The World's Largest Carbon Removal Project Yet Is Headed For Wyoming

A couple of climate tech startups plan to suck a hell of a lot of carbon dioxide out of the air and trap it underground in Wyoming. The Verge reports: The goal of the new endeavor, called Project Bison, is to build a new facility capable of drawing down 5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually by 2030. The CO2 can then be stored deep within the Earth, keeping it out of the atmosphere, where it would have continued to heat up the planet. A Los Angeles-based company called CarbonCapture is building the facility, called a direct air capture (DAC) plant, that is expected to start operations as early as next year. It'll start small and work up to 5 million metric tons a year. If all goes smoothly by 2030, the operation will be orders of magnitude larger than existing direct air capture projects.

CarbonCapture's equipment is modular, which is what the company says makes the technology easy to scale up. The plant itself will be made of modules that look like stacks of shipping containers with vents that air passes through. At first, the modules used for Project Bison will be made at CarbonCapture's headquarters in Los Angeles. In the first phase of the project, expected to be completed next year, around 25 modules will be deployed in Wyoming. Those modules will collectively have the capacity to remove about 12,000 tons of CO2 a year from the air. The plan is to deploy more modules in Wyoming over time and potentially manufacture the modules there one day, too.

Inside each of the 40-foot modules are about 16 "reactors" with "sorbent cartridges" that essentially act as filters that attract CO2. The filters capture about 75 percent of the CO2 from the air that passes over them. Within about 30 to 40 minutes, the filters have absorbed all the CO2 they can. Once the filters are fully saturated, the reactor goes offline so that the filters can be heated up to separate out the CO2. There are many reactors within one module, each running at its own pace so that they're constantly collecting CO2. Together, they generate concentrated streams of CO2 that can then be compressed and sent straight to underground wells for storage. DAC is still very expensive -- it can cost upwards of $600 to capture a ton of carbon dioxide. That figure is expected to come down with time as the technology advances. But for now, it takes a lot of energy to run DAC plants, which contributes to the big price tag. The filters need to reach around 85 degrees Celsius (185 degrees Fahrenheit) for a few minutes, and getting to those kinds of high temperature for DAC plants can get pretty energy-intensive. Eventually, [...] Bison plans to get enough power from new wind and solar installations. When the project is running at its full capacity in 2030, it's expected to use the equivalent of about 2GW of solar energy per year. For comparison, about 3 million photovoltaic panels together generate a gigawatt of solar energy, according to the Department of Energy. But initially, the energy used by Project Bison might have to come from natural gas, according to Corless. So Bison would first need to capture enough CO2 to cancel out the amount of emissions it generates by burning through that gas before it can go on to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. "The geology in Wyoming allows Project Bison to store the captured CO2 on-site near the modules," adds The Verge. "Project Bison plans to permanently store the CO2 it captures underground. Specifically, project leaders are looking at stowing it 12,000 feet underground in 'saline aquifers' -- areas of rock that are saturated with salt water."

show me the $/megaton

[cats-paw]

It's really hard to believe that this is a better use of time and resources than just continuing to improve and expand the renewable energy infrastructure.

So is it getting subsidized somehow ?

oops. i should have read the F'ing summary

DAC is still very expensive -- it can cost upwards of $600 to capture a ton of carbon dioxide. That figure is expected to come down with time as the technology advances. But for now, it takes a lot of energy to run DAC plants, which contributes to the big price

This is fucking idiotic.

Really, how is it that anybody thinks this is worth the money ?

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

It makes some sense as an R&D project since we will need to eventually do DAC to get CO2 back down.

But there is no reason to do it now, since we won't need it for decades, and there is no reason to do it on such a large scale.

So, yes, this is really stupid.

The big question is: Cui bono? Who is profiting from this insanity? How? Why?

At first, I assumed the CO2 was going to enhanced oil recovery [wikipedia.org], which would make much more economic sense. But according to TFS, that is not the case.

Re:

[LifesABeach]

what.
maxed c o 2.
plant a g** d*** tree.
and water it.
and put a simple barrier around it
to keep critters away from it long enough for the tree to take root and thrive

Re:show me the $/megaton

[Geoffrey.landis]

DAC is still very expensive -- it can cost upwards of $600 to capture a ton of carbon dioxide. That figure is expected to come down with time as the technology advances.

Currently liquid carbon dioxide sells for about $365 per metric ton. So they are in shooting range of being able to sell it at a profit, which would be a lot easier than pumping it underground.

Re:show me the $/megaton

[ceoyoyo]

Coal generates a lot of other things you probably don't want in your nice pure CO2-using industrial process.

Re:

[stabiesoft]

Ah, but then it wouldn't be captured. Those consumers use it for fizz, animal stunning, ... but in all those cases, it is released, so wouldn't qualify for the much more lucrative carbon capture money. Interestingly, the shortage of Nat Gas has caused a shortage of CO2 for just those purposes in the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/bu... [theguardian.com]

Re:

[greytree]

One would assume that increasing the production of CO2 by several orders of magnitude ( which must be their goal, to have any effect on global warming ) would have a correspondingly large effect on the market price of CO2.

Nope, it's just a stupid diversion from cutting CO2 emissions by getting fat bastards out of their cars:

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/resources/library/images/20220524PHT31019/20220524PHT31019_original.jpg

Re:show me the $/megaton

[thegarbz]

So they are in shooting range of being able to sell it at a profit, which would be a lot easier than pumping it underground.

The obvious problem there is that the result is no longer captured and sequestered but rather released back into the atmosphere by other means.

The cost of liquid CO2 is what the market will bare, nothing more. CO2 is largely produced as a waste stream from other industrial sources and doesn't follow a traditional free supply and demand curve. If these guys come in with a cheaper product then the traditional producers of CO2 will just drop the price since they are doing it for cost recovery rather than being a profit centre. DAC cannot compete with traditional CO2 production in this regard.

By the way the current CO2 market is heavily distorted. The cost of $365/tonne is not normal and about 3x higher than usual this year.

Re:

[stabiesoft]

Short answer, yes, 85 bucks/metric ton. https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com] I believe it was already getting the carbon credits that companies were buying, but it is such a confusing mess, I can't keep track anymore. I have no doubt if they are spending 600/ton to do the capture, somehow they are getting a grand a ton to do it. What is particularly insane about this is they are going to burn fossils to capture carbon. Insane.

Re:

[rudy_wayne]

It'll start small and work up to 5 million metric tons a year

That's like removing one drop of water from the ocean.

DAC simply cannot scale up big enough to remove a *SIGNIFICANT* amount of carbon and do it at anything even remotely near a reasonable price. This is another pointless boondoggle.

Re:

[rudy_wayne]

It'll start small and work up to 5 million metric tons a year

Carbon emissions are currently estimated to be 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide (9.5 billion tons of carbon) per year.

Get out your calculator. 5 million is ____ percent of 35 Billion.

Hint: It's a really, really, really small number.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Over a thousand years ago, when some Chinese dude lit the first firework, a bloke watching him remarked "that's a tiny fraction of what you need to get boots on the Moon, why are you wasting your time and money on this?"

Re:

[Catvid-22]

The Chinese dude was probably rich enough to afford the fireworks and was spending his own money.

Re:

[quanminoan]

Exactly. Any new technology comes out and the naysayers all come out of the woodwork. This *as is* would be useful with a cheap energy source like future fission/fusion projects, and I'm sure things can be dramatically improved.

Re:show me the $/megaton

[ElizabethGreene]

I am not an expert, but it's difficult to see how this can be a more economical capture strategy than growing and burying biomass. e.g Locally I can get a 4x5 round bale of hay for $50 that weighs about 800 pounds. Spitballing that you'd need 5 of those for a ton of CO2, that's still leaves a lot of headroom to cover the cost of digging the hole and burying it. ... not that you'd have to use a good product like hay. Slab wood from sawmills is (or used to be) cheaper than that.

Re:

[DanielRavenNest]

Planting trees and then making durable wood products from them has a *negative* cost per ton. Planting seedlings is very cheap in bulk, and mature trees fetch a decent price in lumber, plywood, etc. Just make sure the houses and furniture you make from it will last, not particleboard junk that ends up in a landfill and decomposes.

So as a society, we should be encouraging as much tree planting as possible before investing in other carbon capture schemes.

Re:

[TrippHazzard]

It's not a good solution to the overall problem - it's not like we can just continue business-as-usual and just add carbon capture. It's also not a good cost/benefit for reducing carbon emissions in the short term. But there are segments of the economy that are important, but also emit a lot of CO2. For instance, concrete production and curing emit CO2 as part of the chemical process, even if you used all renewable energy. There are a lot of other segments that are not impossible to decarbonize, but are d

Concrete production

[senileoldfart]

" . . . concrete production and curing emit CO2 as part of the chemical process, even if you used all renewable energy." There are areas east of the northwestern Cascades that are covered with cubic miles of volcanic ash suitable for making enough quality concrete to serve all foreseeable needs. https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com].

Re:show me the $/megaton

[Barsteward]

Here is a more practical solution Turning CO2 Into Building Materials: Mineral Carbonation International Tour [youtube.com] thats looks promising

Re:

[thegarbz]

This is fucking idiotic.

Really, how is it that anybody thinks this is worth the money ?

I know right, it's like you didn't even realise this is a pilot plant nor read the middle sentence you quoted.

Re:

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Here's a question: If all goes according to their most optimistic estimates & they can meet their efficiency targets, develop the technology, build the GWs of power stations, find the funding, & "scale up," how long would it take them to make a dent in the 35 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted each year?

Re:

[Applehu Akbar]

It's really hard to believe that this is a better use of time and resources than just continuing to improve and expand the renewable energy infrastructure.

Or for an even better use of time and resources, use of biological carbon sequestration, such as ocean seeding with nutrients to promote the growth of carbon-eating alga and plants. Do this in the Atlantic or Pacific gyre, and plant life that sinks to the bottom after the nutrient is used up could also entrain that ever-popular floating plastic.

But for now, it takes a lot of energy to run

[AmazingRuss]

... and it's in Wyoming, so that energy will come from burning coal.

Re:

[phantomfive]

From natural gas. At least, according to the summary.

Re:

[geekmux]

... and it's in Wyoming, so that energy will come from burning coal.

Wyoming, eh? Lot of open space. Not exactly tropical. Perhaps we move Arizona there and replace that facility with a few million homes instead?

We do little to nothing about the problem, and we're going to eventually have to start relocating humans if we intend to keep them alive. (Greed in real estate will fight this worse than tobacco fought cancer. Be prepared.)

If all goes smoothly by 2030, the operation will be orders of magnitude larger than existing direct air capture projects.

Let's hope orders of magnitude will be enough to validate the project one way or another. You know, before the coal industry lobbies to cut

leaks

[awwshit]

What happens when the storage leaks?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Re:leaks

[ShanghaiBill]

What happens when the storage leaks?

The CO2 is pumped into geological formations that held methane for millions of years. Methane is much more geologically mobile than CO2.

Under pressure, CO2 forms a super-critical fluid denser than water, so it will sink beneath the saline layer.

This is a stupid project, but leaks aren't a problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

That is nothing like this project. It was methane, not CO2, injected into a temporary storage well, not a deep saline layer.

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

Why not just use it on natural gas and coal power plants?

Because the cost is prohibitive.

Instead of coal+CCS, it is cheaper to just erect wind turbines and close the coal mines.

The problem with all these harebrained DAC/CCS schemes is that they only make sense if they are cheaper than building wind turbines, and they never are.

Re: I don't understand...

[simlox]

You can't connect a wind turbine to an aircraft... you could make air travel CO2 neutral by recapturing CO2 this way. Might be cheaper than power-to-X.

Re:

[mobby_6kl]

Air transportation is about 2.5% of total CO2 emissions. Not that it shouldn't be addressed, but let's replace the coal power plants first as it's going to have a much better cost/benefit.

Re:

[DanielRavenNest]

Jet engines work fine with biofuels. It's been tested already. Only downside is your airports will smell like french fries.

Until the enviros come knocking

[Alypius]

Specifically, project leaders are looking at stowing it 12,000 feet underground in 'saline aquifers' -- areas of rock that are saturated with salt water."

Sure. Until some enterprising official who didn't get paid off "discovers" an obscure amoeba in the aquifers. Then cue the lawsuits to "protect the delicate habitat".

Something to consider

[wyattstorch516]

An average car emits 4.6 metric tons At $600/ton that means we are spending $2760 per car each year for this. The number of cars on the road during the pandemic decreased by millions If more companies made work from home available then we wouldn't need these plants at all.

So what does Joe Biden do? He leans on companies to force people to return to the office.

Re:Something to consider

[ShanghaiBill]

Making all the actual useful stuff that we need can't be done at home.

12% of American workers are employed in manufacturing.

Headline

[backslashdot]

sounded like a giant machine was headed to remove Wyoming. I was thinking wouldn't it be more efficient to start with a coastal state?\

Re:

[rudy_wayne]

sounded like a giant machine was headed to remove Wyoming.

Not an entirely bad idea.

This is dumb

[OrangeTide]

We still pump CO2 from the Jackson Dome [wikipedia.org]. Maybe we should stop pulling carbon out of the ground before we play around with putting it back in. You'll never be able to put it in faster than we can take it out. And it's not clear how permanent these experimental carbon capture techniques will be.

Want to compete?

[Tjp($)pjT]

A hectare of trees can absorb 90 tons of CO2. SO plant about 250,000 hectares of something like oak trees. This would be replanting a fraction of the forests taken annually by wildfires.

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

A hectare of trees can absorb 90 tons of CO2.

A mature forest absorbs no net CO2.

A growing forest can absorb about six tonnes of CO2 annually.

SO plant about 250,000 hectares

You would need to plant about four million hectares to (temporarily) absorb the tiny amount this DAC plant would capture.

Trees are nice. I like trees. But they will never offset a non-negligible percentage of CO2 emissions.

I recently saw a bumper sticker that said, "Trees are the answer."

It was on a Ford Expedition.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

A mature forest absorbs no net CO2.

This is completely, literally, spectacularly wrong. It is in fact literally backwards. You have not the foggiest notion how a tree works.

Re:

[DanielRavenNest]

I think they are referring to as trees die and decay, they re-emit most of their stored CO2. How much net storage happens depends on soil building/erosion processes.

Re:

[DanielRavenNest]

> A mature forest absorbs no net CO2.

It does if you harvest the mature trees, turn them into durable wood products and replant. Municipal sludge, the stuff removed by water treatment plants, can be used to fertilize the trees replanted, if the natural soil gets too depleted on its own.

Re:

[q_e_t]

It would require approximately doubling the number of trees in the USA, and logging twice as much as now to absorb the USA's current emissions. It's a lot of trees. I don't know if there is a market for that much lumber, but possibly. Many countries could not hope to do this. The Netherlands doesn't have the space unless they make a lot more The Netherlands, for example. Trickier for Switzerland.

Why not geothermal

[scourfish]

Wyoming seems like the kind of place that would be perfect for geothermal.

Re:

[DanielRavenNest]

It is, except for the fact that the high geothermal potential area in the NW corner of the state is Yellowstone National Park, and you can't build there.

There are plenty of other good geothermal areas in the western US, and some of them already have such plants built.

Whatever carbon this nonsense pulls from the air

[rsilvergun]

Will be put right back in by the CEO's private jet and yacht. I can live with a little government corruption maybe even a lot. Human beings are wasteful has anyone who's ever worked for a large corporation a small business a medium business or pretty much done anything that human being does can attest to. What pisses me off about this is that it makes it seem like we're doing something when we're not.

It's like if your house was on fire and when the firefighters came instead of putting out the fire they offer to install sprinklers

Can government charge recyling fee for CO2?

[chuckandquack]

Same idea as recycling bottle fee. You buy a gallon of gas or a cubic feet of natural gas, the government charge recycling fee to recyle CO2 using this technology?

Lake Nyos

[galabar]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] Who want's this in their back yard?

Re:

[phantomfive]

CO2 isn't poison. If it weren't for the potential of global warming, then we wouldn't worry about it, we would just monitor it.

Re:

[JaredOfEuropa]

The oil companies did not fuck the environment, we did. Furthermore, CO2 is not poisonous, and can be safely stored in the ground, for instance in old oil wells. It's not going to leak back out either.

I don't believe this particular technology for capturing CO2 out of the air will ever scale to make a meaningful impact on CO2 levels, let alone becoming cost-effective. It takes a ton of energy to run this, and using wind and solar for this is not really a green option, not until we actually have an en

the next ice age is going to be so cool

[bonedonut]

I hope there is enough cricket paste left for all of us.

'waste' heat from nuclear

[oumuamua]

Another advantage from nuclear energy is that it generates an incredible amount of 'waste' heat. This heat is typically dumped into the environment and wasted. Well here is project that needs exactly this kind of heat. They want to get the heat from solar - an intermittent source - while you could keep the plant going 24/7 with a perfectly constant stream of heat from a nuclear reactor which is also generating electricity for the entire nearby area.

Hmm.

[zeeky boogy doog]

If only there was some sort of solar-powered, self-replicating direct CO2 removal device.

Re:

[MacMann]

If only there was some sort of solar-powered, self-replicating direct CO2 removal device.

If only people weren't killing these solar powered, self replicating, CO2 removal devices.
https://www.planetizen.com/new... [planetizen.com]
https://www.npr.org/2021/12/29... [npr.org]

This is where someone types in furiously to reply about "agri-voltaics". If "agri-voltaics" were a real thing then we would not be having state legislatures passing bills to prevent productive crop land from being paved over with solar PV panels. What is a concern is "pseudo-agri-voltaics".
https://undecidedmf.com/episod... [undecidedmf.com]

So in order to prevent communities turning against agrivoltaics itâ(TM)s important to control its spread, especially pseudo-agrivoltaics (a practice to build large solar farms under the guise of agriculture). In protecting the peopleâ(TM)s interest it helps to build community support, which is essential.

What keeps someone from promi

Gimme a break!

[Tumbleweed]

Storing vast quantities of CO2 underground in a geologically unstable area. Brilliant.

Ridiculous waste of money!

[Design Counts]

I cannot believe these geoengineering projects are even given 1 minute of airtime. 1. What if the CO2 leaks in the future? 2. Why not just reduce our CO2 output? 3. Who is going to pay for this? Surely 2 is cheaper! It’s as bad as the Windscale/Sellafield/Chernobyl/Fukisihima nuclear plant scenario where after mankind messes up, we then spend billions clearing up the mess for eternity, when we could just call Nuclear what it is, an accident waiting to be created because we didn’t see scenario X

Re:

[phantomfive]

I'll bet scientists working on this project have thought of all your questions and have answers to them. I'll bet some of the answers to your questions are even in the summary.

Re:

[narcc]

I cannot believe these geoengineering projects are even given 1 minute of airtime.

That is why we put scientists in charge of things like this and not, for example, you.

reforestation

[Max_W]

In my opinion, the best way to remove CO2 is the reforestation. Even if a tree is cut or burnt in a fire, about half of the tree, the roots, remains underground for good.

The bonus of this approach is that trees protect also against floods and hurricanes.

Instead of installing the iron containers in that deserted area, they could plant a forest there.

We need this now!

[mistergrumpy]

Beer CO2 shortage [npr.org]

Before & After

[John Da' Baddest]

Maybe this tech is prep for *after* weâ(TM)ve reached net-zero emissions and then need to do something about all that historical backlog of CO2. Quit being so negative, yâ(TM)all.

Carbon removal

[groobly]

Coal mines are the world's largest carbon removal projects.

Biochar

[vandamme]

If you want to sequester carbon for a couple thousand years, burn half the trees, and use the heat to cook the other half into biochar. Sell it for $300 a ton to farmers and gardeners, and it will increase their yields dramatically, reducing fertilizer use. You can use most any kind of green waste, not just lumber quality trees but the bark and branches. Which is now burning in California.

And yes, this has been not only tested and proven to work, but it has also been used for some millennia already.

The Truth is Out There

[Anonymous Crowded]

I want to believe . . .

amirite?