1 UIUC ATMOS 397G Biogeochemical Cycles and Global Change Lecture 25: Climate, Energy and Carbon Sequestration Don Wuebbles Department of Atmospheric Sciences University of Illinois, Urbana, IL April 29, 2003

2 UIUC

3 UIUC Achieving a Sustainable Climate (ASC)—Positioning National Resources to Resolve Climate Change Improving definition of the problem Diagnosis and understanding (climate, carbon cycle, etc.) Evaluating the impacts Determine ability to adapt to some climate change Solving the problem Technology to increase conservation / efficiency Reduced-carbon energy technology development —Public acceptance of nuclear technology —Fuel cells, etc. Carbon capture and sequestration ASC would also help solve other energy issues (e.g., California 2001; Reliance on foreign oil)

4 UIUC ASC---The Climate Change Challenge 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) GOAL—”…stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” (Article 2) Stabilizing Concentrations Is not the Same as Stabilizing Emissions Stabilizing Concentrations Implies Human-related Emissions Must (approximately) Go to ZERO. Cumulative Emissions  Concentrations

5 UIUC SRES Emissions Scenarios CO 2 SO 2 N2ON2O CH 4

6 UIUC Derived CO2 Concentration – SRES Scenarios All SRES envelop reference case A1B Scenario envelop including climate sensitivity uncertainty All SRES envelop including climate sensitivity uncertainty

7 UIUC ASC---The Climate Change Challenge Changes Required in Human-related CO 2 Emissions to Stabilize Atmospheric Concentrations Requires peak & then decline in emissions

8 UIUC Without New Technology: Carbon Emissions & Concentrations Will Rise EmissionsConcentrations Preindustrial CO 2 Current Energy S&T can reduce carbon emission. But stabilization requires additional Carbon S&T!

9 UIUC Reducing Emissions to Fill in the Gap

10 UIUC Resolving scientific uncertainty Emissions mitigation, including carbon sequestration Technology development, Climate adaptation Climate policy requires a portfolio of responses, including …

11 UIUC CBF 550 AOG 550 Uncertain Technology … Need flexibility while developing technology Analyses from Jae Edmonds, 2001

12 UIUC When take a cost effective technology out of the portfolio, the costs of stabilizing CO 2 are raised—The Value of Carbon Capture & Sequestration CBF NOTES CP=Carbon capture & sequestration from fossil fuels used to generate electric power. H2 Seq.=Fossil fuels used as feedstocks for hydrogen production with carbon capture and sequestration. Results from Jae Edmonds, 2001

13 UIUC ASC---The Climate Change Challenge Stabilization requires fundamental change in the energy system Technology advances are key to stabilizing CO 2 concentrations and controlling costs Diversified technology portfolios are essential to manage risk Technologies that fill the “gap” are not part of the current energy system. Carbon capture and sequestration technologies expand dramatically. The technology portfolio changes over time. Some technologies are more important when others are also available. Some technologies expand their relative importance without expanding their absolute deployment. Need to revisit the technology strategy frequently Energy R&D funding needs to be extensively increased as part of ASC Solution will also require public-private partnerships

14 UIUC It traditionally has taken 50 years or more for a technology to grow from 1 to 50% of the market. Energy R&D What is done in the next 10 years will strongly influence what is possible in the next 50 years

15 UIUC

16 UIUC Carbon Sequestration

17 UIUC

18 UIUC DOE report

19 UIUC Fig. 1: Soil carbon sequestration: how it works Carbon sequestration in soils suggests that fluxes or movements of carbon from the atmosphere can be increased while the natural release of carbon back into the air can be reduced. By absorbing carbon instead of emitting it, soils could evolve from carbon sources to carbon sinks. This process relies on respiration and photosynthesis, two basic processes of the carbon cycle. Carbon, entering the soil in form of roots, litter, harvest residues, and animal manure, is stored primarily as soil organic matter (SOM). In undisturbed environments, balanced rates of input and decomposition determine steady state fluxes. However, in many parts of the world, agricultural and other land use activities have upset this natural balance, thereby releasing alarming rates of carbon to the atmosphere.

20 UIUC Carbon Storage in U.S. Prairie States The soils in the Historic Grasslands region of the U.S. provide a huge reservoir to store carbon. These soils, under the current conservation reserves program enrollment, could offset about 20 percent of all U.S. agricultural emissions.

21 UIUC

22 UIUC Projected Global Surface Temperature Response: ~ 2.5 to 10.4 °F by 2100 Relative to 1990 Projected changes in emissions and concentrations of greenhouse gases could lead to large changes in climate over the century With recent advances in climate model’s ability to represent the earth-atmosphere system, there is now a wider range in potential global and hemispheric-level change due to the range in possible emission scenarios than the range in model results