Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability Lecture Notes

Introduction

• Speaker: Leah Tuck, Director of Development at Cornell Atkinson
• Purpose: Welcome attendees and introduce the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability
  • Mission-driven organization focused on applying Cornell's academic knowledge to real-world sustainability challenges.

Overview of the 2030 Project

• Speaker: Ben Fus, Executive Director of the 2030 Project
• Objective: Discuss Cornell's climate initiative, specifically on Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS).
• Overview of the 2030 Project:
  • Launched 2 years ago as a university-wide climate research initiative.
  • Focuses on impact-oriented climate work across various colleges and units within Cornell.
  • Organized around four themes to address global climate change:
    1. Food and Farms:
       • Preparing food systems for climate changes.
       • Reducing greenhouse gas emissions related to food production.
    2. Energy Systems:
       • Investigating future energy sources, including electricity and transportation.
    3. Materials of the Future:
       • Developing new materials to reduce emissions in production processes.
    4. Societal Impact:
       • Collaborating with social scientists to create policies and movements for addressing climate change.

The Challenge of Climate Change

• Greenhouse Gas Emissions:
  • 2/3 to 3/4 of emissions arise from energy production and chemical processes (steel, concrete, plastics).
  • Need for both reduction of emissions and removal of existing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
• Goals by 2050: Remove 10 gigatons of CO2 annually.
  • Gigaton scale analogies:
    • 1 kiloton = mass of 500 cars.
    • 1 megaton = size of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
    • 1 gigaton = massive rectangular prism on a city.

Recent Legislative Support

• New federal legislation aims to boost decarbonization technologies, including:
  • Chips and Science Act (2022)
  • Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (2021)
  • Inflation Reduction Act (2022)
• Funding to accelerate research, development, and adoption of CCUS technologies.

Current Projects and Initiatives at Cornell

• New Facilities: Introduced by Professor Phil Milner to create a "capture lab" for testing carbon capture materials.
  • Unique resource for testing on actual flue gas from Cornell’s power plant.

Professor Phil Milner's Project

• Focus on post-combustion carbon capture technologies.
• Plan to establish a stationary testing facility near the power plant to allow global collaboration on new materials.

Professor Grishma Gadikota's Contributions

• Development of energy-efficient CO2 capture and conversion technologies.
• Successfully reduced CO2 emissions in cement production by 30-40% using innovative methods.
• Collaborated with industry partners for scaling solutions in the iron and steel industry.

Other Faculty Insights

• Professor T. Ham:
  • Discussed the importance of translating lab research into real-world applications and mentioned efforts on CO2 conversion into sustainable aviation fuels.
• General Discussion:
  • Need for multi-faceted approaches to tackle climate challenges, emphasizing that no single solution will suffice.
  • Importance of collaboration between universities and industry.

Q&A Session Highlights

• Discussion on the scalability of carbon capture technologies and costs associated with CO2 removal.
• Challenges of coordinating efforts across universities and institutions.
• The need for comprehensive measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems.
• Importance of utilizing captured carbon effectively versus mere storage.

Conclusion

• The consensus on the need for a diverse array of solutions to combat climate change effectively, combining technological advancement and collaborative efforts across sectors.