The fifth webinar installment of the six-part series on fostering youth-led innovation for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), titled “Global Citizenship in Carbon Capture, Use, and Storage (CCUS) and New Carbon Economy,” will be held on Tuesday, October 17 from 2:00-3:00PM EDT. Designed for the innovative and entrepreneurial audience, this webinar will focus on the unique challenges and opportunities green entrepreneurs face in researching, developing, scaling, and commercializing their innovations to create a more sustainable future.
To meet the ambitious goal of limiting global warming to well below 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius (°C) above pre-industrial levels, governments, industries, and communities must take climate mitigation actions with technologies to decrease or reverse the rate at which human activities emit carbon from fossil fuels and ecosystems to the atmosphere as greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2). CCUS, in particular, captures CO2 from major point sources like power plants and industries fueled by fossil fuels or biomass. The captured CO2 is transported and either used in various applications or stored in geologic reservoirs, if not used on-site. The deployment of CCUS technologies has recently gained much traction in North America and Europe, enabled by favorable policies1. Along with other carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies at different stages of development2, CCUS is highly promising for achieving net-zero emissions and clean energy transition, giving way to nature-based solutions3 and leading to a low-carbon economy. In anticipation of broad-scale applications, the US federal agencies lately announced it as a research priority to improve the fundamental understanding of CDR, field test the technologies, and assess its environmental and societal impacts.
The webinar will help audience gain insights into CCUS and CDR. Expert panelists will kick off the session by unraveling the scientific intricacies of CCUS, ranging from data-driven analyses to the innovative engineering designs underpinning these projects. Attendees will envision how these technologies are poised to reshape our physical, ecological, and societal landscapes as we transition towards a more sustainable future with new carbon economy. The event culminates with the experts sharing real-world challenges and successes in scaling up CDR endeavors, providing a practical perspective on a low-carbon future.
The panel discussions will intend to bridge the gap between technical understanding and real-world application, offering a glimpse into a future where technological innovation harmonizes with sustainability. Central themes and guiding questions for the panel discussions are:
Scientific Analysis and Open Data on CCUS: What defines a successful CCUS project? How do scientific analyses illuminate the geophysical mechanisms and engineering designs pivotal to successful CCUS projects?
Transformative Impacts of CCUS and CDR: In what ways do CCUS and CDR technologies catalyze transformative alterations in our physical, ecological, societal, and economic landscapes, and what are the implications for the global communities?
Envisioning a Low-Carbon Future: How can we best imagine and prepare for a 'new carbon economy' and a low-carbon future, and what can we learn from industrial endeavors of deploying and scaling up CDR projects?
Panelists:
Amanda Ellis
Former UN Ambassador Amanda Ellis serves as Executive Director for the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation and Senior Director for the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University. She co-chairs the WE Empower UN SDG Challenge and has held influential roles including New Zealand's Ambassador to the UN in Geneva and head of the New Zealand Aid Programme. Her significant work with the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation emphasized gender equity, notably through projects like "Women, Business and the Law." An accomplished author, she's penned best-sellers and several research titles. Recognized for her contributions, she's received multiple awards, including the TIAW Lifetime Achievement Award. Ellis serves on numerous advisory boards, including the UN Target Gender Equality and the East-West Center Board of Governors. She holds advanced degrees from various institutions, including the University of Otago and University of Hawaii, and has undergone executive training at Harvard, Stanford, and INSEAD.
Greg Dipple
Greg Dipple is Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of British Columbia. He studies the processes of and driving forces for mineral-fluid reactions, including those that modulate long-term climate through chemical weathering. He has published extensively on fluid-rock interactions from the deep Earth to its surface. Through field, experimental, and modeling studies, he and his students and postdocs have demonstrated that weathering of alkaline mine wastes are vastly accelerated over background weathering rates and impact the short term carbon cycle. Current work focuses on industrial control of these processes for carbon capture, utilization and storage. Dr. Dipple has worked at The University of British Columbia since 1992. He has served as a Department Head and Associate Dean, and in administrative roles for the Mineral Deposit Research Unit and the Bradshaw Research Institute for Minerals and Mining.
Douglas Schmitt
Prof. Douglas Schmitt carries out applied field and laboratory based geophysical research with a particular focus on topics in energy exploration and recovery and the safe underground storage of hydrogen and greenhouse gases. He is currently the Brand Professor of Unconventional Energy at Purdue University in Indiana. He has collaborated in numerous scientific drilling projects centered on geothermal energy, tectonics, and meterorite impact structures. He currently serves as an Editor for the Journal of Geophysical Research - Solid Earth.
Moderators:
Yunyue Elita Li
Dr. Yunyue Elita Li joined the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science at Purdue University as a Mary J. Elmore New Frontiers Associate Professor in Data Science since August 2021. Prior to that, she was an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the National University of Singapore since 2016. Elita’s research group works on efficient and optimized geophysical solutions around the energy cycle of discovery, utilization, reuse and decarbonization. Elita was the recipient of the J. Clarence Karcher Award from SEG in 2018, the SEG South & East Asia Honorary Lecturer for 2022, and the recipient of the Young Innovator Award for Land Transport Excellence by the Land Transport Authority of Singapore.
Wen-wen Tung
Prof. Wen-wen Tung is an Associate Professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) at Purdue University. A native of Taiwan, she earned her Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2002. Subsequently, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Advanced Study Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. For over 15 years, she has balanced research and education, applying data science to Atmospheric, Climate, and Earth Systems research, with a particular focus on multiscale and/or long-memory phenomena. Most recently, she has studied extreme moisture transports into the Arctic and their roles in Arctic amplification. Her work is bolstered by high-performance computing, which facilitates data science applications, big data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. She is the founder and current director of the Geodata Science for Professionals MS program at Purdue University.
BACKGROUND:
The North American EcoInnovation Network in partnership with the Columbia Climate School are excited to invite you to attend the first webinar in our six-part series titled “Forging Youth-Led Innovation for the SDGs”. To kick-start our discussions, this introductory event seeks to build on Mission 4.7 of the United Nations Sustainable Development goals. Under the lens of “Transformative” Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), we seek to bring together thought leaders across all sectors to discuss: 1) why transformative approaches to education are imperative to delivering the entrepreneurial capabilities, and 2) how they can be leveraged deepen youth engagement so to foster the type of entrepreneurial values, knowledge, and capabilities necessary to achieve the goals outlined in the 2030 Agenda.
While transformative education applies to learners of all ages and levels, it is our belief that young people are the keystone agents for social change and eco-innovation. This warrants a continued emphasis and tailored approaches to designing and deploying educational opportunities that create spaces for climate leaders to emerge in the classroom and in their communities.
references:
Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage - Energy System - IEA. (n.d.). Retrieved September 17, 2023, from https://www.iea.org/energy-system/carbon-capture-utilisation-and-storage
Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration. (2019). National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25259
Girardin, C. A. J., Jenkins, S., Seddon, N., Allen, M., Lewis, S. L., Wheeler, C. E., Griscom, B. W., & Malhi, Y. (2021). Nature-based solutions can help cool the planet-if we act now. In Nature (Vol. 593).