The Fight Against Global Warming Will Be Expensive

Fighting global warming is going to be expensive. I think we all knew that, but now a new study from the International Energy Association illustrates just exactly how expensive.

In order to reduce green house gases in the atmosphere fifty percent by 2050, the world needs to invest some $45 trillion, build 1400 nuclear power plants, and vastly expand wind power initiatives. The report outlines two scenarios: one that reduces greenhouse gases to the same levels as 2005 and one that reduces them to half that level. The results also assume an average 3.3% global economic growth rate through 2050.

The second scenario, trying to reach half the levels of 2005, would require that 35 coal-fired and 20 gas-fired power plants be fitted with carbon capture and storage technology every year between 2010 and 2050. In addition, to keep up with increasing demand, the world would have to construct 32 new nuclear power plants and 17,000 new wind turbines every year during the same period. We'd also have to find a way to reduce the carbon intensity—the amount of carbon needed to produce a unit of energy—of our transportation sectors.

Failure to act, the IEA says, will result in doubling of energy demand and a 130% increase in CO₂ emissions by 2050.

Rosetta@home Branches Out

The Rosetta@home project (which I blogged about in December) has branched out from its original mission of predicting protein structures. David Baker reports in the Rosetta blog that they are working on a way to convert carbon dioxide into simple sugars using enzymes computationally engineered using Rosetta@home.

David writes:

Graduate student Justin Siegal and postdoc Eric Althoff have come up with a very clever new reaction cycle using new enzymes we would collectively engineer that in total carries out the following reaction:

2C02 + 2e- + H20 -> C2O3H2 + O2

the product is a simple sugar that could be used in a variety of ways, and the removal of C02 from the atmosphere would be great for countering global warming. A nice thing about this compared to current ideas of forming inorganic carbonate compounds is that it requires no other inputs. However, it does require electrons, and hence a source of energy. We are currently assessing the energy requirements of this process and comparing them to those of other proposed carbon sequestration mechanisms.