Re: [geo] ARPA-C: How an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Carbon could Catalyze Development of the CDR Field | Everything and the Carbon Sink

[Ronal W. Larson]

Mark and list:

I am sympathetic to the “M” idea, but guess we have to rely on the US 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to somehow try to bring agencies together 
for “multi-issue” activities.  (Apologies to non-US list members for sticking 
here at first with ways that the US can take on its research program from its 
global-leading heritage carbon.)

ARPA-E has done well as a relatively new part of our Department of 
Energy (DoE) and could be a model for an ARPA-C.  But it is modeled after 
DARPA, where the “D” stands for “Defense” - as in DoD.   I know of no-one who 
has been critical of DARPA.

But which agency would be in charge of an ARPA-C?  My experience is 
that our DoE has very limited capability to do it.  EPA is out for the new 
Congress.  Biochar is nominally under USDA - but really little happening there. 
 And biochar is a poster-child for needing multi-issues (food being one example 
- that is dominant over carbon removal in biochar publications, though in zero 
conflict.)

So,  I suggest we also consider pushing DARPA-C, not ARPA-C.   That is, 
the US has no “Carbon” agency - and none seems likely with our new Congress.  
But we do have one agency that has made VERY serious statements about carbon 
and climate - DoD.

Our 2015 projected DoD budget is very close to $1/2 trillion.  I 
believe it would be hard for the next Congress to fight against a DoD request 
to divert 0.2% ($1 billion -  10 times the $100 million below) to a new DARPA-C 
program.   

Re other countries:There seem to be plenty of cooperative efforts 
between many militaries - and they all probably know lots about the R&D 
programs of potential threat countries.  So maybe we can stretch the recent 
US-China climate agreements into preparedness “joint C exercises” and 
hard-fought competitions.   And soon bring in the Russians?   I guess that a 
good many militaries besides that of the US have been thinking about global 
warming.

Ron   (Not really expecting this to happen - but stressing here the US lack of 
a coordinated C-bureaucracy - and that our military seems to already have an 
interest, budget, and political capabilities to pull a C-coup off.   I can 
probably agree with a critique that there would be a little waste as well.)



On Nov 18, 2014, at 8:24 PM,  
 wrote:

> Humanity needs an ARPA-M (for multi-issue) more than humanity needs an ARPA-C.
> 
> Humans have a powerful tendency to compartmentalize issues, problems, and 
> solutions.  Compartmentalizing is working against us for a big slow (by human 
> time) issue like Climate Change.  When humans do something on a big scale, 
> like emitting 30 billion tons of fossil CO2 in a year, or increasing their 
> number toward 10 billion, the causes and effects cover many issues: water, 
> energy, food, the economy, ocean chemistry, sea level, ...
> 
> The U.S. DOE and the ARPA's follow the human tendency to carefully organize 
> research to avoid overlap and focus each Funding Opportunity Announcement 
> (FOA) in a very narrow way.  Proposals which address the issue in ways too 
> novel for the DOE project team, or with a new approach in a "forbidden zone" 
> or addressing more issues than mentioned in the FOA are typically 
> "non-responsive" or "out of scope."
> 
> This isn't just U.S. DOE.  Look at the fragmentation of "contests" in MIT's 
> Climate CoLab.  Or the way XPrize structures their contests.
> 
> If you want a carbon removal process which can scale to a few tens of 
> billions of tons of CO2 per year, you really want a managed ecosystem.  
> Something humanity can sustain for a couple centuries on the scale of 
> agriculture or the fossil fuel industry.  There are so many competing needs 
> at that scale the carbon removal system needs to address at least some of 
> those other needs: water, energy, food, jobs, the economy, ...
> 
> Mark
> 
> Mark E. Capron, PE
> Ventura, California
> www.PODenergy.org
> 
> 
>  Original Message 
> Subject: [geo] ARPA-C: How an Advanced Research Projects Agency for
> Carbon could Catalyze Development of the CDR Field | Everything and the
> Carbon Sink
> From: Andrew Lockley 
> Date: Tue, November 18, 2014 2:46 pm
> To: geoengineering 
> 
> http://carbonremoval.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/arpa-c-how-an-advanced-research-projects-agency-for-carbon-could-catalyze-development-of-the-cdr-field/
> Everything and the Carbon Sink
> Noah Deich's blog on all things Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)
> ARPA-C: How an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Carbon could Catalyze 
> Development of the CDR Field
> NOVEMBER 18, 2014
> It has recently become clear that “negative” emissions technologies will 
> likely prove a critical component for preventing climate change. Take, for 
> example, the following sentence from Chapter 6 of the IPCC’s Working Group 3 
> latest Assessment Report on Climate Change:
> “The large majority of scenarios produced in the literature

RE: [geo] ARPA-C: How an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Carbon could Catalyze Development of the CDR Field | Everything and the Carbon Sink

[markcapron]

Humanity needs an ARPA-M (for multi-issue) more than humanity needs an ARPA-C.Humans have a powerful tendency to compartmentalize issues, problems, and solutions.  Compartmentalizing is working against us for a big slow (by human time) issue like Climate Change.  When humans do something on a big scale, like emitting 30 billion tons of fossil CO2 in a year, or increasing their number toward 10 billion, the causes and effects cover many issues: water, energy, food, the economy, ocean chemistry, sea level, ...The U.S. DOE and the ARPA's follow the human tendency to carefully organize research to avoid overlap and focus each Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) in a very narrow way.  Proposals which address the issue in ways too novel for the DOE project team, or with a new approach in a "forbidden zone" or addressing more issues than mentioned in the FOA are typically "non-responsive" or "out of scope."This isn't just U.S. DOE.  Look at the fragmentation of "contests" in MIT's Climate CoLab.  Or the way XPrize structures their contests.If you want a carbon removal process which can scale to a few tens of billions of tons of CO2 per year, you really want a managed ecosystem.  Something humanity can sustain for a couple centuries on the scale of agriculture or the fossil fuel industry.  There are so many competing needs at that scale the carbon removal system needs to address at least some of those other needs: water, energy, food, jobs, the economy, ...MarkMark E. Capron, PEVentura, Californiawww.PODenergy.org


 Original Message 
Subject: [geo] ARPA-C: How an Advanced Research Projects Agency for
Carbon could Catalyze Development of the CDR Field | Everything and the
Carbon Sink
From: Andrew Lockley 
Date: Tue, November 18, 2014 2:46 pm
To: geoengineering 

http://carbonremoval.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/arpa-c-how-an-advanced-research-projects-agency-for-carbon-could-catalyze-development-of-the-cdr-field/ Everything and the Carbon Sink Noah Deich's blog on all things Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) ARPA-C: How an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Carbon could Catalyze Development of the CDR Field NOVEMBER 18, 2014 It has recently become clear that “negative” emissions technologies will likely prove a critical component for preventing climate change. Take, for example, the following sentence from Chapter 6 of the IPCC’s Working Group 3 latest Assessment Report on Climate Change: “The large majority of scenarios produced in the literature that reach roughly 450 ppm CO2eq by 2100 arecharacterized by concentration overshoot facilitated by the deployment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies.” The majority of the scenarios that keep the planet below 2 degrees C of warming (blue line) involve billion+ tonne scale deployments of negative emissions AND full decarbonization of the economy by the end of the century [source]. While CDR technologies have been thrust into prominence in the climate change debate, a major problem remains: currently, no CDR technologies exist that are scientifically, technically, and economically proven at the billion+ tonne scale required to prevent climate change. Lots of CDR approaches are under development, but none have clearly demonstrated the potential to provide negative emissions at the billion+ tonne scale in a sustainable and economically viable way. What’s more, CDR technologies will require significant amounts of investment not just in R&D but also in markets to support these technologies once they mature. And government agencies, philanthropies, and private businesses alike are failing to make these necessary investments today.Above: Solar PV is just now beginning to be cost competitive with fossil energy — its development has taken decades of R&D for both technologies and markets. Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance.So how might we remedy this market failure and kickstart the development of CDR technologies? One way would be to create an “ARPA-C”, or an Advanced Research Project Agency for Carbon. Right now, the private sector cannot find investment cases for CDR R&D, despite the fact that such investments would also generate immense social benefits — making the CDR field ideal for publicly-funded applied R&D. If an ARPA-C could fund CDR projects that result in technology cost reductions, advances in innovative business models, and better measurement and verification tools for would-be carbon removers, it could set the stage for follow-on investment by private sector companies to bring the CDR field to scale.A new ARPA-C would also be critical for giving the CDR field much needed boost in awareness. Right now existing ARPA agencies (including DARPA and ARPA-E) could fund a number of various CDR projects. But none of these existing agencies currently have the mandate to fund the full spectrum of CDR approaches that have been proposed (spanning the energy, agriculture, natural resources, manufa