Adam
Your quantification of the world carbon storage need at 800 GtC has to be
annualised to produce a realistic path and to address the problem you raise of
the absence of viable technologies for climate stabilisation.
Humans add about ten gigatonnes of carbon to the air every year, in the form of
40 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent. A gigatonne of water is a cubic kilometre.
The order of magnitude for a path to climate stability is therefore roughly
equivalent to storing about twenty cubic km of algae in geotextile bags at the
bottom of the ocean every year.
Such a scale of storage would enable fossil fuel emissions to continue,
obviating the need for decarbonisation, while also reducing the amount of
carbon in the air. Is such a proposal technically feasible? If carbon in the
form of algae (mainly hydrocarbon) could be marketed as a valuable commodity,
such a method could pay for itself. My estimate is that the implication of
these numbers is that industrial microalgae production on one percent of the
world ocean would solve global warming.
Ocean Foresters propose a less intensive strategy, using nine percent of the
world ocean for macroalgae, in their article Negative Carbon via Ocean
Afforestation published in 2012 in the Process Safety and Environmental
Protection journal of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering. Tim
Flannery cited this paper in his popular book Atmosphere of Hope as a key
climate solution, but Ocean Foresters have not found much traction for
research. It looks like the politics of negative emission technology is too
difficult for the climate movement to engage on it.
Robert Tulip
From: Adam Dorr <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc: Geoengineering <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, 16 April 2017, 14:57
Subject: Re: [geo] Paul Hawken et al Weigh In
I should perhaps clarify that I have thus far seen no viable CDR scenarios that
depend on social/political/economic change alone in the absence of major
technological shifts. Perhaps this book will be filled with new a compelling
evidence to the contrary, but my current understanding is that no practicable
amount of recycling and biking to work and conservation tillage and
reforestation and BECCS and all the rest can get us anywhere near sequestering
800 GtC by 2050. And that 800 *billion* tons (!) is only what must come out of
the air that we've already put in - it doesn't include the 300 GtG more we're
slated to emit by then! There are pathways to CDR at the hundred-gigaton scale,
but they are entirely dependent upon future technologies like
machine-labor-driven DACCS and enhanced weathering. Again, I do very much hope
I'm wrong, but the task ahead of us is absolutely staggering and the
social/political/economic pathways that depend on local conservation practices
(as this book seems to imply) are likely doomed to disappoint.
On Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 9:39 PM, Jonathan Marshall
<[email protected]> wrote:
I certainly agree that it sounds as if it is overly optimistic.... It will be
interesting to see whether it suggests any socio-political remedies or whether
it will be purely technological
jon
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Adam Dorr
<[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, 16 April 2017 1:53 PM
To: Jonathan Marshall
Cc: Geoengineering
Subject: Re: [geo] Paul Hawken et al Weigh In Again, without salient details my
fear is that this is the pop-science version of clickbait. I'm surely do hope
I'm wrong, but unless these are fundamentally new CDR scenarios that have not
yet been discussed anywhere in the geoengineering literature, my confidence in
the claim that we can somehow "reverse the build-up of atmospheric carbon
within thirty years" in the absence of radical technological change will have
to remain discouragingly low.
On Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 6:08 PM, Jonathan Marshall
<[email protected]> wrote:
I thought the website was reasonably clear as to what the book was about
"Drawdown maps, measures, models, and describes the 100 most substantive
solutions to global warming. For each solution, we describe its history, the
carbon impact it provides, the relative cost and savings, the path to adoption,
and how it works. The goal of the research that informs Drawdown is to
determine if we can reverse the buildup of atmospheric carbon within thirty
years. All solutions modeled are already in place, well understood, analyzed
based on peer-reviewed science, and are expanding around the world."
In other words they are asserting that viable solutions already exist - and
perhaps that if you combine them you can get a successful programme
whether we do have viable solutions, or they can achieve a description in a
useful way, is another matter.
jon
From:[email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Adam Dorr
<[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, 16 April 2017 10:29 AM
To: Greg Rau
Cc: Geoengineering
Subject: Re: [geo] Paul Hawken et al Weigh In After reading the blurb on the
website, I'm still unclear what this book is about. It purports to be the
"story" of how different stakeholders are ... responding to the threat of
climate change. But what does that mean? There "is as yet no roadmap that goes
beyond slowing or stopping emissions" ... OK, so is this the story of how these
various stakeholders are capturing and sequestering carbon?
I need a little bit more detail in order to take this seriously, because I have
so far been woefully underwhelmed by various plans and proposals to address
climate change that do not adequately account for (or even consider)
technological advances on the decadal timescales in question.
On Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 5:10 PM, Greg Rau <[email protected]> wrote:
http://www.drawdown.org/the-bo ok
"The subtitle of Drawdown—The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse
Global Warming—may sound brash. We chose that description because no detailed
plan to reverse warming has been proposed. There have been agreements and
proposals on how to slow, cap, and arrest emissions, and there are
international commitments to prevent global temperature increases from
exceeding two degrees centigrade over pre-industrial levels. One hundred and
ninety-five nations have made extraordinary progress in coming together to
acknowledge that we have a momentous civilizational crisis on our earthly
doorstep and have created national plans of action. The UN’s Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has accomplished the most significant scientific
study in the history of humankind, and continues to refine the science, expand
the research, and extend our grasp of one of the most complex systems
imaginable—climate. However, there is as yet no roadmap that goes beyond
slowing or stopping emissions."
“At a time when the Trump administration is working to dismantle much of the
nation’s efforts to minimize climate change, Paul Hawken’s new book swoops onto
the scene like a knight in shining armor…. The book’s release couldn’t possibly
come at a better time. Refreshingly absent of political analysis, it’s grounded
in scientific reality and will likely go a long way toward inciting people to
action.”— The Portland Tribune--
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