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Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)

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Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)

#61

Post by akuji1993 »

Scea91 wrote: post #25
undreren wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question isn't stupid. Right now though, we are storing our CO2 in the atmosphere. This causes problems. To solve those problems, we need to store the CO2 somewhere else. It can be released again, but lets hope that the massive effort required to yank the CO2 out of our atmosphere causes the sunk cost fallacy to kick in until we've completely moved past fossile fuels.

I do not expect that we will be able to move past fossil fuels in the next 100 years. There is simply no other source of energy with as much density and as convenient as oil. The only think we know that can rival oil is nuclear energy but it has problems of its own.

Honestly, there's a lot of stuff I'm skeptical about what will happen in the next 100 years. I don't think that fossil fuels will be a thing in 100 years though. I think we'll have something smarter figured out. Think about how much time has passed since 1918 and what we achieved in that time frame.

Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)

#62

Post by jacobush »

adrianN wrote: post #45
stkni wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be a great win-win! But wouldn't the sequestered CO2 get released back into the environment and potentially the atmosphere?

Yes, if you want to "permanently" (i.e. a thousand years at least) sequester carbon from biomass sources you have to burn them to charcoal and bury that.

If you bury it deep, millions of years easily.

Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)

#63

Post by undreren »

Scea91 wrote: post #25
undreren wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question isn't stupid. Right now though, we are storing our CO2 in the atmosphere. This causes problems. To solve those problems, we need to store the CO2 somewhere else. It can be released again, but lets hope that the massive effort required to yank the CO2 out of our atmosphere causes the sunk cost fallacy to kick in until we've completely moved past fossile fuels.

I do not expect that we will be able to move past fossil fuels in the next 100 years. There is simply no other source of energy with as much density and as convenient as oil. The only think we know that can rival oil is nuclear energy but it has problems of its own.

All chemical energy available through coal and oil stored in the earth is the product of a massive amount of highly ineffecient capture of energy from sunlight. [0]

All wind is caused directly by unequal warming of our planet through sunlight. The average hurricane individually releases more energy than entire world population has exhausted, since the dawn of time. [1]

Sunlight is plenty enough. The problem is cheap, clean storage.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis

[1] - https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/energ...

Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)

#64

Post by JulianMorrison »

pjc50 wrote: post #6
ariehkovler wrote: post #3

Really interesting. Makes me think of Daisyworld and the Gaia Hypothesis. Daisyworld is a model Earth covered in black and white daisies, that either absorb or reflect light. In the model, black daisies need less light because they absorb more, increasing the Earth's heat absorption. White daisies absorb less so need more light, but also reflect more light back, increasing the surface albedo of the planet and lowerin…

We know that there are a number of homeostatic (self-regulating) processes that affect the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere; if it wasn't homeostatic it would have drifted off to an extreme long ago. The key question is how well and how rapidly these mechanisms can respond to an increase in CO2 levels.

Also it may be homeostatic with multiple attractors, push too hard from one and you pop over into the one next door.

Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)

#65

Post by snikeris »

matt42 wrote: post #46
ariehkovler wrote: post #3

Really interesting. Makes me think of Daisyworld and the Gaia Hypothesis. Daisyworld is a model Earth covered in black and white daisies, that either absorb or reflect light. In the model, black daisies need less light because they absorb more, increasing the Earth's heat absorption. White daisies absorb less so need more light, but also reflect more light back, increasing the surface albedo of the planet and lowerin…

>> Gaia theory suggests that the world is full of these stabilizing systems. Earth may have tricks to save its ecosystem, one of them could be temporarily increase temperatures and sea levels, just enough to end humanity.

The earth is not a superorganism or entity that prefers one state to another.

Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)

#66

Post by nickkell »

s_dev wrote: post #24

Also relevant: Feeding dairy cows seaweed mitigates the amount of methane they pass. Irish famers are beginning to do this because seaweed is easy to come by in Ireland. https://phys.org/news/2018-05-seaweed-relieve-gassy-cows-dai...

Hackernews loves these articles that give some kind of hope for a magical solution to climate change. It's easier than the thought that it will require a huge concerted effort across the world and changing the habits of millions

Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)

#67

Post by Tharkun »

nickkell wrote: post #66
s_dev wrote: post #24

Also relevant: Feeding dairy cows seaweed mitigates the amount of methane they pass. Irish famers are beginning to do this because seaweed is easy to come by in Ireland. https://phys.org/news/2018-05-seaweed-relieve-gassy-cows-dai...

Hackernews loves these articles that give some kind of hope for a magical solution to climate change. It's easier than the thought that it will require a huge concerted effort across the world and changing the habits of millions

I don't see anyone claiming the existence of or holding their breath for a magic solution. All I see is people sharing discoveries that might contribute towards a solution. Reducing the emissions caused by cattle can be a part of the "huge concentrated effort across the world" you mentioned.

Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)

#68

Post by jonbarker »

snikeris wrote: post #43
masklinn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I have full faith life on Earth will eventually restore the feedback loops and get the temperatures back in the sweet spot. Or just broadly adapt to the new state of things, historical data suggests that atmospheric CO2 levels did reach ~1000PPM up to the Cretaceous, with complete lack of continental ice sheets and temperate forests at the poles. The current sweet spot is a sweet spot for us and the ecosystems w…

Yes, the comment you replied to seems to imply that the earth is an organism that seeks to maintain a particular balance. There may be homeostatic processes, but they're not part of a grand plan to preserve life on earth.

Agreed, homeostasis is something we observe in evolved organisms, not in planets whose inhabitant organisms became self aware and industrialized suddenly.

Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)

#69

Post by FLUX-YOU »

nickkell wrote: post #66
s_dev wrote: post #24

Also relevant: Feeding dairy cows seaweed mitigates the amount of methane they pass. Irish famers are beginning to do this because seaweed is easy to come by in Ireland. https://phys.org/news/2018-05-seaweed-relieve-gassy-cows-dai...

Hackernews loves these articles that give some kind of hope for a magical solution to climate change. It's easier than the thought that it will require a huge concerted effort across the world and changing the habits of millions

It'd be a lot easier to convince society if we could convince a relatively few major business leaders of the world to change their company processes. Especially since industrial processes are a major contributing factor to climate change.

Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)

#70

Post by louthy »

dub4u wrote: post #38
stkni wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be a great win-win! But wouldn't the sequestered CO2 get released back into the environment and potentially the atmosphere?

Methane is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2.

For a shorter period of time [1]

> The lifetime in the air of CO2, the most significant man-made greenhouse gas, is probably the most difficult to determine, because there are several processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Between 65% and 80% of CO2 released into the air dissolves into the ocean over a period of 20–200 years. The rest is removed by slower processes that take up to several hundreds of thousands of years, including chemical weathering and rock formation. This means that once in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide can continue to affect climate for thousands of years.

> Methane, by contrast, is mostly removed from the atmosphere by chemical reaction, persisting for about 12 years. Thus although methane is a potent greenhouse gas, its effect is relatively short-lived.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jan/16/greenhou...

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