Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Carbon Removal Technologies

carbon.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

571–580 of 682 posts

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#571

Post by zeroname »

drankula3 wrote: post #289
matznerd wrote: post #230

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…

> Raw olivine is currently ~$20-$25/ton and the average us person puts out 15-20 tons of CO2/year. Globe-scale carbon sequestration would increase demand for olivine massively. Would mining operations be able to scale appropriately without prices going through the roof?

> Globe-scale carbon sequestration would increase demand for olivine massively. Would mining operations be able to scale appropriately without prices going through the roof?

Prices wouldn't go through the roof, because the demand isn't there at higher prices. A significantly higher price would make other methods of sequestration attractive instead.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#572

Post by deialtrous »

btilly wrote: post #431
deialtrous wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are we so concerned about ocean acidification from CO2, when past CO2 levels were far higher than now and all of the shellfish species that currently exist lived back then too? Wouldn't it be a good idea to consider the massive quantities of known toxins we pump into the oceans rather than fixating on a red herring?

Your question assumes that the oceans had to have been acidic because CO2 was high. This assumption is wrong. You don't get acidification as long as CO2 levels change slowly enough that it mixes down to the bottom of the ocean and then gets buffered by calcium bicarbonate being dissolved there and mixing back to the top. But this mixing takes place on the scale of a thousand years. This is no big deal for CO2 level c…

You can say that if you like, but I tend to err on the side of scientific evidence. Even the hysterians most scary claims merely suggest that we "are headed for" ocean PH levels that are "unheard of in 25 million years". And yet the shellfish people are trying to tell us will die from slightly thinner shells have been around for a couple of hundred million years.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#573

Post by smolder »

greglindahl wrote: post #196
thereisnospork wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure we could curtail CO2 emissions, but that means lowering people's quality of life which is a hard sell.

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

Only based on the idea of QoL that comes from economics, where it's measured by money exchanged. That's the less important definition, IMO, just a poor approximation of real QoL.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#574

Post by agumonkey »

astrodust wrote: post #449
agumonkey wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about it, a generation ago the ozone layer was the most we did. The rest was impossibly deep in humanity subconscious. And to add the club of rome report came out before most of us were even born...

I still can't believe that ozone depleting CFCs and putting toxic lead in gasoline were the the inventions of the same guy . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr . Given more time I'm sure he would have come up with other world destroying chemicals.

Oh yeah, THAT "most impacting" guy in human history..

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#575

Post by Dumblydorr »

aoner wrote: post #191
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 geo-engineering will open Pandora's box. On one hand, we need to invest in geo-engineering as a last resort, on the other hand, if people see this as the last resort the problem of CO2 will seem less urgent. Very dangerous stuff.

People already don’t care about carbon emissions. Those on the right think it’s a hoax or humans aren’t causing climate change, those on the left largely pay lip service, but still do very little.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#576

Post by chimprich »

Just because you like them, should that trump significant threats to the environment or or civilisation?

I rather like spending money, but I know I only have a certain budget. Consequently I only spend what money is available rather than only depending on how much I want things.

I feel we should look at the environment in the same way; decide our carbon budget, and work within what's possible according to that, rather than start with what is palatable to the individual and working backwards.

Keeping our environment habitable seems like something we have to do rather than a nice-to-have.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#577

Post by Retric »

elihu wrote: post #539
Retric wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that blocks that much light is going to be a huge solar sail and need a lot of station keeping. The only reason ionic propulsion might be considered is the they are already going to be solar panels. If you make a large chunk of them from solar panels you then have crazy energy for space based industry and plenty of energy for ionic propulsion. Also, with that much mass in orbit you are going to want some way…

Supposing you can re-orient parts of the "huge solar sail" then wouldn't it become rather like the sail of a ship or the wing of a plane, and be usable as a control surface for maneuvering? I'd imagine that in the neighborhood of L1 you would try to find some equilibrium point a little closer in to the sun so that the force of the solar wind matches gravitational pull to the sun. If you start drifting in to the sun,…

That's the idea I was going with. You let the sun counteract most of the force from your solar sail, but that requires you to constantly to make minor adjustments because unlike a normal orbit it's not even close to stable over time.

But, while not necessarily difficult it does prevent a lot of the more simple designs as you can't just toss out a bunch of reflective beach balls with very low pressure or other 'simple' means of blocking sunlight.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#578

Post by 49para »

wdewind wrote: post #448
DTrejo wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salatin’s mob grazing creates soil. It is cheaper to raise them this way because you don’t need to buy corn feed. The cows digest grass well. They do not digest corn well, which means corn fed cows produce methane and get sick, and don’t build the soil (sequestering carbon). Definitely worth watching some YouTube videos and reading about it, it’s pretty fun and interesting.

The problem with mob grazing (and really any kind of similar system) is that you cannot support nearly as many animals per sq ft. in comparison to more industrialized farming. Salatin's solution is to shift a major portion of the work force/economy into making sustainable food. It sounds amazing from a utopian standpoint but is a total fantasy.

Won't the rise of automation result in a lot of people without jobs ? They could start working on sustainable food.

Sounds like a win / win.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#579

Post by cjrd »

vanderZwan wrote: post #545
wdewind wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I want this desperately to be true as someone who loves meat but everything I've read tells me it's not. There is definitely a nice symbiotic relationship that exists between cows grazing and grasslands but it is significantly more expensive to raise animals this way, and you can raise significantly fewer…

> The main issue with cows is methane, not carbon Although objectively it makes the most sense if we all eat less meat or even go vegan (in terms of bang-for-the-buck), from what I understand the methane problem is mostly a result of them not being fed a healthy diet.

Cows are ruminants, so their production of methane is a necessary component of the fermentation that takes place in their digestive track.

Also, somewhat surprisingly, "free range grass fed diets" lead to more methane production then cows fed grain diets (factory farmed cows).

See https://www.fcrn.org.uk/sites/default/files/project-files/fc...

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#580

Post by carry_bit »

DuskStar wrote: post #499
peterlk wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Carbon Engineering's fuel costs about 25 per cent more than gasoline made from oil Seriously?! If this is actually true, sign me up. I will absolutely pay a 25% fuel tax to make the world a better place and also not have to give oil companies more money

Yeah, if that's the case - if we can make petroleum products from CO2 and power for only a 25% premium (hell, a 100% premium) over current prices, that's incredible . That's not (just) an environmental breakthrough, it's a MASSIVE geopolitical change. All of a sudden, the pricing power of oil exporting countries disappears - there's an infinitely scalable replacement waiting in the wings. Hell, can you imagine how mu…

> can you imagine how much the US Navy would pay to produce jet fuel on board carriers (nuclear power!) and eliminate a need for underway replenishment?

They're already working on that too.

Post reply on HN