Students of Today, Leaders of Tomorrow -- Meet the New Faces of Carbon Removal

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August 05, 2020

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by Jane Zelikova and Vanessa Suarez (Carbon180) ... Carbon180 is helping elevate a new generation of climate researchers, policymakers, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and advocates. This past June, we launched the remote Carbon180 summer internship program with the goal of helping build and expand the bench of carbon removal experts and support the next generation of climate leaders.

Launching an internship program during a global pandemic is no small feat. We set out to build a remote program that is inclusive, interactive, and accessible. We designed an internship to emulate the “office” experience, providing opportunities for interns to network and grow carbon removal expertise, and to build a sense of cohesion within the cohort and with the rest of the Carbon180 team.

We received close to 700 applications for the internship, many from stellar undergraduate students across the country, including students from junior colleges, research universities, and specialized and mission-driven colleges. While we love seeing so much interest in a carbon removal internship, we also recognize that this was one of the few remaining paid opportunities for students who lost their research and internship offers as a result of COVID-19. The sheer number of applications we received also speaks to the dire need for more student opportunities that are well paid and accessible. The carbon removal leaders of tomorrow can’t have a seat at the table if only a select few can even afford a seat.

The Carbon180 Internship Program

The Carbon180 internship program for undergraduate students is a 10 week paid research and analysis experience. The interns, working from locations across the US, are spending their summer getting into the weeds of carbon removal, from ocean carbon removal science to direct air capture (DAC) policy. Each intern is focused on a carbon removal pathway that aligns with their interests, concentrating in either policy or science research and analysis, and culminating in a final policy brief or research paper. There are ample opportunities for collaboration with fellow interns and full-time staff across science, policy, and communications. Interns also participate in existing Carbon180 projects, bringing fresh ideas and catalyzing new directions for our work.

If the future of carbon removal is in their hands, we’re optimistic for our climate.

Without further ado, meet the next generation of climate leaders!

Courtni Holness ...

Emelyn Chiang ...

Jessie McGinley ...

Maya Glicksman ...

Olivia Hemond ...

Samuel Orellana ...

Vanessa Ishimwe ...

This tech nonprofit is moving carbon capture from sci-fi to reality -- Despite a multi-billion dollar market, carbon removal technology is still fringe. Carbon180 is out to make them mainstream. (Climate & Capital Media)

Holly Jean Buck: How to Decolonize the Atmosphere (Progressive International)

The BECCS effect: In 2019, Drax’s bioenergy with carbon capture use and storage (BECCS) pilot started capturing CO2 in a world-first with 100% biomass feedstock. (Bioenergy Insight)

Climate Solutions Series: Carbon Dioxide Removal Solutions (Center for Strategic and International Studies)

British Steel forges partnership to support Drax’s CCS project (Biomass Magazine/Drax Group)

Excerpt from Progressive International: What tools can or should be used to decolonize the atmosphere? Estimates like those from the IPCC have prompted discussion of what methods could actually accomplish this transfer of carbon from the atmosphere to elsewhere. Forests, soils, oceans, and underground rock formations could all be sinks for storage. Despite the legacy of climate policy related to sink enhancement schemes like REDD+, these discussions remain generally apolitical, focused on projects’ technical feasibility or the carbon price required to justify them.

Technically, we could store more carbon in ecosystems through agroforestry, afforestation, and regenerative agriculture. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies, while previously used for point-source capture with fossil fuels, can be paired with bioenergy power plants or machines that capture carbon directly from the air (“direct air capture”). Other techniques, like speeding up the rate at which rocks weather or removing carbon directly from seawater, are under investigation.

But discussion of carbon removal approaches must not be merely technical, but explicitly political. There are two reasons for this. First, the default approach to carbon removal under existing power structures both (a) risks further harm to frontline communities and ecosystems; and (b) probably won’t remove climate-significant amounts of carbon. Second, these carbon removal techniques actually could be tools for decolonizing the atmosphere, if designed and used for that purpose. It is now technically possible for First World nations and firms to take back past emissions, and clean up the atmosphere to make the climate more stable for every being on Earth. While current politics might make this seem an unlikely prospect, the fact that it is possible to restore the atmosphere means it is worth considering what it might take to get there.

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Many industrial processes such as cement, steel manufacturing, and steam cracking for ethylene require high-temperature heat. Carbon capture can be applied to some of these processes, but other sectors like agriculture are also difficult to decarbonize. There are real engineering and biological challenges with decarbonizing some of these activities. On the other hand, there will be debates around what is truly biophysically difficult to decarbonize versus what is financially difficult to decarbonize for companies whose profits require using the atmosphere as a free waste dump.

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Currently, it is clear that dreams of large-scale, climate-significant carbon removal will easily be stolen and warped to justify continued extraction. Consider, for example, the fact that at present, the main financially viable route to scaling up direct air capture technology leads through a process called “enhanced oil recovery” (EOR) — which, just like it sounds, involves injecting CO2 into depleted oil wells to recover more oil. This is framed as a “bridge” to financing direct air capture in the absence of any real climate policy.

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We already know that companies can misuse incentives for CCS because they already have: in the US, the 45Q tax credit provides $35/ton for CO2 with EOR, and $50/ton for dedicated carbon storage. But in an audit of claims on this tax credit, 87% of the nearly $900,000,000 in rebates were granted while firms were not in compliance. Several even failed to submit monitoring and verification plans.

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Many of the activities the GND resolution promotes could involve carbon removal, including clean manufacturing, restoring and protecting threatened ecosystems, repairing and upgrading infrastructure, and “promoting the international exchange of technology, expertise, products, funding, and services”.

Regeneration is already present in the GND. The US resolution commits to “working collaboratively with farms and ranchers in the United States to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible” by supporting family farming, investing in soil health, and building a more sustainable food system that ensures universal access to healthy food. In fact, some of the extant institutions and policies the US can use to support regeneration have roots in the first New Deal. Building the Great Plains shelterbelt, the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) planted 220 million trees, creating 18,000 miles of windbreaks on 30,000 farms. The SCS evolved to become the National Resources Conservation Service, which administers programs that assist farmers in cover cropping and conservation tillage today.

Granted, few politicians seem to grasp the scale of effort necessary.

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While some land-based measures like afforestation or soil carbon sequestration could in a progressively-supported scenario reach levels of 2–5 Gt drawdown annually, this rate cannot be maintained year-on-year because sinks “saturate”, or get filled up, so year-on-year rates fall to zero over a few decades. Then the carbon must be held there, or we risk losing it back to the atmosphere.

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1. Link carbon removal with the managed decline of fossil fuels

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Supply-side policies that integrate carbon removal and production: this could mean a “carbon takeback requirement”, through which companies are required to take back carbon they emit or produce.

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Just transition programs: Supporting workers to transition from fossil fuel extraction jobs ....

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Minimizing remaining emissions: This involves ramping up research and development on how to go the final mile ....