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The history of the carbon removal companies is not good (mostly due to the large incentive to game the measures), and smells of indulgences. However, this indus

The history of the carbon removal companies is not good (mostly due to the large incentive to game the measures), and smells of indulgences. However, this industry is still quite young... EDIT : Also this initiative seems to be very research-focused, rather than be just about using already known methods?

core-questions 6y ago
It remains to be seen if carbon removal can be done in a way that makes sense thermodynamically (i.e. it takes tremendous energy input to do, where does that energy come from, is it using carbon-emitting energy from elsewhere on the grid, etc). If at any point a carbon-emitting energy source is involved, there's no way that the system is going to be absorbing as much carbon from the air as was emitted for the same amount of energy. If we're going to flatten the peaks of power availability with anything, it should probably be novel energy storage techniques so that the carbon that is output is not wasted, so the energy is actually used eventually for something productive. We already have a carbon removal system that is viciously efficient and solar powered: it's called a plant.
- theptip 6y ago
  Enhanced Rock Weathering was discussed recently[1], and that is cost effective at something like $100/ton. I don’t think there is any question about whether it’s thermodynamically possible (trees do it, as you say), it’s more whether it’s economically possible; without a carbon tax there is no real incentive for most producers to offset. (If we are relying on demand from “ethical consumers” I don’t think we are going to shift things very far.) 1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/08/spreading-rock-dust-on-fields-could-remove-vast-amounts-of-co2-from-air https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/08/spreadin...
- coldpie 6y ago
  You're right that energy costs need to be accounted for when examining a potential capture method. But this is so blindingly obvious that of course the researchers are doing it. It is always accounted for when they are making their claims. As a single example see this recent article[1]: > A simple chemical model estimated the rate of weathering for the crushed rock based on the local soil conditions. They also calculated energy requirements based on distance from likely rock sources, as well as accounting for the energy mix available to run everything. (The more fossil fuel burned to carry out the work, the less CO2 removed from the atmosphere in the final accounting.) If it was true that any carbon capture method that uses energy will emit more carbon that it captures, then the researchers wouldn't have bothered doing the research. Yet they have, and do. Carbon capture is a very good avenue of research for mitigating climate change in the near term as we transition to new power sources. [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/07/spreading-rock-dust-on-farms-could-be-a-major-climate-action/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/07/spreading-rock-dust-...
  - core-questions 6y ago
    > If it was true that any carbon capture method that uses energy will emit more carbon that it captures The only way this works is if it's using excess energy that wasn't produced by processes that emit carbon to start with. Run it on nuclear, solar, etc. and it can work. However, the grid is still awash with coal power! There's no way any machine is going to capture more carbon per KW consumed energy than the coal to produce that many KW emitted to start with. So, does it makes sense to deploy this in areas with a ton of green energy available on the grid? Maybe... but those areas have lower PPM carbon in the air, so it's not the right place to run the machine anyway. Perhaps instead of all this wasted effort and engineering time, we could just replace the damned coal plants and stop emitting carbon itself.
    - jackdeansmith 6y ago
      > the grid is still awash with coal power! Not really, coal is quickly vanishing from the US electricity sector due to cheap natural gas and renewables. I see no reason that trend won't continue. Source: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-... > So, does it makes sense to deploy this in areas with a ton of green energy available on the grid? Maybe... but those areas have lower PPM carbon in the air, so it's not the right place to run the machine anyway. Global carbon dioxide concentrations are not evenly distributed, but the distribution has much more to do with climate patterns than where the emissions happened. The atmosphere is fairly well-mixed. Across the whole globe, concentrations are significantly higher than pre-industrial levels. Source: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/82142/global-patterns-of-carbon-dioxide https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/82142/global-patter... > Perhaps instead of all this wasted effort and engineering time, we could just replace the damned coal plants and stop emitting carbon itself. Once the world reaches net-zero emissions, we can't celebrate and say we've stopped the problem. We just stopped it from getting worse. Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for centuries, if we want to return the climate to pre-industrial, massive negative emissions will eventually be necessary. Engineering work on negative emissions will not be wasted unless we give up on that goal completly.
- samatman 6y ago
  Not so simple as just saying "plants" and calling it a day. Yes, plants remove carbon from the air. But plants die, and rot, and some amount of that carbon (all, at the limit) ends up right back in the atmosphere. I happen to think that planting poplar, making it into charcoal on an industrial scale, and using the biochar as a soil amendment to mitigate topsoil depletion, is severely underutilized as a carbon capture strategy. We should be doing enormous amounts of this, instead of... basically none. But it isn't "just plant trees". There's more to the job than that. But nothing which requires technology which was unknown to the Romans.
  - FooHentai 6y ago
    I posted this on another thread in these comments but another strategy here is grow trees, bury trees, grow more trees. 3% re-release of carbon back to the atmosphere per dacade stored, and all the tech to accomplish it is already developed.
orbuch 6y ago
Hi! Ryan from the Climate team at Stripe. Yes, the field is super young. Regardless of previous attempts, the world is very likely going to need giagatons of carbon removal, and the necessary technologies won't magically scale without the support of early purchasers. We're taking a portfolio approach and will be expanding the number of projects we support over the coming years. Regarding "indulgences", this is no substitute for emissions reduction, and we aren't purchasing traditional offsets or suggesting this as a mechanism for carbon neutrality. More details on all this in our FAQs if you're curious! https://stripe.com/docs/climate/faqs https://stripe.com/docs/climate/faqs
- adamsea 6y ago
  Out of curiosity why not work with a group planting trees, or folks switching to renewable sources of energy?
  - jackdeansmith 6y ago
    Not affiliated with stripe here, but I'm guessing because tree planting can't scale up to the level of removal that's necessary and renewable energy is already pretty far down the cost learning curve. Stripe has limited capital compared to govts and large institutions and is being strategic about which projects need early investment to bring down costs.
  - FooHentai 6y ago
    It's addressed in the FAQ: "Does Stripe Climate offer traditional carbon offsets? No. Traditional carbon offsets, while often inexpensive, are unlikely to scale to the size of the climate problem. Instead, we’ve chosen to focus on permanent carbon removal technologies." Planting trees and renewable energy are some activities that carbon offsets fund.
frank2 6y ago
>carbon removal . . . smells of indulgences Do you believe a religious metaphor to be useful for understanding climate change? Do you believe adding CO2 molecules to the air to be intrinsically sinful with the result that no amount of subsequent removal of CO2 can wash away the sin?
- imtringued 6y ago
  Well, indulgences are basically fraud and CO2 offsets that do not materialize are also fraud. The problem isn't on the buyer side. It's that the seller is inherently going to break his promises and defraud you for a penny.
  - frank2 6y ago
    Sure, but CO2 removal can be funded otherwise than by CO2 offsets or carbon credits -- by a tax on fossil fuels, for example. It is even possible that research can be targeted at using the carbon removed from the atmosphere for fuel or for production of plastic. Burning the carbon (again) as fuel results in no net reduction in atmospheric CO2 of course, but it would probably replace fossil fuels (just as any other renewable source of energy would) and if it ever looks to become profitable, then that would tend to cause increases in the efficiency of CO2-removal tech at no expense to the taxpayer with the result that any CO2-removal efforts not funded by profit-motivated fuel production (e.g., taxpayer funded CO2 removal) become more efficient. But my main point is that global warming is eminently amenable to technical solutions similar to how for example putting humans on the moon was eminently amenable. Not all societal concerns are so amenable, but for those that are, it seems to me very suboptimal to resort to analogies with religious concepts in public discussions of the concern. My first comment has a score of -4 now by the way.
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  Funnily it works both ways as indulgences were supposed to "wash away the sin". Also, I would have hoped that we could have managed to solve the pollution issue in a rational way, but hope is getting thin. And religion comes with the power of strong taboos that might succeed where we previously failed. Or maybe what is blocking us is how progress has been given the status of a new religion, and while we can appreciate where it got us, we also have to consider whether the costs aren't going to outweigh the benefits in the future...
hannob 6y ago
Are you confusing carbon offsetting companies with carbon removal companies? They can overlap, but are not the same thing. And I think the gaming is a particular problem of carbon offsetting (and I don't think there's a lot of history with carbon removal yet, at least if we talk about carbon removal in the sense of direct air capture technology).
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  I had indeed first confused them but they are likely to run into similar issues (depending on the regulatory environment).

core-questions 6y ago

It remains to be seen if carbon removal can be done in a way that makes sense thermodynamically (i.e. it takes tremendous energy input to do, where does that energy come from, is it using carbon-emitting energy from elsewhere on the grid, etc). If at any point a carbon-emitting energy source is involved, there's no way that the system is going to be absorbing as much carbon from the air as was emitted for the same amount of energy. If we're going to flatten the peaks of power availability with anything, it should probably be novel energy storage techniques so that the carbon that is output is not wasted, so the energy is actually used eventually for something productive. We already have a carbon removal system that is viciously efficient and solar powered: it's called a plant.

theptip 6y ago
Enhanced Rock Weathering was discussed recently[1], and that is cost effective at something like $100/ton. I don’t think there is any question about whether it’s thermodynamically possible (trees do it, as you say), it’s more whether it’s economically possible; without a carbon tax there is no real incentive for most producers to offset. (If we are relying on demand from “ethical consumers” I don’t think we are going to shift things very far.) 1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/08/spreading-rock-dust-on-fields-could-remove-vast-amounts-of-co2-from-air https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/08/spreadin...
coldpie 6y ago
You're right that energy costs need to be accounted for when examining a potential capture method. But this is so blindingly obvious that of course the researchers are doing it. It is always accounted for when they are making their claims. As a single example see this recent article[1]: > A simple chemical model estimated the rate of weathering for the crushed rock based on the local soil conditions. They also calculated energy requirements based on distance from likely rock sources, as well as accounting for the energy mix available to run everything. (The more fossil fuel burned to carry out the work, the less CO2 removed from the atmosphere in the final accounting.) If it was true that any carbon capture method that uses energy will emit more carbon that it captures, then the researchers wouldn't have bothered doing the research. Yet they have, and do. Carbon capture is a very good avenue of research for mitigating climate change in the near term as we transition to new power sources. [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/07/spreading-rock-dust-on-farms-could-be-a-major-climate-action/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/07/spreading-rock-dust-...
- core-questions 6y ago
  > If it was true that any carbon capture method that uses energy will emit more carbon that it captures The only way this works is if it's using excess energy that wasn't produced by processes that emit carbon to start with. Run it on nuclear, solar, etc. and it can work. However, the grid is still awash with coal power! There's no way any machine is going to capture more carbon per KW consumed energy than the coal to produce that many KW emitted to start with. So, does it makes sense to deploy this in areas with a ton of green energy available on the grid? Maybe... but those areas have lower PPM carbon in the air, so it's not the right place to run the machine anyway. Perhaps instead of all this wasted effort and engineering time, we could just replace the damned coal plants and stop emitting carbon itself.
  - jackdeansmith 6y ago
    > the grid is still awash with coal power! Not really, coal is quickly vanishing from the US electricity sector due to cheap natural gas and renewables. I see no reason that trend won't continue. Source: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-... > So, does it makes sense to deploy this in areas with a ton of green energy available on the grid? Maybe... but those areas have lower PPM carbon in the air, so it's not the right place to run the machine anyway. Global carbon dioxide concentrations are not evenly distributed, but the distribution has much more to do with climate patterns than where the emissions happened. The atmosphere is fairly well-mixed. Across the whole globe, concentrations are significantly higher than pre-industrial levels. Source: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/82142/global-patterns-of-carbon-dioxide https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/82142/global-patter... > Perhaps instead of all this wasted effort and engineering time, we could just replace the damned coal plants and stop emitting carbon itself. Once the world reaches net-zero emissions, we can't celebrate and say we've stopped the problem. We just stopped it from getting worse. Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for centuries, if we want to return the climate to pre-industrial, massive negative emissions will eventually be necessary. Engineering work on negative emissions will not be wasted unless we give up on that goal completly.
samatman 6y ago
Not so simple as just saying "plants" and calling it a day. Yes, plants remove carbon from the air. But plants die, and rot, and some amount of that carbon (all, at the limit) ends up right back in the atmosphere. I happen to think that planting poplar, making it into charcoal on an industrial scale, and using the biochar as a soil amendment to mitigate topsoil depletion, is severely underutilized as a carbon capture strategy. We should be doing enormous amounts of this, instead of... basically none. But it isn't "just plant trees". There's more to the job than that. But nothing which requires technology which was unknown to the Romans.
- FooHentai 6y ago
  I posted this on another thread in these comments but another strategy here is grow trees, bury trees, grow more trees. 3% re-release of carbon back to the atmosphere per dacade stored, and all the tech to accomplish it is already developed.

orbuch 6y ago

Hi! Ryan from the Climate team at Stripe. Yes, the field is super young. Regardless of previous attempts, the world is very likely going to need giagatons of carbon removal, and the necessary technologies won't magically scale without the support of early purchasers. We're taking a portfolio approach and will be expanding the number of projects we support over the coming years. Regarding "indulgences", this is no substitute for emissions reduction, and we aren't purchasing traditional offsets or suggesting this as a mechanism for carbon neutrality. More details on all this in our FAQs if you're curious! https://stripe.com/docs/climate/faqs https://stripe.com/docs/climate/faqs

adamsea 6y ago
Out of curiosity why not work with a group planting trees, or folks switching to renewable sources of energy?
- jackdeansmith 6y ago
  Not affiliated with stripe here, but I'm guessing because tree planting can't scale up to the level of removal that's necessary and renewable energy is already pretty far down the cost learning curve. Stripe has limited capital compared to govts and large institutions and is being strategic about which projects need early investment to bring down costs.
- FooHentai 6y ago
  It's addressed in the FAQ: "Does Stripe Climate offer traditional carbon offsets? No. Traditional carbon offsets, while often inexpensive, are unlikely to scale to the size of the climate problem. Instead, we’ve chosen to focus on permanent carbon removal technologies." Planting trees and renewable energy are some activities that carbon offsets fund.

frank2 6y ago

>carbon removal . . . smells of indulgences Do you believe a religious metaphor to be useful for understanding climate change? Do you believe adding CO2 molecules to the air to be intrinsically sinful with the result that no amount of subsequent removal of CO2 can wash away the sin?

imtringued 6y ago
Well, indulgences are basically fraud and CO2 offsets that do not materialize are also fraud. The problem isn't on the buyer side. It's that the seller is inherently going to break his promises and defraud you for a penny.
- frank2 6y ago
  Sure, but CO2 removal can be funded otherwise than by CO2 offsets or carbon credits -- by a tax on fossil fuels, for example. It is even possible that research can be targeted at using the carbon removed from the atmosphere for fuel or for production of plastic. Burning the carbon (again) as fuel results in no net reduction in atmospheric CO2 of course, but it would probably replace fossil fuels (just as any other renewable source of energy would) and if it ever looks to become profitable, then that would tend to cause increases in the efficiency of CO2-removal tech at no expense to the taxpayer with the result that any CO2-removal efforts not funded by profit-motivated fuel production (e.g., taxpayer funded CO2 removal) become more efficient. But my main point is that global warming is eminently amenable to technical solutions similar to how for example putting humans on the moon was eminently amenable. Not all societal concerns are so amenable, but for those that are, it seems to me very suboptimal to resort to analogies with religious concepts in public discussions of the concern. My first comment has a score of -4 now by the way.
BlueTemplar 6y ago
Funnily it works both ways as indulgences were supposed to "wash away the sin". Also, I would have hoped that we could have managed to solve the pollution issue in a rational way, but hope is getting thin. And religion comes with the power of strong taboos that might succeed where we previously failed. Or maybe what is blocking us is how progress has been given the status of a new religion, and while we can appreciate where it got us, we also have to consider whether the costs aren't going to outweigh the benefits in the future...

hannob 6y ago

Are you confusing carbon offsetting companies with carbon removal companies? They can overlap, but are not the same thing. And I think the gaming is a particular problem of carbon offsetting (and I don't think there's a lot of history with carbon removal yet, at least if we talk about carbon removal in the sense of direct air capture technology).

BlueTemplar 6y ago
I had indeed first confused them but they are likely to run into similar issues (depending on the regulatory environment).