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> Not so quick. Does a layman have any reference point to what is considered "a lot" of carbon? I don't think a comparison to another producer of carbon would

> Not so quick. Does a layman have any reference point to what is considered "a lot" of carbon? I don't think a comparison to another producer of carbon would actually help a layman. Whether that is a lot or not would depend on the cost and energy used by the plant itself, which isn't really given in this article. > That may be so, but this still doesn't make this a good use of that surplus. Why? Suppose there is no other demand for that energy. What is actually wasted in that case? How do you measure what is "good"?

Alupis 4y ago
Things that are inevitably built and require lots of power and/or cooling and/or heating are prime for this surplus. Things like Data Centers (which many have already been built from my understanding), manufacturing plants, scientific research, etc. Or work on ways to "package" the produced energy and export it to other nations efficiently. Regardless, this DAC is consuming lots of energy and producing very little (if any, likely no) benefit at all, and in the process of merely being brought into existence releases a lot of emissions. It would quite literally be better to not even build it in the first place it seems... given the lofty-but-insignificant numbers the article provides.
- datadata 4y ago
  > It would quite literally be better to not even build it in the first place it seems You have to quantify these things in some way, otherwise you are making purely subjective claims. I don't think this project does a good job of using data to quantify that it is useful, but it is even less legitimate to dismiss it in the same way. How do you measure that a Data Center would be a better use of this power? How would a prototype of a project that "packages" energy for transport also not just be perceived as a total waste of effort?
  - Alupis 4y ago
    > How would a prototype of a project that "packages" energy for transport also not just be perceived as a total waste of effort? Because the technology there doesn't rely on literally sucking all of the atmosphere through a machine to achieve some sort of positive effect. We can do napkin math and conclude already this machine achieves nearly no results - and worse, it took over a decade to achieve nearly no results - and even worse, to scale this thing to a level where it does actually register some sort of impact is unachievable. Again... doing the wrong thing is often worse than doing nothing at all. This machine, and all DAC's like it are a complete waste of time and resources.
    - datadata 4y ago
      I challenge you to actually do the napkin math here, rather than continue to state your claim that it achieves "nearly no results" without anything quantifying what that means. You might actually be right, but I don't really find your arguments persuasive at all. Regarding sucking all of the atmosphere through a machine, it is unclear why that is either impossible or necessary for this to be useful.
      - Alupis 4y ago
        > Regarding sucking all of the atmosphere through a machine, it is unclear why that is either impossible or necessary for this to be useful. The only atmosphere being cleaned is that which passes through the machine. It's like a hepa filter for your house. Place the filter in a clean room, and it'll still work, but it'll take an exceedingly long period of time to circulate all the air in your home. The real-world atmosphere isn't stagnant like that in your home either... with currents and what-not, meaning this machine needs to be all over the globe to make meaningful impact. > I challenge you to actually do the napkin math here, rather than continue to state your claim that it achieves "nearly no results" without anything quantifying what that means. Others in this thread have already done so. But here it goes again: Total estimated global CO2 emissions (according to the article) are 36,000,000,000 tons per year. This machine is advertised to extract 36,000 tons per year (which likely means less since this is clearly a puff piece, but we'll use this number anyway). This is 1/1,000,000th of global CO2 emissions - meaning we'd need 1,000,000 more identical machines to achieve CO2 neutrality - which assumes zero net increase in emissions over whatever period of time it takes to manufacture and install all of these machines (which isn't reality). We don't know the emission cost of producing these machines - but it certainly isn't zero. We also don't know the emission cost of the energy being produced to power these things (which even with geo-thermal, is not zero either). We also don't know how large the footprint of these machines are - but given the rendering they do look to be huge. Lastly, we still don't know if it's a good idea to just deposit possibly billions of tons of carbon into the earth every year anyway, making this contraption more of a fantasy than something productive.
        4y ago

Alupis 4y ago

Things that are inevitably built and require lots of power and/or cooling and/or heating are prime for this surplus. Things like Data Centers (which many have already been built from my understanding), manufacturing plants, scientific research, etc. Or work on ways to "package" the produced energy and export it to other nations efficiently. Regardless, this DAC is consuming lots of energy and producing very little (if any, likely no) benefit at all, and in the process of merely being brought into existence releases a lot of emissions. It would quite literally be better to not even build it in the first place it seems... given the lofty-but-insignificant numbers the article provides.

datadata 4y ago
> It would quite literally be better to not even build it in the first place it seems You have to quantify these things in some way, otherwise you are making purely subjective claims. I don't think this project does a good job of using data to quantify that it is useful, but it is even less legitimate to dismiss it in the same way. How do you measure that a Data Center would be a better use of this power? How would a prototype of a project that "packages" energy for transport also not just be perceived as a total waste of effort?
- Alupis 4y ago
  > How would a prototype of a project that "packages" energy for transport also not just be perceived as a total waste of effort? Because the technology there doesn't rely on literally sucking all of the atmosphere through a machine to achieve some sort of positive effect. We can do napkin math and conclude already this machine achieves nearly no results - and worse, it took over a decade to achieve nearly no results - and even worse, to scale this thing to a level where it does actually register some sort of impact is unachievable. Again... doing the wrong thing is often worse than doing nothing at all. This machine, and all DAC's like it are a complete waste of time and resources.
  - datadata 4y ago
    I challenge you to actually do the napkin math here, rather than continue to state your claim that it achieves "nearly no results" without anything quantifying what that means. You might actually be right, but I don't really find your arguments persuasive at all. Regarding sucking all of the atmosphere through a machine, it is unclear why that is either impossible or necessary for this to be useful.
    - Alupis 4y ago
      > Regarding sucking all of the atmosphere through a machine, it is unclear why that is either impossible or necessary for this to be useful. The only atmosphere being cleaned is that which passes through the machine. It's like a hepa filter for your house. Place the filter in a clean room, and it'll still work, but it'll take an exceedingly long period of time to circulate all the air in your home. The real-world atmosphere isn't stagnant like that in your home either... with currents and what-not, meaning this machine needs to be all over the globe to make meaningful impact. > I challenge you to actually do the napkin math here, rather than continue to state your claim that it achieves "nearly no results" without anything quantifying what that means. Others in this thread have already done so. But here it goes again: Total estimated global CO2 emissions (according to the article) are 36,000,000,000 tons per year. This machine is advertised to extract 36,000 tons per year (which likely means less since this is clearly a puff piece, but we'll use this number anyway). This is 1/1,000,000th of global CO2 emissions - meaning we'd need 1,000,000 more identical machines to achieve CO2 neutrality - which assumes zero net increase in emissions over whatever period of time it takes to manufacture and install all of these machines (which isn't reality). We don't know the emission cost of producing these machines - but it certainly isn't zero. We also don't know the emission cost of the energy being produced to power these things (which even with geo-thermal, is not zero either). We also don't know how large the footprint of these machines are - but given the rendering they do look to be huge. Lastly, we still don't know if it's a good idea to just deposit possibly billions of tons of carbon into the earth every year anyway, making this contraption more of a fantasy than something productive.
      - 4y ago