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Tag: carbon neutrality

Net Zero or Carbon Neutral? What’s the difference?

Posted on by dishanth
Net Zero or Carbon Neutral? What’s the difference?

PAS 2060, a Publicly Available Specification that has been used as a guideline for demonstrating carbon neutrality, makes it clear that carbon neutral should be used to mean all scopes not just scope 1 & 2 (fuels burned on site and in vehicles and electricity consumption). However there has been a growing habit over recent years to use “carbon neutral” to mean just operational emissions – ignoring the value chain (scope 3) even though for most companies between 70 and 95% of their emissions are from the value chain.

To be truly carbon neutral, a company needs to reduce emissions from all sources as much as possible and then offset or actively remove the remainder.

Net Zero uses the same concept but at a larger scale, aiming for emissions from all sources to be reduced as much as possible and the remainder mitigated through removals from the atmosphere. These could be through supporting natural systems which sequester carbon (forest, peat, wetlands, seagrass, etc) or through technology like carbon capture and storage and buried solid carbon sinks.

The ISO 14068 standard will be a certifiable standard that ensures that emissions from all scopes are considered. (Click here to request a link to a recording of our ISO 14068 webinar or a copy of a factsheet.)

As time goes on, we need to be more cautious about avoided emissions (like technology sharing to reduce dependence on wood burning for example) as that prevents emissions that would otherwise have happened but doesn’t actively remove anything. So, it’s more like moving a share of emissions from one emitter to another, but on a global scale we need to be keeping total emissions to a minimum not just reducing in one place and emitting in another. It’s really important to support low carbon international development, but I think we’ll see a change in attitude to the value of avoided emissions in offsetting in future. A simple 2 tonnes avoided per 1 tonne allocated offset credit (for avoided emissions projects only) would work for example, as for every tonne emitted in location A, 2 tonnes are prevented in location B ensuring the overall emissions are net zero.

In short, a company that is carbon neutral is also net zero (calculated on a year-by-year basis), as in both cases the tracking of carbon emissions and removals need to match.

 

 

 

 

Source edie

A new carbon capture method turns CO2 into solid carbon ‘In an instant’

Posted on by dishanth
A new carbon capture method turns CO2 into solid carbon ‘In an instant’

A new decarbonization technology developed by RMIT University researchers in Australia instantaneously turns CO2 into solid carbon, a press statement reveals.

The team claims their method is commercially viable and that it could soon be deployed in aid of global efforts to reduce the ongoing effects of the climate crisis.

 

A ‘radically more efficient’ method

The new method is based on an existing experimental carbon capture technique that utilizes liquid metals as a catalyst. “Our new method still harnesses the power of liquid metals but the design has been modified for smoother integration into standard industrial processes,” explains Associate Professor Torben Daeneke, a co-lead researcher of the project. “As well as being simpler to scale up, the new tech is radically more efficient and can break down CO2 to carbon in an instant,” he continues.

 

 

The RMIT team’s technique uses liquid metal heated to between 212-248°F (100-120°C). This heated metal is then injected with CO2 to kickstart the required chemical reaction. The CO2 gas bubbles up to the surface of the liquid metal, leaving flakes of solid carbon behind in a reaction that only takes a second. “We hope this could be a significant new tool in the push towards decarbonization, to help industries and governments deliver on their climate commitments and bring us radically closer to net zero,” Daeneke continues.

“It’s the extraordinary speed of the chemical reaction we have achieved that makes our technology commercially viable, where so many alternative approaches have struggled,” Dr. Ken Chiang, a co-lead researcher, adds.

 

 

Is the rise of commercial carbon capture a good thing?

The team of researchers has filed a provisional patent application and RMIT has signed a 2.6 million dollar agreement with environmental tech startup ABR, aimed at commercializing the technology. It is one of many carbon capture methods in the process of being commercialized globally.

Another team of researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, recently announced that it had developed a technique that mimics the seashell forming process to suck carbon out of the oceans. This would have a positive knock-on effect, as the less carbon there is in the ocean, the more it can absorb from the atmosphere. In Scotland, meanwhile, a new carbon capture facility will remove up to 1 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere per year.

While carbon capture technology does have the potential to help in efforts towards carbon neutrality, scientists do caution that it must not be viewed as a replacement for widespread initiatives aimed at curbing the emissions of the fossil fuel industry. In July last year, for example, the U.S. Center for International Environmental Law wrote that carbon capture could act as a “dangerous distraction” that could delay the transition away from fossil fuel consumption.

 

 

Source Interesting Engineering