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Gallium helps convert CO2 into Carbon and Oxygen

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Re: Gallium helps convert CO2 into Carbon and Oxygen

#141

Post by joe_the_user »

Maarten88 wrote: post #129
joe_the_user wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A carbon tax is essentially going to hit the average person hard. Moreover, the average person has a lot of driving they have to do, tax or not. And plenty of rich people could ignore the tax and keep driving. And the political impact would be angry people ready to listen climate deniers. What's needed is a plan to eventually give everyone an electric car or some choice, any choice, that lets them do their daily busi…

> A carbon tax is essentially going to hit the average person hard. I think that is just an excuse to not make changes that are necessary. Saying that something will hit the poor/average person/working family is an argument about wealth/cost distribution, which is separate from the actual problem. When we, as humanity, have the natural resources, the technology and the labor required to do something that is objective…

I think that is just an excuse to not make changes that are necessary.

It's not excuse, it's a reason. It's not even the poor that will push back here on gas taxes but the somewhat well-off but not wealthy. These are the kind of people I don't have cultural sympathy with but if you just say tell them "oh, you're going to be paying a whole bunch for that pickup", you may find you don't get to say that after next election.

When we, as humanity, have the natural resources, the technology and the labor required to do something that is objectively necessary, the only thing that can stand in the way is cost/wealth distribution: who gets to pay the bill.

The US has a massively unequal distribution of wealth currently. A plan to get the poor to for this problem will fail 'cause they don't actually have money.

Re: Gallium helps convert CO2 into Carbon and Oxygen

#142

Post by dcow »

malermeister wrote: post #111
throwawayboise wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably this, yet. When the problem is real, people will find real solutions. Or not, but it's not happening now anyway. Are you driving less? Have you stopped eating beef?

When the problem is "real", it will be too late for solutions. We need to do something right now. Besides, I'd argue the problem is starting to be "real" right now. California, Australia, Siberia and Greece were on fire this year, Germany had historic floods and the East Coast keeps getting devastated by hurricanes. I also disagree with the tactic of shifting responsibility to the individual to avoid doing anything w…

Are wildfires a result of climate change? I though they just happened naturally and since we stopped doing controlled burns have gotten worse. I’m not disagreeing with your general point, there are plenty of signs we should be acting now. I’m just always surprised when wildfires get linked to climate change.

Re: Gallium helps convert CO2 into Carbon and Oxygen

#144

Post by amelius »

cletus wrote: post #11

So let's do some math. Let's consider natural gas. According to the US government [1], natural gas produced 1.358x10^12 kWh of power and 5.6x10^8 metric tons of CO2 so 1 metric ton of CO2 equates to ~2400 kWh of produced power. This post suggests the energy cost is ~230kWh/ton. This is an important sanity check because it means that (capital costs aside) and if it scales you could technically remain carbon neutral fo…

How much energy does it cost to simply heat CO2 to the point where it breaks into its constituents?

Re: Gallium helps convert CO2 into Carbon and Oxygen

#145

Post by alkonaut »

credit_guy wrote: post #90
nkingsy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article clearly states a claimed 92% efficiency.

Good point. But there are two problems with that claim. One is about an order a magnitude, the other about a sign. The first one: if you burn 1kg of pure Carbon, you get 3.67 kg of CO2 and 32.8 MegaJoules [1], which is the same as 32800 kJ or, 32800/3600 kWh. That's 9.11 kWh for each 3.67 kg of CO2, or 2.4848 kWh/kg. That's quite close to 2500 kWh/ton. They are claiming it takes them 230 kWh/ton to reverse this react…

> They are claiming it takes them 230 kWh/ton to reverse this reaction.

I don’t think that’s a claim in the article. If the carbon product was pure in the sense it could be burned again then it wouldn’t work out. But that’s not claimed. It’s not reduced to carbon!

Re: Gallium helps convert CO2 into Carbon and Oxygen

#146

Post by mrfusion »

lend000 wrote: post #116
mrfusion wrote: post #51

I’m actually interested in using this for terraforming Venus. We’ve got plenty of energy from sunlight and very concentrated co2. To keep them at the right temperature We could build floating blimps with these machines on board.

I wish there was more data on the reaction mechanism. It's unclear which way the equilibrium would shift at the high temperatures present on Venus, or if the solvent is an important part of the reaction/would be in liquid form on Venus (most solvents would not). But I agree that would be an awesome application.

There are certain altitudes on Venus where the temperature is earth like.

Re: Gallium helps convert CO2 into Carbon and Oxygen

#147

Post by mrfusion »

taf2 wrote: post #133
mrfusion wrote: post #51

I’m actually interested in using this for terraforming Venus. We’ve got plenty of energy from sunlight and very concentrated co2. To keep them at the right temperature We could build floating blimps with these machines on board.

This would be amazing. Venus having nearly the same gravity as earth gives it a big plus in terms of future colonies. The other issue I believe is it’s spin - meaning a normal day on Venus is something like 5k hours compared to earths 24… that means you cook for a lot longer on one side instead of a nice even toasting like we have here on earth… still I like your idea because gravity is probably one of the bigger fac…

The long days are a tough cookie for sure. I wonder if we could make a planet scale Hvac system to pump the heat to the cold side.

Re: Gallium helps convert CO2 into Carbon and Oxygen

#148

Post by Swenrekcah »

throwawayboise wrote: post #109
throwaway894345 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s remarkable how effectively the fossil fuel industry has gotten progressive environmentalists to believe that we can solve this problem without carbon tax. The moment you mention how a carbon tax works (that it’s a market mechanism) progressives recoil. When evangelizing to progressives, I try to focus on “making polluters pay for the damage they are doing” (as opposed to making taxpayers bail us out) since they…

The "polluters" are you and I. We buy the cars, we buy the other things, we use electricity and gas and oil in our homes and cars. We, the consumers, will ultimately pay any carbon taxes. Which may be appropriate, but let's not be unrealistic about who will be paying.

Not all of it. Some of the tax will have to be eaten by the producers since the market will not tolerate just any price. Then also the tax will make less polluting alternatives more viable and thus likely reducing their price in the long run.

And of course, we the public consumers will also benefit the most from making our industries greener and cleaner.

Re: Gallium helps convert CO2 into Carbon and Oxygen

#149

Post by Swenrekcah »

dcow wrote: post #142
malermeister wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the problem is "real", it will be too late for solutions. We need to do something right now. Besides, I'd argue the problem is starting to be "real" right now. California, Australia, Siberia and Greece were on fire this year, Germany had historic floods and the East Coast keeps getting devastated by hurricanes. I also disagree with the tactic of shifting responsibility to the individual to avoid doing anything w…

Are wildfires a result of climate change? I though they just happened naturally and since we stopped doing controlled burns have gotten worse. I’m not disagreeing with your general point, there are plenty of signs we should be acting now. I’m just always surprised when wildfires get linked to climate change.

I think the point is the regions that already had them get them worse, and some regions that didn’t have them now get them.

What global warming does is destabilise the equilibrium we had in the global climate system, and one of the outcomes of that is more extreme weather. That means for example longer and drier droughts which obviously contributes to wildfire risk.

Re: Gallium helps convert CO2 into Carbon and Oxygen

#150

Post by [deleted] »

cletus wrote: post #11

So let's do some math. Let's consider natural gas. According to the US government [1], natural gas produced 1.358x10^12 kWh of power and 5.6x10^8 metric tons of CO2 so 1 metric ton of CO2 equates to ~2400 kWh of produced power. This post suggests the energy cost is ~230kWh/ton. This is an important sanity check because it means that (capital costs aside) and if it scales you could technically remain carbon neutral fo…

[deleted]
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