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What is the renewable alternative for the cement, steel, shipping, and aviation industries?
Environmentalists need to get out of their own way and stop treating good as the enemy of perfect. Some progress is better than no progress. All technologies and approaches will be required.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Peters_Glen/status/11948866002552...
CCS is absolutely going to be necessary. So is nuclear. What is the renewable alternative for the cement, steel, shipping, and aviation industries? Environmentalists need to get out of their own way and stop treating good as the enemy of perfect. Some progress is better than no progress. All technologies and approaches will be required. https://mobile.twitter.com/Peters_Glen/status/11948866002552...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095965261...
CCS is absolutely going to be necessary. So is nuclear. What is the renewable alternative for the cement, steel, shipping, and aviation industries? Environmentalists need to get out of their own way and stop treating good as the enemy of perfect. Some progress is better than no progress. All technologies and approaches will be required. https://mobile.twitter.com/Peters_Glen/status/11948866002552...
For steel the possibilities are hydrogen or electrolysis, both are being tested by some companies. You need the political will to price emissions to make it profitable though.
For everything fuel-based synthetic power-to-x-based fuels are a (costly, but CCS isn't cheap either) alternative.
Cement is the biggest "we don't really have any good alternative, at least not any time soon"-issue.
I agree that there's a role for CCS to play, but I think it's not helping that its advocates have played the "we need CCS for X"-cards a bit more often than justifiable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Binding carbon from CO2 does not necessarily cost energy. The reactions CaO -> CaCO3 is exothermic, and the same is true for the equivalent reaction for magnesium, and the reactions forming carbonates from the silicates of those metals. Eroding volcanic rock naturally pulls CO2 out of the atmosphere, as erosion slowly reveals metals that were reduced by the volcanic heat. This process is naturally quite slow, but it…
CaO is created by frying CaCO3, typically heated with coal. You can then mix it with water to get cement. At least that's what I learned in school. How would you like to create CaO without providing energy if the reverse reaction is exothermic? Or am I missing the fact that there's a lot of unbound CaO in rocks? Also, production of cement is one of the major sources of CO2 emissions.
Although most of it is not directly as oxides but some form of silicates. (This forces the use of lots of water in the process -- you can go from CaO -> CaCO3 without much water, but to dissolve silicates you need the CO2 dissolved in water.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Binding carbon from CO2 does not necessarily cost energy. The reactions CaO -> CaCO3 is exothermic, and the same is true for the equivalent reaction for magnesium, and the reactions forming carbonates from the silicates of those metals. Eroding volcanic rock naturally pulls CO2 out of the atmosphere, as erosion slowly reveals metals that were reduced by the volcanic heat. This process is naturally quite slow, but it…
This relies on the right sort of rock. Is it ubiquitous enough that we can account for meaningful amounts of carbon sequestration?
People are missing the fact that the oil and gas industry is strongly in favour of CCS for 2 main reasons: 1. It makes extracting and burning oil not so bad - no need to make rules limiting oil extraction, we can simply start some CCS projects. 2. Injecting CO2 into deep oil wells actually helps get more oil out of them. Get the government to pay for CCS, while the oil company profits off increased yields.
This is actually an important point. It doesn't remove the need for CCS though. I think people advocating for CCS should be careful what they ask for. Reasonable things to do would be: a) CCS should be confined to areas where no feasible technical alternative exists (e.g. cement) and to negative emissions. b) No support for CCS as in Enhanced Oil Recovery. This is creating more emissions than it avoids.
CC will probably never happen on the large scale. It is inherently inefficient and a final, last resort. Preventing emissions: Renewable electricity. EVs. Hydrogen. Synthetic food stuffs. Etc Handling the last 5%-10%: tax carbon, and allow nature to recover (rain forests, fisheries, natural bio-mass, etc). The idea of carbon capture while some developing country is cutting down forests is bizarre. Luckily population…
Carbon capture is a much more centralized response. It actually might be possible for a few rich nations to get together and implement systems to drive it at scale. Unfortunately, we are already at a point where there might be no other mechanism to intentionally modulate the climate.
It's worth pointing out the "omg" math moment in this paper. According to various mitigation scenarios modelled, the amount of CCS required (in addition to other mitigating approaches) requires the construction of an "average typical" CCS facility at a rate of between one a week, and one a day, until 2050. I'm not sure how to describe how this makes me feel, other than "ill".
In 2019 we built ~500 large renewable energy projects. Total 180GW, or about 2 per day. We can and should built about x2-x3 more. Current bottlenecks is NIMBY, competing fossil assets, and transmission. It will be hard, so feel "ill but hopeful".
It's worth pointing out the "omg" math moment in this paper. According to various mitigation scenarios modelled, the amount of CCS required (in addition to other mitigating approaches) requires the construction of an "average typical" CCS facility at a rate of between one a week, and one a day, until 2050. I'm not sure how to describe how this makes me feel, other than "ill".
In 2019 we built ~500 large renewable energy projects. Total 180GW, or about 2 per day. We can and should built about x2-x3 more. Current bottlenecks is NIMBY, competing fossil assets, and transmission. It will be hard, so feel "ill but hopeful".
Energy projects generally produce or help deliver energy for the locale that creates and funds them. That means there is political will for them, locally.
CCS projects benefit the global climate, but not the local taxpayers directly. I’m all for them but your average climate denier is not going to be onboard. It’s way beyond being a hard sell. Hopeful is not the feeling that naturally arises here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is actually an important point. It doesn't remove the need for CCS though. I think people advocating for CCS should be careful what they ask for. Reasonable things to do would be: a) CCS should be confined to areas where no feasible technical alternative exists (e.g. cement) and to negative emissions. b) No support for CCS as in Enhanced Oil Recovery. This is creating more emissions than it avoids.
What is the reference to cement supposed to indicate here?
Another industry where CO2 as a chemical byproduct is vented at a massive scale in the atmosphere is with the steel industry.
Both are good targets for carbon capture at the source.