New Carbon Economy Consortium

New Carbon Economy Consortium

Vision for the New Carbon Economy

We stand at the dawn of the new carbon economy. In that economy, technologies, business models, and land management approaches will consider atmospheric carbon a valuable resource, offering a path to environmental sustainability and an engine for economic growth. To bring the new carbon economy

to fruition offers enormous potential to transform our world for the better, into a society where carbon from the air—rather than oil, gas, and coal in the ground—powers the global economy and restores balance to the Earth’s carbon cycle on which our thriving societies depend. The new carbon economy of the future will use carbon removal and utilization as a sustainable paths forward for many growers and industries. In this new economy, foresters and agricultural producers will manage their lands to store carbon in plants and soils, making their operations more resilient, productive, and profitable. Carbon emissions captured from industrial systems and from the air directly will be used as building blocks for constructing roads, building buildings, and producing consumer goods. Using the technological advancements of the new carbon economy, extractive industries will clean up carbon as a service. Some of these new innovations will lead to advances we can’t imagine today, much like the invention of the Global Positioning System, the internet, and accelerometers enabled the iPhone decades later. The new carbon economy will empower individuals with new opportunities for prosperity. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the energy we consume, and the buildings we live in can all be derived from processes that transform waste carbon into valuable materials and goods. New financial structures and institutions will emerge to deploy capital to products and services derived from waste carbon. Our politicians will have an expanded—and increasingly ambitious—set of new strategies they can endorse for tackling climate change. And new careers will emerge in public, private, and civil society, centered around opportunities derived from turning carbon waste into value.

Research institutions can and must lead our society toward the new carbon economy. Universities and national labs have the human, physical, and intellectual capital to chart the course forward. They have a mandate to serve their communities. And they are the trusted leaders that can inspire and catalyze key groups to action. The consortium is tapping into the mission and expertise of these established research institutions, channeling their expertise and collaborative relationships into the ambitious, forward-looking research programs we will need to have the carbon removal technologies and approaches at scale when we need them.

The Challenge: Building Momentum The new carbon economy is not inevitable. It must be built. Today, many of the technologies that turn carbon emissions into valuable products and services are too expensive to compete with those operating with fossil fuel–derived carbon, and existing markets do not encourage the removal of waste carbon appropriately. And while biological approaches to carbon removal and storage are cheap and ready to deploy, new incentives are needed to begin their deployment, and we need major advances in technologies for monitoring and accounting for carbon. Overcoming these obstacles is the hard work ahead for the builders of the new carbon economy. But the economic potential is great and the climate problem inescapable, motivating the formation of the New Carbon Economy Consortium and the already rapid growth in interest across sectors.

About the ConsortiumBuilding the knowledge, technologies, and human capital needed in the new carbon economy. The consortium first convened in June 2017 in order to bring together researchers from a number of prominent North American universities and national laboratories to discuss how they could conduct collaborative, applied research projects at a pace and scale consistent with not only the opportunities and challenges in front of us today but also the need to address climate change increasingly quickly. The Consortium has evolved from an abstract idea into the beginnings of multidisciplinary “moonshot” laboratory for all things carbon. The consortium will serve four essential functions in this moonshot laboratory. It will:

• Mobilize funding for interdisciplinary, multi-institution research collaborations with potential for catalytic impact on carbon removal and utilization

• Build research infrastructure, including networks of testbeds and open source databases that are essential foundations for future research initiatives

• Support the next generation of carbon removal innovators and practitioners via fellowships and human capital development support

• Convene events and develop thought leadership to foster dialogue and collaboration across all aspects of the new carbon economy: the social, political, and legal aspects; the major technical areas involved in carbon re-

moval and utilization; development of human capital; and support for a range of re-search resources needed to advance these fields rapidly

To jump start action, the consortium’s initial effort is a research roadmap designed to help leaders understand the opportunities and challenges ahead for the new carbon economy and visualize the next steps—immediate, medium term, and long term. Because the potential solution set for the new carbon economy is so wide, prioritizing action to build the new carbon economy is challenging. This roadmap is the consortium’s initial description

of the key pieces of this puzzle. It offers an initial prioritization of the key research tasks needed to unlock the promise of the new carbon economy in

the very near future, and is designed to form the basis of ongoing elaboration and refinement as the consortium’s pool of expertise grows.

The research roadmap has been drafted, and is moving into a 3-4 month long external review process.

To build this Roadmap, researchers from a wide range of disciplines and institutions have united to outline the foundation for the new carbon economy and identify a path forward to scaling new carbon economy solutions swiftly and effectively. This roadmap represents the work of scientists working on carbon cycling and materials

chemistry, and engineers working on systems design and bioengineering. It also represents the work of economists, business experts, and social and political scientists whose research is essential to building the new carbon economy. The New Carbon Economy consortium participants include: Center for Carbon Removal (CCR - convener), Arizona State University, Iowa State University, Purdue University, Colorado State University, Colorado School of Mines, Howard University, University of Wyoming, University of British Columbia, Cornell University, Columbia University, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, National Renewable Energy Lab, SandiaNational Lab, and Energy Futures Institute.

Interested in the Roadmap?Interested in the New Carbon Economy Consortium?We welcome your inquiries. Please contact us.

Noah Deich Ctr. for Carbon Removal noah.deich@centerforcarbonremoval.org Julio Friedmann Carbon Wrangler friedmann2@gmail.com Betsy Cantwell Arizona State Univ. elizabeth.cantwell@asu.edu

http://www.centerforcarbonremoval.org/new-carbon-economy/

NewCarbon

Economy Ahead

About this Research Roadmap to the New Carbon EconomyThis is not a typical academic roadmap. Instead, it spans disciplines, regions and landscapes, and major sectors of the economy, setting forth the blueprints for transforming our economy’s fundamental relationship with carbon. The Roadmap sets ambitious goals, laying out:

• The components of the new carbon economy and their rationale: why we must begin accelerating our investment in R&D for these solutions today

• The key R&D challenges facing carbon removal solutions, and a proposed sequencing of tasks to maximize the impact of investments in this space

• Specific recommendations for R&D projects in each area to address those challenges beginning immediately

• To the degree possible, the medium- and long-term research needs in each area