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A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

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Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#151

Post by samvher »

_jal wrote: post #142
kenmacd wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems this excludes increases in efficiencies. For example today we have lighting that uses a small fraction of the power of a couple decades ago. Plus we're nearing peak populations, after which the number of humans will be going down.

Energy efficiencies do not decrease energy use, you just get more of the cheaper thing. I agree more with the second point; the way that I'd say that is humans as a species will never self-moderate energy use.

Obligatory mention of Jevons Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#152

Post by derefr »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #8

For making a dent in global warming we'll need to have billions of tonnes of this "N-(2-ethoxyethyl)-3-morpholinopropan-1-amine (2-EEMPA)" stuff.. I wonder if this won't be an environmental hazard in itself. What do we do with it after it's captured its CO2? We can't just dump that stuff in the sea. I wonder if CO2 capture does not cause more problems than it solves. Even if we magically could capture CO2 as pure car…

> Fill all the mines we’ve emptied over the years

...and why not do exactly that?

Keep in mind, a capture solvent is something that will stably hold onto the CO2 at STP. It doesn’t need special care or treatment; the CO2 just becomes incorporated into its molecular structure, and now that complexed molecule is “what it is.”

So it’s not like we’d be pumping the mines full of pressurized gas. We’d just be pouring a stable, non-reactive liquid or solid in there. Even if the mine had an earthquake, caught on fire, etc., that wouldn’t leak the CO2 back out into the world. It’s not nuclear waste. It’s rock dust.

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#153

Post by sporkland »

plutonorm wrote: post #140
TigeriusKirk wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think we should really reduce our energy usage instead. There is no viable future scenario in which mankind's energy usage decreases. It's a pipe dream, and ultimately a dangerous one. Energy use is fundamentally tied to progress to such an extent that we should always be looking for ways to increase the energy available to us. Of course the energy should be produced in as low-impact a manner as possible, but it's…

Is transitioning slowly back to a hunter gatherer life style morally a bad idea? If so why?

Depends if you think babies and moms dying is a morally bad thing or not.

Estimated 30-50% mortality rate for babies and 1% per birth mortality rate for moms (times say 12 kids). Lotta innocent babies gotta die to achieve your goals.

While this may sound tongue in cheek or a gotcha. I do think people underestimate how terrible, hard and brutal it was to live in those cultures as a human. We definitely create our share of travesties as modern humans (factory farms, anthropogenic mass extinction events, global climate change making the world uninhabitable). It remains to be seen if we can use technology to out pace some of these problems we've created, but I'm somewhat hopeful that we can, and find a path forward to live humanely and sustainably.

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#154

Post by derefr »

ethbr0 wrote: post #123
javajosh wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. The fact is that coal energy externalities have been ignored, artificially depressing the cost. Increasing the cost of a product to reflect those externalities is not a "blow to the industry", but rather the first time in history coal's price will reflect its externalities. Nope, it's not a great time to be a coal-miner, but I hear Biden is trying to spend $4T on infrastructure so maybe some of those miners c…

The issues with coal mining are (a) it sucks and is dangerous, (b) therefore, people who do it, or whose families have done it, feel a lot of pride about it, (c) in the US, it's typically located in parts of states that don't have a lot of other employment (Wyoming, Illinois, Pennsylvania, West Virginia). If you're serious about getting rid of coal in the US, it needs to start with "We appreciate your and your family…

Asbestos, AB somehow managed to get over their pride and stop fighting to continue mining asbestos. They’re still proud of the history and hard work that their town represents, but nobody there thinks it would be a better world if they were still digging asbestos out of the ground. (Heck, they finally renamed the town, too. It’s “Val-des-Sources” now.)

How the townsfolk there transitioned into that “doing it historically was good and necessary; but continuing to do it today would be dumb and bad” mindset might make for a good case-study. It’d certainly make for a more respectful and in-depth interview to do with them than just talking about the town’s name ;)

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#155

Post by bushbaba »

kenmacd wrote: post #138
TigeriusKirk wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think we should really reduce our energy usage instead. There is no viable future scenario in which mankind's energy usage decreases. It's a pipe dream, and ultimately a dangerous one. Energy use is fundamentally tied to progress to such an extent that we should always be looking for ways to increase the energy available to us. Of course the energy should be produced in as low-impact a manner as possible, but it's…

It seems this excludes increases in efficiencies. For example today we have lighting that uses a small fraction of the power of a couple decades ago. Plus we're nearing peak populations, after which the number of humans will be going down.

Most energy usage isn’t residential in nature.

It’s likely our industrial needs will continue to increase even with a smaller population

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#156

Post by eloff »

plutonorm wrote: post #140
TigeriusKirk wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think we should really reduce our energy usage instead. There is no viable future scenario in which mankind's energy usage decreases. It's a pipe dream, and ultimately a dangerous one. Energy use is fundamentally tied to progress to such an extent that we should always be looking for ways to increase the energy available to us. Of course the energy should be produced in as low-impact a manner as possible, but it's…

Is transitioning slowly back to a hunter gatherer life style morally a bad idea? If so why?

You want to reduce the world population to a hundred million or so? How do you do that ethically?

How would you get everybody to agree to accept all the limitations and ills of their non technological lives without wanting to reinvent modern civilization?

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#157

Post by thechao »

aardvarkr wrote: post #145
thechao wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why the Democrats, in particular, don't turn this into political hay: it's literally the perfect counter to the coal issue. 1. Olivine is plentiful, everywhere, including as the tailings from huge defunct coal mines; 2. All of the mining & transportation infrastructure is already in mining country; 3. Mining country is desperate for solid, dependable blue collar work; and, 4. Mining country already has e…

Just a side note, as I don’t know a thing about olivine, but wouldn’t they be able to pull the material from the waste piles instead of mining new material? I remember this popping up in a discussion about thorium (super abundant in coal mining waste) and that was one of the points brought up

Yep; straight from the tailings. It's all the transport & digging parts of mining, without any of the dangerous "going into a hole" parts of mining. Obviously, this is just a form of strip-mining so there's definite downsides.

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#158

Post by samvher »

TigeriusKirk wrote: post #131
GekkePrutser wrote: post #8

For making a dent in global warming we'll need to have billions of tonnes of this "N-(2-ethoxyethyl)-3-morpholinopropan-1-amine (2-EEMPA)" stuff.. I wonder if this won't be an environmental hazard in itself. What do we do with it after it's captured its CO2? We can't just dump that stuff in the sea. I wonder if CO2 capture does not cause more problems than it solves. Even if we magically could capture CO2 as pure car…

>I think we should really reduce our energy usage instead. There is no viable future scenario in which mankind's energy usage decreases. It's a pipe dream, and ultimately a dangerous one. Energy use is fundamentally tied to progress to such an extent that we should always be looking for ways to increase the energy available to us. Of course the energy should be produced in as low-impact a manner as possible, but it's…

A lot of energy is currently used for low-utility purposes (e.g. flying for meetings). There are also major opportunities for reduce-reuse-recycle that would not result in significant decreases in quality of life.

I'm all for aiming for high energy availability in the long run, but the idea that we can just keep increasing our usage monotonically (without a temporary reduction to get our shit sorted out) seems like the dangerous pipe dream to me.

Edit because I think maybe the tone sounded a bit short/unfriendly: I see a carbon tax as a necessary step in taking care of our issues, and my expectation is that this would reduce usage of fossil fuels quite significantly, temporarily. It seems likely that our energy budget would move more towards high-value-per-joule activities such as information technology and away from things like transportation. And I think this is a necessary step - people are currently quite careless about energy, especially about usage of fossil fuels, and I think if they become aware of its cost across a variety of activities they will adjust accordingly.

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#159

Post by phreeza »

cryptica wrote: post #15

I don't see what is the point to try to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. I don't even understand the fuss around global warming.Why is global warming a bad thing? The plants and animals will adapt and evolve to handle the additional heat. There will be natural selection as usual. New variants of plants will evolve which can absorb more CO2. All species on earth will find a new equilibirum as they always had in the pas…

I'm not saying it will come to it, but the worst case for global warming is not some jungle planet, it is earth turning into a planet like venus, which would probably sterilize earth if it happens faster than evolutionary timescales that are needed for nature to adapt as you suggest.

The argument about us not being able to save ourselves is really a falacy, akin to whataboutism. It's the same as saying we shouldn't fly to the moon as long as there is famine on earth, or not try to cure cancer as long as we don't have a cure for the common cold.

Re: A CO2 capture solvent with exceptionally low total costs of capture

#160

Post by CharlesW »

samvher wrote: post #151
_jal wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy efficiencies do not decrease energy use, you just get more of the cheaper thing. I agree more with the second point; the way that I'd say that is humans as a species will never self-moderate energy use.

Obligatory mention of Jevons Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

Thank you, I'm one of today's lucky 10,000. https://xkcd.com/1053/
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