List: cc Andrew
The cite given below by Andrew is for a 20 MB full thesis - which my
server couldn’t handle. I’d greatly appreciate anyone able to suggest a
work-around so we can all view the full document.
The author, (now Dr.) Lena Boysen alerted me to this non-fee initial
(out of 3) part of the thesis:
“Impacts devalue the potential of large-scale terrestrial CO2 removal
through biomass plantations”
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/095010/meta;jsessionid=325AACE0FC1BCA551F5ABFF7BC15679E.ip-10-40-2-108
<http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/095010/meta;jsessionid=325AACE0FC1BCA551F5ABFF7BC15679E.ip-10-40-2-108>
I still need to re-read it, but I am impressed by the depth and breadth
of what I have read so far. A little on biochar (fortunately “a little”, as I
think biochar doesn’t suffer from the concerns she raises [see final sentence
in the abstract below]) - but mostly this seems more related to BECCS (as in
AR5). Much larger land areas and annual sequestration possibilities discussed
than normal.
Dr. Boysen has given us much to discuss - from the point of view of
land-use modeling - mostly for RCP4.5.
Ron
> On Apr 24, 2017, at 4:04 AM, Andrew Lockley <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Boysen
> Potentials, consequences and trade-offs of terrestrial (CDR): Strategies for
> #climate engineering
>
> https://t.co/knfig3fTn9 <https://t.co/knfig3fTn9>
>
> Abstract
> For hundreds of years, humans have engineered the planet to fulfil their need
> for incre-
> asing energy consumption and production. Since the industrial revolution, one
> conse-
> quence are rising global mean temperatures which could change by 2◦C to 4.5◦C
> until
> 2100 if mitigation enforcement of CO2 emissions fails.To counteract this
> projected glo-
> bal warming, climate engineering techniques aim at intendedly cooling Earth’s
> climate
> for example through terrestrial carbon dioxide removal (tCDR) which is
> commonly per-
> ceived as environmentally friendly. Here, tCDR refers to the establishment of
> large-scale
> biomass plantations (BPs) in combination with the production of long-lasting
> carbon
> products such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage or biochar.
> This thesis examines the potentials and possible consequences of tCDR by ana-
> lysing land-use scenarios with different spatial and temporal scales of BPs
> using an
> advanced biosphere model forced by varying climate projections. These
> scenario simu-
> lations were evaluated with focus on their carbon sequestration potentials,
> trade-offs
> with food production and impacts on natural ecosystems and climate itself.
> Synthesised, the potential of tCDR to permanently extract CO2 out of the
> atmos-
> phere is found to be small, regardless of the emission scenario, the point of
> onset or the
> spatial extent. On the contrary, the aforementioned trade-offs and impacts
> are shown
> to be unfavourable in most cases. In a high emission scenario with a late
> onset of BPs
> (i.e. around 2050), even unlimited area availability for tCDR could not
> reverse past
> emissions sufficiently, e.g. BPs covering 25% of all agricultural or natural
> land could
> delay 2100’s carbon budget by no more than two or three decades (equivalent
> to ≈550
> or 800 GtC tCDR), respectively. However, simultaneous emission reductions and
> an ear-
> lier establishment of BPs (i.e. around 2035) could result in strong carbon
> extractions
> reversing past emissions (e.g. six or eight decades or ≈500 or 800 GtC,
> respectively).
> In both cases, land transformation for tCDR leads to high “costs” for
> ecosystems (e.g.
> biodiversity loss) and food production (e.g. reduction of almost 75%).
> Restricting the
> available land for BPs by these trade-off constraints leaves very small tCDR
> poten-
> tials (well below 100 GtC) despite a near-future onset (in 2020). Similarly,
> simulated
> tCDR potentials on dedicated BP areas defined in a commonly used and
> published low
> emissions scenario stay below the aimed values using current management
> practices.
> Some potential may lie the reduction of carbon losses from field to
> end-products, new
> management options and the restoration of degraded soils with BPs.
> This thesis contradicts the assumption that tCDR could be an effective and
> envi-
> ronmentally friendly way of complementing or substituting strong and rapid
> mitigation
> efforts.
>
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