241–250 of 341 posts
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There are more important values than profit. But in reality, profit makes things happen. So it's good to know about it.
It's good to know about it, for sure. But, at the end of the day, profit makes profit-driven things happen. It's important to know about and advocate for more important values than profit.
I would be significantly less skeptical about this if it were significantly less ambitious. I'm sure there are low-hanging opportunities where this makes a good amount of sense. Places where there are olivine-rich mine tailings -- somehow uncontaminated by heavy metals -- adjacent to a tropical shoreline. In those instances, then yeah, I'm sure it makes good sense to just shove them over to the beach and let decompos…
We are not pitching this as "THE" solution, but as "a" solution that can scale up to and beyond the global level of yearly CO2 emissions. Even after the "low-hanging opportunities" it makes a good amount of sense, as mining olivine is not difficult and there are large reserves on every continent. You are incorrect that olivine mining at a large scale would incur tremendous energy costs, it will not. I would suggest y…
I would push back, however, on the land impacts of mining. Open-pit mining is exactly what I was referring to, and it doesn't have a good reputation with me. I have encountered many open-pit mining projects which were extremely destructive with regards to habitat, watersheds, groundwater, etc. (Arguably much moreso than things like fracking, TBH.) A massive increase in open-pit mining therefore sets off significant alarm bells for me.
Now, it's possible that I'm suffering from selection bias here: I only hear about open-pit mines when they're bad, and when they're benign they sail right under my radar. Maybe, on average, they're fine.
But that's not the kind of thing I'd take on faith. What would convince me is a site-specific Environmental Impact Report which illustrates how a 100MT/year olivine mine could operate without causing severe regional damage.
I can also give you a project update that we have not announced anywhere else as of yet. After our launch on Earth Day in April, we received an individual contribution/grant that has given us enough funding to take significant steps forward towards getting our pilot project on a beach. It has greatly accelerated our progress and we are now moving more rapidly to make this a reality. We are engaged with the Dutch independent institute for applied research in water and the subsurface, Deltares[4], to help us design the pilot project experiment.
Project Vesta is a non-profit, globally decentralized entity and we are looking for additional partner universities, groups, and others to team up with. We are looking for input on our experimental design from researchers, engineers, and experts in the fields related to this project (such as geochemistry and the marine sciences). The design of the experiment is crucial and has to be rigorous in terms of calculating the accelerated weathering rate of olivine in the open system of a beach and in terms of demonstrating marine safety so that the results will be accepted as definitive by the scientific community and the public.
Our greatest fear right now is that we will spend a year running a study and then when the results come back, the data will not be accepted for one reason or another and we are asked to go back to get more data. We and the planet frankly do not have the time to wait another year, so we want to make sure we do it right the first time around and have the right stakeholders involved before it is deployed. To make sure it is done properly, we want to run the experimental design by as many relevant parties as possible so that when the data comes back we have an accepted consensus that is irrefutable in terms of the weathering rate and safety data, so we can move forward with deployment.
If you want to join our scientific advisory board or just help give input on our experimental design, please reach out on our Get Involved [5] page -> https://projectvesta.org/get-involved/
We are also looking for additional donors/family offices/etc and partners who want to sidestep the climate change debate and move forward on taking direct action to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. While we are proponents of cutting emissions and agree it needs to be done, we want to get started removing as much CO2 from the atmosphere as we can until we are back down to Pre-Industrial CO2 levels. We believe that by making extremely effective, permanent, and cheap CO2 removal available, we can dramatically change the conversation and force action. Please reach out if you would like to help.
Thank you,
Eric
p.s. If you want to learn a bit more about the process and our organization, check out this interview with me on the Nori podcast [6] -> https://nori.com/podcasts/carbon-removal-newsroom/project-ve...
We are just launching our social profiles, but feel free to follow us for updates: Twitter -> https://twitter.com/Project_Vesta Instagram -> https://instagram.com/projectvesta FB page -> https://www.facebook.com/ProjectVestaCO2Removal/
[1] http://carbon.ycombinator.com/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18285606 [3] https://projectvesta.org/science/#dflip-df_77/1/ [4] https://www.deltares.nl/en/ [5] https://projectvesta.org/get-involved/ [6] https://nori.com/podcasts/carbon-removal-newsroom/project-ve...
I would be significantly less skeptical about this if it were significantly less ambitious. I'm sure there are low-hanging opportunities where this makes a good amount of sense. Places where there are olivine-rich mine tailings -- somehow uncontaminated by heavy metals -- adjacent to a tropical shoreline. In those instances, then yeah, I'm sure it makes good sense to just shove them over to the beach and let decompos…
We are not pitching this as "THE" solution, but as "a" solution that can scale up to and beyond the global level of yearly CO2 emissions. Even after the "low-hanging opportunities" it makes a good amount of sense, as mining olivine is not difficult and there are large reserves on every continent. You are incorrect that olivine mining at a large scale would incur tremendous energy costs, it will not. I would suggest y…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I think it's an unpopular opinion because there's no evidence that states will "over-do" any climate action. So far, climate action is almost entirely theoretical. States are doing effectively nothing to counter climate change. One might even argue they're doing less than nothing, by continuing to allow externalizing costs of fossil fuels, animal agriculture, etc. It seems implausible that there would be too much act…
I would be significantly less skeptical about this if it were significantly less ambitious. I'm sure there are low-hanging opportunities where this makes a good amount of sense. Places where there are olivine-rich mine tailings -- somehow uncontaminated by heavy metals -- adjacent to a tropical shoreline. In those instances, then yeah, I'm sure it makes good sense to just shove them over to the beach and let decompos…
It's a shame because the responses given here on HN seem well thought out, yet the site gave me the impression of making a quick buck on peridot necklaces. I mean, is that really going to fund anything meaningful?
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4% loss of what? I’m not following.
When 1 tonne of olivine weathers, the chemical reaction removes 1.25 tonnes of free CO2 from the environment in terms of stoichiometry. However, in the process of mining, milling, and transporting that olivine to that beach, we emit approximately .05 tonnes of CO2 ourselves. That .05 of a tonne is 4% of the 1.25 tonnes of CO2 that was removed in the weathering process. So, in a CO2 life cycle assesment of net emissio…
How does this compare to the lifecycle net efficiency of other methods of carbon capture/abatement, e.g. wind turbines, nuclear solar panels/farms, EVs, afforestation? Any references for such estimates?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could it be the case that contemporary governments and economies are just simply not structured to be forward thinking in this way? What if, in analogy to the transition out of feudalism, the next evolution of government and economies is one that allows for spending on future outcomes in a way that is impossible now? I have no idea what those institutions would look like -- I only know that hoping to solve global pro…
> Could it be the case that contemporary governments and economies are just simply not structured to be forward thinking in this way? I'm confused that this is a quesiton that you're asking, as opposed to something that is blatantly obvious. The United Nations declared as such recently: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/ending... https://www.huffpost.com/entry/climate-change-capitalism-eco... "Tru…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We are so massively far away from being able to do that, it's not worth worrying about. Especially since active carbon capture methods can easily be switched off long before we approached any "dangerous" level.
Olivine beaches cannot be switched off, but you're probably right that the risks are manageable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's an unpopular opinion because there's no evidence that states will "over-do" any climate action. So far, climate action is almost entirely theoretical. States are doing effectively nothing to counter climate change. One might even argue they're doing less than nothing, by continuing to allow externalizing costs of fossil fuels, animal agriculture, etc. It seems implausible that there would be too much act…
true, but maybe we're in the mess simply because we don't worry about long term effects of our actions.
There is a profit motive behind our climate catastrophe, not "oops, I forgot to turn off the climate change machine when I left the house".