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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

#81
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can't keep doing this In the broadest possible sense, no, we can't keep doing "this": either we limit fertility somehow or we got the Malthusian limit eventually. That's just the consequence of the exponential function. And right now, whether population will stabilize on its own before we hit carrying capacity is an open question. But if you hold population constant? Yes, we can keep doing this indefinitely, or…

Right now most population models suggest we'll see growth flatten within decades, and peak within a century. It's not really an open question - it would take reversal of long lasting trends in large parts of the world to do more than at most delay the reversal.

The reversal analysis you've mentioned doesn't take into account (not in the forms I've seen) the presence of high fertility subpopulations that will come to dominate larger low fertility populations eventually and drag everyone's fertility rate back up.

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

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Key is to plant plans and trees. Billions of them. Our energy needs will only become bigger. Transition to renewable economy is in progress. That's good. But there is not enough focus on plants and trees.

For any mitigation solution, you have to ask 3 questions 1) How much does it cost 2) How much space does it require 3) How does it scale Planting trees performs excellent on (1) but terribly on (2) and (3). According to Bill Gates' recent book on the topic (where he aims as best has he can to summarize the state of knowledge as per today), you'd basically have to make a big forest of the rest of the world just to off…

Yes and trees only store CO2 while they are alive. Once they die and rot, it's released back into the environment. Also monocultures with fast groing trees that ideally can be harvested come with their own problems. Planting trees is good way to do something now, but it's not going to solve the problem forever.

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

#83

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…

Yes most people do not fully grasp the scale of the problem. Any way you attack it the scale is absurd making almost all solutions crazy. Getting the co2 back and putting it somewhere, ceasing all fossil fuel use, storing enough energy for wind and solar to work, all of these are trillion dollars scale global moonshot projects.

*but so its all of the energy/money/effort that goes into modern fossil fuel extraction and processing so it isn't fundamentally impossible*

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

#85
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if this won't be an environmental hazard in itself. What do we do with it after it's captured its CO2? I don't see coal being an environmental hazard and that's carbon captured in the ground. Plus you have to ask whether some risk of leaks or whatever is worse than not even trying at all. > I don't think we'll manage to do significant CO2 capture before the effects are irreversible anyway. - Without joking…

> I don't see coal being an environmental hazard and that's carbon captured in the ground. Plus you have to ask whether some risk of leaks or whatever is worse than not even trying at all. When it's in the ground it's not, no. But when we try to take it out or put it back in it does cause significant environmental disruption. Especially open mining. > - Without joking: not with that attitude we won't. Let's not quit…

It's important to throw money at this, but also to throw brains that could bring surprisingly simple ideas. Have you seen tech like https://noyalabs.com ? There's no need to create a capture factory with their approach.

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

#86
post #69

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 t…

Well, as another person said, it only works with high concentrations. You'd have to have this country of choice go and install the devices on all exhausts everywhere. There's still a percentage getting past the exhaust, there will still be emissions from fertilizer and the like, methane/nox/refrigerants are still a thing, and so we'd reduce the amount of emissions by, say, 75%. That would be amazing and hugely helpfu…

Ok, I hadn't understood, that this new solution was only applicable only to the CO2 produced by combustion for which we can easily install an exhaust filter.

You quote this fraction at 75% : With some efforts we can get 75% reduction at 50$ per ton.

What is the cost per ton to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere for the remaining 25%, and for the CO2 we already have emitted in the past ?

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

#87

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…

Maybe you can help enlighten me on this. I've been struggling to understand the basics thermodynamics of carbon capture for quite some time. So we have a hydro-carbon, we mix it with oxygen, and the oxygen combines with the hydrogen and the carbon, and releases heat as a byproduct. The heat energy increases the pressure of the newly created CO2. This higher pressure is placed on one side of a turbine or a piston, and…

The goal is not to re-create fuel, but to clean up the waste. This is more like sweeping out the ashtray

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

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also happen to think a $100 per tonne carbon price is not such a bad idea. Government here in Norway recently released their climate plan, and part of it was the gradual increase to 2000 NOK (~234 USD) per tonne of CO2 in 2030[1]. Not sure if it survives the years of politics between then and now though... [1]: https://www.dn.no/politikk/erna-solberg/sveinung-rotevatn/kl...

Does this include the carbon ultimately released from oil that was sold to other countries by Norway?

I would guess no. The buyer could be pumping it back in the ground for all the seller knows.

Requirement to sell "carbon neutral" oil to countries that do not have their own carbon capture rules would be an interesting idea.

Could as well add another tax for all the other nasty chemicals the refinement process releases.

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

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 100usd/tn would let me (limey brit) maintain my wasteful lifestyle for just 5300 a year. That's very affordable In the eyes of the annoying kind of climate activist, the affordability you've mentioned is a bug, not a feature. Too many people who claim to care about the planet want to use the climate as a pretext to reform everyone's lifestyle and to roll back industrial civilization more generally. This sort of act…

> to use the climate as a pretext to reform everyone's lifestyle and to roll back industrial civilization more generally. Not roll back. But do smarter. It's not just global warming. We're shipping billions of tons of stuff from one side of the planet to another in sulphur-blowing rustbuckets. Creating continents of floating plastic in the oceans. Causing toxic lakes from harvesting rare earth minerals. We can't keep…

You don't get it, the rich can afford to care about the environment. The poor destroy it because they have no other choice and that's not a big conspiracy, it's what the Europeans and Americans did 200 years ago when they were poor.

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

#90
Given that CO2 in the air is a tiny fraction of air (0.03%) and it's absolutely critical for plants, plants would have evolved to utilize CO2 as much as possible, in the one of most energy efficient and safe manner that will be really hard to beat by 'artificial' means.

Point being, that besides reducing consumption (the best being is by reducing population I think, rather than doing the, feel-good recycling etc. ) allow more forests to flourish.

Side note - the fixation on CO2 as the devil or enemy number one, has connotations of a lynch mob or the intellectual who indulges in intellectual masturbation by crunching numbers, i.e a modern day religion.

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