3 ms·

Tell me why this won't work.

gonzo41 6y ago
It may work but it's probably hard to scale because you have to manufacture something. I think with Australia's vast flat lands we could probably farm algae on seawater and sunlight at scale as a way of scrubbing the atmosphere. Whilst this chemistry is exciting it seems like it would be of most use in ICE engines and coal fire plants where point source pollution is present. It may not have the impact people dream of like constructing a filter building and hoping all the CO2 floats past.
- boulos 6y ago
  Yeah, before reading one of the carbon capture from the atmosphere papers, I hadn’t thought deeply about the challenge. Then I realized “oh, we’re talking about 350-450 ppm” which is less than 1 in 2000. Even though that CO2 is there and it’s damaging, you have to be really good at filtering to focus your energy on anything at a 1/2000 rate. By contrast, the tailpipe folks (like [1]) or the smokestack ones have >10% of the emissions as CO2! (Figure 3 in the paper, also directly here [2]). It’s literally “1 in 10” versus nearly “1 in 500”. You can be a lot less fancy when the density of your target is nearly 50x higher. [1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2019.00143/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2019.0014... [2] https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/465010/fenrg-07-00143-HTML/image_m/fenrg-07-00143-g003.jpg https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/465010/fenrg-07-0...
  - deleted 6y ago
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dukoid 6y ago
It will never be cheaper than avoiding co2 in the first place (or at least catching at the source) so while it might have applications, it seems impractical for making significant progress towards saving the planet at this point.
- posix_me_less 6y ago
  What do you mean by "saving the planet"? Do you mean keeping the population numbers and saving the western way of life at the same time? What would make significant progress towards that goal?
canofbars 6y ago
Capturing carbon takes a huge amount of energy. (Plants get it from the sun.) Its always more efficient to just use the energy generated to replace burning fuel.
- mhandley 6y ago
  This process doesn't capture carbon, it captures CO2. Splitting CO2 back to Carbon and Oxygen does indeed take a great deal of energy, but if you can efficiently and cheaply store CO2 permanently (underground, in concrete, in greenhouse-grown plants, or wherever) then this can still be a net win.

It may work but it's probably hard to scale because you have to manufacture something. I think with Australia's vast flat lands we could probably farm algae on seawater and sunlight at scale as a way of scrubbing the atmosphere. Whilst this chemistry is exciting it seems like it would be of most use in ICE engines and coal fire plants where point source pollution is present. It may not have the impact people dream of like constructing a filter building and hoping all the CO2 floats past.

boulos 6y ago
Yeah, before reading one of the carbon capture from the atmosphere papers, I hadn’t thought deeply about the challenge. Then I realized “oh, we’re talking about 350-450 ppm” which is less than 1 in 2000. Even though that CO2 is there and it’s damaging, you have to be really good at filtering to focus your energy on anything at a 1/2000 rate. By contrast, the tailpipe folks (like [1]) or the smokestack ones have >10% of the emissions as CO2! (Figure 3 in the paper, also directly here [2]). It’s literally “1 in 10” versus nearly “1 in 500”. You can be a lot less fancy when the density of your target is nearly 50x higher. [1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2019.00143/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2019.0014... [2] https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/465010/fenrg-07-00143-HTML/image_m/fenrg-07-00143-g003.jpg https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/465010/fenrg-07-0...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

dukoid 6y ago

It will never be cheaper than avoiding co2 in the first place (or at least catching at the source) so while it might have applications, it seems impractical for making significant progress towards saving the planet at this point.

posix_me_less 6y ago
What do you mean by "saving the planet"? Do you mean keeping the population numbers and saving the western way of life at the same time? What would make significant progress towards that goal?

canofbars 6y ago

Capturing carbon takes a huge amount of energy. (Plants get it from the sun.) Its always more efficient to just use the energy generated to replace burning fuel.

mhandley 6y ago
This process doesn't capture carbon, it captures CO2. Splitting CO2 back to Carbon and Oxygen does indeed take a great deal of energy, but if you can efficiently and cheaply store CO2 permanently (underground, in concrete, in greenhouse-grown plants, or wherever) then this can still be a net win.