No doubt, reducing co2 emissions requires a solution on a massive scale, but having the government pick winners and losers by directing many billions of dollars in research is not a good idea.  There are already promising technologies out there and $500 Million to demonstrate some of those technologies may be money well spent, but ultimately the only viable solution is a carbon tax or a cap and trade system.  The market can then sort out the winners and losers.

BTW what ever happen to the anthrax terrorist?
seem like he never existed!

Wow great rational, if we spend billions on project X than it must make sense to spend billions on project Y.

Is the current epoch of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere a leading or trailing indicator of global temperature?

The popular and virtual religious dogma is that it is a leading indicator of global temperature.

What if it is actually a trailing indicator?

"Fixing" a trailing indicator is a waste / loss of time and money.
Trailing indicators aren't the *cause* - they are the result of something else.

Taxpayers spend $500M to pick a CO2 sequestration winner?

Richard Branson of Vigin Air (etc) is currently offering a $25M prize for a method to sequester 1 GigaTon of CO2 per year.

(Estimates for man-made CO2 vary widely.
Figures like 6 GT/yr to 25GT/yr are bandied about).

Atmospheric pollution is a classical case of the tragedy of the commons.

We can reduce carbon dioxide here, and then that gas will be replaced by more emitted somewhere else - say China. So, it will not work unless a global framework is in place. That is why we need to join the Kyoto protocol, and force others to join too.

Yes, you heard it right - we should FORCE others to abide by the rules. This is a global threat, just like nuclear weapon proliferation is. If we can mess with Iran and Iraq for weapon issues, we should also mess with others for environmental issues. We don't have spare planets to go to, in case we screw this one up.

Of course, forcing others to go green will also force America to go green. Otherwise we'd have no moral high ground.

Convert existing coal-burning power plants to pebble bed nukes.  Pebble beds can be cheap sheet metal cans in missile-like underground silos in the coal yard replacing existing boilers.  Everything else stays as is.  Got to be inexpensive in quantities of a thousand - and the world may need 50,000 to do the job.

Only preventing the deforestation can take care of the balancing the level of CO2. Otherwise at least promoting the greenaries projects to develop the plants and trees can be thought off.
www.browsetoknow.blogspot.com

Considering the billions the US has available, anything in the millions seems a pittance.

Another idea I was thinking about was if anyone has done any study into the tree species that absorbs the most CO2. I assume it would be some sort of broad leaf evergreen. If we could find this out, and get everyone in the land to plant a couple in their backyard, we may have a safe, cheap way of reducing CO2

One problem that spans our entire approach to energy is relevance.

We should relate our energy usage to:-
Defense Department spending -how much is based on protecting our oil imports?

State department and foreign policy - hamstrung because of our dependence and beset by petty tyrants such as Chavez and Amedidijade.

I agree that government is the least effective way of selecting priorities, yet grants can be made - broadly with proxes for proven results.

I myself favor an oil import tax - set to kick in when oil falls below $40 a barrel. Painless today with oil at current prices. But effective in setting a floor for alternative energies

But the real s against global warming, defense spending and foreign policy
Measured in those terms half a billion is timid and pathetic

I have been trying to get the MIT panel interested in a way to use and/or eliminate excess CO2 that makes sense and is easily doable. I explore nanotechnology and there is a solution in the nanoworld

Why not simply convert exhaust CO2 gas back to Carbon Nanotubes,those most amazing new creations of mankind,  a recarbonization process, that has a small negative energy equation (these are powerplants and the energy is there for the taking) and incredible utility. The CNT's can be used society wide ... in reinforcement, construction, other materials, roads, bridges, etc... large supplies would be available at low cost locally and could be subsidized by the gov't. The CNT's would make all these structures stronger , lighter, and longer lasting at low incremental cost.  Under worst case, the CNT's can be safely stored underground with no harm or risk to the environment.  Why can't I get traction on this at TECH?  It's a no brainer.

What about removing the CO2 from the atmosphere with large wind turbine driven CO2 scrubbers? Read an article by Klaus S. Lackner (Columbia U), Patrick Grimes and Hans-J Ziock (LANL) on the economics of large scale CO2 extraction from air.
Then what do you do with the CO2? How about catalytic conversion back into hydrocarbons using Hydrogen extracted by solar powered Hydrolysis.

I believe this problem will make Iraq, N. Korea, Iran problems look very small sometime in next 10 - 30 yrs.  But Joe Sixpack public, in developed and developing countries around the world, is not now effected in any major way.  Governments, economists and politicians are waiting for capitalism, free enterprise and technology to solve the problem.  Technology may or may not be able to solve the problem in time to maintain survival of the human race on the planet.  I agree a moon type program is needed.  Going to moon in 60's 70's was a large waste of dollars and resources.  But I doubt this country will get the priorites right this time either.  Its mostly a problem of greed and politics as normal.  We could have / should have addressed  the depleting worlds oil supply  problem back in 70's.  These are long term hard to solve problems.  Does anyone see a high ethical morals presidential politician up to addressing the challenge and the resources it will take ?  To-date, I do not.  Gore has the idea, but is still wasting energy in his personal castle house, cars, jet traveling etc.  Thats not the kind of personal moral energy saving leadership we need in my opinion.  And......don't get me started about the laughable joke meeting of pres this AM morning with the Detroit auto execs at White House.  E85 ethanol cars will mean doubling or more of our food prices very soon.  Ethanol is not the answer.  My vote is plug in electric cars with CO2 scrubbers required on all coal fired electric generating plants.  And while were at it, natural gas is far too valuable a resource to be used for generating electrical power to keep California's air clean.  We need lots more expensive CO2 scrubber power plants everywhere along with more wind turbines and nuclear power plants.  If Hollywood was serious about something besides making money, it should start making more science based disaster / drama movies based on issues of oil depletion, global warming, CO2 absorption, battery powered automobiles, etc.  The problem is scientific education of Joe 6 Pack Public and the US Congress.  I asked US Energy dept a while back if they ever held seminars to educate congress on energy isses.  Believe it or not, they wrote back that was not their job, and they only answered individual questions on energy directed to them by individual congressmen ?  This tells us the sad state of leadership in our government agencies, offices and in US congresss ?  Big money likes the status quo....?  Arnold and California public are slowly starting to figure it out the depth of the problem, but its not just a California problem.  Its a world problem.  So lets get the UN and state deparments working on it.   Creating and having low cost non oil based non carbon emitting energy sources would greatly help solve poverty generated problems world wide, including many of the problems in middle east, and populations around the world which serve as generators for terrorism against US and  developed countries. 

Summing, I agree whole heartedly, a half million dollars  towards solving the problem is a joke at this stage of the game.

I'm sorry but your all barking up the wrong tree. I have the answer, and it's so rediculously simple that you'll never guess what it is.

I find it amazing that this admistration wants to commit this country and future administrations to approximately $100B to repeat the Apollo missions of the 60's so we can prepare to send people to Mars for approximately $300B to repeat the Rover missions.  Nobody blinks - yet, we argue over $.5B to try to start to save the world.  We try to decide if it's a good investment.  Where are our priorities?

Both coal and uranium fisson energy are bad for the future.  Sequesterization of carbon dioxide and burying high level waste are just ways to deny our responsibility to the future.  This only passes these threats on for future generation to manage. We need to support Sir David King, the UK Chief scientist.  See "fast forware to fusion" New scientist April 10, 2004.  Renewables, backed up by fusion will protect the earth for a long time. 

There is a frightening element in the environmentalist movement out there, as evidenced by Mr. Duncan's article.  Half a billion dollars spent chasing a solution to a problem defined by a whole lot of mights, maybes, possiblys, and coulds is just not enough.  We need to get serious about this.  Climate change is the socialist's Golden Goose; it just keeps on giving.  The only thing constant in this world is change, and as the temperature has oscillated up and down, so have the disaster predictions, complete with calls to have government step in and save us all, at whatever cost.  We are affecting the planet's temperature.  We don't know how much; we don't understand most of the mechanisms by which we cause changes.  Environmentalists make the asinine assumption that the current temperature is optimum, and a deviation of just a few degrees spells disaster.  Based on flimsy science and a single root cause, we're supposed to cap our growth while we develop and implement "green" technologies.  The quotation marks are there because the law of unintended consequences will make itself felt with any new technology.  Just a few examples where "green" technology has ended up hurting the environment: hydropower has had major consequences for river systems, and windmills are now often referred to as "bird cuisinarts."  A few predictions for the future: both solar panels and compact fluorescent light bulbs contain some pretty nasty chemicals, making them difficult to dispose of.  Of course there's a solution to this.  A new government agency will be created to supply you with one light bulb per year and properly dispose of the one from last year.  This will cost approximately $10,000 per person per year to accomplish, but hey, we need to fix the environment at any price, right?

they have asked for $500 million that MIGHT reduce the emissions from coal-burning power plants. are they just going to keep coming up with ideas that MIGHT work and just keep spending all that money. They might come up with a way that they know will work and then use that money - at the moment its just goin to waste.