Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS

2015-06-20 Thread Gruber Nicolas Patrick
 emissions) vs. how much of the sink is driven 
 by the disequilibrium between the mixed layer and the deep ocean (this is 
 the portion of the sink that is driven by the difference between the current 
 level in the air and the level in the deep ocean, which in turn should scale 
 roughly with cumulative emissions(.
 Here are some things I think I know about the ocean sink.
 1. 1. Revelle factor: assuming only carbonate chemistry and pH, ~ 80-85% 
 of whatever we emit to the atmosphere will eventually be removed. 
 
 2. 2. Temperature dependence of chemical equilibrium constants: a warmer 
 ocean will outgas CO2, so the Revelle limit has to be corrected if the ocean 
 is warmer.  
 
 3. 3. The flow from air to sea is roughly proportional to the gradient  
 between air and mixed layer.
 
 4.4.   The flow from mixed layer to deep ocean is very complex.  It has 
 already brought significant carbon down to at least 500-700 m, or in other 
 words well below the mixed layer.  It is 
 this mixed layer depletion through the thermocline that  allows the mixed 
 layer to continue drawing more CO2 from the atmosphere. 
 
 I believe that simple models that combine the chemistry and the temperature 
 effects tend to show a persistent sink … 
  
   i.e., 2. reduces 1. only a little.  At least that is what the 
 modeling I have done reveals.  But this is where I would like to see the 
 output of the most recent and advanced modeling. 
  
  The strength of the 
 outgassing will of course depend on the time evolution of the temperature 
 profile into the deep ocean, and unfortunately our data on that are sparse 
 (to my knowledge). 
 Related to all this, I would like to see answers to the following questions 
 that are suggested by the fact that a plot of the total sink strength 
 (GT(C)/y) does not appear to bear a strong relationship to annual emissions 
 the previous year.
 a. 1. Would a time lagged model reveal a stronger pattern?
 
 b. 2.  If we could separate out the land sink, would the ocean sink show 
 a stronger relationship between sink and emissions? 
 
 c. 3.   Does the ocean sink each year have little to do with annual 
 emissions and more to do with the disequilibrium between deep and mixed 
 layer referred to above. 
 
 In other words, is the annual ocean sink proportional to annual emissions 
 (maybe with a lag adjustment) or is it proportional to the flow from mixed 
 layer to deep ocean (in which case it would persist even if emissions went 
 to zero).
 
 To my knowledge, no definitive answer has been given to this quesition.  
 Given the rather large amount of C (and heat) that has penetrated below the 
 mixed layer I suspect the answer is the latter, but this question really 
 begs for more analysis.
 
 
 Regarding the land sink, I don't think today's GCM's have the capability of 
 generating believable predictions…because ecologists don't have the 
 necessary information/insight.
 
 
 
 
 John Harte
 Professor of Ecosystem Sciences
 ERG/ESPM
 310 Barrows Hall
 University of California
 Berkeley, CA 94720  USA
 jha...@berkeley.edu
 
 
 
 On Jun 16, 2015, at 1:33 PM, Mike MacCracken mmacc...@comcast.net wrote:
 
 Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS 
 John H and Greg—Sorry, I’m running a bit behind. I want to go back to this 
 issue of how long the carbon sink in the ocean will continue at the 
 magnitude it is. Someone will have a good model to actually run and see, 
 but I’m concerned that the rate will not continue so large for so long.
 
 So, the atmosphere works to be in equilibrium with the upper ocean 
 concentration, and that time constant is pretty fast (years to a decade or 
 so). Right now, water at low latitudes comes up supersaturated and emits 
 CO2 to the atmosphere as it warms, so a lower CO2 concentration in the 
 atmosphere will lead to increased emissions. And then as the ocean moves 
 poleward and cools CO2 is taken up and a lower CO2 concentration in 
 atmosphere will mean less is taken up.
 
 Now, the upper ocean is also seeking to reach equilibrium with the deep 
 ocean, and this will indeed take a long time given deep ocean circulation 
 time is of order 1000 years. So, the upward flux from deep ocean will 
 continue as is (assuming that the overturning does not change), but would 
 not the downward flux to the deep ocean be decreasing per discussion above? 
 So, it seems to me, the downward circulation aspect of the carbon cycle 
 becomes goes down as the atmospheric concentration stops going up.
 
 Thus, I just don’t think it is right that one can assume the net removal 
 rate from the atmosphere to the ocean

Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS

2015-06-17 Thread Mike MacCracken
Hi John‹I¹m guessing (hopefully in an educated way), but I would think that
the variation in the apparent net atmosphere to surface ocean flux is mainly
a result of state of the tropical ocean, so whether the upward moving deep
water that is supersaturated in CO2 is getting mixed into the ocean surface
layer and outgassing or is covered by warm water (as in El Nino years) and
so the CO2 remains trapped below, and that all of this creates a bit of a
lag (a year or so, etc.). Yes, there is also some variation in bottom water
formation rates and so how much CO2 is being taken down but I would guess
the larger variation is from the outgassing effect at low latitudes. It
would be nice if a real carbon cycle modeler stepped in and provided
authoritative answers.

Best, Mike


On 6/16/15, 8:54 PM, John Harte jha...@berkeley.edu wrote:

 Mike, you are posing the following knotty question:
 How much of the ocean sink is driven by the mismatch between annual emissions
 and the mixed layer concentration (this is the portion of the sink that should
 scale with annual emissions) vs. how much of the sink is driven by the
 disequilibrium between the mixed layer and the deep ocean (this is the portion
 of the sink that is driven by the difference between the current level in the
 air and the level in the deep ocean, which in turn should scale roughly with
 cumulative emissions(.
 Here are some things I think I know about the ocean sink.
 1. 1. Revelle factor: assuming only carbonate chemistry and pH, ~ 80-85%
 of whatever we emit to the atmosphere will eventually be removed.
 
 2. 2. Temperature dependence of chemical equilibrium constants: a warmer
 ocean will outgas CO2, so the Revelle limit has to be corrected if the ocean
 is warmer.  
 
 3. 3. The flow from air to sea is roughly proportional to the gradient
 between air and mixed layer.
 
 4.4.   The flow from mixed layer to deep ocean is very complex.  It has
 already brought significant carbon down to at least 500-700 m, or in other
 words well below the mixed layer.  It is this
 mixed layer depletion through the thermocline that  allows the mixed layer to
 continue drawing more CO2 from the atmosphere.
 
 I believe that simple models that combine the chemistry and the temperature
 effects tend to show a persistent sink Š
 i.e., 2. reduces 1. only a little.  At least that is what the modeling I have
 done reveals.  But this is where I would like to see the output of the most
 recent and advanced modeling.
 The strength of the outgassing will of course depend on the time evolution of
 the temperature profile into the deep ocean, and unfortunately our data on
 that are sparse (to my knowledge).
 Related to all this, I would like to see answers to the following questions
 that are suggested by the fact that a plot of the total sink strength
 (GT(C)/y) does not appear to bear a strong relationship to annual emissions
 the previous year.
 a. 1. Would a time lagged model reveal a stronger pattern?
 
 b. 2.  If we could separate out the land sink, would the ocean sink show a
 stronger relationship between sink and emissions?
 
 c. 3.   Does the ocean sink each year have little to do with annual
 emissions and more to do with the disequilibrium between deep and mixed layer
 referred to above.
 
 In other words, is the annual ocean sink proportional to annual emissions
 (maybe with a lag adjustment) or is it proportional to the flow from mixed
 layer to deep ocean (in which case it would persist even if emissions went to
 zero).
 
 To my knowledge, no definitive answer has been given to this quesition.  Given
 the rather large amount of C (and heat) that has penetrated below the mixed
 layer I suspect the answer is the latter, but this question really begs for
 more analysis.
 
 
 Regarding the land sink, I don't think today's GCM's have the capability of
 generating believable predictionsŠbecause ecologists don't have the necessary
 information/insight.
 
 
 
 
 John Harte
 Professor of Ecosystem Sciences
 ERG/ESPM
 310 Barrows Hall
 University of California
 Berkeley, CA 94720  USA
 jha...@berkeley.edu
 
 
 
 On Jun 16, 2015, at 1:33 PM, Mike MacCracken mmacc...@comcast.net wrote:
 
 Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS
 John H and Greg‹Sorry, I¹m running a bit behind. I want to go back to this
 issue of how long the carbon sink in the ocean will continue at the magnitude
 it is. Someone will have a good model to actually run and see, but I¹m
 concerned that the rate will not continue so large for so long.
 
 So, the atmosphere works to be in equilibrium with the upper ocean
 concentration, and that time constant is pretty fast (years to a decade or
 so). Right now, water at low latitudes comes up supersaturated and emits CO2
 to the atmosphere as it warms, so a lower CO2 concentration in the atmosphere
 will lead to increased emissions. And then as the ocean moves poleward and
 cools CO2

Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS

2015-06-16 Thread Mike MacCracken
) is a nonstarter
 from a thermodynamics standpoint, not to mention land use impacts of biomass
 production plus safety and security issues of underground molecular CO2
 storage. Do we really want the CCS lobby and marketing machine to monopolize
 the CDR space, as they have point-source CO2 mitigation, at the expense
  of a much broader search for safer and more cost effective CO2 managment
 strategies, thus holding hostage any significant movement in mitigating pre-
 or post-emissions fossil fuel CO2? And, given what is at stake, can we
 really afford to limit ourselves to using less than 30% of the planet in
 solving a global problem, i.e., ignore the ocean? I therefore find IPCC's 
 NAS's and now the World Bank's promotion of aforestation and BECCS as the
 poster children of CDR dangerously narrow minded.
 
  Greg
 
  
  On Tue, 6/9/15, John Harte jha...@berkeley.edu wrote:
 
  Subject: Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS
  To: John Nissen johnnissen2...@gmail.com
  Cc: Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) r.d.schuil...@uu.nl, gh...@sbcglobal.net
 gh...@sbcglobal.net, geoengineering@googlegroups.com
 geoengineering@googlegroups.com, Peter R Carter petercarte...@shaw.ca,
 Oliver Tickell oliver.tick...@kyoto2.org
  Date: Tuesday, June 9, 2015, 3:38 PM
 
  John, rather
  than forgetting that, it is exactly the point I am making.
  But it's not half of the actual emitted carbon that goes
  down the sink; it is a quantity of carbon equal to half the
  emitted carbon.  So if we emit no carbon next year, at the
  end of the year there will be 4 or 5 Gt less carbon in the
  atmosphere.  Modeling this out 85 years with a simple
  gradient-driven (and thus diminishing) sink rate suggests
  that by end of century there could be substantially reduced
  atmospheric CO2Ševen in a scenario in which emissions are
  reduced by ~ 2 or 3% per year.
 
  John HarteProfessor of Ecosystem
  SciencesERG/ESPM310 Barrows
  HallUniversity of CaliforniaBerkeley,
  CA 94720  usajha...@berkeley.edu
 
 
 
 
 
  On Jun 9, 2015, at 3:25
  PM, John Nissen johnnissen2...@gmail.com
  wrote:
  Hi John,
 
  I think you may be
  forgetting that about half the CO2 emitted is immediately
  absorbed by land and oceans.  The other half has a long
  lifetime, measured in centuries (and a fraction of that
  measured in millennia).  Thus reducing emissions to zero
  would only produce a gradual reduction in the atmospheric
  CO2 level.  Therefore active CO2 removal (CDR) is essential
  for quickly reducing that level to a safe value: somewhere
  in mid 300s of ppm.
 
  Cheers, John (just back from holiday and
  a conference on ocean acidification)
 
 
  On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 1:00
  AM, John Harte jha...@berkeley.edu
  wrote:
  Recall that the natural sink
  strength today is about 4 or 5 Gt(C)/y Š  there is no
  reason to think that this sink strength, which is
  effectively driven by the difference between the current
  atmospheric concentration and the concentration in an
  atmosphere in equilibrium with the current ocean
  concentration, and which sink has been increasing since
  1990, would rapidly quench until the atmospheric
  concentration is well down into the mid 300's ppm
  range.
  Hence if we reduce
  emissions down to a level of roughly 4 or 5 Gt(C)/y we will
  see the atmospheric level roughly stabilize and if reduce
  emissions to zero, we will see the atmospheric level  drop
  at a very beneficial pace.
 
  What would invalidate this
  projection is crossing a tipping point in which warming
  results in a sharp increase in background C or CH4 emissions
  (effectively a negative sink) but the paleo record does not
  suggest that such tipping points are lurking at current or
  even slightly higher temperatures.
  If we do not reduce emissions, there
  is a of course a better chance that we will cross such
  tipping points in the coming century.
 
  John HarteProfessor of Ecosystem
  SciencesERG/ESPM310 Barrows
  HallUniversity of CaliforniaBerkeley,
  CA 94720  usajha...@berkeley.edu
 
 
 
 
 
  On May 31, 2015, at 8:39 PM, John
  Nissen johnnissen2...@gmail.com
  wrote:
  IPCC and the World bank ignore that we need ramp
  up removal technologies until we are removing more CO2 than
  we are putting into the atmosphere.  This ramp up needs to
  start straight away, if we are to have a reasonable chance
  of avoiding both dangerous global warming and dangerous
  ocean acidification.  CCS reduces emissions of CO2 into the
  atmosphere, but does not actually remove CO2 as needed to
  get the level safely below 350 ppm or so.
  There should be a formal complaint
  to IPCC about this, as for some other issues.
  Cheers, John
  On Tue, May 26, 2015 at
  8:53 AM, Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) r.d.schuil...@uu.nl
  wrote:
  A serious
  lack of knowledge about natural processes. A million times
  more CO2 has been stored by nature in carbonate rocks than
  is present in the oceans, atmosphere

RE: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS

2015-06-16 Thread Robert H. Socolow
Mike, John, Greg,…There must be many runs of GCMs where the input is an 
emissions trajectory that simply drops to zero (gradually or suddenly). Yet, my 
perception is that the experts are unsure of what will ensue in the oceans over 
the following few decades. (Assumptions are needed about the land sink.) Might 
this group be able to pool insights and say something definitive?

Rob

From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] 
On Behalf Of Mike MacCracken
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2015 4:34 PM
To: johnnissen2...@gmail.com; John Harte
Cc: Greg Rau; R.D. (Olaf)Schuiling; Geoengineering; CARTER; Oliver Tickell
Subject: Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS

John H and Greg—Sorry, I’m running a bit behind. I want to go back to this 
issue of how long the carbon sink in the ocean will continue at the magnitude 
it is. Someone will have a good model to actually run and see, but I’m 
concerned that the rate will not continue so large for so long.

So, the atmosphere works to be in equilibrium with the upper ocean 
concentration, and that time constant is pretty fast (years to a decade or so). 
Right now, water at low latitudes comes up supersaturated and emits CO2 to the 
atmosphere as it warms, so a lower CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will 
lead to increased emissions. And then as the ocean moves poleward and cools CO2 
is taken up and a lower CO2 concentration in atmosphere will mean less is taken 
up.

Now, the upper ocean is also seeking to reach equilibrium with the deep ocean, 
and this will indeed take a long time given deep ocean circulation time is of 
order 1000 years. So, the upward flux from deep ocean will continue as is 
(assuming that the overturning does not change), but would not the downward 
flux to the deep ocean be decreasing per discussion above? So, it seems to me, 
the downward circulation aspect of the carbon cycle becomes goes down as the 
atmospheric concentration stops going up.

Thus, I just don’t think it is right that one can assume the net removal rate 
from the atmosphere to the ocean will persist at its current rate for well into 
the future as global emissions go down (or go to zero). In the past, the net 
transfer rate to the deep ocean has gone up as the atmospheric concentration 
has gone up—why would it not go down as the rate of increase in the CO2 goes to 
zero?

Mike


On 6/10/15, 4:54 PM, John Nissen johnnissen2...@gmail.com wrote:
Hi John,

Even IPCC admits that there will be dangerous climate change without negative 
emissions, by which they mean geoengineering of the CO2 removal type (CDR).  
RCP2.6, the only scenario which has a reasonable chance of keeping global 
warming below 2 degrees C, relies on negative emissions.  So I argue that it is 
indefensible not to consider what CDR techniques can be implemented.  Such 
consideration will lend force to the efforts to reduce emissions, because 
people will realise how serious the situation has become.  Thus the 
consideration of geoengineering will be strategically productive, rather than 
counterproductive as you suggest.

We have to find a way to remove CO2 faster than it is being put into the 
atmosphere.  That is the bottom line.

BTW, we also have to find a way to cool the Arctic and save the sea ice: that 
is even more urgent.  (CO2 reductions will not help here; nor will CDR.)  This 
will almost certainly require SRM-type geoengineering together will local 
interventions such as snow generation and ice thickening to restore albedo.

Cheers, John


On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 7:50 PM, John Harte jha...@berkeley.edu wrote:
I am no more confident than you, Greg, that we will reduce emissions by ~2%/y.  
That we could do so does not mean we will.  My point was simply to address the 
argument of some who suggest that that no matter how fast we reduce emissions, 
the CO2 level in the atmosphere will continue to rise and we are doomed to see 
large and very risky future climate warming.

I believe it is both scientifically indefensible and strategically 
counterproductive to base the case for further research on geoengineering on 
the grounds that nothing else we can possible do will stave off catastrophe.

John Harte
Professor of Ecosystem Sciences
ERG/ESPM
310 Barrows Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720  USA
jha...@berkeley.edu



On Jun 9, 2015, at 9:05 PM, Greg Rau gh...@sbcglobal.net wrote:

 I'd say that we are nowhere near reducing global emissions by 2-3% per year 
 let alone getting to zero emissions. This would seem to up the chances that 
 we are going to blow through a critical CO2 level which could last more than 
 85 years, depending. E.g., if the 2 degree threshold is real and only 
 requires 1000 Gt more of CO2 emissions to achieve, miraculously stabilizing 
 anthro emissions at current levels, 37 Gt CO2/yr, gets us to the  next 1Tt of 
 CO2 emitted in under 30 years. Those trying to conserve glacial and sea ice 
 and permafrost

Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS

2015-06-16 Thread John Harte
 think it is right that one can assume the net removal rate 
 from the atmosphere to the ocean will persist at its current rate for well 
 into the future as global emissions go down (or go to zero). In the past, the 
 net transfer rate to the deep ocean has gone up as the atmospheric 
 concentration has gone up—why would it not go down as the rate of increase in 
 the CO2 goes to zero?
 
 Mike
 
 
 On 6/10/15, 4:54 PM, John Nissen johnnissen2...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Hi John,
 
 Even IPCC admits that there will be dangerous climate change without 
 negative emissions, by which they mean geoengineering of the CO2 removal 
 type (CDR).  RCP2.6, the only scenario which has a reasonable chance of 
 keeping global warming below 2 degrees C, relies on negative emissions.  So 
 I argue that it is indefensible not to consider what CDR techniques can be 
 implemented.  Such consideration will lend force to the efforts to reduce 
 emissions, because people will realise how serious the situation has become. 
  Thus the consideration of geoengineering will be strategically productive, 
 rather than counterproductive as you suggest.
 
 We have to find a way to remove CO2 faster than it is being put into the 
 atmosphere.  That is the bottom line.
 
 BTW, we also have to find a way to cool the Arctic and save the sea ice: 
 that is even more urgent.  (CO2 reductions will not help here; nor will 
 CDR.)  This will almost certainly require SRM-type geoengineering together 
 will local interventions such as snow generation and ice thickening to 
 restore albedo.
 
 Cheers, John
 
 
 On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 7:50 PM, John Harte jha...@berkeley.edu wrote:
 I am no more confident than you, Greg, that we will reduce emissions by 
 ~2%/y.  That we could do so does not mean we will.  My point was simply to 
 address the argument of some who suggest that that no matter how fast we 
 reduce emissions, the CO2 level in the atmosphere will continue to rise and 
 we are doomed to see large and very risky future climate warming.
 
 I believe it is both scientifically indefensible and strategically 
 counterproductive to base the case for further research on geoengineering 
 on the grounds that nothing else we can possible do will stave off 
 catastrophe.
 
 John Harte
 Professor of Ecosystem Sciences
 ERG/ESPM
 310 Barrows Hall
 University of California
 Berkeley, CA 94720  USA
 jha...@berkeley.edu
 
 
 
 On Jun 9, 2015, at 9:05 PM, Greg Rau gh...@sbcglobal.net wrote:
 
  I'd say that we are nowhere near reducing global emissions by 2-3% per 
  year let alone getting to zero emissions. This would seem to up the 
  chances that we are going to blow through a critical CO2 level which 
  could last more than 85 years, depending. E.g., if the 2 degree threshold 
  is real and only requires 1000 Gt more of CO2 emissions to achieve, 
  miraculously stabilizing anthro emissions at current levels, 37 Gt 
  CO2/yr, gets us to the  next 1Tt of CO2 emitted in under 30 years. Those 
  trying to conserve glacial and sea ice and permafrost might say we've 
  already passed a point of no return.
 
  So I side with caution and John N. At our current pace of year-to-year 
  global CO2 emissions reductions (nonexistent) and with clear AGW and OA, 
  it is time to seriously ask what are all of our options for managing CO2 
  and its consequences. As pointed out in this thread, natural CO2 sinks 
  are already saving our bacon to the tune by some 18 Gt CO2/yr removed 
  from air. Is it unthinkable that we cannot increase this uptake by 
  enhancing existing sinks or inventing new ones that can compete on a cost 
  and efficiency basis with other methods of CO2 management? In this 
  regard, making supercritical CO2 from dilute sources and storing it 
  underground (BECCS) is a nonstarter from a thermodynamics standpoint, not 
  to mention land use impacts of biomass production plus safety and 
  security issues of underground molecular CO2 storage. Do we really want 
  the CCS lobby and marketing machine to monopolize the CDR space, as they 
  have point-source CO2 mitigation, at the expense
  of a much broader search for safer and more cost effective CO2 managment 
  strategies, thus holding hostage any significant movement in mitigating 
  pre- or post-emissions fossil fuel CO2? And, given what is at stake, can 
  we really afford to limit ourselves to using less than 30% of the planet 
  in solving a global problem, i.e., ignore the ocean? I therefore find 
  IPCC's  NAS's and now the World Bank's promotion of aforestation and 
  BECCS as the poster children of CDR dangerously narrow minded.
 
  Greg
 
  
  On Tue, 6/9/15, John Harte jha...@berkeley.edu wrote:
 
  Subject: Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS
  To: John Nissen johnnissen2...@gmail.com
  Cc: Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) r.d.schuil...@uu.nl, gh...@sbcglobal.net 
  gh...@sbcglobal.net, geoengineering@googlegroups.com

Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS

2015-06-10 Thread John Harte
I am no more confident than you, Greg, that we will reduce emissions by ~2%/y.  
That we could do so does not mean we will.  My point was simply to address the 
argument of some who suggest that that no matter how fast we reduce emissions, 
the CO2 level in the atmosphere will continue to rise and we are doomed to see 
large and very risky future climate warming.  

I believe it is both scientifically indefensible and strategically 
counterproductive to base the case for further research on geoengineering on 
the grounds that nothing else we can possible do will stave off catastrophe.

John Harte
Professor of Ecosystem Sciences
ERG/ESPM
310 Barrows Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720  USA
jha...@berkeley.edu



On Jun 9, 2015, at 9:05 PM, Greg Rau gh...@sbcglobal.net wrote:

 I'd say that we are nowhere near reducing global emissions by 2-3% per year 
 let alone getting to zero emissions. This would seem to up the chances that 
 we are going to blow through a critical CO2 level which could last more than 
 85 years, depending. E.g., if the 2 degree threshold is real and only 
 requires 1000 Gt more of CO2 emissions to achieve, miraculously stabilizing 
 anthro emissions at current levels, 37 Gt CO2/yr, gets us to the  next 1Tt of 
 CO2 emitted in under 30 years. Those trying to conserve glacial and sea ice 
 and permafrost might say we've already passed a point of no return.
 
 So I side with caution and John N. At our current pace of year-to-year global 
 CO2 emissions reductions (nonexistent) and with clear AGW and OA, it is time 
 to seriously ask what are all of our options for managing CO2 and its 
 consequences. As pointed out in this thread, natural CO2 sinks are already 
 saving our bacon to the tune by some 18 Gt CO2/yr removed from air. Is it 
 unthinkable that we cannot increase this uptake by enhancing existing sinks 
 or inventing new ones that can compete on a cost and efficiency basis with 
 other methods of CO2 management? In this regard, making supercritical CO2 
 from dilute sources and storing it underground (BECCS) is a nonstarter from a 
 thermodynamics standpoint, not to mention land use impacts of biomass 
 production plus safety and security issues of underground molecular CO2 
 storage. Do we really want the CCS lobby and marketing machine to monopolize 
 the CDR space, as they have point-source CO2 mitigation, at the expense
 of a much broader search for safer and more cost effective CO2 managment 
 strategies, thus holding hostage any significant movement in mitigating pre- 
 or post-emissions fossil fuel CO2? And, given what is at stake, can we really 
 afford to limit ourselves to using less than 30% of the planet in solving a 
 global problem, i.e., ignore the ocean? I therefore find IPCC's  NAS's and 
 now the World Bank's promotion of aforestation and BECCS as the poster 
 children of CDR dangerously narrow minded.
 
 Greg
 
 
 On Tue, 6/9/15, John Harte jha...@berkeley.edu wrote:
 
 Subject: Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS
 To: John Nissen johnnissen2...@gmail.com
 Cc: Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) r.d.schuil...@uu.nl, gh...@sbcglobal.net 
 gh...@sbcglobal.net, geoengineering@googlegroups.com 
 geoengineering@googlegroups.com, Peter R Carter petercarte...@shaw.ca, 
 Oliver Tickell oliver.tick...@kyoto2.org
 Date: Tuesday, June 9, 2015, 3:38 PM
 
 John, rather
 than forgetting that, it is exactly the point I am making.
 But it's not half of the actual emitted carbon that goes
 down the sink; it is a quantity of carbon equal to half the
 emitted carbon.  So if we emit no carbon next year, at the
 end of the year there will be 4 or 5 Gt less carbon in the
 atmosphere.  Modeling this out 85 years with a simple
 gradient-driven (and thus diminishing) sink rate suggests
 that by end of century there could be substantially reduced
 atmospheric CO2…even in a scenario in which emissions are
 reduced by ~ 2 or 3% per year.
 
 John HarteProfessor of Ecosystem
 SciencesERG/ESPM310 Barrows
 HallUniversity of CaliforniaBerkeley,
 CA 94720  usajha...@berkeley.edu
 
 
 
 
 
 On Jun 9, 2015, at 3:25
 PM, John Nissen johnnissen2...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 Hi John,
 
 I think you may be
 forgetting that about half the CO2 emitted is immediately
 absorbed by land and oceans.  The other half has a long
 lifetime, measured in centuries (and a fraction of that
 measured in millennia).  Thus reducing emissions to zero
 would only produce a gradual reduction in the atmospheric
 CO2 level.  Therefore active CO2 removal (CDR) is essential
 for quickly reducing that level to a safe value: somewhere
 in mid 300s of ppm.
 
 Cheers, John (just back from holiday and
 a conference on ocean acidification)
 
 
 On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 1:00
 AM, John Harte jha...@berkeley.edu
 wrote:
 Recall that the natural sink
 strength today is about 4 or 5 Gt(C)/y …  there is no
 reason to think that this sink strength, which is
 effectively driven

Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS

2015-06-10 Thread John Nissen
Hi John,

I think you may be forgetting that about half the CO2 emitted is
immediately absorbed by land and oceans.  The other half has a long
lifetime, measured in centuries (and a fraction of that measured in
millennia).  Thus reducing emissions to zero would only produce a gradual
reduction in the atmospheric CO2 level.  Therefore active CO2 removal (CDR)
is essential for quickly reducing that level to a safe value: somewhere in
mid 300s of ppm.

Cheers, John (just back from holiday and a conference on ocean
acidification)


On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 1:00 AM, John Harte jha...@berkeley.edu wrote:

 Recall that the natural sink strength today is about 4 or 5 Gt(C)/y …
  there is no reason to think that this sink strength, which is effectively
 driven by the difference between the current atmospheric concentration and
 the concentration in an atmosphere in equilibrium with the current ocean
 concentration, and which sink has been increasing since 1990, would rapidly
 quench until the atmospheric concentration is well down into the mid 300's
 ppm range.

 Hence if we reduce emissions down to a level of roughly 4 or 5 Gt(C)/y we
 will see the atmospheric level roughly stabilize and if reduce emissions to
 zero, we will see the atmospheric level  drop at a very beneficial pace.

 What would invalidate this projection is crossing a tipping point in which
 warming results in a sharp increase in background C or CH4 emissions
 (effectively a negative sink) but the paleo record does not suggest that
 such tipping points are lurking at current or even slightly higher
 temperatures.

 If we do not reduce emissions, there is a of course a better chance that
 we will cross such tipping points in the coming century.

 John Harte
 Professor of Ecosystem Sciences
 ERG/ESPM
 310 Barrows Hall
 University of California
 Berkeley, CA 94720  USA
 jha...@berkeley.edu



 On May 31, 2015, at 8:39 PM, John Nissen johnnissen2...@gmail.com wrote:

 IPCC and the World bank ignore that we need ramp up removal technologies
 until we are removing more CO2 than we are putting into the atmosphere.
 This ramp up needs to start straight away, if we are to have a reasonable
 chance of avoiding both dangerous global warming and dangerous ocean
 acidification.  CCS reduces emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere, but does
 not actually remove CO2 as needed to get the level safely below 350 ppm or
 so.

 There should be a formal complaint to IPCC about this, as for some other
 issues.

 Cheers, John

 On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 8:53 AM, Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) 
 r.d.schuil...@uu.nl wrote:

 A serious lack of knowledge about natural processes. A million times more
 CO2 has been stored by nature in carbonate rocks than is present in the
 oceans, atmosphere and biosphere combined, and not a word about it, Olaf
 Schuiling

 -Original Message-
 From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:
 geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Greg Rau
 Sent: maandag 25 mei 2015 21:55
 To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
 Subject: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS


 http://bellona.org/news/climate-change/2015-05-world-bank-report-highlights-necessity-ccs

 “We need Bio-CCS to attain carbon neutrality by 2100”

 This statement forms a key area of scientific consensus, shared by the
 IPCC in the 5AR and acknowledged by the World Bank’s report. Achieving the
 2°C target will necessitate negative emissions in the second part of this
 century. This can be achieved through the combination of sustainable
 bioenergy with CCS. Find out how it works here.

 GR - So says CCS promoters, completely ignoring numerous other C-negative
 technologies.

 Importantly, the report warns that beyond 2030, the scenarios in which
 CCS is not available or not deployed at scale, the negative emissions
 required to keep temperature change below 2°C or even 3°C have to be
 generated from the agriculture, forestry, and other land-use sectors,
 creating immense challenges in land-use management.

 GR - Completely ignores ocean-based C-negative technologies.  Who says
 that C-negative methods must be limited to 30% of the Earth's surface,
 much of which is already critical for other uses/services?

 With regards to decarbonisation of the electricity sector, the report
 argues that the share of low-carbon or negative-carbon energy must rise
 from less than 20% in 2010 to about 60% in 2050. This is an increase of
 more than 300% over 40 years.

 GR- There is no way this is going to happen if we limit ourselves to
 making concentrated CO2 from flue gas and storing it in the ground -
 (BE)CCS. We need to expand RDD, marketing and policy way beyond CCS. But
 how will this happen as long as well funded, vested interests continue to
 sell CCS as the only viable technology?

 The report argues that oil and gas companies can in a similar fashion
 reinvent themselves if they develop CCS technology. A Bellona study has in
 fact found that the jobs and skills of today’s

Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS

2015-06-10 Thread John Nissen
Hi John,

Even IPCC admits that there will be dangerous climate change without
negative emissions, by which they mean geoengineering of the CO2 removal
type (CDR).  RCP2.6, the only scenario which has a reasonable chance of
keeping global warming below 2 degrees C, relies on negative emissions.  So
I argue that it is indefensible *not* to consider what CDR techniques can
be implemented.  Such consideration will lend force to the efforts to
reduce emissions, because people will realise how serious the situation has
become.  Thus the consideration of geoengineering will be strategically
*productive*, rather than counterproductive as you suggest.

We have to find a way to remove CO2 faster than it is being put into the
atmosphere.  That is the bottom line.

BTW, we also have to find a way to cool the Arctic and save the sea ice:
that is even more urgent.  (CO2 reductions will not help here; nor will
CDR.)  This will almost certainly require SRM-type geoengineering together
will local interventions such as snow generation and ice thickening to
restore albedo.

Cheers, John


On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 7:50 PM, John Harte jha...@berkeley.edu wrote:

 I am no more confident than you, Greg, that we will reduce emissions by
 ~2%/y.  That we could do so does not mean we will.  My point was simply to
 address the argument of some who suggest that that no matter how fast we
 reduce emissions, the CO2 level in the atmosphere will continue to rise and
 we are doomed to see large and very risky future climate warming.

 I believe it is both scientifically indefensible and strategically
 counterproductive to base the case for further research on geoengineering
 on the grounds that nothing else we can possible do will stave off
 catastrophe.

 John Harte
 Professor of Ecosystem Sciences
 ERG/ESPM
 310 Barrows Hall
 University of California
 Berkeley, CA 94720  USA
 jha...@berkeley.edu



 On Jun 9, 2015, at 9:05 PM, Greg Rau gh...@sbcglobal.net wrote:

  I'd say that we are nowhere near reducing global emissions by 2-3% per
 year let alone getting to zero emissions. This would seem to up the chances
 that we are going to blow through a critical CO2 level which could last
 more than 85 years, depending. E.g., if the 2 degree threshold is real and
 only requires 1000 Gt more of CO2 emissions to achieve, miraculously
 stabilizing anthro emissions at current levels, 37 Gt CO2/yr, gets us to
 the  next 1Tt of CO2 emitted in under 30 years. Those trying to conserve
 glacial and sea ice and permafrost might say we've already passed a point
 of no return.
 
  So I side with caution and John N. At our current pace of year-to-year
 global CO2 emissions reductions (nonexistent) and with clear AGW and OA, it
 is time to seriously ask what are all of our options for managing CO2 and
 its consequences. As pointed out in this thread, natural CO2 sinks are
 already saving our bacon to the tune by some 18 Gt CO2/yr removed from air.
 Is it unthinkable that we cannot increase this uptake by enhancing existing
 sinks or inventing new ones that can compete on a cost and efficiency basis
 with other methods of CO2 management? In this regard, making supercritical
 CO2 from dilute sources and storing it underground (BECCS) is a nonstarter
 from a thermodynamics standpoint, not to mention land use impacts of
 biomass production plus safety and security issues of underground molecular
 CO2 storage. Do we really want the CCS lobby and marketing machine to
 monopolize the CDR space, as they have point-source CO2 mitigation, at the
 expense
  of a much broader search for safer and more cost effective CO2 managment
 strategies, thus holding hostage any significant movement in mitigating
 pre- or post-emissions fossil fuel CO2? And, given what is at stake, can we
 really afford to limit ourselves to using less than 30% of the planet in
 solving a global problem, i.e., ignore the ocean? I therefore find IPCC's
 NAS's and now the World Bank's promotion of aforestation and BECCS as the
 poster children of CDR dangerously narrow minded.
 
  Greg
 
  
  On Tue, 6/9/15, John Harte jha...@berkeley.edu wrote:
 
  Subject: Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS
  To: John Nissen johnnissen2...@gmail.com
  Cc: Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) r.d.schuil...@uu.nl, gh...@sbcglobal.net
 gh...@sbcglobal.net, geoengineering@googlegroups.com 
 geoengineering@googlegroups.com, Peter R Carter petercarte...@shaw.ca,
 Oliver Tickell oliver.tick...@kyoto2.org
  Date: Tuesday, June 9, 2015, 3:38 PM
 
  John, rather
  than forgetting that, it is exactly the point I am making.
  But it's not half of the actual emitted carbon that goes
  down the sink; it is a quantity of carbon equal to half the
  emitted carbon.  So if we emit no carbon next year, at the
  end of the year there will be 4 or 5 Gt less carbon in the
  atmosphere.  Modeling this out 85 years with a simple
  gradient-driven (and thus diminishing) sink rate

Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS

2015-06-09 Thread John Harte
John, rather than forgetting that, it is exactly the point I am making. But 
it's not half of the actual emitted carbon that goes down the sink; it is a 
quantity of carbon equal to half the emitted carbon.  So if we emit no carbon 
next year, at the end of the year there will be 4 or 5 Gt less carbon in the 
atmosphere.  Modeling this out 85 years with a simple gradient-driven (and thus 
diminishing) sink rate suggests that by end of century there could be 
substantially reduced atmospheric CO2…even in a scenario in which emissions are 
reduced by ~ 2 or 3% per year.

John Harte
Professor of Ecosystem Sciences
ERG/ESPM
310 Barrows Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720  USA
jha...@berkeley.edu



On Jun 9, 2015, at 3:25 PM, John Nissen johnnissen2...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi John,
 
 I think you may be forgetting that about half the CO2 emitted is immediately 
 absorbed by land and oceans.  The other half has a long lifetime, measured in 
 centuries (and a fraction of that measured in millennia).  Thus reducing 
 emissions to zero would only produce a gradual reduction in the atmospheric 
 CO2 level.  Therefore active CO2 removal (CDR) is essential for quickly 
 reducing that level to a safe value: somewhere in mid 300s of ppm.
 
 Cheers, John (just back from holiday and a conference on ocean acidification)
 
 
 On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 1:00 AM, John Harte jha...@berkeley.edu wrote:
 Recall that the natural sink strength today is about 4 or 5 Gt(C)/y …  there 
 is no reason to think that this sink strength, which is effectively driven by 
 the difference between the current atmospheric concentration and the 
 concentration in an atmosphere in equilibrium with the current ocean 
 concentration, and which sink has been increasing since 1990, would rapidly 
 quench until the atmospheric concentration is well down into the mid 300's 
 ppm range. 
 
 Hence if we reduce emissions down to a level of roughly 4 or 5 Gt(C)/y we 
 will see the atmospheric level roughly stabilize and if reduce emissions to 
 zero, we will see the atmospheric level  drop at a very beneficial pace.
 
 What would invalidate this projection is crossing a tipping point in which 
 warming results in a sharp increase in background C or CH4 emissions 
 (effectively a negative sink) but the paleo record does not suggest that such 
 tipping points are lurking at current or even slightly higher temperatures.  
 
 If we do not reduce emissions, there is a of course a better chance that we 
 will cross such tipping points in the coming century.  
 
 John Harte
 Professor of Ecosystem Sciences
 ERG/ESPM
 310 Barrows Hall
 University of California
 Berkeley, CA 94720  USA
 jha...@berkeley.edu
 
 
 
 On May 31, 2015, at 8:39 PM, John Nissen johnnissen2...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 IPCC and the World bank ignore that we need ramp up removal technologies 
 until we are removing more CO2 than we are putting into the atmosphere.  
 This ramp up needs to start straight away, if we are to have a reasonable 
 chance of avoiding both dangerous global warming and dangerous ocean 
 acidification.  CCS reduces emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere, but does 
 not actually remove CO2 as needed to get the level safely below 350 ppm or 
 so.
 
 There should be a formal complaint to IPCC about this, as for some other 
 issues.
 
 Cheers, John
 
 On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 8:53 AM, Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) 
 r.d.schuil...@uu.nl wrote:
 A serious lack of knowledge about natural processes. A million times more 
 CO2 has been stored by nature in carbonate rocks than is present in the 
 oceans, atmosphere and biosphere combined, and not a word about it, Olaf 
 Schuiling
 
 -Original Message-
 From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com 
 [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Greg Rau
 Sent: maandag 25 mei 2015 21:55
 To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
 Subject: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS
 
 http://bellona.org/news/climate-change/2015-05-world-bank-report-highlights-necessity-ccs
 
 “We need Bio-CCS to attain carbon neutrality by 2100”
 
 This statement forms a key area of scientific consensus, shared by the IPCC 
 in the 5AR and acknowledged by the World Bank’s report. Achieving the 2°C 
 target will necessitate negative emissions in the second part of this 
 century. This can be achieved through the combination of sustainable 
 bioenergy with CCS. Find out how it works here.
 
 GR - So says CCS promoters, completely ignoring numerous other C-negative 
 technologies.
 
 Importantly, the report warns that beyond 2030, the scenarios in which CCS 
 is not available or not deployed at scale, the negative emissions required 
 to keep temperature change below 2°C or even 3°C have to be generated from 
 the agriculture, forestry, and other land-use sectors, creating immense 
 challenges in land-use management.
 
 GR - Completely ignores ocean-based C-negative technologies.  Who says that 
 C-negative methods must be limited to 30

Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS

2015-06-09 Thread Greg Rau
I'd say that we are nowhere near reducing global emissions by 2-3% per year let 
alone getting to zero emissions. This would seem to up the chances that we are 
going to blow through a critical CO2 level which could last more than 85 years, 
depending. E.g., if the 2 degree threshold is real and only requires 1000 Gt 
more of CO2 emissions to achieve, miraculously stabilizing anthro emissions at 
current levels, 37 Gt CO2/yr, gets us to the  next 1Tt of CO2 emitted in under 
30 years. Those trying to conserve glacial and sea ice and permafrost might say 
we've already passed a point of no return.

So I side with caution and John N. At our current pace of year-to-year global 
CO2 emissions reductions (nonexistent) and with clear AGW and OA, it is time to 
seriously ask what are all of our options for managing CO2 and its 
consequences. As pointed out in this thread, natural CO2 sinks are already 
saving our bacon to the tune by some 18 Gt CO2/yr removed from air. Is it 
unthinkable that we cannot increase this uptake by enhancing existing sinks or 
inventing new ones that can compete on a cost and efficiency basis with other 
methods of CO2 management? In this regard, making supercritical CO2 from dilute 
sources and storing it underground (BECCS) is a nonstarter from a 
thermodynamics standpoint, not to mention land use impacts of biomass 
production plus safety and security issues of underground molecular CO2 
storage. Do we really want the CCS lobby and marketing machine to monopolize 
the CDR space, as they have point-source CO2 mitigation, at the expense
 of a much broader search for safer and more cost effective CO2 managment 
strategies, thus holding hostage any significant movement in mitigating pre- or 
post-emissions fossil fuel CO2? And, given what is at stake, can we really 
afford to limit ourselves to using less than 30% of the planet in solving a 
global problem, i.e., ignore the ocean? I therefore find IPCC's  NAS's and now 
the World Bank's promotion of aforestation and BECCS as the poster children of 
CDR dangerously narrow minded.

Greg


On Tue, 6/9/15, John Harte jha...@berkeley.edu wrote:

 Subject: Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS
 To: John Nissen johnnissen2...@gmail.com
 Cc: Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) r.d.schuil...@uu.nl, gh...@sbcglobal.net 
gh...@sbcglobal.net, geoengineering@googlegroups.com 
geoengineering@googlegroups.com, Peter R Carter petercarte...@shaw.ca, 
Oliver Tickell oliver.tick...@kyoto2.org
 Date: Tuesday, June 9, 2015, 3:38 PM
 
 John, rather
 than forgetting that, it is exactly the point I am making.
 But it's not half of the actual emitted carbon that goes
 down the sink; it is a quantity of carbon equal to half the
 emitted carbon.  So if we emit no carbon next year, at the
 end of the year there will be 4 or 5 Gt less carbon in the
 atmosphere.  Modeling this out 85 years with a simple
 gradient-driven (and thus diminishing) sink rate suggests
 that by end of century there could be substantially reduced
 atmospheric CO2…even in a scenario in which emissions are
 reduced by ~ 2 or 3% per year.
 
 John HarteProfessor of Ecosystem
 SciencesERG/ESPM310 Barrows
 HallUniversity of CaliforniaBerkeley,
 CA 94720  usajha...@berkeley.edu
 
 
 
 
 
 On Jun 9, 2015, at 3:25
 PM, John Nissen johnnissen2...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 Hi John,
 
 I think you may be
 forgetting that about half the CO2 emitted is immediately
 absorbed by land and oceans.  The other half has a long
 lifetime, measured in centuries (and a fraction of that
 measured in millennia).  Thus reducing emissions to zero
 would only produce a gradual reduction in the atmospheric
 CO2 level.  Therefore active CO2 removal (CDR) is essential
 for quickly reducing that level to a safe value: somewhere
 in mid 300s of ppm.
 
 Cheers, John (just back from holiday and
 a conference on ocean acidification)
 
 
 On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 1:00
 AM, John Harte jha...@berkeley.edu
 wrote:
 Recall that the natural sink
 strength today is about 4 or 5 Gt(C)/y …  there is no
 reason to think that this sink strength, which is
 effectively driven by the difference between the current
 atmospheric concentration and the concentration in an
 atmosphere in equilibrium with the current ocean
 concentration, and which sink has been increasing since
 1990, would rapidly quench until the atmospheric
 concentration is well down into the mid 300's ppm
 range. 
 Hence if we reduce
 emissions down to a level of roughly 4 or 5 Gt(C)/y we will
 see the atmospheric level roughly stabilize and if reduce
 emissions to zero, we will see the atmospheric level  drop
 at a very beneficial pace.
 
 What would invalidate this
 projection is crossing a tipping point in which warming
 results in a sharp increase in background C or CH4 emissions
 (effectively a negative sink) but the paleo record does not
 suggest that such tipping points are lurking at current or
 even slightly higher

Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS

2015-06-02 Thread John Nissen
IPCC and the World bank ignore that we need ramp up removal technologies
until we are removing more CO2 than we are putting into the atmosphere.
This ramp up needs to start straight away, if we are to have a reasonable
chance of avoiding both dangerous global warming and dangerous ocean
acidification.  CCS reduces emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere, but does
not actually remove CO2 as needed to get the level safely below 350 ppm or
so.

There should be a formal complaint to IPCC about this, as for some other
issues.

Cheers, John

On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 8:53 AM, Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) r.d.schuil...@uu.nl
 wrote:

 A serious lack of knowledge about natural processes. A million times more
 CO2 has been stored by nature in carbonate rocks than is present in the
 oceans, atmosphere and biosphere combined, and not a word about it, Olaf
 Schuiling

 -Original Message-
 From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:
 geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Greg Rau
 Sent: maandag 25 mei 2015 21:55
 To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
 Subject: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS


 http://bellona.org/news/climate-change/2015-05-world-bank-report-highlights-necessity-ccs

 “We need Bio-CCS to attain carbon neutrality by 2100”

 This statement forms a key area of scientific consensus, shared by the
 IPCC in the 5AR and acknowledged by the World Bank’s report. Achieving the
 2°C target will necessitate negative emissions in the second part of this
 century. This can be achieved through the combination of sustainable
 bioenergy with CCS. Find out how it works here.

 GR - So says CCS promoters, completely ignoring numerous other C-negative
 technologies.

 Importantly, the report warns that beyond 2030, the scenarios in which
 CCS is not available or not deployed at scale, the negative emissions
 required to keep temperature change below 2°C or even 3°C have to be
 generated from the agriculture, forestry, and other land-use sectors,
 creating immense challenges in land-use management.

 GR - Completely ignores ocean-based C-negative technologies.  Who says
 that C-negative methods must be limited to 30% of the Earth's surface,
 much of which is already critical for other uses/services?

 With regards to decarbonisation of the electricity sector, the report
 argues that the share of low-carbon or negative-carbon energy must rise
 from less than 20% in 2010 to about 60% in 2050. This is an increase of
 more than 300% over 40 years.

 GR- There is no way this is going to happen if we limit ourselves to
 making concentrated CO2 from flue gas and storing it in the ground -
 (BE)CCS. We need to expand RDD, marketing and policy way beyond CCS. But
 how will this happen as long as well funded, vested interests continue to
 sell CCS as the only viable technology?

 The report argues that oil and gas companies can in a similar fashion
 reinvent themselves if they develop CCS technology. A Bellona study has in
 fact found that the jobs and skills of today’s North Sea petroleum industry
 could largely be preserved when transformed into a CO2 storage industry.

 GR - At last, the real reason to promote CCS, whether or not it makes
 technical or economic sense and can compete with other technologies.  The
 habitability of the planet held hostage by petroleum industry jobs. Sound
 familiar?

 --
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Re: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS

2015-06-02 Thread John Harte
Recall that the natural sink strength today is about 4 or 5 Gt(C)/y …  there is 
no reason to think that this sink strength, which is effectively driven by the 
difference between the current atmospheric concentration and the concentration 
in an atmosphere in equilibrium with the current ocean concentration, and which 
sink has been increasing since 1990, would rapidly quench until the atmospheric 
concentration is well down into the mid 300's ppm range. 

Hence if we reduce emissions down to a level of roughly 4 or 5 Gt(C)/y we will 
see the atmospheric level roughly stabilize and if reduce emissions to zero, we 
will see the atmospheric level  drop at a very beneficial pace.

What would invalidate this projection is crossing a tipping point in which 
warming results in a sharp increase in background C or CH4 emissions 
(effectively a negative sink) but the paleo record does not suggest that such 
tipping points are lurking at current or even slightly higher temperatures.  

If we do not reduce emissions, there is a of course a better chance that we 
will cross such tipping points in the coming century.  

John Harte
Professor of Ecosystem Sciences
ERG/ESPM
310 Barrows Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720  USA
jha...@berkeley.edu



On May 31, 2015, at 8:39 PM, John Nissen johnnissen2...@gmail.com wrote:

 IPCC and the World bank ignore that we need ramp up removal technologies 
 until we are removing more CO2 than we are putting into the atmosphere.  This 
 ramp up needs to start straight away, if we are to have a reasonable chance 
 of avoiding both dangerous global warming and dangerous ocean acidification.  
 CCS reduces emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere, but does not actually 
 remove CO2 as needed to get the level safely below 350 ppm or so.
 
 There should be a formal complaint to IPCC about this, as for some other 
 issues.
 
 Cheers, John
 
 On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 8:53 AM, Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) r.d.schuil...@uu.nl 
 wrote:
 A serious lack of knowledge about natural processes. A million times more CO2 
 has been stored by nature in carbonate rocks than is present in the oceans, 
 atmosphere and biosphere combined, and not a word about it, Olaf Schuiling
 
 -Original Message-
 From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com 
 [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Greg Rau
 Sent: maandag 25 mei 2015 21:55
 To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
 Subject: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS
 
 http://bellona.org/news/climate-change/2015-05-world-bank-report-highlights-necessity-ccs
 
 “We need Bio-CCS to attain carbon neutrality by 2100”
 
 This statement forms a key area of scientific consensus, shared by the IPCC 
 in the 5AR and acknowledged by the World Bank’s report. Achieving the 2°C 
 target will necessitate negative emissions in the second part of this 
 century. This can be achieved through the combination of sustainable 
 bioenergy with CCS. Find out how it works here.
 
 GR - So says CCS promoters, completely ignoring numerous other C-negative 
 technologies.
 
 Importantly, the report warns that beyond 2030, the scenarios in which CCS 
 is not available or not deployed at scale, the negative emissions required to 
 keep temperature change below 2°C or even 3°C have to be generated from the 
 agriculture, forestry, and other land-use sectors, creating immense 
 challenges in land-use management.
 
 GR - Completely ignores ocean-based C-negative technologies.  Who says that 
 C-negative methods must be limited to 30% of the Earth's surface, much of 
 which is already critical for other uses/services?
 
 With regards to decarbonisation of the electricity sector, the report argues 
 that the share of low-carbon or negative-carbon energy must rise from less 
 than 20% in 2010 to about 60% in 2050. This is an increase of more than 300% 
 over 40 years.
 
 GR- There is no way this is going to happen if we limit ourselves to making 
 concentrated CO2 from flue gas and storing it in the ground - (BE)CCS. We 
 need to expand RDD, marketing and policy way beyond CCS. But how will this 
 happen as long as well funded, vested interests continue to sell CCS as the 
 only viable technology?
 
 The report argues that oil and gas companies can in a similar fashion 
 reinvent themselves if they develop CCS technology. A Bellona study has in 
 fact found that the jobs and skills of today’s North Sea petroleum industry 
 could largely be preserved when transformed into a CO2 storage industry.
 
 GR - At last, the real reason to promote CCS, whether or not it makes 
 technical or economic sense and can compete with other technologies.  The 
 habitability of the planet held hostage by petroleum industry jobs. Sound 
 familiar?
 
 --
 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

RE: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS

2015-05-26 Thread Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf)
A serious lack of knowledge about natural processes. A million times more CO2 
has been stored by nature in carbonate rocks than is present in the oceans, 
atmosphere and biosphere combined, and not a word about it, Olaf Schuiling

-Original Message-
From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] 
On Behalf Of Greg Rau
Sent: maandag 25 mei 2015 21:55
To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
Subject: [geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS

http://bellona.org/news/climate-change/2015-05-world-bank-report-highlights-necessity-ccs

“We need Bio-CCS to attain carbon neutrality by 2100”

This statement forms a key area of scientific consensus, shared by the IPCC in 
the 5AR and acknowledged by the World Bank’s report. Achieving the 2°C target 
will necessitate negative emissions in the second part of this century. This 
can be achieved through the combination of sustainable bioenergy with CCS. Find 
out how it works here.

GR - So says CCS promoters, completely ignoring numerous other C-negative 
technologies.

Importantly, the report warns that beyond 2030, the scenarios in which CCS is 
not available or not deployed at scale, the negative emissions required to keep 
temperature change below 2°C or even 3°C have to be generated from the 
agriculture, forestry, and other land-use sectors, creating immense challenges 
in land-use management.

GR - Completely ignores ocean-based C-negative technologies.  Who says that 
C-negative methods must be limited to 30% of the Earth's surface, much of 
which is already critical for other uses/services?

With regards to decarbonisation of the electricity sector, the report argues 
that the share of low-carbon or negative-carbon energy must rise from less than 
20% in 2010 to about 60% in 2050. This is an increase of more than 300% over 40 
years.

GR- There is no way this is going to happen if we limit ourselves to making 
concentrated CO2 from flue gas and storing it in the ground - (BE)CCS. We need 
to expand RDD, marketing and policy way beyond CCS. But how will this happen 
as long as well funded, vested interests continue to sell CCS as the only 
viable technology?

The report argues that oil and gas companies can in a similar fashion reinvent 
themselves if they develop CCS technology. A Bellona study has in fact found 
that the jobs and skills of today’s North Sea petroleum industry could largely 
be preserved when transformed into a CO2 storage industry. 

GR - At last, the real reason to promote CCS, whether or not it makes technical 
or economic sense and can compete with other technologies.  The habitability of 
the planet held hostage by petroleum industry jobs. Sound familiar?

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[geo] World Bank report highlights necessity of (BE)CCS

2015-05-25 Thread Greg Rau
http://bellona.org/news/climate-change/2015-05-world-bank-report-highlights-necessity-ccs

“We need Bio-CCS to attain carbon neutrality by 2100”

This statement forms a key area of scientific consensus, shared by the IPCC in 
the 5AR and acknowledged by the World Bank’s report. Achieving the 2°C target 
will necessitate negative emissions in the second part of this century. This 
can be achieved through the combination of sustainable bioenergy with CCS. Find 
out how it works here.

GR - So says CCS promoters, completely ignoring numerous other C-negative 
technologies.

Importantly, the report warns that beyond 2030, the scenarios in which CCS is 
not available or not deployed at scale, the negative emissions required to keep 
temperature change below 2°C or even 3°C have to be generated from the 
agriculture, forestry, and other land-use sectors, creating immense challenges 
in land-use management.

GR - Completely ignores ocean-based C-negative technologies.  Who says that 
C-negative methods must be limited to 30% of the Earth's surface, much of 
which is already critical for other uses/services?

With regards to decarbonisation of the electricity sector, the report argues 
that the share of low-carbon or negative-carbon energy must rise from less than 
20% in 2010 to about 60% in 2050. This is an increase of more than 300% over 40 
years.

GR- There is no way this is going to happen if we limit ourselves to making 
concentrated CO2 from flue gas and storing it in the ground - (BE)CCS. We need 
to expand RDD, marketing and policy way beyond CCS. But how will this happen 
as long as well funded, vested interests continue to sell CCS as the only 
viable technology?

The report argues that oil and gas companies can in a similar fashion reinvent 
themselves if they develop CCS technology. A Bellona study has in fact found 
that the jobs and skills of today’s North Sea petroleum industry could largely 
be preserved when transformed into a CO2 storage industry. 

GR - At last, the real reason to promote CCS, whether or not it makes technical 
or economic sense and can compete with other technologies.  The habitability of 
the planet held hostage by petroleum industry jobs. Sound familiar?

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geoengineering group.
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