Extreme Temperature Diary- Friday September 5th, 2025/ Main Topic: More Reasons Why Carbon Storage Is Not a Great Climate Crisis Solution – Guy On Climate
Dear Diary. Over the years I’ve learned that carbon storage schemes using expensive hardware that sucks carbon out of the atmosphere, then storing it underground, has been frowned upon by many climate scientists like Dr. Michael Mann. Their advice is to promote limiting carbon from going into the atmosphere in the first place by stopping the burning of fossil fuels.
The problem here is that I have not seen enough of a change over the last couple of decades to keep our current climate from being ruined. Now we have another concern, artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of power to run AI, which is absorbing many countries’ new green energy. AI is wanted so much that coal generated power plants are being brought back to life because other sources of energy are not enough to sufficiently power and maintain it. The human race seems to always come up with more ways to burn any surplus energy.
In any case, here is a new article from Grist that indicates that there are less geologically favored areas for carbon storage than previously thought:
How much carbon can we safely store underground? Much less than previously thought.
Carbon storage “can no longer be considered an unlimited solution to bring our climate back to a safe level.”
grist.org/science/carb...
#Climate #Carbon #Policy #Technology #Solutions #News #Environment — Grist (@grist.org) 2025-09-03T17:23:58.866Z
How much carbon can we safely store underground? Much less than previously thought. | Grist
How much carbon can we safely store underground? Much less than previously thought.Carbon storage “can no longer be considered an unlimited solution to bring our climate back to a safe level.” Gary Hershorn / Getty Images
Joseph Winters Staff Writer
Published Sep 03, 2025
Drawing down carbon from the air and stashing it in underground rock formations has been framed as an essential way to slow and reverse global warming. But new research published Wednesday in the journal Nature finds there are far fewer suitable places to do this than previously thought.
After screening out “risky” areas, like those that are vulnerable to earthquakes, a team of researchers from Europe and the U.S. found that the Earth can only safely store about 1,460 gigatons of injected carbon in its sedimentary basins. This is an order of magnitude less than previous estimates, and — if you convert stored carbon to an estimated impact on the climate — only enough to cut global warming by about 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.3 degrees Fahrenheit), not the 6 degrees C (10.8 degrees F) described in other research.
Carbon storage “can no longer be considered an unlimited solution to bring our climate back to a safe level,” one of the study’s co-authors, Joeri Rogelj, said in a statement. “Geological storage space needs to be thought of as a scarce resource that should be managed responsibly to allow a safe climate future for humanity.” Rogelj is director of research at the Grantham Institute on climate change and the environment at Imperial College London.
Carbon storage, for the sake of the paper, refers to the injection of carbon dioxide into underground reservoirs where it theoretically can’t contribute to climate change. There are two broad ways to get this carbon: first, by capturing it at the point of emission — say, the smokestack of a fossil fuel-powered cement factory — and second, by sucking it out of the ambient atmosphere.
According to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, the world’s foremost authority on the topic, at least some carbon storage will be necessary to achieve international climate targets.
But the amount needed is dependent on a number of factors, including how much countries plan to slash emissions versus “offsetting” them, especially from hard-to-decarbonize sectors, and whether they intend to blow past 1.5 or 2 degrees C (2.7 or 3.5 degrees F) of global warming and then return to a more liveable temperature by removing carbon from the atmosphere. The latter is a contentious idea known as “ overshoot,” and it would necessitate more carbon pulled out of the air and stored. Some IPCC scenarios involving substantial overshoot assume up to 2,000 gigatons of carbon storage by the year 2100.
According to the study’s authors, no previous global or regional estimate of the Earth’s technical carbon storage potential has taken into account key risk factors that would make some areas undesirable for storage. Starting from an estimate of all potentially available storage sites, their analysis cuts out areas that are too shallow, too deep, and too prone to earthquakes, as well as environmentally protected areas and areas near where people live. This reduces the total available capacity for carbon storage from 11,780 gigatons to just 1,460 gigatons of CO2, 70 percent of it on land and 30 percent on the seafloor.
The authors used an existing conversion rate from the IPCC to translate that gigaton number to about 0.4 to 0.7 degrees C (0.7 to 1.3 degrees F) of reduced global warming.
They also noted some geographical disparities in the potential for carbon storage: While some historical climate polluters such as the U.S. and Canada have lots of space to safely stash carbon, others in Europe don’t. If those countries intend to make carbon storage a significant piece of their climate mitigation plans, they will likely have to look for locations in countries that have done little to contribute to climate change, potentially in Africa.
Sally Benson, an energy science and engineering professor at Stanford University who was not involved in the new research, said its findings should not be seen as “alarming” or “dramatic.” As described in the paper, IPCC scenarios that give the world a 50 percent chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century would require sequestering about 9 gigatons of carbon per year (assuming that net-zero emissions are achieved around 2050). That means it could be more than 160 years before the world reaches the safe carbon storage limit calculated in the study.
“What that tells me is that this is kind of good news,” Benson said. “Somebody has taken the most conservative of possible approaches to looking at this capacity and concluded, from my perspective, that there’s a lot of capacity relative to what we need.”
The study authors note that the need for storage could continue after their theoretical limit is reached, especially if countries keep needing to offset residual emissions from agriculture or the burning of fossil fuels in some sectors. Climate tipping points could also release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than anticipated, necessitating more carbon removal than expected.
But Benson said these risks are too far in the future and that “we need to use all of the technologies available as quickly as possible.”
Both Benson and another independent expert — Jennifer Wilcox, a professor of chemical engineering and energy policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy — said the paper’s central estimate for safe and prudent carbon storage is likely too conservative. Wilcox told Grist it “undercounts what carefully pressure-managed projects can safely deliver.”
But Naomi Oreskes, a professor in the history of science at Harvard University, held the opposite opinion. Oreskes said the paper fails to consider governmental, economic, and scientific challenges to actually deploying carbon storage at scale. “When you take those factors into account,” she said, “the potential for carbon storage, particularly in the crucial next decade, is even less.”
Despite significant hype around the technology, only about 0.05 gigatons of CO2 are currently stored via point-of-emission carbon capture each year. So far, most of these carbon capture projects inject carbon into the ground to aid the extraction of even more oil and gas, in a process known as “enhanced oil recovery.” And only 0.00001 gigatons of CO2 are removed from the ambient air each year. That’s less than the stated annual greenhouse gas emissions of Bowdoin College, a small liberal arts school in Maine.
“This new information is consistent with a broader pattern we have observed, of overstating the promise of ‘solutions’ that sidestep the central issue of reducing fossil fuel use,” Oreskes said.
Here are more “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
RELENTLESS RECORD HEAT IN EAST ASIA
Nine records broken today in CHINA (see below)
with Jiande reaching 40C.
Temperatures, the hig in southern China are expected to continue rising tomorrow, and records will continue to be broken
NORTH KOREA 33.0 Anju -September record — Extreme Temperatures Around the World (@extremetemps.bsky.social) 2025-09-05T13:27:55.196Z
EXCEPTIONAL WARMTH IN SE ASIA
Record heat in SE Asia never ends and it has been going on since early 2023.
Tonight it was the hottest September night in history at:
Cilacap,INDONESIA Min 26.8C
Lao Cai,VIETNAM Min 28.2C
More records are expected next weeks. — Extreme Temperatures Around the World (@extremetemps.bsky.social) 2025-09-05T02:05:47.184Z
JAPAN RECORD HEAT
New day, new records in Japan:
September highest temperatures in history were broken in the Southeast:
35.2 Aki
33.5 Musashi
35.4 Mikado
35.8 Akae
More records on the way... — Extreme Temperatures Around the World (@extremetemps.bsky.social) 2025-09-05T10:48:05.799Z
Northway, Alaska (Interior, Upper Tanana Dene county) reached 80F (26.7C) late Thursday afternoon. This is the highest temperature on record in September. Previous highest was 79F in 1982. Climate observations since 1942.
#akwx #Climate @extremetemps.bsky.social — Rick Thoman (@alaskawx.bsky.social) 2025-09-05T01:18:14.936Z
CARIBBEAN RECORD HEAT
Endless record heat allover the Caribbean continues:
TURKS AND CAICOS
Providenciales just reached 35C for the first time in history, which is also a territorial record for the month of September
MEXICO
40.4C Felipe Carrillo Puerto- September record — Extreme Temperatures Around the World (@extremetemps.bsky.social) 2025-09-04T21:56:45.291Z
Another scorching day between British Columbia and Washington with temperatures up to 102F/39C.
Record warm nights for September too:
Minimum 71F both at The Dalles and Wenatchee respectively tied and broke their monthly records.
One more intense hot day tomorrow.... — Extreme Temperatures Around the World (@extremetemps.bsky.social) 2025-09-05T00:24:58.805Z
Satellites have been tracking the water held in glaciers, lakes and the world’s vast underground reserves — aquifers. A extensive analysis of that data reveals water is rapidly disappearing beneath much of humanity’s feet, and large swaths of the Earth are drying out. www.latimes.com/environment/... — Ian James (@ianjames.bsky.social) 2025-09-03T21:59:08.715Z
It’s back-to-school for many right now, and students are showing us what climate leadership looks like. Read the full edition of the newsletter at the link below, and don't forget to share what you learn! — Katharine Hayhoe (@katharinehayhoe.com) 2025-09-03T23:12:05.592Z
Main Topic: Dozens of Scientists Find Errors in a New Energy Department Climate Report via @npr.org
On The Extreme Temperature Diary WED 9/03/2025
At: guyonclimate.com
+#climate #weather + record temp reports via
@extremetemps.bsky.social/ @michaelemann.bsky.social
@katharinehayhoe.com — Guy Walton..."The Climate Guy" (@climateguyw.bsky.social) 2025-09-03T20:03:28.365Z
Southern Ontario's primarily hardwood forest doesn't offer great fuel for wildfires, but the density of the population and all the infrastructure that comes with it means fires that do spark are closely watched. Here's @rebeccaga0.bsky.social's look at how fires here compare to the boreal's blazes: — Elaine Anselmi (@elaineanselmi.bsky.social) 2025-09-03T17:09:41.673Z
The last week of August into the first week of September is the climatological peak of ocean heat content in the Gulf of Mexico, but the current area-average is at near-record levels, creeping up to 2024's all-time record high.
bmcnoldy.earth.miami.edu/tropics/ohc/
[1/2] — Brian McNoldy (@bmcnoldy.bsky.social) 2025-09-04T12:58:32.336Z
The last week of August into the first week of September is the climatological peak of ocean heat content in the Gulf of Mexico, but the current area-average is at near-record levels, creeping up to 2024's all-time record high.
bmcnoldy.earth.miami.edu/tropics/ohc/
[1/2] — Brian McNoldy (@bmcnoldy.bsky.social) 2025-09-04T12:58:32.336Z
Hyperlocal forecasting that provides real time, practical information for people to use when navigating extreme weather events is perhaps one of the first steps in climate adaptation today. An institute in Mumbai, in partnership with the local met department, is on it
www.science.org/content/arti... — Rishika Pardikar (@rishpardikar.bsky.social) 2025-09-05T13:46:04.805Z
This was the driest August for the Northeast (U.S.) since 1957. 🌵 — Climatologist49 (@climatologist49.bsky.social) 2025-09-05T05:51:50.485Z
Time to go into storm mode over at Eye on the Storm on Yale Climate Connections! @bhensonweather.bsky.social and I figure to be making daily posts for the next few weeks as Invest 91L saunters westward toward the Lesser Antilles Islands, with a long-term threat to the U.S. still to be determined. — Dr. Jeff Masters (@drjeffmasters.bsky.social) 2025-09-04T17:05:18.408Z
#ClimateFriday Reading: #Methane “Because so much of this gas is methane and so much of it is either incompletely combusted or not combusted at all through the venting process, we see a huge climate impact.”
insideclimatenews.org/news/0309202... — Silicon Valley North - Citizens Climate Lobby (@cclsvn.bsky.social) 2025-09-05T13:23:52.887Z
So like a reverse carbon border tax? — James Temple (@jtemple.bsky.social) 2025-09-03T17:45:04.400Z
WATCH: What are BETTER SOLUTIONS for traffic congestion in cities, especially as big employers are now forcing people back to the office? PLUS how politicians claiming bike-lanes cause congestion ARE LYING TO YOU! Watch my CBC interview with @ianhanomansing.bsky.social that played across Canada. — Brent Toderian (@brenttoderian.bsky.social) 2025-09-04T15:05:24.223Z
WATCH: What are BETTER SOLUTIONS for traffic congestion in cities, especially as big employers are now forcing people back to the office? PLUS how politicians claiming bike-lanes cause congestion ARE LYING TO YOU! Watch my CBC interview with @ianhanomansing.bsky.social that played across Canada. — Brent Toderian (@brenttoderian.bsky.social) 2025-09-04T15:05:24.223Z
Fresh off the press! Our perspective in @natrevbiodiv.nature.com discusses the wealth of information on biodiversity contained in historical sources, and its integration for long-term ecological knowledge and biodiversity conservation. A thread on the paper and what led to it:
rdcu.be/eEcIt — Laetitia Navarro (@laenavarro.bsky.social) 2025-09-05T13:53:22.203Z
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