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Ocean Carbon Removal: Captura's marine carbon capture explained

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: Ocean Carbon Removal: Captura's marine carbon capture explained

#31

Post by caseyohara »

youngtaff wrote: post #12
Avicebron wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is seems like it's reduced the complexity down to one dimension (removing the CO2) and has blown past any of that, didn't even think about the algae initially, just energy expenditures getting this up and running, but yeah, that's pretty much saying you'll solve climate change by chopping down trees and planting golf course grass

They’re not even removing that much CO2 either > Captura’s Port of Los Angeles pilot can remove about 100 tonnes of CO2 per year from seawater. The company’s new plant under construction in Hawaii will capture 10 times that amount—a measurement the company can definitively quantify. So 1,000 tonnes of CO2 / year?

To help quantify this further, a typical passenger car emits ~5 tonnes of CO2 per year. So we’re talking about offsetting 20-200 cars per year.

https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-t...

Re: Ocean Carbon Removal: Captura's marine carbon capture explained

#33

Post by Levitating »

jstanley wrote: post #24
chvrchbvrner wrote: post #22

Whenever I read about Geo engineering stuff like this, I remember the last episode of "Dinosaurs" [0] and immediately get a bad feeling about it. Hopefully I'm just paranoid. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changing_Nature

Beware of generalising from fictional evidence. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rHBdcHGLJ7KvLJQPk/the-logica...

wow good read

And interesting website in general, thanks for sharing!

Re: Ocean Carbon Removal: Captura's marine carbon capture explained

#35

Post by [deleted] »

caseyohara wrote: post #31
youngtaff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re not even removing that much CO2 either > Captura’s Port of Los Angeles pilot can remove about 100 tonnes of CO2 per year from seawater. The company’s new plant under construction in Hawaii will capture 10 times that amount—a measurement the company can definitively quantify. So 1,000 tonnes of CO2 / year?

To help quantify this further, a typical passenger car emits ~5 tonnes of CO2 per year. So we’re talking about offsetting 20-200 cars per year. https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-t...

[deleted]

Re: Ocean Carbon Removal: Captura's marine carbon capture explained

#36

Post by photochemsyn »

jvanderbot wrote: post #11

In my sci-fi addled mind, and massive ship would trundle over the worlds oceans extracting readily available uranium and CO2 to make synthetic fuels for all time from nuclear energy. This skips a lot of important steps that likely cannot fit on one ship, but I love the idea of it.

Costs to operate the ship would be more than the recovered uranium would generate. Meaning you wouldn't recover near enough uranium to break even on refueling the ship when it was needed. Same problem with gold (Fritz Haber famously tried this scheme thinking he could erase Germany's WWI war debts, usurious though they were, with gold from seawater). Concentration is just too low to make such processes feasible.

Re: Ocean Carbon Removal: Captura's marine carbon capture explained

#38

Post by semi-extrinsic »

hnthrow90348765 wrote: post #14

It seems like they will do anything except the obvious because that would affect the economy. Why harm one business by forcing them to reduce emissions and profits when you can have two profitable companies where one pollutes and the other cancels that out (ideally...)? There has to be some other, unannounced benefit to funding these things like contributing research insights to naval warfare problems.

CDR technologies are being developed for the 2040s and 50s, when we have (hopefully) cut new carbon emissions down close to zero, and need to start repairing the sins of earlier decades.

Re: Ocean Carbon Removal: Captura's marine carbon capture explained

#39

Post by aziaziazi »

ta988 wrote: post #6

I feel like it is missing most of the important questions. What's the impact on sea life (one sentence saying we need monitoring...) The techniques used mean that all the microorganisms, planktons, algaes will be destroyed by those processes. What is the yield of those approaches, you remove 1000 tons, but how much do you produce to make the devices, maintain and run them, the boats... What do you do with the CO2, th…

> how much do you produce to make the devices, maintain and run them, the boats

Boats consume way more fuel than a layman may think. I’ve been on a ~80m / 20people crew coast guard ship for 6 weeks and did a napkin math onboard based on tank levels and refueling date. It was +1000l/person/day of diesel (can’t remember precise numbers). We were moving ~50% or the time. In addition of the motors there were many BIG generators to make everything work: heating, sewage, hot water, AC, pumps, motors for cranes, anchor raising… you also need your motors running at least in low speed even when still to control your position and direction.

I’m sure boats acting like platforms and with less crew to accommodate does consume less, however it’s still nothing comparable to an onshore plant.

It work "economically" because you often manage to refuel in an port with low fuel price.

Re: Ocean Carbon Removal: Captura's marine carbon capture explained

#40

Post by renewiltord »

ta988 wrote: post #6

I feel like it is missing most of the important questions. What's the impact on sea life (one sentence saying we need monitoring...) The techniques used mean that all the microorganisms, planktons, algaes will be destroyed by those processes. What is the yield of those approaches, you remove 1000 tons, but how much do you produce to make the devices, maintain and run them, the boats... What do you do with the CO2, th…

Yeah, this is a common reason that environmentalists oppose nuclear power. First you have to prove that what you're going to do is making an improvement. The key element to remember is that we got everything right until the 1970s. After that, it's best to not touch things.
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