Negative Emissions Technologies For Climate Change Mitigation

To achieve goals for climate and economic growth, "negative emissions technologies" (NETs) that remove and sequester carbon dioxide from the air will need to play a significant role in mitigating climate change. Unlike carbon capture and storage technologies that remove carbon dioxide emissions directly from large point sources such as coal power plants, NETs remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere or enhance natural carbon sinks. Storing the carbon dioxide from NETs has the same impact on the atmosphere and climate as simultaneously preventing an equal amount of carbon dioxide from being emitted. Recent analyses found that deploying NETs may be less expensive and less disruptive than reducing some emissions, such as a substantial portion of agricultural and land-use emissions and some transportation emissions. In 2015, the National Academies published Climate Intervention: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration, which described and initially assessed NETs and sequestration technologies. This report acknowledged the relative paucity of research on NETs and recommended development of a research agenda that covers all aspects of NETs from fundamental science to full-scale deployment. To address this need, Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration: A Research Agenda assesses the benefits, risks, and "sustainable scale potential" for NETs and sequestration. This report also defines the essential components of a research and development program, including its estimated costs and potential impact.

To achieve goals for climate and economic growth, "negative emissions technologies" (NETs) that remove and sequester carbon dioxide from the air will need to play a significant role in mitigating climate change. Unlike carbon capture and storage technologies that remove carbon dioxide emissions directly from large point sources such as coal power plants, NETs remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere or enhance natural carbon sinks. Storing the carbon dioxide from NETs has the same impact on the atmosphere and climate as simultaneously preventing an equal amount of carbon dioxide from being emitted. Recent analyses found that deploying NETs may be less expensive and less disruptive than reducing some emissions, such as a substantial portion of agricultural and land-use emissions and some transportation emissions. In 2015, the National Academies published Climate Intervention: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration, which described and initially assessed NETs and sequestration technologies. This report acknowledged the relative paucity of research on NETs and recommended development of a research agenda that covers all aspects of NETs from fundamental science to full-scale deployment. To address this need, Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration: A Research Agenda assesses the benefits, risks, and "sustainable scale potential" for NETs and sequestration. This report also defines the essential components of a research and development program, including its estimated costs and potential impact.

Negative Emissions Technologies for Climate Change Mitigation provides a comprehensive introduction to the full range of technologies that are being researched, developed and deployed in order to transition from our current energy system, dominated by fossil fuels, to a negative-carbon emissions system. After an introduction to the challenge of climate change, the technical fundamentals of natural and engineered carbon dioxide removal and storage processes and technologies are described. Each NET is then discussed in detail, including the key elements of the technology, enablers and constraints, governance issues, and global potential and cost estimates. This book offers a complete overview of the field, thus enabling the community to gain a full appreciation of NETs without the need to seek out and refer to a multitude of sources. Covers the full spectrum of technologies to underpin the transition to a negative emissions energy system, from technical fundamentals to the current state of deployment and R&D Critically evaluates each technology, highlighting advantages, limitations, and the potential for large scale environmental applications Combines natural science and environmental science perspectives with the practical use of state-of-the-art technologies for sustainability

As the rate at which climate change is increasing in making an impact to the planet, the need to develop and deploy technologies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions becomes increasingly necessary. The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 13 (SDG 13) of reducing the effects of climate change would require ambitious actions and implementation towards achieving it. Negative emissions technologies (NETs) will contribute to this goal by reducing GHG concentrations in the atmosphere. Options for NETs are available for integration into energy and climate change policies. Barriers for large-scale implementation are present in each of these technologies; risks are present when it comes to integrating them into climate change mitigation strategies. In this paper, a novel multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) tool is developed for ranking and evaluating NETs under different risk levels. The tool is based on integrating the concept of neutrosophic sets into data envelopment analysis, or neutrosophic data envelopment analysis (NDEA) to examine the consequential effect of inefficiencies and uncertainties in the characteristics of different NETs. This considers a decoupled approach to the inherent efficiency, inefficiency, and uncertainty of each technology. A case study is presented to illustrate this tool. Results show the advantages of different NETs under different levels of expert's risk attitude and perception, i.e. tolerance factors. Soil carbon sequestration technology is efficient at tolerance levels from 60 % to 100 % as presented in the results. This can be an effective tool to select which technologies is appropriate in different scenarios.

"Humans started adding fossil CO2 to the atmosphere about 300 years ago and accelerated land use emissions by expanding croplands and pastures. The unintended consequence of these activities is a 120 ppm increase in atmospheric concentration of CO2, which is now changing our climate. In response, international action is being taken to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming below 2°C. Most climate mitigation technologies are intended to decrease the rate at which we take additional carbon from fossil fuel reservoirs and ecosystems and add it to the atmosphere as CO2. These include renewable electricity, increased energy efficiency, and carbon capture and storage of emissions from fossil power plants. This report focuses on the reverse: technologies that take CO2 out of the atmosphere and put it back into geologic reservoirs and terrestrial ecosystems. These negative emissions technologies, or NETs, have received much less attention by researchers than traditional mitigation technologies"--Preface.

An essential resource for understanding the potential role for biomass energy with carbon capture and storage in addressing climate change Biomass Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) offers a comprehensive review of the characteristics of BECCS technologies in relation to its various applications. The authors — a team of expert professionals — bring together in one volume the technical, scientific, social, economic and governance issues relating to the potential deployment of BECCS as a key approach to climate change mitigation. The text contains information on the current and future opportunities and constraints for biomass energy, explores the technologies involved in BECCS systems and the performance characteristics of a variety of technical systems. In addition, the text includes an examination of the role of BECCS in climate change mitigation, carbon accounting across the supply chain and policy frameworks. The authors also offer a review of the social and ethical aspects as well as the costs and economics of BECCS. This important text: Reveals the role BECCS could play in the transition to a low-carbon economy Discusses the wide variety of technical and non-technical constraints of BECCS Presents the basics of biomass energy systems Reviews the technical and engineering issues pertinent to BECCS Explores the societal implications of BECCS systems Written for academics and research professionals, Biomass Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) brings together in one volume the issues surrounding BECCS in an accessible and authoritative manner.