Carbon Removal Technologies • Hacker News Board

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#361

Post by T-A » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:37 PM UTC

mrec wrote: post #225

T-A wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statite

Interesting; I'd seen this before but forgotten about it. Don't think it works here though - if the pressure of reflected sunlight is counteracting gravity, then I don't see how the statite can be acting as a sunshade. If it were in position for that, the sunlight would be pushing it toward the Earth, no? If anything this sounds more like the reflectors often proposed for Martian terraforming, which are designed to h…

A very different mode of Statite system operation is possible that would allow the Statite to be placed at any point around the Earth, at all times of the year, even over the sunlit side, at the expense of slightly greater operating distance. Instead of the Statite being balanced by sunlight in the gravitational field of the Earth, the Statite would be placed in orbit around the Sun, at such a distance from the earth that the gravitational field of the Earth plus the moon is only a perturbation on the gravitational field of the Sun. [1]

But in practice, I think you're right. Forward wrote a short story about such a "pole sitter" ("Race to the Pole"), and had one of the characters say this:

The control problem of keeping the [statite] balanced over the pole is very tricky, especially during the summer season of that hemisphere when the polar axis is over on the sunlit side of the Earth. That’s why ‘pole-sitters’ have to be placed so far away from the Earth. If they get any closer than 250 Earth radii, they become unstable during the summer. [2]

[1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US5183225A/en

[2] https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2010/07/29/statites-hovering...

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#362

Post by intended » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:37 PM UTC

User23 wrote: post #309

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…

> wipe out all shellfish species worldwide Look you raise good points but this is nonsense. The Earth has had far higher CO2 concentrations for geological periods and there’s no fossil record suggesting shellfish all died. This kind of Trumpian rhetoric just hands ammo to the skeptics.

Right, the ones that exist today should be evolved for today’s environment.

Higher acid levels should mean most of the average stock will die, and the mutants which survive will eventually adapt.

Think of the George Carlin skit - the planet will be fine, just we humans and everything we know will be gone.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#363

Post by drankula3 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

theothermkn wrote: post #350

drankula3 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Raw olivine is currently ~$20-$25/ton and the average us person puts out 15-20 tons of CO2/year. Globe-scale carbon sequestration would increase demand for olivine massively. Would mining operations be able to scale appropriately without prices going through the roof?

> Globe-scale carbon sequestration would increase demand for olivine massively. I ask too much, I know, but first-semester freshman macroeconomic comments drive me nuts. As demand increases, and as production rises to meet it, the entire economics of the production chain changes. Purchases amortize more quickly. Processes improve. Infrastructure gets more fully utilized. The effects of mass production are felt all th…

And needlessly passive aggressive posts drive me nuts. Production will rise to meet supply, but that does not mean it will do so smoothly or easily. Perhaps accessible olivine is limited. Perhaps current extraction methods would be too expensive at scale. We just don't know.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#364

Post by Proziam » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

theothermkn wrote: post #350

drankula3 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Raw olivine is currently ~$20-$25/ton and the average us person puts out 15-20 tons of CO2/year. Globe-scale carbon sequestration would increase demand for olivine massively. Would mining operations be able to scale appropriately without prices going through the roof?

> Globe-scale carbon sequestration would increase demand for olivine massively. I ask too much, I know, but first-semester freshman macroeconomic comments drive me nuts. As demand increases, and as production rises to meet it, the entire economics of the production chain changes. Purchases amortize more quickly. Processes improve. Infrastructure gets more fully utilized. The effects of mass production are felt all th…

If there's a limited overall supply it follows that increased demand will move the price upwards. If supply can easily scale to meet demand, then scaling effects take over and prices can come down. The economics of the situation are largely dependant on factors that few people have enough information to really assess (mining rates, total unmined supply, etc)

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#365

Post by dv_dt » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #276

dv_dt wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there is, for companies with technology to reduce or reverse the carbon in our atmosphere there's a giant profit potential. This of course balanced by the interests of those protecting their current cash flows in established carbon releasing industries.

There's no innate profit potential for this technology. If the governments decide to pay lots and lots and lots of money to sequester carbon, then there's a giant profit potential for anyone who can do it. But note the "if" - as of now, there's no indication that they're going to do so; and if/when it comes to such an emergency that they will, they might as well nationalize (or 'globalize') that tech and implement th…

> There's no innate profit potential for this technology.

I don't know if that's true or not in the long term - not even first order. Wind turbines weren't innately profitable until at one point they became a low cost leader in power generation by some measures. Humanity may find a fairly low-power input catalyst that give us cheaper fuels than digging it up from miles underground, shipping it thousands more miles, refining it and shipping it hundreds of more miles. Right now, in this instant of technology, I'd agree on first order profitability.

Second order systemically it's almost certainly a profit vs needing to rebuild so much civil infrastructure for hurricane resistance, new and expanding flood plains, fire resistance, farm droughts, etc.. or incurring all sorts of other health costs for fossil fuels infrastructure. The cost of acting to curb climate change is still cheaper than letting it all go chaotic.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#366

Post by graeme » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:42 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #227

BeefySwain wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For first world countries? Sure. For developing countries, we are talking mass starvation and death. I guess that could be considered "lowering people's quality of life" though.

The global rate of extreme poverty has dropped from 29% 20 years ago to less than 9% today. You need a solid argument for how these actions would reverse the incredible drop in poverty and start us in the other direction, not just the usual factually wrong conventional wisdom.

Well, we've had a massive increase in annual co2 emissions since 20 years ago. I would posit that the decrease in poverty is a direct result in our burning more energy for short term production.

It's not only that, but I think it's a major factor. I'm only extremely slow internet so I can't look up the table, but I think our annual rate of emissions are 30-50% higher than in 1998. Could be wrong there though.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#367

Post by philipkglass » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:43 PM UTC

Brakenshire wrote: post #336

benchaney wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Some of the active countermeasures contemplated, like ocean fertilization and accelerated olivine weathering, also tackle acidification if they work at scale. Solar radiation management does nothing to fix acidification though it can possibly interrupt feedback loops that would make acidification even worse.

I agree that many technologies for replacing fossil usage have now achieved or are close to economic superiority, and that change can come very rapidly with economic superiority. But I also think that reaching this point has taken too long and now we will need active measures as well as emissions cuts.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#368

Post by intended » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:48 PM UTC

theonemind wrote: post #157

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.

I once started thinking through what we would want out of some kind of ideal carbon sequestering device. I thought that for the scale of the problem, they would need to self-replicate, and run on some natural energy source, like solar power. Then, I realized I had just invented the tree.

Haha, I had that same chain of thought. I’m sure we aren’t alone.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#369

Post by p1mrx » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:53 PM UTC

adamrezich wrote: post #260

Anyone else find it weird when people talk about "carbon removal" instead of "CO2 removal?" Maybe it's just me but "carbon removal" evokes "eradication of life" in a sci-fi way

The significant atmospheric carbon is in the form of CO₂ and CH₄, which are both greenhouse gases. If we "just" removed the carbon, we'd be left with O₂ and H₂, which are mostly harmless.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#370

Post by bufbupa » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:54 PM UTC

super-serial wrote: post #77

I'm glad someone mentioned it above, because my favorite solution is still "advanced weathering" of rocks: http://www.innovationconcepts.eu/res/literatuurSchuiling/oli... Just US $250 billion per year to offset ALL of humanity's carbon emissions. Yes I said ALL. It would cost less than the ongoing 'war on terror.' If I was rich I would be building autonomous mining robots so I could do it myself because I'm not confi…

It doesn't look like that math accounts for the energy/cost of crushing all of the olivine to the specified granularity? It might be 250 billion to get the raw material, but its going to cost a lot more to process and distribute it all...