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Carbon Removal Technologies

carbon.ycombinator.com

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Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#241

Post by martythemaniak »

beat wrote: post #220
astrodust wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States fully intends to reverse course on that and fire up coal plants in order to something something jobs. The reason it was falling was because of strict emissions standards and a strong EPA, both of which are basically gone.

That's just angsting about short term partisan politics. The trends remain positive for the longer term. Don't let whatever Trump says this week blind you to the long term.

Trends are whatever people make them and many people don't appreciate both the fragility and reversibility of "progress".

Things don't just work out, they get worked out. Telling people to stop worrying, relax and become lazy and complacent is extremely counterproductive.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#242

Post by mcculley »

beat wrote: post #220
astrodust wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States fully intends to reverse course on that and fire up coal plants in order to something something jobs. The reason it was falling was because of strict emissions standards and a strong EPA, both of which are basically gone.

That's just angsting about short term partisan politics. The trends remain positive for the longer term. Don't let whatever Trump says this week blind you to the long term.

Do you think the United States is capable of reliably thinking about the long term and electing a President that does the same? As long as the planet can be impacted in such a large way by myopic leaders, I don't see what can be done.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#243

Post by _uhtu »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #17
natosaichek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything you can do in space would be cheaper on earth. So rather than shading the pole by spreading ~100,000 sq. km of material in orbit, instead ask why we wouldn't spread the same shade cloth / reflective mylar etc. on the surface of the earth. Then you realize how much of a colossal project it is and how completely impractical is is.

Earth is a closed system, so the shade cloth on Earth would simply warm up and reradiate the absorbed energy as infrared. Reflective mylar would see a portion of the reflected sunlight (which would have warmed the atmosphere upon entry) trapped by the greenhouse effect.

Earth is is not even close to a closed system. There's a giant thermonuclear explosion factory in space that pumps insane amounts of energy into our system. If earth was a closed system it could not harbor life as entropy increased.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#244

Post by seveneightn9ne »

Cshelton wrote: post #113
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

Is that really the biggest reason for forest being removed? Are there issues with raising cattle on land with a trees spaced maybe every 10 feet or so? Does it have to do with herding the cattle? Feeding the cattle? Those I feel can be solved with technology, specifically IoT/Drones/Autonomous Bots. It seems to me, if every livestock pasture in the world has trees every 10 feet, maybe less, it could have a pretty big…

It's the feed for the cattle that takes up the most space, and that is directly replacing rainforests.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#245

Post by beatpanda »

Just came here to say:

1) Thank you for doing this

2) You should have been doing this 10 years ago because it was exactly as obvious then that this kind of acceleration of investment was necessary, and YC sank millions of dollars into social media bullshit in the intervening period instead.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#246

Post by tgb »

GreeniFi wrote: post #2

We already have carbon removal technology. They’re called trees. [Edit] I’m not being facetious. 40% of emissions are as a result of poor land management. We’ll need all the technological help we can get, but if we can’t manage land as carbon stores - not sources, we’re not going to win this race.

So this might be a dumb question, but if I landfill paper instead of recycling it, does it degrade? If not, is that a poor man's form of carbon sequestration? A cursory glance suggests this is correct [1], though you'd need to know a lot more to say that it was more carbon efficient than recycling.

[1] http://www.allaboutbags.ca/degradeinlandfill.html

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#247

Post by seveneightn9ne »

dharma1 wrote: post #237
Cshelton wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really the biggest reason for forest being removed? Are there issues with raising cattle on land with a trees spaced maybe every 10 feet or so? Does it have to do with herding the cattle? Feeding the cattle? Those I feel can be solved with technology, specifically IoT/Drones/Autonomous Bots. It seems to me, if every livestock pasture in the world has trees every 10 feet, maybe less, it could have a pretty big…

I don't think you need fart bags, cows fed seaweed emit significantly less methane - https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-eating-seaweed-can-help-c... . Cattle is one main reason, second one is clearing forest for industrial agriculture like soybean and palm oil plantations. Third one is logging for wood products. Essentially they are all because of overpopulation and massively increased demand for these products.

Don't forget that the main use for the soybeans is cattle feed.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#248

Post by peacetreefrog »

khrbrt wrote: post #75
peacetreefrog wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... stupid to contemplate while we're still increasing carbon emissions." Ok, let us know your plan for reducing carbon emissions and when and how we can expect it to happen.

Easy. Stop subsidizing fossil fuel exploration, extraction, and movement (ie. pipelines). Make carbon emissions expensive, and you'll see them go down. Levy a revenue neutral carbon tax which anually redistributes to consumers the "average" tax per person. Stop subsidizing suburban sprawl. Build more high density housing near mass transit. Walkable neighborhoods and such. These are all obvious things we should have s…

I happen to agree with all of these, on some level they're even obvious, to the extent that 99%+ of all environmental economists would support it.

However, it's naive to think anything close to resembling this could happen politically IMO. That's why we aren't at all close to doing it, even though it's "obvious".

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#249

Post by aoner »

matznerd wrote: post #230
btilly wrote: post #59

I would strongly suggest investigating the claims of http://www.innovationconcepts.eu/res/literatuurSchuiling/oli... that after mining, milling, and then being spread in the ocean, olivine rocks weather quickly and take out CO2. The estimated costs of large scale CO2 sequestration this way are surprisingly reasonable, and the technology is already available. Also the various ocean technologies are going to run into t…

I am working on a non-profit that is utilizing Schuiling's research and is actually getting this project done. We are scouting beaches right now for a "wiggle" tank, which is a sort of see-saw like device where we can gather data to affirm the real world dissolution rate. The chemistry, however, is sound that each 1 ton of olivine will sequester 1.25 tons of carbon. By the end of 2019 we hope to have our first olivin…

Hi Matz, this is super awesome. I'm looking for some resources to offset my carbon footprint to live carbon neutral. I was thinking about tree offsetting but I'd love to donate this to advanced weathering $20 per ton for offsetting is peanuts and I'd be more then happy to pay this. Do you have some info on the rate of sequestration of olivine? Are you also taking for account that you need to transport the olivine and crush it to increase the surface area?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#250

Post by philipkglass »

ISL wrote: post #175
TeMPOraL wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How this is not on top of HN for the past month? It's not the first time I see a comment like "actually, a $critical-legislation is under vote this/next week somewhere". It feels that the important cases lack marketing.

Politics are generally decremented on the front page. It's not just N, but rather HN, after all. It is news, though. It is the second time that a carbon tax has been on the Washington ballot. It may pass this time around.

It may, but the last one lost by a pretty decisive margin. I have received a half dozen large glossy mailers funded by oil companies urging me to vote no on 1631, and have seen zero mail advertising for "yes." Which gets back to the fact that there's little lobbying/advertising money for curbing emissions and a lot of money spent against curbing emissions.
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