Carbon Sequestration

Methods: the State of the Art

Daniel “J.” Leistra

GCCS Final Presentation
August 8, 2002
 Strategies for Addressing
Climate Change
 For many, the debate is polarized between
mitigation and adaptation
 Climate change policies don’t have to be
monolithic
 Carbon sequestration is the ‘third path’
 Sequestration shouldn’t be excluded from any
serious discussion of policy options
 Carbon Sequestration: What It Is
 Stores CO2 removed from the atmosphere or
captured from emissions and stores it in another
form somewhere else (a ‘carbon sink’)
 Occurs naturally: oceans and plants are already
absorbing much of what we emit
 We can speed the process along or deposit CO2 in
sinks that it wouldn’t have entered before
 Possible sinks: plants and soils, carbonate minerals,
geologic formations, ocean
 Ocean Fertilization
 Plankton photosynthesis
creates 45 Gt organic carbon
per year
 Most carbon gets recycled to
atmosphere, but some is drawn
down into deep ocean
 Iron is the limiting factor for
phytoplankton growth in 20%
of the world’s oceans (HNLC
zones)
 Fertilization with iron could
NOAA/NESDIS SeaWiFS satellite image
enhance growth, fix more of 1997 Bering Sea plankton bloom
carbon (http://www.sfos.uaf.edu/npmr/projects)
 Studies Show…
 Geologic record suggests phytoplankton growth
may have substantially decreased atmospheric
CO2 in the past
 Numerous experiments have shown huge (30-40x)
increases in primary production, lower CO2 levels
 If it is successful, there will be virtually no limit on
how much CO2 the oceans can hold
 Problems
 All of these studies were short-term: unknown how
much CO2 is being carried into the deep ocean
 Public perception, especially concerning Antarctic
waters
 Fishing Industry???
 Fertilizing every HNLC zone would sequester
76 Gt C by 2100, but would require 300,000
ships and 1.6 billion kg iron annually
 Injection into Deep Saline Aquifers
 Saline aquifers are
underground layers of
porous sediment filled
with brackish water
 If they are deep enough
and hydrologically
separated from other
aquifers, they can safely
hold CO2
 The Future is Now
 U.S. is already dumping 75
million cubic meters of
industrial waste into deep
saline aquifers each year
 CO2 injection process is
similar to EOR; one
commercial venture
already in place and running smoothly
 Preliminary geologic data available, compiled by
Hovorka et al. (2000)
 The Good
 Deep saline aquifers are widespread: 2/3 of U.S. power
plants and industrial centers could inject without
constructing pipelines
 Unlike oil and gas fields, they don’t need special
geometries to sequester CO2 – wide structures confined
only by a horizontal layer of rock can hold it for thousands
of years
 A large amount of CO2 would be incorporated into rocks
and remain stable on a geologic time scale
 If there was a natural leak, it wouldn’t pose any danger
The Bad
 No incentive to sequester
without a carbon tax or a
permit system

 Injectionwell failure =
horrible, horrible death
 …and the Unknown

 Estimates of worldwide sequestration potential

range from 320 - 10,000 Gt CO2
 Environmentalists and the NIMBY effect
 More site-specific information needed before
injection can begin
 Conclusions
 Though no single option is perfect, carbon sequestration
has potential for great societal benefits
 Continuing research is sure to bring about further
breakthroughs, particularly in the field of carbon capture
 Climate change policies shouldn’t be all or nothing: while
carbon sequestration isn’t the answer, it is an answer

 And they all lived happily ever after. THE END

 Cropland Retirement
 20 – 50% of soil organic
carbon (SOC) lost within first
few decades of cultivation
 Worldwide estimates of loss =
41 to 55 Gt C
 As farms face increasing
ecological and economic
challenges, many are being
abandoned
 Cropland Retirement (cont.)

 Governments or NGOs can buy back failing farms

and attempt to reestablish natural ecosystems
 This regeneration can be active or passive
 Temporary set-asides also a possibility
 Predictions
 Regenerating forests across eastern U.S. demonstrate that
it can work, even without much effort
 Removing 15% of land in countries with surpluses would
sequester 1.5 – 3 Gt C
 Conversion will increase biodiversity, provide habitat for
endangered species, protect watersheds, reduce erosion
and salinization
 Reestablishing grasslands more difficult than forests, but
CRP is a well-proven alternative
 My Analysis
 Lower sequestration potential than other options,
but simpler, more environmentally friendly
 Provides a good way out for struggling farmers,
reduces need for government subsidies
 Lower food supply helps those farmers that stay in
business, but could hurt the developing world
 Resulting ecosystems may not be ‘natural,’ but a
managed forest is better than a farm