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The first commercial carbon-sucking facility in the US opens in California

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Re: The first commercial carbon-sucking facility in the US opens in California

#21

Post by vkou »

ghiculescu wrote: post #5
anovikov wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As another yardstick, it will cost about 2x the annual world GDP to mitigate all emissions this way. With normal amortisation rates and operating costs, it will be about 1.5x-2x more than entire energy expenditure worldwide. I wonder if this is simply a scheme to siphon public money. What a good catch for Fox News! Of course, if $100 per ton ever becomes a reality, then it's just 3% of world GDP and is probably affor…

People on this technology forum seem skeptical that technology can improve or get cheaper.

People on this technology forum are skeptical that an incredibly inefficient technology used to recover carbon from air is a better investment than using technology to emit less carbon in the first place.

Re: The first commercial carbon-sucking facility in the US opens in California

#22

Post by vlovich123 »

junofan wrote: post #14
thisgoesnowhere wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they just understand that this is very unlikely to work even with best case estimates from people with a direct financial interest in this working

It’s part of the IEA’s net zero by 2050 plan. An understanding of basic physics is all that is required to see that DAC must be in the mix to achieve net zero emissions globally.

Where is all this energy going to come from? Cause fission is the only thing I’m aware of that we know that can generate enough new electricity capacity to do reclamation. Fusion is too far out and solar/wind can’t handle enough of the grid to have enough left over to also be doing reclamation.

The economic and legal arguments are a joke. The only serious plan would involve 100x or even 1000x our investments in fission R&D and capacity build out (and fusion research too because fission needs to get us there).

Don’t see that happening until the situation getting dire enough and that’s going to be too late because capacity can’t come online fast enough and these are runaway global processes. It’s taken 200 years of really bad destruction and it would take much longer than that running reclamation going at an insane rate to try to undo that damage. Arguably we’re already in runaway territory - We didn’t go to 0 but it was the single largest global reduction in co2 and still one of the worst global warming events we’ve seen so far. Do not expect anything magical from net 0. At this point it’s massively negative 0. That 2c of warming is a dream at this point. I don’t know what the actual number is because the international reports are constantly getting rewritten by politicians because the scientists are just being “too alarming”. It’s a joke.

Re: The first commercial carbon-sucking facility in the US opens in California

#23

Post by pengaru »

space_fountain wrote: post #18
pengaru wrote: post #12

https://archive.is/bl4XZ It's too bad these DAC systems don't take it a step further kicking the o2 back into the atmosphere while turning the carbon into something physical and industrially valuable like say spools of carbon fiber fabric or graphene/carbon nanotubes.

Oxygen really likes being connected carbon so spitting it off takes a lot of energy. All the things you mentioned burn in oxygen for exactly that reason. Making them requires at least as much energy as you’d get back by burning them so is hard to justify right now when instead you could make it directly from the carbon in things like fossil fuels and not have to spend all the energy to spit oxygen off first

Maybe the DAC system can be put at the center of a giant heliostat for the required energy to split the C from the O2...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Font_Romeu_France.jpg

Re: The first commercial carbon-sucking facility in the US opens in California

#25

Post by ghiculescu »

vkou wrote: post #21
ghiculescu wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People on this technology forum seem skeptical that technology can improve or get cheaper.

People on this technology forum are skeptical that an incredibly inefficient technology used to recover carbon from air is a better investment than using technology to emit less carbon in the first place.

Those seem like different goals. Don’t we need both?

Re: The first commercial carbon-sucking facility in the US opens in California

#26

Post by pgeorgi »

pengaru wrote: post #23
space_fountain wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oxygen really likes being connected carbon so spitting it off takes a lot of energy. All the things you mentioned burn in oxygen for exactly that reason. Making them requires at least as much energy as you’d get back by burning them so is hard to justify right now when instead you could make it directly from the carbon in things like fossil fuels and not have to spend all the energy to spit oxygen off first

Maybe the DAC system can be put at the center of a giant heliostat for the required energy to split the C from the O2... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Font_Romeu_France.jpg

I guess that's something humanity can consider once the question of energy sources is settled. For now, whatever energy that could be used to gather energy to split CO2 into C and O2 could as well be used to replace fossil-burning generators, at likely better efficiency.

Re: The first commercial carbon-sucking facility in the US opens in California

#27

Post by undersuit »

CyanLite4 wrote: post #9

Did it cost more in carbon just for the construction workers to drive their pickup trucks to build this plant than what the plant will actually remove?

I'd like to know this too, the article only let me read two paragraphs.

I found a NASA stat that an US average car will emit a metric ton of CO2 in 3 months of use.

"The U.S. EPA has found that a typical 22 MPG gas-based car emits about 5 tons of carbon dioxide per year. On average, you emit one ton of CO2 for about every 2,500 miles you drive".

CarbonCure(the partner of Heirloom here) agrees with me on the math: "CarbonCure’s global network of concrete producer partners has produced more than five million truckloads of carbon mineralized concrete, removing and reducing more than 365,000 metric tons of CO2. That’s equivalent to taking more than 80,000 gas-powered cars off the road for a year."

So this 1000 metric ton CO2 DAC plant could offset the activities of 100-400 vehicles in a year... minus the activities of the employees to get to the plant. That's what I wanna know. When are the workers going to stop driving 60 miles round trip to work? And how many need to be at work everyday at the plant?

I guess at least California is pushing electric cars.

Re: The first commercial carbon-sucking facility in the US opens in California

#28

Post by Dylan16807 »

anovikov wrote: post #17
Dylan16807 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As another yardstick, it will cost about 2x the annual world GDP to mitigate all emissions this way. How did you calculate the cost for this number? Is that supposed to be annual operating cost? > it will be about 1.5x-2x more than entire energy expenditure worldwide We could use non-carbon sources to triple energy production if we really wanted to.

>How did you calculate the cost for this number? $53M for 1K tons of capacity vs 37B tons annual mitigation needs, assuming 20 years amortisation, and purchase price being about half of the total lifetime costs including financing, which is typical for renewable energy systems, resulting in ~$200T a year vs $165T world GDP, so yes, oops, 1.2x world GDP :) which is still kinda too costly :D >We could use non-carbon so…

> $53M for 1K tons of capacity

Nothing says the company is spending all their money on this facility, and I massively doubt the second and third such facility would cost anywhere near the same amount.

Also there's no need to finance, just cap annual builds at N/20 per year.

> exactly my point.

Huh? I thought you were arguing capture needs too much power, and what I was saying was that capture does not need too much power.

If you're suggesting replacing most of our existing electrical production, I agree, but capture would still be useful.

Re: The first commercial carbon-sucking facility in the US opens in California

#29

Post by dottjt »

cglan wrote: post #24

How on earth is this ever going to be economically feasible. Wouldn’t it be more economically viable to literally just bury paper in the ground, or like simply not use the carbon in the first place?

How on earth could you possibly make an economic argument on the future viability of our species on this planet?

It's because of economics we're in this mess in the first place.

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