2 New Papers: Carbon Capture Through Tree Planting "Nowhere Near Becoming Feasible"
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It isn’t just planting forests on their own: Many scientists have suggested that a more advanced strategy may be necessary to keep to a two-degree pathway in the future — particularly now, as analyses increasingly suggest that even the emissions reduction pledges established by countries participating in the Paris climate agreement are still not enough to keep us on track.
The solution that’s been proposed in numerous reports and climate models, including those released over the years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is a technology known as bioenergy and carbon capture and storage, or BECCS. This strategy involves establishing large plantations of fast-growing trees, capable of storing large quantities of carbon, which can then be harvested and used for fuel. Biomass burning facilities would need to be outfitted with a special carbon-capturing technology, which would capture the carbon dioxide produced and store it safely away, potentially in geological formations deep underground.
It’s an ambitious proposal, and one that many scientists have pointed out is nowhere near the point of becoming feasible, even from a technological perspective. Carbon capture and storage technology is just getting on its feet from a commercial standpoint, and there are only a few facilities around the world — several of them in the United States — that use it. Without this technology, the planting and harvesting of biomass becomes far less climate friendly, essentially releasing all the stored carbon right back into the atmosphere.
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And other experts agree as well. In a separate paper, published Thursday in the journal Science, Stanford researchers Christopher Field and Katharine Mach argue that carbon dioxide removal strategies, including BECCS, are still too risky to rely on for limiting climate change. In regard to BECCS, they also point out that the massive amount of resources required to sustain the system makes it unfeasible. “Converting land on this staggering scale would pit climate change responses against food security and biodiversity protection,” they write. “Massively expanding managed land for CDR [carbon dioxide removal] could crash through the planetary boundary for sustainable land use.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/05/22/stop-hoping-we-can-fix-climate-change-by-pulling-carbon-out-of-the-air-scientists-warn/?utm_term=.82459834c864
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