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Apparently burning petrol releases about 2.31 kg of CO2 per liter. At 100 USD per tonne of CO2 it would cost 0.23 USD per liter of petrol if we captured every b

Apparently burning petrol releases about 2.31 kg of CO2 per liter. At 100 USD per tonne of CO2 it would cost 0.23 USD per liter of petrol if we captured every bit of CO2 released. That's within the realm of possibility.

jessaustin 8y ago
Yeah it seems pretty straightforward to just start taxing at that rate and be done with all the nonsense.
- njarboe 8y ago
  Except for the part that this process takes electricity to do. If the process can be turned off and on quickly, it would be a great use for excess wind and solar power.
  - ishjoh 8y ago
    One nice thing about this is that you could pull carbon out of the atmosphere from remote locations, in particular hydro electricity could provide abundant, inexpensive, and clean power.
    - njarboe 8y ago
      Just what I was thinking. Like west Texas with wind where electricity prices go negative quite often in the middle of the night.
      - DoctorOetker 8y ago
        guys, capturing CO2 or not releasing it at a power plant are the easy and cheap part. It's what you do with the voluminous CO2 gas. Converting to fuel will be very expensive (although if the conversion process can be throttled quickly, which I highly doubt, we could use peak solar and wind, and treat fuel as a battery). The figures you calculate is meaningless, factories could always have been fitted with carbon capture for a relatively low energy cost. The reason this is not done at scale is there is zero demand for CO2! (unless you pay someone carbon credits to pretend to need CO2!!!)
        linkregister 8y ago
        Yes, at that scale, the price of CO2 approaches zero, especially with the caveat that it shouldn't be reintroduced (as with carbonated beverages and pressurized machinery). Carbon dioxide sequestration or transformation is the next step. Getting the first step to be economical is also nice.
        njarboe 8y ago
        CO2 injection is already done in many oil fields for enhanced oil recovery. People already know how to pump it down into the earth and track where it goes. Put a decent price on removing CO2 from the atmosphere and people will quickly figure out how to do it for a nice profit. Lots of old oil wells in west Texas also.
- 8xde0wcNwpslOw 8y ago
  A funny coincidence: the excise duty on petrol here consists of several "parts", one of which is the carbon dioxide tax, which is currently about 0.25 USD/litre (in total the fixed taxes amount to a bit over 1 USD/litre).
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    I assume "here" is USA, but you could be converting to dollars from local currency?
    - 8xde0wcNwpslOw 8y ago
      I'm converting because earlier messages used dollars as well. I doubt that taxes that high exist anywhere in the US (1 USD/litre being almost 4 USD/gallon after all).
lifeisstillgood 8y ago
Well that's a Holy Fuck moment for me. I thought the parent here had made a off-by-orders of magnitude error - how can a liter of petrol (which itself is only a kg) produce 2.31kg of CO2 ... i mean work it out, all the carbon would have to attach to 2x oxygen ... ok that might just ... err ... see this reference for a walk through of the calculation - http://ecoscore.be/en/info/ecoscore/co2 http://ecoscore.be/en/info/ecoscore/co2 Every time I pour petrol into my tank I am basically pouring twice that weight of CO2 into the atmosphere. I may be very dumb but I never thought if it like that before. I always assumed CO2 was a minor byproduct ... but like breathing. oh dear.
- ChrisLomont 8y ago
  Consider it this way. That entire liter turns to gas when burned, and in doing so it combines with O2 and other things in the air, resulting in the total weight of the liter + what it combined with entering the air.
- voidmain 8y ago
  > like breathing When you eat 1kg of peanut butter, if I've done my math right, you'll breathe out about 2.3kg of CO2. Dry cereal would be about 1.5kg. Most foods have a lot of water in them, though.
  - lifeisstillgood 8y ago
    Darn and that looked like a pretty decent breakfast :-)
  - dTal 8y ago
    I would think you're unlikely to produce sufficient bile to metabolise an entire kilogram of peanut butter at once. Most likely you'd get really nasty, oily runs at best, and quite possibly throw up.
- njarboe 8y ago
  Yes, but the weight of the oxygen is in the atmosphere already. And for a bonus, all the hydrogen you burn removes O2 from the atmosphere in the form of water, reducing the weight of the atmosphere (and therefor the greenhouse effect of the atmosphere). How much the reduction of O2 from H burning offsets the transformation of O2 to CO2 is left as a problem for the reader. If anyone knows of a paper that discusses this effect, I'd love to read it.
ebbv 8y ago
You are making the big assumption this article is accurate and scalable. I’m not so sure. You’re also assuming that capturing everything scales linearly from capturing something.
- sunstone 8y ago
  Bill Gates has been funding this project since its inception and one of the founders is a world expert in global warming and a Professor at Harvard so you'll have to do better than unsubstantiated innuendo here. Roll out some real facts rather just than pulled out of your ear guesses.
  - ebbv 8y ago
    You realize the argument you’re making (“Smart people are backing this!”) is exactly how Theranos and many other scams go on as long as they do right? All I did was bring up some concerns. I did not state any facts, merely point out details that need to be addressed. Chill out.
    - sunstone 8y ago
      This may give you some reassurance.[1] [1]https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/machines-that-suck-co%E2%82%82-from-the-air-might-be-cheaper-than-we-thought/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/machines-that-suck-c...
      - ebbv 8y ago
        Why would it? It’s just another one sided fluff piece. Basically a press release for the product much like the original article.
sunstone 8y ago
Yes, I would happily pay that for "carbon neutral" gas.
- JetSpiegel 8y ago
  Considering the US has literally entered wars that cost trillions over oil disputes, I think you are pretty much alone.
  - ISL 8y ago
    Counter-example: I'd happily pay at least that much for carbon-neutral or carbon-reducing fuel. Source: Am registered-voter citizen of the United States.
    - JetSpiegel 8y ago
      I'm not disputing that, just the the political climate makes that opinion a miniscule minority.
  - JanisL 8y ago
    Sounds like others are paying a fairly high price in that case but just more indirectly
NovaS1X 8y ago
This is a mind blowing concept. I mean, it makes sense when I read: http://ecoscore.be/en/info/ecoscore/co2 http://ecoscore.be/en/info/ecoscore/co2 But does this take into account catalytic converters or other emissions controls? Cats take the CO from the combustion process and turn it into CO2, the gas you're referencing. I'd just like to clarify because this is a big revelation in my way of thinking about pollution. Are we really releasing that much CO2 post emissions controls?
- jaggederest 8y ago
  Emissions controls have no effect at all on CO2 emissions. They don't alter the fundamental stoichiometry of a pure octane combustion: 2C8H18 + 2502 -> 16CO2 + 18H2O So yes, burning a liter of octane (6 moles) will use ~1600 liters of oxygen and emit ~1000 liters of carbon dioxide, or a little over two kilograms. In pure carbon terms, it produces (drumroll) the exact same amount as the input: 49 moles at 12 g/mol or 590 grams.

jessaustin 8y ago

Yeah it seems pretty straightforward to just start taxing at that rate and be done with all the nonsense.

njarboe 8y ago
Except for the part that this process takes electricity to do. If the process can be turned off and on quickly, it would be a great use for excess wind and solar power.
- ishjoh 8y ago
  One nice thing about this is that you could pull carbon out of the atmosphere from remote locations, in particular hydro electricity could provide abundant, inexpensive, and clean power.
  - njarboe 8y ago
    Just what I was thinking. Like west Texas with wind where electricity prices go negative quite often in the middle of the night.
    - DoctorOetker 8y ago
      guys, capturing CO2 or not releasing it at a power plant are the easy and cheap part. It's what you do with the voluminous CO2 gas. Converting to fuel will be very expensive (although if the conversion process can be throttled quickly, which I highly doubt, we could use peak solar and wind, and treat fuel as a battery). The figures you calculate is meaningless, factories could always have been fitted with carbon capture for a relatively low energy cost. The reason this is not done at scale is there is zero demand for CO2! (unless you pay someone carbon credits to pretend to need CO2!!!)
      - linkregister 8y ago
        Yes, at that scale, the price of CO2 approaches zero, especially with the caveat that it shouldn't be reintroduced (as with carbonated beverages and pressurized machinery). Carbon dioxide sequestration or transformation is the next step. Getting the first step to be economical is also nice.
        njarboe 8y ago
        CO2 injection is already done in many oil fields for enhanced oil recovery. People already know how to pump it down into the earth and track where it goes. Put a decent price on removing CO2 from the atmosphere and people will quickly figure out how to do it for a nice profit. Lots of old oil wells in west Texas also.
8xde0wcNwpslOw 8y ago
A funny coincidence: the excise duty on petrol here consists of several "parts", one of which is the carbon dioxide tax, which is currently about 0.25 USD/litre (in total the fixed taxes amount to a bit over 1 USD/litre).
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  I assume "here" is USA, but you could be converting to dollars from local currency?
  - 8xde0wcNwpslOw 8y ago
    I'm converting because earlier messages used dollars as well. I doubt that taxes that high exist anywhere in the US (1 USD/litre being almost 4 USD/gallon after all).

lifeisstillgood 8y ago

Well that's a Holy Fuck moment for me. I thought the parent here had made a off-by-orders of magnitude error - how can a liter of petrol (which itself is only a kg) produce 2.31kg of CO2 ... i mean work it out, all the carbon would have to attach to 2x oxygen ... ok that might just ... err ... see this reference for a walk through of the calculation - http://ecoscore.be/en/info/ecoscore/co2 http://ecoscore.be/en/info/ecoscore/co2 Every time I pour petrol into my tank I am basically pouring twice that weight of CO2 into the atmosphere. I may be very dumb but I never thought if it like that before. I always assumed CO2 was a minor byproduct ... but like breathing. oh dear.

ChrisLomont 8y ago
Consider it this way. That entire liter turns to gas when burned, and in doing so it combines with O2 and other things in the air, resulting in the total weight of the liter + what it combined with entering the air.
voidmain 8y ago
> like breathing When you eat 1kg of peanut butter, if I've done my math right, you'll breathe out about 2.3kg of CO2. Dry cereal would be about 1.5kg. Most foods have a lot of water in them, though.
- lifeisstillgood 8y ago
  Darn and that looked like a pretty decent breakfast :-)
- dTal 8y ago
  I would think you're unlikely to produce sufficient bile to metabolise an entire kilogram of peanut butter at once. Most likely you'd get really nasty, oily runs at best, and quite possibly throw up.
njarboe 8y ago
Yes, but the weight of the oxygen is in the atmosphere already. And for a bonus, all the hydrogen you burn removes O2 from the atmosphere in the form of water, reducing the weight of the atmosphere (and therefor the greenhouse effect of the atmosphere). How much the reduction of O2 from H burning offsets the transformation of O2 to CO2 is left as a problem for the reader. If anyone knows of a paper that discusses this effect, I'd love to read it.

ebbv 8y ago

You are making the big assumption this article is accurate and scalable. I’m not so sure. You’re also assuming that capturing everything scales linearly from capturing something.

sunstone 8y ago
Bill Gates has been funding this project since its inception and one of the founders is a world expert in global warming and a Professor at Harvard so you'll have to do better than unsubstantiated innuendo here. Roll out some real facts rather just than pulled out of your ear guesses.
- ebbv 8y ago
  You realize the argument you’re making (“Smart people are backing this!”) is exactly how Theranos and many other scams go on as long as they do right? All I did was bring up some concerns. I did not state any facts, merely point out details that need to be addressed. Chill out.
  - sunstone 8y ago
    This may give you some reassurance.[1] [1]https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/machines-that-suck-co%E2%82%82-from-the-air-might-be-cheaper-than-we-thought/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/machines-that-suck-c...
    - ebbv 8y ago
      Why would it? It’s just another one sided fluff piece. Basically a press release for the product much like the original article.

sunstone 8y ago

Yes, I would happily pay that for "carbon neutral" gas.

JetSpiegel 8y ago
Considering the US has literally entered wars that cost trillions over oil disputes, I think you are pretty much alone.
- ISL 8y ago
  Counter-example: I'd happily pay at least that much for carbon-neutral or carbon-reducing fuel. Source: Am registered-voter citizen of the United States.
  - JetSpiegel 8y ago
    I'm not disputing that, just the the political climate makes that opinion a miniscule minority.
- JanisL 8y ago
  Sounds like others are paying a fairly high price in that case but just more indirectly

NovaS1X 8y ago

This is a mind blowing concept. I mean, it makes sense when I read: http://ecoscore.be/en/info/ecoscore/co2 http://ecoscore.be/en/info/ecoscore/co2 But does this take into account catalytic converters or other emissions controls? Cats take the CO from the combustion process and turn it into CO2, the gas you're referencing. I'd just like to clarify because this is a big revelation in my way of thinking about pollution. Are we really releasing that much CO2 post emissions controls?

jaggederest 8y ago
Emissions controls have no effect at all on CO2 emissions. They don't alter the fundamental stoichiometry of a pure octane combustion: 2C8H18 + 2502 -> 16CO2 + 18H2O So yes, burning a liter of octane (6 moles) will use ~1600 liters of oxygen and emit ~1000 liters of carbon dioxide, or a little over two kilograms. In pure carbon terms, it produces (drumroll) the exact same amount as the input: 49 moles at 12 g/mol or 590 grams.