Romain Lacombe Profile picture
Jun 14 96 tweets 58 min read
I'm following the 2nd Negative CO2 Emissions conference underway in Gothenburg.🌱 #negCO2

Learnings & soundbites: a thread.🧶
🇬🇧 In 1850 the UK represented *65%* of global CO2 emissions! 😳

"Birthplace of the industrial revolution" is right but doesn't quite do justice to that scale. #negCO2
Swedish forestry sector is 97% decarbonized, stored 1.4 GtCO2 and avoided 1.3 GtCO2 emissions since 1990.
🌲🇸🇪 #negCO2 Image
@pholmgren After the forestry session today, I'm struck by the wide range of estimates for afforestation potential. Wild!

We'll need much better data (and MRV) if we're going to make this work. #negCO2

From Lyngfelt this morning: carbon debt from historical emissions is ~100,000€/capita.

Solution: carbon liability for emitters. Each ton we emit today will have to be removed at some point.

Enter ACORDs: Atmospheric CO2 Removal Deposits.

The theoretical minimum work requirement from mixing entropy for DAC is only 2.5x that of CCS from flue gas.

Still tons of room for efficiency gains on energy requirements of direct air capture.

Slide: Florian Zerobin @BOKUvienna #negCO2. Image
Day 2 of #negCO2: JF Soussana @INRAE_Intl on soil organic carbon.

Framework for MRV: sensor deployments + models/data + remote sensing to understand below ground carbon evolution over time. Image
@INRAE_Intl "Every land manager should have access to verified emissions data." 📡

"We're entering the mainstreaming of soil carbon negative emissions." 🌱

– JF Soussana @INRAE_Intl #negCO2
@INRAE_Intl 2nd keynote: @ClaudiaKammann on biochar and pyrolytic carbon capture & storage. 🪨 #negCO2

Capacity is doubling every year in EU. Already 25 CDR units creating carbon neutral/negative heat. 🇪🇺 Image
@INRAE_Intl @ClaudiaKammann Adding biochar every 3 years helps drive increased soil organic carbon over time. #negCO2 Image
@INRAE_Intl @ClaudiaKammann Idea: "using biochar as a fertilizer-carrying matrix" to fix nitrogen in the soil. – @ClaudiaKammann #negCO2 Image
Net Zero for CO2 or Net Zero for GHG?
Negative emissions are required to stay within 2ºC. #negCO2 Image
Great session on public acceptance of CDR #netCO2.

Sean Low of @Aarhus_BSS with @sctx109 @BenjaminSovaco1: "no one talks about geo-engineering anymore, but of eco-restoration."

Camouflage or true ground shift?
"My fundamental warning [about CDR]: producers always have an incentive to make it look good."
– Sean Low #negCO2

Yet another reason we need robust, independent MRV of carbon removal claims. /cc @orbuch
Social perception of CDR: the public is skeptical of industry. "Anything connected to business interest must be harmful to the environment." 🏭
@merk_christine #negCO2

Lack of trust will be a big barrier to scaling up carbon removal.
Next #negCO2 policy session kicking off with @MathiasFridahl.

CDR should define its "global cooling power": a ton of CO2 out of the atmosphere doesn't decrease radiative forcing as much a ton added increases it. Timing matters, so do climate feedbacks.
Inversely there's huge value in avoiding climate tipping points:

"A ton of CDR deployed before emissions peak may have more value than a ton of CDR deployed afterwards."

@MathiasFridahl of @LiU_CSPR @liu_universitet #negCO2
Summary of ocean CDR pathways currently being explored, by @MirandaBoe. #negCO2 Image
Impossibility trilemma? No CDR without venture funding, no venture funding without hype, no trust from CDR buyers if too much hype. Discuss. #negCO2 Image
A hyped future to be avoided: "phantom commodities", "few removals ever delivered" by marine CDR.

A hopeful future to work towards: separation of avoidance and removals, clear and rigorous MRV, prioritization of co-benefits & long term storage.

@MirandaBoe #negCO2
@MirandaBoe Lessons from renewable energy diffusion for carbon removal: "Germany's gift to the world is cheap solar power."⚡️

🇩🇪 was buying nearly 60% of global solar PV panels production in the mid-00s (!) eventually bringing their cost down ≥10x. #negCO2 Image
The case for more climate #opendata: biogenic C flow is so complex, @brunncy found 450 individual flows of biomass between sources/sinks in 🇨🇭. #negCO2 Image
Key conclusion: ecological potential for greenhouse gases reduction is sufficient for Switzerland to reach Net Zero with no additional biomass import needed.
@brunncy #negCO2 Image
@ClaudiaKammann From Constanze Werner this morning: 10 GtCO2/yr by 2100 is 3x the land sink of the entire globe and 2x the current ocean carbon sink.

"We're aiming for an extra human-made sink that's bigger than what the ocean is doing today – it's a massive intervention!" #negCO2 Image
Fascinating talk by Silvan Aeschlimann from theclimatemap.org – *VERY* interesting approach to systematically assess costs/benefits/resources requirements of geochemical and direct air capture CDR! #negCO2 Image
"CDR today is like renewables in the 1990s" ☀️🔋⚡️

Information gap: "We don't know how much CDR is out there. We need data, we need a living map."
– Jan Minx from @MCC_Berlin #negCO2 Image
@MCC_Berlin Great point from Tim Kruger @oxmartinschool: CDR at $100/ton becomes the global price of carbon.

'Without CDR, a polluter can say “I can’t clean it up”. Once it exists, they can only say “I don’t want to clean it up” – a very different moral position.'👏

Day 3 at the Negative CO2 Emissions conference #negCO2.

Starting off with a very hopeful and personal message by @MijndertS: "still we keep going, this is what this community is about." 🙌
A reminder that we need decarbonized energy *for* carbon removal, not one or the other. @MijndertS #negCO2

Of note: France has such deeply decarbonized energy that DAC plants could reach 90% net removal. Thank you nuclear power gen! 🇫🇷

/cc @laydgeur @babgi @Gregdt1 & friends Image
Targeted subsidies like the $3.5b federal hubs could bring cost of DAC down by 80%! #negCO2 @MijndertS Image
Next speaker: Prof. Stefano Caserini @Caserinik #negCO2 on ocean alkalization. Image
How to do ocean liming: combine it with enhanced weathering of limestone.
-> @Caserinik #negCO2, paper by @KenCaldeira Image
Most promising demonstration areas for ocean liming: Great Barrier reef, Baltic sea and the Mediterranean.
@Caserinik #negCO2 Image
H2 from biomass with CCS is efficient enough that in certain cases you can capture CO2 by... driving?

Christian Bauer et al. paper #negCO2 Image
2.4 billion people don't have access to clean cookstoves.

Huge air pollution problem (up to 4 million deaths year according to @WHO). Also a climate issue given scale.

@CeciliaValloxen #negCO2 Image
@WHO @CeciliaValloxen Listening in to the ocean liming presentation by @Caserinik and collaborator. #negCO2

Much like with most of these pathways I'm both admirative of the ambition and terrified about what it would take to scale it up.

NETs are EXTREMELY hard, we HAVE to stop emissions NOW!
Air pollution is a very big problem with BECCS. Haven't heard it discussed yet at #negCO2 and it may end up being a major barrier to adoption.

#negCO2 @coreyamyers presenting Zero Liquid Discharge brine-based Carbon Dioxide Removal (ZLD-CDR for TLA lovers 🤪) and it feels like the clouds just parted, light shone and angels sang.

Super impressive and very well thought out pathway that doesn't depend on a carbon price!
"We only have 1-2 investment cycles left before 2050.
Everything we build now has to work in a Net Zero society." 🌍

@MijndertS #negCO2
@MijndertS Good reminder by @MijndertS #negCO2: CDR pathways that score best on climate may create particulate matter, lead to marine eutrophication, etc.

"Life is always about trade-offs: climate change mitigation will have effects, let's choose a strategy to minimize negative effects." Image
Sean Low using @AmoryLovins's approach to "hard" vs "soft" energy transitions to think about the spectrum of "engineered" vs "nature-based" strategies for carbon dioxide removal. #negCO2 Image
Hard/Soft and Nature-based/Engineered are orthogonal dimensions.

Ex: "Big Nature" (hard/natural) vs "distributed capture" (soft/engineered). #negCO2 Image
Conclusions on strategies for CDR:
- hard paths lead to capture risks e.g. monoculture, moral hazard/extending fossil fuel use
- soft paths lead to MRV risks e.g. "how do you measure the value of not cutting down a tree?"
#negCO2
Technology assessment session: we're starting with ocean CDR. #negCO2

Macro-algae farming/sinking loses a good 40% of net CO2 removal to phytoplankton primary productivity loss. I suspect this varies *a lot* location by location. Image
From conventional (fossil)🪨 to electricity-based⚡️ carbon fiber by @Do_Keiner #negCO2 ImageImage
Result: eCF⚡️ process is profitable at current carbon fiber prices (without the need for a carbon price).

@Do_Keiner question: how fast would you saturate the existing CF market? Image
@Do_Keiner #negCO2 keynote by @Oliver_Geden: "If you've set a Net Zero goal for your economy, you've essentially accepted large scale deployment of CDR."

Summary thread on CDR in @IPCC_CH #AR6 WG3 report:
Simultaneous excitement and dread.

Very much sums up my feeling after the first 3 days of negative emissions talks in Gothenburg. #negCO2
Day 4 #negCO2 kicks off with Mai Bui @IC_CEP on BECCS pathways.

Why do we need it? “We must remove ~600 Gt by 2100 in median scenario, so we better get started!”

🏭🪵🌳🌾⚡️
#negCO2 Dr Mai Bui @IC_CEP's take aways and next steps for BECCS: ImageImage
#negCO2 an interesting point on a question dear to my heart: PM2.5 exposure from all these biomass plants. 😷

Speaker mentions greenfield BECCS plants have state of the art pollution controls and aggregate effect should be limited. 👍
Next #negCO2 speaker: @Haszeldine of @EdinburghUni.

First presentation on what is maybe the most critical enabler of the whole NET value chain: CO2 Storage, the S in CCS/BECCS/BiCCS/DACS! Image
Very interesting point by @Haszeldine: geological storage of CO2 is highly demonstrable — well developed tools from O&G help make remote surveying reservoir images down to ~150 tons CO2 granularity. Monitoring is <1-2% of storage cost. #negCO2
How much storage is available? “Centuries” worth of it at current emissions levels. #negCO2 Image
The knee's bees of mineral storage: turning carbon dioxide into calcite within young basalts, e.g. as in Iceland. #negCO2 ImageImage
Overall problem: "Lots of research, very little action. Only 2 or 3 CO2 storage wells operating in UK, 2 in Europe."

"Because we don't have a carbon tax, there is a missing market in storage carbon dioxide." #negCO2 Image
So how much does CO2 storage cost?

Largest cost is capture by far. Transport and storage runs from £4 to £20 per ton of CO2 based on volume (initial phase). #negCO2 Image
Stuart @Haszeldine on scaling CO2 storage:

"The build up is absolutely feasible, you just need to bribe oil & gas companies into doing it somehow."

Expects to see carbon in the ground at significant and growing scale within the next 5 years. #negCO2
Geological storage vs. natural storage:

"Each of us Europeans would need to grow 3 football fields of forest to store our lifetime emissions. There is just not enough land."

@Haszeldine #negCO2 🌲🗻🌍
"Today we're all collectively liable for emissions. This needs to change. Each ton of carbon O&G companies extract from the ground, they should be mandated to store back in the ground."

@Haszeldine #negCO2 ♻️ Image
Last keynote this morning: @wilmwilmsen from @kielinstitute on the $1 trillion question: integrating Negative Emissions into emissions trading markets. 🏦🌎🌱
“Climate change is in essence a free rider problem.” 💯

“The future role of CDR will be negotiated in a non-cooperative environment.” 🔥

@wilmwilmsen #negCO2
"There are no residual emissions, just high-willingness-to-pay emissions." – @wilmwilmsen #negCO2 Image
Idea: an EU “CO2 central bank” that could auction and retire Carbon Removal Credits (CRCs), maybe with an exchange rate so a ton removed earns multiple tons of ETS emission allowances or Market Stability Reserve build-up. 🇪🇺

@wilmwilmsen #negCO2
Enhanced weathering session: Daniel Goll showing you could theoretically remove 2GtCO2/yr over 50 years by spraying ecosystems with basalt dust.

Quite the scale of climate intervention... ✈️💨🌏 #negCO2
Re: enhanced weathering. Am I wrong to think it’s absolute madness to imagine crushing thousands of tons of rocks and fly planes to spray basalt particulates over millions of acres of land without thinking about the health impacts of these micrometer particulates? #negCO2
Next up: does stirring carbonation beds improve CO2 uptake?

Answer: yes, stirred plots significantly outperform non-stirred ones. Likely helps with diffusion.

Relevant to the @heirloomcarbon’s of the world? #negCO2
Back to the main track: @Anders_Lyngfelt on dealing with the climate debt. #negCO2

“All scenarios to meet 1.5°C require gigantic negative emissions. We must remove 800 GtCO2, at a cost likely approaching 10,000€/capita. Who will bear the costs of these negative emissions?”
“Obvious solution: implement climate recovery liability on emitters to make them responsible for removing their emissions form the atmosphere.”

“It’s fair, comprehensive, rational. We must enact it as soon as possible to avoid climate tipping points.”

@Anders_Lyngfelt #negCO2 Image
@Anders_Lyngfelt Costs: about 0.1-0.2€/kg CO2 which represents 3.75% of world GDP. Abatement is usually less costly, incentive to start by cutting emissions first. #negCO2
Other mechanisms to finance CDR, by Liv Lundberg #negCO2:
- tax credits (e.g. 45Q 🇺🇸)
- inclusion in cap-and-trade (e.g. ETS 🇪🇺)
- contract for difference (🇬🇧)
- flat rate payment like FITs

Speaker presents a reverse auction mechanism applied to BECCS in Sweden. 🇸🇪
NETs introduce inequality by design: a carbon price is regressive as poorer households spend a higher % of income on energy. #negCO2

Inter-temporal trade-off: more inequality now (with higher incentive for DAC) means less in the future.
@pietro_andreoni Image
@pietro_andreoni Last talk of the morning #negCO2: @RogerAines on a Negative Emissions strategy for the fifth largest economy in the world... California! 🐻🌴🇺🇸 Image
A supply curve for NETs in California in 2045.
$8b/y levelized cost to reach 125 MtCO2. #negCO2 Image
Climate double whammy: manage 🌳🌳🌳 to avoid 🔥, generate waste biomass that you can capture.

e.g. 1M tons of almond shells produced every year in California! #negCO2 Image
@RogerAines "BECCS is not a useful concept anymore: you're running a carbon plant that's making hydrogen as a side gig!" 🏭💨

"It's a carbon plant, not a fuel plant anymore." 🌱
@RogerAines #negCO2 Image
Costs: $8B/year by 2045.

"This isn't an unreasonable amount of money to clean up the atmosphere. We don't leave our trash in the street, we take it out and clean it up!"
@RogerAines

Words to live by and a great conclusion to this morning's sessions! #negCO2
@RogerAines DAC session: bacteria for carbon capture!

Aya Ennaciri from @Cambridge_Uni presenting a bioprocess using urea, carbonic anhydrase and Ca2+, with promising applications for direct air capture. #negCO2 Image
Motivation: enhancing mineralization for storage. #negCO2 Image
Next up: governing carbon dioxide removal from the ground up by @DrRobBellamy #negCO2

"Concerns raised by large scale mitigation & large scale removal are similarly significant even though they are distinct. CDR is still given low priority by political actors around the world."
3 possible visions for CDR. Is it:

- a panacea, which could risk deterring mitigation?
- a fallback, necessary in case mitigation doesn't succeed
- or a chimera, illusory due to lack of specific targets and plans?

@DrRobBellamy #negCO2
Fantastic question from audience: "For the past century we've turned CO2 emissions into money. Why are we not discussing using that money to clean up the mess?"

Crux of the matter really. #negCO2
"Look at examples that have already been worked out!
This is not something the world hasn't seen before."

"Public health, trash collection, fire safety. We have worked out ways to pay for them. Let's start from the examples we already have." 🩺♻️🚒

@RogerAines #negCO2
Interesting debate: is it "common sense" that we need to start with emissions reduction?

Or is it becoming common sense that "we should just pay for removals"?

You can see the moral hazard playing out in real time. #negCO2
"We can't actually do that!

"That massive negative emissions graph doesn't pass the laugh test, we should just use it as way to show our current climate policies don't work."

Does the CDR emperor have clothes?
Is Thomas Sterner calling it out? #negCO2
On a more positive note: "We must demand symmetry and clarity. CDR needs a push to get started!" – Thomas Sterner

"We need to push society and governments to agree on emissions reduction targets, then move to removals."
@Oliver_Geden #negCO2
@Oliver_Geden Final quote by organizer @Anders_Lyngfelt:

"0.15€/kg CO2 is enough to cover most of CDR. Abatement is much less costly, so the cost to get to net zero will be much less. I think we can do it, and I think we should do it!" 💪🌍

And with that, #negCO2 is a wrap!
POST-CONFERENCE UPDATE:

A #NegCO2 attendee reached out today, having just tested positive for Covid-19.

If you were in Gothenburg (I was following remotely), please get tested and stay careful! 🙏

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More from @rlacombe

Jun 21
"Carbon dioxide removal is not an optional activity: it is required, alongside emissions reductions, to stabilize our climate."

@wtbryce kicking off the @openaircollect event with @hausfath on @stripe Climate and the Frontier advanced market commitment.
Zeke @hausfath kicking off with some good news: we're making progress on climate.

- global coal use has peaked as renewables are now less expensive

- countries and companies have made net zero pledges Image
But significant uncertainties on climate pathways:
- our emissions –> that's what we control
- climate modeling -> uncertainties on temperature sensitivity
- climate feedbacks -> how much carbon uptake from non-atmosphere carbon sinks
Read 19 tweets
Jun 20
Fantastic idea: 35 French climate scientists, including @IPCC_CH report authors, are volunteering to give 1:1 tutoring on climate science to 🇫🇷MPs just elected yesterday. 👏

👉 @MandatClimat June 20-21-22
🌍 Formation Climat & Biodiversité avec les meilleurs scientifiques français, juste au bout de la rue de l’Université !

👋 @oliviagregoire @auroreberge @benjaminhaddad @midy_paul @ebothorel parfait pour démarrer vos mandatures sur le fond et les enjeux qui comptent !

Détails ⤵️
@oliviagregoire @auroreberge @benjaminhaddad @midy_paul @ebothorel: vos collègues d’Ensemble @JimmyPahun et @M_MeynierM sont passés rencontrer les meilleurs climatologues français pour une formation au climat. 🌍

Il est encore temps de les rejoindre cet après-midi et demain ! ⤵️
Read 4 tweets

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