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$100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

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Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#321

Post by kevinqi »

jtsiskin wrote: post #316

This is funny. There is one group of people pumping carbon out of the ground and burning it. Then there is another group of people capturing the carbon and putting it back into the ground. I'm picturing a power plant burning coal, then a windmill farm next to it powering a carbon removal process. I guess the potential power generation offset must be accounted for, even if in the solution it's coming from renewable re…

This seems easy to say, but how can small groups of people make actionable change on burning less fossil fuel? Will you protest outside coal plants? Cement plants? Steel plants? Stop flying in airplanes? Do you still use a car that burns gasoline? Will oil companies do the right thing and simply choose to make less money?

I agree that not using fossil fuels is the most efficient method, but it's also not easy to take action on. We need to pursue every viable avenue in parallel, and carbon removal solutions are, if not particularly efficient yet, at least very actionable. And with R&D, perhaps they will become more efficient.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#322

Post by schiffern »

lovemenot wrote: post #314
schiffern wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trees are valuable too. The problem is we don't understand and/or appreciate that value. For instance, trees essentially power the entire terrestrial water cycle. Without trees all the water rains out within a few hundred km of the coast. Trees (far moreso than simple evaporation) are responsible for pushing that water back into the air-stream. Isotopic analysis confirms that 80% of the rainfall on land is caused by…

>> Anyone still think it's a good idea to utilize all that "valuable real estate" being "taken up" by trees? As long as plantation owners and/or illegal loggers do, then all your argumentation is moot.

Correct, thanks. Incidentally before seeing your post I just edited that part for clarity. Since I already made the edit, I'll leave it as-is.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#323

Post by otterley »

nostromo wrote: post #35
BitwiseFool wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Why cant we just plant more trees?" We can, and we certainly should, but that does not solve the problem because those trees will eventually die and that carbon will cycle back through the biosphere. Mankind extracted a ton of carbon from the ground, where it was locked away, and we put it back into the air. People are trying to find ways of putting all that extra carbon back somewhere where it won't affect the cyc…

> those trees will eventually die and that carbon will cycle back through the biosphere. Trees in forests are self-replicating. When one dies another grows in its place. Yes, this isn't the only solution, but it's certainly part of the solution.

Better than that! Trees reproduce at a ratio much higher than 1:1.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#324

Post by BurningFrog »

fooker wrote: post #224
mbgerring wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>There's no reason not to plant trees in addition to everything else we'll need to do to fix this problem. Yes, there is. Trees take a up valuable real estate. As long as people can do something even remotely profitable with land they own, this can not work.

Yes, tree planting for carbon binding absolutely need to be profitable to get real traction!

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#325

Post by BurningFrog »

tekstar wrote: post #62
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…

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

That assumes a lot about the world in 50-100 years when trees planned today are full grown!

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#326

Post by BurningFrog »

schiffern wrote: post #288
bognition wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Highway medians are lawn for safety reasons. Planting an orchard between two lanes of traffic going 75 mph would result in a ton of fatalities

Seems like you'd intentionally plant many small/short trees that will act as nice crash barriers, not large strong trees that act like brick walls. Orchards tend to be short trees anyway. Hitting the tree equivalent of those sand-filled barrels sounds a lot better than dissipating that same energy by either A) flipping, or B) colliding with oncoming traffic. It would be interesting to see the videos of "crash testing…

Sure, but small trees contain little carbon.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#327

Post by burgessaccount »

rcpt wrote: post #283
burgessaccount wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calcium carbonate is a better fit - see Gates’s experiments. Likely to still be disastrous, but better than sulfur dioxide

Interesting thanks. Why disasterous?

Particulate matter in the air causes precipitation. Spraying large amounts of particulate matter into the sky is likely to drastically change global rainfall patterns - so you might get a ton of rain in the Sahara, where it’s useless, and none at all in the American Midwest. The result could be drastic food shortages and famines. Major volcanic eruptions have been associated with droughts and famines. I think geoengineering on this scale may be necessary, but it is a terrible option and an absolute last resort

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#328

Post by BurningFrog »

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.

Yes, but that takes 50 years at least.

In the 2070s things will be very different.

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#329

Post by hitpointdrew »

otterley wrote: post #188
hitpointdrew wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For some context, if we planted trees wherever we could around the world we can only undo a decades worth of emissions[0]. Not even, say you could transform the Sahara to rain forest, awesome right? I mean it would be an incredible feat, but it would give you exactly 0 with reducing carbon. Contrary to popular belief the Amazon rain forest aren't the "lungs" of the planet, the Amazon rain forest is basically net 0.…

Wait a minute. Are you saying that the animals in the Amazonian rain forest produce more CO2 than the plants within it consume? Do you have any data that shows this?

This is cited in the documentary "One Strange Rock". That is the only data I have. I am trusting that the documentary is accurate, I have not fact checked the documentary.

EDIT: You might find this PBS article interesting as well, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/no-the-amazon-fires-won...

"Forest plants produce lots of oxygen, and forest microbes consume a lot of oxygen. As a result, net production of oxygen by forests – and indeed, all land plants – is very close to zero."

Re: $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal

#330

Post by burgessaccount »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #320
burgessaccount wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few other problems - 1) trees take a lot of water to grow, and 2) all the carbon they sequester can go right back into the atmosphere in a forest fire. Some very scrupulous carbon-offset companies (like YC co terraformation!) are careful to plant diverse, native species in a way that rebuilds habitat and fits local water supplies. But there are a huge number of irresponsible tree-planting orgs that plant monocultur…

Trees take a lot of water to grow but they also hold water and share it through the air and ground with other plants and with other creatures in the form of transpired water vapor.

Definitely true! I am a huge fan of trees. But the wrong tree in the wrong place is a bad thing. I try to advocate for responsible and thoughtful reforestation - which is, unfortunately, a lot more expensive than people want it to be.
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