Karl

There are a few points I'd like to respond to.

CO2 is the worst "villain" by the sheer quantity involved. Fluorocarbons
are estimated to represent under 2% of "global warming emissions". But
they ARE in the Kyoto Protocol and individual nations can reduce them to
reduce their "ration" of permitted emissions. The choice is up to them.
Of course, politicians may consider it easier to target PFCs because
only a few hundred users of PFCs are not worth considering as electors
for their continuing bonanza, whereas car drivers are another kettle of
fish and must not be alienated.

Methane emissions are increasing. Enteric fermentation in cattle is a
minor cause, but growing at 5% per annum (>90% of cattle are feeding on
natural grassland so low-fermentation feeds is unimportant). More rice
paddies is much more important (7% per annum). Natural swampland is more
important again. Gas leaks in transcontinental natural gas pipelines is
much more significant. Methane levels were constant until the mid 19th
century, since which time it has doubles from about 800 ppbv to 1750
ppbv and currently increasing by 10 ppbv/year.

Nuke electricity DOES result in CO2 emissions, albeit only 2 - 3%/kWh of
fossil fuel generation. This comes from ore extraction, smelting,
enrichment, transport, recycling etc. Notwithstanding, I believe that
nuke power is our only available medium-term solution for the quantity
of energy we will require. Renewables will remain niche sources (hot
summer weather is often synonymous with anticyclonic conditions, with
little wind, but everybody wants to switch their air con on then, not
when winter gales are blowing). I'm not saying that they are useless,
but they cannot be relied upon as a constant, economic source. Even the
most constant source, tidal energy, works for only about 15-18 h/day, at
the whim of the moon. A combined recycling/composting/garbage
incineration is small fry. In Switzerland, 277 MW generation capacity is
available in such an ambitious programme, but represents a very small
fraction of total power requirements. Hydroelectricity is too dangerous
and polluting (on an average, there have been over 2,000 deaths per year
from worldwide HE dam failure. The Three Gorges Dam, when it has filled,
will put in danger over 2 million persons in a city just 20 km
downstream - plus countless others - in a geologically unstable region.
Also, it will be the world's largest producer of methane resulting from
the gigatonnes of vegetation submerged over its 600 km retention lake
length to a depth of 180 m and the anaerobic decomposition of the raw
sewage from China's largest city of 27 m population). I've always said
that I'd rather live next to a good nuke reactor than downstream from a
major dam :-)

While we are about it, I'd like to debunk trees as a fossil carbon sink.
It is true that growing trees will photosynthesise some of the available
CO2 and fix their carbon into the wood, as well as the leaves (from
which it is released again in 1 - 2 years for deciduous and 5 years for
coniferous trees). The average life of forest trees is about 30 - 50
years. What happens then? The tree is cut or falls. Paper may be made
from it and this will mostly be incinerated or will rot in landfills,
sooner or later. The wood may be used as fuel or for construction, but
sooner or later it will revert to carbon dioxide. Worse, attack of
fallen trunks or trimmings within the forest by fungi and coleoptera
will transform it into methane. In other words, your "sunk" carbon, no
matter what, will be in the atmosphere again within a few decades. This
is not deleting your fossil carbon from the face of the earth: it is
simply delaying its effect 20, 50 or 100 years. This, along with
"trading CO2 emissions", is the weakest part of the Kyoto Protocol.

What the Kyoto Protocol guys need is a hammer to yield. The Montreal
Protocol has a clause that forbids the importation of products
containing, using, being transported or made with the help of
ozone-depleting substances, into signatory countries from
non-signatories. A similar clause in the Kyoto Protocol would be the
ideal method of bringing large users to heel, as it would stop exports
from large consumers!

I agree with President Bush that it is largely flawed, but it's a darn
sight better than nothing.

Brian

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