Monat: April 2018

New York Times: How Oman’s Rocks Could Help Save the Planet

„Scientists say that if this natural process, called carbon mineralization, could be harnessed, accelerated and applied inexpensively on a huge scale — admittedly some very big “ifs” — it could help fight climate change. Rocks could remove some of the billions of tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide that humans have pumped into the air since the beginning of the Industrial Age.“

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Nature (Correspondence): Geoengineering might speed glacier melt

Moon, Twila A. (2018): Geoengineering might speed glacier melt. In Nature 556 (7702), p. 436. DOI: 10.1038/d41586-018-04897-5.

„We disagree with John Moore and colleagues that geoengineering could counter rising sea levels from the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets (Nature[nbsp]555, 303–305; 2018). As environmental researchers in these regions, we contend that the consequences of the technology could be even more serious than in its absence.“

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Rickels, W.; et al. (2018): Integrated Assessment of Carbon Dioxide Removal

Rickels, W.; Reith, F.; Keller, D.; Oschlies, A.; Quaas, M. F. (2018): Integrated Assessment of Carbon Dioxide Removal. In Earth’s Future 6 (3), pp. 565–582. DOI: 10.1002/2017EF000724.

„We analyze optimal and cost-effective climate policies in the dynamic integrated assessment model (IAM) of climate and the economy (DICE2016R) and investigate (1) the utilization of (ocean) CDR under different climate objectives, (2) the sensitivity of policies with respect to carbon cycle feedbacks, and (3) how well carbon cycle feedbacks are captured in the carbon cycle models used in state-of-the-art IAMs.“

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Davies, Philip A.; et al. (2018): Desalination as a Negative Emissions Technology

Davies, Philip A.; Yuan, Qingchun; Richter, Renaud Charles de (2018): Desalination as a Negative Emissions Technology. In Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol. DOI: 10.1039/C7EW00502D.

„In this study, we propose treating desalination reject brine by electrolysis to form Mg(OH)2 and thus absorb CO2 via the oceans. The energy and water penalties associated with the electrolysis are calculated as 1.8 GJ/tCO2 and 13.7 m3/tCO2 respectively, making it an interesting option in comparison with some other types of NET. However, NET-modification more than doubles the specific energy consumption of a reverse-osmosis desalination plant. It is concluded that NET-desalination has potential to contribute to CDR in arid countries (especially if solar energy is used) thus helping to meet Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) following the COP21 summit.“

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Fajardy, Mathilde; Mac Dowell, Niall (2018): The energy return on investment of BECCS. Is BECCS a threat to energy security?

Fajardy, Mathilde; Mac Dowell, Niall (2018): The energy return on investment of BECCS. Is BECCS a threat to energy security? In Energy Environ. Sci. 40, p. 401. DOI: 10.1039/C7EE03610H.

„In this contribution, we evaluate the energy return on investment (EROI) of an archetypal BECCS facility. In order to highlight the importance of biomass sourcing, two feedstock scenarios are considered: use of domestic biomass pellets (UK) and import of biomass pellets from Louisiana, USA. We use the Modelling and Optimisation of Negative Emissions Technologies (MONET) framework to explicitly account for growing, pre-treating, transporting and converting the feedstock in a 500 MW BECCS facility. As an example, we illustrate how the net electricity balance (NElB) of a UK-based BECCS facility can be either positive or negative, as a function of supply chain decisions.“

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