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

nature.com

51–60 of 93 posts

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

#51
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I disagree and feel that it is you who are missing the point. While I agree removal of CO2 needs to be less expensive, we simply don't have an option right now. We do have an option to make it more expensive to pollute until we figure that out. Why do you directly relate carbon taxes to a reduction in living standards??

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

#52

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

https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/28_EASAC%20R...

This document from EASAC (European Academies' Science Advisory Council) is a pretty nice and well sourced overview of many (not all) different negative emission technologies/methods.

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

#53
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even if CO2 was held constant, warming would continue for decades.

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

#54
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.

The price for a CO2 certificate is around 25€ per ton. The biggest problem is that lots of emission sources are still excluded from the CO2 trade and that businesses receive a certain amount of CO2 certificates for free. https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/co2-european...

27€/ton yesterday: https://www.eex.com/en/market-data/environmental-markets/auc...

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

#56

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

Here is a series of three open access reviews covering the current literature (1000s of papers):

1: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aabf9b

2: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aabf9f/...

3: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aabff4

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

#57
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.

Then let's raise the cost of adding a ton of CO2 to the atmosphere. We have been encouraging pollution since it's cheaper to just dump it than to reduce their production significantly or invest in capturing it. 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…

> Then let's raise the cost of adding a ton of CO2 to the atmosphere.

cries in Gilets Jaunes.

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

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I disagree and feel that it is you who are missing the point. While I agree removal of CO2 needs to be less expensive, we simply don't have an option right now. We do have an option to make it more expensive to pollute until we figure that out. Why do you directly relate carbon taxes to a reduction in living standards??

Because a certain type uses it as a code-phrase for "smaller cars, condos and fake cheeseburgers". They feel a deep sense of revolt at the affront of that personally, but are smart enough to realize they'll come off like the disgustingly amoral (imho evil) person they are if they complain about it personally. So they project it as a vague "standard of living" across poor/global-south people as a way of concern trolling libs into not taking their truck.

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

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I disagree and feel that it is you who are missing the point. While I agree removal of CO2 needs to be less expensive, we simply don't have an option right now. We do have an option to make it more expensive to pollute until we figure that out. Why do you directly relate carbon taxes to a reduction in living standards??

>We do have an option to make it more expensive to pollute until we figure that out

I'm saying that option only exists on paper because invoking it in any capacity that actually imposes enough cost to make people reduce polluting by a meaningful amount is going to met with too big a backlash to be sustainable.

>Why do you directly relate carbon taxes to a reduction in living standards??

Because anything that raises cost across all goods and at every step of every supply chain reduces living standards because people will simply be able to afford less goods and services at their new prices. That people will have to do things like turn down the A/C and eat out less in order to make ends meet. Individually those aren't big deals but they have follow on effects, the HVAC guy and the restaurant get less business. Those apply through the entire economy compounding the problem. There are also a lot of people who are going to be pushed over standard of living "cliffs" so to speak. The increased cost will be the difference between living in an air conditioned apartment or not. You apply the former type of changes across the entire economy you'll piss everyone off. You sprinkle in the latter and you've got a regime change on your hands. The only way an across the board standard of living decrease like that is tolerated is when it is overwhelmingly consensual (see WW2 mobilization).

I agree we need to do something but what? It's a real shit situation. Doing nothing is bad. Doing a token "something" doesn't help. Doing something that actually helps is not sustainable. Either climate change has to get worse or solving it has to get cheaper before we as a society can (uncontroversial) justify the level of resource allocation that will be required to make a meaningful difference.

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

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I disagree and feel that it is you who are missing the point. While I agree removal of CO2 needs to be less expensive, we simply don't have an option right now. We do have an option to make it more expensive to pollute until we figure that out. Why do you directly relate carbon taxes to a reduction in living standards??

If you're a suburban citizen/voter who relies on a car to get to work/stores/school and on hydrocarbons for home-heating in the winter, the immediate impact of a carbon tax (without mitigatory measures) is to increase your expenses. That generally leads to reduced living standards.

I agree that properly pricing carbon emissions is essential, but one should not overlook the short-term impact. I remember the original Kyoto agreement, which seemed impossible at the time; in hindsight, the negotiators could have done us greater good by adopting a quantitative pathway that even the developing countries agreed was possible. Beginning to price carbon emissions, even a little, will have real impact.

The most thermodynamically-efficient way to deal with carbon in the atmosphere is to keep it in the ground. Furthermore, when we burn hydrocarbons and sequester CO_2, we remove oxygen from our atmosphere.

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