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As nice as DAC projects sound, I really cannot wrap my head around them. 36kt is not much. We’d need around 1.5m of these plants to reach carbon neutrality (wit

As nice as DAC projects sound, I really cannot wrap my head around them. 36kt is not much. We’d need around 1.5m of these plants to reach carbon neutrality (without any other changes).

mattashii 4y ago
Yes, but the point is that you need to start somewhere. And 36kt CO2 captured /year means over 2 million euros in tradable emissions each year, at current ETS prices of 60+ euros per metric ton CO2 emissions.
- qeternity 4y ago
  Every DAC system I’ve seen has costs that are an order of magnitude higher than where current compliance markets are trading (like EUAs).
conductr 4y ago
> Climeworks was launched by Jan Wurzbacher and Christoph Gebald in 2009 out of ETH Zürich, the main technical university in Switzerland. Since then, Wurzbacher told CNBC, DAC technology has improved by leaps and bounds. “We started with milligrams of carbon dioxide captured from the air,” he said. “Then we went from milligrams to grams, from grams to kilograms to tons to 1,000 tons.” That sort of leveling up over the course of 13 years is no small feat. > To meet its future goals, though, the company will have its work cut out for it; they’re aiming to remove millions of tons of CO2 per year by 2030 and a billion per year by 2050. It's a startup and growth is the name of the game
jeffbee 4y ago
Sounds like a lot? How many oil wells do you think the world has built? There are 2 million operating oil and gas wells in the U.S. alone. Building carbon infrastructure at scale is something humans are good at. We just need to reverse the sign.
- tito 4y ago
  Yes, reverse the sign. Carbon emissions are not tracked in our existing accounting systems. Integrating carbon tracking and emissions into our society is inevitable, but it's only going to get more expensive the longer we wait.
- binarymax 4y ago
  Yeah but the oil wells were built as part of an energy providing supply chain - it has actual use. This carbon is going to be injected into the ground, so there’s no economic incentive to building and operating these plants. If the subsidies are enough, and therefore the incentive great enough, then they will be built - but the incentive for reversing climate change has been a difficult area to break through.
- lovemenot 4y ago
  >> We just need to reverse the sign. Economics looks a lot like entropy. We know of no way to do economically valuable work by burying carbon.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    The economic benefits of controlling the climate should be fairly obvious. What you really meant is that we don't know how to make carbon capture enrich the specific person of Charles Koch, yet.
    - lovemenot 4y ago
      Nope, I get your meaning and it wasn't mine. I see economic processes like physical ones. Water flows downhill, never up. Sure, there are huge spectacular waterfalls like your most hated billionaire. But that's essentially still the same downhill flow process as a meandering wide river. We can discuss the best route from top to bottom. Fine. Perhaps I too would prefer to avoid such precipitous drops. But the issue here is that we have the need for uphill flow.
- qeternity 4y ago
  I’m not sure what comparison you’re drawing. They have nothing to do with each other. The economics and purpose are entirely different.

As nice as DAC projects sound, I really cannot wrap my head around them. 36kt is not much. We’d need around 1.5m of these plants to reach carbon neutrality (without any other changes).

mattashii 4y ago

Yes, but the point is that you need to start somewhere. And 36kt CO2 captured /year means over 2 million euros in tradable emissions each year, at current ETS prices of 60+ euros per metric ton CO2 emissions.

qeternity 4y ago
Every DAC system I’ve seen has costs that are an order of magnitude higher than where current compliance markets are trading (like EUAs).

conductr 4y ago

> Climeworks was launched by Jan Wurzbacher and Christoph Gebald in 2009 out of ETH Zürich, the main technical university in Switzerland. Since then, Wurzbacher told CNBC, DAC technology has improved by leaps and bounds. “We started with milligrams of carbon dioxide captured from the air,” he said. “Then we went from milligrams to grams, from grams to kilograms to tons to 1,000 tons.” That sort of leveling up over the course of 13 years is no small feat. > To meet its future goals, though, the company will have its work cut out for it; they’re aiming to remove millions of tons of CO2 per year by 2030 and a billion per year by 2050. It's a startup and growth is the name of the game

jeffbee 4y ago

Sounds like a lot? How many oil wells do you think the world has built? There are 2 million operating oil and gas wells in the U.S. alone. Building carbon infrastructure at scale is something humans are good at. We just need to reverse the sign.

tito 4y ago
Yes, reverse the sign. Carbon emissions are not tracked in our existing accounting systems. Integrating carbon tracking and emissions into our society is inevitable, but it's only going to get more expensive the longer we wait.
binarymax 4y ago
Yeah but the oil wells were built as part of an energy providing supply chain - it has actual use. This carbon is going to be injected into the ground, so there’s no economic incentive to building and operating these plants. If the subsidies are enough, and therefore the incentive great enough, then they will be built - but the incentive for reversing climate change has been a difficult area to break through.
lovemenot 4y ago
>> We just need to reverse the sign. Economics looks a lot like entropy. We know of no way to do economically valuable work by burying carbon.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  The economic benefits of controlling the climate should be fairly obvious. What you really meant is that we don't know how to make carbon capture enrich the specific person of Charles Koch, yet.
  - lovemenot 4y ago
    Nope, I get your meaning and it wasn't mine. I see economic processes like physical ones. Water flows downhill, never up. Sure, there are huge spectacular waterfalls like your most hated billionaire. But that's essentially still the same downhill flow process as a meandering wide river. We can discuss the best route from top to bottom. Fine. Perhaps I too would prefer to avoid such precipitous drops. But the issue here is that we have the need for uphill flow.
qeternity 4y ago
I’m not sure what comparison you’re drawing. They have nothing to do with each other. The economics and purpose are entirely different.