The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

An easy access link to The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis(IIASA) has been added to my list of  Forsight-Hindsight Institutes and Videos.  The IIASA, is an international research organization that conducts policy-oriented research  into problems that are too large or too complex to be solved by a single country or academic discipline.

IIASA research investigates the critical issues of global environmental, economic, technological, and social change that we face in the twenty-first century. The researchers, some 200 mathematicians, social scientists, natural scientists, economists, and engineers, develop assessment and decision-support methodologies, global databases, and analytical tools to study the issues. IIASA concentrates its research efforts within three core research themes:

• Energy and Climate Change;
• Food and Water;
• Poverty and Equity.

Please do not hesitate to visit the website and read their publications. LINK

Record Breaking Pittsburg Steelers of well-named US Coal Mining and Steel Town win US-Football’s Super Bowl_Bigger CCS Records need Breaking!

Will Pittsburg be Bull's (New York) or Bears (Chicago) in CO2-CCS and not just Steal-Off into the shadows?

Pittsburg Steelers of the famous well-named and one time booming US Coal Mining and Steelmakers (Carnegie) Town win Super Bowl for a record 6th time.

Mind you, other more important record are at stake, global ones. Here as indicated above, I have chosen once again CO2-CCS and more precisely carbon storage and sequestration (CSS).

The following key words "Pittsburg", "Super Bowl", "Chicago Bull's supported by President Obama". To crown it all the headline Steel Curtain Call shed dread to many, if not all metallurgists provided the chemical spark to write.

I have tried to be humorous and conversationalist in this, and finally failed dismally, such is the perceived gravity of the situation facing the countries and industries involved.

Coal fuelled power generation is here to stay - bombing all polluting plants excepted!

The challenge as always is how can one arrive at peaceful solutions acceptable and happily embraced to all.

I guess underlining this CO2-CCS competition is the best I can do for the moment.

Where does the record stand to-day? (I know full well, that it's still very much on hold in spite of many strong speakers interviewed by Nature's Energy Supplement cf. "Putting the carbon back: The hundred billion tonne challenge :"
- D.G.Hawkins,(NDRC) Dir. National Resources Defense Council's Climate Centre, Washington DC. cf for example his paper CCS: Deployment Must Begin Now [Pdf] .
-Robert Socolow and Pacala (Princeton Univ.) whom I mention regularly in my blogs "Conversations" "Conversations" and "Materials Science and Engineering Defined" .
-Vassilios Kougionos EU Commissioner in charge of the so-called "clean-coal initiatives and international energy is quoted in Nature's as saying roughly "No CCS, No Fossil Fuels." Some background doc. cf. Co-op. Prog CCS-2005[pdf]

Records in these fields are slim to say the least:
- Germany leads 'clean-coal' pilot daily updates on achievements via link on my blog post: "6986 Tonnes CO2 sunk at Ketzin East Germany" Stretching my Franco- British(Scots), linguistic skill, albeit limited, let me suggest a good reading of the project name as a politico-financial-techical assistance in a much needed "Quest for Zen". (Explanation, "quête pronounced "ket" or Quest in english and Zin? well...)
-The Sleipner field (natural gas) – CO2 Treatment and Injection ... CO2 –2,5 mill tonnes/yr. 2012?


My rapid Google search turned-up a surprising number of disbanded, dedicated project-realisations news up-dates. Fortunately for us, I just blogged an excellent approach on my
"Conversations" blog-direct link to post I'll repeat

-Record you Pilot results and for record breaking put you Full-scale results on the MAP by the Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage, School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh (thumb-nail image opposite)

To my great and pleasant surprise, since I blogged and linked this, there have been a huge jump in the number of sites pin-pointed on the map, congratulations to all concerned. My previous post -31Jan 2009, Friday last!) is entitled
Get your Carbon Sequestration Site on the Map - Reduce GHG emissions, Improve Company-Gov Image, Visibility, ROI...for fun Beat GeoSAT-Ubuki

If I must add one further reason on why I chose to write such a post? The answer is most certainly "in a last hope effort to belie the following Green Peace position statement "

Carbon Capture and Storage: A Corporate Boondoggle That Shortchanges Environment, Consumers, New Greenpeace Report from Pittsburg May 5, 2008

Have I succeeded, will we succeed? No we must succeed!

To repeat my in my rough interpretation of Vassilios Kougionas EU Commissioner for clean-coal and intl energy:

No CCS-carbon sink, No Fossil Fuel Use!

Post Scriptum

Or in the words often attributed to a main character in a Robert Ludlum novel (CIA, MI 45 or is it 6, Consular Ops... spies, James Bond style) one the would often say:

There is no other tenable global option.

Comments more then welcome.

More shared knowledge at co2net.eu...

One of the World's Leading Lights in Global Development _ The relative newcomer Bill Gates

“Humanities greatest advances are not in it’s discoveries - but in how those discoveries are used to reduce inequity” Quote by Bill Gates in "Grand Challenges in Global Health, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation"[link above-html].

Although the above link does not quote the "corollary", I am sure that Bill would be the first to agree that many of the applications, any systems approaches implied by his quote, depends greatly on discoveries great and small, witness the Foundations strong board of Scientific Consultants.

Global Development fuelled by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Bill & I both share a strong interest (& investment) in Libraries. In my case, like many of my fellow Scots, this is an almost a "lifelong" involvement. Could it be genetic; Alexander...a bit pretentious, but not exaggerated, such is my own personal attachment, especially to public or public oriented libraries. Much more likely, this is a cultural and historical trait, I like to feel a Scottish Hallmark. Scotland has been a haven for refugees since the time of period of Enlightenment, in Economics, Philosophy,Religion-Theology and last but not least in Science, Technology & Engineering. It is heartening to know that this tradition has been upheld to a large extent in North America with her famous libraries and know in the Internet Age, by such initiatives as "The Wayback Machine" , Wikipedia etc. Currently all North America,USA in fact, does not appear to share Bill Gates' philosophy nor follow his lead, could I be wrong? There is a lot to be said in favout of Bill's approach as quoted, n'est ce pas.