Carbon Removal Technologies • Hacker News Board

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#41

Post by johnchristopher » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:49 PM UTC

gingerbread-man wrote: post #24

An obvious step towards reducing CO2 emissions in the US would be raising taxes on gasoline. Americans are driving ever larger and less fuel-efficient cars in part because gas prices have remained steady or fallen in real terms since the 70s. In fact, Ford announced a few months ago that they will stop selling passenger cars in the US (except the Mustang), to focus on more popular trucks and SUVs. But this is just ab…

> An obvious step towards reducing CO2 emissions in the US would be raising taxes on gasoline.

It seems we are past the luxury of looking for incentives to reduce CO2 emissions. It's about reducing CO2 emissions right now, no proxy allowed, no IFTTT schemes.

There might be a bare minimum amount of CO2 allowed, it's fixed. We could monetize that but it doesn't matter. We can't go beyond that amount.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#42

Post by SilasX » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:50 PM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #19

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 hardly make anyone any money (absent a carbon credits/tax system).

Neither would any of the other proposals in the link for extracting carbon.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#43

Post by tribune » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:53 PM UTC

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…

Wouldn't sun shades blocking any amount of sunlight have a negative effect on agriculture and endanger the food supply?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#44

Post by jeff18 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:53 PM UTC

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 mentioned on the website under "Bio-energy with carbon capture and storage".

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#45

Post by makerofspoons » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:54 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #40

jpfed wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps there's the chance that they're interested in their legacy being saving the human race. There will probably be statues of them, schools named after them, and who knows what else if the plan succeeded.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#46

Post by hughes » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:54 PM UTC

Getting really good at carbon capture (specifically direct air capture) could also have the side benefit of proving technologies that drive in-situ propellant production within the carbon dioxide atmosphere of Mars.

Similarly, this could drive a net carbon-neutral source of natural gas on Earth.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#47

Post by emiliobumachar » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:57 PM UTC

mrec wrote: post #30

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…

How would you keep a sunshade over one pole? Keeping anything over a single spot requires a geostationary orbit, which by definition is only possible on the equator. I suppose you could have a bunch of shades in a geosynchronous polar orbit, but I suspect they'd still be more effective over the equator, just because it gets more sunlight.

Seconded. It would just fall down.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#48

Post by zackmorris » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:58 PM UTC

I was just talking with my uncle a few days ago who has sailed around the Caribbean. He said there are meters-thick piles of what he thought was algae piling up on beaches. From a search:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/mysterious-masses-se...

So looks like this is Sargassum (brown seaweed). I feel like any large-scale geoengineering to combat carbon will probably involve growing something like this over large areas in the middle of the ocean and then burying it.

This would only be feasible if it scales by the square or cube. I'm thinking a genetically modified plant designed to grow in single stalks or sheets hundreds of miles long so that it can be wound up by some kind of continuous process. It could use a traditional coal power plant modified to burn some small portion (say 1%) of the plant itself.

Sure there are side effects and unintended consequences from this but cut me some slack, it's only my first idea!

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#49

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:58 PM UTC

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…

The only way we're going to turn this ship around is by telling people that there's money to be made somewhere else. If you ask a world full of the rich and those who want to be that they have to turn away from money you're not going to have an audience. Telling us to read 5+ books to appropriately educate ourselves on why the system is doomed and how to fix it isn't going to reach the masses, and certainly not those with power, especially when the basic assumption is that they have to lose all their power in order for the scheme to work.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#50

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:59 PM UTC

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.

> Trees ultimately burn or rot

Not all at once, though, and new trees spring up pretty quick. If you're replacing unforested land with forested land, you're still storing substantial carbon. Cutting down / burning an existing forest to plant trees doesn't work, sure.