Preprints
Search for carbon dioxide removal (42 results)
Comparing Kelp Conveyance Strategies for Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal with Farmed Macroalgae
Published: 2023-06-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
Sequestration of carbon dioxide via sinking of farmed seaweed into the ocean is a promising strategy to the ever-growing need to achieve negative emissions of carbon dioxide. A key component to the durability of the strategy is the method to which seaweed biomass is conveyed to the seafloor. The purpose of this white paper is to introduce four different conveyance techniques, plans for how each [...]
Carbon Negative Geothermal: Techno-Economic Analysis of Geothermal Energy combined with Direct and Biomass-Based Carbon Dioxide Removal
Published: 2023-06-22
Subjects: Other Engineering
Limiting global temperature rise to between 1.5 and 2°C will likely require widespread deployment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies for sectors with hard-to-abate emissions. As financial resources for decarbonization are finite, strategic deployment of CDR technologies is essential for maximizing atmospheric CO2 reductions. Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), using either direct [...]
Global Inventory of Dissolved CO2 Sequestration Potential in Geothermal Systems
Published: 2023-06-20
Subjects: Engineering, Other Engineering
Geothermal electricity generation has low carbon emissions compared to hydrocarbon alternatives. Nevertheless, recent attention on emissions of magmatic CO2 and other non-condensable gases (NCG) has prompted interest in their capture and reinjection. The geothermal industry is uniquely placed to effect CO2 sequestration due to existing reinjection infrastructure (e.g., wells, pipes, pumps) and [...]
Considerations for Regional Simulations of Seaweed Carbon Dioxide Removal
Published: 2023-06-01
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
There is a growing interest in sequestering carbon dioxide via cultivation and sinking of seaweed in the ocean. Robust quantification of the viability of this marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) strategy requires deployment and interrogation of computer simulations that resolve coupling between turbulent oceanic circulation, biogeochemical fluxes, and cultivated seaweed with regional [...]
CDR modeled in MAGICC to return to preindustrial temperatures by 2100
Published: 2023-04-22
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Scenario pathways greatly inform the opportunity space of possible future climates. The multistep experiment tests the Alternative Method to Determine a Carbon Dioxide Removal Target’s thesis by simulating the novel pathway '300x2050,' SSP1-2.6, and SSP1-1.9 comparing within green growth development in MAGICC 6.8 by removing all cumulative anthropogenic CO₂ over 80 years and phasing out [...]
A cost model for ocean iron fertilization as a means of carbon dioxide removal that compares ship- and aerial-based delivery, and estimates verification costs.
Published: 2023-04-14
Subjects: Oceanography
This paper presents a cost model for implementing a deployment scale effort for conducting ocean iron fertilization (OIF) for marine-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR). The model incorporates basic oceanographic parameters critical for estimating the effective export of newly fixed CO2 into biomass that is stimulated by Fe addition to an Fe-limited region of the Southern Ocean. Estimated costs [...]
Calling Time on the Imperial Lawn and the Imperative for Greenhouse Gas Mitigation
Published: 2022-09-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
Non-technical summary As green spaces, lawns are often thought to capture carbon from the atmosphere. However, once mowing, fertlising, and irrigation are taken into account, we show that they become carbon sources, at least in the long run. Converting unused urban and rural lawn and grassland to treescapes can make a substantial contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing [...]
Bioenergy with or without carbon dioxide removal: influence of functional unit choice and parameter variability
Published: 2022-06-21
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
PURPOSE. Bioenergy with carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is increasingly presented as an efficient way to mitigate climate change. This study set out to determine under which circumstances and methodological choices CDR bioenergy systems are preferable over a reference bioenergy system from a climate change mitigation perspective. In addition, the CDR systems investigated were compared to each [...]
Quantifying baseline costs and cataloging potential optimization strategies for kelp aquaculture carbon dioxide removal
Published: 2022-06-17
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
To keep global surface warming below 1.5 °C by 2100, the portfolio of cost-effective CDR technologies must expand. To evaluate the potential of macroalgae CDR, we developed a kelp aquaculture bio-techno-economic model in which large quantities of kelp would be farmed at an offshore site, transported to a deep water "sink site", and then deposited below the sequestration horizon (1,000 m). We [...]
GEDI Launches a New Era of Biomass Inference from Space
Published: 2022-04-20
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Earth Sciences, Other Earth Sciences, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Accurate estimation of aboveground forest biomass stocks is required to assess the impacts of land use changes such as deforestation and subsequent regrowth on concentrations of atmospheric CO2. The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) is a lidar mission launched by NASA to the International Space Station in 2018. GEDI was specifically designed to retrieve vegetation structure within a [...]
Biophysical potential and uncertainties of global seaweed farming
Published: 2022-02-11
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences
International climate goals require over 5 gigatons/year (Gt/year) of CO2 to be removed from the atmosphere by midcentury. Macroalgae mariculture has been proposed as a strategy for such carbon dioxide removal (CDR). However, the global potential for seaweed cultivation has not been assessed in detail. Here, we develop and use a dynamic seaweed growth model, the Global MacroAlgae Cultivation [...]
The PATCH Lab: A database and workspace for Cenozoic terrestrial paleoclimate and environment reconstruction
Published: 2022-02-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In the last two decades, analytical advances and a growing interest in relevant research questions has brought a rapid increase in the amount of stable isotope data used for reconstructing terrestrial paleoclimates and environments. As the spatial and temporal resolution of proxy data continues to improve, the quantitative interpretation of these data is becoming increasingly common. These [...]
Climate-Catchment-Soil Control on Hydrological Droughts in Peninsular India
Published: 2022-01-28
Subjects: Bioresource and Agricultural Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Mathematics, Risk Analysis
Most land surface system models and observational assessments ignore detailed soil characteristics while describing the drought attributes such as growth, duration, recovery, and the termination rate of the event. With the national-scale digital soil maps available for India, we assessed the climate-catchment-soil nexus using daily observed streamflow records from 98 sites in tropical [...]
Estuarine-deltaic controls on coastal carbon burial in the western Ganges-Brahmaputra delta over the last 5,000 years
Published: 2021-11-26
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Statistics and Probability, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability, Water Resource Management
The Ganges–Brahmaputra fluvial system drains the Himalayas and is one of the largest sources of terrestrial biosphere carbon to the ocean. It represents a major continental reservoir of CO2 associated with c. 1–2 billion tons of sediment transported each year. Shallow coastal environments receive substantial inputs of terrestrial carbon (900 Tg C yr−1), with allochthonous carbon capture on [...]
Cryoturbation leads to iron-organic carbon associations along a permafrost soil chronosequence in northern Alaska
Published: 2021-08-02
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In permafrost soils, substantial amounts of organic carbon (OC) are potentially protected from microbial degradation and transformation into greenhouse gases by association with reactive iron (Fe) minerals. As permafrost environments respond to climate change, increased drainage of thaw lakes in permafrost regions is predicted. Soils will subsequently develop on these drained thaw lakes, but the [...]