Introduction

"The Decarbonization Journey" provided an introduction of what decarbonization means. Let's learn a little about the current trends in decarbonizing our energy mix.

In simple terms, decarbonization has two basic components:

• The elimination of producing CO2 from fossil fuels
• The removal of excess CO2 already in the carbon cycle

The reason why we need to remove excess CO2 is because even if we stop producing CO2 right now, the impact from the current CO2 amount circulating in the carbon cycle will continue to alter our climate in a speedy manner for years to come. So it is not enough to stop producing CO2, we also need to remove the excess CO2.

Overview

The path to eliminate CO2 production from the use of fossil fuels hinges on replacing it with an increased use of renewable energy sources as in wind and solar (aka renewables). It also includes the use of other non-carbon energy sources such as nuclear, geothermal, and biomass. One can also add hydrogen in the list. However, the largest potential lies with wind and solar.

Removing excess CO2 involves a number of components. With looking at the carbon cycle diagram also shown in "The Relationship Between Energy and Climate Change", they include:

• Removing CO2 from fossil fuel energy production
• Removing CO2 from the atmosphere
• Increasing the amount of CO2 consumed by trees
• Increasing the amount of CO2 stored in the soil
• Removing CO2 from the oceans

I'll be going over each of these in separate postings.