De volledige oplossing voor klimaatverandering

The full global warming solution
Door Joe Romm, Climate Progress, 10 januari 2011

Stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide at 450 ppm or lower is not politically possible today — not even close — but is certainly achievable from an economic and technological perspective.
This is what the entire planet must achieve:

• 1 wedge of albedo change through white roofs and pavement (aka “soft geoengineering) — see “Geoengineering, adaptation and mitigation, Part 2: White roofs are the trillion-dollar solution“
• 1 wedge of vehicle efficiency — all cars 60 mpg, with no increase in miles traveled per vehicle.
• 1 of wind for power — one million large (2 MW peak) wind turbines
• 1 of wind for vehicles –another 2000 GW wind. Most cars must be plug-in hybrids or pure electric vehicles.
• 3 of concentrated solar thermal (aka solar baseload)– ~5000 GW peak.
• 3 of efficiency — one each for buildings, industry, and cogeneration/heat-recovery for a total of 15 to 20 million GW-hrs. A key strategy for reducing direct fossil fuel use for heating buildings (while also reducing air conditioning energy) is geothermal heat pumps.
• 1 of solar photovoltaics — 2000 GW peak
• 1 of nuclear power – 700 GW
• 2 of forestry — End all tropical deforestation. Plant new trees over an area the size of the continental U.S.
• 1 of WWII-style conservation, post-2030 [this could well include dietary changes]

Here are additional wedges that require some major advances in applied research to be practical and scalable, but are considered plausible by serious analysts, especially post-2030:

• 1 wedge of geothermal plus ocean-based renewables (i.e. tidal, wave, and/or ocean thermal)
• 1 of coal with biomass cofiring plus carbon capture and storage — 400 GW of coal plus 200 GW biomass with CCS
• 1/2 to 1 of cellulosic biofuels for long-distance transport and what little aviation remains in 2050 — using 8% of the world’s cropland [or less land if yields significantly increase or algae-to-biofuels proves commercial at large scale].
• 1 of soils and/or biochar– Apply improved agricultural practices to all existing croplands and/or “charcoal created by pyrolysis of biomass.” Both are controversial today, but may prove scalable strategies.

Lees het hele artikel op Climate Progress

Zie ook m'n blognotitie:
Klimaatverandering: 'Hell and High Water'