POWER July 2014 - 42

ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS
2. Point counter point. Clive Hamilton
(left) of Australia's Charles Sturt University
argued against geoengineering while David
Keith of Harvard spoke in favor of it during an
October 2013 event. Courtesy: Harvard Public
Affairs and Communications
sneered at the larger-scale plans of technologists
such as Keith and Salter. In a conference
call with reporters recently, as reported in the
Guardian newspaper, Gore said, " The most
discussed so-called geoengineering proposals-like
putting sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere
to reflect incoming sunlight-that's
just insane. Let's just describe that clearly-
it is utterly mad. "
Gore is also cool to what some have
the world to agree on ways to curb carbon
dioxide emissions.
The advocates portray geoengineering as
a technological issue. The opponents tend to
advance moral objections. In his book, Hamilton
argues, " Climate engineering may lend
itself to moral corruption. If we are preparing
to pursue for self-interested reasons-because
we are unwilling to restructure our economies
or adjust our lifestyles-then the promotion of
geoengineering can provide us with a kind of
cover or even self-absolution. But if climate
engineering is inferior to cutting emissions
(in the sense of being less effective and more
risky) then merely by choosing to engineer the
climate instead of cutting emissions we succumb
to moral failure. "
One of the most aggressive foes of geoengineering
has been Joe Romm, a physicist and
former Clinton administration Energy Department
official, now ensconced at the liberal
Washington think tank Center for American
Progress. (Hamilton dedicates his book to
Romm.) Romm has commented, " Frankly, it
would be more literally accurate to rename
geoengineering 'smoke and mirrors,' as those
are two of the most widely discussed measures
for managing incoming solar radiation. "
Several years ago, when the geoengineering
discussion was just gaining steam, Romm
commented, " We're screwing up the planet
with unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions,
and the question is, do we want to try to fix
that problem by gambling on some other
large-scale effort to manipulate the climate-
or should we just try to restrict emissions? It's
as if the doctor says you have a disease that
can definitely be cured by diet and exercise
but you opt for expensive chemotherapy even
though the doctor can't guarantee the results
but is pretty certain the side effects would be
as bad as the disease. "
Former Vice President Al Gore is also opposed
to geoengineering, although he endorses
small-scale approaches such as white roofs
to reflect incoming solar radiation. But he
42
termed " soft geoengineering, " a planetwide
endeavor to build new nuclear power plants.
This is a course proposed by several leading
climate scientists, including the prominent
climate campaigner and former NASA scientist
James Hansen and National Center for
Atmospheric Research scientist Tom Wigley.
Gore told the conference call that he'd been
a staunch supporter of nuclear power when
he was in Congress, but is no longer optimistic
about expansion today. " I do believe that it
may be possible for scientists and researchers
to develop a better and more inherently safer
and cheaper form of nuclear reactor, which
may yet play a significant role in resolving
this crisis. It is not available now. "
Geoengineering advocates acknowledge
that nasty side effects could result from spraying
sulfur into the air or seawater into clouds.
In his Washington Post interview, Keith said,
" We can say what the technical risks are. Putting
sulfates in the stratosphere can accelerate
the depletion of ozone that comes from the
chlorine that we've already put up there from
CFCs. It could change atmospheric circulation
in ways that are hard to predict. . . . The
bigger risks have to do with misuse. People
often talk about using these technologies to
return temperatures to pre-industrial levels. If
you did that, that would be a dramatic climate
cooling, with bad consequences, like reducing
precipitation a lot. "
Keith also takes on the moral question.
" Nothing plausible we do to reduce emissions
in the next, say, quarter-century is
going to materially reduce the risk for real
people, especially some of the poorest and
most vulnerable on our planet from climate
change. So yes, the potential moral hazard is
a major problem. But the fact that it's a major
problem is hardly an argument for foregoing
a technology that might substantially reduce
risk for those living now. "
A Geoengineering Retrospective
" Geoengineering " sounds like a new and
somewhat radical, frightening to some, approach
to the potential problem of global
warming. But using technology, often at large
scale, to confront environmental and human
issues, is nothing new. Mankind has long
moved the environment to suit its needs.
Writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scienwww.powermag.com
tists,
biologist Robert Carlson says, " Humans
have a long history of modifying the living
systems they rely on. Forests in Europe and
North America have been felled for timber
and have regrown, while other large tracts of
land around the world have been completely
cleared for use in agriculture. The animals and
plants we humans eat on a regular basis have
been selected and bred over millennia to suit
the human palate and digestive tract. All these
crops and products are shipped and consumed
globally to satisfy burgeoning demand. "
In the field of power generation, it's hard
to view big hydro as anything other than
terrestrial geoengineering. China's Three
Gorges Dam spanning the Yangtze River is
the world's largest generating station in terms
of capacity at 22 GW. As is the case of many
large dams (including those in the Tennessee
Valley Authority territory and along many of
the rivers of the U.S.), Three Gorges has multiple
purposes, including power generation,
flood control, improved shipping, and providing
irrigation water. According to the Carbon
Planet website, the dam displaces some
31 million metric tons of coal annually.
The most audacious early approach to
geoengineering came in the 1960s and 1970s
from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission's
(AEC's) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Legendary nuclear physicist Edward
Teller (the inspiration for Terry Southern's
satirical movie Dr. Strangelove Or: How
I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the
Bomb) concocted and ran a multibillion dollar,
multi-decade program, supported by the
U.S. Congress, to use hydrogen bombs to rearrange
the landscape around the world. He
called it " Operation Plowshare. " Teller wanted
to create a new port in Alaska, blast out
natural gas storage in Pennsylvania, and reroute
the Panama Canal. He ultimately failed,
as detailed in my 2012 book, Too Dumb to
Meter: Follies, Fiascoes, Dead Ends and
Duds on the U.S. Road to Atomic Energy.
It's oddly ironic, but several of the prominent
advocates of modern geoengineering,
including Jane Long and Ken Caldeira, have
close ties to the Livermore lab, although well
after Teller exited the direct management of
the Department of Energy lab (as successor
to the AEC). Teller remained closely associated
with Livermore until his death in 2003.
Caldeira was a Teller disciple, although Long
joined the laboratory staff after Teller died.
There is no direct connection to Teller's aggressive
ideas about geoengineering and
those of Caldeira or Long, who is a senior
advisor to the Environmental Defense Fund.
What's Next in Geoengineering?
In addition to the " smoke and mirrors " (particulates
and clouds) approach to geoengiPOWER
| July 2014
http://www.powermag.com

POWER July 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of POWER July 2014

Contents
POWER July 2014 - Cover1
POWER July 2014 - Cover2
POWER July 2014 - Contents
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