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Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale

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91–100 of 198 posts

Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could we put them into pods and throw them at Mars so we start dumping Co2 on Mars for Musk's Mars Mushroom Mart! too grow.

Could ? Yes. It'd probably be the most expensive way to get rid of CO2, though.

> Could? Yes. It'd probably be the most expensive way to get rid of CO2, though.

So? I in this context that is a plus not a minus!

Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale

#92
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the gasses we pull from the ground are byproducts of oil and natural gas production. We don't pull them from the ground because we want them on their own, we just go ahead and capture them because they are coming up with the stuff we want for fuel - they'll still continue to be captured (or worse vented to the atmosphere) as long as we're pulling those fuel sources from the ground. Industrial CO2 also mostly…

We use so much CO2 (on beverages, inert atmospheres, cooling devices, fire extinguishers, etc). Does all of it come as side-product of some industrial process? Or do we burn extra fuels to get it?

Most all of it comes as a side product. The amount of CO2 used for the applications listed pales in comparison to the amount used for urea (fertilizer) production.

Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with plant based sequestration is that it is a net neutral proposition unless you can bury the plants. All the talk about forests being so great(and they are, just not as carbon sinks) ignores the complete lifecycle, which is only as negative as the sustained volume of the forest, assuming you started from just dirt. If that forest ever burns, it's all back in the atmosphere again.

> unless you can bury the plants. Maybe this is a naive question: but why not bury plants? We got into this mess by digging up long-buried plants, so why not literally reverse the process? With intentional effort, maybe this could be a viable solution? (Probably not -- but I'm curious why.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_agriculture#Carbo...

Possible. Practical. Increases productivity.

Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale

#94
post #35

I want to be excited about this, but it's capturing CO2 as CO2 gas, not sequestering CO2 in a form that keeps it out of the atmosphere. If you pay a lot of money in process and power to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere or out of exhaust gases and then use it in chemical processes other than ones which sink the carbon into long lasting solid, liquid, or oceanic absorption form you're just burning money and power to make…

Inject CO2 into basalt formations, and over the course of a year or so it will turn into rock. There are already several pilot programs doing this, and it's very scalable.

Other projects apply energy to turn the CO2 into liquid fuel. Of course that returns the CO2 to the atmosphere, but it'll be a long time before we electrify long-haul jets so it'd be great if their fuel were carbon-neutral.

Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale

#95
post #87

>We have developed a process to bring air in contact with a base substrate that captures CO2 molecules while letting N2 and O2 molecules pass through. After energy is applied, CO2 is desorbed from the substrate for downstream treatment and compression. This sounds very similar to how Verdox[0] is approaching the problem. What sets your approach apart? [0] https://verdox.com/

That's basically the default approach that's been used for >100 years.

[Patent US1783901A](https://patents.google.com/patent/US1783901A/en ) (1930-ish) shows the basic closed-loop configuration that most folks build from.

Gist is to sorb acid-gas (like CO2) into a basic-solvent (e.g., aqueous monoethanolamine), then heat it up to release the acid-gas. Then the regenerated-solvent can be reused.

Making the process closed-loop may've been more of a focus around 1930. Before that, I think there were some patents showing open-loop designs (this is, designs where the solvent isn't regenerated-and-reused).

Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale

#96
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with plant based sequestration is that it is a net neutral proposition unless you can bury the plants. All the talk about forests being so great(and they are, just not as carbon sinks) ignores the complete lifecycle, which is only as negative as the sustained volume of the forest, assuming you started from just dirt. If that forest ever burns, it's all back in the atmosphere again.

Of course there is always the possibility that things could burn but forests that burn do grow back eventually. Plant-based sequestration should not be written off. A planet covered by X% of forest vs Y% where X%>Y% has more sequestered carbon. If that X% is long-term stable, i.e. if the forests are preserved and curated on a long-term basis, then so is that carbon. Forests are also an enjoyable natural environment f…

When we say "plant based sequestration" we are (I for one am) not talking forests. Carbon sequestration in forests is wilfully ignoring the economic and practical drawbacks:

Forests only sequester carbon as they grow. After that they are carbon neutral. You end up with land that cannot be used for any economic purpose. (The creatures and plants that live in it have a value too, but that is not part of this argument).

After that, at some point, in a year, ten years, a hundred years, the forest burns. And all the carbon is released.

A pointless waste of time. We do it because we are obsessed with things we can count (one tree, two trees....) and fixated on the short term.

There is a better way: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00167...

Increase depth of top soil all over our agricultural land. It increases productivity and sequesters carbon. But it has no profit centre and is hard to measure, and given our "big man" capitalist culture that is the problem.

We really must stop producing CO2. That is the only answer that does not steal the future from our children

Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale

#97
post #70

The numbers seem to indicate some challenges. This is just back of the envelope and this isn't my field so I may be misinterpreting the data, but it looks like extracting 1 million tons of CO2 per year has the following costs (at lab scale values): * > 1 Billion dollars * > 5 Million MWhr Assuming 200 Kg/MWhr of CO2 emissions produced by electrical generation (I believe the average carbon intensity in the USA is over…

If you're setting this up at enough scale to matter, you're going to need more power than is available today anyway. As long as you're building new, it would make sense to build renewable or nuclear.

Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale

#98
post #94
post #35

I want to be excited about this, but it's capturing CO2 as CO2 gas, not sequestering CO2 in a form that keeps it out of the atmosphere. If you pay a lot of money in process and power to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere or out of exhaust gases and then use it in chemical processes other than ones which sink the carbon into long lasting solid, liquid, or oceanic absorption form you're just burning money and power to make…

Inject CO2 into basalt formations, and over the course of a year or so it will turn into rock. There are already several pilot programs doing this, and it's very scalable. Other projects apply energy to turn the CO2 into liquid fuel. Of course that returns the CO2 to the atmosphere, but it'll be a long time before we electrify long-haul jets so it'd be great if their fuel were carbon-neutral.

There are a few startups exploring this and also PNNL is doing great public work on this topic as well. https://youtu.be/osXq-k84LpA?t=2177

Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale

#99
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there is always the possibility that things could burn but forests that burn do grow back eventually. Plant-based sequestration should not be written off. A planet covered by X% of forest vs Y% where X%>Y% has more sequestered carbon. If that X% is long-term stable, i.e. if the forests are preserved and curated on a long-term basis, then so is that carbon. Forests are also an enjoyable natural environment f…

burn or decompose same thing, trees are a buffer not a solution, unless you cut down, bury deep, then regrow.

cut diwn and use it for furniture and buildings. We could replace concrete with wood.

Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale

#100
post #90
post #35

I want to be excited about this, but it's capturing CO2 as CO2 gas, not sequestering CO2 in a form that keeps it out of the atmosphere. If you pay a lot of money in process and power to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere or out of exhaust gases and then use it in chemical processes other than ones which sink the carbon into long lasting solid, liquid, or oceanic absorption form you're just burning money and power to make…

I am dismissive of this tech. On the face of it. CO2 stored underground, at huge expense? What could possibly go wrong with that?

Yeah. It kinda smells like fracking 2.0 to me in terms of what the potential unforeseen consequences could be... and look what happened there.
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