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The Dangers Of Negative Emissions Technologies | Earth Wise

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Reducing carbon emissions is not easy and there are plenty of people who don’t even want to try for various reasons, generally related to their perceived economic interests and convenience.  As a result, there is a great deal of interest in so-called negative emissions technologies or NETs.   These are methods for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  Even the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assumes that NETs will play a role in mitigating the effects of climate change and meeting international goals.

The most widely studied approaches to negative emissions technology are bioenergy with carbon capture and storage – which entails growing crops for fuel, and then capturing and burying the CO2 produced from burning the fuel; planting more forests; and direct air capture, which involves actually pulling CO2 out of the air and storing it – probably underground. 

A new study published in Nature Climate Change points out that none of these technologies has even been tried at the demonstration scale, much less at the massive levels required to make a dent in current CO2 emissions. 

Their analysis of the biofuel and reforestation strategies show that each would take up vast land and water resources already needed for agriculture and nature.  Air capture uses less water than the other two approaches, but still uses quite a bit and even more energy, which if supplied by fossil fuels, would offset the benefits of carbon capture.

Negative emissions technologies may well play an important role in combating climate change, but it is essential that we understand what the consequences will be from implementing them.  We need to know the pitfalls that could arise.  It would be a major mistake to simply count on NETs to be some kind of silver bullet.

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Remove CO2 from the air? Don’t bet on it before examining costs, researchers say

Photo, posted January 11, 2008, courtesy of Al Pavangkanan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Danger Of Relying On Future Technology | Earth Wise

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The need to mitigate the effects of climate change has been a global focus for about 40 years and has seen ever-changing views on what actions are needed.  The historical record has been defined by over-reliance on promises of new technology to solve climate change.  Looking to future technology to save the environment has been an excuse to postpone necessary action and avoid inconvenient changes in how we do things.

A study at Lancaster University in the UK published in Nature Climate Change exposes how such promises have raised expectations of more effective policy options becoming available in the future and have enabled the continued politics of inadequate action and skirting around the truth.

Even after four decades, rather than acting forcefully to reduce emissions, we are hoping that nuclear fusion power, giant carbon sucking machines, ice-restoration using vast numbers of wind-powered pumps, and spraying particulates into the atmosphere can address the climate crisis rather than dramatic changes in fossil fuel use.

The researchers mapped the history of climate targets in five phases.  Early on, the focus was on improved energy efficiency, large-scale enhancement of carbon sinks, and nuclear power.  Next, the focus was on cutting emissions with efficiency, fuel switching, and carbon capture and storage.  After that, bioenergy was the major focus.  Then, global carbon budgeting and potential negative emission technologies.  Currently, the focus is on temperature outcomes rather than emission targets.

Each novel promise competes with existing ideas and downplays any sense of urgency.   The researchers conclude that putting our hopes on yet more new technologies is unwise.  The time to act is now.

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Why relying on new technology won’t save the planet

Photo, posted February 13, 2019, courtesy of Jonathan Cutrer via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Turning CO2 Into Rock

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As the world continues to struggle to find ways to reduce carbon emissions, there is increasing attention being paid to so-called negative emission technologies (NET), which remove and permanently sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The University of Victoria in British Columbia has brought together an international team of experts to explore the possibilities of permanently and safely sequestering CO2 as rock beneath the ocean floor.  The Solid Carbon Project seeks to extract carbon dioxide directly from the air and then, using deep-ocean technology powered by offshore solar and wind energy, inject it into sub-seafloor basalt, where it would mineralize into solid carbonate rock.

When CO2 is injected into porous basalt, a type of volcanic rock, it reacts relatively quickly with minerals to form solid carbonate, thereby permanently removing it from the atmosphere.  Because 90% of the planet’s basalt is located beneath the ocean floor, the deep ocean is the place to do this kind of carbon sequestration.

The team includes experts in ocean science, carbon mineralization, renewable energy, engineering design, and oil-and-gas drilling/injection operations. Other experts are focusing on the social and legal implications of the NET technology.

Over the next four years, the Solid Carbon Project will assess the integration of multiple existing technologies that will be needed to successfully develop this kind of carbon storage.  One of these is the direct air capture technology itself, which will need to be adapted to a renewable energy-powered offshore platform.  The best outcome technologies explored by the project will be selected for a real-world demonstration at Ocean Networks Canada’s observatory site, 9,000 feet underwater in the Cascadia Basin, off the coast of British Columbia.

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A rock-solid solution for CO2

Photo courtesy of the University of Victoria.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Can We Remove Enough CO2 From The Air?

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As atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to set new records and the effects of climate change grow stronger, humanity has continued to procrastinate on reducing emissions.  As a result, it is increasingly clear that any strategy to avoid runaway climate change will have to involve the use of “negative emissions”- techniques or technologies that actually remove CO2 from the air.

There are both low-tech and high-tech methods for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and both are likely to be needed. 

On the low-tech side, afforestation (planting trees where there were none before), reforestation, changes in forest management, rebuilding the carbon backbone in agricultural soils, and the use of energy from waste biomass are all ways to take carbon out of the atmosphere.

On the high-tech side, direct air capture technologies that take CO2 out of the air and store it in the ground are making rapid progress.   Right now, they are still very expensive,but that is changing.  There is an analogy to wind and solar technology. Not very long ago, both of those technologies were quite expensive but now their costs have plummeted to the point where they are often the cheapest way to make electricity.  With sufficient development effort and deployment, direct air capture technology could become quite affordable.

Some people advocate geoengineering as a solution for climate change.  While removing carbon dioxide amounts to tackling the root cause of the warming climate,geoengineering would address the problem by changing the climate again in some other way.  It is at best an extremely dangerous approach.

Removing CO2 using a combination of natural and man-made techniques is an important part of mitigating the effects of climate change.

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Climate Solutions: Is It Feasible to Remove Enough CO2 from the Air?

Photo courtesy of Climeworks. 

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Capturing CO2 From The Air

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It is increasingly clear that the rate at which carbon dioxide emissions are being reduced is not sufficient to prevent dire consequences of climate change.  It appears that it will be necessary to try to actually remove carbon dioxide from the air.  Such actions are termed “negative emissions.”

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Pulling Carbon Out Of The Air

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The world is increasingly united in the desire to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere.  There is much emphasis on reducing and someday eliminating our use of fossil fuels, which is the main culprit in the situation we find ourselves in today.  More and more we are embracing the use of renewable energy sources to produce electricity and we are starting to slowly move away from internal combustion engines to power our cars.

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