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It must take at least what coal releases when burned, but there are two catches… The first is that it could use intermittent renewable energy. Solar PV during

by api 3y ago

It must take at least what coal releases when burned, but there are two catches… The first is that it could use intermittent renewable energy. Solar PV during the day is already cheaper than coal. Just run CO2 removal when renewables generate surplus. The second is that coal plants are heat engines. Most of the energy released burning coal is rejected as heat. CO2 removal might in theory be made more efficient than this. So it might not be quite as bad as it appears at first glance. That being said I still doubt this technology could make a dent in the problem without massively cheap energy. It would require either solar panels that are as cheap as vinyl siding or something like practical high yield fusion.

ianburrell 3y ago
We will need more wind and solar than required for load to cover cloudy and calm days. I have seen 3x to 5x overcapacity. This should be cheaper than long-term storage, at least with current storage prices, and better to have more power than storage. The result is there will be extra capacity for running intermittent stuff like capture. I haven't seen anyone address how we will pay for carbon capture. By the time we start doing real capture, the CO2 produced should be low so carbon tax will be low.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > We will need more wind and solar than required for load to cover cloudy and calm days. I have seen 3x to 5x overcapacity. The theory being that power would be essentially free most of the time because there would be a surplus. But then wouldn't people just use more? It's only "free" until people come up with other uses for inconsistently available large amounts of power, at which point you have to outbid them.
  - staunton 3y ago
    This assumes that what people pay for power is determined by how much it costs to produce. That's already not the case in most countries. Energy prices are determined by taxes and subsidies.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      You can install renewable energy at home. If it's cheap enough to overbuild by 3-5x and the grid is overcharging for it then people will do that instead, and then the grid ceases to operate in most places. There is a non-trivial possibility of that happening regardless if storage gets cheap enough, because local generation and storage would remove the cost of distribution and outcompete the grid. More to the point, that clearly wouldn't be "free electricity"; it would be a huge tax on electricity -- on renewable electricity -- used to subsidize the energy use of carbon capture. That's not free because the market price is zero, it's "free" because someone else is paying for it. It's also crazy. You have the ability to offer cheap renewable energy and you're going to not? What kind of misanthropic policy is that?
  - ianburrell 3y ago
    Paying for carbon capture is big problem since there is no profit and needs to be done collectively. One option would be taxing energy. The carbon tax would be small by that time. That would also keep the price higher. I had idea for retroactive carbon tax, making people pay for their past consumption. Those of us that are older got lots of benefit from polluting CO2, and makes sense to have us pay to remove it. The feasibility depends on the price, and how to charge lots of people who are retired.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > One option would be taxing energy. The carbon tax would be small by that time. That would also keep the price higher. Taxing energy, carbon or otherwise, is highly regressive. It only works if you refund the money. Otherwise people freeze to death or go broke. Taxing non-carbon energy makes no sense because you're not trying to discourage it. You might as well just use income tax. > I had idea for retroactive carbon tax, making people pay for their past consumption. The records to use for this are unavailable. Nobody knows how much gasoline someone bought in 1995. It would also generally be impossible to collect; what if your contribution for 75 years of carbon emissions was meant to be $250,000 and you only have $100,000? Do we take your last dime and leave you to starve? What about people who are already dead? Do their kids have to pay? Retroactive taxes and taxes on retirees are both going to be intensely unpopular. Which is why people want to justify it by claiming we're going to have a lot of surplus energy to use for it. But how does that work unless the competing demand for energy is negligible, which seems implausible? Every part of it seems like some company trying to extract government money for their inefficient solution that costs more than it would to reduce emissions by the same amount.

by api 3y ago

ianburrell 3y ago

We will need more wind and solar than required for load to cover cloudy and calm days. I have seen 3x to 5x overcapacity. This should be cheaper than long-term storage, at least with current storage prices, and better to have more power than storage. The result is there will be extra capacity for running intermittent stuff like capture. I haven't seen anyone address how we will pay for carbon capture. By the time we start doing real capture, the CO2 produced should be low so carbon tax will be low.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> We will need more wind and solar than required for load to cover cloudy and calm days. I have seen 3x to 5x overcapacity. The theory being that power would be essentially free most of the time because there would be a surplus. But then wouldn't people just use more? It's only "free" until people come up with other uses for inconsistently available large amounts of power, at which point you have to outbid them.
- staunton 3y ago
  This assumes that what people pay for power is determined by how much it costs to produce. That's already not the case in most countries. Energy prices are determined by taxes and subsidies.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    You can install renewable energy at home. If it's cheap enough to overbuild by 3-5x and the grid is overcharging for it then people will do that instead, and then the grid ceases to operate in most places. There is a non-trivial possibility of that happening regardless if storage gets cheap enough, because local generation and storage would remove the cost of distribution and outcompete the grid. More to the point, that clearly wouldn't be "free electricity"; it would be a huge tax on electricity -- on renewable electricity -- used to subsidize the energy use of carbon capture. That's not free because the market price is zero, it's "free" because someone else is paying for it. It's also crazy. You have the ability to offer cheap renewable energy and you're going to not? What kind of misanthropic policy is that?
- ianburrell 3y ago
  Paying for carbon capture is big problem since there is no profit and needs to be done collectively. One option would be taxing energy. The carbon tax would be small by that time. That would also keep the price higher. I had idea for retroactive carbon tax, making people pay for their past consumption. Those of us that are older got lots of benefit from polluting CO2, and makes sense to have us pay to remove it. The feasibility depends on the price, and how to charge lots of people who are retired.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > One option would be taxing energy. The carbon tax would be small by that time. That would also keep the price higher. Taxing energy, carbon or otherwise, is highly regressive. It only works if you refund the money. Otherwise people freeze to death or go broke. Taxing non-carbon energy makes no sense because you're not trying to discourage it. You might as well just use income tax. > I had idea for retroactive carbon tax, making people pay for their past consumption. The records to use for this are unavailable. Nobody knows how much gasoline someone bought in 1995. It would also generally be impossible to collect; what if your contribution for 75 years of carbon emissions was meant to be $250,000 and you only have $100,000? Do we take your last dime and leave you to starve? What about people who are already dead? Do their kids have to pay? Retroactive taxes and taxes on retirees are both going to be intensely unpopular. Which is why people want to justify it by claiming we're going to have a lot of surplus energy to use for it. But how does that work unless the competing demand for energy is negligible, which seems implausible? Every part of it seems like some company trying to extract government money for their inefficient solution that costs more than it would to reduce emissions by the same amount.