[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
GEOENGINEERING:
INNOVATION, RESEARCH, AND TECHNOLOGY
=======================================================================
JOINT HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT &
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 8, 2017
__________
Serial No. 115-36
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
______
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
DANA ROHRABACHER, California ZOE LOFGREN, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
BILL POSEY, Florida AMI BERA, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
RANDY K. WEBER, Texas DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
STEPHEN KNIGHT, California JACKY ROSEN, Nevada
BRIAN BABIN, Texas JERRY McNERNEY, California
BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia PAUL TONKO, New York
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana BILL FOSTER, Illinois
DRAIN LaHOOD, Illinois MARK TAKANO, California
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii
JIM BANKS, Indiana CHARLIE CRIST, Florida
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas
NEAL P. DUNN, Florida
CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana
RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
------
Subcommittee on Environment
HON. ANDY BIGGS, Arizona, Chair
DANA ROHRABACHER, California SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon, Ranking
BILL POSEY, Florida Member
MO BROOKS, Alabama COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii
RANDY K. WEBER, Texas CHARLIE CRIST, Florida
BRIAN BABIN, Texas EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
JIM BANKS, Indiana
CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana
RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
------
Subcommittee on Energy
HON. RANDY K. WEBER, Texas, Chair
DANA ROHRABACHER, California MARC A. VEASEY, Texas, Ranking
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma Member
MO BROOKS, Alabama ZOE LOFGREN, California
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky JACKY ROSEN, Nevada
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma JERRY McNERNEY, California
STEPHEN KNIGHT, California, Vice PAUL TONKO, New York
Chair BILL FOSTER, Illinois
DRAIN LaHOOD, Illinois MARK TAKANO, California
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
NEAL P. DUNN, Florida
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
C O N T E N T S
November 8, 2017
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Andy Biggs, Chairman, Subcommittee on
Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S.
House of Representatives....................................... 4
Written Statement............................................ 5
Statement by Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 7
Written Statement............................................ 9
Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 11
Written Statement............................................ 13
Statement by Representative Randy K. Weber, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 15
Written Statement............................................ 17
Statement by Representative Marc A. Veasey, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 19
Written Statement............................................ 21
Witnesses:
Dr. Phil Rasch, Chief Scientist for Climate Science, Laboratory
Fellow, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Oral Statement............................................... 23
Written Statement............................................ 26
Dr. Joseph Majkut, Director of Climate Policy, Niskanen Center
Oral Statement............................................... 45
Written Statement............................................ 47
Dr. Douglas MacMartin, Senior Research Associate, Cornell
University
Oral Statement............................................... 57
Written Statement............................................ 59
Ms. Kelly Wanser, Principal Director, Marine Cloud Brightening
Project, Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and
Ocean, University of Washington
Oral Statement............................................... 72
Written Statement............................................ 74
Discussion....................................................... 89
Appendix I: Additional Material for the Record
Statement submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
U.S. House of Representatives.................................. 106
Letter submitted by Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Ranking
Member, Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives........... 107
Statement submitted by Mr. Floyd DesChamps, President, The Desner
Group, LLC..................................................... 111
GEOENGINEERING:
INNOVATION, RESEARCH, AND TECHNOLOGY
----------
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Environment and
Subcommittee on Energy,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 10:11 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Andy Biggs
[Chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment] presiding.
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Chairman Biggs. The Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology Subcommittee on Environment and Subcommittee on
Energy joint hearing on Geoengineering: Innovation, Research
and Technology is called to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare
recesses of the Subcommittee at any time, and I now recognize
myself for five minutes for an opening statement.
Good morning, and welcome to the joint Environment
Subcommittee and Energy Subcommittee hearing on geoengineering.
I thank each of our witnesses for being here today.
Since this is the first time we're discussing the topic of
geoengineering this Congress, it is important to explain what
geoengineering actually is. In its simplest terms,
geoengineering is the concept of using scientific understanding
to alter the atmosphere in a way that produces positive
outcomes and results. Many of the concepts in this field deal
with solar radiation management, or how to influence the
effects of the sun on the earth.
But the field is by no means limited to solar research.
Geoengineering can also be used to manipulate different levels
of gases in the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide. These
avenues of geoengineering research and others are still in the
developmental stage, and any or all of them may warrant further
exploration.
While there are at least a few programs in our Nation's
universities that are looking into these concepts, federal
research is still limited. However, if in the future the
government wants to actually apply the concepts and findings of
geoengineering research, we must fully examine both the
potential merits and potential pitfalls of this emergent field.
Since the theories and concepts involved are still so new,
we cannot say definitively if geoengineering technology
warrants full-scale development or deployment. Quite simply,
more basic research is necessary to determine whether it is a
viable tool.
Today, we will learn about what research has been conducted
on geoengineering and which promising concepts should be
explored further. We will hear from government, academia, think
tank and industry representatives who have unique perspectives
on this topic. They will tell us about the research being done,
as well as future concepts and how they could be used
responsibly.
We as lawmakers have a responsibility to explore these
concepts, learn as much as possible about them, and discuss
ideas about how we can be helpful in supporting basic research.
I'd also like to take a moment to clarify any
mischaracterizations about this hearing. The purpose of this
hearing is to discuss the viability of geoengineering and any
early-stage research associated with this approach. The hearing
is not a platform to further the debate about climate change.
We've had lots of that this session. Instead, its aim is to
explore approaches and technologies that have been discussed in
the scientific community and to assess the basic research
needed to better understand the merits of these ideas. It is my
hope that members will respect this focus so that we can have a
meaningful discussion about geoengineering.
Again, I want to thank the witnesses for being here today,
and I look forward to hearing more about these interesting
concepts.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Biggs follows:]
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Chairman Biggs. With that, I yield back my time and
recognize the Ranking Member, Ms. Bonamici for her opening
statement.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you for holding this important hearing.
I'm very encouraged that the Science Committee is
discussing geoengineering, a field of science and engineering
that is still in its infancy and has ample areas for future
research, and it's noteworthy for its potential. It's important
that we consider it from political, ethical, legal, and
environmental perspectives.
Geoengineering is a set of climate interventions that aim
to manipulate our climate to either remove greenhouse gases
from our atmosphere or reduce the amount of sunlight absorbed
by the Earth. Now, some may argue that geoengineering is a way
to use technology to bypass important mitigation and adaptation
strategies that address the impacts of climate change, but even
with geoengineering, our first and primary actions to address
climate change must be mitigation and adaptation strategies.
In our communities, climate change is not a partisan issue.
Nationwide, there are fishers and farmers and small-business
owners, and servicemen and women who are having to change the
way they do their jobs because of climate change, and
regardless of their political affiliation. The economic,
health, and environmental consequences of climate change are
well known, and our understanding about how to address the
causes of climate change continue to improve.
It's critical that we support scientific research about
climate, and that we build on rather than break down decades
worth of progress on this issue. I urge the Committee to hold
hearings specifically on mitigation and adaption strategies to
help communities grapple with this situation.
Geoengineering is an option our country should explore. The
state of current geoengineering research makes clear that we
are years or perhaps decades away from potential deployment,
and the risks of deployment are not well understood, and we're
hoping for some answers here today. In fact, a key finding in
the U.S. Global Change Research Program's Climate Science
Special Report, which was published last Friday, determined
that further assessments of the technical feasibilities, costs,
risks, co-benefits, and governance challenges of climate
intervention or geoengineering strategies, which are as yet
unproven at scale, are a necessary step before judgments about
the benefits and risks of these approaches can be made with
high confidence.
This is because of a lack of technical maturity and
understanding of the risks associated with geoengineering. We
do not currently have enough evidence to determine whether any
of the various proposals for geoengineering can provide long-
term solutions to address the impacts of climate change, or
that they would not pose any adverse consequences to our
environment.
Our climate is changing, and the warming trends observed
over the last hundred years are primarily caused by human
activities, specifically the emission of greenhouse gases. In
fact, this is one of the most prominent findings in the Climate
Science Special Report. This report unequivocally lays out the
need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to prevent long-term
warming and short-term climate change.
I want to ask the Subcommittee Chairman for unanimous
consent to include a letter addressed to him and Chairman Smith
into the record. It's been signed by many prominent members of
the geoengineering research community, highlighting the urgency
of the threat that climate change poses and reemphasizes that
geoengineering is not a magic fix to addressing climate change.
Chairman Biggs. Without objection.
[The information appears in Appendix I]
Ms. Bonamici. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to
yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from
California, Mr. McNerney.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bonamici follows:]
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Chairman Biggs. Mr. McNerney, please.
Mr. McNerney. Well, I thank the gentlewoman from Oregon,
and I thank the Chairman for calling this hearing.
Climate change is happening, and the effects are
accelerating faster than the scientific models predict. The
changes we are experiencing today are the results of heating
that has taken place over the past decades. Meanwhile, carbon
concentration in the atmosphere is continuing to increase.
Therefore, additional heating and climate impacts are
inevitable even if we were to stop carbon emissions
immediately. In other words, we are committed to significant
change.
The unknown is how much change we're committed to and how
fast it will take place. It's not known if we are committed to
truly catastrophic change with the current policies or not. But
no matter what, it's absolutely critical to reduce carbon
emissions and prepare for the changes that are coming, in other
words, mitigate and adopt.
The changes we are committed to may be so strong that we'll
need to know what can be done to prevent utter catastrophe.
What tools are available? What are the technical feasibilities?
What are the costs and what are the risks of the different
approaches to avoiding catastrophic change?
That's where this hearing comes in. What are the
hypothetical alternatives and how do we best go about
determining their feasibility, costs, and impacts?
I will be dropping a bill next week, which members of the
panel have already seen, and I need guidance from experts on
what changes to the proposed legislation is needed.
Thank you, I yield back.
Chairman Biggs. Thank you.
I now recognize the Chairman of the entire Committee,
Chairman Smith.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I also thank
Congressman Weber for letting give my opening statement before
him. I have a markup that began in the Judiciary Committee that
unfortunately I've got to attend but I hope to be back shortly.
Mr. Chairman, first I want to thank the Chairman of the
Environment Subcommittee, you, for having this hearing, and
also Representative Weber of Texas, the Chairman of the Energy
Subcommittee, for your interest in this subject. I also want to
thank the gentleman from California, Mr. McNerney, for his
persistent interest in this subject. Every time I've seen him
on the House Floor for the last couple of months, he's wanted
to have this hearing, so we appreciate his interest as well.
Mr. Chairman, geoengineering's potential is worth
exploring. Generally, we know that the technologies associated
with geoengineering could have positive effects on the Earth's
atmosphere. These innovations could help reduce global
temperatures or pull excess greenhouse gases out of the
atmosphere.
For instance, one of the most intriguing ideas in this
field is solar radiation management. This concept involves
finding innovative strategies to reduce the amount of sunlight
that reaches and warms the earth. Today, one of our witnesses
will expand on this idea with a concept that brightens clouds
and reflects sunlight, which is measured in albedo. While this
technology is interesting, we have a lot to learn.
Some have questioned the unintended consequences of
geoengineering. One concern is that brightening clouds could
alter rain patterns, making it rain more in some places or less
in others. Such technologies could drastically reduce global
temperatures in the future by spraying aerosols into the
atmosphere to reflect sunlight. While we are not sure this is
plausible, some scientists believe it could achieve substantial
environmental benefits at a cheaper cost than regulations.
Regardless of these claims, we still do not know enough
about this subject to thoroughly understand the pros and cons
of these types of technologies.
As the climate continues to change, geoengineering could
become a tool to curb resulting impacts. Instead of forcing
unworkable and costly government mandates on the American
people, we should look to technology and innovation to lead the
way to address climate change.
Geoengineering should be considered when discussing
technological advances to protect the environment, and
geoengineering should not be ignored before we have an
opportunity to discover its potential. This hearing will help
Congress do just that.
Mr. Chairman, I thank our witnesses today for testifying on
the current state of geoengineering research and for their
recommendations about how to advance practicable efforts in
this area, and I'll yield back.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:]
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Chairman Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I now recognize the Chairman of the Energy Subcommittee,
Mr. Weber, for an opening statement.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me add my welcome
to today's joint Environment and Energy Subcommittee.
Good morning and welcome to today's Joint Environment and
Energy Subcommittee hearing. Today, we are going to hear from a
panel of experts on the status of America's research in
geoengineering, a field truly in the scientific unknown.
Hearings like today's help remind us of the Science Committee's
core focus: the basic research that provides the foundation for
technology breakthroughs.
Within the DOE lab system, Pacific Northwest National Lab
is leading the effort to protect--to explore the potential
impact of geoengineering technology. PNNL hosts geoengineering
researchers who hope to open the dialog on this groundbreaking
technology--Jerry, you'll be glad to hear--and consider what
methods could have the most positive impact on the climate.
Some proposed ideas at PNNL include placement of mirrors in
space, injection of naturally occurring substances into the
atmosphere to mimic a volcanic eruption, or brightening the
clouds overhead. All of these methods could have a cooling
effect on our lower atmosphere.
It's amazing to think that molten lava from volcanic
eruptions can actually produce compounds that cool the air.
Brightening clouds is equally interesting, but only early-stage
evaluation has occurred on the practicality of this approach.
As we will hear from one of our witnesses, we have already seen
ship tracks that create this brightening effect, where the
sunlight is reflected back into the atmosphere. By injecting
aerosols composed of seawater particles into low ocean clouds,
researchers could shrink the size of water droplets and in turn
brighten those clouds.
PNNL's Climate and Earth Systems Science researchers and
partnerships have to rely on computer models to understand the
potential impact of these very basic geoengineering methods,
but as we've heard before in this Committee, models are only as
good as the data they use.
I believe that we should consider funding appropriately
scaled field-testing to improve the accuracy of geoengineering
models. Through the National Labs, the United States already
partners with researchers from Canada, China, Denmark, Germany,
Japan, and Norway. These scientists used the output from 12
climate models in the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison
Project, which seek to understand the possible climate effects
of geoengineering.
Geoengineering has the potential to provide us with a whole
new understanding and approach to atmospheric research. If we
put aside the debates about climate change, we can support
innovations in science that can create a better prospect for
future generations.
The Federal Government should prioritize this kind of basic
research so we can not only understand the science of
geoengineering, but hopefully partner with the private sector
to develop technology to mitigate changes in climate. When the
government supports basic research, everyone has the
opportunity to access the fundamental knowledge that can lead
to the development of future technologies.
The future's bright for geoengineering, and I want to thank
our panel of witnesses for testifying today. I look forward to
a productive discussion about the innovation, research and
technology of this emerging field of science.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Weber follows:]
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Chairman Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Weber.
I now recognize the Ranking Member of the Energy
Subcommittee, Mr. Veasey, for an opening statement.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and we have an
excellent panel of witnesses today and I'm really looking
forward to hearing their insights, and thank you very much for
being here.
Despite the numerous claims, geoengineering is not the
answer to 150 years of polluting our planet at an unsustainable
rate, and in order to slow the impact of climate change and
eventually reverse its effects, we have to get out priorities
straight, and mitigation and adaptation must be part of the top
priorities. We must face the global challenge of climate
change, and solving this challenge requires every nation to
find effective solutions to reduce our emissions and set us on
a far more sustainable path.
The scientific community has made clear that climate change
will continue to be an issue for the rest of this century and
beyond. The long-term nature of this challenge is the reason we
need to investigate every possible solution in addition to
implementing mitigation and adaptation strategies.
Geoengineering, in particular, is in its very early stages
and more research is required to expand our understanding of
its risks and potential benefits. During our discussion today,
I hope the witnesses can provide us with their recommendations
on what types of research the Federal Government should invest
in for the benefit of all Americans. These recommendations will
help shape our national investments in climate modeling, Earth
systems research, laboratory experiments, and potential small-
scale field tests in the coming decades.
On that note, I would like to stress to my colleagues the
importance of supporting the full spectrum of research at the
Department of Energy. In particular, activities within the
Office of Science's Biological and Environmental Research
program are crucial to expanding our knowledge of Earth systems
and climate modeling. Funding this important research can have
numerous benefits, including advancing the field we are
discussing today.
It is unfortunate that the Trump Administration's budget
proposal included a 43 percent cut to BER with major cuts and
outright eliminations of key activities within the Earth and
Environmental Systems subprogram. These cuts would hurt the
emerging field of geoengineering, but more importantly, they
would cripple our ability to understand the range of factors
driving global temperatures upward. If you are a climate
skeptic, then you must support more research to expand our
collective understanding. If you cannot support that, then you
are choosing to ignore the facts. Frankly, we have no time to
ignore the mounting scientific evidence as it relates to
climate change. We need productive dialogue if we want to
better understand this challenge and embrace the necessary
solutions.
In addition to supporting the key research activities that
underpin geoengineering, there may also be additional federal
investments that Congress should consider in order to have an
impact in the near future. Carbon dioxide removal strategies
are a generally less-risky form of climate intervention that
may prove useful in our efforts to fight the impacts of climate
change. These strategies come in the form of bioenergy with
carbon capture and sequestration, direct air capture
technologies, enhanced geological weathering, and land use
management, just to name a few.
The National Academies examined carbon dioxide removal in
2015 and concluded that this area is ripe for further federal
research investments. For this reason, I included this critical
research in a draft bill that I will be introducing in the
coming weeks: the Fossil Energy Research and Development Act.
In addition to authorizing key R&D activities for carbon
capture, utilization, and sequestration activities, the bill
would also instruct DOE to create a research program on carbon
dioxide removal. I hope that my of my colleagues on both sides
of the aisle will join me as a cosponsor of this legislation.
The bill would push the DOE to prioritize the important work of
environmental mitigation within the Office of Fossil Energy.
The public health and economic benefits are considerably
numerous. I hope this bill can be a bipartisan path forward to
an area of research at DOE that needs it.
I look forward to working with my colleagues on these
issues, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance
of my time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Veasey follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Veasey.
Let me introduce our witnesses. Our first witness today is
Dr. Phil Rasch, Chief Scientist for Climate Science and
Laboratory Fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Previously, Dr. Rasch served as a Chair of the International
Global Atmospheric Chemistry program and was named a Fellow of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He
received a bachelor's degree in atmospheric science and
chemistry from the University of Washington and a master's of
science in meteorology from Florida State University, and he
completed his Ph.D. at the National Center for Atmospheric
Research in Boulder, Colorado.
Our second witness is Dr. Joseph Majkut, Director of
Climate Policy at Niskanen Center. Previously, Dr. Majkut
worked as a Congressional Science Fellow under the American
Association for the Advancement of Science and the American
Geoscience Institute. Dr. Majkut received degrees from
Princeton University, the Delft University of Technology, and
Harvey Mudd College.
Our next witness is Dr. Douglas MacMartin, Senior Research
Associate at Cornell University. Previously, Dr. MacMartin led
the Active Control and Flow Control Research programs at the
United Technologies Research Center. He received his bachelor's
degree from the University of Toronto and his Ph.D. in
aeronautics and astronautics from MIT.
And our last today is Ms. Kelly Wanser, Principal Director
at Marine Cloud Brightening Project, Joint Institute for the
Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean at the University of
Washington. Ms. Wanser is a Member of the National Academies of
Sciences. She received her bachelor's degree from Boston
College and her master's degree from the University of Oxford.
I now recognize Dr. Rasch for five minutes to present----
Dr. Rasch. Are we ready?
Chairman Biggs. We're going to keep discussing her for a
few minutes. No, I think we're now ready to recognize Dr. Rasch
for five minutes to present his testimony. Thank you, Dr.
Rasch.
TESTIMONY OF DR. PHIL RASCH,
CHIEF SCIENTIST FOR CLIMATE SCIENCE,
LABORATORY FELLOW,
PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY
Dr. Rasch. Thank you. Chairmen Biggs and Weber and Smith,
Members Bonamici and Veasey and Subcommittee Members, thanks
for the opportunity to be here.
I testified before this Committee in 2010 on
geoengineering. I'm the Chief Scientist for Climate Science at
Pacific Northwest National Labs, where I lead programs studying
Earth's atmosphere and environmental change. I've also been
involved in geoengineering research. I've authored about 20
papers on geoengineering, supported mainly by philanthropic
foundations and the NSF in my previous job. I was also a member
of the committee that wrote the National Research Council
report on geoengineering, and a lead author on relevant
chapters from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
report as well.
Americans have become increasingly aware of changes in our
environment ranging from dramatic decreases in sea ice in the
arctic to increases in summertime heat waves, droughts, floods,
fires, and damage from hurricane and other extreme weather
events including increasing ocean acidity that damages
fisheries.
Evidence in the National Climate Assessment and elsewhere
indicates that the changes are connected to increases in carbon
dioxide so a prudent step to reducing impacts is to stop
increasing carbon dioxide as quickly as possible.
Two engineering methods attempt to address some of these
threats through two very different strategies. I'm not an
expert in the carbon dioxide removal strategy you heard about
earlier so I won't discuss it further, and I'll sometimes talk
about solar radiation management as sunlight reflect methods, a
term I prefer.
Sunlight reflection methods try to reflect some of the
sun's energy back to space, cooling the planet. Two strategies
have received the most attention so I'll focus on those. One
method is called marine cloud brightening. You'll all have felt
the surface temperature go down when a cloud passes overhead on
a hot summer day by reflecting sunlight back to space. This is
how clouds cool the planet. We know clouds can be further
brightened. One dramatic example occurs when ocean freighters
add particles below clouds to change them and form bright ship
tracks. Marine cloud brightening attempts to mimic that kind of
cooling by introducing sea salt particles below clouds.
Stratospheric aerosol geoengineering tries to mimic the cooling
effects of large volcanic eruptions by placing extra particles
in the upper atmosphere.
Let me just cover a bit of what we know and don't know and
then make some recommendations for progress. There's a lot more
detail in my written testimony. We know it's still early days
for SRM research but there are hints it could help address
climate change by offsetting, delaying or slowing warming.
Hints are, that help counter other changes as well. We think
SRM could buy time for other measures to be put in place. Even
if it works, though, we know it won't be a magic bullet. It
won't compensate for all problems, and it may have side
effects. Stratospheric aerosol geoengineering and marine cloud
brightening have some common features but they're different
with different risks and impacts to the planet.
If we used geoengineering, it would need to be adjusted to
balance the excess carbon in the atmosphere, and we think it
would be very risky to balance a lot of carbon dioxide.
We don't yet know whether geoengineering should be a part
of the strategies addressing climate change. It'll take at
least a decade to sort out the benefits, risks, and tradeoffs
associated with these different technologies.
So what should we do? I think it's time for a coherent and
goal-oriented geoengineering research program that complements
ongoing research in Earth systems science but focuses on a
defined set of objectives targeting better understanding of the
effectiveness and potential risks associated with specific
geoengineering techniques. That program should include
modeling, lab studies, small-scale field studies, and
technology development in addition to addressing societal needs
for transparency in governance.
Small-scale field studies are needed. These studies should
be far too small to affect climate but they'll help us
understand the processes important to the SRM strategies, and
also help answer crucial questions for climate science. I
discuss one example in my written testimony. I believe it's
urgent to have a review on governance strategy for this program
to help with public understanding and engagement and to improve
safety.
Thanks, and I'm happy to take questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Rasch follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Biggs. Thank you, Dr. Rasch.
Now I'll recognize Dr. Majkut for five minutes to present
his testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. JOSEPH MAJKUT,
DIRECTOR OF CLIMATE POLICY,
NISKANEN CENTER
Dr. Majkut. Thank you, Chairmen Biggs and Weber, and
Ranking Member Bonamici, and Members of the Committee. I'm
grateful for the invitation to join you today.
My name is Joseph Majkut, and I'm the Director of Climate
Policy at the Niskanen Center here in Washington, D.C., where
my work focuses on research in climate energy issues, and my
personal area of expertise is climate science.
There is no practical scientific doubt that human activity
is contributing to climate change nor that continuing emissions
will lead to more warming. There is, however, a great deal of
uncertainty about the extent of future warming and its
environmental and economic consequences. Given that
uncertainty, we should think about this as a risk management
problem. There may be no perfect solution but in general we
should seek ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, minimize
societal vulnerability, and otherwise limit the potential costs
of a warming planet.
Geoengineering may be one such tool to address those
potential costs. Further research judiciously done will help us
answer that question. With that in mind, I would like to
emphasize three points from my written testimony.
The first is that there is a great deal of uncertainty
about whether or not geoengineering would work in practice. By
changing the reflectivity of the high atmosphere or brightening
clouds, we might be able to offset some degree of global
warming quickly and reduce its attendant effects but the risk
of unintended consequences might be large.
We do know that once we start cooling the planet by
artificial means, stopping will be followed by rapid warming as
long as CO2 levels remain high. We also know that a
geoengineered world could not simultaneously hold temperatures,
rainfall and weather patterns static, meaning that there will
be tradeoffs should engineering ever be used to partially or
completely offset global warming.
The second is the developing a better scientific
understanding of those potential tradeoffs justifies ongoing
and future research. Whether or not each of us is concerned
about the risks of climate change or repulsed by the very idea
of geoengineering, changes to the Earth's climate will
inevitably force future generations to confront such choices.
This research will be affordable and need not supplant other
efforts to understand the nature of climate change. Such
research will occur in supercomputing facilities, at the lab
bench, and also in small-scale field experiments.
I'll add that I hope it will also be approached via the
social sciences as judgments of whether geoengineering is good
or practical are not consigned to questions of chemistry or
physics. Both the 2015 report from the National Research
Council and the most recent update of the U.S. Global Change
Research Program's strategic plan highlight the importance of
this research and complementary observational and theoretical
work in climate science, especially since other countries or
private actors might start intervention experiments of their
own.
Lastly, Congress should consider what regulatory governing
structure will maximize innovation and scientific progress
while protecting the public and environment from ill-informed
experiments or premature deployment of these technologies.
Under the 1971 Weather Modification Act, experiments intent on
altering the weather or planetary albedo are already regulated,
and those regulations currently require that researchers report
their activities to NOAA before and after working in the field.
For today, that is enough. No one to our knowledge is set
on large experiments in the near future. However, regulatory
governance should grow as experiments grow larger, and it is
not clear at present how such regulations might look.
Our research at the Niskanen Center indicates that small-
scale experiments should be subject to little more than
reporting requirements and existing environmental protections
because their climatological effect will be vanishingly small.
However, Congress may want to consider if intermediate scale
experiments should be subject to prior approval of an agency,
and if large-scale experiments subject to the express
permission of Congress itself. How we define small, medium and
large is a question that will require further thought and
should involve the input of the scientific community and civil
society. A well-defined and stable regulatory structure will
publicly clarify research progress and intent, and that intent
should be to clarify the questions of how geoengineering might
work and what the costs and benefits of doing it may be. That
information could be used by future policymakers to avert
trillions of dollars in losses.
If the worst-case scenarios of global warming come to pass,
these technologies could be used to help people, savings lives
and economies from the most severe effects of climate change.
Even if emissions reductions happen quickly, future generations
may still find limited geoengineering of use. Managing the
risks of climate change is not easy but it will be an ever-
present task in the 21st century and beyond. Research into
these technologies is an important part of that task as are
adapting to warming and reducing emissions. A sturdy whip and a
well-plotted course are no substitute for a close watch on the
waters ahead nor lifeboats if we need them.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you, and I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Majkut follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Biggs. Thank you, Dr. Majkut, and I apologize for
mispronouncing your name earlier. I apologize.
I now recognize Dr. MacMartin for five minutes to present
his testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. DOUGLAS MACMARTIN,
SENIOR RESEARCH ASSOCIATE,
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
Dr. MacMartin. Thank you. So I want to start by thanking
the Committee Members for the opportunity to testify today. So
I'm Douglas MacMartin at Cornell University with a background
in both engineering and climate science, and I've been working
on geoengineering for about the last ten years, and I think one
of the striking things about this panel is actually how broad
our agreement is likely to be on almost all of the issues.
So the reason we're all here of course is that as was
reaffirmed last week by the U.S. National Climate Assessment,
we know that the Earth's climate is changing as a direct result
of human emissions of greenhouse gases, and we know that the
United States is already experiencing some impacts as a result.
While these impacts may be manageable today, they will continue
to grow so long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, and so
the less we emit, the lower the risk, and nothing we say here
today about geoengineering changes the fact that we must reduce
our greenhouse gas emissions and that this effort remains the
most important component of a strategy to respond to climate
change.
That said, geoengineering approaches could become a
valuable additional component of an integrated strategy to
manage climate impacts. So carbon dioxide removal can
effectively produce negative emissions, but we need research
there on scalability, costs, and local impacts, and I'll focus
primarily on the sunlight reflection, or solar geoengineering
side, so ideas like adding aerosols to the stratosphere or
making marine boundary layer clouds more reflective, and I'd
say from the limited modeling research that we've done to date,
it's plausible that a limited amount of solar geoengineering,
used in addition to cutting emissions could reduce some of the
impacts of climate change but there's still considerable
uncertainty into the side effects and risks, and that will
require focused, goal-oriented research. That could take
decades, at least a decade, maybe more, which is why it's
important to start it soon.
So it's important to stress at the outset that solar
geoengineering cannot be a substitute for cutting emissions for
several reasons. This conclusion has been reached by every
assessment of this technology including by the National
Academies in 2015, so first it does not compensate all of the
impacts of climate change so ocean acidification would continue
unchecked.
Second, if we keep adding greenhouse gases to the
atmosphere, we'd have to continually increase the amount of
geoengineering we were doing, so keep adding more and more
aerosols to the stratosphere every year just to keep
temperatures in balance, and that would lead to increased side
effects and risks.
And third, because of the long lifetime of carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere, if we relied only on solar geoengineering,
that would lead to a practically indefinite commitment to
future generations to either continue deploying it or accept
the consequences of high CO2.
However, as long as it's considered as a supplement to
cutting emissions, then it might reduce some climate damages
and so it would be valuable to conduct the needed research. A
coherent prioritized research effort needs to be driven by the
end goal of supporting informed decisions regarding these
approaches, and research would need to be integrated into the
overall U.S. climate science research effort and should include
explicit attention to research governance.
The next step is probably to clearly articulate research
needs and how to address them. This might benefit, for example,
from an expert body like the National Academies. For
stratospheric aerosol injection, we know that it works at least
for a degree or two of cooling. It works in the sense of
cooling the planet simply by analogy with what happens after
large volcanic eruptions, and the observations made after
eruptions have helped calibrate our climate models. Near-term
research here is likely to continue to be primarily model-
based, and once we better understand the uncertainties we need
to address, it's likely we would need some outdoor experiments
to resolve key uncertainties, but I should emphasize that these
would always be at a very small scale. Marine cloud brightening
would also benefit from small-scale, controlled experiments,
which would also help inform critical uncertainties in climate
change science. All of this research will build on continued
investments in climate modeling, in high-performance computing,
and in our ability to collect observations about the Earth
system.
So in summary, I and I think many of my colleagues in the
research community believe that even with our best efforts at
mitigation, the risks of future climate change are sufficiently
concerning that we may need to consider all of the options at
our disposal. I conclude that it's essential to conduct
focused, goal-oriented research to support informed decisions
but reiterate that this needs to be in addition to the work of
reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases and not a
substitute.
Thank you, and I look forward to all of your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. MacMartin follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Biggs. Thank you, Doctor.
I now recognize Ms. Wanser for five minutes for her
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF MS. KELLY WANSER,
PRINCIPAL DIRECTOR,
MARINE CLOUD BRIGHTENING PROJECT,
JOINT INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY
OF THE ATMOSPHERE AND OCEAN,
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
Ms. Wanser. Thank you. I should have some slides.
Thank you, Members of the Committee. It's an honor to be
here, and I commend you for taking up this challenging topic.
My name is Kelly Wanser. I spent 20 years as an executive and
entrepreneur in the technology industry focused on
understanding and securing large, complex systems. Ten years
ago, I became interested in how we might apply technology to
risks in the Earth system and helped form a collaboration that
became the marine cloud brightening project. I'm now its
Program Director. Prior to that, I served as an advisor to the
laser inertial fusion energy program at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory and as senior advisor to ocean conservancy,
looking at ocean climate risk.
I'm here today because increased heat in the atmosphere
poses risks to our way of life and critical parts of nature we
rely on. We may require options for directly reducing heat in
the Earth system. There is a need and an opportunity for
innovation, and there are important steps we can take in
developing a research program.
Small particles--aerosols--and the way they interact with
clouds to reflect sunlight are one of the primary ways that
nature keeps our planet cool. The most promising approaches to
rapidly reducing heat in the climate involve adding particles
to the atmosphere to slightly increase this reflective effect.
One approach to reducing heat, marine cloud brightening--
next slide--would use sea-salt mist sprayed from ships to
brighten clouds over the ocean. Next slide.
[Slide]
Applied to a fraction of all marine clouds, it might offset
2 degrees of warming globally, and the way the particles
brighten clouds and cool the system is a gap in our ability to
forecast weather and climate, and in this way research in
marine cloud brightening may be of strategic importance to
emergency preparedness, national defense, and many industries.
Today, we lack technical capabilities and scientific
knowledge for marine cloud brightening or any proposed approach
to rapidly reducing heat in the Earth system. Next slide.
[Slide]
Delivering aerosols with the right properties at sufficient
scale is a hard engineering problem and takes time. Next slide.
[Slide]
Once we have technology, next steps are to build a system
to enable small-scale field experiments to determine whether
these ideas are feasible and basic processes to input to
models. There is a well-defined research plan that starts with
land-based testing, moves to single ship studies, and finally
to misting one region of clouds to determine brightening
effects. This research plan will take years.
Satellite--next slide.
[Slide]
Satellite, aerial and surface observations are critical and
we will want to support our current infrastructure as well as
leverage disruptive new technologies and remote sensing from
innovative companies like Saildrone, Spire Aerospace, and
others. The work will also require significant advances in
modeling and data analysis and increased computing capacities
to support assessment and prediction of effects. It will take a
decade of core technology development and basic science to
determine if any options are feasible and another decade to
scale capabilities for readiness. Work must commence soon to
produce knowledge and options within a time frame relevant to
climate risks. With changes occurring around the world, it is
likely and may be inevitable that others will develop
capabilities. With a potential to produce geographically
variable climate outcomes, the United States has a security
interest in understanding and controlling them.
Taken alone, capabilities for reducing heat in the
atmosphere are not a solution. They should ultimately be
considered as part of a portfolio within a management framework
that includes emissions reduction, greenhouse gas removal, land
and ocean management, industrial practices, economic
incentives, and adaptation. Given the magnitude and urgency of
the problem and our current lack of knowledge and capabilities,
defining a research agenda and developing funding pathways for
research may be critical. A National Academies study to help
define a research agenda and establish a governance framework
for research activities may be a valuable initial step. Next
slide.
[Slide]
This type of work is not unprecedented. In 1934, the U.S.
government undertook the largest effort to address an
environment problem in our Nation's history: planting 220
million trees through the center of the Midwest to address the
great storm of the Dust Bowl. Now may be the time to research
the possibility of shelter belts in the sky.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Wanser follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Biggs. Thank you. I think each of the witnesses
for your very interesting testimony. I recognize myself now for
five minutes for questions.
Dr. Rasch, I understand that most of the federal research
on the topic of geoengineering has been conducted at our
federal labs. Can you elaborate on how much funding is
currently slated for this type of research?
Dr. Rasch. To my knowledge, the current funding is
restricted essentially to a few university professors through
the National Science Foundation. The rest of it is being
occasionally supported from various agencies to stay engaged in
activities like the research reports which you've heard about
but most of the other work that's being done is being done
through supportive philanthropic organizations or for free on
weekends and evenings by scientists who are interested in these
things. It probably is bounded by less than a million dollars a
year. It could be a few hundred thousand dollars a year of
supported research directly for geoengineering. That's to my
knowledge. I don't really know.
Chairman Biggs. Any other panelists want to weigh in on
that question? Dr. MacMartin?
Dr. MacMartin. The National Center for Atmospheric Research
has been providing computer time, which is supported by the
NSF, but that's basically--Phil's answer is correct.
Chairman Biggs. And so I would guess that--and I don't want
to presume anything but it sounds like you would agree that the
topic has not been adequately pursued in the recent phase?
Dr. Rasch. Right. My reaction is that it's very easy to
identify the fact that a very small amount of effort has been
put into this area and that progress could be made much more
rapidly with a relatively small amount of funding.
Chairman Biggs. It leads me to ask why has geoengineering
not received the same kind of funding as maybe some other types
of research over the last 8 to ten years. Dr. Rasch?
Dr. Rasch. Well, I think there's a recognition by all that
it's quite a controversial subject of real concern to citizens
of the United States and to other scientists as well, and there
is some reluctance to take the first step is my sense. That's
my best answer.
Chairman Biggs. Dr. Majkut, or actually anyone on the
panel, outside of the Federal Government, is--and you mentioned
some of the philanthropic supporters of geoengineering
research. What's the postsecondary education or university
level of research in this area? Ms. Wanser?
Ms. Wanser. So the overall philanthropic funding in this
area is, I would characterize it as maybe in the range of $1 to
$2 million a year, mostly allocated towards one program, the
stratospheric aerosol program at Harvard. For the most part my
experience in the philanthropic community is that this subject
matter is not yet acceptable for funding, so traditional
sources of environmental and climate research funding in the
philanthropic community are not yet funding in this area.
Chairman Biggs. And Dr. Majkut, how about universities?
Dr. Majkut. Well, we know there's a few research programs
around the country, Harvard University, Washington, other
individual scholars. Whether or not this particular item falls
under a research priority for a particular university I don't
think is a question that's easy for me to answer. There are
individual academics who put their energy into it, as Phil
says, but it's not a very large field as you go to these
scientific meetings where geoengineering is discussed. You see
that there's a relatively small number of people working on
these issues.
Chairman Biggs. Are other countries working on
geoengineering research, Dr. MacMartin?
Dr. MacMartin. So I think the largest program in the world
is probably the one at Beijing Normal University in China but
that's relatively new and unclear exactly where they're going
with that, but in Europe there's some small efforts as well but
not substantially larger than what's in the United States.
Chairman Biggs. So thinking of it in terms of global
competition, it doesn't sound like we're falling behind global
competitors, it's just that we're not advancing as rapidly as
perhaps many or some would like. Is that fair to say?
Dr. MacMartin. Not yet but that may change depending on
China's future----
Chairman Biggs. Dr. Rasch?
Dr. Rasch. It was just--I might beg to differ a little bit
with Dr. MacMartin that my sense is that over the last five
years or so, a variety of European countries have identified
explicitly some funding for geoengineering research that
amounts to a few million dollars a year perhaps for--at that
level, which is substantially larger than the amounts that I
could identify in the United States.
Chairman Biggs. Well, again, thank all of you for being
here, and my time is expired, and I recognize the Ranking
Member of the Environment Subcommittee, Ms. Bonamici.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just to follow up on the Chairman's questions about work
being done internationally, were any of you at the conference
in Berlin? Yes? So in terms--I know the Chairman mentioned
global competition but we also need to I think have a
conversation with the concerns, and Dr. Rasch, you recognize,
as our constituents do, there's some controversy and we need
some ethical discussions and boundaries, and Dr. Majkut, you
mentioned that there's a statute in the United States that
research needs to be reported and there needs to be some
framework. So how much work is being done internationally on
collaborating on some of these questions of what are the
frameworks and what are the ethical considerations and how much
is regulated in terms of--climate doesn't know political
boundaries so, you know, somebody in the United States has to
comply with this law but what about internationally? Who's
leading that discussion?
Dr. Majkut. So there are several newer organizations that
are looking at the international aspects of this research and
also, you know, geoengineering more broadly as something that
might be used to prevent climate risk not represented here
today. I think those discussions are beginning to occur but
it's--you know, they're consigned to issues that are related to
but not just scientific, right, so the moral and ethical
frameworks in which we look at these questions. Those
conversations are beginning. It's still early stage.
Ms. Bonamici. And how does the United States compare with
other--you mentioned China, Russia, other countries that are
maybe working on this in terms of having some sort of
regulatory framework or guidance and ethical considerations.
Dr. Majkut. I couldn't say about the foreign countries,
sorry, but the United States, I think, you know, as I
testified, has a framework in place for any research that's
going to take place in the next few years, and because of the
strength of our scientific community and the National Academy
of Sciences, I expect that we will remain at the front of
figuring how we can go about this research judiciously.
Ms. Bonamici. And Dr. MacMartin, we've heard today a few
times that geoengineering is not going to be the magic bullet
or a fix, it's not a substitute for mitigation and adaptation,
and you said that geoengineering could be part of the strategy.
So could you please talk about the range of activities that
would be included in mitigation and adaptation, and what
mitigation work is still required to prevent the most
catastrophic consequences of climate change and what role might
geoengineering play in that in terms of priorities?
Dr. MacMartin. So I think it is clearly that we eventually
have to get to zero emissions or net zero emissions of carbon
dioxide principally. Basically when we hit zero is when we stop
making the problem worse, and the question really is how fast
that happens because we can't do that overnight. That would
have serious economic consequences if we tried to do that
instantly. And so the question in some sense is, how do you
balance the needs of our--how do you balance the needs of our
grandchildren to have a safe environment and to have a decent
economy. So the best efforts at mitigation are still probably
going to result in some serious climate damage. You can imagine
using carbon dioxide removal in the long term to pull the
CO2 levels back down and in the interim potentially
thinking of solar geoengineering as a way to keep the
temperatures from getting too bad so that you don't do things
like lose parts of Antarctic ice sheets while you're waiting
for the CO2 removal to bring us back down.
Ms. Bonamici. Does anybody else want to add to that, the
question of--we know there's a lot of interest in exploring
geoengineering but what are the mitigation and adaptation
activities that perhaps need to have priority?
Dr. Majkut. Well, we know that, or our sense is that
mitigation and adaptation are both beneficial today. The
question of geoengineering is if it will be beneficial in the
future. They're very different by nature. Reducing emissions
permanently reduces the net impact of humans on the climate.
Potentially introducing these technologies at some later date
will do that temporarily but their nature is very different.
Ms. Bonamici. Dr. Rasch?
Dr. Rasch. If I can follow up, it's just to affirm what
Doug MacMartin said, which is essentially I think many of us
view the sunlight reflection methods as being an interim
solution which allows--provides some breathing space while the
mitigation and adaptation measures take place, and I think we
all believe that they should occur as rapidly as possible. Lots
of us are hoping that the carbon dioxide removal methodologies
will be economically viable and provide a mechanism for drawing
some of the CO2 out of the atmosphere, so that's a
very important strategy to consider.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. My time is expired. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Biggs. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Weber, the Chairman of the Energy
Subcommittee, from Texas.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
Dr. Rasch, in your testimony you said you'd been kind of
looking at this field for about ten years and you published 20
papers, or maybe it was in your comments before your testimony
as I read through it, and you also cited another gentleman that
had published 42 papers, and what was his name?
Dr. Rasch. Ben Kravitz----
Mr. Weber. Okay, and----
Dr. Rasch. --another colleague here at PNNL working with
me.
Mr. Weber. And how long has he been in the field?
Dr. Rasch. Probably ten years as well. He started as a
Ph.D. student working for a very eminent professor who chose to
support him to work in this area based on his work on volcanic
eruptions because this is a related--the impacts of volcanoes
are related to the ones we're exploring today.
Mr. Weber. Right. So the theory and concept of
geoengineering is not new in the scientific community. Would
you say it's just kind of taken off in the last 10 years?
Dr. Rasch. Well, it's interesting. You can go back to the
1960s and find conversations that have been occurring about
geoengineering. It certainly started to receive a huge amount
of attention following a paper that was published by a Nobel
Prize-winning chemistry named Paul Crutzen in 2006, so it's
about ten years old. In fact, that scientist and that paper was
what brought me into the field and it might have been some of
the other people on this committee.
Mr. Weber. And is Paul Crutzen--what country is he from?
Dr. Rasch. He has spent the last 30 years or so in Germany.
He did have a position at my former institute, the National
Center for Atmospheric Research, in Colorado, and he's
originally from Holland.
Mr. Weber. Okay, not that you know much about him.
Dr. Rasch. I didn't quite know how to answer that.
Mr. Weber. Well, we only have five minutes so--so he
published the paper, and you got interested. Is he still active
in this field?
Dr. Rasch. He is engaging. He's in his late 80s and ill so
he's not as heavily involved but he does actually endorse the
importance of doing research in this area to this day.
Mr. Weber. Okay. So as we've heard today, research has been
moving kind of slowly, and of course, you just described the
last ten years, I guess. So how do you get that idea out there
to make more people interested in it? In your opinion, what
steps could be taken to increase the participation of
researchers while encouraging experiments in geoengineering?
What needs to be done?
Dr. Rasch. Well, I'm a strong advocate for this coherent
research program that involves a set of five elements, which
I've listed in my written testimony.
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Dr. Rasch. And which I'd be happy to discuss.
Mr. Weber. Okay. So much of what we know today is based on
computer climate modeling. So how would small-scale field
experiments improve those models, and can you describe a small-
scale experiment?
Dr. Rasch. Sure. You saw some examples of some of the
elements of a small-scale experiment on the slides Ms. Wanser
showed, and----
Mr. Weber. Did you all collaborate on those?
Dr. Rasch. We have been working together.
Mr. Weber. Good.
Dr. Rasch. I'm part of that marine cloud brightening team
that's located at the University of Washington, where I also
have an appointment.
So it would involve seeing whether we could--let's talk
about marine cloud brightening for a moment. It would--that one
we know it is possible to make clouds more reflective but it
only happens in certain circumstances, and we're very--it's
very difficult to be precise about the circumstances that it
can occur in. So what we would like to be able to do--first
off, there are many variables that take place which could help
to explain that. The weather situations and clouds could be
part of it. We see these clouds form in the wake of freighters
which have different technologies on board. They use different
kinds of fuel. They use different emission----
Mr. Weber. That's kind of fascinating because those
emissions that come from those freighters is producing a heat
content, perhaps carrying CO2 obviously with it, and
so you're saying that in and of itself produces droplets that
intermingle with the clouds?
Dr. Rasch. It's actually the particles that come out. If
the emission controls on those ships were perfect, then they
probably wouldn't be producing these ship tracks. What happen
is that every cloud drop wants to form on a particle, all cloud
drops in the atmosphere, and these ships release some
particles, and when they do, those particles act to allow more
clouds--more drops to form in certain clouds.
Mr. Weber. So you can duplicate that process?
Dr. Rasch. That's part of it, so what we would like to see
is if we can do it in precisely the circumstances because I was
saying, as ships--one ship is different from another, and it's
very difficult to be precise about exactly what the conditions
were that allows the brightening to occur, and we would like to
be more precise about those things?
Mr. Weber. Okay. My time is expired, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you.
Chairman Biggs. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the Ranking Member on the Energy
Subcommittee, Mr. Veasey from Texas.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In addition--and this is for all the witnesses to answer.
In addition to the solar radiation management, one alternative
climate intervention strategy that the National Academies
examined recently is carbon dioxide removal. What is the
potential of carbon dioxide removal to play a significant role
in our efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change?
Dr. MacMartin. So there's a number of ideas that have been
suggested including bioenergy with carbon capture and
sequestration, so basically you grow crops, you burn them in a
power plant, you suck the CO2 out of the flue gas
and store it underground, and the problem with ideas like that
is that the scale that you need to do them on to make a dent in
climate change is something of order the scale that we're
currently emitting CO2 at, which as a species is
about 40 gigatons per year, and so unless you're talking about
pulling, you know, 5, 10, 15, 20 gigatons per year out of the
atmosphere, it's a pretty small dent. And the problem basically
is that things like the bioenergy with carbon capture and
storage would compete with land use that we use for food crops,
and then there's another set of ideas to directly capture it
from the atmosphere, directly capture CO2 from the
atmosphere. That is almost certain to be technically feasible
but right now probably too expensive, and it's almost certain
to be cheaper to not put it in the first place than to take it
out after you've put it in. And then there's a variety of other
ideas that are probably less well understood. So the bottom
line is, all of the things need either--we need something that
is scalable, cost-effective, and does not have substantial
local impacts, and right now we don't have any ideas that
satisfy all three of those, which is why we would need more
research in that, and if we don't start now, it's not going to
happen.
Ms. Wanser. I would add to that list genetically engineered
organisms and plants that might more efficiently capture carbon
in the way that nature does but in an accelerated fashion. Some
of the new capabilities with genetic modification, the CRISPR
technologies, may be relevant for investment in this area.
I would also say that carbon removal capabilities at scale,
many of them carry serious ecological consequences that also
need to be evaluated as we look at them.
Mr. Veasey. Another controversial area in the Congress, the
GMOs.
Some of the riskier strategies for carbon dioxide removal
include ocean iron fertilization and the large-scale enhanced
weathering. What are the drawbacks to these strategies in an
environmental and public-health context?
Dr. Majkut. Well, those technologies, you know, could
prospectively capture quite a bit of carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere and retain it in places where it would be durable
either the sea or in rocks. The issue, as Doug says, is to do
this in a way that's going to significantly affect how much
excess CO2 is in the atmosphere. It's going to take
a lot of land or a lot of ocean, and the ecological effects of
either of those things is not quite known.
Mr. Veasey. Also, I wanted to talk with you briefly about
funding levels. You know, I'm very concerned, as a lot of
people are, about federal R&D programs under this
Administration. We saw in the budget proposal earlier this
year, the Trump Administration supports very large cuts to
research agencies. For example, the proposal included major
cuts to climate modeling and Earth systems sciences at the DOE.
Will these funding cuts hurt or help us better understand the
field of geoengineering?
Ms. Wanser. So I think it's important to acknowledge that
if we're interested in engineering the climate system that our
capabilities or observing, analyzing and interpreting the
information about the climate system are essential. So all of
the platforms and capabilities and talent that we have are not
only areas that we want to preserve but if we're interested in
active intervention in the Earth system, we would want to
advance and enhance those capabilities.
Dr. MacMartin. I would just second that. We need the same
climate models. We need a lot of the same observational
capacity, and we use the exact same high-performance computing.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back
my time.
Chairman Biggs. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Posey.
Mr. Posey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for calling
this very interesting hearing, and thank the witnesses for
their informative testimony.
Do you believe--this is for anyone on the panel, for all on
the panel--there's a risk that in starting to build
geoengineering capabilities, we could lose control of them, and
how do you think it would compare to the risk of bioengineering
and nanotechnologies?
Dr. Rasch. I'm willing to take a stab at it. I think
scientists are all concerned about the possibility of this--us
losing control of it and adopting it but I personally feel that
it works better to operate from a position of knowledge about
it rather than the absence of that knowledge, and I think the
cat's kind of out of the bag at this point in the game that the
technology is possible. So I would prefer to be spun up on what
it's----
Mr. Posey. Okay. Ms. Wanser, you had your hand up next.
Ms. Wanser. Well, solar climate engineering technologies
actually have a high barrier to entry, so they're relatively
expensive to engineer and relatively expensive to measure, and
they scale linearly, so you evolve solar climate engineering
technologies with a number of disbursals you have. They're very
easy to see and detect. Whereas nanotechnology and
bioengineering techniques have very low barriers to entry. They
now--you can now buy a kit to engineer organisms with CRISPR
for less than $200, and you could release them into the wild.
So the challenge with things like bio engineering is that they
are low barriers to entry and self-replicating. So in some
senses, solar climate engineering actually is less challenging
from a governance perspective provided we have a framework in
place.
I disagree a little bit with Dr. Majkut that we already
have one. I think it's part of what we would want to define in
conjunction with the research program. But I think some of the
challenges here are a bit more straightforward than they are in
some of these other fields.
Mr. Posey. Anyone else care to comment?
Dr. MacMartin. Yeah, I just wanted to add, if we did put
aerosols into the stratosphere at any point, the lifetime in
the stratosphere is about a year or two, and so whatever we put
up there is just going to come back down. That also means that
if you want to maintain it, you have to constantly be putting
more in. So there's less risk of it running away when you're
actually deploying it than there would be for, say, a
biotechnology-type intervention.
Mr. Posey. Any hard evidence on the effect that subsurface
activity has on the atmosphere? I mean, we know what ended the
last Ice Age. It was an asteroid strike which basically created
the Gulf of Mexico and darkened out the Earth for many, many
years and allowed it to freeze over. There are some conditions
that exist here now that have the potential to recreate that
catastrophe. Some of the research I've seen at Yellowstone, the
big volcano in the Azores that they say will cause 100-foot-
high tsunami, you know, but your thoughts on how that may
affect us?
Dr. Majkut. Well, relevant to these questions, there's a
volcano, Mount Agung, which is on currently a level 3 eruption
watch, so we may have a natural experiment coming up should it
erupt and inject sulfates into the atmosphere. Then we would
see a repeat of what previous volcanoes have done and probably
some cooling influence, and thankfully the scientific community
I believe is ready and standing by to observe that and
understand the processes as best they can. That's certainly
true.
Dr. Rasch. If I might follow up----
Mr. Posey. Dr. Rasch?
Dr. Rasch. --it's to say just that the scientific community
is very interested in a rapid response team for watching over
these volcanic eruptions but they are sort of assembling it as
we speak, and it's not maybe quite as far along, as Joe
mentioned.
Mr. Posey. One last question. What have other countries
done so far in this realm?
Dr. Rasch. The rapid response team is part--is an
international effort. There's certainly a very large and
interested part of American U.S. scientists participating but
that is an international activity.
Mr. Posey. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time's
expired.
Chairman Biggs. Thank you.
I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. McNerney.
Mr. McNerney. I thank the Chairman and I thank the
witnesses.
You have seen the legislation I am about to introduce. Do
any of you have comments about that legislation, whether you
think it's useful or should be improved or anything like that?
Anyone care to answer that question?
Dr. Rasch. I've had only a chance to look at it very
briefly and would be delighted to provide some more comments
offline.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you.
Dr. Majkut. I have the same idea.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you.
Dr. MacMartin. So I haven't read through it in complete
detail but I think in general I'm very supportive of having the
National Academies involved in trying to understand exactly--
basically lay out the roadmap for research in this area as well
as looking at the governance side of things.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you.
Ms. Wanser. As I mentioned in my remarks, I'm very
supportive of the notion of a National Academies study process
to help define a research agenda. The community to date in
geoengineering has been very small and centered in modelers
with some physicists and some ethicists and policy researchers.
So I believe that that process could help expand the array of
disciplines that we need to look at this area and also help to
build consensus about what a research program should look like.
Mr. McNerney. Well, following up with that on a governance
framework, what sort of scope of organizations and individuals
should be involved in the development of a governance
framework?
Dr. Majkut. I think we should be looking at sort of all the
concerned parties, right? So the scientific community plays a
vital role. I think civil society should play some role as
well, and I think Congress should take into consideration the
idea that you might want to have a say in how these things get
governed, and then going forward, we can also look at managing
these types of things with international partners as well.
Mr. McNerney. Ms. Wanser, you mentioned that it would take
about 20 years for the technology to be deployable. Would
having a research governance mechanism speed up that timeline
in your opinion?
Ms. Wanser. At the moment, one of the barriers to
technology development and field research is the lack of either
a government framework or social license for the work. So I
think it would reduce risk for people who would fund the
research and people who would enter the field to have an
appropriate governance framework to allow it to proceed. So
yes.
Mr. McNerney. Very good.
Do any of you know if there have been field tests on
geoengineering that have been carried out by other countries?
Dr. Rasch. I'm not aware of any.
Dr. MacMartin. There's been--there was a brief attempt in
the U.K. to do an experiment that was just on a tethered hose
so it was just developing hardware that didn't actually take
place, and there was an attempt in Russia a number of years ago
to try to do something that was a bit of a stunt but it wasn't
really scientifically accurate.
Mr. McNerney. Do Russia and China have limitations on what
their scientists are able to do in terms of geoengineering?
Dr. MacMartin. So the program in China right now is purely
based on climate modeling and much more focused on what the
impacts of deploying solar geoengineering would be. I do know
from conversations with them that they're asking questions
about whether their next phase of their research should involve
some experimental work but they have not yet made any decisions
about that.
Mr. McNerney. So we don't need to be worried about them
doing large-scale deployments?
Dr. MacMartin. I don't think we need to be worried about
anybody doing large-scale deployments because if you want to do
scientific research, the research questions are all about
process uncertainties, you know, trying to understand chemical
reaction rates in the stratosphere and things like that, and
they don't require large tests to do those things.
Mr. McNerney. So then what are some of the key ethical
questions that we should be considering in moving forward with
this field of work?
Dr. MacMartin. I think my personal answer to that would
simply be that a lot of people are very concerned about the
slippery slope and whether an effort in research is eventually
going to lead to deployment, and I think a lot of people are
very concerned about the research effort in geoengineering
detracting from efforts in mitigation, and so in some sense the
issues with ethics and governance are primarily wrapped up in
involving the public participation and where we want to be
going as a society in the future.
Mr. McNerney. Mr. Chairman, I want another five minutes. I
yield back.
Chairman Biggs. Thank you, and the Chair recognizes the
gentleman from Texas, Mr. Babin.
Mr. Babin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Extremely interesting
topics, and I appreciate you convening this hearing and your
witnesses being here.
You've already alluded to it a little bit about the safety
and environmental risks of this research being proposed, and we
just talked about Russia and some of the other countries and
maybe deploying fully things of this nature, and you mentioned
a slippery slope, Dr. MacMartin, and what do you mean exactly
by slippery slope? Is this something that you mess around with
Mother Nature and it may turn into something that's even worse
than you're trying to fix?
Dr. MacMartin. I was actually referring to the societal
process, the concern that if we start doing research, that
eventually that's going to lead to deployment, and people might
think wait, wait, we haven't actually decided on deployment
yet.
Mr. Babin. Right.
Dr. MacMartin. So that's a concern that people have
expressed.
Mr. Babin. Okay. But is that a concern with any of you
folks that are involved in this, that we could unleash
something irreversible if you continue to do this cloud
brightening or the stratospheric procedure? Is that a
possibility?
Dr. Rasch. I think at the level that we're talking about
doing things right now, as I think Joe mentioned, the changes
to the planet are vanishingly small. It would be hard for you
to notice, to even detect it if you didn't know it was
happening. So it's really tiny compared to, for example, the
impact that flying an aircraft from Washington, D.C., to
Seattle would have on the planet. So they're small today. If
one wants to get to the point of considering having a climate-
altering effect, then the impacts get much more important to
worry about, and we have to be more careful when things get
ramped up to that time.
Mr. Babin. Right.
Dr. Rasch. As Kelly mentioned, I think it would take 20
years to decide on whether we have a good enough understanding
to decide that it might be useful to do this or not, if we're
going all out on it.
Mr. Babin. All right. Thank you.
Anybody else want to add to that?
Dr. Majkut. Yeah, I think I would just reiterate that a lot
of the sort of smaller-scale field experiments that scientists
are presently proposing to do are going to be unnoticeable to
the untrained eye. You need a really fancy experimental setup
and cool instruments to even detect that it's going on, right?
Questions of, you know, does this research affect sort of other
societal questions about how we address climate change are real
but I think it's--you know, it's a bit of speculation to say
whether that'll cut one way or another. We should go about this
judiciously and carefully and slowly and with an open and
transparent process. I think that's probably the best approach.
Dr. MacMartin. I agree.
Mr. Babin. Okay. Yes, ma'am?
Ms. Wanser. I think one of the things that may be helpful
from a governance process or an oversight process is a
definition of what we mean by research-scale or small-scale
experiments and then lots of transparency with regard to that
so that where it's not easy for people to understand what the
limits of these things are. We have some very bright, shiny
lines between what we do for research and the kinds of things
that would have greater impacts.
Mr. Babin. Okay. And while you're at the mic, you discussed
the need for research framework earlier in this field, and
could you explain what your whole-systems approach to
geoengineering research would be?
Ms. Wanser. Well, probably not terribly briefly, but I
think there's--it's what sometimes referred to as a
transdisciplinary field, so we think about certainly the
climate research part of it. We have a technology innovation
component. We need to think how systems would interact together
and how different actions taken on the Earth system would
interact like policies that we make that change the forcings in
the climate too. So part of a research program is to bring
people who are not currently present into the discussion
starting with aerosol engineers and other types of engineers
who would be needed to think about how these things would
actually work, looking at the innovations in observations
measurement and computing. So today the experiment that I
showed you about marine cloud brightening, they do observations
like that now of pollutants, and when they go out and take
those measurements, they bring them back. They take months to
analyze the data. If we're acting on the Earth system actively,
we're going to want information much faster and we're going to
need to improve our systems to do that.
So when we think about the whole system, we have to think
forward a little bit about what we'd be looking at in terms of
the feedback to the perturbations that we make and how we need
to understand them. Does that help?
Mr. Babin. Yes. Yes, it does. Thank you very much, and my
time is expired, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Chairman Biggs. Thank you. The Chair recognizes the
gentleman from New York, Mr. Tonko.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our
impressive panel of witnesses for joining us today.
As the only New Yorker on the Committee, I would like to
take a moment to give special thanks to Dr. Douglas MacMartin
from Cornell University. We thank you for your time and your
expertise, and we thank Cornell for the contributions it makes.
The recently released 4th National Climate Assessment
Climate Science Special Report represents the scientific
collaboration of some 13 United States federal agencies with
sign-off from the White House. That report found with high
confidence a likely human contribution of well over 90 percent
of the observed change between 1951 and 2010 in the global
climate. Furthermore, the report found with very high
confidence that the magnitude of climate change beyond the next
few decades will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse
gases emitted globally and on the remaining uncertainty in the
sensitivity of Earth's climate to those emissions.
We know the harms caused by climate change are grave and
that they are growing. They have already done harm to human
health, to water quality and availability, sea-level rise, and
they have worsened natural disasters. For this and countless
other reasons, failure to address climate change will result in
significant economic harm to our country and her people.
Given the conclusions of these impartial scientists and the
widely accepted consensus that climate change is real and
primarily driven by human activity, I urge all members of this
Committee to move forward with this White House-approved
consensus in mind.
Geoengineering absolutely should be a part of the
discussion of solutions, but with that said, we can't lose
sight of the fact that significant reductions in GHG emissions
are indeed necessary.
So for all of our witnesses, you have emphasized that
numerous gaps remain in the scientific understanding of
geoengineering technologies. Can each of you just briefly
describe these gaps in the scientific understanding of
geoengineering strategies?
Dr. Rasch. Yeah, I'll mention one or two because I could go
on for the whole five minutes. So----
Mr. Tonko. One or two will do.
Dr. Rasch. Okay. So we at the moment don't--the situation
of using geoengineering differs from either the marine cloud
brightening or volcanoes because we would intend to put
particles into the atmosphere continuously rather than they
would just occur episodically, and we don't know how the
existing particles will respond to the--to putting in these
kind of particles for long periods of time. Models tell us that
it will be different from the way it would work for a volcano,
let's say, so that would be one example of something which we
don't know but we need more information.
Mr. Tonko. Okay. Thank you.
Doctor?
Dr. Majkut. One particular aspect of this that really
fascinates me is questions of when you have these sort of
compensating mechanisms of warming at the surface and cooling
in other parts--either concentrated parts of the atmosphere or
high up in the atmosphere, what are going to be the effects on
other conditions that we care about, not just temperature,
right? So biology, the oceans. I think a lot of these
downstream issues need to be investigated much further.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you.
And Dr. MacMartin?
Dr. MacMartin. So I would second both of those and just
reiterate that we know a fair amount of stratospheric aerosols
just from observing volcanic eruptions, but it is different
from a large volcanic eruption. We don't actually have any
observations of geoengineering obviously and so we sort of have
to figure out as we go how do we go collect that knowledge
about what the processes in the stratosphere are going to be.
Mr. Tonko. Okay. Thank you.
Ms. Wanser. Well, we don't yet have any technology for
producing aerosols of the type and at the scale that we're
talking about for this, and until we know what the limits of
those technologies are, what we're inputting to our models is
very much guesswork, and we also don't know how to measure and
detect in real time.
Mr. Tonko. So then what would the next steps be to address
these gaps? Any recommendations to the Committee?
Dr. MacMartin. So I think one step is clearly to actually
just start by saying if we want to support informed decisions
in 10, 15, 20 years to be very careful that writing down what
all the uncertainties are and propagating those through the
climate models, so if there's something uncertain about
stratospheric aerosol microphysics or chemistry, how important
is that in terms of influencing our decisions and therefore
what experiments would we need to do to help resolve those
uncertainties. That's the type of research that I think we need
to be focused on.
Mr. Tonko. Anyone else?
Dr. Rasch. Yeah. I mean, I will just say that there are--I
think one of the things that is missing so far is that the
research that's been done today is primarily curiosity driven
and people have picked at various elements of the
geoengineering unknowns, but I think we need to do it in a much
more systematic way to try and move pretty quickly towards
getting an idea about what are the tradeoffs involved in this
work.
Mr. Tonko. Okay. With that, I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Biggs. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr.
Foster.
Mr. Foster. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for holding
this hearing. It really shows a level of engagement on this
issue that I think is overdue and very welcome.
Are there any sort of zero-order either cost estimates or
estimates for the amount of aerosols that you'd need, for
example, to reverse a 2-degree warming or a calculation of, you
know, if you have a gigaton of coal, how many gigatons or tons
of aerosols you have to put into the atmosphere? Are there any
rough estimates based on volcanoes and similar that people have
done?
Dr. MacMartin. So I'll give you a rough estimate that 1
degree of--1 degree Celsius of cooling, so 1.8 Fahrenheit is,
say, 10 megatons of sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere,
and in terms of cost, there's estimates of costs that are in
the billions of dollars, but quite frankly, I don't think that
the direct economic costs of bringing material to the
stratosphere, those probably are not the reasons why we would--
how we would evaluate this. It's far more a question of what
the risks and the side effects are.
Mr. Foster. Right. Okay. So it wouldn't be the direct costs
of actually even carrying this out. They all would be dwarfed
by, you know, the trillion-dollar scale effects of, you know--
--
Dr. MacMartin. Yeah, and the direct costs of doing it is
probably more observational capacity of satellites and things
to monitor things.
Mr. Foster. Which brings me to the issue of international
governance because, you know, Congress can pass all the laws we
want and if, you know, China decides that it wants to preserve
its islands it just built in the South China Sea or, you know,
Bangladesh or Micronesia decides that they're going to be
underwater in short order, you know, their interests are not
necessarily aligned with ours, or if you do this and you see
it's going to redistribute rainfall globally, you know, or
reverse the Gulf stream or stop the Gulf stream. You know,
there are worries like that that are out there. And so it seems
like you need an international mechanism for someone who will
say no, you cannot do that. And you know, we're in a tough
situation right now because we have an Administration that's
done things like reject the Paris agreement. And so I was
wondering if there are serious, maybe outside this country,
serious discussions of how we're going to regulate this
internationally.
Dr. MacMartin. Discussions are beginning but, you know, as
we kind of see here today, this is a new topic for
conversation, particularly for a lot of policymakers. So
they're sort of at their early stages. I highlight in my
testimony some ideas. I'd be happy to follow up with you about
them in more detail about how we can accomplish some of these
questions here and sort of build a national governance model
that could influence how things work internationally. I think
that would be a good thing to talk about. But yeah, we're still
at very early stages in terms of international issues.
Mr. Foster. It also seems to me that the level of
controversy having to do with CO2 removal strategies
is much lower than albedo modification, particularly
atmospheric. Is that a fair reading of sort of your--the
attitudes you see toward this, that the objections of CO2
removal are simply going to cost a lot more than averting the
emissions in the first place.
Dr. MacMartin. So in terms of direct climate impacts, then
there's basically no climate impacts from pulling CO2
out. It just--that solves the root of the problem. But I think
one of the reasons there hasn't been any pushback is perhaps
people don't quite get what the local impacts might be. So if
you need to displace land area the size of India for food crops
for bioenergy, I think that would actually have some serious
consequences. So I think yes, people are less concerned about
CDR but maybe they should be a little bit more concerned than
they are.
Mr. Foster. That would be a very technology-specific thing.
Dr. MacMartin. Very, very specific to the technology.
Mr. Foster. And so now, when you got these sort of natural
experiments from volcanoes going off, how frequent are
volcanoes that actually provide you relevant data and get
enough aerosols up in the stratosphere that you actually get a
useful volcano? Do they happen once a decade, once a century,
or once every few years?
Dr. Rasch. Probably less frequently than once a decade and
more frequently than once a century they come alive.
Mr. Foster. All right.
Dr. Rasch. They do have smaller-scale volcanoes. One went
off in Iceland a few years ago that was useful for
understanding some aspects of, for example, the way clouds
could be brightened by addition of extra particles in the
atmosphere. But the really big eruptions like Pinatubo or
Agung, those are----
Mr. Foster. Those are rare. I remember after that volcano
happened, I called up Nathan Myhrvold, who you're probably well
aware is one of the, you know, people of means interested in
paying for this, and he indicated that it simply didn't put
enough into the high stratosphere to be useful.
Dr. Rasch. For the stratospheric aerosol analog.
Mr. Foster. Right. But now, if you look at the historic
record of----
Chairman Biggs. The gentleman's time is expired.
Mr. Foster. Excuse me. I yield back.
Chairman Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Foster. I appreciate that.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Banks.
Mr. Banks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a very interesting
discussion today. Thank you for being here.
I believe like probably most of my colleagues do that it's
imperative that we deal with the reality of a $20 trillion
national debt. Even though that debt is driven by mandatory
spending programs, our constituents at home expect us to find
savings wherever possible. We've seen in my home State of
Indiana the innovative utilization of public-private
partnerships to overcome this dilemma. One example I'd like to
point to is the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute. The
Institute is a public-private partnership between universities
and research institutions, industry and the State of Indiana.
The Institute fosters collaboration between these entities in
life sciences research and support the commercialization of
their research. One big advantage, in my view, of an
arrangement like this is that the participation of industry
ensures that research will be directed toward endeavors that
are commercially viable and produce a positive return on
investment.
So with that, I'd like to hear the panel's perspective on
the potential for public-private partnerships to advance
research in this area. Dr. Rasch, if you could respond to that
first, we'd appreciate it.
Dr. Rasch. Well, I know that my laboratory is quite
interested in these public-private partnerships. I have to
admit I'm not an expert in the area and can't tell you about
the potential for this particular application.
Mr. Banks. Okay. And next to you?
Dr. Majkut. I would also have to demur. I think public-
private partnerships are useful in many contexts but it's hard
for me to state strongly one way or another on this issue.
Mr. Banks. Ms. Wanser, I see you raising your hand.
Ms. Wanser. So I see tremendous opportunity for public-
private partnerships and the disruptive innovation that's
happening in remote sensing and in computing. So for the types
of capabilities that we need to monitor and interpret what we
would do in geoengineering, there are particular opportunities
to work with those companies to do things in a way that's
potentially an order or two orders of magnitude less expensive
than we do it now in satellite observations, in ocean
observations, the opportunity to have much more comprehensive
Earth coverage and a much more granular level, and at the same
time I think that are big opportunities for partnerships in the
computing space for the adoption of cloud computing for some of
the workloads that we do in this area that could be done on the
public cloud in a cheaper and more agile way and opportunities
to explore exoscale computing for the kinds of things we
haven't solved yet in terms of understanding the Earth system
more rapidly.
Mr. Banks. So you agree that public-private partnerships
are fruitful, but do you believe that the environment exists to
further public-private partnerships as it stands today?
Ms. Wanser. My experience leads me to believe--to be
hopeful, yes.
Mr. Banks. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Biggs. Thank you. I thank each of the witnesses
for being here today and a very interesting Committee hearing,
and appreciate the members and their questions.
The record will remain open for two weeks for additional
written comments and written questions from members.
And this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:44 a.m., the Subcommittees were
adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Additional Material for the Record
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