March 23rd, 2009
Calling all carbon capture and recycling companies
A whole spate of greentech companies just got the happiest news of their brief existence. Any company that recycles CO2, like Serious Materials. Any firm working various ways of feeding CO2 to algae, like Origin Oil. Anybody part of the various schemes for reducing or sequestering CO2 exhaust from industry and burning coal.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has just moved beyond years of dithering to declare greenhouse gases a significant threat to human health. That’s the first step toward regulation, abatement and reduction of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. And it puts this nation in a position to begin international co-operation on global warming for the first time in history. This is as significant as the banning of DDT was thirty-five years ago. At that time numerous species were faced with extinction bcause of water borne DDT in the food chain. After the ban, Peregrines and Brown Pelicans and Bald Eagles bounced back.
Of course this move will be used as the #1 reason for higher energy prices in the future and the EPA will now be targeted by every kind of disinformation campaign available to the protectors of the old status quo. And the opponents of greenhouse gas controls will gleefully point out that China does little or nothing about its league-leading CO2 emissions.
There’ll be considerable legal action, of course, but the EPA plans to use the Clean Air Act (CAA) as thre reason for its actions on greenhouse gases. That’s why the finding that the emissions are a human health hazard is the crucial trigger to regulatory action. That meets the requirements of the CAA. SAnd that’s why Bush’s version of the EPA would not make such a finding.
A newsman since 1969, Harry Fuller has worked for CBS, ABC, CNBC Europe, CNET and was founding news director at TechTV. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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