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These curious experiments are finding new ways to tackle pollution

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Wednesday, April 3, 2024

The Purple-B projectLuigi Avantaggiato 2024 THESE curious experiments are products of the Green Propulsion Laboratory in Venice, Italy: a publicly owned research centre exploring new ways to rehabilitate the environment and generate energy. An unusual mix of scientists, engineers and psychologists at the lab have created prototypes that harness natural organisms to do useful jobs, often taking on a sculptural aspect as a side effect that attracts resident artists. “Despite being objects of science, there is beauty,” says photographer Luigi Avantaggiato. He spent time cataloguing devices such as Purple-B (shown above), which uses a bacterium called Rhodopseudomonas palustris, commonly found in the Venice lagoon, to convert human waste into useful hydrogen. The experiment has been funded by the European Space Agency as it could provide a way to process astronauts’ waste in orbit and create usable fuel, but it could be of use on Earth’s surface too. The main laboratory of the Green Propulsion Lab of the Veritas GroupLuigi Avantaggiato 2024 The bright green contents of several tanks in the lab (pictured above) are what is known as the Liquid Forest, a project in which tiny algae, such as Chlorella, capture the carbon dioxide that is warming our planet. Each tank contains 250 litres, and every cubic centimetre of that can hold around a billion algae. Researcher at work in one of the GPLabs laboratories.Luigi Avantaggiato 2024 Another shot (pictured above) shows a geodesic dome in which environmental engineers from a start-up called 9-Tech are working on new ways to recover silicon from obsolete solar panels. The whole lab site was created by Veritas, which handles the waste and water supply for around a million residents and 50 million tourists in Venice and Treviso.

At the Green Propulsion Laboratory in Italy, scientists are trying to harness natural organisms to rehabilitate the environment. Photographer Luigi Avantaggiato explores

The Purple-B project

Luigi Avantaggiato 2024

THESE curious experiments are products of the Green Propulsion Laboratory in Venice, Italy: a publicly owned research centre exploring new ways to rehabilitate the environment and generate energy. An unusual mix of scientists, engineers and psychologists at the lab have created prototypes that harness natural organisms to do useful jobs, often taking on a sculptural aspect as a side effect that attracts resident artists.

“Despite being objects of science, there is beauty,” says photographer Luigi Avantaggiato. He spent time cataloguing devices such as Purple-B (shown above), which uses a bacterium called Rhodopseudomonas palustris, commonly found in the Venice lagoon, to convert human waste into useful hydrogen. The experiment has been funded by the European Space Agency as it could provide a way to process astronauts’ waste in orbit and create usable fuel, but it could be of use on Earth’s surface too.

The main laboratory of the Green Propulsion Lab of the Veritas Group

Luigi Avantaggiato 2024

The bright green contents of several tanks in the lab (pictured above) are what is known as the Liquid Forest, a project in which tiny algae, such as Chlorella, capture the carbon dioxide that is warming our planet. Each tank contains 250 litres, and every cubic centimetre of that can hold around a billion algae.

Researcher at work in one of the GPLabs laboratories.

Luigi Avantaggiato 2024

Another shot (pictured above) shows a geodesic dome in which environmental engineers from a start-up called 9-Tech are working on new ways to recover silicon from obsolete solar panels.

The whole lab site was created by Veritas, which handles the waste and water supply for around a million residents and 50 million tourists in Venice and Treviso.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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Timber venues, river swimming and re-use: how the Paris Olympics is going green – and what it’s missing

The Paris games are shaping up as the greenest games yet. But some critics say even more needs to be done.

A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, Paris Ekaterina Pokrovsky/ShutterstockAs Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted Paris 2024 as the greenest Olympics ever, aiming to halve the carbon emissions of previous Olympics. They have drastically cut back on building new stadiums and venues, and have relied heavily on wood as a building material for new infrastructure and used low-carbon concrete. This approach has another benefit: it’s cheaper. But hosting the world’s biggest sporting event, with thousands of athletes and millions of spectators, will still come at an environmental cost. This has led to calls for a radical rethink of the Olympic Games, including for it to be scaled back. But longer term, Paris 2024’s sustainability efforts may create a lasting legacy for the city – and for future games. The Greenest Games? The vision for Paris 2024 is simple: “do more with less, do better and leave a useful legacy”. These Games will be the first to align with the sustainability-focused New Norm plan outlined by the International Olympics Committee. Hosting the Olympics is a huge undertaking. Previous Olympics have seen host cities spend billions on new stadiums and competition venues. But once the competition is over, many of these expensive buildings are little used – or even abandoned. It’s also carbon intensive. Paris organisers intend to halve the emissions of London 2012 and Rio 2016, but even so, these games will add an estimated two million tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere – the same as the annual emissions of a small country like Malta or the Bahamas. Paris won’t have the lowest emissions of recent Olympics – the COVID-affected, spectator-free Tokyo 2020 Games takes that title. How are these games greener? To make the Paris Games greener than they have been, organisers have come at the challenge from many directions. First, authorities are using what they already have. Fully 95% of all Olympic infrastructure was already there. Temporary stadiums have been built near famous landmarks, to make use of the spectacular setting. But only one permanent venue has been built – the aquatics centre, built largely from carbon-storing timber, covered in solar panels and with an advanced water recycling system. After the games, it will become a community venue. Athletes will certainly notice the focus on sustainability. The athletes’ village – which will be repurposed afterwards as social housing – has no built-in air conditioning. Instead, it was meant to rely on natural breezes and a geo-thermal cooling system. This move proved controversial, and many teams – including Australia’s – began planning to bring portable aircon to ensure athletes can sleep well during the summer nights. Organisers have changed course, and have moved to install 2,500 portable units. The athletes’ village was built to be green – but aircon proved a sticking point. Antonin Albert/Shutterstock Athletes and spectators will notice a change in their food. Over 60% of meal options will be vegetarian, helping to lower the carbon footprint. The Olympic venues will be powered exclusively by renewable energy. This is a big change. Previous games have powered their venues with noisy generators, to ensure there are no power outages. As part of a “circular economy” approach, 90% of the products used for Paris 2024 come from recycled materials or will be re-used later. The medals, for example, are of fully recycled metal, including an original piece of iron from the Eiffel Tower. Mattresses from the athletes’ village will be re-used by the French army. In the background, apps and checklists are being used to map and assess the carbon footprint of every aspect of games delivery. So why are there still lingering concerns? Critics have pointed out these laudable efforts can only go so far. About 50% of the emissions from the Paris Games will come from the travel and accommodation of athletes, officials and millions of spectators. These emissions – especially from air travel – are very hard to reduce. Organisers will use carbon offsets in a number of countries to compensate for these emissions. As our recent assessment of Brisbane’s 2032 Games shows, relying on offsets is not the most sustainable option compared with reducing emissions in the first place. It’s hard to green the games entirely, given millions of people will travel to see them. Marc Bruxelle/Shutterstock Are the Olympics compatible with a greener future? Allegations of “greenwashing” have been levelled at some of the over-hyped credentials of the Paris Games. And more generally, critics have argued the Olympics in their current form are not compatible with a greener future. Some want the Olympics to adopt a decentralised model sharing hosting over multiple countries. The World Cup will use this model in 2030, but still faces mounting criticism of the transport emissions necessary as teams and spectators traverse three continents. Others have argued the games should be rotated on a roster of just three or four cities, which already have the appropriate infrastructure. For their part, the International Olympic Committee has pointed to the power of the ames to bring the world together in fractious times. There are other benefits to the current system. Cities which host the Olympics Games have a rare opportunity to think bigger. In Paris, authorities have invested a whopping A$2.2 billion in infrastructure to clean up its long-polluted river – allowing it to be used for open-water swimming and triathlon in the Olympics and providing a cleaner river for Parisians to enjoy. As Olympic authorities focus on sustainability, host cities can use the Paris example and go further to become global role models. We may well need novel forms of carbon accounting to quantify the legacy of hosting the Olympics. The new idea of Scope 4 emissions allows researchers to account for emissions avoided in the future due to Olympic initiatives. For example, the 415km of cycleways connecting Paris’s Olympic venues will be used by the public long after these games end. The Paris Games may well be remembered not only for photo finishes and new records, but for the sustainability efforts of the organisers. While these games aren’t emissions-free, they are a substantial improvement over their predecessors. Let’s hope the organisers of future games, including Brisbane, pick up the baton. Alexandre Urban contributed to this article The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

CO2
Energy
Food

Carbon Capture Breakthrough: Humidity-Powered Membrane Pumps CO2 out of the Air

A new membrane technology developed by Newcastle University leverages humidity to efficiently capture carbon dioxide, offering a promising solution for sustainable direct air capture essential...

An innovative membrane that captures carbon dioxide from the air using humidity differences has been developed. This energy-efficient method could help meet climate goals by offering a sustainable carbon dioxide source for various applications. (Artist’s concept.) Credit: SciTechDaily.comA new membrane technology developed by Newcastle University leverages humidity to efficiently capture carbon dioxide, offering a promising solution for sustainable direct air capture essential for achieving climate targets.Direct air capture was identified as one of the ‘Seven chemical separations to change the world’. This is because although carbon dioxide is the main contributor to climate change (we release ~40 billion tons into the atmosphere every year), separating carbon dioxide from air is very challenging due to its dilute concentration (~0.04%).Challenges in Carbon Dioxide SeparationProf Ian Metcalfe, Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies in the School of Engineering, Newcastle University, UK, and lead investigator states, “Dilute separation processes are the most challenging separations to perform for two key reasons. First, due to the low concentration, the kinetics (speed) of chemical reactions targeting the removal of the dilute component are very slow. Second, concentrating the dilute component requires a lot of energy.” These are the two challenges that the Newcastle researchers (with colleagues at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, Imperial College London, UK, Oxford University, UK, Strathclyde University, UK, and UCL, UK) set out to address with their new membrane process. By using naturally occurring humidity differences as a driving force for pumping carbon dioxide out of air, the team overcame the energy challenge. The presence of water also accelerated the transport of carbon dioxide through the membrane, tackling the kinetic challenge.Innovations in Membrane TechnologyThe work is published in Nature Energy and Dr. Greg A. Mutch, Royal Academy of Engineering Fellow in the School of Engineering, Newcastle University, UK explains, “Direct air capture will be a key component of the energy system of the future. It will be needed to capture the emissions from mobile, distributed sources of carbon dioxide that cannot easily be decarbonized in other ways.”“In our work, we demonstrate the first synthetic membrane capable of capturing carbon dioxide from air and increasing its concentration without a traditional energy input like heat or pressure. I think a helpful analogy might be a water wheel on a flour mill. Whereas a mill uses the downhill transport of water to drive milling, we use it to pump carbon dioxide out of the air.”Separation ProcessesSeparation processes underpin most aspects of modern life. From the food we eat, to the medicines we take, and the fuels or batteries in our car, most products we use have been through several separation processes. Moreover, separation processes are important for minimizing waste and the need for environmental remediation, such as direct air capture of carbon dioxide.However, in a world moving towards a circular economy, separation processes will become even more critical. Here, direct air capture might be used to provide carbon dioxide as a feedstock for making many of the hydrocarbon products we use today, but in a carbon-neutral, or even carbon-negative, cycle.Most importantly, alongside transitioning to renewable energy and traditional carbon capture from point sources like power plants, direct air capture is necessary for realizing climate targets, such as the 1.5 °C goal set by the Paris Agreement.Humidity-Driven Carbon CaptureDr. Evangelos Papaioannou, Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering, Newcastle University, UK explains, “In a departure from typical membrane operation, and as described in the research paper, the team tested a new carbon dioxide-permeable membrane with a variety of humidity differences applied across it. When the humidity was higher on the output side of the membrane, the membrane spontaneously pumped carbon dioxide into that output stream.”Collaborative Efforts and Future DirectionsUsing X-ray micro-computed tomography with collaborators at UCL and the University of Oxford, the team was able to precisely characterize the structure of the membrane. This enabled them to provide robust performance comparisons with other state-of-the-art membranes.A key aspect of the work was modeling the processes occurring in the membrane at the molecular scale. Using density-functional-theory calculations with a collaborator affiliated to both Victoria University of Wellington and Imperial College London, the team identified ‘carriers’ within the membrane. The carrier uniquely transports both carbon dioxide and water but nothing else. Water is required to release carbon dioxide from the membrane, and carbon dioxide is required to release water. Because of this, the energy from a humidity difference can be used to drive carbon dioxide through the membrane from a low concentration to a higher concentration.Prof Metcalfe adds, “This was a real team effort over several years. We are very grateful for the contributions from our collaborators, and for the support from the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council.”Reference: “Separation and concentration of carbon dioxide from air using a humidity-driven molten-carbonate membrane” by I.S. Metcalfe, G.A. Mutch, E.I. Papaioannou, S. Tsochataridou, D. Neagu, D.J.L. Brett, F. Iacoviello, T.S. Miller, P.R. Shearing, P.A. Hunt, 19 July 2024, Nature Energy.DOI: 10.1038/s41560-024-01588-6

CO2
Sustainable
Technology

New 'Butter' Made From Carbon Dioxide Tastes Like the Real Dairy Product, Startup Says

The company, called Savor, uses a synthetic fat to approximate the taste of butter and is seeking regulatory approval

A new butter alternative uses synthetic fat to create taste of dairy butter without the need for cows. Peter Cade via Getty Images Humans have been craving fatty foods for some four million years—a desire that could explain why most consumers continue to prefer animal products to vegan alternatives, putting high expectations on the flavor of plant-based foods. Now, though, a California-based startup called Savor has created an animal-free butter from carbon dioxide that it claims tastes just like the dairy version. The secret ingredient is the same one that makes humans crave cheeseburgers and bacon: fat. But Savor’s team doesn’t need livestock to create this component. Instead, it uses a thermochemical process that pulls carbon dioxide from the air and combines it with hydrogen and oxygen to create fat synthetically. This fat is then turned into butter by adding water, an emulsifier, beta-carotene for color and rosemary oil for flavor. In the end, “it tastes like butter,” Kathleen Alexander, Savor’s chief technology officer, says to New Scientist’s Madeleine Cuff. The startup has held informal taste panels with tens of people, and they “expect to perform a more formal panel as part of our commercialization and scale-up efforts,” Alexander adds to the Guardian’s Mariam Amini. Billionaire and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, who is invested in the company, also tried their creation on bread and with a burger—“I couldn’t believe I wasn’t eating real butter,” he wrote in a blog post earlier this year. “The burger came close, too.” "I couldn't believe that wasn't butter" A team of researchers, including Alexander, published a report in the journal Nature Sustainability in December, exploring the possibility of food production without agriculture. They suggest this technique has the potential to drastically shrink the environmental footprint typically involved with food systems. According to an analysis from the Breakthrough Institute, the livestock industry is currently responsible for anywhere from 11.1 to 19.6 percent of human-made greenhouse gas emissions. Lowering the consumption of animal products would consequently help reduce humanity’s negative environmental impact—though Gates writes that “our plan can’t be to simply hope that people give up foods they crave.” By creating butter by using carbon rather than emitting it, the Savor team hopes to hit two birds with one stone. According to the Nature Sustainability report, the synthetic fat’s carbon footprint is less than 0.8 grams of CO2 equivalent per calorie. On the other hand, real unsalted butter with 80 percent fat produces 2.4 grams of CO2 equivalent per calorie, writes the Guardian. Synthetic foods that don’t require agriculture could also free up land for conservation efforts and carbon storage. Gates claims Savor’s thermochemical process uses less than one-thousandth of the water used in traditional agriculture. Savor hopes to make similar progress in finding synthetic fat alternatives for palm oil and coconut oil—highly popular foods that ordinarily require deforestation to produce. Using synthetic fats could “produce large amounts of food while avoiding risks that threaten traditional agriculture, such as climate change, environmental degradation, pathogens and pests,” Juan B. García Martínez, research manager at the nonprofit Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters and a peer-reviewer of the team’s recent paper, tells New Scientist. Moving forward, however, the startup will have to contend with a few challenges, such as reducing the price of their product and minimizing disruptions to agricultural workers. It is currently working on getting regulatory approval in the United States. And one important question remains: Will the merits of their technology, and the support of Gates, be enough to convince people to eat butter made from carbon dioxide? “We want to engage with people about why we think it is good for the planet,” Alexander says to New Scientist. “The land use, and all of that stuff, is really important. But actually, you just have to make food that tastes really good.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

CO2
Agriculture
Chemicals

Pennsylvania landowners could be forced to accept carbon dioxide burial on their land

Environmentalists fear leaks, explosions, earthquakes and more from a carbon capture bill with bipartisan support.

Amid a divided state Legislature, Pennsylvania Democrats and Republicans are finding rare common ground in a bill designed to usher in a new industry for capturing climate-altering carbon dioxide and burying it underground. Among other provisions, Senate Bill 831 would create an enforcement structure for carbon capture within the state, set a low bar for gaining consent from landowners near sites where carbon is injected into the ground and, in some cases, spare the fossil fuel industry from seismic monitoring — that is, watching for earthquakes, a known risk. The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Gene Yaw, a Republican representing north central Pennsylvania who has personal ties to the fossil fuel industry, cleared the Republican-controlled Senate on a 30-20 vote in April. It now moves to the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Democrats. But a coalition of environmental groups said the bill is riddled with problems. Landowners could be left in the dark when the collected carbon is pumped into the ground near their properties, they said. Additionally, carbon dioxide could eventually leak into the atmosphere, posing a risk to both the environment and public health: In Satartia, Mississippi, a pipeline carrying carbon dioxide ruptured, sending 49 people to the hospital complaining of labored breathing, stomach disorders and mental confusion.  “Our concerns with this were pretty significant,” said Jen Quinn, legislative and political director at the Pennsylvania chapter of the Sierra Club. In introducing the legislation, Yaw pitched the bill as a proposal to direct state regulators to take over responsibility for the permitting process for carbon dioxide injection wells from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  Read Next The EPA wanted to clean up steel mills. Then a group of Rust Belt senators got involved. Lylla Younes In reality, the bill, as written, would go much further than that. It would allow operators to inject carbon dioxide into underground geologic formations with permission from just 60 percent of the nearby landowners. It would allow operators to apply for a waiver ceding liability for these wells to the state after 10 years of a well’s completion. And it would allow operators to forgo seismic monitoring of the storage fields into which the carbon dioxide pumped into the earth, if they can prove that the field does not “pose significant risk.”  Several of these provisions, Quinn said, are “setting the bar very low.”  A report by the Ohio River Valley Institute, a nonprofit environmental think tank, showed that no state sets the landowner consent bar at less than 60 percent.  The report also argued that waiving operators’ liability over their carbon storage fields will lead to negligence: Operators that know they won’t be held responsible for any mess in the long run won’t be incentivized to run a clean operation, the report said.  Capital & Main reached out to Sen. Yaw, author of SB 831, and did not hear back by publication time. However, he said in a press release that the bill is a “proactive step” to building out the state’s carbon capture industry.  Environmentalists have long splintered over carbon capture and sequestration, known as CCS. The practice of collecting carbon dioxide from power plants and storing it underground has been criticized as costly, dangerous and largely unproven. While some say it is a useful tool among many for addressing the climate crisis, others call CCS a boondoggle that could offer a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry, which has rallied around the technology. Read Next Illinois Legislature puts the brakes on a carbon capture boom Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco Environmentalists worry that in Pennsylvania, which has centuries of oil and gas drilling under its belt, the state’s geology could prove treacherous. “This idea that they’re going to go all in on carbon capture and try to inject this stuff in the same places where it’s like Swiss cheese … is just plain stupid,” said Karen Feridun, co-founder of the grassroots Better Path Coalition, a staunch opponent of burying carbon in the earth. The state is dotted with orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells, including many that likely have yet to be located. The wells create pathways underground through which gases can travel and potentially seep into waterways or leak into the atmosphere, undoing the progress of capturing the carbon in the first place. A 2009 report by the state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources said that the state’s legacy oil and gas fields could “constitute a leakage pathway for reservoir gases, including injected CO2.” “The safest course of action would be to avoid the oldest of these oil fields,” the report added.  Feridun said she also anticipates that an influx of carbon dioxide injection wells will come with a maze of pipelines to transport the carbon. Because the bill would permit operators to get consent from only 60 percent of property owners atop an injection site, some landowners would be left without a voice in the process, the southwestern Pennsylvania-based Center for Coalfield Justice warned in an online petition opposing the bill. The petition urges signatories to send a message to their representatives with language such as: “If 40 percent of people within a carbon storage field don’t want carbon injected beneath their feet — the project can move forward anyway.”  Read Next EPA finally takes on abandoned coal ash ponds — but it might be too late Gautama Mehta Ethan Story, advocacy director at the Center for Coalfield Justice, believes few Pennsylvanians are aware of the bill and what it could mean to them. “Landowners, in addition to elected officials in some communities, are very unaware and uneducated on this proposal,” he said. “The immediate reaction from a majority of the community members that we have talked to and presented this information to has been met with great pause.”  SB 831 has been met with a different reaction in the state Legislature, where it’s earned — and sometimes lost — votes from Democrats and Republicans alike.  Affirmative votes in the Senate came from a handful of Democrats, including state Sens. Jay Costa from Pittsburgh and Christine Tartaglione from Philadelphia. Those who opposed the bill included Sen. Doug Mastriano, a far-right Republican from south central Pennsylvania who made headlines in 2022 with a failed gubernatorial run and his full embrace of various hard-line policies, including a firm pro-fossil fuel stance. Carbon capture “is, to a degree, cutting across what we would probably classify as traditional ideological divisions,” said Sean O’Leary, senior researcher, energy and petrochemicals, at the Ohio River Valley Institute, a nonprofit think tank. One of carbon capture’s most crucial endorsements in the state came from Gov. Josh Shapiro. Shapiro, a Democrat, ran on an all-of-the-above strategy for tackling the climate crisis. He has now thrown his weight behind the technology as the state has pursued federal funding for hydrogen hubs. Carbon capture was also recently included in two of the governor’s climate proposals. Read Next Inside a California oil town’s divisive plan to survive the energy transition Jake Bittle “Carbon capture is crucial to Pennsylvania’s energy future,” Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder told Capital & Main. “We are glad to see a bipartisan group of senators agree with the governor that we need to invest in carbon capture and sequestration. “The Administration looks forward to continuing to work with leaders in both parties to ensure bipartisan legislation contains appropriate environmental, public health, and safety protections as it moves through the legislative process,” Bonder added.  Shapiro’s support for carbon capture could be key to getting SB 831 over the goal line in the Democratically controlled state House, despite warnings from environmentalists. It also has the backing of the Pennsylvania State Building & Construction Trades Council, which makes campaign contributions to members on both sides of the aisle and which has supported fossil fuel and renewable projects alike. The bill currently sits in the House Consumer Protection, Technology, and Utilities Committee, where a handful of more straightforward climate bills — including one that would improve school district access to solar energy and another that would legalize community solar projects across the commonwealth — have advanced with unanimous support before winning votes on both sides of the aisle on the full floor. Capital & Main reached out to Democratic Rep. Rob Matzie, chair of the House Consumer Protection, Technology and Utilities Committee, for comment on the bill. Matzie did not respond by publication time. In the past, he has championed bills that proved to be a boon for fossil fuels, including one subsidizing a Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC plastics plant in southwestern Pennsylvania. When Shapiro released his carbon capture-infused energy plan, Matzie signaled his support: “These proposals will create good energy jobs, promote opportunities for technologies that will deliver power while reducing their carbon footprint, and — most importantly — maintain our status as a net exporter of energy,” he said in a news release in March. It’s an open question whether some of the provisions of SB 831 that are stoking environmentalists’ concern will make it through the House. But Democratic Rep. Emily Kinkead has offered an alternative proposal to the bill that incorporates provisions to protect environmental justice communities that have long been scarred with the detritus of the oil and gas industry. It would also offer heightened protections for landowners situated near carbon sequestration projects. Kinkead, from Pittsburgh, circulated a memo describing the bill on March 25 but has yet to introduce formal legislation.  Kinkead told Capital & Main she’s not certain such legislation will pass, but she hopes it will at least offer a starting point for negotiations to amend SB 831.  “I think the goal of my bill is, at the very least, to demonstrate that we don’t have to do it exactly the way that it’s outlined,” she said. “We can incorporate some better practices.”  If SB 831 passes the House without amendments, O’Leary, the Ohio River Valley Institute senior researcher, fears immediate repercussions for residents. At least one company — Omaha, Nebraska-based Tenaska — is already planning carbon dioxide injection in the fracking-heavy southwestern part of Pennsylvania. The company envisions using 80,000 acres stretching across Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia for up to 20 injection wells that would extend as far as 10,000 feet horizontally underground. This will require a yet unknown number of pipelines. Those who oppose burying carbon under their land, but fall into the 40 percent minority, will be out of luck.  This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Pennsylvania landowners could be forced to accept carbon dioxide burial on their land on Jun 16, 2024.

CO2
Chemicals
Conservation

Carbon Removal Is Catching On, but It Needs to Go Faster

World leaders must make plans to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a new report says

CLIMATEWIRE | The world still isn’t sucking enough carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to meet the Paris climate targets, scientists said Tuesday. And the gap grows wider every year that humanity delays meaningful cuts to global greenhouse gas emissions.That’s the punchline of a new report on the state of global carbon dioxide removal, the practice of drawing CO2 out of the air to help tackle climate change. It's an update to the report's first edition, which was published in January 2023.Nations worldwide are scrubbing about 2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, mainly by planting trees, the report says. But experts estimate they’ll need to remove at least 7 billion tons annually by midcentury.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Meanwhile, global emissions must fall rapidly to stay on the Paris track. Humanity spews nearly 40 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year through the burning of fossil fuels.Scientists agree the primary strategy for tackling climate change is through a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, mainly by phasing out fossil fuels and halting deforestation. But they also agree at least some carbon removal is necessary to keep global warming below 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius, the major goals of the Paris Agreement.That’s because global emissions must reach net zero within a few decades to meet the Paris timeline, meaning any remaining carbon going into the atmosphere must be counterbalanced by an equal amount coming out.Carbon dioxide removal, or CDR, is the "only way really to provide a balance of net zero if we still have residual emissions in the system,” said Steve Smith, a climate science and policy expert at the University of Oxford and a lead author of the new report, at a press conference Tuesday.The simplest way to hit net zero is to stop pouring carbon dioxide into the air. But some sectors of the economy likely cannot be fully decarbonized within the next few decades, either because the technology doesn’t exist yet or it can’t be scaled up quickly enough.That means some residual emissions will be leftover by midcentury, and world leaders will need to offset them with carbon removal.There are a variety of ways that can be done. Planting forests is the most popular strategy today, accounting for nearly all the carbon removal happening around the world. But researchers are working on a range of novel techniques on the side, from giant carbon-guzzling machines to special minerals that help the land or the ocean absorb more CO2.Global interest and investment in carbon removal has risen in recent years, the report notes.While novel CDR strategies account for less than 0.1 percent of global carbon removal capacity, they’re expanding faster than conventional methods, the new report finds. Grant funding for carbon removal research projects has steadily increased.And there’s been a major jump in demonstration programs for new kinds of carbon removal techniques, particularly in the United States. The country’s first commercial direct air capture plant, built by Heirloom Carbon Technologies, opened in California last November.Yet there’s still room for expansion. After a period of rapid growth in prior decades, new carbon removal patents have slowed since 2010. And while investment in carbon removal startups has generally increased over the past decade, it’s also declined after peaking in 2022.There’s also a dearth of global policies that could incentivize companies to swiftly scale up their carbon removal capacity, the report notes.For now, the voluntary carbon market — which allows companies and other carbon emitters to buy and sell carbon credits — is a small but growing source of demand for carbon removal projects.Yet the market has attracted widespread criticism from experts who point out that carbon offsets are often less effective at reducing or removing emissions than the public is led to believe. And as of 2023, carbon removal credits accounted for less than 10 percent of the total credits sold on the voluntary carbon market.That means there’s still a need for governments to implement policies that will spur more carbon removal innovation and expansion, the report suggests.“We don’t see that policy signal yet,” said Greg Nemet, an environmental policy expert at the University of Wisconsin and another lead report author. “And we think that’s a really important lacking area that needs to be changed from a policy perspective.”Mind the gapMeanwhile, the report notes, countries must flesh out their long-term plans around emissions reductions and carbon removal. Recent studies have warned that most nations have not yet assembled comprehensive strategies for how they will achieve net zero in the coming decades.Based on the long-term carbon removal plans that national governments have proposed, the new report estimates there’s still a significant gap between the amount of CDR expected by the year 2050 and the amount the world needs to keep temperatures below 1.5 degrees.The size of the gap depends strongly on the strategies that world leaders use to reduce emissions and draw down carbon in the coming decades. The most sustainable pathways to meeting the Paris target generally suggest the world will need between 7 billion and 9 billion metric tons of carbon removal by the year 2050.But it could be done with less. One of the most ambitious future scenarios that experts have modeled suggests the world could achieve 1.5C with only about 4.8 billion metric tons of annual carbon removal by the year 2050.Based on countries’ current pledges, world leaders might get close. One of the best-case scenarios estimates the planet could be on track for about 4.4 billion tons of carbon removal by midcentury. That’s still a gap, but a relatively small one.But that scenario comes with an important caveat. The analysis assumes that global greenhouse emissions are swiftly falling. They haven’t — in fact, they’re still rising.That means the carbon removal gap likely is larger than the report suggests.Even as experts say that global carbon removal is falling short, some scientists are worried more investment could backfire. They argue that a focus on carbon removal could detract from global efforts to reduce emissions — potentially lulling world leaders into the belief they can clean up their excess emissions with technology in the future.But proponents of increased carbon removal say the practice is essential to achieving the Paris targets — and that world leaders should strive to reduce global emissions as quickly as possible.“Meeting the Paris Agreement’s long-term temperature goals requires rapid greenhouse gas emissions reduction and near-term scale up of CDR,” said Smith, the University of Oxford scientist. “It’s not really an either-or situation.”Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2024. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

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