Climate project: Dr Peter Cook holds sandstone from the Otway Basin, where 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide has been stored underground.
Photo: Glen McCurtayne
July 7, 2008
IT IS technology vital to the Government’s hopes of cutting greenhouse emissions from Australia’s huge coal-fired power stations: capturing carbon dioxide from the polluting stations and burying it deep underground.
Australia’s first trial of geosequestration in the Otways reached its first milestone last week — 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide was successfully stored two kilometres underground in a depleted natural gas field.
Scientists from the Co-operative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies hope to increase that to 100,000 tonnes next year, while continuing to monitor the local geology.
The centre’s chief executive, Dr Peter Cook, who is overseeing the $40 million project, is confident that the day will come when much of the carbon dioxide produced from large industrial sources can be buried.
See the complete article here in Australia’s The Age.
Ok here is my question: What about the long term effects of such a thing? One of the biggest complaints about radioactive hazardous waste disposal is that there is no confidence in predictions of long term stability of the burial site.
Take for example water, how do we know that this formation won’t become water saturated, and that the water will dissolve CO2 into the water and carry it elsewhere only to be released into the atmosphere again? Or how do we know that the system won’t vent the CO2 back to the surface gradually due to displacement or other geologic action?
I’ll point out that CO2 is a heck of a lot more reactive and soluble than glass encapsulated nuclear waste, yet nobody seems to think a thing about it.
In my opinion, the premise of CO2 burial seems absurd not only because of the lack of supporting evidence for certain climate change, but also due to it’s lack of foresight as to the effects of the burial scheme.
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Gary Gulrud: “So at bottom, one must believe the paradigm,..”
No. Even if you accept Kuhn, not all scientific progress comes from revolutions and paradigm shift. There are countless critics on Kuhn’s interpretation as well, to begin with. My basic comment relates the unpredictability of rapid scientific progress (in particular the Green Revolution), I don’t have to agree with Kuhn and never said I endorsed him.
(please look at the criticisms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions)
Gary Gulrud: “Consensus is equivalent with collaboration?”
No. But collaboration may result in consensus in a small group.
Gary Gulrud: “Consensus precedes paradigm elaboration?”
We do not have to assume a paradigm for every case. Lots of progress happens by incremental changes. Kuhn himself is very clear on that.
Gary Gulrud: “To say at some level they are similar is not an argument that they are not different,…”
I did not say they are similar, I said they are almost the same, meaning the difference can be insignificant, meaning they are not different. This is what I said: ““At some level science, engineering and medicine, all become almost the same.””
Gary Gulrud: “Pure research is not quid pro quo, which does indeed apply in the case of medicine and engineering.”
May be we should define what we mean by pure research and applied research, and also what is pure science and what is applied science.
I will note the following characteristics. A person with an engineering undergraduate degree generally ends up in doing mostly applied work – designing buildings or engines, etc. A MD with his/her own practice is also engaged in mostly applied work. With an engineering Ph.D. one could do applied work or basic work in a company, but in general most work done by a Ph.D. faculty member in a university is on the pure side than applied side. The same thing may be true for MDs in a university as many of them do pure scientific research and some clinical research.
Understanding how a particular protein is being synthesized in the cell, how a specific neurotransmitter receptors bind with a specific ligand, how gas molecules trigger the sensation of smell, etc. are all investigations in the fundamental sense – to understand a phenomenon or understand why something behave they way they do. Those are the kind of research done in some medical schools. I am sure the same is true with university engineering research as well – how to make a material stronger by engineering at the molecular level is more pure science than applied science. At the end, whether someone is doing basic or applied science is not determined by the level of “apprenticeship” they have, but on the basis of the nature of their research publications.
Gary Gulrud: The consensus, the conventional wisdom, can be wrong and pure science is the process by which this is revealed. Consensus a raison de etre of science?
It depends how they formed the conventional wisdom. If they formed it without good evidence and reasons, you are correct. But that is not what I have claimed so far.
Gary Gulrud: The Bohr atom and continental drift examples make my point, the elaboration precedes consensus that the paradigm has moved science forward. Work by members of the community begins at any time after elaboration and consensus need not follow by any predetermined schedule.
Please elaborate. I cannot really follow exactly where you are going with this.
Hi Evan:
I understand where you stand. We will see how it goes. I will keep reading it when I have time and if any of your predictions come true, I will be happy to admit it (BTW: please, John will be just fine, thanks! No Dr., the Dr. is when patients call you!!).
John:
It has been a pleasure! I am also prepared to be wrong. Nonfalsifiability is nowhereland. But one advantage of relative optimism is the fact that one can be joyful if one turns out to be right. #B^1
At any rate, being called to defend one’s ground is good, healthy exercise, provides introspection, and forces one actually to own one’s positions.
Be seeing you further up the queue!
John Mc. :
Your queries give me reason to doubt that you are indeed familiar with Thos. Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, the background I indicated would be implied in my argument.
Einstein, in his “On Science and Religion” essay said of science “It is the human endeavor to reconstruct the universe.” Whatever else one might think of the statement, the focus is definitely not on the scientist, but his work. And the work does not depend on other’s confidence.
If a scientific paradigm, e.g., Einstein’s special relativity, could in any sense be considered a final form then perhaps our perception and acceptance of the form might be crucial, as it certainly is in selling a procedure to a patient. There is no possibility of returning to Start and trying again with an improved procedure or a superior specialist.
I charged you to show why consensus is necessary to the performance science as defined by Kuhn, the framework, and now you ask me to provide definitions! How about starting with funding and resources, with teachers, students, technicians, etc? Do I have to make your case and argue pro forma?
Are you as advertised? Why cite wikipedia and not PubMed?
Gary,
“Your queries give me reason to doubt that you are indeed familiar with Thos.”
I would like to know your stand fully before I can agree or disagree (since you never stated that you endorse Kuhn).
“Whatever else one might think of the statement, the focus is definitely not on the scientist,..”
I agree.
“And the work does not depend on other’s confidence.”
Disagree.
“I charged you to show why consensus is necessary to the performance science as defined by Kuhn, the framework, and now you ask me to provide definitions!”
Yes. Because you are making a clear distinction between pure science and engineering/medicine with respect the need for consensus. So, it is important to have our definition of science clear before we can discuss further. Otherwise such a discussion is meaningless.
“How about starting with funding and resources, with teachers, students, technicians, etc? ”
Because they are not relevant.
“Are you as advertised? Why cite wikipedia and not PubMed?”
Cite whatever that makes sense, we can even site the Web of Science and COMPENDEX if you prefer. But in any case, please let us stay with the topic rather than getting sarcastic and personal. Similar to what you wrote earlier, it is about the topic, not about who is discussing it. But if is becoming a discussion about you or I, then of course I have no interest in continuing this discussion. I am sorry, but I am sure you and I have better things to do.
Let me guess–some flavor of medical technologist, working at teaching hospitals like Brigham and Women’s or Childrens for a vendor like GE or Philips.
Gary,
I am so sorry to see that you do not want to continue this discussion, I was hoping for a good discussion on the topic. But, I am disappointed so see that it has taken a rather unprofessional tone.
About my own profession, you are certainly entitled to your belief. As you know, I do not need your recognition in my own profession. FYI, I took Kuhn’s course when I was doing my undergraduate work; but that is immaterial.
I do VERY STRONGLY OBJECT to your implication that there is something lacking by being a medical technologist. I believe every profession that genuinely helps the humanity is important and every person is worthy of respect.
I wish you all the best. Good Bye.
John McL
J Mc or whoever:
All I asked after presenting a opening challenge, ‘that science does not depend of necessity on consensus for its prosecution’, as Robert Cote had before me with less detail was some manner of explicit defense.
On the third reply, as your first offering, you attempted to pass off examples of collaboration as consensus, apparently not recognizing D. Webster as an authority.
Thereafter you have been resolutely evasive, deliberately obtuse if I may, as though your opinons are too sacrosanct for challenge or articulation.
My guess as to your profession was not to detract from your profession, but rather to highlight your pattern of cagey enticement of your adversaries to believe your credentials more impressive than theirs and more than in fact they are. We generally do not take this as a harmless deceit and such will be uncovered.
“All men are grass”.
I will just clarify some issues brought up in your post:
(1) “…but rather to highlight your pattern of cagey enticement of your adversaries to believe your credentials more impressive than theirs and more than in fact they are.”
I do not have any adversaries here. In fact I had great discussions with Evan, Smokey, Jeez, etc.; they are not my adversaries and I certainly have great respect for each one of them. I did not post here to gain converts. I really do not care which side wins. Science is self-correcting, eventually the truth will win, and I am comfortable with that. I came to understand how the AGW critics will respond to some direct questions I had, all of them except you gave very clear answers. I understand where they stand, and whether I agree or not, I respect their views and I had great pleasure in communicating with them.
My credentials are immaterial in this discussion. As I stated, the credentials of the scientists who endorse AGW, particularly the members of the National Academies all over the world, is what is important in this discussion. If you want to compare credentials, you should compare their credentials with yours and that of any other person you consider to be my adversary.
(2) “We generally do not take this as a harmless deceit and such will be uncovered.”
Having MD does not help anyone to claim to be a climate science expert, and I have stated it very clearly that my knowledge in climate science is not extensive. So, if I want to be deceitful in order to have some advantage in this forum, certainly MD is not the way to go. I should have said that I am a climate modeler or something like that. Your statements do not make any sense at all to me. I do not know exactly what you mean by uncovering the so called “deceit”?
(3) “you have been resolutely evasive, deliberately obtuse if I may, as though your opinons are too sacrosanct for challenge or articulation.”
That is exactly my feelings about your response also.
(4) “you attempted to pass off examples of collaboration as consensus, apparently not recognizing D. Webster as an authority.”
How do you know that? You never indicated or implied his name to begin with. You make lots of assumption about the other person. Yet when I stated something explicitly, and you completely misrepresented it to reach a wrong conclusion, I did not make any disrespectful assumptions about you. (see my earlier response:
Gary Gulrud: “To say at some level they are similar is not an argument that they are not different,…”:
I did not say they are similar, I said they are almost the same, meaning the difference can be insignificant, meaning they are not different. This is what I said: ““At some level science, engineering and medicine, all become almost the same.”” ).
Unlike what I saw from you towards the end, I do not use any ad hominem attacks against anyone.
Unless two people recognize that they can continue their discussion with respect but without always agreeing to each other, there is reason to continue such discussions.
““All men are grass”.”
Disagree. All men are like grass (in certain aspects).
Just wanted to clarify some things, as my concluding remarks.
Correction: I should have said “there is no reason to continue such discussions”.
John McLondon, while I disagree with many things you have said (maybe most?), and I have not generally been active in these discussions, without a doubt you have been a positive contributor to these exchanges.
See you around.
Very late on this topic but if one wants to sequester carbon why not encourage algae growth in the oceans or plant seaweed?
Or convert it to dry ice for convenience and sell it to farmers as a combination fertilizer/ harmless pesticide (kills by suffocation). Just don’t take nap in field after application for a while.