Re: [geo] Re: Distinguishing morale hazard from moral hazard in geoengineering

[Jonathan Marshall]

Sorry about the delay I'm away from a computer.

Ron writes:

>On this list, we have pretty much stayed away from CCS - not considered to be 
>part of geoengineering - or
>what Andrew wrote about.  Can you expand on your own research to the "Geo" 
>area - perhaps specifically to
>BECCS?  I'm particularly interested in who is lying about CDR?

My research, such that it is, into GE is primarily socio-political, as any 
strategy to employ GE will have social consequences, and will be implemented 
within some kind of political framework. GE is not purely a technical problem, 
but a social problem as well.?

CCS has for a long time, as far as I can tell, been considered a significant 
part of the CDR strategy. It nearly always comes up in political discussions 
about CDR or when the coal or power industry is talking about CDR. As it is so 
often part of the background of CDR, then it would seem useful to bear it in 
mind in discussions on this list.


I've not discussed BECCS, although I think it is likely the known technical 
problems with CCS are similar in both cases. It may also be the case that most 
BE companies are not particularly interested in the CCS part. I don't know. But 
if BECCS is geo-engineering then I suspect CCS should be as well.

There is no need for anyone to be 'lying' or engaged in deliberate deceit over 
CDR. Humans are very good at self-deceit and at being over-optimistic, 
especially when their income, status or power is involved in that optimism. CDR 
in theory saves the coal industry and the coal power industry, the question is 
really whether those who it saves are doing that much to further the research, 
or whether the mere idea of CDR is enough for them to claim everything is ok, 
and leave the research to others.

This does not mean that other forms of CDR would not be more useful.

jon




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[geo] Re: Radiocarbon constraints imply reduced carbon uptake by soils during the 21st century

[Michael Hayes]

Thanks for the post Andrew,

Regrettably, I can not find an open copy of the work 
 and thus 
I'm flying somewhat blind with the following question.

*Question Background Information:*

>From the time of air/seaborne nuclear testing began the abnormal (human 
generated) carbon 14 count has had to be taken into account within any 
study which uses C14. The beginning of such C14 accounting corrections is 
known by a number of terms, inter alia, start of the '*Standard Reference 
Year*', the '*Index Year*', and '*Before Present 
 (BP)*'. Factoring in this 
aspect of the past (present?) anthropogenic manipulation of C14 would be 
critical for the above type of study. Even-though the study is focused upon 
soil, the airborne human-generated C14 does eventually becomes incorporated 
within the soil (and oceans).

Further, the location of the 48  test sites, mentioned in the paper's 
abstract, and their particular spacial relationship to any known/direct 
fall-out patterns (if any), would be an extremely important data as such 
factors would/could significantly skew the data.

*The Question:*  

To what extent was the post BP factor(s) taken into account within the 
study?

To conclude, even if the post BP C14 factors are properly accounted for, 
this study is an alarm to all soil management concerns for the need for the 
widespread use of soil treatments , inter alia, biochar, olivine, and 
carbon rich (biochar) organic fertilizer.

Michael 

   

On Thursday, September 22, 2016 at 4:58:32 PM UTC-7, Andrew Lockley wrote:
>
> Poster's note : appears to imply that rather more care needs to be taken 
> with soil, and that soil CDR will be significantly more challenging than is 
> sometimes argued. 
>
> http://science.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aad4273
>
> Radiocarbon constraints imply reduced carbon uptake by soils during the 
> 21st century
>
> Yujie He1,*, Susan E. Trumbore2, Margaret S. Torn3,Jennifer W. 
> Harden4,5, Lydia J. S. Vaughn3, Steven D. Allison1,6, James T. Randerson1
>
> Email: yuji...@uci.edu 
>
> Science  23 Sep 2016:
> Vol. 353, Issue 6306, pp. 1419-1424
> DOI: 10.1126/science.aad4273
>
> Abstract
>
> Soil is the largest terrestrial carbon reservoir and may influence the 
> sign and magnitude of carbon cycle–climate feedbacks. Many Earth system 
> models (ESMs) estimate a significant soil carbon sink by 2100, yet the 
> underlying carbon dynamics determining this response have not been 
> systematically tested against observations. We used14C data from 157 
> globally distributed soil profiles sampled to 1-meter depth to show that 
> ESMs underestimated the mean age of soil carbon by a factor of more than 
> six (430 ± 50 years versus 3100 ± 1800 years). Consequently, ESMs 
> overestimated the carbon sequestration potential of soils by a factor of 
> nearly two (40 ± 27%). These inconsistencies suggest that ESMs must better 
> represent carbon stabilization processes and the turnover time of slow and 
> passive reservoirs when simulating future atmospheric carbon dioxide 
> dynamics
>

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