The IPCC report is expected to mention a number of approaches that range from planting more trees, to direct air capture of CO2, to bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). The latter involves growing large amounts of plants that capture CO2, and then burning them for energy while capturing and storing the gas that is emitted.
Probably a silly question, but wouldn't it be better just to store the plants and not burn them ?
The IPCC report will also mention the use of machines that capture CO2 directly from the air. A number of companies around the world have developed this type of technology - with some success. Earlier this year, Canadian company Carbon Engineering published a peer-reviewed research paper showing that CO2 can be captured from the air for less than $100 per tonne. The company has now raised over $11m to expand its existing pilot and design its first commercial plant.
But some environmentalists see great danger in all these ideas of negative emissions. They believe they are mythical solutions that allow people to keep on using coal, oil and gas. "There are some countries whose economies are based on fossil fuels who are not ready to face the reality yet, and they will want to continue digging and selling those fossil fuels for quite some time," one seasoned climate expert told BBC News. "I suppose they're presuming that in the future some unicorns will pop up and suck the extra carbon from the atmosphere!"
But that's not a sensible argument at all. We've already altered the climate, therefore the logical response is become carbon negative. We must also account for risk compensation : people tend to use more energy as efficiency gets higher, because they use more devices. But the basic problem of having too much CO2 in the atmosphere can only be solved by taking some of that CO2 out.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45742191
A friend of mine is an environmental scientist and we were talking about this exact thing last night. Storing raw plant material isn't great because it will degrade quickly to give off various gases (often methane, which is super shitty). Burning them is not only getting us some carbon neutral electricity, but the char left over is a much more stable form of carbon and can be either buried deep for long-term capture, or just ploughed into the soil for shorter term (decades not centuries) - which has the advantage of improving the soil for the next crop. Meaning fewer fertilisers, and fertiliser production is a big carbon producer. CO2 capture from the gasses released is not quite mature tech yet but it is getting there.
ReplyDeleteBECCS is a pretty good thing, overall.
As an aside, the reason this conversation happened was because my friend is presenting to DEFRA today to explain why the UK can't claim the North/Irish seas as a carbon sink. The cold northern oceans are carbon sinks, but they're natural not man-made so we can't get credit for them. If the UK gov had managed to claim they were - which they do want to - places like Guyana would owe us carbon credits because they have deep water (ie, carbon positive) upswells on their coasts. Which is obviously stupid. But I'm sure they'll try it anyway.
Mat Brown And yet you will find politicians forbidding wood burning in the name of climate change.
ReplyDelete> places like Guyana would owe us carbon credits because they have deep water (ie, carbon positive) upswells on their coasts. Which is obviously stupid.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it obviously stupid? If the point of carbon credits is to properly account for the local stewardship of carbon emissions; everything should be accounted for.
Elie Thorne - that's often due to particulate and other local pollution, to be fair. DEFRA are about to tighten their rules on home wood burners and I'm perfectly OK with that. Especially because mine is already compliant with the new regs.
ReplyDeleteChris Greene - it's obviously stupid because Guyana's human carbon emissions are a fraction of ours, yet if we counted the oceanic carbon flux that happens by pure chance off their coast rather than ours - they'd be in carbon debt to the UK. Humans can't affect oceanic gas exchange*, so it's not like they can do anything about those emissions any more than we can claim credit for the sink in the North Sea. Accounting for human carbon emissions is good. Trying to claim nature's emissions (or sinks) as part of that accounting is unhelpful.
* at least not directly and locally, on a long term global scale there is some evidence we are changing the ocean currents, which changes the system. But that's because of the wider problem we're trying to solve.
Life is a great preservative. Live new growth forests should be excellent carbon sinks.
ReplyDelete