Carbon Removal Technologies • Hacker News Board

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#591

Post by strainer » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 2:10 PM UTC

dereke wrote: post #252

I've been watching waay too many youtube videos about reforestation, agriculture and land management recently and I think I've learned a little from it (links at the end). We no longer have the number of massive herds of animals that used to roam the plains/savannahs grazing, pooing and to a lesser extent escaping from predators. This has meant that the grasslands are no longer trampled on and "fertilised". This has…

I came across those videos before and noticed the main speaker has been giving talks for many years claiming he has transformed the fertility and productivity of multiple cattle farms in the course of research, by simply increasing cattle density and intensity. Alas if there were truth to the idea, Allan Savory would not need to promote it - he could own or have franchised thousands of farms by now.

The purported enhanced stocking strategy would catch like wildfire if it were real and could at least be well documented after years of research, but there are no studies of any substance for it. There is no difficulty in implementing it - just keep more cattle than before, allow it to herd, move the herd around and presto your output increases and costs reduce - climate and environment get fixed and we all eat steak. This is not an exaggeration of the case made in the videos.

I think the theme detracts from the image of practical sustainable farming techniques, which are very real, continue to develop and have to compete in the current economy.

https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/plant-rich-diet

https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/regenerative-agricul...

https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/conservation-agricul...

https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/silvopasture

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#592

Post by strainer » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 2:14 PM UTC

dereke wrote: post #515

strainer wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

I made a reply to your post on that subject of potentially transformational management of grasslands.

On this ungainly subject of grassland vs mixed forest here, I'll just remind - two hundred years ago about 60% of the earth surface was covered in mature and native forest. The figure is less than 30% today. Most of the worlds fertile crops are grown on deforested land, on the soil which native forests developed due to ecological diversity and lack of erosion. Most of the grasslands which are used for grazing, don't have soil to support demanding crops.

https://www.britannica.com/science/deforestation

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#593

Post by beat » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 2:40 PM UTC

intended wrote: post #357

beat wrote: 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…

The thing is, it's not just "a razor's edge from just poverty". If you use Hans Rosling's four-part income definition, "just poverty" represents a 4x increase in income from "extreme poverty". For Americans who might make hundreds of dollars a day, the difference between a dollar a day and four dollars a day may not seem like much. But imagine instead what it would be like to change from $100k/year to $400k/year. That's the ratio, but the effects are even greater than that.

It's access to some rudimentary health care. It's maybe a bicycle for transportation. It's a gas stove so you no longer have to use firewood to cook (speaking of deforestation...). It's maybe getting a cash-paying job so you can quadruple your income again.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#594

Post by aiCeivi9 » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 2:46 PM UTC

singularity2001 wrote: post #526

Iron fertilization! 1 kg of iron can fix 83000 kg of carbon dioxide and turn it into biomass. The idea is that you give algae the one ingredient to growth which is very sparse in the oceans yet over-abundant on land. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization "Give me a half a tanker of iron and I will give you another ice age"

It is also great tool to turn oceans into oxygen-free death zones.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#595

Post by wardrobe » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 2:48 PM UTC

realusername wrote: post #481

super-serial wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of it is I want to support promising geoengineering solutions because I don't think reducing emissions will be enough in the future. In particular spreading olivine on beaches also reduces ocean acidity and gives nutrients to the base of the ocean food chain. Donating money so that polluting industries can pollute less seems like a bailout to those industries. They should be fined/regulated by their governments…

> Part of it is I want to support promising geoengineering solutions because I don't think reducing emissions will be enough in the future. In particular spreading olivine on beaches also reduces ocean acidity and gives nutrients to the base of the ocean food chain. We can do both! No need to make a choice. The carbon offsetting schemes in the developing world are currently very cheap because we have all the low hang…

Do you have any carbon offset schemes you recommend? I feel like there are a lot of BS offsets out there.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#596

Post by strainer » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 2:53 PM UTC

cjrd wrote: post #579

vanderZwan wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

Grassfed does not necessarily lead to more methane production, it depends on the mix of grass and secondary vegetation, on the grain mix being compared to, and on potential supplements.

https://prairiesoilsandcrops.ca/articles/volume-1-3-print.pd...

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#597

Post by dmm » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 2:57 PM UTC

DoctorOetker wrote: post #590

dmm wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they are discussing is simply an acceleration of a natural process: the carbonate-silicate cycle[1]. Silicate rocks are transformed into carbonate rocks through weathering. This captures CO2 from the atmosphere. When carbonate rocks are transformed back into silicates through metamorphosis or magmatism the CO2 is released back into the atmosphere. This definitely has the potentially for the long-term capture of…

The Carbonate Silicate cycle you linked also states: >These dissolved minerals are eventually carried by water to the ocean, where they are used by living organisms such as foraminifera, radiolarians, coccolithopores, and diatoms to create shells of CaCO3 (calcite) or SiO2 (opal) through the reactions Ca2+ (aq) + 2HCO3− (aq) → CaCO3(s) + CO2(g) + H2O(l) (for calcite precipitation) and SiO2(aq) → SiO2(s) (for opal pre…

That makes sense, thanks

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#598

Post by paulie999 » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 2:57 PM UTC

nmeofthestate wrote: post #583

doon123 wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll pay $400 to be carbon neutral!? Why don't you just stop eating meat, stop driving, stop whatever else that you do and have a smaller carbon footprint naturally, instead of living a carbon lavish life and paying some money to be called carbon neutral. Its like bribing your way out of jail after you have done the crime. [EDIT]: removed expletives

>Why don't you just stop eating meat I saw a recent study that said everyone going veggie in the developed world would only have a couple of percentage points effects on emissions. Surprisingly ineffective.

Errr, citation?

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#599

Post by anonuser123456 » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 3:07 PM UTC

linuxkerneldev wrote: post #538

anonuser123456 wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with carbon taxes are the incentives to cheat. The US is probably being the 'most honest' by simply saying we won't implement them. In China and India they would simply misreport their emissions and not pay the tax. And of course, you can't hit the carbon targets w/out getting India & China on board. In the absence of a world governing body with teeth (e.g. space aliens with a death ray), you can't enforc…

> The US is probably being the 'most honest' by simply saying we won't implement them. In China and India they would simply misreport their emissions and not pay the tax. Uhm, is there some data backing up your claim that we are honest and that China and India are dishonest. I mean, we really should think twice about accusing other countries of dishonesty after our whole weapons of mass destruction invasion debacle,…

This wasn't really an accusation that China / India are less moral, only that they will game the system differently than the US will. I mean... I put 'most honest' in quotes to imply the US is not really honest. No state actor is honest or moral, they all act in their own national interests.f

For all the instances you reference, you think India or China don't have an equivalent moral failing? Cultural revolution? Great leap forward? Tienanmen square? Great firewall?

As for India, go look up "most polluted city in the world." The top 5 are located in India and 9 of the top 10 are in India. Do you expect them to implement carbon taxes when they can't even clean up their own air?

The whole point of this thread is that we need a technology solution with the underlying reasoning that political solutions have been and will remain untenable.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#600

Post by drewmassey » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 3:14 PM UTC

I work at a startup that is using AI to reduce emissions in industrial and data center contexts. I like the big sky approach of this post but so much savings / reduction is an execution question.

We are hiring so DM me if you would like to learn more!