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Carbon Removal Technologies

carbon.ycombinator.com

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Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#411

Post by elihu »

ivanhoe wrote: post #383
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 (whi…

That's a reasonable concern; I'd expect anyone doing this large-scale would first investigate local environmental impact.

Presumably one could add olivine in areas of the ocean that are far from coastlines, and spread it around in a wide area so local effects are less extreme. I don't know if dumping it in the deep ocean where there's less life to disrupt is viable, but if so maybe that would mitigate negative impact.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#412

Post by caf »

On the Electro-Geo-Chemistry page, there is an error here:

A 500 MW renewable energy power plant dedicated to negative-emissions H2 could therefore consume and store nearly 8 million tonnes of CO2 per day while generating a little more than 2 million kWh in the form of H2

As both the math and later text makes clear, such a plant would store ~21,600 tonnes of CO₂ per day - or 8 million tonnes per year. The 2 million kWh generated looks more like a daily figure but doesn't match up with the daily figure elsewhere in the article (it has 6 million kWh / day equivalent of H₂ generated for a similar sized plant) - it was probably supposed to be 2 billion kWh / year?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#413

Post by NeedMoreTea »

biglenny wrote: post #401
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That study starts with the ridiculous assumption of a 3.6 -7.9% leak rate in fracked gas. By their own admission, the data they used was spotty for leak rates during drill completion, and transport. Study is also outdated (2011) with regards to technological improvements of frack wells.

A leak rate confirmed by NOAA and Lawrence Berkeley: https://cleantechnica.com/2013/12/01/natural-gas-production-...

There's also a defence of the original study https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-012-0401-0#...

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#414

Post by beambot »

lchengify wrote: post #94
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…

I think Nathan Myhrvold [1] proposed something like this. There's a summary of it on one of the Freakonomics podcasts, but the summary is basically that it acts like an erupting volcano to cool the earth slightly. "MYHRVOLD: So, climate change is a 1-percent effect. Now all we have to do is make the sun 1 percent dimmer. Now I don’t literally mean changing the sun. But there are a variety of things that bounce sunlig…

"My company" referring to Intellectual Ventures, which has such an illustrious reputation with patents?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#415

Post by biglenny »

dm3730 wrote: post #400
biglenny wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone in their right minds believes that fighting CC is going to be a profitable venture at all. The point is it will take co-operation and investment by governments worldwide. It's also important to note that the geological formations necessary for sequestering CO2 are a lot more common than those required to _potentially_ be stores of crude. In addition to all this, countries around the world will ha…

> China/India in particular What data are you basing that on? We and our Arab client states are the biggest polluters by far, on a per capita basis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... CO2 emissions by country name (only fossil fuels and cement manufacture, metric tons per capita China 7.6 India 1.6 United States 16.4 Qatar 40.5 Saudi Arabia 19.2

Because most CO2 emissions are from industry, not humans, per capita statistics mean very little (especially since these industries ship their products globally). Per capita statistics are championed by industry because they shift blame to citizens and paint the false picture that citizens are entirely responsible for the nation's output.

This means it is more effective to use a metric like CO2 emitted per $1000 GDP because it reflects how polluting industry is in each country. See link attached and sort. It is also important to remember China and India (especially) are far from industrializing, and Western nations' emissions are dropping (they peaked 10-15 yrs ago).

In reality, some combination of CO2/capita and CO2/$1000GDP is the most effective for determining how polluting a country is.

Environmental policy is dictated at a national level. And this is why I put pressure on the Chinese state (again, NOT the people). A bigger portion of their emissions are caused by industry than in most countries). The Chinese state and only the Chinese state has the ability to reduce industrial emissions in their country.

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

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#416

Post by greglindahl »

intended wrote: post #354
greglindahl wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do all methods of curtailing CO2 emissions lower people's quality of life?

Yes or they don’t work. I’ve spent way to much time as lay man trying to penetrate Econ speak to get the issue, but the crux seems to be this: Currently markets and goods don’t price the cost of economic damage into products. So plastics are cheap as hell because they don’t reflect clean up costs. This means we have plastic straws which are so cheap on a per unit basis, that you can sell 100s in a single bundle. Sara…

So if I buy a car that has much better gas mileage, my quality of life is lowered?

If I buy a product that has less packaging, so there's less waste, my quality of life is lowered?

If I take up bicycling, and as a result drive less, is my quality of life lowered?

If the hotel I stay at starts using containers of soap instead of single-use packets, is my quality of life lowered?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#417

Post by yazaddaruvala »

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.

https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_green_why_we_should_build_...

This video makes me pretty proud to have graduated from UBC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHtdnY_gnmE

An extra reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DPp2NcnTb0

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#418

Post by aboodman »

drankula3 wrote: post #363
theothermkn wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Of you watch the video on the landing page they describe that olivine is a very common by-product of mining for other stuff. Currently the practice is to just pile it up, as it's worthless. So you don't even need to mine it (at least until demand scales way up) - just go to nearest mine and pick it up.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#419

Post by heurist »

aoner wrote: post #184
sandworm101 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I understand the qualms of environmentalists As one of those environmentalists, my qualm isn't so much that this may be dangerous but that carbon capture tech (and associated "carbon capture and storage") is often championed by people looking to delay implementation of technology and laws that limit carbon emissions. It is far more energy-efficient to curtail carbon emissions than try to capture it once emitted. T…

We're going to need carbon removal tech AND a decrease in emissions. From year 1750 to 2007, we've added around 820 000 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. We've already got way too much CO2 in the air, and we're still adding around 35 Gt per year extra. We need to find ways of getting this carbon out of the air. Best would be if we could create actual products out of it, such as aggregates using advanced weat…

I'll take it a step further and say I don't think sequestration will work if economically productive materials or systems can't be made out of the resulting carbon. Humanity is too shortsighted to fix it without gain. It's worth investing not only in the technologies that can halt climate change, but also the technologies that will enable us to survive as we endure increasingly volatile climate change.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#420

Post by louprado »

"It's time to invest and avidly pursue a new wave of technological solutions to this problem - including those that are risky, unproven, even unlikely to work".

I had a recent crackpot idea that falls into the "unlikely to work" category since my background is not chemistry.

Given that a modern automobile's tailpipe emissions are mostly C02 + H20, those molecules can be converted into ethylene (C2H2) using known efficient electro-catalytic processes. The conversion of ethylene gas to a polyethylene (plastic) is well known and has the added benefit of being exothermic.

The end goal is for my car to output a lump of plastic I can drop into the recycling bin instead of CO2.

But my gut tells me that:

1) There is no way to speed up the reactions to keep up with the 80 liters per second of tailpipe exhaust (~40rps * 2.0 liter engine) without this system being impractically large and/or requiring energy intensive compressors.

2) No one, including me, wants to drive around with a tank of hydrogen and a tank of ethylene gas.

But still, it might be fun to hack on something like this assuming I can do it safely. If anyone has any feedback, or has experience making polyethylene, I would be grateful for feedback even if it is negative. Thanks.

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