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U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#151

Post by VBprogrammer »

p1mrx wrote: post #137
civilized wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're going to talk insanely expensive moonshots, maybe the US should install and maintain free point-of-emission carbon capture for anyone anywhere in the world who wants it, and put the technology behind it in the public domain for anyone who doesn't want it from us. Point of emission capture is at least technologically feasible.

Let's suppose that I can buy an inexpensive carbon capture box and attach it to my gas furnace exhaust. Where does all the carbon physically go?

It comes back out as charcoal which you can throw back in the furnace for the ultimate perpetual energy machine.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#152

Post by TillE »

DangitBobby wrote: post #133
baron816 wrote: post #48

Seems to me that everything becomes much easier if we just get fusion right. Carbon removal would be cheap at that point, correct? I’d like to see governments band together and offer up a $1 trillion prize for whomever comes up with a scalable fusion power plant, which would then be released to the public domain.

I don't think fusion is coming soon enough to be part of the plans for Climate Change. People working on fusion reactors have been misleading the public about progress. They have been using a "Q" value (energy in versus energy out) to describe some internal process rather than the entire process. So when they say something like "67% efficiency" they really meant "1% efficiency." 1. https://whyy.org/segments/fusion-en…

Even building boring old nuclear fission plants is far too slow! We need big changes now, not in 5-10 years, and definitely not in (really optimistically for fusion) 25+ years.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#153

Post by jseliger »

version_five wrote: post #5

At a first read, this is great, because it's apolitical. It's about innovation, and is positive, I.e. doing something instead of telling people not to do something. For once this seems like something a government should be doing. I'm almost suspicious I missed something.

It's something the government is already doing, in part: there's a DOE DAC RFP on the street now: https://seliger.com/2021/11/04/grant-writers-and-climate-cha...

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#154

Post by JumpCrisscross »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #123
notahacker wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which number do you think is larger, the cost for the US to dictate industrialisation policy for the rest of the world or the cost for the US (and possibly other governments more interested in reducing global warming, if the tech is there) to offset some of their emissions? The problem isn't getting wealthy Californians to swap their SUV for a Tesla, it's getting poor Cubans to give up the only car their government w…

> Which number do you think is larger, the cost for the US to dictate industrialisation policy for the rest of the world or the cost for the US (and possibly other governments more interested in reducing global warming, if the tech is there) to offset some of their emissions? You only have to dictate policy to them if you're trying to get them to pay for it. If you're going to pay for it yourself, there is nothing at…

> you would have to convince your taxpayers to pay to offset emissions in some other country

I strangely think the rich world would be more comfortable building carbon capture infrastructure at home than clean energy offshore. The jobs are domestic. And you aren’t handing a productive asset to another country.

Hell, find it with an import tax on polluting countries and we don’t even have to pay for most of it.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#155

Post by chillwaves »

Factorium wrote: post #130
civilized wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're going to talk insanely expensive moonshots, maybe the US should install and maintain free point-of-emission carbon capture for anyone anywhere in the world who wants it, and put the technology behind it in the public domain for anyone who doesn't want it from us. Point of emission capture is at least technologically feasible.

As soon as you add that requirement to coal power plants, they become immediately uneconomic to build or operate. They are already borderline due to the fall in cost of renewables. With a meagre Carbon Tax of $15/tonne, coal costs double in the US. There's nothing that can be done to fix coal power apart from just shutting it all down.

Isn't that the whole appeal of our economic system? To root out these inefficiencies?

If it is not economically feasible to run a coal plant if they do not externalize the pollution cost, how is that my problem? And if the demand justifies it, the cost for coal-generated electricity will go up.

It's a matter of priorities and resource allocation.

Why do we allow coal operators to enrich themselves at the cost of everyone else?

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#156

Post by BurningFrog »

p1mrx wrote: post #137
civilized wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're going to talk insanely expensive moonshots, maybe the US should install and maintain free point-of-emission carbon capture for anyone anywhere in the world who wants it, and put the technology behind it in the public domain for anyone who doesn't want it from us. Point of emission capture is at least technologically feasible.

Let's suppose that I can buy an inexpensive carbon capture box and attach it to my gas furnace exhaust. Where does all the carbon physically go?

I think the economies of scale are such that it needs to be large installations that regular people can only donate money to. Or do volonteer work, I guess.

The carbon goes down a hole in the ground, somewhere with the right geology. You can think of it as a gas well run in reverse.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#157

Post by betwixthewires »

Imagine that tomorrow someone came and said that they have found a technique to remove any arbitrary amount of carbon dioxide for a trivial cost. What do you think that would do to the world? Whoever controls that is the most powerful person in the world because they can literally suffocate all life on the surface.

Carbon capture technology is more dangerous than nuclear weapons. Just convert the carbon to biomass. Just plant trees.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#158

Post by MaxGanzII »

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #118
MaxGanzII wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CO₂ is not the only factor driving ecological damage and indeed, the mass extinction event currently in progress. There are simply too many humans for the way in which we as a species currently behave. Either we need single parent families, globally, for a few generations, to get numbers down to a sustainable level, or , we have to convince/force 7 billion people to accept and adhere to major changes in how they live…

Dude, its not the 50s, most of the world is under replacement rate of reproduction. The problem now is largely the opposite, shortage of young minds to invent carbon free energy grids and young hands to build them. You can cut human population by half and still have a problem of excessive carbon emissions or transition to carbon free economy and have net zero per capita emission. Also I don't want humanity to be almo…

I may be wrong, but I think the world population is growing more quickly than you portray, and will be for some decades yet, and we currently have far too many people for how we conduct ourselves as a species.

I may also be wrong to think it, but I would expect if you halved the world population, assuming it was done equally across the world, you would indeed halve human carbon emissions; half as many people, half as many homes, cars, power stations, etc.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#159

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

redisman wrote: post #149
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how fast electrification of transportation is occurring, I think those "millions of tailpipes" may go down sooner than you think.

In rich western pockets like Norway and SF Bay sure. Globally though your median car owner can in no way afford to replace their car with a new one

Sure, for now. But pretty much all of Europe, large parts of the US, much of China have plans to ban gas vehicles in the near future (I definitely see this happening much faster than any attempts at atmospheric capture would even make a tiny dent.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#160

Post by AnthonyMouse »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #154
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which number do you think is larger, the cost for the US to dictate industrialisation policy for the rest of the world or the cost for the US (and possibly other governments more interested in reducing global warming, if the tech is there) to offset some of their emissions? You only have to dictate policy to them if you're trying to get them to pay for it. If you're going to pay for it yourself, there is nothing at…

> you would have to convince your taxpayers to pay to offset emissions in some other country I strangely think the rich world would be more comfortable building carbon capture infrastructure at home than clean energy offshore. The jobs are domestic. And you aren’t handing a productive asset to another country. Hell, find it with an import tax on polluting countries and we don’t even have to pay for most of it.

The solution to that is to subsidize production of the alternative products in your own country for export. Then subsidized US-made solar panels and electric cars would be cheaper for people in Africa and South America than burning coal, but you get all the US jobs etc.
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