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The Oil & Gas Industry’s Role in CCS and CDR: International Energy Agency Conclusions

Authored by Wil Burns, Co-Director, Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy, American University

As part of its World Energy Outlook Special Report Series, the International Energy Agency (IEA) last week released a report that focuses on what the Agency believes the fossil fuel industry should do “to align with the Paris Agreement and with the 1.5°C goal.” Pertinent to the Institute’s work, the report includes a section (2.3.1) discussing the potential role of carbon capture and storage (CCS) within the fossil fuel sector, as well as direct air capture (DAC). While CCS is not squarely in the purview of the Institute’s work, it plays an integral role in one carbon dioxide removal approach, bioenergy and carbon capture with storage (BECCS), and the technology’s deployment will contribute to the development of conveyance and storage infrastructure relevant to the development of the direct air capture (DAC) sector.

The report contends that neither CCS or DAC can be viewed by the industry as mechanisms to “retain the status quo.” Under a business-as-usual scenario, the study concludes that oil and natural gas consumption would require an “inconceivable” 32 billion tons of CCS/DAC, including 23 billion tons of DAC to be Paris-compliant. Moreover, the study projected that this would require 26,000 terawatts of electricity generation in 2050, which would be greater than electricity demand in 2022, and $3.5 trillion in annual investments through mid-century, commensurate with the fossil fuel industry’s annual average revenue in recent years.

However, the report also emphasizes the important role that the fossil fuel industry can play in achieving Paris Agreement objectives through responsible deployment and investment in these approaches. The IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2023 study outlines a number of scenarios that reflect future potential global conditions. These include the Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS), premised on current climate policy, and commitments, the Announced Pledges Scenarios (APS), premised on the assumption that governments meet all national energy and climate targets made to date, and the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 (NZE) Scenario, which limits warming to 1.5°C.

In the APS, carbon dioxide capture grows from 45 Mt CO2 in 2022 to 440 Mt CO2 in 2030, with early action through large-scale deployment of CCS in the fossil fuel sector providing the foundation for subsequent use in other sectors where abatement is critical after 2030. This is projected to result in the global capture of 3.5 GtCO2 by 2050.

The NZE scenario requires much more aggressive carbon capture to contribute to the goal of holding temperatures to 1.5°C: 1 GtCO2 by 2030, and 6 GtCO2 by 2050, half of which is from DAC and heavy industry. This requires a whopping $500 billion of investment just through 2030. The study concludes that this daunting task requires the fossil fuel industry to go beyond conceiving carbon capture as a “social license to operate,” focusing merely on reducing Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions from the sector. Rather, the IEA argues that the fossil fuel sector could use its “sizeable balance sheets” to leverage a competitive advantage across the broader energy economy, helping further the industry’s diversification strategies while facilitating requisite levels of CCS and CDR.

Section 2.3.1 of the report also includes an extensive analysis of the specific role of, and limitations to, deployment of DAC. On the one hand, the IEA emphasizes that countries with low-cost energy resources and ample CO2 carbon capacity could reap $60-150 billion per year if certificates for DAC sequestration are traded between $100-250 per ton/CO2. However, the study concludes that the cost of deployment, energy constraints, competition for DAC CO2 from synthetic fuel production, and constraints on annual CO2 storage capacity will limit DAC deployment. It projects that under the NZE scenario, atmospheric removal of CO2 will reach 1.7 Gt/yr. by 2050, with one-third of this achieved by DAC. The study finds this will require about $70 billion in annual investment for DAC in 2050 and approximately 500 TWh of annual electricity generation in 2050.

As is often the case with IEA reports, this one is short on specific policy prescriptions to drive the kind of investment by the fossil fuel industry that is contemplated in the study. While the study discusses some specific roles that governments are, and can, play in incentivizing CCS/CDR, it is by no means clear these will be sufficient to substantially move the needle. The suboptimal levels of investment of the fossil fuel industry to date in these technologies, given the sector’s massive contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, suggests that it may not fulfill the role contemplated by the IEA without far most aggressive demand-pull mechanisms, such as a carbon take back obligation. Hopefully, the IEA’s future reports on this sector will consider a wider array of policy options to foster a more responsible role by the fossil fuel industry.

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CO2 Pipelines: Navigating the Complexities and Nuances Through Expert Opinions

Authored by Jenn Brown

Prepared for the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy

The term “pipeline” tends to evoke strong reactions throughout many communities across the U.S. for various reasons. Many of these reactions are negative, and these feelings are not without merit. This concern around pipelines also expands beyond U.S. impacts as well, as the expansion of many pipelines is concomitant with the perpetuation of the fossil fuel industry.

In the United States, there are 2.8 million miles of regulated pipelines that carry oil, refined products, and natural gas liquids. These massive pipeline infrastructures have posed significant threats and damages to communities and environments throughout the country, and some of this can be attributed to aging infrastructure. For example, according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, from 2001 to 2020, there have been 5,750 significant pipeline incidents onshore and offshore, resulting in over $10.7 billion worth of damages.[1]

This brings us to the issue at hand: how do pipelines that transport CO2 for both carbon dioxide removal and carbon capture utilization and storage fit into this picture?

It has become increasingly clear in recent years that carbon dioxide removal (CDR) will become a necessity for the global community to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The recent IPCC AR6 Working Group I report released in August of 2021 reiterates this point. Even with the most optimistic modeling used in the report, limiting warming to 1.5˚C necessitates about 5 billion tons of carbon dioxide removal per year by mid-century and 17 billion by 2100. Some approaches to CDR might involve transporting CO2 via pipelines, but there are also many other approaches that do not necessitate the need for pipelines, such as enhanced weathering, agroforestry, and blue carbon.

One method of carbon removal that has received a fair amount of attention is direct air capture (DAC) in part due to the recently launched Orca facility in Iceland by Swiss company Climeworks. Furthermore, the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed in 2021 includes $3.5 billion allocated to the construction of four “regional direct air capture hubs” and additional funding for CO2 pipelines.  This effort is made with high hopes from the federal government that these hubs will result in the creation of clean energy jobs.

The carbon removed with DAC can be injected into the ground right at the plant where the carbon removal takes place, as long as the facility is located over appropriate geological formations. This is an idea known as colocation, which prevents the need for transporting CO2 altogether. But DAC could also possibly, to some degree, come to rely on the utilization of pipelines to transport the captured CO2  to sites where it can be injected into geological storage areas, or to facilities where it can be transformed into long-lasting carbontech products such as concrete.

These developments conjure an important question: are all pipelines created equal? Furthermore, does a CO2 pipeline intended for combating climate change warrant the same concern as oil and gas pipelines? Are pipelines needed to scale DAC or can CO2 storage happen onsite at a DAC plant?

As a starting point to help navigate this thorny and complex question, we turned to the expertise of three professionals working actively on these exact issues. Through these discussions, we sought out perspectives from the “yes,” “no,” and “maybe” stances on if the scaling of DAC depends on CO2 pipelines. As these viewpoints highlight, there is a range of perspectives when it comes to if the growth of DAC is reliant on CO2 pipelines or not.

The Experts

Xan Fishman, who is representing the “yes” perspective, is currently the Director of Energy Policy and Carbon Management at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Fishman previously worked for Congressman John Delaney as Chief of Staff. Through this experience, he became interested in DAC as a way of simultaneously addressing climate change and investing in various communities to create jobs, particularly in the Midwest.

Celina Scott-Buechler, who represents the “no” perspective, is a Climate Innovation Fellow at Data for Progress. Scott-Buechler’s work with the organization is on looking at how large-scale carbon removal can work in tandem with decarbonization in the U.S. Her work is also focused on promoting job creation and working alongside the environmental justice community to ensure these efforts do not fall into the traps of past infrastructure projects that did not have community support. She also served in the office of Senator Cory Booker through a one-year fellowship term working on natural climate solutions.

Rory Jacobson, who represents the “maybe” perspective, is Deputy Director of Policy at Carbon180, a D.C.-based NGO focused exclusively on carbon removal federal policy. Jacobson has spent the majority of his career focused on CDR, most recently at Natural Resources Defense Council researching near-term federal policies to incentivize deployment. As a graduate student at Yale, he advised Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry on myriad climate and energy issues.

What differentiates a CO2 pipeline from other types of pipelines?

Fishman points to the fact that much of the opposition to existing pipelines, particularly oil and gas, derives from the risk of spills and the implications that has for communities and the environment. Additionally, this perception is influenced by what the pipeline is transporting, which in the case of oil and gas is related directly to climate change via the resulting emissions that will cause further harm to communities and the larger environment. On the other hand, CO2  pipelines are part of the climate solution. Although careful consideration should be taken when siting pipelines, implementing safety precautions and regulations, CO2 pipelines are generally safe and do not carry hazardous waste, according to Fishman.

Scott-Buechler feels that how the public views these issues matters, and that pipelines, in general, have had very negative image “in particular because of the way these pipelines have been sited through indigenous lands without consultation, though environmental justice communities and other rural communities without consent, minimal consent, or at least with minimal information.” Due to this, combined with other prominent issues for many groups, especially within the environmental justice community, the idea of a pipeline is a nonstarter because of all the baggage it carries.

Jacobson points to the more technical aspects on top of important questions around equity and justice. “From an infrastructure and engineering perspective they (CO2 pipelines)are actually quite different from oil and gas pipelines, and this difference is quite important because we actually do not transport CO2  as a gas. We transport it as a supercritical fluid which means that the carbon dioxide is under such high pressures that it actually behaves like a liquid.” CO2 needs to be transported at 700 PSI higher than, for example, natural gas, meaning the pipeline walls have to be thicker than other types of pipelines. This also indicates that the repurposing of decommissioned oil and gas pipelines, although in some cases could be considered ideal, is not a feasible option. Even in instances in which engineering is perfectly compliant with regulation, past missteps nonetheless highlight the inadequacy of federal review for existing pipelines, and the need for greater oversight.

Are CO2 Pipelines Necessary for Scaling Direct Air Capture?

“The way that I think about direct air capture is that it is nascent. But to go from where we are right now to the scale we need to be a major factor in achieving net-zero, there is a long way to go…In general, the faster we are able to deploy, the faster we will be able to scale,” says Fishman. Additionally, he makes the point that in order to meet 2050 climate goals, it is more beneficial to begin scaling now versus 5-10 years from now. He also points to the fact that there are already 5,000 miles of CO2  pipelines currently in existence in the US. The 2020 Princeton University report Net-Zero America: Potential Pathways, Infrastructure, and Impacts has indicated significantly more pipeline infrastructure will be needed to achieve climate goals.[2] Furthermore, storage requires investment. Currently, DAC facilities are not yet at scale to bring in massive amounts of carbon dioxide and will probably not be for some time. Therefore, there is likely not enough  CO2 being brought in by DAC technologies as of yet to warrant large investments into storage. However, there are many existing industrial sites utilizing carbon capture utilization and storage, and connecting those sites to existing sinks for sequestration requires pipelines. Sharing lines of transportation across sectors increases the likelihood that each of those industries will be able to get off the ground without having to build something from scratch. Fisherman argues that this makes economic sense and will assist in the overall success of DAC in the long run.

Scott-Buechler argues that more information is needed around how to make pipelines safer and better regulated, especially including community input. Furthermore, pipelines are likely to be a huge sticking point within many communities, therefore she predicts potential 5-10 year delays in CO2 pipeline rollout given the problematic history of other types of pipelines in the US. In looking at it through this lens, co-locations with DAC facilities will be key to deploying the technology (which is injecting CO2 captured from a DAC facility right where the DAC plant is located, such as the Orca plant in Iceland). She further points to the fact that there are enough opportunities for co-location and many other ways for the industry to consider storage in more creative terms. Therefore, Scott-Buechler makes the case that it is feasible to severely limit the number of pipelines needed to scale DAC.

Jacobson argues for the creation of a comprehensive task force responsible for building out both the geography and the safety standards required to ensure best practices. This entity would consider everything from pipelines to siting to public engagement, including designating appropriate locations for these pipelines with rich public engagement and consent, examining the construction, quality, and surrounding ecosystem of pipelines, and setting safety parameters for operation. Thoughtful planning of pipeline networks can help both limit the number of pipelines and the distances to which they transport CO2 from DAC projects. This is especially relevant in light of increased funding for carbon removal that we’re seeing in upcoming legislation and federal funding. In implementing projects such as the four regional DAC hubs included in the recent bipartisan infrastructure deal, federal agencies like the DOE can set the tone for future deployment, safeguards, and community engagement.

What are the factors behind these viewpoints?

Fishman takes into consideration the threat of climate change and looking at the IPCC’s recommendation for the removal of 5-10 gigatons of CO2 per year. “It’s not just about getting to net-zero, it’s about getting to net negative,” he says. There is also the possibility the global community will achieve collective climate goals later than needed, which will further increase the need for removals. In terms of looking at CO2  pipelines, he points out that other modes of transporting CO2  as an alternative come with their own set of complications, such as additional emissions. “The stakes are so high that not investing in a solution that it turns out we need, and it is fairly obvious as a potential path right now, I think would be a terrible mistake…There is an extent to which we built our way into this problem (climate change), and the real solution available to us is to build our way out of it,” he says. But the key is ensuring these solutions are built the right way,  while also taking into consideration any environmental justice concerns.

Scott-Buechler has worked closely with environmental justice groups for quite some time, both on and off Capitol Hill, and has come to view issues around carbon removal through that lens. She indicates that potential leakage is a large factor behind the mistrust, and sees pipelines as a nonstarter with these groups. She points to Standing Rock, stating “pipelines at large have developed this larger than life personality when talking about carbon removal infrastructure…generally siting and permitting will be something that we as a carbon removal community will contend with.” She also points to the DAC hubs laid out within the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, arguing that these hubs need to prioritize development in communities, led by those communities and other public groups rather than private industry, especially in communities transitioning away from economic reliance on fossil fuel industries. Further, researchers and policy communities should focus funds in these areas to fill existing gaps in information.

Jacobson explains that equitable construction, development, and input are critical to communities that would potentially host these projects, and that thoughtful quantitative analysis can better articulate the need for if and how much DAC needs CO2 pipeline infrastructure. Other types of pipelines have resulted in infringement on tribal sovereignty and other disasters, and Jacobson says that resistance to pipelines comes for a good reason. “These groups have already bared the environmental injustice that the oil industry and natural gas sector have placed on them, and accordingly, we would like to not have another pipeline of risk in their community and backyard. That is completely understandable.” He makes the case that strong federal regulation paired with public engagement and science-based communication with the communities is the only path forward. Additionally, Rory acknowledged that there is likely to be a lot of resistance from wealthy and privileged communities not wanting to see these pipelines in their backyard, and likely have more resources than lower-income communities to push back — something that should also be considered and remedied in policy and process.

 

[1] Depending on the type of pipeline, what it is transferring, what it is made of, and where it runs, there are various federal or state agencies that have jurisdiction over its regulatory affairs. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission oversees Interstate pipelines. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration oversees, develops, and enforces regulations to ensure the safe and environmentally sound pipeline transportation system. The United States Army Corps of Engineers oversees pipelines constructed through navigable bodies of water, including wetlands. State environmental regulatory agencies are also involved when it comes to pipelines that run through waterways.

[2] 21,000 to 25,000 km interstate CO2 trunk pipeline network and 85,000 km of spur pipelines delivering CO2 to trunk lines.

 

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Why Orca matters: long-term climate policy and Climeworks’ new direct air capture facility in Iceland

Authored by David Morrow & Michael Thompson

Prepared for the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy

Earlier this week, the Swiss company Climeworks fired up its new Orca direct air capture facility in Iceland, which will remove 4,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year and turn it into stone.

Obviously, 4,000 metric tons is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to today’s emissions. Each year, Orca will clean up about three seconds’ worth of global CO2 emissions at today’s rates.

But that’s not the point. Orca is a baby step toward a larger carbon removal industry that could one day clean up emissions from the hardest-to-abate sectors or, even better, start cleaning up “legacy carbon” that remains in the atmosphere from our past emissions. Without baby steps like Orca, though, we would never get there. In that respect, Orca is a bit like the tiny, 3.5 kilowatt solar power station that NASA’s Lewis Research Center installed on the Papago Indian Reservation in 1978; it’s only the beginning. Global solar power capacity now stands at more than 200 million times the capacity of that little installation. While direct air capture isn’t likely to grow at such a pace, the point is that we shouldn’t judge the potential of an industry by its output in its earliest days.

One reason that direct air capture won’t grow at the same pace as solar power is because solar panels provide energy, whereas direct air capture consumes it. So, at least for the next couple of decades, it will almost always make more sense, from the perspective of climate change mitigation  and energy justice, to spend money on installing more clean energy and replacing old fossil fuel infrastructure than on building more direct air capture facilities. The reason to spend some money on direct air capture now, though, is to help the technology grow so that once we’ve drastically reduced our emissions, we can use direct air capture and other approaches to carbon removal to get to net-zero and maybe even net-negative emissions. By analogy, four decades ago, the reason to spend money on solar panels was not because they offered a cost-effective way of reducing emissions or supplying energy, but because those investments helped the technology grow. If everyone had dismissed solar at the time as too small and too expensive, we wouldn’t have the solar industry that we do today.

At any rate, one of the compelling things about Orca is that it’s running on renewable geothermal energy that was basically stranded in Iceland. Because Iceland already runs almost entirely on renewables, the clean energy that Orca uses couldn’t easily have been used to displace dirty energy instead. (Arguably, one could have instead built a facility to produce green hydrogen to ship to Europe or North America, but again, the point of Orca isn’t to reduce emissions today but to help build a technology that will be useful in the future. Besides, there’s plenty of renewable energy to go around in Iceland, so why not both? Build a hydrogen plant there, too!)

Another compelling thing about Orca is that it sits atop the perfect geology for mineralizing CO2. Orca can inject its captured CO2 directly into basalt, where it will turn to stone in a matter of years. 

The combination of abundant, stranded clean energy and good geology for sequestration makes Iceland an ideal place to build early direct air capture facilities—which raises an interesting question: where else in the world can we find that combination?

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United Airlines is Investing in Direct Air Capture, What Does That Mean?

Authored by Simon Nicholson, Wil Burns, & David Morrow

Prepared for the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy

 

United Airlines announced on December 10 plans for a multimillion-dollar investment in a Direct Air Capture (DAC) plant. The investment is part of United’s plans to become carbon-neutral by 2050.

In this blog post we look at what United is proposing and how to make sense of it.

Bottom line: This kind of investment in early-stage investigation into and development of DAC is immensely positive and should be encouraged, particularly in light of United being a prominent player in a hard-to-abate sector. At the same time, United’s pledge for support of DAC development cannot and should not be read in itself as a credible commitment to cleaning up the airline’s past or future carbon pollution. Instead, what United is doing here is helping to establish a technological pathway that may, in the future, yield real and significant carbon removal benefits. Whenever companies are talking about DAC or other forms of carbon removal, money spent on near-term research and development should be viewed as distinct from money spent over a number of years on the actual sequestering of carbon. We flesh these points out below and also point to some other interesting aspects of the United announcement.

What is United Planning?

United has pledged to invest in a DAC operation being developed in the United States by 1PointFive, a partnership between Oxy Low Carbon Ventures (a subsidiary of Occidental, an oil and gas company) and Rusheen Capital Management. 1PointFive’s website proclaims that the initiative’s mission is to become “the leading developer of DAC facilities worldwide.” This Oxy + Rusheen partnership is relying on a DAC technological system developed by Carbon Engineering in Canada. An earlier announcement from Carbon Engineering sets out plans via the 1PointFive venture for a plant that will be developed in West Texas to draw up to 500,000 (later updated to 1 million) tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each year and to sequester the CO2 in the Permian Basin.

United’s pledge comes via an already-signed letter of intent. United’s press release and reporting have not, though, yet revealed the exact amount of United’s investment, the precise purpose to which the investment is to be directed, and how United is viewing the investment alongside other efforts to tackle the airline’s carbon footprint. These will be important details to watch for in subsequent news about United’s DAC plans.

DAC could contribute to United’s efforts to reach carbon neutrality in a couple of ways. One way would be by United purchasing and utilizing synthetic jet fuel made from captured carbon. Such “carbon recycling” would lower the overall carbon footprint associated with a United flight. Another way, and this seems to be the intent of United’s deal with 1PointFive, would involve injecting captured carbon into long-term underground storage. Such geologic sequestration could conceivably be scaled to account for some large share of United’s CO2 pollution.

One final high-level point to note about United’s announcement is that United is distinguishing its interest in DAC from what the announcement terms “indirect measures like carbon-offsetting.” By carbon-offsetting, the announcement is referring to largely voluntary, consumer-driven efforts whereby customers on United flights pay a little extra money and in exchange United invests in tree planting or forest protection schemes. Forests and soils are hugely important carbon sinks and efforts to augment these and other nature-based solutions for carbon removal must be supported. Voluntary offsets programs are, though, problematic for a range of reasons, so this distinction being drawn by United between their DAC investment and offsets looks important. The main benefit will be if United makes the drawing down of carbon part of their core operations rather than as something that customers can add on a voluntary basis. 

Questions to Ask about the Investment

One article on the United announcement attributes to the company’s CEO Scott Kirby the claim that the 1PointFive project in which United is investing would capture enough carbon dioxide to offset nearly 10% of United’s annual emissions. A couple of things to note here:

1) Investing in early-stage research and development, or even in the building of working infrastructure, is not the same thing as paying for operations. It will be important to learn more about both what the United investment is intended for and what it is actually used for. Technological carbon removal, including DAC, is likely to be an important part of getting airlines to carbon neutrality. However, it will take sustained investment over decades to build up enough carbon removal capacity, and then successful operation of that capacity for some reasonable span of time for even a single airline like United to claim that DAC is offsetting emissions from business operations.

So, to be clear, an investment by United for infrastructure is all by itself a very positive thing. There is no need, then, to conflate that investment with emissions reductions or emissions offsetting claims.

2)  If United’s investment is going towards the operation of a successful DAC endeavor, there are some questions that should be asked and answered:

    1. How much of the potential 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year from the planned 1PointFive facility could United rightfully claim? Might others also be looking to claim credit for actually capturing and sequestering CO2 once the plant is operational? How do we avoid double, or more, counting of the “same” emissions reductions to ensure the integrity of the emerging carbon dioxide removal markets? 
    2. Even if United claims all of the CO2 stored annually by a working facility at the 1 million tonne scale, this alone would be far shy of 10% of United’s annual Scope 1 emissions, which United reported to be around 34 million tonnes in its disclosure to CDP.
    3. Storing CO2 directly in geological formations will have different climate effects than using captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery or for the creation of short-lived products like a synthetic fuel. As a recent working paper from David Morrow and Michael Thompson notes, the relevant questions to be asked here are, where does the carbon come from and where does the carbon go?
    4. From where will the energy come to power the new DAC facility? Just as directing captured CO2 towards enhanced oil recovery can obviate climate benefits, so powering DAC with fossil fuels rather than renewable energy makes for problematic climate math.

All of this is to say that the accounting around carbon removal claims by way of DAC is not a straightforward thing. It will be useful and important to watch how United’s investment relationship with 1PointFive develops. Transparency to enable robust evaluation will be essential.

One model for corporate transparency around DAC plans comes from tech company Stripe. Stripe has set out: a) a corporate intent to be an early investor in development of promising carbon removal approaches; b) a plan to help to build out a market for carbon removal by being a steady customer for actual carbon removal services over a period of years; and c) a clear method by which carbon removal options are being evaluated and selected. Details of the Stripe approach are here, and may provide guidance for other early movers like United.

—

Here’s a metaphor. Imagine a kid spilling Cheerios on the floor and then committing to cleaning them up. If the kid offers to invest in purchasing a vacuum cleaner, that’s a good first step. The kid should not get credit for cleaning up the mess, though, until the vacuum cleaner is running and is sucking up the cereal. (And if the kid’s sibling ends up being the one doing the actual vacuuming, it’s important to make sure that both kids aren’t claiming full credit for cleaning up the mess.) It’s also important to understand what the kid’s plan is if the vacuum cleaner doesn’t arrive or if it fails to operate as advertised. And, most importantly, what’s the kid’s plan for limiting the flow of Cheerios to the floor? The vacuuming component only works when aligned with a strong and robust reduce-the-dropping-of-the-Cheerios plan.

The United statement is to be applauded and, at the same time, United’s actions on the back of the statement should receive careful scrutiny.

 

Simon Nicholson and Wil Burns are Co-directors and David Morrow is Director of Research at the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy in the School of International Service at American University.

 

 

 

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ICRLP Webinar Explainer Series Provides A Deeper Understanding on Many Issues Surrounding Carbon Dioxide Removal

One of the streams of work for The Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy is to provide broad education on carbon removal approaches and implications. Carbon removal is a big and complex subject matter, with much to unpack and debate. With this in mind, we launched our “Assessing Carbon Removal Webinar Explainer Series” in 2018. 

These one-hour webinars bring together Institute staff and guest speakers to explain what is known about varying carbon removal approaches and to explore big themes. The presentations and conversations delve into research needed to assess technical, legal, and social aspects and considerations of carbon removal technologies.,

Most recently presented in this series have been webinars on Agroforestry and Carbon Removal and Corporate Commitments, both of which have accompanying blog entries that outline the main points covered in the presentations, which can be found on ICRLP Carbon Removal Blog Posts page.

In addition to these recent webinars, there are a number of past presentations that provide a wealth of knowledge on carbon removal:

  • Enhanced Oil Recovery: A discussion on the technological, economic, and political issues associated with Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), including the costs involved, the project development perspective, EOR relative to saline storage necessary to scale up carbon storage, and why EOR should be decoupled from the decarbonatization agenda and policy.
  • Mitigation Deterrence: Mitigation Deterrence (MD) is where the pursuit of greenhouse gas removal (GGR) delays or deters other mitigation options. This webinar presents the results of a project that analyzes this issue and explores conditions in which GGR technologies can be used with minimal MD.
  • Direct Air Capture: The presentations within this webinar provide a comprehensive overview of mechanisms behind Direct Air Capture of carbon dioxide, which is the practice of utilizing chemicals to remove carbon dioxide from the air. 
  • Enhanced Mineral Weathering: This webinar presents the ins and outs behind varying proposed methods of Enhanced Mineral Weathering utilizing an array of minerals on land and in the oceans. 
  • Governance of Marine Geoengineering: This webinar followed the release of a CIGI Special Report on this topic. The presentations dig into the potential role of marine climate geoengineering approaches such as ocean alkalization and “blue carbon,” with a focus on the governance, research, deployment and potential risks associated with these approaches to carbon dioxide removal.
  • Communicating Carbon Removal: This webinar was presented following the release of ICRLP report “The Carbon Removal Debate” and explores the challenges associated with communicating the necessity for, and options behind, carbon dioxide removal.
  • The Brazilian Amazon Fires: What Do They Mean for the Climate?: As thousands of fires ripped across the Amazon in 2019, wreaking havoc and devastation, this webinar seeks to explore what these fires mean for the climate, and lessons are to be learned regarding global forest protection.
  • Soil-Based Carbon Removal: Soil harbors three times more carbon than is present in the atmosphere, and this webinar investigates whether healthy soils can help tackle climate change. Experts on the panel provide a scientific overview of soil carbon sequestration while examining the risks, benefits, and uncertainties.  
  • NAS “Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration: A Research Agenda” Report: This report released by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is the focus of discussion in this webinar. A few of the points addressed are the current state and potential for negative emissions technologies, conceptualizing scale in addressing climate change, and the impact of carbon removal on land use and soil, among others.
  • Potential Role of Carbon Removal in the IPCC’s 1.5 Degree Special Report: The panelists in this webinar examine this special report, released by the IPCC in 2018, examine what this report says about many aspects of carbon removal such as the potential need, governance, and classification. 
  • What We Know and Don’t Know about Negative Emissions: This webinar is aimed at providing a systematic overview of negative emissions technologies, discussing the status of research, ethical considerations, and how to spur future innovation and upscale research for advancing utilizations.
  • Accessing Carbon Dioxide Removal: As the introductory webinar that kicked off the series in 2018, the panelists dive into what carbon removal technologies are, their role in the portfolio of response to climate change, risks, ways to manage technologies in beneficial ways, and what the future could potentially hold. This webinar in particular serves as a valuable springboard for those who are relatively unfamiliar with carbon removal and seeking to learn more. 

All of these webinars are also available to view on our YouTube channel and on the ICRLP website. As this series continues to evolve, we encourage you to stay tuned for upcoming webinars going forward. If you are interested in joining our mailing list to receive notifications of upcoming webinars and our Newsletter, feel free to reach out to us at icrlp@american.edu.

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ICR Fact Sheets Provide a Comprehensive Overview of All Things Carbon Removal

Although the emerging field of carbon removal has great potential to help curb climate change when coupled with more traditional methods of mitigation, it is riddled with uncertainty. There are many risk factors and many components within each individual method that are still poorly misunderstood. The Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy is dedicated to creating a set of comprehensive tools that can aid in providing clarity on carbon removal practices and technologies on many different levels.

Among these valuable resources are a comprehensive set of Fact Sheets that provide overviews on each of the individual topics regarding carbon removal, the production of which was provided for by a grant from The New York Community Trust. These fact sheets are broken down into two categories, topics in carbon removal and approaches to carbon removal. 

The topics in carbon removal fact sheets provide an overview and background on:

What is carbon removal?

Nature-based solutions to climate change and 

Carbon capture & use and carbon removal

The approaches to carbon removal fact sheets break down the ten different topics, providing a deeper context to the potential methods behind carbon removal. Each of these provides not only an overview but weigh in on the co-benefits & concerns, potential scales and costs, technological readiness, governance consideration, and provide sources for further readings. These methods include:

Agroforestry: Incorporates trees with other agricultural land use which not only removes carbon dioxide but also provides benefits to farmers and their communities.

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage: A technique dependent on two technologies. Biomass that is converted into heat, electricity, liquid gas, or fuels make up the bioenergy component. The carbon emissions generated from this bioenergy conversion are then captured and stored in geological formations or long-lasting products, this being the second component of this method.

Biochar: A type of charcoal that is produced by burning organic material in a low oxygen environment, converting the carbon within to a form that resists decay. It is then buried or added to soils where that carbon can remain harbored for decades to centuries.

Blue Carbon: Refers to the carbon that is sequestered in peatlands and coastal wetlands such as mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrass among others, many of which have been destroyed in recent decades. 

Direct Air Capture: An approach that employs mechanical systems that capture carbon directly and compress it to be injected into geological storage, or used to make long-lasting products.

Enhanced Mineralization: Also known as enhanced or accelerated weathering. Accelerates the natural processes in which various minerals absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. One implementation involves grinding basalt into powder and spreading it over soils, causing a reaction with CO2 in the air, forming stable carbonate materials.

Forestation: This includes forest restoration, reforestation and afforestation. Forests remove carbon dioxide and through the trees within, and have the potential to store that carbon for long periods of time.

Mass Timber: A method that involves utilizing specialized wood products to construct buildings, therefore replacing emission-intensive material such as concrete and steel. Further, this wood stores carbon that was captured from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. 

Ocean Alkalization: A process involving adding alkaline substances, such as olivine or lime, to the seawater to enhance the ocean’s natural carbon sink.

Soil Carbon Sequestration: Also referred to as “carbon farming” or “regenerative agriculture.” This process involves managing land in ways that promote carbon absorption and sequestration within soils, especially prominent among farmland.

By reviewing each of these succinctly written fact sheets, it is possible for one to gain a solid understanding of what is happening in the world of carbon removal; the good, the bad, and the misunderstood. 

 

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Reflections on the IPCC special report on pathways to and impacts of 1.5ºC

Author: Matthias Honegger

This post originally appeared on the blog for the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS).

How is this report different from previous IPCC reports?

The main difference to previous reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is that, according to the last assessment report, we have now used up the so-called “carbon budget” for the 1.5°C target. Therefore, in principle, we should not emit another single ton of CO2 going forward. The last report did not pay much attention to the 1.5°C target because too few studies even addressed this ambitious scenario. The Paris Agreement and the request to the IPCC for this latest report have changed this: more and more studies have considered how the goal could be achieved – with similar results, but greater urgency. What has changed since the last assessment report is that we are running out of time. More and more observers rate it as extremely unlikely that we can still get close to 1.5°C without the use of controversial solar geoengineering to directly alter the energy balance of the planet (also known as “Solar Radiation Management”). The latter is mentioned in the report as Solar Radiation Modification, but dismissed as too risky and insufficiently understood, which is understandable given the necessarily cautious approach of the IPCC in light of the still limited amount of research dedicated to seriously exploring the possibilities of SRM. However, a growing number of climate modelling studies consistently conclude that the use of SRM to partially counteract warming could help contain climate change and possibly avoid much suffering and harm. The same studies also consistently find that SRM could under no circumstances be a substitute for CO2 reduction and CO2 capture, but would potentially be useful as a risk-reducing supplement.

What political signals does the report send?

In the context of international climate policy the special report is expected to serve as a wake-up call for decision-makers. The IPCC report shows that the 1.5°C target, which in Paris gave hope to the most vulnerable populations, is slipping through our fingers. Unless the international community immediately and dramatically changes course, this goal is no longer within reach. A study from last year, which to my knowledge is not quoted in the report, found a one percent (1%) likelihood that warming would remain at 1.5°C if current trends continue. The international community is not even on a path to the less ambitious 2°C target. If today’s nationally determined contributions (NDCs) are implemented unchanged, warming is expected to reach 3°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100 – and more beyond the turn of the century. With millions of people depending on robust climate policy to secure their futures, this state of affairs should not be taken as an excuse to give up. The report unequivocally states that warming of 1.5°C would cause much less suffering and harm than warming of 2°C. There is not a shred of doubt that the corresponding steps must be taken now.

To what extent does it still make sense to talk about the 1.5ºC or 2ºC target? Do we have to admit that these goals are now barely achievable?

Achieving the 1.5°C goal with existing means of CO2 emission reductions will require drastic measures comparable perhaps only to the transformative efforts undertaken by societies in the face of war. The vast majority of scenarios assume that billions of tons of CO2 will also have to be removed from the atmosphere through the widespread application of emerging technologies such as bioenergy and CO2 capture and storage (BECCS) or the direct air capture and storage of CO2 (DACS) – with the corresponding costs. However, both of these approaches present their own challenges when deployed on this scale and have accordingly been largely ignored by decisionmakers to date. The use of bioenergy could potentially result in massive land use conflicts, while direct air capture requires vast amounts of energy and is, in its present state, both under-researched and prohibitively costly. Politics should not rely on such approaches without doing what is necessary to shape them into feasible policy options, and yet that is what happens every time we calculate our chances for the 1.5°C or 2°C target.

What are we to make of the current situation?

The IPCC authors were faced with the dilemma that the 1.5°C target is now practically out of reach despite significant political efforts to reduce or remove CO2 emissions. In conversations with colleagues in climate research, it has repeatedly struck me that many consider it unethical to even consider the possibility that current forms of action could fail to achieve the goal: Many colleagues suspect that expressions of doubt would undermine the political will to further pursue these crucial measures. Whether this is indeed the case is hard to answer and pragmatic optimism definitely has an important role to play. However, I think society has a right to be fully informed by science: We should all be aware of the risk-laden future we are approaching and not limit our focus to the best possible scenario. Accordingly, we would not be well advised to prematurely exclude potential options – from emissions reductions to adaptation, CO2 removal and solar geoengineering (SRM) – even if these options do not appear perfect at first glance and require further research. Anyone who deals with financial investments knows about the necessity of diversification when dealing with risks.

The full report can be found here on the IPCC website.

 

Matthias Honegger is a project scientist at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, Germany. In his role there, he focuses on the question, whether biased risk perceptions of climate engineering contribute to a marginalization of climate engineering as a potential element of a broader strategy to address climate change. He is also exploring the current climate policy regime to identify governance elements, which could help consider carbon removal technologies and eventually solar radiation management approaches in an adequate manner within the international climate regime.