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> Using the coast of Peru as a case study, the team calculate that depositing 50,000 tonnes of tephra – a bulk carrier vessel’s worth – offshore could sequester

> Using the coast of Peru as a case study, the team calculate that depositing 50,000 tonnes of tephra – a bulk carrier vessel’s worth – offshore could sequester 2750 tonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Current global CO2 output is 51 gigatons. Their solution is not viable. It won't even put a dent in the current output. [1] 1: https://mobile.twitter.com/BillGates/status/1453367874848837638 https://mobile.twitter.com/BillGates/status/1453367874848837...

Chris2048 5y ago
Specifically, it would take 927.27 gigatons of tephra. That said, a quick google suggests tephra is about a ton per m^3; so a 100100100 metre cube of the stuff would be 1 kiloton. a 111km cube would be a gigaton. So we need less than a thousand of those a year :-)
- jdkee 5y ago
  A 100^3 meter would be one megaton.
- mkl 5y ago
  Put spaces around your *s or escape them like \*: 100*100*100m is one megaton, and 10*10*10 times that, a 1*1*1km cube, is indeed a gigaton. No one would suggest recapturing all emitted CO2 with this one method though.
  - Chris2048 5y ago
    sorry, yes, that should be 100*100*100 ...
BurningFrog 5y ago
No one thing will solve this problem by itself. Just like one workout won't make you fit. It's not that kind of problem.
- silisili 5y ago
  If you haven't noticed, most Americans aren't fit...and this is IMO precisely the reason why. The world of instant gratification has ruined our abilities to see and think long term.
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    Most americans aren't fit because nutritious food is expensive and more time consuming than sugar food.
    - sporc 5y ago
      Time consuming, yes. More expensive, no. People with long term perspective are willing to take the time to provide healthful meals for themselves.
      - spywaregorilla 5y ago
        Obesity is strongly correlated with poverty. Don't go mistaking weight as a function of work ethic or long term perspective. Many people both do not have enough to eat and are obese.
- Retric 5y ago
  It’s one thing to say every little bit helps, but when your talking about something that’s never going to offset even 1% of current CO2 output it’s reasonable to suggest focusing on more effective solutions. Especially when actually mining transporting and distributing the material is going to release significant CO2.
  - sieabahlpark 5y ago
    The part no one considers is the output CO2 to achieve the reduction. It's just a constant flux of armchair scientists from Reddit.
  - lugged 5y ago
a1371 5y ago
This will be as much reduction as retrofitting about 200 homes, without any of the social benefit. Not to dismiss their work, but puts things in perspective.
- eru 5y ago
  What social benefit?
  - Tagbert 5y ago
    Perhaps reduced cost to the homeowners for heating and cooling their homes with a reduction in pollution due to lower energy production.
    - eru 5y ago
      Hmm, perhaps. Though the first part are just private benefits to the homeowners (which of course, should go into the cost-benefit analysis), and the latter is basically the same kind of benefit that the proposed ocean seeding has. I have no data on which method is best here, I was just confused by 'social benefit'.
aaron695 5y ago
>Their solution is not viable. It won't even put a dent in the current output Crazy idea do more than one ship. Crazy idea, these plans all help fisheries so they might pay for themselves and scale and stop a few animals going extinct and help reduce pressure on farming and land clearing. But we all know any solutions are not actually wanted, we all want to wank ourselves off about how the world is dying and we can't do anything about it to distract ourselves from the fact all our jobs are meaningless.
CtznIndn 5y ago
There is NO solution that can VIABLY take care of all 51Gt at the outset, except perhaps an extinction level event. All the Solutions being proposed have to make sense in terms of ease of procurement of raw materials,cost,their worldwide widespread availability and Science. Then, there will be a scale-up phase overtime, and we won't know what the upper limit would be, right at the beginning. It may not take out all 51 Gt, but even 1Gt per solution per annum can be considered Good. The Rest 50Gt will have to be taken care of by other solutions.
choeger 5y ago
They claim a price of less than £50 per ton. So 51Gt would about to £250 billion. If that method would indeed work it would be -by far- the cheapest I ever heard of.
- hirundo 5y ago
  50x50B=2,500B.
  - heisenbit 5y ago
    Still in the order of magnitude of military spending.
    - wongarsu 5y ago
      About 1.3 times the world's annual military budget, or 3.2 times that of the USA. [1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...
  - neltnerb 5y ago
    Honestly, still... if that was what it cost globally? Sounds cheap to me, the next closest I've read about is in the $100-$120/ton range. Better to just not emit it, but nice to have numbers for how big a carbon tax needs to be to encourage reduction over capture.
    - Factorium 5y ago
      At a mere $15/tonne, coal becomes 100% more expensive (ie. dead): https://www.resources.org/common-resources/calculating-various-fuel-prices-under-a-carbon-tax/ https://www.resources.org/common-resources/calculating-vario... The low-hanging fruit is to just stop burning coal for electricity, and to enact that restriction globally. We can deal with gas, metallurgical coal, oil later. Just get rid of coal now.
      - 5y ago
AtlasBarfed 5y ago
Yes this kind of reporting is the established industry exploiting "whataboutism" / newspaper scoring when absolute numbers are absolutely necessary. It doesn't matter that smart people immediately do the actual gigatons accounting within seconds of reading the article. The headline is in the public, ready to populate some neuron in their brain that represents false equivalence "Well we polluted the atmosphere with gigatons for 150 years, well that's offset by the gee-whiz volcanic ash headline". What I mean by newspaper scoring is the surfacing of that simplistic offsetting neuron encoding in lazy people: Simply have three points on one side, three points on the other, regardless of veracity or actual scientific/environmental/economic scales and accounting, they offset in the minds of both the vapid news parroters and those that watch them. Worst of all, the newsmen get to pretend like they are objective because they "represented a balanced perspective".

Chris2048 5y ago

Specifically, it would take 927.27 gigatons of tephra. That said, a quick google suggests tephra is about a ton per m^3; so a 100100100 metre cube of the stuff would be 1 kiloton. a 111km cube would be a gigaton. So we need less than a thousand of those a year :-)

jdkee 5y ago
A 100^3 meter would be one megaton.
mkl 5y ago
Put spaces around your *s or escape them like \*: 100*100*100m is one megaton, and 10*10*10 times that, a 1*1*1km cube, is indeed a gigaton. No one would suggest recapturing all emitted CO2 with this one method though.
- Chris2048 5y ago
  sorry, yes, that should be 100*100*100 ...

BurningFrog 5y ago

No one thing will solve this problem by itself. Just like one workout won't make you fit. It's not that kind of problem.

silisili 5y ago
If you haven't noticed, most Americans aren't fit...and this is IMO precisely the reason why. The world of instant gratification has ruined our abilities to see and think long term.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  Most americans aren't fit because nutritious food is expensive and more time consuming than sugar food.
  - sporc 5y ago
    Time consuming, yes. More expensive, no. People with long term perspective are willing to take the time to provide healthful meals for themselves.
    - spywaregorilla 5y ago
      Obesity is strongly correlated with poverty. Don't go mistaking weight as a function of work ethic or long term perspective. Many people both do not have enough to eat and are obese.
Retric 5y ago
It’s one thing to say every little bit helps, but when your talking about something that’s never going to offset even 1% of current CO2 output it’s reasonable to suggest focusing on more effective solutions. Especially when actually mining transporting and distributing the material is going to release significant CO2.
- sieabahlpark 5y ago
  The part no one considers is the output CO2 to achieve the reduction. It's just a constant flux of armchair scientists from Reddit.
- lugged 5y ago

a1371 5y ago

This will be as much reduction as retrofitting about 200 homes, without any of the social benefit. Not to dismiss their work, but puts things in perspective.

eru 5y ago
What social benefit?
- Tagbert 5y ago
  Perhaps reduced cost to the homeowners for heating and cooling their homes with a reduction in pollution due to lower energy production.
  - eru 5y ago
    Hmm, perhaps. Though the first part are just private benefits to the homeowners (which of course, should go into the cost-benefit analysis), and the latter is basically the same kind of benefit that the proposed ocean seeding has. I have no data on which method is best here, I was just confused by 'social benefit'.

aaron695 5y ago

>Their solution is not viable. It won't even put a dent in the current output Crazy idea do more than one ship. Crazy idea, these plans all help fisheries so they might pay for themselves and scale and stop a few animals going extinct and help reduce pressure on farming and land clearing. But we all know any solutions are not actually wanted, we all want to wank ourselves off about how the world is dying and we can't do anything about it to distract ourselves from the fact all our jobs are meaningless.

CtznIndn 5y ago

There is NO solution that can VIABLY take care of all 51Gt at the outset, except perhaps an extinction level event. All the Solutions being proposed have to make sense in terms of ease of procurement of raw materials,cost,their worldwide widespread availability and Science. Then, there will be a scale-up phase overtime, and we won't know what the upper limit would be, right at the beginning. It may not take out all 51 Gt, but even 1Gt per solution per annum can be considered Good. The Rest 50Gt will have to be taken care of by other solutions.

choeger 5y ago

They claim a price of less than £50 per ton. So 51Gt would about to £250 billion. If that method would indeed work it would be -by far- the cheapest I ever heard of.

hirundo 5y ago
50x50B=2,500B.
- heisenbit 5y ago
  Still in the order of magnitude of military spending.
  - wongarsu 5y ago
    About 1.3 times the world's annual military budget, or 3.2 times that of the USA. [1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...
- neltnerb 5y ago
  Honestly, still... if that was what it cost globally? Sounds cheap to me, the next closest I've read about is in the $100-$120/ton range. Better to just not emit it, but nice to have numbers for how big a carbon tax needs to be to encourage reduction over capture.
  - Factorium 5y ago
    At a mere $15/tonne, coal becomes 100% more expensive (ie. dead): https://www.resources.org/common-resources/calculating-various-fuel-prices-under-a-carbon-tax/ https://www.resources.org/common-resources/calculating-vario... The low-hanging fruit is to just stop burning coal for electricity, and to enact that restriction globally. We can deal with gas, metallurgical coal, oil later. Just get rid of coal now.
    - 5y ago

AtlasBarfed 5y ago

Yes this kind of reporting is the established industry exploiting "whataboutism" / newspaper scoring when absolute numbers are absolutely necessary. It doesn't matter that smart people immediately do the actual gigatons accounting within seconds of reading the article. The headline is in the public, ready to populate some neuron in their brain that represents false equivalence "Well we polluted the atmosphere with gigatons for 150 years, well that's offset by the gee-whiz volcanic ash headline". What I mean by newspaper scoring is the surfacing of that simplistic offsetting neuron encoding in lazy people: Simply have three points on one side, three points on the other, regardless of veracity or actual scientific/environmental/economic scales and accounting, they offset in the minds of both the vapid news parroters and those that watch them. Worst of all, the newsmen get to pretend like they are objective because they "represented a balanced perspective".