Half a pound of this powder can remove as much CO2 from the air as a tree
11–20 of 48 posts
Re: Half a pound of this powder can remove as much CO2 from the air as a tree
#12So it acts like a reusable CO2 trap, then releases said CO2 at the cost of heating it up to 140F. Which then releases it. It doesn't really talk about how you would sequester the gaseous CO2 other than "put it underground."... But if you put a gas underground it will eventually leak out. Even a liquid is prone to leak out eventually due to plate techtonics, but a liquid doesn't immediately turn into gaseous CO2. So t…
>how you would sequester the gaseous CO2 other than "put it underground." I wonder if there is a reason you couldn't just sequester the powder. Probably too expensive? Or not volume efficient? >to leak out eventually due to plate techtonics This might seem shortsighted, but I'm OK pushing the problem out by 50 million years or so.
Since the powder is reusable, it likely wouldn't make sense to sequester it with the CO2 either materially or financially.
Re: Half a pound of this powder can remove as much CO2 from the air as a tree
#13> As it entered the tube, the Berkeley air contained CO2 in concentrations ranging from 410 ppm to 517 ppm. When it came out the other side, the scientists could not detect any carbon dioxide at all, Zhou said. This sounds like it could be the basis for a respirator-like breathing apparatus, not requiring tanks, for entering and staying in enclosed spaces where the concentration of CO2 is high. (Provided there is eno…
That feels super dangerous. CO2 is mostly fine to breathe, but it triggers the impulse to breathe. Without it you won't feel that you're running out of oxygen.
With real-time detection (I'd expect that exists, but don't know for sure) you can divert some of the airstream through this scrubber to target a particular concentration of CO2.
Re: Half a pound of this powder can remove as much CO2 from the air as a tree
#14So it acts like a reusable CO2 trap, then releases said CO2 at the cost of heating it up to 140F. Which then releases it. It doesn't really talk about how you would sequester the gaseous CO2 other than "put it underground."... But if you put a gas underground it will eventually leak out. Even a liquid is prone to leak out eventually due to plate techtonics, but a liquid doesn't immediately turn into gaseous CO2. So t…
If you can extract ~100% pure CO2 from the powder, then it might be feasible to develop a process that can convert very dense CO2 into Carbon and Oxygen. Carbon is about 3/8ths of the total weight of a CO2 molecule and is solid and relatively inert at room temperature and pressure. Of course, if there were a convenient way to simply strip carbon off of a CO2 molecule to begin with that would be the ideal system, but…
Plants do it using the energy from the sun.
All of these “can’t we just unburn burnt things” forget that the reason we burnt the carbon in the first place was to get that energy.
Unburning it would need to return that energy and more because of inefficiencies.
If you have energy to spare, you don’t need to burn the carbon in the first place.
With global fossil fuel usage still rising, we clearly don’t have any to spare.
Re: Half a pound of this powder can remove as much CO2 from the air as a tree
#15I think that I shall never see
A half a pound of powder as lovely as a tree. -- Joyce Kilmer
Re: Half a pound of this powder can remove as much CO2 from the air as a tree
#16Might be cool to have this in an office or school classes. I realize that proper ventilation is the real fix, but it's not realistic to rebuild all buildings. Just think about it, you have a decorative box in your office that absorbs CO2, would it slow the inevitable cognitive decline that happens when you close your door in your poorly ventilated room?
I suspect that previously acceptable building designs now cause cognitive decline because of much higher outdoor CO2 levels- it’s a bigger problem than people realize. I live in a mild climate where I can just keep the windows open year round- but when the neighbors have a loud party I close them to focus or sleep and CO2 will quickly climb to over 2000ppm, well over the 1400 or so that causes measurable negative eff…
This is definitely a real problem, but it's not caused by higher outdoor CO2 levels. The levels outside are typically in the 400-500ppm range. When you're enclosed with not enough ventilation, the issue is you (and other breathing organisms) and the lack of ventilation, not the outdoor level.
The outdoor level has absolutely risen, it's just not the important factor here.
You're very lucky that you can keep windows open so often. My climate makes that impossible for much of the year; I'm looking in to getting an ERV installed asap.
Re: Half a pound of this powder can remove as much CO2 from the air as a tree
#17So it acts like a reusable CO2 trap, then releases said CO2 at the cost of heating it up to 140F. Which then releases it. It doesn't really talk about how you would sequester the gaseous CO2 other than "put it underground."... But if you put a gas underground it will eventually leak out. Even a liquid is prone to leak out eventually due to plate techtonics, but a liquid doesn't immediately turn into gaseous CO2. So t…
If you can extract ~100% pure CO2 from the powder, then it might be feasible to develop a process that can convert very dense CO2 into Carbon and Oxygen. Carbon is about 3/8ths of the total weight of a CO2 molecule and is solid and relatively inert at room temperature and pressure. Of course, if there were a convenient way to simply strip carbon off of a CO2 molecule to begin with that would be the ideal system, but…
> Plants do it, after all. It's not impossible.
The problem is that to reverse CO2 -> C + O2 you need the same amount of energy that you get burning coal C + O2 -> CO2.
But burning coal, like half of the energy is lost as unuseful heat.
The reaction of plants is different, but plants only has a 2% of efficiency. The chemical reaction of plants is more complicated, so let's be optimistic and assume this reaction has a 10% of efficiency.
If they use a coal plant to power the CO2 -> C + O2 conversion, they will release like 20 times the amount of CO2 absorbed.
If they use a renewable source, it's better to close the absortion plant and also 20 coal plants.
Until we close all the coal plants and we get very cheep carbon-free energy, it's bad for the environment to try a CO2 -> C + O2 conversion.
Re: Half a pound of this powder can remove as much CO2 from the air as a tree
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you can extract ~100% pure CO2 from the powder, then it might be feasible to develop a process that can convert very dense CO2 into Carbon and Oxygen. Carbon is about 3/8ths of the total weight of a CO2 molecule and is solid and relatively inert at room temperature and pressure. Of course, if there were a convenient way to simply strip carbon off of a CO2 molecule to begin with that would be the ideal system, but…
Plants do it using the energy from the sun. All of these “can’t we just unburn burnt things” forget that the reason we burnt the carbon in the first place was to get that energy. Unburning it would need to return that energy and more because of inefficiencies. If you have energy to spare, you don’t need to burn the carbon in the first place. With global fossil fuel usage still rising, we clearly don’t have any to spa…
It's not so clear to me -- the MIT Technology Review is already wringing its hands about energy being so cheap it causes problems with economics.
[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/07/14/1028461/solar-va...
Re: Half a pound of this powder can remove as much CO2 from the air as a tree
#19> As it entered the tube, the Berkeley air contained CO2 in concentrations ranging from 410 ppm to 517 ppm. When it came out the other side, the scientists could not detect any carbon dioxide at all, Zhou said. This sounds like it could be the basis for a respirator-like breathing apparatus, not requiring tanks, for entering and staying in enclosed spaces where the concentration of CO2 is high. (Provided there is eno…
That feels super dangerous. CO2 is mostly fine to breathe, but it triggers the impulse to breathe. Without it you won't feel that you're running out of oxygen.
That's CO2 IN the blood that "triggers breathing". Unless you plan to inject the powder, that's not really an issue.
Re: Half a pound of this powder can remove as much CO2 from the air as a tree
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
That feels super dangerous. CO2 is mostly fine to breathe, but it triggers the impulse to breathe. Without it you won't feel that you're running out of oxygen.
That's CO2 IN the blood that "triggers breathing". Unless you plan to inject the powder, that's not really an issue.
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