AT Warming Adv CPs - Michigan 7 2023 BEJJP

Aff
General
2AC – NETs Fail
NETS are purely speculative.
Howard J. Herzog 18, Senior Research Engineer at the MIT Energy Initiative, 12/12/18, “Why we can't reverse climate change with 'negative emissions' technologies,” https://www.greenbiz.com/article/why-we-cant-reverse-climate-change-negative-emissions-technologies, ghs-dh
In a much-anticipated report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the world will need to take dramatic and drastic steps to avoid the catastrophic effects of climate change.
Featured prominently in the report is a discussion of a range of techniques for removing carbon dioxide from the air, called Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) technologies or negative emissions technologies (NETs). The IPCC said (PDF) the world would need to rely significantly on these techniques to avoid increasing Earth’s temperatures above 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial levels.
Given that the level of greenhouse gases continues to rise and the world’s efforts at lowering emissions are falling way short of targets climate scientists recommend, what contribution we can expect from NETs is becoming a critical question. Can they actually work at a big enough scale?
What are negative emissions technologies?
There is a wide range of opinion on how big an impact these techniques can have in addressing climate change. I became involved in the debate because two of the most prominent negative emissions technologies involve CO2 capture and storage (CCS), a technology that I have been researching for almost 30 years.
Many NETs remove the CO2 from the atmosphere biologically through photosynthesis — the simplest example being afforestation, or planting more trees. Depending on the specific technique, the carbon removed from the atmosphere may end up in soils, vegetation, the ocean, deep geological formations or even in rocks.
NETs vary on their cost, scale (how many tons they potentially can remove from the atmosphere), technological readiness, environmental impacts and effectiveness. Afforestation/reforestation is the only NET to have been deployed commercially (PDF), although others have been tested at smaller scales. For example, there are a number of efforts to produce biochar, a charcoal made with plant matter that has a net negative carbon balance.
A recent academic paper (PDF) discusses the "costs, potentials and side-effects" of the various NETs. Afforestation/reforestation is one of the least expensive options, with a cost on the order of tens of dollars per ton of CO2, but the scope for carbon removal is small compared to other NETs.
On the other extreme is direct air capture, which covers a range of engineered systems meant to remove CO2 from the air. The costs of direct air capture, which has been tested at small scales, are on the order of hundreds of dollars or more per ton of CO2, but is on the high end in terms of the potential amount of CO2 that can be removed.
A handful of commercial companies are testing direct air capture technology, which takes carbon dioxide out of the air. This project in Italy will use the CO2 to ultimately produce natural gas to power vehicles. Climeworks
In a 2014 IPCC report, a technology called bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) received the most attention. This entails burning plant matter, or biomass, for energy and then collecting the CO2 emissions and pumping the gases underground. Its cost is high, but not excessive, in the range of $100-200 per ton of CO2 removed.
The biggest constraint on the size of its deployment relates to the availability of "low-carbon" biomass. Carbon emissions are associated with the growing, harvesting and transporting of biomass, as well as potential carbon emissions due to land-use changes — for example, if forests are cut down in favor of other forms of biomass. These emissions must all be kept to a minimum for biomass to be "low-carbon" and for the overall scheme to result in negative emissions. Potential "low-carbon" biomass includes switchgrass or loblolly pine, as opposed to corn, which is currently turned into liquid fuels and acknowledged to have a high carbon footprint.
Some proposed NETs are highly speculative. For example, ocean fertilization is generally not considered a realistic option because its environmental impact on the ocean is probably unacceptable. Also, there are questions about how effective it would be in removing CO2 (PDF).
Academic takes
A 2017 study at the University of Michigan did a literature review of NETs. One the one hand, they showed that the literature was very bullish on NETs. It concluded these techniques could capture the equivalent of 37 gigatons (billion tons) of CO2 per year at a cost of below $70 per metric ton. For comparison, the world currently emits about 38 gigatons of CO2 a year.
However, I think this result should be taken with a large grain of salt, as they rated only one NET as established (afforestation/reforestation), three others as demonstrated (BECCS, biochar and modified agricultural practices), and the rest as speculative. In other words, these technologies have potential, but they have yet to be proven effective.
Other studies have a much harsher view of NETs. A study in Nature Climate Change from 2015 stated, "There is no NET (or combination of NETs) currently available that could be implemented to meet the less than 2C target without significant impact on either land, energy, water, nutrient, albedo or cost, and so ‘plan A’ must be to immediately and aggressively reduce GHG emissions." In another study from 2016, researchers Kevin Anderson and Glen Peters concluded, "Negative-emission technologies are not an insurance policy, but rather an unjust and high-stakes gamble. There is a real risk they will be unable to deliver on the scale of their promise."
The bottom line is that NETs must be shown to work on a gigaton scale at an affordable cost and without serious environmental impacts. That has not happened yet. As seen from above, there is a wide range of opinion on whether this will happen.
2AC – Empirics
NETs have historically failed.
Naomi Oreskes 22, professor of the history of science at Harvard University, 8/1/22, “Carbon-Reduction Plans Rely on Tech That Doesn’t Exist,” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carbon-reduction-plans-rely-on-tech-that-doesnt-exist/, ghs-dh
At last year's Glasgow COP26 meetings on the climate crisis, U.S. envoy and former U.S. secretary of state John Kerry stated that solutions to the climate crisis will involve “technologies that we don't yet have” but are supposedly on the way. Kerry's optimism comes directly from scientists. You can read about these beliefs in the influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Integrated Assessment Models, created by researchers. These models present pathways to carbon reductions that may permit us to keep climate change below two degrees Celsius. They rely heavily on technologies that don't yet exist, such as ways to store carbon in the ground safely, permanently and affordably.
Stop and think about this for a moment. Science—that is to say, Euro-American science—has long been held as our model for rationality. Scientists frequently accuse those who reject their findings of being irrational. Yet depending on technologies that do not yet exist is irrational, a kind of magical thinking. That is a developmental stage kids are expected to outgrow. Imagine if I said I planned to build a home with materials that had not yet been invented or build a civilization on Mars without first figuring out how to get even one human being there. You'd likely consider me irrational, perhaps delusional. Yet this kind of thinking pervades plans for future decarbonization.
The IPCC models, for instance, depend heavily on carbon capture and storage, also called carbon capture and sequestration (either way, CCS). Some advocates, including companies such as ExxonMobil, say CCS is a proven, mature technology because for years industry has pumped carbon dioxide or other substances into oil fields to flush more fossil fuel out of the ground. But carbon dioxide doesn't necessarily stay in the rocks and soil. It may migrate along cracks, faults and fissures before finding its way back to the atmosphere. Keeping pumped carbon in the ground—in other words, achieving net negative emissions—is much harder. Globally there are only handful of places where this is done. None of them is commercially viable.
One site is the Orca plant in Iceland, touted as the world's biggest carbon-removal plant. Air-captured carbon dioxide is mixed with water and pumped into the ground, where it reacts with the basaltic rock to form stable carbonate minerals. That's great. But the cost is astronomical—$600 to $1,000 per ton—and the scale is tiny: about 4,000 tons a year. By comparison, just one company, tech giant Microsoft (which has pledged to offset all its emissions), produced nearly 14 million tons of carbon in 2021. Or look at carbon capture at the Archer Daniels Midland ethanol plant in Illinois, which, since 2017, has been containing carbon at a cost to the American taxpayer of $281 million (more than half the total project cost); at the same time, overall emissions from the plant have increased. And the total number of people employed in the project? Eleven. Meanwhile numerous CCS plants have failed. In 2016 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology closed its Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies program because the 43 projects it was involved with had all been canceled, put on hold or converted to other things.
It's obvious why ExxonMobil and Archer Daniels Midland are pushing CCS. It makes them look good, and they can get the taxpayer to foot the bill. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, passed last year, contained more than $10 billion for efforts to develop carbon-capture technologies. In contrast, the act contained merely $420 million for renewable energy—water, wind, geothermal and solar.
Biomass Repurpose
2AC – Biomass Fails
Biomass production does not help the environment and is a threat to public health.
Alexandra Marvar 23, Managing Editor for Being Patient and Freelance Journalist, 6/12/23, “The biomass climate hoax,” https://www.southernenvironment.org/news/the-biomass-climate-hoax/, ghs-dh
Her reaction is in no small part because Gear knows the public health implications of biomass: Wood pellet processing generates dust that travels to nearby homes, carrying hazardous pollutants that can worsen respiratory and other health issues.
Spectrum plans to start operations on two neighboring polluted properties, including the site of a now defunct sawmill called Del-Cook. Once a big employer in town, Del-Cook looms large in the memory of Adel’s Black and Latino communities. Census data shows the population surrounding the site is 77 percent people of color and they live within one mile of the property, which is so riddled with contaminants, it was designated a toxic brownfield. Cancer has already taken a staggering toll on the neighborhood.
The Spectrum facility intended for this site will be more than twice the size of Renewable Biomass
Group’s nearby plant. In fact, with a proposed capacity of 1.2 million metric tons of forest-derived
biomass fuel per year, it would be one of the largest wood pellet plants in the world. According to climate experts, this isn’t just bad news for Adel.
Greenwashing biomass’s dirty reality
The biomass industry is growing fast because, even though it relies on clear-cutting forests, it calls itself renewable. According to Nicole Rycroft, executive director of the environmental nonprofit Canopy, it’s anything but. Our planet is grappling with two ecological crises: unprecedented biodiversity loss and climate change. Biomass, she says, is fueling both. A mature forest can absorb 40 times more carbon than saplings, and there’s a massive release of carbon when a forest is cut down, she explains. “It will take decades, if not hundreds of years, for that original loss of carbon to be back to neutral.”
Yet, SELC Senior Attorney Heather Hillaker says, biomass producers are incentivized to push the “renewables” myth, because, in the European Union and the U.K., their customers — wood-pellet-fueled electric utilities — receive large subsidies intended for green energy, despite the fact that biomass fuel generates more carbon emissions than coal, according to data compiled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Boosted by these subsidies, the industry has seen virtually unchecked growth, especially in the South.
Currently, there are 28 large-scale pellet plants across the region, most of which opened only in the past decade. Today, they ship more than 9 million metric tons of trees and other types of biomass from Southern forests overseas annually. By SELC’s count, another 10 plants are in the works.
“In the South, we have mostly private land, and there are not a lot of regulations on what a landowner can do,” Hillaker explained. “There’s a big incentive for this industry to have access to this ‘wood basket’ in close proximity to ports.”
The clustering of these plants amplifies their impact, Hillaker says. And considering this North American coastal plain is a global biodiversity hotspot, ecologists are concerned about sweeping impacts. Looking at birds alone, there has been a dramatic decline in species found where biomass logging dominates.
The expansion of biomass in the U.S. is also a threat to public health. While its toxic byproducts are regulated, Environmental Integrity Project data shows that, in 2017, one in three wood pellet plants violated permitted limits. Even at legal limits, communities near these facilities have reported it necessary to wear masks outdoors.
2AC – Biomass Bad
Biomass is net worse for the environment---affects health, is inefficient, and it increases emissions.
Rebecca Speare-Cole 21, Journalist at the Press Association, 1/5/21, “Biomass is promoted as a carbon neutral fuel. But is burning wood a step in the wrong direction?,” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/04/biomass-plants-us-south-carbon-neutral, ghs-dh
Thick dust has been filling the air and settling on homes in Debra David’s neighborhood of Hamlet, North Carolina, ever since a wood pellet plant started operating nearby in 2019.
The 64-year-old said the pollution is badly affecting the health of the population, which has already been hit hard by Covid.
“More people are having breathing problems and asthma problems than ever before,” David said. She started suffering from asthma for the first time two years ago and other people in Hamlet have been getting nosebleeds, which she also puts down to the dust.
“The older people have it the worst,” she added. “They stay inside most of the time and when they do come out they struggle to breathe. They can’t sit out in their yards like they used to.”
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The plant, owned by Maryland-headquartered Enviva, the world’s largest biomass producer, is one of four the company operates in North Carolina, turning trees into wood pellets, most of which are exported to the UK, Europe and Japan to burn for energy.
Biomass has been promoted as a carbon-neutral energy source by industry, some countries and lawmakers on the basis that the emissions released by burning wood can be offset by the carbon dioxide taken up by trees grown to replace those burned.
Yet there remain serious doubts among many scientists about its carbon-neutral credentials, especially when wood pellets are made by cutting down whole trees, rather than using waste wood products. It can take as much as a century for trees to grow enough to offset the carbon released.
Burning wood for energy is also inefficient – biomass has been found to release more carbon dioxide per unit of energy than coal or gas, according to a 2018 study and an open letter to the EU signed by nearly 800 scientists.
This CO2 is theoretically reabsorbed by new trees, but some scientists suggest relying on biomass could actually end up increasing emissions just at the time when the world needs to sharply reduce emissions and reach goals of becoming net zero by 2050. “During these decades, warming increases and permafrost and glaciers continue to melt, among other permanent forms of climate damage,” said Tim Searchinger, a senior energy and environment research scholar at Princeton.
Over the last decade a wave of biomass plants have opened their doors or ramped up production across the US south, where they have access to the region’s vast hardwood and other wetland forests, many of which are on unprotected private lands.
Campaigners say there is an environmental justice aspect to the industry, too. The plants are 50% more likely to be located in counties where at least 25% of the population is Black and other people of color and where poverty levels are above the state median, according to an analysis by the environmental non-profit Dogwood Alliance. Hamlet, David’s neighborhood, has a poverty rate of nearly 29%, significantly above the state poverty rate of 13.6%.
Still, the biomass industry continues to grow, supported by subsidies especially from the UK as well as the EU, which declared biomass a carbon-neutral energy source in 2009 and is relying on it to help the bloc replace fossil fuel energy and meet climate goals.
At least 22 plants in the south-east are now exporting pellets to Europe, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC). This number is increasing, with permits filed or issued for 12 more plants, according to the SELC.
1AR – Biomass Bad
Biomass pollutes the atmosphere and builds up waste.
George Weuerthner 23, Ecological Projects Director for the Foundation for Deep Ecology, 4/21/23, “What’s Wrong With Biomass Burning? Everything,” https://www.thewildlifenews.com/2023/04/21/whats-wrong-with-biomass-burning-everything/, ghs-dh
Those promoting the biomass fuel and energy juggernaut suggest that burning wood is “clean energy “and carbon neutral. However, biofuels and biomass energy are not clean, not carbon neutral, and not sustainable.
For instance, the City of Prineville, Oregon, promotes the construction of a 20 MW biomass burner. In their promotional literature, the city says: “The City and County will utilize the PREP to reduce the risk of severe wildfires, reinvent jobs in the natural resources/forest products industries, diversify energy supplies, reduce CO2 emissions, and reinvigorate the community and local economy, all while offering a clean, renewable energy source.”
In announcing its intention to construct biomass burners, Mount Bachelor Ski Resort makes the same happy talk about the benefits of wood-burning biomass.
And just this week in California, another biomass burner is about to be constructed in Birney–with the same delusional remarks about “clean” energy and how it will convert “waste” wood into electrical power.
Prineville, Mount Bachelor, and other promoters of biomass are feeding the public timber and biomass industry propaganda. I am sure they believe what they are saying but ignore contrary information.
SUBSIDIES AND ECONOMICS
Most biomass burners are not economical. They often receive massive subsidies of two kinds—direct funding from government agencies and the environmental damage they promote.
Logging on the Deschutes NF in Oregon done to “reduce” wildfire eliminates biomass and carbon storage, destroys wildlife habitat, and fails to preclude large wildfires. Photo George Wuerthner
In most cases in the West, the wood source or “fuel” for biomass operations results from deforestation. These deforestation projects destroy biodiversity, pollute the land and air, and worsen climate change. And like almost all Forest Service logging projects, they also lose money, so they are yet another form of subsidy.
The other subsidies are direct grants and funding that biomass projects receive fr

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