In Lotus Lounge / Daily energy blogging (5): Carbon dioxide sequestration / World is…

A strange kind of discourse has developed in the US .The idea appears to be that it is necessary to turn everyone into Americans, so that Americans are able to live in safety in a world without borders. Ulrich Beck

In Lotus Lounge

Right now, at 3pm, I am sitting and sipping coffee in the Lotus Lounge. It is definitely one of the nicest cafes in the world. Highly recommended: in the corner of Clinton and Stanton, Lower East Side, NYC. They are playing Tom Waits, artists are having their breakfasts, someone his early beer.

Daily energy blogging (5): Carbon dioxide sequestration

BP and Edison Internation are planning to build a "zero-emission" fossil fuel power plant. Their plan is very ambitious: the final design should be ready in 2 years and the plant should be operating in 5 years. It should also be really reliable with uptime of more than 90 percent.
Such plants are most likely necessary in the near future while we are moving over to fusion energy. I am just wondering what kind of guarantees we have that the CO2 will actually stay underground forever, or at least thousands of years.

World is out of control

According to Ulrich Beck, We are living in a world that is beyond controllability. He says that the triumph capitalism and the beginning of the second modernity has made the world more risky. The national states are not suitable for tackling the problems of global world. Instead, we should build new instituions — a new World Bank, Kyoto, international court — for governing the global world. He suggests that cosmopolitanism may be the answer: the cosmopolitan model is about acknowledging difference and the dignity of difference.
Beck's Power in the Global Age has been published. I will buy and read it today in NYC. If I want to solve the energy problems, I have to be up to date with modern political and sociological thinking. Great!

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs January to February 2006".