Open access paper: Bringing greenhouse gas removal down to earth: Stakeholder supply chain appraisals reveal complex challenges | 24 Sept 2021

Posted on by Diarmaid Clery in News | Comments Off on Open access paper: Bringing greenhouse gas removal down to earth: Stakeholder supply chain appraisals reveal complex challenges | 24 Sept 2021

Diarmaid Clery, Naomi Vaughan, Johanna Forster, Irene Lorenzoni, Clair Gough and Jason Chilvers have published a paper on appraising the feasibility of greenhouse gas removal (GGR) supply chains. The paper is published in the journal ‘Global Environmental Change’.

Roundtable for the Committee on Climate Change on GGR Policy Options | 14 Sept 2020

Posted on by Diarmaid Clery in News | Comments Off on Roundtable for the Committee on Climate Change on GGR Policy Options | 14 Sept 2020

Naomi Vaughan and Clair Gough were responsible for chairing a roundtable for the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) on Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR) options. The report created from this roundtable was used in Box 1.2, p.24 of the Policies for the Sixth Carbon Budget and Net Zero.

For older news please visit our News Archive

FAB-GGR is a four-year, £1.6 million multi-institute consortium project that aims to better define the real world feasibility and consequences of large-scale afforestation and biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) approaches to greenhouse gas removal (GGR). These two greenhouse gas removal approaches have been chosen because they: have a common basis in growing biomass on available land; and play the largest roles of any GGR approaches in future low emission scenarios that keep global mean temperature increase to below 1.5 °C and 2 °C.

The interdisciplinary research team is led by Dr Naomi Vaughan and involves scientists, engineers and social scientists from the University of East Anglia, the University of Manchester, the University of Exeter and the University of Aberdeen with support from project partners at the Met Office.  The project is part of the wider Greenhouse Gas Removal Research Programme, which will evaluate the potential and wider implications of a variety of options for large-scale removal of greenhouse gases. The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ERSC) funds the Greenhouse Gas Removal programme.

The project objectives are:

1. To assess the nature and requirements of afforestation and BECCS supply chains that achieve global net greenhouse gas removal levels of 1 GtCO2/yr and 10 GtCO2/yr respectively.

2. To explore the real world feasibility of these 1 GtCO2/yr and 10 GtCO2/yr supply chains, by evaluating their associated wider consequential environmental, technical, economic, policy and societal implications and trade-offs.

To deliver these objectives, the project is structured into six work packages.

 

Nem Vaughan

University of East Anglia

Brett Day

University of Exeter

Clair Gough

University of Manchester

Jason Chilvers

University of East Anglia

Mirjam Röder

Aston University

Astley Hasting

University of Aberdeen

Tim Lenton

University of Exeter

Anna Harper

University of Exeter

Irene Lorenzoni

University of East Anglia

Diarmaid Clery

University of East Anglia

Emma Littleton

University of Exeter

Thomas Ball

University of East Anglia

Nathan Owen

University of Exeter

Laurie Waller

University of East Anglia

Anita Shepherd

University of Aberdeen

Pierre Friedlingstein

University of Exeter

Amy Binner

University of Exeter

Ian Bateman

University of Exeter

Tim Rayner

University of East Anglia

Andrew Jordan

University of East Anglia

Johanna Forster

University of East Anglia

FAB-GGR has an Expert Stakeholder Group of about 30 people from business & industry, policy, civil society and academia that are involved over the lifetime of the project through participation in expert workshops run by the work package one team.  The purpose is to provide insight, guidance and feedback on our research from a spectrum of sectors and perspectives.

FAB-GGR has an International Advisory Panel who participate in our annual project workshops and provide advice and guidance to the scientific content of the project. The panel is comprised of:

Dr Silke Beck Science and Technology Studies. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Leipzig, Germany.

Chris Jones & Dr Andy Wiltshire. Carbon cycle modelling. Met Office, Exeter, UK.

Prof Detlef van Vuuren & Jonathan Doelman. Integrated Assessment Modelling. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Dr Jo House Principal investigator of the GGRiLS GAP project in the GGR programme. Environmental Science and Policy. University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.

Prof Pete Smith. Principal investigator of the Soils-R-GRREAT consortium project in the GGR programme. Plant & Soil Science. University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK.

 

Forster, J., Vaughan, N.E., Gough, C., Lorenzoni, I. and Chilvers, J., (2020) Mapping feasibilities of greenhouse gas removal: Key issues, gaps and opening up assessments. Global Environmental Change, 63, p.102073. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102073

Waller, L., Rayner, T., Chilvers, J., Gough, C.A., Lorenzoni, I., Jordan, A. and Vaughan, N., (2020) Contested framings of greenhouse gas removal and its feasibility: Social and political dimensions. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change. 11, e649. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.649

Sharmina, M., Edelenbosch, O.Y., Wilson, C., Freeman, R., Gernaat, D.E.H.J., Gilbert, P., Larkin, A., Littleton, E.W., Traut, M., Van Vuuren, D.P., Vaughan, N.E., F. R. Wood , and C. Le Quéré (2020) Decarbonising the critical sectors of aviation, shipping, road freight and industry to limit warming to 1.5–2° C. Climate Policy, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2020.1831430

Littleton, E.W., Harper, A.B., Vaughan, N.E., Oliver, R.J., Duran-Rojas, M.C. and Lenton, T.M. (2020) JULES-BE: representation of bioenergy crops and harvesting in the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator vn5. Geoscientific Model Development. 13, pp.1123–1136. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-1123-2020 

Zhang, B., Hastings, A., Clifton-Brown, J. C., Jiang, D., & Faaij, A. P. (2020). Modelled spatial assessment of biomass productivity and technical potential of Miscanthus× giganteus, Panicum virgatum L. and Jatropha on marginal land in China. Global Change Biology. Bioenergy. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcbb.12673

Shepherd, A., Littleton, E., Clifton‐Brown, J., Martin, M., & Hastings, A. (2020). Projections of global and UK bioenergy potential from Miscanthus× giganteus—Feedstock yield, carbon cycling and electricity generation in the 21st century. GCB Bioenergy, 12(4), 287-305. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcbb.12671

Donnison, C., Holland, R. A., Hastings, A., Armstrong, L. M., Eigenbrod, F., & Taylor, G. (2020). Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS): Finding the win–wins for energy, negative emissions and ecosystem services—size matters. GCB Bioenergy, 12(8), 586-604. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcbb.12695

Shepherd, A., Clifton‐Brown, J., Kam, J., Buckby, S., & Hastings, A. (2020). Commercial experience with miscanthus crops: Establishment, yields and environmental observations. GCB Bioenergy. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcbb.12690

Gough, C. and Mander, S. (2019) Beyond Social Acceptability: Applying Lessons from CCS Social Science to Support Deployment of BECCS. Current Sustainable Renewable Energy Reports, 6(4), pp.116-123. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40518-019-00137-0

Zhang, B., Hastings, A., Clifton‐Brown, J. C., Jiang, D., & Faaij, A. P. (2019). Spatiotemporal assessment of farm‐gate production costs and economic potential of Miscanthus× giganteus, Panicum virgatum L., and Jatropha grown on marginal land in China. GCB Bioenergy, 12(5), 310-327. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcbb.12664

Röder, M., Thiffault, E., Martínez-Alonso, C., Senez-Gagnon, F., Paradis, L. and Thornley, P. (2019) Understanding the timing and variation of greenhouse gas emissions of forest bioenergy systems. Biomass and bioenergy. 121, pp.99-114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2018.12.019

Albanito, F., Hastings, A., Fitton, N., Richards, M., Martin, M., Dowell, N.M., Bell, D., Taylor, S.C., Butnar, I., Li, P.H. and Slade, R. (2019) Mitigation potential and environmental impact of centralized versus distributed BECCS with domestic biomass production in Great Britain. GCB Bioenergyhttps://doi.org/10.1111/gcbb.12630

Harper, A.B., Powell, T., Cox, P.M., House, J., Huntingford, C., Lenton, T.M., et al. (2018) Land-use emissions play a critical role in land-based mitigation for Paris climate targets. Nature Communications9:2938 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05340-z

Gough, C., Garcia Freites, S., Jones, C., Mander, S., Moore, B., Pereira, C., Röder, M., Vaughan, N.E. and Welfle, A. (2018) Challenges to the use of BECCS as a keystone technology in pursuit of 1.5°C. Global Sustainability 1:e5 https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2018.3

Vaughan, N.E., Gough, C., Mander, S., Littleton, E.W., Welfle, A., Gernaat, D.E.H.J. and van Vuuren, D.P. (2018) Evaluating the use of biomass energy with carbon capture and storage in low emission scenarios. Environmental Research Letters13:044014 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaaa02

Keller, D.P., Lenton, A., Scott, V., Vaughan, N.E., Bauer, N., Ji, D., Jones, C.D., Kravitz, B., Muri, H., and Zickfeld, K. (2018) The Carbon Dioxide Removal Model Intercomparison Project (CDRMIP): rationale and experimental protocol for CMIP6. Geoscientific Model Development11: 1133-1160 https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-1133-2018

 
University of Aberdeen
Aston university
GGR Logo
University of East Anglia Logo
University of Exeter logo
University of Manchester Logo