$100M xPrize for Carbon Removal • Hacker News Board

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#231

Post by foobarian » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

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…

Do trees actually help? AFAIK once a forest reaches equilibrium it puts out as much CO2 as it takes in through various decomposition processes.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#232

Post by teachrdan » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

geogra4 wrote: post #203

cowvin wrote: post #192

What we need is a cryptocurrency that is somehow mined by pulling carbon out of the atmosphere.

I'm laughing but honest to god I think this could work...somehow.

DiamondCoin: The world's first cryptocurrency based on Proof of Carbon.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#233

Post by thechao » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

tt23523 wrote: post #202

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)

most of the plans to sequester carbon in the ocean make me worry about how that would impact the broader ecosystem. As I understand it, it would change the chemistry of the ocean, which might trade one disaster for another. Not to mention ideally sequestration would last for millennia.

We’re already sequestering a quarter of the CO2 in the ocean; this will do so in a safer way that mimics the large scale natural process that’d happen over the next few millennia anyways.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#234

Post by jpalomaki » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #231

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…

Do trees actually help? AFAIK once a forest reaches equilibrium it puts out as much CO2 as it takes in through various decomposition processes.

Using more wood as construction material helps to tie the CO2 for longer period.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#235

Post by dbrueck » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

cowvin wrote: post #192

What we need is a cryptocurrency that is somehow mined by pulling carbon out of the atmosphere.

Honestly, that's /precisely/ the type of thinking that we need more of.

There's a lot of great work on the "this is a huge problem, how do we fix it?" side of things; we need to keep encouraging more on the "there's an abundance of this stuff that people consider bad and worthless, how can I use it?" side of things.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#236

Post by daddylonglegs » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

Most types of carbon capture technology [1] being touted are credit cards for climate change: You burn enough fuel to generate 4MJ worth of heat... Your internal combustion engine generates 1MJ worth of mechanical effort from this... You use this to propel a 2 ton vehicle... Carrying 1 person... To take part in the rat race or indulge in some consumerism. [2]

The carbon dioxide sits in the atmosphere for 50 years where it heats the planet, trashes the ecosystem and likely feeds at least as many positive feedbacks as negative - amplifying the climate change effects.

To capture this carbon you (your descendants) are going to have to: Put 4MJ of energy into the breaking the carbon-oxygen bonds... Which will take more than 4MJ of process energy and embodied energy in the capital plant... Once you have collected the diffuse CO2 from the atmosphere, which will not be free.

Our 'plan' for dealing with climate change is that we hand a burning planet to our descendants to deal with, if we can stagger to hand-off without crashing the system first. Future generations will have to be far more responsible than us, for centuries, and imagining what they will have to say makes me squirm.

[1] I am mildly optimistic about techniques that accelerate the weathering of (silicate?) rocks; and more trees will be nice. These technologies will be useful for the centuries of cleanup that will be needed, but cannot keep up with the huge rate of current emission.

[2] Yes, much of our current consumption delivers real benefits to people's lives; but much (most) of it doesn't. The point of my analogy is that the sheer wastefulness of the present excess will be paid for in the future at far greater cost and is being spent on such trivial or actively harmful goals.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#237

Post by Aerroon » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

Nydhal wrote: post #216

There's a few "Plants and trees won't do" comments here, which really misses the entire point of regenerative methods. Earth is an entire complex living system. Thinking of it as a simple chemical matter of CO2 is a very reductionist take. The point is to sequester carbon but ALSO trigger other cooling dynamics and reducing certain industrial practices that themselves release CO2. Too many engineers need to study com…

Nevertheless, plants and trees won't do it. They grow pretty much everywhere already where they can. Nature is better at reclaiming those areas than we are - there are an estimated three trillion trees in the world.

Then there's the problem that there's no significant process that turns trees into sequestered carbon for longer than the trees' lifespan.

The reason it's important to keep saying this is that lots of people participate in these tree planting drives. They feel all accomplished and that they did their part. But if that doesn't have any real impact on the problem, then we've done lots of work, used up people's goodwill, but not dented the problem.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#238

Post by aqme28 » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

A lot of people saying "plant more trees" don't realize the scale of our carbon output.

We release about 43 billion tons of CO2 in a year. A forest fire releases about 5-30 tons of CO2 per hectare.

We're burning the equivalent of a forest the size of Africa every year.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#239

Post by thinkcontext » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

thereisnospork wrote: post #14

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.

At 50$/BBl that's 2 million barrels, or one quarter of one day's worth of oil production for Saudi Arabia alone [0]. A new technology could do far more than just 'disappearing' 100 million dollars worth of oil. [0] https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-ne...

You wouldn't pay the market price. Its costs money to extract oil, less than $10 per barrel in Saudi Arabia, in the $20s in the US.

http://graphics.wsj.com/oil-barrel-breakdown/

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#240

Post by SiempreViernes » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

So, anyone got any good ideas for accounting tricks that lets you credit coal power emissions into a year the rules don't check and win by making coal power carbon neutral on (biodegradable) paper?