Could We SUCK UP Climate Change? Excess Carbon Dioxide Could Be Absorbed By Crops And Stored In Disused MinesSucking carbon dioxide out of the air might be used as a last-ditch attempt to stop global warming, UN scientists say.
The technology is proposed as a ‘Plan B’ if Governments fail to cut carbon dioxide emissions by up to 70 per cent before 2050.
Reducing greenhouse gases to manageable levels will cost up to four per cent of global GDP by 2030, according to a draft version of a report to be published in Berlin on Sunday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
hat would involve Britain and other nations increasing spending ten-fold on wind farms and other green projects over the next 15 years.
But if carbon emissions ‘overshoot’ the targets, more extreme solutions are needed which will send the costs spiralling even higher, the IPCC says.
A leaked copy of the report, seen by the Daily Mail, suggests Governments might have to start looking at ‘negative emissions’ technology which effectively suck CO2 out of the air and store it underground.
The leaked draft concludes that ‘essentially any’ emissions target can be achieved ‘regardless of the near‐term path’ of overshoot ‘by shifting emissions reductions to the future’.
But it says doing so ‘involves more rapid and deeper emissions reductions in the long run’.
The technology would work by using an experimental system called BECCS – Bio-energy with Carbon Capture and Storage.
It would involve growing crops that absorb CO2 from the atmosphere then burning them in a power station to generate energy.
The resulting emissions would then be captured at the plant and then stored underground. The net effect of that process would result in CO2 being removed from the air.
Britain would be an ideal place to try the technology, because there are thousands of old coal mines and gas wells which could be used as storage facilities for carbon dioxide.
The system has been tested at small scale in the USA and Canada – but the IPCC admits it would have to happen on a huge scale to be effective.
Joris Koornneef, an expert at sustainable energy consultancy Ecofys, estimates an area the size of India would be needed to produce enough biomass crops for BECCS to suck 10 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air – a third of the emissions reduction needed by 2050.
There are also concerns about how safe the technology is and whether it is even possible to store carbon dioxide underground long-term without it leaking.
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