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$100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

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Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#51

Post by soperj »

nostromo wrote: post #30
krastanov wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not have a complete well-sourced answer, but the common argument against your suggestion is that such a carbon sink would work for only a couple of decades until it reaches a steady state, and these couple of decades do not seem to be enough to make a dent. Also, it is difficult to plant trees in a desert. Also, algae blooms are dangerous for other life forms. However, there are some startups working with super-…

Productive forests in the US are a carbon sink. The trees grow. We cut them down. We make houses out of them, which are wrapped to prevent deterioration. The sunk carbon becomes our buildings. Other uses of the wood are also usually carbon sinks. Paper either gets recycled (the carbon is preserved) or it gets buried in a sealed landfill where is takes decades or longer to break down. It'd be cool to calculate how muc…

Wouldn't it break down into methane instead though? I doubt that building buildings are carbon neutral, let alone a carbon sink.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#54

Post by lostlogin »

quaintdev wrote: post #27
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for terrestrial plants, the math just doesn't work out. Plants are really not fast or efficient enough to suck up carbon in meaningful quantities. Algae can be >100 times as efficient at that than terrestrial plants, so there might be a there there, but even still, fracking basalt probably beats that by a couple of orders of magnitude.

I understand this concern but I was blown away when I heard this fact which I wanted to share with you. > Certain species of bamboo can grow 910 mm (36 in) within a 24-hour period, at a rate of almost 40 mm (11⁄2 in) an hour (a growth around 1 mm every 90 seconds, or 1 inch {2.54 centimeters} every 40 minutes). At least it's better than no trees at all.

While it makes for impenetrable forest (scrub? Bush) when mature, you’d have to imagine that the acreage requires to sequester meaningful amounts of carbon would be absolutely vast. Bamboo just isn’t that dense.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#55

Post by mikeg8 »

quaintdev wrote: post #27
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for terrestrial plants, the math just doesn't work out. Plants are really not fast or efficient enough to suck up carbon in meaningful quantities. Algae can be >100 times as efficient at that than terrestrial plants, so there might be a there there, but even still, fracking basalt probably beats that by a couple of orders of magnitude.

I understand this concern but I was blown away when I heard this fact which I wanted to share with you. > Certain species of bamboo can grow 910 mm (36 in) within a 24-hour period, at a rate of almost 40 mm (11⁄2 in) an hour (a growth around 1 mm every 90 seconds, or 1 inch {2.54 centimeters} every 40 minutes). At least it's better than no trees at all.

Another interesting tidbit: bamboo is actually a grass, not a tree.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#56

Post by kisamoto »

There's a few "plant trees" or "terraform the sahara" comments in here.

For some context, if we planted trees wherever we could around the world we can only undo a decades worth of emissions[0].

Not only that but it would still take a century for the trees to reach maturity.

Our use of technology threw nature out of balance and we need to use technology to get the balance back again.

[0] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6463/eaaz0388.ful...

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#57

Post by elevaet »

lsiq wrote: post #32
re-al wrote: post #28

Why cant we just plant more trees? Or let the trees we have grow bigger, to soak up all that extra carbon?

We can, how many have you planted? The problem is the space issue and that it takes a decade or two for there to be meaningful carbon uptake. Most land is private so you can't go around planting willy nilly. What's worse is that you are technically not allowed to plant on most public land either, although for small amounts of native species, you can sneak by.

Ahem.. Not OP, but Canadian ex-treeplanter here, and I've planted 1.2M trees. I have many friends who've planted more, a couple probably up into the 10M+ range.

It seems insane that we aren't looking at trees more seriously. Here we have a self-reproducing, exponential, solar powered, organic, low-tech, carbon capture system. We don't even have to plant them, we can simply allocate land and let them do their thing on their own if we're patient for natural succession. Or we can accelerate the process by planting select species, thinning etc.

We should also be setting aside more of the remaining old-growth forests to protect them from being logged, as these forests represent a standing carbon sink (aside all of the other ecological benefits of protecting old-growth forest).

I know it's not the complete solution and that we need all the cards on the table, but I fear that in our appetite for high tech fixes, we're overlooking this simple biological solution.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#58

Post by typeformer »

filleokus wrote: post #45

I wonder how YC backed Prometheus Fuels will stack up. They claimed that they are able to sequester Co2 directly from the air for around 36 USD / ton [0]. If they truly can scale it at that price point, it seems very competitive. [0]: https://www.prometheusfuels.com/on-the-road/happy-earth-day-...

Are they really sequestering it? If I understand their tech correctly they are recycling it back into fuel which then gets burned and the CO2 goes back into the air? It’s a fascinating process but unlikely to undue our decades of harm.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#59

Post by deelowe »

wedn3sday wrote: post #4

Here's my proposal, take that $100M and find a Saudi/Venezuela oil well operator. Give him the $100M in exchange for not pumping $100M worth of oil out of the ground.

That would just artificially constrain supply, driving prices up and making other mining options more viable.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#60

Post by kisamoto »

wyager wrote: post #3

How is the answer to “carbon removal” not just “turn deserts into plant areas” or “encourage algae blooms” or something? It seems implausible to me that any chemical carbon extraction process has superior externalities to just planting more trees or something.

There is no silver bullet. It has to be a combination of:

1) Reduce emissions to zero (will take some time).

2) Use more natural solutions (trees, algae, kelp etc. - will also take time).

3) Enhance natural solutions with tech (enhanced weathering).

4) Develop carbon capture tech to reverse the damage done by the fossil-fuel burning tech.

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