Letters to Nature
Nature 395, 881-884 (29 October 1998) | doi:10.1038/27638; Received 10 August 1998; Accepted 8 October 1998
Energy implications of future stabilization of atmospheric CO2 content
Martin I. Hoffert1, Ken Caldeira2, Atul K. Jain3, Erik F. Haites4, L. D. Danny Harvey5, Seth D. Potter1,6, Michael E. Schlesinger3, Stephen H. Schneider7, Robert G. Watts8, Tom M. L. Wigley9 & Donald J. Wuebbles3
- Department of Physics, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, New York 10003-6621, USA
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, USA
- Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
- Margaree Consultants, Toronto, M5H 2X6, Canada
- Department of Geography, University of Toronto, Toronto, M5S 3G3, Canada
- Present address: Boeing, Saal Beach, California 90740-7644, USA
- Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, Califonia 94305, USA
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118, USA
- National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado 80307, USA
Correspondence to: Martin I. Hoffert1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to M.I.H. (e-mail: Email: marty.haffert@nyu.edu).
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change1 calls for "stabilization of greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system . . . ". A standard baseline scenario2,3 that assumes no policy intervention to limit greenhouse-gas emissions has 10 TW (10 
1012 watts) of carbon-emission-free power being produced by the year 2050, equivalent to the power provided by all today's energy sources combined. Here we employ a carbon-cycle/energy model to estimate the carbon-emission-free power needed for various atmospheric CO2 stabilization scenarios. We find that CO2 stabilization with continued economic growth will require innovative, cost-effective and carbon-emission-free technologies that can provide additional tens of terawatts of primary power in the coming decades, and certainly by the middle of the twenty-first century, even with sustained improvement in the economic productivity of primary energy. At progressively lower atmospheric CO2-stabilization targets in the 750–350 p.p.m.v. range, implementing stabilization will become even more challenging because of the increasing demand for carbon-emission-free power. The magnitude of the implied infrastructure transition suggests the need for massive investments in innovative energy research.
