Also see: https://www.vice.com/en/article/nuclear-bomb-earths-crust-ge...
Good article!
Nuclear Explosion for Carbon Sequestration
51–60 of 66 posts
Re: Nuclear Explosion for Carbon Sequestration
#52This is insane shit. Some CCS is needed, probably using biomass, possibly using oceanic life, but this absurd like nuking the moon or using nukes for dam construction.
Re: Nuclear Explosion for Carbon Sequestration
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very much this! This is about removing (if it at wall will do that) without fixing the root cause. How deep can you put your head in the ground? It reminds of the Matrix where they scorched the skies to remove solar power capabilities as a way to block the enemy.
Climate science consensus is we need to decarbonize and remove. We've gone too far at this point, decarbonizatin alone is no longer sufficient. So we need all the solar-y wind-y nuclear-y stuff AND all this weird removal stuff. And some other weirder stuff too.
Or, use sensible CCS methods like plankton or kelp, charring that, and sending it to the bottom of the ocean instead of resorting to absurd plans like nukes.
Re: Nuclear Explosion for Carbon Sequestration
#5481 gigaton bomb?! Holy cow! It sounds like a planet buster! It seems to be the energy equivalent somewhere around an 8.5 magnitude or higher earthquake if the internet is to be believed?
No, the fireball size is proportional to the cube root of energy released, which is why giant nukes are generally wasteful compared to many smaller ones.
Re: Nuclear Explosion for Carbon Sequestration
#55They are talking about one gigantic nuclear explosion (81 Gt). Why couldn't multiple smaller explosions achieve the same outcome?
Isn't that much more expensive and therefore less likely to be approved?
The nukes just laying around in stockpiles are mostly in the 100-800kT range. You could use nukes that would otherwise need refurbishment (exploding old stockpiles and producing new stock instead of refurbishing old stock), or maybe even spin it as a disarmament treaty where the method of disposal are underground explosions for carbon sequestration. Or use it as an opportunity to use old nukes for a good purpose when you want to switch to a newer model (instead of needing facilities to disassemble them)
Re: Nuclear Explosion for Carbon Sequestration
#5681 gigaton bomb?! Holy cow! It sounds like a planet buster! It seems to be the energy equivalent somewhere around an 8.5 magnitude or higher earthquake if the internet is to be believed?
No, the fireball size is proportional to the cube root of energy released, which is why giant nukes are generally wasteful compared to many smaller ones.
But the goal isn't to make a giant fireball, the goal is to bury it 7 kilometers under the seafloor bed at detonate it, pulverizing a massive volume of rock. Nearly all of the energy is being captured by rock and water, not being blasted out into space. Im not sure why you started talking about military nukes when half the point of this thing is how completely infeasible it is for military usage.
Re: Nuclear Explosion for Carbon Sequestration
#57This would likely be less damaging if the bomb could be largely based on H-11B fusion rather than DT or DD fusion. The latter inevitably produce large numbers of neutrons.
At gigaton scales, thermonuclear devices become easier to build in a sense, because the assembly has more time to react as it expands. More stages are needed to compress that very large final stage, though.
The argument reminds me of Freeman Dyson's H bomb propelled interstellar concept, which exploited the fact that per unit of energy output, deuterium was (at the time of publication, in 1968) thousands of times cheaper than fossil fuels.
Re: Nuclear Explosion for Carbon Sequestration
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, the fireball size is proportional to the cube root of energy released, which is why giant nukes are generally wasteful compared to many smaller ones.
But the goal isn't to make a giant fireball, the goal is to bury it 7 kilometers under the seafloor bed at detonate it, pulverizing a massive volume of rock. Nearly all of the energy is being captured by rock and water, not being blasted out into space. Im not sure why you started talking about military nukes when half the point of this thing is how completely infeasible it is for military usage.
The 7 kilometers is the hard part.
Re: Nuclear Explosion for Carbon Sequestration
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
We do have the answers. Pigovian taxes. Government and industry work together to distract people so they don’t organize to demand the actual answers be implemented. 1) Universal basic income funded by taxes at the point of extraction or emission. See: Alaska (Permanent Fund) 2) Use the taxes to pay down the debt, give UBI since you’ll have to print money anyway. 3) Also raise taxes on non biodegradeable plastics and…
Any nation that implements a carbon tax will be at an competitive disadvantage, since you're compensating to reduce a global externality. It's a tragedy of the commons.
You could work out a global carbon tax system. Non cooperating nations would get trade sanctions costing them more than implementing the tax.
Re: Nuclear Explosion for Carbon Sequestration
#60The lengths people go to not to make walkable cities (and insulated buildings, fast trains.. you know, all the stuff that actually exists and works)
You do realize the effects of climate change will not be something for which you can just isolate your bedroom for, then move on. Everyone needs water. Directly, and for food production. The most populous regions in the world run on meltwater. The Indus Valley. Pakistan. Bangladesh. Indonesia. California. Central China. There are thousands such locations as well, by the way, just smaller. Meltwater that only comes if…
Indonesia, a land of 17,000 islands has meltwater on one mountain on one island, not the main one. I doubt it's that reliant on meltwater.