Stories tagged with "carbon"

Introducing A New Currency: The Carbon

Posted by Big Gav on June 27, 2008 - 9:44pm in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand
Topic: Economics/Finance
Tags: carbon, currency, global warming [list all tags]

This is a guest post from kiashu.

I have decided to create a new currency, the Carbon. You can spend it and earn it, but cannot exchange it between people, because it's a transaction between you and the Earth. The symbol for the carbon currency is ¢. In earlier times, currencies were physical commodities, or their value was tied to them. For example, the British Pound was called a "pound" because it was set as equivalent to a pound of silver, and around an ounce of gold. This made it easy to know what you could get for a pound, and what it was really worth. So I have set ¢1.00 as worth 1.00kg of carbon dioxide equivalent in greenhouse terms. 1kg methane, for example is worth about ¢23, since it has a greater effect on the climate than does carbon dioxide.


Climate change, our bankruptcy
The reason to express it as a currency is that with money we have a simple idea which everyone can grasp: you cannot spend more than you earn. If you get into debt and can never pay it back, you're in trouble. Likewise, if we emit more greenhouse gases than the Earth can absorb, we get into trouble; if we spend more Carbons than we earn, we get into debt. Some people find it difficult to grasp the idea of climate change because, they say, the pollutants we humans produce are so small compared to the whole system, how can they have an effect? Well, imagine that in a town of 1,000 people every single household spent just a few percent more than they earned - every year for a century. That town would be in trouble, right?

We have been spending more than we earn. When you do that with money eventually you get declared bankrupt and the court writes off your debts. That's possible with debts in dollars, but not debts in Carbons Instead of bankruptcy we get climate change. The debt just grows and makes our lives more miserable and difficult. Our spending is greater than our income.

There's more… (1620 words) | Comments (7) | | Permalink | Without comments

CO2 capture and storage: The economic costs

Posted by Rembrandt on July 30, 2007 - 8:55am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: carbon, carbon dioxide, ccs, coal [list all tags]

Capturing carbon dioxide from coal (and gas) fired electricity plants. Subsequently transporting the carbon dioxide from the plant and storing it underground in (abandoned) oil/gas fields, in other geological formations or on the ocean floor. It seems like an excellent solution for continued fossil fuel use in the coming decades.

The European Union wants to have 12 large CO2 capture and storage demonstration projects in place by 2015, requiring an investment of 5 billion euro. The expectation is that this development will lead to significant cost reductions, making the technology affordable by 2020. There are however two large drawbacks, it will keep costing large sums of money and the process is quite energy intensive. In this post the economic viability of the process is scrutinized. In a previous post the impact of the extra energy cost of the process on coal depletion was quantified.

There's more… (478 words) | Comments (82) | | Permalink | Without comments

CO2 Capture and Storage: The Energy Costs

Posted by Rembrandt on July 5, 2007 - 8:32am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: carbon, carbon dioxide, ccs, coal [list all tags]

Capturing carbon dioxide from coal (and gas) fired electricity plants. Subsequently transporting the carbon dioxide from the plant and storing it underground in (abandoned) oil/gas fields, in other geological formations or on the ocean floor. It seems like an excellent solution for continued fossil fuel use in the coming decades.

The European Union wants to have 12 large CO2 capture and storage demonstration projects in place by 2015, requiring an investment of 5 billion euro. The expectation is that this development will cause significant cost reductions, making the technology affordable by 2020. There are however two large drawbacks, it will keep costing large sums of money and the process is quite energy intensive. In this post the impact of the extra energy cost of the process on coal depletion is quantified, the economics will follow in a later article.

There's more… (1070 words) | Comments (98) | | Permalink | Without comments

Supreme Court Allows Carbon Regulation Through Clean Air Act

Posted by Glenn on April 2, 2007 - 10:01am in The Oil Drum: Local
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: carbon, global warming, greenhouse gas [list all tags]

NOT APRIL FOOLS DAY JOKE:

SUPREME COURT ALLOWS EPA TO REGULATE CARBON

The Supreme Court ordered the federal government on Monday to take a fresh look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from cars, a rebuke to Bush administration policy on global warming.

In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.

Connecticut and 11 other states, along with 13 environmental groups, sued the EPA over the issue.

Very good news for environmental advocates!

Comments (0) | | Permalink | Without comments

IPCC Summary and Fossil Fuel

Posted by Chris Vernon on February 12, 2007 - 10:00am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: carbon, climate change, coal, gas, global warming, ipcc, oil [list all tags]

2007 sees the staggered release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 4th Assessment Report. The first part of which was released on Friday 2nd February. This "Summary For Policy Makers" is available here (.pdf) and at just 21 pages is certainly worth reading.

Column yards have been written about it already, I’m just going to offer brief comment on a single extract spread over pages 12 and 13. (GtC = billions tonnes of carbon)

Based on current understanding of climate carbon cycle feedback, model studies suggest that to stabilise at 450 ppm carbon dioxide, could require that cumulative emissions over the 21st century be reduced from an average of approximately 670 [630 to 710] GtC to approximately 490 [375 to 600] GtC. Similarly, to stabilise at 1000 ppm this feedback could require that cumulative emissions be reduced from a model average of approximately 1415 [1340 to 1490] GtC to approximately 1100 [980 to 1250] GtC. {7.3, 10.4}
There's more… (522 words) | Comments (87) | | Permalink | Without comments

EuroNews: November 29, 2006

Posted by Chris Vernon on November 30, 2006 - 11:40am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Miscellaneous
Tags: bulgaria, carbon, carbon dioxide, euronews, gazprom, greece, ukraine [list all tags]

EU outlines new carbon permits
The European Union has established carbon limits for the second phase of the carbon trading scheme, a key step in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The European Trading Scheme (ETS) aims to cut emissions by 8% of 1990 levels. Critics say that nations involved in the scheme had set their carbon allowance levels too high, and have not been aggressive enough in cuts. The EU set allowances for the 2008-2012 period to an average of 7% below the levels proposed by member states.


Europeans face fuel 'price surge'
Electricity prices could double in Europe if power firms are to meet emissions reduction targets under the Kyoto protocol, says a report. Carbon prices are set to surge, and firms might pass this rise on to the wholesale market, says a report by consultancy Global Energy Decision.
There's more… (865 words) | Comments (18) | | Permalink | Without comments

Geophysicist Klaus Lackner on Fueling the Future

Posted by Glenn on September 13, 2006 - 11:14am in The Oil Drum: Local
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: carbon, columbia university, energy, klaus lackner, oil, peak oil [list all tags]

Last night I attended a lecture at a nice Upper West Side Restaurant by Geophysicist Klaus Lackner as part of Columbia University's Cafe Science series of science talks. He got right into by saying that that we are running out of oil, have probably hit the peak or close to it. But, he added, but there are plenty of energy sources around - specifically coal, uranium and solar. The trick is transitioning now in a responible manner. And he thinks that the best way to do so it by taxing or capping carbon emissions and developing a real plan for nuclear waste disposal.

This lecture was geared for the well educated lay person so he offered generalities on major subjects with only vague estimates of the numbers involved. Below is a brief outline of his lecture, which is not to say that he doesn't have hard numbers to back all this up, he just did not hand them out for us to write down. Still it would be interesting to follow up with his sources at some point.

There's more… (641 words) | Comments (138) | | Permalink | Without comments

Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Green NYC

Posted by The Interloafer on May 3, 2006 - 10:17pm in The Oil Drum: Local
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: carbon, emissions, greenhouse effect, urban planning [list all tags]

Last Thursday I mentioned that my biggest take-away from the recent energy solutions conference here in town was a PowerPoint slide from Charles Komanoff, who noted that the average American pumps as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in a day as the average person in the rest of the world puts out in a week. Charles was kind enough to forward me a link to his presentation (PPT!), which includes the slide in question:

I think those of us who ride transit, cycle or walk to work in New York can take a little solace in that we're not as bad as rest of the country.
There's more… (109 words) | Comments (6) | | Permalink | Without comments