GC059
Near-zero emission energy systems: Geophysical opportunities, limits, and consequences

Session ID#: 80150

Session Description:
Near-zero emission energy systems could potentially power civilization without further altering Earth's climate system. Several proposed near-zero emission technologies (including solar, wind, hydropower, and ocean thermal energy conversion) aim to convert available energy from the Earth's geophysical system to forms useful to humans. Other geophysical systems may be used to store potential, chemical, or thermal energy, or to offset emissions through carbon sequestration.

This session will highlight recent research aimed at identifying geophysical energy reservoirs and flows that might be converted to human uses, limits to that conversion and use, and unintended consequences if deployed at scale. This session will focus on environmental and geophysical sciences, however, discussion of technologies, and social or political barriers, is also welcome. Relevant topics could include: geophysical constraints on reliability and cost-competitiveness of various technologies, pathways to the deployment, novel technologies, and approaches to smooth fluctuations in demand and supply.

Index Terms:

1610 Atmosphere [GLOBAL CHANGE]
1631 Land/atmosphere interactions [GLOBAL CHANGE]
1635 Oceans [GLOBAL CHANGE]
1878 Water/energy interactions [HYDROLOGY]

Primary Convener:  Ken Caldeira, Carnegie Institution for Science, Dept. of Global Ecology, Washington, DC, United States
Conveners:  Steven J Davis, University of California Irvine, Earth System Science, Irvine, CA, United States, Jacqueline Anne Dowling, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States and Candise Henry, Carnegie Institution for Science, Global Ecology, Stanford, CA, United States
Primary Liaison:  Ken Caldeira, Carnegie Institution for Science Stanford, Dept. of Global Ecology, Stanford, CA, United States
 
Conventional Hydroelectricity and Near-zero Emission Energy Systems (Invited) (487659)
Emily Grubert, Georgia Institute of Technology Main Campus, Atlanta, GA, United States
 
Energy Storage and Zero Emissions Energy: Balancing In-Operation Emissions Benefits vs. Life Cycle Emissions Impacts (488612)
Brian Tarroja, Shan Tian, Haoyang He, Julie Schoenung, Oladele Ogunseitan and Scott Samuelsen, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States
 
Complementary roles of Power-to-Gas-to-Power and batteries in a 100% reliable wind and solar electricity system (488811)
Jacqueline Anne Dowling, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States, Mengyao Yuan, Carnegie Institution for Science Stanford, Stanford, CA, United States, Fan Tong, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, United States, Nate Lewis, California Institute of Technology, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Pasadena, CA, United States and Ken Caldeira, Carnegie Institution for Science Stanford, Dept. of Global Ecology, Stanford, CA, United States
 
Aligning climate and health benefits in power plant siting and retirement decisions (490402)
Ines Azevedo, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States, Brian Sergi, NREL, Colorado, DC, United States, Peter J Adams, Carnegie Mellon Univ, Pittsburgh, PA, United States, Allen L Robinson, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States, Steven J Davis, University of California Irvine, Earth System Science, Irvine, CA, United States and Julian D Marshall, University of Washington Seattle Campus, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Seattle, WA, United States
 
Hydrological limits of post-combustion carbon capture and storage (490759)
Lorenzo Rosa, University of California Berkeley, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, Berkeley, CA, United States, Marjorie S Went, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States, Jeffrey A Reimer, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, United States and Paolo D'Odorico, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States
 
Increasing the Use of Near-zero Emission Energy Technologies Depends on Social, Technological, and Policy Factors (497324)
Kristen Brown, US Environmental Protection Agency Research Triangle Park, Durham, NC, United States
 
A Simple Energy Modeling Framework for Transparent Investigation of Fundamental Energy System Properties (499971)
Ken Caldeira1, David Farnham2, Steven J Davis3, Lei Duan2, Candise Henry4, Jacqueline Anne Dowling5, Nate Lewis6, Rebecca Peer7, Katherine Rinaldi6, Tyler Ruggles2, Dan Tong3, Fan Tong8 and Mengyao Yuan7, (1)Carnegie Institution for Science, Dept. of Global Ecology, Washington, DC, United States, (2)Carnegie Institution for Science Stanford, Dept. of Global Ecology, Stanford, CA, United States, (3)University of California Irvine, Earth System Science, Irvine, CA, United States, (4)Carnegie Institution for Science, Global Ecology, Stanford, CA, United States, (5)California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States, (6)California Institute of Technology, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Pasadena, CA, United States, (7)Carnegie Institution for Science Stanford, Stanford, CA, United States, (8)Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, United States
 
Limits of electricity generation from wind: characterizing transitional scales in wind farm power density (502905)
Enrico Antonini and Ken Caldeira, Carnegie Institution for Science Stanford, Dept. of Global Ecology, Stanford, CA, United States
 
Wind Turbines Do Not Enhance Vertical Mixing near the Ground (507697)
Cristina L Archer, University of Delaware, Center for Research in Wind, Newark, DE, United States and Sicheng Wu, University of Delaware, College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, Newark, DE, United States
 
Generating a framework for inter-model comparisons in electricity dispatch modeling (508539)
Candise Henry1, Joseph DeCarolis2, David Farnham1, Tyler Ruggles1, Anderson Queiroz2, Hadi Eshraghi2, Rebecca Peer1 and Ken Caldeira1, (1)Carnegie Institution for Science Stanford, Dept. of Global Ecology, Stanford, CA, United States, (2)NC State Univ-Civil & Env Engr, Raleigh, NC, United States
 
Capture, don’t curtail: the costs and potential for direct air capture deployment powered by excess renewable energy in the United States (509972)
Udayan Singh, Fangwei Cheng and Lisa M. Colosi, University of Virginia, Department of Engineering Systems and Environment, Charlottesville, VA, United States
 
Baseload Generation Potential From Combined Wind, Solar and Storage Power Plants in the United States (510508)
Christopher Clack, Aditya Choukulkar, Brianna Cote, Sarah A McKee and Joshua Daniel Rhodes, Vibrant Clean Energy, LLC, Boulder, CO, United States
 
Constraining projections under deep uncertainty: the future of US electricity generation (517708)
David J Farnham1, Steven J Davis2, Nate Lewis3, Tyler Ruggles1 and Ken Caldeira1, (1)Carnegie Institution for Science Stanford, Dept. of Global Ecology, Stanford, CA, United States, (2)University of California Irvine, Earth System Science, Irvine, CA, United States, (3)California Institute of Technology, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Pasadena, CA, United States
 
Heavy-Duty Zero-Emission Vehicles for the Support of a Near-Zero Emission Energy System in California (518082)
Kate Forrest1, Michael Mac Kinnon2, Brian Tarroja1 and Scott Samuelsen1, (1)University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States, (2)University of California, Irvine, Irvine, United States
 
GeoVision Analysis: A Rigorous Technical Analysis Evaluating the Future of Low-Emission, Renewable Geothermal Energy Opportunities in the United States (518748)
Susan G Hamm, US Department of Energy, Washington, DC, United States and Jeffrey A Winick, Allegheny Science and Technology, Golden, CO, United States
 
Geophysical constraints on the reliability of solar and wind electricity systems worldwide (519919)
Dan Tong1, Ken Caldeira2, David J Farnham2, Lei Duan2, Nate Lewis3 and Steven J Davis1, (1)University of California Irvine, Earth System Science, Irvine, CA, United States, (2)Carnegie Institution for Science Stanford, Dept. of Global Ecology, Stanford, CA, United States, (3)California Institute of Technology, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Pasadena, CA, United States
 
Good Neighbors: Wind Farm Wake Impacts on Neighboring Wind Farms as Simulated with the WRF Wind Farm Parameterization (Invited) (534303)
Julie K Lundquist, U. of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States and Jessica Tomaszewski, University of Colorado at Boulder, ATOC, Boulder, CO, United States
 
Electric Grid Reliability Implications for a Near-Zero Emissions Energy System (550626)
Tyler Ruggles, Ken Caldeira, Lei Duan, David J Farnham, Candise Henry and Rebecca Peer, Carnegie Institution for Science Stanford, Dept. of Global Ecology, Stanford, CA, United States
 
Limiting global sea-level rise as a lower cost Climate target (579673)
Chao Li, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, The Ocean in the Earth System, Hamburg, Germany, Hermann Held, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany, Sascha Hokamp, Research Unit Sustainability and Global Change, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany and Jochem Marotzke, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany
 
Marginal Impacts of Near-Zero Emissions Technologies on Price and GHG Emissions in Fossil-Fueled Electricity Grids (591693)
Matt Tierney, University of Calgary, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Calgary, AB, Canada and Joule Bergerson, University of Calgary, Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Calgary, AB, Canada
 
Cost of reversing climate change as a CO2 mitigation strategy – using a cost optimization framework in the U.S. electricity sector (614056)
Tae Lim, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mechanical Engineering, Ann Arbor, MI, United States, Sarang Supekar, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, United States and Steven Skerlos, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mechanical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
 
Establishing an Upper Bound for the Power Density of Large Wind Farms (614786)
Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, United States and Colm-cille Patrick Caulfield, University of Cambridge, BP Institute/Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Cambridge, United Kingdom
 
The Effect of Geometry and Layout on Maximizing Air Exchange in Direct Air Carbon Capture Arrays (619565)
Simone Stewart, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, United States and Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, United States
 
Evaluating a near-zero emissions electricity system for California with a simple energy model (621768)
Katherine Rinaldi1, Lei Duan2, David J Farnham2, Tyler Ruggles2, Ken Caldeira2 and Nate Lewis1, (1)California Institute of Technology, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Pasadena, CA, United States, (2)Carnegie Institution for Science Stanford, Dept. of Global Ecology, Stanford, CA, United States
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