This week's headline news from the world of technofix climate solutions is that a team of researchers led by the University of Illinois-Chicago has developed an artificial leaf. This leaf is a solar cell that uses the power of the sun to mimic photosynthesis and...
climate change
Will Developing Nations Hack the Climate?
How likely is it that geoengineering will actually be used on a global scale? Perhaps it's more likely that hype around its effectiveness (eg "Negative Emissions", CCS and BioCCS) will just be used as a tactic to delay serious emissions cuts, plunging us further into...
Miserable failure at Kemper “clean coal” plant indicates future failure of “clean bioenergy” climate solution
Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) was granted a huge boost of support by the IPCC’s “mitigation” Working Group in their 5th Assessment Report. Since then growing attention has been given to this technofix as the main approach to removing CO2 from the...
Using ship wakes to fight climate change? Time to anchor climate research to common sense
An article published in January by the Journal of Geophysical Research and covered briefly in Nature describes how brightening and extending the lives of ship wakes can be used to alter the albedo of the oceans, and cool global temperatures. It adds ship wakes to a...
Climate change needs real solutions not more hot air
by Almuth Ernsting (New Internationalist) Are certain proposals to reduce carbon emissions based on technological hype? At a COP21 side event last December, proponents of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) hosted Mike Marsh, the CEO of publicly-owned Canadian energy...
Nature spotlights deep skepticism about bioenergy with carbon capture and storage
by Steven T. Corneliussen (Physics Today) To mitigate climate change, has the planet “gambled its future on the appearance in a puff of smoke of a carbon-sucking fairy godmother”? During the Paris climate summit late last year, European policy analyst Oliver Geden’s...
Nature article confirms: IPCC assumptions about BECCS ignore environmental and wider climate impacts
In his recent article in Nature, Dr Philip Williamson highlights how the targets set out in the Paris Agreement mask an underlying assumption that they will be met through large-scale carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere and, in particular, through Bioenergy...
Seeds of doubt over iron boost for algae
by Alex Kirby (Climate News Network) New research suggests that fertilising oceans with iron to increase the growth of algae that absorb carbon dioxide is not the hoped-for answer to reducing global warming. LONDON, 28 January, 2016 – One keenly-argued possible way of...
Techno-Optimism and Bad Science in Paris: The Problem With Carbon Capture and Storage
by Almuth Ernsting, Truthout UN climate conferences provide a platform for advocating real solutions to the climate crisis - but also for selling and promoting false ones. At the climate conference this and next week in Paris, many civil society groups and social...
New Report: Last ditch climate option or wishful thinking? Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage
Biofuelwatch has released a new comprehensive report about Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS). Full report Executive Summary (Full references for the report) BECCS is being proposed as a way of removing billions of tonnes of carbon every year from...