44 replies to this topic

[Lysistrata]

A team of scientists at Harvard University and a company called Carbon Engineering announced this week that they've figured out a low cost, industrial-scale method of pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. This means that innovation, rather than widespread state-compelled behavior modification, will deal with climate change.

https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30225-3

 

 

This was all happening while Al Gore was producing Oscar-winning science-fiction movies, and contemporary Chicken Little's were telling us the human race was doomed. In 2009, we rejected the climate change panic-mongers on Cap and Trade, and it's probably one of the smartest things the American voters have done over the past two decades. Americans refused to surrender their prosperity, freedom, comfort, cars, red meat, travel, air conditioners, ect., to global warming fears. We are not "Science Deniers", and never have been. We are grounded in reality, and knew all along that if we are under assault by science... science itself will be the solution.

 

It appears that companies will be able to remove a metric ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for as little as $94.00. The last I heard from those lefty "scientists", the cost of averting less than one degree of warming by 2100 would cost around $2 trillion every year for a century... which doesn't include the economic toll it would inflict on the world economy. In the near future, we may have a choice between expensive fields of intermittently useful windmills and solar panels, or a plant that cleans the air by converting hydrocarbon into liquid fuel. I wonder which one rational people will choose?

 

For many, this will be welcome news. I doubt it will be for the politically motivated climate warriors whose aim has always been social engineering in the cause of curbing capitalist excesses. Even if decarbonizing is successful, they will demand we continue to mandate inefficient renewable energies. They will demand tax dollars to be used to prop up the clean energy industry. They will continue to demand we ban fracking. They will continue to create fabricated markets that artificially spike the cost of fossil fuels. But, as a political matter, it's going to be a lot more difficult to sell those policies when they can no longer claim the apocalypse is nigh.

 

We've been told for a long time that the Earth was on the brink of disaster. Every year was our very last chance to save it. It's not enough to concede that warming was probably happening... we must adopt whatever policy proposals the Democrats are pushing. Innovations didn't exist... only the apocalypse beckoned.

 

What I find most humorous about this is the fact that Progressives saw climate change as the ironclad means to destroy Capitalism... when it's Capitalism itself that will be the ironclad means to destroy climate change.

[brewersalliance]

Liberal or conservative this is good news!! While I personally think climate change and global warming has been overblown by the left and exploited for political agendas, this is good news.  Tho im sure the MSM will find a way to spin this as they solved climate change or that it wont work or something.  Hopefully this can eventually be used and implemented in a widespread capacity! 

[Lorikz Kain]

This would be impossible to scale up to any meaningful size without governments backing it to help fund infrastructure improvements on a global scale. Just to stay viable the company is going to use what it captures to make fuel to sell otherwise they would only be burning money and investments would eventually dry up.

 

This is at best a band-aid and not a long-term solution. It is definitely a step in a good direction but claiming it will "deal with climate change" would be grossly overstating its ability and can, in fact, be detrimental to the long-term effort towards the end goal of an ultimately net-negative global CO2 emission.

[Lysistrata]

This is at best a band-aid and not a long-term solution.

CO2 is the problem. These plants can be built anywhere. They pull carbon dioxide out of the air and convert it into liquid hydrocarbon fuel. The liquid hydrocarbon fuel is sold on the energy market. When it burns, for whatever we want to burn it for, it turns back into carbon dioxide for them to pull back out of the air to make new liquid hydrocarbon fuel. It's called a "renewable energy".

 

I believe these power plants will begin showing up around 2020, and it's a pretty good bet that a lot of big money investors will gladly sink their cash into something like this on a massive scale, rather than everyone living like sheep... eating their ration of veggies, riding their bike to their assigned job, and waiting to die in order to decrease the surface population. Yeah... I'll take the new power plant.

[Rand0m her0]

Sorry I'm on my phone and can't be certain I'm reading those specs right, but it looks a lot like they're claiming about 400 kWh to capture 1 ton of CO2 and that they can do a mega ton of CO2 a year. And it sounds like they expect to produce about half again as much CO2 as they capture producing they energy need, which will itself be sequester by the same method.


So uh, the us produces about 1700 mwgatons of CO2 per year from power plants alone. If I'm reading this right, neutralizing that would reqquire increasing the USA energy production by a factor of about 1.2. and that doesn't touch the other 3 or so gigatons of CO2 from other sources. So what, hitting net neutrality on Us co 2 production with this would require somewhere between half again and doubling the USA energy production? Of course that's only 15 percent of the world's CO2 production, and of course net neutrality with in no way cut it since we need to short circuit the feedback loop .

Also kinda curious who's gonna pay for this. You might be able to run a few plants at a profit, but I don't think there's any demand for several gigatons of CO2 a year.


I'm thinking there's some feasablity problems here. Gonna need to look more into it, betting that the authors proposal also expects to run concurrently with aggressive decarbonization.

[Rand0m her0]

OK home now. And Oh hey, wait, it's *that* david keith. Ok yea awesome. I'm actually familiar with this project. Fun fact, the chemtrail fucknuts *hate* this guy, since he's done a bunch of work on solar geoengineering. 

 

Anyways, David Keith is the lead author of the paper you linked, and the executive chairman  and founder of Carbon Engineering. And to quote him on the topic:

 "I don’t think it makes sense to do large-scale carbon removal until emissions are heading down to zero”. So there's your TL;DR if you want it. 

 

So, bottom line, the project out in Squamish is...a demonstration in order to encourage investment into further research is probably the best way to phrase it. They've managed to demonstrate direct air capture, using essentially off the shelf parts,  and have shown that at the small scale it can actually be confused with something that's economical from a commercial perspective. It's a really expensive way to say "give us more money so we can figure out how to make this cheaper". They also have an eye towards air to fuel tech, which is a bit iffy atm, but if they can nail it down, it makes for an interesting approach  to  the whole energy storage problem. It'll never be super efficient, thermodynamics is a cold hearted bitch that way, but we can get low carbon fuels out of it which is kinda neat. 

 

The project is not scalable. You can build a plant that works and even makes money. You can capture and sequester a few megatons of CO2.  If you want to throw massive money at you, you could feasibly manage a few hundred megatons of CO2. We would need to do this for several dozen *gigatons* of CO2, and it is in no way feasible to do that using this. Even if you could somehow capture it, there's no feasible way to sequester that much CO2. Even in Carbon Engineerings best case it would cost something like 5 trillion dollars a year (somewhere north of 5% of the entire global economic output) to make this work. It ain't happening.

 

Of course this project is still pretty remarkable. Even at their worst case estimate, they've managed to fairly convincingly show a cost reduction by damn near a factor of three form previous best cases, and done so with off the shelf parts. If they can push the costs down more, this is going to be phenomenally useful in handling stuff that's hard to decarbonize like air travel. Carbon Engineering endgame is using renewable electricity sources to run their DAC plants, and then using that captured carbon to make what amounts to carbon neutral fuel that can be used in roles that are otherwise hard or impossible to decarbonize. And ideally, make money doing it. iirc they're hoping to hit something like 4 dollars a gallon for a jet fuel replacement (or presumably a diesel replacement, since same shit). 

 

 

Oh and lys?

 

For many, this will be welcome news. I doubt it will be for the politically motivated climate warriors whose aim has always been social engineering in the cause of curbing capitalist excesses. Even if decarbonizing is successful, they will demand we continue to mandate inefficient renewable energies. 

 

The authors of that paper, and the founders of Carbon Engineering all collectively belong in that group of people you're referring to as "politically motivated climate warriors " 

 

 

Also inefficient, lol. Utility scale solar barely costs more than coal or natural gas per kilowatt hours these days, and actually beats it out in the best case scenarios (ie, sunny places). Wind and solar are both going to be significantly cheaper than fossil fuels by 2030, regardless of how much you stick your fingers in your ears and go "NANANANANANANAN". 

 

Bonus points for sheer awesome, we might actually see synthetic hydrocarbon fuels becoming cost efficient in places like California soon. The biggest problem with that at the moment is how expensive hydrogen is to produce. And if you're powering the production with renewables, that makes it carbon neutral. 

 

Oh hey did you know, David keith actually wrote a really great article on  the cost efficiency of Solar PV a couple years ago?

 

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/i-was-wrong-about-the-economic-limitations-of-solar-power

[Lysistrata]

Thank you for sharing some real down side to this. I do hope these guys can make a difference. I expect anyone that is selling a cure for climate change to believe in the thing they're trying to cure... at the very least try very hard to convince everyone that what they're selling can do what they say it will do. I'll be watching.

[ccabal86]

Thanks for sharing this Lys, I actually read about this a few weeks ago or so ago, pretty interesting stuff. As RH has demonstrated, this isn’t a miracle cure, but it’s a nice technological direction with real promise.

Social engineering will not work. A good solution will probably be a mix of technologies, so whenever there are advances in that direction, I’m happy.

[Lysistrata]

Thanks for sharing this Lys, I actually read about this a few weeks ago or so ago, pretty interesting stuff. As RH has demonstrated, this isn’t a miracle cure, but it’s a nice technological direction with real promise.

Social engineering will not work. A good solution will probably be a mix of technologies, so whenever there are advances in that direction, I’m happy.

I like it too, and it's really cool to have a possible solution that most everyone can get behind, and be happy about it.

[Rand0m her0]

Oh the tech doesn't have downsides. I think you just ran afoul of the whole "X CURES/CAUSES CANCER" type of popularizer who takes the clickbait and completely ignores  the bit that read "in a petri dish/at 50 times the lethal dose" This does exactly what Carbon Engineering claims it does. But what Carbon Engineering claims and what the popularizers claim are rather different.

 

 

In practice decarbonization is the only viable method for combating climate change. We could probably manage 80% decarbonization as a reasonable goal. part of that will be changing how we generate power, part by focusing on energy efficiency, and in part by changing social priorities and choice  (make of you want of that, holy fuck do we as a society do some really stupid shit just cause it cheaper from a commercial perspective). And there's gonna need to be an unfortunate amount of money spent on updating the powergrid (and jfc does that need to be done anyways). Huge chunks of the intermittency problem is our inability to effectively balance loads across larger regions. 

[onbekende]

For a conservative who was annoyed when people were talking about this being a major issue and wanting action, you sure do like when someone figures something out to help AND gets to make a $$ for it. Which reminds me, any clue about governmental $$ used in this (and historical) experimentations?

 

RH spoke most of my thoughts already. I do like to add that this DOES NOT stop climate change from happening, in an 100% implementation it would mean that we peak at out current ~400 ppm CO₂ levels, which puts us at roughly +1.4°C (blue on graph), hardly a cure indeed. And this is with total renewable energy sources coupled into the process (just using normal hydrocarbon fuel, it adds 50% CO₂)

 

This method of fuel synthesis has been around for nearly a century, sadly I couldn't find howmuch they would need to sell the fuel to be self sufficient. (or I used wrong ctrl+f searches).

[Rand0m her0]

For a conservative who was annoyed when people were talking about this being a major issue and wanting action, you sure do like when someone figures something out to help AND gets to make a $$ for it. Which reminds me, any clue about governmental $$ used in this (and historical) experimentations?

 

RH spoke most of my thoughts already. I do like to add that this DOES NOT stop climate change from happening, in an 100% implementation it would mean that we peak at out current ~400 ppm CO₂ levels, which puts us at roughly +1.4°C (blue on graph), hardly a cure indeed. And this is with total renewable energy sources coupled into the process (just using normal hydrocarbon fuel, it adds 50% CO₂)

 

This method of fuel synthesis has been around for nearly a century, sadly I couldn't find howmuch they would need to sell the fuel to be self sufficient. (or I used wrong ctrl+f searches).

 

 

Their long term plan for profitability is something like solar/etc reduces the cost to produce hydrogen via electrolysis of water in high insolation regions, and they can get the cost of captured carbon down however the hell low they can manage, while running their plant off renewables. They then produce (or sell the carbon to people who produce, either way) synthetic fuel, to supply demand to what  they think will be an emerging market for carbon neutral fuels. I know the goal is a price somewhere around a dollar a liter for something like diesel.

 

They're at least semi dependant on gov subsidies. iirc right now they're thinking California as a market since A cheap solar there and B the state is willing to throw money at carbon neutral fuels. 

[Lysistrata]

For a conservative who was annoyed when people were talking about this being a major issue and wanting action, you sure do like when someone figures something out to help AND gets to make a $$ for it.

My position has always been that there is nothing reasonable that can be done about it... until now. This is the very first time I have seen anything that is a real solution to the creation of too much carbon dioxide. Until now... the only solutions put forward are for people to stop living a normal 21st century life, or a mass amount of the Earth population to stop living... period. The only incentive to do anything great is when the people that make it happen get wealthy from it. I have no problem with that.

[onbekende]

 

For a conservative who was annoyed when people were talking about this being a major issue and wanting action, you sure do like when someone figures something out to help AND gets to make a $$ for it. Which reminds me, any clue about governmental $$ used in this (and historical) experimentations?

 

RH spoke most of my thoughts already. I do like to add that this DOES NOT stop climate change from happening, in an 100% implementation it would mean that we peak at out current ~400 ppm CO₂ levels, which puts us at roughly +1.4°C (blue on graph), hardly a cure indeed. And this is with total renewable energy sources coupled into the process (just using normal hydrocarbon fuel, it adds 50% CO₂)

 

This method of fuel synthesis has been around for nearly a century, sadly I couldn't find howmuch they would need to sell the fuel to be self sufficient. (or I used wrong ctrl+f searches).

 

 

Their long term plan for profitability is something like solar/etc reduces the cost to produce hydrogen via electrolysis of water in high insolation regions, and they can get the cost of captured carbon down however the hell low they can manage, while running their plant off renewables. They then produce (or sell the carbon to people who produce, either way) synthetic fuel, to supply demand to what  they think will be an emerging market for carbon neutral fuels. I know the goal is a price somewhere around a dollar a liter for something like diesel.

 

They're at least semi dependant on gov subsidies. iirc right now they're thinking California as a market since A cheap solar there and B the state is willing to throw money at carbon neutral fuels. 

 

 

I am more worried about getting to that 1$/L figure (heck that is almost enough to be able to sell with profit in Belgium!) and how much funding it will actualy use. Not that I am against funding or subsidies, but I do get annoyed when cooperations come out with dirt cheap stuff basking in their own ingenuity but  then hiding they are getting cashrolled like mad.

 

I still want my H₂ producting bacteria, they were promised to me like a decade ago

 

 

 

For a conservative who was annoyed when people were talking about this being a major issue and wanting action, you sure do like when someone figures something out to help AND gets to make a $$ for it.

My position has always been that there is nothing reasonable that can be done about it... until now. This is the very first time I have seen anything that is a real solution to the creation of too much carbon dioxide. Until now... the only solutions put forward are for people to stop living a normal 21st century life, or a mass amount of the Earth population to stop living... period. The only incentive to do anything great is when the people that make it happen get wealthy from it. I have no problem with that.

 

 

So wait, you think this is the first solution not involving "back to medieval" or "kill all the polluters" out there? Guess we should be lucky and astonished you actually found something then...

 

Sure, wealth creation makes the world go round, it was also the primary reason it got fucked in the first place. This piece of technology will be one of the many required to combat this issue, and I believe zero-gain investments (subsidies) are required to find many of these. Usually the private moneystashes only move when an already excisting technology can be made (more) profitable, but you still first need it to be made. A big example is fusion energy.

[Lysistrata]

This piece of technology will be one of the many required to combat this issue

And if there are more solutions, I want to see them. This is the only solution I have seen, so far, that I can support. This is the problem for me... like you said, lots of people talking about the problem, and when I ask what their "solution" is... they haven't got one, or the one they have is completely insane, or they are too embarrassed to say.

 

One thing for certain is we will not implement every crazy plan some Progressive egghead comes up with just because they say we're all gonna die if we don't do it, because guess what? We're not all gonna die if we don't do it. I have no problem with alternative fuels or any form of power as long as it's the most efficient, and cost effective, means available. I'm not gonna buy "Carbon Credits", I'm not gonna send all my money to Jackassistan because I create more carbon dioxide than they do, I'm not letting go of my air conditioner, or rationing between washing clothes or taking a shower... it's all insanity... but this plan up there, actually works.

[Rand0m her0]

 

This piece of technology will be one of the many required to combat this issue

And if there are more solutions, I want to see them. This is the only solution I have seen, so far, that I can support. This is the problem for me... like you said, lots of people talking about the problem, and when I ask what their "solution" is... they haven't got one, or the one they have is completely insane, or they are too embarrassed to say.

 

One thing for certain is we will not implement every crazy plan some Progressive egghead comes up with just because they say we're all gonna die if we don't do it, because guess what? We're not all gonna die if we don't do it. I have no problem with alternative fuels or any form of power as long as it's the most efficient, and cost effective, means available. I'm not gonna buy "Carbon Credits", I'm not gonna send all my money to Jackassistan because I create more carbon dioxide than they do, I'm not letting go of my air conditioner, or rationing between washing clothes or taking a shower... it's all insanity... but this plan up there, actually works.

 

 

 

 

Say it with me: "solar and onshore wind are already cost less per kilowatt hour than either coal or natural gas"  and "improvements in energy efficiency mean the average energy consumption per captia in the USA are at a 40 year low." 80% decarbonization is, with no future advancement in technology, an entirely reasonable target.

 

 

you're either outright misinterpreting a broad engineering problem statement (ie, something to the effect of "current methods of energy production are not a sustainable way to supply current or projected future demands" ) to mean  OMG BAN MODERN LIFE,  or you are getting your information from someone who is outright lying to you. Outside of some dumbass reactionary Malthusian Luddites, literally no one has ever said that, and every damn Malthusian supporter has been a waste of oxygen since Malthus himself so stuff that lot.

 

 

I'm not gonna buy "Carbon Credits", I'm not gonna send all my money to Jackassistan because I create more carbon dioxide than they do, I'm not letting go of my air conditioner, or rationing between washing clothes or taking a shower... it's all insanity... but this plan up there, actually works.

 

See the bold? That's drought management. And that shit isn't new. Your great great great grandparents dealt with that in exactly the same way.

[onbekende]

Lys, I can throw the entire wikipedia page on global warming responses at you and you might still not see anything.

 

But lets try some from the top of my head:

 

Less polluting biofuels

Usage of compact fluorescent lamps and now LED lights

Combatting deforestation

Intensifying agriculture

Finding biological sources of base materials (like bioplastic)

Restricting usage of temperature inducing chemicals and emissions in general

Expanding public transport

Circular economy by restricting and repurposing waste

...

 

 

There is NO SINGULAR CURE-IT-ALL! Your idea of the solution being the end of society is like combatting cancer by cutting limbs and organs. We have mostly gone past such thinking but yes, tough choices will be ahead.

[Lysistrata]

solar and onshore wind are already cost less per kilowatt hour than either coal or natural gas

That's already being done. On the drive to California, there is a sea of solar panels before you hit the California border... when you drive through California, you see a forest of windmills, many that never turn. I don't know how much they cost, or how much they help. Driving through California, you'll see an ocean of illegal aliens... okay I'll stop now.

 

I know in November, on our ballot, we will have the option to open our electricity market, and break up the Nevada Power monopoly. I intend to vote for it, and it looks to be passing by a landslide. Many people are installing solar panels on their roofs... I won't do it to this house, but maybe my next one. I may move to Arizona when the Raiders come to this city... I don't believe we need to increase the city population more than it already is... the water level of Lake Mead (our water supply) is really low, and so many people have been screaming about it, so let's bring in a professional football team to attract another million Californians to move here. It's pretty nuts.

 

combatting cancer by cutting limbs and organs

That's pretty much what they do. I like immune therapy myself. I have seen cases of shear miracle work recently... but on topic, I'm in favor of doing everything that makes sense, is implemented by the private sector, and government has very small influence. Give me that, and you might just turn me into a climate change warrior.

[onbekende]

The only issue is that the provate sector doesn't has an excellent track record on such objectives, even less so when they just think in short term windfall.

 

To hijack your first alinea, fast and quick wins would be barring new arrivals into Nevada but to actually combat the issue of water supply a more major and long term solutions are required. Solutions on many stages of the issue, from tapping as of yet unused water sources to educating/mandating the populace to lessen consumption.

[Lysistrata]

The only issue is that the provate sector doesn't has an excellent track record on such objectives

Most everything run by the government is shit, because they don't care about efficiency, budgets, quality control, or quality employees. The private sector must deliver what the consumer expects, or we buy from someone else. You must believe no one will want the product, and if that's the case, I will not support it to begin with. It must work or I won't buy it, and if it doesn't work, the private sector will tell us.