a class of undergraduates to be honest.
“Let me be clear I’m not saying a 1000ppm concentration is likely.”
Joe Romm apparently disagrees. Here’s what he wrote, regarding reaching 1000 ppm:
“And delay is, of course, sometimes good. Not in this case, however. As noted in Part 2, our current understanding, as expressed in the IPCC “concensus,” which almost certainly underestimates how dire things are, is that if global emissions merely average 11 billion tons of carbon a year (11 GtC/yr) this century, we are going to 1000 ppm atmospheric concentrations. And that is the end of life as we know on it this planet.”
“I just think we should be careful not to rule it out so casually.”
Actually, as I pointed out above, saying that concentrations would have to increase at an average of 6 ppm per year for the next 100 years is actually a very conservative way of looking at the situation.
To see that this is so, I have a suggestion. Why don’t you and some of your fellow members of the MIT Energy Club try to come up with probabilistic distributions for atmospheric CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa for 2010, and every decade thereafter to 2100? For example, the numbers might be “5 percent probability,” “50 percent probability,” and “95 percent probability,” where each probability is that the concentration will be lower than the number stated.
Some numbers for 2010 might be: 5 percent probability that concentration will be lower than 381 ppm, 50 percent probability that concentration will be lower than 386 ppm, and 95 percent probability concentration will be lower than 393 ppm.
And some probabilities for 2020 might be: 5 percent less than 385 ppm, 50 percent less than 409 ppm, 95 percent less than 440 ppm.
Or whatever. You and your fellow club members should come up with your own numbers.
I would only remind you that oil is currently at $110 a barrel. So when you’re thinking about what the CO2 emissions will be, think very hard about where those emissions are coming from. Especially after the middle of the century. Do you think the world is going to be burning substantially more coal and oil after 2050 than in 2008?