Carbon Capture and Storage and Carbon Extraction from the atmosphere

Here is an expert's view on carbon capture and storage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGc6knmpL2E This is an interesting presentation. Note that there are some important, and controversial, assertions made:

• Emissions trading or carbon tax will never be forceful enough to drive businesses into carbon capture and storage.
• Laws must be put in place to force companies to do this
• Fossil fuels will keep being used because they are far too useful (in the short to medium term) to abandon in favour of less "useful" fuels

The first seems overwhelmingly logical, as does the second. The third is certainly true in the short to medium term, and this is the time frame driving the urgent need to come up with a solution. A big problem is that carbon capture and storage is so expensive, and depends on finding suitable storage locations in close proximity to the sources of the emissions. It is not yet feasible on the scale required. There are only four conceivable ways to reduce atmospheric carbon:

• Stabilise population in each country worldwide
• Introduce alternative energy technology in each country worldwide, even though the vast majority of energy will continue to be generated from fossil fuels in the short to medium term
• Carbon capture and storage
• Carbon extraction from the atmosphere

The last two have not been proven to be either feasible or cost effective. Note:

• There may never be a feasible and cost effective way to extract enough carbon from the atmosphere, although algae growth and other biologically-based mechanisms are being evaluated. Man-made technological extraction may prove to be impossible because the concentration in the atmosphere is only about 400ppm, and no feasible or cost effective extraction process exists for such low concentrations. There is also no direct economic gain related to atmospheric extraction. It may have to be Government funded if it becomes feasible.

There is clearly a global responsibility for each country to stabilise population. That does not mean shifting people from one country to another if that imposes net global emissions increases and net population increases on one country - as is currently occurring in Australia. Developed economies that collapse due to mass migration will be unable to provide foreign aid to the developing world. Every dollar goes further in the developing world. Just as international carbon trading is not a reasonable solution, nor is mass migration. It transfers the problem from one country to another without solving it. Since migration is either economic or refugee, allowing economic migration in preference to refugee migration is clearly inhumane if economic migration does not improve the capacity of the receiving country to accept more refugees and deliver more foreign aid than would otherwise be the case. These facts should form the basis for Australia's Population Growth Management strategy.