Month: June 2023

German News

Unter die Erde mit dem Kohlendioxid

Jan Hauser, zeitung.faz.net, 30.06.2023

“Wie gut wäre es, wenn diese Gase wieder zurück in den Boden versenkt werden könnten. Tatsächlich ist das möglich, aber Deutschland schreckt davor zurück. Das ist bemerkenswert und sonderbar: Die deutsche Politik beraubt sich bisher selbst einer Methode, die CO2-Emissionen in der Atmosphäre zu senken. Das Prinzip sieht erst die Abscheidung von Kohlendioxid vor, etwa in einer Industriefabrik. Danach wird CO2 meist verflüssigt, transportiert und in jedem Fall unterirdisch gespeichert. Das nennt sich „Carbon Cap­ture and Storage“, kurz CCS, ist aber in Deutschland praktisch untersagt.”

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German News

Norwegens Antwort auf Inflation Reduction Act: Staatliche Investitionen, Kredite und eine Milliarde NOK an Zuschüssen für größere Batterieprojekte

businessportal-norwegen.com, 30. Juni 2023

“Mehrere norwegische Unternehmen haben in den vergangenen Monaten angekündigt, Investitionen in den USA zu tätigen, wenn Norwegen nicht ähnliche Vergünstigungen für eine grüne Umstellung gewährt wie das amerikanische Inflation Reduction Act. Norwegens Regierung antwortete auf dieses Gesetz nun mit umfangreichen neue Maßnahmen, um den grünen Wandel in der Geschäftswelt zu beschleunigen.”

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Calls

The CCS+ Initiative’s first carbon accounting methodologies are now open for public consultation

Deadline: 29 July

The CCS+ Initiative launched for public consultation its first batch of carbon accounting methodologies, developed under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program. This is an important step on the journey to unlocking carbon finance for projects that reduce or remove carbon emissions, which are currently not financially viable, yet sorely needed to reach international climate goals. The consultation will be run by Verra, the leading standard-setter in the Voluntary Carbon Market. The initiative brings together 51 stakeholders to develop a comprehensive carbon accounting infrastructure for technologies that capture, utilise and store, including engineered carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies. The variety of approaches capturing, transporting and storing carbon that, together, could make up the industrial infrastructure of a fully-fledged carbon management economy. 

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Chiaravalloti et al. (2023): Mitigation of soil nitrous oxide emissions during maize production with basalt amendments

Isabella Chiaravalloti, Nicolas Theunissen, Shuang Zhang, Jiuyuan Wang, Fengchao Sun, Ayesha A. Ahmed, Evelin Pihlap, Christopher T. Reinhard, Noah J. Planavsky IN: Front. Clim., Sec. Negative Emission Technologies 5, https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2023.1203043

Amending soils with fine-grained basalt is gaining traction as a carbon dioxide removal (CDR) pathway, and model simulations suggest that this process may also significantly decrease soil N2O emissions. Here, the authors continuously measure N2O fluxes from large-scale maize mesocosms in a greenhouse setting and use a machine learning framework to assess the relative importance of the levers on N2O fluxes. They observe significant decreases in cumulative N2O emissions (between 29–32%) from mesocosm systems with basalt addition.

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Media

Carbon removal: the key to getting the 2040 climate target right

by Verena Hofbauer & Agnese Ruggiero, carbongap.org, 29 June

“Key takeaways: The 2040 climate target is the key milestone on the path towards climate neutrality. In this context, carbon removal (CDR) is starting to be recognised as crucial to achieving this target by 2050 but more still needs to be done. The EU should aim to achieve 95% net emission reductions by 2040 through a robust and sound combination of emission reductions and carbon removals. To this end, financial and political support must be given to a wide range of CDR options, and carbon removal should be mainstreamed across all relevant EU policies.”

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Nature – Merfort et al. (2023): Bioenergy-induced land-use-change emissions with sectorally fragmented policies

Leon Merfort, Nico Bauer, Florian Humpenöder, David Klein, Jessica Strefler, Alexander Popp, Gunnar Luderer, Elmar Kriegler IN: Nat. Clim. Chang. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01697-2

Using the global integrated assessment model REMIND-MAgPIE, the authors derive a biofuel emission factor (EF) for different policy frameworks. They find that a uniform price on emissions from both sectors keeps biofuel emissions at 12 kg CO2 GJ−1. However, without land-use regulation, the EF increases substantially (64 kg CO2 GJ−1 over 80 years, 92 kg CO2 GJ−1 over 30 years). In the absence of comprehensive and timely land-use regulation, bioenergy thus may contribute less to climate change mitigation than assumed previously.

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Media

Nature – Start-ups are adding antacids to the ocean to slow global warming. Will it work?

by Jeff Tollefson, Nature – News Feature, 28 June 2023

“A New York experiment is part of a commercial race to develop ocean-based technologies to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.[…]This is one of the first field trials of a concept known as ocean alkalinity enhancement — essentially using antacids to help the ocean digest CO2. The two-year experiment is run by Vesta, a start-up climate company based in San Francisco, California, with enthusiastic support from local community leaders. Just metres down the beach, a newly installed welcome plaque proclaims that visitors are about to step onto “the world’s first carbon-removing beach”.”

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Media

The impact of ocean alkalinity enhancement on marine biota offers hope for carbon dioxide removal

by Thamarasee Jeewandara on Phys.org, June 27, 2023

“Marine biologists are increasingly seeking methods to mitigate anthropogenic climate interference by implementing strategies for ocean carbon dioxide removal (CDR). Ocean alkalinity enhancement parameter is an abiotic approach aimed at carbon dioxide removal. Attempts to increase the carbon dioxide uptake capacity of the ocean can be established by dispersing pulverized mineral or dissolved alkali into the ocean surface. Nevertheless, the impact of this action remains largely unexplored.”

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Duval-Dachary et al. (2023): Life cycle assessment of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage systems: Critical review of life cycle inventories

S. Duval-Dachary, S. Beauchet, D. Lorne, T. Salou, A. Helias, A. Pastor IN: Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 183, 113415, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2023.113415

The life cycle assessment (LCA) method needs to be applied to bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) systems to assess their negative emission potential and prevent transfers from one environmental impact category to another. To allow for informed decision-making, the quality of LCA results should be evaluated. The quality of results is related to the quality of the data used. The purpose of this article is thus to review the life cycle inventory data that are used for BECCS LCA. To this end, 35 recent BECCS LCA were selected and the inventory data they used was collected. Synthesis inventory tables were then compiled, including the observed range of variability for each data item. These tables cover biomass harvesting, pre-treatment, combustion, gasification, and carbon dioxide capture with a monoethanolamine (MEA) based solvent. 

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