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Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

nytimes.com

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Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#21

Post by agumonkey »

adrianN wrote: post #16
erikrothoff wrote: post #3

Why isn't there a billion dollar reward to any person or company that comes up with a cost-effective way to capture carbon from the air and convert back to solid carbon? I'd love to understand the physics (or chemistry? maybe economy?) that prevents this from materialising.

There is a cost-effective way: Planting trees, cutting them down and turning the wood to charcoal. You'd need huge areas dedicated to such forests. You'd also need to "unburn" most of the coal and oil we burned so far. That's a mind-boggling amount of matter we're talking about here. But who would pay for that? If there were the political will we would long have passed a simple carbon tax that, after some adjustment…

What about vegetal roofs ? not strong enough ? because there's a huge surface area to tap into.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#22

Post by js8 »

erikrothoff wrote: post #3

Why isn't there a billion dollar reward to any person or company that comes up with a cost-effective way to capture carbon from the air and convert back to solid carbon? I'd love to understand the physics (or chemistry? maybe economy?) that prevents this from materialising.

The thing that prevents this from materialising is that it requires energy. For the most part, we get energy from.. converting solid carbon to CO2. Unfortunately, due to 2nd law of thermodynamics, this conversion always incurs a loss of energy in the form of heat.

We can also get energy from other sources, such as solar radiation, but I think you get the gist - the most cost-effective way to carbon capture is not to release the carbon in the first place.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#23

Post by growlist »

StavrosK wrote: post #12
yostrovs wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US emissions of CO2 have fallen much faster than Europe's. Europe likes to talk a lot but not to compromise. So while they could be fracking and displacing dirty energy sources, they instead use oil and coal where the US uses natural gas.

Do you have any sources on that? "Falling much faster" by itself doesn't say much when EU might already be emitting ten times less than the US, for all I know.

Can't vouch for the comparison you are questioning, but did find this:

'Germany emitted more greenhouse gasses in 2016 than in the previous year, but is still seen as a positive model for the rest of the world.'

https://euobserver.com/environment/137298

Best thing we could have to reduce co2 would be a massive global recession I'd say, unless that is things got so bad that we had to revert to cutting down trees to survive.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#24

Post by jamesblonde »

sremani wrote: post #20
yostrovs wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US emissions of CO2 have fallen much faster than Europe's. Europe likes to talk a lot but not to compromise. So while they could be fracking and displacing dirty energy sources, they instead use oil and coal where the US uses natural gas.

That is correct no country in the world has reduced CO2 emissions like the US did in the past decade, thanks to Shale revolution. Pennsylvania is the world's #3 producer of NG. I mean one state in US. Even if some people grudge this fact, the Grid is not ready for variable generation that Wind and Solar does, they do buy some time for Grid to become smarter (Grid of MicroGrids) where it can digest Solar and Wind, esp…

Hang on. The US pulled out the Paris accord. The US also had a huge financial crisis that caused emissions to drop. I don't think policy can take credit for the slight reductions in Co2 emissions, from ridiculously high levels.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#25

Post by [deleted] »

jamesblonde wrote: post #24
sremani wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is correct no country in the world has reduced CO2 emissions like the US did in the past decade, thanks to Shale revolution. Pennsylvania is the world's #3 producer of NG. I mean one state in US. Even if some people grudge this fact, the Grid is not ready for variable generation that Wind and Solar does, they do buy some time for Grid to become smarter (Grid of MicroGrids) where it can digest Solar and Wind, esp…

Hang on. The US pulled out the Paris accord. The US also had a huge financial crisis that caused emissions to drop. I don't think policy can take credit for the slight reductions in Co2 emissions, from ridiculously high levels.

[deleted]

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#26

Post by zaarn »

sonium wrote: post #15
erikrothoff wrote: post #3

Why isn't there a billion dollar reward to any person or company that comes up with a cost-effective way to capture carbon from the air and convert back to solid carbon? I'd love to understand the physics (or chemistry? maybe economy?) that prevents this from materialising.

Physics/Chemistry: Solid carbon (e.g coal) is more energy-dense than CO2 (per molecular weight unit). This is why you can gain energy from burning coal. To go the other way round you need to add this energy back in to break the very stable double-bonds in the CO2 molecule. This energy is what makes it expensive and there is no way around (except finding a really cheap energy source, but then you probably wouldn't bur…

I would, however, propose that once we have CO2-neutral energy production, we use some of it to recapture CO2 if the effect would be even minimal.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#27

Post by ForHackernews »

jamesblonde wrote: post #6
erikrothoff wrote: post #3

Why isn't there a billion dollar reward to any person or company that comes up with a cost-effective way to capture carbon from the air and convert back to solid carbon? I'd love to understand the physics (or chemistry? maybe economy?) that prevents this from materialising.

We have a solution - reduce carbon/methane emissions. Why bet the bank on a technology that hasn't been invented yet? If you said to somebody with 100 billion dollars: capture as much carbon as you can. What would they do? I would just plant trees for that money. Sure, we need basic research on carbon sequestration, but we need fundamental breakthroughs to make it happen. Time, we don't have.

> Why bet the bank on a technology that hasn't been invented yet?

Because it's too late. Unless magic non-existent carbon capture technology materializes soon, we're basically fucked.

https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fos...

Check out that middle graphic. If we really want to avoid 1.5 degrees, and we can’t rely on large-scale carbon sequestration, then the global community has to zero out its carbon emissions by 2026.

Ten years from now.

That article is two years old and, to state the obvious, global CO2 emissions are not on track to reach zero in the next eight years.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#28

Post by jamesblonde »

growlist wrote: post #23
StavrosK wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any sources on that? "Falling much faster" by itself doesn't say much when EU might already be emitting ten times less than the US, for all I know.

Can't vouch for the comparison you are questioning, but did find this: 'Germany emitted more greenhouse gasses in 2016 than in the previous year, but is still seen as a positive model for the rest of the world.' https://euobserver.com/environment/137298 Best thing we could have to reduce co2 would be a massive global recession I'd say, unless that is things got so bad that we had to revert to cutting down trees to su…

Of all countries to pick on, Germany are the one doing the most to change to a carbon-free economy. Read up on the Energiewende -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energiewende_in_Germany It is govt policy to reduce Co2 emissions by 80–95% by 2050. Germany is at the top in on-shore wind, off-shore wind, and solar. If they had kept nuclear power, they could be doing even better. I am sure closing the nuclear power plants will cause increases in Co2, but they are really trying to do their bit.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#29

Post by sremani »

jamesblonde wrote: post #24
sremani wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is correct no country in the world has reduced CO2 emissions like the US did in the past decade, thanks to Shale revolution. Pennsylvania is the world's #3 producer of NG. I mean one state in US. Even if some people grudge this fact, the Grid is not ready for variable generation that Wind and Solar does, they do buy some time for Grid to become smarter (Grid of MicroGrids) where it can digest Solar and Wind, esp…

Hang on. The US pulled out the Paris accord. The US also had a huge financial crisis that caused emissions to drop. I don't think policy can take credit for the slight reductions in Co2 emissions, from ridiculously high levels.

Policy tinkering as a solution to climate problem is like EU trying to force Windows to include other browsers to dethrone IE.

What actually dethroned IE was Chrome and better Firefox.

Policy wonking can push you in certain direction, but they do not solve. Sometimes the bridge technologies are the ones that save from imminent doom.

People demonstrating urgency with climate change, can certainly set an example by cutting their quality of life by half for starters!

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