5 ms·

If anyone is interested in this space, I’ve been working on this particular approach for the past few years. Would love to chat. We have a few interested juris

If anyone is interested in this space, I’ve been working on this particular approach for the past few years. Would love to chat. We have a few interested jurisdictions and now are working on solving logistics to ensure deployment isn’t half assed.

credit_guy 3y ago
To me the numbers don't make any sense. Maybe you can help here. We put in the atmosphere roughly 50 billion tons of CO2-equivalent per year. About half is removed by forests and the ocean, but we are still talking tens of gigatons. Humankind produces very few things in gigatons per year numbers. Obviously (and sadly) CO2 is one of them. Coal, petroleum and natural gas are part of this family too, multiple gigatons each. There are 4 agricultural crops that we produce in gigatons per year: sugar cane, corn, rice and wheat. And then there's cement and iron. About 4 gigatons and 2 gigatons per year each. Cement is mixed with sand, gravel and crushed stone to produce concrete. We make about 30 gigatons of concrete per year. Everything else we make is in numbers less than 1 GT/year. The next 2 things are fertilizers and plastics, maybe about 0.5 GT/year. I'm saying all these things to set the scene for the proposed olivine use. What is the idea here? That we will create an entirely new industry that will produce a new material (olivine) in quantities larger than anything any other industry produces, with the few exceptions mentioned above? All the industries I mentioned did not spring overnight, they had been around for hundreds of years. Is the idea to create a new industry that grows at triple digits every year for a few decades? Because if this is not the idea, then I don't think this whole thing would make a dent. I apologize for sounding a bit brusque, but I don't see how this thing makes any sense from the numbers point of view. These guys in the article are talking about 500 m3. How do you get from 500 m3 to billions of m3? Billions per year.
- Flozzin 3y ago
  Many, including myself, don't believe that solving the climate crisis will be done, by invention of a single new technique. So I agree, scaling up this project to be the only solution would not be possible. C02, methane, and other greenhouse gasses are produced from multiple large sources. And tackling that problem will just not happen by only using 1 solution. Any project that large would almost require some other environmental impact. We are having trouble scaling up batteries without such a consequence.(as an example)
  - credit_guy 3y ago
    I am not 100% sure what you are trying to say, but I think you are implying that since no one single solution can solve the climate crisis, then olivine could be part of a portfolio of solutions that each could help a bit. If that's what you are trying to say, then no. Olivine still does not make sense. One ton of olivine can absorb about one ton of CO2. That means that if we produce and distribute 500 million tons of olivine, we can reduce emissions by 1%. But take a look for about 5 seconds around you. See how many things made of plastic you can identify. No matter where you are, there are dozens or hundreds of them in the same room as you. Well, all the humanity produces only about 400 million tons of plastics. Probably thousands of factories churn out plastics day and night, employing millions of people. If you replicate that in order to produce olivine, it's going to take decades, all for the ultimate result of reducing emissions by 1%. Does that make sense? I can recite for you right now 20 things that can have a much bigger impact and require much less effort. And you can too.
    - PolKnops 3y ago
      First and foremost: We must reduce emissions, FAST Secondly we need a multiple set of solutions. And now the answer to your question. - we as human kind of moving Gigatons of sand/aggregate every year. Part to be extract minerals/coal below them. Part to make roads, dikes, beaches etc etc. So these quantities are already moved around. In contrast with plastic, the olivine needs to be mined, crushed and applied. So a lot less work as making plastics

credit_guy 3y ago

To me the numbers don't make any sense. Maybe you can help here. We put in the atmosphere roughly 50 billion tons of CO2-equivalent per year. About half is removed by forests and the ocean, but we are still talking tens of gigatons. Humankind produces very few things in gigatons per year numbers. Obviously (and sadly) CO2 is one of them. Coal, petroleum and natural gas are part of this family too, multiple gigatons each. There are 4 agricultural crops that we produce in gigatons per year: sugar cane, corn, rice and wheat. And then there's cement and iron. About 4 gigatons and 2 gigatons per year each. Cement is mixed with sand, gravel and crushed stone to produce concrete. We make about 30 gigatons of concrete per year. Everything else we make is in numbers less than 1 GT/year. The next 2 things are fertilizers and plastics, maybe about 0.5 GT/year. I'm saying all these things to set the scene for the proposed olivine use. What is the idea here? That we will create an entirely new industry that will produce a new material (olivine) in quantities larger than anything any other industry produces, with the few exceptions mentioned above? All the industries I mentioned did not spring overnight, they had been around for hundreds of years. Is the idea to create a new industry that grows at triple digits every year for a few decades? Because if this is not the idea, then I don't think this whole thing would make a dent. I apologize for sounding a bit brusque, but I don't see how this thing makes any sense from the numbers point of view. These guys in the article are talking about 500 m3. How do you get from 500 m3 to billions of m3? Billions per year.

Flozzin 3y ago
Many, including myself, don't believe that solving the climate crisis will be done, by invention of a single new technique. So I agree, scaling up this project to be the only solution would not be possible. C02, methane, and other greenhouse gasses are produced from multiple large sources. And tackling that problem will just not happen by only using 1 solution. Any project that large would almost require some other environmental impact. We are having trouble scaling up batteries without such a consequence.(as an example)
- credit_guy 3y ago
  I am not 100% sure what you are trying to say, but I think you are implying that since no one single solution can solve the climate crisis, then olivine could be part of a portfolio of solutions that each could help a bit. If that's what you are trying to say, then no. Olivine still does not make sense. One ton of olivine can absorb about one ton of CO2. That means that if we produce and distribute 500 million tons of olivine, we can reduce emissions by 1%. But take a look for about 5 seconds around you. See how many things made of plastic you can identify. No matter where you are, there are dozens or hundreds of them in the same room as you. Well, all the humanity produces only about 400 million tons of plastics. Probably thousands of factories churn out plastics day and night, employing millions of people. If you replicate that in order to produce olivine, it's going to take decades, all for the ultimate result of reducing emissions by 1%. Does that make sense? I can recite for you right now 20 things that can have a much bigger impact and require much less effort. And you can too.
  - PolKnops 3y ago
    First and foremost: We must reduce emissions, FAST Secondly we need a multiple set of solutions. And now the answer to your question. - we as human kind of moving Gigatons of sand/aggregate every year. Part to be extract minerals/coal below them. Part to make roads, dikes, beaches etc etc. So these quantities are already moved around. In contrast with plastic, the olivine needs to be mined, crushed and applied. So a lot less work as making plastics