Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Carbon Removal Technologies

carbon.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 682 posts

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#291

Post by Triesault »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #282

The only viable carbon removal technology yet identified is leaving it in the ground. This isn't a smart-arse answer given every additional gallon of oil dug or gas fracked makes the problem worse, the oil industry hasn't yet accepted defeat, and politics still promotes and subsidises fossil. How then to take that problem out of the realm of political corruption (lobbying) even faster? We know what to do. Slightly fa…

> The only viable carbon removal technology yet identified is leaving it in the ground.

The article discusses this point in the second paragraph.

> We're now in "Phase 2" and stopping climate change requires both emission reduction and removing CO2 from the atmosphere. "Phase 2" is occurring faster and hotter than we thought. If we don't act soon, we'll end up in "Phase 3" and be too late for both of these strategies to work.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#292

Post by samstave »

For flooding of the deserts, id like to determine the size and power requirements for a renewably powered valve-pumping section that will work in series to pump water along the required route.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#293

Post by bmsleight_ »

astrodust wrote: post #182
thereisnospork wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure we could curtail CO2 emissions, but that means lowering people's quality of life which is a hard sell.

A 4°C increase in temperature will lower people's quality of life a whole lot more than any minor inconvenience you'll have to endure in the short term. If the government had any backbone at all they'd rally people around the idea of committing to it and getting it done. In World War II people lowered their "quality of life" to support the cause. It can be done.

The government of the people, by the people, for the people.

We get what we vote for, for need to vote for backbones.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#294

Post by kalonis »

mdorazio wrote: post #27
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.

This is covered in the "Where We Are Now" section at the bottom that explains BECCS. The issue is really cost - to remove carbon semi-permanently with trees you have to grow a lot of them, and then bury them deep enough that natural decay processes don't just put the carbon back into the environment. Basically you have to do the exact opposite of what we've been doing with coal and oil for over a century.

Could we sink the trees in the ocean? The water would prevent them both from rotting and burning.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#295

Post by NeedMoreTea »

Triesault wrote: post #291
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #282

The only viable carbon removal technology yet identified is leaving it in the ground. This isn't a smart-arse answer given every additional gallon of oil dug or gas fracked makes the problem worse, the oil industry hasn't yet accepted defeat, and politics still promotes and subsidises fossil. How then to take that problem out of the realm of political corruption (lobbying) even faster? We know what to do. Slightly fa…

> The only viable carbon removal technology yet identified is leaving it in the ground. The article discusses this point in the second paragraph. > We're now in "Phase 2" and stopping climate change requires both emission reduction and removing CO2 from the atmosphere. "Phase 2" is occurring faster and hotter than we thought. If we don't act soon, we'll end up in "Phase 3" and be too late for both of these strategies…

That is far from discussing.

Do you think the political part of the problem will magically go away if there is a viable phase 3 technology that does not contribute more carbon than it captures?

Do you think the politicians will permit it to be used at scale when they have done all possible to slow renewables?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#296

Post by sxcurry »

pdonis wrote: post #210
egd wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

For the curious, here's a website that thoroughly debunks Judith Curry's "science" : https://www.skepticalscience.com/Judith_Curry_arg.htm

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#297

Post by Gatsky »

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.

Important to add that plants are the only carbon removal technology with a successful track record.

As global warming devastates more of the biosphere, there will be perhaps less opposition to GMO plants engineered for maximum sequestration capacity. Also useful for Mars.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#298

Post by jf- »

perlgeek wrote: post #265
jf- wrote: post #63

Here’s my crazy idea: nuclear powered high pressure differential centrifugation. Under centrifugal force fluids separate into bands based on mass. The same principle as oil and water separating under gravity. Use giant centrifuges to spin compressed air until it separates into bands, then extract the bands corresponding to greenhouse gasses. I don’t know the energy requirements for this or if there is a better way of…

I really like the idea. However, I get the impression that gas centrifuges are really high-maintenance. Is that right? Or does that only apply to the Uranium enrichment case?

Thanks! Honestly I don’t know. However, since basically all the search results I’m getting are for uranium enrichment, I’m guessing gas centrifuges are not in common industrial use for any other purpose. That probably means they aren’t well optimised.

The most relevant published literature I’ve found is this:

http://www.mate.tue.nl/mate/pdfs/5250.pdf

Which is exactly about the separation of CO2, but for natural gas production. The throughput was uneconomical in their case, however it does establish that the principle is sound, it may just need a (possibly very considerable) amount of development.

I haven’t exactly done an exhaustive search though, so there’s probably more out there.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#299

Post by noselasd »

lowdest wrote: post #29
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.

Trees ultimately burn or rot, releasing a large portion of that carbon back into the atmosphere. Cutting them down and burying them to grow more would be ideal, but takes additional work. Someone want to engineer a tree with enormous, deep roots? Basically make the trees self-burying.

It's a buffer as long as there is a forest. Once you establish a forest where there previously was none, you have tied up a certain amount of carbon in all those tree trunk/root/branches.

Sure, the individual trees will eventually die and release a lot, though far from all, carbon back again. But by then, new trees will grow and act as the storage buffer.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#300

Post by PeterisP »

ForHackernews wrote: post #136
nostromo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> let's just curtail CO2 emissions We are though. Most people I talk to don't know that the US peaked CO2 emissions ten years ago and it's been falling every since - in per capita, per GDP, and absolute terms.

It's not even nearly enough. According to the recent UN report, we need cut global net emissions by 50% in the next 12 years, and get to zero net CO2 by 2050. This is a slow-motion catastrophe and people aren't nearly worried enough to take the steps necessary to avert it. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/un-says-climate-genoc... https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fos...

It seems obvious to me that this is unrealistic - that we're not going to do the cuts that we "need"; People will not get worried enough to take the steps necessary to avert it, it's simply not going to happen, and it's wishful thinking to expect that people will change their behaviour so much before they have immediate first-hand horrible effects (and those effects won't happen before it's too late). If that is our plan, then why not just wish for rainbow-farting unicorns to fix our ecosystem, it's just as likely to happen but more effective? Everything we know about people's psychology, social structures and politics seems to indicate that if the global population will be given a choice between those reductions and a slow-motion catastrophe, they'll pick policies that result in this catastrophe. Such reductions won't be made unilaterally or willingly, they might happen only if enforced with extreme violence (i.e. short-term threats instead of long-term horrible expectations) but no one sufficiently powerful seems willing to fight internal unrest or threaten international wars to enforce drastic measures for the sake of preventing climate change.

So we have to start with an assumption that emission cuts of the required scale are not going to happen (or, at least, are not going to happen soon enough), and look for more realistic alternatives than convincing 7 billion people to voluntarily downshift their lifestyle by 2050. Large scale carbon sequestration is one such alternative option.

Post reply on HN