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A detailed study by MIT has found the health cost savings of some climate change mitigation policies, such as cap-and-trade, greatly out-weigh the cost of the policy's implementation. Will this new research influence leaders at this months' UN Climate Summit?

An exhaustive global study has found that climate change is set to drive up energy demand significantly by 2050, suggesting policymakers and the energy industry need to take action now to prevent a surge in energy related costs over the next few decades.

Growing concerns over climate change and energy security have kicked research on alternative energy sources into high gear. The list of options continues to expand, yet few papers have comprehensively reviewed them. And fewer still have weighed the pros and cons in as much depth as a new study published earlier this month in the journal, Energy & Environmental Science. The results are a mixed bag of logical conclusions and startling wake-up calls. The review pits twelve combinations of electric power generation and vehicular motivation against each other. It is a battle royal of nine electric power sources, three vehicle technologies, and two liquid fuel sources. It rates each combination based on eleven categories. And it was all compiled by one man, Mark Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University.

Gasification is a centuries-old thermochemical energy conversion technology that has slowly achieved modernity over the decades. The technology is undergoing its third evolutionary surge. Fuel shortages in WWII spurred widespread adoption for vehicle fuels. The oil crisis 1973 spurred a re-evaluation and renewed development. Rising oil prices, globally increasing fuel demand, and overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change have spurred this last leg to full industrialization.