GC065
Net-Zero Emissions Energy Systems: Geophysical Constraints, Consequences, and Opportunities

Session ID#: 159531

Session Description:
Net-zero emissions energy systems could potentially power civilization without further damaging our environment. Several proposed near-zero emissions technologies (including solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, and ocean thermal energy conversion) aim to convert available energy from the Earth's geophysical system to forms useful to human needs. 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, prominent technological opportunities, and unintended consequences if deployed at scale. This session will focus on environmental, geophysical and climate 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 deployment, novel technologies, and approaches to smooth fluctuations in demand and supply. These challenges may be addressed from a theoretical, computational, or experimental perspective.

Index Terms:

1616 Climate variability [GLOBAL CHANGE]
1878 Water/energy interactions [HYDROLOGY]
4324 Spatial decision support systems [NATURAL HAZARDS]
6309 Decision making under uncertainty [POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES]


Primary Convener:  Enrico Antonini, Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology, Stanford, United States
Conveners:  Sara Ashfaq1, Edgar Virgüez1 and Steven J Davis2, (1)Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology, Stanford, United States(2)University of California Irvine, Earth System Science, Irvine, United States
 
Health benefits and employment impacts of decarbonization in China’s electric power system (1139706)
Haozhe Yang, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, United States, Ranjit Deshmukh, University of California Santa Barbara, Environmental Studies Department, Santa Barbara, United States, Qian Luo, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, United States, Jiang Lin, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, United States, Jeremiah Johnson, North Carolina State University, Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, Raleigh, United States and Fernando Garcia Menendez, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Global Change Science, Cambridge, MA, United States
 
Enhancing Renewable Energy Systems, Contributing to Sustainable Development Goals of United Nation and Building Resilience against Climate Change Impacts (1142550)
Thian Yew Gan, University of Alberta, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Edmonton, AB, Canada, Jonathan Kai Ernn E Gan, University of Pennsylvania, Computer Science, Edmonton, AB, Canada, Taikan Oki, The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Engineering, Tokyo, Japan, Dai Yamazaki, The University of Tokyo, Institute of Industrial Science, Tokyo, Japan, Kei Yoshimura, The University of Tokyo, Institute of Industrial Science, Kashiwa, Japan, Holger Schüttrumpf, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany, Tim E Weis, University of Alberta, Mechanical Engineering, Edmonton, AB, Canada, Jianfeng Li, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong and Harri Koivusalo, Aalto University School of Eng, Espoo, Finland
 
Global Opportunities and Challenges for Floating Solar Power (1162661)
Rafael Almeida1, Rafael J. P. Schmitt2, Steven Grodsky3, Alexander Flecker3, Carla Gomes4, Lu Zhao5, Haohui Liu5, Nathan Barros6, Rafael Kelman7 and Peter B McIntyre8, (1)University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, United States, (2)Stanford University, Stanford, United States, (3)Cornell University, Ithaca, United States, (4)Cornell University, Department of Computer Science, Ithaca, United States, (5)Envision Digital, Singapore, Singapore, (6)Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil, (7)PSR, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, (8)Cornell University, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Ithaca, United States
 
Modeling carbon dioxide removal constraints in net-zero scenarios using historical analogues (1168655)
Morgan Edwards1, Gregory Nemet2, Zachary Thomas3, Kavita Surana4, Jenna Greene3 and Haewon C McJeon5, (1)University of Wisconsin Madison, Madison, WI, United States, (2)University of Wisconsin - Madison, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies / LaFollette School of Public Affairs, Madison, WI, United States, (3)University of Wisconsin Madison, Madison, United States, (4)University of Maryland, Center for Global Sustainability, College Park, United States, (5)Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Joint Global Change Research Institute, College Park, United States
 
Climate Model Simulations of Wind and Solar Droughts: Impact of Model Resolution and Bias (1176097)
Xue LIU, Texas A&M University, Department of Oceanography, College Station, TX, United States and Ramalingam Saravanan, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, United States
 
Assessing feedstock-dependent pathways to provide residential & commercial thermal services in low-carbon energy systems (1179727)
Edgar Virgüez1, Lei Duan2, Paolo Gabrielli3,4, Enrico Antonini5, Anna X. Li6, Tyler Ruggles5 and Ken Caldeira5, (1)Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology, Stanford University, Stanford, United States, (2)Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, (3)ETH Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, Zurich, Switzerland, (4)Carnegie Institution for Science Stanford, Department of Global Ecology, Stanford, United States, (5)Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology, Stanford, United States, (6)California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States
 
Regional Implications of Carbon Dioxide Removal on Achieving Net-Zero Emissions Targets (1188204)
Andres F Clarens1, Chloe Fauvel2, Jay Fuhrman3, Yang Ou4, Haewon C McJeon5, William Shobe6 and Scott Doney2, (1)University of Virginia, Department of Engineering Systems and Environment, Charlottesville, VA, United States, (2)University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States, (3)Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, United States, (4)Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Joint Global Change Research Institute, College Park, MD, United States, (5)Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Joint Global Change Research Institute, College Park, United States, (6)University of Virginia, Department of Economics, Charlottesville, VA, United States
 
Overcoming the disconnect between energy system and climate modelling (Invited) (1042169)
Michael Craig1, Jan Wohland2, Laurens Stoop3, Bryn Pickering2, Hannah Bloomfield4, Jethro Browell5, Alexander Kies6, Matteo De Felice7, Chris Dent8, Adrien Deroubaix9, Felix Frischmuth10, Paula L M Gonzalez11, Aleksander Grochowicz12, Katharina Gruber13, Philipp Hartel10, Martin Kittel14, Leander Kotzur15, Inga Labuhn16, Julie K Lundquist17, Noah Pflugradt18, Karin van der Wiel19, Marianne Zeyringer12 and David Brayshaw20, (1)University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI, United States, (2)ETH Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, (3)Information and Computing Science, and Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, The Netherlands, Utretcht University, Netherlands, (4)University of Reading, Department of Meteorology, Reading, United Kingdom, (5)University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom, (6)Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Frankfurt, Germany, (7)ENEA, Roma, Italy, (8)University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, (9)Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany, (10)Fraunhofer Institute for Energy Economics, Kassel, Germany, (11)International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, United States, (12)University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway, (13)BOKU University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria, (14)German Institute for Economic Research, Berlin, Germany, (15)Institute of Energy and Climate Research, Julich, Germany, (16)University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany, (17)University of Colorado Boulder, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Boulder, CO, United States, (18)Forschungszentrum Julich, Julich, Germany, (19)Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, De Bilt, Netherlands, (20)National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Leeds, United Kingdom
 
Shallow geothermal heat recycling – a ‘green’ alternative to conventional space heating methods (1065782)
Susanne Benz, Dalhousie University, Centre for Water Resources Studies, Halifax, NS, Canada; Kalrsuhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Karlsruhe, Germany, Kathrin Menberg, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Applied Geosciences, Karlsruhe, Germany, Peter Bayer, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Applied Geology, Institute of Geosciences and Geography, Halle, Germany and Barret Kurylyk, Dalhousie University, Department of Civil and Resource Engineering, Halifax, NS, Canada
 
Characterizing geophysical limits to wind power reliability (1075676)
Enrico Antonini, Edgar Virgüez, Sara Ashfaq, Lei Duan and Ken Caldeira, Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology, Stanford, United States
 
Comparing the Development of Decarbonized Electricity Systems under Different Environmental Co-Priorities: A California Case Study (1076490)
Brian Tarroja, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States, Rebecca Peer, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand and Emily Grubert, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, United States
 
Inspecting Alternative Decarbonization Pathways in an Open Energy Outlook for the United States (1082597)
Aditya Sinha1, Aranya Venkatesh2, Katie Jordan2, Paulina Jaramillo3 and Jeremiah Johnson1, (1)North Carolina State University, Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, Raleigh, United States, (2)Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, United States, (3)Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
 
Extreme weather and outages: designing resilient off-grid solar-wind-storage system (1084672)
Muhammad Shahzad Javed, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, Jakub Jurasz, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Environmental Engineering, Wroclaw, Poland, Tyler Ruggles, Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology, Stanford, United States and Tao Ma, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai, China
 
Net-zero emissions aviation (1118217)
Candelaria Bergero1, Greer Gosnell2, Seungwoo Kang3, Dolf Gielen4, Morgan Bazilian5 and Steven J Davis1, (1)University of California Irvine, Earth System Science, Irvine, United States, (2)Rethink Priorities, Denver, United States, (3)OneTech, TotalEnergies, Paris-Saclay, France, (4)IRENA, Bonn, Germany, (5)Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis, Golden, CO, United States
 
Optimizing battery storage deployment strategies to maximize decarbonization of China’s power system (1123230)
Liqun Peng, Princeton University, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton, NJ, United States, Yaofeng Desmond Zhong, Siemens Corporation, Princeton, United States, Gang He, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, United States and Denise L Mauzerall, Princeton University, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton, United States
 
Carbon intensity of hydropower: a key driver of power capacity expansion under climate policy in the African continent (1125731)
Andrea Castelletti, Polytechnic University of Milan, Milan, Italy, Angelo Carlino, Politecnico di Milano, Department of Electronics, Information, and Bioengineering, Milano, Italy and Rafael J. P. Schmitt, Stanford University, The Natural Capital Project / Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford, CA, United States
 
Extreme events increase carbon emissions and reliance on fossil fuel (1127153)
Wenli Zhao1, Biqing Zhu2, Steven J Davis3, Philippe Ciais4, Chaopeng Hong5, Zhu Liu6 and Pierre Gentine1, (1)Columbia University, Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, New York, NY, United States, (2)Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, Gif-sur-Yvette, France, (3)University of California Irvine, Earth System Science, Irvine, United States, (4)Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, Gif-Sur-Yvette, France, (5)Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, Shenzhen, China, (6)Tsinghua University, Department of Earth System Science, Beijing, China
 
A Macro Energy Modeling Framework For Transparent Analysis of Implications of Energy System Assumptions (1130005)
Ken Caldeira1, Anna X. Li2, Edgar Virgüez1, Enrico Antonini1, Jacqueline A. Dowling2, Lei Duan3, Michael Dioha4, Natasha Reich2, Nate Lewis5, Steven J Davis6, Tyler Ruggles1 and Sara Ashfaq1, (1)Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology, Stanford, United States, (2)California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States, (3)Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, (4)Carnegie Institution for Science Stanford, Stanford, United States, (5)California Institute of Technology, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Pasadena, CA, United States, (6)University of California Irvine, Earth System Science, Irvine, United States
 
Uncertainty in Technology Cost Projections and Least-Cost Decarbonized Electricity Systems (1133218)
Lei Duan, Carnegie Institution for Science Stanford, Stanford, CA, United States and Ken Caldeira, Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology, Stanford, United States
 
Technological levers and constraints of Power-to-Gas-to-Power: Hydrogen energy storage at scale (1046907)
Jacqueline A. Dowling1, Tyler Ruggles2, Anna X. Li1, Katherine Rinaldi3, Natasha Reich1, Kathleen M Kennedy4, Steven J Davis5, Nathan S. Lewis1 and Ken Caldeira2, (1)California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States, (2)Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology, Stanford, United States, (3)California Institute of Technology, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Pasadena, CA, United States, (4)California Institute of Technology, Division of Engineering and Applied Science, Pasadena, United States, (5)University of California Irvine, Earth System Science, Irvine, United States
 
Is There a Role for a Mid-Duration Storage Technology in Variable Renewable Electricity Systems with Long- and Short-Duration Storage? (1050972)
Anna X. Li1, Jacqueline A. Dowling1, Edgar Virgüez2, Tyler Ruggles2, Nathan S. Lewis1 and Ken Caldeira2, (1)California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States, (2)Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology, Stanford, United States
 
The Role of Flexible Geothermal Power in Decarbonized Electricity Systems (Invited) (1055632)
Wilson Ricks1, Katharine Voller2, Jack Norbeck2 and Jesse Jenkins3, (1)Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States, (2)Fervo Energy, Houston, United States, (3)Princeton University, Princeton, United States
 
Environmental Implications of a Net-Zero Chemical Industry (1059027)
Paolo Gabrielli1,2, Lorenzo Rosa2, André Bardow1, Marco Mazzotti1 and Giovanni Sansavini1, (1)ETH Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, Zurich, Switzerland, (2)Carnegie Institution for Science Stanford, Department of Global Ecology, Stanford, United States
 
The Value of Additional Hydro and Pumped Hydro Storage for Deeply Decarbonized Power System (1059958)
Sara Ashfaq1, Enrico Antonini1, Edgar Virgüez1, Lei Duan2, Michael Dioha3, Tyler Ruggles1, Steven J Davis4 and Ken Caldeira1, (1)Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology, Stanford, United States, (2)Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, (3)Carnegie Institution for Science Stanford, Stanford, United States, (4)University of California Irvine, Earth System Science, Irvine, United States