Solve climate change, world hunger at the same time

Does a way exist to solve climate change and not upend the world economy? As it turns out, such technology exists.

The difficulty with selling climate change as a problem is that the solutions being proposed cause most people privation and, at the same time, increase government control over their lives. A frequent solution to climate change involves getting rid of all fossil fuels and replacing them with renewable energy, wind and solar, which are currently more expensive and unreliable. Also, people will be required to use less energy and give up many things they find convenient, such as private automobiles and air conditioning.

Climate change advocates often respond by trotting out the worst-case scenario, claiming that if something is not done, the world will be finished in 10 or 12 years. Advocates of doing something about climate change will sometimes stoop to calling people who are not as alarmed as they are “deniers.” The insult is meant to invoke denial of the Holocaust or the moon landing, a way of marginalizing people who oppose draconian measures to deal with climate change.

A better way of dealing with climate change involves solutions that don’t involve taking things away from people.

A case in point is carbon capture. The concept involves building power plants that use fossil fuels, but instead of belching carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, reuse and sequester it. According to Power Magazine, a company called NET Power is testing a prototype natural gas power plant in La Porte that will do just that.

Without going too much into the weeds, the La Porte plant is a prototype that generates 50 megawatts of power using a process called the Allam cycle. Besides sequestering CO2, the power plant runs more efficiently and is a net producer of water. The excess CO2 can be stored and then sold to vendors to create a variety of products, including carbon fiber and carbon nanotubes. NET anticipates bringing level 300 Mw plants online by 2021.

At the same time, a company called 8 River Energy is working on a power plant that uses the Allam cycle and burns coal. Several technical problems might hinder such a plant’s creation, including that it may need to run on gasified coal whose impurities, such as nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, have been removed. However, if successfully built and tested, the world would be able to burn coal to create energy without releasing CO2 emissions into the air.

One possible customer for the CO2 produced by an Allam cycle power plant is a new start-up called Solar Foods. The World Economic Forum reports that the new Finnish startup is getting ready to produce a protein powder that has the look, texture, and taste of flour. Solar Foods uses electricity, water, carbon dioxide, and some additional vitamins to create the food it calls Solein. The product is likely to show up on store shelves in protein shakes and yogurt, though the possibilities are almost endless. The process comes from an idea developed by NASA and is being developed by the European Space Agency as a way to feed astronauts living at lunar bases or embarking on missions to Mars. Solar Foods’ process does not use arable land or rely on the weather. It takes place entirely indoors.

The Solar Foods process uses solar energy and CO2 extracted from the air. However, one can imagine a Solar Foods plant using carbon dioxide sold by an Allam cycle power station and even using electricity from the same facility.

So, perhaps, we can address climate change without upending the world economy or even destroying civilization, as the Green New Deal would. Coal miners and natural gas frackers will be able to keep their jobs. In the bargain, we could provide more food at cheaper cost to parts of the world that often must go without. The arrangement would seem to allow everyone to win.