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

331–340 of 682 posts

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#331

Post by intended »

Desert flooding is out - long time back an article on solar energy in the desert pointed out that the desert isn’t dead.

It’s an ecosystem in its own right with specialised creatures that live there. Plus it’s not like the people in the Sahara are going to be happy that a bunch of people decide that their nation should be flooded.

Remember we can’t convince Brazillians to stop ranchers from decimating the rainforest.

Also that added water, if it is stable, will result in ,ore growth and human presence, adding to the heat engine. (Assuming people in the region don’t drain it for irrigation almost immediately )

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#332

Post by deialtrous »

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...

But that UN report is based on predictions we know with 100% certainty to be incorrect. That's politics, not science. Science says "learn to do math before telling everyone the world is ending".

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#333

Post by deialtrous »

btilly wrote: post #234
astrodust wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fucking around with the ocean on a scale that's going to move the needle on CO2 in the atmosphere has a very high probability of serious unintended consequences. Iron particles won't replicate, but the chemistry of the ocean could change dramatically. We don't know what happens at scale, and we probably don't want to find out. Find another solution.

Not doing anything has a certainty of turning the ocean to a mild acid, with disastrous effects that are already becoming visible in coral bleaching and shellfish die offs. And carbon that is already in the atmosphere and not yet dissolved is only going to make it worse. We are at the point of choosing between what disasters we will suffer, rather than figuring out how to not have a disaster.

Why are we so concerned about ocean acidification from CO2, when past CO2 levels were far higher than now and all of the shellfish species that currently exist lived back then too? Wouldn't it be a good idea to consider the massive quantities of known toxins we pump into the oceans rather than fixating on a red herring?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#334

Post by wdewind »

bbojan wrote: post #283
gustaf wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is Gustaf from YC. I wrote the first Carbon Removal RFS. Planting tree is actually a great carbon removal technology. Unfortunately most forest owners in the world don't know or don't have incentive to care the about the carbon impact the forest have on the climate. Biggest reason forests are taken down is to grow cattle for beef. If you are working on a startup to reverse this we'd like to fund it too

Grassland, if properly managed, can sequester more carbon than a forest. This is related to the (unintuitive) fact that grasses are more efficient producers of organic matter than trees. Joel Salatin has done some great work related to this and collected decades worth of data. So the irony is that we could grow more beef and pull carbon out of the air at the same time, only if we cared. But we don't, it's easier to s…

> So the irony is that we could grow more beef and pull carbon out of the air at the same time, only if we cared.

I want this desperately to be true as someone who loves meat but everything I've read tells me it's not. There is definitely a nice symbiotic relationship that exists between cows grazing and grasslands but it is significantly more expensive to raise animals this way, and you can raise significantly fewer of them per sq ft.

The main issue with cows is methane, not carbon (edit: carbon dioxide*), anyway.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#335

Post by adamsea »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #96
bobthepanda wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, do we know that local toxic algae blooms are the only effect this will have? This to me smells like it could have potential unforeseen consequences like the Deepwater Horizon cleanup.

The point is perhaps that we know we're driving off a cliff. Is this going to slow us down or not? If you look at the proposals, what does setting up half the land mass of the Sahara as algae lagoons do? How does that affect local weather patterns, wildlife, Etc. The argument that the action may be dangerous is not as compelling when the prognosis for inaction is bleak.

There is not only one kind of "action" available to take.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#336

Post by Brakenshire »

benchaney wrote: post #139
philipkglass wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To stay below 2 degrees of warming via CO2 curtailment alone, serious curtailment would have had to start a generation ago. I wish that we had acted with urgency then, but we didn't. Now we need curtailment and active interventions.

Agreed. Many environmentalists like to argue that curtailment is the “proper” way to handle global warming. If the situation is half as dire as they are claiming it is, then that is simply not good enough.

The problem is the existence of these techniques will be used to justify inaction elsewhere. They also do nothing to tackle acidification.

And it’s not as if the world has been standing still over the last decades, huge progress has been made and many technologies are at the borderline of being economical or cheaper than the alternatives, and are continually falling in price. Once we push the boulder over the crest of the hill it will roll down unaided. The economy can change much quicker than we think.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#337

Post by adamsea »

marmadukester39 wrote: post #93
btilly wrote: post #59

I would strongly suggest investigating the claims of http://www.innovationconcepts.eu/res/literatuurSchuiling/oli... that after mining, milling, and then being spread in the ocean, olivine rocks weather quickly and take out CO2. The estimated costs of large scale CO2 sequestration this way are surprisingly reasonable, and the technology is already available. Also the various ocean technologies are going to run into t…

What about doing it in landlocked major bodies of water? I'd sacrifice the Great Lakes for the climate.

Millions of people depend on the Great Lakes for their supply of fresh water. Water scarcity is already a problem, that would make it worse.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#338

Post by bwreilly »

gustaf wrote: post #72
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 Gustaf from YC. I wrote the first Carbon Removal RFS. Planting tree is actually a great carbon removal technology. Unfortunately most forest owners in the world don't know or don't have incentive to care the about the carbon impact the forest have on the climate. Biggest reason forests are taken down is to grow cattle for beef. If you are working on a startup to reverse this we'd like to fund it too

We at DroneSeed are using swarms of unmanned aircraft for mass forest/rangeland restoration projects - monitoring, planting, invasive species mitigation, etc. The mission of the company is to help combat climate change by substantially reducing the cost of afforestation/reforestation.

Happy to talk about it any time: ben at droneseed.com

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#339

Post by philwelch »

loeg wrote: post #131
carapace wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But doesn't the carbon just go back into the atmosphere when the fuel is used?

Yes. It reduces emissions but does not sequester carbon (unless you bury it and don't burn it).

You could just "bury it and don't burn it". The US already has a Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Assuming that you can recycle something close enough to the original petroleum, you could even process the recycled fuel into durable petroleum products instead of consumable ones (lubricants, plastics, etc.)

Or you could sell it to SpaceX and have them ship it all to Mars, so someone can use it to fuel their Mars rovers and terraform Mars.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#340

Post by JoeAltmaier »

chasely wrote: post #107
marmadukester39 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about doing it in landlocked major bodies of water? I'd sacrifice the Great Lakes for the climate.

You would sacrifice the largest source of freshwater on earth for the climate? EDIT: The Great Lakes are not land-locked either. They flow out to the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence River.

Isn't Baikal much larger?
Post reply on HN