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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)

#71

Post by jpttsn »

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 believe the opposite: the easy thought/magical solution is “Huge concerted efforts across the world and changing the habits of millions”.

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

#72

Post by jonbarker »

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

There is a term for this 'solution based optimism, often of a technocratic nature': Solutionism.

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

#73

Post by Shoh3pif »

DennisP wrote: post #49
Shoh3pif wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > All in all, super-powered seaweeds could sequester around 173 million metric tons (190 million tons) of carbon each year, about as much as the annual emissions of the state of New York. It's not that much in comparison to the emissions of the entire industrialized world. Every bit helps of course, but it's not a magical solution to our problems.

That's how much is happening naturally, with a low percentage of seaweed sinking to the depths. Large-scale farming operations could do a lot more.

Intensive farming only happens when the material is used in a profitable way. Growing things only to dump them in the oceans is only profitable with subsidies or carbon taxes.

Extensive farming would likely have the natural rate of sequestration.

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

#75

Post by tim333 »

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

Well some hope is good. Cows are a bigger deal than you might think see eg. "Cow 'emissions' more damaging to planet than CO2 from cars" https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/cow...

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

#76

Post by mikec3010 »

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

The solution isn't magical. The mechanism is explained in the article.

Also, it doesn't promise to solve climate change, only to limit the output of methane pursuant to California regulation.

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

#77

Post by tim333 »

jpttsn wrote: post #71
nickkell wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 believe the opposite: the easy thought/magical solution is “Huge concerted efforts across the world and changing the habits of millions”.

Yeah I was thinking the chances of tech solutions like solar wind and batteries getting better helping are quite high, the chances human nature and habits changing are a bit lower.

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

#78

Post by mikec3010 »

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.

There is no pretense that a non-fossil fuel vehicle must have an energy density >= oil for it to be a viable alternative. A bicycle doesn't carry any energy at all and yet many people use them in place of a car.

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

#79

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

caseymarquis wrote: post #32

Most of what I've read lately seems to indicate climate change can't be mitigated through societal restraint at this point. I think we need to seriously approach an engineered solution akin to terraforming. I'd love to know what efforts are being made in this direction.

>we need to seriously approach an engineered solution

We haven't tried the political solution yet. Since limiting carbon emissions is the cheapest and easiest solution to climate change, it would be a good start to have politicans serve the people's interest instead of the fossil fuel ones, don't you think?

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

#80

Post by Scarblac »

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.

I don't believe there is enough fossil fuel that can be economically used for that long at rates close to the current.
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