American Airlines To Turn 10K Tons of CO2 Into Buried Carbon Blocks (cnbc.com) 100
American Airlines today announced a deal with Graphyte to purchase "carbon removal credits" to help accelerate its long-term goal to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. According to the announcement, the airline will purchase credits equivalent to 10,000 tons of permanent carbon removal with delivery scheduled for early 2025. From the report: Graphyte uses a process called carbon casting that converts byproducts from the agriculture and timber industries such as wood bark, rice hulls and plant stalks which have captured carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. The plant material is dried to prevent decomposition and then converted into carbon dense bricks that are sealed with a polymer barrier. These bricks are stored in underground chambers and monitored with sensors to make sure the carbon does not escape, according to the company.
Plant byproducts from the agriculture and timber industries are typically burned or left to decompose, which returns carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This biomass material is equivalent to 3 billion tons of potential carbon dioxide removal annually, according to Graphyte. Graphyte says carbon casting is a cheap, scalable alternative to expensive and technologically intensive methods of carbon capture and removal. The company is backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, an investment firm founded by Bill Gates that funds clean energy technologies.
Plant byproducts from the agriculture and timber industries are typically burned or left to decompose, which returns carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This biomass material is equivalent to 3 billion tons of potential carbon dioxide removal annually, according to Graphyte. Graphyte says carbon casting is a cheap, scalable alternative to expensive and technologically intensive methods of carbon capture and removal. The company is backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, an investment firm founded by Bill Gates that funds clean energy technologies.
no different than taking plastic to a landfill (Score:2)
Plastic is evil, it takes 1000 years to decompose, but if that's the case then every bottle that someone throws away in the trash
and gets buried in a landfill acts like a carbon sink. Same with any other trash that gets buried and takes a long time to decompose.
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Plastic is evil? Is that the kind of simplistic moral conclusion you've come to?
I've never understood this attitude that a garbage dump should be a compost heap. Lots of "natural" things take thousands of years to decompose, so I'm not sure why that's an argument against it...
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Re:no different than taking plastic to a landfill (Score:4, Insightful)
The 1000 years to decompose is a lie told by plastic companies.
Actually, it is a half-truth told by environmentalists. Some plastics last, and some don't. Sometimes longevity is good, such as in a landfill. Sometimes longevity is bad, such as when plastic is dumped in the ocean.
things like plasticizers, UV light, and abrasion dramatically speed up the process.
None of those are a problem in landfills.
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Sometimes longevity is bad, such as when plastic is dumped in the ocean.
The largest risk is degradation in the ocean into microplastics, outside of a choking risk and intestinal blockage longevity is good. In some niche products, that are designed to break down it may be better but in the vast plastic waste we generate it slows the rate of microplastic production. It’s quickly degrading plastic never intended to do so that is bad because it gets everywhere in higher concentrations and the last step from micro and nano particles to constituent atoms tends to be quite sl
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The 1000 years to decompose is a lie told by plastic companies.
Actually, it is a half-truth told by environmentalists. Some plastics last, and some don't. Sometimes longevity is good, such as in a landfill. Sometimes longevity is bad, such as when plastic is dumped in the ocean.
Absolutely, and while 1000 years for us seems like a long time, but in the actual scale of things it's not very long on pretty much any natural scale. How much would you be complaining about a plastic bag that was completely decomposed from 1023 AD? Meanwhile, we have archeologists dig stuff up from then all of the time. I'm not saying we can't do better. We also used to do better. Going back to reusable soda bottles makes sense, for example.
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'Plastic' encompasses a wide range of materials with a large range of properties. Some break down easily as you found out with your shoes, many do not and can indeed persist in the environment for hundreds of years.
OP is right in that landfill is the best place for most plastic, where it can do little harm. Microplastics are generally created by some sort of mechanical action, such as wearing and laundering of synthetic textiles or the action of the sea on plastic that's been dumped in it. That doesn't happ
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many do not and can indeed persist in the environment for hundreds of years.
Maybe if they are kept in the dark, completely immobile in a static environment but that’s not likely. I’ve been all over in the environment and I’ve never seen plastic last. Not in hot arid areas, not in Forrest’s, not in lakes or the ocean where I’ve fished it out in all forms. It rots more slowly than most all natural materials but hundreds of years is a stretch even in extreme cases.
UV damage hits plastics hard in water because they are typically near the surface, mak
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I was obviously not talking about myself. I was pointing out that the same people who say plastic is evil because it doesn't decompose are also usually the same ones that are complaining about carbon dioxide and plastic being buried in landfills but a non-decomposing substance that is made mostly of carbon works great as a carbon sink whether it is in blocks or in unsorted trash in a landfill.
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Plastic is evil, it takes 1000 years to decompose, but if that's the case then every bottle that someone throws away in the trash
and gets buried in a landfill acts like a carbon sink.
No.
It serves as carbon that started underground in the form of oil, and is moved to be underground in the form of buried landfill. Not a carbon sink. Best you can say is, it's not a carbon source either (except for the energy used to transform it from petroleum into plastic),
Re:no different than taking plastic to a landfill (Score:4, Interesting)
It serves as carbon that started underground in the form of oil
That is mostly true today, but it doesn't hafta be that way.
Plastics can be made from soybean oil, corn starch, cellulose, etc.
Then when tossed in a landfill, they are a net carbon sink.
Different than a landfill. Carbon retention. (Score:2)
>> Plastic is evil, it takes 1000 years to decompose
That is actually a good thing when viewed from the carbon retention angle.
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That was my point. If we continue making a bunch of plastic either by using up the remaining oil or even better from carbon capture sources like corn, non decomposing plastic could actually help with carbon retention. Single use plastic could actually possibly help us reduce our carbon levels if it was made from soybeans and then buried properly in a landfill.
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You sound like the people who cry about how "this area will be radioactive for 50,000 years!" who don't understand half lives.
If the plastic is so sturdy that it lasts 1000 years in the environment then it's the next best thing to inert and harms no one. At worst it's an eyesore. Plastic that breaks down quickly into smaller particles that get into the food chain are a much bigger problem just like a radioactive area that will be radioactive for only a few months is highly dangerous while 50000 years is t
"that are sealed with a polymer barrier" (Score:3)
> that are sealed with a polymer barrier
What's that polymer made of?
Is this different than firewood bricks which are already carbon neutral over the short term and reuses forestry waste?
But encased in petro plastics?
Will this push wood brick heating homes to fossil fuels with market demand?
This whole thing sounds like an engineering solution to "sell carbon credits" not "capture atmospheric carbon". On net, lunacy.
> an investment firm founded by Bill Gates
Oh, ok then, confusion ended.
Re:"that are sealed with a polymer barrier" (Score:5, Insightful)
From a more fundamental level, plant "waste" isn't actually waste at all from an ecosystem perspective; it's how the majority of carbon in soil gets there. If you don't let it decay and return to the soil, then you're reducing soil fertility (and making it more sterile, since decaying matter is the primary feeder of soil ecosystems). Decaying matter on the surface also resists soil erosion. Loss of fertility doesn't happen overnight, but the longer you do this, the worse you're making your soil.
The irony here is that there actually is something they could do to sequester carbon which doesn't destroy fertility, which is biochar. Biochar increases soil fertility - it's pretty remarkable stuff, practically an ideal soil additive. You can sell it, instead of having to pay to bury it. And the production process even generates energy (just not as much as simple combustion). Now, it doesn't last forever in soil, but it does last for a long time - studies seem to estimate around a century on average (up to nearly a thousand years in certain environments).
It's not perfect - it doesn't feed soil microbiota (though it makes it a fertile place for them to thrive), keeping production processes clean (involving high-temperature gassification of "dirty" feedstocks) has to be done right, finished products need to be properly cleaned and inspected to ensure that they don't add e.g. potential windborne dust or VOCs, etc. But it'd sure be a lot better for the soil than just taking all the carbon that plants are producing (which normally would replace what gets lost from the soil), binding it with plastic and then burying it somewhere.
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No problem, we can just use petroleum based fertilizers.
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Fertilizer != Fertility
Fertility = CEC, water retention, pore structure, etc.
Fertilizer = For replacing the nutrients taken up by the crop
For example, hydroponics uses ample fertilizer but the growing medium has zero fertility.
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It was a joke, relax.
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Good on ya for mentioning biochar. Great stuff, so I understand. Not perfect, but I think much better than burying blocks of carbon (well, kind of) underground.
Greenwashing (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no grifting quite like Green Grifting!
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As much as you have a point, I'd love to see a comparison against the 1%.
Just to see where that obvious problem lies in the big picture.
I don't think I'd call this green grifting (Score:2)
Greenwashing. Total B.S. (Score:1)
Yep. Pure greenwashing. Numbers are so insignificant, it is just pure total B.S.
>> American Airlines To Turn 10K Tons of CO2 Into Buried Carbon Blocks
>> American Airlines To Turn 10 Million Tons of Buried hydrocarbons into CO2
https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
Sorry, it is much worse than that.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, it is much worse, in fact :
>> American Airlines To Turn 10K Tons of CO2 Into Buried Carbon Blocks. Perhaps.
>> American Airlines To Turn 10 Million Tons of Buried hydrocarbons into CO2. Per Year.
super cereal solution (Score:3)
let ManBearPig eat the carbon bricks
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Idiots (Score:1)
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Space elevators
another token gesture (Score:1)
10,000 tons. They should use those bricks to bury their heads, like ostriches don't do, but we all like to think that they do. 10,000 tons. Out of 50,000,000,000 tons a year. That's not a token gesture, that's just pathetic politics.
Airplane travel is already more than twice as efficient from point of view of fuel consumption as travel by car or by bus, I won't get into debate about trains, in case if they are diesel powered or use electricity from 'dirty' sources.
Airplane travel makes about 2.4% of tota
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cars, buses are horrible in efficiency compared to airplanes.
...not when you have empty planes being forced to fly due to scheduling rules.
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Scheduling rules are also forcing empty buses and trains to drive around in many places.
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I'm not going to touch the planes, trains and automobiles comparison, but I've often wondered about this assumption:
No matter by what means, unless it's by bycicle or walking.
When I was biking a lot, my personal caloric intake went through the roof! I was eating at least double, probably more. And for what? 40-60 miles a day?
If everyone did that, it would double (or more) the global food production requirements, while also costing hours of human productive time per day. Not to mention the massive increase in water usage (for both the cyclists and for the food and w
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I like that you put this thought into it.
There is a bit too much focus on -just- CO2, lately, and atmospheric effects. Methane is a much stronger gas than CO2 in that arena, but harder to control.
With that said your biking has no real effect on what some folks are hyper-focused on, and this very specific topic, but the big picture view is a lot more important than trading a current problem for creating a potentially bigger future problem.
I run into this exact same problem in considering using ICE vehicles
Re: another token gesture (Score:2)
Re: another token gesture (Score:2)
Re: another token gesture (Score:2)
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Airplane travel [Re:another token gesture] (Score:5, Informative)
>
Airplane travel is already more than twice as efficient from point of view of fuel consumption as travel by car
slightly more than twice as efficient as a single driver traveling the same trip by car. The break-even point for carbon dioxide emission for driving vs. flying is just slightly over 2 people (1 driver plus one passenger). ( Depends a little on whether it's a short-haul flight or a long-haul, since airplanes are slightly more efficient over a long flight, but not that much better.)
Of course, if it's a giant American SUV, the plane starts to look better. But still, a car with four people will beat any airplane flight.
or by bus,
Not even close. Depends on how full the bus is, but no, in general, even with their poor fuel efficiency, if a bus is reasonably well filled, it's much less carbon dioxide per passenger mile than an airplane.
I won't get into debate about trains, in case if they are diesel powered or use electricity from 'dirty' sources.
Regardless whether it's diesel or electric, passenger train are much more efficient than any of the previous. A passenger train will typically be half to a third of the emissions of the CO2 emissions of a bus per passenger mile.
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I drive all by myself most of the time, I fly dozens of times per all by myself, so what is the objection
You previously said in an earlier post: "this is efficiency I am looking for - minimizing travel time.".
To achieve this, the only option is to use more energy per mile, which also means more CO2 emissions per mile (something to do with the laws of physics). This is particularly applicable to airplanes, which, contrary to your claim, emit the highest amount of CO2 per mile traveled [ourworldindata.org].
You can lie to yourself to feel good and tell yourself that planes are the most environmentally friendly way to travel. However,
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3.5 L/100-km per passenger is better than the 4.2 L/100-km of a Toyota Prius carrying no passengers (data from the same site), not as good as the same car carrying driver and one passenger (2.1 L/100-km), and but nowhere near as good as a Toyota Prius carrying four passengers (1.06 L/100-km).
So, airplanes can be reasonably efficient because they carry a large number of passengers. Cars also are more efficient as they carry more passengers. The bottom line is that if you want to be fuel efficient, drive with
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Save the planet, bury a forest (Score:2)
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It's far worse. That plant material is supposed to be returned to the soil to increase the organic content of the soil which increases fertility.
So we'll end up with sterile dirt that will take huge applications of multiple chemicals to make it grow anything. Did Monsanto think this up?
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Like growing more woods and leaving alone rainforests would be less efficient. Wood growth is guaranteed to require less energy and chemicals, works by itself, while sucking CO2, encapsulating chunk of loose energy, stored vertically in a compact manner, providing shade, promoting biodiversity - birds animals insects funghi whatever, also undergrowth and epiphytes, offering useful material, not a filler to monitor and push around. Thank nature for being genius and show due respect, instead of spitting out a
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Bill Gates can't make money from forests just doing their thing.
They reinvented charcoal (Score:2)
This is literally how charcoal is made: from dried wood that is pyrolyzed at high temperatures in a low oxygen environment to burn off the hydrogen content and leave carbon behind.
This isn't new, they reinvented charcoal.
Re:They reinvented charcoal (Score:4, Interesting)
Also known as Biochar [wikipedia.org].
Biochar is a valuable soil additive that boosts crop yields, reduces water consumption, and efficiently sequesters carbon in soil.
Pressing biochar into bricks, wrapping them in plastic, and storing the biochar in underground vaults, doesn't make much sense.
Energy required? (Score:2)
It only takes 20K tons of carbon to run the process from beginning to end.
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That's where the math really comes in handy. Typically they say they're doing it with 'clean energy', but when you look at the amount of carbon they sequester per watt it is always more effective to apply that clean energy to the grid and reduce the carbon being emitted in the first place.
Sequestration is best considered experimental for now, until such time as there's excess clean energy and barely any wood or fossil fuel burning happening, and we'd like to compensate for what would be inconvenient to giv
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and we'd like to compensate for what would be inconvenient to give up.
Can you provide a short list of things that are convenient to give up? Because my impression is that people are not willing to do anything for the environment. Nada.
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Old people. Anyone over 65 should be turned into Soylent green. Or maybe we can do carousel for everyone at 35.
Would have more positive impact than this Bill Gates greenwashing scam.
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That's where the math really comes in handy. Typically they say they're doing it with 'clean energy', but when you look at the amount of carbon they sequester per watt it is always more effective to apply that clean energy to the grid and reduce the carbon being emitted in the first place.
Yep, and that's why I agree with you that sequestration efforts should remain experimental, figuring out how to best do it now isn't bad, but major efforts should wait until we actually have excess power such that it can't be more directly or efficiently used to remove carbon otherwise.
I mean, if we end up still using fossil fuels for a handful of mobile applications - airplanes, rockets, very remote vehicles, we can use carbon capture to neutralize them, as well as undoing current burning of it.
CO2 Heresy: Canada has it backwards (Score:2)
Re: CO2 Heresy: Canada has it backwards (Score:3)
> Someone please explain how warmth is bad for Canada.
Here, I did 2 minutes of searching for you:
https://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-t... [rcinet.ca]
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada... [www.cbc.ca]
https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
https://thenarwhal.ca/permafro... [thenarwhal.ca]
https://www.cbc.ca/news/climat... [www.cbc.ca]
https://www.cbc.ca/news/climat... [www.cbc.ca]
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada... [www.cbc.ca]
https://e360.yale.edu/features... [yale.edu]
Re: CO2 Heresy: Canada has it backwards (Score:2)
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Sea water (Score:2)
Cabon Capture Catastrophe (Score:2, Insightful)
Someday in the future, the carbon containment systems will all fail, resulting in the release of one hundred years of carbon emissions happening in less than three months.
Or maybe it will just be a slow leak while we figure out the next idea.
Next step (Score:4, Funny)
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This big hole you have to fill up, you can only do it once.
For the oil to form (which will take millions of years) it requires heat and pressure, which is only going to happen once the well has been completely filled up.
Why not keep some coal buried instead? (Score:2)
And burn the biofuel while growing more in a closed loop? Got to be less overhead.
Not equivalent (Score:2)
Emissions from airlines are significantly worse because they are emitted straight into the upper atmosphere. Carbon capture at ground nowhere near offsets this - and is frankly just a publicity exercise.
The real solution is a greatly reduced number of flights and it'll take government mandates to achieve that.
Well... (Score:2)
Already debunked (Score:2)
This approach has already been debunked many times, by a lot of people who should know. To recap:
- Conveniently, there seems to be no analysis of the actual carbon cost of all the steps involved
- They want to remove crop waste from fields that would otherwise decompose and enrich the soil. This means reduced soil quality and increased fertilizer usage.
tl;dr: Another carbon feel-good program that is actually counterproductive.
Second greenwashing story in under 24 hours (Score:2)
Yesterday we had airplanes on used cooking oil at UK tax payer's expense. Today we have a different billionaire competing for carbon scam credits burying potential fertilizer for a greenwashing airline fee.
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No. I am describing a scam that does nothing for the environment and is very expensive.
How about you both pay rent but don't actually get an apartment? That's what this is.
I Call BS ! (Score:2)
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Globally, cement production accounts for less than 5% of CO2 emissions (according to Wikipedia) or about 3.7% (according to an old report by the EPA), and, according to the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, only about 1.5% of US CO2 emissions.
Further, only 40%, give or take, of that CO2 production is from burning fuels, around half or more is from the chemical reactions needed to create p
Compost fertilizer (Score:2)
Is that taking ALL carbon production into account? (Score:2)
Or just theirs?
In other words, are they also going to pay to offset the energy used to sequester that carbon? And no, "but the energy is made with solar/wind/whatever" is NOT going to cut it, that power could have gone into replacing power produced by fossil fuel power plants.
Because I'm still not really convinced that putting CO2 into handy little carbon bricks is anything you can do with a net positive energy balance. You still need to put in more energy than would be released by burning those bricks.
Entr
Braindead (Score:2)
In case you're not catching on... (Score:2)
It could go worst... (Score:2)
Maybe plant some plants? (Score:1)
And what's the net CO2 balance ... (Score:2)
... of this bullsh*t PR stunt? Most likely abysmal. ... The world is going insane.
Compost? (Score:2)
Bury what? (Score:2)
Haha. Good virtue signalling PR release. However, I would be more impressed if they promised to bury their airplanes.
And in a few years... (Score:1)
That counts as recycling, right?
keep an eye on it (Score:2)
my solution (Score:2)
I have invented a fantastic new solution.
I plan to coat turds in plastic and place them in giftwrapped boxes I will leave in the back seat of unlocked tourist cars in San Francisco. When I gave a presentation to venture capitalists the room was silent as they contemplated the awesomeness of the concept. I could see some were overcome with emotion, because their shoulders were shaking.
Solves nothing (Score:2)
Then, why not bury back mined coal? And then... (Score:2)
And yes, that sounds a bit silly, but it highlights how silly this whole thing is.
Next logical idea would be to not dig out the coal from the mines, and instead sell the biochar to clients that would have bought the coal to burn it.
This reminds me people interested in pumping back the very dilluted CO2 from the atmosphere, with a complex and costly process, while there are concentrated CO2 sour
Sounds like a scam to me (Score:1)