The Principles of Carbon Offsetting

Carbon offsetting is a way to compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions that an individual, company, or establishment has produced or will produce in the future. This can be done by purchasing credits from another organization that reduces or removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting are designed to help voluntary non-state actors set up carbon offsetting strategies that effectively pursue Net Zero commitments in accordance with the Paris Agreement. This consists of 4 main principles.

Reduce, Ratify, and Reflect.

• Reduce the need for offsetting by minimizing in-house carbon generation.
• Use ratifiable offsetting organizations that are accredited by governing bodies.
• Maintain accurate reflections of current emissions, Net Zero targets, accounting practices, and offsets to improve process transparency.

Carbon Removal > Emission Reduction.

• Carbon Removal offsetting processes involve advanced scientific methods such as atmospheric scrubbing to capture carbon dioxide and reverse the greenhouse effect caused by a century of brazen human industrialization. Utilizing these processes is key to achieving the Net Zero target by 2050.
• Emission reduction offsetting processes are simpler to adopt and commonly used. These involve various methods to counteract the emissions that we currently produce, however, they are not enough by themselves to reverse the looming greenhouse impact on our planet in time.

Invest in Long-Lived Carbon Storage Offsetting. 

• Short-lived carbon storage methods like afforestation are considered to have a high risk of reversal within years or decades. For example, socioeconomic challenges can cause a revocation of protected regions, or a forest fire can wipe out an entire carbon sink mitigating decades of efforts.
• Long-Lived Carbon Storage methods provide highly stable, low-risk platforms to store carbon for centuries and millennia. They involve processes such as ‘Mineralizing’ that not only store captured emissions safely, but also provide a dependable end-point to bank your carbon credits on.

Participate and support the development of Carbon offsetting by:

• Early adoption with long-term agreements and advanced planning to empower offset project developers pushing Net Zero offsets.
• Establish sector-specific forums, networks, and collaborations for effective and replicable knowledge transfer among peers.
• Be environmentally proactive by supporting the restoration and conservation of endemic natural biodiversity.     
• Set an encouraging standard by incorporating the Oxford Principles into regulation and publicizing them.

Nuclear Fusion, Simplified.

“I would like nuclear fusion to become a practical power source. It would provide an inexhaustible supply of energy, without pollution or global warming.”

~ Stephen Hawking.

For almost two decades, scientists have been trying to derive more energy than they put into accelerating particles. In December 2022, US scientists for the first time announced that they achieved net-positive power with nuclear fusion technology, marking the beginning of a new era in power generation. An era of clean and abundant electricity. 

A pickup truck filled with fusion fuel has the equivalent energy of 2 million metric tons of coal or 10 million barrels of oil. 

Nuclear Fusion vs Nuclear Fission.

To put it simply, nuclear fusion is the science of blending or fusing lighter atomic particles in a mass accelerator and utilizing the energy released during the process. Whereas, nuclear fission is the science of splitting or detonating heavier atomic elements like Uranium and utilizing the energy released by the process.

How is nuclear energy harnessed as of 2022? 

By means of nuclear power plants, they constitute around 10% of global electricity generation as of 2022 and all of them currently derive power or convert energy by means of nuclear fission. This does provide a cleaner alternative to traditional (coal-fired) thermal power plants but has its own inherent risk of operation. 

The risk of Nuclear Fission.

Most of us have heard of the terms ‘Chornobyl disaster‘ in Russia or the ‘Fukushima disaster‘ in Japan. These nuclear power plant disasters were caused by multiple factors and simple mistakes leading to structural damage, eventually compromising the containment of fissile nuclear material and the facilities altogether. Nuclear fission is only considered stable when it is properly controlled and maintained. Once it is triggered, it needs to be constantly managed through a chain of critical processes to keep it functioning safely. One cannot just switch it off willy-nilly or have a catastrophic earthquake tear through it and expect things to be safe. 

How is nuclear fusion safer than fission? 

In this process, particles are accelerated to high enough speeds in a particle blender causing them to fuse together into heavier atomic particle(s), thereby releasing energy. Reducing this acceleration for any reason will immediately cease the criticality of the process rendering it safe and stable again. This means, even if the facility incurs unforeseen structural damage, unstable material can be controlled without causing large-scale nuclear fallout or irradiating the entire region.

What fuel does nuclear fusion use? 

Although many kinds of different particles can be used to trigger a nuclear fission event, the most commonly used fuels are hydrogen isotopes; Deuterium, a stable isotope available naturally in seawater, and Tritium, an artificially created radioactive isotope. Deuterium is derived using various chemical processes, whereas Tritium is found in functioning nuclear power plants or artificially created using a process called Tritium breeding. It should be noted that either of these processes is energy heavy and not easy to derive. Making this one of the biggest hurdles with regard to the development of nuclear fusion technology.

What do you think about the scientific journey of nuclear power generation so far? Do let me know in the comments below.