Re: [Phys-L] carbon wars

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 10/06/2014 12:37 PM, I wrote:

> Bottom line:  We absolutely *ARE* dumping C into the
> environment without anything working to remove it on 
> any relevant timescale.

And that's why we have a problem!

To say the same thing the other way:  If we really did
have a "myriad of carbon sinks removing carbon from the 
atmosphere" then climate change would be a non-issue.

There is some important physics here:  Think about the 
P-chem (physical chemistry) i.e. the thermodynamics:
The reason that fossil carbon fuels are valuable is 
that they are relatively high-energy (weakly-bound) 
molecules ... in contrast to CO2 which is a low-energy
(tightly-bound) molecule.

If you want to sequester the CO2 while upholding the
conservation laws (conservation of energy and conservation
of carbon nuclei), then
 A) You can produce some molecule with even lower energy
  than CO2, of which there are not many, or 
 B) You can expend energy to perform the sequestration,
  which detracts from the effective fuel value of the 
  fossil carbon.

Either way, sequestration adds substantially to the cost
of fossil carbon fuel.  Any halfway rational public policy 
would require the carbon fuel industry to internalize 
these costs.  Doing so would make renewable energy 
dramatically more competitive.