alexose

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241.
by alexose 5y ago
I've done a decent amount of research on Prometheus Fuels, and I'm a believer. They've licensed a couple of key technologies out of Oak Ridge. First is a catalyst that converts CO2 + H2O + electricity directly into ethanol.
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Prometheus Fuels (YC W19) Closes Series B with $1.5B Valuation(prometheusfuels.com)
109 points by alexose 5y ago|121 comments
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by alexose 5y ago
The forest service will occasionally do this for remote structures that are at risk. It works surprisingly well! When you consider physics of a forest fire, there are lots of unintuitive-sounding solutions that come up. One of them is to
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by alexose 5y ago
I used to work in supply chain logistics. Boy howdy, I am not surprised by any of this. Most companies (especially the older and more established ones) have zero visibility into their supply chains. Suppliers don't share this inform
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by alexose 5y ago
I doubt I'll be able to make much meaningful progress on CO2 removal during my lifetime, but I'm going to try my best. My hope is that on my deathbed, Earth will at least be trending in the right direction.
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by alexose 5y ago
At $100/ton (the currently accepted rate), that would have paid for the removal of 64 gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere. Roughly two years worth of emissions. Although at that scale, you wonder if you could get down to $10/t
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by alexose 5y ago
At 6°C (the very upper end of the IPCC report), the planet loses its ability to create clouds. Which itself means another 7°C due to the lowering of the albedo. Certainly a civilization-ending event, and perhaps a life-ending one.
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by alexose 5y ago
It's not too late. There have been recent (huge!) advances in renewable energy, chemistry, and climate modeling that open the door to solving this problem. The path I see in front of us involves temporarily geoengineering our way to a
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by alexose 5y ago
Decarbonize as soon as you can. If you own a house, add rooftop solar. It can be financed pretty easily these days. If you have extra spending power, give money to Climeworks or Carbon Engineering. Tradewater might be even better bang f
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by alexose 5y ago
Maybe it was just because I was listening to it at 1.5x speed, but it definitely felt like there were just too many ideas jammed together. Especially the CarbonCoin idea. Possibly a good approach, but it made for some bad storytelling.
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by alexose 5y ago
I would argue two points here: - Switching the world to nuclear power would require global cooperation, hundreds of billions of dollars, and 20+ years of construction - Things are already quite bad Now, I don't want to start messing
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by alexose 5y ago
Piracy is stealing /s
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by alexose 5y ago
I'm not 100% sure about Washington, but I know Oregon has a whole program to incentivize the switch. (I wish they paid even more, but something's better than nothing...) https://www.energytrust.org/
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by alexose 5y ago
There could be a hidden benefit in the adoption of ductless heat pumps. Not only are they more efficient than the systems they replace, but they can also provide heating. This would reduce the amount of oil or natural gas being used to he
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by alexose 5y ago
The IPCC is due to release a more comprehensive look at solar geoengineering in 2022. I say we start planning for it now, and be ready to roll it out if and when the climate models predict that it's safe enough to do so.
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by alexose 5y ago
Practically speaking... I guess you get used it. Yesterday I spent the afternoon outside by a river in 200+ AQI, and it didn't seem too bad. I use an N95 mask if it's bothering me, and a respirator if I have a lot of work to do
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by alexose 5y ago
I agree. Burying existing lines at $2M per mile seems like outdated thinking now that $2M buys you around 3MW of solar. Or, around 6MWh of battery storage if the Tesla Megapack is to be believed. Plus, this is capacity that doesn't
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by alexose 5y ago
Medford resident here. We experienced a few days of 900+ last summer. It's very bad. Even in the 400's, it feels like chain smoking. At 900 the air is thick enough to block out most of sun. I have no idea what this has done to
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by alexose 5y ago
A million times this. It's important that everyone know that there's nowhere left to move to in order to continue ignoring the problem.
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by alexose 5y ago
I challenge anyone to read that chapter and not be moved. Absolutely brutal, visceral writing.
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by alexose 5y ago
Great idea. I want to build a house out of CCS bricks! I don't (yet) understand the chemistry behind extracting solid carbon from the air for cheap, but I have reason to believe it's possible: https://www.nature.com&#x
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by alexose 5y ago
Current CCS rates are about $60/ton. Given that each PPM represents about 8 billion tons of atmospheric CO2, that's $480B for each PPM reduction. Obviously not great. But what if that number drops to $30 per ton? $10? If we get
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by alexose 5y ago
> there is no realistic scenario in which western countries can prevent CO2 from getting to dangerous levels This is not necessarily true. There's a scenario in which the West invents viable carbon capture technology.
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by alexose 5y ago
Sorry about that! Updated.
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by alexose 5y ago
I'd love to hear your solution! (I'm not sure anyone likes my solution either, lol)
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by alexose 5y ago
For sure! For the record, I do think there's a path to success here (see my prior comments), but it's fairly top-down in its approach. Still, everyone has a role to play in demanding that their governments take immediate action.
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by alexose 5y ago
I hear you, but it's not possible to mitigate our way out of this. It's simply happening too fast. Of all of the carbon that's been released into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution, half of it has come in the
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by alexose 5y ago
This is already happening in poorer countries with less of a safety net. Somalia comes to mind. Expect the refugee crisis to continue to escalate. Edit: In the meantime, please act. I'm calling on everyone in the tech community to
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by alexose 5y ago
Even if we stopped emitting all CO2 tomorrow, we're still likely to see another half degree of warming. Maybe more. I can't imagine what that would do my home in the western US. Or Greece, or Turkey, or any of the places around
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by alexose 5y ago
It's generally agreed to be highly cost effective. Via Wikipedia: > The annual cost of delivering 5 million tons of an albedo enhancing aerosol (sufficient to offset the expected warming over the next century) to an altitude of 20

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