Posted on 05/05/2008 9:22:55 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
OSLO – Greenpeace and more than 100 other environmental groups denounced projects for burying industrial greenhouse gases on Monday, exposing splits in the green movement about whether such schemes can slow global warming.
Many governments and some environmental organisations such as the WWF want companies to capture heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the exhausts of power plants and factories and then entomb them in porous rocks as one way to curb climate change.
But Greenpeace issued a 44-page report about the technology entitled 'False Hope'.
'Carbon capture and storage is a scam. It is the ultimate coal industry pipe dream,' said Emily Rochon, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace International and author of the report.
Greenpeace and 112 green groups from 21 nations said governments should invest in wind, solar and other renewable energies rather than in capture technologies that would allow coal-fired power plants to stay in operation.
In a statement linked to the report, Greenpeace and allies including Friends of the Earth International said the 'false promise' of carbon capture and storage (CCS) 'risks locking the world into an energy future that fails to save the climate'.
But some other environmental groups accept carbon capture as a way to slow rising temperatures and avert more powerful storms, heatwaves, droughts, disrupted monsoon rains and raised world ocean levels.
'Carbon capture and storage is not an ideal solution, but it buys us time,' said Stephan Singer, head of the WWF's European Climate and Energy Programme in Brussels. 'We believe it is part of the solution – an emergency exit.'
The U.N. Climate Panel has said CCS could be one of the main ways for slowing climate change by 2100 – contributing a bigger share of greenhouse gas cuts than energy efficiency, a shift to renewable energy or a push for nuclear power.
CHINA COAL
Singer said China was opening one or two coal-fired power plants a week and, with a lifetime of 40 years, the world needed ways to retrofit plants to capture emissions rather than expect Beijing to close them down.
Greenpeace said carbon capture technology was largely unproven, could not be deployed on a large scale before 2030, was expensive and brought risks of leaks. It said it would mean electricity price hikes of between 21 and 91 percent.
But Oslo-based environmental group Bellona said 34 CCS projects were being planned in Europe alone. 'If you exclude CCS in the battle against climate change, you don't take global warming seriously,' said Bellona head Frederic Hauge.
Several national branches of Friends of the Earth did not sign up for the statement criticising CCS.
'We believe that CCS will be an important tool to reduce emissions from existing coal and gas-fired power plants,' said Lars Haltbrekken, head of Friends of the Earth Norway. 'We don't support new coal-fired power plants, even with CCS.'
Why are the greens allowed to wield such power and given voice by the media when they are as in the dark as liberals when it comes to misguided iolicy and the implementation thereof? Oh, never mind.
More proof that for a large segment of the Environut community, its not about saving the earth, its about deprecating Man. They are anti-ANYTHING that could prove a real solution to Global Warming, EXCEPT their Luddite visions of a Utopian future.
Bury the environmentalists.
erf pharts will kill us all
God didn't believe in preserving dinosaurs...why do I have to concede that the condor, or the spotted owl or etc, etc is one of the most valued species??
“Many governments and some environmental organisations such as the WWF want companies to capture heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the exhausts of power plants and factories and then entomb them in porous rocks as one way to curb climate change.”
Billion dollar insanity based on a hoax.
Yes, and big corporations are seeing green$$$$ with the cap & trade scam. The outgoing CEO of Shell is leaving to start a new trading entity. Hold on to what’s left of our wallets. This is the kind of sh!t that sank ENRON. Remember the bundled broadband scheme?
'Carbon capture and storage is credits are a scam. It is the ultimate coal industry leftist's pipe dream,'...
All fixed.
The environmentalists make a lot of noise, but they have no answers. For years, they ranted about all the paper bags used by grocery stores, demanding that we use bio-degradable plastic bags, claiming that they could be recycled, would degrade faster anyway, and would not result in killing trees. Now they say that plastic is worse than paper, and that we should junk both, using canvas bags. Don’t they realize that it takes a lot more energy and fertilizer to produce canvas bags?
Once again, every time people call their bluff—this time with carbon sequestration technology—the Global Warming movement is revealed as a scheme to destroy the US economy, and they won’t settle for anything less.
Just so stupid.
Carbon could be sequestered in a Space Elevator as nano-tubules. More than enough carbon would sit in that structure to cause an actual shortage and they’ll have to burn more coal and oil and wood and ethanol to replace it or we’ll face freezing the planet solid.
Store it for use later. It’ll be shown to be useful eventually. Afterall, without it herbivores will be in serious trouble.
You can’t make this crap up.
It just goes to show that they actually don’t want anything that will help solve any “problems”. Without those “problems” they have no purpose in life. So they will denigrate any possible “solutions” to those “problems”..........
Has it occurred to the environmentalists that the higher levels of CO2 might actually be beneficial?
Satellite measurements reveal that, today, there are more forested acres on the globe than existed in the sixties -- when such measurements were first taken. Moreover, the forested acreage seems to be growing slightly every year.
More CO2 = more trees? Sure. Why should this not be the case?
By burying the carbon dioxide in porous rocks, we might actually be "starving" trees. And the greenies wouldn't want that, would they?
To me, this means that greenhouse gases are not understood as a science, but as ideas driven by emotionalism, rumor and political correctness.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.