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The Lego-Like Way To Get CO2 Out of the Atmosphere 200

Posted by BeauHD from the reverse-extraction dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: For decades, scientists have tried to figure out ways to reverse climate change by pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and storing it underground. They've tried using trees, giant machines that suck CO2 out of the sky, complicated ocean methods that involve growing and burying huge quantities of kelp. Companies, researchers and the U.S. government have spent billions of dollars on the research and development of these approaches and yet they remain too expensive to make a substantial dent in carbon emissions. Now, a start-up says it has discovered a deceptively simple way to take CO2 from the atmosphere and store it for thousands of years. It involves making bricks out of smushed pieces of plants. And it could be a game changer for the growing industry working to pull carbon from the air.

Graphyte, a new company incubated by Bill Gates's investment group Breakthrough Energy Ventures, announced Monday that it has created a method for turning bits of wood chips and rice hulls into low-cost, dehydrated chunks of plant matter. Those blocks of carbon-laden plant matter -- which look a bit like shoe-box sized Lego blocks -- can then be buried deep underground for hundreds of years. The approach, the company claims, could store a ton of CO2 for around $100 a ton, a number long considered a milestone for affordably removing carbon dioxide from the air. [...] Graphyte's approach uses the power of plants and trees to photosynthesize and pull carbon dioxide from the air. While trees and plants are excellent at carbon capture, they don't store that carbon for very long -- when a plant burns or decays, its stored carbon comes spilling back out into the air and soil.

Graphyte plans to avoid that decomposition by taking plant waste from timber harvesters and farmers and drying it thoroughly, removing all the microbes that could cause it to decompose and release greenhouse gases. Then, in a process that they call "carbon casting," it will compress the waste and wrap it into Lego-like bricks, for easier storage about 10 feet underground. The company says that with the right monitoring systems, the blocks can stay there for a thousand years. [...] Graphyte is planning to build its first project in Pine Bluff, Ark., and the company hopes to sequester its first carbon for a customer in 2024. It remains to be seen whether Graphyte will be able to scale up its operation to removing millions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. The company will need to secure many sources of plant waste and build many small processing centers around the country to be successful. "The simplicity of the Graphyte approach is so exciting," said Daniel Sanchez, who runs the Carbon Removal Lab at the University of California at Berkeley, and serves as a science adviser for Graphyte. "You don't need very expensive equipment or processes. And it locks up a lot of the carbon in the wood -- nearly all of it."

"People that are academics probably thought about this before and were like, 'That's way too simple,'" Sanchez said, laughing. "'No one's ever going to do that.'"
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The Lego-Like Way To Get CO2 Out of the Atmosphere More

The Lego-Like Way To Get CO2 Out of the Atmosphere

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  • Does not seem very scalable (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Monday November 13, 2023 @10:41PM (#64003925)

    Yes, nice niche idea, but unless we all start to eat only rice, I do not see it doing much overall. Obviously they will get money, because at this stage (bargaining) too many people are still ready to believe carbon-capture is going to work just fine.

    In actual reality. it does not look like it at all. But some rich fuckers must get even richer, so there is money to be made by pretending this problem is entirely manageable while doing nothing.

    • except we *have* to make carbon capture work. Even if we stop emitting CO2 today, the climate warms for another 50-100 years.

      And trees aren't viable [slashdot.org] to use as a forest.

      • If carbon capture is the only solution then it's already over.

        The world generates 37 billion tons of co2 a year. Where is $3.7 trillion dollars a year coming from without crushing the global economy (if we use this method)? And that's just yo zero out current annual human co2 production.

        Where are they burying 37 billion tons of their little bricks every year even if the cost was viable?

        • Um... from the >$100T that is global GDP? If you're so innumerate that seems like not enough, perhaps we should spend some of the >$450T in global private wealth.

          • Yes. 3.7t just to break even. As noted that isn't actually enough and I still want to know where they're getting buried.

            Let's reverse prior co2 injection. Double the number 7.4t a year into little bricks that magically just go away.

            We had 2 years of Covid money pumped into the economy which came out to roughly that much and we now have inflation the likes of rich hasn't been seen since the 70s. Now try doing that every single year and see what happens. The global economy will shatter. That's a mind bo

        • Funny thing, is that 3.7T is already baked in. It *will* be spent, either on potential preventative things like this, or on disaster clean up. Except the latter will be multiples of it. Ounce of prevention / pound of cure rings very very true.

          • Maybe but 3.7t is the number just to break even which we are told isn't enough.

            Double it to take out the same amount we've been putting in to reverse it.

            This is guaranteeing a monumental global economic disaster which will lead to what normally happens in bad economic times: war and mass starvation. How is that any better than finding something else or doing nothing? Same result: billions dead. And that disaster will use up all the funds that would have been available to find something viable. So we get

            • You forget that the money spent is *paid* into the economy. Your ilk said the same for WWII. And yet it literally *built* the US economy. Big big infrastructure invests the money. Or we can keep wasting money by rebuilding after each bigger disaster. And wars and starvation are also already coming unless we mitigate the damage coming. Food and water insecurity are a direct result of climate change. So the only way to avoid it is this investment.

              • No there's a huge difference. This is non-productive money. It doesn't produce any goods or services for sale. It's essentially a tax on production. Which is conceptually fine but the numbers are bone crushing.

                Sure let's assume war n such are coming. We're going to crush the economy and then have the same wars? Because this 3,7t doesn't actually solve anything.

                I still want to know where billions of rice bricks are buried every year. Everyone replying has studiously ignored that question.

                • Basic economics seems lost on you as does less than straight linear logic... Which is ironic given your username Good day

                  • Wow with such a well made and evidenced argument I am left with no reply. How can anyone counter your evidence and your brilliance?

                    Bonus time that you're upset about a silly internet name. This was an adult conversation. Take your fragile ego elsewhere next time. Don't step up if you can't take the L without crying.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            You assume there is somebody left to do that "cleanup". If not, things will be a lot cheaper....

        • If carbon capture is the only solution then it's already over.

          The world generates 37 billion tons of co2 a year. Where is $3.7 trillion dollars a year coming from without crushing the global economy (if we use this method)? And that's just yo zero out current annual human co2 production.

          Where are they burying 37 billion tons of their little bricks every year even if the cost was viable?

          One might come to the conclusion that maybe the biggest problem is that there are almost 8.1 billion of us here, many that want no restrictions on their carbon de-sequestering, and want only a few nations to stop it.

          We're on a roller coaster ride now. One that won't stop until we run out of CO2 to re introduce into the atmosphere.

          • Truth in that. There are a lot of people on the planet, orders of magnitude more than any time in previous eras.

            Fortunately most of the planet now has non replacement birth levels but only in the less poor areas. Wealthier people have fewer children. This is a well known fact. By making everyone poor we would encourage the opposite of what is needed. I think you've hit a good point here, the solution is fewer people which can only reasonably happen by reducing birth rates which means increasing living

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        except we *have* to make carbon capture work.

        At this time, there is no indication it is possible in the amount needed. There is tons of indication that it is not. "Have to" does not move mountains.

        Even if we stop emitting CO2 today, the climate warms for another 50-100 years.

        I am aware. It will very likely do that and the human race will be thoroughly fucked and may even go extinct.

        And trees aren't viable [slashdot.org] to use as a forest.

        I am aware of that as well.

        What, you thought the human race deserves a future, no matter what dementend, stupid, greedy things it does? Does no look like it. At all.

        • Yeah it's definitely a significant uphill climb that we don't yet have tooling for. The technical hurdles aren't really that big, it's just the scale and deployment of them that will be the largest thing mankind will have ever done that's the tricky part

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            I completely agree. And as available evidence, we do not even manage large-scale CO2 reduction, which would be a _lot_ easier. How are we supposed to carbon capture, which is harder?

            • How? By trying. Every journey starts with a first step. The choice now is simply really bad or fucktabulousky bad. We'll probably need another decade like the last year before we get really serious about it. My other measure is the US won't really start until NYC and Miami are 3 feet underwater

      • except we *have* to make carbon capture work. Even if we stop emitting CO2 today, the climate warms for another 50-100 years.

        Think of how we de-sequestered all the carbon that we put back into the atmosphere.

        Then think of how we are going to do it.

        One of the oddest thing about the "We must do something!" crowd is that they are engaging in a monovarient outlook. They are willing to put in a thousand years of Acid rain, with it's effects on forests, and it's inevitable extinctions it will cause - and do that for a thousand years. Sulfuric aerosols are a mask. The moment you stop, you still have the carbon and methane, and tem

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          But the foremost problem is that there are about 8.1 billion of us.

          Yep. But that is one aspect that will fix itself though. Species that exceed their ecological niche get decimated by natural regulation mechanisms. Whether down to, say, 100-500M or down to 0 remains to be seen.

  • I predict this method will be undermined by a deceptively simple flaw.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TWX ( 665546 )

      The bigger flaw is when it's discovered that this stuff makes a great fuel source when burned.

      We're at a point as a species where almost nothing that we build has any real long-term staying power. If something is subject to being torn down, to being destroyed, then there's no real benefit to creating it for the express purpose of using it for something like this. And unlike the intended nuclear waste disposal sites where what's being is actually dangerous, this stuff is basically inert, so if someone want

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by sg_oneill ( 159032 )

      I predict this method will be undermined by a deceptively simple flaw.

      I can tell you straight away what the flaw is. Its burying food. We tried a variation of this already with Biodiesel and had to *rapidly* pull out of that plan when we realised it was causing staple food shortages in corn dependent countries like mexico.

      Burying rice? Does not seem like a well thought out plan.

      But maybe blocks of algae?

      • Re:Don't get it wet (Score:5, Informative)

        by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Monday November 13, 2023 @11:46PM (#64004013)

        You've got it backwards.

        You can't eat rice hulls or wood chips. You might be able to eat some kinds of algae.

      • Burying rice? Does not seem like a well thought out plan.

        It's the inedible rice hulls that get buried, not food.

        But maybe blocks of algae?

        I think we could package the plant matter more efficiently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        Ferment the plant matter into alcohol, that way the carbon is in liquid form for ease of transport and sequestration. Bring it over to my place, I have an idea on how to dispose of it.

        Seriously though, if they have a means to turn rice hulls and sawdust into conveniently sized blocks of dry plant matter then sell the stuff as a firewood replacement, or carbon

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
          It's quite difficult to ferment these into ethanol. Methanol ('wood alcohol ') maybe but it's an inefficient process. It also doesn't then sequester anything which is the whole point of this scheme. Burning things in domestic heating also doesn't sequester carbon and given the relative inefficiency of burning solid mass for heat, is also a bit of a boondoggle and won't result in a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions overall compared to sequestering it. Not that I think sequestering in this way

          • It's quite difficult to ferment these into ethanol. Methanol ('wood alcohol ') maybe but it's an inefficient process. It also doesn't then sequester anything which is the whole point of this scheme.

            It appears my joke was too subtle for you. You see my plan was to get people to produce some moonshine then pay me to sequester it, but what I was actually going to do was take their money then get shitfaced with my friends.

            Burning things in domestic heating also doesn't sequester carbon and given the relative inefficiency of burning solid mass for heat, is also a bit of a boondoggle and won't result in a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions overall compared to sequestering it. Not that I think sequestering in this way is likely to be sustainable and there would be issues with respect to the loss of nutrients in the soil.

            Burning the plant matter isn't going to sequester any carbon but it will mean the heating is from carbon neutral fuel than fossil fuels. I guess that was too subtle for you too.

            The issue of nutrients being taken from the soil can be addressed with taking the ashes and spreading that in

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
              It's hard to tell when you are joking. Going back to burning, it's not a very efficient way of providing heat or energy and it requires harvesting and distribution. So the level of carbon reduction wouldn't be great. The change in classification of biomass by the EU hints at this. If you are burying soil nutrients held in the plant material you also then need to mine new nutrients. So overall, our efforts are much better directed at more efficient methods of energy production, storage and use (for example w

    • I predict this method will be undermined by a deceptively simple flaw.

      The flaw will be greed. It's always greed. Since the industrial revolution we've gotten accustomed to having an economy where dumping your combustion byproducts into the atmosphere has been gratis. It's gonna be a tough adjustment to get used to the idea that we'll have to spend money to do the opposite, bury the resulting carbon and then... just leave it there. The whole concept is almost the antithesis of capitalism.

      And best of luck to any US politician who thinks they'll be able to roll the costs of

      • I predict this method will be undermined by a deceptively simple flaw.

        The flaw will be greed. It's always greed. Since the industrial revolution we've gotten accustomed to having an economy where dumping your combustion byproducts into the atmosphere has been gratis. It's gonna be a tough adjustment to get used to the idea that we'll have to spend money to do the opposite, bury the resulting carbon and then... just leave it there. The whole concept is almost the antithesis of capitalism.

        And while it is a handy bugaboo to blame capitalism, it's not remotely possible to blame it on capitalism. https://www.wri.org/insights/i... [wri.org] Unless you believe that China is a capitalist country. And India? They like planing, which is not terribly capitalistic.

        And there is the problem. Assigning the USA as the nexus of all problems, is an application of the old adage, when your only tool is a hammer, every problem is a nail.

        The issue of the desequestration of carbon Dioxide is not a US centric problem,

    • I predict this method will be undermined by a deceptively simple flaw.

      Feeding it after midnight?

  • sounds far more exciting than burying it in a hole in the ground.

  • This is how I "store" my used up iron trichloride. By the looks of my first bricks from four decades ago, it won't outlast the Roman empire.

  • Just put it six-feet under right away. Seems like a lot of unnecessary energy spent to make bricks,
    then bury. I know, the greedsters will say, why not burn the deadwood first to get energy out of
    that (modulo pollution), then bury the charcoal briquettes instead.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Six feet probably wouldn't sequester the carbon for very long. Nor would ten feet without some preprocessing.

      Now, if you had some nice big coal mines to chuck trees into and pour a bunch of rock on top, that would probably do it. Or sink them in the deep ocean.

      • Now, if you had some nice big coal mines to chuck trees into and pour a bunch of rock on top, that would probably do it. Or sink them in the deep ocean.

        This is why I really like my idea of baking the trees into charcoal. Bury that in an old coal mine and viola!, we're renewed the coal bed.

        Coal and charcoal, basically both pure carbon, are incredibly stable. Nothing eats them that I know of. Keep them reasonably dry and I think they'll last pretty much forever without a lot of monitoring.

  • Future meeting minutes from coal company board of directors:

    Why are we investing huge amounts of capital removing overburden and digging shafts to find solid fuels, when all we have to do is dig down 10 feet and pick up all these convenient blocks that have been neatly stacked for us?

  • Simple flaw (Score:4, Interesting)

    by craighansen ( 744648 ) on Monday November 13, 2023 @11:57PM (#64004021) Journal

    Putting aside that the total energy input computation of any of these processes are initially suspect, the process results in nothing of value as an end product. It's a pure money sink, so it's only of value as an offset to other processes that pollute the Earth with CO2. As such, it must be the absolutely cheapest way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere to survive.

    In comparison, the process that produces these bricks can be the input side of a biochar production line, likely sequestering about half the carbon into something that according to hundreds of well-qualified studies, permanently improves the fertility of a wide range of soils that are too poor for productive agriculture without massive inputs of fertilizers that need to be reappied year after year and are currently produced using fossil fuels.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      Putting aside that the total energy input computation of any of these processes are initially suspect, the process results in nothing of value as an end product. It's a pure money sink, so it's only of value as an offset to other processes that pollute the Earth with CO2. As such, it must be the absolutely cheapest way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere to survive.

      Yes and no. The waste products have to be disposed of anyway, so there's a direct cost involved in not using this process, too. Disposing of the waste at least arguably *is* something of value, just not of significantly more value than the cost of dumping it in a landfill. But if they can turn it into carbon credits that the company can sell, then that can offset the cost of doing it. So this is one of the few situations where carbon credits actually make a lot of sense and can lead to actual reductions

  • If they are starting off with wood chips and rice husks, by definition those are already captured carbon. Just leave it as is. It's captured already. The whole concept is nonsense. They are creating even more atmospheric carbon by burning oil or natural gas in order to make the lego bricks so it's worse than just leaving the chips and husks alone.

  • A bit of napkin math (Score:4, Informative)

    by subreality ( 157447 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2023 @01:28AM (#64004091)

    100 gallons of gasoline produce about 1 ton of CO2 when burned. Assuming this technique works and buries 1 net ton of CO2 for $100, that means it'll cost about $1 per gallon to clean up car emissions.

    Likewise, you can get about 869 kWh per ton of CO2 from a coal plant, 2062 kWh per ton from a natural gas plant, or 13,745kWh per ton from a nuclear plant. Therefore you can clean up electrical generation for about $0.115/kWh for coal, $0.048/kWh for natural gas, or $0.007/kWh for nuclear. I've looked up enough numbers, but I'd assume renewables would be down there with nuke.

    If you tack those costs on to the prices of electricity supplied by generators, you'll see a pretty rapid change in the "nuclear and renewables aren't cost-effective" mantra. Likewise, tack it onto the price of a gallon at the pump and you'll see an even faster push toward electric cars.

    Those aren't the only ways to pay for it of course, but you have to pay for it somewhere (climate collapse is much more expensive in the long run). Pricing it in close to the source will get people eager to change sources in a hurry... and for those who can't, it's okay as long as they're paying to clean up their own mess.

    Sources for CO2 emissions per (gallon, kWh):
    https://www.epa.gov/greenvehic... [epa.gov]
    https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs... [eia.gov]
    https://www.dw.com/en/fact-che... [dw.com]

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MacMann ( 7518492 )

      If you tack those costs on to the prices of electricity supplied by generators, you'll see a pretty rapid change in the "nuclear and renewables aren't cost-effective" mantra. Likewise, tack it onto the price of a gallon at the pump and you'll see an even faster push toward electric cars.

      Or you'll see a lot of incumbent politicians get replaced in the next election.

      We aren't going to get a carbon tax if the people that vote don't want it. And funnily enough there's going to be more people voting in elections as energy costs rise.

      I recall mention of how a long time ago people were hunting whales to near extinction because people wanted the whale oil as fuel for their lamps. There were attempts to pass laws protecting the whales but they didn't get much traction until people discovered kero

  • We Will Figure It Out One Day (Score:3)

    by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2023 @01:37AM (#64004101)

    Until then, lets try all the stupid stuff first so we can get that out of the way.

  • After the envirofascists are gone and we're ready to fuck the planet again, this will be almost as good as oil.

  • There are all sorts of projects for extracting and storing CO2. Every single one of them is a boondoggle. First, by the time they have extracted, processed and stored the CO2, they have used up a ton of energy. Saying that comes from renewable sources doesn't help, because that renewable energy probably could have otherwise replaced fossil-fuel generated energy. Plus the actual production and storage facilities have their own CO2 costs.

    In this case, we have (1) gathering crop waste - transport, (2) drying

  • "People that are academics probably thought about this before and were like, 'That's way too simple,'" Sanchez said, laughing. "'No one's ever going to do that.'"

    Probably.

    They probably also thought it would be blasphemous, since it doesn't involve pain, deprivation, and blame (for non-academics, of course).

  • Graphyte, a new company incubated by Bill Gates's investment group Breakthrough Energy Ventures, announced Monday that it has created a method for turning bits of wood chips and rice hulls into low-cost, dehydrated chunks of plant matter.

    Me too. I leave them out in the sun. Checkmate, global warming!

    Reporting unironically on anything Bill Gates is invested in as if it will have any utility for mankind is idiot's work. He is always just seeking more profit. He is personally worth far more now than when he founded his tax dodge^W^Wfoundation after AG Ashcroft let Microsoft off with a handslap after the USDoJ investigation concluded that Bill Gates led it to violate antitrust law in basically every way possible.

    Bill Gates is a career criminal,

  • Digging holes and filling them with blocks seems like a money sink instead of an (additional) income stream. I'm pretty sure that with some slight tweaks, the product of this process could be turned into a new product that could be sold...

    For instance, blocks that look more like actual "Lego" pieces and/or "bricks" (than the photo on the article). Pretty sure something that is easy to stack and interlock, but is impervious to rotting and weather, and has similar insulating values and feel of wood, could be

  • So, they are basically seeding a future coal mine. Some future civilization will "mine" these bricks for their own energy needs.
    The question becomes will that use count as carbon neutral/ renewable?

  • Also, this also use the ground like trees do, so how is this different than planting trees?

    Finally, if it is necessary to silo the carbon rather then just put it into soil, why not use the fibrous plants in aircrete for building? or the many other uses we have already found for such materials?

    Don't we have a need for carbon in other places as well?

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