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Carbon Removal Technologies

carbon.ycombinator.com

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Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#381

Post by kumarski »

Some of my notes on why carbon sequestration is a no-go for civilization to achieve lithospheric homeostasis.....:

5 Billion Cubic Meters of Oil are produced Annually by humanity.

30Bn Tons of CO2 generated.

60% is un-sequesterable because it is small and/or mobile.

40% is sequestrable and large scale/stationary.

12 Billion Cubic Meters of CO2 are thus sequestrable.

You must liquefy CO2 before putting it into the ground.

50% -70% efficiency in converting it to a liquid that we can shove into the ground.

6 to 8.4 Billion Cubic Meters of Liquefied CO2 are thus Sequestrable.

Shoving 6 to 8.4 billion cubic meters of liquefied CO2 into ground is no small matter.

Think about it this way, humanity built an entire industry focused on an annual extraction of 5Bn Cubic Meters of Oil over a time span of 100+ years with refineries and complex processes spanning multiple countries, geographies, regulations, wars, and land rights.

Also, who’s going to buy sequestered carbon?

The reality is that something like this will require spinning up an entire Trillion dollar market.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#382

Post by crispinb »

This is just symptom-chasing. Growth ideology in general, and capitalism in particular, are incompatible with the continued existence of a living planet. The problem space of replacing complex living systems with crude technological ones will be explored fully by these crazed systems in all possible directions even if/when this one symptom (climate breakdown) is countered with a narrow technofix.

The first crucial question is whether catastrophic damage to Earth's ecosystems is biologically inevitable given human cognitive capacities. Given a satisfactory answer to that (which I think unlikely), the next question is: how can we displace the cancerous ideology of limitless growth? These are obviously more challenging issues, requiring the recruitment of a far broader range of human capacities and knowledge than dangerous & blinkered technological capitalists can offer.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#383

Post by ivanhoe »

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…

As fairly experienced aquarium hobbyist I'm a bit worried about the side-effects of this approach. If you add amounts of olivine that are sufficient to create a globally significant effect on CO2 how do you avoid altering the local environment parameters too quickly? Marine animals are not as adapted to quickly changing environment like freshwater or terrestrial animals, and sudden swings in CO2, pH and hardness (which are all interconnected) could just wipe out the whole local ecosystems. Cyanobacteria and algae blooms are just the tip of the iceberg here. This is something that needs to be implemented really carefully and step by step to avoid causing even worse catastrophe.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#384

Post by PeterisP »

ed_balls wrote: post #343
PeterisP wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land isn't that cheap compared to the (not that large) effect, especially if we want that effect to be meaningful in the short term. Buying land and planting trees there will cost something like $2000 per acre and retain something like one ton of CO2 per acre per year (an order of magnitude estimate - depending on details both the cost and CO2 effect can be very different). Industrial carbon capture at power plants c…

Why do you want to buy the land? Raise the money for seedling, get volunteers/robots to plant them. Pay people to maintain trees on land (which should require 0 effort). You can come up with some clever designs to make it a tourist attraction and make some extra cash. Plenty of room for improvements. Let say you can have 100 000 trees per square km. If 40 trees gives you 1 ton of carbon per year then spending $25 000…

Well, because to the first approximation pretty much all land is used - any land thats suitable to be a forest but is not already a forest is only that way because it's used for grazing or farming, otherwise it would overgrow naturally (though not as efficiently as with planting). If you want to increase the amount of woodland, you have to decrease the amount of pastures or farmland, so you have to either buy that land from the previous owner (because they won't be able to graze or plant there anymore) or take it from them by force.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#385

Post by NeedMoreTea »

ed_balls wrote: post #310
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fracked gas is about as bad as or dirtier than coal.

Source? That sound very unlikely, unless we are talking about CO2 only. But then keep in mind the total CO2 emissions. Coal needs more workers, more machines and more transportation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13053040

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#386

Post by intended »

Goddamit no

>About 10% of the world's surface is desert, which is cheap, uninhabited, unproductive land that is drenched in some of the most powerful solar radiation on the planet.

Land doesn’t have to be productive to be protected. Deserts are ecosystems, and this kind of “changing the wild forest frontier to mans will!” thinking is how we landed up without forests in the first place!

From desert hare, to toads that come out once a year when it rains, to cactii, snakes, insects, and many other creatures - deserts are filled with living creatures.

Is this stewardship of the planet or just ensuring habitability for humans?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#387

Post by kumarski »

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

This is Kumar from YCS2012.

I really really wish YC would bring on a polymer, nuclear, petroleum, or materials engineer to help wrangle on these thesis-es on all things related to energy. [I'm more on the textiles side of polymers, but I'm here if you need me.]

Trees are not a great carbon removal technology, grasslands are much better as they aren't impacted by fires and droughts.

Grasslands sequester carbon underground whereas woody trees store it in leaves and woody biomass.

What you're saying is actually questionable in a non-stable climate which is what humanity has today.

I think it's really foolish to allow carbon pollution credits to be backed by trees instead of grasslands.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/01/trees-ma...

Also, bark beetles aside from droughts and fires are pretty onerous to tree populations.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#388

Post by joe_the_user »

philipkglass wrote: post #344
joe_the_user wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, The problem is that, given we're failing the straightforward task of curtailment even now, what are the chances that we can successfully achieve curtailment and sequestering in the required time-frame? Curtailment is a large task but we know what to do. Sequestering would also be a large task but what to do is uncertain. Curtailment so far has been a corrupt circus with "pledges" and other indirect inducement…

Coal consumption has already peaked in the USA, France, UK, Canada, (probably) China, and a number of other countries. Emissions intensity and absolute emissions from the electricity sector has already peaked in multiple countries. The cost of electrifying automobiles and generating low-emissions renewable electricity is much lower than a generation ago. On the other hand, global fossil fuel use has not peaked yet. G…

On the other hand, global fossil fuel use has not peaked yet. Global population has not peaked yet.

Indeed, but if solar power is now the preferred energy source, solar power could be being used for all new energy need as well as help us cut back on fossil fuel's original usage.

But it's not. That's a world-killing problem.

What we're out of is laize faire options. Neither sequestering nor dramatic winding down of fossil fuel consumption is going to happen without a world level authority dictating things. Sadly, that seems unlikely.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#389

Post by antt »

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

I've read through the prospectus and seems like it's only for US based companies.

I'm in Australia and the geology of the Tasmania/South Victoria region is the best in the world for carbon capture using trees. Specifically it's the native habitat of the Tasmanian blue gum, the worlds fastest growing tree, and here it grows between 20-100% faster than anywhere else.

Is there any option for having non-US startups funded given that ego-engineering can't be done out of the Bay Area alone? I and the other co-founders have no interest in moving since we are already in the best place for what we are doing.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#390

Post by igor47 »

deialtrous wrote: post #332
ForHackernews wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

[citation needed]
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