The average human is about 18% carbon.
We could all be doing a little more to reduce our carbon content.
$100M xPrize for Carbon Removal
151–160 of 469 posts
Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal
#152I don't mean to be a wet blanket (I imagine the prize will be a net good) but I want to talk into the void about something I've been befuddled by... I feel like I see/hear a lot of uncritical faith in (techno|market|competition)-solutions, with little discussion of what Nth-order effects may travel with those approaches. Just some scattered thoughts: - The best case for progress is probably technology that leads to p…
With the exception of the last item, these are all problems I would love to have considering our current situation. Graft and administrative burden is a real concern, though, although I don't think it should stop us from trying.
Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dried up wooden building material is pretty stable and a fairly common (even commercialized) suggestion for a carbon sink. If you let it rot/burn, then no, it is not a carbon sink.
Sure, but the way we build buildings, there's no way that's actually the case. Transport alone to the sawmill, then the lumber yard, then the job site might actually release more carbon than the tree is storing. A 25 year old maple will sequester 400 pounds of co2 in it's lifetime. An average commuter car will emit that in 2 weeks. Hauling all that carbon out of the forest will likely emit far more than that.
> Transport alone to the sawmill, then the lumber yard, then the job site might actually release more carbon than the tree is storing.
If we're building the buildings anyway, we have to compare with alternative building materials. That is, how much more would transporting that lumber emit, compared to transporting for instance brick?
Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
True although I wasn't referring just to the competition - it would be good to come up with sustainable solutions in general.
Yeah, but I'm not interested since the real solutions are generally off limits. The $100M is what I really want (or even $1M would be nice). In fact what i really want is to be employed to enter competitions like this and Gates' toilet competition. I'm just too dumb.
If you find a way please consider me for your team :-)
My current attempt to support projects like these is to make them as accesible as possible on https://carbonremoved.com
You get your $1M and I will include your removal method in our portfolio!
Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal
#155How about industrial institutions who are overwhelmingly responsible for the issue be made to pay up for r&d and clean it up instead of paying more money to put the burden others.
Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal
#156I'm curious to hear what people here think of Project Vesta? https://www.projectvesta.org/ (No affiliation, just intrigued by what they're promising)
We need 1000 shots on goal to get to gigaton scale carbon removal. Project Vesta builds on decades of academic research in olivine weathering that was itching for field trials and scale up. 999 more shots like this and we'll get there.
Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal
#157There'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…
Also, planting trees sequesters co2 into the biosphere. That is not good enough, we need to be sequestering co2 into the geosphere if we want to remove it from the equation
Has anyone checked if earths total biomass has increased as co2 increases?
Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal
#158There'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.
I totally agree and I'm sorry if I gave the impression that trees should not be part of a solution. Trees (and other nature based methods) should definitely not be neglected.
I merely wanted to try and raise some awareness to those who question the need for technological removal methods as there is a bit of a toxic "trees will save us" attitude when things like this get mentioned.
Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal
#159Why doesn’t he just use a few of his billions to build free renewable power plants? Emissions reduction, now, is so much more important than the possibility of carbon reduction in ten or fifteen years
The impact that even a billionaires could have is relatively trivial. The Green New Deal is estimated to cost trillions of dollars. Even if some of the proposed ideas are dubious, the amount of infrastructure needed is an order of magnitude more than what a billionaire can provide.
Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal
#160I 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…
> Even assuming the forecast 5x increase in "renewables*"
I don't know where these figures come from, but the IEA underestimating the deployment of renewable energy, as well as cost reductions, has become a running joke among people who model energy or study the electric grid.
Renewable energy is a growing and profitable field, and if you're concerned about not having enough clean electricity to power carbon removal, there are many opportunities to work full time on expanding renewable energy.