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Potential large-scale CO2 removal via enhanced rock weathering with croplands

nature.com

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Re: Potential large-scale CO2 removal via enhanced rock weathering with croplands

#41

Post by pfdietz »

GVIrish wrote: post #39
pfdietz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's first point is true, but the second point doesn't necessarily follow. Methane is a quite powerful greenhouse gas, and it could be removed by in situ destruction (as it naturally is) rather than capture.

Yes, but that's kinda my point. Trying to remove methane from the atmosphere probably isn't a good use of resources. Methane capture at the source like what is being done at some waste processing plants makes sense though. And changing livestock feeds to reduce methane emissions seems like a no brainer.

Most methane emission is natural, so if it could be removed from the atmosphere, the potential reduction in forcing could be quite nice, above and beyond just reducing our own methane emission.

Re: Potential large-scale CO2 removal via enhanced rock weathering with croplands

#42

Post by throwaway0a5e »

GVIrish wrote: post #38
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Then let's raise the cost of adding a ton of CO2 to the atmosphere. >If the cost to remove it is $80-$100 USD, then that should be the cost of adding it. We should start demanding they either pay the costs associated with someone else having to deal with it, or reduce how much they dump into the air in the first place. This works until all the people who have enough trouble achieving a decent standard of living vote…

Correctly pricing in the negative externalities of burning fossil fuels is what will help us shift away from fossil fuels. And if people are gonna be upset about a decrease in standard of living because they can't buy gas guzzling cars anymore or air travel is more expensive, they're really not going to like the drop in standard of living from climate change. Coastal flooding and storm surge is already destroying bil…

You are missing the point.

The fact that we are headed toward refugee crisis and Miami being underwater doesn't change the incentives and game theory aspect of it. If emissions are expensive to remove and there is no way to globally ensure that nearly everybody pays for their emissions then nobody is going to pay for any of their emissions and will just invest in mitigating the problems locally even if that's not the globally optimal solution. Any country that tries to make its people pay the actual cost of their emissions without the rest of the world doing the same will quickly see regime change because people aren't gonna waste a bunch of resources pissing in the wind like that.

If emission are cheap to remove then it's going to be easier to get everyone to pay and the fact that some "emissions havens" won't pay will be a non issue because picking up the slack will be cheap enough. In order to tax emissions at what it costs to dispose of them the cost of disposing of them needs to be cheaper.

(Of course both of us are making the assumption that taxing emissions at the cost of disposing of them will solve the problem which isn't guaranteed because nations will be tempted to use that money on other things but I think we can continue using that assumption for the time being.)

Re: Potential large-scale CO2 removal via enhanced rock weathering with croplands

#44

Post by bluGill »

FreeFull wrote: post #27
jokoon wrote: post #3

I don't like those kind of projects because they sort of try to bank on the global warming problem with inventions and new things, except this doesn't work, because CO2 is just too hard to eliminate. It's the penultimate problem of industrialized capitalism: "we have a problem and we need to MAKE something new to solve this". But the problem was always the excess of industry in the first place. The solution is simple…

Even if we completely stop all manmade CO2 emissions right now, there still is too much CO2 in the atmosphere already. Actually removing the CO2 from the air in some way will be necessary if we want to stop global warming from getting even worse.

Stopping all human CO2 emissions stops global warming (on average, bad valvano you years will make it worse that year), and reverses it. Plants convert more CO2 than gets converted back by a small amount every year.

You just want something that doesn't need a million years to get back to normal.

Re: Potential large-scale CO2 removal via enhanced rock weathering with croplands

#45

Post by martythemaniak »

mrfusion wrote: post #34

Is there any research on what the ideal co2 level is? I’m on the climate change team of course but is there a risk we overshoot and bring co2 too low? I’d just say we should know what we’re aiming for. I guess plants like some amount of extra co2 so we’d think about that. Should we also have some kind of buffer between a future ice age? Don’t get me wrong, I think bring the co2 level close to zero is a viable argumen…

There is no such thing as an ideal CO2 level. Life in general, and humans in particular, can exist in a world of far more or far less CO2.

The problem is our modern, industrial civilization is built on the assumptions that future world is very much like the current world. Everything from houses to cities to nations are built around these long-term assumptions. The danger of climate change is that we erode the very foundations we've built our civilization on. The danger is not some arbitrary level, it is the rapid change to that level.

Re: Potential large-scale CO2 removal via enhanced rock weathering with croplands

#46

Post by specialist »

neilwilson wrote: post #16
jokoon wrote: post #3

I don't like those kind of projects because they sort of try to bank on the global warming problem with inventions and new things, except this doesn't work, because CO2 is just too hard to eliminate. It's the penultimate problem of industrialized capitalism: "we have a problem and we need to MAKE something new to solve this". But the problem was always the excess of industry in the first place. The solution is simple…

We solved the nitrogen problem in food production with technology. We'll solve the CO2 emission problem with technology as well. I'm with Captain Kirk. I don't believe in no win situations.

I've chosen to suspend disbelief and adopt the same conclusion.

Otherwise I wouldn't be able to get out of bed every day.

Re: Potential large-scale CO2 removal via enhanced rock weathering with croplands

#47

Post by hyko »

sveme wrote: post #8

80 - 180 US$ for the removal of a ton of CO2 is far more than the cost of adding a ton of CO2 to the atmosphere (in Germany, currently around 10€/ton, I believe). In principle, removing a ton of CO2 needs to be cheaper than the cost of adding a ton of CO2.

In principle, removing a ton of CO2 needs to be cheaper than the cost of adding a ton of CO2.

And it will be, at some point in the future; it’s not intended to compete with preventing CO2 emissions today. We need to start work on the technology now though, even if it’s not immediately scaleable.

The technology to remove excess CO2 from the atmosphere at scale will be required over the 21st Century to return the CO2 levels to pre-industrial levels, which our forecasts have priced in.

Re: Potential large-scale CO2 removal via enhanced rock weathering with croplands

#48

Post by lozenge »

mrfusion wrote: post #34

Is there any research on what the ideal co2 level is? I’m on the climate change team of course but is there a risk we overshoot and bring co2 too low? I’d just say we should know what we’re aiming for. I guess plants like some amount of extra co2 so we’d think about that. Should we also have some kind of buffer between a future ice age? Don’t get me wrong, I think bring the co2 level close to zero is a viable argumen…

We have CO2 measurements going back to 1960 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve

Just going back to the CO2 level of 15 years ago " would be equivalent to the stone in 165,000 Empire State buildings or 66,000 Great Pyramids of Giza...a cost of $28 trillion for the United States, about $90,000 per individual" so there's no chance we'll accidentally remove too much! Source: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Re: Potential large-scale CO2 removal via enhanced rock weathering with croplands

#49

Post by gpm »

mrfusion wrote: post #34

Is there any research on what the ideal co2 level is? I’m on the climate change team of course but is there a risk we overshoot and bring co2 too low? I’d just say we should know what we’re aiming for. I guess plants like some amount of extra co2 so we’d think about that. Should we also have some kind of buffer between a future ice age? Don’t get me wrong, I think bring the co2 level close to zero is a viable argumen…

The only way I see us overshooting is if CO2 suddenly becomes a valuable resource. The atmospheric CO2 concentration changes really slowly, at the rate of several ppm per year right now, just because there is so much of it. If/when we start bringing it down we will have plenty of time to stop.

There is of course such a thing as too little, plants need some to survive. Something on the order of 150 to 300 ppm is the range it existed in for the last 800,000 years and probably a reasonable target.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Carbon_D...

Re: Potential large-scale CO2 removal via enhanced rock weathering with croplands

#50

Post by ketch »

the_duke wrote: post #43

Does anyone know of a well written review that compares potential carbon capture methods? (with a healthy amount of references)

Maybe not as hard-science heavy as you are looking for, but I found this article to be an approachable overview of potential methods https://www.orbuch.com/carbon-removal/
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