February 5, 2025
A Conversation about Climate Intervention Strategies:The Work Ahead
Emily Carter
Senior Strategic Advisor and Associate Laboratory Director for Applied Materials and Sustainability Sciences at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, and Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment at Princeton University
A Conversation about Climate Intervention Strategies:The Work Ahead
Emily Carter
Senior Strategic Advisor and Associate Laboratory Director for Applied Materials and Sustainability Sciences at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, and Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment at Princeton University
Minutes of the 17th Meeting of the 83rd Year
George Bustin, Old Guard President, called the meeting to order and presided. Frances Slade led the invocation. George stated that a remembrance for William P. Burks would be deferred for one week and combined with another. The attendance at Springdale Country Club was 110. There was one guest: Allan Silverman (guest of Susan Chermak). George also reminded attendees that there is a formal nomination process and attendant paperwork must be filled out to consider any new member (contact the Membership chair). David Vilkomerson read the minutes of the prior January 28 meeting. Finally, George reminded attendees about next week’s presentation by Sir David MacMillan, Nobel Laureate and Professor in Princeton’s Chemistry Department.
Henry Von Kohorn introduced the speaker, Professor Emily Carter, senior strategic adviser and associate laboratory director at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and Gerhard R. Andlinger professor in energy and environment at Princeton University. Professor Carter had recently (2022) returned to Princeton after an appointment as Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost at UCLA. She had originally moved to Princeton from UCLA in 2004, where she spent 15 years holding appointments in mechanical and aerospace engineering and in applied and computational mathematics. She is the author of over 475 publications and patents and is the recipient of numerous honors.
In keeping with the title of aonversation, Professor Carter spoke without slides, sharing her perspective on the road ahead in addressing climate change. She acknowledged that the new “elephant in the room” may be the current federal administration. She believes that climate work will continue but will not be led by the federal government. She stated the following facts:
(1) CO2 emissions are clearly warming the planet (current atmospheric CO2 concentration is 420 ppm), necessitating an energy transition.
(2) In the ongoing energy transition, Denmark is leading the world in wind energy utilization.
(3) China will soon be leading the way in solar energy utilization, with their massive investment in cheaper solar energy panels.
Assessing near-term strategies to de-carbonize the energy grid (that is, replace fossil fuels), the speaker believes that the US should focus on building or re-commissioning nuclear power plants, with the expectation that fusion energy will be feasible by the last half of this century. Nuclear energy is considered a bridge technology to fusion.
A major goal for the world is to create a “circular” carbon economy, rather than the current “linear” one. Addressing strategies for decarbonization, Professor Carter discussed potential re-use of about 10% of carbon dioxide emissions through products such as cement, carbon fiber, jet fuels and pharmaceuticals. These processes are not particularly efficient at present.
Another strategy is to get rid of atmospheric carbon (carbon capture and sequestration) by either pumping CO2 directly into underground aquifers to eventually allow it to solidify as an inorganic carbonate mineral or by using other adsorbent media for direct air capture or even direct ocean capture. An innovative approach is to modify manufacturing to directly use electricity rather than heat, what the speaker termed electro-manufacturing science, heat being inherently inefficient.
One alternative that the speaker is involved in at Princeton had been termed solar geo-engineering, newly termed SRM (solar radiation modification). This involves injecting liquid or solids aerosols into the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space, thereby cooling the planet. A recent historical example of this is the 1991 eruption of the Philippine volcano Mount Pinatubo, the second largest terrestrial eruption of the 21st century. Twenty million tons of sulfur dioxide aerosol was injected into the atmosphere causing global temperature to drop by 0.50C for more than a year.
There are many unknowns about placing aerosols into the upper atmosphere, which provides opportunities for laboratory studies first, such as one Professor Carter is leading (using private funding from the Simons Foundation.)
In closing, the speaker stated that we need to use and research any and all strategies and paths for climate intervention now.
Respectfully submitted,
Julianne Elward-Berry