ISTP Colloquium talk: Can we go net-zero any time soon, and how?

Abstract

Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCU and CCS) systems play a central role in political debates, technological efforts and scientific developments around climate change, because of two factors. First, with the Paris Agreement, countries have agreed to hold global mean warming well below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. Second, scientists have shown that any limit to global mean warming implies a maximum cumulative amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the so-​called carbon budget. Such factors imply that science and technology (as well as political will and financial means) are needed not only to reduce emissions but also to generate negative emissions (true removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide), in case of carbon budget overshoot.

In this talk, several aspects related to the deployment of CCU and CCS systems will be discussed, namely (i) technology readiness levels in different sectors, (ii) trade-​offs between use of carbon, use of heat and power and use of land for the different technology chains, (iii) costs associated to them, and (iv) carbon taxes and credits related to them.