U51A:
Getting Near Zero: Decarbonizing the Last 20% of Energy-Sector CO2 Emissions
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Session ID#: 13642
Session Description:
This session will assess the technical and economic feasibility of decarbonizing the last, and most difficult-to-eliminate, portion of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. Several recent studies have shown that continental-scale energy systems can be decarbonized with existing technologies, for instance by electrification or production of carbon-neutral gaseous or liquid fuels with additional removals of CO
2from the air to achieve zero net emissions overall. However, some of the same studies suggest that the marginal cost of avoided emissions rises sharply when eliminating the last 20-30% of emissions, such that achieving near zero emissions may depend on energy innovation.
Challenges to eliminating these last emissions include (1) exploiting and integrating intermittent electricity resources to achieve high reliability via supply- and demand-based strategies, (2) decarbonizing transportation sectors not amenable to electrification, (3) decarbonizing heavy industries, (4) possible scale up of nuclear and carbon capture and storage, and/or (5) CO2 removal from the atmosphere.
Primary Convener: Steven J Davis, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States
Conveners: Ken Caldeira, Carnegie Institution for Science Washington, Washington, DC, United States and Daniel Sanchez, Carnegie Institution for Science Washington, Washington, DC, United States
Chairs: Daniel Sanchez, Carnegie Institution for Science Washington, Washington, DC, United States and Steven J Davis, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States
OSPA Liaison: Daniel Sanchez, Carnegie Institution for Science Washington, Washington, DC, United States
Abstracts Submitted to this Session:
Jane C S Long, Retired, Washington, DC, United States
Julio Friedmann, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, United States
Mark Z Jacobson1, Mark A Delucchi2, Mary A Cameron3 and Bethany A Frew3, (1)Stanford University, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford, CA, United States, (2)University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States, (3)Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States
