Surely there would be a better ROI if that money were spent on efforts to replace fossil fuel power with low-carbon alternatives, electrification of ground transport, etc?
If we can reduce carbon emissions by 90% or so, quickly enough, then the climate should stabilise. If that fails, then we can build the mega-projects as a desperate last stand.
According to the IPCC, even their conservative estimates indicate a requirement for some kind of atmospheric carbon removal to avoid severe climate related problems. Even if we could somehow reduce carbon emissions by 100% tomorrow we'd still need mega-projects.
The time for reduction was perhaps 30 years ago when James Hansen testified before the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Which still overpredict the actual warming which has taken place.
What I like about the proposal in the subject article is that it actually focuses on a measurable impact--sea level rise--and a remedy targeted at that specific impact. It doesn't drag in speculative scenarios based on models that have been falsified by the data.
Overpredict? According to what?
According to NASA[1] we're already at a 0.9 degree anomaly for 2017. The IPCC prediction[2] is 1 degree anomaly in 2020 for the worst case prediction in the worst case scenario.
The NASA anomaly is relative to 1951-1980 average while IPCC is 1986-2005 average. So it's not a perfect comparison. But if you want to look at IPCC's best case scenarios, the prediction is about 0.1 degree, which certainly refutes your claim that they overpredict.
[1]: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
[2]: https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FI... See page 11
See, for example, here:
https://judithcurry.com/2015/12/17/climate-models-versus-cli...
Note that this actually understates the overprediction, because the models whose average is shown included three sets of models that made three different assumptions about how CO2 would rise. But CO2's actual rise over the period where we're comparing models with data was about the same as the assumption of the "worst case" (or "business as usual") scenario, so that scenario is the only one that's relevant to the comparison between models and data. And when you compare just that sheaf of models with the data, the divergence between model and data is even larger.
For the reasons why the upper troposphere temperature comparison is more relevant than the surface temperature comparison (which is what is shown in the IPCC AR5), see the article.
> According to NASA[1] we're already at a 0.9 degree anomaly for 2017. The IPCC prediction[2] is 1 degree anomaly in 2020 for the worst case prediction in the worst case scenario.
But, as you note, the two anomalies are relevant to two different baselines. That means the comparison is invalid, not "not perfect".
> if you want to look at IPCC's best case scenarios, the prediction is about 0.1 degree
That's for future temperature change under the future best case scenario. It has nothing to do with past temperature change under the actual scenario that actually happened.
> See page 11
Those graphs don't show models vs. data. They show models only (and with the actual time period for which we have data compressed on the far left of the graphs so you can't extract any useful comparison with data from them).
The Summary for Policymakers, which is what you linked to, does not show any direct comparison between models and data for a period for which we have data. Previous reports did, but in this one they decided not to--it's only buried in the WG1 report, in Chapter 9, p. 768:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chap...
The divergence between the CMIP5 mean (red) and the actual temperatures (black) in the upper graph in the 2000s is visible; the EMIC mean in the lower graph only appears to go up to 2000 so it doesn't provide a useful comparison. Also, both of these graphs show all of the models, not just the ones whose CO2 rise assumptions matched reality over the data period, so they understate the actual overprediction for the reason I gave above.
Large ships are large, and, unlike aircraft, have sufficient room and carrying capacity to install reasonably efficient carbon-capturing devices.
It will cost a lot, of course.
We see lots of models for corporate raiders using loss leaders to attack bloated industries, but not much else. Also, with technology, the actual cost of development is extremely murky and variable. The only things that seem to motivate loss leader tactics is the end game of cornering a market.
In the case of SkySails, ship owners are averse to the up front cost, even if it means leaving money on the table, long term, by keeping their prices the same, but saving the fuel money with the sail, and pocketing the difference.
So, push to integrate with newly built ships, and then what? Offer freebie/rebate deals? But then they never get used because crew are lazy, and bored, but not that bored, and lazy wins. Plus dealing with tangled lines means the kite is all but ruined without a rigger available. So does that mean training at least one crew member to rig the kite?
It seems like maybe SkySails would need to operate a consultancy, where they supply a crew member who operates the kite on commission, collecting a cut of the savings in fuel costs. Then it becomes not unlike the vending machine model.
Companies permit vending machines on the premises, because they know employees want snacks, so they let a coin-op company install soda and candy machines, and they get a cut of whatever the machine pulls in.
So now, if that works, and then SkySails attacks the ship building angle, they've grown an ecosystem of consultant experts, and some of them can operate as free agents, once ship builders normalize SkySail integration as a common well-known add-on to maritime operations.
Sounds like a business odyssey, thinking it over, but with decades of quiet patience and dedication, maybe it'd work.
But fuel oil is really just a byproduct of refining crude. It's the muck left over when you've extracted everything else that's useful. And of course, it is not taxed, so prices don't account for it's environmental externalities.
If we can reduce overall demand for petroleum products, this should eventually cause fuel oil prices to rise because there'll be less crude being refined, and thus reduced supply.
The real problem is, you need lots of oils and there synthesis and using chemical fuel as energy storage seems a certainly feasible path, however it is again quite a bit more complicated than just drilling a hole in the ground.
Geoengineering seems like a foregone conclusion to me.
Planting trees ought to do it.
It was "easy" when tree trunks kept falling into ancient swamps for millennia. Right now it's not as feasible.
It’s hard to imagine any carbon capture technology that has a better ROI compared to technologies that reduce emissions.
Or to put it another way, it’s much cheaper to not emit carbon in the first place than to try and recapture it.
we might well be at “desperate last stand” right now.