Carbon Removal Technologies • Hacker News Board

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#661

Post by prrls » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 12:48 PM UTC

zeroname wrote: post #566

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, 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. Why? Because I want to keep my standard of living, just like almost everyone else. What a silly question to even ask. Any solution that asks people to practice austerity is obviously doomed to fail.…

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

These things you classify as comfort may not be that essential and good for you and the others. Someone that eats animal products everyday and claims that it's their comfort, while it's affecting their health, the lives of 56 billion animals per year and the environment, is, to me, problematic.

I always, in my head, compare it to slavery. While it's not the same thing, of course, the pattern is the same. Something that's not ethical at all, but we, for a long time, did not care because of the comfort it brings us. Can we still live without it? Of course. And well.

I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time getting my point accross in these topics, but what I mean is that what you call "comfort" may not that critical to your well-being at all. You don't need to change eveything from day 1, but doing it a bit more everyday will make feel like a better human being, as you know you're living by respecting others and your environment, while giving money is kind of too easy and doesn't influence what's surrounding you. If you want things to change, you have to be this change. By being it you expose others to the issue you're fighting and make think about it in another way, up to a point they might understand it and join the fight, or at least acknowledge it. It's a very slow process but this is how sustainable change goes since the dawn of time. Actions matter, but ideas win. And ideas don't get seeded with money (well, in the long-term... because propaganda and stuff, but I hope you get the gist).

In another comment you mention you don't like walking. These likings are not by any means frozen in you. Maybe you never tried enjoying walking alone, with your thoughts drifting away in your mind and just living the present moment. Comfort is really subjective, I really think what we should all yearn for is the greater good, which, suprisingly doesn't cost that much in the end and gives you a real sentiment of fulfillment. It's just a matter of /being/ that change.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#662

Post by dereke » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 1:24 PM UTC

strainer wrote: post #591

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 enh…

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I absolutely agree with you regarding regenerative agriculture and moving towards a plant based diet. We have to do that so we can stop destroying the soil and can actually produce food with adequate nutrition.

With regards to intensive grazing it appears that some farms do do it and there have been some studies that suggest it does work. For instance this study (of which I've only read the abstract) seems to support the technique - http://www.publish.csiro.au/sr/SR07220

There are quite a few more studies and supporting material on this site http://www.regenerateland.com I won't pretend to have read them all but from the few abstracts that I have read it seems to be based in science.

As a vegan I don't want to see more animals being killed and eaten, however if farmers are going to keep farming then they should do it this way (and using silvopasture we need multiple approaches!). However if ensuring the survival of the planet involves using animals to do some work then I'm definitely open to it.

Something which may be of additional interest to you are Forest Gardens which seem to be pretty good at optimising a whole system https://www.agroforestry.co.uk/about-agroforestry/forest-gar.... The book "Creating a Forest Garden" by Martin Crawford is definitely worth checking out if only for the wealth of information regarding types of plants and their use.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#663

Post by rexpop » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 1:26 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #588

rexpop wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't realize you were a masses. If you don't have time to read two books, how did you get a job in the technology industry? I'm sick of you lazy techies. Grow up and read a damn book.

Telling people to read books to understand your argument is a form of gate-keeping that isn't going to convince anyone of your argument. If you can't express it yourself after having read 5+ books, why would I want to go through the same exercise?

I just did you a huge favor listing those books because, of the hundreds I've read, these few are particularly telling, relevant, and accessible.

You now want me to synthesize a co-review of them all? That's actually a fantastic idea, which I am now more seriously considering, but I won't do it out of charity to those privileged enough to frequent this website.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#664

Post by DoctorOetker » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

philipkglass wrote: post #613

DoctorOetker wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As btilly has mentioned a few times, ocean acidification is a major problem because atmospheric CO2 has risen so quickly. It takes a few thousand years for the atmosphere, the upper portion of the ocean, and the deep ocean to reach equilibrium. There is an especially elevated CO2 concentration and corresponding lowered pH in the upper layers because there hasn't been time to reach equilibrium with the larger volumes…

I am really grateful for the text you mentioned, but it did not change my opinion on this technology as a carbon removal technology, it only confirmed what I understood. However, it is very well written and I will probably reference others to it whenever I can. The only minor mistake I could detect was a "boron" when clearly carbon was intended. If you have a similar quality text detailing the relevant parameters of adding carbonated rocks to counter the acidification I would be interested.

I was discussing the claimed carbon removal aspect, so I now disregard the acidification aspect...

In my analogy I stand corrected and should have stated that the bottle of water represented the surface seawater, since there is no free fast oceanic mixer. The surface water is equilibrating much faster with atmosphere than the whole water column of the ocean.

You defend the technology by mentioning that the average residence time is about 200.000 years, but that is for all inorganic carbon across the whole depth of the ocean, not just the surface layer! As you say there is not enough mixing, so dissolved inorganic carbon in surface seawater has a much shorter residence time. The long residence time is dominated by the slow movement of deep sea water...

So unless the proposal is augmented with either a huge oceanic mixer, or with dumping the carbonate over the mariana trench (if it dissolves there, it will take a long time before it reaches atmosphere again), lacking these augmentations we are dissolving carbonates in surface seawater, and the carbonate ions can equilibrate back to CO2 so it really is just emissions foisted of as capture...

If it stays in the solid say calcite CaCO3 state as opposed to being dissolved, then it does not affect the alkalinity of the surface water...

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#665

Post by DoctorOetker » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:50 PM UTC

ajnin wrote: post #603

DoctorOetker wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why would the CaCO3 return to carbonate after death ? In the past skeletons of diatoms dropped down to the ocean floors in huge layers which are now limestone rock.

You are certainly correct that there is limestone rock and that it derives from skeletons of diatoms etc..

Consider this (caricaturized) argument: suppose most artificial mummies are mummified humans, that does not mean most humans end up mummified!

please check out the sibling comment by philipkglass, the referenced text has a section on calcite compensation, and the previous section detailing the saturation horizon. At high enough pressure calcite prefers being dissolved again.

Consider a calcite diatom cap, close to the beach, since it is above the saturation horizon, it won't dissolve soon, now consider a diatom dropping dead over the mariana trench, so the calcite starts sinking, until it passes the saturation horizon, now the pressure is clearly high enough to prefer being dissolved...

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#666

Post by Retric » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 7:22 PM UTC

tgb wrote: post #269

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earth-Sol L1 is probably a bad place for a solar shade. That's where a solar shade of any given size is the most efficient, but the cost of getting it there is much more than the cost of having more, less efficient ones. A better choice is something akin to a semi-sun-synchronous Molniya-style-orbit. That is, orbit that is somewhat highly elliptical (so a satellite on it spends most of it's time near apogee, and zips…

Is L1 the most efficient for a fixed size? The difference is ~6000 km for LEO versus 1.5 million km for L1 to the Earth's center and the r^2 law means you need to put a lot more area in L1 than in LEO, even after discounting for the fact that in LEO it'll be on the wrong side of the Earth half the time. Filling up appreciable fractions of LEO might have it's own problems.

r^2 is not that relevant. The moon is 384,400 km from the earth and can cause a total solar eclipse despite only being 3,474 km wide where the earth is 12,742 km wide.

The geometry works out more or less linearly with distance. So 1.5 / 0.384 = 1.065. Which means and object 1.065x as wide as the earth would also provide a total solar eclipse. Making sunshades more than 2x effective L1 vs LEO.

PS: Only 1/2 the time they are on the sun facing side, but they are not perpendicular with sunlight for that entire half. At a 45 degree angle a sunshade blocks ~70% as much sunlight vs a 0 degree angle.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#667

Post by philipkglass » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 8:43 PM UTC

DoctorOetker wrote: post #664

philipkglass wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As btilly has mentioned a few times, ocean acidification is a major problem because atmospheric CO2 has risen so quickly. It takes a few thousand years for the atmosphere, the upper portion of the ocean, and the deep ocean to reach equilibrium. There is an especially elevated CO2 concentration and corresponding lowered pH in the upper layers because there hasn't been time to reach equilibrium with the larger volumes…

I am really grateful for the text you mentioned, but it did not change my opinion on this technology as a carbon removal technology , it only confirmed what I understood. However, it is very well written and I will probably reference others to it whenever I can. The only minor mistake I could detect was a "boron" when clearly carbon was intended. If you have a similar quality text detailing the relevant parameters of…

The pH shift from adding more alkalinity via silicate weathering shifts the equilibrium to favor more CO2 dissolved as carbonate in the oceans. That is why I do not worry about captured CO2 going back to the atmosphere in less than geological time: the shifted chemical equilibrium will favor more dissolved carbonate.

As a small scale example, consider a beaker of distilled water freely exposed to the atmosphere. It dissolves a small amount of CO2 and becomes slightly acidic from carbonic acid. Now add sodium hydroxide -- it becomes strongly alkaline. Wait again and the pH falls again (though not to its original level), due to dissolving more carbon dioxide, which is deprotonated to form carbonate anions. You can keep adding hydroxide and absorbing more atmospheric CO2 for quite some time, until solubility limits come into play. Even though it is just a solution at equilibrium with the atmosphere, and not a precipitated solid, the sodium carbonate solution will not spontaneously separate back to sodium hydroxide solution in the beaker and CO2 in the surrounding atmosphere. It takes thermodynamic work to reverse the carbonate-heavy equilibrium.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#668

Post by bskinny129 » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 9:05 PM UTC

adamsea wrote: post #623

bskinny129 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe a business model helps align incentives and increases potential scale. Certainly things can evolve, but the plan is no cut from users and charge businesses a markup to balance employee commute and flights. Hopefully can make it in the businesses self-interest where they see a return on their small investment in terms of employee satisfaction and retention.

I certainly agree a business model can do those things, and sometimes does. I could see companies such as Patagonia, who have a strong reputation for prioritizing sustainability, potentially being interested in a service like that. It seems tricky though to align the interests of your users, your customers (businesses, the ones who will actually be paying you) and the environment. Which is not to doubt your intent, b…

It does seem tricky. A worthy adversary even.

Look 10 years out in the future though and I think it is easy to imagine 1) many more people care about this 2) the urgency they feel is increased. Can we start with the Patagonias of the world (there are many others) and build some traction? Can we make it something that young employees want and bring transparency to which companies participate? If it can give a slight edge to McKinsey over Bain for example, the cost is trivial.

[Update regarding above: no YC interview, which is understandable based on where things currently stand]

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#669

Post by bskinny129 » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

thinkling wrote: post #636

bskinny129 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For now money will be passed along to the best-in-class organizations doing hands-on carbon removal projects - I believe there are several excellent non-profits with the right efficiency and transparency. Yet even though these great organizations exist and plenty of people care about the environment, hardly any money ends up on their hands. I think there is great grass-roots potential to change this and it is equally…

Sounds a bit like what Nori plans to do. http://rameznaam.com/2018/09/10/yes-blockchain-can-help-us-s...

I'll have to check them out, thanks for sharing. I did hear of another blockchain carbon project, but this one seems more promising at first glance.

Re: Carbon Removal Technologies

#670

Post by DoctorOetker » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 10:42 PM UTC

philipkglass wrote: post #667

DoctorOetker wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am really grateful for the text you mentioned, but it did not change my opinion on this technology as a carbon removal technology , it only confirmed what I understood. However, it is very well written and I will probably reference others to it whenever I can. The only minor mistake I could detect was a "boron" when clearly carbon was intended. If you have a similar quality text detailing the relevant parameters of…

The pH shift from adding more alkalinity via silicate weathering shifts the equilibrium to favor more CO2 dissolved as carbonate in the oceans. That is why I do not worry about captured CO2 going back to the atmosphere in less than geological time: the shifted chemical equilibrium will favor more dissolved carbonate. As a small scale example, consider a beaker of distilled water freely exposed to the atmosphere. It d…

Sure but in your example you are adding sodiumhydroxide.

I agree that after adding say CaCO3 to distilled water containing inorganic carbon (CO2, carbonate ions, ...) the carbon content will have increased after equilibrating with the atmosphere, but not with the claim that the eventual carbon content of the water will be the sum of the original carbon content plus added CaCO3 carbon content... some undisclosed part of the added carbon content will be released as CO2 to atmosphere...