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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 12, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 1999

JOURNAL ARTICLES...
MITIGATION STRATEGIES

Item #d99jan7

“Exploring Options for CO₂ Capture and Management,” Carola Hanisch, Environ. Sci. & Technol. 33 (3), 66 A-70 A (Feb. 1, 1999).

The Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies held in Interlaken, Switzerland, last fall reviewed progress in large-scale mitigation efforts and the technical principles on which they are based. A summary of the conference highlighted several of these efforts:

• Norsk Hydro is planning a 1300-megawatt (MW) hydrogen power plant that will produce 10% of Norway’s electricity. The project will produce hydrogen from natural gas in a reforming process. The CO₂ produced as a waste product will be separated using a conventional chemical absorption process and then pumped into an offshore oilfield for use in enhanced oil-recovery operations. The remaining hydrogen-rich gas stream will serve as a fuel in a combined-cycle power plant.
• An international European research project has accumulated two years’ experience with CO₂ injection into an aquifer under the Norwegian North Sea and is establishing a best-practices manual to help them make decisions about future injection projects.
• In the United States, initial results from the world’s first pilot project to inject CO₂ into deep coal seams to enhance methane recovery show this new technology to be technically and economically feasible. The CO₂ gas is absorbed on the coal surface, thereby replacing and freeing methane. Two molecules of CO₂ are trapped for every molecule of methane released.
• Kvaerner Oil & Gas and W. L. Gore & Associates have initiated an R&D project that will remove CO₂ from flue gas. The gas will be pumped through Teflon-membrane fibers surrounded by the absorption liquid; CO₂ passes through the semipermeable membrane and is absorbed and removed by the liquid.
• In the North Sea off the Norway coast, the world’s first ocean-aquifer storage project separates CO₂ from natural gas and pumps it into an aquifer 800 m under the floor of the Norwegian North Sea.
• Japan, Norway, Canada, a Swiss company, and the United States have agreed to conduct a pilot-scale field experiment in which a pipeline will be laid on the seafloor off the coast of Hawaii and liquid CO₂ will be released at a depth of 1000 m.
• “Trade-Offs in Fossil Fuel Use: The Effects of CO₂, CH₄, and SO2 Aerosol Emissions on Climate,” K. A. S. Hayhoe et al., World Resource Rev. 10 (3), 321-333 (1998).

Switching fuels from coal to gas was found to increase the global mean temperature for the first 40 years of the study period. Thereafter, it had a mitigating effect on temperature change. The results are strongly dependent on methane releases to the atmosphere during transport and processing, sulfur emissions and their forms during combustion, and the magnitude of radiative forcing attributed to aerosols.

Item #d99jan8

“Magnitude and Distribution of Collateral Impacts from Carbon Dioxide Emissions Stabilization Scenarios,” K. J. Holmes and J. H. Ellis,World Resource Rev. 10 (3), 334-347 (1998).

An integrated-assessment model was used to simulate four pathways for lowering CO₂ emissions: decreased population growth, low-cost biomass energy, carbon taxes, and low-cost nuclear power. The results indicated that CO₂ emission stabilization was not sufficient to reduce future climate change; other emissions (SO2, CH₄, and halocarbons) play a major role in global warming; low-cost biomass would result in the lowest warming but would increase sulfur and mercury emissions; and low-cost nuclear power would reduce warming but greatly increase the amount of nuclear waste to be disposed of.

Item #d99jan9

“The Kyoto Protocol: Provisions and Unresolved Issues Relevant to Land-Use Change and Forestry,” Bernhard Schlamadinger (uvu@ornl.gov) and Gregg Marland (gum@ornl.gov),Env. Sci. and Policy 1, 313-327 (1998).

An analysis of the Kyoto Protocol found that certain passages are ambiguous and that the Protocol limits opportunities to use forest-related activities to meet national obligations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Portions and aspects of the Protocol that merit further consideration and clarification before it is put into force include:

• The term reforestation needs to be clearly defined.
• Article 3.3 contains contradictory language about how credits are to be measured.
• The provision in Article 3.7 that bars countries having a net carbon sink attributable to land-use change and forestry in 1990 from including those emissions in calculating their 1990 baseline should be rethought.
• The rules governing how the baselines are to be set for joint implementation and the clean development mechanism need to be clarified.
• Additional forest-management activities need to be included.
• “Management of Philippine Tropical Forests: Implications to Global Warming,” R. D. Lasco, World Resource Rev. 10 (3), 410-418 (1998).

Since 1900, the Philippines has lost 15.7 M ha of tropical forests. This loss represents 2.7 billion tons of carbon. Four management strategies were identified for dealing with this loss: preserving all old-growth forests, using second- growth forests for forest products, rehabilitating degraded lands through reforestation, and stabilizing upland farms through agroforestry. Calculations showed that, if these practices were followed, Philippine forests would be able to sequester 33 to 42% of Philippine CO₂ emissions.

Item #d99jan10

“The Impact of Photovoltaics on CO₂ Emissions’ Reduction in the U.S.,” V. M. Fthenakis and J. C. Lee, World Resource Rev. 10 (3), 434-445 (1998).

Photovoltaic technologies were investigated with the MARKAL-MACRO model. With improvements in cost and efficiency assumed, photovoltaics were seen to be competitive sources of electricity in the Southwest United States by 2010. Assuming favorable market penetration, an installed base of 140 GW could displace 64 million metric tons of carbon emissions per year by 2030.

Item #d99jan11

“Contributions of Canadian Agriculture to Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Preliminary Results of Selected Policy Options,” S. N. Kulshreshtha et al.,World Resource Rev. 10 (4), 515-535 (1998).

An integrated economic planning and emissions model was calibrated to 1990 and used to estimate greenhouse-gas emissions from Canadian agriculture in the year 2010 under the assumption that soil organic matter would be in equilibrium. Under current practices, emissions are expected to decrease 6.4% during the study period. Seven mitigative measures were tested. Neither reducing summer fallowing nor increasing conservation tillage had any appreciable effect on emissions. Improving fuel efficiency of farm equipment and reducing fertilizer applications each reduced emissions by almost 2%. Improving manure-handling systems and rumen efficiency decreased emissions up to 4%, but increased consumption of red meat could undercut any of these gains.