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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

#71

Post by dalbasal »

collyw wrote: post #67
vonnik wrote: post #56

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 w…

Serious question. Why not just plant a shit load more trees?

Costs at scale, mostly. Algea grows faster and doesn't require land.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#72

Post by atemerev »

Gravityloss wrote: post #62
atemerev wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what's exactly wrong with that? Assuming that technology works, and it is possible to reverse the environmental damage — why not do just that and keep our life satisfaction? Looks like win-win-win for me.

Oh, you broke an egg. Well, the next guy can probably put it back together. It should be as easy as breaking it, right? It makes no sense to first burn coal and then try to suck out the 400 PPM CO2 from ambient air. And where are you even going to store it?

The egg is already broken. We can stop breaking more eggs by either tying our hands, or e.g. strengthening the eggshells or engineering some other compensatory solutions. We are humans, who are engineers. We don't like our hands tied.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#73

Post by mac01021 »

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…

The cost of undoing the emissions only sets the price on CO2 emissions if that cost is lower than the cost of enduring the damage associated with not undoing them.

The cost of enduring those damages may be (and probably is) immeasurably large. But unless we're starting from some kind of reasonable estimate of the cost of the damage, however approximate, it can't be right to say that these guys are setting the price on atmospheric CO2.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#74

Post by mturmon »

titojankowski wrote: post #63
tryingagainbro wrote: post #49

dumb question: say they take xxxx tons from somewhere in Switzerland. How long does it take for the air to mix with the rest so the co2 is averaged worldwide? This looks like a great thing. The state can tax emissions and force emitters to pay such carbon gathering companies to become carbon neutral. You release xxxxx tons a years, show that you sequestered at least the same or pay a tax. You could also have a Bill G…

How long does it take for air to mix worldwide? I visited NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii last month. It's one of the key global sites where carbon dioxide is monitored. The scientist giving the tour answered this, and I believe it was on the order of a few weeks for mixing to occur. Here's a visualization that starts to answer your question: https://amp.livescience.com/48798-carbon-dioxide-global-comp... I wo…

That is a nice link (showing global CO2 estimates in 2006). It illustrates how turbulence mixes the atmosphere at global scales.

The video mentions that better measurements will result from the OCO-2 mission, which launched in the meantime and has been measuring CO2 in ~3km^2 footprints across the globe since 2014. A result is:

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4514

which shows vertically-resolved CO2. Both videos make it clear that CO2 is generally well-mixed both horizontally and vertically in the atmosphere, with the exception of Northern vs Southern hemisphere. I believe CO2 emissions from China, for example, take on the order of a week to propagate across the Pacific and reach the Western US.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#75

Post by ZenoArrow »

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 end people are going to always choose themselves over the environment."

If you want a reason for optimism, eventually those two will more clearly interlinked. The question is whether we can avoid damaging the planet before the survival of humanity depends on doing so.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#76

Post by mac01021 »

> Working around the clock, each capture plant can vacuum about 50 tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere a year, Wurzbacher says.

And then from [https://www.co2.earth/global-co2-emissions]:

> Global carbon (C) emissions from fossil fuel use were 9.795 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2014 (or 35.9 GtCO2 of carbon dioxide).

This doesn't seem like a great solution to me.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#77

Post by AKrumbach »

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.…

"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."

Any model of atmospheric carbon dioxide which is sufficiently accurate for generating public policy should suffice in predicting the results. After all, the model itself should not care what simulated means are being employed in increasing or reducing the amount of said compound, only its' effect at each concentration level.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#78

Post by Tade0 »

mac01021 wrote: post #73
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…

The cost of undoing the emissions only sets the price on CO2 emissions if that cost is lower than the cost of enduring the damage associated with not undoing them. The cost of enduring those damages may be (and probably is) immeasurably large. But unless we're starting from some kind of reasonable estimate of the cost of the damage, however approximate, it can't be right to say that these guys are setting the price o…

> The cost of enduring those damages may be (and probably is) immeasurably large.

This is what I'm getting at. There's resistance because we're not giving any specific numbers, only saying that they're "probably very high". This is far from a convincing argument.

With this technology we can instead say: "Ok, so clearing a tonne of CO2 emissions from the atmosphere is going to cost $X. These are going to be your additional expenses in the foreseeable future."

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#79

Post by intended »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #51
intended wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

thank you! yes exactly that - a hype junction.

Im cynical but I too hope that geo engineering works- and I would also like to avoid the worse case outcome.

and yes, we may actually have to try geo eng seriously as well to ensure a habitable planet.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#80

Post by intended »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #52
intended wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ourselve…

Hey thats a nice distinction, thanks. you arr correct.
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