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Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

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Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#121

Post by masklinn »

Retric wrote: post #98
specialist wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time machine is neat metaphor. Thanks for sharing. -- Net Zero is not enough. We must do Net Negative, a much bigger project than Net Zero. The goal is CO2 350ppm, or lower. Today is 417ppm. It will be >600ppm in 2050, our current global Net Zero deadline. There is no either-or. We need all the solutions. To stop and then reverse emissions: solar, wind, geothermal, nukes (old and much more new), storage, transmission…

The earth naturally sequesters carbon on its own, we are simply vastly outpacing that process. So no we don’t need artificial carbon sequestration to hit even preindustrial levels again. Carbon sequestration is unfortunately more of a scam than a practical process. Without actual discouraging the burning of fossil fuels people aren’t going to simply stop on their own and if we can’t even get that far nobody is willin…

> The earth naturally sequesters carbon on its own, we are simply vastly outpacing that process.So no we don’t need artificial carbon sequestration to hit even preindustrial levels again.

Debatable: not only have human activities taken over huge swathes of land which previously sequestered carbon (aka forests), we have been releasing huge amounts of carbon which had been sequestered through processes which basically can not work anymore, at least not naturally.

There is no millions of years of trees being buried wholesale because fungi haven’t evolved peroxisade yet, because they did, a while ago, and so dead trees rot and release their carbon.

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#122

Post by nosmokewhereiam »

GreedClarifies wrote: post #120
shafyy wrote: post #59

Climate scientist David Ho has a good thread on CDR: https://mastodon.world/@davidho/109511745525784891 It's hard for people to visualize removing tons or billions of tons of #carbon #dioxide (CO₂). I propose we talked about CO₂ #removal (CDR) like a #time #machine (e.g., this machine will take us back 5 minutes). For example: Q: How far back in time does planting 100 million #trees take us? A: If one mature tree tak…

We created this problem by using energy and energy is the way back out of the problem. Energy released by burning one barrel of oil: ~6 GJ. Total number of barrels consumed per year: ~100M Total energy per year: 6 * 10^17 J Solar flux on 10^17 J/s or 3 * 10^24 if we had a machine that could convert CO2 -> Carbon in some stable form, we would need to use 10^-7 of the earth's solar flux. At a very high level such a mac…

Soil converts it to carbon.

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#123

Post by Retric »

masklinn wrote: post #121
Retric wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The earth naturally sequesters carbon on its own, we are simply vastly outpacing that process. So no we don’t need artificial carbon sequestration to hit even preindustrial levels again. Carbon sequestration is unfortunately more of a scam than a practical process. Without actual discouraging the burning of fossil fuels people aren’t going to simply stop on their own and if we can’t even get that far nobody is willin…

> The earth naturally sequesters carbon on its own, we are simply vastly outpacing that process.So no we don’t need artificial carbon sequestration to hit even preindustrial levels again. Debatable: not only have human activities taken over huge swathes of land which previously sequestered carbon (aka forests), we have been releasing huge amounts of carbon which had been sequestered through processes which basically…

Carbon sequestration down to a tiny fraction of atmospheric carbon has happened all the way back when phytoplankton first showed up causing the Oxygen Holocaust and has been steady since then. Volcanic activity releases an enormous quantity of net carbon over time, but that carbon doesn’t accumulate in the atmosphere.

The misconception around the lack of fungi resulting in massive sequestration is that carbon would have been sequestered either way. It was similarly limited by the amount of carbon available per year from volcanic activity, what changed was the location of carbon storage not the net rate it was stored.

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#124

Post by cameldrv »

shafyy wrote: post #59

Climate scientist David Ho has a good thread on CDR: https://mastodon.world/@davidho/109511745525784891 It's hard for people to visualize removing tons or billions of tons of #carbon #dioxide (CO₂). I propose we talked about CO₂ #removal (CDR) like a #time #machine (e.g., this machine will take us back 5 minutes). For example: Q: How far back in time does planting 100 million #trees take us? A: If one mature tree tak…

This is an excellent unit of CO2 to communicate with. I’ve read Vacslav Simil’s books and I still have to look up numbers when hearing about a million tons of CO2.

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#125

Post by tadfisher »

strohwueste wrote: post #118
adammarples wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their plant is in Iceland and runs on geothermal

Geothermal is not good for global warming bc it is an additional source of energy which would normally be contained. The sun gives such amount of wattage and the earth can give so much wattage back to the universe. Nuclear, geothermal and fusion is stored energy like fossil fuel which adds to the heat in the atmosphere. Today that only amounts to 5% of global warming but if it's the only source of energy it could add…

Heat waste is absolutely miniscule compared to the amount of energy the Earth receives from the Sun. As in, the Earth is continuously bombarded by 173 petawatts of solar radiation. So you can see why it would be worth trading some waste heat to reduce the retention of solar energy in the atmosphere.

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#126

Post by HPsquared »

specialist wrote: post #117
slashdev wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we have to get used to the idea that we’re not going to be less than 600 ppm, even with CO2 capture. I would be surprised if we manage to scale that enough to make a larger difference. But that’s still much better than we’d get at without attempting to remove CO2, so it’s an important goal. The one thing that might change that is very ambitious geo engineering. Which actually is the solution that makes most s…

Yup. We'll need additional cooling strategies. Dr Tao's MEER project is so audacious and crazy, it just might work. https://www.meer.org "Volts podcast: Dr. Ye Tao on a grand scheme to cool the Earth" [2022/06/08] https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-dr-ye-tao-on-a-grand "MEER | Mirrors For earth’s Energy Rebalancing with Dr Ye Tao at Harvard University" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZAIIe4X2MU TLDR: We need to s…

I'm always amazed at how little attention and resources are given to these types of strategies. Solar radiation management and geoengineering. Clearly we have a problem of too much CO2, and are having massive trouble even reducing the rate of increase.

We need to think of actual countermeasures and mitigations.

It's like if a patient has dangerously high blood pressure. It's all well and good to tell them about diet and exercise but if the situation is really bad you need to give them medicine too.

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#127

Post by mrshadowgoose »

GreedClarifies wrote: post #120
shafyy wrote: post #59

Climate scientist David Ho has a good thread on CDR: https://mastodon.world/@davidho/109511745525784891 It's hard for people to visualize removing tons or billions of tons of #carbon #dioxide (CO₂). I propose we talked about CO₂ #removal (CDR) like a #time #machine (e.g., this machine will take us back 5 minutes). For example: Q: How far back in time does planting 100 million #trees take us? A: If one mature tree tak…

We created this problem by using energy and energy is the way back out of the problem. Energy released by burning one barrel of oil: ~6 GJ. Total number of barrels consumed per year: ~100M Total energy per year: 6 * 10^17 J Solar flux on 10^17 J/s or 3 * 10^24 if we had a machine that could convert CO2 -> Carbon in some stable form, we would need to use 10^-7 of the earth's solar flux. At a very high level such a mac…

> I never understand the hysteria over this topic.

It seems to be a gross mix of a few things:

-Most people are simply incapable of doing this type of analysis. They hear that "the sky is falling, and the only way out is to perpetually give up our comforts and live shittier lives", and they believe it.

-People get really hung up on forcing their personal "correct" way of doing things on everyone else. Whatever their personally acceptable use of energy miraculously happens to be "acceptable", and anyone else who uses more is a "bad selfish person".

-A lot of people seem to just enjoy the "us-vs-them" mentality, and shitting on others for their differing energy use seems to be a way to scratch that itch.

Our entire civilization is fundamentally based on energy use, and we have so much energy available to us in the form of sunlight. We can unwind all our carbon issues, and enable everyone to consume as much energy as a typical American, and more. But people seem to be more interested in shaming and shrieking at each other over bullshit.

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#128

Post by stouset »

GreedClarifies wrote: post #120
shafyy wrote: post #59

Climate scientist David Ho has a good thread on CDR: https://mastodon.world/@davidho/109511745525784891 It's hard for people to visualize removing tons or billions of tons of #carbon #dioxide (CO₂). I propose we talked about CO₂ #removal (CDR) like a #time #machine (e.g., this machine will take us back 5 minutes). For example: Q: How far back in time does planting 100 million #trees take us? A: If one mature tree tak…

We created this problem by using energy and energy is the way back out of the problem. Energy released by burning one barrel of oil: ~6 GJ. Total number of barrels consumed per year: ~100M Total energy per year: 6 * 10^17 J Solar flux on 10^17 J/s or 3 * 10^24 if we had a machine that could convert CO2 -> Carbon in some stable form, we would need to use 10^-7 of the earth's solar flux. At a very high level such a mac…

I have read this analysis several times, and near as I can tell you’re basically saying “if blowing up a stick of dynamite provides x energy, we can just use that same x energy to find all the original bits of that stick and put it back together”.

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#129

Post by 411111111111111 »

masklinn wrote: post #121
Retric wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The earth naturally sequesters carbon on its own, we are simply vastly outpacing that process. So no we don’t need artificial carbon sequestration to hit even preindustrial levels again. Carbon sequestration is unfortunately more of a scam than a practical process. Without actual discouraging the burning of fossil fuels people aren’t going to simply stop on their own and if we can’t even get that far nobody is willin…

> The earth naturally sequesters carbon on its own, we are simply vastly outpacing that process.So no we don’t need artificial carbon sequestration to hit even preindustrial levels again. Debatable: not only have human activities taken over huge swathes of land which previously sequestered carbon (aka forests), we have been releasing huge amounts of carbon which had been sequestered through processes which basically…

Humans are responsible for about 1% of annual co2 emissions.

What they said is spot on: the problem would go away in short order if we ceased all emissions today.

That’s obviously not going to happen though, and the original argument is spot on too: the technology is just socialised greenwashing. It’s basically only there to postpone legislature and offload the cost to tax payers while keeping private profits high.

Re: Direct air capture: our technology to capture CO₂

#130

Post by bcrosby95 »

mabbo wrote: post #54
lom wrote: post #25

The article says that the plant can remove 4000 tons of co2 per year. If you look up what’s the equivalent of that, just under 900 average vehicles less on the road per year. Or the equivalent co2 savings of building one wind turbine to replace polluting forms of energy production. What a joke.

Both techs are important. We need to reduce our production of greenhouse gasses, but that only gets us to break even. We then need to quickly undo the damage we caused, which needs tech like this. But you're right: first we need to prioritize reducing our carbon output.

After we quickly undo the damage, I wonder what these companies will lobby for so they don't go out of business.

Who decides when we should stop sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere?

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