Sequestering atmospheric CO₂ inorganically:a solution for Malaysia's CO₂ emission

Malaysia is anticipating an increase of 68.86% in CO2 emission in 2020, compared with the 2000 baseline, reaching 285.73 million tonnes. A major contributor to Malaysia's CO2 emissions is coal-fired electricity power plants, responsible for 43.4% of the overall emissions. Malaysia's forest soil offers organic sequestration of 15 tonnes of CO2 ha(-1) year(-1). Unlike organic CO2 sequestration in soil, inorganic sequestration of CO2 through mineral carbonation, once formed, is considered as a permanent sink. Inorganic CO2 sequestration in Malaysia has not been extensively studied, and the country's potential for using the technique for atmospheric CO2 removal is undefined. In addition, Malaysia produces a significant amount of solid waste annually and, of that, demolition concrete waste, basalt quarry fine, and fly and bottom ashes are calcium-rich materials suitable for inorganic CO2 sequestration. This project introduces a potential solution for sequestering atmospheric CO2 inorganically for Malaysia. If lands associated to future developments in Malaysia are designed for inorganic CO2 sequestration using demolition concrete waste, basalt quarry fine, and fly and bottom ashes, 597,465 tonnes of CO2 can be captured annually adding a potential annual economic benefit of (sic)4,700,000.</p

Optimal use of carbon sequestration in a global climate change strategy : is there a wooden bridge to a clean energy future ?

s. Whether it should be part of a global climate mitigation strategy, however, remains controversial. One of the key issues is that, contrary to emission abatement, carbon sequestration might not be permanent. But some argue that even temporary sequestration is beneficial as it delays climate change impacts and"buys"time for technical change in the energy sector. To rigorously assess these arguments, the authors build an international optimization model in which both sequestration and abatement can be used to mitigate climate change. They confirm that permanent sequestration, if feasible, can be overall part of a climate mitigation strategy. When permanence can be guaranteed, sequestration is equivalent to fossil-fuel emissions abatement. The optimal use of temporary sequestration, on the other hand, depends mostly on marginal damages of climate change. Temporary sequestration projects starting now, in particular, are not attractive if marginal damages of climate change at current concentration levels are assumed to be low.Montreal Protocol,Environmental Economics&Policies,Climate Change,Economic Theory&Research,Global Environment Facility,Energy and Environment,Environmental Economics&Policies,Montreal Protocol,Carbon Policy and Trading,Climate Change

Great SCO2T! Rapid tool for carbon sequestration science, engineering, and economics

CO2 capture and storage (CCS) technology is likely to be widely deployed in coming decades in response to major climate and economics drivers: CCS is part of every clean energy pathway that limits global warming to 2C or less and receives significant CO2 tax credits in the United States. These drivers are likely to stimulate capture, transport, and storage of hundreds of millions or billions of tonnes of CO2 annually. A key part of the CCS puzzle will be identifying and characterizing suitable storage sites for vast amounts of CO2. We introduce a new software tool called SCO2T (Sequestration of CO2 Tool, pronounced "Scott") to rapidly characterizing saline storage reservoirs. The tool is designed to rapidly screen hundreds of thousands of reservoirs, perform sensitivity and uncertainty analyses, and link sequestration engineering (injection rates, reservoir capacities, plume dimensions) to sequestration economics (costs constructed from around 70 separate economic inputs). We describe the novel science developments supporting SCO2T including a new approach to estimating CO2 injection rates and CO2 plume dimensions as well as key advances linking sequestration engineering with economics. Next, we perform a sensitivity and uncertainty analysis of geology combinations (including formation depth, thickness, permeability, porosity, and temperature) to understand the impact on carbon sequestration. Through the sensitivity analysis we show that increasing depth and permeability both can lead to increased CO2 injection rates, increased storage potential, and reduced costs, while increasing porosity reduces costs without impacting the injection rate (CO2 is injected at a constant pressure in all cases) by increasing the reservoir capacity.Comment: CO2 capture and storage; carbon sequestration; reduced-order modeling; climate change; economic

Contract Design to Sequester Carbon in Agricultural Soils

According to several studies, agricultural carbon sequestration could be a relatively low cost opportunity to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration and a promising means that could be institutionalised. However the potential for additional carbon quantities in agricultural soils is critical and comes from the agricultural firms behaviour with regards to land heterogeneity. In this paper, our aim is to set incentive mechanisms to enhance carbon sequestration by agricultural firms. A policymaker has to arrange incentives as agricultural firms have private information and do not spontaneously switch to the required practices. Moreover, a novelty in our paper is to show that the potential for additional carbon sequestration is similar to an exhaustible resource. As a result, we construct an intertemporal principal-agent model with adverse selection. Our contribution is to specify contracts in order to induce truthful revelation by the firms regarding their intrinsic characteristics towards carbon sequestration, while analytically characterizing the optimal path to sequester carbon as an exhaustible resource.Adverse selection ; agriculture ; carbon sequestration ; incentives ; land-use

Estimating the costs of atmospheric carbon reductions in Mexico

Trading in carbon emissions is a means of ensuring that supplies with the lowest marginal costs of emissions reduction are commissioned first. To analyse the potential for Mexican suppliers to participate in an emissions trading market, the relative cost-effectiveness of a carbon sequestration project and carbon abatement project is assessed. The marginal costs of emission reductions for each project are estimated and compared using standardised data. The results show that the carbon sequestration project has lower marginal costs for carbon emissions reductions than the technology-based abatement. Factors such as timescale, discounting implementation costs, transaction costs, and technical assumptions are considered in this comparison. The high transaction costs to set up carbon sequestration projects and weak institutional capacity to monitor and enforce agreements are relevant factors. Even though the carbon sequestration project is more cost-effective than the renewable energy power plant, both projects may allow Mexican suppliers to enter a potential international carbon emissions trading market depending on demand and supply conditions and the rules of the market

Policy to Encourage Carbon Sequestration in Plantation Forests

Carbon sequestration in plantation forests provides the main means by which New Zealand will meet its international climate change obligations in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2008–2012). However, without active policy, forests are unlikely to contribute as much in subsequent commitment periods. This research paper provides the background for examining policy measures for encouraging carbon sequestration in plantation forests in New Zealand. Part I focuses on providing factual information and positive analysis of: key domestic and international regulations; information on New Zealand forests, the forestry industry and forest profitability; discussion of land-use decision making, including the central question of what influences conversion of farmland to forestry; and forest carbon ecology. Part II moves on to normative analysis of policy design. It discusses how including considerations of the value of carbon sequestration and storage changes optimal land-use behaviour, and outlines key issues that need to be addressed when developing a policy to encourage sequestration and storage in a pragmatic way. Finally, the paper identifies a number of key areas where we need more information before we can make well- informed choices about policy design. Future work will endeavour to identify and evaluate policies that would effectively encourage sequestration.climate, forest, carbon sequestration, policy, New Zealand, Kyoto

Modeling carbon biogeochemistry in agricultural soils

An existing model of C and N dynamics in soils was supplemented with a plant growth submodel and cropping practice routines (fertilization, irrigation, tillage, crop rotation, and manure amendments) to study the biogeochemistry of soil carbon in arable lands. The new model was validated against field results for short-term (1–9 years) decomposition experiments, the seasonal pattern of soil CO2 respiration, and long-term (100 years) soil carbon storage dynamics. A series of sensitivity runs investigated the impact of varying agricultural practices on soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration. The tests were simulated for corn (maize) plots over a range of soil and climate conditions typical of the United States. The largest carbon sequestration occurred with manure additions; the results were very sensitive to soil texture (more clay led to greater sequestration). Increased N fertilization generally enhanced carbon sequestration, but the results were sensitive to soil texture, initial soil carbon content, and annual precipitation. Reduced tillage also generally (but not always) increased SOC content, though the results were very sensitive to soil texture, initial SOC content, and annual precipitation. A series of long-term simulations investigated the SOC equilibrium for various agricultural practices, soil and climate conditions, and crop rotations. Equilibrium SOC content increased with decreasing temperatures, increasing clay content, enhanced N fertilization, manure amendments, and crops with higher residue yield. Time to equilibrium appears to be one hundred to several hundred years. In all cases, equilibration time was longer for increasing SOC content than for decreasing SOC content. Efforts to enhance carbon sequestration in agricultural soils would do well to focus on those specific areas and agricultural practices with the greatest potential for increasing soil carbon content

ECONOMICS OF SEQUESTERING CARBON IN THE U.S. AGRICULTURAL SECTOR

Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases can be reduced by withdrawing carbon from the atmosphere and sequestering it in soils and biomass. This report analyzes the performance of alternative incentive designs and payment levels if farmers were paid to adopt land uses and management practices that raise soil carbon levels. At payment levels below $10 per metric ton for permanently sequestered carbon, analysis suggests landowners would find it more cost effective to adopt changes in rotations and tillage practices. At higher payment levels, afforestation dominates sequestration activities, mostly through conversion of pastureland. Across payment levels, the economic potential to sequester carbon is much lower than the technical potential reported in soil science studies. The most cost-effective payment design adjusts payment levels to account both for the length of time farmers are willing to commit to sequestration activities and for net sequestration. A 50-percent cost-share for cropland conversion to forestry or grasslands would increase sequestration at low carbon payment levels but not at high payment levels.Carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas mitigation, afforestation, conservation tillage, no-till, incentive design, leakage, carbon stock, permanence, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Empirical Analysis of Land-use Change and Soil Carbon Sequestration Cost in China

This project examines the driving forces behind the land-use change and evaluates the effects of land-use transition on soil organic carbon density and sequestration cost in China. It contributes to the literature in three aspects. First, it applies a discrete choice method to model multiple land-use options with a unique set of high-quality data. Second, it conducts a comprehensive analysis of biophysical characteristics and changes in soil carbon storage caused by land-use change. Third, it examines the economic efficiency of alternative land use policies as instruments for carbon sequestration in China.carbon sequestration, land-use, soil organic carbon density, China, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use,

Environmental Externalities of Geological Carbon Sequestration Effects on Energy Scenarios

Geological carbon sequestration seems one of the promising options to address, in the near term, the global problem of climate change, since carbon sequestration technologies are in principle available today and their costs are expected to be affordable. Whereas extensive technological and economic feasibility studies rightly point out the large potential of this ‘clean fossil fuel’ option, relatively little attention has been paid so far to the detrimental environmental externalities that the sequestering of CO2 underground could entail. This paper assesses what the relevance might be of including these external effects in long-term energy planning and scenario analyses. Our main conclusion is that, while these effects are generally likely to be relatively small, carbon sequestration externalities do matter and influence the nature of future world energy supply and consumption. More importantly, since geological carbon storage (depending on the method employed) may in some cases have substantial external impacts, in terms of both environmental damage and health risks, it is recommended that extensive studies are performed to quantify these effects. This article addresses three main questions: (i) What may energy supply look like if one accounts for large-scale CO2 sequestration in the construction of long-term energy and climate change scenarios; (ii) Suppose one hypothesizes a quantification of the external environmental costs of CO2 sequestration, how do then these supposed costs affect the evolution of the energy system during the 21st century; (iii) Does it matter for these scenarios whether carbon sequestration damage costs are charged directly to consumers or, instead, to electricity producers?Geological carbon storage, External costs, Energy scenarios