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People seem upset that this is working? Maybe because this provides a solution to the problem that doesn't mean we have to fundamentally change society, or bri

People seem upset that this is working? Maybe because this provides a solution to the problem that doesn't mean we have to fundamentally change society, or bring down the 1st world, or say that "America was the bad guy to ignore all the EU regulations".

frany 9y ago
The technology presented here is not a paradigm shift, it is merely another way of capturing CO2. What is remarkably about it (compared to other, known techs is that it does not require an enormous amount of biomass. But by their own admission it is no really cheap technology: <100$ for 1t of CO2. [1] But there are several fundamental problems that remain: 1. Storage: CO2 has to be stored safely for an (on human scale) indefinite amount of time. 2. Scale: The amount of CO2 recaptured is gigantic (see other comments). 3. The problem of investment without immediate benefit. On a national level, the money needed to deploy this technology at a large scale is basically "lost" for the immediate future, the (positive) effects will be felt later on. This is similar to the situation right now, where we "only" have to reduce the amount of climate-forcing gases, but cannot be bothered to really weigh in on the problem. 4. Most importantly: this kind of technology is already factored in in current mitigation scenarios. So on top of reducing emissions (close) to 0, deployment of carbon-capturing technology is a prerequisite for remaining inside anything like the 2°C climate change by the end of the century. [2] So the problem is one of framing for this technology. It is not so much a game-changer but more of a sight of hope that maybe given an heroic effort in emission-reduction, this technology might help to achieve the internationally agreed upon goals for climate-change. Hence it is often seen as a kind of moral hazard, when portrayed as a means to happily keep on emitting. [1] http://www.climeworks.com/co2-removal/ http://www.climeworks.com/co2-removal/ [2] e.g., https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fossil-fuels https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fos...
anotherbrownguy 9y ago
- CO2 is plant food. Indoor growers supplement CO2 levels up to 1500 ppm (after which they say that there is not much return) to enhance growth. There is no reason to remove it from the atmosphere. - Supposedly CO2 is also a green house gas that helps earth trap some heat from the sun. The link between how much heat CO2 captures based on the concentration is very difficult to find, suggesting that the link is not very strong and propaganda driven "climate science" deliberately doesn't want anyone to know. My guess is that it is very weak at best which is why they supplement the theory with heating will cause water vapor concentration to rise, which is also a green house gas, which will cause snowball effect. This could be tested in a controlled greenhouse but most probably it didn't turn out to be favorable for the propaganda so the research has not been published. - Climate has been changing throughout the history of the earth and there are no known consistent patterns that we have been able to model which can help us predict anything, not that we have seen working at least. Overall though, it has been cooling and there is no reason that it will not continue to do so in the long run. - The causal relation between CO2 levels and global temperatures has not only not been established, but it is impossible to establish because of large number of factors affecting it and affecting each other. The best we can get is some kind of correlation but even that hasn't been consistent over time. They keep adding more explanations to anomalies to pretend that they know what is going on but it's obvious that they just don't want to accept it. Max Plank said "Science advances one funeral at a time", but it seems increased life expectancy will keep "climate science" going for a while. So, yeah some people may be upset that people are touting this solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
- mikeash 9y ago
  https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
  - anotherbrownguy 9y ago
    That's all nice and good, except it assumes that CO2 emissions is the cause of warming and no such causality has been established.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      A single chart can't possibly explain the entirety of climate change. I was just addressing your points that climate change in the past is like what we're seeing now and that the current trend is cooling.
      - anotherbrownguy 9y ago
        It's very convenient to start from the ice age and show how it's warming up. Here is a much longer timeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.png
        mikeash 9y ago
        What do you think is the correct staring point? Obviously if you go back far enough the earth was just a hot ball of lava, and temperatures have been below that ever since. Showing that temperatures have been relatively steady for a big chunk of human history/prehistory and then suddenly started shooting up right when we started burning mass quantities of fossil fuels seems most relevant to me.
        anotherbrownguy 9y ago
        >relatively steady for a big chunk of human history/prehistory Please refer to the linked graph again. Homo sapiens evolved around 200k years ago. You can see endless spikes during and before that time. Climate has been relatively "steady" for ~10k years after it recovered from an ice age. If the latest is due to "human activities", what about all the countless spikes which have occurred forever?

frany 9y ago

The technology presented here is not a paradigm shift, it is merely another way of capturing CO2. What is remarkably about it (compared to other, known techs is that it does not require an enormous amount of biomass. But by their own admission it is no really cheap technology: <100$ for 1t of CO2. [1] But there are several fundamental problems that remain: 1. Storage: CO2 has to be stored safely for an (on human scale) indefinite amount of time. 2. Scale: The amount of CO2 recaptured is gigantic (see other comments). 3. The problem of investment without immediate benefit. On a national level, the money needed to deploy this technology at a large scale is basically "lost" for the immediate future, the (positive) effects will be felt later on. This is similar to the situation right now, where we "only" have to reduce the amount of climate-forcing gases, but cannot be bothered to really weigh in on the problem. 4. Most importantly: this kind of technology is already factored in in current mitigation scenarios. So on top of reducing emissions (close) to 0, deployment of carbon-capturing technology is a prerequisite for remaining inside anything like the 2°C climate change by the end of the century. [2] So the problem is one of framing for this technology. It is not so much a game-changer but more of a sight of hope that maybe given an heroic effort in emission-reduction, this technology might help to achieve the internationally agreed upon goals for climate-change. Hence it is often seen as a kind of moral hazard, when portrayed as a means to happily keep on emitting. [1] http://www.climeworks.com/co2-removal/ http://www.climeworks.com/co2-removal/ [2] e.g., https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fossil-fuels https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fos...

anotherbrownguy 9y ago

- CO2 is plant food. Indoor growers supplement CO2 levels up to 1500 ppm (after which they say that there is not much return) to enhance growth. There is no reason to remove it from the atmosphere. - Supposedly CO2 is also a green house gas that helps earth trap some heat from the sun. The link between how much heat CO2 captures based on the concentration is very difficult to find, suggesting that the link is not very strong and propaganda driven "climate science" deliberately doesn't want anyone to know. My guess is that it is very weak at best which is why they supplement the theory with heating will cause water vapor concentration to rise, which is also a green house gas, which will cause snowball effect. This could be tested in a controlled greenhouse but most probably it didn't turn out to be favorable for the propaganda so the research has not been published. - Climate has been changing throughout the history of the earth and there are no known consistent patterns that we have been able to model which can help us predict anything, not that we have seen working at least. Overall though, it has been cooling and there is no reason that it will not continue to do so in the long run. - The causal relation between CO2 levels and global temperatures has not only not been established, but it is impossible to establish because of large number of factors affecting it and affecting each other. The best we can get is some kind of correlation but even that hasn't been consistent over time. They keep adding more explanations to anomalies to pretend that they know what is going on but it's obvious that they just don't want to accept it. Max Plank said "Science advances one funeral at a time", but it seems increased life expectancy will keep "climate science" going for a while. So, yeah some people may be upset that people are touting this solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

mikeash 9y ago
https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
- anotherbrownguy 9y ago
  That's all nice and good, except it assumes that CO2 emissions is the cause of warming and no such causality has been established.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    A single chart can't possibly explain the entirety of climate change. I was just addressing your points that climate change in the past is like what we're seeing now and that the current trend is cooling.
    - anotherbrownguy 9y ago
      It's very convenient to start from the ice age and show how it's warming up. Here is a much longer timeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.png
      - mikeash 9y ago
        What do you think is the correct staring point? Obviously if you go back far enough the earth was just a hot ball of lava, and temperatures have been below that ever since. Showing that temperatures have been relatively steady for a big chunk of human history/prehistory and then suddenly started shooting up right when we started burning mass quantities of fossil fuels seems most relevant to me.
        anotherbrownguy 9y ago
        >relatively steady for a big chunk of human history/prehistory Please refer to the linked graph again. Homo sapiens evolved around 200k years ago. You can see endless spikes during and before that time. Climate has been relatively "steady" for ~10k years after it recovered from an ice age. If the latest is due to "human activities", what about all the countless spikes which have occurred forever?