Thirty years ago, on this day, March 29, 1993, the International Energy Agency (lEA) held a Carbon Dioxide Disposal Symposium in Oxford
https://www.sciencedirect.com/sdfe/pdf/download/eid/1-s2.0-019689049390012Y/first-page-pdf
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 359ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that coal was clearly going to continue to be burned. So how to do it cleaner? What are the options? Is sequestration in the deep oceans possible? Can you improve the gasification? There had also two years previously been a big event sponsored by the Australian Coal Association in Sydney.
What I think we can learn from this
They’ve been banging on about clean coal for donkey’s years.
Rearguard actions by dinosaur technologies can “work”
What happened next
Technologies were proposed. They were rapidly prototyped, the business models sorted, the regulatory issues sorted. The technologies then shared and everyone in the world started burning coal cleanly. And we all lived happily ever after. Except for the mining accidents, and the mercury, and all the rest of it…
And then I woke up…
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..
References
Tilley, J. 1993. IEA carbon dioxide disposal symposium Oxford, United Kingdom 29th–31st March 1993 IEA Perspectives on global climate change issues. Energy Conversion and Management Volume 34, Issues 9–11, September–November 1993, Pages 711-718