
Carbon dioxide extraction company Carbon Engineering receives $68M investment - shortlived
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47638586
======
D_Alex
This is actually a very bad idea and a complete waste of money which should
have been used for other projects. It reminds me of another bad idea, which
just will not die - extracting water from air by cooling it.

Right now, we have several technologies ready to go. Starting with the most
cost-effective, and omitting the "use less" scenarios:

1\. Replacement of fossil fuel power plants with carbon free electricity such
as wind and solar power (also geothermal, where possible and nuclear, where
palatable). Cost per tonne of CO2 saved: less than zero for about 30% of
current generation, and "very low" for a good portion of the remainder.

2\. Sequestration of concentrated CO2 streams, such as those produced in
natural gas processing. Cost: $20-$40 per tonne.

3\. Biosequestration, ie tree planting. Cost varies greatly, maybe $15-$50 per
tonne.

The approaches above are the only ones that are actually used in the industry
today, but there is plenty of room to do more. The approaches below are
considered to be economically prohibitive, and AFAIK are not in use:

4\. Post-combustion carbon capture: Scrubbing the CO2 from exhaust gases of
power plants etc, where the CO2 concentration is 10-20%. Cost: $50-100/tonne,
PLUS the cost of sequestration, as above.

5\. Pre-combustion carbon capture: here, the carbon is removed from the fuel
and sequestered, and only the hydrogen is burned. Cost: $80-150/tonne, but
sequestration cost is low.

and then we have:

6\. Removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. The article says the cost may be
"under $100/tonne", but the serious estimates I have seen are circa
$500/tonne. Consider that the CO2 concentration in air is around 0.04%, cf
post combustion concentrations of 10-20%. Regardless of the advances in
technology, this will _never_ be as cheap as post-combustion carbon capture,
which is essentially the same process but with 250 times less throughput.

I am with the people who worry that this is a cynical move by the companies to
avoid urgent action to reduce CO2 emissions.EDIT: another comment calls this
"moral licensing", and I completely agree.

~~~
snowwindwaves
How much of your valuable land would you like to convert to forest? Unless we
start paying people more to keep forests than they otherwise could in real
estate, agriculture, etc it is a nice argument that trees can sequester carbon
but unrealistic that it can happen on a scale large enough to move the needle.

~~~
CalRobert
Sometimes I'm surprised how cheap land is. You can get an acre of grazing land
for maybe 5 grand in the right area (if you buy in bulk), in a place conducive
to rainfall and reforestation (Ireland).

I've looked at this and there are grants, but they're paltry (maybe a grand a
year for 3 acres?) and you give up the right to do whatever you like with the
land, like graze it.

~~~
circlefavshape
I did some back-of-an-envelope calculations on converting beef grazing land
(with its high methane emissions) to forest, specifically for Ireland

tl;dr - it's not cheap, but it's doable

A cow produces around 2.3 tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions per year [1] You
need 0.184 hectares of grazing land per cow [2] So each hectare of beef-
grazing land emits around 12.5 tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year

Irish forests sequester on average 3.36 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year [3]
So converting beef-grazing land to forest offsets around 15.86 tonnes of CO2
per year per hectare. Cost of grazing land is around €25k/hectare [4]

Cost of planting a forest is around EUR3k per hectare [5]

So the cost of offsetting 1 tonne of carbon per year by converting beef-
grazing land to forest is around €1750

Ireland's total emissions are around 61 million tonnes per year [6] So to
offset it ALL would cost over a hundred billion euro, and a little more
grazing land than actually exists in the country (and not all of that is beef
anyway)

Or in other words, offsetting carbon by converting beef grazing land to forest
would take around 1 billion euro per percent of our total current emissions.
To put that in context - Irish govt spending is currently around EUR75 billion
per year [7], and under the Paris Agreement we're committed to a 30% reduction
of emissions by 2030 [8]

[1] [https://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-
warming-m...](https://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-meat-
methane-CO2) [2] [https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/statistics-and-
links/fr...](https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/statistics-and-
links/frequently-asked-questions/grazing-infrastructure/) [3]
[http://woodenergy.ie/media/coford/content/publications/proje...](http://woodenergy.ie/media/coford/content/publications/projectreports/cofordconnects/CarbonSequestration.pdf)
[4] [https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/2018-agricultural-
land-...](https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/2018-agricultural-land-values-
rose-steadily/) [5]
[https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/forestry/advice/establishment/r...](https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/forestry/advice/establishment/reforestation/)
[6]
[https://www.rte.ie/news/enviroment/2018/1205/1015300-greenho...](https://www.rte.ie/news/enviroment/2018/1205/1015300-greenhouse-
gas-emissions/) [7]
[https://whereyourmoneygoes.gov.ie/en/2018/](https://whereyourmoneygoes.gov.ie/en/2018/)
[8] [https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/climate-action/topics/eu-
and-...](https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/climate-action/topics/eu-and-
international-climate-action/2020-eu-targets/Pages/default.aspx)

~~~
CalRobert
Thanks for that! Really appreciate it.

It explains why most of the forestry is on land not suited to a lot else.

------
snowwindwaves
I am surprised all of the comments so far are so negative. They can take
carbon out of the air and make jet fuel with it. We still need jet fuel. It
makes flying carbon neutral.

The CEO argues that even if all carbon emissions stopped today we would still
need to remove some of the carbon we've already emitted.

~~~
saagarjha
> I am surprised all of the comments so far are so negative. They can take
> carbon out of the air and make jet fuel with it. We still need jet fuel. It
> makes flying carbon neutral.

This is either an oversimplification or the technology is not useful, since a
naïve method of doing this means that you will have to put in the energy we
got from burning the fuel to convert the carbon dioxide.

~~~
jackric
Gather $renewable energy for $x time (x > 8 hours), convert to high-energy-
density fuel required for flight and burn for 8 hours to cross $continent...
Seems useful to me!

------
wrong_variable
The main driver of C02 reduction is based around geopolitical forces and
national interest, and the west is on the wrong side of history on this one.

We got lucky that China / East Asia / India do not have access to cheap
hydrocarbon, aligning their national interest with that of longer term
survival of humanity.

Some dude in BC is vacuuming up C02 in his backyard and this becomes news ?

Meanwhile ...

\- China continues to shave off millions barrels of global oil consumption due
to their initiatives involving electric buses for the masses.

\- China dumps so much solar production capacity on the market that it
undercuts coal and gas.

The solution to climate change is not going to come from cute startups but
from national projects.

When history books are written, the pages will be filled with praises of
national initiatives taken by govts of south korea, china, germany, ... (
india ? not sure yet have to wait and see ).

Pretty words are not going to be written about the richest and most carbon
intensive nation on earth along with its cronies ( Canada / Australia / UK )
actively undermining efforts to fight climate change ( while continuing to
export and use fossil fuels to support the bulk of their GDP ).

But you will always have some dude vacuuming up CO2 in his backyard in BC to
provide moral licensing.

~~~
robk
The UK has cut emissions more than ANY other country

~~~
Consultant32452
I found different data. Perhaps the UK cut emissions by a larger % but US by
nominal tons?

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-
u-s-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-leads-
all-countries-in-reducing-carbon-emissions/#38387ad03535)

According to the 2017 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, since 2005 annual
U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have declined by 758 million metric tons. That
is by far the largest decline of any country in the world over that timespan
and is nearly as large as the 770 million metric ton decline for the entire
European Union.

By comparison, the second largest decline during that period was registered by
the United Kingdom, which reported a 170 million metric ton decline. At the
same time, China's carbon dioxide emissions grew by 3 billion metric tons, and
India's grew by 1 billion metric tons.

~~~
mrpopo
> annual U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have declined by 758 million metric
> tons. That is by far the largest decline of any country in the world over
> that timespan and is nearly as large as the 770 million metric ton decline
> for the entire European Union.

This is deceptive.

The emissions per capita in the US were much larger than in the UK or the EU
to start with, which means still many low hanging fruits waiting to be picked.
The lower your emissions are from the start, the harder it is to lower them
even further...

------
titojankowski
I'm building consumer products using Carbon Engineering's carbon and
carbonates. Check it out here: [http://bynegative.com](http://bynegative.com)

------
sien
This is huge news. The implications of cheap C02 extraction are immense.

See this paper on what it means.

[https://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/r...](https://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-2716-2009.03.pdf)

The key thing is that in 2100 to keep C02 ppm at 450 ppm it would cost 0.6 %
of global GDP.

This comment was originally submitted for the first submission of this article
at :
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19566711](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19566711)

The reaction to this development on twitter and other places is fascinating.
Many people are clearly upset that C02 capture at scale is likely to become
economically viable.

~~~
lsd5you
My god, I know we can't qualify absolutely everything we say, but I feel like
you need some error bars on those predictions. Actually that is an
understatement. It is wildly speculative to talk about GDP proportions and
technological solutions in 80 years time.

~~~
sien
Fair enough. Double it. 1.2% of GDP.

The cost benefit calculations for global warming are similarly wildly
speculative.

But it puts limits on the cost in 2100 which is really interesting.

------
bit_logic
$68M doesn't seem like much compared to the billions of capital available.
Lyft can burn 1 billion per year but a crucial technology like this for
climate change can't get even half of that? Society's ability to allocate
capital is really ineffective sometimes.

If this technology got more R&D and was refined, it could potentially be the
solution for excess solar/wind. Why build expensive large batteries if all
that excess solar/wind can suck CO2 from the air and produce fuel? Then cars
running on such fuel could effectively be carbon neutral.

~~~
thinkingkong
Thats not really how investing works though. I agree 100% on importance but in
high risk unproven markets you dont just throw 100m over the fence and see
what happens. This is a phenomenal outcome.

------
jandrewrogers
This technology is fundamentally non-scalable because it relies on potassium
hydroxide chemistry to sequester CO2. Let me explain:

Potassium hydroxide (KOH) is manufactured by electrolysis, which is electrical
power intensive. The amount of KOH manufactured every year is a microscopic
fraction of the total CO2 emitted every year. Scaling this up to the same
scale as CO2 production isn't simply a matter of building more KOH factories:
the implied vast electrical power generation capacity and infrastructure
simply doesn't exist at this scale. You would need to build massive power
plants along side your KOH manufacturing. This is the kind of thing that only
works when you have access to cheap excess hydropower.

And this ignores the secondary issue of scaling potassium supply sufficient to
support throughput at CO2 scales, even with recycling. Potassium is a _mined_
mineral with limited reserves that is critical for agriculture. Reliable
access to mined potassium is already a major concern for food security and
this would require increasing the rate of mining (and depletion) of potassium
reserves many-fold. No one is going to care if we've reduced atmospheric CO2
if billions are starving to death.

tl;dr: This CO2 extraction process has severe practical limits to its
industrial scalability. Its feasibility relies on leveraging the excess
capacity of existing industrial processes, which is only possible at tiny
scales for use as a point solution.

Atmospheric CO2 sequestration is a bitch. The thermodynamics and chemistry
rate limiters are extremely unfavorable to an economical engineered solution.
Fortunately, the planet has a prodigious background sequestration rate that
can be leveraged for free if human CO2 production is reduced sufficiently.

~~~
raverbashing
Hence the question is: why can't they use NaOH which is much cheaper and
easier to get?

~~~
jandrewrogers
NaOH manufacturing is electrolytic just like KOH, and is similarly limited by
power generation.

As to why they can't use NaOH, NaOH being a cheaper material does not imply a
cheaper process -- reaction rates matter to amortized unit costs. For example,
the reaction rate of KOH is almost certainly much higher than the reaction
rate of NaOH, which means it requires much less physical plant/material per
unit of sequestration throughput. This plant cost savings could easily offset
the lower material costs of NaOH. If it actually made sense to use NaOH, the
designers of this process would have used it.

~~~
Brakenshire
NaOH would at least be scalable though. So if they did manage to reduce the
price it could play a part.

~~~
jandrewrogers
NaOH is not scalable either. It doesn't address the core industrial scaling
issue at all, which is the same for sodium and potassium, nor where we will
find terawatts of available power generation. There is several trillion
dollars in hidden CapEx baked into the idea that we can sequester atmospheric
CO2 using this method _before we even get to the direct costs_. It assumes
infrastructure that doesn't exist being built at mindboggling scales.

To actively sequester atmospheric CO2 at net negative rate on a time frame of
several decades would require $10T _per year_ by their own numbers at their
current cost using potassium and assuming the industrial infrastructure
already existed. Using sodium would greatly increase this price tag, making it
even less probable. There is no getting around those cold hard numbers.

The fundamental thermodynamics makes it impossible, even ignoring the
industrial scaling problem, to reduce the cost per ton to a level that is
remotely economically plausible.

------
hairytrog
I don't understand where the energy is coming from to complete the cycle?

~~~
Simple_Guy
Probably a natural gas plant.

~~~
m0zg
Baby seal tallow more likely.

------
HocusLocus
They must really hate plant life. So where is all the energy to run this
process (and refine and process the magic chemicals) going to come from? Oh
yea, it's going to be clean energy like wind power, taken from that giant
surplus when wind scales up to power all homes and factories and municipal
treatment plants. So much left over. Many happy energy.

Meanwhile, in the making not using energy department, Kirk Sorensen gets a
paltry ~3 million from DOE that isn't even to be put towards development of
Weinberg's MSRE concept.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG1YjDdI_c8&t=44m40s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG1YjDdI_c8&t=44m40s)

I fear for the human race.

~~~
abainbridge
They could put their plants next to wind farms that have over-capacity of what
the local grid infrastructure can handle - ie on a windy day they make more
electric than the grid can take. The air capture would only run on windy days.
That might be a reasonable way to make jet fuel.

~~~
Brakenshire
Yes, renewable energy is becoming very cheap per unit but intermittent, likely
one of the ways we will tackle that is overbuilding supply, I think it’s
likely we will have a class of industries popping up that can use cheap
electricity available intermittently.

~~~
JetSpiegel
Mining bitcoins on AWS spot instances.

------
Simple_Guy
At this point you can figure out if a technology to reduce atmospheric carbon
level will be effective or not by looking if oil companies are investing in
it.

------
hairytrog
The atmosphere then becomes a kind of carbon reservoir and we tune the CO2
content to match our needs. Either we want to control temperatures, or we want
liquid carbon fuels which are, to date, the best aerial platform fuel form.
For maximum Carbon availability and use/recycling, we would want to put all
the carbon locked in oil/underground into the atmosphere where it is far more
available to use. This allows the Earth system to maximize its metabolic rate.
Maybe we should see the burning of fossil fuels as the unlocking of Earth's
buried carbon repositories so they can be more easily used. Plants concur.

