|
Project Background
The most important driver of human-caused greenhouse effect is CO2 released through burning of fossil fuels. To ensure a sustainable energy future, our economy must move away from our current carbon-based energy sources. Climate models suggest that we must immediately begin mitigating atmospheric CO2
Successful mitigation of atmospheric CO2 pollution will require not one, but many solutions implemented in concert. As part of this mitigation effort, a number of carbon sequestration strategies have been proposed, ranging from large-scale afforestation and reforestation in terrestrial ecosystems; post-combustion capture of CO2 at coal-fired power generation plants; and pumping of the compressed gas into deep ocean and geological formations.
These approaches are stop-gap measures because carbon sequestered by growing trees will return to the atmosphere within a human lifetime. Doubts also exist about the feasibility of carbon sequestration in oceans, oil or natural gas wells or deep aquifers. There aren’t enough deep oil and natural gas wells in the US to hold all the CO2 we produce in the next 10-15 years.
It is clear that effective carbon sequestration must be based on sustainable processes that provide safe, stable carbon sinks with enough capacity to sequester a substantial fraction of human -caused CO2 emissions.
This research addresses a novel terrestrial carbon sequestration technique, bio-char soil amendment. This sequestration approach is low-risk; has the potential to sequester large amounts of carbon each year into long-term reservoirs; increases agricultural productivity; and improves water quality.
|
