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Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

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Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#281

Post by kragen »

crazydoggers wrote: post #172
kragen wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dose makes the poison, and in the case of manganese (which is, by the way, not a proper noun), the toxic dose is quite large (unless you're inhaling it), to the point where manganese deficiency is a larger public health problem in humans than manganese poisoning. MnO2 and even the soluble manganese sulfate we use for fertilizer are in the same blue-1 classification as things like alcohol and potassium chloride. N…

Yes, nickel is more of a concern, but manganese is still toxic. Comparing heavy metal toxicity to human lethal doses can be misleading, however. Invertebrates are much more sensitive to heavy metals. Again toxic doses for many marine invertebrates are in the ppb-ppm range. Copper for instance is commonly used as a treatment for marine parasites on fish. However the dosing needs to be done carefully, since a doses in…

Thank you! Yes, I'm pretty sure nickel is more toxic than copper, including to marine organisms. Where can I learn more?

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#282

Post by kragen »

JshWright wrote: post #249
kragen wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Olivine beaches cannot be switched off, but you're probably right that the risks are manageable.

You can stop making new olivine beaches. The scale necessary means it would be a long, slow process.

The beaches will continue absorbing CO₂ long after you stop making them. I think this is probably a manageable problem but it's important to recognize that, as with emitting the CO₂ in the first place, the feedback can be a long time in coming, so there is a risk of the system running out of control.

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#283

Post by kragen »

6d6b73 wrote: post #158
kragen wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, “lol”, it will. In fact you don't even need to spend US$150. Your ignorance is not a good reason to sneer at people who are doing you the favor of sharing their knowledge with you.

Well, the problem with most of these off the shelf , indoor sensors, is that they are calibrated to current reading of about 400ppm, that's their base. To correctly measure CO2 you will need something that does not depend on that value to self-calibrate. What's more, some of them can have +/- 20ppm or worse accuracy. If the average annual ppm increase is 2ppm you can't reliably see the increase on your home device. T…

Thank you!

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#284

Post by adrianN »

ThomPete wrote: post #275
adrianN wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hundreds of millions of refugees? Collapse of major ecosystems? Desertification? Flooding?

Demonstrated scientifically to happen over how long time, when and where?

It's in the IPCC reports, you can look it up.

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#285

Post by adrianN »

goatlover wrote: post #273
adrianN wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There won't be much innovation going on in a +4° degree world. People will be busy fighting over food and water.

But there might be important innovation before then, such as ways to counteract and adapt to a +4° degree world.

Personally I'd rather not risk that "might" and instead hope for the "might" of sufficient investment to prevent that world.

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#286

Post by tom_mellior »

lmm wrote: post #269
tom_mellior wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to eliminate actul emissions. As in, actual exhaust gases coming out of cars and planes and snokestacks, not just mathematically offset "net" emissions. There is no way around that. Then, on top of that, an additional 10% through this scheme looks pretty useful.

> We need to eliminate actul emissions. As in, actual exhaust gases coming out of cars and planes and snokestacks, not just mathematically offset "net" emissions. There is no way around that. How so? What difference is there between emitting zero and emitting x kilograms and sequestering x kilograms?

Extra work. Exactly the problem of having to mine and dump a lot more minerals or plant a lot more trees or whatever if we keep emitting too much.

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#287

Post by psandersen »

TimJRobinson wrote: post #129

With the ability to reduce pH levels in the surrounding water this seems like something the Australian Government would be very interested in investing in to save the Great Barrier Reef. That could be a good pilot site as the government has said they're going to spend $500MM on saving the reef so money is already available if the technology works.

Whats the chance that $500M is actually to help the reef and not just used for corruption or forgotten about until the next election? I have zero faith in the current Australian gov doing anything to mitigate climate change...

Otherwise this is a great idea!

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#288

Post by rayiner »

cardamomo wrote: post #178
petra wrote: post #137

It costs about $1 to transport an oil barrel 1000 miles. 35 billion oil barrels are transported each year. So transporting that olivine rock will cost an order of $250B. This will compensate for the yearly co2 emissions , ~38B tons. With carbon offsets priced at $15-$40 per ton - so there's potential for profitability .

Profitability? Put that idea away for a moment. We need to look at this through other lenses as well. Our very lives on Earth depend on our ability to remove greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere. In that light, profitability is a rather weak criterion by which to judge projects like this.

Profitability is a great criterion to judges projects like this. Profitability just means that doing X is worth more than what you have up to do X. If we decide that one ton of CO2 generates $Y of negative effects, and you can remove one ton of CO2 for less than that, congratulations, that means you are doing something that’s worth more than the effort and resources you spend to do it.

You can’t “put away” economic and logical thinking. Indeed, failing to measure profit correctly (failing to include negative externalities in the cost side of the ledger) is what causes environmental destruction in the first place.

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#289

Post by rayiner »

cardamomo wrote: post #183
petra wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more important values than profit. But in reality, profit makes things happen. So it's good to know about it.

It's good to know about it, for sure. But, at the end of the day, profit makes profit-driven things happen. It's important to know about and advocate for more important values than profit.

Profit is not a “value.” It’s a way of measuring costs versus benefits independent of value system. What measuring profit does, which many people hate, is reveal what people actually value. It’s hard to manipulate which leads many to call to “put it aside.”

Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches

#290

Post by jccooper »

tigerlily wrote: post #274
matznerd wrote: post #243

Hi HN, I am Eric Matzner, the Co-Founder of Project Vesta and I have been responding to all of the questions on this thread and will continue to answer them, but I just wanted to say thank you for all of the interest. When YC posted their Carbon Removal Technologies Requests for Startups page[1] about 8 months ago, I responded to a comment on the post where @btilly[2] mentioned one of the research papers that our pro…

Could the olivine found on the moon be suitable for use in this application?

Mineralogically? Sure. Economically? Not even close.
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