Charles C. Mann: prediction

Transcript context

…How much is China’s installed coal base a problem, preventing them from licking most of their air pollution issues? Oh, a huge problem. They have other issues as well, but this is the kind of thing like, you take the big one first, the easy one first, and that would be coal. Although, in China’s case, to be fair, it’s not so easy. Most of those coal plants are brand new, so you’re essentially asking them to trash an infrastructure they’ve just built and replace it, and that’s a big problem. This, for me, is one of the reasons that I’m kind of upset about environmentalists in our country arguing against the idea of carbon capture and storage, which is the leading proposal for what to do with coal plants like the ones in China. It might make sense for us to just say, “Stop using coal altogether.” But I think that’s a much harder call in India and China and other parts of Southeast Asia. And carbon capture seems to be the only technology that’s available, possibly, to deal with it without requiring India and China to trash an infrastructure they’ve just built. What’s the main barrier toward carbon capture and sequestration working?…

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