Carbon Storage and Carbon Dioxide Emission as Influenced by Long-term Conservation Tillage and Nitrogen Fertilization in Corn-Soybean Rotation

Although agriculture is a victim of environmental risk due to global warming, but ironically it also contributes toglobal greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. The objective of this experiment was to determine the influence of long-termconservation tillage and N fertilization on soil carbon storage and CO2 emission in corn-soybean rotation system. Afactorial experiment was arranged in a randomized completely block design with four replications. The first factorwas tillage systems namely intensive tillage (IT), minimum tillage (MT) and no-tillage (NT). While the second factorwas N fertilization with rate of 0, 100 and 200 kg N ha-1 applied for corn, and 0, 25, and 50 kg N ha-1 for soybeanproduction. Samples of soil organic carbon (SOC) after 23 year of cropping were taken at depths of 0-5 cm, 5-10cm and 10-20 cm, while CO2 emission measurements were taken in corn season (2009) and soybean season (2010).Analysis of variance and means test (HSD 0.05) were analyzed using the Statistical Analysis System package. At 0-5 cm depth, SOC under NT combined with 200 kg N ha-1 fertilization was 46.1% higher than that of NT with no Nfertilization, while at depth of 5-10 cm SOC under MT was 26.2% higher than NT and 13.9% higher than IT.Throughout the corn and soybean seasons, CO2-C emissions from IT were higher than those of MT and NT, whileCO2-C emissions from 200 kg N ha-1 rate were higher than those of 0 kg N ha-1 and 100 kg N ha-1 rates. With any Nrate treatments, MT and NT could reduce CO2-C emission to 65.2 %-67.6% and to 75.4%-87.6% as much of IT,respectively. While in soybean season, MT and NT could reduce CO2-C emission to 17.6%-46.7% and 42.0%-74.3% as much of IT, respectively. Prior to generative soybean growth, N fertilization with rate of 50 kg N ha-1could reduce CO2-C emission to 32.2%-37.2% as much of 0 and 25 kg N ha-1 rates

Central North Sea - CO2 Storage Hub Enabling CCS Deployment in the UK and Europe

Carbon Capture & Storage is widely recognised as a vital technology which will play a significant role in the generation of low carbon electricity. CCS has the potential to reduce the carbon emissions of fossil fuelled power stations by as much as 90% as well as offering the only realistic solution to heavy industrial emitters such as steel mills, petrochemical refineries and cement manufacturing plants. Projects which can combine capture of emissions from power generation as well industrial emitters will enable the development of CO2 transport infrastructure which can act to safeguard existing employment in carbon-intensive industries within the UK and EU. CCS development zones can also attract new energy intensive industries to locate into an area with an established network of CO2 pipelines. That means low marginal costs to connect into a guaranteed network for transportation and storage of captured CO2. Recent studies examining the levelised cost of electricity have consistently demonstrated that CCS will be competitive with renewable generation technologies such as offshore wind. CCS provides a low-carbon solution to the issue of intermittency which is inevitable with wind power, thereby helping to address the need for energy security in a future which will see a growth in the percentage of power generation from renewable sources. Fossil fuels will be part of the energy and industry system for many decades to come. CCS is the only viable option for abating those CO2 emissions. The creation of a CCS industry in the UK will provide opportunities for economic growth through the retention of many thousands of high-value jobs, creation of thousands of new jobs, increased manufacturing activity, as well as retention of the UK's world leading oil & gas supply chain for home investment and billions of pounds in export services.Carbon Capture & Storage is widely recognised as a vital technology which will play a significant role in the generation of low carbon electricity. CCS has the potential to reduce the carbon emissions of fossil fuelled power stations by as much as 90% as well as offering the only realistic solution to heavy industrial emitters such as steel mills, petrochemical refineries and cement manufacturing plants. Projects which can combine capture of emissions from power generation as well industrial emitters will enable the development of CO2 transport infrastructure which can act to safeguard existing employment in carbon-intensive industries within the UK and EU. CCS development zones can also attract new energy intensive industries to locate into an area with an established network of CO2 pipelines. That means low marginal costs to connect into a guaranteed network for transportation and storage of captured CO2. Recent studies examining the levelised cost of electricity have consistently demonstrated that CCS will be competitive with renewable generation technologies such as offshore wind. CCS provides a low-carbon solution to the issue of intermittency which is inevitable with wind power, thereby helping to address the need for energy security in a future which will see a growth in the percentage of power generation from renewable sources. Fossil fuels will be part of the energy and industry system for many decades to come. CCS is the only viable option for abating those CO2 emissions. The creation of a CCS industry in the UK will provide opportunities for economic growth through the retention of many thousands of high-value jobs, creation of thousands of new jobs, increased manufacturing activity, as well as retention of the UK's world leading oil & gas supply chain for home investment and billions of pounds in export services

Equilibrium responses of global net primary production and carbon storage to doubled atmospheric carbon dioxide: sensitivity to changes in vegetation nitrogen concentration

We ran the terrestrial ecosystem model (TEM) for the globe at 0.5° resolution for atmospheric CO2 concentrations of 340 and 680 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to evaluate global and regional responses of net primary production (NPP) and carbon storage to elevated CO2 for their sensitivity to changes in vegetation nitrogen concentration. At 340 ppmv, TEM estimated global NPP of 49.0 1015 g (Pg) C yr−1 and global total carbon storage of 1701.8 Pg C; the estimate of total carbon storage does not include the carbon content of inert soil organic matter. For the reference simulation in which doubled atmospheric CO2 was accompanied with no change in vegetation nitrogen concentration, global NPP increased 4.1 Pg C yr−1 (8.3%), and global total carbon storage increased 114.2 Pg C. To examine sensitivity in the global responses of NPP and carbon storage to decreases in the nitrogen concentration of vegetation, we compared doubled CO2 responses of the reference TEM to simulations in which the vegetation nitrogen concentration was reduced without influencing decomposition dynamics (“lower N” simulations) and to simulations in which reductions in vegetation nitrogen concentration influence decomposition dynamics (“lower N+D” simulations). We conducted three lower N simulations and three lower N+D simulations in which we reduced the nitrogen concentration of vegetation by 7.5, 15.0, and 22.5%. In the lower N simulations, the response of global NPP to doubled atmospheric CO2 increased approximately 2 Pg C yr−1 for each incremental 7.5% reduction in vegetation nitrogen concentration, and vegetation carbon increased approximately an additional 40 Pg C, and soil carbon increased an additional 30 Pg C, for a total carbon storage increase of approximately 70 Pg C. In the lower N+D simulations, the responses of NPP and vegetation carbon storage were relatively insensitive to differences in the reduction of nitrogen concentration, but soil carbon storage showed a large change. The insensitivity of NPP in the N+D simulations occurred because potential enhancements in NPP associated with reduced vegetation nitrogen concentration were approximately offset by lower nitrogen availability associated with the decomposition dynamics of reduced litter nitrogen concentration. For each 7.5% reduction in vegetation nitrogen concentration, soil carbon increased approximately an additional 60 Pg C, while vegetation carbon storage increased by only approximately 5 Pg C. As the reduction in vegetation nitrogen concentration gets greater in the lower N+D simulations, more of the additional carbon storage tends to become concentrated in the north temperate-boreal region in comparison to the tropics. Other studies with TEM show that elevated CO2 more than offsets the effects of climate change to cause increased carbon storage. The results of this study indicate that carbon storage would be enhanced by the influence of changes in plant nitrogen concentration on carbon assimilation and decomposition rates. Thus changes in vegetation nitrogen concentration may have important implications for the ability of the terrestrial biosphere to mitigate increases in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 and climate changes associated with the increases

Storage of hydrogen in nanostructured carbon materials

Recent developments focusing on novel hydrogen storage media have helped to benchmark nanostructured carbon materials as one of the ongoing strategic research areas in science and technology. In particular, certain microporous carbon powders, carbon nanomaterials, and specifically carbon nanotubes stand to deliver unparalleled performance as the next generation of base materials for storing hydrogen. Accordingly, the main goal of this report is to overview the challenges, distinguishing traits, and apparent contradictions of carbon-based hydrogen storage technologies and to emphasize recently developed nanostructured carbon materials that show potential to store hydrogen by physisorption and/or chemisorption mechanisms. Specifically touched upon are newer material preparation methods as well as experimental and theoretical attempts to elucidate, improve or predict hydrogen storage capacities, sorption–desorption kinetics, microscopic uptake mechanisms and temperature–pressure–loading interrelations in nanostructured carbons, particularly microporous powders and carbon nanotubes

Carbon capture and storage

To stabilise atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) at reasonable levels, drastic cuts in anthropogenic emissions are required in the coming decades. Large industrial point sources, particularly power stations, account for some 30 per cent of anthropogenic CO2. Capturing CO2 from flue gases and disposing of it underground in depleted hydrocarbon fields or saline aquifers offers a way of significantly cutting this component of greenhouse gas emissions. UK annual emissions of CO2 exceed 500 million tonnes. Capturing and storing CO2 from just the twenty largest industrial sources would reduce total UK emissions by around 20 per cent

Optimization of unit commitment considering carbon gas emission reduction utilizing firefly algorithm

The necessity for electrical energy has been currently significant to support economic growth in Indonesia, expected to annually increase every year. The increasing demand for electricity denotes that the electrical energy supplied by the generator is relatively large. In general, electricity generation in Indonesia utilizes fossil fuels in the generation process thus it creates emissions in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2), which are released into the air in large quantities. Therefore, planning is deemed instrumental, thereby encouraging that generation scheduling at an economical cost is required in the generation of each unit in order to adjust the load that changes every time. This final project discusses the problem of unit commitment (UC) with the addition of a carbon capture and storage (CCS) system in the generator. The Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) process refers to a technology capturing up to 85% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission as, the result of utilizing fossil fuels in electricity generation and industrial processes to prevent carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. The optimization algorithm utilized in this final project is the Firefly Algorithm (FA). The objective function that will be optimized lies in the cost of generation, scheduling on and off for each generator and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The data used in this optimization includes the IEEE of 30 bus system and the addition of Carbon Capture and Storage Plants. The test results indicate that the FA method is able to perform UC calculations considering Carbon Capture and Storage

Potential Sinks for Geologic Storage of CO2 Generated in the Carolinas

This document summarizes a scoping study of the current state of knowledge of carbon storage options for our geographic area. The focus is on one aspect of carbon capture and storage—identification of deep saline aquifers in which carbon dioxide (CO2 ) generated in the Carolinas might be stored. The study does not address other aspects of CO2 storage projects, such as capture and compression of the gas, well construction and development, or injection. Transport of CO2 is touched upon in this study but has not been fully addressed. The information contained in this document is primarily from review of published geologic literature and unpublished data. No field data collection has been completed as part of this study. Further work will be necessary to increase confidence in the suitability of the potential CO2 storage sites identified in this report. This study does not address the regulatory, environmental, or public policy issues associated with carbon storage, which are under development at this time.Duke Energy, Progress Energy, Santee Cooper Power, South Carolina Electric and Gas, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Southern States Energy Board (SSEB)Bureau of Economic Geolog

The Time Value of Carbon and Carbon Storage: Clarifying the terms and the policy implications of the debate

The question of whether there is any value to the temporary storage of carbon is fundamental to climate policy design across a number of arenas, including physical carbon discounting in greenhouse gas accounting, the relative value of temporary carbon offsets, and the value of other carbon mitigation efforts that are known to be impermanent, including deferred deforestation. Quantifying the value of temporary carbon storage depends on a number of assumptions about how the incremental impact (or social cost) of a given ton of carbon emissions is expected to change over time. In 2009, a U.S. government interagency working group was established and assigned the responsibility of calculating social cost of carbon estimates to be used in benefit/cost analysis of regulations impacting carbon dioxide emissions. Those estimates were released in March 2010. This working paper explores what those estimates imply about the value of temporary carbon storage, as well as the implications of those temporary storage values for several critical policy design questions relating to greenhouse gas accounting and biological offsets. This analysis suggests, for instance, that appropriate physical carbon discount rates for carbon accounting may be even lower than the social discount rates often used in intergenerational analyses. In the context of agricultural offsets, the social cost of carbon estimates are used to establish a definition of equivalence between permanent and temporary offsets; equivalence ratios are derived that vary between ~2 and 30, depending on the discount rate used and the length of the temporary offset contract period.temporary carbon storage, time value of carbon, temporary offsets, physical carbon discount rate

Calculating the global contribution of coralline algae to carbon burial

The ongoing increase in anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is changing the global marine environment and is causing warming and acidification of the oceans. Reduction of CO2 to a sustainable level is required to avoid further marine change. Many studies investigate the potential of marine carbon sinks (e.g. seagrass) to mitigate anthropogenic emissions, however, information on storage by coralline algae and the beds they create is scant. Calcifying photosynthetic organisms, including coralline algae, can act as a CO2 sink via photosynthesis and CaCO3 dissolution and act as a CO2 source during respiration and CaCO3 production on short-term time scales. Long-term carbon storage potential might come from the accumulation of coralline algae deposits over geological time scales. Here, the carbon storage potential of coralline algae is assessed using meta-analysis of their global organic and inorganic carbon production and the processes involved in this metabolism. Organic and inorganic production were estimated at 330 g C m−2 yr−1 and 880 g CaCO3 m−2 yr−1 respectively giving global organic/inorganic C production of 0.7/1.8 × 109 t C yr−1. Calcium carbonate production by free-living/crustose coralline algae (CCA) corresponded to a sediment accretion of 70/450 mm kyr−1. Using this potential carbon storage by coralline algae, the global production of free-living algae/CCA was 0.4/1.2 × 109 t C yr−1 suggesting a total potential carbon sink of 1.6 × 109 t C yr−1. Coralline algae therefore have production rates similar to mangroves, saltmarshes and seagrasses representing an as yet unquantified but significant carbon store, however, further empirical investigations are needed to determine the dynamics and stability of that store