Keep it in the ground.
Efficient method to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
251–260 of 349 posts
Re: Efficient method to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
>One solution that can help is an external air heat exchanger I have one of those, it blows fresh air in through the bedroom and sucks it back out through the kitchen (loft house, this route prevents food smells from wafting into the bedroom). Aside from just feeling fresh all year, this system also prevents mosquitoes from entering in summer while still allowing air circulation, it automatically bypasses the exchang…
I suspect bathrooms aren't big enough to buffer the air pressure but it seems like we should design the air handling so the “fan” is always on in the bathrooms. Maybe a split between several places and taking a bit from the cold air return for the rest.
The system is always on and moving air as a whole, and the water closet and bathroom have an intake duct that sucks in humid air that goes to the heat exchanger for exhaust. I have a little humidity sensor hooked up to Home Assistant that kicks the fan in the exchanger into a higher gear and returns to auto when humidity returns to baseline.
All rooms in the house have an intake or exhaust duct depending on requirements.
There is also a small control panel next to the thermostat in the living room that controls the whole system for when, ahem, your number two's are particularly odorous (or you're using the kitchen to cook for 6).
Re: Efficient method to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
#253Well, instead of repeating myself manually, I'll paste in a comment of mine here from a past discussion on carbon capture: It's easy to forget why there is a bit of a challenge to getting C02 out of the air: there's so little of it, comparatively. In order, air is, broadly, made up of the following: Nitrogen: %78.084 Oxygen: %20.946 Argon: %00.934 CO2: %00.042 The stuff is essentially beyond a rounding error - it rea…
So then, is it really the CO2 that produces the cognitive impairment, or is the CO2 here just the proxy value that we are measuring, and the real reason for the cognitive impairment is low oxygen?
Nitrogen also causes cognitive impairment. It is essentially a very weak anesthetic. If you can replace all of the nitrogen in your breathing gas with helium then you'll probably gain the equivalent of a couple IQ points (although obviously that isn't generally practical).
Re: Efficient method to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
#254I am not against doing research in this area, please do, it is interesting and likely has many applications but global CO2 removal isn't one of them. Nothing proposed, including this, is within any orders of magnitude of a viable solution. The only solution we have is put less in the air in the first place. This tech looks interesting for transporting CO2 but that doesn't mean it sequesters it and even if sequestrati…
This. The fossil fuel industry continues to overflow the tub with CO2, but instead of turning off the tap, we keep trying to invent a better sponge.
We need carbon taxes, tariffs on high-emitting countries and products, and support for adopting clean energy, clean transportation, and clean everything else. Lobbying and misinformation has made these actual solutions politically impossible to implement though, so we continue to waste resources on sponges.
Re: Efficient method to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The only solution we have is put less in the air in the first place That’s not a solution either, because the developing world is not going to stop increasing their CO2 output until they fully industrialize. They’re just not. Feel free to seek reductions where you can, but don’t think of it as a solution because it’s not. The technical problems with CO2 capture are far more solvable than the sociological problems w…
I think they are, but more by accident. They’re going to industrialize with renewables, batteries, EVs and electric everything. It’s inevitable due to economics
They will increase emissions more slowly than European countries did at the same phase in their development, but emissions will still go up a ton compared to now. China's CO2 emissions per capita is now almost double that of France. India has gone from 0.5 tons/person in 1980 to over 2 tons/person today. They're building some renewables, but they're also building a ton of coal and gas. The EU retired 11 GW of coal in 2024, while China built 30GW and India built another 6 GW.
It's not just economics, it's logistics. Countries like Bangladesh don't have the space to build wind and solar, and they don't have the sophistication to manage long distance grids with batteries, EVs, etc. That's why they keep building more coal. They're not stupid, there is just are practical concerns these countries confront that don't exist in countries that have more central organizational capacity.
And the math just sucks. Say countries like India industrialize with a high percentage of renewables, etc., so they end up with developed economies at just double the current CO2 output of India (4 tons/capita). That would mean that the growth in CO2 output from the subcontinent alone (India+Pakistan+Bangladesh) would exceed the current CO2 output of the entire EU.
Re: Efficient method to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The only solution we have is put less in the air in the first place That’s not a solution either, because the developing world is not going to stop increasing their CO2 output until they fully industrialize. They’re just not. Feel free to seek reductions where you can, but don’t think of it as a solution because it’s not. The technical problems with CO2 capture are far more solvable than the sociological problems w…
Developing world generally has a lot more sunlight, and now very cheap solar energy.
It's not cheaper when you factor in the batteries, the need for sophisticated electric grids, etc. China and India continue to build huge amounts of coal power. It's not because they're too stupid to buy the cheaper option.
Re: Efficient method to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
#257I am not against doing research in this area, please do, it is interesting and likely has many applications but global CO2 removal isn't one of them. Nothing proposed, including this, is within any orders of magnitude of a viable solution. The only solution we have is put less in the air in the first place. This tech looks interesting for transporting CO2 but that doesn't mean it sequesters it and even if sequestrati…
> The only solution we have is put less in the air in the first place That’s not a solution either, because the developing world is not going to stop increasing their CO2 output until they fully industrialize. They’re just not. Feel free to seek reductions where you can, but don’t think of it as a solution because it’s not. The technical problems with CO2 capture are far more solvable than the sociological problems w…
[deleted]
Re: Efficient method to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
> perfectly reversible, but that uses a lot of energy Looks like a perfect match to a solar plant, which provides basically free energy periodically. All you need is a large enough cistern to hold the liquid during night time.
Yes, it's a great match to solar plants. But you don't need to store the capture medium. You use a bit more energy to make they work faster while the Sun is shining, and stop everything when it's gone. The largest bottleneck is what you do to get rid of the CO2.
We use the CO2 to synthesize methanol with the H2 we electrolyze using surplus solar energy. The methanol we burn in winter for heat. Yes, that releases the CO2 again. The goal here is not to save the planet. It is to bring solar energy to winter. My house produces many times the electricity that it needs per year, but most of it is wasted in summer. Efficient conversion is not a factor. If I can get 20% of the energy input back as heat in winter, it is worth it: that is oil or wood I don't have to burn for heat.
Re: Efficient method to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
#259At current rates of emissions, we’re only about 20 years away from people needing to install CO2 scrubbers in their homes. Soda lime, or calcium hydroxide, is the current state of the art. We use that in an anesthesia and in saltwater aquariums and in scuba rebreathers. An idealized system can capture 500 mg per gram, but in practice you only capture around 250mg/g. This outperforms the method in the article but it’s…
Just to counter your extreme prediction, if co2 levels halve from here all life on earth goes extinct. https://www.researchgate.net/post/Minimum_necessary_concentr...
Please stop trying to hurt every single human being with these derailments. There is no plausible mechanism by which carbondioxide levels would halve. That means you're just trying to derail the discussion by appealing to people's instincts about how fragile atmospheric composition is. Stop.
Re: Efficient method to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
#260I am not against doing research in this area, please do, it is interesting and likely has many applications but global CO2 removal isn't one of them. Nothing proposed, including this, is within any orders of magnitude of a viable solution. The only solution we have is put less in the air in the first place. This tech looks interesting for transporting CO2 but that doesn't mean it sequesters it and even if sequestrati…
Removing CO2 from the air is a pipe dream for several obvious reasons. Firstly, it will always be more difficult and energy-intensive to extract CO2 than to just stop putting it into the atmosphere in the first place. Yet the world is nowhere near agreeing any meaningful framework on reducing emissions, and the party in power in the largest democracy in the world is in denial that a problem even exists. But mainly, i…
It's not practical now but maybe in a more enlightened (and warm) future it may be? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_fertilization could be cheap for example.