171–180 of 341 posts
We'll ultimately need a bunch of techniques working together. I suspect this would even be effective with less than 1. But really, what's the cost? That's the main factor. It may be a reasonable way to shove money at poorer countries to do manual work to solve the rich countries' problems.
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I hope you would still run tests to determine how much left over Nickel is getting into the ocean. Not just coral will be effected by Nickel, but other important invertebrates as well such as amphipods which play an enormous role in the food chain and health of reef environments. And we’re talking parts per billion (ppb) when heavy metals can start to become toxic. And correct me if I’m wrong, but Manganese is anothe…
The dose makes the poison, and in the case of manganese (which is, by the way, not a proper noun), the toxic dose is quite large (unless you're inhaling it), to the point where manganese deficiency is a larger public health problem in humans than manganese poisoning. MnO2 and even the soluble manganese sulfate we use for fertilizer are in the same blue-1 classification as things like alcohol and potassium chloride. N…
Invertebrates are much more sensitive to heavy metals. Again toxic doses for many marine invertebrates are in the ppb-ppm range.
Copper for instance is commonly used as a treatment for marine parasites on fish. However the dosing needs to be done carefully, since a doses in the range of 5ppm can start to kill the fish themselves.
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The important part is pretending something will be done (ideally by someone else), not actually tackling it.
I'm an advocate that places like YCombinator should be pushing the places they invest in to take this seriously. Every company should have to present an environmental action plan and plan to become Carbon Neutral as part of its investment strategy. Right now, because it's the right thing to do, in future, because environmental exposure is a huge risk for companies YC has led the world in tech investments and growth/v…
“To carry out this plan, it will take a volume of 7 cubic miles of olivine rock placed on 2% of the world high-energy, tropical shelf-seas each year.” To put this in perspective, the global annual oil production is about 1 cubic mile [1], and concrete production is about half a cubic mile [2], [3] (4.4 BN tons at 2.4 t/m3 = 1.83 cubic km = 0.44 cubic miles) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil [2] ht…
That’s to counteract for 100% of emissions, right? A more reasonable goal would be to go for 10%. Still very ambitious, but could be done and would have a pretty huge impact. Combine that carbon pricing, technological advancements, and other sequestration schemes, and targets for avoiding environmental catastrophe seem achievable.
The best science from the IPCC suggests we have to cut net carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 in order to have a moderate chance of avoiding the most catastrophic effects of the climate disaster.
I'm not saying 10% isn't ambitious, but it's entirely insufficient to the scope of the problem.
Well jeez. I know it's not a popular thought on HN, but climate change is a problem of such scale that it's going to need government-level funding and oversight to find and validate geoengineering solutions, and global-level funding and coordination to implement them. This third-way aspiration to a non-government solution just seems like a pipe dream.
The important part is pretending something will be done (ideally by someone else), not actually tackling it.
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The world could agree on Carbon Tax, and all the Tax will all be used for battling Climate Change. Funding Project like this one. ( Although. doubt this Project isn't without its downside, my guts reaction tells me there will be other problems in chemical reaction at this scale ) And it should be something like the EURO Cars emission standards, where the whole plan goes in multiple stages, giving time for businesses…
And if the tax cripples business, it will slow emissions anyway
It costs about $1 to transport an oil barrel 1000 miles. 35 billion oil barrels are transported each year. So transporting that olivine rock will cost an order of $250B. This will compensate for the yearly co2 emissions , ~38B tons. With carbon offsets priced at $15-$40 per ton - so there's potential for profitability .
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I don't think I understand your position here. Do you believe there is a profit motive to doing this kind of carbon sequestration? As I understand it, it's going to be expensive to do, and require significant money/time/effort to keep doing it. So, what will keep it going in your runaway scenario? Why will people keep mining and moving these materials into place beyond the point where it is necessary to counter our c…
I was talking about possibility of having multiple projects run by different countries/non-profits at the same time, without any coordination, and messing up the climate even more. Why is that so controversial?
It seems implausible that there would be too much action on climate change, because there is currently effectively none. Maybe your theory will seem more believable if any major climate action takes place. But, given the costs and current inertia in the other direction, I don't think it is a realistic problem to worry about today.
It costs about $1 to transport an oil barrel 1000 miles. 35 billion oil barrels are transported each year. So transporting that olivine rock will cost an order of $250B. This will compensate for the yearly co2 emissions , ~38B tons. With carbon offsets priced at $15-$40 per ton - so there's potential for profitability .
Profitability? Put that idea away for a moment. We need to look at this through other lenses as well. Our very lives on Earth depend on our ability to remove greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere. In that light, profitability is a rather weak criterion by which to judge projects like this.
But in reality, profit makes things happen. So it's good to know about it.