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> have you thought about how we get off fossil for steel, concrete, plastics, hell even natural gas power plants? Lots of people are thinking about these quest

> have you thought about how we get off fossil for steel, concrete, plastics, hell even natural gas power plants? Lots of people are thinking about these questions! Still early research phase, but the chemistry works out. Steel -https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611961/this-mit-spinout-could-finally-clean-up-steel-one-of-the-globes-biggest-climate-polluters/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611961/this-mit-spinout-c... Concrete - http://news.mit.edu/2019/carbon-dioxide-emissions-free-cement-0916 http://news.mit.edu/2019/carbon-dioxide-emissions-free-cemen... Plastics - no carbon emitted as long as you don't burn your plastics. Could also capture emissions from a plastic incinerator if you really want to burn trash Natural gas power plants - replace with solar/wind + batteries?

willis936 7y ago
If we had an order of magnitude more electrical power and no greenhouse emissions from it we could do quite a lot. Desalination is a really big one. Chemical batteries won’t get us there, but pumped storage is an interesting avenue. I personally am a fan of fusion. The numbers check out with first gen power plants costing about 50% more per energy unit than fission/fossil.
- fenk85 7y ago
  Hmm we can also launch space solar panels with cheap launchers and beam this power back to earth.
beerandt 7y ago
I've looked for info on why we don't use plastic for carbon sequestration, and haven't found anything significant. It seems like land-filling plastic, or minimal processing (compaction it melting into a more dense block form) might be better than attempting to recycle it all, once sequestration is taken into account. Also, I suspect we'd be better off right now if we'd been land-filling plastic, instead of shipping it overseas to be burned, shredded, littered, dumped, or even discharged at sea. Even official estimates claim minimal percentages are actually being recycled, before accounting for fraud. We might have significant reduced levels of micro-plastic in the ocean, and a greater amount of carbon sequestered, instead of the high cost and seemingly minimal benefit we've seen "recycling" plastic.
- pstuart 7y ago
  We need more and better financial incentives (rebates, taxes, etc.)
  - beerandt 7y ago
    Right now, I'd say it's the opposite. We need to stop giving financial incentives to recycle plastic. Going into the landfill ought to be the cheapest disposal methods, in most cases.
- DennisP 7y ago
  To sequester carbon, the plastic would have to come from biomass or direct air capture of CO2. Most of it just comes from fossil carbon.

willis936 7y ago

If we had an order of magnitude more electrical power and no greenhouse emissions from it we could do quite a lot. Desalination is a really big one. Chemical batteries won’t get us there, but pumped storage is an interesting avenue. I personally am a fan of fusion. The numbers check out with first gen power plants costing about 50% more per energy unit than fission/fossil.

fenk85 7y ago
Hmm we can also launch space solar panels with cheap launchers and beam this power back to earth.

beerandt 7y ago

I've looked for info on why we don't use plastic for carbon sequestration, and haven't found anything significant. It seems like land-filling plastic, or minimal processing (compaction it melting into a more dense block form) might be better than attempting to recycle it all, once sequestration is taken into account. Also, I suspect we'd be better off right now if we'd been land-filling plastic, instead of shipping it overseas to be burned, shredded, littered, dumped, or even discharged at sea. Even official estimates claim minimal percentages are actually being recycled, before accounting for fraud. We might have significant reduced levels of micro-plastic in the ocean, and a greater amount of carbon sequestered, instead of the high cost and seemingly minimal benefit we've seen "recycling" plastic.

pstuart 7y ago
We need more and better financial incentives (rebates, taxes, etc.)
- beerandt 7y ago
  Right now, I'd say it's the opposite. We need to stop giving financial incentives to recycle plastic. Going into the landfill ought to be the cheapest disposal methods, in most cases.
DennisP 7y ago
To sequester carbon, the plastic would have to come from biomass or direct air capture of CO2. Most of it just comes from fossil carbon.