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$100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

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Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#141

Post by kisamoto »

p_j_w wrote: post #133
songzme wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trees do much more than remove carbon from the air. Carbon removal machine could potentially create c02 deficit regions, creating hostile environments for trees. We can't possibly build a machine for every function a tree does.

I think the point GP was making was that just planting trees is not enough, not that we shouldn't be doing it. If all we do is plant trees, we're still running full bore up shit creek.

Yes thank you - trees are part of the solution, not _the_ solution.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#142

Post by kisamoto »

tohmasu wrote: post #137

I get the feeling there's a "snake eating its own tail" aspect here. Assuming carbon sequestration can be done at scale, it will likely require energy, maybe even a lot of energy. So where's this energy going to come from? Well... global energy demand is increasing as-is and the winners are: coal, oil and "natural" gas (which is a fossil fuel): https://www.statista.com/statistics/222066/projected-global-... Even assu…

Solar can be used to a certain extent.

And geo-thermal - that is currently being used in Iceland by Carbfix + Climeworks.

Also worth noting that a lot of these technologies do thorough lifecycle analysis to make sure that despite the energy usage required they are still carbon negative.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#143

Post by humbledrone »

rob_c wrote: post #115

Why not invest that directly in various different prototyped technologies already being developed for this _now_ to accelerate the process? It feels like offering free swimming floats to the first one who can swim out to get them.

Offering a prize could potentially result in more than the prize value ($100M) being invested into those very technologies.

As an example, we can look at the Netflix Prize [1], which was only $1M. But that $1M bought them way, way more than $1M worth of work: "over 20,000 teams had registered for the competition from over 150 countries. 2,000 teams had submitted over 13,000 prediction sets." It's hard to guess the value of having 20,000 teams working on the Netflix problem, but $1M invested directly by Netflix would probably only pay for 3-4 engineers for 1 year, so it seems like they got a lot of leverage out of that $1M.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix_Prize

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#145

Post by burgessaccount »

chris_overseas wrote: post #127

I'm curious to hear what people here think of Project Vesta? https://www.projectvesta.org/ (No affiliation, just intrigued by what they're promising)

I’m very excited about them as a possibility (I think there’s another thread about them on HN?) but so much is unproven. We have no idea how much carbon the sand will absorb, or how fast, or how much it might mess with oceans along the way (it could be a positive because it would help fix ocean acidification, but it is a major mineral and ph modification to a complex system). No solution is as good as emissions reductions

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#146

Post by kisamoto »

chris_overseas wrote: post #127

I'm curious to hear what people here think of Project Vesta? https://www.projectvesta.org/ (No affiliation, just intrigued by what they're promising)

Olivine has great potential (although it takes a while - up to 1000 years - to reach maximum sequestration).

Project vesta tries to use the sea and waves to accelerate this process. It's a bit of an unproven experiment however it definitely has potential and needs supporting to prove the hypothesis and improve the method.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#147

Post by usefulcat »

songzme wrote: post #110
kisamoto wrote: post #56

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.or…

Trees do much more than remove carbon from the air. Carbon removal machine could potentially create c02 deficit regions, creating hostile environments for trees. We can't possibly build a machine for every function a tree does.

> Carbon removal machine could potentially create c02 deficit regions, creating hostile environments for trees.

If we could remove so much CO2 from the air that it prevented plants from growing (even if the effect were highly localized, which is pretty much a certainty), then we might actually have a shot at being able to remove CO2 in a reasonable amount of time. So this definitely sounds like a good problem to have. Personally I think that's pretty unlikely though.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#148

Post by mbgerring »

kisamoto wrote: post #56

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.or…

There's no reason not to plant trees in addition to everything else we'll need to do to fix this problem. The advantage of planting trees is that we know it works, it's cheap, and we can do it right now. So some people should be doing that, and others should be doing R&D on other means of carbon removal. No need to pit one against the other.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#149

Post by etaioinshrdlu »

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-...

There may be a pattern here of YC funding carbon removal techniques that perhaps cannot work at all. Here's another one: Remora https://www.remoracarbon.com/

As far as I know there is no research paper on the topic ... nothing to indicate it actually is a viable solution.

They also don't want to talk to anyone about hard questions. It's like the Theranos of carbon removal, using Silicon-valley style secrecy.

I can't help but feel that if we are to successfully save the climate, it won't be dependent on secrecy.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#150

Post by tito »

abeppu wrote: post #96

This sounds cool from a tech-nerd perspective, but of course it all is pretty futile if we don't get emissions under control. The video says 10 gigatons/yr by 2050. Our 2019 emissions were ~36 gigatons. I.e. even if capture is successful, it needs to be accompanied by aggressive emissions reductions for us to even get to neutral, let alone reversing damage. I'm guessing Musk had some thought process around the expect…

Indeed, getting emissions under control is key. And so are developing solutions to removing carbon from the ambient air, with fewer than 2,000 people working in the industry worldwide.

Regarding your point about carbon capture, XPRIZE recently closed a $20 million prize for making products out of carbon emissions captured at industrial sources: https://www.xprize.org/prizes/carbon/articles/xprize-announc...

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