Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C • Hacker News Board

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#41

Post by johnmorrison » Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

hannob wrote: post #23

hurricanetc wrote: post #21

CCS is absolutely going to be necessary. So is nuclear. What is the renewable alternative for the cement, steel, shipping, and aviation industries? Environmentalists need to get out of their own way and stop treating good as the enemy of perfect. Some progress is better than no progress. All technologies and approaches will be required. https://mobile.twitter.com/Peters_Glen/status/11948866002552...

> What is the renewable alternative for the cement, steel, shipping, and aviation industries? For steel the possibilities are hydrogen or electrolysis, both are being tested by some companies. You need the political will to price emissions to make it profitable though. For everything fuel-based synthetic power-to-x-based fuels are a (costly, but CCS isn't cheap either) alternative. Cement is the biggest "we don't rea…

> For steel the possibilities are hydrogen or electrolysis, both are being tested by some companies.

We already have steel recycling plants today that shift ~100% of emissions to thermal energy source, with a hot enough nuclear reactor (G4 MSR, maybe something in fast spectrum, maybe fusion) you can effectively eliminate the majority of steel emissions globally.

> Cement is the biggest "we don't really have any good alternative, at least not any time soon"-issue.

Bill Gates posted about this recently [1,2]

[1] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/Buildings-are-good-for-peo...

[2] https://www.carboncure.com/

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#42

Post by tonyedgecombe » Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 2:42 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #16

People are missing the fact that the oil and gas industry is strongly in favour of CCS for 2 main reasons: 1. It makes extracting and burning oil not so bad - no need to make rules limiting oil extraction, we can simply start some CCS projects. 2. Injecting CO2 into deep oil wells actually helps get more oil out of them. Get the government to pay for CCS, while the oil company profits off increased yields.

3. The oil and gas industry is well placed to provide CCS services from an engineering perspective. Even without your second point it would be a commercial opportunity for them.

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#43

Post by tomp » Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 2:49 PM UTC

inciampati wrote: post #27

algo_trader wrote: post #11

CC will probably never happen on the large scale. It is inherently inefficient and a final, last resort. Preventing emissions: Renewable electricity. EVs. Hydrogen. Synthetic food stuffs. Etc Handling the last 5%-10%: tax carbon, and allow nature to recover (rain forests, fisheries, natural bio-mass, etc). The idea of carbon capture while some developing country is cutting down forests is bizarre. Luckily population…

We are at the point of last resort. There is no viable way to solve the distributed problem of carbon emission. People can argue all they want about renewables and regulation. Half the world won't give a damn, and we'll be left where we are. Carbon capture is a much more centralized response. It actually might be possible for a few rich nations to get together and implement systems to drive it at scale. Unfortunately…

> There is no viable way to solve the distributed problem of carbon emission

We haven't even tried. Tax all products, in particular imports (China etc) based on their CO2 emissions. The Western worlds (EU + US + a few others) still represents the majority of consumption / buying power, and has the option of enforcing standards on cheap-labour producing countries. We just have to have the will to do it. I hope Trump's anti-China stance (albeit for the wrong reasons) might spur other countries into thinking in this direction.

Edit: I'm also terribly annoyed by these stupid "pop-interventions" like "eat less meat" and "use paper straws". I don't want the government to tell me what to do (that's totalitarian and completely unacceptable from my perspective), the government should instead adjust the incentives so that all externalities are properly accounted for; then I'm free to drive less (or buy a Tesla) and eat more meat, whereas someone else (with the same budget but different preferences) can instead adopt a vegan diet and go on frequent roadtrips.

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#44

Post by darkmighty » Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 2:50 PM UTC

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #25

leoedin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This relies on the right sort of rock. Is it ubiquitous enough that we can account for meaningful amounts of carbon sequestration?

Yes, by many orders of magnitude, to capture not just all existing emissions but the emissions that results from burning of all the fossil fuels on the planet.

By available, do you mean 'It exists on the planet crust', or 'It can be accessed at a significantly lower cost than the forward (breakdown, e.g. the cost of equivalent oil) energy cost?'[1], and if so, do you have sources to back that up?

[1] If it costs more, or even not significantly (an order of magnitude at least) less than the cost of oil for equivalent emissions, than the economic proposition is dire. Solutions so far have those economic difficulties afaik, and we're still at a stage where we have easily available capture resources (i.e. we haven't depleted or saturated a number of them) -- we're talking about a planetary scale solution here

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#45

Post by johnmorrison » Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

hurricanetc wrote: post #21

CCS is absolutely going to be necessary. So is nuclear. What is the renewable alternative for the cement, steel, shipping, and aviation industries? Environmentalists need to get out of their own way and stop treating good as the enemy of perfect. Some progress is better than no progress. All technologies and approaches will be required. https://mobile.twitter.com/Peters_Glen/status/11948866002552...

This is true.

We should be able to reach net-zero emissions in the energy industry by around 2040 (optimistic, but realistic target), and even produce enough clean electricity to power clean electric solutions in transport/agriculture/industrial/appliance sectors (which are the other main contributors to net GHG emissions).

The only problem is that a lot of this technology is still missing / not adopting fast enough. Electric cars and cleaner farming will probably get there in time, as well as lots of electric appliances and clean steel.

I'm worried about these though:

- Cement/concrete

- Aviation (electric is on the way [1], but maybe growing too slow)

- Livestock (synthetic meat promising, but once again maybe progress too slow)

- Shipping

- Appliances/civilian buildings: long lifespan to replace systems with electric alternatives, people won't just throw away a working heating system / stove etc

For those, we need CCS or reforestation efforts to be accelerated.

Our best bet in my view is to focus most investment in nuclear energy short term, with large minorities in CCS and transport+industrial electrification, and get electricity prices super low (and TPES super high)

Once we have abundant, clean energy worldwide, we will be able to easily reach net-zero emissions and even induce net cooling if we feel we have overshot the ideal atmospheric carbon level.

(In fact, we should be able to move it either way depending on our needs)

Net zero goal isn't about stopping climate change, it's about putting the control in our hands and having the ability to shift temperatures and GHG levels in the optimal direction in perpetuity.

[1] https://heartaerospace.com (YC-backed)

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#46

Post by the8472 » Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

Valgrim wrote: post #30

natch wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the reference to cement supposed to indicate here?

Cement releases CO2 as part of it's chemical curing process. It contributes to about 8% of worldwide emissions. Another industry where CO2 as a chemical byproduct is vented at a massive scale in the atmosphere is with the steel industry. Both are good targets for carbon capture at the source.

> Cement releases CO2 as part of it's chemical curing process. It contributes to about 8% of worldwide emissions.

There are 2 sources of CO2 during cement manufacture. One is from the decomposition of lime, the other is from the energy production needed to make the process work. The latter could be avoided by electrical heating, a solar furnace or other renewable heat sources. The decomposition part can be compensated by newer cement chemistries that reabsorb most of the CO2 during the curing process.

So there are alternatives, carbon capture is not the only solution.

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#47

Post by the8472 » Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

algo_trader wrote: post #11

CC will probably never happen on the large scale. It is inherently inefficient and a final, last resort. Preventing emissions: Renewable electricity. EVs. Hydrogen. Synthetic food stuffs. Etc Handling the last 5%-10%: tax carbon, and allow nature to recover (rain forests, fisheries, natural bio-mass, etc). The idea of carbon capture while some developing country is cutting down forests is bizarre. Luckily population…

> It is inherently inefficient and a final, last resort.

There's an entire horror cabinet of last resorts that people don't even want to discuss yet, carbon capture is merely a plan C.

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#48

Post by mdorazio » Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

Plug for Project Vesta [1], which I donate to. It's the only energy-practical proposal I've seen so far for real carbon capture aside from replanting a million acres of trees and hoping people don't burn them... again.

[1] https://projectvesta.org/

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#49

Post by the8472 » Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 3:11 PM UTC

johnmorrison wrote: post #45

hurricanetc wrote: post #21

CCS is absolutely going to be necessary. So is nuclear. What is the renewable alternative for the cement, steel, shipping, and aviation industries? Environmentalists need to get out of their own way and stop treating good as the enemy of perfect. Some progress is better than no progress. All technologies and approaches will be required. https://mobile.twitter.com/Peters_Glen/status/11948866002552...

This is true. We should be able to reach net-zero emissions in the energy industry by around 2040 (optimistic, but realistic target), and even produce enough clean electricity to power clean electric solutions in transport/agriculture/industrial/appliance sectors (which are the other main contributors to net GHG emissions). The only problem is that a lot of this technology is still missing / not adopting fast enough.…

> and even produce enough clean electricity to power clean electric solutions in transport/agriculture/industrial/appliance sectors

The agriculture part is overly optimistic. Agriculture entails GHG emissions from deforestation, fertilizer production, ruminant methane, NOx emissions, soil carbon depletion and other secondary effects. It's not like we can solve our problems by electrifying tractors.

Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

#50

Post by ivanhoe » Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 3:15 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #40

hannob wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cement releases CO2 as part of it's chemical curing process. It contributes to about 8% of worldwide emissions. Just to nitpick here, but I think this is crucial to understand: 8% is more plausibly a number for the total emissions of cement, including energy emissions. The chemical emissions are more in the range of 4%.

I'm not sure it would even be practical to capture the carbon emitted during the curing process as this is happening at it's final destination rather than during manufacture.

From what I've read about carbon-negative cement, idea is not to capture the carbon released during curing, but to make concrete that later, over years, chemically reacts and captures the carbon from the air. Because concrete is porous to the depth of 20+ inches, it has a very large surface that can slowly extract more CO2 from air than it initially had released.