Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Climate Change and Energy in the 21st Century Book

Preface ix

List of units xi

List of conversion factors xiii

List of abbreviations xv

1 Introduction 1

Part I Climate 7

2 Greenhouse Earth 9

Technical Note 2.1 The science of the greenhouse effect 13

3 Climate modeling 16

3.1 Introduction 16

3.2 The first climate models 16

3.3 Climate change goes big time 18

3.4 The big problem: lifecycle of greenhouse gases 20

3.5 The global carbon cycle 21

Technical Note 3.1 Other greenhouse gases 24

Technical Note 3.2 Geoengineering 25

4 The past as proxy for the future 27

4.1 A short tour through 4.5 billion years 27

4.2 The past 400 000 years 28

4.3 The recent past 30

5 Predicting the future 34

5.1 Who does it? 34

5.2 How is it done? 36

5.3 Results 40

5.4 Where are we? 44

Part II Energy 47

6 Talking up arms against this sea of troubles 49

6.1 Introduction 49

6.2 Energy now and in the future 50

Market exchange and PPP 54

6.3 Emission targets 55

Technical Note 6.1 Carbon dioxide equivalents 58

7 How fast to move: a physicist's look at the economists 60

8 Energy, emissions, and action 65

8.1 Setting the stage 65

8.2 Sources of emissions 66

Energy and greenhouse emission from fossil fuels 68

8.3 Reducing emissions 69

8.4 No silver bullets 71

8.5 Winners and losers 73

9 Fossil fuels - how much is there? 75

9.1 World oil reserves 76

9.2 World gas reserves 79

9.3 World coal 81

9.4 Conclusion 81

10 Electricity, emissions, and pricing carbon 83

10.1 The electricity sector 83

10.2 Pricing carbon emissions: carbon capture and storage 88

10.3 Does what goes into storage stay there? 90

10.4 Summary and conclusion 92

11 Efficiency: the first priority 94

11.1 Introduction 94

Primary and end-use energy efficiency 98

11.2 Transportation 98

11.3 Buildings 110

11.4 Conclusion 118

Technical Note 11.1 CAFE standards 120

12 Nuclear energy 122

12.1 Introduction 122

12.2 Radiation 125

12.3 Safety 127

12.4 Spent fuel: love it or hate it, we have it 129

12.5 Economics 133

12.6 Proliferation of nuclear weapons 135

12.7 Nuclear power as part of the solution 139

Technical Note 12.1 Nuclear power primer 140

Technical Note 12.2 France's long-range nuclear development plan 142

Technical Note 12.3 Producing material for weapons 145

Technical Note 12.4 Extract from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons 147

Technical Note 12.5 Issues in internationalizing the fuel cycle 148

13 Renewables 150

13.1 Introduction 150

13.2 Wind 151

13.3 Solar energy 156

13.4 Geothermal 162

13.5 Hydropower 167

13.6 Ocean energy 169

13.7 The electric power distribution grid 169

Technical Note 13.1 Photovoltaic cells 171

14 Biofuels: is there anything there? 173

14.1 Introduction 173

14.2 Phase-1: ethanol from starch and sugar 175

14.3 Phase-2: cellulosic ethanol 180

14.4 Phase-3: other processes 181

14.5 Summary 182

15 An energy summary 184

Part III Policy 193

16 US policy - new things, bad things, good things 195

16.1 Introduction 195

16.2 Reducing emissions on a national scale 196

16.3 Bad things 200

16.4 Good things 204

17 World policy actions 207

17.1 Introduction 207

17.2 Kyoto-1: the Protocol of 1997 208

17.3 Kyoto-2 211

18 Coda 217

References 219

Index 222