Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 133 posts

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#21

Post by icebraining »

intended wrote: post #6

I find that the idea of "climate engineers" and "geo engineering" has markers which will make it appeal to the same people currently peddling climate denial. My running bet/prediction is that 1) the imbroglio in America on climate denial will continue, 2) most of the world will feel happy that they are doing less than it should, but more than the stat 3) Eventually someone will sell the idea of !!GEO ENGINEERING!! to…

It's been said multiple times that reduction is no longer enough - even a cut to zero won't prevent warming at this point. Geo-engineering to actively reduce carbon is the inevitable conclusion.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#22

Post by mirimir »

xbmcuser wrote: post #9
intended wrote: post #6

I find that the idea of "climate engineers" and "geo engineering" has markers which will make it appeal to the same people currently peddling climate denial. My running bet/prediction is that 1) the imbroglio in America on climate denial will continue, 2) most of the world will feel happy that they are doing less than it should, but more than the stat 3) Eventually someone will sell the idea of !!GEO ENGINEERING!! to…

In the last few months I have read a few articles on hackernews about converting carbon dioxide into usable fuel. My hope for the future is that we come up with a way to capture and convert carbon dioxide even if doing so requires electricity as this would make renewables cheaper and stop more carbon output.

That's what plants do, using energy from sunlight. Unfortunately, they aren't very efficient at it. So capturing enough CO2 to make a difference would require too much arable land. Which we need to grow food and stuff. And to let the broader ecosystem do its thing.

I'm sure that we could come up with CO2-capture devices that are far more efficient than plants.[0] But the thing is, plants make copies of themselves ;)

0) https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13237

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#23

Post by Tade0 »

There's one significant thing they're achieving here: putting a price on CO2 in the atmosphere.

Some of the resistance to action on climate change comes from the notion that the cost is unknown, which in turn stems from the fact, that to date there was no scalable way to undo the emissions.

Now that a way has been demonstrated emitters can choose whether they want to reduce their emissions or undo them(assuming the right legislation forcing them to do so is in place). I believe most will go with the former option until it stops being economical.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#24

Post by mattmanser »

Reason077 wrote: post #16
rdl wrote: post #13

I wonder how much use CO2 extracted from the air has. Greenhouse CO2 supplementation sounds interesting but I assume there are cheaper ways to produce CO2 already.

Presumably, most of the captured CO2 eventually ends up back in the atmosphere anyway - either through leakage, or eventual decomposition of the greenhouse plants being grown. But it's still a net gain if the CO2 would otherwise have come from fossil-derived sources?

One of the CO2 trapping strategies would be to grow plants and then bury them to stop it going back.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#25

Post by intended »

chr1 wrote: post #11
intended wrote: post #6

I find that the idea of "climate engineers" and "geo engineering" has markers which will make it appeal to the same people currently peddling climate denial. My running bet/prediction is that 1) the imbroglio in America on climate denial will continue, 2) most of the world will feel happy that they are doing less than it should, but more than the stat 3) Eventually someone will sell the idea of !!GEO ENGINEERING!! to…

Somewhy climate engineering as a whole gets very negative responses from people who care about environment. But the climate we had in 1800s was not particularly great either. 1/3 of the land surface was still desert, hurricanes and droughts were common too, so the strategy of reducing human population, using only clean energy, etc. won't get us to a much better place. Of course some ideas are not great, but it doesn'…

You will have to forgive me when I cannot fathom how actively meddling with a complex system, which requires a substantial investment by our species in terms of scientists, research departments, universities, government offices - is going to result in a tightly controlled, well predicted result.

As opposed to getting a project with moving targets, hard to prove results, great optics and massive funding requirements.

I think climate engineering/geo engineering are on the lines of the same ideas as clean coal.

But the good part is, that we live in a world where the system will demand that this be carried out.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#26

Post by enugu »

Wouldnt it be cheaper to first capture CO_2 from the output of coal plants and other industries where it is in concentrated form? Also, economies of scale. Once we bring those down,we would still have to deal with decentralized sources like cars(electric cars and renewables can help), container ships, and the meat industry.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#27

Post by andyjohnson0 »

Reason077 wrote: post #16
rdl wrote: post #13

I wonder how much use CO2 extracted from the air has. Greenhouse CO2 supplementation sounds interesting but I assume there are cheaper ways to produce CO2 already.

Presumably, most of the captured CO2 eventually ends up back in the atmosphere anyway - either through leakage, or eventual decomposition of the greenhouse plants being grown. But it's still a net gain if the CO2 would otherwise have come from fossil-derived sources?

Some work has been done on mineralising extracted CO2, ending-up with a stable form that doesn't return to the atmosphere. For example: "... use electrolysis or heat to split common salt, sodium chloride, into hydrochloric acid and caustic soda, then react the soda with the carbon dioxide to make bicarbonate." [1]

The obvious question is whether this can be done in an energy neutral way. Either way its just a fix: we need to stop putting the CO2 into the atmosphere in the first place.

[1] https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/25-april-2011/solid-as-...

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#28

Post by TeMPOraL »

dalbasal wrote: post #14

These sorts of ideas are in a weird place. To many who are actively seeking better performance in our carbon reduction efforts, ideas like this could be seen as a threat to those efforts. ATM, the debate is (1)"is the carbon-climate problem real?" and (2) "If so, how do we reduce carbon emissions?". "Climate Engineering" would complicate 2 a lot, probably splitting political support. Politically, they open the door t…

> To many who are actively seeking better performance in our carbon reduction efforts, ideas like this could be seen as a threat to those efforts.

This is sad. People thinking like this are actively sabotaging their own efforts and dreams.

It's like a boat with a hole in it. You desperately need to stop the inflow of water (limiting emissions), but you could also use some way to pump out the water that's already in the boat (geoengineering). Because, 1) it's not the inflow that ultimately kills you, it's what has accumulated, and 2) pumping out gives you more time to fix the inflow.

We need the plan B now. We also need plans C, D and E.

What worries me though, is the "human playing god" magical thinking crowd will latch onto geoengineering efforts and gain popular support, the way anti-GMO and anti-vaccine groups did.

Humanity is amazing at preventing itself from solving problems.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#29

Post by TeMPOraL »

intended wrote: post #25
chr1 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhy climate engineering as a whole gets very negative responses from people who care about environment. But the climate we had in 1800s was not particularly great either. 1/3 of the land surface was still desert, hurricanes and droughts were common too, so the strategy of reducing human population, using only clean energy, etc. won't get us to a much better place. Of course some ideas are not great, but it doesn'…

You will have to forgive me when I cannot fathom how actively meddling with a complex system, which requires a substantial investment by our species in terms of scientists, research departments, universities, government offices - is going to result in a tightly controlled, well predicted result. As opposed to getting a project with moving targets, hard to prove results, great optics and massive funding requirements.…

Climate is a complex, dynamic system, but is not magic.

I have the feeling that most people desperately try to pretend everything is a static system (so it can be described, once, in a non-time-evolving form, and then called done), and in the few cases it fails, they throw their hands up and say "it's complex, dynamic, beyond human comprehension".

I mean, you could use the same argument against entire modern medicine - someone got sick because they led an unhealthy life style, so it's their fault, but we shouldn't try to heal them because that's "actively meddling with a complex system", which will obviously only make things worse...

Instead of being afraid of touching the climate, we should stop pretending everything around is static and being surprised when it requires more work of us. Yes, climate engineering means continuous work, continuous vigilance. Yes, it will surprise us. But it's normal, and we have to deal with it, just like we deal with every other surprise in life.

Post reply on HN