emissions and a look at the business climate in north africa. senator rob portman is the vice chair of the republican senatorial committee. at a breakfast by the christian science monitor, he discusses races in the upcoming election and the middle east. this hour long event is moderated by the monitor's bureau chief, david cook.

okay, here we go, folks. thanks for coming. i'm dave cook from the monitor. this morning senator rob portman

of ohio, vice chairman for the republican senatorial committee. this is his first visit. we thank him for coming. he earned his bachelor's degree at dart mouth and earned a law degree from the university of michigan. he worked in elder bush's white house in the council office and head of legislative affairs. 1993, he ran for a vacant seat and served in the house from 1994 to 2004. 2005, president george w. bush named him as trade representative and appointed him as director of management and budget. 2010, elected to the senate winning 82 out of ohio's 88 counties. he and his wife have three grown children. thus ends the bigraphical part of the program. now the ground rules. as always, we are on the record. no live blogging or tweeting. no filing of any kind while the

breakfast is under way to listen to what our guest says. there's no embargo when the session ends. to curb that selfie urge, we will e-mail a session as soon as the breakfast ends. if you would like to ask a question, please do the traditional thing and send me a subtle, non-threatening signal. i'll happily call when we have time available. our guest will make opening comments, then move to questions around the table. thanks for doing this. >> thank you, dave. appreciate everybody being here. this is a great turnout. i see you have your material in front of you. thank you for memorizing this. i will talk about this plan for action, not just a way to explain to people why it's important to elect republicans, but for governing, should we get the majority. we'll talk about that later. i would like to start by saying,

here we are, 13 years after 9/11 and although some of us may not remember what we were doing yesterday, everybody around this table remembers exactly where they were 13 years ago. the nation, of course, was riveted on these terrific attacks on the world trade center and the fight against terrorism began in earnest. here we are 13 years later with the president giving a speech about fighting terrorists. this is a determined and obs nant enemy that continues to threaten our country. i believe that there is a national security threat in what isis is doing in iraq and syria because they are attempted to establish a platform not just to terrorize that region of the country, of the world, but to also attack the west. i think we can learn a number of lessons from it. one is that we are blessed to

have the greatest military on the face of the earth and although we have made many sacrifices in the last 13 years, our military and our intelligence services are second to none and thank god. dave and i were talking coming in, dave is a veteran. importantly, he has two sons who currently serve. i appreciate them and him. i think we have to count our blessings that we have the ability to respond as the president talked about last night because of our military capabilities and keep in mind the need for us to continue to have the strongest military to be able not to just protect us, but ensure we have peace and stability around the world. i believe that the president's speech last night laid out a strategy for dealing with the isis threat in a general way. that was good.

i think it was tardy. i wish he would have done it sooner. i believe what the president laid out in terms of his four points, including continued military activity in the region to air assaults is appropriate. i think the president also made it clear that we have not had the kind of leadership that is necessary to deal with this threat by saying, at the out set of the speech, two things that were interesting. one was taking credit for leaving iraq in total, saying we had no more combat troops in iraq and taking credit for that. it was ironic to me that he said that. the vacuum that was left by which we chose to leave iraq is much of the problem we currently see. i think by not leaving a residual force, specifically trainers in part to keep the al

maliki government in check and have leverage on them, not to have intelligence left on the ground did not enable us to monitor what was going on, including the movement of 10,000 isis fighters and third to have special operators to work with the iraqi forces including the iraqi special forces to deal with that kind of threat. he's the reason we are in the situation we are in. second, the president made it clear in his speech before he started talking about the threat of terrorism that he is proud of the fact we are ending the combat mission in afghanistan, this year. again, i think we are not learning the lessons of iraq. by setting an arbitrary time line for afghanistan. again, suggesting not just to our enemies, but allies, the united states is not in this for the long haul. whether it's in iraq where,

again, we have seen a vacuum created and chaos ensue or in afghanistan where this could happen as well. we need to let those around the world know, again, both our enemy that is the terrorist groups that are listening carefully, but also our allies the united states is in this for the long haul. it's been 13 years since the 9/11 attack. many of us would like to think we solved the problem. it's over. i think the president succumbed to being able to do that repeatedly. last night, in his speech, i support what he laid out. i think congress ought to respond appropriately and provide the funding he has asked for with regard to training forces in syria to help this carry out the necessary counterterrorism activity against isis there. but, what i don't support is this continued reluctance on

behalf of our commander and chief to let the world know that the united states can be depended on and we will be there for the long haul and that we will not allow 13 years after 9/11 for those kinds of horrific attacks to happen again. i think we need to learn from our mistakes and apply those to afghanistan and around the world. on the home front, of course america is only strong globally when we are strong at home. even if that weren't the case, one reason i brought this with us this morning is that i'm very concerned -- >> i hear you take it with you everywhere. >> i do, if i bring it here. i do think we are in a situation now where we have a leadership deficit abroad and at home. there are certain things we can and should be doing as republicans and democrats to deal with the weakest economic

recovery since the depression. if you look at the jobs numbers, again, a disappointing month. they ticked down one tenth of one percent. they went down because more people left the work force. we had the labor force participation rate go down to the point that among men and women combined, we are at the level we were during the incredibly weak economic period in the carter administration in the 1970s. among them, it goes to the 1940s. we have the lowest rate among men that we have had since the 1940s. median income is down. health care costs, obviously, are up. as is the price at the pump. the middle class squeeze is real. people's net worth is down, considerably. if you look at the period from ronald reagan to 2007, a steady

increase in income. you can take into account an inflation rate that is not accurate, probably higher, 18% increase in income and now we have, since that time period, an actual loss of income and net worth. so, when i'm back in ohio, what i find is what the president said last night, which is basically, we are out of the woods. things are getting better. he talked about an unparalleled period of job creation. itis not what i hear and see. i see a lot of people hurting. i see people who are very worried, uncertain about the future. i will acknowledge and say i looked at a lot in august. jennifer is here, i will talk about the states around the country where we have senate races. the poll that is most troubling and most interesting was the

wall street journal/nbc poll about how people feel about the future. it asked the american people, do you think the next generation is going to be better off? the answer was a resounding no. 77% of americans said no. it's not going to be better off for my kids and grand kids. that's unprecedented. these numbers have never been seen before. >> this is the point in the program where i earn my salary by saying, if you could bring your opening to a close, then we'll go to questions. if they don't get questions, they march on me with torches. >> i would hate to see that. >> yes, me too. >> let me conclude saying i think we are suffering from a leadership deficit abroad and at home. in terms of leadership at home, i think there's a way forward here. i think our future can be very bright and i think it requires republicans and democrats alike to find common ground on the issues where, frankly, there's a

consensus. we need to deal with the debt that is at record lows and the deficit. we need to give the economy a shot in the arm doing the tax reform the president talks about but has not lifted a finger to address. we have to deal with the regulatory system. we know our energy opportunities are great and they have helped the economy tremendously. despite the weak numbers, they would be far worst. energy resources, specifically natural gas and oil. there's so much more we can do. that includes the keystone pipeline and energy efficiency. so, expanding trade is another area as u.s. trade representative, i would tell you not the have the ability to negotiate for the past seven years. it does not enable us to get exports as we should. we have the opportunity here by doing some of the simple things. get the economy moving again.

do what john f. kennedy talked about, rising the tide. a rising tide lifts all boats, he said. that's the necessary, not sufficient, but the necessary action we should be taking as a country to get prosperity back and hope back. i'm ultimately optimistic and i think having a republican majority helps that happen for the reason this town is dysfunctional. by getting republican majority, i believe it would get the president to the table on these issues and require republicans to work with the president to find common ground on these and other issues. i think that can happen. we'll talk more about the specific races, if you would like. if it does happen, the next two years can be productive. i know i may sound naive since everyone said the next two years are going to be about 2016. i look at what happened when we have divided government, it's when we have done tax reform and moved the economy forward taking on big issues and we have a

desperate need for that right now. a need for leadership. and that requires, again, both sides to come together and to do what's best for the american people and do the job we were hired to do. >> i'm going to ask one or two. a political story yesterday noted that republicans in a number of races, including kentucky and iowa are seizing on the obama administration response to the state militants and that their organizement is obama is disengaged. how did last night's speech and interview change the effectiveness of the line of attack? how did it change the battle for control of the senate? >> well, first, i think the speech last night, as i said, laid out a general strategy that i hope most republicans will

support. i think it's right. i think we need to be more aggressive. i think it's late, as i said. that's the point made in the states you are talking about. we were in a much more difficult situation because of this vacuum of leadership that we talked about. but, we are where we are. so, i think it is appropriate that the president laid out a strategy to deal with the isis in iraq and syria. i don't feel it is a political issue, dave. i understand the connection with the states where there's a senate campaign and i know that people will have different takes on it in terms of the political implications of last night's speech. this is about our national security, one of my predecessors said partisan ends at the water's edge. the same is true on the border

with ukraine and russia. i think the same is true, certainly, in other parts of the middle east and gaza and israel with regard to iran and their march to a nuclear weapon. we need to show more leadership. i would hope last night's speech begins the process of getting america back on track in terms of dealing with the threat. again, the president, based on his remarks last night, hopes will go away. hope is not a strategy. we need to engage and engage more aggressively. the president took some of those first steps last night. >> last one from me, stew rothenberg wrote in roll call, he was expecting a sizable republican wave. charlie cook offers a different view. he says it doesn't appear to be a republican tide. the bad news is the democrats could lose the senate even without such a wave.

which race -- which senate race keeps you upmo most at night? is it our friend in kansas where you dispatched two top aids? which keeps you up at night? >> first, none of the races keep me up at night. i'm -- i'm kept up at night by other issues, including the lack of leadership abroad and my worry about what that means. i was in ukraine a few months ago with the elections there and one thing that keeps me up at night is the fact the united states unbelievably is allowing the ukrainian people to have to engage in a fight with a much stronger military russia without providing them the necessary weapons they need. i'm kept up at night by the fact

this economy continues to be incredibly weak despite the fact there are things we can and should do to keep it moving. but, back to your question, look, i think, you know, 50 days is a lifetime in politics. things could change in terms of the senate races. charlie cook said the bad news is republicans could win without a wave. i don't know if that's bad news. i think it's good news. >> bad news for democrats. >> okay. i think it's too close to call. i believe there are three states where both republicans are seemingly doing well, double digit increases or leads in the polls. that would have west virginia, south dakota and montana. i think they are probably seven states where it's too close to call. republicans would need six gains to get the majority. i don't think any republican seats are in great danger. i think, in fact, pat roberts is doing fine.

i think mitch mcconnell is doing fine in kentucky. i get a lot of those ads at home. i think mitch is going to be fine. i think in georgia we are doing well. it's all trending in the right direction. it comes down to the handful of states, maybe i said seven, seven to ten states where it's simply going to depend on what happens here in the next 50 days or so. >> kathryn? >> let me ask you about a race that's not on the radar. will they contribute money to the -- senate seeking a fourth term? >> i don't know what the nrc decision will be there. i have been told that race is closed somewhat. it's a single digit race based on some polling, but i don't know enough about it. >> do you expect the nrc will help? >> i don't know. frankly, the playing field is

already very broad. i mean, i don't think people would expect we would be talking about minnesota and new hampshire and virginia and oregon and we are. so, the playing field is already quite broad. >> alex? >> if you take over the majority, you have to craft a budget. you are on the budget committee. what will a budget look like? you have to get collins and cruz to vote for it. will it be like the ryan budget? if not, what are the differences going to be, do you think? >> great question. you know, if we get 55 or 57 republicans, we won't need ted and susan. no, just kidding. i think you have to assume it's going to be a narrow majority. we need to pull together to be sure we do pass a budget. it is unbelievable to me we have not had a budget in the house and senate for the last several

years. i have been back in the congress now for three years and i was vice chair of the house budget committee. i was the director of management and budget. i put together my own budget and it is amazing to me we simply continue to move forward without having the blueprint on spending, which is what a budget provides. i think it's our responsibility to get the majority to provide the blueprint for the american people. they need to know what direction our country is headed in. i frankly thing some folks around the table have not given enough to this. >> would that track the ryan budget or key differences? >> i think there will be differences. they want a balanced budget. ensuring economic growth. in a budge it, as you know, you can have reconciliation.

if you can pass a budget in the house and senate, which i am confident we will be able to do, it's tough. then you can have the reconciliation that provides for something on the revenue side, which could lead to tax reform, something on the spending side that could lead to the necessary changes to our incredibly important, but unsustainable programs and the debt limit. those can be done not with 60 votes in the senate, but 51 votes as we saw with president obama pushing obamacare in the senate with the 51 votes after scott brown was elected. this is a significant part of, you know, should we get the majority what we should be doing. it's included in here as one of the seven points. i do think this is part of leadership. look, i'm amazed, again, with the substantial five vote majority, 55-45, the democrats didn't try to do a budget this

year. when they did do one, it was strictly a partisan exercise with no way to reconcile with the house budget. this will be one of our challenges when we get the majority and one that, you know, we should embrace and we should move forward with a budget that provides the blueprint. >> we are going to paul, brutus to give you a sense of where we are going. paul? >> senator, more specific over the next week or so, what votes do you expect the senate to take and congress to take on the isis threat and what votes do you feel will be difficult to take? we are asking people going into an election to vote, essentially for a war. >> well, paul, i don't consider it a new war. i consider it a continuation of something that started 13 years ago. the president may wish it away,

but the threat continues. a way to compare what is going on with isis and iraq and syria to what's gone on in somalia and yemen misses the point. i think the president also continues, at every speech to take great pains what he's not going to do, including, again, telling our allies and telegraphing to our enemies there will not be u.s. troops on the ground even though he authorized an additional 475 troops in iraq, as i understand, last night. so, you know, i don't think it's about a new effort. i also, as i have said to others around this table, i believe the president has the authority to react and react against isis. i think when he begins to execute the plan in syria, he should come to congress. he has to be smart. that would enable congress to have a debate on this, which enables the american people to

have more buy in in what the president is proposing. that is helpful to have them work together moving forward. >> any attack in syria? >> i think it would be smart for the president to do that. he said he didn't need the authority, but would welcome that. it would make sense. i will say the other thing that makes me concerned about the president's speech last night is that by comparing what's going on in yemen or somalia to iraq and syria and by suggesting that, again, he's proud of the fact we have pulled out of iraq all together, i think he may be underestimating this threat. i think this is, as i said earlier, a very real national security threat to the united states of america. it's obviously a humanitarian crisis in the region as well. for those reasons, we should be engaged. i hope it's not the last speech

the president gives on this. one thing that is apparent to a lot of you around the table, during the obama administration, there was little talk about what was going on, even as our troops were engaged in iraq and continue in afghanistan. the president rarely talks about it. it's a problem. people around the world are looking for allies looking to ensure we have the tenacity and the resolve to finish this task and our enemies looking for weakness. they want to know we have a focus here. this won't be just another speech. speech is not a strategy. >> moving on something that is not a speech in the next few days? >> i don't think we will vote in the next few days. i think, at least in the senate, i don't control -- republicans don't control the senate. harry reid wants to focus on political votes that have no chance of passage in the senate. we are doing that again today. we'll be voting on

constitutional amendment on campaign finance and the so-called paycheck fairness act without amendments. it's the first time we are offering to change the constitution without amendments. that is what we will be doing in the senate. in the next ten days, i believe senator reid said we are leaving on the 23rd of september, i hope we will bring up this issue and i hope we have a resolution with regard to the use of force and i hope we will be able to have this debate so the american people can be more engaged in it and have an honest discussion about the difficulty of the task, the need to make a commitment to it and need for the military to accomplish it with regard to the military getting involved in training in syria. >> the nrsc i just read had a good august fund raising month. i was wondering, you said

kansas, georgia and kentucky you are not worried about races there. does that mean we shouldn't put resources to those states? >> i hope we don't have to. we had a good august and exceeded our goals for august. overall, we are raising record amounts as compared to previous cycles, even presidential cycles. the democrats are doing well at fund raising, too. i will add this quickly. the president is a terrific fund-raiser. he's done 19 events for the committee. so, you know, that has helped them to have resources they wouldn't otherwise have. look, i'm hopeful we won't have to spend resources in those red states i talked about. all states which mitt romney won and where we have good candidates and i believe we'll be fine. i think our focus will be on the states i mentioned earlier. north carolina and arkansas and

louisiana, iowa, michigan, colorado, new hampshire, alaska. i think those are the states that will determine the majority. >> -- you said you hoped a republican in the senate could bring a president to the table and work to find common ground. i would like to ask you to play out what issues you think you would be able to quickly find common ground on, since that would be a great novelty in the past era and secondly, as you know, senator mcconnell has been quoted as saying things that make it sound as if he would take a more confrontational act and turn the resolution into a set of repeals of the president's agenda. it sounds like veto. it sounds like bring the president to the table, but less like finding common ground. are you and senator mcconnell in

sync on that strategy? >> i don't know what he laid out, but i have talked to him and other members of our leadership team about the need to pass a budget and the need for legislation and we can find a consensus among republican colleagues and democrats obviously with the exception of the reconciliation ideas we talked about. 60 votes are required to pass anything. i don't think anybody is suggesting we are going to have 60 votes on the republican side. i just needed to check with you to see if the polls changed this morning. i think we are going to need to work with democrats on many of these issues. i'll late out a simple agenda for the first 50 days. this is not something that's impossible to accomplish because we have already had votes on these issues and know where people stand. one is the keystone pipeline. if we get the majority, we can

come close to getting the issue in the house and the senate. i think it makes sense. i think it should be coupled with the energy efficiency bill that's come to the floor and parts passed the house. it's one that we could pass with an overwhelming republican and democrat majority and i think this shows that, you know, we have a balanced and all the above energy approach. it won't cover everything. if it has to be done right after the election, which i think it should be. it will help to move forward. that's one. two would be to give the president what he's asked for with regard to negotiating on trade agreements. in my view, it will not be a new trade agreement negotiated whether it's the transpacific partnership or t-tip with europe or bilateral agreements if the president doesn't have the

authority to negotiate under trade promotion. again, we haven't had it seven years and suffered as a result. we are losing market share. it hurts american workers and american farmers, ranchers and service providers. it's an issue that does keep me up at night. i worry that we are falling behind. it's something we could do and do quickly. the president, in my view, would sign it. then third, i would say, this is a broader area, but specific measures that we have passed in the house, republicans have poszed in the house and the senate looked at on the regulatory front. one is a permitting bill that enables us to move forward. it's bipartisan. we have seven democrats on the bill that i introduced in the senate. the house passed several of these bills. common sense bills like ensuring independent agencies have to go through some sort of cost benefit analysis, which is not required now, as you know.

tightening up the analysis on the executive branch agencies. this is something the american economy would react to very favorably. i think you would see much or certainty. one of the things that has been evident in the polling is the sense of anxiety and uncertainty. the fourth thing is dealing with tax reform. i don't think the president's approach is going to help. he's talking putting a band aid on the issue to talk about so-called inversions. that doesn't deal with corporate takeovers, which is going to accelerate, in my view, if you hear what the president is talking about. the answer is to fix the code. if we don't, we'll continue to have american companies taking jobs and investment abroad and continue to see more and more companies taken over by foreign companies. again, it's outrageous to me that washington sits back and

criticizes while we refuse to act on what is such an obvious disadvantage for american workers, which is the tax code that is inefficient. we are only one of the developed countries in the world that hasn't reformed our tax bill since the 1980s, when ronald reagan changed the tax rate. we owe it to american workers to do this. i think we can. there's a consensus about lowering the rate and broadening the base. it won't be easy, but there's a consensus about that approach. the president said repeatedly, including in a white paper from treasury, do it in a basis. the republicans, i'm sure, would like to see tax cuts in this area. it would make us more competitive. revenue neutrality is a principle we can live with and we have an urgent need to address this to avoid more and more companies leaving our

shores and more and more companies taken over by foreign companies. they are things that could happen that would be great for the economy and allow us to move forward showing that washington can work. >> jeff? >> you said earlier you don't think this is a political issue, referring to the isis debate or the syria debate. do you believe republicans, incumbents and challengers should avoid this issue in campaigns? >> no, the issue, as i talked this morning about leadership is appropriate to talk ability. there's leadership. because of that vacuum that's been created, chaos has z ensued. that's obviously an issue that the appropriate to talk ability. i'm referring to specifically when the president lays out an approach to attack, in this case, the isis terrorists that

are providing an increased threat to our country, i think we ought to rally behind the president and we need to provide the means to execute what he talked about last night in terms of the military side of this and the training side of it. >> in terms of the means of that, do you think it should be a separate vote on authorizing the title x or are you okay if it's rolled in the cr? >> i would be okay if it's in the cr. with regard to title x, i believe having the military involved in training is the more effective way to proceed. i have believed that for some time. i was over there a year and a half ago or so and had the opportunity to speak to folks in jordan and in the region and my sense back then is there was an

opportunity with the free syrian army to engage in the kind of training that was necessary to ensure that whatever weapons we provided and help we provided was going to be properly used and we didn't do it. we made a mistake there. again, we are in worse shape today because of it. we are where we are. i said earlier, we need to act. although it's tardy, we need to act and act now. >> senator, looking at the home stretch of the senatorial elections, what are the known/unknowns that we all should be keeping an eye on. they could effect the election. >> oh, gosh. you would have a better sense of that than i would, probably. you sound like a good republican, i like that. i think the most important thing in elections is good candidates. i have always believed that. that's why for the first six months i had this job as chairman on the fund raising

side, i focused on recruiting and training candidates. i think we have done a good job with that. i think we have the best candidates that i have seen and i think that the lack of any big mistakes on the campaign trail is due to the fact that people have been focused on ensuring that we stay on the issues that people care about. this little plan you have before you is one i provide to every candidate, for instance. not that they all use it. focus on the economic and fiscal issues and how to get the economy moving. it's been the top issue and has been through the isis attacks and the back and forth on obamacare. the top issue has been and will be, in my view, how to create more opportunity and how to get at this sense of anxiety and how people feel about their kids and grand kids and where we are

going. that's why i suspect we are going to do well in the next 50 days. >> any factors you are watching? >> well, look, what happens in terms of the economy, i suppose is an x-factor. i think, unfortunately, it's unlikely to see the kind of significant improvements in the economy we would love to see over the short term. i would just say that the jobs numbers we just got, 142,000 jobs and unemployment rate down one tenth of one per cent because people left the work force. since the recession, 3 million jobs, full-time jobs created and 3 million full time jobs lost and 3 million part time jobs created. more and more part time work is a huge concern. the fact that when you look at these numbers of people who left

the work force all together, it's creating more and more dependency. these are -- these are the issue that is people are worried about. i don't think that the campaigns in every one of these states is, you know, going to be affected by what happens in the broader economy. i think much of it is locked in. >> ruth marcus? >> hi, senator. you said that the president would be smart to ask for additional authorization to proceed against isis. he said he's not going to ask. there doesn't seem to be a huge appetite among your colleagues to proceed on their own. is anything going to happen in terms of z authorization and if nothing happens, what do you think the consequences, legacy consequences are for the way our

system handles these issues? >> it's a good question. i think authorization to use military force, specifically on this issue of having u.s. military involved in training is appropriate and necessary. i don't think the president needs additional authority to do what he has done. we'll continue to do in iraq. i think it would be smart for him to come to congress with regard to the expanded efforts in syria. as you know, ruth, because you followed this for awhile, this is always a controversial and a gray area in terms of the war powers act and what it requires and then what the constitutional responsibilities are. i'm one, having worked on both sides of pennsylvania avenue believe the commander in chief role enables the president to react to imminent threat. i think the two issues you need to look at is how immediate the threat is and the isis threat is something he needed to respond

to without seeking authorization in iraq. then second is the scope. i think there was already in place enough of an authorization from previous actions in iraq that this was not significantly expanded. i'm fine with what he has done so far and continue to do that in iraq. if we go to syria, it would be smart to come to congress. >> since he's not, what's going to happen? >> congress should act on its own. >> do you see that happening? >> i do think it's possible it could happen next week. i don't think it will happen this week. next week it's possible. the house put off the continued resolutions to be able to consider this and address questions on this issue of authorizing our military to engage in training. >> how troubled will you be if there's not authorization? >> how troubled will i be? >> he's going to do what he's

going to do in syria. if he doesn't ask and congress doesn't act, how big of a problem is that from your point of view? >> i think it would be better if he did. i understand it's a gray area and the president has certain powers we should expect. when he's asking for a specific military involvement on training under the law that that's something congress should authorize. >> paul bernard? >> senator, you said it's unbelievable the president hasn't done something to help ukraine with arms or something. what would you do? can you see a republican senate acting on that. secondly, ed gillespie seems dead and he's losing by 22 points to warner. why do you throw that into the state's hopeful? >> with regard to ukraine, paul,

i am in disbelief that we are not doing more to help the people of ukraine. i don't get it. you know, i don't think america can be the world's policeman, but i think america thohas to p the sheriff's role. the posse is there. it's the nato allies. the countries of eastern europe who, like ukraine, are not part of nato, but allies and they are looking to us. the election i went to observe, i was one of two observers, was all about that. looking to the west rather than looking to russia economically and in a military alliance. they have stood with us and it seems to me we are not standing with them. specifically, they have asked for the ability to defend themselves. they are looking for antiaircraft and antitank weaponry. they are looking for more heavy weapons and communications

equipment, things as simple as bullet proof vests. we promise some of that and provide some of what we promised. we haven't provided the weapons they have asked for repeatedly. ronald reagan's famous peace principle continues to hold true. it's likely putin will not continue this aggression on the eastern border of ukraine as he did in crimea already. if he knows there's going to be reaction. i think he's probing. a lot of speeches and hot air from conferences in europe and presidential speeches means nothing to him. what would mean something is if we acted. i think we should be more aggressive in ukraine. i think we should move nato troops to the positions in poland, romania and elsewhere that has been requested.

move the forces closer to the border with russia. that shouldn't be viewed as a threat. it should be viewed as a safeguard. i like the idea of nato coming up with a rapid response force. that is something they are willing to do. they are talking 4,000 troops. i think it's too small. the russians have up to 30,000 troops. we need to stand-up and be counted, otherwise, i think you will continue to see this, again, unbelievable encroachment on a sovereign country's territory by russia. this is the first time since world war two we have seen this. they waltz in and take crimea and nobody talks about it. i have the senate on record about this. we ought to continue to push the administration to be more aggressive. again, it's not about creating a bigger conflict, it's reducing the possibility of a conflict that could spread to a global

conflict. by showing the russians this is unacceptable and the west will respond. i mentioned a vacuole of leadership earlier. this is a great example of it. in terms of these races around the country including virginia, as i said earlier, acknowledging plenty of these races where republicans are ahead now. i said earlier -- not ahead in virginia but they are in other races including the seven states i rattled off earlier. they are all going to be determined the next 50 days. i don't think there's anything, other than west virginia, south dakota and montana where i don't think there's anything set yet. it's still in flux. you know, the numbers will go up and down but i still think -- how much time is left, jennifer? how many days? >> 51.

>> 51. i said 50 earlier. i was off. i'm hoping it's as few days as possible. i em like 51. five hours, 15 minutes and ten seconds. that's a lifetime in politics. things could change. >> sam stein. >> what does a republican run senate do about obamacare? separately, but relatedly, how do you assess your home state's decision to expand medicaid at this juncture? >> i don't know what's going to happen specifically on votes on obamacare. i suspect we will vote to repeal early, put on record the fact we republicans think it was a bad policy. we think it's hurting constituents and think health care costs should go down, not up. people should be able to keep the insurance they had. the next drop is going to be employer coverage.

the president put that off unti until after the election in a political exercise, as i see it, but that's about 80% to 85% of us who get our health care through our employer who are now going to be affected. i support that. i support repeal. but i think we ought to also spend more time on the replacement side of that. the republican approach has never been just repeal. it's always been let's get rid of this, but let's replace it with something that does deal with a very real health care problem. and that's the increased cost and the lack of coverage. as you'll see in this 1-800-jobs -- this little plan, the first one we talk about is what to do on health care and lays out -- >> you're saying a republican majority would develop their own health care reform? >> i think we should. i think we should.

it's something that ought to go along with the repeal to say, yes, we think this is the wrong way to two, butty also thi we a that the health care system ought to be approved, particularly now that we see health care costs going higher than anyone projected including republicans, by the way. it's been worse than expected in terms of the cost increases. in my own state of ohio, double digit cost increases. this is a killer for families and small businesses, and we're looking at the possibility, again, as you broaden this mandate to include those of us who have employer-based coverage even more impact. so i'm hopeful that, as i said earlier, we can find some common ground on some issues. one i think is going to be some aspects of health care. yes, we're for repeal, yes, we're for replacing it all. but there are specific things that i think the senate and the house could act and the president would actually sign legislation. i think getting rid of the

medical device tax, which is a tax not on profits but on revenues is one where i think you could see certainly a 60-vote majority in the senate and maybe a two-thirds majority. it makes no sense. driving jobs off shore. my home state of ohio, we have a lot of medical supply companies. when you take it off of revenues, particularly for these smaller companies, it requires, you know, changing the expense side which means fewer jobs. and that's happening right now. so i think that's an area where i think you could see some consensus. one that i also thing was missed in the whole debate over obama care was dealing with frivolous lawsuits. i know there's some issue with regard to the federal role versus the state role, but this is one where there's a clear opportunity to reduce costs. the congressional budget office has laid it out for us repeatedly, just in terms of the federal programs, it's over $50 billion and much more than that

when you add the private sector. so there's some areas here even on health care where you can find some of the common ground we talked about. >> what about the medicaid expansion quickly in your state? >> this is a decision that our state made, the governor and legislature and we'll see what happens. my concern on it all along has been very simply that i think these important programs i mentioned earlier unsustainable programs on the entitlement side need to be addressed. vital program, but we have to come up with a way to pay for it. right now these programs, medica medicare, medicaid and social security are simply not sustainable in their current form. i am curious that some in the other party are talking about expanding these programs at a time when they're already looking at for those who are retiring today the very real possibility that most of these people, if we don't change the

law, would see their benefits sharply reduced, say in social security where in the 2024 timeframe there would have to be a roughly 24% cut in benefits without the law being changed. so this is within the lifetime of people who are retiring today. and yet we do seem incapable of dealing with the issue. and so i think we need to figure out a way to come up with entitlement reforms that make sense, that begin small changes now to be able to ensure that these programs will be there for future generations. >> we only have about 40 seconds left. we've got six people who want to ask questions. >> lightning round. >> instead i'm going to ask you one. you told "the washington post" that i'm not particularly eager to run myself for president, you said, having watched six campaigns. but you added if nobody's running is able to win and able to address these issues, then i might have a change of heart. you made a trip to new hampshire. did it change your heart?

>> well, my daughter goes to school up there, so part of my heart is in new hampshire, how about that? no, i still feel the same way. i'm focused, as you can tell, on 2014 and doing my job as a senator, and that's a full plate right now. but after the election, as i said in that story that somehow "the washington post" got out of me -- i don't know how -- yeah, i'll take a look at it after the election. >> thanks for doing this. you'll be mobbed on the way out by the six people who get get their questions in. and i apologize to them. coming up on the next "washington journal" michael barone of the national examiner discusses the development of the republican party over the past 100 years and how the split between the tea party and mainstream republicans will impact 2016. then former congressman and 9/11 commission co-chair lee hamilton talks about national security since 9/11 and the president's

strategy for dealing with isis. and later, a look at public policies that impact higher education. and the role of the big ten. our guest is sally mason, president of the university of iowa. "washington journal" is live every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. hi, we're excited to announce that it's launch week for the 11th annual student cam documentary contest. $100,000 in cash prizes will be awarded this year to middle and high school contest winners. this year's theme is the broadest ever. it's the three branches and you. we'd like you to tell a story that demonstrates how a policy, a law or an action by either the executive, legislative or judicial branches of the federal government has affected you and your life or your community. the competition is open to students in grades 6 through 12 and students may work alone or in groups of up to three.

contestants are asked to produce a five to seven-minute video documentary supporting their chosen topic. and to include some c-span programming. that $100,000 in cash prizes will go to 150 students and to 53 teachers and the grand prize winner with the best overall entry will win $5,000. the deadline for entries this year is january 20th, 2015 and winners will be announced in march. visit www.studentcam.org for more information on this year's contest, the three branches and you. and a discussion hosted by the u.s. energy association, columbia university professor klaus lackner talked about new technologies for reducing carbon emissions and removing carbon from the atmosphere. he's introduced by the senior director of the u.s. ea. this is two hours. >> my name is john hammond,

senior director of the u.s. image association and i'd like to welcome you all here for this presentation by klaus lackner. i'll give a short intro dungz and then turn it over to him. unfortunately, our screen was not working as you saw, but these two side screens have better clarity than the center screen does, so you'll get a better picture. klaus lackner is the ewing war saw professor of geophysics at the school of engineers and applied sciences and the director of the lenfest center for sustainable energy at the earth institute of columbia university of new york city. his research interests include closing the carbon cycle by capturing carbon dioxide from the air, carbon sequestration, carbon footprinting, geo engineering, innovative energy and infrastructure systems and their scaling properties, the role of automation, robotics and mass manufacturing in downscaling infrastructure systems and energy and environmental policy. klaus earned his ph.d. in theoretical particle physics

from heidelberg university. after a post at cal tech he joined los alamos in 1983. 1999 he became the national laboratory's acting director for strategic and supporting research and then in 2001 he moved to columbia university. he is the co-founder of the zero emission co-alliance, an industry group formed around an advanced coal fired power plant design that he co-invented. klaus was the lead author on the ipcc special report on carbon dioxide capture and storage and a member of the national science academy's committee on the future of coal. he holds numerous patents on air capture and energy technology and he will share that with us today. klaus? >> thank you very much for having me. it's a great honor to be here. and it's particularly nice to be able to speak a little longer than normally, and actually i

hope i can explain things in the time allotted. i'm sure we will have time for questions at the end. but i would very much encourage you to interrupt me. i don't mind quite the contrary, i think, discussions get more lively if you have an issue and we can settle it right here and now. and i do realize that the topic i'm talking about, air capture, is at some level controversial and, therefore, if you have issues, if you have questions, feel free to interrupt me and ask it right here and then, and i will do my best to answer it and sort things out as best as we can. so to begin with, i would like to just introduce the basic concepts and put air capture into a larger context because i think just talking about air capture doesn't really explain why one would want to do it and how it fits into the bigger picture. to begin with, i think i'm

talking here to the converted. i would like to point out that we really do need energy and we cannot solve our climate issues and other pollution issues which come from having energy by not having energy. we do need it for a variety of reasons. i would say we have planned it if we need food, we need fertilize for that, we need energy. we couldn't sustain the population we have without the process which affects nitrogen. if you want water there are unlimited supplies in the ocean if we could figure out how to desalinate and that takes energy and if you extract minerals from the ground, you again need energy. you came today mine coupled with a fraction of a unit because you have the energy to do so. in 1980 they were running out but they have 20% cup.

so we can do better by throwing more energy at the problem pb. if you want to clean up after yourself and the environmental issues you again will need energy to do that. because nearly every problem you had has created an entropy that you didn't want and you have to do that and that again will take energy. the challenges that in some ways the atmospheric level of co-2 and it has to be stabilized. it's not the emissions that need to be stabilized but the level. and fossil carbon is not running out. i don't want to get into a lengthy discussion about that now, but i'd be happy to engage you if i have questions on that. but start from the observation that we have been thinking about running out of petroleum and coal and gas since the early 1900s and we seem to find always more when things start to look a little short. and so i would argue we have certainly enough coal in the ground to wreak havoc on the planet, so we're not limited by

the availability of fossil carbon. in my view, if you want 10 million people get to a decent standard of living we need very, very large scale sources of energy. the three that come to mind is solar energy and maybe its derivatives can be thought of as well, wind is derived from solar energy in some ways, there's nuclear energy and there's fossil carbon and all three still have to get to the point where they really can support you. nuclear energy has its own problems, which is not the topic of today. solar energy still is trying to get competitive and it has a big intermittency issue which needs to be resolved. and fossil carbon while not immediately running out, it probably could last a couple hundred years, has a very severe problem with climate change and that will need to be addressed. so you have to figure out how to make it carbon neutral. as i said, i think the fundamental limit is the

environmental limit not the resource in the ground. and you see in this chart what might happen if you follow various trajectories. if follow the first one continued expo then shall growth, we would get off the chart and exceed before the century is out. we started at 280 parts per million at the beginning of the industrial revolution. and have now reached 400 parts per million. i took 2010 here as sort of a starting date to change things. hypothetically i hope emissions constant at 2010. you notice we still run up, not quite linearly but running it up in the atmosphere. holding emissions constant doesn't solve the problem if 450 parts per million is your

critical value, then you just delayed a little bit. you didn't solve the problem, you just pushed it out a little. if you go down to zero, then, of course, the co-2 very, very gradually goes away, but i would point out that even after 200 years, you are still at about half of what you started with ultimately if you were to two to 10% of current emissions, would actually at about 2200 start going up again. co-2 will never go below 360 parts per million in this model and then gradually work its way up because the ocean slows down in its uptake. i sort of marked in green the one-third of current emissions level as the one which doesn't solve the problem but kicks the problem down the road. all i would like to point out, though, is the per capita allowance in a world of 10 billion people wa that rate of emission is roughly 4% of the actual per capita emission in the u.s. today. so from a harmless engineer's perspective that means we have

to go to zero, right? sure, we will overlook a few things here and there and there are some emissions we didn't counter in and reaching 4% of where we are today we may as well set on our banner how to figure out, how to be carbon neutral, have no carbon dioxide emissions. that's what this tells me. and i think we have to have a different look at the carbon cycle and i think this skug has started at the ipcc lately. i think the concept of saying there's a lifetime for co-2 and it gradually goes away is actually highly misleading. there is not a single lifetime for co-2. the longer you wait the slower it is to get out of the system. so in the end it takes hundreds of thousands of years for the last 20, 25% to actually go away. so in a way there is no single lifetime, that co-2 is extremely persiste persistent. thermal effects of having had it linger even longer because there's a delay in warming up. so roughly speaking, the impact

of a giga ton of carbon dioxide emitted into the year is with us for another thousand year. you should think of the emissions of co-2 to the atmosphere as permanent. not all stays in the atmosphere but roughly half of it will be with us for hundreds and hundreds of years. so therefore, it's not about stabilizing emissions. it's about eliminating emission s and that's a rather different thing. people have brought up this bathtub analogy which is somewhat sort of ironic because the original version of this analogy was it's a bathtub. you keep filling it and the level will rise. but people are so trained to think in flow-through models that they immediately said but there's a drain in the bathtub and you can't match the drain. the message i want to point out here is yes, there is such a drain but the drain clogs up over time. the more you put in, the smaller the drain will get and we will not -- we will not drain out what we put in in a short time.

eventually even a small trickle will keep raising the co-2 level and we just have to come to grips with the fact that we should think of this as a stop versus a flow problem, but then that makes the calculus incredibly simple. you just need a conversion factor. since roughly half stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years you have this calculus that shows 1 in the atmosphere regards 4 giga tons of co-2. if you have that, you go up by 1 ppm. that will be with you for a very long time. you wanted to start at 500 ppm at the start you had 900 gigatons to play with, we put that first part out in the next century, the last slice in the last decade we're now working our way through the next few decades. if you hit the end of that, we are at 500 ppm. if you think that it's too much, how about the personal carbon

allowance to stop at 450 ppm? if you take 8 billion people as a rough number for the next 30 years on the planet, everybody gets 30 tons of carbon which translates into roughly the content of this big fuel tanker at some airport which has about 30 tons of fuel in the back. so next time you sit in an airport and see the plane you're on being filled, once you personally consumed one of these tankers, you have done to get to 450 ppm, from now on out you probably shouldn't consume any more co-2. produce any more co-2. that's your forever allotment, for you and your children. once it's spent we're at 450 ppm. i think you had a question about that? this is 30 ton of carbon, therefore this diesel truck

which is roughly 30 tons has roughly 30 tons of carbon in it. that literally sets the scale. and by the way, it will take the average person in the u.s. about six years to go through that. so that sets the scale if you take what i just said at face value, the conclusion is without capture and storage fossil fuels will have to be phased out. similarly you can argue that for every ton of fossil carbon coming out of the ground another ton of carbon will have to go back in in some form of another. you will have to return it again. and i would add to that one more step because ultimately the atmosphere does not relinquish the co-2 you put into it. so if you put it in, no matter where it came from, you have to get it back out. now if you run on bio fuels you did it automatically, if you

didn't run on biofuels it doesn't really matter if it was fossil or not. if you put it in the atmosphere you are responsible for taking it back out because otherwise it will accumulate or at least half of it will accumulate in the atmosphere. and there's an emergency in all of this if you want to stop at 450 ppm, that truck sort of made it clear. but let me do here a simple calculation. i'm assuming 3% growth plus 1% population growth. so you have roughly 4% rise in the world energy consumption or the world gdp, and now we have to get better every year in not emitting carbon. and you can simply ask if i get better by x percent every year then you'll calculate that we'll never spend more than a certain amount of carbon. you can ask how much do i have to improve every year to not go over 450? so this was done several years ago. it assumed that as the starting

point. if you wanted to stop at 450 ppm you would have to stop in about five years you are done. that is now history. but the point i really want to raise, if you stop at 750 ppm, you still would have to reduce carbon intensity every year by 4 1/2%. and that's a lot. so in a way, it's urgent if we want to stop at 450 ppm, by now we're talking like 8% or so because we didn't do anything for five years and i didn't account for that in this graph. so we need about an 8% annual reduction, which is far, far from what we really do. and but even if you talked about 800 ppm, 4% annual reduction is a big challenge. let's put up our sleeves right now. so the debate where we need to stop, in my view, is misguided. we need to figure out how to stop. and the faster we can stop, the lower the level we will end up

at. so this is where the discussion was fairly recently, and now the ipcc has said in its latest report no scenario -- any scenario -- let me put it this way. any scenario that actually stays out of harm seems to involve large periods of time with negative emissions. times where we managed to pull more carbon dioxide back than we emit. and that is basically an admission that this is a nearly permanent thing. and that if you want to balance the budget you have and you cannot stop fast enough, which seems to be challenging, you need to in the future have times where you are at negative emissions. otherwise, you will overshoot the 450. and presumably we are likely to do that, right? negative emissions require, in my view, first and foremost carbon storage, or to put it more bluntly, carbon disposal. if we cannot figure out how to

do that, we cannot solve this problem. the second part it will need is someway of getting the co-2 back now that it has been emitted, we have to pull it back. so either we have bio mass or chemical ways of pulling co-2 either out of the atmosphere or maybe out of the ocean, but we have to get that carbon back somehow or another. that technology needs to be solved. and i will argue that you cannot quite do this with biomass because the scope to which you have to go is simply going to be too large. it does work beautifully with by o mass but not on the scale we need. and the storage capacity you need is potentially very large. and i would argue that if you pull back co-2, the ocean will also give it back because the equilibrium will come back. it may be a little bit of an exaggeration, but if you put 4 giga trons out of carbon and you get a 1% rise of ppm, you will

roughly get four giga tons back, not 2 because the ocean is now out of equilibrium the other way and the co-2 will come back at you as you put it out. roughly speaking if you want to pull back 100 ppm, you are talking about 1500 gigatons of co-2. this is more than we emitted in the 20th century. for that reason alone i'm convinced that in all likelihood we'll carbon storage and we have no choice, because we're solving problems that we are about to create and cannot help ourselves creating because we have enough momentum that we'll overshoot. i can give you several scenarios. a simple one is we go to 450 and we find it simply unbearable. jim hanson is saying that and he said we should go back to 350, that's a 100 ppm drop. another option is we overshot to 550, which is not all that implausible and we decided we

need to come back to 450. of course there's the possibility that we come from 550 pack to 350 in which case it's 200 ppm. i would argue if you tell me you want to pull back 10 ppm, i say why bother? if you are talking if it gets serious, we are talking about many tens or hundred or maybe several hundred ppm. but if we do that, we are having a carbon sequestration problem as big as if we had sequestered all of last century if not bigger. that's the challenge we have. therefore i think it's very likely that we'll end up with this technology whether we like it or not. but you also in my view, it's not an if, it's a when. about ccs. but that would allow you to come back. so you could imagine a scenario like this hand drawn red line i overlaid on that computer model i put in before. and that, by the way, would be

about -- it would be about 100 ppm. we withdraw. in my view you end up needing technologies to solve the problem. you need to advance carbon management. you clearly need to close the carbon cycle. you may not close it by shrinking it. you may say carbon comes out of the ground, carbon goes back or carbon cycles very fast between fuel and co-2 or you may decide that you abandon carbon and have other forms of energy. that's certainly an option. but i think we're nevertheless committed to 1500 giga tons of carbon storage because we delayed and we dawdled and we waited too long and now it's hitting us. i think you need to go beyond conventional solutions. i think doing the retrofits will not solve the problem. you need more than one storage option. we find a mistake in that one, we're really in trouble. we need more than energy

alternatives. we need more energy alternatives and we also need more than just energy efficiency. energy efficiency will help, but it will not get us to zero. it certainly will not get us negative. and we need to operate at a formidable scale. 100 ppm reduction is more than 20th century emission as i pointed out and 1500 giga tons is one thn oird of the mass of water in lake michigan. that sets the scale of what we are talking about and you end up having to build a large industry in a 30-year time window. that's sort of the challenge ahead of you. as i started to think about this over the years and some of you, i'm sure, have seen this graph before, you really need three technologist. you need the ability to store the carbon dioxide in some form, somewhere. you need to deal with the big concentrated sources which are roughly half of the problem. and you will need, particularly for the negative emissions, the

ability to pull co-2 back out of the air by some means or another. and i will talk about one of those in a minute. power plant capture i would really stress is not enough. power plants produce roughly 30% of the emissions and successful scrubbing will reduce the emissions by 70%, but we reducing 30% by 70% does not give you 100% reduction no matter how you do it. point sources even if i take all point sources only cover roughly half of all emissions and negative emissions clearly require a new approach. all the co-2 i can capture in a power plant is the co-2 that would otherwise have gone in the air. i cannot reduce it in the air by scrubbing the power plant unless it's burning biomass. so i also argued by o mass capture is not enough. i gave you a very simple argument which convinced me early on that that likely was

right. agriculture feeds us. we consume hundred watt of metabolic energy which we get from food. as an energy supplier, the agriculture feeds us hundred watts. the energy systems we have to give us industrial industry feed us 10,000 watts. so you are now asking the 1% player to step in and pinch hit for the 99% player. and i think in the end, you have a horrible collision between food supply, energy demand and environmental footprint because, let me tell you, if you more than double the agricultural land which this would imply, you end up really having to do this with a heavy environmental footprint. because and you are still competing with more meat for people in china and that will be very, very difficult. and if you wanted to get the co-2 back, you clearly have to

operate at the human energy scale because we are putting out 30 giga tons of co-2 a year and you want 1500 giga tns back in less than a century so you're talking about very comparable number. growing the bio side that large is highly unlikely. so we need to look for other options. and that brings me to the concept of air capture. what intrigued me about it early on after i convinced myself that it seems feasible is they literally separate the sources from the six. and the air mixes so fast and so well across the planet that you can collect anywhere. you could imagine having in australia a collector and take credit for co-2 emissions right here in washington. that's just a matter of paying for it. and the reason for that is within the latitude the air mixes around the globe in about a few weeks. in a hemisphere within six

months, between the hemispheres in about two years. that's pretty easily seen because at the south pole, the co-2 concentration lags the northern hemisphere by about two years and most of that co-2 that shows up came from the northern hemisphere. so the typical mixing times are that long. since we're not worried about co-2 e kurgss on a yearly basis you can collect it anywhere are and make things work out. in particular, you don't even have to match the times all that accurately. so you could say we can go after emissions which happened 30 years ago, right? nothing prevents you from doing that. and that then is at the esebs of negative emissions. it provides you options. one option air capture provides and therefore the environmentalists are unhappy with me, is it maintains access to fossil fuels. if you have the ability to pull co-2 out of the atmosphere and found a place to store that

co-2, you can keep using fossil fuels. so they say this is an excuse and you shouldn't do that. in that sense, though, air capture is part of ccs. it is one of the capture options in that it was unusual in that it went after a low concentration source. white to focus on mobile and dispersed sources. you can't scrub your car, it's not that i couldn't figure out how to scrub the exhaust air pipe of the car i end up with 20 pounds of co-2 in the car for every gallon of gas i used. i have six or seven big gas bottles in the trunk of my car by the time i get back to a gas station to get rid of it. so it's impractical to hold that co-2 on a vehicle. it is impossible on a ship and it's absolutely impossible on an airplane. it cannot carry that weight even if you figured out how to scrub it out, which in a jet engine is impossible. so the bottom line is the

transportation sector would need it. so it's complementing the power source capture it's not displacing it. you could use air capture with nonfossil energy. there's nothing wrong about having liquid fuels in the transportation sector in making them from co-2 and water with electric energy as the input. in that case you close the carbon cycle with synthetic fuel and that requires very cheap nonfossil energy. i doubt we have it right now but we might get it particularly in europe if people push very hard. there will be days where electricity from vent is extremely cheap and you can turn that back into fuel. so air capture could become a storage option for intermittent electricity by holding that energy in liquid fuel when you have too much. ultimately you can draw down the co-2 in the atmosphere. if you are really big enough to deal with the entire transportation sector, and you now scale up by another order of

magnitude you actually draw the co-2 down from the atmosphere and you can get there, but you can't really get there until you stopped emitting. otherwise you are not really negative. you are just book by bookkeeping you can say one particular player is negative but you are really only negative after you stopped everything else. and i do want to stress -- because this is the other part where people -- environmentalists are upset with air capture. this is not an excuse to procrastinate. it may be taken as such, but i would argue we are too late for that. and i think that's what the ipcc said, we have procrastinated and we're now stuck with the consequences and part of that consequence is we will have to do air capture. so in the end i'm talking about a technological fix and there's a paper by dan serovitz about three rules for technological

fixes apply to air capture. i thought that was a very nice paper in "nature" a few years back and makes my point more eloquently than i can make it. they said there's three rules. the first rule of any technological fix it must embody the cost relationship. that's obvious, right? you emit co-2, you take it back. so clearly you have the right relationship and you can cut through all the complications. you don't need to know what precisely happened and why it happened and what the co-2 would do if you left it alone. all you do is put out a ton, you got back a ton. similarly, you can assess whether you did what you were supposed to do. you can measure how many tons you collected and you can actually see the effect on the atmosphere. so if somebody's cheating and pretending, then the co-2 goes up and it shouldn't have. and if you pay attention how many tons have actually been collected it's all very straightforward. and he says ultimately it has to

be feasible. and they say we don't understand why nobody spends even the little money it takes to demonstrate it because it does look to them like it is feasible. but that, of course, isn't the eye of the beholder. there have been plenty of critics who say it's utterly impossible and therefore i should spend some of the time i have allotted here to argue why i think it's possible and why the critics have overstated their point. so the concern of the critics is this is all fine and good, but if you can't do it or it costs a thousand dollars a ton of co-2, why bother? you can't make it work any how. so as i look at it, there are two fundamental problems with getting co-2 from the air. the first one everybody hit meese over the head with is it's dilute. it's only 400 parts per million. so it's hard to get out. one part in 2500. sort of struggled with far more

than the first problem, is the air is full of water. and before you know it, you are having a great water collector which collects water to the tune of $30 a ton or $30 a cubic meter had in mind. that's a very expensive proposition. 10 to 100!nç times more water t co-2 in the air. mosts things that bind co-2 wil also bind water. this is actually an important issue to address and come to grips with. the other point is -- and i probably started this when i got early on excited about it. a little bit like flue gas scrubbing. you have to be careful on these technologies and let me be on the other side of the fence and say it's very different than flue gas scrubbing and just extrapolates flue gas scrubbing to this point is not a good idea. there was an aps study, if i

summarize it, too difficult, too costly, not practical and their cost estimate is $600 per ton. is was asked what i think about it, hence the picture, and whether i have a rebuttal to their too expensive argument. very hard to rebut because when i analyze the same process, i came to the conclusion it's a thousand dollars per ton. a little bit like some fluid dine am ma cysts getting together and carefully discussing the aerodynamics of a penguin and concluding it cannot fly. what am i about to say about it, it can fly? no, it cannot. but the logical jump is from going to a process that doesn't work all that well which was designed to see whether we can collaborate together with the simple extrapolation of current technology is too expensive. well the answer is yes, it is. right? and that doesn't rule out that there are other processes which are not too expensive. so you cannot conclude from the fact that penguins cannot fly that flying is impossible or that birds cannot fly.

some birds apparently cannot. right? the dilution is too extreme, separation technology cannot be extrapolated and they say and by the way, the law of efficiency deteriorates. this is due to a famous chemical that the cost of separation is linear and the concentration are co i'll come back to this point in a moment. just don't try to extrapolate. it doesn't work all that well. you have to really áfrethink th need çnonconventional solution from the start. we're sort of as a matter of analogy say airplanes got invented by people who built bicycles. and that's not an accident. because if you had let the locomotive engineers on it they would say we can never lightweight it enough and landing on a track is incredibly hard. right? so you need to start from first

principles if you want to do things. and going from standard separation technologies to air capture does not work. you have to rethink it. all right? and the inspiration ultimately comes from nature. and i can't resist this airplane analogy. back then people were very happy to tell you that heavier than air flight isn't feasible but all they needed to do was look out of the woind and see a bird. now they tell me capturing co-2 from the atmosphere is impossible, but i think that's what that tree outside is actually doing. right? so you have to do it differently. there's no question about it. but there is an example out there in nature which managed to solve this problem. and so we need to figure out how because they are not -- nature is not impervious to the loss of nature and it will abide by it. the argument that we cannot make it within the laws of nature is probably wrong. but let me summarize up the challenges before i give you the solution. we have to move huge pamts of

air cheaper. we need to see a lot of air before we've seen enough co-2. make good contact at low pressure drops. we cannot pay for driving the air through a filter, a packed bed as you would do in standard separation. it would ruin our economy. avoid water capture as i mentioned before. if we capture water rather than co-2, we're in trouble. and we need to avoid all emissions of something being trained. we can't mess up the air flow coming out. after all we tried to clean it up, not make it dirty. we need to avoid expensive energy. you can easily spend too much on energy if you're not careful. in the longer term you need to bootstrap this from small applications to get to full scale and take advantage of it. these are the challenges. what got me intrigued very early on was these oaks. there's an artist's rendering how a big air capture device as big as a big windmill might

look. i was interested in what does the windmill actually do. it collects kinetic energy from air and every cubic meter delivers about 20 joules of energy. the co-2 combustion equivalent in air is 10,000 joules. if you had to take all the co-2 out of a cubic meter o air and you have to put it back because i burned a thimble of gasoline, how much energy did i get from doing that? 10,000 joules. the wind mill avoids 20 million co-2 emissions. and the air capture device allows some diesel engine to put out 10,000 joules of primary energy. so in a way, the air capture device goes after something which is 500 times as concentrated in the air as kinetic energy. yet we have no trouble building wind mills.

so the fact that it is doable came out of this observation. because the collector of co-2 is equivalent to its carbon footprint or its negative carbon footprint to the carbon avoidance of a wind mill which is several hundred times as big. right? that was what got me started. the observation from this is the first step in the process, just contacting the air may not be easy, but it's not so hard that we don't do it. we do it in a wind mill. and we do it there with much less value coming out. by the way, if they too would cost the same per square meter of frontal area and they would be equally efficient and the wind mill costs 5 cents per kilowatt, mine would cost 50 cents per ton. my conclusion is not that it would cost 50 cents per on the but my conclusion is this first step isn't going to kill me. what's going to get me is the second step now that i've absorbed