Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere • Hacker News Board

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#91

Post by marcosdumay » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 3:40 PM UTC

collyw wrote: post #59

xbmcuser wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes. If the electricity source does not emit any (why would you ever do this with an emitting source?), you get to use liquid fuels in a carbon neutral way.

If you convert it into plastics, it's eventually a bunch of CO2 captured into a landfill.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#92

Post by adrianN » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 3:41 PM UTC

atemerev wrote: post #70

adrianN wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't undo all the damage. For example coral reefs are gone for a long time once they're dead. It's also unclear whether we haven't set off, or will set off, any feedback mechanisms that make it much harder to revert the climate to preindustrial times, for example because millenia old permafrost released massive amounts of Methane.

OK, let's assume you can't undo what's already done. However, if there is a choice between "let's consume less, shut down production, adapt to a less comfortable lifestyle and be extra careful about the environment, so we won't damage it again" and "let's engineer a process that negates the damage we are already doing, keeping our nice comfortable lifestyle", isn't the second choice more natural and rational?

I'm of course in favor of any solution that allows us to do less damage, but I think it's unlikely that we'll figure something out that allows us to continue burning fossil fuels at the rate we're currently doing. Doing both, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, and figuring out methods for undoing what damage we can seems to me to be the best strategy.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#93

Post by SubiculumCode » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 3:46 PM UTC

mannigfaltig wrote: post #89

Tade0 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 addit…

[deleted]

The idea is to price CO2 emissions by the cost of CO2 scrubbing. Then a law would be set in place requiring measurement of CO2 emissions - CO2 scrubbed, which is then multiplied by industry median cost of scrubbing, which would be then taxed.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#94

Post by marcosdumay » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 3:47 PM UTC

knowThySelfx wrote: post #30

Do they have plans to remove Methane and NOx. Methane emissions have increased and we are seeing weather changes. One shouldn't forget CO2 is also needed in the atmosphere.

You don't need to remove those. You just need to make sure they get them wet, so entropy can follow its inexorable path.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#95

Post by atemerev » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 3:51 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #92

atemerev wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, let's assume you can't undo what's already done. However, if there is a choice between "let's consume less, shut down production, adapt to a less comfortable lifestyle and be extra careful about the environment, so we won't damage it again" and "let's engineer a process that negates the damage we are already doing, keeping our nice comfortable lifestyle", isn't the second choice more natural and rational?

I'm of course in favor of any solution that allows us to do less damage, but I think it's unlikely that we'll figure something out that allows us to continue burning fossil fuels at the rate we're currently doing. Doing both, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, and figuring out methods for undoing what damage we can seems to me to be the best strategy.

Fossil fuels will last quite a long time. CO2, however, seems to be a greater problem.

Nuclear energy has nearly zero carbon footprint, though. With the closed nuclear cycle (breeders) uranium will last for millions of years.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#96

Post by bamboozled » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 3:52 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #71

collyw wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

Honestly, how expensive is it to plant trees?

I'm sure a LOT of people would be interested in volunteering for that and while the military is not fighting people they could be fighting climate change, with trees!

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#97

Post by program_whiz » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 3:59 PM UTC

People seem upset that this is working? Maybe because this provides a solution to the problem that doesn't mean we have to fundamentally change society, or bring down the 1st world, or say that "America was the bad guy to ignore all the EU regulations".

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#98

Post by DennisP » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 4:00 PM UTC

intended wrote: post #17

xbmcuser wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So be forewarned - spending more energy to clean the system is just adding more heat to the system. Any solution must somehow be a net negative in the long and medium term - and must also not have complex unpredictable knock on effects. To give you an idea of how often mankind tries this - before the internet there was a time where london's dogs were so Onerous they felt that it would be a good idea to pour oil over…

The warming effect of CO2 is far greater than the waste heat from our energy usage. Nobody is proposing cleanup methods that would require orders of magnitude more energy than civilization currently uses.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#99

Post by DennisP » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 4:06 PM UTC

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?

There's not enough room to plant that many trees. There have been studies on just how much it would take, and it would have a huge impact on food production and biodiversity.

Meanwhile, worldwide we're losing trees to deforestation, drought, forest fires, disease, etc.

I'm not saying trees can't be part of the solution, they should be, but we can't "just" plant trees.

Re: Climate Engineers Sucking Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere

#100

Post by godshatter » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 4:09 PM UTC

Each capture plant takes 50 tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere per year. We are putting roughly 40 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere per year. That's only 800 million capture plants needed, or roughly 44 million customers similar to the one they have lined up (using 900 tons per year).

Every little bit helps, and I'm glad they are making money doing this, but it's not a viable solution to the problem as a whole. They also didn't say what powers the turbines in their capture plants.