THE NET-ZERO BLOG
Climate policy analysis and updates from Sacramento
Publication: Defining the value of carbon capture, utilization and storage for a low-carbon future
Carbon capture, utilization and storage is identified in a number of integrated assessment models (IAMs) as an available mitigation option to support the global energy transition. Despite this, there continues to be dissent and misinformation in some quarters regarding the role CCUS can or should play in a low-carbon future. This publication from the International Energy Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Technology Collaboration Programme, reviews recent literature from sector-specific techno-economic models, global and regional IAMs, and social studies to assess the value of CCUS. This publication also introduces a decision framework to help policymakers screen the relative competitiveness of CCUS and applies this framework across case studies in the US, UK, Indonesia, Australia and Japan.
Publication: Bridging capital discipline and energy scenarios
Modeled energy scenarios, such as those prepared by the IPCC's Working Group III, are the main analytical tools relied upon to inform climate change policies at global and national scales. It is important, then, that scenarios are feasible – meaning the modeled sequence of actions (i.e., progressive expansion in clean electricity, fuels, materials, etc.) resembles what could be delivered in reality. To the extent there is a disconnect, adopted policies may fail to assure mitigation targets. This publication in Energy & Environmental Science highlights one important such disconnect related to asset mobilization. That is, the difference between the way models assume assets are mobilized, compared to the approach exhibited by risk-taking commercial enterprises. Bridging this fault-line is essential to reduce the risk of target shortfall. We describe a conceptual approach to do so, termed ‘reverse-engineering’, and highlight the value of cultivating a new community of applied researchers working with practitioners to advance the reverse-engineering technique.
Missed opportunity: Draft Scoping Plan fails to address biomass pile burning and decay
California recently released a draft version of its main climate plan, finding that it is preferable to open burn or leave to decay in the forest a significant portion of biomass residues resulting from wildfire prevention treatments. This is a missed opportunity: as a robust strategy to collect and convert forest waste into carbon-negative wood and energy products is a promising path to enable the state’s goal of treating one million acres per year and reduce the risk of high-severity wildfire. In this technical blog post, we analyze the role of forest biomass in the Draft 2022 Scoping Plan.
Could carbon dioxide removal help California meet its climate change goals?
California has established a goal to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045 or sooner, and net-negative emissions thereafter. Achieving this goal will require aggressive emissions reductions and the phase-out of fossil fuels. It is also expected that it will require some carbon dioxide removal, and the steady scale up of technologies that physically remove CO2 from the atmosphere. In this blog post, we review findings related to the role that CDR could play in California’s transition to net-zero and net-negative emissions.
Publication: The value of CCUS in transitions to net-zero emissions
Global-scale energy system models find that carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) is needed to achieve deep decarbonization and limit anthropogenic global warming. Yet, there is some dissent among academics, businesses, and policymakers regarding the role that CCUS can or should play in a low-carbon future. This publication from the Electricity Journal explores the value that CCUS provides in time-bound, economy-wide transitions to net-zero emissions and considers what it would take to assure CCUS as a real option for commercial deployment.
Publication: Cutting through the noise on negative emissions
What role should negative-emission technologies (NETs) play in supporting global climate change mitigation? This is a polarizing question in both academic circles and increasingly public discourse. A common argument is that NETs present a risky or high-stakes gamble to climate change mitigation.
In this paper, we challenge this opposition to NETs. We show how this opposition is largely based on the results of integrated assessment models, which are the models that form the basis of IPCC reports. These models often show that a late-century, large-scale deployment of NETs is required to stabilize global warming to at or below 2°C this century. However, models are not real life, and such long-range forecasts are fraught with limitations. As a result, this is not a firm foundation for opposition. We make the case for place-based, bottom-up approaches for assessing the potential role for NETs in mitigation portfolios. Bottom-up approaches reveal the many ways in which NETs could (or could not) provide value to enhance economy-wide energy transition feasibility, such as through social and environmental co-benefits. For example, California has highly favorable attributes for NETs deployment. While applied to NETs, our findings more broadly suggest that more circumspect approaches are needed regarding the use of global models to inform mitigation pathways and strategies at jurisdictional scales.