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World's First 'Negative Emissions' Plant Has Begun Operation (qz.com)
In an effort to reduce the 40 trillion kg of carbon dioxide humans produce each year, three companies have been working to build machines that can capture the gas directly from the air. One such machine in Iceland has begun operation. Quartz reports: Climeworks just proved the cynics wrong. On Oct. 11, at a geothermal power plant in Iceland, the startup inaugurated the first system that does direct air capture and verifiably achieves negative carbon emissions. Although it's still at pilot scale -- capturing only 50 metric tons CO2 from the air each year, about the same emitted by a single U.S. household -- it's the first system to take CO2 in the air and convert the emissions into stone, thus ensuring they don't escape back into the atmosphere for the next millions of years. Climeworks and Global Thermostat have piloted systems in which they coat plastics and ceramics, respectively, with an amine, a type of chemical that can absorb CO2. Carbon Engineering uses a liquid system, with calcium oxide and water. The companies say it's too early in the development of these technologies to predict what costs will be at scale.
So it "eliminates" 50m CO2. How much geothermal energy does it use for this, and how much CO2 could be saved by not running this plant and instead using the power to power whatever is now being powered by a power plant burning coal, oil or gas?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In the past the earth had much higher CO2 values, and more plant life.
But no humans.
Nature can handle CO2 just fine, it is just that we want to keep our coastal cities above water and our current crops productive. Maybe, in a few thousand years, new plant life will thrive from the increased CO2 levels but we still need to eat during the transition.
You are right. A few millennia ago, Earth had way higher CO2 levels and it did support life. Actually, a lot of life was way better off at higher CO2 levels. It didn't support human life, and it probably cannot with higher CO2 levels, but if that's no requirement, you're right.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The biggest problem is that CO2 doesn't seem to be the big problem. In the past the earth had much higher CO2 values, and more plant life.
Yes, and no. In the past, the Earth had much higher CO2 levels, and also much higher average temperatures and no ice caps. So, if you don't mind losing the parts of the current land area that are near the ocean, yes, we could have higher CO2 and higher temperatures.
The "more plant life" you mention is speculative. Paleobotany doesn't give us a good measure of total plant biomass.
Because of the low levels of CO2 today, we have and increasingly large areas on earth, were nothing grows anymore...
No. Places where nothing grows are due to lack of water, not lack of CO2. Plants do need CO2, of course, but in very few places is it the main limitation to growth.
They should invest more time in solving things like those plastic soup problems in the oceans, instead of wasting their time on the agenda of a group of corrupt global warming advocates...
Ah, whataboutism! When one problem is brought up, say "what about XX?" to change the subject!
No reason we can't address more than one different problem.
It's not the absolute level of CO2, it's the rate of change that will lead to mass extinctions. If you said we were headed for 1000 ppm in a million years, I'd say "big deal". If you said we were headed for 100 ppm in eighty years, I'd say, that's very big deal.
If analogies are your thing, it's like the difference diving into the pool and hitting the water at 10 mph vs. hitting the water 12,500 mph. One is a fun experience, and the best thing you could say about the other is that it's not an experience at all.
I have a question for people who spread memes like the above: do you ever actually think for yourself, or do you just repeat what you're told?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Smart doesn't come into it. You don't have to be a genius to think critically; it's more a habit than a talent.
Nobody who spent twenty minutes thinking about the "CO2 was much higher in the past" would realize that this is an idiotic argument; sure they were higher in the Eocene 50 million years ago, but the Eocene warming event was accompanied by global mass extinctions -- as was the subsequent cooling. But both the "rapid" warming and cooling happened much more slowly, slowly enough for new species to emerge as for old ones to disappear. "Rapid" in terms of the Eocene Optimum event was 0.3 C/1000 years. The current rate of warming is sixty times faster.
You don't have to be a genius to figure this out. You just have to be curious enough to look into it. So I have to ask again, do you actually think about this crap before you choose to believe it, or do you just go by how it makes you feel? Clearly, based on your strawman argument, you think how you feel about the messenger makes some difference.
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