Another excellent article at The Oil Drum regarding future energy production:
http://www.theoildrum.com/...
pretty much tells us where the “big money” is going . . . and the only thing missing is the slightest hint that there is any consideration being taken of what it means for the planet.
There is, you will note, not a suggestion of reducing human dependence on fossil fuels . . . in fact in every category production and use is projected to rise, to serve the growing demands of a rising world population. It follows by necessity that there will result an increase in CO2 emissions (the byproduct of burning all that stuff) above and beyond the present level of increase, and that as a result the already steadily increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase even faster. That “450ppm in 20 years” that I’ve been harping about begins to look overly optimistic (on the low side) if these projections are even remotely correct.
What will this “new world” look like, and what should we be doing to prepare for it? It’s a nasty question, with even nastier answers, but rest assured, somebody is already seeing a bright side, and working on it:
http://barentsobserver.com/...