Remove Greenhouse Gases

 

This section includes two parts: Emergency Response and Restoration Actions.

 

Air Capture Emergency Response

The air capture emergency response revolves  around three, 100-year old processes that are widespread in industry with components that are even more widespread and with known scaling factors. other part of engineered cooling solutions is atmospheric removal. This two has a very important existing aspects that needs to be implemented with the emergency response. There are three major industrial processes that were developed a hundred years or more ago, that are now widespread in industry (see a History of Carbon Dioxide Removal for more information link). These processes are shovel ready for emergency response. All that needs done is for our engineers to scale them to the gigasize – no further development research is required. Once an appropriate giga-infrastructure implementation is underway, then we can turn to new atmospheric removal process that need more study, so that we can create a more efficient climate restoration.

 

Three mature industrial CDR processes have been in use for about a hundred years: recyclable lime/potash, amines, and cryoseparation. Many new processes to remove CO2 and other greenhouse gases from our atmosphere have been discovered since, or are a part of the wide push to seek market share in the coming CDR industrialization of our world. These three mature processes are ready to use with almost all of their process components already widespread in industry. This allows the first principle of emergency action to be implemented, where any emergency requires we use the tools at hand be used to save lives.

 

 

 

 

 

Air Capture Emergency Response

 

The air capture emergency response revolves  around three, 100-year old processes that are widespread in industry with components that are even more widespread and with known scaling factors. other part of engineered cooling solutions is atmospheric removal. This two has a very important existing aspects that needs to be implemented with the emergency response. There are three major industrial processes that were developed a hundred years or more ago, that are now widespread in industry (see a History of Carbon Dioxide Removal for more information link). These processes are shovel ready for emergency response. All that needs done is for our engineers to scale them to the gigasize – no further development research is required. Once an appropriate giga-infrastructure implementation is underway, then we can turn to new atmospheric removal process that need more study, so that we can create a more efficient climate restoration.

Three mature industrial CDR processes have been in use for about a hundred years: recyclable lime/potash, amines, and cryoseparation. Many new processes to remove CO2 and other greenhouse gases from our atmosphere have been discovered since, or are a part of the wide push to seek market share in the coming CDR industrialization of our world. These three mature processes are ready to use with almost all of their process components already widespread in industry. This allows the first principle of emergency action to be implemented, where any emergency requires we use the tools at hand be used to save lives.

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

 

https://netl.doe.gov/carbon-management/carbon-storage/faqs/carbon-storage-faqs

RESTORATION ACTIONS

 

We cannot use direct cooling engineered solutions forever. The risks are too high, increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reduce direct cooling efficiency, and our biggest and most important resource, our oceans, do not de-acidify with most direct cooling solutions. Future emissions eliminations with net zero helps a small amount but primarily CDR far in excess of emissions reductions is required. These processes are known as negative emissions or CDR (carbon dioxide removal). There are two forms of CDR, natural and industrial.

Natural CDR consists of things like our forest, soils, wetlands or mangroves, or different agricultural techniques. The National Academies of Sciences (NAS) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) limit global natural systems sequestration to 5.5 Gt annually fully enhanced and completely healthy, because of sustainability and very importantly, equity. Industrial CDR strategies and their components have been in use as a major part of our world’s industrial complex for about a hundred years, with a capacity that is only limited by humanity’s motivation.

Natural Systems Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) Compromised – Permanence

 

Natural CDR consists of things like our forest, soils, oceans, wetlands, mangroves, oceans, permafrost, or different agricultural techniques. The National Academies of Sciences (NAS) and IPCC limit global natural systems  sequestration to 5.5 Gt annually fully enhanced and completely healthy. This limit is significantly lower than others’ because it takes into consideration sustainability and equity issues. Numerous studies show how much greater sequestration is possible with natural systems but plausibility is not feasibility. Paul Hawken’s Drawdown Project is another example of great promise. Though Hawken’s strategies are certainly plausible permanence of natural sequestration is compromised because of warming-caused degradation. This compromise will only get worse until that time that we cool our climate’s temperature back to within the evolutionary boundaries of our natural systems so they can self-restore. This concept of compromised sequestration permanence has been demonstrated in academic literature as being ongoing and intensifying. Current natural systems science that tells us natural systems can do a large part of CDR do not incorporate the latest warming degradation science. Some natural systems will certainly remain sequestration resources, but many if not most will not and cannot be relied upon to ensure we do not pass the point of no return of already activated tipping collapses.

Case Study – California’s Carbon Offset Buffer Burned Already

 

Permanence is an immense challenge of natural systems sequestration in a climate that is warmer than the evolution of the Earth systems doing the sequestration. As an example, nearly the entire buffer pool for the California carbon credit program has now burned, mostly in 2020 and 2021, a buffer that was supposed to protect the forest carbon credits from fire, insects and disease through 2100. The lightning-caused Lionshead Fire in Oregon in 2020 is one example of many that alone, based on conservative estimates, burned four percent of the buffer pool. Western US fires have recently begun burning much more severely, compromising much more forest area, with an 800 percent increase in high severity fire from 1982 to 2017, where 97 percent of area burned in the 20 years has been high severity fires, with mortality of 95 percent in high severity fires. The result of the California fires in just 2022 are that these fires emitted two and half times more carbon than was reduced by all of California’s emissions reductions actions since they began.

INDUSTRIAL CARBON DIOXIDE REMOVAL (CDR), DIRECT AIR CAPTURE (DAC), CARBON CAPTURE AND SEQUESTRATION (CSS)

 

Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS)

CCS refers to capturing CO2 from exhaust streams in energy generation and industry. Though air capture of CO2 is often referred to as CCS, for this discussion, CSS only includes capture from exhaust streams  of energy generation or industry applications. Much literature and IPCC reviews show that to achieve net zero emissions, we must use CDR offsets or carbon captured elsewhere, to compensate for hard to decarbonize sectors. With unlimited time, it is plausible we could decarbonize these sectors but because of the difficulties and short time frames involved, CDR and or CCS are mandatory. Much has been written about failures of CCS and some is valid because of challenges with emerging technology implementation, but much is also misguided. There is no incentive for industry to capture CO2 from their processes and energy generation, but industry can read the writing on the wall and profitability demands they be ready when carbon emissions regulations appear. Therefor they pilot CCS units to determine feasibility, then shut them down because there is no incentive to keep spending money to keep them operating. This process has been misinterpreted by many as failure.

What is the importance of CSS then, with climate restoration? 

 

CSS serves to catalyze removal process scaling. Most of the CSS process components are identical to air capture components. Engineers scale these components to be able to advance the process to make more money from the sequestration incentives. CSS implementation also considers that soon, there will carbon emissions regulations that do not have positive incentives so their processes for both CSS and Air capture need to be maximized through engineering iteration, so that their bottom line does not suffer unduly. These engineering tasks serve not only to safeguard industry profits, but the also add needed engineering to scal air capture to quantities that are meaningful to climate restoration in time frames that matter.
Case Study – CCS Failures? The Petra Nova Unit

 

Petra Nova is a first of its kind full-scale demonstration unit for removal of CO2 from coal fired electricity generation in Houston. The CO2 is used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Widespread reports of the failure of this unit are unfounded. It was shut down when the price of oil went to near zero during Covid after meeting 85 percent of its design goals – an excllent outcome for a full-scale demonstration unit.  Petra Nova is operational again after being refurbished to increase capacity by 30 percent. This is the fate of most of these carbon removal demonstrations. Industry first demonstrates full-scale units to prove concept and then they shut them down after proof awaiting a revenue stream or mandatory regulation as there is no profit (without EOR) and there are no regulations requiring carbon removal.
Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) with CDR, and Carbon Negative Oil

 

Analysis of sequestration efficiency with EOR is based on the industry process of recycling CO2 to the next well where industry removes all the CO2 it can from recovery wells to recycle the process. To create carbon negative oil and gas and be awarded incentives from the California Low Carbon Fuels Standard (LCFS) or IRS 45Q Carbon Sequestration Incentive, and as these laws development state – to further the mandatory industrialization and scaling of carbon capture technologies. EOR produces the last 10% to 15% of oil available in a field where primary and secondary production typically removes half of the product originally in the ground. What must be done to sequester more CO2 is simply close the valve on the well and do not recycle all the CO2 to the next well – or, pump more in the ground, there’s room for it. Why would an oil and gas producer do this? Because the EOR production process to each well already exists and air capture CO2, once the air capture infrastructure is put into place, is cheaper than the LCFS and 45Q incentives creating a revenue windfall. Won’t they just pocket the windfall? Not likely, at least most of it. The reason is that far more revenues will be available from carbon sequestration incentives to the first to market – the first to create the most infrastructure to achieve market share of the 1,000 or more Gt CO2 removal required to restore our climate.
Specifically, How Can Oil From EOR be Carbon Negative?

 

Half of CO2 injected for EOR is trapped in the formation to start with. It is trapped in kerogens that originally held the oil and gas, it is mineralized in the geology, and it is dissolved in the formation water associated with the oil and gas. This sequestration approximately equals the CO2 emissions from burning the recovered product plus the upstream emissions in the process. To make oil and natural gas from EOR carbon negative, leave more CO2 in the ground, the CLCF and 45Q standards pay more than the value of the air capture CO2.
Non-EOR Air Capture

 

The Internal Revenue Service’s Carbon Oxide Capture rules (IRS 45Q), pays up to $85 per ton of CO2 sequestered with EOR, if union labor is used. Air capture without EOR, and direct sequestration or sequestration in durable products pays up to $185  a ton if union labor is used. There are many different air capture technologies and most are still in development. the three discussed here are lime/potash, amines and cryosperation.
Industrial Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)

 

Three mature industrial CDR processes have been in use for about a hundred years: recyclable lime/potash, amines, and cryoseparation. Many new processes to remove CO2 and other greenhouse gases from our atmosphere have been discovered since, or are a part of the wide push to seek market share in the coming CDR industrialization of our world. These three mature processes are ready to use with almost all of their process components already widespread in industry. This allows the first principle of emergency action to be implemented, where any emergency requires the tools at hand be used to save lives.
Over 200, CO2 capture units are committed under IRS 45Q for completion by 2035. This is an excellent start on industrialization of a climate restoration infrastructure that can finish the job that direct cooling engineered solutions begins. Most of these units use the lime-potash process.

Cryoseparation and Beer

 

Nobel Prize nominee Carl von Linde was the first to remove carbon dioxide from air in a meaningful way. His technology was developed from his refrigeration discovery that itself was first used in the 1870s to help the brewing industry overcome limitations on summer season brewing and beer storage that was plagued by bacterial contamination. Literally, brewing beer in the warm season was banned in Bavaria because of this problem. By 1890 Linde had sold 747 of his “ice machines.” In 1892 Guinness contracted with Linde to build a CO2 liquefaction plant to sell excess CO2 from fermentation as a feedstock in the newly industrialized world. This set in motion the ultra-cold refrigeration technology that Linde later used in cryoseparation to distill the components of air into usable products that included, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and argon. The cryoseparation technology first supercools air to a liquid, then evaporates the liquid in a tall column where the temperature rises upwards in the column, condensing individual components of air (oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and argon…) at different temperatures, much like water vapor condenses in clouds.
Lime-Potash Process for Removing Carbon Dioxide From Air – Submarines, Baking Soda and Cement

 

 

The recyclable lime-potash process has been used in various forms to remove CO2 from air since the late 18th Century. It involves two parts – capture with potash and release using lime in the baking soda production process where this baking soda process is part of the process of making cement our of limestone. These two processes have been ubiquitous in industry since the mid- and late-1800s. Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) has been used for thousands of years as a natural mineral deposited from hot springs among other places. French chemist, Nicolas Leblanc discovered the process to make baking soda (known as soda ash too) in 1791. In the late 18th century, soda ash was first used as a leavening agent in baking by John Dwight and Austin Church, in New York. It’s many other uses include: as an animal feed additive, as a bonding agent in dying, as a purifier and catalyst in the plastic industry, in the manufacture of rubber, as a softener in the food industry, as odors control in wastewater treatment, and it is widespread in pollution treatment of flue gases using the same chemistry as wastewater odor control, and to remove sulfur pollution from flue gases and it is also widespread in the pharmaceutical industry. Potassium carbonate (potash) was first identified in 1742 by Antonio Campanella. It is made by the absorbent reaction with carbon dioxide. Together these things defines the atmospheric carbon capture reaction used in the lime-potash process that kept our submarine sailors safe from carbon dioxide poisoning in World War II.
Vitamines (Note the Spelling) and Amin

 

 

Amines are likely going to be the Go to for air capture of Co2 as research into use of this very large chemical family. Trillions of dollars of revenue are at stake and amines are more efficient than the lime/potash and cryosperaration processes. In 1930, Robert Bottoms was awarded a patent for removing CO2 from air with amines. The discovery of amines was first published in 1911 by Kazimierz Funk. Funk was inspired by Christiaan Eijkman work that showed eating brown rice reduced vulnerability to beri-beri, compared to those who at normal milled rice. (Beri-beri is a vitamin B deficiency that causes nerve and heart inflammation.) Funk was able to isolate the substance and because it contained an amine group he called it “vitamine.” It was later to be known as vitamin B3 (niacin),  and described it as “anti-beri-beri-factor”. Amines have gone on to become one of the most important chemical groups in all of industry with processes that include: dyes, nylon, medicines, cooling systems, surfactants, cosmetics, agrochemicals, corrosion inhibitor, machining fluids, powder coatings, polyurethane, and epoxy coatings. Amines are a $32 billion industry in 2023.
The Haber-Bosch Process (Amines) and Bat Guano in World War II

 

 

The Haber-Bosch process was an extremely important piece of chemistry developed just before WWI that allowed nitrogen production for use in explosives and fertilizers, with a key part of the process being the CO2 removal. It was a German invention because the Allies controlled all the bat guano deposits in caves that were the nitrogen source for fertilizers and explosives manufacturing. CO2 is a byproduct of the process produced as waste that must be removed, which is fundamental to the CO2 air capture process. The Haber-Bosch process is responsible for almost all fertilizers on Earth, one of the largest industries  on the planet.
Costs of Air Capture CO2

 

Here is another of the big misinterpretations of science in a mandatory climate restoration world. Not only are air capture Co2 processes widespread and mature, but their costs is nothing like what is suggested in academic literature. Why is this? Academic literature is scenario driven. If the proper scenario criteria are not evaluated, results are not as meaningful as they could be, or simply do not apply.

Here is another of the big misinterpretations of science in a mandatory climate restoration world. Not only are air capture Co2 processes widespread and mature, but their costs is nothing like what is suggested in academic literature. Why is this? Academic literature is scenario driven. If the proper scenario criteria are not evaluated, results are not as meaningful as they could be, or simply do not apply.

Case Study – Cost of Industrial CDR, Carbon Engineering (Keith 2018)

 

Reported excessive costs of industrial CDR are an artifact of science that does not fully consider alternatives, of errors in very credible publishing, of lack of publishing from players as their secrets are worth trillions of dollars in incentives, and from poor interpretation of academic literature by both popular journalism and scientific publications. The Carbon Engineering (Keith 2018) scenario criteria result in $94 to $232 per ton range that reflects the low and high energy costs of natural gas in 2018, where 87 percent of process costs are energy and costs include upstream emissions and the carbon penalty to remove the carbon emitted from burning the natural gas to create the energy to run the process. So realistically, the lowest cost of natural gas will be used and the cost in Keith 2018 is $92 per ton. But Keith used $0.03 natural gas energy. Using a different scenario, the latest wind and solar costs at utility scale are now at $0.01 kWh. Considering Keith 2018 allows that 40 percent of process costs can be as electricity, and the rest requires flam energy for oxidation, with $0.01 kWh renewable site-built energy, this reduces total costs to $60 ton.
Utilization of CO2 from Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)

 

It matters not how feasible, plausible or impossible atmospheric carbon capture is perceived to be. If we do not restore our atmosphere to within the boundaries of our Earth systems, untenable futures result. The two big challenges with utilization are quantity and time. Generally, because time is of the essence, utilization cannot create atmospheric removals anywhere close to the quantitates need to reduce Earth’s temperature to a restoration target less than 1 degrees C warming. Nevertheless, utilization is important and has a capacity to help with restoration. One of the most exciting of utilization strategies and or processes is contemporary carbon limestone aggregates made from air capture CO2. One of the leaders in this synthetic limestone production is Blue Planet Aggregates in California where they have built limestone aggreges that are carbon negative for use in airport construction and many other projects, sequestering a net of 500 pounds per ton of concrete, upstream emissions included.   Low carbon concrete products that are proliferating in the market today only reduce the carbon footprint of concrete, they do not reverse it like concrete made from synthetic aggregates.
Can We Afford Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)?

 

 

We have already described the biases in cost assumptions where scenarios rule. This discussion addresses the total cost of removing CO2 from the sky that is widely believed to be extremely excessive. Using easy math, removing 1,000 Gt of CO2 at $50 per ton (to use a RAND study costs), is $50 trillion. In 20 years, to restore our climate by mid-century, this is $2.5 trillion per year globally with the US share being a quarter of that or $625 billion per year. AT $100 per ton the cost is $5 trillion per year globally and $1.25 trillion for the US. Cost will very likely, before long, fall below $50 per ton, based on iterative process design and Keith 2018 being $60 ton using renewable energy. But the challenge remains that this is a lot of money and when money is always short everywhere, where does the money come from? simply put, we can find the money. We realize this is dodging the question, but of motivation is there, the money will be found. What needs to be understood is the scope of this spending. Once it is understood how this very large amount of money (2.5 to 5% of global gross domestic product) relates to life on Earth as we know it, it will be much easier to integrate this spending into our perception of reality. Consider…  In the US alone we spent $4.3 trillion on health care in 2021, $500 billion on clothes, $750 billion on durable goods, $1.3 trillion on nondurable goods, $1.5 trillion on our automobiles, $2.1 trillion on food, $500 billion on water and wastewater treatment, $500 billion on agricultural damages not counting climate change, $500 billion on entertainment, $1 trillion on energy, $600 billion on sick days, and $200 billion disposing of urban waste. Globally we spent $1.9 trillion on fuel subsidies, $2.6 trillion on life insurance., and $1.6 trillion on advertising.

Instructions =- Modify the content below from the cooling page to adjust to removals.

 

 

(Image Description: McKay et al., Exceeding 1.5 C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points, Science, September 9, 2022. There are many other tipping systems defined in other works based on different criteria but these will do for illustration. Tipping science is still developing, this has never happened before and physical evidence is extremely rare. Therefor modeling must suffice and modeling is challenging at best. These data however, do reflect generally the current state of climate tipping systems from other works. Note how many systems tipping ranges begin at the maximum warmth of the Holocene at about 1 degrees C above normal. Note how the Amazon is not yet into its tipping range but we know that it is already emitting and not sequestering because of mortality from five, greater than 100-year droughts since 2020 – link to paper.)

 

Trust In Engineers

Only by including properly researched intervention “tourniquets” to our “bleeding” Earth can we start to pull back from brink of irreversible tipping. Our advanced civilization relies upon our engineers to keep us safe from danger, to treat pollution so we incur no harm, to design a world where we can live free from undue risk, literally, to geoengineer our world for the betterment of mankind. This geoengineering is all around us and has been for a 2,000 years. Everywhere one looks, engineers have changed Earth for the betterment of humankind. Geoengineering is not a problem as our engineers are trained to keep us safe. The problem is perceived fear of the unknown. If more people knew what geoengineering actually is and how long we have been practicing it and that it is responsible for humankind’s population advancing from 1 billion to 8 billion souls, engineered cooling solutions fear would not be an issue.

 

The Moral Hazard

A primary argument has been that, pursuing engineered cooling solutions constitutes a “moral hazard” because implementation might well slow GHG emissions reduction efforts and this would be “morally wrong.” Now that effects from warming are becoming repeatedly unprecedented, and that tipping elements have activated and they do not self-restore unless we cool our climate from today, and future emissions reductions cannot cool our climate at all in time frames that matter, and considering warming in the pipeline that even with complete emissions cessation that we continue to warm because of warming in the pipeline that our cool oceans and ice sheets (and aerosols) have been masking;  the real “moral hazard” then,  is the failure to pursue cooling approaches that can stop irreversible tipping responses, and reduce ecological and human disasters and costs. The moral hazard no longer lies in researching and deploying climate cooling approaches, but now in the failure to explore all feasible approaches to reduce near-term global warming.

 

Creating a Sustainable World With Temporary Engineered Cooling Solutions

Many of the climate cooling approaches are low-tech and can be responsibly deployed at local to regional scales with few, if any, potential risks and often, many co-benefits.  Similarly, various of the global-scale approaches can be tested and implemented at low intensity using an “apply, evaluate, adjust” sequencing because their effects are readily reversible if unexpected, potentially deleterious consequences arise.

 

Learning by Doing – Ramping Up Engineered Cooling Solutions and Governance

World governance is a problem. There is none. Or, there is very little, yet it is implied that engineered cooling solutions are against international law. What guidelines there are goals and principles that are interpreted to be affected by engineered cooling solutions. For example, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has goals that conserves biodiversity and resources, and shares the benefits of genetic resources. Specifically, changes in regional weather patterns could affect ecologies. Some interpret these goals as being negatively impacted by engineered cooling solutions. Maybe so, but does CBD consider the risk/risk analysis, or are they simply applying the moral hazard from days gone by?

Still, it may be possible to pilot-test and gradually deploy high-leverage engineered cooling strategies with great prospects like stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI). This is “learning by doing” and it can be done  at a regional scale without global governance and coordination by following the Great Barrier Reef tropospheric aerosols example. SAI could be pilot tested with consent from affected communities and authorities in accordance with an international, voluntary and transparent “coalition of the willing” agreement. this learn by doing strategy starts with outdoor testing, evaluation and modification of the test to reduce or eliminate negative effects and enhance positive effects. The test are increased in size using the same iterative evaluation and modification process. The results is a full scale strategy in much faster time that traditional science certainty first procedures. Basically, what happens is that scientists turn the scientific knowledge over to engineers that then scale the strategy safely and efficiently. this is what engineers have been doing for 2,000 years. they keep us safe. they are trustworthy.

 

Emergency Implementation of Engineered Cooling Solutions

In some cases, sufficient authority to deploy an emergency cooling mechanism may already be in place. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) could, for example, address the unintended global warming produced by its well-intended maritime fuel sulfur regulations under its existing authority. First, the IMO could immediately adopt an emergency regulation relaxing 2015 and 2020 shipping fuel sulfur content restrictions in the high seas, to resume sulfate aerosol cooling except when within 200miles of land. Second, as a long-term solution, the IMO could support research and implement regulations requiring use of alternative fuels or power sources and the emission of aerosol precursors more benign than sulfates to human and environmental health, so as to replace the prior beneficial global cooling from burning sulfur. These measures alone could produce significant cooling and buy time to further implement more effective solutions using learning by doing.

Similarly, sulfur regulations in fossil fuels over land could be relaxed. this of course carries with it much higher risk of human and other mortalities, but these risks need to be balanced with the risks of not cooling with emergency urgency. the point of no return waits for none.

There are also new regulations for ultrafine particles when burning fossil fuels in vehicles. Particulate emissions standards in Europe and China in 2014 and 2017 and the US in 2024, sought to regulate ultra fine particulates (UFPs) that double to triple in particle count with gasoline direct injection engines. This direct injection technology is coming to dominate the market because of fuel efficiency but because some sulfur remains in fuels this direct injection technology creates a much bigger problem with aerosols. These emissions are so small, less than 0.1 micron where current regulations ( PM 2.5) regulate particles down to 2.5 microns, their mass is almost negligible and our present mass-based regulations on sulfur emissions no longer apply. The new regs are designed to limit the number of particulate particles instead of the mass of particles by using gasoline particle filters (GPFs). These new limits are likely and significantly reducing a new source of global cooling sulfate aerosols and thus revealing masked warming.  Direct injection creates 1 to 2 times more particles less than 0.1 micron and herein lies the challenge: it is the number of particles that matter to both respiratory illness and global cooling. Smaller particles both cool more than larger particles, and penetrate more deeply into the lungs.

Once again, a risk/risk analysis would quite likely reveal that implementing engineered cooling solutions is a great deal compared to not implementing them because of the short time to the point of no return of tipping responses.

 

The Limits of Engineered Cooling Solutions

Even though engineered cooling solutions are the only way we can avoid natural feedback emissions that dwarf humankind’s from the irreversible point of no return of tipping elements, it would not be good luck to assume that we could continue these solutions forever, or even for much more than decades. Our oceans are probably the biggest reason, as increasing acidification is not mitigated by most engineered cooling strategies and ocean systems collapses would likely be of the most serious kind.

Delay in action to deploy engineered cooling solutions, like when we delayed action on reducing emissions, creates a world where even engineers cannot change our future.  As an example, engineered cooling via reflective aerosols does nothing to reduce ocean acidity as the excess CO2 that caused the increased acidity remains. Our oceans are already on the brink of profound acidification that can create extinction level effects with primary productivity. There is great risks in allowing ocean acidity to not only continue, but to increase as it will with aerosol cooling.

Aerosol cooling, and many other types of engineered cooling solutions, also do not do well with high levels of CO2 in that, greater CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere tend to limit the formation of lower clouds allowing more sunlight to strike the Earth’s surface and be changed into heat. therefor the efficiency of many engineered solutions becomes less and less  with greater atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

 

Conclusion

The road to climate stability and a sustainable planet will ultimately require a complete transformation of global industrial civilization’s economies, systems, and practices, but if we do not first cool, and do so in time frames relative to tipping processes, so as to eliminate untenable futures from tipping responses, all other actions to create a sustainable human culture will be for naught.

 

The following is a table to what are plausibly thirteen of the most promising cooling strategies from Baiman 2024 – Description of direct climate cooling (DCC) methods.

Supporting Literature

Below is a sampling of critical literature about carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas removal, natural and industrial, and the permanence crisis in natural sequestration that is ongoing because of degradation of Earth systems.

 

 

 

 

 

NATURAL SYSTEMS 

National Academy of Sciences 2018… Natural systems CDR (carbon dioxide removal) is limited to 5.5 Gt per year globally, fully implemented and fully enhanced.  The National Academies of Sciences Negative Emissions Technologies Report in 2018, referenced by IPPC, says the safe, equitable atmospheric carbon dioxide removal with natural terrestrial Earth Systems enhancements is 5.5 Gt CO2 per year globally… The key with this report that has quantities significantly less than other sources is justice and equity. Other sources do not, or do not fully consider justice and equity, where plausible solutions (example reforestation) create injustice and inequity, and NAS’s feasible quantities consider justice and equity. The Report Highlights summary states with regard to natural systems sequestration, “However, attaining these levels would require unprecedented rates of adoption of agricultural soil conservation practices, forestry management practices, and waste biomass capture. Practically achievable limits are likely substantially less, perhaps half the 1 GtCO2/yr in the US and 10 GtCO2/yr globally.” In addition, NAS’s report does not consider ongoing degradation of natural systems from warming-caused collapses, ocean processes which have a capacity to be very large, but mostly include geoengineering.
“TABLE 1. Cost, Limiting Factors, and Impact Potential of NETs with Current Technology and Understanding. “Safe” rate of CO2 removal means that the deployment would not cause large potential adverse societal, economic, and environmental impacts. Estimated rates assume full adoption of agricultural soil conservation practices, forestry management practices, and waste biomass capture.”

Afforestation/Reforestation       1 Gt/yr
Forest Management                     1.5 Gt/yr
Agricultural Soils                          3 Gt/yr
Total                                                5.5 Gt/yr

Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration, A Research Agenda, Consensus Study Report, Highlights, National Academy of Sciences, October 2018, Summary, page 2, paragraph 2 and 3, and Table 1.
https://www.nap.edu/resource/25259/Negative%20Emissions%20Technologies.pdf

What About Hawken’s “Drawdown”?

Paul Hawken’s book suggests 10 Gt atmospheric CO2 removal is plausible using natural systems and agricultural enhancements… This exhaustive description of advanced drawdown opportunities in Hawken’s book Drawdown—The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, says about 10 Gt negative emissions per year are possible using enhanced natural and agricultural systems. There are several challenge with Hawken’s work: time, justice and equity, feasibility and permanence. Though Hawken’s strategies are certainly plausible, given our culture’s track record of creating sustainable natural systems and agricultural practices, feasibility is questionable, especially in near term time frames associated with collapsing Earth systems points of no return. Some of Hawken’s actions include equity considerations, some do not. Some are wildly beneficial to the commons, but some are obviously not considering justice and equity issues. the most imp[ortant issue with haken’s natural systems work is that our natural systems are already degraded and their sequestration capacity already limited, eliminated or reversed. Hawken does not consider the implications of prematurely activated tipping collapse responses.
Hawken, Drawdown—The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, Penguin Books, 2017.
https://www.drawdown.org/solutions

 

PERMANENCE OF NATURAL SYSTEMS CARBON SEQUESTRATION

Even if natural systems had the capacity , ongoing degradation from warming has crippled  the current sequestration from natural systems globally. While some systems may be still viable, many others are in various stages of collapse from warming.

Ballard 2023 – Large carbon credit losses of the past decade are likely to become far more frequent in the coming decades as forests become hotter and drier… “One emerging threat to the long-term stability and viability of forest carbon offset projects is wildfires, which can release large amounts of carbon and limit the efficacy of associated offsetting credits… Our results indicate the large wildfire carbon project damages seen in the past decade are likely to become more frequent… Already, wildfires within offset projects in the past decade alone have exhausted nearly all of the carbon credits that California’s cap and trade program set aside for wildfire losses, and that reserve was intended to last 100 years [4]… Large carbon credit losses of the past decade are likely to become far more frequent in the coming decades as forests become hotter and drier.”
Ballard et al., Widespread increases in future wildfire risk to global forest carbon offset projects, ArXiv preprint, May 3, 2023.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.02397

Wu 2023 – US forest carbon permanence uncertain – areas most at risk are current carbon offset regions… Abstract, ” Forests have considerable potential to mitigate anthropogenic climate change through carbon sequestration, as well as provide society with substantial co-benefits. However, climate change risks may fundamentally compromise the permanence of forest carbon storage. Here, we conduct a multi-method synthesis of contiguous US forest aboveground carbon storage potential at both regional and species levels through a fusion of historical and future climate projections, extensive forest inventory plots datasets, machine learning/niche models, and mechanistic land surface model ensemble outputs. We find diverging signs and magnitudes of projected future forest aboveground carbon storage potential across contrasting approaches, ranging from an average total gain of 6.7 Pg C to a loss of 0.9 Pg C, in a moderate-emissions scenario. The Great Lakes region and the northeastern United States showed consistent signs of carbon gains across approaches and future scenarios. Substantial risks of carbon losses were found in regions where forest carbon offset projects are currently located. This multi-method assessment highlights the current striking uncertainty in US forest carbon storage potential estimates and provides a critical foundation to guide forest conservation, restoration and nature-based climate solutions.”
(Press Release quotes)
Wu et al., Uncertainty in US forest carbon storage potential due to climate risks, Nature Geoscience, April 6, 2023.
(Paywall) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-023-01166-7
(Press Release) Gabrielsen, US forests face an unclear future with climate change, University of Utah, April 6, 2023.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/04/230406113941.htm

 

Anderegg 2022 – Climate-driven disturbances pose critical risks to the long-term permanence of forest carbon… “Forests are currently a substantial carbon sink globally. Many climate change mitigation strategies leverage forest preservation and expansion, but rely on forests storing carbon for decades to centuries. Yet climate-driven disturbances pose critical risks to the long-term stability of forest carbon. We quantify the climate drivers that influence wildfire and climate stress-driven tree mortality, including a separate insect-driven tree mortality, for the contiguous United States for current (1984–2018) and project these future disturbance risks over the 21st century. We find that current risks are widespread and projected to increase across different emissions scenarios by a factor of >4 for fire and >1.3 for climate-stress mortality. These forest disturbance risks highlight pervasive climate-sensitive disturbance impacts on US forests and raise questions about the risk management approach taken by forest carbon offset policies. Our results provide US-wide risk maps of key climate-sensitive disturbances for improving carbon cycle modeling, conservation and climate policy.”
Anderegg et al., Future climate risks from stress insects and fire across US forests, Ecology Letters, March 26, 2022.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ele.14018

 

Anderegg 2020 – Forest carbon sequestration policy does not always consider climate impact risks to forests stability where widespread climate change-induced forest die-offs are creating dangerous feedbacks… “Forests have significant potential to help mitigate human-caused climate change and provide society with a broad range of co-benefits. Local, national, and international efforts have developed policies and economic incentives to protect and enhance forest carbon sinks – ranging from the Bonn Challenge to restore deforested areas to the development of forest carbon offset projects around the world. However, these policies do not always account for important ecological and climate-related risks and limits to forest stability (i.e. permanence). Widespread climate-induced forest die-off has been observed in forests globally and creates a dangerous carbon cycle feedback, both by releasing large amounts of carbon stored in forest ecosystems to the atmosphere and by reducing the size of the future forest carbon sink. Climate-driven risks may fundamentally compromise forest carbon stocks and sinks in the 21st century. Understanding and quantifying climate-driven risks to forest stability is a crucial component needed to forecast the integrity of forest carbon sinks and the extent to which they can contribute towards the Paris Agreement goal to limit warming well below 2 °C. Thus, rigorous scientific assessment of the risks and limitations to widespread deployment of forests as natural climate solutions is urgent.”
Anderegg et al., Climate-driven risks to the climate mitigation potential of forests, Science, June 19, 2020.
https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10182667

 

Bernal 2022 – Prescribed burning significantly reduces carbon storage – California Carbon stocks in 2069 modeled at 25 percent of today’s values with 870 megatons net emissions in the next 50 years… With restoration of forests using fuels reductions strategies that reduce the number of trees per acre, in combination with both current and additional warming that favors lower tree density and more pines, total carbon storage in California’s forests in 2069 is only 25 percent of carbon storage today. Abstract, “Restoration of fire-prone forests can promote resiliency to disturbances, yet such activities may reduce biomass stocks to levels that conflict with climate mitigation goals. Using a set of large-scale historical inventories across the Sierra Nevada/southern Cascade region, we identified underlying climatic and biophysical drivers of historical forest characteristics and projected how restoration of these characteristics manifest under future climate. Historical forest conditions varied with climate and site moisture availability but were generally characterized by low tree density (∼53 trees ha−1 ), low live basal area (∼22 m2 ha−1 ), low biomass (∼34 Mg ha−1 ), and high pine dominance. Our predictions reflected broad convergence in forest structure, frequent fire is the most likely explanation for this convergence. Under projected climate (2040–2069), hotter sites become more prevalent, nearly ubiquitously favoring low tree densities, low biomass, and high pine dominance. Based on these projections, this region may be unable to support aboveground biomass >40 Mg ha−1 by 2069, a value approximately 25% of current average biomass stocks. Ultimately, restoring resilient forests will require adjusting carbon policy to match limited future aboveground carbon stocks in this region.” and, “Based on the relationship between AGLB and total biomass (supplementary figure 8), these forests store a total of 1,167 MMT CO2e. We project that the median AGLB in 2069 will be no more than 40 Mg ha−1, which translates to 307 MMT CO2e stored in the total biomass pool. These extrapolations suggest that this region could emit 860 MMT CO2e over the next 50 years (2019–2069). Liang et al (2017a) projected the Sierra Nevada’s carbon carrying capacity under climate-wildfire interactions through the late 21st century and found that the region could lose as much as 78% of current aboveground carbon stocks, which aligns with our projections of climate resilient forests supporting <25% of current AGLB.”
Bernal et al., Biomass stocks in California’s fire-prone forests, mismatch in ecology and policy, Environmental Research Letters, March 25, 2022.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac576a/pdf

 

Maxwell 2022 – Increased frequency of disturbance decreases carbon storage, particularly in management practices that emphasize prescribed fire… “Our results suggest increasing the frequency of disturbances (a lower DRI) would reduce the percentage of high-severity fire on landscape but not the total amount of wildfire in general. However, a higher DRI reduced carbon storage and sequestration, particularly in management strategies that emphasized prescribed fire over hand or mechanical fuel treatments…Climate change is moving the landscape toward becoming a carbon source (Fig. 3, left). This can be moderated or accelerated by the type of management actions taken on the landscape, which is reflected in the different management areas present (see Table 3). Higher removals of biomass (whether from combustion of litter/downed woody material or from higher mortality than other forms of treatment) by prescribed fires in Scenarios 4 and 5 on the landscape affected the carbon balance (Fig. 3, right), where both live and dead C pools decreased through time… Our analysis suggests that, with the management approaches tested, there was a trade-off between C storage and fire severity. Although a lower DRI reduced high-severity fire, the net effect was reduced C storage.”
Maxwell et al., Frequency of disturbance mitigates high-severity fire in the Lake Tahoe basin, Ecology and Society, 2022.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/63891

 

Crausbay 2017 – Defining ecological drought  and permanence risk for the twenty-first century… Sequestration permanence is mandatory for nature-based Carbon dioxide removal. If a fire, flood or drought comes along, ever increasing on a warmer planet, it erases all sequestration. There is actually a new type of drought definition that considers ecological collapse because of climate conditions beyond the evolution of an ecosystem. It’s called ecological drought and it is happening worldwide as we have warmed beyond the evolution of many of our global ecologies. “To prepare us for the rising risk of drought in the twenty-first century, we need to reframe the drought conversation by underscoring the value to human communities in sustaining ecosystems and the critical services they provide when water availability dips below critical thresholds. In particular, we need to define a new type of drought—ecological drought—that integrates the ecological, climatic, hydrological, socioeconomic, and cultural dimensions of drought. To this end, we define the term ecological drought as an episodic deficit in water availability that drives ecosystems beyond thresholds of vulnerability, impacts ecosystem services, and triggers feedbacks in natural and/or human systems.”
Crausbay et al, Defining Ecological Drought for the Twenty-First Century BAMS, December 2017.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0292.1

 

Crowther 2016 – Soils carbon permanence Soil carbon loss with 1.5 C at 2050 is 5.5 Gt CO2eq loss per year… “If we make the conservative assumption that the full effects of warming are fully realized within a year,  then approximately 30 ± 30 PgC would be lost from the surface soil for 1 °C of warming. Given that global average soil surface temperatures are projected to increase by around 2 °C over the next 35 years under a business-as-usual emissions scenario16, this extrapolation would suggest that warming could drive the net loss of approximately 55 ± 50 PgC from the upper soil horizon. If, as expected, this C entered the atmospheric pool, the atmospheric burden of CO2 would increase by approximately 25 parts per million over this period.”
1.5 C Warming Soil Carbon Loss… 1.5 C by 2050 is about 45 Pg C loss or 165 Gt CO2 in 30 years or 5.5 Gt CO2 per year.
Crowther et al., Quantifying global soil carbon losses in response to warming, Nature, December 1, 2016.
(Researchgate – free subscription) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311163076_Quantifying_global_soil_carbon_losses_in_response_to_warming

 

CASE STUDY –  PERMANENCE: CALIFORNIAS 100-YEAR FIRE, INSECT, AND DISEASE CARBON CREDIT OFFSET BUFFER ALREADY BURNED

Badgley 2022 – California’s 100-year carbon credit buffer pool has almost completely burned showing extreme lack of permanence… “Wildfires have depleted nearly one-fifth of the total buffer pool in less than a decade, equivalent to at least 95 percent of the program wide contribution intended to manage all fire risks for 100 years. We also show that potential carbon losses from a single forest disease, sudden oak death, could fully encumber all credits set aside for disease and insect risks. These findings indicate that California’s buffer pool is severely undercapitalized and therefore unlikely to be able to guarantee the environmental integrity of California’s forest offsets program for 100 years.” … “Estimated carbon losses from wildfires within the offset program’s first 10 years have depleted at least 95 percent of the contributions set aside to protect against all fire risks over 100 years.” … “the potential carbon losses associated with a single disease (sudden oak death) and its impacts on a single species (tanoak) is large enough to fully encumber the total credits set aside for all disease- and insect-related mortality over 100 years.” … “From the program’s inception through our study cut-off date of January 5, 2022, a total of 31.0 million credits (13.4 percent) had been contributed to the buffer pool out of a total 231.5 million issued credits, such that the 31.0 million buffer pool credits insure a portfolio of 200.5 million credits against permanence risks.”
Badgley et al., California’s forest carbon offsets buffer pool is severely undercapitalized, Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, August 5, 2022.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2022.930426/full

Herbert 2020 – Forest carbon credit offset burn example, the Lionshead Fire in Oregon, August 2020…  “The Lionshead Fire in Oregon provides a timely example of the importance of forest carbon offset permanence. Started by a lightning strike on August 16, 2020, the Lionshead Fire merged with nearby fires Beachie Creek and P515. The extent of this fire complex overlaps substantially with the boundaries of the Warm Springs forest offset project in Central Oregon, known as ACR260 in the offsets registry.
Public records from the offset program provide context for the potential scale of carbon loss from this project. ACR260 has received 2,676,483 carbon credits to date — with each credit equal to 1 metric ton of CO₂ — which makes it the largest credited forest offset project in Oregon and among the fifteen largest forest projects in California’s carbon offset market.
Estimate the fraction of carbon lost due to fire-related mortality:  Estimating carbon loss will ultimately require detailed assessment on the ground, which we lack today. As a historical reference point, the 2003 B&B fire, which burned nearby under similar conditions, ultimately killed almost half the trees it encountered. Though the situation in Oregon is still evolving, we can calculate the carbon impacts that would arise from a similar outcome in this incident. At a 50% loss of carbon in the 72% of the ACR260 project area burned through September 17, the Lionshead Fire will have reversed 963,534 credits (about 4% of the total buffer pool). In a worst case scenario in which the entirety of the project burns and all credited carbon is lost, more than 11% of the buffer pool could be depleted.”  It is important to note the 2003 B&B Fire happened a while ago. Recently, Western US fires have begun burning much more severely with an 800 percent increase in high severity fire from 1982 to 2017, where 97 percent of area burned in the last two decades has been high severity fires, with mortality of 95 percent in high severity fires. Without ground-truthing estimates like this one made for the Lionshead fire are likely understated where they assume 50 percent mortality in sever burn area where the modeling assumption was based on the B&B Fire 2003 with 10% mortality in low severity burn areas, 10 to 75% mortality in moderate burn areas and greater than 75% mortality in high severity burn areas, as per USFSFire Recovery Project Report for the B&B Fire.
Herbert et al., Carbon offsets burning, Carbon Plan, 2020 (accessed May 2023).
https://carbonplan.org/research/offset-project-fire

B&B Fire Recovery Project, Record of Decision, Sisters Ranger District, Deschutes National Forest, USDA, August 2005.
https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/7103/B%26B_Fire_Recovery_Project_ROD.pdf?sequence=1

BAdgley 2023 – Klamath East poised for automatic termination in the California Carbon Offset Program… “the Klamath East (ACR273) forest carbon offset project is slated for automatic termination as a result of the catastrophic Bootleg Fire that burned through the project in 2021. New paperwork, filed on Monday, puts total wildfire-induced carbon losses at over 3 million tCO₂. The extent of the damage was so severe that the project’s current standing live carbon stocks are lower than the project’s baseline carbon stocks. As a result, California’s rules require that the entire project be terminated.
Automatic termination means retiring 100 percent of the credits already issued to the project from the program’s buffer pool — totalling at least 1.14 million offset credits. When combined with the estimated 3.95 million credits that have already or are soon to be retired from the buffer pool, total known wildfire losses through the end of the 2021 fire season stand at 5.09 million credits.
We previously estimated that the buffer pool was designed with the assumption that about 6 million credits would be sufficient to cover the wildfire risk of the current portfolio of projects for the next 100 years. The termination of ACR273 would mean about 84 percent of those credits are now gone. And, as we’ve discussed before, that number will continue to grow once we have an official reversal estimate for the 2020 Lionshead fire. Taken together, it seems increasingly likely that the entire wildfire portion of California’s forest carbon buffer pool has already been depleted.”
Badgley, Klamath East poised for automatic termination, Carbon Credit  Blog Post, March 29, 2023.
https://carbonplan.org/blog/bootleg-fire-update

Li and Banerjee 2021 – Extreme wildfires in California are responsible for 97 percent of the area burned in California in the last two decades… have increased significantly in the last two decades with the cause being climate warming related…
“Between 2000 and 2019, compared to 1920 to 1999, the proportion of extreme wildfires larger than 10,000 acres (40.47 km2 ) has increased significantly… The burned area of large wildfires accounted for 97.04 % of the total burned area (13,089.68 out of 13,488.19 thousand acres, that is 52,972.05 out of 54,584.77 km2 ) in the past two decades… The frequency and burned area growth of wildfires in the past two decades are much higher than that during the 80 years in history from 1920 to 1999… The frequency of large wildfires and the burned area of small wildfires in the recent 20 years even have decreased… From 2000 to 2019, the frequency of wildfires in July increased significantly and became much more considerable than in other months. Meanwhile, the start of the wildfire season has also advanced to May (from June) and the duration has increased each month… there has been a major increase in the natural wildfires in July in the past two decades.” Summary: “We found that the frequency and total burned area of all wildfires have increased significantly. The start time and peak months of the wildfire season have been advanced, and the covered months have been lengthened. For large and small wildfires, the annual frequency of large wildfires has remained stable for the last 100 years, but the total burned area has increased rapidly in the past two decades… illustrat[ing] that the comprehensive environmental conditions, such as changes in climate and vegetation, have increased the coverage of potential wildfire ignitions… slope, temperature and maximum vapor pressure deficit have positive correlation with wildfire occurrence… natural factors, especially climate variables, have a greater impact on the density of wildfires.”
Li and Banerjee, Spatial and temporal pattern of wildfires in California from 2000 to 2019, Nature Scientific Reports, April 22, 2021.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-88131-9

Parks and Abatzoglou 2020 – An eightfold increase (800 percent) in high-severity fire (95% or greater mortality, Stevens 2017) burned area from 1985 to 2017, implicates increased probability of conversion of forests to alternative vegetation types… “Significant increases in annual area burned at high severity (AABhs) were observed across most ecoregions, with an overall eightfold increase in AABhs across western US forests. The relationships we identified between the annual fire severity metrics and climate, as well as the observed and projected trend toward warmer and drier fire seasons, suggest that climate change will contribute to increased fire severity in future decades where fuels remain abundant. The growing prevalence of high‐severity fire in western US forests has important implications to forest ecosystems, including an increased probability of fire‐catalyzed conversions from forest to alternative vegetation types.”
Parks and Abatzoglou, Warmer and Drier Fire Seasons Contribute to Increases in Area Burned at High Severity in Western US Forests From 1985 to 2017, Geophysical Research Letters, October 22, 2020.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL089858

Stevens 2017 – Mortality of 95 percent or greater in high-severity fire…
Stevens et al., Changing spatial patterns of stand-replacing fire in California conifer forests, Forest and Ecology Management, June 23, 2017.
https://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/north/psw_2017_north005_stevens.pdf