4 ms·

Great observation - somewhere between most-to-all of the CO2 that goes into beer, food production, etc ends up back in the atmosphere. Our initial model is the

Great observation - somewhere between most-to-all of the CO2 that goes into beer, food production, etc ends up back in the atmosphere. Our initial model is the first key step towards the additional solutions we're designing to remove carbon from the atmosphere. The use of CO2 that is sourced from the atmosphere is better from an environmental perspective than the use of CO2 sourced from offshoots of an ethanol plant. In the current supply chain, each ton of CO2 that goes into a product results in a new ton being introduced into the atmosphere + any emissions required to purify and move that ton from the point of production to the point of consumption. With CO2 produced from the atmosphere, no new tons are introduced to the atmosphere in the production of that same product, and the energy (aka emissions) required to capture that ton from the atmosphere are low since the cooling tower is already operating, so we don't need to use additional energy to perform the capture. Direct CO2 sales is a much faster way to start having an environmental impact via direct air capture than doing combined capture + sequestration. Most new carbon sequestration projects take years to permit and construct, and this path allows us to perfect the technology of capturing carbon from the sky while working on these sequestration projects in parallel. We also intend to convert CO2 into other useful products down the line that result in more permanent sequestration - we have some team members with expertise in green chemistry and electrochemical CO2 reduction, and we're already starting to think about how to achieve these things at scale.

deleted 6y ago
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mattmaroon 6y ago
Yeah it would seem that if someone buys a ton of CO2 from you, then that’s just one more ton some ethanol production facility vents into the air instead of capturing and selling right? Are you saying that your method of producing a ton of CO2 uses less energy than theirs?
- jsantos511 6y ago
  In the short-term, it seems very likely that if ethanol plants do not sell that ton of CO2, it will end up back in the atmosphere. In the long-run, we have the opportunity to clean those emissions up with either new technologies that can produce ethanol without huge emissions (of which many people are working on) and/or regulations requiring carbon capture at ethanol plants. But, we have to break the reliance on that method of production for the CO2 industry to help push all of that along. If companies are still getting their CO2 as a waste product, it may make regulation or incentives for new tech harder in the future. Just like EV's are getting power from the grid which is, in some places, still heavily reliant on fossil fuels, switching to EV's is breaking the need for fossil fuels in the transportation itself. We need to do the same for the CO2 industry.
  - mattmaroon 6y ago
    Yeah I mean, clearly removing CO2 from the environment (provided were not burning fossil fuels to do it) can’t be bad. For now it seems like you’re just shuffling the source of the problem, but i I see what you mean about ethanol sans-CO2. Is that a realistic thing in the near term? If CO2 is all just a byproduct (I.e. nobody is producing it just to sell it) then it would seem that whatever source of it consumes the least energy from fossil fuels is the best from an environmental standpoint right? So I guess my question is how does your solution stack up to current recapture in that regard?
    - jsantos511 6y ago
      Ethanol sans-CO2 is definitely realistic, but the timing is what's up in the air (no pun intended). There are a few different teams that have developed materials that enable ethanol production from CO2 (!!!) and are starting to scale [1, 2 as examples]. We're still working on finalizing our comparisons of our process to current CO2 production processes. From what I can tell currently, our process requires significantly less capex (<$1M) than installing CO2 production facilities onto an ethanol plant (>$100M quoted from a friend at a big gas supplier). Energy is a hard thing to compare apples-to-apples without accounting for all pieces of equipment in each process, but it does less moving parts than many ethanol plants require for CO2. We are superior when it comes to transportation, however. Since cooling towers are scattered all throughout the country and even in urban areas, we can capture and distribute CO2 within the same city, cutting down transportation distances and associated CO2 emissions. EDIT: just realized I forgot to include my sources! [1]: https://scitechdaily.com/breakthrough-electrocatalyst-turns-carbon-dioxide-into-ethanol/ https://scitechdaily.com/breakthrough-electrocatalyst-turns-... [2]: https://www.energy.gov/articles/scientists-accidentally-turned-co2-ethanol https://www.energy.gov/articles/scientists-accidentally-turn...
      - mattmaroon 6y ago
        Awesome. Good answers. Thanks and good luck!
elihu 6y ago
> The use of CO2 that is sourced from the atmosphere is better from an environmental perspective than the use of CO2 sourced from offshoots of an ethanol plant. I thought that most ethanol is made from fermentation of corn, sugar, or whatever, and the carbon in that process came from the atmosphere originally. So, environmentally whether you make CO2 as a byproduct of ethanol production from CO2-absorbing crops or you extract CO2 straight from the air, it seems essentially the same because in both cases the carbon came from the atmosphere originally. What am I missing?
- jsantos511 6y ago
  Great question - the carbon cycle definitely needs to be thought about in this scenario. The missing link here is in total embodied emissions that go into production of corn. There's data available to help piece together a comparison [1, 2], and I'd love to work through this and get back to you with what I find. At a high-level, CO2 production from corn isn't net-neutral because the production of a corn, and then ethanol from that corn, is a fairly carbon-intensive process in terms of the energy it requires. Our process doesn't require most of the transportation corn does, and since the cooling tower is already operating, we don't have to incur any additional costs to capture the CO2. Our main costs are in the energy required for regeneration, and depending on the facility we're at, we may even get that for free in the form of waste heat/steam. If you want to send me an email at josh [at] noyalabs.com, we can talk more about this there! [1]: https://www.attisbiofuels.com/by-products/carbon-dioxide https://www.attisbiofuels.com/by-products/carbon-dioxide [2]: https://watermark.silverchair.com/55-7-593.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAsgwggLEBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggK1MIICsQIBADCCAqoGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMiho6uywUUXGbTk3mAgEQgIICeyHFfkYJCBJCsB348_mX8T-7Qm6sSqEkcBpnTaVm4JYDVkwJvo06pZ0bWEpwkCsqNyBTH_yWAB_HzYzq9JUHFQIaMbspMoLL0Q96m9U0ltoJgtOmvIQ7s882NMFbdQrkBoOIKblZQYH9D5ZNee14ItoKDbFDG6KmQulmCc_bkQj4OTvEYUBkb1I0EgudOX_zmAeIb84KdFE9wwo-8SqYaVvGwi3_5fMyvPBBSlhnQRtIQDvh5Z3ElcGwXzOmrcWLlrpqsCN5zC3G81raOFx0LZwIpRcF-uBgWMXxb4lKCqEXPwVupoPDtahdQ0jOlM65JrMZvXDnsOaxYBePzcTqxQeqRtuj8IlIBxzZ9QE_UtOejlS7RfNIVLw54rwKDRdefHt_Re0Lkjfv5aFijAnhJOCzdTsfpDWrZwKi6q9oKk98WHG3m4sy7eRzX5XJFZ9PgwJc-4HRZGnx8BkbTaM7jiN2l82vsiJs7Sg7rgE7WFV5d_DDNhXn-GJiqq5H0701boSnfJrjgk3hVu-i7favUwoCTSKKhiORbJpH0H4vt23PVx69fTMw1bwAJr2MK_kzP81zL2oIqOp0HS6nTIdiDa9fkYRgh8Y5wI_C7zxJVxFkyLISL1ZWc41bVtz_446gXMn8k37mlPTP3YT0Mlt0rXkKWTzB4Ck1imZsrc-uoQvyojxTOhXr_Kpq7Q-qz9-pdOJeDDymF0xnK29FDwfPBmhYKN9OHPoX14eFXgy5OZ68LFj2UA2KwYCVR_AX7UJ_EfDzJHOUvU1BeWAUHR8kjRVpwuE0q4PMY4KBxWToS2L9Nlo6pfwaU9QffyZ5XwPRrov8XZ9Y1P7zY8xD https://watermark.silverchair.com/55-7-593.pdf?token=AQECAHi...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mattmaroon 6y ago

Yeah it would seem that if someone buys a ton of CO2 from you, then that’s just one more ton some ethanol production facility vents into the air instead of capturing and selling right? Are you saying that your method of producing a ton of CO2 uses less energy than theirs?

jsantos511 6y ago
In the short-term, it seems very likely that if ethanol plants do not sell that ton of CO2, it will end up back in the atmosphere. In the long-run, we have the opportunity to clean those emissions up with either new technologies that can produce ethanol without huge emissions (of which many people are working on) and/or regulations requiring carbon capture at ethanol plants. But, we have to break the reliance on that method of production for the CO2 industry to help push all of that along. If companies are still getting their CO2 as a waste product, it may make regulation or incentives for new tech harder in the future. Just like EV's are getting power from the grid which is, in some places, still heavily reliant on fossil fuels, switching to EV's is breaking the need for fossil fuels in the transportation itself. We need to do the same for the CO2 industry.
- mattmaroon 6y ago
  Yeah I mean, clearly removing CO2 from the environment (provided were not burning fossil fuels to do it) can’t be bad. For now it seems like you’re just shuffling the source of the problem, but i I see what you mean about ethanol sans-CO2. Is that a realistic thing in the near term? If CO2 is all just a byproduct (I.e. nobody is producing it just to sell it) then it would seem that whatever source of it consumes the least energy from fossil fuels is the best from an environmental standpoint right? So I guess my question is how does your solution stack up to current recapture in that regard?
  - jsantos511 6y ago
    Ethanol sans-CO2 is definitely realistic, but the timing is what's up in the air (no pun intended). There are a few different teams that have developed materials that enable ethanol production from CO2 (!!!) and are starting to scale [1, 2 as examples]. We're still working on finalizing our comparisons of our process to current CO2 production processes. From what I can tell currently, our process requires significantly less capex (<$1M) than installing CO2 production facilities onto an ethanol plant (>$100M quoted from a friend at a big gas supplier). Energy is a hard thing to compare apples-to-apples without accounting for all pieces of equipment in each process, but it does less moving parts than many ethanol plants require for CO2. We are superior when it comes to transportation, however. Since cooling towers are scattered all throughout the country and even in urban areas, we can capture and distribute CO2 within the same city, cutting down transportation distances and associated CO2 emissions. EDIT: just realized I forgot to include my sources! [1]: https://scitechdaily.com/breakthrough-electrocatalyst-turns-carbon-dioxide-into-ethanol/ https://scitechdaily.com/breakthrough-electrocatalyst-turns-... [2]: https://www.energy.gov/articles/scientists-accidentally-turned-co2-ethanol https://www.energy.gov/articles/scientists-accidentally-turn...
    - mattmaroon 6y ago
      Awesome. Good answers. Thanks and good luck!

elihu 6y ago

> The use of CO2 that is sourced from the atmosphere is better from an environmental perspective than the use of CO2 sourced from offshoots of an ethanol plant. I thought that most ethanol is made from fermentation of corn, sugar, or whatever, and the carbon in that process came from the atmosphere originally. So, environmentally whether you make CO2 as a byproduct of ethanol production from CO2-absorbing crops or you extract CO2 straight from the air, it seems essentially the same because in both cases the carbon came from the atmosphere originally. What am I missing?

jsantos511 6y ago
Great question - the carbon cycle definitely needs to be thought about in this scenario. The missing link here is in total embodied emissions that go into production of corn. There's data available to help piece together a comparison [1, 2], and I'd love to work through this and get back to you with what I find. At a high-level, CO2 production from corn isn't net-neutral because the production of a corn, and then ethanol from that corn, is a fairly carbon-intensive process in terms of the energy it requires. Our process doesn't require most of the transportation corn does, and since the cooling tower is already operating, we don't have to incur any additional costs to capture the CO2. Our main costs are in the energy required for regeneration, and depending on the facility we're at, we may even get that for free in the form of waste heat/steam. If you want to send me an email at josh [at] noyalabs.com, we can talk more about this there! [1]: https://www.attisbiofuels.com/by-products/carbon-dioxide https://www.attisbiofuels.com/by-products/carbon-dioxide [2]: https://watermark.silverchair.com/55-7-593.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAsgwggLEBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggK1MIICsQIBADCCAqoGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMiho6uywUUXGbTk3mAgEQgIICeyHFfkYJCBJCsB348_mX8T-7Qm6sSqEkcBpnTaVm4JYDVkwJvo06pZ0bWEpwkCsqNyBTH_yWAB_HzYzq9JUHFQIaMbspMoLL0Q96m9U0ltoJgtOmvIQ7s882NMFbdQrkBoOIKblZQYH9D5ZNee14ItoKDbFDG6KmQulmCc_bkQj4OTvEYUBkb1I0EgudOX_zmAeIb84KdFE9wwo-8SqYaVvGwi3_5fMyvPBBSlhnQRtIQDvh5Z3ElcGwXzOmrcWLlrpqsCN5zC3G81raOFx0LZwIpRcF-uBgWMXxb4lKCqEXPwVupoPDtahdQ0jOlM65JrMZvXDnsOaxYBePzcTqxQeqRtuj8IlIBxzZ9QE_UtOejlS7RfNIVLw54rwKDRdefHt_Re0Lkjfv5aFijAnhJOCzdTsfpDWrZwKi6q9oKk98WHG3m4sy7eRzX5XJFZ9PgwJc-4HRZGnx8BkbTaM7jiN2l82vsiJs7Sg7rgE7WFV5d_DDNhXn-GJiqq5H0701boSnfJrjgk3hVu-i7favUwoCTSKKhiORbJpH0H4vt23PVx69fTMw1bwAJr2MK_kzP81zL2oIqOp0HS6nTIdiDa9fkYRgh8Y5wI_C7zxJVxFkyLISL1ZWc41bVtz_446gXMn8k37mlPTP3YT0Mlt0rXkKWTzB4Ck1imZsrc-uoQvyojxTOhXr_Kpq7Q-qz9-pdOJeDDymF0xnK29FDwfPBmhYKN9OHPoX14eFXgy5OZ68LFj2UA2KwYCVR_AX7UJ_EfDzJHOUvU1BeWAUHR8kjRVpwuE0q4PMY4KBxWToS2L9Nlo6pfwaU9QffyZ5XwPRrov8XZ9Y1P7zY8xD https://watermark.silverchair.com/55-7-593.pdf?token=AQECAHi...