What is the compelling question or challenge?
Climate change, caused by increasing atmospheric CO2, has brought our planet to the brink of disaster. The Big Idea: develop technologies for the public to capture and sequester atmospheric carbon.
What do we know now about this Big Idea and what are the key research questions we need to address?
Levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) have been increasing at an accelerating rate since the beginning of the industrial period. Because of the addition of this greenhouse gas to the atmosphere, our planet is warming, with dire consequences for biodiversity and human societies.
For members of the general public in industrialized nations, efforts to curb climate change focus on reducing CO2 emissions in their daily lives. These efforts have met with some success: technologies and products that enable the public to reduce emissions (e.g., zero- or reduced-emission vehicles and access to green energy) are rapidly advancing and being adopted by consumers. Nevertheless, carbon emissions are not declining at a rate that will reverse the impacts of climate change. Moreover, even if global carbon emissions were reduced immediately to pre-industrial levels, current levels of CO2 would continue to fuel the deleterious global impacts already occurring. We therefore need new approaches to carbon capture and sequestration.
Currently, the focus on carbon capture and sequestration is large-scale removal of CO2 via either: industrial-level carbon capture and sequestration; or protection and restoration of forest ecosystems. However, industrial-scale carbon capture is expensive and meets political resistance, and forests are under increasing threat from both agricultural conversion and climate change’s negative impacts from disease, drought, and fire.
The Big Idea: An alternative route to carbon capture and sequestration is small-scale carbon capture and sequestration––with mass participation. If existing infrastructure and activities in which the general public engages could be leveraged for carbon capture and sequestration, then even low levels of carbon capture and sequestration, when broadly adopted by the general public, could offset CO2 emissions. This Big Idea seeks to leverage the power of small change by many to create big impacts on carbon reduction.
Specifically, this Big Idea requires that the following key research questions be addressed:
- Can we use existing infrastructure to bring carbon capture and sequestration out of the industrial realm and into the public sphere? For example, can existing structures be fitted with the means of carbon capture and can captured carbon be sequestered or commoditized using existing municipal facilities and networks (such as waste collection, landfills)?
- Can we use chemical and biological engineering to develop routes for small scale, but widely available carbon capture and sequestration? Can these routes be readily integrated into consumer products, homes, public spaces, and commercial buildings? For example, can we develop CO2-binding biomembrane coatings for consumer products that bind CO2 when exposed to air, and then effectively sequester CO2 when products go to landfills?
- Can we engineer new agricultural lines and photosynthetic microorganisms for agriculture and residential or community landscaping that foster carbon capture and sequestration? Can we develop soil additives that enhance carbon sequestration?
- What are the risks and downstream challenges of deploying the above technologies? How can risks be minimized so that new materials are safe for use in people’s homes, municipalities, and local landscapes?
- What are the implications for public carbon capture and sequestration on biotic, aquatic, and climate systems, especially those that might already be impacted by global change? What unexpected effects (such as time delays, complex interactions) might confound our understanding of the responses of these systems to the above technologies?
Addressing these questions requires interdisciplinary research and collaboration across agencies and among research and technology groups in government, academia and the private-sector. This problem is therefore ideally suited for investment from the National Science Foundation.
Why does it matter? What scientific discoveries, innovations, and desired societal outcomes might result from investment in this area?
By investing in this Big Idea, the National Science Foundation would challenge scientists and engineers to develop and deploy new materials, chemicals, and biological strains for widespread, public carbon capture and sequestration. Investment in this Big Idea would therefore have far-reaching impacts across technology, engineering, science, and society.
For technology, materials science, and engineering, identifying routes by which the general public could contribute to carbon capture and carbon sequestration requires the development and deployment of new chemicals, biological strains, and materials the bind and sequester CO2. It will require developing the means for integrating these resources within existing infrastructure. Because elevated atmospheric CO2 is a global problem, developing solutions that are appropriate for a given community is key. Investment in this area will therefore challenge developers of technology, materials scientists, and engineers to collaborate internationally and in private-public partnerships to develop solutions that work for a given community or region. Such collaborations could spur new economic growth in sectors that generate these solutions. Moreover, although investment in this idea is geared for the public sphere, any innovations could ultimately lead to novel, cost-effective means of industrial-level carbon capture and sequestration.
For science, investment in this Big Idea could generate new insights into chemistry and biochemistry, genetics and evolution (especially when used to develop new biological strains), ecology and ecosystem dynamics, and the interplay of these different processes. Moreover, climate change is a dynamic process, and global and local factors can interact in complex ways. Scientists must therefore identify how carbon capture and sequestration (and, concomitantly, the efficacy of new materials or technology) might change in a complex, dynamic system. Indeed, because elevated CO2 is a global problem, investment in this Big Idea could fuel cross-disciplinary research among international teams to evaluate how local impacts on CO2 cycling are impacted by global patterns and vice versa. Thus, investment in this Big Idea could improve our understanding of chemical and biological responses to complex, dynamic systems at a global level.
Ultimately, investment in this area will impact the health and wellbeing of our societies. Climate change is already responsible for displacing people, destroying communities, and loss of income and economic development owing to global patterns of increasingly severe storms and fires; sea level rise; and crop and fishery failure. These impacts are will worsen if CO2 continues to increase. The political ramifications of these impacts are dire: famine and mass displacement can lead to political tensions that, in worse case scenarios, precipitate refugee crises and wars. By offsetting CO2, investment in this Big Idea could mitigate the threats we currently face.
If we invest in this area, what would success look like?
The decision to invest in this area will immediately raise awareness of the need for public involvement in carbon capture and sequestration. Thus, one metric of success is greater education of, and awareness by, the public of the need for both carbon emissions reduction AND increased carbon capture and sequestration in their homes and communities.
Once research and technology development are underway, mid-term success would be the implementation and deployment of new materials, products, and technologies that enable public participation in carbon capture and sequestration in their homes and communities. These technologies would complement, or be integrated with, further development of products and technologies that reduce CO2 emissions in the first place.
Ultimately, long-term success would be reduced CO2 levels. Whether such a reduction would reverse the existing impacts of climate change on biological, atmospheric, and oceanic systems remains unknown. Hopefully, that research problem can be addressed as an outcome of this Big Idea.
Why is this the right time to invest in this area?
We are experiencing climate change’s impacts NOW: coral reef die-offs and fishery loss; increased species extinction; increased storm, drought, and fire severity; and sea level rise are but a few of climate change’s effects. These impacts are occurring globally with people’s homes and lives being destroyed and entire communities being displaced from their sources of food and income. Climate change’s impacts will accelerate and significantly worsen if we do not stop the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Indeed, some scientists worry that we are approaching a “tipping point” beyond which our planet’s systems might not return to a state in which many species, including our own, can prevail. Despite technological advances that reduce carbon emissions, the time is now for aggressive atmospheric carbon reduction. We cannot wait to address the problem of climate change. We must develop means for the general public to both reduce emissions AND enhance carbon capture and sequestration.
References
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