Road to Removal: A blueprint for yanking billions of tons of CO2 out of our atmosphere
- Reference: 1704638114
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/01/07/road_to_removal_climate/
- Source link:
In this perfect world, you and your political gros fromages are also firmly committed to "decarbonization" — that is, reducing the amount of greenhouse gasses produced by energy, transportation, industry, agriculture, and other critical economic sectors.
Good for you. But there's one big ol' problem. As Jennifer Pett-Ridge of the US's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ( [1]LLNL ) explained during her presentation at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco (covered previously [2]here and [3]here ):
We can decarbonize and decarbonize and decarbonize, and we're still not going to be be able to do enough.
As a hirsute hippie lounging in [4]AGU23 's host city might have said during 1967's [5]Summer of Love , "Bummer, man."
But it's true. Any sober analysis of how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to reach the stated goal of a mere 1.5°C of global warming by 2050 acknowledges that decarbonization alone will not be sufficient to reach and then sustain that benchmark. What's needed beyond mere decarbonization is a concerted effort to suck CO 2 out of the sky in a process called "carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration" ( [6]CCUS ).
[7]
The amount of CO 2 needed to be removed from the atmosphere is not trivial. In 2021 the US Department of Energy launched its [8]Carbon Negative Shot , part of its set of [9]Energy Earthshots initiatives, which established a goal of identifying and scaling technologies that could remove at least a billion metric tons of CO 2 from the atmosphere per year at an average cost of under $100 per metric ton removed.
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To be sure, one billion metric tons is a lot of CO 2 , but it's only a small fraction of the [12]36.8 billion metric tons that we earthlings pumped into the atmosphere last year. But it's important to note that even if we, as Pett-Ridge said, "decarbonize and decarbonize and decarbonize," we'll never get that annual emissions figure down to zero, seeing as how there are some industries — think air travel and agriculture, for example — that will be fiendishly difficult if not impossible to fully decarbonize.
So even after decades of radical decarbonization, we're still going to have to deal with at least that minimum of one billion metric tons per year of CO 2 that we will need to slurp from the troposphere. What to do?
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Well, the other week, Pett-Ridge and her team, centered at LLNL but drawing from expertise across the US, released a thorough study of how we might accomplish that in America, in [14]a report titled, "Roads to Removal," which explores in hundreds of pages of excruciating detail a county-by county analysis of American opportunities — a "smörgåsbord of options," as she put it — for removing CO 2 from the atmosphere. We're talking over 3,000 American counties. We're talking one serious smörgåsbord.
The [15]downloadable tome focuses on four main classes of techniques to suck current and future carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and how well-suited each US county is suited to accomplish them:
Increasing forests and improving forest-management practices
Improving soil management on croplands
Capturing CO 2 in biomass, then converting it into new products or permanently sequestering it
Capturing CO 2 directly from the air using "direct air capture" hardware powered by renewable energy
According to Pett-Ridge, the first two of those methods, what she calls "ecological solutions," could remove 100 million metric tons of CO 2 today — if employed. But the remaining 900 million tons? She admits that to get rid of them will require substantial investments in the development of direct air capture and biomass conversion technologies, which, she freely admits, "… is going to take a massive amount of financial investment."
Of those two technologies in need of investment, Pett-Ridge was particularly bullish about biomass carbon removal and storage, or BiCRS, which is pronounced like one's petty arguments with one's significant other. "We have a lot of waste," she said. "We have a lot of biomass that's just pure municipal solid waste, agricultural residues, that we burn, that we let decompose. We could do useful things with that material." What contribution to the 900 million missing metric tons could BiCRS contribute? Pett-Ridge estimates up to a full 800 million metric tons, "But obviously we'd need to build facilities to process that biomass and capture carbon while doing so," she admitted.
[16]The alternative to stopping climate change is untested carbon capture tech
[17]Greenpeace calls out tech giants for carbon footprint fumble
[18]Fusion won't avert need for climate change 'sacrifice', says nuclear energy expert
[19]Climate change prevention plans 'way off track', says UN
The LLNL group estimates that the ongoing cost of all four classes of techniques when up and running would be somewhere in the range of $130 billion per year beginning in 2050. That may sound like a lot — well, it is a lot — but Pett-Ridge reminded her audience that it's about one half of one per cent of America's current Gross Domestic Product (GDP). "We think it's on the order of what we spend on food waste and trucking garbage around," she said.
In addition to the techniques meticulously detailed in Roads to Removal, the team also noted that there are also what Pett-Ridge described as "roads not traveled" — decarbonization technologies and techniques that include enhanced weathering of silicate rocks, peatland and coastal wetland restoration, enhancing ocean alkalinity, and "fertilizing" the ocean with iron, nitrogen, and phosphorus. As is likely true with each and every scientific study you may have encountered, one conclusion is: "Much more research needs to be done."
There's no getting around the fact that a trip down the Road to Removal will be an expensive one. But with the rapid increase in costly droughts and wildfires, plus the increasing billions of dollars lost annually due to extreme weather events that robust attribution science proves are exacerbated by global warming, perhaps it's a journey we can't afford not to take. ®
Get our [20]Tech Resources
[1] https://climate.llnl.gov
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/30/solar_radiation_management/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/16/fossil_fuels_wildfires/
[4] https://www.agu.org/fall-meeting
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2007/may/27/escape
[6] https://www.aiche.org/ccusnetwork/what-ccus
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZZrYtk-sXZ8HhC9tuKDYHQAAAZI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.energy.gov/fecm/carbon-negative-shot
[9] https://www.energy.gov/energy-earthshots-initiative
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZZrYtk-sXZ8HhC9tuKDYHQAAAZI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZZrYtk-sXZ8HhC9tuKDYHQAAAZI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.iea.org/news/global-co2-emissions-rose-less-than-initially-feared-in-2022-as-clean-energy-growth-offset-much-of-the-impact-of-greater-coal-and-oil-use#
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZZrYtk-sXZ8HhC9tuKDYHQAAAZI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://roads2removal.org
[15] https://roads2removal.org/resources/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/27/climate_change_carbon_capture/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/23/greenpeace_manufacturer_emissions/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/31/fusion_no_answer_to_climate/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/14/climate_change_prevention_plans_way/
[20] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Rik, you're just trolling us now
If trees can do CCS as a side-effect of living, you'd think humanity could match or improve on it when we put our collective heads together. Plants, for example, need water and are vulnerable to pests. If we can do solar-powered CCS without water, then we do it in the desert.
Tried & tested
I'll go for the method that's been tested for millions of years: trees.
Has the additional advantage of improving the microclimate in urban areas.
A return to the days when a (native red) squirrel could travel from London to Nottingham without touching the ground.
Do need to choose the species carefully- the changing climate means many native species are struggling.
Restoring peat bogs is a good idea too.
Re: Tried & tested
You'll need a lot of them:
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-many-new-trees-would-we-need-offset-our-carbon-emissions
Done that.
I am doing #1 & #2 and if they cut me some slack on taxes, I could do much more. So could you.
If we had a world wide reduction in government by say 30% and prevented inflation by removing their ability to print money, we would could redirect those energies and prosperity into actually solving the problem without destroying our way of life.
That recommendation will never be taken seriously as it will rely on them stepping aside and having faith that the people can do something by themselves.
Con
This carbon footprint thing is a con trick invented by oil companies and then once bedded inside gullible brains, all sort of scam artists joined the carbon bandwagon.
Pay more money and we will change the weather for you, by a couple of degrees, pinky promise!
Natural CO2
There are of the order of a million million tons of CO2 in the atmosphere. Sounds a lot, but is trivial by planetary standards. Natural events have in the past meant that sometimes there is a lot more, sometimes a lot less. The first major failing of this article is that it fails to discuss those natural processes.
The second major failing of this article is that it fails to discuss the oceans. There is a thousand times as much CO2 in the oceans, dissolved or as carbonates, than there is in the atmosphere. If we did somehow withdraw 1.0E9 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, .99E9 tons would be released from the oceans to restore equilibrium.
What are those 'natural processes' I mentioned? I suggest emission from the junctions of tectonic plates, as CO2 is expelled from subducted carbonate rocks. Expelled into the ocean, where we do not directly see it, but still dwarfing any man-made emissions.
It is time to stop the hot air about CO2, and to start preparing ourselves for an inevitable further rise in sea level to a geological long term normality.
Belief in a Higher Power or Doctrine : In the context of climate change, the 'doctrine' is the scientific consensus on climate change. Some argue that this is used to push certain policies or actions without room for dissent or alternative viewpoints. $cience is settled.
Rituals and Ceremonies : Actions like recycling, reducing carbon footprints, or participating in climate marches could be seen as rituals. Critics argue these actions are more symbolic than effective, serving to reinforce group identity rather than significantly impacting climate change.
Concept of Sacrifice : Economic sacrifices, such as higher taxes or costs for green technologies, are often proposed in climate policies. Skeptics might view these as unnecessary burdens that disproportionately affect certain groups (the poor), while benefiting others financially (the rich).
The Notion of Destiny or Preordained Events : Predictions of catastrophic climate events can be seen as preordained scenarios. When these predictions do not materialise as expected, some argue it's framed as a result of not taking enough action, rather than questioning the accuracy of the predictions.
Isolation : There's a perception that individuals or groups who question the mainstream narrative on climate change are often ostracised or labelled as denialists, creating a social divide.
Charismatic Leadership : Public figures and activists who champion climate change initiatives can be seen as charismatic leaders. Critics might argue that these leaders sometimes oversimplify complex issues or push agendas that benefit certain groups (the rich).
End-of-the-World Scenarios : Dire predictions about the future due to climate change (like rising sea levels, extreme weather events) can be paralleled to apocalyptic scenarios in cults. Sceptics argue that these scenarios are used to create urgency and fear to push for specific actions or policies.
Strict Codes of Conduct : Lifestyle changes advocated for reducing carbon footprints – such as limiting air travel, adopting vegan diets, or using renewable energy – can be seen as strict codes of conduct. Critics suggest these are often impractical or costly, with questionable impact on a global scale.
Us vs. Them Mentality : The climate change debate sometimes creates a polarized environment where those who are sceptical of certain aspects of climate change science or policy are seen as against the environment or irresponsible.
Promise of Salvation or Enlightenment : The notion that following certain climate policies will 'save the planet' or create a sustainable future can be likened to promises of salvation.
Heretic!
Rik, you're just trolling us now
Yes, forests are great CO2 sinks.. So we should start by removing subsidies from Drax.. Replace it with a nuke plant. Or failing that even going back to burning coal would be better than what it is doing now.
CCS is a road to nowhere, but it has lots of dosh on offer for snake-oil sakesmen.