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Engineering strategies for greenhouse gas mitigation
\"Controlling the level of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is a rapidly growing area of commercial activity. While debate continues both about the impact of greenhouse gas on climate and the role humans play in influencing its concentration, engineers are faced with less controversial questions of how to manage this uncertainty and how to control greenhouse gases at a minimum cost to society. This book gives a concise review of current knowledge required for engineers to develop strategies to help us manage and adapt to climate change. It has been developed from the author's graduate course in environmental engineering. It is written without technical jargon so as to be accessible to a wide range of students and policymakers who do not necessarily have scientific or engineering backgrounds. Appendices allow readers to calculate for themselves the impact of the various strategies, and the book contains student exercises and references for further reading\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Collapse of the Kyoto Protocol and the Struggle to Slow Global Warming
Even as the evidence of global warming mounts, the international response to this serious threat is coming unraveled. The United States has formally withdrawn from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol; other key nations are facing difficulty in meeting their Kyoto commitments; and developing countries face no limit on their emissions of the gases that cause global warming. In this clear and cogent book-reissued in paperback with an afterword that comments on recent events--David Victor explains why the Kyoto Protocol was never likely to become an effective legal instrument. He explores how its collapse offers opportunities to establish a more realistic alternative.
Global warming continues to dominate environmental news as legislatures worldwide grapple with the process of ratification of the December 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The collapse of the November 2000 conference at the Hague showed clearly how difficult it will be to bring the Kyoto treaty into force. Yet most politicians, policymakers, and analysts hailed it as a vital first step in slowing greenhouse warming. David Victor was not among them.
Kyoto's fatal flaw, Victor argues, is that it can work only if emissions trading works. The Protocol requires industrialized nations to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases to specific targets. Crucially, the Protocol also provides for so-called \"emissions trading,\" whereby nations could offset the need for rapid cuts in their own emissions by buying emissions credits from other countries. But starting this trading system would require creating emission permits worth two trillion dollars--the largest single invention of assets by voluntary international treaty in world history. Even if it were politically possible to distribute such astronomical sums, the Protocol does not provide for adequate monitoring and enforcement of these new property rights. Nor does it offer an achievable plan for allocating new permits, which would be essential if the system were expanded to include developing countries.
The collapse of the Kyoto Protocol--which Victor views as inevitable--will provide the political space to rethink strategy. Better alternatives would focus on policies that control emissions, such as emission taxes. Though economically sensible, however, a pure tax approach is impossible to monitor in practice. Thus, the author proposes a hybrid in which governments set targets for both emission quantities and tax levels. This offers the important advantages of both emission trading and taxes without the debilitating drawbacks of each.
Individuals at all levels of environmental science, economics, public policy, and politics-from students to professionals--and anyone else hoping to participate in the debate over how to slow global warming will want to read this book.
eBook
Greenhouse gas emissions : challenges, technologies and solutions
This book covers the exchange of greenhouse gases in various ecosystems, biomes and climatic zones, and discusses the measurement, modelling and processes involved in these exchange dynamics. It reflects the growing body of knowledge on the characterization, feedback processes and interaction of greenhouse gases with ecosystems and the impact of human activities. Offering a compilation of selected case studies prepared by international researchers working in the field, it represents a valuable resource for researchers and students alike.
Book
Numerical Study on the Impact of Reservoir Heterogeneity on Utilization of CO2 and Optimization Strategies in Low-Permeability Reservoirs
The intensification of the global climate crisis has thrust the imperative of controlling greenhouse gas emissions into the spotlight, commanding the attention of individuals, industries, and nations alike. Reducing carbon emissions and maximizing carbon utilization have assumed paramount significance in the contemporary industrial landscape. Within this overarching context, Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) technology has emerged as a transformative and pivotal means of addressing the multifaceted challenges posed by escalating emissions.Among the diverse CCUS methodologies, enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has distinguished itself as an up-and-coming technique, offering economic viability and environmental impact. Simultaneously, enhanced gas recovery (EGR) has recently gained momentum due to its remarkable potential as a negative carbon technology.This study employs an integrated approach to gain a deeper and more precise understanding of how reservoir heterogeneity influences the geological utilization of CO2.It commences with the utilization of FLAC3D and the \"gast\" tool in R language to generate comprehensive data fields that quantitatively characterize heterogeneity in terms of porosity standard deviation and correlation length. Subsequently, the research conducts a comprehensive and methodical analysis of how heterogeneity impacts CO2 gas displacement.
eBook
Large stocks of peatland carbon and nitrogen are vulnerable to permafrost thaw
Northern peatlands have accumulated large stocks of organic carbon (C) and nitrogen (N), but their spatial distribution and vulnerability to climate warming remain uncertain. Here, we used machine-learning techniques with extensive peat core data (n > 7,000) to create observation-based maps of northern peatland C and N stocks, and to assess their response to warming and permafrost thaw. We estimate that northern peatlands cover 3.7 ± 0.5 million km² and store 415 ± 150 Pg C and 10 ± 7 Pg N. Nearly half of the peatland area and peat C stocks are permafrost affected. Using modeled global warming stabilization scenarios (from 1.5 to 6 °C warming), we project that the current sink of atmospheric C (0.10 ± 0.02 Pg C·y−1) in northern peatlands will shift to a C source as 0.8 to 1.9 million km² of permafrost-affected peatlands thaw. The projected thaw would cause peatland greenhouse gas emissions equal to ∼1% of anthropogenic radiative forcing in this century. The main forcing is from methane emissions (0.7 to 3 Pg cumulative CH4-C) with smaller carbon dioxide forcing (1 to 2 Pg CO2-C) and minor nitrous oxide losses. We project that initial CO2-C losses reverse after ∼200 y, as warming strengthens peatland C-sinks. We project substantial, but highly uncertain, additional losses of peat into fluvial systems of 10 to 30 Pg C and 0.4 to 0.9 Pg N. The combined gaseous and fluvial peatland C loss estimated here adds 30 to 50% onto previous estimates of permafrost-thaw C losses, with southern permafrost regions being the most vulnerable.
Journal Article
How green is blue hydrogen?
Hydrogen is often viewed as an important energy carrier in a future decarbonized world. Currently, most hydrogen is produced by steam reforming of methane in natural gas (“gray hydrogen”), with high carbon dioxide emissions. Increasingly, many propose using carbon capture and storage to reduce these emissions, producing so‐called “blue hydrogen,” frequently promoted as low emissions. We undertake the first effort in a peer‐reviewed paper to examine the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of blue hydrogen accounting for emissions of both carbon dioxide and unburned fugitive methane. Far from being low carbon, greenhouse gas emissions from the production of blue hydrogen are quite high, particularly due to the release of fugitive methane. For our default assumptions (3.5% emission rate of methane from natural gas and a 20‐year global warming potential), total carbon dioxide equivalent emissions for blue hydrogen are only 9%‐12% less than for gray hydrogen. While carbon dioxide emissions are lower, fugitive methane emissions for blue hydrogen are higher than for gray hydrogen because of an increased use of natural gas to power the carbon capture. Perhaps surprisingly, the greenhouse gas footprint of blue hydrogen is more than 20% greater than burning natural gas or coal for heat and some 60% greater than burning diesel oil for heat, again with our default assumptions. In a sensitivity analysis in which the methane emission rate from natural gas is reduced to a low value of 1.54%, greenhouse gas emissions from blue hydrogen are still greater than from simply burning natural gas, and are only 18%‐25% less than for gray hydrogen. Our analysis assumes that captured carbon dioxide can be stored indefinitely, an optimistic and unproven assumption. Even if true though, the use of blue hydrogen appears difficult to justify on climate grounds. Blue hydrogen is the production of hydrogen from natural gas combined with carbon capture and storage. Commercial production so far is limited to just two facilities, but blue hydrogen is increasingly being promoted as a green, “low emissions” fuel. Here, we provide the first full lifecycle assessment of emissions from the production of blue hydrogen, including fugitive upstream methane emissions from the natural gas that is used. Far from being low carbon, we find quite large emissions that give blue hydrogen a larger greenhouse gas footprint than any fossil fuel.
Journal Article
Diversifying crop rotation increases food production, reduces net greenhouse gas emissions and improves soil health
Global food production faces challenges in balancing the need for increased yields with environmental sustainability. This study presents a six-year field experiment in the North China Plain, demonstrating the benefits of diversifying traditional cereal monoculture (wheat–maize) with cash crops (sweet potato) and legumes (peanut and soybean). The diversified rotations increase equivalent yield by up to 38%, reduce N
2
O emissions by 39%, and improve the system’s greenhouse gas balance by 88%. Furthermore, including legumes in crop rotations stimulates soil microbial activities, increases soil organic carbon stocks by 8%, and enhances soil health (indexed with the selected soil physiochemical and biological properties) by 45%. The large-scale adoption of diversified cropping systems in the North China Plain could increase cereal production by 32% when wheat–maize follows alternative crops in rotation and farmer income by 20% while benefiting the environment. This study provides an example of sustainable food production practices, emphasizing the significance of crop diversification for long-term agricultural resilience and soil health.
Food production systems need to balance yield and sustainability. Here, the authors conduct 6 years long crop diversification field experiments in the North China Plain, showing that diversifying cereal monocultures with cash crops and legumes cand improve yield and reduce GHG emissions.
Journal Article