Technology Called The Key To Climate Change Challenge

                                    

Interesting reading in Scientific American this week.

Dr. Jeffrey D. Sachs wrote:

Technology policy lies at the core of the climate change challenge. Even with a cutback in wasteful energy spending, our current technologies cannot support both a decline in carbon dioxide emissions and an expanding global economy. If we try to restrain emissions without a fundamentally new set of technologies, we will end up stifling economic growth, including the development prospects for billions of people. The key is new low-carbon technology, not simply energy efficiency.

We routinely receive comments that our commitment to promoting CCS technology simply is a “ploy” to ensure profits for “big coal.” At some point, regardless if you believe simply renewables and energy efficiency are the cure-all to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions, it ultimately becomes entirely counterproductive to argue against the need to develop clean coal technologies.

According to Dr. Sachs:
Early demonstration projects are likely to be many times more costly than later ones, and will almost certainly require some public funding. Broad public acceptance and support will therefore be crucial for the technology. Yet to date, the U.S. government has failed to get even one demonstration CCS power plant off the ground, and various private initiatives are currently stranded, all because of the lack of public support and financing.

Let's not forget that coal production and usage is not going away as a global issue, and the sooner we develop these technologies, the sooner we can share these new technologies with other countries. Instead of wasting valuable time protesting funding for critical new technologies, isn’t the planet better served if all that time and energy were put toward finding ways to ensure the funding and deployment of these essential new technologies?