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The problem isn’t a missing technology. it’s our political and economic system.
I’m all for advancing tech but nothing is going to work until we fix our behavior. We use fossil fuels because they’re profitable and allow or growth-at-all-cost economy. There’s nothing for which they’re the only option. Only a few things for which they’re the best option; the power grid and transit aren’t on that list.
That small red bulb counteracts the entropy argument because you bring energy (and quite a lot of I recall) into the system.
Would be a sad day if we no longer could reduce entropy locally under the invest of energy.
The wider issue is you have to generate that energy, and you have to be able to capture more carbon than that generation released.
As I understand it doesn’t at all. This is why it’s seen as analagous to a perpetual motion machine, it’s an endless chain of power plants capturing each others carbon to no end.
You could use solar of course, but then why generate anything with fossil fuels just to capture the carbon with solar? Just use solar.
Because we still need to bring CO2 levels down even if we stop burning fossil fuel.
And then we’ll probably need to burn fossil fuel to keep them at the right level, since we are in a capitalistic society and we’re never going to be able to shutdown the CO2 collectors if they are ever built.
Would be a sad day if we no longer could reduce entropy locally under the invest of energy.
I don’t think there’d be anyone left alive to be sad in that case…
What I mean by entropy is that we burn fossil fuels (low entropy) and release CO2 into the atmosphere (high entropy), so it takes a lot more energy and effort to remove CO2 than simply not burning fossil fuels.
Clearly laws of physics work against us when we try to remove a relatively low concentration gas from a planet-wide system.
Next time you write a scientific publication, /s, make sure to have it reviewed by at least 2 Nobel Prize ! 😋
(thanks for the explanation … it was not clear at all)
There are plenty of arguments to be made against direct air capture, but entropy isn’t one of them. Nobody ever claimed this is some kind of perpetuum mobile.
This is wrong, or perhaps I misundertand.
Entropy is a different concept from economic viability.
The rule of non-decreasing entropy applies to closed systems.
A carbon capture system running on solar energy on Earth (note: wind energy is converted solar energy) is not a closed system from the Earth perspective - its energy arrives from outside. It can decrease entropy on Earth. Whether it’s economically viable - totally different issue.
…and I don’t think the Sun gets any worse from us capturing some rays.
Also, I don’t think entropy has anything to do with carbon in the atmosphere. I thought it had to do with the size of the energy packets.
Its that using an extra step in the process (producing energy + CO2, then using energy to remove CO2) is going to increase entropy more than not producing CO2 in the first place.
Economic viability is separate and sometimes related to things like this.
Its irrelevant to the economy (in the short term at least) whether a process is efficient in terms of energy or resources. What is relevant is whether or not something can be done for either small sums of money, or sold for profits. More likely both in a capitalist style economy.
Note that it does happen in some cases that using less energy/resources is more profitable, but the driving force, again in a capitalist style economy, is the profit.
Yeah, it’s different. I think the machine on the left is an infinite energy machine. Those will never work.
The machine on the right is a carbon capture machine which does work. But not well enough. Are fast enough to solve any of the problems that we have.
I’m fine with playing around with a carbon capture machine and seeing if we can improve it, but I would never want to rely solely on it.
I want to try a thousand solutions to the global warming problem. Including societal and government changes. Cuz you know otherwise we all die.
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I’ve heard that’s why the carbon capture is best done directly out of the machinery that creates the carbon dioxide.
Even if we went to zero emissions soon, we’d still want to decrease CO2 over time to reverse the effects of climate change. Capturing co2 is always going to be much more energy intensive than not emitting it in the first place, but sometimes you don’t have another choice.
Or you know, we could plant trees…the original carbon capture device.
Yeah, but then you need to cut them down and burry them so that decomposition doesn’t release the co2 again. And it takes a lot of land, which can be prohibitive on the scale we’ll need.
Another interesting option is fertilizing parts of the ocean for algie to grow. Cody’sLab has an interesting video on a possible way to do that with intentionally crashing astroids into the ocean. https://youtu.be/z7u_IqzkJzE https://youtu.be/2zQb_OitsaY/?t=13m40s
All of these, plus mechanical direct air carbon capture are methods of carbon capture. The right answer will likely be some mix of all of them.
that’s why I just throw all my used paper in the trash to be buried in landfills #doingmypart #onlykindajoking
yeah, i guess the algae would also have a counter-effect to global warming.
however, one must be a bit more sensitive about it, as it’s a biological process and can mess with the biological world around it. consider: somewhen in the 1970s, a huge cargo ship full of fertilizer (ammonia) sank in the ocean and it lead to a huge algae-growth in the middle of the ocean.
it definitely took some CO2 out of the air, but these algae often also produce lots of toxins as a by-product (to keep predators away), so that lead to a massive fish-dying. which is not so wishable, either.
so anyway, i guess taking CO2 out of the air can happen, but it should happen slowly, such as to not strain the environment too much.
Aren’t there better plants? I remember reading that some forms of algae are way more efficient or something like that.
see my comment above … yes, algae can take out lots of CO2 from the atmosphere,
in fact i remember reading that 50% of the global photosynthesis actually happens in the oceans.
also, the algae have the advantage that they might automatically sink to the bottom of the ocean, thus taking the carbon out of the atmosphere permanently. but i’m not sure about that, in fact. also, something similar could be achieved with wetlands, such as marsh and swamp, which bind organic material underwater. that water is oxygen-depleted, so it conserves the organic material permanently. this is how peat is created.
yup, turns out burning coal is us literally releasing carbon that was already captured and stored ages ago.
Just checked the numbers, for those interested.
A gas power plant produces around. 200-300kWh per tonne of CO2.
Capture costs 300-900kWh per tonne captured.
So this is basically non viable using fossil fuel as the power. If you aren’t, then storage of that power is likely a lot better.
It’s also worth noting that it is still CO2 gas. Long term containment of a gas is far harder than a liquid or solid.
Who says you power that thing with fossil fuels? The real way to do that is via giant nuclear reactors or reactor complexes.
Fission power can be made cheaper per MW by just making the reactors bigger. Economies of scale, the square cube law and all that. The problem with doing this in the commercial power sector is that line losses kill you on distribution. There just aren’t enough customers within a reasonable distance to make monster 10 GW or 100 GW reactors viable, regardless of how cheap they might make energy.
But DACC is one of the few applications this might not be a problem for. Just build your monster reactors right next door to your monster DACC plants.
But then the power generated by those reactors is better used to power things that burn fossil fuel in a less efficient way or to simply replace the fossil fuel powered electricity generators…
Quebec transports its electricity over more than a thousand kilometers, surely distance from nuclear reactors isn’t an issue if you build the infrastructure around it.
Solar and Wind are cheaper than nuclear now. The main problem is it’s not sunny and/or windy every day. A carbon capture system doesn’t need to be running 24/7 though.
If we build way more wind/solar than we use then the excess can dumped into things like this.
Sorry but the economics of nuclear just doesn’t work for everything.
One of the interesting energy capture ideas I’ve seen with Solar and wind is based on kinetic potential energy in high-rise buildings. So you build a sort of heavy weight elevator that is elevated during windy and sunny hours and then it slowly gets released and gravity driven friction generating energy.
This coupled with solar windows and it’s a pretty neat idea (not sure how viable though)
Edit: examples: https://spectrum.ieee.org/gravity-energy-storage-elevators-skyscrapers
There are 3 use cases I’ve seen.
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Making fossil fuel power stations “clean”.
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CO2 recovery for long term storage.
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CO2 for industrial use.
It’s no good for the first, due to energy consumption. This is the main use I’ve seen it talked up for, as something that can be retrofitted to power plants.
It’s poor for the second, since the result is a gas (hard to store long term). We would want it as a solid or liquid product, which this doesn’t do.
The last has limited requirements. We only need so much CO2.
The only large scale use case I can see for this is as part of a carbon capture system. Capture and then react to solidify the carbon. However, plants are already extremely good at this, and can do it directly from atmospheric air, using sunlight.
It’s poor for the second, since the result is a gas (hard to store long term). We would want it as a solid or liquid product, which this doesn’t do.
Why wouldn’t the device include or feed a compressor to liquidize the CO2? It takes just a little over 5 atm of pressure which is trivial.
You also need to sustain 5 atm, with no leaks for years. Where is it being stored, and who’s paying for the maintenance? All it would take would be a bit of civil unrest, or corruption, and the work could be undone in mass.
The only DAC variant i could see working out is if it takes the CO2 from high-concentrated sources (such as portland cement factories) and transforms it into something practical, like liquid fuel or methane.
It could be leading to cheaper methane than from biological sources, because technological processes can have higher efficiency, and therefore lower prices.
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Yes, it works as a “plan B” (along with many other things).
Don’t loose hope. We can still win. Keep pushing for producing less CO2.
Co2 is liquified before storage.
And how do you plan to keep it liquefied, on a large scale, for 100s of years? It’s currently done using pressure vessels amd chillers, that require maintenance etc.
So power it with solar/wind?
Where are we putting all this CO2?
Your beer/soda glass.
Once we get this tech shrunk down to the size of Nitrogen generators it’s going to revolutionize the industry.
I very much prefer CO2 in my drinks, some other carbon captures get you CO and I’ve heard that’s not as good as a drink carbonator
Synthetic fuels for air planes and rockets
To The One Place That Hasn’t Been Corrupted By Capitalism… SPACE…
Old oil wells, preferably in high limestone areas
Just wait until they figure out how much carbon is captured by planting a tree.
What is this tree technology you speak of
What is the name of the contraption on the left? Looks like a perperpetual motion machine but I’d like to learn more about it.
I really think we can capitalism our way out of a capitalism caused climate crisis who’s with me and rex tillerson
the picture on the right isn’t demonstrating an engine. They simply use renewable energy to power the fans that suck in the air.
Doesn’t change the fact that industrial carbon capture is a scam, and most of that captured CO2 is later released back into the environment to help extract oil from old wells.
https://www.aogr.com/magazine/sneak-peek-preview/carbon-capture-boosting-oil-recovery
