The quest to trap carbon in stone(wired.com)
wired.com
The quest to trap carbon in stone
https://www.wired.com/story/the-quest-to-trap-carbon-in-stone-and-beat-climate-change/
72 comments
By "petroleum industry CCS is a scam" I assume you're referring to efforts to make fuels from atmospheric carbon, which is only means we burn it again and put it right back in the atmosphere?
If so, then I disagree that this is a scam. Liquid carbon fuels are going to continue being mission critical for civilization for many decades to come. So much of our infrastructure is built with the assumption of liquid carbon fuels that it's going to take a very long time to migrate completely. And there may be some applications that can never be carbon fuel free.
So, projects like these are still very valuable, because they potentially reduce the need to extract and burn fossil fuels, which necessarily inject additional carbon the atmosphere. Slowly down the rate we add is just as important as permanent capture projects like this one that can actually reverse the trend.
Also, I am increasingly of the opinion that permanent carbon capture tech is absolutely critical to civilization sustainability. I think humans are going to burn every ounce of volatile carbon fuel stored up in the Earth's crust. The incentives to do so are just too great. Converting the excess carbon to a non volatile form is the only way we'll be able to control how much remains in our atmosphere.
If so, then I disagree that this is a scam. Liquid carbon fuels are going to continue being mission critical for civilization for many decades to come. So much of our infrastructure is built with the assumption of liquid carbon fuels that it's going to take a very long time to migrate completely. And there may be some applications that can never be carbon fuel free.
So, projects like these are still very valuable, because they potentially reduce the need to extract and burn fossil fuels, which necessarily inject additional carbon the atmosphere. Slowly down the rate we add is just as important as permanent capture projects like this one that can actually reverse the trend.
Also, I am increasingly of the opinion that permanent carbon capture tech is absolutely critical to civilization sustainability. I think humans are going to burn every ounce of volatile carbon fuel stored up in the Earth's crust. The incentives to do so are just too great. Converting the excess carbon to a non volatile form is the only way we'll be able to control how much remains in our atmosphere.
> By "petroleum industry CCS is a scam" I assume you're referring to efforts to make fuels from atmospheric carbon
Petroleum industry CCS also includes pumping captured CO2 directly into underground reservoirs. Not only is this unstable (it's not chemically transformed), and inefficient (solid chemical forms take less space, less pressure, don't need cooling to remain liquid, etc.), but those reservoirs are typically old oil/gas wells: "capturing" CO2 in those wells will push out any remaining oil/gas, which the company can then sell for burning.
Petroleum industry CCS also includes pumping captured CO2 directly into underground reservoirs. Not only is this unstable (it's not chemically transformed), and inefficient (solid chemical forms take less space, less pressure, don't need cooling to remain liquid, etc.), but those reservoirs are typically old oil/gas wells: "capturing" CO2 in those wells will push out any remaining oil/gas, which the company can then sell for burning.
We hackers like to believe there is a technological solution for everything. These projects feed that delusion. Massive reductions and degrowth are hard for us to accept. This article somewhat fairly explains how extremely impractical and unlikely carbon capture technologies will be. The investments in the technology and the PR around them serve more to feed the delusion and keep us burning as usual.
I think you can forgive people for wanting to look for solutions that don't require millions/billions of deaths, as that's the only way you'll see the level of change necessary. It will happen naturally over time as economic levels rise and reproduction rates drop below sustaining. But that will take centuries and lots of resources, so I'm doubtful that is what you are proposing.
> It will happen naturally over time as economic levels rise and reproduction rates drop below sustaining. But that will take centuries
The theory of evolution tells us that over centuries, reproduction rates will not drop.
The theory of evolution tells us that over centuries, reproduction rates will not drop.
The solution you describe has already been found: stop burning and leave fossil fuels in the ground. Technological solutions are the opposite. They're an attempt to avoid the what everyone already knows is the answer.
There are millions of people who are not in poverty right now because these fuels are being used. What you’re suggesting will immediately put them back into poverty. A lot of them will probably die of starvation and disease. I don’t think they’ll go down without a fight.
I can't cite the statistic I read, but it seems very plausible that the wealthiest ten percent of the world's population contribute about fifty percent of the world's pollution. They are going to put up a bigger fight. It doesn't have to be a major fight though. Social pressure can go a long way.
I think what you call "the answer" is almost definitely going to lead to future large wars. What it really requires is either all nations, at the same time, agreeing to just stop doing things that give them an advantage, or to have people (correctly) view other nations lack of care with regard to the environment as actively hurting them and their future, and be willing to take action over that.
I think people trying to find anything possible to avoid or alleviate that issue perhaps deserve a bit more consideration of their position and reasoning. Because the U.S, Europe, China and India and Pakistan have a lot of people to prioritize over the rest of the world, and how they decide if and when to adopt provisions may be different than other nations, but they have just as big of sticks to try to protect what they see as their own best course of action.
I think people trying to find anything possible to avoid or alleviate that issue perhaps deserve a bit more consideration of their position and reasoning. Because the U.S, Europe, China and India and Pakistan have a lot of people to prioritize over the rest of the world, and how they decide if and when to adopt provisions may be different than other nations, but they have just as big of sticks to try to protect what they see as their own best course of action.
Burning as usual is clearly not sustainable. If you think massive degrowth is the only way out then I’m afraid we’re totally fucked.
Massive emissions reductions can also be paired with CDR to have even more impact since reductions alone — basically no matter how steep at this point — are not going to get us to where we need to be.
Massive emissions reductions can also be paired with CDR to have even more impact since reductions alone — basically no matter how steep at this point — are not going to get us to where we need to be.
I don't see how it's delusional to look for a technological solution to a problem that was caused by technology in the first place.
In any case, at this point even if we stopped emissions tomorrow we'd still need negative emissions to get back to a safe level.
In any case, at this point even if we stopped emissions tomorrow we'd still need negative emissions to get back to a safe level.
The problem with the search for technological salvation is that it allows us to avoid talking about the fact that regardless, we do need to leave fossil fuels in the ground starting yesterday.
But we can't start yesterday, and leaving them in the ground starting today is too late. So we really have no choice but to figure out how to take carbon back out of the atmosphere.
Besides, technology can help us leave fossil fuels in the ground. It's not like all those solar panels and batteries aren't advanced technology.
Besides, technology can help us leave fossil fuels in the ground. It's not like all those solar panels and batteries aren't advanced technology.
How do you quantify the limits of technological solutions?
PS, I love that you’re making that comment using…a technological solution which would’ve been considered wizardry not too long ago.
PS, I love that you’re making that comment using…a technological solution which would’ve been considered wizardry not too long ago.
Why do you think the technological solution is less likely to succeed than your 'reduction and degrowth' political solution?
Do you have any examples of a successful political solution like the one you describe?
Do you have any examples of a successful political solution like the one you describe?
Do you have any examples of a successful technological solution? We've never been here before so there are no examples in either category. It's clear that we need massive changes in behavior to stop dumping CO2 and other more potent greenhouse gases, such as methane, into the atmosphere(stop driving, don't fly, and, I'm sorry, no more babies). At 8 billion and counting, we've outstripped the planet's ability to sustain life(see Holocene Extinction Event[1][2]). It's possible we could augment these behavioral changes with sequestering efforts using technology that hasn't been invented or brought to scale yet. We'll see. I would also suggest that you pressure your political leaders but to date that approach seems to be fruitless. Politicians are all talk and no action, especially when it means pushing back against their petroleum industry donors. So we need to take things into our own hands. If we don't, and keep going down this road, we are headed straight for 4+ degrees of global warming and billions of people dead. As well as most other life on the planet.
[1] https://rebellion.global/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
Well, Malthus' dismal predictions of starvation were averted through improvements in agricultural productivity. I would say this is a success of technology.
With respect to failures of politics, I would suggest you look to nuclear proliferation. All political solutions to this have been miserable failures.
With respect to failures of politics, I would suggest you look to nuclear proliferation. All political solutions to this have been miserable failures.
> Massive reductions and degrowth are hard for us to accept.
How would you suggest to proceed?
I can already hear the "true communism hasn't really been tested yet!"
How would you suggest to proceed?
I can already hear the "true communism hasn't really been tested yet!"
I didn't get that impression from the article.
> But even if that bears out, multiply $100 by even a single gigaton—barely enough to make a dent in our annual emissions—and you’re talking about $100 billion. (The National Academy of Sciences has estimated that by 2050 we need to be removing at least 10 gigatons of carbon. Every year.) That’s on top of the hundreds of billions of dollars that would be required to build the plants themselves.
Big numbers, sure. But if they can hit the promised $100 per ton at scale, and we have to remove 10 gigatons per year by 2050... we're talking like $1T per year in operating costs. That's a bit more than one percent of current global GDP.
Maybe I'm missing something, but for an existential threat, that kinda seems like a pretty good deal? Even if it ends up a couple times that at scale... still a pretty good deal?
> But even if that bears out, multiply $100 by even a single gigaton—barely enough to make a dent in our annual emissions—and you’re talking about $100 billion. (The National Academy of Sciences has estimated that by 2050 we need to be removing at least 10 gigatons of carbon. Every year.) That’s on top of the hundreds of billions of dollars that would be required to build the plants themselves.
Big numbers, sure. But if they can hit the promised $100 per ton at scale, and we have to remove 10 gigatons per year by 2050... we're talking like $1T per year in operating costs. That's a bit more than one percent of current global GDP.
Maybe I'm missing something, but for an existential threat, that kinda seems like a pretty good deal? Even if it ends up a couple times that at scale... still a pretty good deal?
Yeah but it’s way more expensive (in the short term) than doing nothing…
Technology is the problem, so how can it be the solution, amirite? Except — there are so many other cases where improved technology fixes technological externalities.
The caveat is that technology alone can't be expected to solve social-political-cultural issues
The caveat is that technology alone can't be expected to solve social-political-cultural issues
"extremely impractical and unlikely" also describes "reductions and degrowth" solutions. We need people working on all angles, political and technical.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14747731.2020.1...
Degrowth is a planned reduction of energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being. Over the past few years, the idea has attracted significant attention among academics and social movements, but for people new to the idea it raises a number of questions. Here I set out to clarify three specific issues: (1) I specify what degrowth means, and argue that the framing of degrowth is an asset, not a liability; (2) I explain how degrowth differs fundamentally from a recession; and (3) I affirm that degrowth is primarily focused on high-income nations, and explore the implications of degrowth for the global South.
Degrowth is a planned reduction of energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being. Over the past few years, the idea has attracted significant attention among academics and social movements, but for people new to the idea it raises a number of questions. Here I set out to clarify three specific issues: (1) I specify what degrowth means, and argue that the framing of degrowth is an asset, not a liability; (2) I explain how degrowth differs fundamentally from a recession; and (3) I affirm that degrowth is primarily focused on high-income nations, and explore the implications of degrowth for the global South.
Reducing growth will reduce emissions; however Carbon pricing, reducing methane, and carbon removal will have the most impact on reducing future warming according to the En-ROADS model by MIT [1].
Although the political influence and PR of incumbent extractive industries is overwhelming, how we talk about climate change in the face of manipulation vs choosing strategies that will have the most significant impacts are different things. We shouldn't let the presence of PR prevent the promotion of effective solutions, especially when current political realities makes the ability to make changes to society very tenuous.
Based on this model, my opinion is that technology is part of the solution to climate change. Degrowth can be part of the solution, but it doesn't necessarily need to be. Perhaps MIT is wrong or has made invalid assumptions, this may be the case, but we can only make decisions based on models, and we have to choose the models we think are valid and use them to focus on what we can promote. I think carbon pricing and carbon removal are possible for society to undertake, I think degrowth will be a hard sell.
[1] https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html
Although the political influence and PR of incumbent extractive industries is overwhelming, how we talk about climate change in the face of manipulation vs choosing strategies that will have the most significant impacts are different things. We shouldn't let the presence of PR prevent the promotion of effective solutions, especially when current political realities makes the ability to make changes to society very tenuous.
Based on this model, my opinion is that technology is part of the solution to climate change. Degrowth can be part of the solution, but it doesn't necessarily need to be. Perhaps MIT is wrong or has made invalid assumptions, this may be the case, but we can only make decisions based on models, and we have to choose the models we think are valid and use them to focus on what we can promote. I think carbon pricing and carbon removal are possible for society to undertake, I think degrowth will be a hard sell.
[1] https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html
> We hackers like to believe there is a technological solution for everything. These projects feed that delusion. Massive reductions and degrowth are hard for us to accept.
Massive reductions and degrowth are not going to happen in a democracy. People can say they are all for fighting climate change, but the minute the price of gasoline goes up, they are ready to vote out the leaders. Look at the US where Biden's approval rate has an inverse correlation with the price of gasoline.
Look at France and the yellow vest protests.
Expecting people to reduce consumption to fight climate change is like Malthus expecting people to embrace celibacy to combat overpopulation - not going to happen. Thankfully, for overpopulation, safe, cheap, effective birth control (a technological solution) turned things around. We will need the same for climate change.
Massive reductions and degrowth are not going to happen in a democracy. People can say they are all for fighting climate change, but the minute the price of gasoline goes up, they are ready to vote out the leaders. Look at the US where Biden's approval rate has an inverse correlation with the price of gasoline.
Look at France and the yellow vest protests.
Expecting people to reduce consumption to fight climate change is like Malthus expecting people to embrace celibacy to combat overpopulation - not going to happen. Thankfully, for overpopulation, safe, cheap, effective birth control (a technological solution) turned things around. We will need the same for climate change.
I think you are onto something. Our(US) government and ideologies are on a crash course with reality. The question is which side is more immovable.
One note about Climeworks is that Climeworks only operates the carbon capture part of CCS. Climeworks can not store the carbon themselves so they rely on re-use of the carbon, or buying storage from other companies, mostly Carbfix (afik).
Carbfix, has been researching the storage part for a while now, and they plan to import CO2 to their facilities in Iceland with tankers from European polluters (crazy idea, but apparently works out).
Carbfix, has been researching the storage part for a while now, and they plan to import CO2 to their facilities in Iceland with tankers from European polluters (crazy idea, but apparently works out).
"a system of solar-powered machines that would autonomously harvest raw materials from common dirt, use them to build more machines, and then perform useful tasks such as sucking carbon out of the atmosphere. The replico-bots didn’t pan out, because—well, do I really need to explain?"
Back in the early 90ies, i can see that, but today/in 20 years it does not sound too ridiculous. Or am I missing something?
Back in the early 90ies, i can see that, but today/in 20 years it does not sound too ridiculous. Or am I missing something?
No one has ever built a self-contained self-replicating hardware system. It's incredibly hard. It's also incredibly dangerous because if it actually works you have effectively built a competing life form.
> to grab a million tons of carbon, a direct air capture plant could devour on the order of 300 to 500 megawatts of energy per year—enough to power some 30,000 American homes.
Great insight as to why we shouldn’t stop ramping renewables deployments. You need not only cover current electrical demand, but demand growth over time, transportation, HVAC, and all of the energy needed to sequester excess atmospheric CO2 emitted during human industrialization (>1000 gigatonnes based on 280ppm atmospheric CO2 pre industrialization and 420ppm current state).
Burning ancient sunlight is expensive.
Burning ancient sunlight is expensive.
Maybe it's a better idea to release massive amounts of N2 and O2 rather than chasing a 100ppm of CO2 here and there.
In, like, setting up petawatts of nuclear electrolysing plants that will split seawater into H2 and O2, where the gases will dilute the atmosphere enough that CO2 levels drop.
This harebrained idea is on par with those CCS projects, but has the nice side effect that the nukes can sometime later be repurposed to more useful things.
In, like, setting up petawatts of nuclear electrolysing plants that will split seawater into H2 and O2, where the gases will dilute the atmosphere enough that CO2 levels drop.
This harebrained idea is on par with those CCS projects, but has the nice side effect that the nukes can sometime later be repurposed to more useful things.
The nukes could run carbon capture plants. Or, even more directly, they could power homes, industry, charge electric cars, etc.
Watts are not energy.
Megawatts per year are.
No, a Megawatt-year (MWyr) is a measure of energy. A Megawatt per year (MW/yr) is not. It's the difference between multiplication and division.
From Wikipedia:
"Misuse of watts per hour
Many compound units for various kinds of rates explicitly mention units of time to indicate a change over time. For example: miles per hour, kilometres per hour, dollars per hour. Power units, such as kW, already measure the rate of energy per unit time (kW=kJ/s). Kilowatt-hours are a product of power and time, not a rate of change of power with time.
Watts per hour (W/h) is a unit of a change of power per hour, i.e. an acceleration in the delivery of energy. It is used to measure the daily variation of demand (e.g. the slope of the duck curve), or ramp-up behavior of power plants. For example, a power plant that reaches a power output of 1 MW from 0 MW in 15 minutes has a ramp-up rate of 4 MW/h.
Other uses of terms such as watts per hour are likely to be errors."
From Wikipedia:
"Misuse of watts per hour
Many compound units for various kinds of rates explicitly mention units of time to indicate a change over time. For example: miles per hour, kilometres per hour, dollars per hour. Power units, such as kW, already measure the rate of energy per unit time (kW=kJ/s). Kilowatt-hours are a product of power and time, not a rate of change of power with time.
Watts per hour (W/h) is a unit of a change of power per hour, i.e. an acceleration in the delivery of energy. It is used to measure the daily variation of demand (e.g. the slope of the duck curve), or ramp-up behavior of power plants. For example, a power plant that reaches a power output of 1 MW from 0 MW in 15 minutes has a ramp-up rate of 4 MW/h.
Other uses of terms such as watts per hour are likely to be errors."
If you want a history of failed technologies just lol at a Wired back issues catalog.
And a treasure trove of ideas that weren’t ready for prime time but could be now/soon.
I've got a question, maybe a stupid one to those in the know, but why not just trap carbon in biomass?
If we trap it in biomass, it will escape if anything happens to the ecosystem storing the carbon (like a forest fire).
The fundamental problem is that the earth was in a balance, with regards to carbon; a bunch was trapped in biomass, and cycled through the carbon cycle [1]. Then humanity did two things; we destroyed a lot of carbon stores (with agriculture, deforestation and setting off soil erosion), and (more importantly) dug up and released even more carbon into the carbon cycle. It will not be enough for us to only trap it in biomass, we need to permanently remove it from the cycle.
We definitely need to do both, and storing carbon in biomass is probably more cost-effective currently, but if we're going to restore the balance, we'll need more than biomass.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle
The fundamental problem is that the earth was in a balance, with regards to carbon; a bunch was trapped in biomass, and cycled through the carbon cycle [1]. Then humanity did two things; we destroyed a lot of carbon stores (with agriculture, deforestation and setting off soil erosion), and (more importantly) dug up and released even more carbon into the carbon cycle. It will not be enough for us to only trap it in biomass, we need to permanently remove it from the cycle.
We definitely need to do both, and storing carbon in biomass is probably more cost-effective currently, but if we're going to restore the balance, we'll need more than biomass.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle
So follow up question, wasn't the carbon in oil itself sequestered from the carbon cycle? If so, this would be a reversal of that sequestration and not introduction, right?
Maybe if you want to remove the carbon permanently, creation of synthetic polymers like plastics and things similar in composition to oil might be the trick.
Maybe if you want to remove the carbon permanently, creation of synthetic polymers like plastics and things similar in composition to oil might be the trick.
Yes, you could say burning of fossil fuels is a reversal of some sorts, but the earth has always stored some amount of carbon (with some of it released in volcanic eruptions). But the carbon we've re-introduced into the atmosphere had been sequestered for a long time (thousands or millions of years?) and for all intents and purposes wasn't a part of the cycle.
I guess we could create synthetic polymers and store them, but the scale of the problem is just so insanely massive. We'd need a place to store all that plastic (I don't even know where to begin to do the math, but we use around 10 gigatons of carbon each year [1] so it would take up some amount of space), and we'd also have to hope that bacteria won't develop that can digest it
[1] https://www.wri.org/insights/co2-emissions-climb-all-time-hi...
I guess we could create synthetic polymers and store them, but the scale of the problem is just so insanely massive. We'd need a place to store all that plastic (I don't even know where to begin to do the math, but we use around 10 gigatons of carbon each year [1] so it would take up some amount of space), and we'd also have to hope that bacteria won't develop that can digest it
[1] https://www.wri.org/insights/co2-emissions-climb-all-time-hi...
Well no matter how it gets stored it has to go somewhere. And I would think the volume of some synthetic polymer would approximate the polymers it came from, so it wouldn't take much more space if any as the oil it came from. Maybe it could even be pumped back into the wells. If bacteria get at them, they were going to get at the oil anyway. And their process might be slow enough to not cause a disruption, so it might not be a big deal.
I wonder how fast the carbon was sequestered to produce oil in the natural process. We don't know how much oil there is in the ground, so we really can't tell how much faster we are releasing it than it was captured. I wonder if there's data on the effect on the biosphere from that process and some other way to gauge the speed and also total carbon that has been sequestered naturally to create oil and gas.
I wonder how fast the carbon was sequestered to produce oil in the natural process. We don't know how much oil there is in the ground, so we really can't tell how much faster we are releasing it than it was captured. I wonder if there's data on the effect on the biosphere from that process and some other way to gauge the speed and also total carbon that has been sequestered naturally to create oil and gas.
Don’t know much about oil, but carbon in the coal was sequestered because plants got outside of water and evolved to have lignin about 50 million years before fungi and bacteria learned how to process dead plant mass. During that time (known as Carboniferous Period) burned and dead wood just turned into brown and black coal.
That's interesting. So all that coal was made in 50 million years? Imagine if nothing had evolved to metabolize lignin, how much less biomass there would be by now, how much colder the earth would be. Just a little more dead, in a slow death spiral. Evolution is cool.
"The fundamental problem is that the earth was in a balance,"
Nit pick but, is there anything that says the earth isn't or won't be at a balance?
Sure, climate change will be hugely impactful, especially for humans, but I figure the earth will still be in balance, just not the one we are used to.
Nit pick but, is there anything that says the earth isn't or won't be at a balance?
Sure, climate change will be hugely impactful, especially for humans, but I figure the earth will still be in balance, just not the one we are used to.
Historically huge swings in climate did occur, they also often coincided with catastrophic extinction events. Forgive me for not caring that the warmer Earth is newly “in balance” for whatever heat-loving species emerge.
Venus and Mars both found their own kinds of balance. As far as we can tell, balances that favor life are rare.
I'm not arguing the point you're arguing against, but I felt the need to point out that those two extremes are not what we are talking about, we are talking about a new "balance" that is known to have supported life in the past.
Climeworks addressed that question here:
https://www.facebook.com/climeworks/posts/we-often-receive-q...
The short version is: We should be doing all the things. Growing trees is cost-effective but requires a lot of land and water, which we don't have infinite supplies of.
https://www.facebook.com/climeworks/posts/we-often-receive-q...
The short version is: We should be doing all the things. Growing trees is cost-effective but requires a lot of land and water, which we don't have infinite supplies of.
In the trend of questions we kinda know are dumb questions, why not just capture it where it comes out, at the powerplants?
We should do that too, but then the question becomes what to do with the carbon. It turns out that getting rid of it in a safe way is a pretty difficult problem. The solution that's described in the article needs a lot of freshwater and the right type of rock for it to flow through so it can't be done where most of the power plants are located.
That leaves basically two solutions; capture the carbon from the air, which takes a lot of energy, or ship it with tankers. The first is being done (at a small scale) and the second is being worked on.
In an ideal world, we wouldn't have power plants that release carbon, but that's another discussion :)
That leaves basically two solutions; capture the carbon from the air, which takes a lot of energy, or ship it with tankers. The first is being done (at a small scale) and the second is being worked on.
In an ideal world, we wouldn't have power plants that release carbon, but that's another discussion :)
When I was a kid my teacher told me trees convert co2 to oxygen. If I had to suck co2 out of the atmosphere I would plant more trees and stop choping/burning down existing ones. It is cheap, sustainable and aesthetically pleasing, but I guess this isn't tecky enough for today's world. Maybe if we add a wifi module on trees it would fix it.
Trees do that, but what happens when they die? Planting trees to fix CO2 emissions is like fixing the leak in your roof by putting more buckets below. Sure, it helps a bit, but it only buffers the water - you still need to dump it. Similarly, we need to get carbon out of the cycle.
For reference, some googled numbers:
- The amazon rainforest holds about 123 billion tons of carbon in total.
- For the past decade, we've emitted about 35 billion tons of CO2 (around 10 billion tons of carbon) annually.
You'd need to plant a whole new amazon forest every 10-20 years to balance out our emissions. And that's assuming our emissions don't keep growing exponentially like they've done in the past - otherwise you'll run out of land to plant forests on in a couple of decades.
For reference, some googled numbers:
- The amazon rainforest holds about 123 billion tons of carbon in total.
- For the past decade, we've emitted about 35 billion tons of CO2 (around 10 billion tons of carbon) annually.
You'd need to plant a whole new amazon forest every 10-20 years to balance out our emissions. And that's assuming our emissions don't keep growing exponentially like they've done in the past - otherwise you'll run out of land to plant forests on in a couple of decades.
Now that we have consumed so many oil & gas deposits, do we simply have too much carbon ? Could a space elevator start taking loads of carbon (in whatever state of matter) and dispersing them into space ? It would be a testbed for Venus, which most definitely has way too much carbon. Dispose of a few zillion tons and then terraforming becomes more realistic.
If we just build houses out of the trees we can keep the carbon out for a long time.
That is an approach. Note though that, again, the total number of houses at any given moment is not going to exceed a certain number, and when we replace houses, we more or less set free the carbon in the previous one. So once again, this is more like a bucket than a drain.
From a kid's level of understanding you could also deduce that the carbon must end up in the plant matter, and that a forest's plant matter density doesn't increase forever. Old forests reach a carbon-neutral equilibrium (decaying plants release carbon). New forests suck up carbon until they reach that equilibrium.
Another idea you could deduce from this is that if we remove plant matter from the forest, and lock that carbon up so it doesn't go back into the atmosphere, it could become a long term carbon-sink. Even better if the plant matter can be useful. So vast lumber farms with the fastest growing trees you can get could be a good carbon capture technology.
Another idea you could deduce from this is that if we remove plant matter from the forest, and lock that carbon up so it doesn't go back into the atmosphere, it could become a long term carbon-sink. Even better if the plant matter can be useful. So vast lumber farms with the fastest growing trees you can get could be a good carbon capture technology.
I think more information is needed as input here. In pwrticular, what is the ratio of consumed/stored co2 in the photosynthesis process. My super basic understanding is that co2 is being used as fuel to convert energy into tree-food. By that logic i would expect at least a portion of the co2 to be actually transformed to other elements rather than stored as-is into the tree.
Your intuition is correct. The basic photosynthesis chemical formula is
6CO2 + 6H2O + (light) ---> C6H12O6 + 6O2
It will help a bit but not all the way. When trees die, CO2 is released again by fungi and bacteria in the process of making the wood rot.
Trees are essential, but we've released into the atmosphere so much carbon that was previously trapped under the earth in liquid and solid form. Trees aren't enough, we need to get that carbon back into long term storage.
From what I understand, planting trees isn't sufficient, but it would sure help.
>"An economic contraction, or what Gaia theorist James Lovelock calls a “sustainable retreat,”
Yeah I would expect someone making this argument to quote a "Gaia theorist"..
To force the majority of humans to self limit (i.e. voluntarily limit their own quality of life) requires an authoritarian government to force people to behave unnaturally en masse.
It may be the only solution, but it seems far from conclusive that that is the case right now. Also it seems counterproductive and extremely short sighted to make the blanket statement that the problem is impossible to solve with technology when so many problems throughout history have been solved by technology.
Yeah I would expect someone making this argument to quote a "Gaia theorist"..
To force the majority of humans to self limit (i.e. voluntarily limit their own quality of life) requires an authoritarian government to force people to behave unnaturally en masse.
It may be the only solution, but it seems far from conclusive that that is the case right now. Also it seems counterproductive and extremely short sighted to make the blanket statement that the problem is impossible to solve with technology when so many problems throughout history have been solved by technology.
I don't think that degrowth would have to limit quality of life - many of the things that we spend tremendous amounta of fossil fuels on, like commuting, are not things we want to do, but that we have to do primarily due to really bad planning and systems that don't need to exist. For the last two years a bunch of people stopped commuting and while WFH doesn't work well for some of us (if it weren't a pandemic, the same change could've come with local co-working spaces), that has not hurt quality of life while having a great impact on co2 production.
Other solutions exist that still allow us to live good lives, but the real barrier is entrenched and stubborn systems resistant to change. Even simple things like the urbanism movement being implemented would help a great deal, but getting American urban planning to change course is like trying to push a boulder up mount everest, it would seem.
In my mind, we should aim to solve climate change however we can, while minimising lifestyle harm. But if its a choice between the irreversible destruction of the environment we live in and my lifestyle changing somewhat, I'll choose the latter.
Other solutions exist that still allow us to live good lives, but the real barrier is entrenched and stubborn systems resistant to change. Even simple things like the urbanism movement being implemented would help a great deal, but getting American urban planning to change course is like trying to push a boulder up mount everest, it would seem.
In my mind, we should aim to solve climate change however we can, while minimising lifestyle harm. But if its a choice between the irreversible destruction of the environment we live in and my lifestyle changing somewhat, I'll choose the latter.
I don't think that degrowth would have to limit quality of life - many of the things that we spend tremendous amounta of fossil fuels on, like commuting, are not things we want to do, but that we have to do primarily due to really bad planning and systems that don't need to exist. For the last two years a bunch of people stopped commuting and while WFH doesn't work well for some of us (if it weren't a pandemic, the same change could've come with local co-working spaces), that has not hurt quality of life while having a great impact on co2 production.
I hardly call that degrowth, That's just efficiency.
I hardly call that degrowth, That's just efficiency.
Well, economic growth is based on increased consumption, not increased wellbeing - so in my mind, degrowth is focused on decreasing consumption. If we can get to our carbon goals by decreasing consumption while maintaining or even improving happiness (I think America's socioeconomic model is near perfectly designed to neglect happiness while maximising consumption for example) then that's ideal. If we take all the low hanging fruit and the world is still setting on fire then we'll have to start cutting things we like, because I'd rather be an unhappy vegan than a drowned carnivore (and I love meat!)
Focusing on decreased happiness on the assumption that it'll also decrease co2 is just 21st century puritanism.
Focusing on decreased happiness on the assumption that it'll also decrease co2 is just 21st century puritanism.
Even better. Promoting efficiency is a much easier sell than degrowth anyway.
Yeah I actually agree with you, I think it just depends on the definition of degrowth and how its implemented. Your example of WFH I totally agree with. Things like switching from meat to plant based diets, banning or taxing cars of certain dimensions or with particular capabilities, forcing people to take the train everywhere, or even more extreme things like trying to get people to have fewer children (however you go about it), are the things that could affect peoples' quality of life much more drastically.
The relevant parts about CCS:
For more than two decades politicians, academics and industrialists have promised great things from carbon capture and storage, or CCS. But after years of trial and error and multiple project cancellations due to prohibitive costs, this highly expensive technology stores less than one-tenth of one per cent of global emissions a year. Even JP Morgan in its 2021 annual energy report sarcastically notes that the “highest ratio in the history of science appears to be the number of academic papers written about CCS compared to its real life implementation.”
The energy ecologist Vaclav Smil considers CCS a ridiculous endeavour because it will never scale up fast enough to make a dent in global emissions. The global economy now produces about 37 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Tackling 10 per cent of that problem (roughly four billion tonnes) would require the same infrastructure that now supports the entire global oil industry, which produces four billion tonnes of oil a year.
Like carbon capture and storage, direct air capture doesn’t scale up very well. Researchers recently calculated that if the world deployed direct air capture using a chemical reaction that relies on caustic soda to break down CO2 emissions to water and sodium carbonate, it would require a new mining industry.
Just to capture 25 per cent of global emissions, it would need a system of extracting caustic soda that is 20 to 40 times greater than current global production. And this system would consume 15 to 24 per cent of the world’s primary energy spending to get the job done.
The technology also has a big footprint. An industrial factory, powered by natural gas and capable of removing just one billion tonnes of carbon out of the 37 billion tonnes emitted per year, would occupy an area five times greater than Los Angeles. If powered by solar energy such a factory would require a landmass 10 times greater than Delaware.
In other words don’t expect a direct air capture unit in your backyard soon. One group of researchers concluded that the technology “is unfortunately an energetically and financially costly distraction in effective mitigation of climate changes at a meaningful scale.” Another recent study concluded that carbon capture and storage and direct air capture projects emit more carbon than they remove or store.
For more than two decades politicians, academics and industrialists have promised great things from carbon capture and storage, or CCS. But after years of trial and error and multiple project cancellations due to prohibitive costs, this highly expensive technology stores less than one-tenth of one per cent of global emissions a year. Even JP Morgan in its 2021 annual energy report sarcastically notes that the “highest ratio in the history of science appears to be the number of academic papers written about CCS compared to its real life implementation.”
The energy ecologist Vaclav Smil considers CCS a ridiculous endeavour because it will never scale up fast enough to make a dent in global emissions. The global economy now produces about 37 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Tackling 10 per cent of that problem (roughly four billion tonnes) would require the same infrastructure that now supports the entire global oil industry, which produces four billion tonnes of oil a year.
Like carbon capture and storage, direct air capture doesn’t scale up very well. Researchers recently calculated that if the world deployed direct air capture using a chemical reaction that relies on caustic soda to break down CO2 emissions to water and sodium carbonate, it would require a new mining industry.
Just to capture 25 per cent of global emissions, it would need a system of extracting caustic soda that is 20 to 40 times greater than current global production. And this system would consume 15 to 24 per cent of the world’s primary energy spending to get the job done.
The technology also has a big footprint. An industrial factory, powered by natural gas and capable of removing just one billion tonnes of carbon out of the 37 billion tonnes emitted per year, would occupy an area five times greater than Los Angeles. If powered by solar energy such a factory would require a landmass 10 times greater than Delaware.
In other words don’t expect a direct air capture unit in your backyard soon. One group of researchers concluded that the technology “is unfortunately an energetically and financially costly distraction in effective mitigation of climate changes at a meaningful scale.” Another recent study concluded that carbon capture and storage and direct air capture projects emit more carbon than they remove or store.
Disclaimer: I'm biased because I'm Swiss and so is this technology.