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IMHO it doesn't pass the thermodynamic sniff test. It would be better to spend energy displacing fossil fuel generation than to spend energy capturing carbon.

by api 3y ago

IMHO it doesn't pass the thermodynamic sniff test. It would be better to spend energy displacing fossil fuel generation than to spend energy capturing carbon. The only way I can see this changing is if we developed something like cheap efficient fusion reactors that allowed us to just burn energy with contempt. In that world carbon capture might make sense as a way to blunt climate change.

aqme28 3y ago
I agree with this. It could only make sense where there is abundant almost free energy. But now people just mine crypto in those places. Carbon capture needs to pay better than mining crypto or it won’t happen.
- cozzyd 3y ago
  Too bad nobody in the "innovative" crypto sector has come up with a Proof-of-Carbon-Capture coin.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    Oh don't worry, they did, several times. It went predictably. Here's one very stupid white paper. [1] [1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2107.00185.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2107.00185.pdf
    - cozzyd 3y ago
      As usual, a crypo white paper is indistinguishable from parody
  - rtkwe 3y ago
    It's been tried at least in theory but blockchains are only REALLY good at keeping track of purely digital things that happen within their chain. Outside of that they're at the mercy of people putting bad data into them. Conceptually how would that reward system even work? It would have to rely on real world auditors to validate that the carbon sinking was actually being performed (and working).
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    A somewhat related notion, a carbon coin, is a key plot point in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future.
gottorf 3y ago
> if we developed something like cheap efficient fusion reactors that allowed us to just burn energy with contempt All problems humanity faces are energy problems. With sufficiently cheap and abundant energy, we can work through anything.
rtkwe 3y ago
There's maybe a niche for it where our energy storage ability can't use all the renewables produced at a given time so we use the excess to run carbon capture facilities. Right now the times where there's >100% power demand for renewables is fairly rare though.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  In that world, I suspect people will find other uses for very cheap energy. I mean if my (cold) town had free energy even a few days per year, I'd just fit a heater on every street light and turn them on whenever energy was free so we could have 'warm streets' days.
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
Are we talking about carbon capture (like from the smokestack of a coal plant)? Or carbon sequestration, where we pull it out of the air? The latter probably makes sense even at high energy cost... it makes a climate crisis reversible rather than just slowable. The former seems rather more suspect even with cheap fusion. What do you even do with the carbon, once captured? You can't turn it into a solid... that would be the coal you just burned. And while it might be capturable as a gas, how would one go about storing it safely?
- ummonk 3y ago
  Capture and sequestration go hand in hand - you first have to capture the carbon to sequester it. It will obviously always be more efficient to capture carbon at the source of the emissions (e.g. a smokestack) where it is highly concentrated than to pull it out of the air..
  - ianburrell 3y ago
    There are other methods of sequestration that may be better than carbon capture. Rock weathering is the main one, where dump crushed olivine rock into the oceans where it picks up the dissolved CO2. This has advantage that uses known technology and scales well. It also locks CO2 into rock instead of worrying about where to put the captured CO2.
ajross 3y ago
It's usually talked about in broader contexts. There are some fuel modes (air travel being the really obvious one) that aren't ever going to be non-combustion. You have to put carbon into the upper atmosphere to move people in jetliners, period. So solutions would involve either synthesizing carbon-neutral fuel, or burning petroleum and offsetting it by putting the same amount of carbon back into the ground somewhere else. There's a reasonably strong argument that the latter is more energy-efficient. But it's all infant tech and no one really knows.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
haqlootydoot 3y ago
[flagged]

by api 3y ago

aqme28 3y ago

I agree with this. It could only make sense where there is abundant almost free energy. But now people just mine crypto in those places. Carbon capture needs to pay better than mining crypto or it won’t happen.

cozzyd 3y ago
Too bad nobody in the "innovative" crypto sector has come up with a Proof-of-Carbon-Capture coin.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  Oh don't worry, they did, several times. It went predictably. Here's one very stupid white paper. [1] [1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2107.00185.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2107.00185.pdf
  - cozzyd 3y ago
    As usual, a crypo white paper is indistinguishable from parody
- rtkwe 3y ago
  It's been tried at least in theory but blockchains are only REALLY good at keeping track of purely digital things that happen within their chain. Outside of that they're at the mercy of people putting bad data into them. Conceptually how would that reward system even work? It would have to rely on real world auditors to validate that the carbon sinking was actually being performed (and working).
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  A somewhat related notion, a carbon coin, is a key plot point in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future.

gottorf 3y ago

> if we developed something like cheap efficient fusion reactors that allowed us to just burn energy with contempt All problems humanity faces are energy problems. With sufficiently cheap and abundant energy, we can work through anything.

rtkwe 3y ago

There's maybe a niche for it where our energy storage ability can't use all the renewables produced at a given time so we use the excess to run carbon capture facilities. Right now the times where there's >100% power demand for renewables is fairly rare though.

londons_explore 3y ago
In that world, I suspect people will find other uses for very cheap energy. I mean if my (cold) town had free energy even a few days per year, I'd just fit a heater on every street light and turn them on whenever energy was free so we could have 'warm streets' days.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

Are we talking about carbon capture (like from the smokestack of a coal plant)? Or carbon sequestration, where we pull it out of the air? The latter probably makes sense even at high energy cost... it makes a climate crisis reversible rather than just slowable. The former seems rather more suspect even with cheap fusion. What do you even do with the carbon, once captured? You can't turn it into a solid... that would be the coal you just burned. And while it might be capturable as a gas, how would one go about storing it safely?

ummonk 3y ago
Capture and sequestration go hand in hand - you first have to capture the carbon to sequester it. It will obviously always be more efficient to capture carbon at the source of the emissions (e.g. a smokestack) where it is highly concentrated than to pull it out of the air..
- ianburrell 3y ago
  There are other methods of sequestration that may be better than carbon capture. Rock weathering is the main one, where dump crushed olivine rock into the oceans where it picks up the dissolved CO2. This has advantage that uses known technology and scales well. It also locks CO2 into rock instead of worrying about where to put the captured CO2.

ajross 3y ago

It's usually talked about in broader contexts. There are some fuel modes (air travel being the really obvious one) that aren't ever going to be non-combustion. You have to put carbon into the upper atmosphere to move people in jetliners, period. So solutions would involve either synthesizing carbon-neutral fuel, or burning petroleum and offsetting it by putting the same amount of carbon back into the ground somewhere else. There's a reasonably strong argument that the latter is more energy-efficient. But it's all infant tech and no one really knows.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

haqlootydoot 3y ago

[flagged]