Startup is Building the World's Largest Ocean-Based Carbon Plant - and It's Scalable (cnn.com) 57
An anonymous reader shared this report from CNN:
On a slice of the ocean front in west Singapore, a startup is building a plant to turn carbon dioxide from air and seawater into the same material as seashells, in a process that will also produce "green" hydrogen — a much-hyped clean fuel.
The cluster of low-slung buildings starting to take shape in Tuas will become the "world's largest" ocean-based carbon dioxide removal plant when completed later this year, according to Equatic, the startup behind it that was spun out of the University of California at Los Angeles. The idea is that the plant will pull water from the ocean, zap it with an electric current and run air through it to produce a series of chemical reactions to trap and store carbon dioxide as minerals, which can be put back in the sea or used on land... The $20 million facility will be fully operational by the end of the year and able to remove 3,650 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, said Edward Sanders, chief operating officer of Equatic, which has partnered with Singapore's National Water Agency to construct the plant. That amount is equivalent to taking roughly 870 average passenger cars off the road. The ambition is to scale up to 100,000 metric tons of CO2 removal a year by the end of 2026, and from there to millions of metric tons over the next few decades, Sanders told CNN. The plant can be replicated pretty much anywhere, he said, stacked up in modules "like lego blocks...."
The upfront costs are high but the company says it plans to make money by selling carbon credits to polluters to offset their pollution, as well as selling the hydrogen produced during the process. Equatic has already signed a deal with Boeing to sell it 2,100 metric tons of hydrogen, which it plans to use to create green fuel, and to fund the removal of 62,000 metric tons of CO2.
There's other projects around the world attempting ocean-based carbon renewal, CNN notes. "Other projects include sprinkling iron particles into the ocean to stimulate CO2-absorbing phytoplankton, sinking seaweed into the depths to lock up carbon and spraying particles into marine clouds to reflect away some of the sun's energy." But carbon-removal projects are controversial, criticized for being expensive, unproven at scale and a distraction from policies to cut fossil fuels. And when they involve the oceans — complex ecosystems already under huge strain from global warming — criticisms can get even louder. There are "big knowledge gaps" when it comes to ocean geoengineering generally, said Jean-Pierre Gatusso, an ocean scientist at the Sorbonne University in France. "I am very concerned with the fact that science lags behind the industry," he told CNN.
The cluster of low-slung buildings starting to take shape in Tuas will become the "world's largest" ocean-based carbon dioxide removal plant when completed later this year, according to Equatic, the startup behind it that was spun out of the University of California at Los Angeles. The idea is that the plant will pull water from the ocean, zap it with an electric current and run air through it to produce a series of chemical reactions to trap and store carbon dioxide as minerals, which can be put back in the sea or used on land... The $20 million facility will be fully operational by the end of the year and able to remove 3,650 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, said Edward Sanders, chief operating officer of Equatic, which has partnered with Singapore's National Water Agency to construct the plant. That amount is equivalent to taking roughly 870 average passenger cars off the road. The ambition is to scale up to 100,000 metric tons of CO2 removal a year by the end of 2026, and from there to millions of metric tons over the next few decades, Sanders told CNN. The plant can be replicated pretty much anywhere, he said, stacked up in modules "like lego blocks...."
The upfront costs are high but the company says it plans to make money by selling carbon credits to polluters to offset their pollution, as well as selling the hydrogen produced during the process. Equatic has already signed a deal with Boeing to sell it 2,100 metric tons of hydrogen, which it plans to use to create green fuel, and to fund the removal of 62,000 metric tons of CO2.
There's other projects around the world attempting ocean-based carbon renewal, CNN notes. "Other projects include sprinkling iron particles into the ocean to stimulate CO2-absorbing phytoplankton, sinking seaweed into the depths to lock up carbon and spraying particles into marine clouds to reflect away some of the sun's energy." But carbon-removal projects are controversial, criticized for being expensive, unproven at scale and a distraction from policies to cut fossil fuels. And when they involve the oceans — complex ecosystems already under huge strain from global warming — criticisms can get even louder. There are "big knowledge gaps" when it comes to ocean geoengineering generally, said Jean-Pierre Gatusso, an ocean scientist at the Sorbonne University in France. "I am very concerned with the fact that science lags behind the industry," he told CNN.
Scalable is not enough (Score:3, Insightful)
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With or without government legislature/mandate?
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If that's the standard then dairy products wouldn't be available in parts of the US. Stuff is subsidized and regulated up the wazoo because people at the time felt it was a good idea to feed kids a regular supply of protein and calcium. (this was before we mandated feeding them corn syrup)
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The numbers should said that it should be competitive on full scale per se without help, while government subsides can exists during the starting deployment stage, to avoid the chicken-egg problem about too small => non profitable => non growth => forever small.
The subsides help to starting situation "profitable" even if it's at the cost of taxes. As the market grows, subsides per unit of production should be reduced until being removed up to certain size.
There are also other kind of tax/tax reduct
Re: Scalable is not enough (Score:2)
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It makes sense in applications where there's no clean alternative now or in the foreseeable future (air traffic).
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Well so far it looks like they're planning on selling indulgences. Basically the idea Al Gore championed that turns out to be anywhere between totally pointless and totally a scam.
Re:Scalable is not enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Mitigating climate change is for human civilization defense.
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The US Interstate Highway system wasn't commercially viable either. It was built expressly for national defense.
Mitigating climate change is for human civilization defense.
Indeed. But most people are too dumb to be able to understand that.
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Sorry, no. We are in this position because dumb people like you actively denied the problem for 4 decades.
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By arguing that, perhaps we should wait and take things slow because it's hard...that's pretty much the same propaganda just dialed back for the current situation. Millions more will die if we *don't* move fast.
So yes, you are, knowingly or not, playing the same role.
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Mitigating climate change is for human civilization defense.
How does this mitigate climate change?
The major input is electricity from the grid.
Singapore generates 92% of its electricity from natural gas and 4% from diesel.
Nothing in TFA indicates this scheme is breakeven or better on CO2 emissions.
Re: Scalable is not enough (Score:2)
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.... but they're using electricity from the grid for this, which in and of itself puts more CO2 back into the atmosphere. Is this process net CO2 negative?
If you want to power this by solar, geothermal, nuclear, wind, or tidal, fine - but right now powering it with natgas is like shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Re: Scalable is not enough (Score:2)
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Of course not. What we do need to admit, though is that this is an experiment that is nowhere near as beneficial as TFA seems to imply, unless this is scaled up and powered by some sort of carbon-free energy. Otherwise it's a gigantic hamster wheel.
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Compared to what? Like spending hundreds of billions a month on covid stuff, when the shut down economy is a trillion a month?
You are about to mod me down, but you will do the intellectually honest thing: file it away in the back of your mind and watch over the next few decades as things unfold.
Amelioration efforts are what will happen. Here's why you will mod me down: But amelioration offers no argument for politicians to get in the way until
4. ??????
5. Profit!
happens.
But nevermind that. Amelioration w
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You could make the nuclear argument: We need it so cost is irrelevant. Might even be true, as to reach net zero we are going to need some more ways to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
Or to put it another way, CO2 is going to get really expensive so there is a lot of incentive to invest in ways to reduce that cost.
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I'm of two minds about this (Score:2)
On the one hand, as TFA mentions, using electrical energy to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, instead of using it to directly lower carbon emissions, seems counterproductive. And the potential negative effects on sea life and pH balance could be catastrophic.
On the other hand, we may already have reached the point where, even if we went to zero greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow, temperatures might continue to rise as a result of emissions from melting permafrost, increased forest fires, etc. If that's the ca
Re: I'm of two minds about this (Score:2)
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The next 10 years will be quite telling me thinks. Either we learn the disasters coming are getting worse or we watch them get even worse.
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It actually is dumb to do both; sequestration is (currently) a counterproductive option.
Look at it like this: Humans want energy. We burn oil to release it, and release CO2 in the process. Releasing CO2 releases energy (the reason we're doing it). The flip side is that sequestering it requires us to supply energy. No process is 100% efficient.
Whatever energy you use to sequester CO2 takes energy out of the economy that would have been used elsewhere and results in the release of more CO2 than you just
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These projects are very important for the future, but only as experiments. Until we have an excess of 'green' power to allocate to sequestration, sequestration causes a net release of CO2.
Even plant-based sequestration can be a net negative, depending on any resources used to help it grow. Fertilizer production releases greenhouse gases, and over-fertilization of a field causes the release of N2O, which is a particularly potent GG. And if the plants end up rotting or catching fire, there goes all that CO2 back into the atmosphere.
We're still at the magical-thinking stage where we believe we can keep on going the way we are because science and technology will save us from ourselves. In realit
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The CO2 you sequester with those panels will be less than the CO2 released by the fuel burned to generate the energy you didn't dump into the grid. Sequestration projects cause a net increase in CO2 release.
You can't beat thermodynamics.
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The universe gives not one shit for your doubts, not one law of nature will bend a single degree for them.
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On the one hand, as TFA mentions, using electrical energy to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, instead of using it to directly lower carbon emissions, seems counterproductive.
Personally, I wouldn't focus on removing CO2 from the air, not directly. I'd pipe the exhaust from some other industrial process which currently uses fossil fuels into this gadget to capture the CO2 rather than venting it. It's more concentrated then which has got to make the process more efficient. Maybe that's a useful stopgap. As you write, it's probably saner to just work on removing fossil fuels from the original process if that's what you're trying to achieve.
Others argue we should all die (Score:2)
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Every climate change article: This one company is trying to stop climate by doing XYZ. It's a small pilot project that aims to scale minorly by the year 2100 when everyone is dead. This other scientist we found argues trying to not have everyone die might cause bad things.
"The ambition is to scale up to 100,000 metric tons of CO2 removal a year by the end of 2026, and from there to millions of metric tons over the next few decades"
Short-term projects like this are definitely worthwhile. In just two years, we'll get a good idea if this idea works and is scalable.
We won't know if the idea is scalable, affordable, and environmentally acceptable. However, given that environmental disasters due to warming are costing hundred of billions of dollars and up (not to mention deaths
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So we throw money at 10,000 ideas and maybe 150 of those will be successful as part of the solution. AND make the founders filthy rich.
Isn't that how venture capitalism works?
The only whining I see is OMG MY TAX DOLLARS, when big polluters aren't going out of their way to use their own funds on mitigating emissions they created.
Doesn't use biology to scale (Score:3)
More greenwashing (Score:2)
Splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen, fine. Takes a lot of energy. Then they spend more energy crushing rock and using it for the CO2 removal process. They don't say what their energy source is going to be. More, as one critic in the article writes: instead of using that energy to crush rock and process seawater, wouldn't it be better to just use it to directly replace fossil fuel usage?
Sounds like yet another great behicle to provide "greenwashing".
What about crop yields? (Score:1)
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Well, that's a lot of disinformation to stick in one little post.
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Oh right, this is where I'm supposed to take you seriously and waste my time doing a point-by-point counterargument of your shit post.
Yeah, I'm not going to waste my time on it. I'm sure you have opinions on vaccines and masks, too.
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Direct electrolytic dissolution (Score:2)
Interesting technology. Maybe this is the process they're referring to?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov]
Honestly it seems crude, but it might be the best option right now. I haven't heard of any other carbon sink that is actually practical (and not a scam).
Move to plant based construction (Score:1)
Carbon credits are a scam (Score:2)
If you do carbon credits, you're just enabling a company to have more emissions.
No, we need to start outlawing and capping emissions. Long term emitters need to pay for their past emissions too.
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The fear that something might work is palpable (Score:2)
It's funny watching the reactions to things like this. It really reveals the religious nature of it all.
"Say what?? We can't actually mitigate things with technology ... that would be blasphemous! Where's the pain? Where's the punishment? Where's the reviling of unbelievers????"
Carbon plant (Score:2)
I have a carbon plant in my living room. Admittedly, it is not the world's largest.
What are the materials? (Score:2)
So, where, in "sunlight, electricity and seawater are you going to find the calcium ions?
Obviously, they're relying on calcium already dis