German Bundestag: Changed London Protocol (German)
German article on CE.
Month: September 2018
Solarify: New Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution (German)
German article on CE.
Harvard University Blog: Debating Solar Geoengineering on the Kialo Visual Reasoning Platform
“Solar geoengineering poses many possibilities but comes with a whole range of complex considerations. Debates on the topic, especially online, are often messy and governed by emotions. In this blogpost, we introduce recent work on a visual reasoning platform called Kialo to help represent the multiple considerations in a reasoned way.”
Schmidt, H.; et al. (2018): Pyrogenic carbon capture and storage
Schmidt, H.; Anca-Couce, A.; Hagemann, N.; Werner, C.; Gerten, D.; Lucht, W.; Kammann, C. (2018): Pyrogenic carbon capture and storage. In: GCB Bioenergy 38 (1), S. 215. DOI: 10.1111/gcbb.12553.
“During the last decade, biochar has been discussed as a promising option to improve soil fertility and sequester carbon, although the carbon efficiency of the thermal conversion of biomass into biochar is in the range of 30%–50% only. So far, the liquid and gaseous pyrolysis products were mainly considered for combustion, though they can equally be processed into recalcitrant forms suitable for carbon sequestration. In this review, we show that pyrolytic carbon capture and storage (PyCCS) can aspire for carbon sequestration efficiencies of [gt]70%, which is shown to be an important threshold to allow PyCCS to become a relevant negative emission technology.”
Wohland, J.; et al. (2018): Negative emission potential of Direct Air Capture powered by renewable excess electricity in Europe
Wohland, J.; Witthaut, D.; Schleussner, C. (2018): Negative emission potential of Direct Air Capture powered by renewable excess electricity in Europe. In: Earth’s Future. DOI: 10.1029/2018EF000954.
“Our results show that negative emissions of up to 500 MtCO2/y in Europe may be achievable by using renewable excess energy only. Electricity systems with high shares of volatile renewables will induce excess generation events during which electricity is cheap thereby lowering the operational costs of DAC. If investment costs can be sufficiently reduced, this may render very energy intensive but highly flexible technologies such as DAC viable.”
Reuters: Taking back carbon imperative to stop planet overheating, backers say
“LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – With climate-changing emissions still inching higher – and resulting threats from extreme weather surging – sucking greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere must become an urgent priority, backers of “carbon removal” efforts say.”
Physicsworld: No need for BECCS?
“Global warming can be kept to below 1.5[nbsp]°C above pre-industrial temperatures without using Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), or at least not much. So says a study in Nature Climate Change. Whereas the IPCC, IEA and others have suggested that negative emission technologies like BECCS would be vital, the new paper claims that a range of ambitious mitigation options can minimize or, collectively, eliminate the need for BECCS.”
Finanz.net: Schroders: With Geoengineering Against Climate Change
German article on CE.
EGU: Glacial engineering could limit sea-level rise, if we get our emissions under control
“Targeted engineering projects to hold off glacier melting could slow down the collapse of ice sheets and limit sea-level rise, according to a new study published in the European Geosciences Union journal The Cryosphere. While an intervention similar in size to existing large civil engineering projects could only have a 30% chance of success, a larger project would have better odds of holding off ice-sheet collapse. But study authors Michael Wolovick and John Moore caution that reducing emissions still remains key to stopping climate change and its dramatic effects.”
Blackstock, J.; et al. (2018): Geoengineering our climate? Ethics, politics and governance
Blackstock, J.; Low, S. (Hg.) (2019): Geoengineering our climate? Ethics, politics and governance. Abingdon, Oxon, New York, NY: Routledge (Science in society series). DOI: 9781849713733
“In this important book, a diverse collection of scholars, policymakers, and civil society representatives examine and reflect upon the global geoengineering debate they have helped shape. Opening with essays examining the historic origins of contemporary geoengineering ideas, the book goes on to explore the practical and ethical dilemmas geoengineering poses; the evolving geoengineering research agenda; the challenges geoengineering technologies present to current international legal and political frameworks; differing perceptions of geoengineering from around the world; and how geoengineering technologies might be governed if/as they begin to emerge from the lab into the real world.”