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Carbon Removal Technologies

carbon.ycombinator.com

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Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#201

Post by jasonlaramburu »

nanomonkey wrote: post #187

All Power Labs, a company that makes biomass gasifiers, has estimates for the amount of carbon their technology can sequester ( http://www.allpowerlabs.com/carbon ). This appears to be the most viable process forward, as not only can one create a ton of electricity, hot water and air, but also biochar which sequesters carbon in the soil in a beneficial way for an estimated 10k years. (full disclosure, I'm an ex emplo…

Isn't the challenge that biomass gasification systems require fairly pure feedstock (ie cubes of hardwood)? Has anyone succeeded in developing a feedstock-agnostic gasification system?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#202

Post by aoner »

gustaf wrote: post #80
all_usernames wrote: post #71

I recently heard about Carbon Engineering, a B.C. Canada based firm that is extracting carbon from the atmosphere and making liquid fuel -- they call it "recycled fuel." Apparently it can be used in existing combustion engines. And it is already up and running. Something on the order of 10,000 of these industrial plants could get us carbon neutral rather quickly. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-co…

Carbon Engineering and Climeworks are two incredible companies working on Direct Air capture and Air-to-Fuel and we'd like to fund more companies like them. There are less than 5 companies worldwide that are serious about getting Direct Air Capture to scale. The world need more bets that that on such a promising technology

Hi Gustaf, I read earlier that you are more interested in Direct Air Capture technologies than others. Do you have any specific reasons?

I think another way we could look at things is finding "cheap" forms of carbon that would have otherwise been burned/left to rot and reprocess those into building materials.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#203

Post by btmiller »

pdonis wrote: post #190

I know this is going to get downvoted but I have to say it: the problem is not CO2, the problem is CO2 alarmism. The models on which the IPCC predictions of doom are based do not match the data. Even the IPCC admits that in the AR5. The actual data says that CO2-driven warming is not enough to worry about. (Not to mention that the prediction of doom also depends on economic models which are even worse at matching dat…

I don't know enough about the data to contribute any thoughts on it. Could be valid, could be incomplete/inaccurate. However, I don't think this is an either/or situation, and wouldn't it be great if we contributed some time and focus on making sure that there is a world left in which the impoverished can be helped?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#204

Post by amadeuspagel »

astrodust wrote: post #90

At the rate we're setting up for a future where the entire ocean blooms, dies, and we're left with nothing. Already jellyfish are taking over. We're killing off so many life forms we're essentially going back in time to the precambrian era. Instead of looking for "quick fixes" like iron seeding, which has just as much a chance of going awry as Australia importing cane toads to deal with their crop insects, let's just…

Why should we sacrifice the welfare of human beings to prevent jellyfish from taking over the ocean?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#205

Post by Boxxed »

xchaotic wrote: post #195

Like any sane person, I totally accept the global warming is real and most likely mostly man made. But rather than fighting that change which is already underway, can we not adapt to the higher temperatures and entropy? I appreciate that there's lots of side effects that we see as disastrous, but generally warmer = better for life in many parts of the earth. Most likely the positive outcomes of global warming do not…

We can't adapt to an ecological collapse. It's not the few degrees of extra warmth we worry about, it's how major extinction events will threaten nearly everything.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#206

Post by chutiyapanti »

Hey, let me play the devil's advocate here and say that these are nothing but knee jerk reactions.

Call me cynical or pessimistic, but the time has already passed. Maybe we should focus on saving as much as we can.

Funding a few companies may be the right thing to do, but shouldn't it have been ten years ago. Or were the smartest people on the planet were hoping that it would all just go away.

It's already too late. Sorry, but you have to invest in saving as many people as possible.

Unfortunately, the politicians would never understand that.

Its actually funny. After decades of dystopian future being manifested in the literature and movies, we have come to believe that's it's all just another science fiction movie or a conspiracy theory.

We are heading towards a earth altering event, and we can't stop it.

Save yourself.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#207

Post by 52-6F-62 »

ISL wrote: post #108
gustaf wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is Gustaf from YC. I wrote the first Carbon Removal RFS. Planting tree is actually a great carbon removal technology. Unfortunately most forest owners in the world don't know or don't have incentive to care the about the carbon impact the forest have on the climate. Biggest reason forests are taken down is to grow cattle for beef. If you are working on a startup to reverse this we'd like to fund it too

If you'd like to fund trees, one could start buying land and start protecting trees. Spending that money on intensive lobbying and forest advocacy in rapidly-deforesting countries could have an impact, too. The trick, of course, is that neither of these techniques compound for the individual nor a startup. They are pure charity for the planet.

Also is this a suggestion that a company that did just this would be accepted and funded?

That's an interesting option, but I wonder how a company might sustain itself doing this.

Lease land to eco-friendly activities like zipline adventures or something?

Also sounds like a good reason for expansion of National Parks services.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#208

Post by sydd »

canercandan wrote: post #194

What about changing our diets? > Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from all transportation [1] Are you will to fund any product ideas that will be willing to encourage a paradigm shift/or smooth shift with regards to a more eco and animal fríendly lifestyle? [1] http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts/

Or to lower emissions instead of building stuff that causes emissions? There are soo many possibilities to do it.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#209

Post by devy »

Besides CO2, Caron removal should also target other greenhouse gas with much higher potency like Methane/CH4 [1], which is the central point of why livestock is a big cause of global warming in Gate's Note about Climate Change Quiz.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane

[2]: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/Climate-change-quiz

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#210

Post by pdonis »

egd wrote: post #192
pdonis wrote: post #190

I know this is going to get downvoted but I have to say it: the problem is not CO2, the problem is CO2 alarmism. The models on which the IPCC predictions of doom are based do not match the data. Even the IPCC admits that in the AR5. The actual data says that CO2-driven warming is not enough to worry about. (Not to mention that the prediction of doom also depends on economic models which are even worse at matching dat…

Sources?

For a start, see the first graph here:

https://judithcurry.com/2016/04/05/comparing-models-with-obs...

Some other relevant posts from the same blog:

https://judithcurry.com/2017/09/26/are-climate-models-overst...

https://judithcurry.com/2018/09/17/a-test-of-the-tropical-20...

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