[geo] CBD Secretariat Invites Parties’ Submissions on Geo-Engineering-Related Measures - Climate Change Policy Practice
http://climate-l.iisd.org/news/cbd-secretariat-invites-parties-submissions-on-geo-engineering-related-measures/ CBD Secretariat Invites Parties’ Submissions on Geo-Engineering-Related Measures 12 November 2013: The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has invited parties to submit information on any measures they have undertaken to ensure that no climate-related geo-engineering activities that may affect biodiversity take place, and to address the exception for small-scale scientific research studies contained in CBD Decision X/33, subparagraph 8(w) on geo-engineering. Information on measures to ensure that no climate-related geo-engineering activities that may affect biodiversity take place until there is an adequate scientific basis to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks for the environment and biodiversity and associated social, economic and cultural impacts, as well as on measures that address the exception for small-scale scientific research studies, is to be submitted by 15 February 2014. The notification provides additional information related to agreed language on geo-engineering in the contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as an amendment to the London Protocol of the London Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, agreed on 18 October 2013. The amendment is structured to allow other marine geo-engineering activities to be considered and listed in a new annex in the future, if they fall within the scope of the London Protocol and have the potential to harm the marine environment. It will enter into force 60 days after two-thirds of the Parties to the London Protocol accept it. http://climate-l.iisd.org/news/cbd-secretariat-invites-parties-submissions-on-geo-engineering-related-measures/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: [geo] CBD Secretariat Invites Parties¹ Submissions on Geo-Engineering-Related Measures - Climate Change Policy Practice
Agree. What are the consequences/risks to biodiversity of not evaluating/considering GE in the face of rising CO2? Greg On 11/20/13 9:01 AM, Stephen Salter s.sal...@ed.ac.uk wrote: Hi All Should they also ask for a list of inactivities such as NOT doing a form geoengineering which could have helped biodiversity. I am thinking things such as not reducing sea surface temperatures to the east of the Philippines. Stephen - Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design School of Engineering University of Edinburgh Mayfield Road Edinburgh EH9 3JL Scotland s.sal...@ed.ac.uk Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704 Cell 07795 203 195 WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs On 20/11/2013 16:44, Andrew Lockley wrote: http://climate-l.iisd.org/news/cbd-secretariat-invites-parties-submission s-on-geo-engineering-related-measures/ CBD Secretariat Invites Parties¹ Submissions on Geo-Engineering-Related Measures 12 November 2013: The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has invited parties to submit information on any measures they have undertaken to ensure that no climate-related geo-engineering activities that may affect biodiversity take place, and to address the exception for small-scale scientific research studies contained in CBD Decision X/33, subparagraph 8(w) on geo-engineering. Information on measures to ensure that no climate-related geo-engineering activities that may affect biodiversity take place until there is an adequate scientific basis to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks for the environment and biodiversity and associated social, economic and cultural impacts, as well as on measures that address the exception for small-scale scientific research studies, is to be submitted by 15 February 2014. The notification provides additional information related to agreed language on geo-engineering in the contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as an amendment to the London Protocol of the London Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, agreed on 18 October 2013. The amendment is structured to allow other marine geo-engineering activities to be considered and listed in a new annex in the future, if they fall within the scope of the London Protocol and have the potential to harm the marine environment. It will enter into force 60 days after two-thirds of the Parties to the London Protocol accept it. http://climate-l.iisd.org/news/cbd-secretariat-invites-parties-submission s-on-geo-engineering-related-measures/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. - -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: [geo] Re: biochar as CDR and related nomenclature issues: CDRS = CDR + S (carbon dioxide removal + storage)
On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 9:22 PM, Ronal W. Larson rongretlar...@comcast.net wrote: Keith cc list 1. Since this is a thread with a biochar theme, I thought we should compare a hypothetical biochar scenario with your solar power satellite (SPS) scenario. 2. Because char is lighter than oil (I assume relative density of 1/3), I got 1200 km3 of char, assuming 400 Gt of carbon needing to be removed for a 100 ppm drop in CO2. This assumes almost as much has to come out of the ocean as the atmosphere. Was your assumption similar on ocean CO2 release? No. From the notes here: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5485 The area of the earth is ~5.1 x 1014 square meters; air pressure is ~100,000 N/m2. The force would be ~5.1 x 1019 and the mass (force/acceleration of 9.8 m/sec2) is ~5.2 x 1018kg or 5.2 x 1015 t. One ppm would be 5.2 x 109 t and 100 ppm would be ~520 billion tonnes. I agree that if the CO2 came down 100 ppm, the oceans would be giving up that much again. Call it a 1000 B tons of CO2. Carbon is 12/44 of CO2, or about 270 billion tons of carbon. Amorphous carbon has a density around 2 tons per cubic meter so the volume would be around135 B cubic meters, about 1/t0th of your estimate but that's close enough for this kind of thought experiment. 3. To achieve the 1200 km3 of char, and an assumed depth of a uniform char layer of 2.5 cm (roughly an inch) requires spreading over about 20% (2.4 Gha) of the global land area. Yours would be a thinner layer of course, but an oil would have to be deep underground to avoid conversion back to CO2. Also a despoil sequestration can provide no out-year benefits. Right. Oil on the surface would be a bad idea of course. Oil has the advantage that you can pump it where char has to be moved around as a solid. On the other hand, you make char as close as you can to the fields where you are going to bury it. 4. Assuming that about half of biomass carbon will go to char and half to energy (at 30 GJ/tonne C), means that the 2.5 cm layer (400 Gt C) will also provide a beneficial (carbon neutral) release of about 12,000 EJ. That's tricky. Biomass is a relatively expensive kind of energy and hard to scale up to an efficient size. Gail Tverberg makes a case that for economic reasons energy need to be not only environmentally friendly, but really cheap. http://theenergycollective.com/gail-tverberg/266116/oil-prices-lead-hard-financial-limits At a conference in Baltimore couple of weeks ago she put it as 1-2 cent per kWh power or (same thing) synthetic oil at $30-50 per bbl. I don't think biomass can do that on either cost or the needed quantity. David MacKay has a lot to say about this in his book http://withouthotair.com/ 5. You estimate about 300 TWyrs for the SPS scenario. I calculate (using 5 kWh = 18 MJ [about the energy in 1 kg wood] and 3600 seconds in an hour) about 1 TWyr = 30 EJ (we are globally using near 600 EJ/yr in 2013), so the 12,000 EJ is about 400 TWyr to compare to your 300 TWyrs. The difference is that the biochar scenario supplies 1/3 more (not requires that much more). This is also handling the required ocean carbon - I am not sure of your “ocean” assumption.You suggest a new 15 TW for 20 years; this is 8 TW for 50 years. We are essentially in agreement. From here on is an extension of the SPS scenario 6. If we accomplish the 400 Gt C transfer at about today’s fossil input rate of 8Gt C/yr (about 1% removal rate), all with biochar only) this would supply in a carbon neutral sense about 240 EJ/yr = about 40% of today’s total supply. (The SPS scenario would also be carbon neutral.) But biochar also supplies out-year carbon negative benefits from increased above and below-ground living matter. This augmentation is not well known at all, but assuming 2 Gt C per year of afforestation, and placed-char having this assumed eventual out-year doubling potential, then 3 Gt C/yr of placed-char would be sufficient to meet the 8 Gt C/yr goal (this assumes zero fossil and land disturbance positive contributions). 7. Because of this projected doubling of char impact, we are down to 3*30 = 90 EJ/yr of supplied energy - about 15% of today’s supply - which is in addition to today’s approximately 10% through biomass of 60 GJ/yr. Biomass contributions in the neighborhood of 25% appear in some projections for 2050. 8. The above was to try to get an annual average biomass tonnage of carbon, with each tonne of carbon in wood supplying 1/2 tonne of carbon in biochar and 9 GJ. So 3 Gt C/yr of biochar sequestration requires 6 Gt of C in wood-input (or about 12 Gt dry biomass or 24 Gt of wet biomass). This amount of input wood provides a new 54 EJ to be added to today’s roughly 60 - approaching a needed doubling in wood supply going to energy. 9. The total needed added supply is 2 (afforestation) + 2*3 (biochar) = 8 Gt C, which
[geo] On Geoengineering, More Research Needed to Answer Looming Policy Questions | Center for a New American Security
http://www.cnas.org/blog/on-geoengineering-more-research-needed-to-answer-looming-policy-questions-6769 With international climate negotiations underway in Cancun, I wanted to address an aspect of the climate debate that is not as likely to make headlines this week (except of course for this report in today's Washington Post): geoengineering.Geoengineering, the intentional manipulation of the global climate in an effort to halt climate change, is gaining a lot of interest in the policy community. Yet to date, the implications of engineering the climate are shrouded in mystery because the science has not provided much fidelity as to exactly what side effects the global community could experience. “There might be geopolitical consequences as well,” warns Brian Palmer, writing in today’s Washington Post. “Some countries, such as Russia, stand to gain a relative advantage from a little global warming. They might not be happy if another country unilaterally dimmed the sun,” Palmer explains. The United Nations issued a moratorium on geoengineering in October at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity until the science is clear and international agreements on managing these activities are put in place. But how do we improve the science around geoengineering? In October, the House Committee on Science and Technology released a report, Engineering the Climate: Research Needs and Strategies for International Coordination, that explores the research gap around geoengineering and the need to address this gap in order to get answers to many unanswered policy questions. As this subject becomes the focus of more serious consideration and scrutiny within the scientific and policy communities, Chairman Bart Gordon wrote in the foreword, it is important to acknowledge that climate engineering carries with it not only possible benefits, but also an enormous range of uncertainties, ethical and political concerns, and the potential for harmful environmental and economic side effects.The report is the synthesis of a year-long effort by the committee, which held three public hearings to better understand research efforts around geoengineering – referenced in the report as climate engineering. Chairman Bart Gordon argued in favor of using the term climate engineering because geoengineering “does not accurately or fully convey the scale and intent of the proposals, and it may simply be confusing to many stakeholders unfamiliar with the subject.”The report, which is intended to provide contributions “to the evolving global conversation on climate engineering and help guide government and academic structures for research and development activities in this field,” according to Chairman Gordon, is the third in a series of reports commissioned by the committee to explore climate engineering. The two other reports were written by the Congressional Research Service (covered here on the blog) and the Government Accountability Office.Indeed, in making its contribution to the conversation on climate engineering, the report identified key research needs and U.S. research capacities. On key research needs, the committee identified areas such as: greenhouse gas monitoring, accounting and verification; risk assessment and risk management; weather systems (including monsoon cycles); and terrestrial carbon sequestration. Yet despite these research needs, “there is virtually no federal funding explicitly dedicated to ‘climate engineering’ or ‘geoengineering’ research,” according to the committee.To support climate engineering research, the committee emphasized the need to leverage existing tools and competencies within the federal government in order to meet these research needs. According to Chairman Gordon, “any federal climate engineering research program should leverage existing facilities, instruments, skills, and partnerships within the federal agencies,” including the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy, NASA, the EPA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and other federal agencies. (The report described in detail how each of these federal agencies’ research capacities could be leveraged for domestic and international climate engineering research.)Given that our blog focuses on national security and defense policy issues, the “other federal agencies” heading drew my attention and is instructive for how the committee views the role of the Departments of Defense and State. In a report we published in April, Broadening Horizons: Climate Change and the U.S. Armed Forces, one of the recommendations we made to the Department of Defense in the report’s capstone chapter was to get involved in the geoengineering debate: “A lingering but critical policy question for DOD is what its role should be in discussions concerning geoengineering.” And while the Congressional report does not get at many of the policy questions we raised in our April report, it recognized that the
Re: [geo] Re: biochar as CDR and related nomenclature issues: CDRS = CDR + S (carbon dioxide removal + storage)
Keith etal Thanks for the added material. It seems we understand the differences well, so I will keep this short. 1. Re my #2: You found 1 ppm CO2 as 5.20 Gt CO2. Multiplying by 12/44 would give 1.42 Gt C, whereas I had 2.13 Gt C ( a number I have seen many times - such as at http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/convert.html http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=908 ) 2. Re #4: I think we can live with electricity prices appreciably higher than 2 c/kWh.Coal has an environmental cost sometimes reported at 15 c/kWh. Nuclear seems unlikely to ever get anywhere near (is on a negative learning curve). I like your two cites, but think we can only get 2c with energy efficiency (but good luck on proving you can do it with SPS) Biochar has a chance at good economics when used with CHP - where smallness is a virtue. Other (re your final added material): I have followed the SPS concept since the early 1970s, after hearing Dr. Peter Glaser of AD Little. I am in no position to comment on it now, but certainly hope that you can achieve the 2 c/kWh target. That would be wonderful. In a little googling today I was reminded that the Japanese have made a major commitment -which must be very satisfying to you. Using that electricity, with CO2, to create a “disposable” carbon negative liquid for deep underground storage was a new CDR concept to me. This presumably could really be called storage - as it could be pumped back out presumably. I found one Spanish company doing something similar - but with an intent to consume, not store that oil. On this list there has been some important contributions from Prof. Socolow on the costs of air capture - apt to be appreciably higher than given in your reference. I look forward to following this concept - but it still seems pretty far away. Unfortunately, no out-year continuing benefits; rather like BECCS, but with a different liquid/ Your last paragraph created an opportunity to offer a few additional CDR comments. -The largest (partly) biochar company (see www.coolplanet.com) is producing a liquid fuel with a process that can also involve extra hydrogen, but is not at all like Fischer-Tropsch. They are projecting the lowest liquid biofuel prices I have seen (not $50/barrel - but under $100) , and support from major oil companies - There is at least one firm using electricity to make char - with a microwave system. Possibly some (magnetron) parallels with SPS there? In general, the fact that pyrolysis is exothermic could keep most biochar coming from strictly thermal approaches. Ron On Nov 20, 2013, at 1:59 PM, Keith Henson hkeithhen...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 9:22 PM, Ronal W. Larson rongretlar...@comcast.net wrote: Keith cc list 1. Since this is a thread with a biochar theme, I thought we should compare a hypothetical biochar scenario with your solar power satellite (SPS) scenario. 2. Because char is lighter than oil (I assume relative density of 1/3), I got 1200 km3 of char, assuming 400 Gt of carbon needing to be removed for a 100 ppm drop in CO2. This assumes almost as much has to come out of the ocean as the atmosphere. Was your assumption similar on ocean CO2 release? No. From the notes here: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5485 The area of the earth is ~5.1 x 1014 square meters; air pressure is ~100,000 N/m2. The force would be ~5.1 x 1019 and the mass (force/acceleration of 9.8 m/sec2) is ~5.2 x 1018kg or 5.2 x 1015 t. One ppm would be 5.2 x 109 t and 100 ppm would be ~520 billion tonnes. I agree that if the CO2 came down 100 ppm, the oceans would be giving up that much again. Call it a 1000 B tons of CO2. Carbon is 12/44 of CO2, or about 270 billion tons of carbon. Amorphous carbon has a density around 2 tons per cubic meter so the volume would be around135 B cubic meters, about 1/t0th of your estimate but that's close enough for this kind of thought experiment. 3. To achieve the 1200 km3 of char, and an assumed depth of a uniform char layer of 2.5 cm (roughly an inch) requires spreading over about 20% (2.4 Gha) of the global land area. Yours would be a thinner layer of course, but an oil would have to be deep underground to avoid conversion back to CO2. Also a despoil sequestration can provide no out-year benefits. Right. Oil on the surface would be a bad idea of course. Oil has the advantage that you can pump it where char has to be moved around as a solid. On the other hand, you make char as close as you can to the fields where you are going to bury it. 4. Assuming that about half of biomass carbon will go to char and half to energy (at 30 GJ/tonne C), means that the 2.5 cm layer (400 Gt C) will also provide a beneficial (carbon neutral) release of about 12,000 EJ. That's tricky. Biomass is a relatively expensive kind of energy and hard to scale up to an
Re: [geo] Re: biochar as CDR and related nomenclature issues: CDRS = CDR + S (carbon dioxide removal + storage)
On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 6:33 PM, Ronal W. Larson rongretlar...@comcast.net wrote: Keith etal Thanks for the added material. It seems we understand the differences well, so I will keep this short. 1. Re my #2: You found 1 ppm CO2 as 5.20 Gt CO2. Multiplying by 12/44 would give 1.42 Gt C, whereas I had 2.13 Gt C ( a number I have seen many times - such as at http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/convert.html http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=908 ) Ah, fundamental misunderstanding on my part. ppm is by volume and not mass. So your number is right. 2. Re #4: I think we can live with electricity prices appreciably higher than 2 c/kWh.Coal has an environmental cost sometimes reported at 15 c/kWh. Nuclear seems unlikely to ever get anywhere near (is on a negative learning curve). I like your two cites, but think we can only get 2c with energy efficiency (but good luck on proving you can do it with SPS) It's not so much whether or not we can live with high energy costs, it's a question of if we can live well in a vibrant economy. Of course, if energy goes high enough we can no longer ship food and then comes the great die off when a crop fails. Biochar has a chance at good economics when used with CHP - where smallness is a virtue. Other (re your final added material): I have followed the SPS concept since the early 1970s, after hearing Dr. Peter Glaser of AD Little. I am in no position to comment on it now, but certainly hope that you can achieve the 2 c/kWh target. That would be wonderful. In a little googling today I was reminded that the Japanese have made a major commitment -which must be very satisfying to you. Post Fukushima the Japanese canceled their power satellite plans. snip - There is at least one firm using electricity to make char - with a microwave system. Possibly some (magnetron) parallels with SPS there? In general, the fact that pyrolysis is exothermic could keep most biochar coming from strictly thermal approaches. If it will burn, you can make char out of it. But depending on how wet it is, it can be hard. Where with really cheap external energy it doesn't much matter. Keith Ron On Nov 20, 2013, at 1:59 PM, Keith Henson hkeithhen...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 9:22 PM, Ronal W. Larson rongretlar...@comcast.net wrote: Keith cc list 1. Since this is a thread with a biochar theme, I thought we should compare a hypothetical biochar scenario with your solar power satellite (SPS) scenario. 2. Because char is lighter than oil (I assume relative density of 1/3), I got 1200 km3 of char, assuming 400 Gt of carbon needing to be removed for a 100 ppm drop in CO2. This assumes almost as much has to come out of the ocean as the atmosphere. Was your assumption similar on ocean CO2 release? No. From the notes here: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5485 The area of the earth is ~5.1 x 1014 square meters; air pressure is ~100,000 N/m2. The force would be ~5.1 x 1019 and the mass (force/acceleration of 9.8 m/sec2) is ~5.2 x 1018kg or 5.2 x 1015 t. One ppm would be 5.2 x 109 t and 100 ppm would be ~520 billion tonnes. I agree that if the CO2 came down 100 ppm, the oceans would be giving up that much again. Call it a 1000 B tons of CO2. Carbon is 12/44 of CO2, or about 270 billion tons of carbon. Amorphous carbon has a density around 2 tons per cubic meter so the volume would be around135 B cubic meters, about 1/t0th of your estimate but that's close enough for this kind of thought experiment. 3. To achieve the 1200 km3 of char, and an assumed depth of a uniform char layer of 2.5 cm (roughly an inch) requires spreading over about 20% (2.4 Gha) of the global land area. Yours would be a thinner layer of course, but an oil would have to be deep underground to avoid conversion back to CO2. Also a despoil sequestration can provide no out-year benefits. Right. Oil on the surface would be a bad idea of course. Oil has the advantage that you can pump it where char has to be moved around as a solid. On the other hand, you make char as close as you can to the fields where you are going to bury it. 4. Assuming that about half of biomass carbon will go to char and half to energy (at 30 GJ/tonne C), means that the 2.5 cm layer (400 Gt C) will also provide a beneficial (carbon neutral) release of about 12,000 EJ. That's tricky. Biomass is a relatively expensive kind of energy and hard to scale up to an efficient size. Gail Tverberg makes a case that for economic reasons energy need to be not only environmentally friendly, but really cheap. http://theenergycollective.com/gail-tverberg/266116/oil-prices-lead-hard-financial-limits At a conference in Baltimore couple of weeks ago she put it as 1-2 cent per kWh power or (same thing) synthetic oil at $30-50 per bbl. I don't think biomass can do that on either cost or the needed quantity. David MacKay has a
