Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

cicero.oslo.no

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 221 posts

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#71

Post by NeedMoreTea »

johnmorrison wrote: post #65
labawi wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends whether you are China or Vatican. Perhaps a per-capita calculation would be more appropriate: 1/day global = 1/day / 7000·1Mp = 1/20y per 1M people; 5/1y per 100M. USA should do a lot more, Africa can get a pass.

> Africa can get a pass. As an African I disagree w/ this. But you're right, global powers like the US/EU/China should and will likely contribute the most.

Having seen the effect of China and India getting a pass in the UN Climate summits -- because of where they were 30 years ago, no one should get a pass. Otherwise it'll be a source of much future regret.

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#72

Post by ianstormtaylor »

DenisM wrote: post #70

Perhaps we can reconsider recycling of paper products as a first step? If you send a paper bag to the landfill it’s buried in the ground (sequester), a tree is cut down to make a new paper bag, and a new tree is planted to make new material for more bags. Thus carbon is continuously captured from the air and buried deep. If you recycle a bag then the old tree dies of old age and decomposes releasing the captured carb…

Not sure if you’re joking or not, but that is not how it works at all.

https://ensia.com/features/methane-landfills/

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#73

Post by marcosdumay »

trickstra wrote: post #66

Here you can try to create your own solution to keeping global warming below 2°C: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.... (rabbit hole warning: you can easily spend hours playing with this site) It's not impossible to create solutions that don't require carbon capture, but those tend to have the uncomfortable side effect of raising electricity prices two- or three-fold in the next 20 years. Bu…

Keep in mind that this simulator is very focused on status-quo. It's not even possible to simulate an exponential curve for solar or a methane catastrophe.

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#74

Post by DenisM »

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #72
DenisM wrote: post #70

Perhaps we can reconsider recycling of paper products as a first step? If you send a paper bag to the landfill it’s buried in the ground (sequester), a tree is cut down to make a new paper bag, and a new tree is planted to make new material for more bags. Thus carbon is continuously captured from the air and buried deep. If you recycle a bag then the old tree dies of old age and decomposes releasing the captured carb…

Not sure if you’re joking or not, but that is not how it works at all. https://ensia.com/features/methane-landfills/

I’m not joking and my observation does not square with your link.

A close friend has taken a tour of a local landfill in WA state and was shown a perfectly preserved months-old banana that was dug out by the presenter from the landfill. Apparently the landfills, at least here, are completely sealed. If a banana stays “fresh” for months a sheet of paper will stay fresh for a century.

And be that as it may, suppose we create special landfill for paper - that one can easily be made completely sealed and good for a thousand years.

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#75

Post by trickstra »

marcosdumay wrote: post #73
trickstra wrote: post #66

Here you can try to create your own solution to keeping global warming below 2°C: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.... (rabbit hole warning: you can easily spend hours playing with this site) It's not impossible to create solutions that don't require carbon capture, but those tend to have the uncomfortable side effect of raising electricity prices two- or three-fold in the next 20 years. Bu…

Keep in mind that this simulator is very focused on status-quo. It's not even possible to simulate an exponential curve for solar or a methane catastrophe.

You can change the assumptions under top menu Simulation->Assumptions. Some of them determine how quickly can a technology come to market, how much it makes future improvements cheaper etc. Also here are more detailed explanations and examples of how the model works: https://docs.climateinteractive.org/projects/en-roads/en/lat...

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#76

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #42
londons_explore wrote: post #16

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.

3. The oil and gas industry is well placed to provide CCS services from an engineering perspective. Even without your second point it would be a commercial opportunity for them.

The oil and gas industry might well go bankrupt in the next decade as investors start to anticipate the huge cost of running declining businesses (with declining yields), and account for the trillions of stranded assets. Also, government will ask these companies to pay for the health and environmental cost of all their emissions. The insurance industry will also refuse to support them at some point. Why expect such a failing industry to provide these services?

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#77

Post by Swenrekcah »

wott wrote: post #60
Swenrekcah wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the method priority rank, all carbon emissions should be taxed starting yesterday. If an imported item can not be proven to be carbon taxed already then tax it in customs. The taxation should be revenue neutral, that is every cent gained is redistributed to the people, or some part of it to carbon capturing projects.

> The taxation should be revenue neutral, that is every cent gained is redistributed to the people, It definitely should not , for almost every such cent is unavoidably re-used in buying something else (and thus keeps on feeding the crazy economic machine), which ends up in energy consumption and carbon emission in a way or another.

Not nessicarily. If the amounts turn out to be so large as to possibly increase consumption even more, well then some percentage of people might just reduce their work by a bit and spend more time with their family or do self-sustaining things.

But a large part of why everyone should be demanding a revenue neutral carbon tax is because it neutralizes any objection that is justified by any version of a small-government theory.

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#78

Post by the8472 »

johnmorrison wrote: post #51
the8472 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and even produce enough clean electricity to power clean electric solutions in transport/agriculture/industrial/appliance sectors The agriculture part is overly optimistic. Agriculture entails GHG emissions from deforestation, fertilizer production, ruminant methane, NOx emissions, soil carbon depletion and other secondary effects. It's not like we can solve our problems by electrifying tractors.

> deforestation There isn't net deforestation globally, though. > ruminant methane Yeah, this is one of the hardest ones to fix, but I think lab grown meat will get there eventually. Like I said, I'm not optimistic animal agriculture will have sufficient technology to eliminate most of its emissions in time - that's why we need CCS in the meantime. My point is, the energy industry will be ready with extra capacity to…

Indoor farms only work for greens and veggies, not for calorie crops. It's hard to beat free sunlight. Rooftops are not sufficient area, difficult to access and also compete for space with PV.

> There isn't net deforestation globally, though.

That would be news to me, afaik this is just a goal and hasn't been achieved yet. And as far as carbon footprint goes net zero deforestation still can release carbon overall since new forests won't be as good a carbon store as old growth forest is for a long time.

> lab grown meat

That may be useful from an ethical point of view, but has anyone shown that this can be done with a lower GHG footprint? After all those cell cultures need to be supplied with nutrients too.

If you want meat then switching from bovines to chicken is a thing you can do today. Chicken doesn't release methane, has a lower overall land and carbon footprint. Still less efficient than staple crops of course.

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#79

Post by blueadept111 »

inciampati wrote: post #27
algo_trader wrote: post #11

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…

We are at the point of last resort. There is no viable way to solve the distributed problem of carbon emission. People can argue all they want about renewables and regulation. Half the world won't give a damn, and we'll be left where we are. 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…

No viable way? All it takes is a single generation to have 50% less children to cut the world population (and therefore carbon emissions) in half.

Not only is it viable, it the solution that will be forced upon humanity if humanity doesn't embrace it on its own terms.

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#80

Post by vsareto »

hurricanetc wrote: post #21

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...

>cement, steel

Beats me. I think we'll just have to just stop using so much of it.

There is likely a decent amount of buildings being completely unused that could be turned into housing. Turn most office jobs into remote jobs. Turn most office buildings into apartments.

>shipping, and aviation

These options absolutely exist. For aviation, we could simply stop traveling so much and establish a network of electric cars to move people (coordinating tens of drivers in Uber/Lyft fashion with electric vans to move a family across CONUS is easily doable with our current technology). Nuclear cruise ships could replace trans-continental flights but you'll likely want to keep those flights for a while so the public gets used to the idea of "nuclear" and "cruise ships" in their vacations.

Replacing shipping means nuclear, which means yeeting a bunch of 2nd/3rd world nations' current ships and incomes.

All of this of course requires a much more authoritarian stance than current world politics tolerates (and guaranteeing that the leader doesn't start purging people). Unfortunately, climate change isn't as dramatic as a meteor headed toward Earth. It's very difficult to sell the complete destruction of major industries and companies to anyone, even though dealing with an economic armageddon is obviously easier to deal with than a planetary climate armageddon.

Post reply on HN