
Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C - hunglee2
https://cicero.oslo.no/no/posts/nyheter/carbon-capture-and-storage-is-necessary-to-keep-global-warming-below-2c
======
trickstra
Here you can try to create your own solution to keeping global warming below
2°C: [https://en-
roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7....](https://en-
roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.6) (rabbit hole warning: you
can easily spend hours playing with this site)

It's not impossible to create solutions that don't require carbon capture, but
those tend to have the uncomfortable side effect of raising electricity prices
two- or three-fold in the next 20 years. But here is one that I created which
keeps the prices stable and also achieves 2 degrees: [https://en-
roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p1=-1&...](https://en-
roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p1=-1&p7=2&p16=-0.05&p30=-0.05&p39=42&p47=4.2&p50=4.1&p53=3.8&p55=3.8&p57=-8.4&p59=-84&p63=2.2&p64=2.8&p65=85&p67=39&v=2.7.6)

~~~
marcosdumay
Keep in mind that this simulator is very focused on status-quo. It's not even
possible to simulate an exponential curve for solar or a methane catastrophe.

~~~
trickstra
You can change the assumptions under top menu Simulation->Assumptions. Some of
them determine how quickly can a technology come to market, how much it makes
future improvements cheaper etc. Also here are more detailed explanations and
examples of how the model works:
[https://docs.climateinteractive.org/projects/en-
roads/en/lat...](https://docs.climateinteractive.org/projects/en-
roads/en/latest/guide/renewables.html)

~~~
marcosdumay
Cool, I missed that menu at the time this as posted on HN. One can probably
manage to get solar to behave exponentially with this. One can also use it to
limit the availability of fossil fuels into more realistic numbers, and
increase the effectivity of capture to something that reflects people at least
trying.

That does allow one to fix the largest issues. But one still has to fix it.

------
londons_explore
People are missing the fact that the oil and gas industry is strongly in
favour of CCS for 2 main reasons:

1\. It makes extracting and burning oil not so bad - no need to make rules
limiting oil extraction, we can simply start some CCS projects.

2\. Injecting CO2 into deep oil wells actually helps get more oil out of them.
Get the government to pay for CCS, while the oil company profits off increased
yields.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
3\. The oil and gas industry is well placed to provide CCS services from an
engineering perspective. Even without your second point it would be a
commercial opportunity for them.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
The oil and gas industry might well go bankrupt in the next decade as
investors start to anticipate the huge cost of running declining businesses
(with declining yields), and account for the trillions of stranded assets.
Also, government will ask these companies to pay for the health and
environmental cost of all their emissions. The insurance industry will also
refuse to support them at some point. Why expect such a failing industry to
provide these services?

~~~
scottLobster
Have you not been paying attention to the shape boom? The US is now a net
exporter of oil and we have more natural gas than we know what to do with, and
it'll likely stay that way for at least the next 70 years. I'm not sure where
you're getting "declining yields" from.

------
hurricanetc
CCS is absolutely going to be necessary. So is nuclear.

What is the renewable alternative for the cement, steel, shipping, and
aviation industries?

Environmentalists need to get out of their own way and stop treating good as
the enemy of perfect. Some progress is better than no progress. All
technologies and approaches will be required.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/Peters_Glen/status/11948866002552...](https://mobile.twitter.com/Peters_Glen/status/1194886600255266816)

~~~
johnmorrison
This is true.

We should be able to reach net-zero emissions in the energy industry by around
2040 (optimistic, but realistic target), and even produce enough clean
electricity to power clean electric solutions in
transport/agriculture/industrial/appliance sectors (which are the other main
contributors to net GHG emissions).

The only problem is that a lot of this technology is still missing / not
adopting fast enough. Electric cars and cleaner farming will probably get
there in time, as well as lots of electric appliances and clean steel.

I'm worried about these though:

\- Cement/concrete

\- Aviation (electric is on the way [1], but maybe growing too slow)

\- Livestock (synthetic meat promising, but once again maybe progress too
slow)

\- Shipping

\- Appliances/civilian buildings: long lifespan to replace systems with
electric alternatives, people won't just throw away a working heating system /
stove etc

For those, we need CCS or reforestation efforts to be accelerated.

Our best bet in my view is to focus most investment in nuclear energy short
term, with large minorities in CCS and transport+industrial electrification,
and get electricity prices super low (and TPES super high)

Once we have abundant, clean energy worldwide, we will be able to easily reach
net-zero emissions and even induce net cooling if we feel we have overshot the
ideal atmospheric carbon level.

(In fact, we should be able to move it either way depending on our needs)

Net zero goal isn't about _stopping_ climate change, it's about putting the
control in our hands and having the ability to shift temperatures and GHG
levels in the optimal direction in perpetuity.

[1] [https://heartaerospace.com](https://heartaerospace.com) (YC-backed)

~~~
the8472
> and even produce enough clean electricity to power clean electric solutions
> in transport/agriculture/industrial/appliance sectors

The agriculture part is overly optimistic. Agriculture entails GHG emissions
from deforestation, fertilizer production, ruminant methane, NOx emissions,
soil carbon depletion and other secondary effects. It's not like we can solve
our problems by electrifying tractors.

~~~
johnmorrison
> deforestation

There isn't net deforestation globally, though.

> ruminant methane

Yeah, this is one of the hardest ones to fix, but I think lab grown meat will
get there eventually. Like I said, I'm not optimistic animal agriculture will
have sufficient technology to eliminate most of its emissions in time - that's
why we need CCS in the meantime.

My point is, the energy industry will be ready with extra capacity to power
clean agriculture solutions when they are ready.

> It's not like we can solve our problems by electrifying tractors.

I don't think that's the route we should go.

Primarily indoor farming seems to be a much better long term route for plants,
I prefer if we eventually get rid of most rural farmland and slowly shift it
back to nature.

Cover our flat city rooftops with small farms and trees, and produce most
plant agriculture indoor very close to the consumer in indoor vertical farms.
Controlled environment + indoor climate, more resource efficiency, almost no
risk of infections, no need for most of the chemicals we use today.

~~~
the8472
Indoor farms only work for greens and veggies, not for calorie crops. It's
hard to beat free sunlight. Rooftops are not sufficient area, difficult to
access and also compete for space with PV.

> There isn't net deforestation globally, though.

That would be news to me, afaik this is just a goal and hasn't been achieved
yet. And as far as carbon footprint goes _net_ zero deforestation still can
release carbon overall since new forests won't be as good a carbon store as
old growth forest is for a long time.

> lab grown meat

That may be useful from an ethical point of view, but has anyone shown that
this can be done with a lower GHG footprint? After all those cell cultures
need to be supplied with nutrients too.

If you want meat then switching from bovines to chicken is a thing you can do
today. Chicken doesn't release methane, has a lower overall land and carbon
footprint. Still less efficient than staple crops of course.

~~~
johnmorrison
> compete for space with PV

PV << Fission in cities, so this doesn't matter. My hope is all green rooftops
whenever possible. (I should note that this isn't trying to replace actual
agriculture - it would be a small minority, the main purpose is to make cities
nicer and do something with the wasted surface area.)

> That would be news to me

It's actually not news at all, we've been having net forest cover growth since
we began recording it centuries ago. There's never been any long term
deforestation trends on net.

(This is not to say that there haven't been awful local deforestation periods,
and you're right about old forest vs. new forest, but globally it has always
gone up since pre-industrial time)

> has anyone shown that this can be done with a lower GHG footprint?

It's a more physically efficient process. Why grow the whole cow and have it
run around losing heat for months when you can just grow the meat you want in
the end?

> Chicken doesn't release methane, has a lower overall land and carbon
> footprint. Still less efficient than staple crops of course.

This is all true but you can't really just replace red meat with white meat or
vegetarian diet. Some try but it will never work globally.

------
phs318u
It's worth pointing out the "omg" math moment in this paper. According to
various mitigation scenarios modelled, the amount of CCS required (in addition
to other mitigating approaches) requires the construction of an "average
typical" CCS facility at a rate of between one a week, and one a day, until
2050.

I'm not sure how to describe how this makes me feel, other than "ill".

~~~
H8crilA
Another thing is where will all that energy required to break down CO2 come
from. It's so bizarre that you hear so little about that, almost like nobody
can do simple accounting on Joules:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption)

~~~
Tuna-Fish
Binding carbon from CO2 does not necessarily cost energy. The reactions CaO ->
CaCO3 is exothermic, and the same is true for the equivalent reaction for
magnesium, and the reactions forming carbonates from the silicates of those
metals. Eroding volcanic rock naturally pulls CO2 out of the atmosphere, as
erosion slowly reveals metals that were reduced by the volcanic heat. This
process is naturally quite slow, but it can be sped up, for example, by
fracking basaltic rocks and feeding carbonated water in them.

The pilot project for was ran in Iceland and was successful enough to lead to
both constructing a full-scale plant and scaling the process out to multiple
different locations in Europe. The current main open problem is substituting
seawater for fresh water for the process (Using a lot of fresh water is not
exactly a problem in Iceland, but presents challenges for scaling the process
out).

~~~
H8crilA
CaO is created by frying CaCO3, typically heated with coal. You can then mix
it with water to get cement. At least that's what I learned in school.

How would you like to create CaO without providing energy if the reverse
reaction is exothermic?

Or am I missing the fact that there's a lot of unbound CaO in rocks?

Also, production of cement is one of the major sources of CO2 emissions.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
The volcano did the frying, and the result was trapped into bubbles of rock
where it could not come into contact with CO2 from the air.

Although most of it is not directly as oxides but some form of silicates.
(This forces the use of lots of water in the process -- you can go from CaO ->
CaCO3 without much water, but to dissolve silicates you need the CO2 dissolved
in water.)

------
supernova87a
CCS technology is uneconomic. Like incredibly uneconomic. Like, the last thing
you would pay for after doing all other possible things.
[https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/stock/files/gillingham_sto...](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/stock/files/gillingham_stock_cost_080218_posted.pdf)
[https://ourworldindata.org/how-much-will-it-cost-to-
mitigate...](https://ourworldindata.org/how-much-will-it-cost-to-mitigate-
climate-change)

~~~
MChristopherson
That is an important point that struck home with me when I came to realize
just how minuscule the amount of carbon dioxide is in the air relative to
other gases: it's nigh-on a rounding error.

I think many of us just haven't internalized the percentages of gasses, and
probably, like myself, often have it all backwards. An alien doing a fly-
through of our solar system would describe our planet as a nitrogen
atmosphere.

In descending order:

    
    
      Nitrogen: 78 percent
      Oxygen: 21 percent
      Argon: .9 percent
      CO2: a measly 0.04 percent
    

Groking that last value really helps frame the challenges that CCS has to deal
with (and also gives one an appreciation of just how powerful of a greenhouse
gas CO2 is).

~~~
throwaway5752
Nitpicking, but it's 0.04%, sadly.

~~~
MuffinFlavored
dumb question but like, 100 years, was it 0.03% and little by little it has
crept up to 0.04% due to "humanity" lately?

~~~
throwaway5752
It's not a dumb question. You're right. It was just below 300ppm a century
ago, and it's a bit over 410ppm now. [https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2915/the-
atmosphere-getting-a-...](https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2915/the-atmosphere-
getting-a-handle-on-carbon-dioxide/) is a good overview.

The NOAA has a station on Mauna Loa in Hawaii. It has been continuously
collecting CO2 data since 1958 and CO2 has gone from just over 300ppm to the
current 414ppm.

~~~
MuffinFlavored
How much carbon capture would it take to get from 414ppm to 300ppm? Or is the
new goal to just _stay_ at/around 414ppm and not go backwards?

------
mdorazio
Plug for Project Vesta [1], which I donate to. It's the only energy-practical
proposal I've seen so far for real carbon capture aside from replanting a
million acres of trees and hoping people don't burn them... again.

[1] [https://projectvesta.org/](https://projectvesta.org/)

~~~
funklute
I was quite curious about this project a while back. But I later talked to an
academic, a friend who happens to be an expert in the kinds of reaction
kinetics the project relies on. His view was that they are not using the
correct reaction rates in their calculations. He said they were linearly
extrapolating existing data, when in reality it is a non-linear relationship.
So my understanding is that their reaction rates still need to be empirically
validated. Disappointingly, my friend had no faith that this would ever work -
although academics have of course been wrong before. Regardless, I'm very
interested to see how this project plays out.

~~~
ProjectVesta
Hi Funklute, most of the models out there for dissolution kinetics and
weathering rates are a type called "shrinking core models" such as those used
in analysis by Hangx and Spiers (2009). Those models definitely do not take
into account the effect of grain-on-grain collisions, surface abrasion, the
constant refreshing of warm, acidic water, and/or fauna such as lugworms[1].
For example, the constant collisions chip off fine fractions of olivine that
themselves weather rapidly. And the constant grinding removes a silica coating
that dramatically slows the weathering rate of stationary olivine. Lugworm
digestion can speed up the weathering rate by 100x-1000x, etc.

Ask your friend if he knows of any models that take even some of these
considerations into account, as all of them will be present in the coastal
environment and contribute to our accelerated weathering rates. Also, please
show him these simple desktop shaker experiments here [2] and here [3], that
show the rates are much higher than the core shrinking models calculate when
the olivine is in motion (and these experiments are in fairly cold water
compared to the tropics). This is the type of research that we base our
calculations on. That said, we are in agreement that we need the rates to be
empirically validated. So, first we are going to deploy a Phase Ia Safety
Pilot Study, and once that is on the beach we will begin work on our Phase Ib
Speed Pilot Study to demonstrate the accelerated rates. Thank you for your
optimism for the project, we welcome feedback and hope to help spread the
understanding of the underlying processes that make the project viable :)

[1] [https://projectvesta.org/science/#dflip-
df_88/1/](https://projectvesta.org/science/#dflip-df_88/1/) [2]
[https://projectvesta.org/science/#dflip-
df_67/4/](https://projectvesta.org/science/#dflip-df_67/4/) [3]
[https://projectvesta.org/science/#dflip-
df_90/9/](https://projectvesta.org/science/#dflip-df_90/9/)

------
algo_trader
CC will probably never happen on the large scale. It is inherently inefficient
and a final, last resort.

Preventing emissions: Renewable electricity. EVs. Hydrogen. Synthetic food
stuffs. Etc

Handling the last 5%-10%: tax carbon, and allow nature to recover (rain
forests, fisheries, natural bio-mass, etc).

The idea of carbon capture while some developing country is cutting down
forests is bizarre. Luckily population is stabilizing, and the world is
getting richer and urbanized.

~~~
inciampati
We are at the point of last resort. There is no viable way to solve the
distributed problem of carbon emission. People can argue all they want about
renewables and regulation. Half the world won't give a damn, and we'll be left
where we are.

Carbon capture is a much more centralized response. It actually might be
possible for a few rich nations to get together and implement systems to drive
it at scale. Unfortunately, we are already at a point where there might be no
other mechanism to intentionally modulate the climate.

~~~
blueadept111
No viable way? All it takes is a single generation to have 50% less children
to cut the world population (and therefore carbon emissions) in half.

Not only is it viable, it the solution that will be forced upon humanity if
humanity doesn't embrace it on its own terms.

~~~
walleeee
> All it takes is a single generation to have 50% less children to cut the
> world population (and therefore carbon emissions) in half.

This is not how demography works. Even an instant and global halving of the
birthrate, holding all else equal, would not even begin to reduce total
population. In 2016, global birthrate exceeded deathrate by a factor of ~2.4
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthrate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthrate)).

There is also serious inertia involved when reducing natality to balance
mortality. Exponential population growth has momentum. Population leveling
could take decades to manifest.

"...there is a large time lag between the point at which the fertility rate
falls to the replacement level and the point at which the population stops
rising."
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_population_growth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_population_growth))

And in any case, it's by no means obvious that population and total carbon
emissions are directly proportional.

I don't disagree that population reduction will likely be forced upon us by
ecological and concomitant socio-political crises: e.g., water/food shortages,
extreme weather, war, etc. Does that really deserve to be called a solution,
though?

~~~
blueadept111
Holy nitpick, batman.

It's an outcome. "Solution" depends on the goal. If the goal is to have a
planet so choked with humanity that almost everything else dies, then no, it's
not a solution.

------
mmmuhd
I think carbon capture is the way, I will soon do a show hn of our little
company called carbonHarvester, we have as per as I know the cheapest
technology of capturing the CO2 out of thin air, our aim is to enable anyone
using an air conditioner to harvest CO2 from thin air with a little additional
energy bill, and we can regenerate the captured CO2 cheaply.

~~~
tito
Nice! Add your company to AirMiners, the largest index of companies mining
carbon fro the air: [http://airminers.org](http://airminers.org)

We'll feature it on the top of the list.

~~~
mmmuhd
Wow nice index, will add ASAP, your site need the lock (https) by the way.
Thanks.

~~~
tito
Yes, I wanna get that "secure" bling

------
cagenut
This article has some good charts and visualizations. Just to add one for
context, this is from the IPCC SR15 report 2 years ago:

[https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SPM3...](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SPM3b.png)

The yellow sections are BECCS, which is basically burning biosmass for energy
and then using CCS to capture the co2 from it. That is to say, CCS has already
been factored into the models as a necessary assumption for a long time now.

Keep in mind this is completely distinct from using CCS for continued burning
of coal/gas/oil, and absolutely not about using it for enhanced oil recovery.
Using CCS in those scenarios is like losing money on every unit sold and
trying to make it up in volume, its simply bad math.

------
tito
Surprising they include Direct Air Capture as CCS.

Here's the more detailed 32 page PDF that accompanies the linked CCS article:
[https://pub.cicero.oslo.no/cicero-
xmlui/bitstream/handle/112...](https://pub.cicero.oslo.no/cicero-
xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2633470/CICERO%20Report%202019%2021%20web.pdf)

I publish a weekly newsletter on carbon removal: [http://bit.ly/carbon-
updates](http://bit.ly/carbon-updates)

------
travisporter
Highly recommend reading sustainable energy without the hot air by the late
David MacKay. Even though dated, he really puts numbers behind every broad
stroke assumption that causes pause

------
daxfohl
So who pays? Government isn't going to convince people to do it, or else they
would have just implemented carbon taxes to begin with.

------
pfdietz
CCS can be a way to keep using fossil fuels for dispatchable supply, in a way
that meshes nicely with renewables.

In particular: make hydrogen from the fossil fuel 24/7, store the hydrogen,
sequester the CO2, and when needed burn the hydrogen in power plants (or other
uses).

------
tobias3
My intuition is that it would be almost always cheaper to pay e.g. Norway and
Saudi Arabia to not pump out the captured carbon (in form of fossilized plant
matter) in the first place, instead of pumping it out in the form of oil,
burning it, then capturing the CO2, liquifying it and finally pumping it back
underground where hopefully it doesn't bubble up again. But that would be the
problem a world-wide carbon emission trade/carbon tax would solve...

Weirdly, I always see oil nations such as Norway here or Saudi Arabia pushing
for CCS, as if this solution would be in their interest... while really
reducing CO2 emmissions for them would be as simple as pushing a stop button.

~~~
CPLX
I mean it actually isn’t that simple. In a market with significant
inelasticity in demand you’d certainly see the price rise if they pressed the
stop button, but the decline in consumption in the short term wouldn’t be as
severe. As long as there’s other places to get the product the market would
adjust to meet that demand.

Granted in the long term higher prices would help a lot, but a tax at the
point of demand/consumption would likely work a whole lot more cleanly.

~~~
tobias3
Yeah, everything every individual or even individual country does doesn't
matter in the grand scheme. That's kind of the problem (tragedy of the
commons). One way to break the tragedy of commons is to lead by example, take
the societal high ground, pressure others to join and finally shun everybody
that doesn't participate. E.g. Norway could press the stop button, they'd be
poorer (but other countries aren't lucky and don't have any oil) it wouldn't
reduce CO2 output much over the short term, but maybe that would put other
countries on the path to do it as well.

In general the more upstream the taxation the easier to implement (it would be
easy to simply tax the oil an oil rig produces), while the tax income would be
probably fairer distributed if the tax is at the more consumption
level/downstream.

------
WalterBright
The best and cheapest way to capture carbon is to plant trees. Lots of them.

~~~
hedora
That’s true for the next year or so, but it only will push the clock back a
few years. At that point, we run out of land.

I’m not arguing against it — every bit helps. However, something better needs
to come along, and we need to invest in that thing.

------
dlet
Title: "Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below
2°C" In the article: "There are at least some scenarios that can meet the
Paris goals without CCS."

WTF ?!!

------
DenisM
Perhaps we can reconsider recycling of paper products as a first step?

If you send a paper bag to the landfill it’s buried in the ground (sequester),
a tree is cut down to make a new paper bag, and a new tree is planted to make
new material for more bags. Thus carbon is continuously captured from the air
and buried deep.

If you recycle a bag then the old tree dies of old age and decomposes
releasing the captured carbon back into the air. The new tree repeats the
cycle, with no net carbon capture.

~~~
ianstormtaylor
Not sure if you’re joking or not, but that is not how it works at all.

[https://ensia.com/features/methane-
landfills/](https://ensia.com/features/methane-landfills/)

~~~
DenisM
I’m not joking and my observation does not square with your link.

A close friend has taken a tour of a local landfill in WA state and was shown
a perfectly preserved months-old banana that was dug out by the presenter from
the landfill. Apparently the landfills, at least here, are completely sealed.
If a banana stays “fresh” for months a sheet of paper will stay fresh for a
century.

And be that as it may, suppose we create special landfill for paper - that one
can easily be made completely sealed and good for a thousand years.

~~~
hedora
Modern landfills have pumps to push oxygen into the garbage to accelerate
decomposition.

Without them, newspaper takes >> 50 years to decompose.

Diverting waste paper to a sealed dump would definitely sequester carbon. (But
you need to make sure the production of new paper is carbon neutral vs
recycling for this to work out).

~~~
DenisM
How can production be not carbon neutral? When trees are cut new trees grow in
their place, unless the place is used as a construction site or something.

[https://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-
design/mass-t...](https://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/mass-
timber-construction-really-renewable-and-sustainable.html)

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Energy is used to make fresh products. This is the main reason recycling is
better from a climate change point of view. As long as we're burning fossil
fuels to produce new paper, the energy savings of recycling are going to
translate into lower carbon emissions.

------
himinlomax
Is there even just a small scale production implementation of carbon capture?
Last I checked it wasn't even working in the lab beyond trivial scale.

------
egberts1
Plant a billion trees; problem solved.

------
ci5er
If you say so (and I am not saying that you are wrong), but the cost of mining
coal and oil and the cost of digging and refining those Li-whatevers, can not
be ignored.

Pease and love

