Washington: Rising carbon dioxide emissions -- the major cause of global warming -- cannot be stabilised unless the world's economy collapses or society generates 300 gigawatts of nuclear power annually, a new study claimed.
"It looks unlikely that there will be any substantial
near-term departure from recently observed acceleration in
carbon dioxide emission rates," says a new study by Tim
Garrett, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences at the
University of Utah.
He said, "Stabilisation of carbon dioxide emissions at
current rates will require approximately 300 gigawatts of new
non-carbon-dioxide-emitting power production capacity annually
approximately one new nuclear power plant (or equivalent) per
day".
Garrett said, "Physically, there are no other options
without killing the economy. If society consumed no energy,
civilisation would be worthless".
He treats civilization like a "heat engine" that
"consumes energy and does 'work' in the form of economic
production, which then spurs it to consume more energy,
journal Climatic Change reported.
"If society consumed no energy, civilization would be
worthless. It is only by consuming energy that civilization is
able to maintain the activities that give it economic value,"
he added.
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 18:53