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Carbon Capture: Solution Or Band-Aid? | Earth Wise

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The idea of capturing the CO2 emissions from industry and locking them up is nothing new.  It’s been going on for decades in some places.  Norway’s state-owned oil company Equinor has been holing away a million tons of CO2 a year for a long time.  But overall, CCS – carbon capture and storage – has had very limited use.  As of last year, there were only about 30 large-scale projects in operation around the world, capturing only 0.1% of global emissions.

There is now growing interest in CCS and many new projects are underway.  A combination of rising carbon prices in Europe, tax breaks for CCS in the US, national net-zero targets, and the increasing need to ramp down global emissions are all driving rising CCS activities. 

While recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change still claim that it is possible to remain below 2 degrees Celsius of warming without using carbon capture, there is growing belief that it may be necessary given the present pace of the transition away from fossil fuels.

Two industries that together produce about 14% of global CO2 emissions are cement and steel.  These are both industries for which it is difficult to eliminate emissions regardless of the energy sources used. CCS may be the best approach to reducing their emissions.

But there is considerable pushback against CCS.  The concern is that CCS is primarily a way to delay decarbonization.  It encourages various industries to continue to use fossil fuels instead of shifting away from them.  Nonetheless, CCS no doubt has its place as part of the solution to climate change.

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Solution or Band-Aid? Carbon Capture Projects Are Moving Ahead

Photo, posted June 5, 2022, courtesy of Mark Dixon via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Protecting Nature Is Valuable | Earth Wise

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A study by the University of Vermont, the University of Cambridge, and several other institutions compared the value of protecting nature at particular locations with that of exploiting it.   The study concluded that the economic benefits of conserving or restoring natural sites outweigh the profit potential of converting them for intensive human use.

The study analyzed dozens of sites across the globe – from Kenya to Fiji and China to the UK across six continents.  It was published in the journal Nature Sustainability.

The analysis utilized a methodology devised ten years ago called TESSA (the Toolkit for Ecosystem Service Site-based Assessment) which enables users to measure, and in many cases, assign monetary values to services provided by sites – clean water, nature-based recreation, crop pollination, and so on.  This is then compared with the economic benefits that can be derived by converting the site for farming, logging, or other human uses.

A major economic benefit of natural sites comes from their ability to sequester carbon and thereby help regulate the quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  If one assigns a value to global society of $31 a ton of carbon removed, over 70% of the sites surveyed had a greater value to society when kept natural rather than being converted.  Many scientists actually consider this carbon price to be conservative.  Nevertheless, if carbon is assigned the paltry cost of $5 a ton, 60% of the sites are still more valuable in their natural state.

Beyond these economic calculations, there is the pressing issue that current rates of habitat conversion are driving a species extinction crisis unprecedented in human history.  But even if one is only interested in dollars and cents, conserving and restoring nature is now very often the best bet for human prosperity.

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Economic Benefits of Protecting Nature Exceed Value of Exploiting it, Global Study Finds

Photo, posted June 7, 2017, courtesy of Mouli Choudari via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Restoring Tropical Forests | Earth Wise

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Tropical forests store more than half of the world’s above-ground carbon.  For this reason, deforestation is one of the greatest threats to global climate regulation.   Once forests are degraded through partial clearing and agricultural conversion, they are often perceived as no longer having much ecological value even though degraded forests still provide important ecosystem services despite no longer storing as much carbon.

As a result, once forests have been degraded, they tend to be seen as prime candidates for full conversion to agricultural plantations.   But this is not actually the case.

An international team of scientists, including researchers from Arizona State University’s Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science, has provided the first long-term comparison of above-ground carbon recovery rates between naturally regenerating and actively restored forests in Southeast Asia.

First of all, the research shows that allowing forests to regenerate naturally results in significant amounts of restored above-ground carbon storage.  It is definitely worthwhile to allow forests to recover rather than giving up on them and putting the land to other uses.

But more importantly, the researchers found that forest areas that undergo active restoration recover their carbon-storing ability 50% faster than naturally recovering forests.

Restoration methods include planting native tree species and thinning vegetation around saplings to improve their chances of survival.   

These findings suggest that restoring tropical forests is a viable and highly scalable solution to regaining lost carbon stocks on land.  What is needed is sufficient incentive to engage in active forest restoration.  The current price of carbon is not sufficient to pay for restoration, but as the climate crisis intensifies, this is likely to change.

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Tempe to Hawaii: ASU professors teach Hawaiian youth about coral reef conservation

Photo, posted May 22, 2008, courtesy of Eric Chan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

WAMC Northeast Public Radio

WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is a regional public radio network serving parts of seven northeastern states (more...)