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Would really like to understand the mechanism of action in these carbon capture facilities. How exactly do they plan to extract the CO2 from the atmosphere, an

Would really like to understand the mechanism of action in these carbon capture facilities. How exactly do they plan to extract the CO2 from the atmosphere, and sequester it? And will this process be carbon net negative, since it'll certainly require some energy input?

HankB99 3y ago
The article does not mention the mechanism for CO2 capture. Google can probably find it. I suspect interest in this results from its dependence on fossil fuels. ISTR sequestration is by injecting deep into the ground where it will form stable carbonates. And from the article: > ... the two projects are expected to be able to sequester 2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year > ... the DOE estimates that reaching the Biden administration's goal of a net-zero US by 2050 will require at least 400 million tonnes to be sequestered annually, and perhaps as many as 1.8 billion. so we would need 200x these projects (or much more.) I wonder what the carbon footprint of that will be. I'd like to see a cost/benefit analysis of carbon sequestered vs. carbon produced to do so. And the $$$ estimate to do so. I wonder if this is really a cost effect way to reduce green house gases.
- xwdv 3y ago
  We have no choice. It must be done, costs be damned.
  - 40yearoldman 3y ago
    This attitude is the attitude that kills movements like this. You sounds like a crazy guy on the street yelling about Jesus.
  - _aavaa_ 3y ago
    We absolutely do have a choice when it comes to how we remove CO2 from the atmosphere. And direct air capture (DAC) is most strongly pushed by existing fossil fuel companies as a form of predatory delay. After all, no need for them to stop pumping oil if they can offer up DAC as a fig leaf.
    - sillywalk 3y ago
      Other than DAC, how do we remove CO2?
      - _aavaa_ 3y ago
        We can deal with that problem when it's the pressing one. These two projects are set to remove 2 MTonnes of CO2 per year (max is they work correctly). The USA alone currently produces ~2,000 MTonnes of CO2/year simply for energy generation [0]. If these two projects are powered by fossil fuel electricity I'll refer you to figure [1]. Best case, they run on CO2-free electricity (Nuclear, solar, wind, hydro). If they are using green electricty, they're better of transitioning their grid off of coal and gas. DAC uses something like 5.5 GJ/t-CO2 [2]. Which, for the 2 MTonnes for these projects it comes out to 2.97 TWh of electricty. On the US grid (7.09*10^-4 t/kWh) those 2 MTonnes of CO2 come out to ~2.8 TWh. So the projects are within a margin of error in terms of reducing more CO2 by existing rather than putting that exact same money into simply creating more green electricity. So I'll reiterate, the discussion about what to do about the CO2 in the atmosphere is a stalling tactic. Instead of wasting time and money to remove 2 MTonnes by DAC, you can avoid all that complication and simply remove it at the source. The time to discuss how to deal with the hard problem of removing CO2 out of the atmosphere is after we deal with the easy problem of not burning shit in the first place. [0]: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas... [1]: https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/D5612AQHynjdkUha9PA/article-inline_image-shrink_1500_2232/0/1665183819698?e=1697673600&v=beta&t=xE2M3Ersf-bURo2FK9lqqFhwRzKQ60s7GSLLEt7c8Rk https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/D5612AQHynjdkUha9PA/articl... [2]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004222002607 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258900422... [3]: https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-calculator-calculations-and-references https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-ca...
        sillywalk 3y ago
        > We can deal with that problem when it's the pressing one. If is pressing. Any survivable scenario requires the deployment of massive amounts of DAC. That is what net-neutral is. Planting trees wont help, and even if we stopped all emissions today, we still need to remove tens of billions of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere.

HankB99 3y ago

The article does not mention the mechanism for CO2 capture. Google can probably find it. I suspect interest in this results from its dependence on fossil fuels. ISTR sequestration is by injecting deep into the ground where it will form stable carbonates. And from the article: > ... the two projects are expected to be able to sequester 2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year > ... the DOE estimates that reaching the Biden administration's goal of a net-zero US by 2050 will require at least 400 million tonnes to be sequestered annually, and perhaps as many as 1.8 billion. so we would need 200x these projects (or much more.) I wonder what the carbon footprint of that will be. I'd like to see a cost/benefit analysis of carbon sequestered vs. carbon produced to do so. And the $$$ estimate to do so. I wonder if this is really a cost effect way to reduce green house gases.

xwdv 3y ago
We have no choice. It must be done, costs be damned.
- 40yearoldman 3y ago
  This attitude is the attitude that kills movements like this. You sounds like a crazy guy on the street yelling about Jesus.
- _aavaa_ 3y ago
  We absolutely do have a choice when it comes to how we remove CO2 from the atmosphere. And direct air capture (DAC) is most strongly pushed by existing fossil fuel companies as a form of predatory delay. After all, no need for them to stop pumping oil if they can offer up DAC as a fig leaf.
  - sillywalk 3y ago
    Other than DAC, how do we remove CO2?
    - _aavaa_ 3y ago
      We can deal with that problem when it's the pressing one. These two projects are set to remove 2 MTonnes of CO2 per year (max is they work correctly). The USA alone currently produces ~2,000 MTonnes of CO2/year simply for energy generation [0]. If these two projects are powered by fossil fuel electricity I'll refer you to figure [1]. Best case, they run on CO2-free electricity (Nuclear, solar, wind, hydro). If they are using green electricty, they're better of transitioning their grid off of coal and gas. DAC uses something like 5.5 GJ/t-CO2 [2]. Which, for the 2 MTonnes for these projects it comes out to 2.97 TWh of electricty. On the US grid (7.09*10^-4 t/kWh) those 2 MTonnes of CO2 come out to ~2.8 TWh. So the projects are within a margin of error in terms of reducing more CO2 by existing rather than putting that exact same money into simply creating more green electricity. So I'll reiterate, the discussion about what to do about the CO2 in the atmosphere is a stalling tactic. Instead of wasting time and money to remove 2 MTonnes by DAC, you can avoid all that complication and simply remove it at the source. The time to discuss how to deal with the hard problem of removing CO2 out of the atmosphere is after we deal with the easy problem of not burning shit in the first place. [0]: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas... [1]: https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/D5612AQHynjdkUha9PA/article-inline_image-shrink_1500_2232/0/1665183819698?e=1697673600&v=beta&t=xE2M3Ersf-bURo2FK9lqqFhwRzKQ60s7GSLLEt7c8Rk https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/D5612AQHynjdkUha9PA/articl... [2]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004222002607 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258900422... [3]: https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-calculator-calculations-and-references https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-ca...
      - sillywalk 3y ago
        > We can deal with that problem when it's the pressing one. If is pressing. Any survivable scenario requires the deployment of massive amounts of DAC. That is what net-neutral is. Planting trees wont help, and even if we stopped all emissions today, we still need to remove tens of billions of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere.