seventeen/ten

In the first part of this diatribe on global warming I introduced the basic facts and scope of the problem. In this second part I am going to outline some of the problems in the current approach to dealing with the issue. In part one I referred to the so-called "chicken little" politics, however this is not brought about on purpose, but is in fact a consequence of the diverse and often contradictory rhetoric about what exactly is the best approach.

The largest aspect of this problem is in the people who have campaigned to bring global warming to the fore in the first place. These people have a much wider agenda on the environment which is far less than achievable, certainly within the time frame in which we need to react. Ideas of major social reform away from all modern forms of transportation such as cars and aeroplanes, together with mass adoption of highly efficient housing, and the cessation of food imports are simply incompatible with our current socio-economic structures, any thoughts of introducing this within a period of 50 or even 100  years are simply unfeasible.

Faced with this dilemma, and the barrage of criticism when any proposal falls short, government does the next best thing and tries to look busy, whilst achieving very little. We as a general public have to be prepared to accept that in order to come up with a solution which will address the problem suitably within the required time period, compromises will have to be made, and that an ideal solution may need to be evolved and refined.

I will outline some of the developments and possibilities emerging which could provide a solution in the third part of this article, but for the purpose of illustrating the above point, I will outline a possible scenario here. We mentioned above that doing away with the car and aeroplane is not a reasonable option, so therefore we need to move away from fossil-based fuels. In aeroplanes this is not possible in the near future, but as a proportion is actually quite small and the effects of which would be quite minimal if all other transport were to become carbon-neutral. Cars could much more feasibly be moved away with battery based and hydrogen powered cars being suitably well developed to allow commercialisation within only a few years at most. These all rely on electricity as a power source, and its carbon-neutrality relies on the source of generation. Electricity is the most flexible option, but suitable generation capacity must be found. As can be seen from the comparisons in the charts in part one, the energy required for transport (approx. 60 million tonnes of oil equivalent) is more than twice that of the existing electricity generation capacity (approx. 30 million tonnes of oil equivalent). Obviously this kind of capacity cannot currently be made up from renewable sources such as wind and solar generation. As such the next best option for the short term may be nuclear power. The compromise here is obvious, and well debated, but with a modern generation of high efficiency, well designed reactors the waste is the only real issue. If nuclear is the best option for a rapid, realistic, solution then surely a small amount of containable waste is a better legacy than a uncontained pollution actively causing damage over a long period of time, as with carbon dioxide.

I am not saying that the above is the only, or indeed best option, however it is time for the decision makers and the public to acknowledge that a practical solution is required quickly and that as such compromises will be needed, and continual developments will allow refinements in future.
In part three I will discuss the options for short and longer term technology which could be used to help move away from carbon-based fuels.