Climate Change Mitigation: Is it a Good Idea to Sweep the Carbon Under the Carpet?

Above: our paper recently published in Nature Energy. Our conclusion is that, in terms of energy returns, renewable energy in the form of solar or wind is much better than carbon capture and storage for mitigating of climate change. Sweeping the carbon underground is not a good idea.

We have a little problem: for more than thirty years, the climate scientists of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been telling us that if we don't stop emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere -- mainly CO2 -- we are in dire trouble. And we have done very little, nearly nothing. As predicted, we ARE in dire trouble.

There is some element showing that things may change: the polls indicate that more and more people are starting to understand the mess we are in and the action of the young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg is making waves in the memesphere. We may be awakening from a 30 years slumber to discover that we have to hurry up and do something. But what?

Not that we lack plans: every IPCC report released includes plans on what we could or should do to avoid the worse. We have to follow a steep trajectory of de-carbonization while, at the same time, maintaining a vital minimum supply of energy to society. But how to do that?

The most common idea floated in these discussions is to use Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS). It is straightforward: instead of releasing into the atmosphere the CO2 emitted by a power plant, you pump it underground, sequestering it in a porous reservoir, maybe one that, earlier on, had contained gas or petroleum.

Is that a good idea? Maybe, but it is also a way of sweeping the problem under the carpet. If our problem is the use of fossil fuels, and it is, then by using CCS we are striving to keep alive the technology we should strive to get rid of.

But what if CCS were the only possible solution to the problem? Then, yes, if we really had no choice we would have to settle for the least bad idea. But is it true that CCS is the only way forward, or is it a failure of the imagination? Wouldn't renewable energy be a better idea?

The way to decide this point is to make a quantitative calculation based on real-world data. CCS doesn't come for free: it is a complex technology with an energy cost. This cost must be factored in comparison with alternatives: it is the concept of energy return for energy invested (EROI). The better the value of the EROI, the better the technology. In the long run, EROI factors trump monetary cost factors: you cannot get energy by printing money.

This is exactly what we did, myself and my colleagues Sgouridis, Csala, Dale, and Chiesa, in a paper we published this week on Nature Energy. We compared the EROI of CCS and renewable energy using the latest available data and a broad range of assumptions, including the need for energy storage of renewables.

The result? Renewables are by now a sufficiently mature technology that for most reasonable assumptions they have a better energy return than fossil-based CCS. You can read our paper at this link. Below you can read some of our conclusions. Here sRE stands for "scalable Renewable Energy", while the "sower's strategy" is the concept that we need to invest some fossil energy in order to build up the renewable infrastructure that will replace the fossil one.

The energy return of using fossil resources with CCS in power generation is lower than the EROEI of most current deployment of sRE. Therefore it would be preferable to direct these fossil resources towards building a self-sustaining renewable energy infrastructure, an approach previously termed “the sower’s strategy. Even when sRE adoption reaches or exceeds 80% our calculations indicate that the system EROEI may be equal to the better EROEI CCS without the additional issues related to the reliance on depleting resources and non-energetic biophysical complications

You may discuss the details of this result and argue that, in some special conditions, CCS may still have a better EROEI than renewables. But the point is that CCS has additional negative points that renewables don't have. CCS is still a largely untested technology on a large scale but the main problem, as I was mentioning at the beginning, is that by adopting CCS we give new life to the presently agonizing fossil fuel technologies. But fossil fuels are doomed by depletion in any case, so what sense does it make investing the few resouces we still have in a technology that doesn't have a future? In the end, CCS is mainly a failure of the imagination: we can and we should do much better than sweeping the carbon underground.

As a final note, our study deals only with CCS as a way to remove carbon from the emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels in power plants. That doesn't mean that we may not need CCS as a way for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This is called "direct atmospheric capture" (DAC) or "Negative Emission Technologies" (NET). Given the situation, it may be the only way to go back to a CO2 concentration low enough to avoid the worst and it might work! But DAC can work only if it is powered by renewables and it is nice to know that we have the technologies we need. If only we'll ever decide to use them.




Link to the paper on Nature Energy.

The Sower's Strategy: Norway Leads the Way Toward the Energy Transition

This is me, Ugo Bardi, in Oslo, February 2019. Norway is the country with the largest fraction of electric vehicles in the world. The Tesla in the background is not mine. 

I gave the name of "The Sower's Strategy" or "The Sower's Way" to the idea that we should use our remaining fossil resources to build the renewable energy infrastructure needed to replace them. The calculations by myself, Sgouridis and Csala show that it can be done: after all, this is what our farmer ancestors did when they saved some of the crops of the current harvest as seed for the next harvest.

For some reason, the idea that we should wisely invest the energy we have, while we still have it, seems to be incomprehensible to some people who maintain that fossil fuels are evil (which is true) and that for this reason anything you can make with fossil energy is evil, too, including renewables (which is not true). So, the penetration of the "Sower's meme" has been modest, up to now. But from a recent trip of mine to Norway, I noted that the Norwegians put this strategy into practice, even though they probably never heard of the name I gave to it!

Norway, as you surely know, used to be among the largest oil-producing countries in the world, the largest in Europe. The peak was around 2002 and by now production has declined to about half of what it was during the glory days. (data below from Rune Likvern)

The gas production in Norway has not yet peaked but it is plateauing and it is time for the Norwegians to think about a future without oil. So, what did the Norwegian government do? They followed the Sower's strategy using the revenues from oil sales to build up a more and more energy independent system. (and zero dependence on nuclear energy!)

Right now, Norway produces about 100% of its electrical power from renewable sources, mainly hydroelectric power. About one-third of all vehicles bought today in Norway are electric, a continuously growing fraction, with a total of about 13%. Adding the plug-in hybrid vehicles, we get a grand total of 24% of the circulating vehicles. It seems reasonable that it will be possible to achieve the target of 100% of electric vehicles in Norway by 2025.

The Norwegian system is not yet 100% renewable power as a fraction of the total consumption, it is at present around 60%, but it is already a great result if compared with that of other countries: the UK, with a similar climate as Norway, lags behind with less than 9%. Italy, with all the sun it has, doesn't do better than about 16%. So, Norway is well placed to be the first developed country in the world to achieve the great transition to a fully renewable energy system.

There remains a lot to do, of course: after having eliminated fossil powered cars, the internal heating of buildings needs to be electrified -- it is possible. Then, there is a need to reduce plastic use, not counted as energy consumption but still a product of fossil fuels -- also that can be done. Finally, there is the issue of agriculture, right now completely based on fossil fuels. The challenge is difficult, but not impossible. Electric machinery can replace diesel powered machines in agriculture, while the Norwegians are well placed to develop the manufacturing of fertilizers using electric power, bypassing the cumbersome and polluting Bosch-Haber process (look at the site of N2-Applied, it can be done!).

Surely, you may say, it has been easy for the Norwegians: they have made so much money with selling oil! Not so obvious: think of Saudi Arabia, they made even more money with their oil and do you know what fraction of their energy consumption comes from renewable sources? 0.01% according to the World Bank! Apparently, it is not enough to be rich in order to be wise -- but that seems to be part of the way the universe works.

To finish this post, here is me (Ugo Bardi - left in the picture) in Norway, together with Jorgen Randers (right in the picture), one of the authors of the first "Limits to Growth" report of 1972. As you can see, we catastrophists are not sad!

Lawsuits in science: the Jacobson vs. Clack case

Recently, Mark Jacobson, researcher at Stanford University in California, filed a libel lawsuit against the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and Christopher Clack who published a study in the academy's journal that criticized Jacobson's work. Was it a good idea? Well, I think not. Let me tell you a little story about that

Several years ago, in 2003, I published my first book on crude oil (in Italian). Not long after, I found on the Web that the president of a well known Italian organization of professional economists had written on their website that, "I bought Ugo Bardi's book and I found that it was written by an incompetent in order to cheat the public and make some money" (something like that, in Italian).

What made me really angry about that was not so much being defined "incompetent" by an economist; that may be seen as an honor under some respects. It was that I knew that he had not bought my book. I had given a copy to him as a gift once that we had met during a public debate on an Italian TV channel. And now he whined about having spent money that he never spent. It truly made me see red.

So, I went to see a lawyer and he told me that, yes, this was a clear case of slander and I had all the rights to sue the guy and ask for a compensation from him for having besmirched my good name of a professional. And that was what I did - I sued him.

In life, everything you do is always an experience and this lawsuit was not an exception. It seemed to me crystal clear that I was right and he was wrong: apart from not even having paid for a copy of the book he was criticizing, his criticism was just gratuitous slander.

Yet, I discovered with this lawsuit that whatever the law says can be interpreted in various ways and that's after all why lawyers exist. In theory, I had a strong case against my opponent but, in practice, I soon discovered that he had much more clout than me and that his lawyers could muddle the waters quite effectively.

I'll spare you the various details of the story. The main point is that my opponent's lawyer endeavoured to demonstrate that his client was right in defining me an incompetent because that was what I was. How could he demonstrate that? Well, it was all about the TV interview when I had given a copy of my book to his client. Apparently, my incompetence had been so glaring on that occasion that everyone had noticed it. So, the lawyer requested a record of the interview and also asked everyone who had been present what had been said. Specifically, whether I had been able to answer the questions I had been asked.

You may not believe that, but at some moment the lawsuit turned into a discussion about whether the day of the interview I could exactly quote how many barrels of oil were buried in some remote place of Central Asia. Since I had said that I didn't know that, it was clear proof that I knew nothing about crude oil and how was it that I had written a book on that subject? It could only have been a scam in order to cheat the public and make some money.

For a scientist, it is unbelievable that decisions about someone's competence can be taken on the basis of such flimsy factors such as what someone said in a particular occasion, but it is what politics is about. It is the way the political debate works and if you are a scientist and you don't know that, well, tough luck for you.

Eventually, this story exhausted everybody and we found an agreement in which my opponent agreed to pay for the legal expenses and a trifle more as compensation - an amount that didn't even remotely repay me for the time I had lost. And that was the end of it, fortunately.

So, there are a few things that I learned from this story. The first is that you never, never, never say in public "I don't know" about something you might be supposed to know, even if it is a marginal detail. It is one of the oldest tricks of the arsenal of propaganda: someone asks you a question, you say you don't know the answer, which you think is the honest thing to say, and that immediately becomes proof that you are incompetent in everything. Never fall into this trap! If they ask you something you don't know, change the subject, answer another question, invent something, insult somebody else. But never, ever say "I don't know". Think about that, do politicians ever do that? (*)

The second thing I learned is that you never, never, never sue someone unless there is some specific reason that goes well beyond revenge. It is a lot of lost time, it is expensive, there is a huge risk of losing plenty of money and even if you win, it won't be a big gain. Then, why in the world should you embark on such a silly enterprise?

Think about the story I just told you: I had seriously risked being officially declared an incompetent by a tribunal! And not just that; you know that the press and the social media don't need proof to brand someone an incompetent. That Ugo Bardi was an incompetent could have gone viral and become part of the common knowledge about me. But the worst thing could have been for me of being accused of having tried to silence the people who didn't think like me because I was in it just for the money. Or maybe just because I was evil, or a subversive, or a terrorist.

Fortunately, these events took place well before social media had become what they are nowadays. The fact that it was all in Italian also helped. The noise died out quietly and now this story is basically forgotten.

Now, let's return to the present time and about Mark Jacobson having sued NAS and the authors of an article criticizing his work. Was it a good idea? Honestly, I think not. I have read some of the material related to the lawsuit: it seems to me that Jacobson may have some good reasons for suing but also that his case is far less clear-cut than it was for my case, when I had sued the economist I was telling you about.

But the point is another one: it is clear that this story will go political. It is already going political as you can read here, here, and here. Jacobson is taking a lot of flak from an array of sources engaged in denying current climate science and disparaging renewable energy. He is being accused of trying to intimidate his opponents, of lying, of being intolerant of other people's opinions; the usual stuff.

When the debate goes political, nearly everything becomes legitimate and we live in an age when everything can become the obvious truth when it is amplified by the social media. And so, independently of how the actual lawsuit will end for Jacobson, I think this story is not going to end well for science.




(*) I have another example of the damage that comes when you say in public that you don't know something. It happened to me when I made the mistake of engaging in a discussion with a climate troll. He asked me a series of abstruse questions about the temperature of the atmosphere and I told him that he should have asked a specialist in atmospheric science. That led to a brief viral burst of messages on the Web stating, "Professor Bardi really doesn't understand much about climate science." It was all in Italian and, fortunately, it disappeared rapidly. 

Will Renewables Ever Replace Fossils? The Results of a New Survey

The readers of "The Doomstead Diner" are very skeptical about the possibility of a rapid transition to a 100% renewable powered world. 54% of them say that it is impossible. 

A few weeks ago, I posted on "Cassandra's legacy" the result of an informal survey among experts in renewable energy. It asked about the chances of a transition to a world that would be completely powered by renewable energy, and about the chances of being able to attain that before climate change becomes a true catastrophe. Out of some 70 respondents, the large majority was of the opinion that a fast 100% renewable transition is possible and that can be attained without the need of heroic efforts.

I must confess that I found that result surprisingly optimistic, probably because I tend to frequent rather doomerish circles (and note the name of my blog!). Indeed, the people who read doomer sites seem to be even more pessimistic than me. So, "Reverse Engineer" of the "Doomstead Diner" ran the same survey with his readership, finding completely different results. In the Diner's survey, some 250 people participated and 54% of them said flatly that the renewable transition is impossible.

So, what can we say about these surveys? An obvious observation is that reality will decide what's going to happen about the renewable transition without paying too much attention to what puny human beings think. However, there are a few points that may be worth remarking.

1. The optimism of the experts should be considered as something more than just the opinion of the general public. Here, it is clear that the experts have a direct connection with the progress of the field and they perceive the rapid growth in efficiency and the reduction of costs. They are seeing a glimpse of hope.

2. The strong skepticism of the doomers shouldn't be discounted as a fringe opinion. It is an attitude that pervades society and that is not due to ignorance since the respondents to the Diner's survey reported a high level of formal education. However, that didn't shield them from believing in some of the various legends pervading the web. For instance, one respondent said, " All Electric RE require >70 elements of the periodic table. And they are NOT RENEWABLE."

3. The greatest shortcoming of renewables according to the doomers is their intermittency. That is a little strange, and it indicates how most of us tend to think in the BAU frame only. People are accustomed to have electricity "on demand" and won't consider the possibility of a world in which the supply is "demand managed."

4. The majority of the doomers indicated that the best renewable source is human slave labor. That's not surprising; after all, they are doomers!

5. It is refreshing, however, that only 2% of the doomers indicated that they believe that homo sapiens will soon go extinct.


There are a lot of details that you may find interesting in the survey published on the Doomstead Diner. But I would like to conclude this post with a personal note. It is something that I was telling to RE (Reverse Engineer) yesterday. I find that I am becoming less doomerish than I used to be. I can't really say why, but I think I see a chance.  Just a chance, and that won't save us from crashing against the limits of the ecosystem. But, with a little luck, we will emerge into a new world, better than the present one.

A 100% renewable world is possible? A poll among experts

Image source



I am reporting here the results of a small survey that I carried out last week among the members of a discussion forum; mainly experts in renewable energy (*). It was a very informal poll; not meant to have statistical value. But some 70 people responded out of a total of 167 members; so I think these results have a certain value in telling us how the experts feel in this field. And I was surprised by the remarkable optimism that resulted from the poll.

This is what I asked the members of the list (note: this poll is now on line at the Doomstead Diner)

The question is about  the possibility of a society not too different from ours (**) but 100% based on renewable energy sources, and on the possibility of obtaining it before it is too late to avoid the climate disaster. This said, what statement best describes your position?


1.  It is impossible for technical reasons. (Renewables have too low EROEIs, need too large amounts of natural resources, we'll run out of fossil fuels first, climate change will destroy us first, etc.)

2. It is technically possible but so expensive to be unthinkable.

3. It is technically possible and not so expensive to be beyond our means. However, it is still expensive enough that most likely people will not want to pay the costs of the transition before it will be too late to achieve it, unless we move to a global emergency status.

4. It is technically possible and inexpensive enough that it can be done smoothly, by means of targeted government intervention, such as a carbon tax.

5. It is technically possible and technological progress will soon make it so inexpensive that normal market mechanisms will bring us there nearly effortlessly.


As I said, it was a very informal poll and these questions could have been phrased differently, and probably in a better way. And, indeed, many people thought that their position was best described by something intermediate, some saying, for instance, "I am between 4 and 5". Because of this, it was rather difficult to make a precise counting of the results. But the trend was clear anyway.

Out of some 70 answers, the overwhelming majority was for option 4, that is, the transition is not only technologically possible, but within reach at a reasonable cost and fast enough to avoid major damage from climate change. The second best choice was option 3 (the transition is possible but very expensive). Only a few respondents say that the transition is technologically impossible without truly radical changes of society. Some opted for option 5, even suggesting an "option 6", something like "it will be faster than anyone expects".

I must confess that I was a little surprised by this diffuse optimism, being myself set on option 3. In part, it is because I tend to frequent "doomer" groups, but also on the basis of the quantitative calculations that I performed with some colleagues. But I think that these results are indicative of a trend that's developing among energy experts. It is an attitude that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, but the experts are clearly perceiving the rapid strides forward of renewable technologies and reacting accordingly. They feel that there is a concrete chance to be able to create a cleaner world fast enough to avoid the worst.

I understand that this is the opinion of just a tiny group of experts, I understand that experts may well be wrong, I understand that there exist such things as the "bandwagon effect" and the "confirmation bias." I know all this. Yet, I believe that, in the difficult situation in which we find ourselves, we can't go anywhere if we keep telling people that we are doomed, no matter what we do. What we need in order to keep going and fight the climate crisis is a healthy dose of hope and of optimism. And these results show that there is hope, that there is reason for optimism. Whether the transition will turn out to be very difficult, or not so difficult, it seems to be within reach if we really want it.




(*) Note: the forum mentioned in this post is a private discussion group meant to be a tool for professionals in renewable energy. It is not a place to discuss whether renewable energy is a good thing or not, nor to discuss such thing as the incoming near term extinction of humankind and the like. Rather, the idea of the forum is to discuss how to make the renewable energy transition happen as fast as possible; hopefully fast enough to avoid a climate disaster. If you are interested in joining this forum, please write me privately at ugo.bardi(zingything)unifi.it telling me in a few lines who you are and why you would like to join. It is not necessary that you are a researcher or a professional. People of good will who think they have something to contribute to the discussion are welcome.

(**) The concept of a society "not too different from ours" is left purposefully vague, because it is, obviously subjected to many different interpretations.Personally, I would tend to define it in terms of what such a society would NOT be. A non-exhaustive list could be, in no particular order,

• Not a Mayan style theocracy, complete with human sacrifices
• Not a military dictatorship, Roman style, complete with a semi-divine imperial ruler
• Not a proletarian paradise, complete with a secret police sending dissenters to very cold places
• Not a hunting and gathering society, complete with hunting rituals and initiation rites
• Not a society where you are hanged upside down if you tell a joke about the dear leader
• Not a society where, if you can't afford health care, you are left to die in the street
• Not a society where you are worried every day about whether you and your children will have something to eat
• Not a society where slavery is legal and the obvious way things ought to be
• Not a society where women are supposed to be the property of men
• Not a society where most people spend most of their life tilling the fields
• Not a society where you are burned at the stake if you belong to a different sect than the dominant one

Many other things are, I think, negotiable, such as having vacations in Hawai'i, owning an SUV, watering the lawn in summer, and more.