Scientists Push For Government Research Program Focused On Sucking Carbon From Air 222
In a 369-page report, the nation's leading scientific body (consisting of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine) is urging the federal government to begin a research program focused on developing technologies that can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in order to help slow climate change. It is now believed that in order to avoid significant further warming of the planet, big chunks of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may need to be removed. The New York Times reports: The panel's members conceded that the Trump administration may not find the climate change argument all that compelling, since the president has disavowed the Paris Agreement. But, Dr. Pacala said, it's quite likely that other countries will be interested in carbon removal. The United States could take a leading role in developing technologies that could one day be worth many billions of dollars.
Right now, there are plenty of ideas for carbon removal kicking around. Countries could plant more trees that pull carbon dioxide out of the air and lock it in their wood. Farmers could adopt techniques, such as no-till agriculture, that would keep more carbon trapped in the soil. A few companies are building "direct air capture" plants that use chemical agents to scrub trace amounts of carbon dioxide from the air, allowing them to sell the gas to industrial customers or bury it underground. But, the National Academies panel warned, many of these methods are still unproven or face serious limitations. There's only so much land available to plant new trees. Scientists are still unsure how much carbon can realistically be stored in agricultural soils. And direct air capture plants are still too expensive for mass deployment. One solution that the National Academies panel recommended was for the United States to set up programs to start testing and deploying carbon removal methods that look ready to go, such as negative emissions biomass plants, new forest management techniques or carbon farming programs.
"At the same time, federal agencies would need to fund research into early-stage carbon removal techniques, to explore whether they may one day be ready for widespread use," reports the NYT.
Right now, there are plenty of ideas for carbon removal kicking around. Countries could plant more trees that pull carbon dioxide out of the air and lock it in their wood. Farmers could adopt techniques, such as no-till agriculture, that would keep more carbon trapped in the soil. A few companies are building "direct air capture" plants that use chemical agents to scrub trace amounts of carbon dioxide from the air, allowing them to sell the gas to industrial customers or bury it underground. But, the National Academies panel warned, many of these methods are still unproven or face serious limitations. There's only so much land available to plant new trees. Scientists are still unsure how much carbon can realistically be stored in agricultural soils. And direct air capture plants are still too expensive for mass deployment. One solution that the National Academies panel recommended was for the United States to set up programs to start testing and deploying carbon removal methods that look ready to go, such as negative emissions biomass plants, new forest management techniques or carbon farming programs.
"At the same time, federal agencies would need to fund research into early-stage carbon removal techniques, to explore whether they may one day be ready for widespread use," reports the NYT.
Trees (Score:5, Insightful)
How Do Trees Turn Carbon Dioxide into Oxygen? [sciencing.com] (April 5, 2018 )
Re:Trees (Score:5, Informative)
Likely multiple techniques will need to be used to be successful. And also a serious effort in reducing new co2 of course.
Re: (Score:2)
Or, we let whatever mechanism* act normally that has repeatedly reduced CO2 after the routinely-high peaks every 120k years for the last 3 million or so.
*my bet's on albedo - warming causes more evaporation causing more clouds raising the planet's albedo causing temps to fall.
Re: (Score:2)
The mechanism that brings CO2 levels back down over the last several million years or so is mostly the cooling of the Earth due to changes in the orbital parameters (Milankovitch cycles) that cause the CO2 to get absorbed in the oceans and other places. The cooling has to start first to do that.
Re: (Score:2)
Except that Milankovich *mostly* explains current warming, leaving hysterical ecomarxists only a slight residual amplification (the ACTUAL anthropogenic warming, presumably).
Since "the sky is falling and it's our fault" makes so much better headlines than "this particular sky was going to fall pretty much this way anyway, and what we as humans are doing *might* (we think) be making it slightly worse" I'll leave it to you which message is shouted the loudest in our culture.
Re: (Score:2)
Milankovitch does not explain anything about the warming of the last 200 years since the general trend of the cycles is toward cooling. Before the current warming trend the Earth had been cooling at a slight rate for the last 6,000-8,000 years because that is the current trend of Milankovitch Cycles after they peaked on the warming trend that caused the current interglacial about 8,000 years ago. It is not cooling now mainly because of the increase in greenhouse gases (primarily CO2) in the atmosphere. T
Brawdo energy gas (Score:2)
It's got CO2 that plants crave
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Did you know there are more trees in the US now than at the founding of our country?
Re: (Score:2)
Did you know there are more trees in the US now than at the founding of our country?
Did you know that mature trees sequester more carbon than "growing" ones? Tree growth only occurs in a thin layer below the bark, so the larger the diameter of the tree, the more growth occurs — not less, as most people assume. The fact is that for virtually all species of tree, mature forests sequester more carbon than young ones. They actually keep growing until they die.
At this point the only things we could plant [which I know of] that would take effect quickly enough to do any good are bamboo and
Re: (Score:2)
Hemp is not too bad at it either and has useful products made from it.
As far as trees go, they help but they won't fix the problem on any short term schedule. The amount of just coal we dig up every day amounts to thousands of years of tree accumulation. You could cover the whole Earth with trees and it would still take thousands of years to bring CO2 levels back down to reasonable levels.
Re: (Score:2)
Now you have grass-fed beef instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Efficiency of photosynthesis is low. Trees will eventually decompose. We don't have sufficient areas with good growing conditions for trees.
Re:Trees (Score:5, Interesting)
Efficiency of photosynthesis is low.
I suggest that instead of just pointing out why you think something won't work that you also provide an alternative.
Trees will eventually decompose.
Yes, they do compose. In between the time the trees die and when they decompose they are storing carbon. Dr. Patrick Moore says growing trees is a very good idea on storing carbon. Dr. Moore has degrees in biology and ecology so I'm going to believe him over some random person posting something on the internet.
We don't have sufficient areas with good growing conditions for trees.
Dr. Moore disagrees. Do you have a better idea? I heard from another person with a PhD that suggests mining basalt and using it as fertilizer as a means to sequester CO2, Dr. Darryl Seimer. Basalt contains lime and when exposed to the air it turns to limestone. Farmers use a lot of lime in their fields to control pH but the most common sources involve producing a lot of CO2. There isn't a lot of basalt mined for lime because it is a very hard rock, but if we can make it economic to mine then that can remove a lot of CO2 from the air.
Oh, and both Dr. Moore and Dr. Seimer believe we need to use nuclear power to stop producing so much CO2. I will take the word from these people that are highly knowledgeable on the topic over so many more that believe we can solve this problem without nuclear power. Science is not something decided by a vote so I don't much care if 99.7% of people say otherwise. Science is base on fact, not popularity. A popular vote for something wrong just means a lot of people are wrong. If someone wants to prove these doctors are wrong then all it takes is one person with better facts.
Re: (Score:2)
I suggest that instead of just pointing out why you think something won't work that you also provide an alternative.
The best alternative is to keep the fossil fuels in the ground.
Dr. Moore has degrees in biology and ecology so I'm going to believe him over some random person posting something on the internet.
You forgot the link to the study.
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, do you mean this guy ?
https://www.sourcewatch.org/in... [sourcewatch.org]
Patrick Moore is an ecologist who denies that humans cause climate change
So he's a nutcase.
Re: (Score:3)
The good thing about tress is that they are cheap and low maintenance.
What we really need is something cheap and low maintenance and more efficient than a tree. Failing that, something expensive but able to remove vast amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Re: (Score:2)
Wood has many uses. Like building houses.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, and both Dr. Moore and Dr. Seimer believe we need to use nuclear power to stop producing so much CO2. I will take the word from these people that are highly knowledgeable on the topic over so many more that believe we can solve this problem without nuclear power. Science is not something decided by a vote so I don't much care if 99.7% of people say otherwise. Science is base on fact, not popularity. A popular vote for something wrong just means a lot of people are wrong. If someone wants to prove these doctors are wrong then all it takes is one person with better facts.
Nuclear power will be a viable option if you can convince people to pony up the extra cost it imposes compared to other options. The only way that works in the US is with massive government subsidies paid for from taxes. Now, if you impose enough cost on carbon emissions due to the damage they cause that might be possible but I feel it's pretty unlikely to happen any time soon.
Re: (Score:2)
Licensing, etc. is not that big a factor in the cost. The two nuclear plants currently being built in Georgia, the Vogtle plants were originally budgeted to cost around $7 billion and be online by now. Now because of delays and screw ups by the people building it the cost has ballooned to around $26 billion and they're expected to be online in 2021/2022. Part of the problem was Westinghouse didn't have complete and fully developed plans to build them when they started and were making changes on the fly t
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think you fail to understand the nature of a scientific consensus. It's not something organized that scientists do but rather something that comes about organically as a majority of scientists come to agree on some particular point.
Re:Trees (Score:4, Insightful)
So when a tree is mature you are saying you have to chop it down before it dies and decomposes.
Then you should make use of the tree in some fashion that lasts a long time while you plant another tree in its place ?
Hmmmm If only there were ways to do that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Trees use photosynthesis to obtain the required energy for converting CO2 into C. And sadly, photosynthesis is wildly inefficient. Unfortunately, even PV-based solutions will outperform them easily. I'm afraid the inefficiency of photosynthesis will in the long term prove to be a major risk for the survival of trees :|
Re: (Score:2)
He means energy-inefficient and/or time-inefficient, not money-inefficient...although in the medium/long term, letting the planet get wrecked due to insufficiently fast carbon capture is money-inefficient too.
Never Happen (Score:2)
There's no research grants to be had for it. People can plant them on their own and there's no central point to control the supply from.
Sorry this whole plant a seed and let it suck CO2 out of the air idea just doesn't grease any palms (well unless it's a coconut plam)
Re: (Score:2)
Also it's too slow to be helpful, that's another problem...
Re: (Score:2)
Too slow ? I suppose if you are going to rely on just one Johnny Appleseed.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope, throw all the manpower you want at it, we're releasing fossil carbon far faster than nature can stow it, especially considering that the land available for growing trees is less than it used to be.
Re: (Score:2)
You know depending on time of year North America goes net carbon negative. It's a result of reforestation
So maybe if you want to make your case, facts might just help ?
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.anthropocenemagazin... [anthropocenemagazine.org]
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/0... [nytimes.com]
https://uanews.arizona.edu/sto... [arizona.edu]
Re: (Score:2)
Seems you have alternate facts or maybe you just picked ones that supported your position
http://www.arborenvironmentala... [arborenvir...liance.com]
100 metric tons of CO2 can accumulate in one acre of forest over time.
Each person generates approximately 2.3 tons of CO2 per year.
The carbon footprints of 18 average Americans can be neutralized by one acre of hardwood trees.
https://www3.epa.gov/climatech... [epa.gov]
Method for
Calculating Carbon Sequestration by Trees in
Urban and Suburban Settings
Re: (Score:2)
These stats don't conflict with what I posted. 1 acre of forest would have to be stored underground before another acre could grow to absorb 18 average Americans' CO2 output. How many decades would that take? And those are average Americans who pollute far less than the world's wealthiest people.
Re: (Score:2)
That's continuous and your articles are based on the idea we would have to use farmland to plant trees.
Re: (Score:2)
The continuous natural carbon sequestration is far too slow to have any meaningful effect, when trees die almost all of the CO2 is released into the atmosphere again. So when that acre of forest is grown to the point that its carbon intake plateaus, it would have to be cut down and stored out of the biosphere via some artificial means to actually sequester a meaningful amount of that CO2.
Farmland would have to be used to plant trees, because there's nowhere else to plant them. And it's still not enough. The
Re: (Score:2)
The continuous natural carbon sequestration is far too slow to have any meaningful effect, when trees die almost all of the CO2 is released into the atmosphere again.
I know this elsewhere in the thread but wouldn't it be nice if we had some use for managed forest products. If only there were something that we could do with trees.
Someway to turn them into products that would be durable and beneficial.
Farmland would have to be used to plant trees, because there's nowhere else to plant them.
If only there were tracts of land that had trees but didn't anymore because they were harvested and clear cut, wouldnt that be something ? And wouldn't it be amazing if you could somehow combine tree farming with regular farming. We could call it agroforestry or something si
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They are also large, needing a lot of land space, deep soil and when they fall they often create a lot of damage.
I thought about what if we just plant trees on top of all the roofs in Cities? Then I was like, well we need the roughs strong enough to handle the tons of soil, and deal with the constant moisture, the roots may try very hard to break them. Then what would happen if a tree fell down from a 40 story building onto the streets....
Also this would attract animals to the area, which may not necessari
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Just read this morning that Argentina has destroyed 25% of it's forest in the past few years to grow soybeans to feed to animals for meat.
It seems that it would be a good idea to stop cutting down trees first. (Also, stop eating meat.)
Re: (Score:2)
Not just trees, but any form of plant and photosynthetic plankton. CO2 actually fertilizes plant growth, meaning if global levels raise, more plants grow -- up to a point, which the earth hasn't reached yet. In fact, the Al Gore era projections for global warming were all wrong precisely because those models didn't account for planetary greening due to CO2 fertilization. This creates a carbon sink, but it isn't enough to equalize temperatures, so it's warming in spite of this effect, just less than without
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, trees aren't doing the trick.
I think engineers can do a bit better.
Re: (Score:2)
It's true that water vapor is the source of most of the greenhouse effect on Earth but it's also true that humans can do little to affect the level of water vapor in the atmosphere. It's level is mostly set by temperature. If however you reduce the level of CO2 in the atmosphere the cooling that causes will also reduce the level of water vapor. If you reduced the level of CO2 to near zero it would reduce the level of water vapor so much that the Earth would freeze over nearly to the equator.
Interesting. However, there is a mistake. (Score:2)
Interesting.
But there is a mistake in the thinking. To put forest in the Sahara, there must be lots of water. If there is a lot of water, there will be a lot of evaporation. The evaporation will create clouds in the sky.
Clouds reflect sunlight out into space, very efficiently.
Trees absorb and remove Carbon (Score:1)
Now cutting down the Amazon and other forrests has NOTHING to to with global warming: Discuss.
Re: (Score:2)
CO2 is not a pollutant (Score:2)
http://co2coalition.org/ [co2coalition.org]
That's probably why total plant life on earth has increased by 14% in the past 30 years:
https://i.imgsafe.org/35/352a2... [imgsafe.org]
Re:CO2 is not a pollutant (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because CO2 helps plants grow does not mean it's not a pollutant. It is possible for things to have multiple properties, sometimes even conflicting ones.
Water also helps plants grow. That doesn't mean we should welcome flooding.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Just because CO2 helps plants grow does not mean it's not a pollutant. It is possible for things to have multiple properties, sometimes even conflicting ones.
Water also helps plants grow. That doesn't mean we should welcome flooding.
Right, because going from 300 ppm to 400 ppm is equivalent to flooding. Natural variation is far greater than this. Photosynthesis requires CO2 concentrations above about 150 ppm, so right now plants are starved of CO2 and going so high as double what we have now would be beneficial to plant life. There is a point of diminishing returns. There is a point of CO2 becoming a hazrd to animal life and that would be about 5000 ppm, or more than ten times current levels.
We are very far from "flooding" the air
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What happens if you counter this with increased oxygen, which is usually stimulating?
Where are you going to get the extra oxygen. Buy burning CO2 you bind oxygen in the atmosphere to carbon reducing the level of oxygen. And it's been measured that the level of oxygen in the atmosphere is dropping some, not enough to be a problem but enough to account for the carbon we've burned.
Re: (Score:2)
But plain water doesn't feed a plant any nutrients and cause it to grow, it has to have a combinations of thing 1 of which is CO2.
Right. A plant needs both water and CO2, and a bunch of minerals. But you can find CO2 everywhere on the planet. Water not so much.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Trees, their root system, & forest fire (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Tree roots decompose releasing their CO2. In the end, it is a wash. And as others have noticed, we cannot plant our way out of this, there isn't enough land area.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmmm...if only there was some way of harvesting the wood and storing it somehow so it doesn't decompose...like in some kind of a building.
Nah, that's impossible I guess.
Yes, that's impossible. Either the building will decompose, or humans will burn the wood at some point. Also, average US family produces 50 tons of CO2 per year, so they would have to build more than one wood frame house every year to sequester the carbon.
Lifestyle changes, anyone ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Only weeks ago, the most alarming IPCC report ever was published, stating that very drastic measures, at a planetary scale, are necessary in a very short time frame, to keep global warming at less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. In the Neherlands, in the wake of this report, environmental ngos scoffed at corporations advocating exactly this approach, as it would, they fear, give them a blank check to keep polluting and not do anything about the root of the climate change problem: emisison of CO2. And although I would advocate the measure (and developing the technology for sure would be a cool thing), I do indeed see a problem here. Relying on CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) could make entire societies dependent upon it, a bit like taking fentany for a toothache, instead of doing the sensible thing and going to the dentist. Donella Meadows, in her seminal book "Thinking in Systems", names this as one of the classical "system traps".
Re:Lifestyle changes, anyone ? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, that's not going to work, for many reasons. It took 33 years for the world population to grow from two to three billion people. It took 14 years from three to four billion people, and 13 for the next billion, and we've added a billion per 12 years since then. In the 50 years since 1974, the world population will have doubled. Asia's population growth has not slowed down. Africa's population has grown past one billion and it's growing at an increasing rate. Whatever you save in energy consumption by changing your lifestyle will be more than eaten up by the rapidly increasing world population. Just to give you a glimpse of what kind of lifestyle changes we're talking about here: People in the US use approximately twice as much energy as Europeans on average. Standards of living are mostly the same, so an energy reduction by half should be doable in the US. On your mark, get set, GO! Do you think you can reduce your energy consumption by half within a decade? And everybody else's in the US? But we know that's not nearly enough. To really make up for the consumption of a world population that doubles within 50 years and wants to live as well as westerners do, the global lifestyle would have to make do with a tiny fraction of today's average energy consumption in the western world. Forcing that kind of change onto people will lead to wars, plain and simple. Ironically, the death toll from these wars would be a big step towards solving the problem, but only the most cynical would choose that path for that reason.
Carbon sequestration is a shitty idea that will take too long to scale up, if it can be scaled up sufficiently at all, but it's still better than telling people to "change their lifestyle", because that has absolutely no chance of working. The solution must involve getting population growth under control globally and reducing the world population to sustainable levels. People don't like to think about that because it incites images of genocide and fascism, but it's necessary, so we better find a way to achieve it that does not involve totalitarianism and war.
Re: (Score:2)
Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and even Fukushima, were yesterday's nuclear power.
Do you have a list of currently operating nuclear power plants that are still using "yesterday's nuclear power" ?
Re: Lifestyle changes, anyone ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Answer: basically all of them in the US, and more around the world. But any new reactors would be so-called generation-4 which have better safety systems. I doubt they are as safe as the nuclear industry is trying to sell, but they are sure as shit safer than the 40+ year old BWRs that are having licenses uprated and extended because we aren't building anything new.
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt they are as safe as the nuclear industry is trying to sell, but they are sure as shit safer than the 40+ year old BWRs
I would argue they are probably more safe than even they are trying to sell. Industrial processes have come leaps and bounds since the days of old BWRs across industries with a far lower incetive to achieve higher safety than the nuclear industry. With all the focus on the industry trying to sell itself as safe its one of the few areas where they have really taken the primary mechanism of inherent safety to heart.
Re:Lifestyle changes, anyone ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Chernobyl: a deliberate attempt by a government to SIMULATE a meltdown. Turns out the "simulation" was a bit too good. Fewer than 200 direct casualties, mostly the firefighters dealing with the fire caused by the "simulation". Worst nuclear accident in history. Caused approximately 1/30th of the deaths that routine traffic fatalities caused during the same two days....
Fukushima: massive tsunami. First nuclear-related casualty happened a few months ago, as I recall seeing in the news. Total casualties approximately 1/6000000th of the deaths caused by routine traffic accidents from tsunami to first casualty.
Three Mile Island. No casualties. No release of radioactivity.
There is a little known accident involving a test reactor that killed three people in the USA back in the day. The reactor fit into a 55 gallon drum, and one of the three guys doing the routine maintenance didn't follow procedures, and killed himself and two other guys trying to do the routine maintenance.
So, the four (known - there is evidence that the USSR may have had another accident back in the 50's, but it's purely circumstantial, since the USSR wasn't big on admitting failures it could hide back then) worst nuclear accidents in history collectively produced less than 10% of the casualties that routine traffic accidents worldwide will cause TODAY! In fact, fewer traffic fatalities than will happen in the USA today, quite likely.
Somehow, I cannot see nuclear power as all that dangerous, even if you're talking reactors designed 50+ years ago....
Grasslands, not trees (Score:5, Informative)
I know everyone is joking about trees, but a much more effective way, according to many researchers including this guy [youtube.com], are by restoring grasslands.
Re: (Score:2)
Bamboo. Bamboo is a kind of grass. It grows quickly and can be harvested to replace a lot of wood products.
We will have to do something about those panda infestations.
Algae (Score:2)
Algae has been done, but it was political then (Score:2)
If you examine crude oil pumped straight from the ground you'll find the fossilized single-cell plants that produced the oil - algae and related diatoms. The slow, natural processes involving pressure and heat that convert this natural vegetable oil from everything between natural gas to heavy crude just contaminates the feedstock with nasties from the ground (arsenic, cadmium, etc) and makes processing into usable products more expensive and environmentally polluting. So your idea has great merit.
Under t
Cement production CO2 capture. (Score:2)
Portland cement is made from limestone (primarily calcium carbonate) in a process that emits CO2, and slowly converts back over time by absorbing atmospheric CO2. If you can make cement production near-CO2-neutral with carbon capture and storage, everything built out of concrete will turn into net absorbers that suck CO2 out of the atmosphere.
Re: (Score:2)
Rei, your previous use of the word "spalling" in reference to concrete, and this post above, peg you as a civil engineer of some sort, or...
You are the evil spawn the the USENET newsgroup alt.pave.the.earth. [reddit.com], as you seem to be suggesting that coating the planet in concrete will save us from CO2.
Which is a brilliant idea as we'll have more space to drive and park our electric cars :)
Re: (Score:2)
Regardless of what I say or do, we (the human species) will be covering the Earth in extensive amounts of concrete every year.
Why not reducing the production? (Score:3)
Maybe it's more effective, isn't it?
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe it's more effective, isn't it?
Not so far.
Oh, you mean theoretically effective, not in the real world.
Self promotion.. (Score:2)
Scientists push for government research program that would need to employ lots more scientists...
If anyone's interested here's a picture (Score:2)
Big chunks (Score:2)
>in order to avoid significant further warming of the planet, big chunks of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may need to be removed.
If all they need to do is remove the big chunks, couldn't they just use nets or something?
Good idea! (Score:2)
This government has 'an instinct for science.'
It will suggest that 'when you take the coal and clean it' as POTUS has said, you could just remove the carbon from the coal before burning it. That way it can't bind to the oxygen.
Easy as pie.
Just ask a stable genius, duh!
Any solution will be technological ... (Score:2)
Amazing (Score:2)
Instead, if they would put the solar on rooftops or over parking lots, it would take sunlight that is today converted into heat, and convert it into electricity.
Yet, the far left will push the lot thing while at the same time, ignoring the fact that they are also saying to use that same land for plants.
Far right and left extremists are total idiots.
Re: (Score:2)
Synthetic hydrocarbons are only a good idea if source-to-wheel energy conversion is better battery powered EVs. Right now, things aren't looking too good.
Re: (Score:2)
Synthetic hydrocarbons are only a good idea if source-to-wheel energy conversion is better battery powered EVs. Right now, things aren't looking too good.
That depends on how you define "better". Synthetic hydrocarbons are already better than plug in electric vehicles because it means no new vehicles, high energy density, existing infrastructure for storage and delivery to end consumers, fast refuel times, and the technology exists today. You can claim that it's not looking good for synthesized hydrocarbons fuels but there's a lot of people that disagree, and I'm among them.
Re: (Score:2)
That depends on how you define "better".
Better energy conversion means less energy needed for the same output.
there's a lot of people that disagree, and I'm among them.
So how much energy is required to produce 1 Joule worth of synthetic hydrocarbons ?
Re: (Score:2)
Internal combustion engines piss away 3/4 to 1/2 of the energy you put into them as waste heat, while EVs turn 90%+ of the electrical energy you put into them into kinetic energy. We can't afford to waste that energy for no good reason. And the incredibly wasteful infrastructure for delivery of liquid fuels is not an advantage.
Synthetic hydrocarbon fuels only make sense for vehicles where electric or nuclear power can't work yet, such as on large aircraft and small boats.
Re: (Score:2)
Small aircraft could run on batteries just like cars. Large boats could use a combination of nuclear and wind power...costs wouldn't be a problem vs. already-expensive fossil fuels that could be even more expensive and have carbon taxes added to them, but sadly politics could be...
Re:Replace mineral Hydro-Carbon fuel (Score:5, Funny)
Carbon capture of the hot air coming from Washington's mouth-breathers would be even more efficient. Some of them definitely need scrubbers attached to their mouths.
Re: (Score:3)
Renewable energy, such as off peak wind & solar could be used to to make hydrocarbon fuel from water and carbon dioxide. It would be carbon neutral and replace our dependency on mineral hydrocarbon fuel. Longer term we could remove atmospheric CO2.
Research plants for this are emerging now.
This is, no lie, the dumbest idea in liquid fuels today. It's dumb because it's grossly inefficient. There are literally only three biofuels which make any sense. All of them can be made from algae, although it only really makes sense for two of them.
Sensible biofuel number one is diesel fuel. It comes in two subsets, green diesel and biodiesel. Green diesel is made by cracking lipids in a fractional distillation column just as you would crude oil. Biodiesel is made through transesterification of fatty acid
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We would have been able to buy it by now in at least small quantities if not for BP and DuPont's company Butamax suing Gevo to prevent them from producing it.
You may care to re-read this and fix your posting
Fix my posting? Fix your reading comprehension. TFL clearly states that the first lawsuit in the conflict was started by Butamax. So were the next two.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Weathering of Silicates (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh good, so all we have to do is wait until after the mass migration of billions due to desertification and coastal destruction from rising sea levels and more powerful storms, the famine, the wars.
Great solution! I think I'd rather skip all that and just stop fucking everything up instead.
There is rarely a silver bullet. (Score:2)
We are going on the dream of some piece of technology that will solve all our problems.
There isn't any.
This isn't fatalism, there are things we can do make the world better, but there will always need to be work around it.
Global Warming, and Water Quality seem to be the big environment problem. So effort in those areas can solve the problems, but make others worse. However if we fix those issues, we can re-adjust and focus on the problems these cause before they become unmanageable, then we may need to go
Re: There is rarely a silver bullet. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When I first started posting here, solar wasn't a cost effective solution for power generation, full stop. Now it is, in many cases.
You started posting here in 1970? By the late seventies, PV solar panels would repay the energy cost of their investment in seven years, and could already last over twenty years. They weren't a potentially complete solution like they are now with massive battery storage technology, but they were viable. If we'd given them the financial support they need then we could have been building power plants then — some or even most of which would still be operating today, albeit at a reduced level of output.
Re: (Score:2)
If we covered the entire surface of the USA with trees, it'd hide away just 10% of all the CO2 we put into the atmosphere... ...for ONE year.
Mature trees sequester more carbon than young ones, because they are so much larger and they don't just stop growing. You have this ass-backwards. Trees sequester carbon every year.
Re: (Score:2)
Trees sequester carbon every year.
Until they die, fall down and rot.
The only credit trees should get for carbon sequestration is the weight of the carbon removed from forests on logging trucks.
Re: (Score:2)
Trees sequester carbon every year.
Until they die, fall down and rot.
Even then, a portion of their carbon winds up in the soil. In fact, that's true even when they burn.
Re: (Score:2)
I think I see the problem here... increased atmospheric CO2 levels have led to an increase in coffee production, the over-consumption of which HAS CAUSED EXCESSIVE USE OF ALL CAPS AND SUPERFLUOUS PUNCTUATION!!!!
Keep sipping that coffee, you and Juan Valdez will sequester carbon and save the world, one cup at a time.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting, where exactly did you see this? The ocean is already really good at taking CO2 from the air - at one time a popular denialist theory centered around ignoring the unexpectedly high uptake of atmospheric CO2 into the oceans. If it's cheap to extract CO2 from the ocean and directly counteract particularly dangerous ocean acidification at the same time, that would be a great approach.