Steve GannOpen Letter to Richard Branson
February 16th 2007 05:06
For some time now I have managed to build a reputation for taking a different view. Call me an iconoclast, a visionary thinker, but always one willing to tackle a problem head on. Sometimes though, what is needed is an image which gets people's attention!
Try this. Imagine a beautiful forest. Verdant trees stretching for miles and miles with a lush undergrowth and there smack in the middle of this beautiful vision is a sealed road leading to a coal fired power station. Now this is a picture which would make most Green Inspired environmentalists spit blood! Without thinking they would reach for helmets, swords and placards and head for the nearest rally. But stop and think for a minute.
What if the forest were man-made? What if the forest had been grown around the power station with the aim of absorbing the green-house gases and turning them into Oxygen and more trees? Now that has an attractive ring to it doesn't it. So how do we make it happen? Well first you plan for it and encourage anyone building a coal-fired power station to build this sort of model. The so called clean-coal technology frankly doesn't convince me for a number of reasons. It is pie in the sky and it has too many dangerous side effects. Not only that but it looks expensive.
My chief objection to sequestering CO2 and pumping underground is that it means Oxygen will be leeched from the atmosphere without being replaced. The resulting CO2 sludge will then be stored underground where it can cause all sorts of problems. In a nutshell it is too dangerous, too expensive and risks causing more damage in the long run.
But let's get back to the trees. People will say that if trees could do the job, they'd be doing it now. Sorry that is not the case. What is needed is for the trees to be put in close proximity to where the green house gases are being generated. It will need some studies to plan the most effective models, but consider the following points. Have you looked at where coal fired power stations are located? Usually in a concrete jungle, part of the city of glass and asphalt. Any trees around? Hang on a tick, let's have a look. Yes there's one over there, way in the distance.
Then take the gases themselves. What happens at the exhaust chimneys. The gases are emitted as hot and go straight up in the atmosphere where trees can't get at them with a shovel. But what if there were an alternative. What if the gases were passed through pipes that were cooled in water (recycled of course) and then allowed into smaller pipes under reduced pressure. These pipes would have thousands of tiny holes allowing the gases to escape at the bases of -- you guessed it trees.
Of course we could take this further. We could grow more trees on the side of the roads to convert the waste from cars. Trees could be grown next to foot paths and buildings everywhere. We could plant forests of trees instead of cutting them down. We could plant tree plantations some of which could be harvested for paper or used in building.
Before we go too extreme, let's look at some of the logistics of this. If for every human being on this earth, every year, ten trees were planted, that would make for a lot of trees. Maybe if we planned that, wherever there was a concentration of green-house gas generation, trees would be planted to absorb part of that output, maybe that would make an impact.
But, and here is the most attractive part of this idea: We can start this now. We can have an effect and we can improve as we go. Sure we can monitor the effect and improve the mechanism by getting the gases closer to trees -- but while we are planning, we can do something now.
This may end up with the planting of one helluva lot of trees. So is that a sin? Maybe that will be the final answer anyway. So Richard, grab a shovel and go plant a couple of thousand trees. Then next week, plant another thousand more. You never know it could start a trend and it could be the answer when we finally get down to it.
So what do you reckon, ash, eucalyptus or oak? Or come to think of it, apple trees are nice.
Try this. Imagine a beautiful forest. Verdant trees stretching for miles and miles with a lush undergrowth and there smack in the middle of this beautiful vision is a sealed road leading to a coal fired power station. Now this is a picture which would make most Green Inspired environmentalists spit blood! Without thinking they would reach for helmets, swords and placards and head for the nearest rally. But stop and think for a minute.
What if the forest were man-made? What if the forest had been grown around the power station with the aim of absorbing the green-house gases and turning them into Oxygen and more trees? Now that has an attractive ring to it doesn't it. So how do we make it happen? Well first you plan for it and encourage anyone building a coal-fired power station to build this sort of model. The so called clean-coal technology frankly doesn't convince me for a number of reasons. It is pie in the sky and it has too many dangerous side effects. Not only that but it looks expensive.
My chief objection to sequestering CO2 and pumping underground is that it means Oxygen will be leeched from the atmosphere without being replaced. The resulting CO2 sludge will then be stored underground where it can cause all sorts of problems. In a nutshell it is too dangerous, too expensive and risks causing more damage in the long run.
But let's get back to the trees. People will say that if trees could do the job, they'd be doing it now. Sorry that is not the case. What is needed is for the trees to be put in close proximity to where the green house gases are being generated. It will need some studies to plan the most effective models, but consider the following points. Have you looked at where coal fired power stations are located? Usually in a concrete jungle, part of the city of glass and asphalt. Any trees around? Hang on a tick, let's have a look. Yes there's one over there, way in the distance.
Then take the gases themselves. What happens at the exhaust chimneys. The gases are emitted as hot and go straight up in the atmosphere where trees can't get at them with a shovel. But what if there were an alternative. What if the gases were passed through pipes that were cooled in water (recycled of course) and then allowed into smaller pipes under reduced pressure. These pipes would have thousands of tiny holes allowing the gases to escape at the bases of -- you guessed it trees.
Of course we could take this further. We could grow more trees on the side of the roads to convert the waste from cars. Trees could be grown next to foot paths and buildings everywhere. We could plant forests of trees instead of cutting them down. We could plant tree plantations some of which could be harvested for paper or used in building.
Before we go too extreme, let's look at some of the logistics of this. If for every human being on this earth, every year, ten trees were planted, that would make for a lot of trees. Maybe if we planned that, wherever there was a concentration of green-house gas generation, trees would be planted to absorb part of that output, maybe that would make an impact.
But, and here is the most attractive part of this idea: We can start this now. We can have an effect and we can improve as we go. Sure we can monitor the effect and improve the mechanism by getting the gases closer to trees -- but while we are planning, we can do something now.
This may end up with the planting of one helluva lot of trees. So is that a sin? Maybe that will be the final answer anyway. So Richard, grab a shovel and go plant a couple of thousand trees. Then next week, plant another thousand more. You never know it could start a trend and it could be the answer when we finally get down to it.
So what do you reckon, ash, eucalyptus or oak? Or come to think of it, apple trees are nice.
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