3 ms·

Honest question, as I'm not well read on the subject, but why? If, say, enough of these were deployed to have a total negative balance, is that not enough?

by axaxs 7y ago

the8472 7y ago
Actively sucking carbon out of the air is always going to be more expensive than not emitting it in the first place due to several factors, one of them having to build dedicated infrastructure for it on top of the energy production infrastructure you have to build whether it's fossil or renewable. So if you have a limited pot of money to do something about climate change then exclusively relying on sequestration gives you less overall reduction.
- thereisnospork 7y ago
  That's not strictly true: Airplanes, for instance, 'have' to emit CO2 via combustion of fossil fuels: any attempt to eliminate CO2 at the source is going to be impossible to expensive. The atmosphere has the wonderful property of being self mixing, so Texas wind and solar driven capture can offset PA natural gas[1] if that is how the economics shake out. A critique about the article: Their 'moral hazard' is a joke. CO2 is fungible. Emitting 10 tonnes and sequestering 10 tons is the same as emitting none. If the former improves people's lives (airplanes, cars, power, etc.) the decision is a no-brainer. [1] hypothetically beneficial due to variability in sun/wind in addition to geographic limitations. Power has to always be on, CO2 sequestration doesn't have to be.
  - the8472 7y ago
    > Airplanes, for instance, 'have' to emit CO2 via combustion of fossil fuels: Batteries may be out due to weight. Hydrogen on the other hand has a higher specific energy than gasoline > Emitting 10 tonnes and sequestering 10 tons is the same as emitting none. Emitting 10 tonnes of CO2 and not sequestering will improve people's lives today even more since they don't have to pay the cost immediately. The moral hazard is being lazy because theoretically someone in the future might pull off heroic efforts to save the planet.
    - thereisnospork 7y ago
      > Emitting 10 tonnes of CO2 and not sequestering will improve people's lives today even more since they don't have to pay the cost immediately. The moral hazard is being lazy because theoretically someone in the future might pull off heroic efforts to save the planet. Exactly. To restate, not emitting CO2 will make people's lives worse[1] but most of the environmental proposals I see don't seem to realize the sheer unreasonableness of their propositions which generally boil down to 'you' need to suffer (in concrete ways, e.g. a gas tax, not farming a rain forest, etc.) for the (vague) benefit of other people. [1] Given the current state of technology. re. putting the cart in front of the horse, I agree, but if air-CO2 sequestration does hit 150$/tonne as (optimistically) projected that works out to be a few bucks per gallon of gas: The economist in me says the optimal solution is to tack that on to every gallon sold (and ear mark it).
      - the8472 7y ago
        > generally boil down to 'you' need to suffer (in concrete ways, e.g. a gas tax, not farming a rain forest, etc.) for the (vague) benefit of other people. That reads fairly one-sided. Let's flip it and say you have to cut back on some luxuries today so our descendants don't die by the millions at the end of the century.
        thereisnospork 7y ago
        It is one sided: its the view of the Brazilian logger who wants to cut down his rain forest. It takes a more credible argument than vague promises of '[his] decedents won't die by the millions' a century from now to dissuade him when his relatives live in favelas today[1]. [1] Which is exactly the sort of activity we 'first-worlders' have been benefiting from.
KoenDG 7y ago
It's like having a broken tap that's gushing water onto the floor. And the best solution people are willing to come up with is putting a million tiny containers in place to catch all the water before we get flooded. The problem with this method is immediately apparent: we're going to run out of space and also there's no way to be sure we're catching it in all the right places. Simply fixing the tap so it doesn't spill water anymore is a much better solution.
toufka 7y ago
Nope. Not enough. We don’t just need to get to negative flux, we’ve already put too much CO2 in the atmosphere. We need to actively reduce it - fast. And then once we get back to a baseline, then keep it there. https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.technologyreview.com/p/pub/legacy/graphitix900.jpg https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.technologyreview.com/p/pub/le...
hannob 7y ago
It is already doubtful that enough of this can be built to meet the needs of optimistic emission reduction scenarios. Thinking you could "do business as usual" and compensate that with carbon removal tech is about as plausible as colonizing mars as an alternative to earth. There's been a recent study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10842-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10842-5 Like, even matching what the optimistic climate models require (that all depend on rapid emission reductions) requires "more than half of today's energy production".
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Energy consumption is increasing, year on year. A warming climate will add more consumption, and sequestration technologies will require significant additional energy - to run, and to manufacture. Ignoring the sheer massive scale of kit that would need to be produced, installed and run to achieve a total negative balance by sequestration, how many years or decades would that take ramping up? Besides, if people believe there's a magic techie "fix" being rolled out, good reason to carry on chasing their developing country to USA levels of energy use, unsustainably. Forget EVs, insulation etc. Take every cheapest option - just as we always did. With that model you might never finish ramping up. To empty the pool, first turn the taps off. We need carbon neutral industry and generation. We need negative to bring CO2 ppm back to pre-industrial levels, or even 1950 levels, to stop the year on year of oppressive summers and wildfires, and leave a little ice at the poles.

Honest question, as I'm not well read on the subject, but why? If, say, enough of these were deployed to have a total negative balance, is that not enough?

by axaxs 7y ago

Honest question, as I'm not well read on the subject, but why? If, say, enough of these were deployed to have a total negative balance, is that not enough?

the8472 7y ago

Actively sucking carbon out of the air is always going to be more expensive than not emitting it in the first place due to several factors, one of them having to build dedicated infrastructure for it on top of the energy production infrastructure you have to build whether it's fossil or renewable. So if you have a limited pot of money to do something about climate change then exclusively relying on sequestration gives you less overall reduction.

thereisnospork 7y ago
That's not strictly true: Airplanes, for instance, 'have' to emit CO2 via combustion of fossil fuels: any attempt to eliminate CO2 at the source is going to be impossible to expensive. The atmosphere has the wonderful property of being self mixing, so Texas wind and solar driven capture can offset PA natural gas[1] if that is how the economics shake out. A critique about the article: Their 'moral hazard' is a joke. CO2 is fungible. Emitting 10 tonnes and sequestering 10 tons is the same as emitting none. If the former improves people's lives (airplanes, cars, power, etc.) the decision is a no-brainer. [1] hypothetically beneficial due to variability in sun/wind in addition to geographic limitations. Power has to always be on, CO2 sequestration doesn't have to be.
- the8472 7y ago
  > Airplanes, for instance, 'have' to emit CO2 via combustion of fossil fuels: Batteries may be out due to weight. Hydrogen on the other hand has a higher specific energy than gasoline > Emitting 10 tonnes and sequestering 10 tons is the same as emitting none. Emitting 10 tonnes of CO2 and not sequestering will improve people's lives today even more since they don't have to pay the cost immediately. The moral hazard is being lazy because theoretically someone in the future might pull off heroic efforts to save the planet.
  - thereisnospork 7y ago
    > Emitting 10 tonnes of CO2 and not sequestering will improve people's lives today even more since they don't have to pay the cost immediately. The moral hazard is being lazy because theoretically someone in the future might pull off heroic efforts to save the planet. Exactly. To restate, not emitting CO2 will make people's lives worse[1] but most of the environmental proposals I see don't seem to realize the sheer unreasonableness of their propositions which generally boil down to 'you' need to suffer (in concrete ways, e.g. a gas tax, not farming a rain forest, etc.) for the (vague) benefit of other people. [1] Given the current state of technology. re. putting the cart in front of the horse, I agree, but if air-CO2 sequestration does hit 150$/tonne as (optimistically) projected that works out to be a few bucks per gallon of gas: The economist in me says the optimal solution is to tack that on to every gallon sold (and ear mark it).
    - the8472 7y ago
      > generally boil down to 'you' need to suffer (in concrete ways, e.g. a gas tax, not farming a rain forest, etc.) for the (vague) benefit of other people. That reads fairly one-sided. Let's flip it and say you have to cut back on some luxuries today so our descendants don't die by the millions at the end of the century.
      - thereisnospork 7y ago
        It is one sided: its the view of the Brazilian logger who wants to cut down his rain forest. It takes a more credible argument than vague promises of '[his] decedents won't die by the millions' a century from now to dissuade him when his relatives live in favelas today[1]. [1] Which is exactly the sort of activity we 'first-worlders' have been benefiting from.

KoenDG 7y ago

It's like having a broken tap that's gushing water onto the floor. And the best solution people are willing to come up with is putting a million tiny containers in place to catch all the water before we get flooded. The problem with this method is immediately apparent: we're going to run out of space and also there's no way to be sure we're catching it in all the right places. Simply fixing the tap so it doesn't spill water anymore is a much better solution.

toufka 7y ago

Nope. Not enough. We don’t just need to get to negative flux, we’ve already put too much CO2 in the atmosphere. We need to actively reduce it - fast. And then once we get back to a baseline, then keep it there. https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.technologyreview.com/p/pub/legacy/graphitix900.jpg https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.technologyreview.com/p/pub/le...

hannob 7y ago

It is already doubtful that enough of this can be built to meet the needs of optimistic emission reduction scenarios. Thinking you could "do business as usual" and compensate that with carbon removal tech is about as plausible as colonizing mars as an alternative to earth. There's been a recent study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10842-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10842-5 Like, even matching what the optimistic climate models require (that all depend on rapid emission reductions) requires "more than half of today's energy production".

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Energy consumption is increasing, year on year. A warming climate will add more consumption, and sequestration technologies will require significant additional energy - to run, and to manufacture. Ignoring the sheer massive scale of kit that would need to be produced, installed and run to achieve a total negative balance by sequestration, how many years or decades would that take ramping up? Besides, if people believe there's a magic techie "fix" being rolled out, good reason to carry on chasing their developing country to USA levels of energy use, unsustainably. Forget EVs, insulation etc. Take every cheapest option - just as we always did. With that model you might never finish ramping up. To empty the pool, first turn the taps off. We need carbon neutral industry and generation. We need negative to bring CO2 ppm back to pre-industrial levels, or even 1950 levels, to stop the year on year of oppressive summers and wildfires, and leave a little ice at the poles.