Are We There Yet?

"The hurdles are finding the political will to rip out the old energy economy and put in a new one — and finding the money to pay for it.

Building clean coal or nuclear power plants is very expensive. Many of the nation's existing coal plants still need to operate for years to pay off the debt incurred to build them.

Making wind and solar power affordable and accessible will also cost a lot of money. And a limit on greenhouse gas emissions for industry will, at least for a long time to come, raise the price of energy." -NPR.org

There is no point in sugarcoating the truth. Representatives from nearly 200 countries

are rendezvousing in Copenhagen for two weeks to finagle over the global warming issue and attempt to overturn the Kyoto Protocol, a policy that expires in 2012.

"About half the electricity Americans use comes from burning coal. China depends on coal even more and is building new coal-fired power plants at a furious rate. Yet burning coal puts out more greenhouse gases than does any other single source of electricity.

Most energy analysts argue that the nation can't just turn off its coal plants and replace them in a hurry. The solution, according to the Department of Energy, is in part to switch to "clean coal." That generally means using coal in a different way — not burning it, but extracting energy from coal chemically, while diverting the carbon dioxide from the coal and burying it instead of letting it go up into the atmosphere."

So while it is decent and progressive to consider alternative resources, we must approach the most practical solution at the present moment: clean coal. Of course, as everyone knows, "clean coal is like dry water." Who wants to tackle China's resource quandary? America cannot even afford to take care of its own coal-dependency problem! Furthermore, funds would need to be pumped into the "carbon capture and sequestration," or CCS process, in which CO2 would be pumped underground in "out of sight, out of mind" fashion.

"Currently, the United States gets about 20 percent of its electricity from nuclear power plants, which do not emit greenhouse gases. The Obama administration is on record saying that new nuclear power plants are "in the mix" in its plans to lower the energy economy's carbon footprint. Nuclear power has popular support in Congress as well, and a few environmental groups are reconsidering it in light of its carbon "neutrality."

However, no one has built a new plant in the United States in decades. Besides concerns about the environment and nuclear waste, the reluctance of investors to pay for nuclear construction has stifled growth of the industry."

Wind and solar power are not faring so well either. For being ephemeral resources and mainly obtained from the sunny and windy southwest and Big Plains regions, the northeastern and Midwestern states do not reap the benefits of these Eco-friendly energy products. Electricity grids would have to be constructed to reroute wind and solar energy, a project that could take decades and estimated to cost a whopping $100 billion.

"The primary means of reducing greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol is a cap on the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by industries. Signatory countries have targets for the period 2008 to 2012 for lowering emissions.

Most of the offsets sold internationally have been projects that limit greenhouse gases from factories, landfills or livestock waste ponds. Recently, many groups are trying to add forest management and agricultural practices to the list of allowable offsets. For example, a program called REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) is being negotiated by environmental groups and businesses. It would essentially pay tropical and other developing countries not to cut down forests as fast as they have in the past.

Changing the way land is used is another way to generate carbon credits or offsets, since land and what grows on it can influence the flux of carbon into and out of the atmosphere. Experiments are under way, for example, to boost the rate at which grasslands and soil take CO2 out of the atmosphere. If that takes extra CO2 out of the atmosphere, it would generate carbon credits. No-till farming also might keep more greenhouse gas in the soil than conventional tilling, since it doesn't disturb the soil as much and thus keeps more carbon out of the air."

All excellent ideas: managing energy efficiency at the global corporate level, condoning anti-logging practices, and encouraging sustainable agriculture, inject creative thought into the quest for reducing the massive carbon footprint. Currently, 80% of carbon emissions are produced by 10 countries, including China, Russia, and the U.S. Sadly, we do not have an infinite amount of time to ponder over this conundrum and as our resources wane, the populations increase, and the obstacles to finding cost-efficient and environmentally sustainable production of energy seem insurmountable, our future appears pretty bleak.

Check out the article at NPR.org: "U.S. Climate Change Plan is Idea Rich, Cash Poor"