CadeJohnson

The prospects for seaweed to be a key CDR method are still largely unknown. More investigation!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1451658

A new IIASA-led study explored fairness and feasibility in deep mitigation pathways with novel carbon dioxide removal, taking into account institutional capacity to implement mitigation measures.

Meeting the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement will require ambitious climate action this decade. Difficult questions remain as to how warming can be limited within technical realities while respecting the common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities of nations on the way to a sustainable future. Meeting this challenge requires substantial emissions reductions to reach net-zero emissions globally.

Among the new options being studied in scientific literature, engineered Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) like Direct Air Capture of CO2 with Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS), is a potentially promising technology to help bridge this gap. DACCS captures carbon by passing ambient air over chemical solvents, which can be considered a form of CDR if the captured carbon is stored permanently underground. But whether these novel technologies can help make ambitious goals more attainable, or whether they can help reach them more equitably remains an open question.

In their study published in Environmental Research Letters, an interdisciplinary research group led by IIASA scientists developed new scenarios exploring fairness and feasibility in deep mitigation pathways, including novel CDR technologies. For the first time, the team implemented DACCS in a well-established integrated assessment model called MESSAGEix-GLOBIOM, and studied how this technology could impact global mitigation pathways under different scenarios of environmental policy effectiveness based on country-level governance indicators.

"In current policy debates, concerns about the political feasibility and fairness of the current generation of climate mitigation scenarios are raised, and DACCS is often proposed as a possible solution. In our study we quantified under what conditions and how DACCS might address those concerns," explains Elina Brutschin, a study coauthor and researcher in the Transformative Institutional and Social Solutions Research Group of the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program.

The researchers emphasize that the goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C does not change when considering novel forms of CDR. For a broader perspective on pathways to limit warming, the research team investigated how novel CDR interacts under different assumptions of technoeconomic progress and the evolution of regional institutional capacity. The researchers highlight the risks of dependency on unproven carbon removal while also discussing the role novel CDR and similar technologies could play in the future for developing countries.

The results indicate that novel CDR can keep pre-Paris climate targets within reach when accounting for such risks, but that increasing institutional capacity beyond historical trends is necessary for limiting warming to the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C goal, even with novel CDR processes. The study also suggests that substantially improving institutional capacity to implement environmental policies, regulations, and legislation is critical to keep warming below 2°C if new forms of CDR fail to emerge in the near future.

The authors further point out that, when accounting for the possible future evolution of novel CDR technologies combined with inherent risks, the 'fairness' of overall outcomes did not meaningfully improve. DACCS did not impact near-term required global mitigation ambition, and additional carbon removal in developed economies accounted for only a small component of the mitigation necessary to achieve stringent climate targets. This is because the removal of carbon dioxide in these areas does not compensate sufficiently for their historical emissions by mid-century.

The inability of DACCS to enhance the fairness of outcomes, like cumulative carbon emissions, in 1.5°C scenarios, emphasizes the notion that meeting global climate targets is a global effort requiring an 'all-of-the-above' mitigation strategy. There is no room for flexibility when it comes to reaching climate goals.

The results, however, show that engineered removals can play a role in making the post-peak temperature stabilization (or decline) phase more equitable. This means that the full timeframe under which accounting takes place is critical for exploring fair outcomes that are agreeable by most Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

"Our results show that new technologies for removing carbon from the atmosphere can play a role in ambitious climate policy, but they won't be a silver bullet for solving the climate crisis. Developed countries especially need to cut emissions by more than half this decade, primarily by reducing existing sources of emissions while scaling up CDR technologies to be in line with the Paris Agreement," says study lead author Matthew Gidden, a researcher in the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program.

The researchers emphasize that there is a clear need for the modeling community to assess the role of novel CDR in a structured way to better understand robust outcomes and insights versus observations related to a given model framework or approach. Looking forward, these issues can be explicitly included in scenario design to arrive at more equitable outcomes while incorporating political realities of the capabilities of governments and institutions to enact strong climate policy.

Some years ago, I was doing a little volunteer work with Climate Foundation, and I loved their long-term vision. It was based on these facts: 1) giant kelp is fast-growing brown algae that thrives in cold, nutrient-rich water. It is among the fastest-growing plants in the world 2) kelp thrives when there is abundant sunlight - clear water is much better for kelp than turbid water 3) cold, nutrient-rich seawater is present in oceans worldwide, but in the tropics, for example, it is present only below a depth of about 300 meters 4) kelp needs an anchor-point - it attaches and grows long fronds - it does not grow free-floating.

So the CF vision was to eventually build large kelp farm support arrays at a depth of 30 meters - suspended from buoys at the surface. Cold water would be drawn up from deeper ocean to create a suitable habitat for the kelp at the surface. But ships could still pass right over the platforms, if they could avoid the support buoys. These floating arrays would have the potential to support a vast new fishery in the tropics where pelagic fish are relative scarce in natural conditions. The fast growing kelp would absorb a large amount of carbon dioxide, and kelp fronds that sink in the deep ocean carry their carbon to the abyss where it is fixed for practical purposes for centuries, at least. Finally, vast kelp forests could support a range of industries; tourism certainly, but also a variety of chemical and food products that can be derived directly from kelp or with some added processing.

I've been interested in physics since I was a kid, and read many books on the topic. The thought experiments of Einstein that led to his theories of relativity were some of the earliest topics I encountered. If you have not read of that, do so . . . I will wait.

So we come to the EPR paradox. The new field of quantum mechanics in the 1920s presented this conundrum - that particles could have entangled properties but that those properties would not become determined until a measurement event, at least according to Bohr. But upon one measurement, both particles states would be determined even if they were separated, and this determination would be instantaneous - faster than light.

The EPR paradox received further attention in the 1950s and led to the Bell's Inequalities - describing the paradox in some detail. Bell proposed solutions to the paradox which are each a bitter pill in their own way. Some have received greater press, but there is nothing yet known to choose among them. Two that are most conspicuous are 1) a multiverse - all the outcomes exist in separate parallel universes, and 2) hard determinism - the paradox arises from quantum mechanics being predictive, but spacetime is complete and only one outcome actually exists - always has and always will.

The more I have thought on these options, the less possibility I can grasp for matters spiritual. The multiverse scenario seems ridiculously uneconomical to my admittedly-Calvinist upbringing, but if all outcomes exist, what judgement can there be for how a person lives (i.e. we live in ALL the ways we can). The hard determinism scenario is crystalline. We do not actually have any free will whatsoever - not even the free will to take advantage of being completely inculpable for our actions.

I think there may be a more mystical way of thinking of hard determinism though - a koan, if you will. We are agents of causality within a complete four-dimensional spacetime. We bring the crystalline structure of the universe into existence by virtue of our own existence in some way.

I like birdwatching, but I am not a guru on this topic - only creating this community as a gathering place until the serious folks find it (or start a community elsewhere). I am on the watch for them, and today I found @birds@moresci.sale instead - which looks like a good user-to-follow for anyone here (it is a bot).

CDR approaches that rely on creating biomass remain viable for now. Increasing mature forests, increasing agricultural land's carbon content through improved farming techniques and biochar addition, increasing protection and expanding coastal wetlands, and storing biomass to reduce decomposition - these are all good biomass alternatives we should evaluate.

I'm running a community at https://slrpnk.net/c/cdr but not sure how discoverable it is right now. Some of you might find it interesting (if anyone joins, and I actually start posting regular content).

male (yellowish beneath) and females (greenish beneath) eating berries of a euphorbia colonizing a dead tree. Photo link from iNaturalist.org

Chlorophonia musica ssp. musica Dominican Republic

American Kestrel

Falco sparverius

Altamira, Dominican Republic

Oct. 2018

One of the ways people try to frame the challenge of climate change mitigation is "natural" solutions vs. "technological" solutions. We all have this intuitive sense that nature operates in a kind of balance - and if we have inadvertently or knowingly upset that balance; maybe it will be like a porch swing - continue to sway for a while but gradually return to equilibrium.

And that is true in some sense. There is a vast amount of carbon in circulation on this planet - far more than the fossil-fuel-derived bit humanity has added. It has been in a somewhat steady equilibrium that drifts around over periods of tens- to hundreds-of-thousands of years. If we "walk away" then equilibrium will return over the next millenium or two. But the great species diversity we have now will be gone; some new species will no doubt arise if we REALLY walk away. The biosphere will adapt.

But if we want to retain what we have, the natural systems need help. Whether it is growing giant kelp in the tropics, grinding mountains to dust to accelerate rock weathering, erect great machines to clean the air, transforming our agriculture to sustainability, restoring and expanding the worlds forests, or most likely ALL of these and more - they will be human technologies; applications of science and engineering to transform the local environment and our own capabilities. So there is really no nature vs. technology issue - everything we do to restore the climate is rebalancing nature, and all of it will require us to use technology.

I was looking back at reddit posts (while deleting them), and I realized I'd written a book worth of stuff about this topic. I would write it all again, if it is helpful. But for a brief synopsis of "how it works", here is what one does:

Assess power needs - look at your living standard and catalog all the devices you power, and estimate the time they operate - power is measured in watts, and time in hours. Multiply to get watt-hours; then divide by 1000 to get kilowatt hours. Compare with your utility bill.