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Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

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Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#51

Post by TeMPOraL »

intended wrote: post #43
TeMPOraL wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And the first bone setters and medicine men killed a phenomenal amount of people as much as they helped, and solutions were terrible until the modern methods arrived on the scene. Similarly Humanity has been inadvertently geo-engineering the planet. Modern techniques are here, and they tell us that the best way to treat the patient is not via geo-engineering. Look my point is cynical and its not about climate science…

> MUCH More importantly I am saying that it is the kind of pseudo-science-hope-springs-eternal-last-ditch-effort that people LOVE to support.

> Its a product in itself. That is what I am highlighting.

Uh. You're right. Thanks for bringing it up.

Maybe I'm not that cynical, but I agree the "hype juction" exists. I hope we can avoid the outcome you describe, but that's in no way a given thing.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#52

Post by TeMPOraL »

intended wrote: post #41
gadders wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of global warming activists/campaigners hate the idea of a technological solution as it won't allow them to tackle things like "global inequality" which they see as important as fixing global warming itself.

Oh don't get me wrong. I think that global warming activists have lost, and that the end goal for the planet is set. I'm not campaigning, I'm cooking near the fire. I make assumptions about the world, and in the end I realized the best way for me to hold myself honest, is to make a prediction and then see how it pans out. This is one of the predictions I am confident enough about that I can moan about it on HN. I hop…

> that either some technique is actually found where pumping MORE heat into a heat engine makes it cooler, or people ditch the idea

It's not the waste heat that's killing us. Sure, given enough energy usage, just the generated heat would become a problem for the planet, but we're far from there. Like hundreds of years far, at minimum. Right now we're fighting with the heat insulation we inadvertently wrapped ourselves in.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#53

Post by dogma1138 »

dalbasal wrote: post #45
dogma1138 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no debate and no climate scientist sees this as a threat. Reduction is needed but it won't cut it its too late for natural carbon sequestering at its normal pace. People who work on reduction also often work on sequestering and if not do not see these efforts as a threat to any of their work.

Sure there's a debate. We're debating and discussing right now.

For the most part we aren't climate scientists, there is absolutely no debate about carbon emissions and climate change.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#54

Post by Pxtl »

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…

I see a lot of people saying "technology will solve it for us, we should do nothing. sure I'll fight climate change - when it's zero cost to do so" as an argument to wait for better batteries, better windpower, better coal power etc. This will be another "wait for the scientists to fix it" item.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#55

Post by refurb »

gadders wrote: post #36
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…

I think a lot of global warming activists/campaigners hate the idea of a technological solution as it won't allow them to tackle things like "global inequality" which they see as important as fixing global warming itself.

This is key. It's not just about global warming, it's about how we solve it.

Some would prefer we get away from carbon-based energy entirely. Global warming is one way to argue for that.

If we find a way to remove carbon from the atmosphere, we can continue to use carbon-based energy and that upsets some people.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#56

Post by vonnik »

There are basically two approaches to geo-engineering, and they both have unpredictable consequences:

* reflect sunlight back into space through "albedo modification", either by spraying sulfates high in the stratosphere to mimic a volcano, or by conducting cloud whitening. complication: it will affect precipitation patterns, and allows the CO2 buildup to continue, meaning a sudden cessation would produce wrenching warming. it also does not slow ocean acidification.

* suck CO2 out of the atmosphere. also known as carbon sequestration. That's what Climeworks is doing, but their method is not the only approach. What they've built is a kind of chemical tree. Another approach is to create algae blooms by seeding the ocean with iron filings, since iron is often the limiting parameter to algal growth. algae: the amazon of the sea. a joker named Russ George dumped a tanker of iron into the northern Pacific a few years ago to show this could be effective, but his experiment was poorly designed. carbon sequestration does not address the underlying cause. but we are losing the battle against the underlying cause, which is basically our addiction to economic growth driven by fossil fuels, and existing carbon in the atmosphere will continue to warm the planet for many decades to come, even we switch entirely to clean energy today. so it's likely that humanity will have to combine carbon sequestration with clean energy to avert even worse climate change.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/03/geoengineerin...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170724105044.h...

http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/iron-dumping-leaves-geoe...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/07/re-engi...

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#57

Post by nonbel »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #29
intended wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>"we shouldn't try to heal them because that's "actively meddling with a complex system", which will obviously only make things worse..."

Precisely, this is in fact what happens most of the time.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#58

Post by Beltiras »

ericd wrote: post #48
Beltiras wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are sequestration methods today like storing CO2 in rocks: https://www.or.is/english/carbfix-project

Can we do it at the enormous scale we'd need to in order to offset the enormous amount of oil, coal, and gas we've burnt, though?

I have no insight into it. For sure it is easier to not burn the carbon instead of having to filter it from the atmosphere.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#59

Post by collyw »

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.

But converting it to "useful fuel" just means that the fuel will be burned and converted back to CO2, no?

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#60

Post by titojankowski »

Tade0 wrote: post #23

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 r…

Yes! Pricing is a key step to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. An invitation for entrepreneurs hop on board. How much does a ton of carbon dioxide sell for? Can I pull it out cheaper?

Reducing emissions is necessary but not sufficient. Even if fossil fuel emissions stopped 100% tomorrow, we would still have an issue: 403 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

We must develop tech to remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. The ideal outputs are economically-priced carbon-products without subsidy.

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