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This is frustrating to me because I can't find a path. The minute one includes the pesky little reality of conservation of energy things become real. I can't t

This is frustrating to me because I can't find a path. The minute one includes the pesky little reality of conservation of energy things become real. I can't think of a single problem -- regardless of the domain -- that can be fixed with less energy than that which created it in the first place. Accelerated silicate weathering is one approach that takes less energy than turning carbon dioxide back into carbon and oxygen [1]. Natural silicate weathering has a low thermodynamic cost but is kinetically hindered. Accelerated silicate weathering only spends energy to accelerate the kinetics of natural silicate weathering and needs much less energy than combustion-in-reverse. Iron ocean fertilization is also possibly another case where the required human energy input for drawdown could be much smaller than reversing combustion. I say "possibly" because it has not been tested with enough rigor and scale yet. You can see from my comment history that I agree with you about how slowly natural processes alone can bring atmospheric CO2 levels back down to pre-industrial levels: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24297363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24297363 [1] e.g. Project Vesta https://projectvesta.org/ https://projectvesta.org/

robomartin 6y ago
> Accelerated silicate weathering > Iron ocean fertilization The real question is what it will cost in terms of energy and CO2 to mine, produce, prepare, deploy and manage such processes. I have a very hard time accepting that we can use less energy to reverse something than the energy it took to create it. I have to admit it would take a lot of research on my part to fully break down these processes and quantify them from start to finish. I am just going to trust physics and say that I suspect perpetual motion machines are still impossible. What truly scares me about ideas like iron ocean fertilization is the massive potential for causing a disaster that could damage sea life and ecosystems for hundreds of years. It's one thing to run an experiment on one beach or two. It's quite another to do this at a scale sufficient enough to affect things at planetary scale. That's where, frankly, my brain short circuits a bit. I can't imagine some of these things done at a planetary scale without expending massive amounts of resources and producing equally massive amounts of pollution, CO2 and potential ecosystem damage. Now, here's a twist. If the thought is that we can deploy any one of X approaches and deliver results a thousand times faster than the natural rate of change (100KY/100ppm) we have to be truly scared about what the unintended consequences might be. It's almost like that story about when they detonated the first nuclear weapon and thought there was some probability of the entire atmosphere igniting. I am not sure if the story is true, but it illustrates the point well enough. I think we (and anyone who truly stops to look at the data and apply critical thinking) agree that this is a difficult problem that is being made far more complex by a narrative that is patently false (or distorted) all both extremes. This is a sad reality. Science should not work this way. Scientists should be free from political forces.
- philipkglass 6y ago
  Accelerated silicate weathering is not a perpetual motion machine. Do you understand the difference between thermodynamics and kinetics, in the context of chemical reactions? (Not trying to condescend, just calibrating how much background to include in my next explanation.) There is a big difference between "this approach is impossible according to physics" and "this approach might work but I'm worried about the side effects." It seems like for iron ocean fertilization you're asserting something more like the second statement than the first. I'm interested in active atmospheric CO2 removal approaches because emissions cuts alone aren't enough to get back below 400 ppm CO2 on human time scales, as you have noted. Shying away from mitigation approaches because they could have unknown side effects at large scale is just committing to suffering the unmitigated brunt of AGW. Anything effective will have to be large scale.
  - robomartin 6y ago
    Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I was making a general comment about "solutions" being offered while completely ignoring the entire resource, energy and CO2 generation chain required to actually deploy the solution. A silly example of this is using huge "air filters" in every city...which some have actually proposed. I need to go learn more about silicate weathering, don't know enough. > thermodynamics and kinetics, in the context of chemical reactions I regret not having paid more attention in university during chemistry class. Paid lots of attention during multiple years of physics (it was more interesting to me at the time). Wait a minute...isn't chemistry just applied physics? :) In general terms, I think we need to take this perspective on the problem: 1- We can't fix it on a human time scale (let's define that as a number between 100 and 1000 years) 2- We need to free-up our scientists (and fund them) to start thinking about and working on this implications and the solutions we will actually need 3- We need to start working on having to live with the reality of more intense weather events 4- We need to start working on mitigating effects for food supplies and other essentials 5- We need to be super careful about the potential for unintended consequences. I always think about what happened in places like Australia, New Zealand and others when we dared to think we could exercise control: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/health/17iht-17isla.20237034.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/health/17iht-17isla.20237... When compared with trying to produce a planetary scale effect, these ecosystems are but a rounding error. This is what worries me the most. We can't "fix" something on an island and we have the hubris to think we can actually "fix" the planet and not kill everyone on it as part of the process. This, BTW, is why I tend to be a proponent of learning to live with it while cleaning-up our act to the extent possible without being so arrogant as to think we can do anything about it on a human time scale. 5- We violently remove politics from this. I do not mean this in terms of physical violence, I am using the term to mean "faster than fast". In other words: Go sit in the corner while the intelligent adults in the room have a conversation. This isn't a simple problem and we need to be exceedingly careful not to be led by the nose by political and other forces into something that could destroy more life on this planet than we can possibly imagine.

robomartin 6y ago

> Accelerated silicate weathering > Iron ocean fertilization The real question is what it will cost in terms of energy and CO2 to mine, produce, prepare, deploy and manage such processes. I have a very hard time accepting that we can use less energy to reverse something than the energy it took to create it. I have to admit it would take a lot of research on my part to fully break down these processes and quantify them from start to finish. I am just going to trust physics and say that I suspect perpetual motion machines are still impossible. What truly scares me about ideas like iron ocean fertilization is the massive potential for causing a disaster that could damage sea life and ecosystems for hundreds of years. It's one thing to run an experiment on one beach or two. It's quite another to do this at a scale sufficient enough to affect things at planetary scale. That's where, frankly, my brain short circuits a bit. I can't imagine some of these things done at a planetary scale without expending massive amounts of resources and producing equally massive amounts of pollution, CO2 and potential ecosystem damage. Now, here's a twist. If the thought is that we can deploy any one of X approaches and deliver results a thousand times faster than the natural rate of change (100KY/100ppm) we have to be truly scared about what the unintended consequences might be. It's almost like that story about when they detonated the first nuclear weapon and thought there was some probability of the entire atmosphere igniting. I am not sure if the story is true, but it illustrates the point well enough. I think we (and anyone who truly stops to look at the data and apply critical thinking) agree that this is a difficult problem that is being made far more complex by a narrative that is patently false (or distorted) all both extremes. This is a sad reality. Science should not work this way. Scientists should be free from political forces.

philipkglass 6y ago
Accelerated silicate weathering is not a perpetual motion machine. Do you understand the difference between thermodynamics and kinetics, in the context of chemical reactions? (Not trying to condescend, just calibrating how much background to include in my next explanation.) There is a big difference between "this approach is impossible according to physics" and "this approach might work but I'm worried about the side effects." It seems like for iron ocean fertilization you're asserting something more like the second statement than the first. I'm interested in active atmospheric CO2 removal approaches because emissions cuts alone aren't enough to get back below 400 ppm CO2 on human time scales, as you have noted. Shying away from mitigation approaches because they could have unknown side effects at large scale is just committing to suffering the unmitigated brunt of AGW. Anything effective will have to be large scale.
- robomartin 6y ago
  Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I was making a general comment about "solutions" being offered while completely ignoring the entire resource, energy and CO2 generation chain required to actually deploy the solution. A silly example of this is using huge "air filters" in every city...which some have actually proposed. I need to go learn more about silicate weathering, don't know enough. > thermodynamics and kinetics, in the context of chemical reactions I regret not having paid more attention in university during chemistry class. Paid lots of attention during multiple years of physics (it was more interesting to me at the time). Wait a minute...isn't chemistry just applied physics? :) In general terms, I think we need to take this perspective on the problem: 1- We can't fix it on a human time scale (let's define that as a number between 100 and 1000 years) 2- We need to free-up our scientists (and fund them) to start thinking about and working on this implications and the solutions we will actually need 3- We need to start working on having to live with the reality of more intense weather events 4- We need to start working on mitigating effects for food supplies and other essentials 5- We need to be super careful about the potential for unintended consequences. I always think about what happened in places like Australia, New Zealand and others when we dared to think we could exercise control: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/health/17iht-17isla.20237034.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/health/17iht-17isla.20237... When compared with trying to produce a planetary scale effect, these ecosystems are but a rounding error. This is what worries me the most. We can't "fix" something on an island and we have the hubris to think we can actually "fix" the planet and not kill everyone on it as part of the process. This, BTW, is why I tend to be a proponent of learning to live with it while cleaning-up our act to the extent possible without being so arrogant as to think we can do anything about it on a human time scale. 5- We violently remove politics from this. I do not mean this in terms of physical violence, I am using the term to mean "faster than fast". In other words: Go sit in the corner while the intelligent adults in the room have a conversation. This isn't a simple problem and we need to be exceedingly careful not to be led by the nose by political and other forces into something that could destroy more life on this planet than we can possibly imagine.