6 ms·

Carbon capture will be very important step on the way to being "climate neutral".

by ttyyzz 3y ago

uoaei 3y ago
I've seen this repeated often with no analysis to back it up. Can you link to some? I'm quite skeptical that it will be effective or cost-efficient enough to do better than updated land and farm management techniques.
- _Nat_ 3y ago
  The IPCC's reports might be a good starting-point. ["Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change"](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-3/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-g... ) appears to be the most recent specifically on mitigating climate-change. From [this PDF's page-117](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_FullReport.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6... ): > Net zero CO2 industrial-sector emissions are possible but challenging (high confidence). Energy efficiency will continue to be important. Reduced materials demand, material efficiency, and circular economy solutions can reduce the need for primary production. Primary production options include switching to new processes that use low-to-zero GHG energy carriers and feedstocks (e.g., electricity, hydrogen, biofuels, and carbon dioxide capture and utilisation (CCU) to provide carbon feedstocks). Carbon capture and storage (CCS) will be required to mitigate remaining CO2 emissions {11.3}. These options require substantial scaling up of electricity, hydrogen, recycling, CO2, and other infrastructure, as well as phase-out or conversion of existing industrial plants. While improvements in the GHG intensities of major basic materials have nearly stagnated over the last 30 years, analysis of historical technology shifts and newly available technologies indicate these intensities can be significantly reduced by mid-century. {11.2, 11.3, 11.4}
  - uoaei 3y ago
    Cool thanks! From the relevant section, 11.3.5: > Biofuel use may also be critical for producing negative emissions when combined with carbon capture and storage (i.e., bioenergy with carbon capture and storage – BECCS). Most production routes for biofuels, biochemicals and biogas generate large side streams of concentrated CO2 which is easily captured, and which could become a source of negative emissions (Sanchez et al. 2018) (Section 11.3.6). When I hear "carbon capture" I think "direct air capture (DAC)" since that's kind of a novel concept, while point-source carbon capture seems to be more of an extension of circular-economy-style reasoning. I am skeptical of the former (i.e. massive fans with catalysts and filters) being useful to any significant degree because of the energy requirements. I think DAC advocates hide under the catch-all phrase "carbon capture" to avoid scrutiny. DAC seems worthless compared to just growing more and more effective plants to do a similar job. But point-source capture of concentrated CO2 seems like an obvious step in the right direction. Even better if it can help to replace traditional fossil fuels in legacy ICE vehicles. So in the context of TFA it seems that the pipeline was at least not a bad idea, though we haven't seen an audit on when all that construction and operation would be carbon-neutral after everything's said and done. That timeline could be longer than the service life of the pipeline which would make it worse than pointless.
InSteady 3y ago
Right, but the argument goes there is no amount of carbon capture that will make this process make sense: (subsidized) fossil fuels --> chemical fertilizers --> (subsidized) monocropped corn --> (subsidized) ethanol production --> (subsidized) carbon capture, of only a portion of emissions at the ethanol and fertilizer production stages It is greenwashing in the sense that ethanol biofuel is an inefficient and dirty process that was never a viable alternative at any reasonable scale, and this program is pumping tax dollars earmarked for climate crisis mitigation into industries that have never been motivated to do anything meaningful for climate or ecology disasters.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  You’re addressing a political problem from an engineering perspective. As long as the US constitution grants two senators per state regardless of population, thus allowing democracy to operate free of human need, farm states will create policy the enriches their farming megacorps at the expense of humans and human life. Doing nothing is perhaps not greenwashing, and taking a principled stand against agri-industry subsidies will feel like doing something, but the argi industry subsidies will continue as will the CO2 emissions unabated. Perhaps doing something is better than nothing?
GravityLab 3y ago
This can be accomplished by planting trees. https://logtrees.com/blog/the-simple-math-behind-planting-trees-to-end-climate-change.html https://logtrees.com/blog/the-simple-math-behind-planting-tr...
- graeme 3y ago
  Not enough. We both cut down trees and burned underground carbon stores. Merely replanting trees goes part of the way but it can’t address the whole issue. The calculations you showed seem to be about blunting annual emissions. But we still have all the excess we previously emitted which has warmed the atmosphere. We need to deal with that eventually.
  - GravityLab 3y ago
    The amount of trees that could be planted would capture more than the airborne excess carbon, which means they would be capturing previous excess too. Since we're really close to peak global CO2 emissions, this means the new trees would be a carbon sink that keeps capturing excess carbon for at least decades, until far better capture solutions are created than long disruptive pipelines.
- bparsons 3y ago
  It cannot. Although reforestation is still a great idea and can result in significant GHG reductions if managed properly.
  - GravityLab 3y ago
    Yes it can. The number of trees that could be planted are enough to capture airborne excess CO2. I'm glad there's technology via pipeline but it needs to mature more. We need better solutions than really long and disruptive pipelines, and planting a lot of trees buys us a lot of runway.
    - dartos 3y ago
      You’ve said this twice now, but do you have a source? What number of which trees is the bough to capture excess co2 from ground and surface sources? Where could we put all this trees?
Yizahi 3y ago
The only possible step. Well, except gigantic space sunshield for which we don't have any tech and won't have for a century at minimum.

Carbon capture will be very important step on the way to being "climate neutral".

by ttyyzz 3y ago

Carbon capture will be very important step on the way to being "climate neutral".

I've seen this repeated often with no analysis to back it up. Can you link to some? I'm quite skeptical that it will be effective or cost-efficient enough to do better than updated land and farm management techniques.

_Nat_ 3y ago
The IPCC's reports might be a good starting-point. ["Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change"](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-3/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-g... ) appears to be the most recent specifically on mitigating climate-change. From [this PDF's page-117](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_FullReport.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6... ): > Net zero CO2 industrial-sector emissions are possible but challenging (high confidence). Energy efficiency will continue to be important. Reduced materials demand, material efficiency, and circular economy solutions can reduce the need for primary production. Primary production options include switching to new processes that use low-to-zero GHG energy carriers and feedstocks (e.g., electricity, hydrogen, biofuels, and carbon dioxide capture and utilisation (CCU) to provide carbon feedstocks). Carbon capture and storage (CCS) will be required to mitigate remaining CO2 emissions {11.3}. These options require substantial scaling up of electricity, hydrogen, recycling, CO2, and other infrastructure, as well as phase-out or conversion of existing industrial plants. While improvements in the GHG intensities of major basic materials have nearly stagnated over the last 30 years, analysis of historical technology shifts and newly available technologies indicate these intensities can be significantly reduced by mid-century. {11.2, 11.3, 11.4}
- uoaei 3y ago
  Cool thanks! From the relevant section, 11.3.5: > Biofuel use may also be critical for producing negative emissions when combined with carbon capture and storage (i.e., bioenergy with carbon capture and storage – BECCS). Most production routes for biofuels, biochemicals and biogas generate large side streams of concentrated CO2 which is easily captured, and which could become a source of negative emissions (Sanchez et al. 2018) (Section 11.3.6). When I hear "carbon capture" I think "direct air capture (DAC)" since that's kind of a novel concept, while point-source carbon capture seems to be more of an extension of circular-economy-style reasoning. I am skeptical of the former (i.e. massive fans with catalysts and filters) being useful to any significant degree because of the energy requirements. I think DAC advocates hide under the catch-all phrase "carbon capture" to avoid scrutiny. DAC seems worthless compared to just growing more and more effective plants to do a similar job. But point-source capture of concentrated CO2 seems like an obvious step in the right direction. Even better if it can help to replace traditional fossil fuels in legacy ICE vehicles. So in the context of TFA it seems that the pipeline was at least not a bad idea, though we haven't seen an audit on when all that construction and operation would be carbon-neutral after everything's said and done. That timeline could be longer than the service life of the pipeline which would make it worse than pointless.

InSteady 3y ago

Right, but the argument goes there is no amount of carbon capture that will make this process make sense: (subsidized) fossil fuels --> chemical fertilizers --> (subsidized) monocropped corn --> (subsidized) ethanol production --> (subsidized) carbon capture, of only a portion of emissions at the ethanol and fertilizer production stages It is greenwashing in the sense that ethanol biofuel is an inefficient and dirty process that was never a viable alternative at any reasonable scale, and this program is pumping tax dollars earmarked for climate crisis mitigation into industries that have never been motivated to do anything meaningful for climate or ecology disasters.

fnordpiglet 3y ago
You’re addressing a political problem from an engineering perspective. As long as the US constitution grants two senators per state regardless of population, thus allowing democracy to operate free of human need, farm states will create policy the enriches their farming megacorps at the expense of humans and human life. Doing nothing is perhaps not greenwashing, and taking a principled stand against agri-industry subsidies will feel like doing something, but the argi industry subsidies will continue as will the CO2 emissions unabated. Perhaps doing something is better than nothing?

GravityLab 3y ago

This can be accomplished by planting trees. https://logtrees.com/blog/the-simple-math-behind-planting-trees-to-end-climate-change.html https://logtrees.com/blog/the-simple-math-behind-planting-tr...

graeme 3y ago
Not enough. We both cut down trees and burned underground carbon stores. Merely replanting trees goes part of the way but it can’t address the whole issue. The calculations you showed seem to be about blunting annual emissions. But we still have all the excess we previously emitted which has warmed the atmosphere. We need to deal with that eventually.
- GravityLab 3y ago
  The amount of trees that could be planted would capture more than the airborne excess carbon, which means they would be capturing previous excess too. Since we're really close to peak global CO2 emissions, this means the new trees would be a carbon sink that keeps capturing excess carbon for at least decades, until far better capture solutions are created than long disruptive pipelines.
bparsons 3y ago
It cannot. Although reforestation is still a great idea and can result in significant GHG reductions if managed properly.
- GravityLab 3y ago
  Yes it can. The number of trees that could be planted are enough to capture airborne excess CO2. I'm glad there's technology via pipeline but it needs to mature more. We need better solutions than really long and disruptive pipelines, and planting a lot of trees buys us a lot of runway.
  - dartos 3y ago
    You’ve said this twice now, but do you have a source? What number of which trees is the bough to capture excess co2 from ground and surface sources? Where could we put all this trees?

Yizahi 3y ago

The only possible step. Well, except gigantic space sunshield for which we don't have any tech and won't have for a century at minimum.