5 ms·

1000 kWh/ton (found it on google): 166 kW/ton in a sunny place: 1000 square meters/ton in a sunny place: 4 million square meters = ~1000 acres of PV to power

1000 kWh/ton (found it on google): 166 kW/ton in a sunny place: 1000 square meters/ton in a sunny place: 4 million square meters = ~1000 acres of PV to power. One unit. Yeah, that’s going to happen. /s “We’re too ashamed of our energy requirements to post them on our page and are well aware they’re dooming this technology until cold fusion comes out” is what I read between the lines on their fluff page.

stavros 3y ago
1000 kWh/ton to sequester, and how many tons per kWh to generate? EDIT: Apparently, one ton of CO2 is released by 1000 kWh of electricity: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 So you have a coal plant generating energy and emitting CO2 just for this factory next to it to capture all that CO2 again. Seems more efficient to just not run the coal factory. It seems like this idea will be worthwhile when the last coal factory closes.
- cogman10 3y ago
  It'll always be more efficient not to emit carbon. Imagine you have a teaspoon of salt and a cup of water. Adding salt into the water is dead simple and requires little energy. Now how hard is it to remove that teaspoon of salt? That's effectively what's happening with the atmosphere.
wolfram74 3y ago
two comments: they claim to sequester 1000 tons (1e6 kg) vs 22kg, so the sequestration space difference is on the order of 200000 difference. They may include the solar panel area in their stated efficiency calculation. Secondly, the solar panels are a bit more liquid than a comparable area of trees, when industrial demand is high, you can route it there, when it's low, it can be working on sequestration. There are some advantages there. Especially considering the atmosphere is fairly homogeneous, but soil in proper condition for forests is less so.
adammarples 3y ago
Their plant is in Iceland and runs on geothermal
- strohwueste 3y ago
  Geothermal is not good for global warming bc it is an additional source of energy which would normally be contained. The sun gives such amount of wattage and the earth can give so much wattage back to the universe. Nuclear, geothermal and fusion is stored energy like fossil fuel which adds to the heat in the atmosphere. Today that only amounts to 5% of global warming but if it's the only source of energy it could add more. CO2 is the focus right now bc it is continuous warming potential but the other energy forms have it too. Wind and solar is just "saving" sun energy from being instantly converted into heat and can be so used for our pleasure as it doesn't add to the input/output equation.
  - tadfisher 3y ago
    Heat waste is absolutely miniscule compared to the amount of energy the Earth receives from the Sun. As in, the Earth is continuously bombarded by 173 petawatts of solar radiation. So you can see why it would be worth trading some waste heat to reduce the retention of solar energy in the atmosphere.
  - adammarples 3y ago
    This doesn't make too much sense in this case, the geothermal energy is being stored in chemical bonds in the carbon sequestration process and returned underground
mchannon 3y ago
Too late to edit, but I should qualify this: They claim 4000 tons per year, I did the math on 4000 tons per day. So ~3-4 acres of PV to power, not 1000 acres. To completely counteract the 37 billion tons per year produced worldwide, and do it with PV only, assuming desert southwest conditions, would require ~30 million acres of PV. That sounds impossibly high, but is only about the size of the US state of Mississippi. 20% of the land area of Texas, on the El Paso side, would be sufficient to keep pace with the entire world's carbon dioxide emissions. I remain skeptical that this is the most cost-effective approach, as well as skeptical of its ability to scale, but I apologize for crapping on it at first gloss.

stavros 3y ago

1000 kWh/ton to sequester, and how many tons per kWh to generate? EDIT: Apparently, one ton of CO2 is released by 1000 kWh of electricity: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 So you have a coal plant generating energy and emitting CO2 just for this factory next to it to capture all that CO2 again. Seems more efficient to just not run the coal factory. It seems like this idea will be worthwhile when the last coal factory closes.

cogman10 3y ago
It'll always be more efficient not to emit carbon. Imagine you have a teaspoon of salt and a cup of water. Adding salt into the water is dead simple and requires little energy. Now how hard is it to remove that teaspoon of salt? That's effectively what's happening with the atmosphere.

wolfram74 3y ago

two comments: they claim to sequester 1000 tons (1e6 kg) vs 22kg, so the sequestration space difference is on the order of 200000 difference. They may include the solar panel area in their stated efficiency calculation. Secondly, the solar panels are a bit more liquid than a comparable area of trees, when industrial demand is high, you can route it there, when it's low, it can be working on sequestration. There are some advantages there. Especially considering the atmosphere is fairly homogeneous, but soil in proper condition for forests is less so.

adammarples 3y ago

Their plant is in Iceland and runs on geothermal

strohwueste 3y ago
Geothermal is not good for global warming bc it is an additional source of energy which would normally be contained. The sun gives such amount of wattage and the earth can give so much wattage back to the universe. Nuclear, geothermal and fusion is stored energy like fossil fuel which adds to the heat in the atmosphere. Today that only amounts to 5% of global warming but if it's the only source of energy it could add more. CO2 is the focus right now bc it is continuous warming potential but the other energy forms have it too. Wind and solar is just "saving" sun energy from being instantly converted into heat and can be so used for our pleasure as it doesn't add to the input/output equation.
- tadfisher 3y ago
  Heat waste is absolutely miniscule compared to the amount of energy the Earth receives from the Sun. As in, the Earth is continuously bombarded by 173 petawatts of solar radiation. So you can see why it would be worth trading some waste heat to reduce the retention of solar energy in the atmosphere.
- adammarples 3y ago
  This doesn't make too much sense in this case, the geothermal energy is being stored in chemical bonds in the carbon sequestration process and returned underground

mchannon 3y ago

Too late to edit, but I should qualify this: They claim 4000 tons per year, I did the math on 4000 tons per day. So ~3-4 acres of PV to power, not 1000 acres. To completely counteract the 37 billion tons per year produced worldwide, and do it with PV only, assuming desert southwest conditions, would require ~30 million acres of PV. That sounds impossibly high, but is only about the size of the US state of Mississippi. 20% of the land area of Texas, on the El Paso side, would be sufficient to keep pace with the entire world's carbon dioxide emissions. I remain skeptical that this is the most cost-effective approach, as well as skeptical of its ability to scale, but I apologize for crapping on it at first gloss.