Drawing Lines and Capturing Carbon

One thing I've learned from my brief stint as an advocate is the importance of the ability to draw lines in the sand.

American culture values unity and compromise, and shies away from conflict.* But conflicts do exist, even in the most benign relationships, and being able to recognize them is critical to making sure they are resolved correctly.

Relevant example for today: carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). CCS is a technology that would capture carbon dioxide from the emissions of a power plant or other pollution source and keep it stored somewhere so that it wouldn't be released into the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.

Great, right? Global warming sucks, a lot of global warming pollution comes from coal plants, this would make them less bad! Isn't this a great compromise between the extreme environmentalists who want to cut off our electricity to stop global warming and the extreme coal kings on the other side that care about nothing but selling their fuel?

Well, it might be a good idea, if were cheap and doable. Unfortunately, as a great article in The Economist points out, it is neither. Energy efficiency and renewable energy sources are much cheaper and are proven to work, so if you have some time to help stop global warming, you should spend it setting up solar panels and wind turbines rather than trying to figure out how to make CCS work.

So why is the CCS idea still talked about so much? Yes, The Economist article just came out, but trust me, it wasn't the first and it won't be the last nail in the coffin of CCS. It's because of politics.

Having an idea of a technology that would make coal not so bad is a great way for the coal industry to pretend like they care about global warming and are doing the right thing to help stop it. But it's purely political; a few years ago they were denying global warming was even a problem; the switch to the promise of undeveloped technologies is just proof that they're losing the P.R. battle with scientists and environmentalists and now they're trying to 'compromise'.

Unfortunately, every dollar spent on CCS is a dollar not spent (or sometimes saved from) energy efficiency and renewable energy, which will do even more to reduce global warming pollution and create jobs.

So if you see a well-choreographed advertisement for 'clean coal', draw the line in the sand. There are those fighting to stop global warming, and those more worried about their own profits. Which side is the ad on? Sadly, it's helping to perpetuate the unacceptable status quo. In fact, that's what it's trying to do.



* Want evidence? Do you have family members with whom you won't discuss politics or religion? Have you ever been part of a group decision that was more intent on compromise then on making the right decision? Ok, I'm making you come up with your examples for me. But I think it should work ; ]