I’ve heard there’s a practical green solution to carbon capture. The units are practically maintenance free and power themselves with solar energy. This allows to deploy them on many small patches of land. The captured carbon is stored in solid organic compounds that may be used as building materials. It may sound to sci-fi to be true, but it’s actually just trees.
Agree, carbon capture process is quite efficient now. I’m working on (pretty big) company doing Carbon Capture and Sequestration. The idea is to use empty oil&gaz reservoir to inject back carbon where it comes from. So there are several advantage:
The land is already messed up by former drilling platerform. No need to shave another forest to create a facility
No waste to handle, as the captured carbon is injected in the underground. We also study the possibility to inject other kind of waste, like domestic ones.
Simplified process as we can keep Co2 in gaz state to inject back in former natural gaz reservoir. Not even needed to extract carbon to solodify it.
Yes, trees are much more efficient and eco-friendly, but sometime we cannot just plant billions of trees. Whereas a CCS facility is relatively small compared to a whole forest.
I think as long as they throw a 10 lb bag of sugar down the hole before they start pumping then you don’t have to worry about it accidentally becoming a diet Coke.
Geological reservoirs are thousands metter depth and several dozen of km wide. Pressure is
a few MPa, and temperature hundreds of °C. Condition are so extrem that filling them with gaz barely change anything. Especially if they were already filled with gaz dozen years ago.
Furthemore, they are not big vacum like most people imagine. It’s more like giant spongy rock, like sand. It’s not a baloon you inflate or deflate.
CCS facilities are not in competition with forest. It’s a complementatry solution. If you manage to capture carbon next to poluting factories, you don’t spread Co2 on the atmosphere, waiting it to be captured by a forest the other side of the globe. And they can be powered by solar panels.
First, because these forests has to stay in place, or used as building material but cannot be burn to for heating. So we still have to plant extra forest for heating.
Second, we still have all the Co2 we have put in atmosphere since a century. So the goal is not to be equilibrium, but to be net negative.
There is not a unique solution “Plant Trees and go electric” to global warming. There are lots of solutions, with pros and cons. CCS is just a small part of the equation. Use renewable energy, use storage (litthium batteries, Hydrogen, …), Nuclear, change habit to consume less, plant trees and develop carbon capture solution.
The problem won’t be solved with a unique solution, but by finding the good balance between all the possibilities. And those who know it won’t work are please to let those who doesn’t know try.
You doesn’t seems to be the kind of person with whom can have constructive argument. I gave you facts and number. Sorry I cannot take my time machine and go back 200 years back telling Great Britain to stop burning coal.
Also, my company has as objective to becomes neutral by 2030 and 20% carbon negative by 2050.
Locally, we have decreased our electricity consumption by 20% since 2022 and put in place mobility actions to push people taking bike or bus. Nearly half of employees use soft transport (public, bikes, onewheel, etc…)
We cannot rewrite the past or snap finger to change habits of 8billions peoples.
We will be juge on our current actions and futur results. As of today, we are trying something which we hope is going to the right direction. But its always easier to criticize and not doing anything.
The facts are it takes 1.5x powerplants to scrub the carbon from 1x powerplants, using CCS.
So, it’s just better to NOT use dirty electricity, and convert it to a renewable, like solar, wind, or hydro.
Also, my company has as objective to becomes neutral by 2030 and 20% carbon negative by 2050.
So, your company will be paying the full cost of the carbon produced by your company? Doubtful. Nobody pays full environment price at the pumps. Or, their electric bills. Or their nat gas bill.
Density of CO2 produced vs what trees capture is massively unequal. Yes trees can, but not on any tangible scale that would ever keep up with what we are doing to the planet.
Yes, the most that carbon capture can do is temporarily slow down climate change. It turns out the only way you can stop getting carbon from outside the carbon cycle into the carbon cycle is to stop taking carbon from outside the carbon cycle and putting it into the carbon cycle.
But the problem with oil is that it’s really good, and it does a lot of stuff really well
Oil is good because it’s cheap and it’s only cheap because we don’t pay the full bill. If we’d bill polluters for the full cost it would take to offset the emissions, it would quickly stop being economically viable to use oil in many sectors.
Not to mention the area needed, for the amount of trees needed. Trees also decompose, so the storage function is different, but people are quick to assume.
Decomp still sequesters most of the carbon into the soil, which next gen plants uptake some.
Not to mention, a single sq km of algae sequesters tons annually.
And not even mentioning the add on sequesters: New trees bring whole ecosystems, and promote savannah and meadow formation, which also sequesters carbon.
If you can find a more efficient, less expensive way to physically sequester carbon from the atmosphere than letting forests grow, I’m sure there’s a lot of awards you could win
Places where trees don’t grow are probably not the best places for carbon sequestration if you can’t sequester carbon there cheaper or easier than sequestering carbon in trees elsewhere
You could cause a massive death event in the West/developed nations plus China and India which would slow things a lot though I’d argue killing billions isn’t the ideal solution.
The point of my comment is that if trees wouldn’t exist, they would seem like some futuristic sci-fi solution too good to be true. Just because something is shiny new tech, it isn’t automatically better. Sure, just planting trees won’t save us if we release all the carbon that is already captured in the form of fossil fuels, but how about we stop releasing all the carbon that is already captured in the form of fossil fuels?
I’ve heard there’s a practical green solution to carbon capture. The units are practically maintenance free and power themselves with solar energy. This allows to deploy them on many small patches of land. The captured carbon is stored in solid organic compounds that may be used as building materials. It may sound to sci-fi to be true, but it’s actually just trees.
Babe wake up, new copypasta just dropped !
Agree, carbon capture process is quite efficient now. I’m working on (pretty big) company doing Carbon Capture and Sequestration. The idea is to use empty oil&gaz reservoir to inject back carbon where it comes from. So there are several advantage:
That seems like a disaster waiting to (re) happen, what’s your thoughts on that?
What do you mean ?
Carbonating a void underground seems like a bad plan. God help us if Mentos get down there.
And OP was talking about trees.
I think as long as they throw a 10 lb bag of sugar down the hole before they start pumping then you don’t have to worry about it accidentally becoming a diet Coke.
Geological reservoirs are thousands metter depth and several dozen of km wide. Pressure is a few MPa, and temperature hundreds of °C. Condition are so extrem that filling them with gaz barely change anything. Especially if they were already filled with gaz dozen years ago. Furthemore, they are not big vacum like most people imagine. It’s more like giant spongy rock, like sand. It’s not a baloon you inflate or deflate.
CCS facilities are not in competition with forest. It’s a complementatry solution. If you manage to capture carbon next to poluting factories, you don’t spread Co2 on the atmosphere, waiting it to be captured by a forest the other side of the globe. And they can be powered by solar panels.
Why?
Keyboard wear levelinq
How much carbon gets released building this technomarvel?
How long before it hits carbon neutral, if even carbon negative?
Now imagine if instead of playing technowizard… your company spent that money on planting trees?
Global Co2 production of human activities is about 35Gt per year (https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions). Forests absorb around 7.5Gt per year (https://www.wri.org/insights/forests-absorb-twice-much-carbon-they-emit-each-year). Let say we double the total amount of forest in the whole planet, and we cut Co2 production by half. We are very roughly 15Gt produce VS 15Gt absorb. Is the problem solved ? Nope.
First, because these forests has to stay in place, or used as building material but cannot be burn to for heating. So we still have to plant extra forest for heating. Second, we still have all the Co2 we have put in atmosphere since a century. So the goal is not to be equilibrium, but to be net negative.
Worldwide CCS capacity has been estimated between 8,000 and 55,000 gigatonnes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage). And, yes, it is already carbon negative, and already in production in several countries with currently a net result of ~50Mt Co2 per year (https://www.statista.com/statistics/726634/large-scale-carbon-capture-and-storage-projects-worldwide-capacity/)
There is not a unique solution “Plant Trees and go electric” to global warming. There are lots of solutions, with pros and cons. CCS is just a small part of the equation. Use renewable energy, use storage (litthium batteries, Hydrogen, …), Nuclear, change habit to consume less, plant trees and develop carbon capture solution.
The problem won’t be solved with a unique solution, but by finding the good balance between all the possibilities. And those who know it won’t work are please to let those who doesn’t know try.
How are CCS carbon positive, when it requires more electricity to sequester, than it would to just not produce the carbon output, to begin with?
You doesn’t seems to be the kind of person with whom can have constructive argument. I gave you facts and number. Sorry I cannot take my time machine and go back 200 years back telling Great Britain to stop burning coal.
Also, my company has as objective to becomes neutral by 2030 and 20% carbon negative by 2050. Locally, we have decreased our electricity consumption by 20% since 2022 and put in place mobility actions to push people taking bike or bus. Nearly half of employees use soft transport (public, bikes, onewheel, etc…)
We cannot rewrite the past or snap finger to change habits of 8billions peoples.
We will be juge on our current actions and futur results. As of today, we are trying something which we hope is going to the right direction. But its always easier to criticize and not doing anything.
The facts are it takes 1.5x powerplants to scrub the carbon from 1x powerplants, using CCS.
So, it’s just better to NOT use dirty electricity, and convert it to a renewable, like solar, wind, or hydro.
So, your company will be paying the full cost of the carbon produced by your company? Doubtful. Nobody pays full environment price at the pumps. Or, their electric bills. Or their nat gas bill.
Fossil fuels are subsidized.
Density of CO2 produced vs what trees capture is massively unequal. Yes trees can, but not on any tangible scale that would ever keep up with what we are doing to the planet.
Yeah, agreed. Carbon capture won’t save us, not trees nor otherwise. We have to slow down what we are doing to the planet.
Yes, the most that carbon capture can do is temporarily slow down climate change. It turns out the only way you can stop getting carbon from outside the carbon cycle into the carbon cycle is to stop taking carbon from outside the carbon cycle and putting it into the carbon cycle.
But the problem with oil is that it’s really good, and it does a lot of stuff really well
Oil is good because it’s cheap and it’s only cheap because we don’t pay the full bill. If we’d bill polluters for the full cost it would take to offset the emissions, it would quickly stop being economically viable to use oil in many sectors.
Not to mention the area needed, for the amount of trees needed. Trees also decompose, so the storage function is different, but people are quick to assume.
Decomp still sequesters most of the carbon into the soil, which next gen plants uptake some.
Not to mention, a single sq km of algae sequesters tons annually.
And not even mentioning the add on sequesters: New trees bring whole ecosystems, and promote savannah and meadow formation, which also sequesters carbon.
And don’t forget the biodiversity. Ecosystems and fauna depend on each other.
Ok, but how about we do more than trees? Why are you on the internet when pre-linguistic grunting works just fine?
If you can find a more efficient, less expensive way to physically sequester carbon from the atmosphere than letting forests grow, I’m sure there’s a lot of awards you could win
Why does it have to be cheaper? Why not both?
Because if it isn’t cheaper than simply growing trees, the money would be better spent simply growing trees
And places trees don’t grow?
Try thinking for a second.
Places where trees don’t grow are probably not the best places for carbon sequestration if you can’t sequester carbon there cheaper or easier than sequestering carbon in trees elsewhere
You could cause a massive death event in the West/developed nations plus China and India which would slow things a lot though I’d argue killing billions isn’t the ideal solution.
The point of my comment is that if trees wouldn’t exist, they would seem like some futuristic sci-fi solution too good to be true. Just because something is shiny new tech, it isn’t automatically better. Sure, just planting trees won’t save us if we release all the carbon that is already captured in the form of fossil fuels, but how about we stop releasing all the carbon that is already captured in the form of fossil fuels?
Water is the biggest limiting factor, trees need more water.