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Commercial Plant Starts Pulling Carbon from the Air
- uoaei 3y agohttps://archive.li/AZ1fA https://archive.li/AZ1fA
- uoaei 3y agoThis kind of direct air capture that relies on consuming CO2 from diffuse, open-air atmosphere conditions will never be effective enough to be worth it. The concentration is simply too low, and the atmosphere too large. The costs quoted in the article are 5-10x other carbon mitigation technologies (presumably not even accounting for carbon intensities in the mining and logistics necessary to produce such facilities). However targeted, point-source applications that are effectively scrubbers for carbon-intense processes make a lot of sense because of the opportunities for high-concentration collection and recirculation for multiple passes across the substrate. I'm wondering if Heirloom is putting any effort into the latter approach. The article only reports on open-air facilities.
- wkat4242 3y agoYeah in order to make a difference we'll have to flatten an entire continent and litter it with such plants. Plus their renewable energy sources. Not to mention the cost and energy usage of manufacturing and maintaining it all. Plus the environmental impact of all those sites in other ways than just CO2. There's just no point. It's a pipe dream for those who are still looking to continue business as usual. Until we really have Terawatts of basically free renewable energy to spend and we're already CO2 neutral globally, it's way more efficient to just not emit the CO2 in the first place. I think it's good they keep a finger on this tech and experiment with it but I don't view it as something even remotely useful to bring CO2 levels down. First we need to stop emitting.
- wilg 3y agoIt's the only way to lower CO2 levels though, right? Not emitting doesn't get you that.
- kwk1 3y agoDirect air capture is not the only way to lower CO2 levels, although you are right that point capture of emissions doesn't lower levels by itself. An example of another technique for CO2 reduction is enhanced olivine weathering, or bioenergy + capture. These are called negative emission technologies in general.
- uoaei 3y agoTrees are net-negative by larger margins than any other technology we have invented, pretty much any way you want to quantify it (efficiency per kilogram of tree/tech, efficiency per dollar of tree/tech, etc.).
- wilg 3y agoI would imagine there's an upper limit to how many trees could be planted, and they might use more space. That won't really work if carbon emissions are an ongoing concern. But by all means let's do as much as we can. https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2927/examining-the-viability-of-planting-trees-to-help-mitigate-climate-change/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2927/examining-the-viability-o...
- wkat4242 3y agoYes but for now we're still emitting so much that we're effectively only reducing emissions. There's no real point until there are no more emissions to cut which is much easier and energy-efficient to do than capturing.
- wilg 3y agoThe point would be to get the technology working really well.
- exabrial 3y agoThe most valuable carbon capture would be to do something that turns atmospheric co2 into a solid construction material, like bricks. Reading between the lines what I'm saying is: Your benchmark is to do better than wood. If you can make bricks faster than a tree can grow wood, this will become an investment rather than money pit.
- narinxas 3y agowhy not simply let trees do it? maybe trees aren't as cool as whatever they're doing???
- wkat4242 3y agoWell trees don't do it at night. But yeah they don't require energy to build them, can be made with simple seeds, integrate really well with local ecosystems (much better than anything man-made), don't need maintenance, self-propagate and cause more benefits like ecosystem diversity, limiting floods and wind. They do have some drawbacks too though like serious flammability. And we can't burn them afterwards or we'll get all the CO2 back.
- abakker 3y agoI think the work Livingcarbon is doing is very cool here, actually. at least genetically engineering better photosynthesis seems like a plausible approach and their demos so far seem like they are working.
- bobthepanda 3y agoThe industrial approach to trees is not a good one though. You end up with plantations of tree monoculture. Japan actually has an issue now where former tree plantations have overgrown and cause extremely high levels of pollen during allergy season, the forest floors of these plantations are dead due to the overgrowth blocking sun, etc. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VC4gRGPbTqE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VC4gRGPbTqE
- 3y ago
- mynameishere 3y agoSeems like recreating coal forests would be relatively sane. Everyone likes bogs.
- Scoundreller 3y agoDump in a deep lake/seabed that has 4C water year round at the bottom?
- DustinBrett 3y agoGood they are finally starting this. Ever since I heard that this won't work cause it's too small, I started thinking that this will be what saves us after we go way over the edge as humanity. Hopefully I am wrong, but if not then hopefully at least we see many more of these to try and save ourselves at the 11th hour.
- Cyberdogs7 3y agoI am happy to see progress in the right direction, but I can't help but feel the 11th hour was sometime in the 80's.
- tetris11 3y agoWorst case: it might at least save a few large buildings or containered cities.
- azinman2 3y agoMy bet is on geo scale engineering to mitigate temperature. Full of risk, but a better plausible path than pulling out 450+ ppm.
- vorticalbox 3y agoWe dump > 36 billion tonnes of it a year, if you make it solid where exactly are you going to store it?
- klysm 3y agoWhatever the answer is, unfortunately we have to regardless
- jaipilot747 3y agoDig a deep, deep pit and bury it all? Build a really tall pipe and push it all into space?
- Scoundreller 3y agoOr dump it in water for reclamation (or use what you dig from the pit to do that).
- feoren 3y agoIn the walls of new buildings.
- danbruc 3y agoThis is so pointless, they pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and then they release it back into the atmosphere. They use it to cure concrete the production of which released a comparable amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and which would otherwise just absorb about the same amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during curing.
- eightlimbed 3y ago... Or we could plant trees like chestnuts that take CO2 out of the air and provide lots of food to humans and animals.
- sdflhasjd 3y agoThis appears to me like an elaborate "carbon laundering" scheme? Producing concrete involves decomposing limestone into calcium oxide and CO2, which is done in a furnace powered by fossil fuels and then just released into the atmosphere. Concrete cures by capturing some of that CO2 again. This plant takes more limestone, decomposes it using "renewable energy" (i.e power that could have been used to displace non-renewable sources, but isn't), but stores the CO2 in a tank, which is then just put back into concrete. Concrete that would have naturally slightly offset itself anyway? The net effect is surely just a bit worse than nothing?
- uoaei 3y agoYup, carbon credit programs like this one look really good come annual report season because of all the double-counting we get to do: both producers and consumers of carbon get to claim reduction quantities through carbon credits. But ultimately it doesn't meaningfully reduce the amount of carbon being produced as the costs are just passed onto the customers of those carbon producers to maintain profitability.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]