Dr. Jennifer Wilcox is the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the reorganized Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management at the U.S. Department Of Energy. She is on leave as the Presidential Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. The two words Carbon Management have been added to the office title, and to Jennifer Wilcox they are very important as they point in the direction towards investing in technologies to reduce carbon emissions and minimize the environmental impacts of fossil fuel generation and use.

“We’ve flipped the mission upside down from focusing on technologies to advance the use of fossil fuels to less dependence. During the reorganization we’ve been looking at all investments in the office and recognizing the heavy dependence of fossil fuels in America. And going forward, the investments will be in technologies that minimize the effect on climate making us more independent on fossil fuels. Now focus is on the climate!” she explains.

The Biden Administration has introduced some very ambitious climate goals for the U.S., which are the focus of the activities in the FECM-office:

• 50% emission reduction by 2030
• CO₂ emissions free power sector by 2035
• Net-zero emissions economy by no later than 2050

This is clear in the unprecedented amounts of money invested by the U.S. government in climate action and carbon management over the next five year. No less than 62 bn dollars will be invested through the U.S. Department of Energy.   

The rationale behind the U.S. net-zero strategy is that to reach the target of 1.5 degrees C set in the Paris Agreement, not one single technology can take us there. There is a need for the deployment of a wide range of initiatives and technologies to get to net-zero.

“We are investing broadly in approaches that help to minimize the production of fossil fuels. Engagement from the private sector and local communities are important elements. It’s all happening in somebody’s backyard, and we have to look at investing in a way so that the community see the impact,” Jennifer Wilcox elaborates.

“What we put out in the atmosphere we have to be able to take back out”

According to Dr. Wilcox, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is a critical tool to help counterbalance the hard-to-decarbonize sectors such as shipping, transport, production industry, aviation etc., and thus has a critical role in helping the United States address he climate crisis and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. However, this does not mean that focus should not stay at how we decarbonize fast and immediately in all sectors.

“First and foremost, we need deep decarbonization of all industries dependent on fossil fuels. And once we reach net-zero by mid-century, we can start coupling the decarbonization with scaling up technologies for carbon removal to counterbalance. To help us get back to the pre-industrial levels. That’s the hope,” says Dr. Wilcox.

CDR encompasses a wide range of to approaches that capture CO₂ directly from the atmosphere and store it in geological, biobased and ocean reservoirs or in value-added products to create negative emissions. The advantages of carbon removal is that it can address emissions from the hardest to decarbonize sectors (e.g., agriculture, aviation and shipping) to accelerate the road towards a net-zero carbon economy. CDR can also contribute by removing legacy CO₂ emissions from the atmosphere. (Source: FECM)

CDR is distinct from point-source carbon capture from the fossil power sector and heavy-duty industry. According to Jennifer Wilcox it important to distinguish between direct air capture (DAC) and capture from point sources, as they are two very different tools. But the two technologies should be done in parallel.

“Capturing CO₂ from the source means avoiding its emission to enter the atmosphere in the first place. And it is cheaper and easier than direct air capture, which is hard to do. But direct air capture has different impacts and should be saved for the hard to decarbonize sectors, as a tool decoupled from managing carbon emissions from point source capture,” says Jennifer Wilcox.

Does CDR remove the focus from decarbonization?

One could argue that every dollar spent on carbon removal is a dollar not spent on renewables or other decarbonization initiatives. But according to Jennifer Wilcox carbon removal is a tool we need to have the solutions ready in time.

“Carbon removal is a tool we need. If we don’t invest in it now, we will not have it in time. We must push forward in parallel every tool in the kit for advancing deep decarbonization and at the same time push carbon removal. And is has to be done fast as we’re talking about gigatons, and we’ve never known how to scale up anything so quickly. It’s exciting times!” Jennifer Wilcox says.

Some of the examples of what can be done to scale up the carbon removal technologies is to look at how to create leverage and synergies with existing technologies.

“By leveraging existing utilities and integrate them with direct air capture we can reduce capital cost and ultimately also reducing the operating cost. With this we are not just producing carbon neutral power, we have the opportunity to go negative,” she explains.

How much CO₂ and at which price?

Carbon removal technologies are expensive pathways and the task of lowering the average cost of capturing CO₂ from the atmosphere is a big challenge. At the same time, the amount of CO₂ that needs to be captured is enormous, however, it will depend on how much and how fast we start decarbonizing.

“If we are at thousands of tons today, we need to get to gigatons by 2050. That’s a lot! And the leadership in the effort to reach net-zero is not just talking about the technologies but also creating a blueprint of where the technologies should be implemented and what should the budget numbers look like. We all live in the same greenhouse globally, and if we’re investing in first-of-a-kind technologies and learning how to lower the cost curve, other countries can learn from this,” ends Dr. Jennifer Wilcox.

Q&A

During the discussion more questions were asked than there was time to answer. Here are Jennifer Wilcox' written response:

Which CDR pathways are likely to yield the greatest results by 2030 in your opinion?
**there’s no silver bullet – we’ll need all approaches from technological to the biological solutions. Every region has different resources, from land, water, sustainable biomass, to low-carbon energy, and so we’ll need a portfolio so that all regions can benefit and see the value. 

Which industry that currently has significant CO2 emission do you think will be the first to decarbonize completely?
**100% decarbonization is tough when thinking of LCA. But we can get a lot of the way there with cement coupled to CCS. Pulp and paper has the ability to go negative when coupled to CCS. Some steel production – i.e., committed infrastructure associated with blast furnaces or direct iron reduction with synthesis gas (CO + H2) coupled to CCS. These are interesting industrial areas to couple to CCS. 

How do you think is CO2 utilization from DAC distributed in 10 years (geological storage, utilization through chemicals, utilization through organisms)? We are a young biotech DAC startup and discuss thing the final output concentration of the CO2.
**Geological storage we have the most expertise with and scales with our emissions, e.g., gigatons. CO2 conversion to chemicals you have to be sure the hydrogen is clean, and if the chemicals are combusted, these routes are at best neutral and not CDR. Through organisms is interesting too – but not a silver bullet, but part of the portfolio and you may not need high purity CO2 as a feedstock for both organisms and catalysis routes. 

Should we not transform agriculture as one example to something more sustainable rather than assuming it is too hard to decarbonize? Yes, that includes consumer changes.
** This area definitely needs attention – avoiding emissions, N2O, methane, etc. There are some CDR approaches too that include increased carbon storage in soils, but we need to be able to outline the tools required for monitoring, reporting, and verification – to be sure these approaches will scale and are additional. Lots of co-benefits, but need to articulate the tools and metrics for true durable removal. 

Since you mentioned the benefit of CC to remove other pollutants, what is the environmental impact of CDR and CC technologies? Are they being regulated as normal chemical industry? 
**CDR has not really started in the US yet, but as we put dollars out the door, we’ll require projects to include monitoring of co-pollutants to show the impact. We’re also doing this with our funds associated with carbon capture at point sources too. EPA regulates the Class VI wells for CO2 storage and require monitoring, reporting, and verification - and that’s through the Office of Groundwater Protection at EPA. 

Resources:

See Jennifer Wilcox' presentation from her talk

Read more about the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management’s strategic vision

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