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if you solve carbon capture, you solve the problem. efficiency cannot be permanently solved. efficiency is still worth seeking, but if you solve carbon capture

if you solve carbon capture, you solve the problem. efficiency cannot be permanently solved. efficiency is still worth seeking, but if you solve carbon capture you don't have to bother with efficiency for CO2 to be captured, you need some equivalent of the energy from sunlight in photosynthesis. so build these carbon capture facilities in places with powerful natural energy sources, and build them to last eternity

kaba0 3y ago
> if you solve carbon capture, you solve the problem In what way does it solve anything? At that point we built a huge Rube Goldberg machine that burns coal for X energy, spends 2X energy on getting back the carbon (it’s simple entropy), producing that offset from nuclear and renewables.. it may be fun as an art installation somewhere, but to play with this bullshit at the scale of our planet is just ridiculous.
- permo-w 3y ago
  this is what life on earth does. it's not some kind of wacky googly eyes rube goldberg machine, it's what plants and animals have been doing for hundreds of millions of years. carbon capture's job is to refine and accelerate the plant side of the equation
  - kaba0 3y ago
    First of all, there is no reason behind life. It just is, and on a big enough scale it is just thermodynamic equations in a closed material, but open energy system being driven by sunlight. Also, in and of itself life is 100% carbon neutral, or actually carbon decreasing as it is not 100% efficient - that small inefficiency is basically how we got many of our current oil/coal reserves. Biology did fix a big “mistake” of it, and since a few million years ago even trees can be properly “burnt” by fungi, so only some carbon is actually lost due to some extreme conditions (like it fall into whatever that embalmed it for a long time). The problem is that we reintroduce all these lost efficiency buffers in a few years that is such a fast paced change that it has dire consequences. Also, the reason for carbon in case of life is energy and a fundamental temporary constituent of the very thing. We do use carbon for many things, but the energy part can be entirely replaced by more efficient generation into electricity which is much more readily applicable than ATP is.
    - mensetmanusman 3y ago
      “First of all, there is no reason behind life.” A stated opinion maybe useful as an axiom for you, but most don’t believe this. Some people believe life has a reason/meaning and is therefore worth protecting through a many faceted approach (one of which is being discussed here).
      - permo-w 3y ago
        but also there's precious little relevance to what I said
      - kaba0 3y ago
        Then try to read more than just the first sentence of what I wrote, maybe? Our philosophies may not agree but I’m explicitly talking about the protection of the planet.
    - Aerroon 3y ago
      Life isn't exactly neutral to the environment. CO2 levels were down to 260 ppm in the the last 5,000-7,000 years. 20,000-25,000 years ago CO2 levels were down to 180-190 ppm. If CO2 levels had dropped to 150 ppm it would've been a catastrophe. Most plants need at least 150 ppm CO2 concentration for photosynthesis. Life could've just wiped out most of life by accident relatively recently. The chance of that happening now is impossible because of us, but it goes to show that life is not as in balance with the world as we like to think.
      - kaba0 3y ago
        Sure, and a “bit” back the first photosynthesis producing oxygen wiped out almost everything on the land, as O2 is just such a reactive gas. As I wrote, life is not an intelligent design, it has no way of knowing better and thinking of the future: that leftover banana will rot as fast as it can and afterwords leave everything dead in its wake. It just so happened that some form of equilibrium is always met and that Earth has many kind of buffers to change. But it can’t outcompete us in burning coal, we are the new microorganism that almost killed everything by inventing photosynthesis.
  - dominicdoty 3y ago
    From an engineering perspective life is an incredibly sensitive rube goldberg machine. We have yet to find another world that has the right combination of googly eyes and string and tape to sustain relatively stable complex life. We struggle to understand the far reaching effects that even simple changes have on our planets systems and ecosystems. We have evidence of the system throwing itself so far out of whack that huge portions of life have died off.
jodrellblank 3y ago
> "for CO2 to be captured, you need some equivalent of the energy from sunlight in photosynthesis." There's approximately three trillion trees on the planet, plus as many more shrubs, bushes blades of grass. The amount of surface area of all their leaves combined is not capturing enough CO2 to help. So to solve carbon capture we would need machines which touch more air than all the leaves on Earth, pumping through a nontrivial amount of the planet's atmosphere, and finding the dispersed 400 CO2 needles in every million haystack molecules of atmosphere. On the other hand the UK (which raises sheep) imports lamb from New Zealand some 11,000 miles away, by boat or plane. It's unthinkable that we can solve carbon capture at all, but compared to the ease of stoping the emissions of those flights/ships is fantasy.

kaba0 3y ago

> if you solve carbon capture, you solve the problem In what way does it solve anything? At that point we built a huge Rube Goldberg machine that burns coal for X energy, spends 2X energy on getting back the carbon (it’s simple entropy), producing that offset from nuclear and renewables.. it may be fun as an art installation somewhere, but to play with this bullshit at the scale of our planet is just ridiculous.

permo-w 3y ago
this is what life on earth does. it's not some kind of wacky googly eyes rube goldberg machine, it's what plants and animals have been doing for hundreds of millions of years. carbon capture's job is to refine and accelerate the plant side of the equation
- kaba0 3y ago
  First of all, there is no reason behind life. It just is, and on a big enough scale it is just thermodynamic equations in a closed material, but open energy system being driven by sunlight. Also, in and of itself life is 100% carbon neutral, or actually carbon decreasing as it is not 100% efficient - that small inefficiency is basically how we got many of our current oil/coal reserves. Biology did fix a big “mistake” of it, and since a few million years ago even trees can be properly “burnt” by fungi, so only some carbon is actually lost due to some extreme conditions (like it fall into whatever that embalmed it for a long time). The problem is that we reintroduce all these lost efficiency buffers in a few years that is such a fast paced change that it has dire consequences. Also, the reason for carbon in case of life is energy and a fundamental temporary constituent of the very thing. We do use carbon for many things, but the energy part can be entirely replaced by more efficient generation into electricity which is much more readily applicable than ATP is.
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    “First of all, there is no reason behind life.” A stated opinion maybe useful as an axiom for you, but most don’t believe this. Some people believe life has a reason/meaning and is therefore worth protecting through a many faceted approach (one of which is being discussed here).
    - permo-w 3y ago
      but also there's precious little relevance to what I said
    - kaba0 3y ago
      Then try to read more than just the first sentence of what I wrote, maybe? Our philosophies may not agree but I’m explicitly talking about the protection of the planet.
  - Aerroon 3y ago
    Life isn't exactly neutral to the environment. CO2 levels were down to 260 ppm in the the last 5,000-7,000 years. 20,000-25,000 years ago CO2 levels were down to 180-190 ppm. If CO2 levels had dropped to 150 ppm it would've been a catastrophe. Most plants need at least 150 ppm CO2 concentration for photosynthesis. Life could've just wiped out most of life by accident relatively recently. The chance of that happening now is impossible because of us, but it goes to show that life is not as in balance with the world as we like to think.
    - kaba0 3y ago
      Sure, and a “bit” back the first photosynthesis producing oxygen wiped out almost everything on the land, as O2 is just such a reactive gas. As I wrote, life is not an intelligent design, it has no way of knowing better and thinking of the future: that leftover banana will rot as fast as it can and afterwords leave everything dead in its wake. It just so happened that some form of equilibrium is always met and that Earth has many kind of buffers to change. But it can’t outcompete us in burning coal, we are the new microorganism that almost killed everything by inventing photosynthesis.
- dominicdoty 3y ago
  From an engineering perspective life is an incredibly sensitive rube goldberg machine. We have yet to find another world that has the right combination of googly eyes and string and tape to sustain relatively stable complex life. We struggle to understand the far reaching effects that even simple changes have on our planets systems and ecosystems. We have evidence of the system throwing itself so far out of whack that huge portions of life have died off.

jodrellblank 3y ago

> "for CO2 to be captured, you need some equivalent of the energy from sunlight in photosynthesis." There's approximately three trillion trees on the planet, plus as many more shrubs, bushes blades of grass. The amount of surface area of all their leaves combined is not capturing enough CO2 to help. So to solve carbon capture we would need machines which touch more air than all the leaves on Earth, pumping through a nontrivial amount of the planet's atmosphere, and finding the dispersed 400 CO2 needles in every million haystack molecules of atmosphere. On the other hand the UK (which raises sheep) imports lamb from New Zealand some 11,000 miles away, by boat or plane. It's unthinkable that we can solve carbon capture at all, but compared to the ease of stoping the emissions of those flights/ships is fantasy.