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U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#251

Post by jjk166 »

guiriduro wrote: post #238
DennisP wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bear in mind that (a) you're just pulling it from the atmosphere and burying it, not splitting the C from O2 so you can use it as fuel again, and (b) there are applications like long-haul jets and cement production where eliminating emissions isn't that easy. To put some numbers on (a), David MacKay's book has some numbers[1]: > The laws of physics say that the energy required must be at least 0.2 kWh per kg of CO2..…

> there are applications like long-haul jets and cement production where eliminating emissions isn't that easy. I disagree, there's an easy solution to eliminating those emissions: have zero long-haul jets and zero cement production. Before this gets (inevitably) downvoted, the more interesting question is why do we need either, what alternatives are there, how fundamentally we're willing to question our biases and e…

This would be a lot more insightful if we hadn't already spent decades and billions of dollars looking for greener alternatives only to find that they don't exist.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#252

Post by DennisP »

q1w2 wrote: post #239
DennisP wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bear in mind that (a) you're just pulling it from the atmosphere and burying it, not splitting the C from O2 so you can use it as fuel again, and (b) there are applications like long-haul jets and cement production where eliminating emissions isn't that easy. To put some numbers on (a), David MacKay's book has some numbers[1]: > The laws of physics say that the energy required must be at least 0.2 kWh per kg of CO2..…

I don't see how we're going to use CO2 as energy again. It's not like the original hydrocarbons we dug up.

Right, which is why mostly the idea is to just bury the CO2.

However, if you do want to make fuel from it, say for airliners, then it's totally possible, you just have to add hydrogen, and more energy than you'll get from burning the fuel. E.g. the Sabatier process to make methane.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#253

Post by dools »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #51
dane-pgp wrote: post #2

> The Department of Energy's Carbon Negative Earthshot seeks to slash the cost of carbon removal to $100 a tonne by the end of the decade At 40 gigatonnes a year, that would be $4 trillion, which is about 5% of Gross World Product.[0] It's probably still cheaper to avoid emitting the CO2 in the first place, but that does put an upper bound on the cost of reaching net zero. Of course, no one wants to take a voluntary…

> It's probably still cheaper to avoid emitting the CO2 in the first place, but that does put an upper bound on the cost of reaching net zero. It seems hard to believe that removing CO2 from the atmosphere could ever be less expensive than not emitting it to begin with. You're working against thermodynamics. So the whole thing seems like a fraud. An excuse to keep emitting CO2 while claiming that you'll do something…

I think the idea is that you do both

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#254

Post by andy_ppp »

missedthecue wrote: post #182
andy_ppp wrote: post #179

When we are going to start taxing coal manufactured products (like e.g. Bitcoin) correctly? There should already be a huge tax on, for example, Chinese made steel that imported both iron ore and coal from Australia by ship to be smelted in the mainland... Until we make capitalism work for climate it will work against it.

What's the difference between smelting the steel in Australia and shipping it to China, vs shipping the coal to China and smelting the steel on location? I don't think there is any material difference there.

The marine fuel used to transport 60%+ more stuff, it increases the carbon cost in a way that’s hugely inefficient. I worked on a project for an unnamed Australian mining company trying to optimise the shipping routes and I just see this sort of thing as profoundly wasteful.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#255

Post by jjcon »

orf wrote: post #227
missedthecue wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tax on the O&G industry is a tax on consumers. Demand for energy is largely inelastic, so costs are easy to pass on. Gas prices at only $3.50 are already sending Joe Biden's approval ratings through the floor. Sending gas prices past $5 or more means a reactionary panel of candidates get elected next cycle, which is counter-productive.

I always forget US gas prices are dollars per gallon . According to Google prices are currently less than a dollar a litre , in Europe the median seems to be about 1.8 dollars per litre (4.5 litres in a gallon). In the UK it is about 7.5 dollars per gallon. The USA seems addicted to cheap fuel. That addiction needs to end sometime, and if you collectively cry about prices raising to less than the levels the rest of t…

> USA seems addicted to cheap fuel.

Cheap fuel means cheap transportation, which means cheaper goods and greater purchase power across the entire economy. This is especially the case in countries like the USA where population density is so low. In the EU we can accomplish corresponding purchase power with more expensive fuel prices because of population density (more than 3x more people per km than the US).

I don't think it is at all reasonable for the USA to just give up on cheap fuel because our situation can allow for more expensive fuel.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#256

Post by jjk166 »

dane-pgp wrote: post #2

> The Department of Energy's Carbon Negative Earthshot seeks to slash the cost of carbon removal to $100 a tonne by the end of the decade At 40 gigatonnes a year, that would be $4 trillion, which is about 5% of Gross World Product.[0] It's probably still cheaper to avoid emitting the CO2 in the first place, but that does put an upper bound on the cost of reaching net zero. Of course, no one wants to take a voluntary…

Carbon capture and emissions reduction are like diet and exercise: you gotta do both. Yeah, if we keep emmitting at present rates, carbon capture is still going to be a very expensive way to stand still, but if you reduce emissions and you're only capturing the carbon from those sources which are hard to decarbonize, then it becomes a much more practical solution.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#257

Post by ashtonkem »

HPsquared wrote: post #242
guiriduro wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are applications like long-haul jets and cement production where eliminating emissions isn't that easy. I disagree, there's an easy solution to eliminating those emissions: have zero long-haul jets and zero cement production. Before this gets (inevitably) downvoted, the more interesting question is why do we need either, what alternatives are there, how fundamentally we're willing to question our biases and e…

It's not actually easy to ban long-haul travel. It's technologically simple, which is probably the angle you are looking from, but politically very difficult.

We can drastically reduce our usage of jets though. There is no reason why people should be flying between SF and LA, or NYC and Boston. Those are well within comfortable range of high speed rail, which is electric.

Once we’ve shifted all the excess air travel over to rail, that will leave a much smaller set of jet travel to offset.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#258

Post by jjk166 »

diordiderot wrote: post #190
GOONIMMUNE wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does "leaving it in the ground" get us back to 280 ppm?

Imagine a boat filling with water, you would want to plug the whole before you start bailing out water

Much better to bail out the water without plugging the hole than to do nothing and keep complaining about how no one can successfully plug the hole.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#259

Post by jjk166 »

angio wrote: post #50
brutusborn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you expect humanity to get to pre-industrial revolution carbon dioxide levels without atmospheric extraction?

The US could halve their emissions and still emit at the same level of an industrialized country like France. A good starting point is to invest more in nuclear energy.

Half is still a lot more than zero, which in turn is still not the negative you need to actually reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Carbon capture is the only option to undo the damage that's already been done, and to sustainably continue the activities where CO2 emissions are fundamentally unavoidable.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#260

Post by aembleton »

missedthecue wrote: post #194
xyst wrote: post #69

Impose a tax on O&G industry, remove all of their subsidies, and earmark the collected tax towards CO2 removal and other climate change reversal methods. Could get to the $100 per tonne in a fraction of a time.

A tax on the O&G industry is a tax on consumers. Demand for energy is largely inelastic, so costs are easy to pass on. Gas prices at only $3.50 are already sending Joe Biden's approval ratings through the floor. Sending gas prices past $5 or more means a reactionary panel of candidates get elected next cycle, which is counter-productive.

> Demand for energy is largely inelastic, so costs are easy to pass on

Demand for energy is inelastic, but demand for O&G in the long term is less so because over time a higher price for O&G will push investment into alternatives.

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