[GWSG] CCS; rotten rebar; legal climate refugees; climate "an immediate risk" (DOD); plants' CO2 thirst

[Tilley, Al]

1.  Coal plants with carbon capture and sequestration are underway at several sites and a few are in operation.  The picture is full of trade-offs.  A Saskatchewan project sequesters 90% of the carbon but uses it to recover oil.  All cost a lot and use extra coal to trap the carbon.   http://www.technologyreview.com/news/531531/carbon-sequestration-too-little-too-late/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-weekly-energy&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20141013  Finally, we do not need (and should not develop) ways to keep on producing and burning more fossil fuel.  We could remove CO2 from the air using amines—but the major market for the CO2 is enhanced recovery of oil, and in that situation whatever energy we put into CO2 recovery would better be used to retire coal/natural gas power production.  http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/531346/can-sucking-co2-out-of-the-atmosphere-really-work/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-weekly-energy&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20141013   If we do employ CCS, measurements of volcanic CO2 trapped in New Mexico’s Bravo Dome shows that saline aquifers can sequester CO2 for a million years.  http://news.sciencemag.org/chemistry/2014/10/storing-greenhouse-gas-underground-million-years

2.  Rising temperatures and increased CO2 can degrade the rebar in concrete ahead of the projected time, resulting in crumbling bridges and buildings.  https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/10/11/for-concrete-climate-change-may-mean-shorter-lifespan/rJ8vWjSp2xRShwFmDS6lQJ/story.html

3.  As more Pacific islanders are becoming climate refugees, New Zealand has recognized climate disruption as a factor in granting asylum to people in forced migration (along with escaping political persecution, the usual legal grounds for accepting refugees).  Island spokespeople are asking that other nations follow New Zealand’s lead.  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/14/island-nations-shouldnt-be-left-to-drown-from-climate-change

4.  The Pentagon has released a report naming climate disruption as an immediate threat to national security as it triggers terrorism, disease, poverty, and food shortages, among other humanitarian crises.  The report foresees mass forced migrations destabilizing whole regions.  (As a senator, Defense Secretary Hagel, who is calling for extensive preparation to deal with the challenges of climate, sponsored legislation to block US participation in the Kyoto Protocol.  Now he is posing a major challenge to deniers among his former Republican colleagues as he attempts to build a global agreement to act on climate.)  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/us/pentagon-says-global-warming-presents-immediate-security-threat.html?_r=5  The report, released at a meeting of thirty defense ministers, marks a change from planning for climate disruption as a “threat multiplier” in the future (language still in use) to confronting it as an “immediate risk” as well.  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/13/pentagon-global-warming-will-change-how-us-military-trains-and-goes-to-war

5.    Plants absorb more CO2 than previously thought.  Models will have to be adjusted, but the general climate picture is not expected to change greatly.  http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29601644
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.unf.edu/pipermail/gwsg/attachments/20141015/255454d4/attachment.html