There is so much we could be doing with biology besides health

# Could you genetically engineer high quality wood to grow quickly?
[[The technological and economic prospects for CO2 utilization and removal]]
           


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Could you genetically engineer high quality wood to grow quickly?

How does biochar work?

What is the status of Steel-slag based cement systems?

What is the status of geopolymers made from aluminosilicate based cement systems?

# The technological and economic prospects for CO2 utilization and removal
-P87
-  Ten Pathways
1. Polymers and other CO2 based products
2. CO2 based fuels
3. Microalgae fuels and products
4. Concrete
5. CO2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR)
6. Bio energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)
7.  Enhanced weathering which would increase the amount of CO2 stored in the soil 
8.  Storing carbon in forests/wood products
9.  Biochar used to help improve agricultural output
10.  
P87 - cycling pathways don’t actually sequester carbon but can replace fossil fuel use
P87 closed pathways store co2 permanently 
P88
CCU = Carbon Capture and utilization
CCS - carbon capture and sequestration
CDR - carbon dioxide removal
- CCS and CDR can fail to deliver a climate impact
- CCS does not imply CDR because of secondary effects 
- Counterfactuals are challenging
P89
- Flux of carbon from fossil fuels to atmosphere is 34 Gt/yr
- Flux of carbon from atmosphere to plants is 440 Gt /yr
- Amt of carbon from atmosphere to plants that stays on land is 12 Gt/yr
- One way to deal with carbon emissions is increase plant uptake
	- ‘4 per mille’ initiative is addressing this
- Use 2.4 Gt/yr to create products
- 42 Gt  in products
- 25 Gt in wood products
- 16 Gt in infrastructure
- Current rate into infrastructure is 1 Gt/yr
P90
- Creation of carbon products could leverage flue gasses from industry
- Assessed 11000 papers.
- 186/5000 papers provided cost estimates on conventional pathways
- 927/6000 papers provide cost estimates for non conventional pathways
- Conventional C02 usage pathways are
	- chemicals
	- fuels
	- microalgae
	- building materials
	- CO2-EOR 
- Hypothesize that conventional pathways could use ~0.5Gt/yr in 2050
- Hypothesize that 0.2-3.2Gt/yr could be stored in the biosphere and lithosphere
- TRL 9 ways of using CO2
	- production of urea (breakeven cost -$100/ton of CO2)
	- polycarbonate polls  (breakeven cost around -$2600/ton of CO2)
- Negative breakeven costs indicate profitable markets
- TRL 5-6 ways of utilizing CO2
	- Producing CO2 derived methanol in the absence of CO.
- Traditionally methanol is produced by hydrogenation of CO
- Chemical pathways could use 0.3-0.6 Gt/yr
- 0.14 Gt/yr produces 0.2Gt/yr of urea
- Currently urea needs a lot of energy because it requires ammonia which uses the energy intensive [[Haber—Bosch Process]]
- Urea is used for fertilizers which also produce much more warming N20
- Polymers could use 0.1-0.5 Gt/yr
P91
- Fuels could potentially use 1-4.2 Gt/yr based on markets
- US DoE targets $2/kg for H2 which would require carbon-free electricity to cost $0.03/kWh
- Enthalpy of electrolysis based hydrogen is 40kWh/kg
- Microalgae could potentially produce biofuels, high-value carbohydrates, plastics, and proteins.  
- Microalgae could use between 0.2-0.9 Gt/yr with breakeven cost $230-$290 /ton CO2
P92
- CO2 could be used as a curing agent in precast concrete market and pourable concrete markets
- Lime is CaO 
- Lime is important for cement and is emissions heavy
- Portland cement dominates the market and uses Lime
- Steel-slag based systems and geopolymers made from aluminosilicates are two possible alternatives to Portland cement   
- EOR = Enhanced oil recovery
- EOR is 5% of US crude oil production
- 1.1-3.3 barrels of oil can be produced per tonne of CO2
- 140 Gt could be stored using EOR
- EOR is economically viable if oil is $100/barrel, CO2 is $45-$60/tonne   
- Long-lasting wooden buildings could be long term carbon stores       
P94
- Most hydrogen feedstock is generated from methane
P95
- Places to possibly win
	- catalysts for the efficient production of syngas via dry reforming of methane with CO2
	- efficient photo/electrocatalysts to release hydrogen from water
	- high temperature reversibly reducible metal oxides to produce syngas using concentrated sunlight
P96
- Biochar is at low TRL                                                      
![](BearImages/39C15405-429F-43CF-A8AE-1A5513D37730-792-000074276B3D9A1C/81A534C6-D437-4A47-88B8-3844C8B41A6D.png)
![](BearImages/CB508D18-C147-4DF2-8991-EBB6D38CEC73-792-000070F06D0BD014/41586_2019_1681_Fig1_HTML.png)
![](BearImages/A8750302-0C74-4D1F-8F15-0949FFCD2E42-792-000101E08BCA9F94/7092F859-8B38-42BC-BA04-CB4CFC589880.png)
![](BearImages/76CB5517-3EBA-4A88-A4E6-1DCDC1D11E30-792-00010397D54EC9D7/E0B0B2F1-D7DC-451D-9C3A-4BE31FE4F55A.png)

             

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