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White House science adviser visits Homestake lab
Scientists plan public lectures
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FarkClimate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions is real, but reversing it will be difficult, according to President Bush's science adviser.
John Marburger III, who also serves as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House, spoke to about 300 people Thursday at the annual Western South Dakota Hydrology Conference in Rapid City.
Marburger said evidence has been mounting over the past 10 years to confirm world climate change and that fossil fuel emissions are largely to blame. He said among the most convincing evidence of climate change are recent reports by the International Panel on Climate Change.
After his speech, an audience member asked Marburger why people should accept the arguments of "alarmists" about climate change.
Marburger replied that he doesn't believe alarmism is part of his conclusion that climate change is real. He said the IPCC is composed of thousands of the world's best scientists. "You should read the reports and decide for yourself," Marburger said. "I've decided they're right."
He said the evidence is clear -- such evidence as world temperature increases, the rapid breakup of ice packs and the "huge peaking" of C02 in the atmosphere.
"We know that atmospheric chemistry has been very substantially distorted by fossil fuel emissions," Marburger told the group.
After 10 years of debate, "I don't think there is very real doubt about this anymore," Marburger said.
"We need to now be over that. Even the president is over that phase," he said, to laughter from the audience.
"At the very least, we need to understand that we are putting unprecedented amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere," he said. "It can't be good."
But Marburger said the dependence of developed and developing countries on fossil fuels is going to be difficult to break because energy, mostly in the form of fossil fuels, drives their economic engines.
Countries that raise the price of low-cost, high-carbon energy sources to support the development of high-cost, low-carbon sources will put themselves at economic disadvantage with other nations, at least in the short term, he said.
Marburger said fossil fuels are not the only factor, but they are the primary factor in CO2 emissions.
"The solution to the problem of climate change is pretty straightforward -- stop greenhouse gas emissions," he said. "But activities that produce greenhouse gasses are deeply rooted in our way of life."
Marburger said the answers lie in finding alternative sources of energy that will reduce, if not replace, fossil fuels. He said wind and solar energy can help but won't be enough to replace the huge amount of energy that nations now get from coal and oil.
Biofuels such as ethanol are limited because they don't do much to reduce total emissions, he said.
Nuclear power has great potential but concerns over its safety likely will delay its development for decades, Marburger said.
He said the U.S. uses one-fifth of the energy consumed in the world but that fast-developing countries such as China and India are catching up and must also commit to reducing carbon emissions if the problem is going to be effectively solved. Marburger said, for example, that China each year is adding electrical generating capacity with new coal plants that equals all of France's generating capacity.
Marburger said energy use is putting 27 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year. Forty percent comes from coal, 40 percent from oil, and most of the rest comes from natural gas, he said.
To reduce the total by 1 billion tons, or less than 1 percent, would require construction of 136 new nuclear power plants or 270,000 1-megawatt wind turbines, Marburger said.
Marburger said that even halting the growth or reducing the emission of greenhouse gasses won't prevent the impacts that are happening and will happen from the amount of carbon already in the atmosphere.
He said nations also must find technology to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. There is currently no cost-effective large-scale technology for such carbon sequestration, Marburger said, and creating one will take time.
However, Marburger said, "I'm very optimistic that progress will accelerate now that society has turned its attention to the matter."
Marburger also defended Bush's call in a speech Wednesday for a halt in the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. Environmentalists, congressional Democrats and all three presidential candidates have called for mandatory emissions cuts.
Marburger said Bush didn't endorse mandatory emissions cuts because his speech was intended only as a guide for Congress as it begins debate on the issue and he is trying to keep communication open with developing nations.
"This isn't the end of the process. It's part of the process," Marburger said. "The president is more sophisticated about this than most people realize."
Other speakers at the hydrology conference included Dr. Jose Alonso, director of the Sanford Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory at Homestake, and Scott Kenner of South Dakota School of Mines & Technology.
The conference also featured technical presentations.
Contact Steve Miller at 394-8417 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com.
White House science adviser visits Homestake lab
John Marburger, President Bush's chief science adviser, inspected the Sanford Underground Laboratory at Homestake on Thursday.
"It's much farther along than I expected," Marburger said in a news release from the lab. "People have plans that are very ambitions, but from what I've seen it looks like they can be done."
Gov. Mike Rounds accompanied Marburger on a trip down the Ross Shaft to a pump room 2,450 feet underground.
"We most certainly appreciate your interest in what we're trying to put together," Rounds told Marburger.
Last year the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority began re-entering the former gold mine to convert it into the Sanford Lab, in anticipation of the National Science Foundation's even bigger proposal -- the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory at Homestake.
More than 320 scientists and educators have registered for a conference in Lead next week to plan experiments in the lab. They include physicists, biologists, geoscientists and researchers from other fields. Using one laboratory for many disciplines saves money and creates synergies, Rounds said.
"The efficiencies that you find there are something the folks with budgets are asking for and in fact demanding," Rounds said.
Marburger said the National Science Foundation also demands that big research projects include public outreach and education. The governor pointed out that the Sanford Lab is sponsoring public "deep science for everyone" lectures next week in Lead, Spearfish and Rapid City (see related story).
The mine, which is 8,000 feet deep, has been slowly filling with water since it was sealed shut in 2003, but by Monday technicians had descended the Ross Shaft to the water level at 4,650 feet underground. "We actually had our technicians pick up a pail full of water and bring it back up to the surface," the governor said.
Earlier Thursday at the Western South Dakota Hydrology Conference in Rapid City, Sanford Lab director Jose Alonso outlined recent progress. He said large-scale pumping could begin as soon as next month. Water will be retained in holding ponds until it is tested and treated to meet water-quality standards.
By August, Alonso said, lab officials hope to reach a cavern at the 4,850-foot level where Nobel Prize winner Ray Davis conducted experiments and to begin the first experiment there by December.
Physicists use deep labs to protect sensitive subatomic particle detectors from cosmic rays. Marburger is a physicist. "For years I've heard about things happening in the Black Hills, and I wanted to come up and see for myself," he said. "This tour definitely increased my level of interest in this project."
Scientists bring physics to local audiences
Leading scientists will present three public lectures during April's underground science workshop in Lead, Spearfish and Rapid City. All three lectures are 7 p.m. The talks are free and intended for general audiences and students.
- Geoscientist Tullis Onstott, named to Time magazine's "100 people who shape our world," will talk about "finding life where you don't expect it" at Lead High School on Tuesday, April 22.
- Physicist Bob Svoboda, who will install an experiment in the Sanford Lab, will talk about "searching for 'dark matter'" at the student union at Black Hills State University on Thursday, April 24.
- Physicist Hitoshi Murayama, a neutrino researcher and popular lecturer, will present "cosmology for everyone" on Friday, April 25 at South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in Rapid City.
The Sanford Underground Laboratory at Homestake is sponsoring the lecture series. Co-sponsors are BHSU, the School of Mines, Lead High School, the Homestake DUSEL Collaboration and the Homestake Adams Research and Cultural Center.
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