Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

So you want to build a carbon capture company

caseyhandmer.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 180 posts

Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#41

Post by pjc50 »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #28
godmode2019 wrote: post #19

Here is a untested idea, probably unworkable. Solar has a problem that consumers tend to need more energy during the night. So the solution is to pipe electricity from somewhere east so everyone's electricity is piped in from say a location east where its still light. I got the idea when I heard Singapore wants to run a cable to Australia to get solar because they are too small for renewables. If if could work for th…

Another perhaps even cooler and not so unrealistic that people are actually working on it, is building the solar farms out in space and beaming the energy down to where it’s needed! Edit: OK I looked it up again and there are two stages. The one that's having actual work done is beaming energy between two places on earth, but the space one is being "explored". https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/02/…

Given the astronomical amount of energy required for launch, this will almost certainly never even break even on energy.

Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#42

Post by andor »

godmode2019 wrote: post #19

Here is a untested idea, probably unworkable. Solar has a problem that consumers tend to need more energy during the night. So the solution is to pipe electricity from somewhere east so everyone's electricity is piped in from say a location east where its still light. I got the idea when I heard Singapore wants to run a cable to Australia to get solar because they are too small for renewables. If if could work for th…

Solar has a problem that consumers tend to need more energy during the night

That might be true for private households, but it's not true for the average electricity consumer.

For example: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915

The energy required by individual households can be easily stored in a decentralized manner with batteries (e.g. Powerwall).

Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#43

Post by pjc50 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #5
andelu wrote: post #4

I have an idea about genetically modifying algae to continuously synthesize and excrete cellulose or similar. In theory would only need sunlight and water to operate, and cellulose could sink to the bottom and collected. Anyone knows if this has been explored?

Algae biofuel has definitely been a thing that people have tried over and over again and it hasn’t happened after a few decades so presumably there is some issue with commercialization. Wikipedia claims algae has very high water requirements (>600L of water for 1L of fuel) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel

Algal systems are ecosystems, and artificial ecosystems are (ironically) prone to collapse. It's like waking up one day and discovering all your houseplants have died, except it's a thousand tonnes of now-dead gunk in your algae bioreactor.

Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#44

Post by saberdancer »

sunshineforever wrote: post #17
mothsonasloth wrote: post #3

Tangential thought; aren't compressed gas companies who bottle CO2/Nitrogen etc. technically carbon capturing? Surely they have optimised their industrial processes, which could be repurposed into a large storage unit rather than a cast iron gas bottle?

Isn't all that co2 re-released relatively quickly? It gets fizzed and burped right back into the air.

It does, but you could store them underground and capture carbon. Not sure if it scales.

Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#45

Post by legulere »

There are a few areas where I see carbon capture viable:

- Catching CO2 of unavoidable CO2 emitting processes, namely burning trash. In Europe we decided that we do not want landfills anymore, and what cannot be recycled has to be burned. We already start with a higher CO2 concentration, and have energy that is created while burning. Seems like a perfect opportunity for catching CO2.

- Natural processes that catch CO2: Trees, olivine, ...

- Systems for better indoor air with controlled home ventilation systems: I guess you will find people willing to pay for air with a lower CO2 content.

Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#46

Post by de6u99er »

godmode2019 wrote: post #19

Here is a untested idea, probably unworkable. Solar has a problem that consumers tend to need more energy during the night. So the solution is to pipe electricity from somewhere east so everyone's electricity is piped in from say a location east where its still light. I got the idea when I heard Singapore wants to run a cable to Australia to get solar because they are too small for renewables. If if could work for th…

You can store energy by e.g. pumping water up a hill during the day and using turbine generators at night, or if you don't have a hill heating up water any converting heat back to energy.

Transporting electric power over long distances comes at a cost since wires are resistors unless you're using superconductors which still rrquire low temperatures to work.

Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#47

Post by WJW »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #24
WJW wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also need massive amounts of water when planted at scale and die after anything between 1-100 years (some hardwood trees live longer but capture carbon relatively slowly compared to faster growing plants), after which they release the carbon back into the ecosystem. Energy efficiency of photosynthesis is also really low. Just planting a lot of plants and expecting they will efficiently capture a lot of carbon ou…

We could create mechanical replacement which works with sea water and doesn't require us to wait for a decade to get result and likely more optimized for just one task.

Aren't technological plant replacements usually just called solar panels?

Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#48

Post by Tade0 »

godmode2019 wrote: post #19

Here is a untested idea, probably unworkable. Solar has a problem that consumers tend to need more energy during the night. So the solution is to pipe electricity from somewhere east so everyone's electricity is piped in from say a location east where its still light. I got the idea when I heard Singapore wants to run a cable to Australia to get solar because they are too small for renewables. If if could work for th…

> Cool idea, probably unrealistic.

There's a 3200km(2000 mile) long, 12GW HVDC transmission line somewhere in China that does exactly that.

Its main purpose is to connect regional grids but given the sheer length of the thing the difference in solar time at each end is well over an hour - could have been better, but that would require a different angle.

Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#50

Post by nosianu »

punnerud wrote: post #20

Norway have been doing CC since 1996 from natural gas and pumping the CO2 back into the well. The first commercial reservoir (Northern light project) for pumping CO2 back into old oil wells will open in 2024. The drilling is finished and the capacity is estimated to 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year for this first project. There is not any capacity left now for new contracts, but they are planning for additional wel…

It would be far more efficient (since additional energy is used for all the actions around it all) to not bring up carbon from below ground in the first place. As long as Norway brings up new oil those actions are just marketing.

See the article we are talking about here. First you spend energy to bring up carbon. Then you spend more energy to get it back down again. The math does not check out. Not bringing up the carbon in the first place would have been far more beneficial for atmospheric CO2 levels.

Worse, they plan to do more of the oil-digging: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-oil-environment-id... (this is dated Dec 2020)

"Norway wants to lead on climate change. But first it must face its legacy of oil and gas." -- "An expert explains Norway’s climate change paradox." -- https://www.vox.com/22227063/norway-oil-gas-climate-change

Post reply on HN