3 ms·

This is one of many creative ways of getting rid of direct fossil fuel use in industry and in the economy overall. We need ways to make steel, cement, and ferti

This is one of many creative ways of getting rid of direct fossil fuel use in industry and in the economy overall. We need ways to make steel, cement, and fertilizer with alternative processes that do not contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, and techniques like these are extremely useful. They will make a transition away from fossil fuels possible. But all these processes require heat and electricity. The root energy source used to do all these things needs to decarbonized. That's the really big challenge.

clomond 7y ago
Interesting though how if you suppose abundant, low cost renewable energy available at scale exists, the above problems suddenly become tractable and solved.
- tomarr 7y ago
  Unfortunately not and that is one of the main issues. Even if we had limitless carbon-free energy there would still be significant carbon outputs directly from the production process. The article shows one possible way of reducing this for steel, but cement is currently a different ballgame and is a substantial emissions source from its non-energy inputs.
  - xbmcuser 7y ago
    Well they seem to have found a way to decrease carbon emissions while producing cement as well. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-30/builders-are-swapping-cement-for-weed-to-reduce-pollution https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-30/builders-...
  - sfifs 7y ago
    Well with cheap carbon free electricity, we could cut all the CO2 emissions from iron and steel with hydrogen based reduction and about half that of cement manufacture (about half the carbon use is energy cost for heating as per Wikipedia article). Together about 15% of global emissions could be eliminated which is nothing to sneeze at. In fact many intractable problems in the world can be solved by more clean electricity - eg. 8000 odd skyscraper farms are enough to feed the world eliminating farm-land requirements but would require enormous amount of energy to run - also would represent single points if failure to attack in war - so will need society to evolve
  - kragen 7y ago
    I think there is a hydraulic magnesium silicate hydrate cement that can be made from seawater-derived magnesium without carbon emissions if electricity is cheap enough. These aren't trivial engineering challenges, but they are probably solvable.

clomond 7y ago

Interesting though how if you suppose abundant, low cost renewable energy available at scale exists, the above problems suddenly become tractable and solved.

tomarr 7y ago
Unfortunately not and that is one of the main issues. Even if we had limitless carbon-free energy there would still be significant carbon outputs directly from the production process. The article shows one possible way of reducing this for steel, but cement is currently a different ballgame and is a substantial emissions source from its non-energy inputs.
- xbmcuser 7y ago
  Well they seem to have found a way to decrease carbon emissions while producing cement as well. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-30/builders-are-swapping-cement-for-weed-to-reduce-pollution https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-30/builders-...
- sfifs 7y ago
  Well with cheap carbon free electricity, we could cut all the CO2 emissions from iron and steel with hydrogen based reduction and about half that of cement manufacture (about half the carbon use is energy cost for heating as per Wikipedia article). Together about 15% of global emissions could be eliminated which is nothing to sneeze at. In fact many intractable problems in the world can be solved by more clean electricity - eg. 8000 odd skyscraper farms are enough to feed the world eliminating farm-land requirements but would require enormous amount of energy to run - also would represent single points if failure to attack in war - so will need society to evolve
- kragen 7y ago
  I think there is a hydraulic magnesium silicate hydrate cement that can be made from seawater-derived magnesium without carbon emissions if electricity is cheap enough. These aren't trivial engineering challenges, but they are probably solvable.