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Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers and those from 12 other institutions recently released an analysis of atmospheric carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and storage called “Roads to Removal: Options for Carbon Dioxide Removal in the United States” (R2R).
The report addresses climate change by outlining methods and costs for achieving the goal of a net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) economy by 2050.
To reach its goal, the U.S. must remove 1 billion metric tons (or tonnes) of CO2 from the atmosphere per year by 2050, store it and reduce GHG emissions, according to an LLNL news release about the report.
R2R finds this gigaton scale removal and storage possible by increasing the intake of CO2 by forest and agricultural lands, scaling up the conversion of biomass (organic matter) into products and geologically storable CO2 and the direct capture of CO2 from the atmosphere followed by geological storage.
If implemented, these methods can create more than 440,000 long-term jobs by 2050 and improve air and water quality.
They are estimated to annually cost roughly $130 billion in 2050, about 0.5% of the nation’s current GDP, but the cost may decrease as technology advances, according to the R2R website. Funding for implementing CO2 removal is likely to come from the government and private investors, according to Jennifer Pett-Ridge, LLNL scientist and the report’s lead author.
In essence, the report’s county-level analysis and results — based on the methods’ feasibility, capacity, costs, energy and equity and environmental justice considerations — are meant to inform policy-makers, the government and community stakeholders on CO2 removal options for meeting the national goal, according to the news release.
“The report offers unique research for the opportunities and challenges specific to each region in our diverse country, prioritizing local approaches and voices from community groups in natural removal solutions,” wrote Jan Mazurek, senior director of carbon dioxide removal at ClimateWorks Foundation, in a press release document.
The report’s CO2 removal options can be combined in a variety of ways to remove more than the goal of 1 billion tonnes of CO2 per year by 2050, so there is flexibility in choosing carbon removal options, according to the executive summary.
Cropland-soil management and forest-based solutions are ecological methods that can be implemented immediately. Together, they can remove nearly 100 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2050.
These ecological methods are reversible, through events like fire and insect outbreaks, but should be maximized because they are low cost; rapidly scalable; and offer co-benefits to biodiversity, water conservation and environmental quality.
In practice, crop-land soil management can mean planting cover crops to promote photosynthesis and the transfer of CO2 into soil and to stave off erosion, which releases carbon from the soil, according to Pett-Ridge. Perennial plants can also be planted along field borders to increase CO2 capture and reduce the soil erosion by wind.
As for forest-based solutions, the west — chosen as a case study region — would benefit from fire-resilience forest management to reduce the risk of wildfire, thus avoiding the release of up to 16 million tonnes of CO2 between 2025 and 2050 according to the R2R website.
To reach net-zero, it will be necessary to invest in biomass for carbon removal and storage (BiCRS) and direct air capture with geological storage (DACS) technologies, according to the news release.
BiCRS converts biomass to longer-lasting stores of carbon, like plastic and cement, according to the R2R website. It also captures CO2 produced from biomass processing and injects the CO2 below ground. BiCRS has the potential to remove over 800 million tonnes of CO2 per year from the atmosphere for less than $100 per tonne.
DACS works just as its name suggests. CO2 is captured from the air and placed below ground in geological storage. DACS has the potential to remove almost 14 billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere per year for less than $250 per tonne.
Optimal BiCRS and DACS locations are both limited by geological storage and renewable energy availability, since the methods both require CO2 storage and energy input, according to the executive summary.
But in terms of storage locations, more than 50% of land in the U.S. is suitable for underground CO2 storage. Of that, 22% is well-suited for over 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year for up to 20 years. This kind of storage is highly durable compared to storage in forests and soils.
Potential locations for biomass conversion are well distributed across the country, while potential locations for DACS facilities are more limited, according to the website. DACS facilities could occupy places such as segments of Montana, Wyoming, Texas, Colorado and California.
Removing and storing CO2 from the atmosphere through cropland-soil management, forest-based solutions, BiCRS and DACS can play a part in nationwide environmental justice.
“An equitable approach to CDR is the only path for climate action that benefits both people and the planet while reducing our net carbon emissions to zero, and we applaud the focus on equity in this analysis,” wrote Mazurek.
As a part of justice, job creation at places like DACS facilities would boost a workforce struggling from decarbonization, according to the executive summary.
“In another 20, 30 years, if we meet our goals to stop using fossil fuels, those (extractive energy industry) jobs won’t exist,” Pett-Ridge said. “But those individuals have a lot of skills to return CO2 into geological storage, to be involved in these fairly complex plants where we’re taking biomass and converting it into fuel and then trucking it or piping it some distance.”
Implementation would also “improve air and water quality and reduce the severity of some damaging impacts of greenhouse gases on our climate,” according to the report’s news release. These are especially important effects to communities that are inequitably burdened by pollution.
“This portfolio approach to CDR is a refreshing contrast to strategies that pit projects and technologies against one another,” wrote Kathy Fallon, director of land and climate at the Clean Air Task Force, in a press release. “Now it’s up to all of us to take this important resource and create the governance and investment structures needed to rapidly scale regional carbon removal portfolios and define what CDR can be used for to ensure that it complements emissions reductions.”
R2R was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Bioenergy Technologies, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management and ClimateWorks Foundation.
In 2024, authors of the report will host free symposiums across the U.S. to explain the report’s discoveries with community members and leaders.
More information about R2R can be found at https://roads2removal.org.
