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Carbon Removal Technologies

carbon.ycombinator.com

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Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#31

Post by hodgesrm »

rexpop wrote: post #4

...are stupid even to contemplate while we're still increasing carbon emissions. If you actually cared about the impact — and weren't just cynically cashing in on environmentalism's recapitulated caché — you'd be shorting big markets. The biggest threat to the world is unbridled capitalism, which VC's like you are incapable of abandoning. May as well ask a fish to bicycle. This post is a pitiable joke, whose highest…

> I have more reading suggestions for how to turn this ship around.

Meanwhile your post is putting down people who are doing actual work to fix the problem. I for one am delighted to see people committing resources to solving real problems instead of developing worthless mobile phone apps. That gives me hope our species will get through global warming.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#32

Post by jimison »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #5

Can we discuss space sunshades? Assuming the cost of getting freight to orbit goes down substantially as companies like SpaceX ramp up launches, what's the limiting parameter on some sort of sunshade over the north and/or south pole? Is it indeed the cost of launching the sunshade, or are there other factors at play which make the space sunshade unrealistic? What materials would be reflective and resilient and cost-e…

That falls under a number of strategies for Solar Radiation Management [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_radiation_management], which, as you say, doesn't address the core CO2 concentration problem, but it might buy us time.

Personally, I like the idea of Marine Cloud Brightening. Getting 1 or 2 thousand ships spraying seawater into the air seems tractable, if not trivial.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#33

Post by bpicolo »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #25
bpicolo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wood is 50-100 billion dollar business globally, it's not nothin. Plus, a bunch of trees are food sources.

Isn't that tearing them down, not putting them up?

Lots of it, yeah, but tree farms are a thing too. That's a matter of cost in modern times though. Currently faster/cheaper to convince a government to let you chop down rainforests, but that won't always be true.

Definitely curious how hard it would be to have drones plant trees in arid regions. Feels like I've seen some related projects before

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#34

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#35

Post by narrator »

It seems global warming politic's main focus is to implement a global carbon tax in one form or another. Proceeds from the tax are administered by a supra-national government. That's how the Paris accord worked and very credible global warming authorities said was the only solution to global warming. Does this company have a business model of being the recipients of the global carbon tax?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#37

Post by ergothus »

kanzure wrote: post #11
WhompingWindows wrote: post #5

Can we discuss space sunshades? Assuming the cost of getting freight to orbit goes down substantially as companies like SpaceX ramp up launches, what's the limiting parameter on some sort of sunshade over the north and/or south pole? Is it indeed the cost of launching the sunshade, or are there other factors at play which make the space sunshade unrealistic? What materials would be reflective and resilient and cost-e…

My personal preference is an inflatable sun shield method like these 10,000 kilometer-wide objects: "Self-deployed, extremely large low mass space structures" http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/space/Self-deployed%20extrem... I don't think people realize how a lot of these problems are solvable for only a few billion dollars... It's an engineering problem, mainly. Someone just spends the money and goes and fixes the pro…

I'm skeptical -

You've shown a proposal, not a reality. (and the proposal didn't even mention a "shield" that I saw, but I may have skimmed past it). I didn't see a price tag, nor a timeline. Money can boost research speed, but not remove the need entirely.

Second, If the cross section of the earth is 1.2x10^14 m^2, one of these would...well, we don't know, because the link mentioned volumes and length (the 10k km is a potential "span length" and wasn't tied to being "one" of anything). I failed to find the cargo volume for a Falcon 9 or other rocket (everything is in mass) but I think it's safe to say that you're talking a lot of launches which clearly aren't trivial to do.

Third, and most importantly, you've just decreased the amount of energy coming to earth. You've not solved the problem, you've changed it.

I love tech, but I think it's worth noticing the ratio of times someone says "It's [just] an engineering problem" versus the number of issues that have been actually been solved in this way (seeing the problem, spending a boatload of money, seeing problem solved). Most of our industries are based on the fact that we KNOW they can grow into more, but figuring out how and the complications thereof are literally the work of countless lifetimes.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#38

Post by zspade »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #18
kanzure wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal preference is an inflatable sun shield method like these 10,000 kilometer-wide objects: "Self-deployed, extremely large low mass space structures" http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/space/Self-deployed%20extrem... I don't think people realize how a lot of these problems are solvable for only a few billion dollars... It's an engineering problem, mainly. Someone just spends the money and goes and fixes the pro…

How would this affect plant life and agriculture?

Since this would be over the poles, agriculture would not be impacted. There would likely be a substantial impact to ecology of these regions, depending on size of the shade of course.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#39

Post by afterburner »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #5

Can we discuss space sunshades? Assuming the cost of getting freight to orbit goes down substantially as companies like SpaceX ramp up launches, what's the limiting parameter on some sort of sunshade over the north and/or south pole? Is it indeed the cost of launching the sunshade, or are there other factors at play which make the space sunshade unrealistic? What materials would be reflective and resilient and cost-e…

...Mr. Burns?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#40

Post by ryandrake »

jpfed wrote: post #16
kanzure wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal preference is an inflatable sun shield method like these 10,000 kilometer-wide objects: "Self-deployed, extremely large low mass space structures" http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/space/Self-deployed%20extrem... I don't think people realize how a lot of these problems are solvable for only a few billion dollars... It's an engineering problem, mainly. Someone just spends the money and goes and fixes the pro…

That's one great thing about sunshades- they can be implemented by just convincing a spacefaring billionaire or two instead of having to change policy / steer nation-states.

Unfortunately, you still need to convince the billionaire that the project will make him into a 10-billionaire, otherwise he’ll just keep it in the bank, or bathe in it or whatever rich people do with all the vast piles of money they are sitting on.
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