Carbon Negative by 2030: CO2 removal options for an early corporate buyer

[Geoeng Info]

https://www-gs.llnl.gov/energy-homeland-security/carbon-economy

Carbon Negative by 2030: CO2 removal options for an early corporate buyer

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists have provided input on Microsoft’s pathway to become carbon negative by 2030. LLNL researchers built on their pivotal report “Getting to Neutral: Options for Negative Carbon Emissions in California," which has become a trusted adviser in the discussion of how to remove carbon dioxide from the air, to make recommendations to Microsoft. To meet its goal, Microsoft estimates it needs to remove between 5 and 6 million metric tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide per year by 2030—and greater amounts thereafter. LLNL analyzed five carbon removal pathways and found that the supply of carbon removal from these five project types has the potential to be larger than the needs of Microsoft as an individual buyer, but considerably less than the tens of gigatons needed to support net zero emissions. Given the long timelines to develop new technology, LLNL expects that the carbon removal market in 2030 will very likely comprise technologies that have already been piloted today and perhaps some that will be piloted by 2025.

AUTHORS 

Briana Mordick Schmidt, Joshuah K. Stolaroff, Sarah E. Baker, Nathan C. Ellebracht, Whitney Kirkendall, Aaron J. Simon, George Peridas, Eric W. Slessarev, Jennifer Pett-Ridge, Simon H. Pang, and Roger D. Aines, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550 

Matt Langholtz, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37830

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

This report evaluates the options and costs for Microsoft to purchase long-term carbon dioxide (CO2) removal on the approximate scale of 5–6 million metric tons annually by 2030. The scope was largely limited to interventions within the United States, given our resources and expertise. However, some conclusions may be broadly applicable to carbon markets globally, and we note that Microsoft’s carbon removal program is not limited to the United States. We examined five pathways for their potential to contribute to Microsoft’s carbon removal goal: biomass-based carbon removal and storage (BiCRS and BECCS), soil carbon, forestry, direct air capture (DAC), and carbon mineralization. These five pathways comprise those currently removing CO2 and those we believe are most promising to provide removal at scale in the next decade, within the scope of this analysis

Subsets of these five major pathways were included or excluded based on factors such as data availability, relevance to the stated removal target, and desired characteristics for carbon removal projects. The metrics evaluated differed between carbon removal pathways, as shown in Figure ES-1. For example, “quality” or “acceptability” criteria were key metrics for the biosphere storage pathways but were not explicitly assessed for the geosphere storage pathways. (We note that our analysis was largely conducted prior to the July 2021 publication of the report co-authored by Carbon Direct and Microsoft entitled “Criteria for high-quality carbon removal” (2).) Existing data supported quantitative assessments of removal cost and/or capacity by 2030 for biomass, DAC, carbon mineralization of existing mine tailings, and cover cropping, but such estimates were not supported for most soil and forestry pathways. As a result of these differences and variation in the research questions and analytical methods for each carbon removal type, the key findings for each removal pathway are largely independent of those for the other removal pathways.