What carbon path should we choose?

I'm not sure what the present "paths" are. Every country and organization has a different path (even though they all send representatives to various summits). Likewise, the US political system changes paths depending on administrations. If we look to history of what has worked, I would say constructive economic policies (e.g. Montreal Protocols, Acid Rain economic techniques) work. Constructive means they remove externalities and policies explicitly set up to subsidize pollution/dumping/burning.

 

Part of your answer that you seek has already been defined: We all are carbon based, there is no way of getting around that. The other part of the answer is what you mentioned in your opening statement: all sources should be used. Carbon gets a bad reputation, but think of the air you breath, clean water you drink, and food you eat. All is made better and safer with the use of carbon. It is, after all an extremely versatile and useful element to use. Removing toxins, chemical impurities, make things taste better.

Current paths are good, however, improvements are always forthcoming as technology evolves and mankind evolves harnessing this new technologies. This has the benefit of trickling down the the general populace.

DBCassidy

 

We have to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions from carbon usage by 80% from 2007 numbers by 2050 (37 years) per the 20 years of climate change science from International Panel on Climate Change.

First step for US is getting 50% more energy efficient similar to what Europe, Japan and other advanced nations are now. That is 70% due to oil used for transportation, 70% of the cars and gasoline.

Easy to do over 12 years with progressively higher oil taxes with the proceeds used to fund alternative energy technology and energy efficiency. Retrofitting US buildings with US made energy efficiency products from solar panels to HVAC equipment to windows, shades, etc.

For cars, everybody driving a Prius cuts gasoline usage 50%, EV/Hybrids will cut it 70%.

Side bonus, we get to cut wasteful military spending by 50%, we eliminate our oil trade deficit, big boosts to US economy.

We have one party that pushes the pro-American, pro-environment, anti-oil policies and another party (see VA example in threads) that taxes hybrids, cuts environmental regs, pushes for more defense spending, will not subsidize energy retrofitting and doesn't even believe there is a problem with the climate at all.

 

I follow Science closely and while various policy writers and study groups get published, it's almost always along the lines of what the world "should" do. Nature, PNAS, and Science are really not good sources for figuring out what path will be taken. They are good for various science based group's proposals of what paths they like.

My approach is pretty different. I use history and the success/failure of similar policies to try and figure out what works. Everything that has worked does so because the economics make it work or allow it to work. Oftentimes, it takes a lot of "noisy" legislative dead ends to be exhausted before some quietly effective legislation to be put in place that correctly addresses the economics. (For example, all the regulations for the utility industry and power plants is based on fossil or nuclear fueled plants. The requirement to provide a 24 hour base load at the plant makes a lot of renewable plants DOA, even though reliable power to the end users can be provided.) The science plays a secondary part.

Most everything that I have studies seems to follow a path of very little happening until an economic inflection point is reached. At some point, it will be cheaper to use electricity made from "free" fuel instead of increasingly costly fossil fuel. Not much is going to happen till that point is reached. After, things will be amazingly fast. It will happen, but I have little ability to predict when. Hopefully in the next decade.

 

Some people are charging their cars by generating their own green energy and are even taking themselves off the grid. There are some great guides out there on how to do this, some of which are listed on this site DIY Energy Review if you’re interested?