jsantos511

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by jsantos511 6y ago
De-risking all of these questions is currently one of our top priorities. We have an understanding of a handful of materials that are compatible with our system right now, and we are working to expand that list - and, just as valuably, remo
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by jsantos511 6y ago
In the short-term, it seems very likely that if ethanol plants do not sell that ton of CO2, it will end up back in the atmosphere. In the long-run, we have the opportunity to clean those emissions up with either new technologies that can pr
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by jsantos511 6y ago
Carbon is dispersed from the atmosphere wherever it's created. This could be the smokestack of a power plant, a tailpipe of a car, or any other source of emissions. That CO2 floats up into the air and mingles with all the other gases i
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by jsantos511 6y ago
Emailed received! Will respond soon. Thanks!
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by jsantos511 6y ago
There are two equally-needed levers we have to reverse climate change: the first is reducing current emissions, and the second is removing carbon from the atmosphere. Removing emissions from smokestacks is critical to ensuring we can stop d
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by jsantos511 6y ago
To put it plainly: we need more trees. However, trees cannot get us all the way there. Trees are great for drawing down atmospheric carbon emissions in the short-term, but when trees decompose, they just release that carbon back into the at
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by jsantos511 6y ago
Unlike many traditional carbon capture chemicals, the one we are using are both non-volatile and stable when they come into contact with air and heat. This means that our chemicals will not float out of the top of a cooling tower with evapo
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by jsantos511 6y ago
Thanks for the tip on ammonia plants! Ammonia is one of the top sources of CO2 sold commercially, second to ethanol plants. I have nothing but respect for what Carbon Engineering has done. In many ways, they opened people's eyes to wha
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by jsantos511 6y ago
Most commercial CO2 that is used in the market today is actually produced as a by-product of ethanol production: https://www.attisbiofuels.com/by-products/carbon-dioxide
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by jsantos511 6y ago
Building new cooling towers would drive our costs up as we would have to pay for the capex of the towers in addition to the rest of the process. For now, we are trying to keep everything as low-cost as possible. Cooling towers typically run
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by jsantos511 6y ago
Yes, and it also gives us the chance to develop sequestration pathways in parallel to fine-tuning the technology. And, if companies can use cleaner sources of CO2 than ethanol offshoots, that would be a net good for the planet as well.
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by jsantos511 6y ago
The US is home to over 2M cooling towers: https://www.nsf.org/news/road-map-improve-response-legionnai... Using the numbers we've calculated with our first partner plant, we're expecting to be able to capture
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by jsantos511 6y ago
One day we may be producing jet fuel! For now, the same exact logic applies to CO2 production: every new ton consumed = a new ton in the sky. If businesses use reclaimed CO2 to run their process, no new tons end up in the sky due to their o
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by jsantos511 6y ago
I love the work that Stripe is doing with Stripe Climate. We have been in touch with them about their new applications. Regardless of how our application ends up, I am so excited for more businesses working on carbon removal to have the c
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by jsantos511 6y ago
Thanks for your feedback and support!
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by jsantos511 6y ago
Great observation - somewhere between most-to-all of the CO2 that goes into beer, food production, etc ends up back in the atmosphere. Our initial model is the first key step towards the additional solutions we're designing to remove
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by jsantos511 6y ago
Great question - the oil and gas industry is definitely responsible for a huge chunk of CO2 emissions, but they are not the ones that produce CO2 used commercially. Most CO2 that is used at breweries, restaurants, etc comes from ethanol pla
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Launch HN: Noya (YC W21) – Direct air capture of CO2 using cooling towers
401 points by jsantos511 6y ago|157 comments