idiots
Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
321–330 of 341 posts
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#322Hi HN, I am Eric Matzner, the Co-Founder of Project Vesta and I have been responding to all of the questions on this thread and will continue to answer them, but I just wanted to say thank you for all of the interest. When YC posted their Carbon Removal Technologies Requests for Startups page[1] about 8 months ago, I responded to a comment on the post where @btilly[2] mentioned one of the research papers that our pro…
stop wasting money
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#323“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…
What matters is not the volume but the cost. A back-of-the-envolope calculation shows that olivine rock is about 20 times cheaper than crude oil. Olivine rock: 10-25$/ton Crude oil: $60/barrel, so about $400/ton Their website reads that "A volume of 7 cubic miles (11 km^3) of olivine, or around 30 Gigatons, is needed each year. This is less than half the volume of construction materials and less than that of fossil f…
“ 7 cubic miles (11 km^3)”
They think the conversion factor between cubic miles and cubic km is the same as between miles and km? Hm ....
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
Modern physics is also just the model that best fits the data. By your criteria there is no science other than Mathematics.
Mathematics isn't science it's a tool used in science. The most precise form of science we have is those that follow the scientific method ex. in physics where both theoretical claims and actual observations need to agree with each other plus predict the causality. And even here it's extremely hard to claim something is scientifically proven. I am not sure what you mean with modern physics, can you be more concrete?…
Literally all of science suffers from the problem of induction. So ultimately it's all just models that fit the data we have so far.
Climate science follows the scientific method too and stands on pretty solid foundations.
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#325Hey, we are fucking up the environment by altering such a complex system way too fast for it to keep balance. Maybe if we alter it on a whole new scale with our limited understanding of the consequences, we can fix things up? To be more constructive, this is exactly the kind of hubris that gets me very wary of technoscience. Let's assume Project Vesta is run by well intentionned folks and has the potential to offer a…
Agreed, but climate change is a monumental issue and even if we assume the government can act in a timely manner to shift the economic model to one that is more environmentally friendly, that won't be enough to fix the problem. I don't think this should be viewed as a cop out, or an alternative to economic change, but rather as something that augments it and moves us in the right direction.
IMO the problem here is the leap of faith you are making by believing an untested technology, operating on a planet scale, will help.
We only have one planet here, so instead of betting on a massive terraforming technology to suck the CO2 out of the air, I'd rather use a more conservative approach such as massive reforestation - something that is low-tech, can be done by anyone, anywhere, and improve the resilience of the ecosystem rather than kicking its balance again.
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whats the chance that $500M is actually to help the reef and not just used for corruption or forgotten about until the next election? I have zero faith in the current Australian gov doing anything to mitigate climate change... Otherwise this is a great idea!
I thought one of the big problems with Australian politicians doing anything about climate change was that the ruling conservatives are in hock to the big open cast mining companies. Seems like this could be a great opportunity to get these companies on side, especially if there is $500M to be made from it. Much easier to give out the money to them in the open for a good reason than to somehow launder it through some…
Great point, the incentives and mutual interests are definitely there. I think it comes down to how ideological the opposition to climate change is in Aus... I.e. are they completely committed to not doing anything effective to mitigate it that might break their narrative around climate change. I'm pretty jaded after the NBN...
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#327Hey, we are fucking up the environment by altering such a complex system way too fast for it to keep balance. Maybe if we alter it on a whole new scale with our limited understanding of the consequences, we can fix things up? To be more constructive, this is exactly the kind of hubris that gets me very wary of technoscience. Let's assume Project Vesta is run by well intentionned folks and has the potential to offer a…
Could you explain more what you mean about our growth based economic model not being sustainable? This is a topic that I'm fairly new to and the only substantial thing I've read about it is Tyler Cowen's "Stubborn Attachments" which presented what I found to be a very compelling argument that long term economic growth is very good and is in fact the only sustainable way forward. I've been hoping to read some counter…
Well, first there is the common sense part - infinite growth with limited resources is likely to bump on a wall at some point. Someone (especially here) will probably argue that the resources are not really limited because technology and spaaaace, but that's precisely the kind of hubris I was reacting to in the first place.
I think the first extensive study on the subject is [the limits to growth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth).
A compelling thing I've seen (sorry can't find the exact source, I think it was from [the shift project](https://theshiftproject.org)) is the very strong correlation - almost linear relation - between GDP, energy consumption and co2 emission. So far we haven't been able to decorrelate those three.
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
What matters is not the volume but the cost. A back-of-the-envolope calculation shows that olivine rock is about 20 times cheaper than crude oil. Olivine rock: 10-25$/ton Crude oil: $60/barrel, so about $400/ton Their website reads that "A volume of 7 cubic miles (11 km^3) of olivine, or around 30 Gigatons, is needed each year. This is less than half the volume of construction materials and less than that of fossil f…
“ 7 cubic miles (11 km^3)” They think the conversion factor between cubic miles and cubic km is the same as between miles and km? Hm ....
Wow, didn't expect this. Good catch.
They underestimated the volume of olivine rock about 3 times, which means that its mining would cost about 15% of the overall cost of mining of fossil fuels, assuming current prices of olivine rock and crude oil. This is a very rough estimate that doesn't take into account several factors, most importantly economy of scale.
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#329“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…
In terms of fossil fuel volume in oil equivalents, we are at a yearly level greater than 10 km^3... In terms of construction materials, these 2009 calculations give 2005 numbers of over 60 Gt... Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century - http://www.vegetal-e.com/fichiers/2009-krausmann-al_14696916...
Sounds fine, but I think you need to correct this statement "A volume of 7 cubic miles (11 km^3)", because 1 cubic mile = 4.17 cubic km.
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mathematics isn't science it's a tool used in science. The most precise form of science we have is those that follow the scientific method ex. in physics where both theoretical claims and actual observations need to agree with each other plus predict the causality. And even here it's extremely hard to claim something is scientifically proven. I am not sure what you mean with modern physics, can you be more concrete?…
Literally all of science suffers from the problem of induction. So ultimately it's all just models that fit the data we have so far. Climate science follows the scientific method too and stands on pretty solid foundations.
Climate science is interpretation of data, its not the data itself and even that data is highly varied in quality. In other words, its no a very precise form of science.