Geo-engineering Is More about Hubris than Reality

By Glenn Ashton
SACSIS.org.za
September 27, 2011

Humans certainly are an enterprising species. Problem is, our discoveries tend to result in unintended consequences.

People have now figured out that we may be able to repair or reduce our unintended impacts on the global climate by intentionally re-engineering it through a set of processes which have been collectively called “geo-engineering.” Besides the obvious moral considerations, there are serious practical concerns that geo-engineering has a high probability of making an already bad situation worse.

When fiddling with such a large, complex natural system the only certainty is that it is impossible to predict the eventual outcomes of our actions. Human induced or anthropogenic climate change is broadly accepted. The impacts appear to be happening faster and are worse than early predictions. Bar some shouting, the debate over.

Weyburn Carbon Storage Project Enters a Critical Phase

By Peter Montague
opednews.com


A photo taken in 2005 shows a site in
Weyburn, Saskatchewan, where carbon
dioxide is piped and buried underground.

The Weyburn carbon storage project in Saskatchewan, Canada, has entered a critical phase as authorities scramble to respond to claims that toxic amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) have leaked out of the ground, contaminating soil and water, killing small animals, and casting doubt on the viability of carbon storage as a technical fix for global warming.

Since 2000, the Weyburn project has been aiming to demonstrate that carbon dioxide (CO2) -- the main global warming gas -- can be safely buried a mile below ground. As reported previously, a technical study was released January 11 supporting claims that CO2 has leaked out of the ground at Weyburn, making explosive sounds, contaminating soil and water, asphyxiating small animals, and frightening Cameron and Jane Kerr into abandoning their farmhouse home.

The release of the technical study by geological engineer Paul Lafleur was accompanied by a short video, a slide show, and a brief written history of the Kerr's attempts to bring attention to these problems as far back as 2004. The Canadian advocacy group Ecojustice has been assisting the Kerrs.

Another pipe dream

By Marc Lee
Progressive Economics Forum
January 13th, 2011

The Weyburn, Saskatchewan carbon capture and storage (CCS) project has sprung big leaks, and with it the argument that CCS can make dirty fossil fuels clean. The core idea behind CCS is taking CO2 emissions and piping them back underground where they are supposed to stay, forever. In the case of Weyburn, the CO2 comes from a coal plant across the border in North Dakota, and the injection is for “enhanced oil recovery”, or using the gas to re-pressurize the well to get more fossil fuel out.

Now, thanks to some diligent work by EcoJustice, there is good evidence that the CO2 is bubbling back up to the surface. Interestingly, it was the geological aspects of CCS that were supposed to be rock solid. The big flaws in CCS thinking were that projects are very costly, so the economics are not favourable (leading to the perverse outcome of governments pumping in billions in subsidies for pilots for an industry already raking in tens of billions in profits per year). And even under ideal conditions (like emissions from a coal-fired electricity plant), CCS could not capture 100% of emissions, and in cases where combustion is decentralized (a car engine or a home furnace) CCS could do very little to change the emissions status quo.

But such a broad-based failure is reminiscent of the confident statements about the risks of offshore oil drilling put to bed by the BP spill. Now with CCS, the industry is left without a fig leaf. The real bottom line is that fossil fuel consumption must be reduced and then eliminated if we are to have anything resembling human civilization for our grandkids, period. Will there come a government, anywhere, willing to say no to the oil and gas, or coal industries? In the short-term, I’m not optimistic. It may take more Katrina and BP scale disasters before change happens, and perhaps not even then.

In the meantime, the pipe dream of a technological fix that preserves the status quo is dead.