Since this thread has gone completely dead, I thought I would bore the SEC with a topic that has potential to depress the long term price of oil. The topic is global warming.
As I see it, two principal greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide and methane. Two sources of methane released into the atmosphere are by termites eating rotting wood and by cattle being raised for burgers. The rain forests of the world are being decimated partly so that the land can be cleared to graze cattle. I get the impression that these rain forests don't regenerate themselves once they have been clear cut.
I'm afraid there are two fundamental approaches to global warming. One is a carbon tax which will penalize all uses of carbon. The other is to remove carbon from the atmosphere. There are various ways to remove carbon and of course it should be removed in a way that will keep the carbon from being released into the atmosphere once again.
The Tico Times has an article this week about an innovative idea called carbon bonds. I don't pretend to understand them, but I think the idea is to make it pay for rain forest areas to replant forests. I think that all areas of the world that are able to sustain a forest and have no other use should be kept heavily wooded.
ticotimes.co.cr
Other ways of removing large quantities of carbon from the atmosphere can be accomplished, I think. I think research should be done on accelerating the process that the planet has always removed vast quantities of carbon in the past. Carbon is tied up forever in thick layers of limestone, calcium carbonate, on continental shelves throughout the world. This limestone was formed by the skeletons of sea animals settling on the floors of lakes, offshore continental shelves, and inland seas. How would such a process be accelerated? I heard of experiments that found that iron powder spread on the ocean surface would promote the growth of phytoplankton. Suppose a fleet of 747s would spread inland seas and undersea continental shelves with a thin layer of iron powder. This would cause phytoplankton to grow which would feed zooplankton. The zooplankton population would grow thick and their skeleton production would be greatly accelerated, removing carbon from the atmosphere. This might effect other ecology,so that also should be studied.
A third method of removing carbon would be to pump carbon dioxide from coastal areas to deep oceanic trenches and floors. The idea is that the pressure is so strong there, it will keep the carbon dioxide trapped there forever instead of having it bubble to the surface. That sounds far fetched to me, being a surface dweller and all, and I would like the opinion of deep sea divers of whether that idea makes any sense. Ron? Anybody?
Anyway, while I believe there is plenty of room left to conserve energy in our modern world such as the use of fluorescent lights instead of incandescent, I do not think it is in our interest to heavily tax ourselves to reduce our level of business activity just to reduce global warming. I think the subject has plenty of room for innovation.
Charles |
