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So you want to build a carbon capture company

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Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#111

Post by guerrilla »

freddealmeida wrote: post #97

Trees? am I not seeing the obvious here? A forest sounds nice. Also algae? Eats tons of carbon, generates most of our o2.

I can't find the reference but a study I read recently said that afforestation could only satisfy 30% of what we need for carbon removal. Here's a result in Wikipedia that says something similar:

> A 2019 study of the global potential for tree restoration showed that there is space for at least 9 million km2 of new forests worldwide, which is a 25% increase from current conditions. This forested area could store up to 205 gigatons of carbon or 25% of the atmosphere's current carbon pool by reducing CO2 in the atmosphere and introducing more O2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afforestation

Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#112

Post by jrnvs »

Burn biomass (plants) in a power plant to generate electricity, then store the carbon dioxide in empty gas fields. This is called BECCS, Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage [0].

Unfortunately, carbon capture and storage is not economical (yet). Let's hope it will be soon, with EU CO2 prices already reaching 50 euros / ton this week [1]. If I understand this International Energy Agency report[2] correctly, many forms of carbon capture become economical if these price levels subsist in the EU (and other economic blocs impose similar prices on their industry).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioenergy_with_carbon_capture_... [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eu-carbon-price-tops... [2] https://www.iea.org/commentaries/is-carbon-capture-too-expen...

Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#113

Post by ephbit »

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?

As far as my understanding goes, bio processes using whole organisms/cells like algae/bacteriae/fungi (as opposed to processes using a small set of enzymes or plain chemical processes using catalysts) inevitably come with the disadvantage of heaving a huge overhead. The organism/cell is a complex machinery where there's hundreds of pathways and chemical reactions running that are necessary to just keep the organism alive. Only a fraction of the energy input comes out in the form of the desired molecule. Most is dissipated as heat.

Maybe not the worst analogy would be the comparison between two systems for mining cryptocurrency: A, a specialized chip (ASIC), specifically designed to efficiently run the required algorithms and B, a general purpose PC that has all kinds of peripherals (monitor, keyboard, mouse, hard drive, ...) attached to it, drawing additional power that doesn't benefit the mining. B of course will never beat A in terms of energy efficiency.

So I'd guess if there's a purely chemical/enzymatic process that can do the job, it'll be that, rather than a whole cell/organism.

> In theory would only need sunlight and water to operate ...

Don't forget minerals.

Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#114

Post by YetAnotherNick »

WJW wrote: post #47
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I was talking about carbon capture using sunlight.

Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#115

Post by f00zz »

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/…

That idea has been around for a long time: https://space.nss.org/colonies-in-space-chapter-3-power-from...

Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#118

Post by tomrod »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #117

Why not use reduced space-flight costs to lift giant solar reflectors to prevent our poles and ice-caps from being melted? It wouldn't affect insolation at agricultural centers and it would slow warming enough for us to get carbon capture cheaper.

Isn't polar orbit hard?

Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#119

Post by newsclues »

pwdisswordfish0 wrote: post #87
lokischild wrote: post #59

I have a hunch that there is no artifical process that could possibly compete with what nature already has. The answer is plants. So the solution would be a way to sustainably grow a lot of plants in a short time. But another main factor is the destruction of the densest of those ecosystems, the rain forest on a large scale. That is my answer, stop humans/companies/countries from destroying the rain forest on a large…

The US has a bunch of land. A thought occurred involving the US's surplus military personnel spending their days, after waking up from their barracks in some state in the west, tending to a massive bamboo garden, including cultivation, pruning, and disposal into giant pits. The Wikipedia article for bamboo even mentions its use in carbon sequestration prominently. Having looked into this before, though, I turned up a…

What about cannabis?

It grows rapidly. The fruits (bud) are valuable and the remaining plant material can be compressed and buried.

Re: So you want to build a carbon capture company

#120

Post by f00zz »

pjc50 wrote: post #41
Swenrekcah wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The idea in those 1970s proposals was to build power satellites with materials mined on the Moon. I guess this sounded more realistic back when the Apollo landings were still within living memory.
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