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I’m genuinely having trouble following what you’re saying. Can you simplify. Too much co2 in the atmosphere is assumed to be a bad thing. Someone says they ca

I’m genuinely having trouble following what you’re saying. Can you simplify. Too much co2 in the atmosphere is assumed to be a bad thing. Someone says they can sequester co2 from the atmosphere at a certain energy cost. Is your point that this energy cost is unrealizable?

senectus1 5y ago
This solution isn't about pulling it from the atmosphere.. its about pulling it from a clean direct source.
- jiggawatts 5y ago
  None of this matters. This is literally[1] burning $300,000 to save $100. No matter how well you optimise that $300K, it will never ever EVER be less than $100. It can't possibly be, that would break the laws of physics and you'd have essentially a perpetual motion (free energy) machine. If you have 'x' units of carbon (coal), which you burn to make 'e(x)' units of energy and some CO2, turning the resulting CO2 back into 'x' units of carbon will always take more than 'e(x)' units of energy. There is no magical future science that can enable this. It's a fundamental law of thermodynamics! If it were possible, then you could turn 'x' units of carbon back into 'x' units of carbon PLUS have some free energy left over by running the above in a loop. That's absurd. That's literally a perpetual motion machine. You could start with one ton of carbon and never need more to make infinite energy. There is an endless series of "science" papers like this published every year, because it gets funding and attention from people that just don't understand that "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch". They're a total waste of time, and have the same logic as trying to power your ceiling lights by using solar cells as your wallpaper and then connecting the lights to the wallpaper. Isn't that brilliant!? The photons from the ceiling lights will produce electricity in the solar cells, which in turn will power your lights! Never pay electricity bills ever again! NOTE: There are ways of capturing (not "un-burning"!) carbon dioxide and trapping it for less energy that was released by burning the carbon that went into it. That's fundamentally different, and potentially economically viable. [1] Literally! Not figuratively! This process literally burns expensive gallium metal to produce cheap carbon and burnt gallium (gallium oxide).
  - steve76 5y ago
  - senectus1 5y ago
    I dont disagree with you, but it does matter that this POC was done using a concentrated pure source of CO2... If it requires that, then its even more pointless apart from the learnings of course, because such scenarios are super super rare in the real world of industry. and in a marketing/politics point of view there is a LOT of bullshit going around about "Carbon Capture and Storage". This POC is likely to revamp that bullshit all over again.. its worth pointing out that this POC did not even slightly come close to the idea of "pulling carbon from the atmosphere". The cost of doing it is so far down the list of reasons to not get overly excited about it.
  - mahkeiro 5y ago
    I think that you have to consider the wider system where a lot of free energy can be created by renewable during peak time. This energy can then be stored or be used to remove or displace CO2 with this kind of process. CO2 capture always create the problem to store it at geological scale.
  - esyir 5y ago
    Every time I hear a "THERMODYNAMICS" argument on carbon capture/retrieval, I die a little inside. Especially since the fundamental assumption is that the earth is a closed system. Considering that the sun provides us an effectively (current and moderate-future) unlimited source of energy, it's perfectly reasonable to spend more energy than was generated, especially if it allows us to mitigate unreliable sources (solar) with on-demand sources. The question is then, can we spin up sufficient capacity, and can we find a scalable, sufficiently efficient way of capturing said carbon, thus the research into this area. Nobody is talking perpetual motion here.
    - jiggawatts 5y ago
      But then why bother burning the coal in the first place? If you can get energy from the sun/fusion/fission/wind/whatever then you don’t need to burn coal! If you just want to remove CO2 from the air, there are much better ways than “un-burning” it.

senectus1 5y ago

This solution isn't about pulling it from the atmosphere.. its about pulling it from a clean direct source.

jiggawatts 5y ago
None of this matters. This is literally[1] burning $300,000 to save $100. No matter how well you optimise that $300K, it will never ever EVER be less than $100. It can't possibly be, that would break the laws of physics and you'd have essentially a perpetual motion (free energy) machine. If you have 'x' units of carbon (coal), which you burn to make 'e(x)' units of energy and some CO2, turning the resulting CO2 back into 'x' units of carbon will always take more than 'e(x)' units of energy. There is no magical future science that can enable this. It's a fundamental law of thermodynamics! If it were possible, then you could turn 'x' units of carbon back into 'x' units of carbon PLUS have some free energy left over by running the above in a loop. That's absurd. That's literally a perpetual motion machine. You could start with one ton of carbon and never need more to make infinite energy. There is an endless series of "science" papers like this published every year, because it gets funding and attention from people that just don't understand that "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch". They're a total waste of time, and have the same logic as trying to power your ceiling lights by using solar cells as your wallpaper and then connecting the lights to the wallpaper. Isn't that brilliant!? The photons from the ceiling lights will produce electricity in the solar cells, which in turn will power your lights! Never pay electricity bills ever again! NOTE: There are ways of capturing (not "un-burning"!) carbon dioxide and trapping it for less energy that was released by burning the carbon that went into it. That's fundamentally different, and potentially economically viable. [1] Literally! Not figuratively! This process literally burns expensive gallium metal to produce cheap carbon and burnt gallium (gallium oxide).
- steve76 5y ago
- senectus1 5y ago
  I dont disagree with you, but it does matter that this POC was done using a concentrated pure source of CO2... If it requires that, then its even more pointless apart from the learnings of course, because such scenarios are super super rare in the real world of industry. and in a marketing/politics point of view there is a LOT of bullshit going around about "Carbon Capture and Storage". This POC is likely to revamp that bullshit all over again.. its worth pointing out that this POC did not even slightly come close to the idea of "pulling carbon from the atmosphere". The cost of doing it is so far down the list of reasons to not get overly excited about it.
- mahkeiro 5y ago
  I think that you have to consider the wider system where a lot of free energy can be created by renewable during peak time. This energy can then be stored or be used to remove or displace CO2 with this kind of process. CO2 capture always create the problem to store it at geological scale.
- esyir 5y ago
  Every time I hear a "THERMODYNAMICS" argument on carbon capture/retrieval, I die a little inside. Especially since the fundamental assumption is that the earth is a closed system. Considering that the sun provides us an effectively (current and moderate-future) unlimited source of energy, it's perfectly reasonable to spend more energy than was generated, especially if it allows us to mitigate unreliable sources (solar) with on-demand sources. The question is then, can we spin up sufficient capacity, and can we find a scalable, sufficiently efficient way of capturing said carbon, thus the research into this area. Nobody is talking perpetual motion here.
  - jiggawatts 5y ago
    But then why bother burning the coal in the first place? If you can get energy from the sun/fusion/fission/wind/whatever then you don’t need to burn coal! If you just want to remove CO2 from the air, there are much better ways than “un-burning” it.