The program is up.

Nice introductory slides by Andres Clarens. Seem not to be public though.

First keynote: Kate Lajtha, https://agsci.oregonstate.edu/users/kate-lajtha

• Looks at the global and US potential of green solutions to address carbon capture (both terrestrial and marine)
• There is more carbon in soil than in air and vegetation combined (not sure whether that includes marine carbon)

Talks seem to be being recorded.

Next: Daniel Sanchez, https://ourenvironment.berkeley.edu/people/daniel-sanchez (UC Berkeley Carbon Removal Laboratory), on Engineered CO2 removal from the atmosphere (apparently not oceans)

• mentions that direct air capture is expected to cost about 200-300 USD per ton of CO2, whereas California carbon taxing levels are around 15 USD, and EU ones at about half of that
• like Andres before, he mentions Microsoft pledging to remove more carbon than it produces by 2030 — see here for a thread basically busting that claim by taking into account the carbon budgets due to fossil fuel companies that Microsoft collaborates with
• frames things like plastics (specifically bioplastics) and using wood in buildings as mechanisms to pull carbon out of the cycle
• his research is focused on BECCS, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-energy_with_carbon_capture_and_storage
• asks what UVA could be doing in this space
  • I would like to see the UVA power plant being put to use in this space

Next: David John Hayes, https://its.law.nyu.edu/facultyprofiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=profile.overview&personid=47622 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._Hayes

• "I'm a lawyer, apologies"
• "Denial is out, worry is in"
• quotes long list of programs directed at farmers in order to protect environments around agricultural lands
  • let's use some agricultural subsidies to help deal with climate change
  • these efforts so far have not yielded useful metrics
• some politician said resources should be directed at measuring soil health
• public lands (about one third of US lands) should go first at becoming net greenhouse gas neutrality
• USGS is running a LandCarbon website
• interesting list of policy opportunities, including
  • infrastructure
  • post-disaster recovery
    • e.g.
      • 9 billion USD remaining to be spent on resilience efforts following the BP oil spill
      • hundreds of millions after some severe hurricanes
• landscape architecture

My thoughts:
I would like to see the School of Data Science building and landscape architecture around the Emmet/ Ivy site to serve as pilots, e.g. around using cross-laminated timber instead of steel.

UVA manages lots of land, where some of the approaches discussed today could perhaps be piloted.

What about hydroponics?

Panel with Lajtha, Sanchez and Hayes

Q from Arthur Small: what will be useful metrics to move carbon capture technologies/ policies forward or at least prepare the ground?

A (Hayes): permanently measure the effects of carbon capture locally and transparently

Q : UVA is currently converting a forest into a solar field - does that make sense from a carbon perspective?

A (Lajtha): no direct answer, but some examples from Wyoming and Oregon

I was just told that slides will be shared eventually.

Flash talk session starts (I have emails of all presenters)

We then had a group work session in 1-2-4-all mode, i.e. everyone wrote down 1 idea/ thought to be discussed with the group, then this was discussed subsequently in groups of 2, then 4, then all.

My input was

UVA manages a lot of land and facilities on it (including solar and coal power plants, parks and forests), so how can this be used to prototype carbon management approaches?

In the 4-mode, this got rephrased as "UVA as a carbon management laboratory" that would include things like UVA's investments/ endowments and their ties to fossil fuel. Such a lab would help link research and policy at UVA and beyond to Virginia/ Federal/ global scales.

The rest of the day was further hands-on groupwork, so I did not take notes.

Had a follow-up discussion with Tho Nguyen on the ethics of data science and AI.