Carbon emissions reduction sequestration

When the supply to the electricity and transportation sectors is jointly taken into consideration, one is led to conclude that the energy supply diversity is best served by allowing green electricity to maximally penetrate the electricity sector and simultaneously swing the deployment of NG and coal to instead serve the transportation sector. (Note that there may well be synergies between hydrogen fuel production and clean power production. These will be briefly touched upon in Section 15.6 for coal below.) The extent to which one thereby accommodates the objective of C02 emissions reduction depends on the mode of hydrogen production and distribution, and the extent to which it enables carbon capture and sequestration. To a discussion thereof we now turn. 

Recent Battelle research further indicates that early offsets to emissions through soil carbon sequestration can buy additional time, at low cost, for future steep emissions reductions (Rosenberg et ciL, 1999). Although there are important questions to be answered, the potential is sufficiently significant so that the U.S. Department of Energy plans to establish a new Terrestrial Garbon Sequestration Center, to be jointly implemented by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (both administered by Battelle), in collaboration with several universities. 

Stavins and Richards (2005) find that biologic carbon sequestration is also a cost-effective strategy that could be part of a climate mitigation regime. In cases where it may be difficult to measure total mass emissions from these sources but relatively easy to measure emission reductions (e.g., reductions of methane from a landfill) these sources might be captured with project-level offset provisions rather than through inclusion in the cap-and-trade program (U.S. EPA 2003). 

During biomass growth By the process of photosynthesis, biomass directly sequestrates biogenic carbon dioxide during growth. After accounting for all emissions across a whole system, a lowest of 50% carbon dioxide reduction is possible from biofuel... 

The use of biomass (residues), when co-fired (e.g., with coal) and coupled to subsequent carbon sequestration, might be an important technical option for achieving zero emission and, potentially, a net reduction of atmospheric C02. 

Production of a sequestration-ready stream of carbon dioxide, thus enabling potential reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. 

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