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dc.contributor.authorHerzog, Howard J.en_US
dc.contributor.authorCaldeira, Ken.en_US
dc.contributor.authorReilly, John M.en_US
dc.date.accessioned2003-10-24T14:57:52Z
dc.date.available2003-10-24T14:57:52Z
dc.date.issued2002-12en_US
dc.identifier.otherno. 92en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://mit.edu/globalchange/www/abstracts.html#a92en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/3639
dc.descriptionAbstract in HTML and technical report in PDF available on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://mit.edu/globalchange/www/).en_US
dc.description.abstractIn this paper, we present a method to quantify the effectiveness of carbon mitigation options taking into account the "permanence" of the emissions reduction. While the issue of permanence is most commonly associated with a "leaky" carbon sequestration reservoir, we argue that this is an issue that applies to just about all carbon mitigation options. The appropriate formulation of this problem is to ask 'what is the value of temporary storage?' Valuing temporary storage can be represented as a familiar economic problem, with explicitly stated assumptions about carbon prices and the discount rate. To illustrate the methodology, we calculate the sequestration effectiveness for injecting CO2 at various depths in the ocean. Analysis is performed for three limiting carbon price assumptions: constant carbon prices (assumes constant marginal damages), carbon prices rise at the discount rate (assumes efficient allocation of a cumulative emissions cap without a backstop technology), and carbon prices first rise at the discount rate but become constant after a given time (assumes introduction of a backstop technology). Our results show that the value of relatively deep ocean carbon sequestration can be nearly equivalent to permanent sequestration if marginal damages (i.e., carbon prices) remain constant or if there is a backstop technology that caps the abatement cost in the not too distant future. On the other hand, if climate damages are such as to require a fixed cumulative emissions limit and there is no backstop, then a storage option with even very slow leakage has limited value relative to a permanent storage option.en_US
dc.format.extent15 p.en_US
dc.format.extent345158 bytes
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.relation.ispartofseriesReport no. 92en_US
dc.titleAn issue of permanence: assessing the effectiveness of temporary carbon storageen_US


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