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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Broken_Clock who wrote (190635)	4/30/2010 9:56:42 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 361245

Is that still going.?" I dunno. Lots of things will help. There is no silver bullet; more like a silver shotgun shell. 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 1/2 wedge of nuclear power– 350 GW 2 of forestry — End all tropical deforestation. Plant new trees over an area the size of the continental U.S. 1 wedge of WWII-style conservation, post-2030 [just a placeholder, will blog more on this later] 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 of geothermal plus other 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 wedge of next generation nuclear power — 350 GW 1/2 wedge 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. That should do the trick. And yes, the scale is staggering. [Note: For those who prefer terawatts, 1000 GW=1 TW. I have adjusted the peak GW of the renewable wedges to take into account the lower capacity factor of solar and wind. The efficiency measures are assumed to have a capacity factor of about 60%.] Message 26446350