Live data from Hacker News

Carbon Removal Technologies

carbon.ycombinator.com

511–520 of 682 posts

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#511

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…

We're out of completely safe options and have to try to navigate between various risky options.

Another way to put this - we're not out of safe options if we're not doing the safe options. We may need to do risky options once we are fully engaged in doing the safe option but today, now, we have not yet acquired the ability to even do the safe options consistently.

Sure, maybe the risky options will be necessary but if efforts to do the safe get pissed away with corrupt deceptions, how are we expecting efforts to do the risky efforts won't suffer the safe fate?

That some amount of CO2 production is being reduced almost at random isn't much of an argument that human society has the ability to choose a path and follow it effectively. How many fake versions of sequestering do you think scammers will come up with if the money ever appears?

A regulatory body capable of doing CO2 reduction might have the competence to then regulate sequestering. Random activity by supposedly concerned citizens or something just invites abuse.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#512
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…

I am working on a non-profit that is utilizing Schuiling's research and is actually getting this project done. We are scouting beaches right now for a "wiggle" tank, which is a sort of see-saw like device where we can gather data to affirm the real world dissolution rate. The chemistry, however, is sound that each 1 ton of olivine will sequester 1.25 tons of carbon. By the end of 2019 we hope to have our first olivin…

how do you control carbon emmssions of those who produce olivine ?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#513
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…

I am working on a non-profit that is utilizing Schuiling's research and is actually getting this project done. We are scouting beaches right now for a "wiggle" tank, which is a sort of see-saw like device where we can gather data to affirm the real world dissolution rate. The chemistry, however, is sound that each 1 ton of olivine will sequester 1.25 tons of carbon. By the end of 2019 we hope to have our first olivin…

Do you know much CO2 we release to mine and move 1 tonne of olivine?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#514
post #80

I recently heard about Carbon Engineering, a B.C. Canada based firm that is extracting carbon from the atmosphere and making liquid fuel -- they call it "recycled fuel." Apparently it can be used in existing combustion engines. And it is already up and running. Something on the order of 10,000 of these industrial plants could get us carbon neutral rather quickly. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-co…

Carbon Engineering and Climeworks are two incredible companies working on Direct Air capture and Air-to-Fuel and we'd like to fund more companies like them. There are less than 5 companies worldwide that are serious about getting Direct Air Capture to scale. The world need more bets that that on such a promising technology

One of the things I find interesting about Carbon Engineerings process is that it requires a lot of heat to separate the captured carbon from the fluid (I forget what the fluid is called). Last I heard they were using natural gas for this (with more carbon capture tech attached).

I wonder if they have considered using concentrated solar as the heat source instead? The temps are pretty high and obviously there is no carbon capture needed so it might be a cheaper way of doing it. Also you already build those plants out in the desert so you probably have a lot of cheap land available to put the units nearby.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#515
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grassland, if properly managed, can sequester more carbon than a forest. This is related to the (unintuitive) fact that grasses are more efficient producers of organic matter than trees. Joel Salatin has done some great work related to this and collected decades worth of data. So the irony is that we could grow more beef and pull carbon out of the air at the same time, only if we cared. But we don't, it's easier to s…

Grassland does not tend to develop soil, so if employed in feeding cattle, the cattle is where the carbon is "sequestered" to - into and through them, out the rear end. If the grass is cut and harvested (at some expense) instead of fed to cattle, then we get a lot of carbon negative hay to do something with. Bury it maybe (to sequester) or biofuels (to release again). With traditional timber plantations we get the ca…

From everything I've researched the opposite is true. Properly managing grasslands (which used to happen naturally with large herds) makes for health grasses which develop root systems, create soil and sequester carbon.

Poorly managed grasslands that are under grazed leads to soil degradation. The answer seems to be intensive grazing followed by rest periods to allow grasses to use nutrients and grow.

More links in my post here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18287434

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#516
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The global rate of extreme poverty has dropped from 29% 20 years ago to less than 9% today. You need a solid argument for how these actions would reverse the incredible drop in poverty and start us in the other direction, not just the usual factually wrong conventional wisdom.

Extrme poverty is a razors edge from just poverty, and that growth has been driven by magic substances like plastic. A classic example of economic growth innovation in price sensitive India is the single use detergent sachet- each of those represents an improvement in cleanliness and hygiene for people who couldn’t afford it before. Now increase the cost of plastic, even marginally and that change reverberates down t…

> A classic example of economic growth innovation in price sensitive India is the single use detergent sachet- each of those represents an improvement in cleanliness and hygiene for people who couldn’t afford it before.

Maybe I'm not western enough, but I can't understand that thing. How is a single-use detergent sachet an improvement over good ol' powder? Do you have any articles discussing it?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#517
> The question then becomes, whether we can create new genetic chemistries that are not based on DNA, but some new genetic polymer?

Is this article a PR piece? I am a bit annoyed by the lack of reflection in this naive approach to develop xeno-biology and let it loose in our (only) planetary habitat.

If it were the only statement of the kind in the sub-articles, it would be fine. There is, however, a strong disregard for second/third systems effects. Radical approaches alone do not cut it, they have to 'fit'.

Not that it is easy to do in the first place, but please think about the ecosystem as a whole. It is hard to take these type of statements seriously - but this is YC here, an outlet with a lot of media impact. Please communicate a responsible call for action.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since that intervention may arrive late-or-never in different nations, it's one of the reasons that I believe active carbon dioxide removal measures will be necessary in addition to emissions reduction efforts. Both regulating carbon emissions and active carbon dioxide removal measures will, in the end, come down to some state or world body acting in a coordinated way to push money at this problem. It seems like peop…

If most countries decide to use basic regulation but, say, Russia, does not, then the other countries could use active removal to offset the Russian emissions. Not likely a world body is forcing Russia to do anything (although if Europe stopped using their gas, they would have a lot less power).

Find a way to build georedundant electricity links from stable solar fields in e.g. the Sahara or so, up to Europe, with a reliable capacity of ~ 1 TW or maybe even closer to 5 TW, along the feeding solar arrays, and we can use existing ways to store energy for nightly use to wean Europe of natural gas in about a decade.

The largest one build seems to be 10 GW between Xinjiang and Anhui. It's still quite a bit from the scale we'd need to wean of natural gas however.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#519
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was the carbon not already sequestered when it was in the form of a tree?

I assume any serious paper production company replants the tree, so you start with a tree and end with a tree and landfilled paper.

Given strommen's statement about landfilled paper turning into methane, doesn't that mean paper manufacturing is basically a carbon dioxide->methane conversion operation?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#520
post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am working on a non-profit that is utilizing Schuiling's research and is actually getting this project done. We are scouting beaches right now for a "wiggle" tank, which is a sort of see-saw like device where we can gather data to affirm the real world dissolution rate. The chemistry, however, is sound that each 1 ton of olivine will sequester 1.25 tons of carbon. By the end of 2019 we hope to have our first olivin…

Do you know much CO2 we release to mine and move 1 tonne of olivine?

That's the question I was wondering. Paying a few hundred dollars to be carbon neutral seems good (at least if it's not just to a way to allow guilt-free consumption) but but:

- we need to be sure we are paying for the carbon we trap minus the one we released

- we need to be sure releasing that much olivine in the complex and living system that is the ocean is not going to have a terrible impact on it

- we need to be able to adjust according to profile. I use planes a lot and I buy bitcoins, yet I'm veggie and don't own a car. I'm probably not at the middle of the Gausse line but I don't have a clear picture of where I am.

Post reply on HN