Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

climeworks.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 168 posts

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#71

Post by jackmott42 »

yodelshady wrote: post #30
thx-2718 wrote: post #3

"Our plants require less land than other techniques. E.g., on a land area of 0.42 acres, our Orca plant can remove 4,000 tons of CO₂ from the air every year, which is almost 1,000 times more effective than trees. The same land would host around 220 trees with an estimated capacity of 22kg each" How much land, in solar panels for example, is required to power this? Also what's the carbon waste that this generates? Is…

It's such an easy, relevant question to ask that it boggles the mind that investors don't have their own engineers to ask it. I know you're money people not tech, but how do you know you're not being ripped off if you can't check figures that basic? Anyway, apparently 3 MWh/tonne is a not-unrealistic claim, so they're only demanding 1.5 MW (on average, though if solar-powered it would make sense to oversize) and a km…

Welcome to planet Earth. If you can do napkin math, and bother to do it, you can be an extremely successful in engineering domains, because almost everyone else is completely useless.

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#72

Post by _aavaa_ »

foverzar wrote: post #69

Every time I see technology like this, I wonder why there so much effort and publicity in capturing carbon from thin air, but no one seems to be interested in capturing carbon directly out of exhaust pipe?

Because this fantasy allows fossil fuel companies to continue selling their products.

Capturing CO2 in ppm quantities out of air is ridiculously difficult. Capturing at point of emission is easier/better. But it’s even better if you don’t produce it in the first place.

See: https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/12/chevrons-fig-leaf-part-...

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#73

Post by onos »

dvh wrote: post #65
MichaelZuo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers don't look right, they would imply human CO2 generation of over 100 million tons per day.

That's 14kg per human per day. Seems about right.

And one tree does 25kg per year. So each person should plant 14 * 365 / 25= 204 trees. Seems very reasonable.

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#74

Post by thinkcontext »

candiddevmike wrote: post #17
thx-2718 wrote: post #3

"Our plants require less land than other techniques. E.g., on a land area of 0.42 acres, our Orca plant can remove 4,000 tons of CO₂ from the air every year, which is almost 1,000 times more effective than trees. The same land would host around 220 trees with an estimated capacity of 22kg each" How much land, in solar panels for example, is required to power this? Also what's the carbon waste that this generates? Is…

How much carbon is produced by the transportation and storage of the carbon that is captured? I want to see their carbon math for the whole process (including electricity) to prove this is all truly carbon neutral, seems like something that should be front and center on their website but they only vaguely discuss the carbon footprint of the plants. Having a business saying their product is carbon negative when the ac…

There is no transportation, they site the plant where they are going to store it. That's one of the advantages of capturing from the atmosphere.

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#75

Post by hef19898 »

yodelshady wrote: post #30
thx-2718 wrote: post #3

"Our plants require less land than other techniques. E.g., on a land area of 0.42 acres, our Orca plant can remove 4,000 tons of CO₂ from the air every year, which is almost 1,000 times more effective than trees. The same land would host around 220 trees with an estimated capacity of 22kg each" How much land, in solar panels for example, is required to power this? Also what's the carbon waste that this generates? Is…

It's such an easy, relevant question to ask that it boggles the mind that investors don't have their own engineers to ask it. I know you're money people not tech, but how do you know you're not being ripped off if you can't check figures that basic? Anyway, apparently 3 MWh/tonne is a not-unrealistic claim, so they're only demanding 1.5 MW (on average, though if solar-powered it would make sense to oversize) and a km…

Early investors, it seems, don't care. All they care about is whether or not they can sell their shares to some greater idiot down the line.

Heck, those money people don't even care about money questions.

Examples of non-existing due dilligence include: WeWork, Theranos, Nikola, FTX. Just from top of my head.

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#77

Post by thinkcontext »

fwlr wrote: post #22

Their subscription page is currently offering a rate of about $1.35 USD per kg of CO2 removed, and they promise to complete your order within 6 years. It’s nice to have some hard numbers on end-stage or “gold standard” CO2 offset (no doubt there are cheaper carbon credit options but this directly solves the hardest problem, CO2 that’s diffused into the atmosphere.

That's an order of magnitude more expensive than capturing from a point source.

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#78

Post by hef19898 »

usrusr wrote: post #24
shipman05 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much land, in solar panels for example, is required to power this? It says "The CO₂ can then be safely and permanently stored underground by our storage partners — Carbfix in Iceland." So my assumption was that the collectors are located there as well and using Iceland's abundant geothermal electricity.

In other words: it definitely will not scale.

But it looks good on a pitch deck. I just wonder if it cannot be combined with those particle emitting start-up that wantsbto creat artifical clouds. Both ideas sound like they are ment to be combined in the same company just before an ICO or a SPAC.

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#79

Post by dmbche »

foverzar wrote: post #69

Every time I see technology like this, I wonder why there so much effort and publicity in capturing carbon from thin air, but no one seems to be interested in capturing carbon directly out of exhaust pipe?

You might be interesting in reading about catalysors - that's what they do. Blocking more out of exhausts would choke the engine - although I'm sure there could be better set ups.

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#80

Post by hef19898 »

nabla9 wrote: post #20
thx-2718 wrote: post #3

"Our plants require less land than other techniques. E.g., on a land area of 0.42 acres, our Orca plant can remove 4,000 tons of CO₂ from the air every year, which is almost 1,000 times more effective than trees. The same land would host around 220 trees with an estimated capacity of 22kg each" How much land, in solar panels for example, is required to power this? Also what's the carbon waste that this generates? Is…

>The energy usage: We're committed to driving down energy consumption as much as possible. We only use renewable energy, energy-from-waste, or other waste heat to power our plants. They make it impossible to do the math. Energy consumption, lifetime capital cost per ton, are what make or break this scheme.

Unit economics are so unsexy, they died with e-scooter rentals and fresh food deliveries.
Post reply on HN