A view from 2050
An imagined speech, the Zero-Carbon World Oration for 2050, was used by Wiseman (2017) as a
vehicle “to describe one plausible narrative of the way in which a rapid energy
transition might unfold, informed by a range of modelling and scenario studies”.
The writer takes us through a series of supposed milestones between 2020 and
2050, including the growth of renewables, energy storage and smart grids; the
attainment of carbon neutrality by leading cities; the phasing out of internal
combustion engines and the use of renewable fuels and electrification for long
distance transport; the demise of coal and oil; the expansion of carbon
pricing; the use of emissions-free steel and concrete; and the mobilization of
funds to address the impact of climate change and energy transition on the most
vulnerable populations.
Wiseman’s fictitious orator describes a world that in
2050 has escaped total climate disaster, and is on track to achieve a net zero
carbon economy by 2060, but nevertheless still faces “profound challenges and
tough questions”. These challenges, looking forward from 2050, provide
the subject of this post. They are the question of negative emissions, which
will be discussed in some detail, and the need for continued societal and
cultural development, which will be outlined more briefly.
Although in the scenario for 2050 the remaining carbon emissions are being offset by extensive carbon capture, negative emissions methods will be have to be used much more extensively “to bring long term global warming trends back below 1.5°.” This required increase will have to be achieved “without overwhelming the capacity of the biosphere to feed 9 billion people”. The principle methods of carbon capture and storage (CCS) referred to are Bio-energy with Capture and Storage (BECCS) and Direct Air Capture and Storage technology (DACS).
Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs) are the subject of
a paper by Kramer (2020), which points out that emission levels are still
rising, and that many scientists believe that bringing CO2 concentrations back
to safe levels will require the extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere. Kramer cites
two methods of mitigating warming caused by CO2: geoengineering to reduce of
solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface, and removing excess CO2 from the atmosphere.
The article concentrates on the second method, the negative emissions
technologies, and quotes estimates for the amount of CO2 which needs to be
extracted from the atmosphere: 10 Gt annually by 2050, rising to 20 Gt annually
by 2100. The chief constraint on reaching the higher figure is likely to be the
availability of land.
The cost of CCS through schemes related to forestry might
not exceed $100 per ton of CO2 captured, but the necessary scale of such a project
is comparable to that of the present oil and gas industry, and would compete with
food production for arable land. The results of a number of reports are quoted,
indicating a wide range of estimates for the amount of CO2 that can be captured
and for the cost involved.
Kramer describes BECCS as “a hybrid of natural and technological
approaches” in which biomass is first grown in order to fix atmospheric CO2,
and then harvested and “subjected to one of several processes - combustion,
fermentation, thermochemical conversion such as pyrolysis or gasification, or
microbial conversion” to release the original carbon as CO2, which is then captured
and stored. Energy generated from these processes could be used to produce
electricity. The most suitable sites might be those near to potential
geological storage areas. Kramer cites the Illinois Industrial Carbon Capture
and Storage Project as one of the few examples of industrial scale BECCS
schemes, and which annually stores a million tons of CO2 from corn fermentation,
deep in a sandstone formation. Storing CO2 in this way is regarded as
permanent, whereas CO2 captured by forestation is always at risk from fire or
policy change.
Direct air capture is the subject of a number of
projects, but is at present expensive and in the opinion of one commentator “may
be more relevant in a post-2050 world, when forest fires, droughts, sea- level
rise and the other negative impacts of climate change have reached the point where
$300/ton for CO2 extraction may not look so expensive.” The DACS process
requires power to direct air flow past the chemical compounds that adsorb CO2,
and also to subsequently separate and purify the gas, compress, transport and
store it. A recent study estimated that up to a quarter of the world’s total
energy might be used to power DACS by 2100 (Realmonte et al, 2019).
Storage of CO2 is necessary to DACS and to BECCS. Kramer writes
that expert opinion assesses the pore space in the world’s sedimentary rocks as
more than adequate to sequester all the CO2 we might ever want to remove from
the air, with a storage capacity in the USA alone of between 2.6 trillion and
22 trillion tons. Since 1996, 1 million tons of CO2 per year from Norwegian
natural gas processing has been injected beneath the seabed in the North Sea’s
Sleipner gas field, with no leakage.
CO2 can be ‘stored’ by incorporating it in building
materials: a New Jersey company says it could “reduce the carbon footprint of cement
and concrete production by 60%” using a curing process which instead of water
uses CO2, which forms calcium carbonate and silica to harden the concrete. About
300 kg of CO2 is locked into each ton of concrete made using the company’s
cement, and cement production “contributes about 8% of global CO2 emissions.”
Returning to the Zero-Carbon
World Oration, after discussing negative emissions, Wiseman’s orator
continued: “Despite the progress towards the achievement of a zero-carbon global
economy too many crucial economic decisions with profound implications for the
future lives of all the species on the planet are still made in ways which are
largely invisible and unaccountable. The complex social and cultural pathways
leading to a genuinely sustainable, genuinely equitable post-growth economy
have yet to be traversed.” (Wiseman, 2017).
The orator did not then enlarge upon the nature of these
economic decisions and complex pathways, but references made earlier in the
paper suggest some of the relevant issues. A first group can be found in A Social Contract for Sustainability under
the heading A New Global Social Contract
(WBGU, 2016). The ideas advocated there include: collective global responsibility
for the avoidance of dangerous climate change; voluntary capping of economic
growth; a powerful state balanced by widespread citizen participation; the extension
of the social contract beyond the nation state to acknowledge the interests of
all humanity; redistribution of resources through fair global compensation
mechanisms; consideration of the natural environment within the social contract,
and the inclusion of self-organised civil society and the community of
scientific experts.
Some of the above ideas are echoed in a World Energy
Council report (WEC, 2016), which sees a successful transition for the energy
sector as dependant on “unprecedented global political and economic
collaboration”. The report provides three models for what it calls the Grand
Transition to “a world of lower population growth, radical new technologies, greater
environmental challenges, and a shift in economic and geopolitical power”
during the years up to 2060. The model which offers the largest reduction in
the use of fossil fuel calls for wider “diversity of energy resource types …
global cooperation in achieving environmental sustainability … Government
promoted investment in Infrastructure … Government-driven approach to achieving
sustainability through internationally coordinated politics and practices… Strong
policy, Long-term planning, Unified climate action”. This model, in which “the
world comes closest to meeting climate targets” is characterised by “an
exceptional and enduring effort on top of already pledged commitments, and
coordinated global action at unprecedented levels, with meaningful carbon
prices.”
References
Kramer, D., 2020, ‘Negative Carbon Dioxide Emissions’, Physics Today
http://lakeberryessanews.com/negative-carbon-emissionm.pdf
Realmonte, G., et al., 2019, “An inter-model assessment
of the role of direct air capture in deep mitigation pathways”, Nature Communications volume 10, July
2019
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10842-5?stream=top
WBGU, 2015, “World in Transition - A Social Contract for
Sustainability”, German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), Berlin
Wiseman, J., 2017, “The great energy transition of the
21st century: The 2050 Zero-Carbon World Oration”, November 2017, Energy Research & Social Science
DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2017.10.011
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John_Wiseman2/publication/320901928
WEC, 2016, “World Energy Scenarios 2016: The Grand
Transition Summary Report”’ World Energy Council 2016
https://www.worldenergy.org/assets/downloads/World-Energy-Scenarios-2016_Summary-Report.pdf
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