Sweden and Direct Air Capture of Carbon Dioxide: A Feasibility Study of Pathways to National Net Negative Emissions

Sweden has set an ambitious national climate policy that includes a goal of becoming a net zero emitter of greenhouse gases by 2045. Reducing or eliminating greenhouse gas emissions at the source is the main method being used to achieve this goal, however there is are technologies available to provide net negative emissions by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. One of these technologies, direct air capture (DAC), is the focus of this paper. This paper examines several scenarios for how Sweden could achieve its 2045 net zero emissions goal through the use of DAC technology. The two main DAC technologies are solid sorbent and liquid solvent. Solid sorbent technology captures CO2 on a solid media that preferentially absorbs CO2. Liquid solvent technology captures CO2 in a solvent, like potassium hydroxide, that CO2 readily dissolves in. Both technologies use fans to pass large quantities of atmospheric air over or through the sorbent or solvent to remove CO2 from the air. When saturated with CO2 The sorbent or solvent can then be Two scenarios were compared for deployment of DAC in Sweden as a CO2 removal method, one where Sweden reaches its 2045 emissions reductions target and one where Sweden misses this target. For each scenario, both solid sorbent and liquid solvent DAC technologies were compared. The criteria for comparison were technical (number of plants required, electricity input, heat input), economic (CAPEX), and sustainability (land use, water use). The results of the comparison showed that for both of the scenarios regarding Sweden’s 2045 climate goal, the solid sorbent technology was less expensive in terms of CAPEX, and also required less electricity and heat input. For all of the scenarios examined, the total CAPEX for building the necessary CO2 removal capacity between 2030 and 2045 ranged from $2.9 billion to$13.6 billion. This level of expenditure over a 15 year period is not unfeasible, especially if the price of the carbon tax in Sweden per tonne of CO2 emitted exceeds the cost to build and operate a DAC plant in terms of $ per tonne of CO2 emitted captured. The electricity input required for the different scenarios ranged from 2.1 to 22.8 TWh per year. With the electrification of cars, as well as electrification of important industries in Sweden like mining and steel production, the demand for electricity in Sweden is expected to increase significantly by 2045. In order for Sweden to reach its climate goals through different methods like electrification of industry or transport, or the investment in carbon capture technologies like DAC, there must be a significant investment in new electricity generating capacity in the coming years and decades

Aggregation and Representation in the European Parliament Party Groups

While members of the European Parliament are elected in national constituencies, their votes are determined by the aggregation of MEPs in multinational party groups. The uncoordinated aggregation of national party programmes in multinational EP party groups challenges theories of representation based on national parties and parliaments. This article provides a theoretical means of understanding representation by linking the aggregation of dozens of national party programmes in different EP party groups to the aggregation of groups to produce the parliamentary majority needed to enact policies. Drawing on an original data source of national party programmes, the EU Profiler, the article shows that the EP majorities created by aggregating MEP votes in party groups are best explained by cartel theories. These give priority to strengthening the EP’s collective capacity to enact policies rather than voting in accord with the programmes they were nationally elected to represent

What if There Were Desktop Access to the Computer Science Literature?

What if there was an electronic computer science library? Consider the possibilities of having your favorite publications available within finger's reach. Consider project Envision, an ongoing effort to build a user-centered database from the computer science literature. This paper describes our first year progress, stressing the motivation underlying project Envision, user-centered development, and overall design

POLICY PREFERENCE FORMATION IN LEGISLATIVE POLITICS:STRUCTURES, ACTORS, AND FOCAL POINTS

This dissertation introduces and tests a model of policy preference formation in legislative politics. Emphasizing a dynamic relationship between structure, agent, and decision-making process, it ties the question of policy choice to the dimensionality of the normative political space and the strategic actions of parliamentary agenda-setters. The model proposes that structural factors, such as ideology, shape policy preferences to the extent that legislative specialists successfully link them to specific policy proposals through the provision of informational focal points. These focal points shift attention toward particular aspects of a legislative proposal, thus shaping the dominant interpretation of its content and consequences and, in turn, individual-level policy preferences. The propositions of the focal point model are tested empirically with data from the European Parliament (EP), using both qualitative (interview data, content analyses of parliamentary debates) and quantitative methods (multinomial logit regression analyses of roll-call votes). The findings have implications for our understanding of politics and law-making in the European Union and for the study of legislative decision-making more generally

White paper on nuclear astrophysics and low energy nuclear physics Part 1: Nuclear astrophysics

This white paper informs the nuclear astrophysics community and funding agencies about the scientific directions and priorities of the field and provides input from this community for the 2015 Nuclear Science Long Range Plan. It summarizes the outcome of the nuclear astrophysics town meeting that was held on August 21–23, 2014 in College Station at the campus of Texas A&M University in preparation of the NSAC Nuclear Science Long Range Plan. It also reflects the outcome of an earlier town meeting of the nuclear astrophysics community organized by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA) on October 9–10, 2012 Detroit, Michigan, with the purpose of developing a vision for nuclear astrophysics in light of the recent NRC decadal surveys in nuclear physics (NP2010) and astronomy (ASTRO2010). The white paper is furthermore informed by the town meeting of the Association of Research at University Nuclear Accelerators (ARUNA) that took place at the University of Notre Dame on June 12–13, 2014. In summary we find that nuclear astrophysics is a modern and vibrant field addressing fundamental science questions at the intersection of nuclear physics and astrophysics. These questions relate to the origin of the elements, the nuclear engines that drive life and death of stars, and the properties of dense matter. A broad range of nuclear accelerator facilities, astronomical observatories, theory efforts, and computational capabilities are needed. With the developments outlined in this white paper, answers to long standing key questions are well within reach in the coming decade

Catching Element Formation In The Act

Gamma-ray astronomy explores the most energetic photons in nature to address some of the most pressing puzzles in contemporary astrophysics. It encompasses a wide range of objects and phenomena: stars, supernovae, novae, neutron stars, stellar-mass black holes, nucleosynthesis, the interstellar medium, cosmic rays and relativistic-particle acceleration, and the evolution of galaxies. MeV gamma-rays provide a unique probe of nuclear processes in astronomy, directly measuring radioactive decay, nuclear de-excitation, and positron annihilation. The substantial information carried by gamma-ray photons allows us to see deeper into these objects, the bulk of the power is often emitted at gamma-ray energies, and radioactivity provides a natural physical clock that adds unique information. New science will be driven by time-domain population studies at gamma-ray energies. This science is enabled by next-generation gamma-ray instruments with one to two orders of magnitude better sensitivity, larger sky coverage, and faster cadence than all previous gamma-ray instruments. This transformative capability permits: (a) the accurate identification of the gamma-ray emitting objects and correlations with observations taken at other wavelengths and with other messengers; (b) construction of new gamma-ray maps of the Milky Way and other nearby galaxies where extended regions are distinguished from point sources; and (c) considerable serendipitous science of scarce events -- nearby neutron star mergers, for example. Advances in technology push the performance of new gamma-ray instruments to address a wide set of astrophysical questions.Comment: 14 pages including 3 figure