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Carbon removal plant absorbs CO2 at 99,000 times the rate of all Earth's oceans

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Re: Carbon removal plant absorbs CO2 at 99,000 times the rate of all Earth's oceans

#21

Post by DougN7 »

yodon wrote: post #16
sillywalk wrote: post #10

A newer larger pilot plant is set to remove 4000 metric tons / year. Annual emissions are > 36 Billion tons. Even if the 'commercial scale plant' could remove 4 million tons / year, and they would need to make thousands to really make a difference. It's unclear how many emissions are required operate it. How much rock is required, and how many emissions does it take to mine/process/transport it to the plant, and then…

Running the math on scaling any proposed systems up to a rate where they can actually make a dent on the atmosphere is VERY depressing. It doesn't matter what sequestration process you want to use. The volume of material you end up with after removing a couple hundred gigatons out of the atmosphere isn't a pile and isn't a mountain, it's a mountain range. This is a HUGE industrial process that is going to be required…

Honest question: are we burning mountain ranges of carbon every year? I’m trying to get a feel for the size of the problem compared to the solution. Or is there a reason for the size difference if not?

Assuming the answer is yes, do we see the ground level around oil wells sinking by a comparable amount where we pump the oil out? Seems like we’d have to, wouldn’t we?

Re: Carbon removal plant absorbs CO2 at 99,000 times the rate of all Earth's oceans

#22

Post by yodon »

DougN7 wrote: post #21
yodon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running the math on scaling any proposed systems up to a rate where they can actually make a dent on the atmosphere is VERY depressing. It doesn't matter what sequestration process you want to use. The volume of material you end up with after removing a couple hundred gigatons out of the atmosphere isn't a pile and isn't a mountain, it's a mountain range. This is a HUGE industrial process that is going to be required…

Honest question: are we burning mountain ranges of carbon every year? I’m trying to get a feel for the size of the problem compared to the solution. Or is there a reason for the size difference if not? Assuming the answer is yes, do we see the ground level around oil wells sinking by a comparable amount where we pump the oil out? Seems like we’d have to, wouldn’t we?

We aren't burning mountain ranges per year, but we have burned a mountain range total

Re: Carbon removal plant absorbs CO2 at 99,000 times the rate of all Earth's oceans

#23

Post by jfengel »

excalibur wrote: post #11

Isn't this bad for marine life? We should be pumping the ocean full of O2, not CO2.

Additional CO2 in the oceans is indeed very bad for marine life. It makes the ocean more acidic. Ocean pH has dropped from 8.15 to 8.05, so far.

Pumping O2 into it isn't really any better. Sea creatures evolved for a certain equilibrium. Adding more of anything will throw off the balance. Some organisms would benefit, but others won't, and so the population levels can shift, throwing off the entire food web.

Those webs are pretty resilient, and it takes an awful lot of emissions to alter them significantly. But we've managed to overcome a huge amount of buffering to increase ocean acidity, and that's potentially very, very dangerous.

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