91–100 of 267 posts
I'm sure Halliburton-like companies have a 3 step plan to be right at the front of the money firehose when governments are forced to reduce CO2 or face even bigger costs (both financially and politically) in the coming decades.
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It only has to do it cheaply now because there is NO COST to putting CO2 into the air. Why are people surprised that if something is free (pumping CO2 into air) demand for it is high? You are telling me that doing a charge of let's say $10 - $100/ton of CO2 wouldn't have a DRAMATIC impact on emissions? Is $10 - $100/ton too little for a supposed climate emergency? There is so much funding and lawmaking and finger poi…
You mean a Carbon Tax ? The tax that applies to every single business, every single product, every single process, everything. The one that causes every single vested interest to come out of the woodwork and join together to make it politically toxic. We tried this in Australia. It has killed every government that even dared to discuss it. And politically it is utterly impossible to defend e.g. "Carbon tax that raise…
Our carbon tax worked at reducing emissions, and at being low economic impact. It was removed because we are a corrupt banana republic, not because it's unworkable.
What the article leaves to the conclusion is what needs to be stated up front and center: it's virtually impossible to do this efficiently, cheaply, or effectively because there's so little CO2 in the air, meaning a) adding even a little bit more greatly affects the CO2 levels b) with a global ppm of ~400, it basically means that you need to filter 2500 molecules of air to get a single molecule of CO2, and that's ass…
As you write, plants can do this quite efficiently via photosynthesis. So there is at least one working example where CO2 capture is resource-efficient (even solar-powered). From photosynthesis we get sugar. From sugar we can get to raw (solid) carbon for long-term storage. Forests are not the only option. Imagine large installations with tanks of algae under a white canopy. I imagine the economies of scale are huge…
What the article leaves to the conclusion is what needs to be stated up front and center: it's virtually impossible to do this efficiently, cheaply, or effectively because there's so little CO2 in the air, meaning a) adding even a little bit more greatly affects the CO2 levels b) with a global ppm of ~400, it basically means that you need to filter 2500 molecules of air to get a single molecule of CO2, and that's ass…
As you write, plants can do this quite efficiently via photosynthesis. So there is at least one working example where CO2 capture is resource-efficient (even solar-powered). From photosynthesis we get sugar. From sugar we can get to raw (solid) carbon for long-term storage. Forests are not the only option. Imagine large installations with tanks of algae under a white canopy. I imagine the economies of scale are huge…
There's a reason energy based on organic matter has gotten a bad reputation. It's just not a very efficient way of getting energy from the sun compared to e.g. solar.
The calculation for carbon storage will be a bit different, but not by that much.
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If you do the math, this essentially doesn't work out. :( Trees are far too slow, even if you have a good way to lock up the carbon once the trees capture it. For an intuitive understanding, consider: Our surplus of CO2 comes (mostly) from burning fossil fuel that took millions of years for the original plant life to accumulate.
Yes, but forests capture carbon quickly until the average age of the trees starts increasing. So zero to 50 years is good, but after that things really slow down. The amount of wood becomes relatively constant. So slowly, very slowly leaves fall/get eaten by bugs, break down, and get absorbed by new trees. But there is a net gain, just a very slow one. Then things like continents collide, mountain ranges come and go,…
Or, we should just get used to live with more CO2 in the air.
Or, have less people producing waste everywhere.
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As you write, plants can do this quite efficiently via photosynthesis. So there is at least one working example where CO2 capture is resource-efficient (even solar-powered). From photosynthesis we get sugar. From sugar we can get to raw (solid) carbon for long-term storage. Forests are not the only option. Imagine large installations with tanks of algae under a white canopy. I imagine the economies of scale are huge…
AFAIK tree sequestration is marginal compared to the amount of co2 to be captured. Also, trees rot, and the decomposition process reverts a chunk of the process (releases co2)
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As you write, plants can do this quite efficiently via photosynthesis. So there is at least one working example where CO2 capture is resource-efficient (even solar-powered). From photosynthesis we get sugar. From sugar we can get to raw (solid) carbon for long-term storage. Forests are not the only option. Imagine large installations with tanks of algae under a white canopy. I imagine the economies of scale are huge…
AFAIK tree sequestration is marginal compared to the amount of co2 to be captured. Also, trees rot, and the decomposition process reverts a chunk of the process (releases co2)
Nope. Tree sequestration is extremely effective on a global scale. That's why it's so important that we prevent deforestation.
"Intact forests and those re-growing after disturbance (like harvesting or windthrow) sequestered around 4 billion tonnes of carbon per year over the measurement period — equivalent to almost 60% of emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production combined."
http://theconversation.com/explainer-how-much-carbon-can-the...
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Reusable cups and paper straws aren't for climate change. They're for the quite unreasonable landfill scare. The people who subscribe to that belief have no idea beyond "plastic = bad" and "landfills = bad". Sometimes they try to link it to climate change for added credibilty though.
> The people who subscribe to that belief have no idea beyond "plastic = bad" So... you're saying that there's not an accumulation of plastic waste / microplastics in the environment, or that we know any impacts or benign or negligible? Good news if true, would like to know what position there's the most credible evidence for. > and "landfills = bad". I'm a fan of consumer goods, so naturally it's convenient for me i…
We are only now starting to measure up the microplastics impact and their origin. Switching to reusable cups is a drop in the ocean, when tons of the stuff is released by simply washing clothes or makeup off your face.
The conclusion is always (from my point of vue) : we are fucked.
We need a magic device that will remove gigatons of CO2 out of the atmosphere in less than 30 years and we need it to do it without using energy or consuming rare material. And you can't do much with CO2 at the end.