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A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

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Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#31
post #17
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a techno solution worth to dream about, the real techno solution is a fine grained control of weather (like https://viento.ai ) and in that case the extra CO2 in atmosphere will be naturally sequestered in fields and farms in Sahara.

That "leadership team" doesn't seem qualified to be working in this area.

Elon musk wasn't qualified to build a rocket company. Still pretty succesful though.

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The solvent in carbon capture runs in a closed loop. You typically heat it, and it releases the CO2 so you can compress it and inject it below ground. 2. You don't necessarily need a depleted natural gas reservoir to inject CO2 subsurface (though they sure are convenient) and there is plenty of room for CO2 subsurface. It also doesn't creep to the surface on any meaningful timescale. 3. How do we transport it ther…

>I feel like CO2 sequestration is second only to nuclear in the amount of unfounded concerns The problem with CO2 capture specifically (specifically from the atmosphere as opposed to at the source) is that CO2 comprises a very small part of air. This means you have to move huge amounts of air through a capture device to capture a very small amount of carbon. How is that ever going to make sense?

I guess the low hanging fruit is to attach this to a power plant or some other CO2 emitting process.

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#33
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but if it's really good, it probably could be brought into the political/economic system at some point. Just mandate zero emissions for certain classes of carbon fuel burners... like power new stations. Replacing the first 30% of fossil fuel usage is hard/slow. At some point, it will become much easier/quicker... because the economics will be favourable. The last 30% of fossil fuel will be hard/slow. Fossil fue…

lot of wishful thinking here. There's clearly not enough time for this

Enough time for what?

All I'm predicting is that carbon reduction will follow a path. Slow, then fast, then slow again. At that late point, exhaust capture may be mandatory... I would even say probably.

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#34
how much co2 is released each year ? -> "The world emits about 43 billion tons of CO2 a year (2019)"

This article -> 50$ per ton of capture.

product = $2,15 trillion to capture the whole year emissions.

US GDP 2020 -> $20.93 trillion

Only a few plants and ~10% of GDP from a single country could solve it.

Does this mean that global warming is almost a non-issue, but merely just a game of chicken to see who will foot the bill ?

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#35
post #31
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That "leadership team" doesn't seem qualified to be working in this area.

Elon musk wasn't qualified to build a rocket company. Still pretty succesful though.

He had Ivy-league degrees in physics and economics and two billion dollars. More importantly, he wasn't the whole leadership team: the CTO was a rocket engineer and the COO had other experience.

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#36

I don't see what is the point to try to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. I don't even understand the fuss around global warming.Why is global warming a bad thing? The plants and animals will adapt and evolve to handle the additional heat. There will be natural selection as usual. New variants of plants will evolve which can absorb more CO2. All species on earth will find a new equilibirum as they always had in the pas…

"The plants and animals will adapt and evolve to handle the additional heat"

Evolution takes thousands of years. In that time species will go extinct, so there is no chance for them to evolve.

For a simple demonstration of how fast we are changing the climate compared to other periods when ecosystems may have been able to adapt, see https://xkcd.com/1732/

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#37

I don't see what is the point to try to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. I don't even understand the fuss around global warming.Why is global warming a bad thing? The plants and animals will adapt and evolve to handle the additional heat. There will be natural selection as usual. New variants of plants will evolve which can absorb more CO2. All species on earth will find a new equilibirum as they always had in the pas…

True. Some areas will become uninhabitable or flooded but others will become more habitable (like permafrost/tundra regions). Nature will indeed adapt though there will be reduced biodiversity for a while. Especially because this effect normally happens on a much longer timescale. I think the problem is more that the regions that will become uninhabitable are currently mostly inhabited by people. And often pretty poo…

Humans will use nuclear weapons eventually. They exist, so they will be used eventually. That cannot be stopped. "Monkey see, monkey do" principle. And the people in power seem to keep getting dumber so we are probably not far off.

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The solvent in carbon capture runs in a closed loop. You typically heat it, and it releases the CO2 so you can compress it and inject it below ground. 2. You don't necessarily need a depleted natural gas reservoir to inject CO2 subsurface (though they sure are convenient) and there is plenty of room for CO2 subsurface. It also doesn't creep to the surface on any meaningful timescale. 3. How do we transport it ther…

Ok closed loop sounds better, the article didn't clarify this. But the compression itself and the heating will cost significant energy too, don't forget this. But consider for a moment how much coal and oil we've been digging up since the industrial age. CO2 is much less dense once it's uncontained underground. It won't stay liquid at that pressure. In that case we'll need to have underground space of a size of many…

The little detail that injecting CO2 into gas and oil wells can help get more gas and oil out of them is the main reason companies are investing in this tech. If the government can be persuaded to pay for the research, all the better!

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#39

For making a dent in global warming we'll need to have billions of tonnes of this "N-(2-ethoxyethyl)-3-morpholinopropan-1-amine (2-EEMPA)" stuff.. I wonder if this won't be an environmental hazard in itself. What do we do with it after it's captured its CO2? We can't just dump that stuff in the sea. I wonder if CO2 capture does not cause more problems than it solves. Even if we magically could capture CO2 as pure car…

If we could capture carbon by itself, we wouldn't bury it, we could make all kinds of stuff with it. The problem, approximately, is that you get energy from oxidising stuff, and have to put energy in to reduce it.

Of course, turning solar energy plus carbon dioxide into sequestered carbon and O2 is what plants do, but evidently not enough compared to human action. I do wonder whether biological (plants, algae) action, aided by genetic modification, could do more for atmospheric CO2.

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#40

This [0] AMA from the research group answers most of the questions I am seeing here in the thread. "Technologies range from aqueous amines - the water-rich solvents that run through modern, commercially available capture units - to energy-efficient membranes that filter CO2 from flue gas emitted by power plants. Our newest solvent, EEMPA, can accomplish the task for as little as $47.10 per metric ton - bringing post-…

$47.10 per ton smells like someone has calculated the cost of the reagents and cited that as the price...

Any estimate of this process cost would never be to 3 Sig fig.

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