
Climeworks carbon dioxide capture device - prostoalex
https://www.fastcompany.com/40421871/this-machine-just-started-sucking-co2-out-of-the-air-to-save-us-from-climate-change?utm_content=bufferb0418&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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_ph_
Interesting approach, but the article is missing two magic numbers:

\- the cost of the device and of course

\- the energy needed to extract a certain amount of CO2 from the atmosphere.
If more CO2 is released by producing the energy the device needs for CO2
capture, nothing is gained.

The feasibility hinges on those two numbers. Especially, is it more efficient
to capture CO2 or spend the money instead on not producing it? If the needed
electricity is produced by e.g. solar, is it more efficient to use the energy
to capture CO2, or rather replace some coal power plants?

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epistasis
The second number is entirely moveable depending on the source of energy.

I would argue that (energy?) efficiency doesn't matter when dealing with
energy extracted from the ground or from the sun or wind; what matters is the
cost. The article doesn't mention the cost of extracting a ton of CO2 from the
atmosphere, other than to say they have a ways to go on that front.

The "cost" of carbon emissions is estimated from $25-$125/ton (Social Cost of
Carbon), and financial planning from fossil fuel companies like Exxon use a
cost of $80/ton. (For some more familiar numbers, $80/ton equates to about
$0.80/gallon of gas, or $0.035/kWh for combined-cycle natural gas
electricity).

One could imagine carbon emitters paying for capture, or paying society for
the costs that they impose on the rest of us. However, once you add that extra
$35/MWh for natural gas electricity, renewables start to look pretty good.
(For comparison, wind subsidies in Texas are around $24/MWh, so natural gas is
getting a carbon subsidy than wind power gets. And unsubsidized wind and solar
in the proper sites are extremely competitive cost wise.)

In any case, within the next few decades at least, it's going to be cheaper to
use solar+wind+storage than it is going to be to burn coal and then extract
the CO2.

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mchannon
This article dishes out too much hype.

Photosynthesis may be 0.5% - 2% efficient, but this new technology is "roughly
1000x as efficient as photosynthesis", which must make it 1000% efficient.

Further, the comparison with photosynthesis is similarly awful. This new thing
collects and concentrates CO2, hoping there's an application for it that
doesn't involve letting it go again. Photosynthesis essentially destroys CO2.

The real lede I'm looking for is how much energy it consumes and how much CO2
it processes, either today or someday. Guess there wasn't enough room in the
article for that.

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thinkling
Yeah, the efficiency the article claims is "per square foot of space" which
seems irrelevant. (Well, at least until you learn that they're going to need
hundreds of thousands of these things to have a useful impact.)

But even worse is the complete and utter lack of any mention of the amount of
energy needed to capture a ton of CO2.

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hinkley
Right. There's a point where it's cheaper to store renewable energy to use
later rather than capture carbon dioxide using the surplus.

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Retric
1/75,000,000 of our current emissions per device vs. not digging up coal and
burning it for power. Which seems more reasonable to you?

This thing is not not really useful for climate change, instead it can provide
CO2 gas we already concentrate for producing dry ice etc.

~~~
goodcanadian
If we stopped all emissions instantly, temperatures would still continue to
rise for decades due to the CO2 that is already in the atmosphere. We are
going to need some kind of carbon capture technology especially considering
that emissions are not likely to decline let alone stop any time soon.

Incidentally, it is my understanding that coal use is already declining
rapidly. In many cases, it is being replaced by natural gas: certainly not
ideal, but better.

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dbingham
We can achieve much of the carbon capture we need to by changing the way we do
agriculture. Currently, our approach to agriculture - CAFO meat production,
monocropping vast fields of corn, soy, and wheat - is a contributor to
greenhouse gasses. It's eroding away the soil and the soil is one of the
primary carbon stores. If we changed to relying more heavily on silvopasture
and organic polycultures we could change it to act as a vast carbon capture
mechanism.

Early studies suggest that diverse silvopasture can be just as productive as
monocropped grain, but it means a major change in diets and the food
production system world wide. It means less meat (but not no meat) and a diet
focused more heavily on fruit and nuts rather than grains. This is a huge
cultural shift and also a huge economic one, since much of the food industry
is completely dependent on value added processed grains.

But if we start looking at how chesnuts, hazelnuts, walnuts, and acorns could
be stored and processed into a greater variety of foods, then we can start the
move towards agricultures that are just as productive and way healthier for
the environment.

No-till, poly cropped grain production (corn, beans, and squash in the same
field) can also act as a carbon sink, but it doesn't lend itself to mechanized
harvest right now, so it would need to happen to a smaller degree.

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darawk
> but it means a major change in diets and the food production system world
> wide.

Which basically means it's not going to happen. There are lots of ways to fix
climate change that involve large scale changes to human behavior and habits.
They're not viable because nobody is going to do them. The reason devices like
this are valuable is that they promise to allow us to keep doing the things
we're doing _and_ stop or slow down climate change.

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traviswingo
There is one aspect of this that is not being fully addressed - storage of the
captured CO2. Yes, pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere is a good thing, but
storing it somewhere on Earth still poses a threat to the climate. A single
mishap could bulk release years of stored CO2 gas and essentially undo all
those collection efforts in a single day. Not to mention the potential for
terrorist to target such stores.

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Beltiras
Not when you store it in stone, as the article alludes to. I know that
emissions from a local geothermal plant are being captured and stored
permanently in basalt layers in Hellisheiði, Iceland.

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MisterBastahrd
212 degrees is pretty specific. Is this just a gigantic water carbonation
system?

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undersuit
212 degrees Fahrenheit is the boiling point of water. They are just heating
the box to the highest point that they can still have liquid water until
normal conditions.

That being said... does that mean they heat the box to a lower temperature in
higher elevations?

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rc_kas
Carbon is bad, but I think the coming methane releases will be the end of us.

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2sk21
Agreed - methane emissions from the thawing of tundra permafrost is alarming.

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empath75
If they sell the CO2, what's the point?

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epistasis
They're hoping to sell the capture of CO2:

>Ultimately, the company wants to sell its ability to remove carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere and store it underground, and it thinks that the market
may be ready to pay sooner than the startup initially expected.

>“Based on our experiences now on the market, we are very confident that we
will be able to develop a market in the very near future, maybe next year or
in two or three years, to sell these negative emissions.

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fallingfrog
There is another device that takes sunlight energy and uses it to sequester
carbon from the atmosphere. It's called a tree.

~~~
epistasis
I wonder if they had thought of that?

>Planting trees or preserving existing forests is likely to also be a critical
way to absorb CO2. “The best example of carbon dioxide removal technology that
we know how to do now is grow more forest and to protect the carbon content of
soils,” says Field.

also:

>“One CO2 collector has the same footprint as a tree,” says Wurzbacher. “It
takes 50 tons of CO2 out of the air every year. A corresponding tree would
take 50 kilograms of the air every year. It’s a factor of a thousand. So in
order to achieve the same, you would need 1,000 times less area than you would
require for plants growing.”

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Beltiras
Now compare the EROEI between the two methods. One requires a lot of metal.
The other one requires some planned land, a shovel and a seedling bank. I can
have trees planted locally for 2$ each. I'd bet heavily that machine costs
more than 2000$.

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epistasis
There's no energy return on devices like this, they are pure energy sinks.

I would agree that this machine is likely many multiples of $2000, but you're
not counting the cost of the land in your part either (which varies wildly),
but that doesn't mean that it's not worth investigating to see if it can be
made cost effective.

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Beltiras
I'm assuming that similar arrangements can be made to what local growing co-
ops have made: If you are making land arable in the far future, you should not
incur costs for land.

