Technology policy lies at the core of the climate change challenge. Even with a cutback in wasteful energy spending, our current technologies cannot support both a decline in carbon dioxide emissions and an expanding global economy. If we try to restrain emissions without a fundamentally new set of technologies, we will end up stifling economic growth, including the development prospects for billions of people.

Economists often talk as though putting a price on carbon emissions—through tradable permits or a carbon tax—will be enough to deliver the needed reductions in those emissions. This is not true. Europe’s carbon-trading system has not shown much capacity to generate large-scale research nor to develop, demonstrate and deploy breakthrough technologies. A trading system might marginally influence the choices between coal and gas plants or provoke a bit more adoption of solar and wind power, but it will not lead to the necessary fundamental overhaul of energy systems.

For that, we will need much more than a price on carbon. Consider three potentially transformative low-emissions technologies: carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), plug-in hybrid automobiles and concentrated solar-thermal electricity generation. Each will require a combination of factors to succeed: more applied scientific research, important regulatory changes, appropriate infrastructure, public acceptance and early high-cost investments. A failure on one or more of these points could kill the technologies.

CCS, for example, depends on the ability to capture carbon dioxide at the power plant at low cost, transport it by pipeline over significant distances, and sequester it underground safely, reliably and durably. All these components are close to deployment, but each faces major challenges. Carbon capture is most promising for new types of coal-fired plants whose cost and reliability are yet to be proved. A vast new network of carbon dioxide pipelines would require major regulatory and policy support, with environmental and property-rights hurdles. The geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide at large scales must also be proved, carefully monitored and environmentally regulated. Early demonstration projects are likely to be many times more costly than later ones. Broad public acceptance and support will be crucial for the technology. Yet to date, the U.S. government has failed to get even one demonstration CCS power plant off the ground, and various private initiatives are currently stranded, all because of the lack of public support and financing.

Plug-in hybrid automobiles pose similar puzzles. Basic questions remain about the safety, reliability and durability of the batteries they require, as well as the need for extra investments in the power grid to support them. Solar-thermal power, which uses concentrated solar radiation in desert locations to boil water for the steam-turbine generation of electricity, also depends on solving a host of problems. Scientific challenges include the nighttime storage of power, and regulatory and financial obstacles include the installation of a new high-voltage, direct-current transmission grid to carry power over long distances from the desert to other locations.

The issues become even more complex when we consider that low-emissions technologies developed in the rich world will need to be adopted rapidly in poorer countries. Patent protection, while promoting innovation, could slow the diffusion of these technologies to low-income countries unless compensatory actions are taken.

All this technological innovation needs to start soon if we are to have a chance to stabilize carbon emissions at levels that avoid huge and potentially devastating global costs. By 2010 at the latest, the world should be breaking ground on demonstration CCS coal-fired plants in China, India, Europe and the U.S.; the wealthy nations should be helping to finance and build concentrated solar-thermal plants in states that border the Sahara; and highly subsidized plug-in hybrids should be rolling off the assembly line. Only these steps will enable us to peer much farther down the path of truly transformative change.

This article was originally published with the title Keys to Climate Protection.

9 Comments

1. 1. John H 12:59 AM 3/20/08

   Nuclear is obviously the only immediately available solution yet there is again no major effort to improve the nuclear cycle, particularly in fuel recycling.

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2. 2. John Burton 09:09 PM 3/22/08

   I firmly agree with the prevailing opinion among experts that the failure to do what is needed is the lack of political will to put to use the technologies we now have. We have the technology for CCS, wind turbines, solar power and 60 mpg cars.

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3. 3. Dominic Napolitano 11:50 PM 3/27/08

   It is simply unbelievable that Jeffery Sachs fails to mention the need for nuclear power as an important and major component to combat climate change. When is this ridiculous silence about nuclear power and its potential going to end.

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4. 4. Dominic Napolitano 12:04 AM 3/28/08

   There are improvements to the nuclear fuel cycle being implimented both France and now Japan have successfully completed the fuel cycle with reprocessing and mixed oxide (MOX) fuel and vitrification of high level waste. England has also, but less successfully.
   
   In the US, more robust higher burnup fuel has been impliments which gets more energy from the same volume of fuel and simultaneous reduces the number of fuel assemblies which have to be stored as nuclear waste. Recently the US has begun a reconsideration of reprocessing in an international context call GNEP.
   
   There is much more going on, but little stated in the public media.

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5. 5. geckoSciAm 02:20 PM 4/23/08

   Plug-in hybrid automobiles will not provide a long-term sustainable solution unless they weigh under 100 pounds with the capability of being human powered.
   
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   Edited by geckoSciAm at 04/23/2008 8:11 AM

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6. 6. geckoSciAm 02:21 PM 4/23/08

   Plug-in hybrid automobiles don't come even close to providing a long-term sustainable solution unless they weight under 100 pounds with the capability of being human powered.

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7. 7. geckoSciAm 03:20 PM 4/23/08

   Carbon capture should produce usable materials and services such as carbon fiber, carbon nanotubes, and carbon-negative cement despite increased energy requirements to reduce the amount of waste and not add to it.

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8. 8. geckoSciAm 03:38 PM 4/23/08

   A major solution would be to spend many $100s of trillions of dollars on concentrated solar-thermal electricity generation sufficient for world energy needs and as a source of abundant energy for removing CO2 from the atmosphere and oceans, produce clean water, and a sustainable world.
   
   One hundred square miles of solar-thermal electricity generation in the US Mohave desert is sufficient to provide all the energy this country needs according to a long-time post on the Department of Energy (DOE) website.
   
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   Edited by geckoSciAm at 04/23/2008 8:41 AM
   
   --
   Edited by geckoSciAm at 04/23/2008 8:42 AM

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9. 9. bfreewithrp 11:41 PM 4/26/08

   The world community of top scientists in the field must ask themselves...
   What about Global Pollution? Are we forgetting something? Let us open our eyes.
   http://www.quazen.com/Science/Environment/Is-Global-Warming-or-Global-Pollution-the-Issue--.17376
   Is Global Warming, or Global Pollution the Issue?
   We should tackle world pollution first

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