Sucking CO2 From Air Is Cheaper Than Scientists Thought (technologyreview.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: While avoiding the worst dangers of climate change will likely require sucking carbon dioxide out of the sky, prominent scientists have long dismissed such technologies as far too expensive. But a detailed new analysis published today in the journal Joule finds that direct air capture may be practical after all. The study concludes it would cost between $94 and $232 per ton of captured carbon dioxide, if existing technologies were implemented on a commercial scale. One earlier estimate, published in Proceedings of the National Academies, put that figure at more than $1,000 (though the calculations were made on what's known as an avoided-cost basis, which would add about 10 percent to the new study's figures). Crucially, the lowest-cost design, optimized to produce and sell alternative fuels made from the captured carbon dioxide, could already be profitable with existing public policies in certain markets. The higher cost estimates are for plants that would deliver compressed carbon dioxide for permanent underground storage. David Keith, a Harvard physics professor and lead author of the paper, is also the founder of Carbon Engineering, "a Calgary-based startup that has spent the last nine years designing, refining, and testing a direct air capture pilot plant in Squamish, B.C.," reports MIT. "Carbon Engineering plans to combine the carbon captured at its plants with hydrogen to produce carbon-neutral synthetic fuels, a process the pilot facility has already been performing." The company has secured $30 million, but is seeking additional funds to build a larger facility that will begin selling fuels. CNBC notes that Carbon Engineering is owned by several private investors, including Bill Gates.

Comments

More eco-fascist climate change spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember when Slashdot was about tech and not propaganda?

Re:More eco-fascist climate change spam

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember times when I could ask ANSI C related question at dating chat and I could get instantly at least 5 correct answers ... :-)
Contemporary internet is just ugly reflection of our world :-)

Re:More eco-fascist climate change spam

[phantomfive]

Now you're lucky if you get that on a programming site.........

Re:More eco-fascist climate change spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, remember!
Eternal September,
AOL newbies and bots;
I know of no reason
Why the noob flaming season
Should ever be forgot!

Re:More eco-fascist climate change spam

[Anonymous Coward]

I blame Javascript

Re:More eco-fascist climate change spam

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, no. Slashdot was always about Goat C!

Re:More eco-fascist climate change spam

[js290]

I'm not convinced climate alarmists care that much about ecology. "Ecology... Nature is only model we have that has survived climate change with STUN..." @RestorationAgD http://bit.ly/1ohVqpE

Re:More eco-fascist climate change spam

[crypticedge]

Climate change is solid science, and the way to stop it in this case is tech.

Climate change denialism is a rejection of science, in favor of greed.

Determining a way for humans to survive it's own self created disasters is not "eco-fascist" nor propaganda.

Re: More eco-fascist climate change spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in my day, we paid per hour to use the Internet and thatâ(TM)s the way we liked it!

Re:More eco-fascist climate change spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Climate change is solid science, and the way to stop it in this case is tech.

Who are you to decide for me that it should be stopped? Perhaps I want warmer weather. Perhaps I want more foliage and larger crop yields due to increased CO2. Perhaps I want northern Canada, Siberia, Greenland and Antarctica to open up and be usable for agriculture and human habitation. Perhaps I want my property that is 5 miles from the coast to become coastal property.

All we ever hear is "climate change bad, must stop, ugh" but why? Ignore the crazies who claim that a few degrees change in the temperature is going to mean the death of the planet, we've been a whole lot hotter with a whole lot more CO2 in the past and the world was teaming with life so that is hyperbolic bullcrap.

So why shouldn't we want a warmer climate, why shouldn't we want northern areas to become more moderate, more land to open up, more plant life? Let's get real here folks, it amazes me how the supposed environmental climate change zealots don't realize this is all a scam about money and redistribution of wealth.

How much does it cost to buy beach front property in the US today? I imagine the rich folks in West Palm Beach are opposed to rising oceans because it means they lose property. Or what would it mean if the US was suddenly no longer the bread basket of the world because the plains got drier but the Canadian tundra became warm enough for large scale agriculture?

And what happens to so called carbon credits? The airlines are paying a tax now due to the Paris Accord but where does that money go? Supposedly it is to help developing nations switch from fossil fuels. Who is managing that activity, managing that money? Follow the dollars and I bet you'll find plenty of pockets being lined before it gets to these developing nations.

Just search for the carbon credits scam Al Gore tried to get adopted. Companies could pay to offset their carbon footprint in a cap and trade model and that would go to an exchange he was a founder of. Exactly how does that reduce CO2?

Rising temperatures and rising CO2 are not a threat to human existence, we've existed during ice ages and we've existed during hotter periods. We'll be fine. So the only reason for all this b***s*** is money and all of you climate zealots, many of who I bet were also supporters of Occupy Wall Street, are the exact definition of useful idiots that certain politicians and oligarchs are thrilled to lead around by the nose.

The climate changes, always has, always will. It might have been influenced by dinosaur farts in prehistoric times, humans might be having an impact on it today, don't know, don't care. The world changes, we adapt, always has, always will.

How about you tell me why you think the climate needs to stay exactly one state and one state only, how is that beneficial to the Earth, the animals, the plants or us?

Re: More eco-fascist climate change spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Warmer climate means crazier weather including more intensive hurricanes and tornadoes. Just because you are an as well doesn't care about other people, doesn't mean other people don't. You also can't easily relocate entire state like Florida especially for the less well off. And while some places may become more habital, many more places will be destroyed. Plant and animal life is hard to adjust to such quick changes.

Re:More eco-fascist climate change spam

[shaitand]

Climate change denialism may be a rejection of science but that hardly makes ANYTHING under the environment and climate science umbrella "solid" science. Solid science gives accurate answers to 9 decimal places each and every time. Climate science models don't even give consistent accurate results or even agree on outcomes. Just because this science is our best guess doesn't mean our confidence level in it should be high. And really, I know the issue has gotten overly politicized so views are extreme but this particular wing of science and those who support it have been preaching various flavors of doom and gloom for decades to get funding and while the environmental movement is going strong the doom and gloom scenarios thus far have never come to pass.

Re:More eco-fascist climate change spam

[shaitand]

"many of who I bet were also supporters of Occupy Wall Street"

Okay, you had to me here. This, the complaint about wealth redistribution... the only reason to be opposed to these things if you are in the tiny fraction hoarding wealth at the expense of everyone else. I'd be all for it as well if I were one of the top .001%, by all means, keep paying me interest, having to borrow it back, and paying interest to me on that interest in a massive debt cycle while being too dumb to realize you outnumber me a 1000-to-1 and could erase that debt without impacting any significant number of people negatively. If you aren't in the 0.001% you must have somehow been duped into looking out for someone elses self interest. Here is a hint, if you and a thousand of your friends find yourselfs picking cotton, kill the guy with the whip, don't give two shits about his investment and plight, trust me it is the right plan.

Re:More eco-fascist climate change spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Climate change is not science. They rely on computer models to predict the future effects of added CO2. There have been no experiments performed that prove the accuracy of their models. Additionally, the official annual global temperatures are not scientific. They announce the temperature to within a tenth of a degree, completely ignoring the fact that they have thermometers recording the temperature in less than 1 tenth of 1% of the entire surface of the planet. That's not solid science.

Re: More eco-fascist climate change spam

[Anonymous Coward]

including more intensive hurricanes and tornadoes

Funny that isn't the conclusion from NOAA.

In summary, neither our model projections for the 21st century nor our analyses of trends in Atlantic hurricane and tropical storm counts over the past 120+ yr support the notion that greenhouse gas-induced warming leads to large increases in either tropical storm or overall hurricane numbers in the Atlantic. While one of our modeling studies projects a large (~100%) increase in Atlantic category 4-5 hurricanes over the 21st century, we estimate that such an increase would not be detectable until the latter half of the century, and we still have only low confidence that such an increase will occur in the Atlantic basin, based on an updated survey of subsequent modeling studies by our and other groups.

Therefore, we conclude that despite statistical correlations between SST and Atlantic hurricane activity in recent decades, it is premature to conclude that human activity–and particularly greenhouse warming–has already caused a detectable change in Atlantic hurricane activity. (“Detectable” here means the change is large enough to be distinguishable from the variability due to natural causes.) However, human activity may have already caused some some changes that are not yet detectable due to the small magnitude of the changes or observation limitations, or are not yet confidently modeled (e.g., aerosol effects on regional climate).

But hey, what does NOAA know about climate science.

Re:More eco-fascist climate change spam

[Anonymous Coward]

"Solid science gives accurate answers to 9 decimal places each and every time."

Ummm....

Re: More eco-fascist climate change spam

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you give the same credence to this as you do to the rest of NOAA's findings about climate change.

Re: More eco-fascist climate change spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Please share them. I don't have any issue with real science coming up with real findings and I don't have any issue with those findings showing a potential increase in temperature or CO2 levels because I don't believe the climate is meant to be stagnant and I don't believe the changes will destroy the planet. So I'm always happy to read real science on the matter.

Re: More eco-fascist climate change spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, most people side with rich people because they believe maybe one day they will win the lottery and be rich too.

Re:More eco-fascist climate change spam

[ebvwfbw]

Climate change is solid science, and the way to stop it in this case is tech.

Climate change denialism is a rejection of science, in favor of greed.

Determining a way for humans to survive it's own self created disasters is not "eco-fascist" nor propaganda.

If it's solid science, why do they keep calling it a consensus? They can't prove CO2 has anything to do with warming and you know it, or should. I can show by showing you the historical records that CO2 follows warming, doesn't cause it. That's because of increased biological activity. This isn't hard.

Greed is charging for "carbon credits" and walking away with the money, which is exactly what they're doing. It's a scam.

Re:More eco-fascist climate change spam

[schweini]

|But, the way science works is that whatever the best theory we have at the moment has to be our working hypothesis.
Sure, climate science by the very nature of what is being studied is overly complex and chaotic, and will probably never approach 'real' physics levels of certainty.
But if the best theory we have at this time says we are fucked, then we should dedicate a lot of brainpower and resources to slightly unfuck ourselves.
Sure! Also give some resources to people investigating if we really are as fucked as the prevailing theories predict, just in case.
But unless someone comes up with better, more consistent models of climate fuckery, we should believe the 'mainstream' science, and take it as truth.

Re:More eco-fascist climate change spam

[Anonymous Coward]

" Solid science gives accurate answers to 9 decimal places each and every time. "

Clearly you do not know what science is. Nothing real world gives "correct" answers to 9 places every single time. Accounting may count some cash the same every time but that isn't science. About the closest you can get to such repeatable results in science is when measuring simple physical properties. Properties like the spectral response of co2 in a gas mixture. You know...the basis of climate change science.

When operating out to 9 figures it is common to use statistical methods to derive a value.

Re: More eco-fascist climate change spam

[drinkypoo]

Not really, most people side with rich people because they believe maybe one day they will win the lottery and be rich too.

People have also been sold a line of bullshit about how hard work is rewarded. If that were true, Africa would be full of female billionaires. The single strongest correlation with financial success is the economic status of your parents. As it turns out, opportunity is the single most important factor, far beyond how much work you're willing or able to do. But as long as people believe that it's their fault if they're not wildly successful, they'll support the system that's taking advantage of them.

Re: More eco-fascist climate change spam

[quicks0rt]

Sigh... Another case of linking citation with cherry picking your own. Here's the complete NOAA summary. Note that, yes, they do not indeed yet observe detectable changes in ATLANTIC while seeing an emerging trend in PACIFIC. But nowhere in this article refute the link between global warming and tropical cyclones globally.

"Sea level rise–which very likely has a substantial human contribution to the global mean observed rise according to IPCC AR5–should be causing higher storm surge levels for tropical cyclones that do occur, all else assumed equal.

Tropical cyclone rainfall rates will likely increase in the future due to anthropogenic warming and accompanying increase in atmospheric moisture content. Models project an increase on the order of 10-15% for rainfall rates averaged within about 100 km of the storm for a 2 degree Celsius global warming scenario.
Tropical cyclone intensities globally will likely increase on average (by 1 to 10% according to model projections for a 2 degree Celsius global warming). This change would imply an even larger percentage increase in the destructive potential per storm, assuming no reduction in storm size.

There are better than even odds that anthropogenic warming over the next century will lead to an increase in the occurrence of very intense tropical cyclones globally–an increase that would be substantially larger in percentage terms than the 1-10% increase in the average storm intensity. This increase in intense storm occurrence is projected despite a likely decrease (or little change) in the global numbers of all tropical cyclones. However, there is at present only low confidence that such an increase in very intense storms will occur in the Atlantic basin.

In terms of detection and attribution, much less is known about hurricane/tropical cyclone activity changes, compared to global temperature. In the northwest Pacific basin, there is emerging evidence for a detectable poleward shift in the latitude of maximum intensity of tropical cyclones, with a tentative link to anthropogenic warming. In the Atlantic, it is premature to conclude that human activities–and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming–have already had a detectable impact on hurricane activity. Reduced aerosol forcing since the 1970s probably contributed to the increased Atlantic hurricane activity since then, but the amount of contribution, relative to natural variability, remains uncertain. Human activities may have already caused other changes in tropical cyclone activity that are not yet detectable due to the small magnitude of these changes compared to estimated natural variability, or due to observational limitations."

Awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

I love reading stories like this. They best way to protect the environment is to make it profitable to do so. This is absolutely how we win.

Re:Awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

I love BEING CLUTCH NIXON.

On a two-wheel flyer, risking everything
V-twin take him higher
And the danger it will bring
Tempting fate, time and time again
Bones break and crumble
Grim Reaper in the wind
Grim Reaper

One man of his word
Not afraid to lose it all
A single shot of whiskey – ready to take a fall
One American, with honor with pride
And a burning desire to fly fuckin’ high

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

The greatest man to ever set foot on two wheels
Possibly, the greatest man to ever live
A man that brought the world together
Not through song or dance
Not with the act of love
Not through violence or tyranny - No!
Just one man, two wheels
Two wheels strapped to a Harley v-twin

Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!

Re:Awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

But I was reliably informed by CNN and a virtual army of tumblr blue-hairs (and twitter blue-checks) that capitalism will destroy the entire universe a hundred times over by this time next week.

Re:Awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything can be overdone. Forcing people to make self-sacrifice for the greater good is one thing that can be overdone, as can taking a strict zero-regulation policy for businesses.

It's easy to gravitate to extremes, because you can always point to the other extreme and the ruination it will cause. It takes real wisdom and maturity to find a workable middle ground (and NOT something where you give barely an inch from your extreme position and call that the middle ground).

The world is complicated.

Re: Awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

Climate change policies are ultimately globalist wealth redistribution policies. And with the kooky Paris accords, climate change policies have now been directly fused with a half dozen unrelated social justice issues to create a Frankenstein's monster of social Marxist policy hell.

This new information that CO2 can now be feasibly and economically extracted from the atmosphere is ironically the ultimate "inconvenient truth" for warmists and SJW's alike.

Re:Awesome!

[jenningsthecat]

I love reading stories like this. They best way to protect the environment is to make it profitable to do so. This is absolutely how we win.

I fully agree. I would add that the fuels created by this new process would be even more profitable in comparison with fossil fuels, if said fuels were realistically priced to reflect their true cost. Governments should be taxing oil to a degree that fully funds remediation for spills and the environmental damage they cause, the health impacts of fracking on local water supplies, AGW, depletion of non-renewable resources, deferred costs passed on to future generations, etc. Pricing fuels according to their true cost, (as opposed to the current voodoo economics calculations currently in use), would make even very expensive carbon-neutral options cheap by comparison.

CLUTCH NIXON USAFLOODING SLASHDEAD

[Anonymous Coward]

On a two-wheel flyer, risking everything
V-twin take him higher
And the danger it will bring
Tempting fate, time and time again
Bones break and crumble
Grim Reaper in the wind
Grim Reaper

One man of his word
Not afraid to lose it all
A single shot of whiskey – ready to take a fall
One American, with honor with pride
And a burning desire to fly fuckin’ high

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

The greatest man to ever set foot on two wheels
Possibly, the greatest man to ever live
A man that brought the world together
Not through song or dance
Not with the act of love
Not through violence or tyranny - No!
Just one man, two wheels
Two wheels strapped to a Harley v-twin

Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!

Suck my fat wang, BeauHD!

Re:CLUTCH NIXON USAFLOODING SLASHDEAD

[ArylAkamov]

CLUTCH NIXON YEAHHHHHHH

Re:CLUTCH NIXON USAFLOODING SLASHDEAD

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet, a LINK!

On a two-wheel flyer, risking everything
V-twin take him higher
And the danger it will bring
Tempting fate, time and time again
Bones break and crumble
Grim Reaper in the wind
Grim Reaper

One man of his word
Not afraid to lose it all
A single shot of whiskey – ready to take a fall
One American, with honor with pride
And a burning desire to fly fuckin’ high

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

The greatest man to ever set foot on two wheels
Possibly, the greatest man to ever live
A man that brought the world together
Not through song or dance
Not with the act of love
Not through violence or tyranny - No!
Just one man, two wheels
Two wheels strapped to a Harley v-twin

Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!

SUCK MY BALLS, BizX ARABS!

Re:CLUTCH NIXON USAFLOODING SLASHDEAD

[Clutch Nixon]

On a two-wheel flyer, risking everything
V-twin take him higher
And the danger it will bring
Tempting fate, time and time again
Bones break and crumble
Grim Reaper in the wind
Grim Reaper

One man of his word
Not afraid to lose it all
A single shot of whiskey – ready to take a fall
One American, with honor with pride
And a burning desire to fly fuckin’ high

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

The greatest man to ever set foot on two wheels
Possibly, the greatest man to ever live
A man that brought the world together
Not through song or dance
Not with the act of love
Not through violence or tyranny - No!
Just one man, two wheels
Two wheels strapped to a Harley v-twin

Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!

Re:CLUTCH NIXON USAFLOODING SLASHDEAD

[Clutch Nixon (1)]

I admire you taking the cue, but the tune goes more like this...

On a two-wheel flyer, risking everything
V-twin take him higher
And the danger it will bring
Tempting fate, time and time again
Bones break and crumble
Grim Reaper in the wind
Grim Reaper

One man of his word
Not afraid to lose it all
A single shot of whiskey – ready to take a fall
One American, with honor with pride
And a burning desire to fly fuckin’ high

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

The greatest man to ever set foot on two wheels
Possibly, the greatest man to ever live
A man that brought the world together
Not through song or dance
Not with the act of love
Not through violence or tyranny - No!
Just one man, two wheels
Two wheels strapped to a Harley v-twin

Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!

Re:CLUTCH NIXON USAFLOODING SLASHDEAD

[Anonymous Coward]

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!

Interesting that you use the word "psycho" . . .

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Re:CLUTCH NIXON USAFLOODING SLASHDEAD

[Clutch Nixon 0]

Shut up, BeauHD. Now back to OUR normally scheduled program.

On a two-wheel flyer, risking everything
V-twin take him higher
And the danger it will bring
Tempting fate, time and time again
Bones break and crumble
Grim Reaper in the wind
Grim Reaper

One man of his word
Not afraid to lose it all
A single shot of whiskey – ready to take a fall
One American, with honor with pride
And a burning desire to fly fuckin’ high

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

The greatest man to ever set foot on two wheels
Possibly, the greatest man to ever live
A man that brought the world together
Not through song or dance
Not with the act of love
Not through violence or tyranny - No!
Just one man, two wheels
Two wheels strapped to a Harley v-twin

Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!

Re:CLUTCH NIXON USAFLOODING SLASHDEAD

[Barsteward]

This applies to you "In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people of low ability have illusory superiority and mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is."

No surprise here . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just a continuation of a trend of "solutions" to "climate change," (nee Global Warming) being things that suck.

Plan 1: End industrial civilization
Plan 2: Stop using planes, ships, cars
Plan 3: Third world peoples should no longer cook their food since they use fire which creates smoke
Plan 4: Replace desktop computers and server racks with wind powered abacuses

Re:No surprise here . . .

[phantomfive]

Plan 4: Replace desktop computers and server racks with wind powered abacuses

I've done that.

Re:No surprise here . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

All those ideas were the equivalent of "there's too much litter on the sidewalks, we need to ban production of any product that generates trash", while this is more like "there's too much litter, how about maybe someone go clean up all the litter?"

Re:No surprise here . . .

[Clutch Nixon (1)]

On a two-wheel flyer, risking everything
V-twin take him higher
And the danger it will bring
Tempting fate, time and time again
Bones break and crumble
Grim Reaper in the wind
Grim Reaper

One man of his word
Not afraid to lose it all
A single shot of whiskey – ready to take a fall
One American, with honor with pride
And a burning desire to fly fuckin’ high

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

The greatest man to ever set foot on two wheels
Possibly, the greatest man to ever live
A man that brought the world together
Not through song or dance
Not with the act of love
Not through violence or tyranny - No!
Just one man, two wheels
Two wheels strapped to a Harley v-twin

Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!

Re: No surprise here . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

The slashdot servers run on a beowulf cluster of wind powered abacuses. You insensitive clod.

Re:No surprise here . . .

[ivano]

The scientists are saying "stop throwing your trash on the streets". But everyone else only thinks the alternatives are the only ones you've proposed.

Re:No surprise here . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution is "stop producing greenhouse gasses, especially CO2", which doesn't require doing any of the "plans" you listed.

Re:No surprise here . . .

[MachineShedFred]

Didn't even read the headline then?

This is a company that thinks they can remove carbon at an industrial scale and turn it into fuel, making planes, ships, cars far more sustainable.

Can you just replace your desktop computer with a wind powered abacus and never post again please?

Re:No surprise here . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Plan 4: Replace desktop computers and server racks with wind powered abacuses

I've tried that, but when I try to overclock it by turning up the wind, the wind pushes all the beads to one side of the abacus.

$92-$234 too cheap...

[harvey the nerd]

I'm still waiting for our too-cheap-to-meter nuclear power....

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[blindseer]

It won't happen unless we start building nuclear power at any price.

I hear this all the time, "We can't use nuclear power, it's too expensive." What of solar power? What do people have to say about that? "We have to subsidize solar power so we can develop the technology and make it cheaper than coal." Okay then, why not subsidize nuclear power so we can develop the technology until it is cheaper than coal?

We dumped a lot of money into solar power and it still costs two or three time that of natural gas. We put next to nothing into nuclear power and it's about 1-1/2 times natural gas. Just think if we did some research on nuclear power and took bringing down the cost seriously. If we put the price reduction curve of solar energy from the research we had in the last 40 years and put that on what nuclear energy cost then we would in fact have nuclear power too cheap to meter by now.

Here's the thing on nuclear power, it's already cheaper than coal. That might have a lot to do with the taxes and regulation on coal in the past decade or so but if being cheaper than coal is the benchmark then we've reached it already. Solar power is not yet cheaper than coal and it is not likely to get there in the next decade. I'm fine with subsidies on solar power so long as nuclear power gets something too. Nuclear power isn't even asking for subsidies anymore, they are merely asking permission to build.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I hear this all the time, "We can't use nuclear power, it's too expensive." What of solar power? What do people have to say about that? "We have to subsidize solar power so we can develop the technology and make it cheaper than coal." Okay then, why not subsidize nuclear power so we can develop the technology until it is cheaper than coal?

Did you miss the part where nuclear reached 100 GW of installed capacity in 1970s and where solar reached the same in the 2010s? Nuclear had a forty year headstart - and forty more years of subsidies of course. "Why not subsidize nuclear power so we can develop the technology until it is cheaper than coal?" Well, what the hell were they doing those forty years? Apparently they should have already reached that point by now. Oh, but they didn't. Are you going to give them forty more years?

Nuclear power isn't even asking for subsidies anymore, they are merely asking permission to build.

Heh. "Hinkley Point subsidy bill quadruples as power price forecasts fall". Yeah, not really asking for subsidies at all...

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[Anonymous Coward]

do a bit of research, your numbers our outdated.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[AmiMoJo]

I hear this all the time, "We can't use nuclear power, it's too expensive." What of solar power? What do people have to say about that? "We have to subsidize solar power so we can develop the technology and make it cheaper than coal." Okay then, why not subsidize nuclear power so we can develop the technology until it is cheaper than coal?

The total cost per megawatt of nuclear is about double solar/offshore wind + battery storage.

That's the real cost. Subsidies are only used to make them commercially viable alternatives to coal.

What you are proposing is guaranteed high subsidies for many decades, and a bunch of unknown costs because we are sure to find new safety issues and haven't figured out what to do with the waste yet. Alternatively, we have some temporary subsidies on a clean form of energy that will become the cheapest form of generation ever (cheaper than subsidised coal) within a few decades at most.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[Whibla]

Did you miss the part where nuclear reached 100 GW of installed capacity in 1970s and where solar reached the same in the 2010s? Nuclear had a forty year headstart - and forty more years of subsidies of course. "Why not subsidize nuclear power so we can develop the technology until it is cheaper than coal?" Well, what the hell were they doing those forty years? Apparently they should have already reached that point by now. Oh, but they didn't. Are you going to give them forty more years?

Different strokes for different folks...

There is no one size fits all solution to power generation. If you live in a large country, preferably one with reliably clear skies, maybe grid scale solar farms or solar thermal power generation are a good fit. For small countries, especially those with widespread and frequent cloud cover, solar is not an ideal investment. I'm not sure where you're getting the figures you quote from but in the UK nuclear currently generates as much as (if not more than) solar & wind, both on and offshore, combined. It's gas that's currently the poster child for cheap power - but I'll leave further comment on this for further down. Globally, nuclear power currently generates roughly three times as much power as wind and solar combined, with coal still topping the charts (~20 times) closely followed by gas (~18 times).

I also think you're being more than a little unfair in your characterisation of research into nuclear power, and subsidies for it. Mainly what the industry has been doing for the past 40 years is running and maintaining the plants already in existence, managing and dealing with the waste products of fission, and fighting a losing battle with public perception over the hazards of nuclear power. There has been very little (towards virtually no) research done on new reactor designs. We spend orders of magnitude more on nuclear weapons research than we do on nuclear power research. GP is correct in this. If we had actually been doing research building new plants wouldn't be the clusterfuck it's turning out to be.

Nuclear power isn't even asking for subsidies anymore, they are merely asking permission to build.

Heh. "Hinkley Point subsidy bill quadruples as power price forecasts fall". Yeah, not really asking for subsidies at all...

You are right, technically this is a subsidy, in the form of a guaranteed pricing contract.

However, the headline is misleading. The reason for this apparent increase is based on predictions of gas prices well into the future - but this affects the predicted subsidies for power generation from all other sources too. From that very article: Estimated total subsidy for Hinkley Point (over the lifetime of the guaranteed pricing contract, not the lifetime of the plant) ~£29.7 billion; Estimated subsidies for wind, solar and biomass (over their generation lifetime) ~£30.6 billion.

Now, it would be disingenuous of me not to point out that I'm comparing subsidies for a single nuclear plant with subsidies for an entire class of generation source, but it's important to note that these subsidies on renewables are another factor in the predicted cost of future power, and are thus directly responsible, albeit partially, for driving up the 'subsidy share' of the cost of Hinkley Point.

As a final point, I am always a little skeptical, as should you be, of pricing forecasts made several decades into the future. I'm old enough to remember the boom years of North Sea gas. Those, like the gas, are gone - but at the time there was not even a suggestion that such was even conceivable. As a result the UK now imports a vast amount of its gas, mostly from Russia. Domestic fracking is an environmental and, hence, political hot potato, and it is unlikely that it will ever provide significant amounts of our gas. Ru

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[religionofpeas]

Maybe nuclear could be made cheaper by offering the construction/maintenance jobs to the lowest bidder ?

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[thegarbz]

That's the real cost.

Depends how you define real cost. If you define it as money spent on engineering construction and materials, then there's nothing "real" about the cost of nuclear and there hasn't been since the 60s.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[Anonymous Coward]

Building new nuclear plant stopped in the whole occident in the eighties. Nearly 30 years without investment in new technology. Check the list, new plants from 1990 are nearly non-existent. New technologies seems not well subsidized at all...

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[Framboise]

Nuclear power has been heavily subsidized all along, in particular it is the only energy production that is not insured for accidents, so insurance costs are effectively supported by the state, that is the population.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[currently_awake]

Older nuclear plants cost more to run, so they need subsidies. The fuel disposal cost is also high (where they burn 5% of the fuel and dump the rest).

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the real cost.

Depends how you define real cost. If you define it as money spent on engineering construction and materials, then there's nothing "real" about the cost of nuclear and there hasn't been since the 60s.

This was my take on it back in the 70's and 80's. New plant cost was reasonable, so our community started building. NIMBY's (not locals, ironically) sent in armys of lawyers to drive the cost up 10x, then gleefully boast about how expensive it all is, was such a big lie, etc. Guess what? It was "too cheap to meter" before that shit show. Those idiots drove up the cost 10x and it was STILL not significantly more expensive than the alternatives.

The "real" cost of nuclear will always be in my opinion roughly 10% of what the NIMBY assholes try to tell everybody it is. This is not about safety or clean up either, it was almost entirely wasted on lawyers. And the saddest part is that these enviro-tards actually caused an increase in pollution due to the building of more coal and oil plants instead. Show them the radioactivity levels constantly released into the air from burning coal and they just plug their ears and start singing la-la-la-la at the top of their lungs. Fuck 'em all for acting high and mighty while making us all worse off for it.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Did you miss the part where nuclear reached 100 GW of installed capacity in 1970s and where solar reached the same in the 2010s?
Did you miss the bit where installed capacity is not the same as generated power?
Nuclear plants produce at 90% of their rated capacity, 24/7/365. Solar plants produce under 30%. Sometimes a _lot_ under 30%. And they never produce anything at night when we want the lights on.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[drinkypoo]

Nuclear power, so safe no one will insure it. Wait...

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[AmiMoJo]

History suggests that those 1960s era nuclear plants were not so safe... And back then there was no plan for dealing with waste, it was something we (as in people living in 2020) were supposed to have solved with magic new technology.

Perhaps there is a reason why nuclear turned out to be expensive.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[Dragonslicer]

And back then there was no plan for dealing with waste, it was something we (as in people living in 2020) were supposed to have solved with magic new technology.

We do have new technology that can deal with the waste. Politics is the reason we aren't dealing with it, not science.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[AmiMoJo]

By "have" you mean "built some experimental reactors that broke in interesting and expensive ways", which isn't a great pitch to investors.

The bottom line is you have to explain why nuclear is better than renewables and storage, and it just isn't. It would have to be a lot cheaper and you would have to demonstrate a working system to handle the waste and a way for it all to be profitable and explain why all that hassle is preferable to just building wind turbines.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[Dragonslicer]

The main advantage to nuclear power is consistency. Obviously, various forms of energy storage reduce that problem for things like wind and solar. The difference will almost certainly reach a point where it's small enough that it doesn't matter for ordinary household electricity, but it will never be zero. Nuclear reactors will most likely also have the advantage of size and portability in certain situations, but those will be specific niches, like large ships and spacecraft.

Don't get me wrong, I'm completely in favor of using as much solar and wind power as we can. But nuclear reactors can be much better than they were the 1970s. Of course, I still haven't given up on fusion reactors, so what do I know.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[shaitand]

Well I don't know about you but for the past 35 years I've heard almost nothing about nuclear except captain plant massive lakes of glowing yellow ooze and how it is going to kill you. Nuclear has a serious PR problem.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[shaitand]

"lternatively, we have some temporary subsidies on a clean form of energy that will become the cheapest form of generation ever (cheaper than subsidised coal) within a few decades at most."

Oh what is that? It certainly isn't wind or solar at efficiencies they'll see... ever. Also solar is far from clean, just because it doesn't dump CO2 into the air doesn't make the manufacturing and composition of the panels even close to okay.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[thegarbz]

Nuclear power, so safe no one will insure it. Wait...

Safe? Man safety has nothing to do why no one will insure it. Nuclear is the single safest form of power we statistically have. The insurance comes in the form of the same risk that you perceive along with the cost that all those pesky people tend to live and therefor cost money.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[thegarbz]

History suggests that those 1960s era nuclear plants were not so safe...

History suggests every chemical and industrial process was not so safe. The entire process and generation industry made major safety strides without a change in cost, and many of them are far more complicated and far more dangerous than a simple nuclear reactor.

Perhaps there is a reason why nuclear turned out to be expensive.

Yep. Fear leading to government involvement leading to unmanageable bureaucracy made it expensive. Not much has changed in the designs other than that they are now inherently far safer and the residual risk is managed by far better safety systems.

Anecdote: I once held a $100000 piece of paper in my hand. I assume all the value was in the actual paper and the golden toner used to print on it because god knows I ordered the exact same identical model numbers of all components safety system for another project (only more of them) without the piece of paper that said Nuclear 1E and it came in significantly cheaper. I do wonder if maybe it cost a lot of money to print those two letters, or maybe the signature at the bottom was in unicorn blood. Oh yeah and we had to then pay some expensive regulators to come and look at the expensive piece of paper I assume to take a DNA sample of that unicorn blood.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[rogoshen1]

Basically it's a question of storage, if we were able to efficiently store electricity, we could let nuclear/hydro plants run at full output, and store excess -- rather than worry about overloading the grid, and having to adjust output accordingly.

On an aside, Bonneville dam in OR (and Grand Coulee in central WA i'd presume), can produce so much electricity they wind up paying other producers to stop generation in order to prevent overloading the grid.

Also AFAIK: Bonneville could produce even more, but not all of the generators were installed/operational.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[Vihai]

You missed the part where you are comparing nominal power output and ignoring that a nuclear power plant outputs its nominal power for 95% of the time while solar for 5%.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

a nuclear power plant outputs its nominal power for 95% of the time while solar for 5%.

No, they really don't.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Did you miss the bit where installed capacity is not the same as generated power?

Given the 30% annual solar growth, considering the average generation only makes it 45 years of headstart instead of 40. Practically the same thing.

Re:$92-$234 too cheap...

[Doc Right]

The difference is nuclear can actually produce 100 GW of power. Continuously. Solar can't. Not even close.

the wrong approach is always more expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

When you engineer a solution that isn't solving the real problem, you typically have to go back and re-engineer a new solution or accept the results of the less than perfect result.

The real problem is we are removing the life that takes the CO2 out of the air.
All we are looking to do is build a machine that replaces life. It will go wrong.

Re:the wrong approach is always more expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Biomass in the world is increasing, between the extra nutrients going into the water from erosion and farm runoff, and warmer temperatures. Things like the amount of land plant mass, total amount of trees, etc. is surprisingly constant despite what is being done. The diversity of those trees and plant life is going to shit, and a lot of species might disappear as ecological systems collapse, but there is no shortage of simple life sucking down CO2. Not to mention some of the CO2 capture techniques use algae... so they are not replacing life with a machine, but with more plants.

Re:the wrong approach is always more expensive

[Immerman]

Source? Most everything I've read suggests global biomass is decreasing. Logging, clear-cutting, desertification, etc. is outstripping gains elsewhere - we're doing a bang-up job of banging up the ecosystem.

Re:the wrong approach is always more expensive

[djinn6]

Logging doesn't contribute to atmospheric CO2. Those logs end up in houses, that is, sequestered for decades at least.

Re:the wrong approach is always more expensive

[Barsteward]

This article begs to differ https://www.scientificamerican...

Re:the wrong approach is always more expensive

[Gilgaron]

I have lots of fun woodworking, but there's a lot of carbon released in getting to those trees, harvesting them, transporting them, and turning them into something you can build something out of. They don't float 'em down a river to a water powered sawmill anymore, and only hobbyists air dry or solar kiln the boards.

Re:the wrong approach is always more expensive

[apoc.famine]

In addition, logging does a ton of soil disruption, and there's a lot of carbon sequestered in the soil. As the soil is churned as new plant growth happens, a lot of carbon gets released. If the plants that re-grow are trees, over a century they'll suck a lot of that back out of the air. But if they aren't they won't ever have the biomass available to store that carbon.

So it's not only the carbon used to harvest, ship and process the trees, it's the soil carbon released too. Not a lot of people really grasp how much carbon isn't in the air, and is instead in water, soil, and rock.

Re:the wrong approach is always more expensive

[shaitand]

Logging isn't actually a significant problem. Loggers plant new trees. The reason the rainforests are depeleting on the large scale is actually the millions of poor people who live in places with rainforest attempt to scrape some kind of a living off the land.

Re:the wrong approach is always more expensive

[shaitand]

Sure, but they do plant trees to replace them. The big issue is the rain forest and most of that is being chopped down by the locals not loggers.

Re:the wrong approach is always more expensive

[Immerman]

Maybe - there's an awful lot of illegal logging in rainforests though - and I really doubt those loggers replant.

Plus, much (most?) of the tree is routinely thrown away - only the trunk and possibly major limbs become logs.

And even if you do replant - it will take many decades for the new tree to sequester as much carbon as was released in the harvesting and micro-ecological aftermath.

Re:the wrong approach is always more expensive

[Immerman]

> Loggers plant new trees
Yep, and in a few decades or centuries those new trees will support an ecosystem to rival the one that collapsed with the original tree. Doesn't do us much good today though. Especially if the new trees are harvested before they ever rival the original. Not to mention places like Oregon, where aggressive logging is done in a "checkerboard" pattern which is actually devastating to the non-logged squares as well - with the devastated regions being massive incubators for fungi and microbes that then attack the surrounding multi-century old trees that are hard-pressed to fight off such an aggressive attack.

But yes, slash-and-burn is a problem - as is small time and illegal logging: there's a lot of logging that doesn't get done by respectable, professional loggers in it for the long term - especially in rainforests.

Re:the wrong approach is always more expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus, much (most?) of the tree is routinely thrown away - only the trunk and possibly major limbs become logs.

It's worse than that - much of that tree waste isn't just thrown away - it's burnt.

Re:the wrong approach is always more expensive

[Immerman]

Doesn't really matter whether it's burnt or allowed to rot (i.e. metabolically "burnt" by fungi) - either way the carbon is released as atmospheric CO2.

Now, if it was made into charcoal instead that would at least reduce the immediate impact - and if the charcoal was then mixed into the soil it would become extremely stable while making the soil richer (don't ask me how that works, but charcoal acts as a sort of "catalyst fertilizer" that doesn't get consumed.) Of course how much additional ecological damage would be done by the mixing?

Re:the wrong approach is always more expensive

[drinkypoo]

The big issue is the rain forest and most of that is being chopped down by the locals not loggers.

Taken in the context of discussing CO2, everything you said is wrong.

Rainforests sequester almost no carbon. Their job is to regulate climate, filter air, and hold down soil.

When loggers harvest trees, they clear-cut diverse groups of trees (except in the redwoods, which tend to only have the occasional bay laurel mixed in) and replant monocultures, or near-monocultures intended to produce a profitable crop as rapidly as possible. However, mature forests sequester more CO2 than developing ones. Repeated timber harvests keep biomass low.

one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[thesjaakspoiler]

Just to make the US CO2 neutral! Maybe the Pentagon has some trillions laying around somewhere.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a bit less than 1/18th of the United States GDP in 2016. So while calling it a bargain is a joke, it's not a completely absurd proposition on a cost basis. Nations much smaller than the U.S. could come up with that amount if they had to.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[Chas]

Exactly, compared to the Gross World Product (GWP), $100-200 a ton is a BARGAIN.

And it's not like we have to pull it all out in one giant "go".

You set up modest operations worldwide, while still working to reduce emissions.

Also, since we're dealing with essentially free-capture of air, building in things like particulate capture could be straightforward and economical.

Re: one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[Anonymous Coward]

If I was as economically ignorant as you i would post anon also.

Only 1/6th of the entire economy thrown away on a scam?

Sheer madness!

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[religionofpeas]

$100-200 a ton is a BARGAIN.

The dollar price is a poor metric. We should really be looking at energy requirements, especially the ratio between energy produced per ton of CO2, and the energy required to pull it back from the air.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[Clutch Nixon 0]

On a two-wheel flyer, risking everything
V-twin take him higher
And the danger it will bring
Tempting fate, time and time again
Bones break and crumble
Grim Reaper in the wind
Grim Reaper

One man of his word
Not afraid to lose it all
A single shot of whiskey – ready to take a fall
One American, with honor with pride
And a burning desire to fly fuckin’ high

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

The greatest man to ever set foot on two wheels
Possibly, the greatest man to ever live
A man that brought the world together
Not through song or dance
Not with the act of love
Not through violence or tyranny - No!
Just one man, two wheels
Two wheels strapped to a Harley v-twin

Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe not trillions, but yes, they surely have billions "somewhere".

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-28/pentagon-billions-us-funds-disappeared-afghanistan-fraud-waste-and-abuse

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[dgatwood]

The dollar price is a poor metric. We should really be looking at energy requirements, especially the ratio between energy produced per ton of CO2, and the energy required to pull it back from the air.

This. Without violating one or both of the laws of thermodynamics, it seems almost certain that any sort of sequestration cannot produce more energy in the form of fuel than it uses as input. After all, you're going from a state that has already reacted with oxygen to a state that will release energy when it burns in oxygen, which means that you have to add energy to get it back to such a high-energy state.

So where is all of that energy going to come from? My best guess would be burning fossil fuels. And thus, the cycle of infeasibility is complete. Either that or this sequestration will consume something else that is in a high-energy state and produce something else in a low-energy state, in which case we can do this, but only until we run out of the required reactant. I'm not holding my breath on that one, though.

Of course, if we somehow manage to get to a point where we can produce all of our energy needs without burning fossil fuels, then I suppose sequestering CO2 into gasoline might become feasible. Then again, if we get to that point, we won't need this technique, because plants will take care of reducing the CO2 for us, and we won't need the fuel that results from it. So I'm failing to see how such a solution could ever be practical or economically viable in any sane universe.

Then again, the theory that CO2 isn't a problem seems to be supported by the U.S. right-wing political establishment, and they have given us a President who seems to think that he is above the law, so maybe he's above the laws of thermodynamics, too.

*shrugs*

Skims paper

Holy crap. I was right. They are talking about burning fossil fuels to make fossil fuels. *sobs uncontrollably* But I don't see anything about producing fuel in the actual article, beyond a passing mention that if someone wanted to come up with a way to create fossil fuels in a carbon-neutral way, they would need to start with carbon. As far as this paper is concerned, they're sticking it in a tank, which is a lot more plausible than doing something useful with it.

The big problem, then, is that there's not likely to ever be any monetary upside to capturing the carbon, and if you do it with natural gas, you only capture about twice as much CO2 as you put out. About 56.1 kg of CO2 are emitted for every gigajoule of CO2 that you burn. If powered by natural gas, this design burns 8.81 GJ of nat gas per metric ton sequestered. That's almost half a metric ton of CO2 emitted per ton of CO2 sequestered, plus about 202 kg of H2O, for a grand total of 696 kg of greenhouse gases for every 1000 sequestered, or only about 44% more sequestration by mass than you emit to produce the power.

And in the end, you have a bunch of tanks of CO2 that nobody wants. Also, this is a net consumer of water (because some of it evaporates). Want to know what's even more precious than energy these days? Fresh water.

I just don't see it, unless they can find a way to turn it into carbon credits or something.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[Anonymous Coward]

As for the energy requirements, we dont really have an energy problem as much as an energy storage / timeshift problem. Solar and wind are excellent but they often deliver power when there is little need. Using the surplus during those peaks to run carbon capture makes sense to me at least.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[thegarbz]

And in the end, you have a bunch of tanks of CO2 that nobody wants.

Or you could put it somewhere. Pumping it into decommissioned wells under ground may be a good start.

Generally I don't think the cost of carbon capture stacks up for energy generation against green energy forms but we will always have cases where we emit something (industrial processes for example) so capturing that may be a good idea.

Re: one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[shilly]

If I was as economically ignorant as you i would post anon also.>

How can someone be so stupid as to post this comment as an AC? How can anyone be so bad at thinking?

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[Gavagai80]

Want to know what's even more precious than energy these days? Fresh water.

Fresh water is only precious in major cities, which comprise less than 1% of the Earth's land area. In many other places it's ridiculously over-abundant.

Re: one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[MachineShedFred]

You've been around here a while. You're still shocked by the stupidity people display every day?

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Without violating one or both of the laws of thermodynamics, it seems almost certain that any sort of sequestration cannot produce more energy in the form of fuel than it uses as input. [...]

The second law of thermodynamics applies to closed systems. The sun exists: Earth is NOT a closed system. I can't speak to the paper's analysis of power sources, but solar and similar sources can provide for recapturing the carbon involved.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[Anonymous Coward]

The article I suspect is saying keep ICE engines and use the output of these plants (synthetic fuel) to run the ICE engines. This may very well be a better solution than every car carrying around a battery. Then use renewable energy to create the synthetic fuel. I believe Audi already has a pilot plant to do exactly this. Gas is an incredibly dense stable fuel.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[currently_awake]

Rock caves might appear air tight, but they are not. Fractres in the rock will allow the CO2 to leak out. Also if we have an earthquake we might kill a lot of people when a massive pool of toxic gas pours out and settles over some village or town.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[MobyDisk]

I suppose sequestering CO2 into gasoline might become feasible. Then again, if we get to that point, we won't need this technique

The reason you might need this technique is because carbon-based fuels may still be useful in niche areas. Suppose we get everything on the planet running from solar except, for example, jet engines. Then we sequester carbon into jet fuel.

Personally, I think this is very likely. Rockets are really really unlikely to ever run on anything else.

Re: one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[shilly]

It does feel like things are much worse in the last 18months or so. It's this new phenomenon of comments where people are patently unaware of under-cutting their own arguments.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[Whorhay]

Provided that the power this system relies on is electricity then there is no mandate that the electricity come form burning fossil fuels. For now most of the worlds power generation comes from sources that aren't carbon neutral, but that balance is slowly changing and at some point will hopefully tip the other way.

Does this method really require fresh water? The water is being cracked for its hydrogen not drinking or mixing in with something else. Besides if we ever get to the point that we can generate power without releasing so much carbon then we can run more desalination plants.

The article I read yesterday indicated that they were actually already producing fuel from their captured carbon, and reacting it with the hydrogen to produce about a barrel of hydrocarbons a day. Besides using the carbon for making new fuel though there are other commercial uses for it. Greenhouse growers like to feed their plants extra CO2 for better growth. There is a company called Carbon Cure that has developed a concrete product/process that involves injecting CO2 into the mix which results in a stronger product. Currently they appear to use carbon captured at power plants, but there probably isn't any reason they couldn't use carbon captured from this system.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[chmod a x mojo]

Holy crap. I was right. They are talking about burning fossil fuels to make fossil fuels. *sobs uncontrollably* But I don't see anything about producing fuel in the actual article, beyond a passing mention that if someone wanted to come up with a way to create fossil fuels in a carbon-neutral way, they would need to start with carbon. As far as this paper is concerned, they're sticking it in a tank, which is a lot more plausible than doing something useful with it.

So what? a 40-60% reduction in waste gasses per energy unit output is still better than a 0% reduction.

If this can be made commercial scale and stable we should be able to eventually stop needing underground hydrocarbons. We could get energy from wind + solar supplements to the fuels produced from these plants. If there is also sequestration happening, we could even get CO2 levels down to a better level that won't mess up ocean chemistry even, all while having a backup fuel source just stored away in an inert form.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[careysub]

Rock caves might appear air tight, but they are not.

Decommissioned wells are not rock caves. And they did manage to sequester methane for hundreds of millions of years.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[careysub]

The summary references two different projects with different focuses, which confuses the issue and led to me also making a couple of posts here which addressed one by not the other.

The Carbon Engineering fuel scheme, mentioned toward the bottom, and the one Gates invested in, produces zero CO2 emissions fuel from atmospheric CO2 using green electricity, and could be used to capture excess solar or wind power production when there is insufficient demand. The idea behind this project is to produce carbon-neutral liquid hydrocarbon fuel. Obviously such a plan is not going to compete in applications where electricity can be used directly, but i could be used to power airliners and ships though. This plan does not result in any removal of CO2 from the atmosphere.

The headline paper addresses the problem of actually reducing the CO2 in the atmosphere and focuses on the cost of carbon capture from the atmosphere and specifies that they are envisioning "injection and geological storage" for permanent sequestration not producing fuel from this. It is a proposal for the cheapest way to remove CO2 that has already entered the atmosphere. This scheme is not to make a product, or any money from the process, it is investigating the cheapest way to remove the CO2 which, yes, it not going to be free (much less profitable). Obviously this is not going to happen until someone puts into place a revenue source to fund it.

Using natural gas to partly power this process makes sense, the CO2 produced by oxidizing the methane is ending up being sequestered with the CO2 removed from the atmosphere, and it cheaper than using only electricity to power the process.

Of course a scheme like this is not going to be deployed until we reach a point where our existing stationary CO2 sources (natural gas power plants, cement plants, etc.) are already being captured and sequestered because that is far than cheaper that pulling CO2 out of the air.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[shaitand]

Yeah, in fact I've heard of a chemical system that works on this principal.... PLANTS

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[Anonymous Coward]

We could put it in fizzy drinks.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[shaitand]

wow hold on there, don't go confusing rockets with jets.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an AC post too. The Corvette I owned knows how to post here as an AC and Kevin Harvick will too. The response to burning fossil fuels to create fossil fuels. Iced Tea seems to be the thing now. McDonalds has it. How does that relate. Talking bout business. So I took a new laptop to McDonalds and logged onto this site. So McDonalds is not boring to me for that reason. But its there just fo recreation. The whistle goes woo woo! Thats a video some might know. McDonalds is there to socialize. Sweet tea or unsweet. Both good. Good place to discuss the price of gasoline and how we can all better our perfect personal finance records. As I see no one at all has run out of funds in this great place. Tough job but near one hundred percent of the population does not run out of cash. Thats something isn't it. l0pht number too

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[dgatwood]

The second law of thermodynamics applies to closed systems. The sun exists: Earth is NOT a closed system. I can't speak to the paper's analysis of power sources, but solar and similar sources can provide for recapturing the carbon involved.

It still wouldn't be producing energy, just capturing it and storing it. That said, if we run out of oil before we fully switch to electric cars, this could be one way to turn solar power into gasoline to run all the old cars. As an electric car owner, I'm not really convinced that doing so is necessary, nor convinced that we'll run out of oil before all but a handful of classic cars are long since dead and rusted, but still....

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[dgatwood]

Yeah. At least in the U.S., Liqued-fuel rockets mostly use Hydrazine (N2H4) for fuel these days, and SRBs mostly use ammonium perchlorate, aluminum powder, and iron oxide. There's a little bit of a carbon-based polymer used as a binder, and it does burn and release a little bit of energy, but it isn't the primary fuel by any means.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can compress CO2 to liquid for very little energy, then pump it a kilometer or so into the ground. It'll stay there for tens of millions of years just like the original fossil fuels did, but the compressed CO2 has basically no harvest-able energy so nobody will want to dig it up.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[parkinglot777]

Still. This solution is similar to sweeping dust under a rug, and it doesn't make the problem go away but rather hope to kick the can down the road... You have no clear idea about other consequences of hiding CO2 in a decommissioned well.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[MobyDisk]

Thank you! I've always wondered this. As I wrote my post, I was thinking "Hey, reading the Martian didn't I learn that Hydrazine is just pure, hydrogen and something else...?" So going back to dgatwood's scenario, we would be using solar power or window power to create hydrazine from the atmosphere? Can I get a car that runs on hydrazine?

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[jeff4747]

So where is all of that energy going to come from? My best guess would be burning fossil fuels.

If the actual plan was to artificially sequester CO2 this way, then we'd use something like solar or wind for the energy source.

Of course, if we somehow manage to get to a point where we can produce all of our energy needs without burning fossil fuels, then I suppose sequestering CO2 into gasoline might become feasible. Then again, if we get to that point, we won't need this technique

Remember energy density and weight.

There's some things where batteries are not going to be able to provide sufficient energy density at a low enough weight to be useful. For example, aircraft. The batteries to get sufficient range to replace a 777 or 787 or A380 are going to be too heavy to use in the plane. At least without some major advancements. OTOH, jet fuel has sufficient energy density. So use this kind of system to make jet fuel from sunlight and CO2.

There's also potential uses in energy storage and transportation. There's lots of work being done to try and move electricity sufficiently far to deal with some of the intermittentcy of solar and wind (ex. solar panels in the SW of the US powering stuff in the NE of the US in winter). We can't do it right now because of line losses.

What if you made a hydrocarbon fuel in New Mexico from atmospheric CO2 and solar panels, and then pumped that fuel to the Northeast instead? Yes, you'd lose a lot of energy in each transition (CO2 -> fuel, fuel -> other end of pipeline, fuel -> turbine, turbine -> electricity, electricity -> motor/light/etc). But you could actually get the energy there without inventing new/exotic electricity transmission materials and methods.

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[dgatwood]

No, but all those NOx emissions could one day be sequestered to provide nitrogen to make hydrazine. :-D

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[urusan]

After skimming the paper, it seems they're essentially recommending using hydro and other renewables to power these carbon reactors, since they can be sited anywhere on Earth, so why not site them near substantial sources of clean energy?

From the paper: "Global intensities [of electricity generation-based CO2 emissions] would only be relevant in a world with perfect universal electric transmission. In practice, there are many locations where low-carbon renewables are transmission constrained. These are the locations where DAC with electricity imports makes sense."

Re:one trillion dollar is a bargain!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and of course, once it evaporates, you never see it again. But, then again, you can always burn some hydrocarbons to make some more.

So make gasoline

[Anonymous Coward]

So make the gasoline from solar and come up with a final cost per litre.

Carbon capture for the sake of carbon capture is one thing. On the other hand, fixing the problem of storing solar power is another thing completely.

Re:So make gasoline

[Clutch Nixon]

On a two-wheel flyer, risking everything
V-twin take him higher
And the danger it will bring
Tempting fate, time and time again
Bones break and crumble
Grim Reaper in the wind
Grim Reaper

One man of his word
Not afraid to lose it all
A single shot of whiskey – ready to take a fall
One American, with honor with pride
And a burning desire to fly fuckin’ high

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

The greatest man to ever set foot on two wheels
Possibly, the greatest man to ever live
A man that brought the world together
Not through song or dance
Not with the act of love
Not through violence or tyranny - No!
Just one man, two wheels
Two wheels strapped to a Harley v-twin

Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!

Re:So make gasoline

[HornWumpus]

They claim carbon capture for $200/ton.

Ethanol is 786 kg/m^3, but is only a little under half carbon, call it half, but give them 50% for extra cost of getting useful fuel.

So about 1.3 cubic meters of 190 proof booze for $200...everybody will be able to afford a whole swimming pool of vodka! If it wasn't bullshit.

Re:So make gasoline

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Or make methane? Much easier, apparently.

Re:So make gasoline

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not even that much cheaper than now, you know. Vodka is just expensive because of the tax.

Re:So make gasoline

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank god Bill Gates has people like you to advise him on investments. I'm sure he'll disinvest right away.

Re:So make gasoline

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, easy enough to make I think, some want to make methane from industrial waste CO2, then pipe it into natural gas pipes. Use it as part of your cooking gas, heating gas etc., in power plants (but round trip from electricity to methane to electricity is something you'd try to avoid most times still), in vehicles (natural gas has been used for decades already, this allows for clean burning buses. Riding a bicycle behind such a bus is... not the worst thing)

Methane itself? If it's not contained it's worse than CO2 though. I wonder if we should identify methane about to blow up in the far North of the planet then burn it beforehand (seriously there are craters from recent explosions. I would love if some can be caught on video. I don't know if there's a term for this phenomenon)

Re:So make gasoline

[HornWumpus]

That's much less than the price of the sugar needed to make the booze. Vodka isn't expensive...what are you Finnish?

The snowflake global warmists

[Anonymous Coward]

The snowflake global warming cult is full of plenty of cock suckers who could suck the CO2 right off President Trump's and Mike Pence's dicks, then come back for second helpings, while throwing in some down home San Fran rimming for free.

Now we know.

[Gravis Zero]

Now that we know how much it should cost to remove CO2 from the sky, we should begin taxing corporations and products that release CO2 in the atmosphere. The money would then be used to pay other corporations to capture CO2 from the atmosphere.

There has been a long history of using environmental capital without consequence and that needs to come to an end if we're going to save this planet.

Re: Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

But see, that's not actually what warmists want. They want to create a flow of capital from the developed world to the undeveloped world. And a flow towards perceived "victim" parties like (for example) women.

This technology puts the Marxists on the run.

Re:Now we know.

[religionofpeas]

we should begin taxing corporations

Using 'corporations' is a weasel word. Let's be honest, and say that we need to tax people for buying products that release CO2 in the atmosphere. Charging $100-$200 for a ton of CO2 would double the price of gasoline, for instance.

Re:Now we know.

[ShanghaiBill]

we should begin taxing corporations and products that release CO2 in the atmosphere.

The main source of CO2 is not "corporations", but personal transportation and residential power. It is YOU, not "them".

Re:Now we know.

[jools33]

and lets not forget the historical back taxes that these companies owe.

Re:Now we know.

[whoever57]

It is YOU, not "them".

It may be *you*, but with 2 electric vehicles and solar panels to power them, it isn't me.

Some of us have invested our cash to reduce our CO2 footprint. Some of us have put our money where our mouths are.

Re:Now we know.

[jools33]

So where do "you" get the gas you put in your tank from? The main source is the global oil/petrochemicals: BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Dow, BASF, Aramco, Sinopec, Gazprom etc.

Re: Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Awwww, poor widdle denialist shill, can you show us on this doll where the warmist hurt you princess?
Nobody cares for your loopy conspiracy theories, other than a few of the usual far right alt facts types here.
So how about you stick your head between your legs, blow very very hard and try to put your brain back where it belongs.

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

First step is to PHYSICALLY REMOVE COMMIES like you that uses this made up horse shit to justifying stealing my property!

Re:Now we know.

[Clutch Nixon Z]

On a two-wheel flyer, risking everything
V-twin take him higher
And the danger it will bring
Tempting fate, time and time again
Bones break and crumble
Grim Reaper in the wind
Grim Reaper

One man of his word
Not afraid to lose it all
A single shot of whiskey – ready to take a fall
One American, with honor with pride
And a burning desire to fly fuckin’ high

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

The greatest man to ever set foot on two wheels
Possibly, the greatest man to ever live
A man that brought the world together
Not through song or dance
Not with the act of love
Not through violence or tyranny - No!
Just one man, two wheels
Two wheels strapped to a Harley v-twin

Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's bullshit Bill. You don't know what you're talking about again!

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

we should begin taxing

Spoken like a true democrat.

Re: Now we know.

[Clutch Nixon Z]

On a two-wheel flyer, risking everything
V-twin take him higher
And the danger it will bring
Tempting fate, time and time again
Bones break and crumble
Grim Reaper in the wind
Grim Reaper

One man of his word
Not afraid to lose it all
A single shot of whiskey – ready to take a fall
One American, with honor with pride
And a burning desire to fly fuckin’ high

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

The greatest man to ever set foot on two wheels
Possibly, the greatest man to ever live
A man that brought the world together
Not through song or dance
Not with the act of love
Not through violence or tyranny - No!
Just one man, two wheels
Two wheels strapped to a Harley v-twin

Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there no end to your stream of bullshit, Bill? At least you're old, your nonsense is not long for this world and GOOD RIDDANCE.

Re: Now we know.

[Plus1Entropy]

Women are the most oppressed minority in human history, asshat.

Re:Now we know.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Maybe it was a group "you"?

Re:Now we know.

[thomst]

Gravis Zero opined:

There has been a long history of using environmental capital without consequence and that needs to come to an end if we're going to save this planet.

While I agree completely with the first clause of this statement, the second half (which needs a comma after "and," btw) is a popular cliché that never fails to make me groan in frustration.

The Earth will be fine, regardless of whether we, as a species, manage to solve the slow-motion environmental catastrophe we accidentally created. What's at risk is the current ecosystem to which we're accustomed, including most of the extant species of multi-cellular life.

About 250 million years ago, give or take a million years or so, something very similar to what we've set in motion happened to the Earth. In what's known as the Permian-Triassic Extinction event, carbon dioxide levels rose to much higher levels than they are today, for reaons we still don't fully understand. As a result, the global temperature increased by about 10 degrees Centigrade, and the icecaps melted, releasing large amounts of methane from rotting plant life that had been buried under glaciers during the ice age that began the global extinction event. Methane clathrates in the deepest, coldest parts of the ocean (there was only one, at the time) also melted, releasing a whole lot more methane, and turning the ocean into a kind of anoxic fizzy.

In the ocean, 96% of species went extinct. On land, 70% of multi-cellular species disappeared. The entire ecosystem collapsed within about 100,000 years. The P-T extinction event was so severe, that it's often referred to as the "Great Dying." It was so devastating that it took between 4 and 9 million years before the global ecosystem recovered sufficiently for new species to begin to fill the niches the global warming event had created.

But recover it did - and the result was the beginning (in the Triassic Period) of what eventually (in the Jurassic and Cretaceous) became the Age of Dinosaurs. By the time the Chixiculub bolide smacked into the coast of what is now the Yucatán Penninsula in southern Mexico, about 65 million years ago, the dinosaurian Ornithischia, Sauropodomorpha, and Theropoda taxa had dominated the planetary ecosystem for approximetely 120 million years.

And they thrived in the elevated temperatures the Permian-Triassic extinction event created. Once the excess CO2 cleared from the ocean, speciation rapidly filled it with a dizzying variety of fish, invertebrates, plant life - and dinosaurs. From viruses and bacteria to insects and arachnids to grasses, shrubs, and trees to animals of all sizes, the planet teemed with life within a few tens of millions of years after the most devastating extinction event in its history. (Okay, arguably the Oxygen Catastrophe might have caused an even more comprehensive extinction event - but we can't really determine whether that was the case, because, in those earliest days of life on Earth, no species had developed shells or exo- or endo-skeletons, so they didn't leave a fossil record for us to read.)

As evidenced by the eventual recovery from the P-T Extinction, the popular meme of "saving the planet" is hyperbole of the most narcissisitic stripe. The planet - and life itself - will survive the extinction event we have already caused (and will continue to cause for several thousand years to come). Our contemporary varieties of megafauna are almost certainly all doomed (with the possible exception of some familiar commensal and chattel species - I suspect dogs and cats, for instance, will survive as long as humans do). However, you can say "goodbye" to the whales and dolphins, the lions and tigers and bears, the el

Re:Now we know.

[zmooc]

We already knew the long-term cost of adding CO2 to the atmosphere. This hypothetical possibility merely introduces an upper bound to what we can tax CO2 producers while it is not at all an upper bound to the costs. Even if we'd go full scale, there'd be accidents, leaky reservoirs and eventually us running out of suitable reservoirs, meaning that the long term cost of removing or dealing with excessive CO2 would be much higher than the cost of this technology.

Re:Now we know.

[Gravis Zero]

we should begin taxing corporations

Using 'corporations' is a weasel word

You missed the "and products" part. I specifically mention corporations because many power companies generate and sell electricity by burning fossil fuels at varying levels of efficiency. They should be taxed based on the CO2 they put out, not the amount electricity they sell.

Charging $100-$200 for a ton of CO2 would double the price of gasoline, for instance.

Well that would certainly make electric cars a more attractive option.

Re: Now we know.

[Kokuyo]

Only that they're not a minority but who cares about little details like facts, logic and sanity, eh?

Re:Now we know.

[Gravis Zero]

The main source of CO2 is not "corporations", but personal transportation and residential power. It is YOU, not "them".

I'm ok with this.

Re:Now we know.

[Ichijo]

Could we use the revenue to eliminate the sales tax? The gas tax discourages burning fossil fuels while the sales tax discourages commerce. One of these taxes is better for the economy and the environment than the other.

Re:Now we know.

[Gravis Zero]

Mr. Novelist wrote:

The Earth will be fine, regardless of whether we, as a species, manage to solve the slow-motion environmental catastrophe we accidentally created. What's at risk is the current ecosystem to which we're accustomed, including most of the extant species of multi-cellular life.

You are technically correct, the best kind of correct. I realized this exact thing after I posted and thought, "well fuck..." and moved on with life.

Re:Now we know.

[Gravis Zero]

You seem to be under the impression that we would just bottle the CO2 and leave it there. That's a really dumb assumption because both carbon and oxygen are really useful.

Re:Now we know.

[DamnOregonian]

You seem to be under the impression that we would just bottle the CO2 and leave it there.

Drop it into a hole a mile deep in the Earth wold be preferred, really.

That's a really dumb assumption because both carbon and oxygen are really useful.

They sure are. That's why we're in the problem we're in ;)

Get rid of the shit. Re-sequester it. We pulled it out of long-term storage and threw it into the atmosphere, and there isn't a hell of a lot we can do with it that won't put it back into the atmosphere. We need to reduce levels, not stop growth. It's already too high, and a ball is already in motion that is already bad.

Re:Now we know.

[thesupraman]

really? REALLY?

So, perhaps you would like to tell us about these solar panels that produce enough power to power 2 cars.
Imagine if you will a standard Tesla 85kWh battery.
Charging it at (lets be reasonably generous) 80% total system efficiency (by the time you collect, store (car is not always home) convert voltages, and charge cells.
so, we need around 106 kWh, lets just call it 100kWh to be nice.
but you said 2 cars, s 200kWh for a charge up.
now, that will give you a fair bit of range, lets say you need a full charge each week.
so 200kWh/7, 28kWh a day needs to be produced (rounding to be nice again)
even with tracked arrays, you can collect for a maximum of around 8 hours a day with any efficiency, so you will need 3.5Kw of solar source over your 8 hours.
Doesnt sound too bad does it? not figure in practical Solar load factor, around 20%, so you need 17.5 Kw of solar cells.
At $4/W install cost thats quite a nice $70k solar setup you must have (ignoring trackers to get even close to this efficiency)
Assuming you also want to power your home, I figure you must have dropped well over $100k on it.

Mind you, as you obviously have a lot of spare area, I assume you can afford it - must be nice to lord it over the people in the real world.
Quite lucky those solar panels had zero carbon footprint, and didnt cause any other nasty pollution issues (heavy metals) in their production, shipping, and installation.

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

we should begin taxing corporations

Using 'corporations' is a weasel word. Let's be honest, and say that we need to tax people for buying products that release CO2 in the atmosphere. Charging $100-$200 for a ton of CO2 would double the price of gasoline, for instance.

357 gallons of gasoline per ton.

Where are you buying gasoline for $0.28-$0.56 a gallon?

Come on slashdot, why is that +4 informative?

Re: Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

I got to that point in his post, and realized he was playing word games. Nobody is actually, seriously, even-with-nukes, saying the Earth is going to cease to exist from our activities.

Re:Now we know.

[sjames]

Actually, it seems to me that a Libertarian true believer would be fine with expecting everyone to properly pay their way rather than socializing parts of the cost.

Re:Now we know.

[sjames]

Your pedantry aside, does anything in your description of the "Great Dying." sound like something you would like to experience?

Re:Now we know.

[AmiMoJo]

Gas prices in the US are about 1/3rd what they are in the UK, and somehow it hasn't destroyed our economy.

Maybe gas is too cheap, considering the harm it does.

Re: Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Women are the most privileged majority in human history, asshat.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite lucky those solar panels had zero carbon footprint, and didnt cause any other nasty pollution issues (heavy metals) in their production, shipping, and installation.

Oh for FUCKS sake, this shit again?!? Time for a dose of reality.

Solar panels are devices that normally last decades with little or no maintenance. As designs become more efficient for EVs and homes in general, one could power their home and vehicles for 20 - 30 years or more. That's 20 - 30 years of life sustaining power and transportation with zero fucking pollution.

When you compare and contrast that against the cost and environmental impact of the traditional alternatives over a 30-year period, that solar panel toxic manufacturing excuse tuns into bullshit real quick.

Re:Now we know.

[Solandri]

Gasoline generates about 8.89 kg of CO2 per gallon. So producing 1 ton of CO2 would require burning (1000 kg)/(8.89 kg/gallon) = 112.5 gallons of gasoline. The current average price of gasoline is $2.934/gallon, so 112.5 gallons of gas would cost (112.5 gal)*($2.934/gal) = $330.

A $100-$200 surcharge per ton of CO2 would thus raise the price of gasoline by just 30%-61%.

Using the same EIA chart, coal generates roughly 2 tons of CO2 per ton of coal. One ton of coal contains roughly 24 Gigajoules of thermal energy, which is 6.67 MWh. If the coal plant is 40% efficient, that means that one ton of coal generates 2.67 MWh of electricity. Since that one ton of coal also emits 2 tons of CO2, we end up with (2 tons CO2) / (2.67 MWh) = 0.75 tons per MWh.

Natural gas generates roughly 53.12 kg of CO2 per thousand cubic feet. A thousand cubic feet of methane contains 1.037 million BTUs of thermal energy = 303.9 kWh. If the gas plant is 60% efficient, this means 53.12 kg of CO2 are emitted per 182.3 kWh, or (0.053 tons CO2) / (0.1823 MWh) = 0.29 tons per MWh.

Coal accounts for 30.1% of U.S. electricity. Natural gas accounts for 31.7%. So the fractional CO2 contribution of these fossil fuels to electricity is (0.75 tons/MWh)*(0.301)+(0.29 tons/MWh)*(0.317) = 0.318 tons of CO2 per MWh. A $100-$200 surcharge per ton of CO2 then ends up costing $31.80-$63.60 per MWh, or 3.2 cents - 6.4 cents per kWh.

Average electricity price in the U.S. is 12 cents/kWh. So a $100-$200 surcharge per ton of CO2 would raise the price of electricity by 27%-53%. Almost exactly the same percentage as gasoline.

Like I keep trying to explain to people: Electric vehicles aren't cheap to operate because they're more energy efficient. They use nearly as much energy as ICE vehicles. They're just cheaper to operate because the coal and natural gas used to generate electricity are roughly an order of magnitude cheaper per MJ than gasoline. If you want to reduce CO2 emissions, buying an EV presently doesn't help. When you replace an ICE vehicleswith an EV without changing the makeup of your electricity sources, all you've done is shift your CO2 emissions from the car's tailpipe to a fossil fuel power plant's smokestack. That's why the claim that EVs are "zero emissions" is BS at present. You need to replace fossil fuel power plants with nuclear and renewable plants to cause a reduction in CO2 emissions.

Re:Now we know.

[Solandri]

The link for CO2 emissions by fuel source didn't come through in that post.

Re:Now we know.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

An electric car can use something like 0.2 kWh/km. Let's say you drive 20000 km per year. That's around 4000 kWh of electricity per year. At a mediocre 0.15 capacity factor, that's the average output of a 4 kW array or so. Costs around $5000 where I live.

even with tracked arrays, you can collect for a maximum of around 8 hours a day with any efficiency, so you will need 3.5Kw of solar source over your 8 hours. Doesnt sound too bad does it? not figure in practical Solar load factor, around 20%, so you need 17.5 Kw of solar cells.

That's double accounting. The capacity factor already includes the fact that you don't have 24h of maximum output. Your 17.5 kW array with a 0.2 capacity factor generates almost 600 kWh per week on average, which is the of triple your requirement - not surprisingly the factor of three you mistakenly added in "you can collect for a maximum of around 8 hours a day with any efficiency".

Re:Now we know.

[religionofpeas]

Gas prices in the US are about 1/3rd what they are in the UK, and somehow it hasn't destroyed our economy.

Same in the rest of Europe. The difference is that gas prices have always been low in the US, and the entire infrastructure/lifestyle is based on that. Big cars and great distances, resulting in relatively high impact of increasing gas prices.

Re:Now we know.

[religionofpeas]

Drop it into a hole a mile deep in the Earth wold be preferred, really.

Not while other people are still busy drilling holes deep in the Earth to get carbon out.

Re:Now we know.

[thegarbz]

The main source of CO2 is not "corporations", but personal transportation and residential power. It is YOU, not "them".

Yes and we all know that corporations and producers will happily sit and eat the cost of compliance because shareholders don't like money. Taxing corporations is the most efficient way to do it. Ultimately it will be YOU that pays the money anyway, but it's far easier to collect a tax on a consolidated level.

Re:Now we know.

[zmooc]

I think that's quite a logical assumption because we need to take CO2 out of the equation. Simply transforming it back into what will eventually just be combusted into CO2 again does not solve the problem we need to solve.

Also, whether C and O are useful isn't really that interesting; there's no shortage of C or O whatsoever so it's not their availability that counts, it's the extraction costs. Also, you'd need to put more energy in to split CO2 into C and O than you'd ever get out of it. Since splitting CO2 practically only makes sense if you're going to burn it again, that's simply a waste of energy; why not use the energy available directly?

Non-burning applications of C and O are merely a fraction of what we use C and O for.

Re:Now we know.

[zmooc]

That's irrelevant. It makes sense to sequester CO2 regardless of whether we're still extracting hydrocarbons or not.

Re:Now we know.

[scottrocket]

It is YOU, not "them".

It may be *you*, but with 2 electric vehicles and solar panels to power them, it isn't me.

Some of us have invested our cash to reduce our CO2 footprint. Some of us have put our money where our mouths are.

You got fscking solar? God - you know that causes cancer?!

Re:Now we know.

[magzteel]

Gas prices in the US are about 1/3rd what they are in the UK, and somehow it hasn't destroyed our economy.

Maybe gas is too cheap, considering the harm it does.

Texas alone is triple the size of the UK.

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

We did that already, although not in a proper way:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Now we know.

[magzteel]

Now that we know how much it should cost to remove CO2 from the sky, we should begin taxing corporations and products that release CO2 in the atmosphere. The money would then be used to pay other corporations to capture CO2 from the atmosphere.

There has been a long history of using environmental capital without consequence and that needs to come to an end if we're going to save this planet.

Their plan is to convert it to alternative fuel. The alternative fuel will release the CO2 back to the atmosphere.
They will have to be taxed for the cost of the extraction.

How does this business model work?

Re:Now we know.

[dave420]

And tiny compared to the EU, where petrol prices are much higher than Texas. It's not the size of the US which is the problem, it's how poorly its used. When people have no choice but to commute for hundreds of miles a day, this is what you get. When cities are built upon the presumption that there will always be cars and that said cars will always cost a similar amount of money to run, this is what you get.

Play shitty games, win shitty prizes.

Re:Now we know.

[drinkypoo]

Personal transportation could be done with carbon-neutral fuels if not for the influence of, you guessed it, big oil. GE energy ventures (gevo) tried to produce butanol, a 1:1 replacement for gasoline made by bacteria from any organic matter, and was prevented for years by butamax, a company owned by BP and Dupont on the basis of an obvious patent developed at a public University, partially with taxpayer money. Apparently the lawsuit was recently resolved after some years, so maybe we can have nice things... Eventually, when it is already too late.

Capitalism is destroying the biosphere in the name of luxury yachts.

Re:Now we know.

[magzteel]

And tiny compared to the EU, where petrol prices are much higher than Texas. It's not the size of the US which is the problem, it's how poorly its used. When people have no choice but to commute for hundreds of miles a day, this is what you get. When cities are built upon the presumption that there will always be cars and that said cars will always cost a similar amount of money to run, this is what you get.

Play shitty games, win shitty prizes.

That could all be true but it is still the fact of our lives.

I've had daily driving commutes of over 200 miles round trip, sometimes within the same state, sometimes in a different one. I've also had situations where my main office is reachable by mass transit but a client I have been placed at is not.
Either way, got to get to work. Fortunately my current role has a 15 mile commute.

Re: Now we know.

[currently_awake]

Women make up 51% of the population, they are the majority. Also they raise the kids, so how come all the kids get raised to oppress women?

Re:Now we know.

[squiggleslash]

No because the proposal is that the tax would be used to fund the removal of CO2 from the air. You'd still need other taxes to fund the things those taxes fund.

Indeed, an economy reliant upon sales taxes may have to put up taxes as the cost of living may well rise if a CO2 tax were introduced. People, including government employees, would be paying more for goods that are manufactured in a CO2 producing way and so would need higher wages. Infrastructure would cost more too, manufacturing a ton of concrete puts, IIRC, a ton of CO2 into the air.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, in the end I'd hope that it would shift consumption to products and services that are more carbon neutral. There are things we haven't done for decades that we might start doing again - in the city I live, for example, there's a railroad bridge dating back to the 19th Century that's made up in substantial part of wood. But it's definitely not something that would reduce existing taxes.

Re:Now we know.

[Gravis Zero]

How does this business model work?

It doesn't.

Re:Now we know.

[Gravis Zero]

Non-burning applications of C and O are merely a fraction of what we use C and O for.

And those will be the ones that aren't taxed.

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes the "We're fucked anyway so why do anything at all?" Rationalization. Yeah, fucking nhilism as a climate policy.

Fucking geeks are the worst kind of cargo cult pseudoscience circle jerkers. Just latch on to whatever contrarian opinion makes you feel the most smug, no matter how debunked or unscientific.

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Corporations are producing product which rape the earth. Double the price of gas? I okay with that. Electric cars will replace them.

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't speak for him, but it's certainly something I'd like to see happen.

Re: Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Women make up 51% of the population...

That's the joke.

Re:Now we know.

[b0bby]

Like I keep trying to explain to people: Electric vehicles aren't cheap to operate because they're more energy efficient. They use nearly as much energy as ICE vehicles. They're just cheaper to operate because the coal and natural gas used to generate electricity are roughly an order of magnitude cheaper per MJ than gasoline.

EVs are more efficient, though; the numbers I've seen indicate ~25% loss in charging/inversion losses for EVs vs a best case ICE thermal efficiency of ~40%.

If you want to reduce CO2 emissions, buying an EV presently doesn't help. When you replace an ICE vehicleswith an EV without changing the makeup of your electricity sources, all you've done is shift your CO2 emissions from the car's tailpipe to a fossil fuel power plant's smokestack. That's why the claim that EVs are "zero emissions" is BS at present. You need to replace fossil fuel power plants with nuclear and renewable plants to cause a reduction in CO2 emissions.

That's highly dependent on your local mix, though. While coal and gas may be 60% on average in the US, in reality it's much higher in the midwest and less on the coasts. So in many areas an EV will have the same emissions as an ICE getting 85mpg or greater; in the midwest the current emissions of an EV are about the same as a Prius. See this link for a breakdown of your area:

https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-v...

And since they started doing that calculator, the efficiency of the grid has gone up, so the EVs purchased a few years ago are now producing fewer emissions per mile than they did when new. The Prius won't do that.

Re:Now we know.

[apoc.famine]

Not at night!

Re:Now we know.

[apoc.famine]

That depends. Do mosquitos die? Because if the answer is yes, I'm thinking that I might want to experience that. Because even if the fish are dead and I can't catch any, it's going to make fishing a lot more pleasant.

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up you fucking moron.

Re:Now we know.

[hawkfish]

Gas prices in the US are about 1/3rd what they are in the UK, and somehow it hasn't destroyed our economy.

Maybe gas is too cheap, considering the harm it does.

Texas alone is triple the size of the UK.

Um, maybe in terms of area, but not in terms of population:

  * Texas Population (2018): 28,704,330 in 695,660 km^2
  * UK population (2018: 66,550,162 in 242,900 km^2

And the area is just a way of hiding the massive urban sprawl in places like Houston.

Re:Now we know.

[scottrocket]

I stand corrected - thanks! : )

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

And paying subsidies to the corporation that can make stable building materials out of desalinization sludge + recovered carbon.

Re:Now we know.

[scottrocket]

...If the catastrophe is severe enough, it could take tens, even hundreds of millions of years for a densely-populated, replacement ecosystem to evolve. But it will, regardless of whether humans are still around to take part in it. You can take that to the bank ...

It's nice to read a long, thoughtful cited post, in contrast to the political shills & trolls that have come to sludge up /. Thanks.

Re:Now we know.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

In 200 years we will be better off with more advanced tech and risen seas than less advanced tech and pristine sea levels.

If draconian knocks on the economy are implemented leading to the former, you are no friend of humanity.

Also, tech in 100 years will be more different from today than today is from 1900. How stupid and mass murderous would those in 1900 have been to put the brakes on things, leaving us with a great environment and 1970-level tech.

1970-level is probably an understatement.

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

A quick rule of thumb for solar is that you get 1kWh per year from each Watt of panel peak power output (south facing fixed panel, moderate latitude and climate). (That's 4000kWh per year from a 4kW array, as you wrote.)

Re:Now we know.

[shaitand]

"Let's be honest, and say that we need to tax people for buying products that release CO2 in the atmosphere."

We don't, we need to tax people profiting from products that release CO2 into the atmosphere.

Re:Now we know.

[shaitand]

That doesn't even begin the scratch the surface. But we should really use the graduated, fair, and equitable system we have in income tax to pay for this and literally everything else we decide is worth spending tax dollars on. Everything else is someone finding some reason to get out of paying their share on something or something we don't need to spend tax dollars on.

If you live in the wealthy neighborhood, you should still pay a share toward the poor neighborhood schools, if your house didn't burn down, you should still pay for your share toward the insurance and fire department who took care of the one that did. And if you live off the grid in a solar house and walk everywhere, you should still pay your taxes and the price of gasoline should directly go up no more than the price of everything across the board goes up due to the increased tax. The whole point of the system is to pool and distribute tax costs not use them to hammer the affected industry.

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another rule of thumb: 1kWp of solar panels is roughly 7 square meters (75 sq ft, for the special kids), so you need 28 square meters (300 sq ft) to generate 4000kWh per year.

Re: Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

How the fuck is this trash modded insightful?
"Warmist" must surely refer to everyone who's not a climate change denier, because science is meaningless to those.

Re:Now we know.

[whoever57]

Like I keep trying to explain to people: Electric vehicles aren't cheap to operate because they're more energy efficient. They use nearly as much energy as ICE vehicles. They're just cheaper to operate because the coal and natural gas used to generate electricity are roughly an order of magnitude cheaper per MJ than gasoline. If you want to reduce CO2 emissions, buying an EV presently doesn't help. When you replace an ICE vehicleswith an EV without changing the makeup of your electricity sources, all you've done is shift your CO2 emissions from the car's tailpipe to a fossil fuel power plant's smokestack. That's why the claim that EVs are "zero emissions" is BS at present. You need to replace fossil fuel power plants with nuclear and renewable plants to cause a reduction in CO2 emissions.

BULLSHIT!!!

https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-r...

Electric vehicles are far more efficient than ICE vehicles. eMPG figures for electric vehicles are typically well over 100. This represents how far an electric vehicle can travel on the same amount of energy that is in one gallon of gasoline.

Re:Now we know.

[hawkfish]

Could we use the revenue to eliminate the sales tax? The gas tax discourages burning fossil fuels while the sales tax discourages commerce. One of these taxes is better for the economy and the environment than the other.

We tried that here in Washington State (I-732 in 2016) in part because we have the most regressive tax structure in the country (income taxes appear to be in violation of the state constitution.) It failed, in part because of opposition from some environmental groups who wanted to dedicate the generated cash flow to other things.

Re:Now we know.

[thomst]

scottrocket stated:

It's nice to read a long, thoughtful cited post, in contrast to the political shills & trolls that have come to sludge up /. Thanks.

Thank you for the compliment, sir. I try my best to add to discussions, rather than subtract from them ...

Re:Now we know.

[Gravis Zero]

Are there many things to be fixed in society? Yes. Is this intended to fix everyone's problems all at once? No.

You have to start fixing things somewhere or you'll never fix anything at all. Perfect is the enemy of good.

Re:Now we know.

[thomst]

Impy the Impiuos Imp criticized:

If draconian knocks on the economy are implemented leading to the former, you are no friend of humanity.

I suspect our definitions of "draconian knocks on the economy" differ rather fundamentally.

Systematically shifting the true costs of energy technology into the future does not eliminate those costs. It simply disguises them. And borrowing usually carries interest expenses - and the price of carried interest compounds over time.

The longer you put off paying compound interest, the more expensive it gets. Unless the lender - which, in this case, is the environment and ecosystem that gave rise to humanity - is willing to forgive your debt, somebody eventually has to pay for it.

You may disagree, but I don't think going Chapter Seven on the environment is a viable option ...

Re:Now we know.

[thomst]

sjames demanded:

Your pedantry aside, does anything in your description of the "Great Dying." sound like something you would like to experience?

Of course not.

Unfortunately, you seem to have entirely missed my actual point - which was that hyperbole is unhelpful in this discussion.

From his response to my reply, it's quite clear that Gravis Zero agrees with that observation, and he would have skipped that part of his comment had he stopped to re-read it before he posted it.

The bulk of my essay was meant to establish that, however great the threat the ongoing extinction event poses to us (and the threat truly is an existential one), our planet will eventually shrug it off.

As it has done at least once before ...

Re:Now we know.

[thomst]

I predicted:

The Earth will be fine, regardless of whether we, as a species, manage to solve the slow-motion environmental catastrophe we accidentally created. What's at risk is the current ecosystem to which we're accustomed, including most of the extant species of multi-cellular life.

Prompting Gravis Zero to reply:

You are technically correct, the best kind of correct. I realized this exact thing after I posted and thought, "well fuck..." and moved on with life.

We agree. Technical correctness beats the political kind all hollow ... !

Re:Now we know.

[JesseMcDonald]

the graduated, fair, and equitable system we have in income tax

OK, not off to a great start here. Funny, though.

if your house didn't burn down, you should still pay for your share toward the insurance and fire department who took care of the one that did

Putting aside the fact that home insurance isn't tax-funded to begin with, the "fair" amount that you should be paying toward insurance in general and fire protection in particular is a function of the value of your home (for the insurance), the cost of putting out a fire (including overhead / standby costs), your potential liability to others if a fire spreads, and the probability of a fire. Your income is completely irrelevant and should have no bearing on the amount you pay.

And if you live off the grid in a solar house and walk everywhere, you should still pay your taxes and the price of gasoline should directly go up no more than the price of everything across the board goes up due to the increased tax. The whole point of the system ...

The "whole point" of imposing these taxes is to internalize the perceived external costs of burning gasoline so that they are reflected in the price at the pump. Paying to mitigate the effects of burning gasoline out of general income taxes rather than gasoline taxes would mean that those who do not burn gasoline are taxed to clean up the mess created by those who do. There is nothing "fair" or "equitable" in that.

Re:Now we know.

[shaitand]

"Putting aside the fact that home insurance isn't tax-funded to begin with, the "fair" amount that you should be paying toward insurance in general and fire protection in particular is a function of the value of your home (for the insurance), the cost of putting out a fire (including overhead / standby costs), your potential liability to others if a fire spreads, and the probability of a fire. Your income is completely irrelevant and should have no bearing on the amount you pay."

Right, insurance is a collective pot toward a specific purpose which is why I mentioned it as an example but the comparison to tax breaks down right there. But as you said, your liability and value of your home factor into what you should pay. Tax on the other hand is a collective pool for community benefit, you don't and should not need all the functions you'll pay tax toward and others in kind will be paying taxes for things which benefit you. The big difference is that your income and wealth are the equivalent of the home value in the case of taxes. If I get one dollar, and you get a million, equitable tax is attached to the dollars not the count of people because every dollar represents a share of all the collective wealth our society generates and the collective burden required to generate it including roads, health and education of workers, etc.

Personally I'm not a fan of income tax, because it does punish those who are working harder and simply being more successful. It doesn't really matter how much money you are churning via income and spending what matters is the accumulated excess, the extra. I'm a fan of a wealth tax.

"The "whole point" of imposing these taxes is to internalize the perceived external costs of burning gasoline so that they are reflected in the price at the pump. Paying to mitigate the effects of burning gasoline out of general income taxes rather than gasoline taxes would mean that those who do not burn gasoline are taxed to clean up the mess created by those who do. There is nothing "fair" or "equitable" in that."

Yes there is. First of all, gas is hardly the only thing contributing co2 to the atmosphere not by a large measure, secondly taxes are not penalties, taxes are for things we as a society have determined we both need and either have complications with supply and demand and/or are not something that will be handled by private industry. Once we determine there is such a matter, the distribution of that cost should be spread evenly among our collective wealth. Taxes are not to penalize, encourage, reduce, or otherwise manipulate individual behavior and paying them also does not entitle you to judge that behavior or the decisions of others. If using gas is determined harmful then it should be illegal not taxed.

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

It solves the problem of drilling being messy and the problem of adding new CO2 to the atmosphere.

It also reduces to our existing solution for the problem of how to cram enough easily released energy into a small space for use in vehicles.

It doesn't directly remove the excess CO2 we've already released, but we don't necessarily want it to either. A rapid reversal in climate change isn't necessarily any better than continuing the current trend. And we don't have to solve the entire problem with one single step.

Re:Now we know.

[sjames]

If we're all dead, the effect for us is indistinguishable from destruction of the planet. Your point is kind of like claiming the whole city wasn't destroyed, you saw a birds nest on what used to be Elm street that was only smouldering.

Re:Now we know.

[jeff4747]

If you want to reduce CO2 emissions, buying an EV presently doesn't help. When you replace an ICE vehicleswith an EV without changing the makeup of your electricity sources, all you've done is shift your CO2 emissions from the car's tailpipe to a fossil fuel power plant's smokestack.

Moving the emissions to that smokestack is still beneficial. Because it's a lot more feasible to replace that smokestack with a zero-net-emissions power source than to replace those ICE cars with a zero-net-emissions power source.

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

all you've done is shift your CO2 emissions from the car's tailpipe to a fossil fuel power plant's smokestack. That's why the claim that EVs are "zero emissions" is BS at present. You need to replace fossil fuel power plants with nuclear and renewable plants to cause a reduction in CO2 emissions.

That depends of where you live: Province of Québec (canada)
To be fair cold weather here do cripple electric car quite a bit, but ICE car also have their issue at cold temperature.

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, electric vehicles only reduce CO2 emissions in areas where the electricity comes from natural gas, hydro, wind, solar or nuclear. So hard to find.

Re:Now we know.

[whoever57]

even with tracked arrays, you can collect for a maximum of around 8 hours a day with any efficiency, so you will need 3.5Kw of solar source over your 8 hours.
Doesnt sound too bad does it? not figure in practical Solar load factor, around 20%, so you need 17.5 Kw of solar cells.

You applied the capacity factor twice.

Your estimate of required charge is greater than I actually use. Instead, try this:
Total annual mileage (in two cars): 20,000
kWh/mile: .25 (generous, it's probably less).
Total annual charge in kWh: 5,000

My 5.25kW array produces about 8,000 kWh/year.

Re:Now we know.

[Raenex]

Once all the coastal cities of the world disappear under 200-300 feet of ocean rise 200-300 feet of ocean rise

Sea levels rose about 400 feet in the past 10,000 years. It's predicted to rise about 3 feet by 2100. Adjust your expectations of man-made climate change versus natural accordingly.

Re:Now we know.

[thomst]

sjames insisted:

If we're all dead, the effect for us is indistinguishable from destruction of the planet. Your point is kind of like claiming the whole city wasn't destroyed, you saw a birds nest on what used to be Elm street that was only smouldering.

Man, you have a limited perspective.

Your statement is EXACTLY equivalent to, "I don't care what happens to future generations, because, when I die, as far as I'm concerned, the world ends ... "

Re:Now we know.

[thomst]

I predicted:

Once all the coastal cities of the world disappear under 200-300 feet of ocean rise 200-300 feet of ocean rise

Prompting Raenex to respond:

Sea levels rose about 400 feet in the past 10,000 years. It's predicted to rise about 3 feet by 2100. Adjust your expectations of man-made climate change versus natural accordingly.

I neither said nor implied that I expected that much rise in sea levels by the end of his century.

That having been said, I think it's worth noting that every official estimation (i.e. - by the IPCC) of the rate of icecap melting thus far has proven to be wildly over-optimistic within no more than a few years. The goalposts keep moving, in part because the IPCC's reports are subject to political pressure from oil-producing nations, and in part because apparently climate scientists have yet to realize that icecaps, like glaciers, are complex systems (what used to be called "chaotic systems").

Once the base conditions for complex systems change even slightly, they tend to become unstable pretty rapidly, and begin oscillating with logarithmically-increasing intensity.

Ever watched a spinning top lose enough rotational speed to begin to wobble?

Remember what happens next ... ?

Re:Now we know.

[sjames]

More like I don't care about the bacteria, once all multi-cellular life is dead, the world as we know it has ended.

Re:Now we know.

[Raenex]

I neither said nor implied that I expected that much rise in sea levels by the end of his century.

I'm not saying you did. I'm just adding some more perspective to the conversation. You went back 250 million years ago. I went back 10,000 years. I think it's fascinating that such a dramatic change happened in the relatively recent past, with very little discussion about it.

That having been said, I think it's worth noting that every official estimation (i.e. - by the IPCC) of the rate of icecap melting thus far has proven to be wildly over-optimistic within no more than a few years.

I could turn that around and say that their models for expected warming have been wildly overheated within no more than a few years.

The goalposts keep moving, in part because the IPCC's reports are subject to political pressure from oil-producing nations

If anything, the IPCC has shown itself to be biased in favor of alarm.

and in part because apparently climate scientists have yet to realize that icecaps, like glaciers, are complex systems (what used to be called "chaotic systems").

Yes, that's true of the entirety of Earth's climate. Most of the predicted warming is supposed to come through clouds, but even that is unsure. Clouds have the potential to either trap heat in or reflect heat out, depending on where they form.

Once the base conditions for complex systems change even slightly, they tend to become unstable pretty rapidly, and begin oscillating with logarithmically-increasing intensity.

Like a 400 foot sea-level rise in 10,000 years? In reality, regardless of CO2, we've been terraforming the planet in unpredictable ways, whether it's aerosols, land use, nuclear bombs in the ionosphere, etc. I don't mean to be too glib about the dangers of CO2, but it has to be put in proper perspective. I think the best thing to do, if we really are concerned about sea level rise, is to start marine cloud brightening.

Re:Now we know.

[Peter P Peters]

If you want to reduce CO2 emissions, buying an EV presently doesn't help. When you replace an ICE vehicleswith an EV without changing the makeup of your electricity sources, all you've done is shift your CO2 emissions from the car's tailpipe to a fossil fuel power plant's smokestack. That's why the claim that EVs are "zero emissions" is BS at present. You need to replace fossil fuel power plants with nuclear and renewable plants to cause a reduction in CO2 emissions.

Good post, but something that's worth clarifying that electricity sources are also changing over time. For example my provider offers a surcharge if you want fully renewable sourced electricity. So for a premium you can have a zero emission vehicle right now today, and it's only going to become more common.

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Electric vehicles are zero emissions and that is not BS. Your analysis is correct you just go off the rails with that conclusion.

Systems are complex. Providing a needed improvement that will be a required part of a total move towards co2 reduction is not BS. It is factually correct that electric vehicles are zero emissions while in operation. Your assertion that there is just a shift from car to plant is false. It does not account for the greater efficiency of the plant vs internal combustion. So even if burning coal at the local plant, the electric car will result in less emission of carbon. If burning nat gas then even less. If electrical is from water, wind, nuke or solar then no total emissions at all. Electrical from those sources is very real and significant so you are actively denying reality to create false shock value for your sociopathic market tax manipulation proposal. A proposal that does NOTHING technical to improve the human condition. It does provide opportunity for the corrupt to insert their proboscis into a cash stream.

Carbon tax does NOTHING. It is a sociopathic solution for non technical do nothings to claim they give a shit while DECREASING the ability for technical people to actually create and implement solutions.

That's why you lie about electric cars. They are real. They are the result of technical work. They actually do something to help with problems.

YOU do NONE of those things. In fact you are the exact opposite so you slander.

Re:Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

No you can't. There is always the possibility of a runaway event that results in a situation like Venus. The possibility of this happening is very real.

So you used a silly semantic argument about saving the planet to present a false type fest of self stroking to show how knowledgeable you are except it was wrong and seemingly unaware of the possibility of a runaway event.

Slashdot posters are often goofballs. You can take THAT to the bank.

Re: Now we know.

[catprog]

Your out of date.

The current anti-left argument is "They want to keep the undeveloped world poor by making power more expensive"

Re:Now we know.

[drinkypoo]

The whole point of the system is to pool and distribute tax costs not use them to hammer the affected industry.

False. The point of the system is self-maintenance. If an industry is unsustainable, it should be hammered. Then the sustainable industries will have a chance to succeed in spite of the power of the incumbent.

Cost-avoided

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll wind up being way, way, way more than 10%. It is actually likely to work out to between $500-1000 per ton.

Re:More CLUTCH NIXON

[Clutch Nixon]

On a two-wheel flyer, risking everything
V-twin take him higher
And the danger it will bring
Tempting fate, time and time again
Bones break and crumble
Grim Reaper in the wind
Grim Reaper

One man of his word
Not afraid to lose it all
A single shot of whiskey – ready to take a fall
One American, with honor with pride
And a burning desire to fly fuckin’ high

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

The greatest man to ever set foot on two wheels
Possibly, the greatest man to ever live
A man that brought the world together
Not through song or dance
Not with the act of love
Not through violence or tyranny - No!
Just one man, two wheels
Two wheels strapped to a Harley v-twin

Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydrogen gas works for storage http://www.hydrogenhouseproject.org/

Gee

[ArchieBunker]

If there was only some natural process that did this already for free. Well a fellah can certainly dream...

Re:Gee

[Anonymous Coward]

The natural process of felling tropical rainforests so you can plant new faster growing trees in their place does not seem to be policically correct these days.

Re:Gee

[religionofpeas]

Trees are not free. They take up valuable space that could be used for more profitable things.

Re:Gee

[ShanghaiBill]

Trees are not free. They take up valuable space that could be used for more profitable things.

They are also not a net carbon sink.

Re:Gee

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they are lying cunt Bill.

Re:Gee

[religionofpeas]

And they aren't very efficient either. Photosynthesis only has efficiency of around 5%, much worse than PV solar, and only part of that energy is used for converting CO2 to cellulose.

Replacing coal burning plants with PV solar would be a more effective use of space.

Re:Gee

[91degrees]

This sort of device is expensive! It doesn't grow on trees!

Re:Gee

[DamnOregonian]

They aren't individually of course, as trees must eventually die.
But something amazing happens when a tree dies. Another pops up to take its place.
Trees, as an extant body of biomass that regrows as it dies.. colloquially known as a forest, are absolutely a net sink. That forest will never emit more carbon than it took to grow it.
Of course, with long enough time spans, even forests will die, and desequester that carbon.
But then again, with long enough time spans, that coal would have worked its way back to the surface in some kind of carbonaceous silicate form and have been weathered back into the atmosphere as well.

Re:Gee

[AmiMoJo]

Profitable things are not free either, they take up valuable space that could be used for atmospheric filtration.

Re:Gee

[Anonymous Coward]

Trees are not free. They take up valuable space that could be used for more profitable things.

Yes, let's dream of a world without trees, but full of expensive cars and other bling bling. It would be great for the economy!

You people write whatever shit come to your minds, sometimes...

Re:Gee

[dave420]

It's not biologically correct, either, as that will destroy them, turning them into a monoculture devoid of all the interesting and useful life discovered inside it. Not to mention the people who live there might not be too happy about it.

Re:Gee

[drinkypoo]

Who told you that, and why are you repeating it without fact checking? You just like looking like an idiot? Virtually all forests are carbon sinks, even tropical rain forests. Aerobic decomposition results in more carbon sequestration in soil, but anaerobic doesn't prevent all sequestration either. You are well off your nut.

Re:Gee

[fisted]

Why would you have to level a rain forest first? New, fast-growing trees could be planted elsewhere.

Re:Gee

[Anonymous Coward]

You literally cannot see the forest for the trees.

Re:Gee

[Anonymous Coward]

like store parking lots

Get this shit off Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody gives a flying fuck about CO2.

Every goddamned day there's another article about CO2

This is a tech site, at least it used to be.

How much does a tree cost?

[viperidaenz]

At 20kg per year per "mature tree", that's only 50 trees per ton of CO2 per year

Alternative fuels?

[smi.james.th]

I might be a bit naive here, but isn't using the captured CO2 as an alternative fuel just going to end up with it in the atmosphere again? I mean the fuel will need to be burned and then it'll go right back where it came from so you end up with the same problem. In my mind the only sustainable solution would be to bury the stuff underground, or somewhere that it can't go back into the atmosphere.

Re:Alternative fuels?

[caseih]

I think the hope is that if fuels can be made solely from the air then we won't need to refine fossil fuels anymore. In some ways it sounds too good to be true. With carbon neutral hydrocarbon fuels being manufactured our existing infrastructure can stay in place and suddenly becomes carbon neutral. All we'd have to worry about is addressing pollution from nox and co2.

I am cautiously supportive of these guys. The concept is good if the numbers really are economical.

Re:Alternative fuels?

[caseih]

Oops I meant particulates.

Re:Alternative fuels?

[whoever57]

I think the hope is that if fuels can be made solely from the air then we won't need to refine fossil fuels anymore.

But doesn't it take energy to create the fuel from the atmospheric CO2? Where does that energy come from?

Re:Alternative fuels?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. The reason why CO2 capturing is necessary is that stopping to add CO2 to the atmosphere isn't enough. Carbon neutral fuels are indeed *carbon neutral*, not *carbon negative* - definitely better than fossil fuels, but not an alternative to underground CO2 storage.

Re:Alternative fuels?

[Anonymous Coward]

Solar, wind, hydroelectric, nuclear, etc. The point is to think of fuels as fuels, not energy sources. It would be a way to ease the transition to using batteries as portable energy storage.

Re:Alternative fuels?

[Clutch Nixon 0]

On a two-wheel flyer, risking everything
V-twin take him higher
And the danger it will bring
Tempting fate, time and time again
Bones break and crumble
Grim Reaper in the wind
Grim Reaper

One man of his word
Not afraid to lose it all
A single shot of whiskey – ready to take a fall
One American, with honor with pride
And a burning desire to fly fuckin’ high

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

The greatest man to ever set foot on two wheels
Possibly, the greatest man to ever live
A man that brought the world together
Not through song or dance
Not with the act of love
Not through violence or tyranny - No!
Just one man, two wheels
Two wheels strapped to a Harley v-twin

Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!?

Re:Alternative fuels?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to use carbon for fuel. You can build cities with it. Including entire structures made of diamond. We just need the nanotech to pluck carbon from the air and assemble it.

Re:Alternative fuels?

[AmiMoJo]

"Recycling" 1kg of CO2 means 1kg less CO2 removed from the ground and released into the atmosphere.

Of course there are some losses in the recycling process and it's not as good as actually removing it to storage somewhere, as you say, but it's still better than pumping newly extracted CO2 out.

Re:Alternative fuels?

[Gilgaron]

Yeah but we'd need less 'fresh' fossil fuels if we could make it, so we could nominally reach an equilibrium point, or even store the fuel produced in strategic reserves and so on. Even if homes and personal vehicles all went electric we'd still need chemical fuel for some applications, I can't imagine we'll be using lithium ion batteries to launch rockets.

Re:Alternative fuels?

[Artagel]

Think of it as recycling. You don't increase the amount of CO2. You just keep those carbon atoms turning from hydrocarbon form to CO2 form in an endless cycle.

For the foreseeable future, liquid hydrocarbon fuels will be important to do that for applications that require very high energy density like commercial aviation. If you can create that liquid fuel by genetically engineered microorganisms, or chemical reactions that take atmospheric CO2 and make the fuel, you are even on a carbon basis.

Re:Alternative fuels?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the point.

If all the fuel we burn is produced by this process than we can burn as much of it as we want without increasing CO2 levels because we're returning it to the air from whence it came rather that releasing it form storage underground.

Even with less than full adoption it should reduce the rate an which we release CO2 from ground storage into the air compared to is we were not using this fuel at all.

Now multiply by 40 billion

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

So according to this study from 2013, we are putting about 40 billion tons of CO2 into the air every year.

Even with this new downwardly-revised estimate, the cost of taking it out again comes to somewhere between 3.7 trillion dollars and 9.2 trillion dollars. Per year. Every year.

It's an interesting piece of research, but don't start celebrating in the streets just yet.

Re:Now multiply by 40 billion

[AmiMoJo]

Based on current technology. Like wind and solar power, you would expect the cost to fall rapidly once large scale investment was being made and demand was high.

That's the key thing to take away from this. If we tax CO2 at not unbearably high rate it would be worth investing in this tech, and prices would start to fall and in a few decades we might be making a big difference.

Precision

[religionofpeas]

Between $94 and $232 ? I had assumed it be somewhere between $100 and $250. Apparently I was wrong.

Re:Precision

[93 Escort Wagon]

You were thinking in Canadian dollars.

techdirt sucks chinese tiny cock

[Anonymous Coward]

also indian tiny cock

If they can make fuel

[Anonymous Coward]

If they can do that next step of actually making hydrocarbon fuel from it, then the biggest source of CO2 into the atmosphere, burning oil = turning stored CO2 into atmospheric CO2, goes away.

In other words, the amount of CO2 we put in the atmosphere drops if they can make fuel by pulling CO2 from the air.

Wouldn't it be strange if we actually can store solar power as fuel. Because storing solar energy is another big PITA we have to solve.

Re:slashdead sucks chinese tiny cock

[Clutch Nixon]

On a two-wheel flyer, risking everything
V-twin take him higher
And the danger it will bring
Tempting fate, time and time again
Bones break and crumble
Grim Reaper in the wind
Grim Reaper

One man of his word
Not afraid to lose it all
A single shot of whiskey – ready to take a fall
One American, with honor with pride
And a burning desire to fly fuckin’ high

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

The greatest man to ever set foot on two wheels
Possibly, the greatest man to ever live
A man that brought the world together
Not through song or dance
Not with the act of love
Not through violence or tyranny - No!
Just one man, two wheels
Two wheels strapped to a Harley v-twin

Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!

But that's the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Every gallon of this fuel is one gallon less of dug-up hydrocarbons, so it does reduce the CO2 we put in the atmosphere by displacing coal/oil/gas.

Alternative fuels is not really removing

[jrumney]

Producing fuel from the harvested CO2 is just delaying the actual release, as the fuel will be burned again and released as CO2 into the atmosphere (I'm sure harvesting is not going to be 100% efficient, so even if you are re-harvesting it, it isn't really a closed loop cycle).

Better would be to harvest CO2 for the production of carbon fibre and nanotech materials, as that would take it out of the loop on a longer term basis, while still having a useful and valuable byproduct (the lack of which is the disadvantage of just burying it). I'm not a tree, nor a chemist, so I don't know how difficult the separation of CO2 to C and O2 is, but it seems obvious that solutions should be aiming in that direction.

Re:Alternative fuels is not really removing

[Anonymous Coward]

If the captured carbon can be used as a replacement for gasoline in cars (for example), on a large scale this will decrease the need to drill oil out of the ground. In effect, more carbon would end up buried in the ground.

IANAC (Chemist) but it seems dubious to say we could effectively put gasoline "back together" and burn it again. Where's the energy going to come from? Not fossil-fuel-generated electricity I hope.

Re: Alternative fuels is not really removing

[Anonymous Coward]

So clueless. Each time you burn and then recreate a gallon of green fuel is a new gallon of oil that stays in the ground forever.

If you burn and recreate a gallon 1000 times, thatâ(TM)s the same carbon recycled 1000 times. The cost to the planet is 1 gallon but you have used the same carbon 1000 times. Or it could be 1 million times or infinite times.

I donâ(TM)t expect much from self styled slashdot geniuses like you but even someone like me who knows global warming is a Marxist scam can see and approve of making solar into a useful technology for the first time ever, not the useless greenie joke it has been to now.

Re:Alternative fuels is not really removing

[jeff4747]

Producing fuel from the harvested CO2 is just delaying the actual release, as the fuel will be burned again and released as CO2 into the atmosphere

Um...no. It is recycling CO2 that has already been released. And yes, it will go back to being CO2 in the atmosphere again, assuming you burn the fuel.

I'm not a tree, nor a chemist, so I don't know how difficult the separation of CO2 to C and O2 is, but it seems obvious that solutions should be aiming in that direction.

Turning CO2 into directly into solid carbon is significantly more difficult than turning CO2 into methane or other hydrocarbons. Trees do the same - they make carbohydrates from CO2 and then "burn" the carbohydrates to power the tree.

I think I saw this on Space Balls.

[Anonymous Coward]

Careful with schwartz, or she'll go from suck to blow!

I missed an obvious point

[Anonymous Coward]

One gallon or fuel from Air+Water+Solar, burned, obtained, burned, obtained, burned obtains..... 1000 times, replace *1000* gallons of fuel dug out of the ground.

It's not just displacing one gallon of fossil fuel with one gallon of green fuel... *each* time its recycled its displace one gallon.

Honestly, Gates has a history of failing to deliver new stuff.... remember the laser zapping Mosquitoes? ... never went anywhere.... I'd like to see Musk involved.

Re: I missed an obvious point

[Anonymous Coward]

If Musk was involved his fanboys would be on here telling us how all the innocent people Musk killed through his shitty but well marketed tech are to blame for their own deaths.

Re: I missed an obvious point

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the people that died because they weren't paying attention to what their car was doing whilst using "Autopilot" despite warnings telling them they need to?

People die by do stupid things while driving all the time, those "Autopilot" stories only make the news because it is Tesla.

Re:I'm a MORON!

[Clutch Nixon 0]

Stupid moron, hydrogen corrodes and degrades just about ALL METAL it comes in contact with. Only an IDIOT would pick something that is insanely difficult to store and transport and is still produced from--guess what--PETROLEUM. You're way better off trading in your yuppie Range Rover and attempting to ride a Harley V-Twin. See guide below.

On a two-wheel flyer, risking everything
V-twin take him higher
And the danger it will bring
Tempting fate, time and time again
Bones break and crumble
Grim Reaper in the wind
Grim Reaper

One man of his word
Not afraid to lose it all
A single shot of whiskey – ready to take a fall
One American, with honor with pride
And a burning desire to fly fuckin’ high

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

The greatest man to ever set foot on two wheels
Possibly, the greatest man to ever live
A man that brought the world together
Not through song or dance
Not with the act of love
Not through violence or tyranny - No!
Just one man, two wheels
Two wheels strapped to a Harley v-twin

Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!

Straight Outta...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jim Lee's weathermodificationhistory's web site! Do NOT look his site up (or his 3dclimateviewer site) because you can't handle the truth! Listen to red fang.

Go ahead & mod me down, dare ya

[Tablizer]

Fox Translation: "Scientists Suck"

Re:Go ahead & mod me down, dare ya

[Anonymous Coward]

"Removing CO2 from the air is COMMUNISMMMMMM"

Yo momma

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo momma's CO2 sucking was cheaper than the scientists thought

Think of the

[pjbgravely]

Think of the plants, what are they going to breath?

Re:Think of the

[religionofpeas]

The same stuff they were breathing 100 years ago ?

Re:Think of the

[Clutch Nixon 0]

On a two-wheel flyer, risking everything
V-twin take him higher
And the danger it will bring
Tempting fate, time and time again
Bones break and crumble
Grim Reaper in the wind
Grim Reaper

One man of his word
Not afraid to lose it all
A single shot of whiskey – ready to take a fall
One American, with honor with pride
And a burning desire to fly fuckin’ high

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

The greatest man to ever set foot on two wheels
Possibly, the greatest man to ever live
A man that brought the world together
Not through song or dance
Not with the act of love
Not through violence or tyranny - No!
Just one man, two wheels
Two wheels strapped to a Harley v-twin

Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!
Feel the engine roar!

Clutch Nixon – Riding through the storm
Clutch Nixon – In hell you were born
Clutch Nixon – Death he did defy
Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell

Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!?

Re:Think of the

[skoskav]

If I may be pedantic, plants breath in oxygen as they metabolize sugar reserves, breathing out CO2. Their leaves make them net-fixers of CO2 though whenever the chloroplasts are struck with blue or red light in order to make ATP, which in turn becomes those sugars (and other building blocks, such as the plant itself).

Who knew that oil lobbyists could pay to revoke th

[matthollingsworth]

It will take *at least* as much energy to recapture the CO2 released by fossil fuels as the provided when burned originally (basic 2nd law of thermodynamics). And remember that at most 25% of the original fossil fuel energy was useful, so a conservative estimate would be that any process which recaptures the Co2 releasd orignally back into stable solid sequestered form will take 5-10x the original useful energy released when burning the fossil fuel. And that 5-10x energy will need to also be *zero CO2* emitting energy. Donâ(TM)t let people dazzle us with techno-babble unless they claim the 2nd law of thermodynamics magcally doesnâ(TM)t apply

Re: I'm a MORON!

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, there are plenty of hydrogen storage options already in use. What are you? From 1964?

Altitude?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a couple of question for those of you in the know. How high is actually this thing going to capture the CO2? And how high is the carbon that produces the glasshouse effect?

It would be weird if we become super-effective capturing CO2 at low hights, and by doing so we starve our plants, and at the same time, fail to make it effective for affecting climate change.

Re:Altitude?

[catprog]

I am pretty sure the atmosphere will move the high CO2 into the low atmosphere.

Re:slashtroll sucks chinese tiny cock

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck another copy/pasta troll, what is it with these useless waste of space cunts?
No life? Repressing their gayness? Just assholes? Mentally ill? All of them?

I saw this at least 3 years ago from US Navy

[blindseer]

Here's a 3 year old video on a US Navy project doing this same thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

This Navy project is not new but they have people on the project go around to conventions and such to speak on it. They show good economics, being able to convert CO2 and hydrogen from any natural water source into a liquid fuel for aircraft and other uses. All they need is some funding to ramp this up to something that actually produces fuel for military aircraft.

The largest consumer of fuel in the USA is the US Air Force. The largest air force in the world is the US Air Force. The second largest air force in the world is the US Navy. The third largest air force in the world is the US Marine Corps. If we can get the US military to use the technology that they already have to produce jet fuel then that would be a major win in so many ways.

This idea of carbon neutral fuel production is dependent on a carbon neutral energy source. We have this carbon neutral energy source in nuclear power. The US Navy knows how to operate nuclear power safely. The US Coast Guard is desperate for some new ice breakers, let them have them and make them nuclear powered. Making more nuclear powered US Navy and US Coast Guard surface ships, and this fuel synthesis process to fuel the support aircraft and auxiliary boats, means a big dent in consumed petroleum. Add in some nuclear power on shore to power airports and military bases, and make the fuel for the vehicles that come and go, and that's another big dent in petroleum consumed.

Electricity might work for cars and trains but that won't work for boats and planes. A large enough ship can be nuclear powered, and we should embrace that wholeheartedly for military and civilian ships. Planes won't fly without kerosene. We now get kerosene from digging it up from the ground but we can get it from seawater if we just develop the technology and take the problems of digging up petroleum seriously.

I can't take anyone seriously on the threat of global warming if they do not include nuclear power in the solution. They mention this great process of pulling carbon from the air to turn into fuel but say nothing of where the energy to power it comes from. That says a lot to me. They can't bring themselves to admit that nuclear power is necessary to make this viable. The US Navy has no such aversion to nuclear power. We can at least allow the US Navy to develop the technology they have. Like so many things the US military develops it is likely to find its way into the civilian market in time.

Re:I saw this at least 3 years ago from US Navy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Electricity might work for cars and trains but that won't work for boats and planes." - False, proven already. You're very wrong about that.

Re:I saw this at least 3 years ago from US Navy

[thesupraman]

Quite right.

Nuclear power works wonderfully for (navy scale) boats (and submarines), via electricity often.

Not so well for aircraft actually. The Americans tried and failed, the Russians tried and 'succeeded' if you dont count the fact that most of the aircrew died of radiation poisoning.

Oh, you were talking about little private craft? why? do you have no grasp of context?

Re:I saw this at least 3 years ago from US Navy

[careysub]

We are seeing the first prototypes and commercial proposals for electricity driven aircraft, but they will never, ever replace liquid fuel airliners. Moving one person intercontinental distances on an airplane consumes 450 kg of kerosene. There is no way you are getting that kind of energy out of a battery.

Electric aircraft will be short range air-taxi type systems.

Re:I saw this at least 3 years ago from US Navy

[NoImNotNineVolt]

The largest consumer of fuel in the USA is the US Air Force. The largest air force in the world is the US Air Force. The second largest air force in the world is the US Navy. The third largest air force in the world is the US Marine Corps.

Not that this has any bearing on the validity of your argument, but you seem to have forgotten Army.

According to a Quora post based on data pulled from a Wikipedia page (I know, I know), Air Force comes in first with 5005 airframes, but Army comes in second with 4193 airframes. I'm actually surprised to see this, as I was under the impression that Army actually had more than anyone else. Indeed, as one of the other Quora posts indicates: "The standard answer about the U.S. Army is that it has more aircraft than the Air Force and more boats than the Navy."

Re: I saw this at least 3 years ago from US Navy

[Anonymous Coward]

i think an adaptation of this concept could also work with renewables to a certain degree.
one of the problems we have with renewables is that we often can not use the output when and where we need it.
using the energy to create fuel could help with that problem.
it could allow us to build huge solarplants in the desert and windfarms at shores.

Re:I saw this at least 3 years ago from US Navy

[jeff4747]

They mention this great process of pulling carbon from the air to turn into fuel but say nothing of where the energy to power it comes from. That says a lot to me. They can't bring themselves to admit that nuclear power is necessary to make this viable.

I want to use nuclear power. I just want to put the reactor 93 million miles away.

Re:I saw this at least 3 years ago from US Navy

[Anonymous Coward]

The great thing about this is that the cost of the process defines the upper limit of mineral oil prices. Any work to bring down the cost of this technology similarly reduces the upper limit of oil prices.

If they really can produce fuel for under $3 a gallon then the middle east is fucked a lot sooner than we all think.

If renewables advocates are real about their claims of being able to produce electricity for 3c/kWh or less then this stuff is already viable on coastlines.

Re:I saw this at least 3 years ago from US Navy

[drinkypoo]

This Navy project is not new but they have people on the project go around to conventions and such to speak on it. They show good economics, being able to convert CO2 and hydrogen from any natural water source into a liquid fuel for aircraft and other uses. All they need is some funding to ramp this up to something that actually produces fuel for military aircraft.

There's actually no sense in using it for anything but aircraft. Hydrogen storage is too heavy to be practical for them, and hydrogen is too volatile. But hydrogen fuel cells are viable for naval vessels. They're also viable for land vehicles. The military is gearing up to use hydrogen there already.

I can't take anyone seriously on the threat of global warming if they do not include nuclear power in the solution. They mention this great process of pulling carbon from the air to turn into fuel but say nothing of where the energy to power it comes from. That says a lot to me. They can't bring themselves to admit that nuclear power is necessary to make this viable.

There are a whole bunch of things wrong with this paragraph. But first, let me address what comes next because it's a nice segue into discussing what came before:

The US Navy has no such aversion to nuclear power.

The US Navy doesn't have to be profitable. Private power generation does. Nuclear power generation is not profitable without subsidies. The risk is such that no private insurance company will cover it, so The People wind up having to guarantee the facilities. They always cost more to produce than they are supposed to, and they always cost much more to dismantle than planned. The People have to foot those costs as well.

Now, back to the prior paragraph: Nuclear power is not necessary to make "this" viable, neither fuel-from-seawater nor ending the consumption of fossil fuels. The only case in which it is necessary is in compact mobile applications, which are in turn only necessary for warfare. That is only a subset of transportation fuel consumption; it is worth considering, but it is not the entire picture.

For civilian use, fixed installations are suitable, which in turn means that wind and solar power are reasonable sources of power.

I cannot take anyone seriously if they willfully ignore the severe real-world drawbacks of nuclear power.

Re:I saw this at least 3 years ago from US Navy

[blindseer]

I cannot take anyone seriously if they willfully ignore the severe real-world drawbacks of nuclear power.

Line up the drawbacks of nuclear power to that of wind and solar and nuclear power will always win. As you point out we can put a nuclear power plant on something as small and mobile as an aircraft carrier or submarine. An aircraft carrier might not seem all that "small" in many ways but it is far smaller than any wind farm or solar collector of similar output.

The US Navy doesn't have to be profitable. Private power generation does. Nuclear power generation is not profitable without subsidies.

Wind and solar cannot be profitable without subsidies either. We subsidize wind and solar with the promise that it will be profitable in the future. If wind and solar can be profitable in the future with advancement in technology then so can nuclear.

There's actually no sense in using it for anything but aircraft. Hydrogen storage is too heavy to be practical for them, and hydrogen is too volatile. But hydrogen fuel cells are viable for naval vessels. They're also viable for land vehicles. The military is gearing up to use hydrogen there already.

This is proof you did not even bother to comprehend what was proposed. Go watch the video and read a few articles on the topic before you comment again.

Re:I saw this at least 3 years ago from US Navy

[drinkypoo]

Line up the drawbacks of nuclear power to that of wind and solar and nuclear power will always win.

Wind and solar don't have the risk of rendering areas uninhabitable for thousands of years. Willfully ignoring that doesn't change it.

Wind and solar cannot be profitable without subsidies either.

The only thing that need be done to make them the only profitable forms of power generation is to stop giving subsidies to other forms of power — either/both literal subsidies, and/or in the form of permitting them to ignore externalities when solar panels are required not to leach toxics even if landfilled.

Go watch the video

No. If you cannot explain what you're on about without referring to a video, you probably don't understand it to begin with.

Re:I saw this at least 3 years ago from US Navy

[blindseer]

No. If you cannot explain what you're on about without referring to a video, you probably don't understand it to begin with.

I can explain it but someone else explained it better already. I can transcribe or paraphrase what was said for your benefit but I'm not willing to waste my time because you are too lazy to click a link and watch a 15 minute video. If you use the 2x speed option on Youtube and skip over some of the boring parts you'd get the general idea in 5 minutes or less.

Wind and solar don't have the risk of rendering areas uninhabitable for thousands of years. Willfully ignoring that doesn't change it.

Bringing up first and second generation nuclear power plants as an argument against fourth and fifth generation power plants makes as much sense as me talking about the windmill on my grandfather's farm in opposition of current wind power. Or as much sense as bringing up Ralph Nader's book on car safety as a reflection on the safety of modern automobiles. The Soviets screwed up on the building of Chernobyl decades ago, but no one is insane enough to build a reactor like that again. If the safety of nuclear power concerns you then the quickest way to address that is to build new reactors to replace the old ones. We don't have the manufacturing ability to replace our current fleet of nuclear power plants with anything other than new nuclear power plants.

start planting trees

[js290]

Change food production from annuals to perennials as Nature intended.

Re:Who knew that oil lobbyists could pay to revoke

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, this doesn't really make sense as a way to make fuel. It makes much more sense as a way to remove CO2 from the air and put a price tag on doing so. On the other hand, realistically, we aren't going to stop burning portable fuels any time soon, so any that we can get, even inefficiently, by renewables instead of digging more out of the ground seems good... but I doubt the math actually works out on that (i.e. those same renewables could be displacing some coal or natural gas power plants instead; we are not remotely in a situation of having an abundance of accessible renewal energy that we don't know what to do with).

This Shanghai faggot doesn't know what he blathers

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually leaves that fall and get buried and become soil ARE a massive net carbon sink, thanks anyway retarded science poseur Bill. You really suck at this stuff, stop blathering idiot.

Yes, Republican Incel theorist moron, yes exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

Solve global warming with your magic, keep those Marxists on the run you... wacky, wacky Patriot-who-also-backs-a-traitor? Are we feeling ok snowflake Trumpy? Manafort going to prison got your panties in a gordian knot?

Confused?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, a) the CO2 comes from oil, we pump out from the ocean floor and boil, taking a small portion of it for fuel. None of that needs to happen during recapture.

There's nothing in the second law of thermodynamcis that says your X to Y efficiency is always better than Y to X. Let alone Y to Z (Z =carbon, X = crude oil under the sea floor).

b) assuming the energy comes from solar or renewables, it's carbon neutral immediately after construction is accounted for.

CO2 is innocent

[Anonymous Coward]

CO2 is not responsible for climate change, stop spreading misinformation and lies. CO2 is a trace gas, present in minute quantities, yet it's a life giving nutrient that life on earth needs and depends on, these suggestions are horrifying and against life itself.

Have you tried warming yourself 2 degrees using back radiation from your own body reemitted by CO2? Try it.

Try using less oil fucktards

[captbollocks]

US oil consumption 2017-2018, up 6.3% or 1.2 million barrels per day!
China up 3.8%, India up 10%, globally up 2.5%

Looks like we are hardly at the beginning of a renewables revolution and oil production is increasing worldwide.

Re:Try using less oil fucktards

[iggymanz]

you wouldn't be alive, have a computer, or be on the internet without fossil fuel use, hypocrite.

Awesome!

[jimtheowl]

Incredible!

No need to worry about CO2 Anymore, because it is "Cheaper Than Scientists Thought".

So cheap, that this 'new' Thought, will be demonstrated... soon... very soon.

Two weeks.. from the looks of it.

Sure it's cheap

[eminencja]

Just plant some trees and they will suck CO2 from the atmosphere and change it to green matter.

Diamonds

[Buchenskjoll]

Turn the captured carbon into diamonds! I didn't know what Rihanna was talking about with "Diamonds in the Sky", but now I get it.

Same cost as buring gasoline

[cnaumann]

Buring 100 gallons of gasoline produces about 1 Ton of CO2. So extracting CO2 is about the same cost as buring the gasoline that put it there.

LOL at "climate change"

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you mean "catastrophic man-made global warming"? Why didn't you say so?

Oh, it's so when global COOLING occurs, you can claim you were only talking about climate CHANGE, not warming...

Nobody believes this bullshit any more.

www.climatedepot.com
www.wattsupwiththat.com

Billions of dollars of taxpayers' money is wasted every year on this fraud, with scumbag 'scientists' pocketing massive salaries for trying to scare the rest of us to death.

Re:LOL at "climate change"

[catprog]

You mean the republicans "Lets call it climate change as it is less scary then global warming"?

$100/ton C02=$1/gallon of fuel.

[Layzej]

Burning a gallon of fuel releases 20 pounds of CO2. That means this carbon capture solution would add. one or two bucks to the price of a gallon of gas. It may be a tenable alternative to abandoning fossil fuels.

Re:$100/ton C02=$1/gallon of fuel.

[currently_awake]

Hydrogen doesn't appear naturally, you must make it, mostly from fossil fuels. Carbon capture might be financially viable with subsidies but does it result in a net reduction in carbon?

Re:$100/ton C02=$1/gallon of fuel.

[shaitand]

Nothing results in a net reduction of carbon unless we are going to launch it into the sun but this offsets new carbon emission into the atmosphere. Hydrogen is in this thing called water. We actually have lots and lots of it.

The more expensive options that involved buying the carbon would actually reduce levels.

Extra, extra!

[Plumpaquatsch]

Founder of startup says his business model is like totally valid and stuff!

Re: I'm a MORON!

[Anonymous Coward]

C3H8

Nuclear has problems

[sjbe]

For small countries, especially those with widespread and frequent cloud cover, solar is not an ideal investment.

If you are a small country you are going to import your power one way or another anyway unless you happen to be sitting on top of some massive reserves of oil. Your argument is a strawman. Heck even "big" countries like much of Europe import power from elsewhere (gas from Russia, oil from the middle east, etc) so why would it be any different for solar? You put the panels where they make sense and transmit the power where you need it. Plus even places with frequent cloud cover can find utility in solar panels. They don't have to be operating at peak efficiency to be useful.

Globally, nuclear power currently generates roughly three times as much power as wind and solar combined,

A percentage which is falling daily. Nuclear has a waste problem and a fallout risk. Solar and wind have no such issues. People recognize this and are acting accordingly with their interests. Most would rather live near some solar panels than a fission plant no matter how safe people claim it to be.

Now, it would be disingenuous of me not to point out that I'm comparing subsidies for a single nuclear plant with subsidies for an entire class of generation source,

So let's point out that private insurance will not as a general proposition insure nuclear plants without government guarantees. That is a form of subsidy.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[MachineShedFred]

More people die falling off roofs installing solar than die from anything nuclear on an annual basis. The "fallout risk" is higher in running 1960s-era reactors past their designed lifetime instead of building replacements. So why don't we make it easier to build replacements that have vastly improved safety systems?

Re:Nuclear has problems

[chmod a x mojo]

A percentage which is falling daily. Nuclear has a waste problem and a fallout risk. Solar and wind have no such issues. People recognize this and are acting accordingly with their interests. Most would rather live near some solar panels than a fission plant no matter how safe people claim it to be.

I'd rather live near a nuke plant and far, far away from any large grid scale solar installations. I don't want to deal with any of the heavy metals that would leach off of the panels, no matter how slowly they leach.

As for the waste problem with nuclear, it's a solved problem. Unfortunately, like everything else nuclear, including safety measure on newer designs, we aren't allowed to implement the solutions. We have reactor designs that could burn the "spent fuel" for power generation, but since they will produce fissionable "weapons grade" isotopes that can be extracted we can't build them.
        Just as a side note - the same thing that makes those isotopes very useful for weapons makes them ideal as a fuel source for a reactor too.

We have reactor designs that can burn the fuel down a such a low radiation risk that a guy could literally shovel accidental fuel spills up into a wheelbarrow with little risk of radiation related health issue... providing he isn't exposed for long times / too often. It's just that those aren't allowed to be built because " nu-cler enremogy is the devil, mmmm-kay" morons.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[Anonymous Coward]

More people die falling off roofs installing solar than die from anything nuclear on an annual basis. The "fallout risk" is higher in running 1960s-era reactors past their designed lifetime instead of building replacements. So why don't we make it easier to build replacements that have vastly improved safety systems?

LFTR drops the fallout risk even farther ...

Re: Nuclear has problems

[Anonymous Coward]

False.
Small countries can cope with their own energy needs and doesn't necessarily need to import.
Import is usually done by cost benefits.
Take Norway, Iceland and Sweden as examples.

Norway can become totally self sufficient with hydro power and own oil.
Iceland could also become self sufficient with hydro and geothermal energy if they managed to switch their cars and lorries from diesel and petrol.
Sweden could be self sufficient with nuclear and hydro power (plenty of uranium) if there was a political will (no "green" party) and they switched their car fleet from diesel

Re:Nuclear has problems

[apoc.famine]

I'd rather live near a nuke plant and far, far away from any large grid scale solar installations. I don't want to deal with any of the heavy metals that would leach off of the panels, no matter how slowly they leach.

This paper simulates leaching in a landfill by crushing the panel and running an acidic solution over it. When they did that, they found the leachate to be far over the federal limits for heavy metal content. But when it wasn't acidic, there was minimal contamination.

Given that large grid scale solar installations aren't a) crushed and b) having acidic fluid run over them continuously, I think you can stop worrying about leachate.

By all means, avoid living near a solar panel recycling or disposal facility. But also don't live near a facility that makes or disposes of any other electronics, because you'll have the same issue.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[chmod a x mojo]

Given that large grid scale solar installations aren't a) crushed and b) having acidic fluid run over them continuously, I think you can stop worrying about leachate.

Yeah, it's not like there is a source of carbonic / sulfuric ( if there is any kind of volcanic aerosols in the air at the time) acid falling from the sky onto the panels occasionally.

Just because the leaching is slow, doesn't mean that the metals won't build up over time. If we are lucky the soils will filter them out ( and become contaminated ), if we aren't so lucky we face the danger of heavy metal poisoning of underground water reservoirs over time.

Just like "who cares about CO2 levels 100 years from now" came back to bite us in the ass, "who cares about heavy metals in water reservoirs 100 years from now" will also bite the poor bastards living at the time right in the ass.

If I get heavy metal buildups I want it to be because I am doing something fun with heavy metals, not just because I live near a solar farm and increase the environmental concentration by a few PPM in the essentials for living.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[pastafazou]

Google Baotou Lake. It's a byproduct of solar panel and wind turbine production.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[grahamsz]

Horrific as it is, it sounds like it's most a byproduct of neodymium production. While that's obviously used in electric cars and wind turbines, I'm pretty sure you'll also find it in many coal and nuclear plants.

While the Mountain Pass Mine in California doesn't have a stellar environmental track record, it does prove that you can extract rare earths with a lot less impact than the chinese operation. The bigger issue is that we treat these things as commodities without regard to the external costs that go into producing them. We need a "blood diamond" type movement for rare earths to put more pressure on consumers to demand better from their electronics providers

Re:Nuclear has problems

[Anonymous Coward]

You have an interesting definition of "solved problem".

A reactor design that has a side effect of nuclear weapons proliferation isn't going to get very far. The world wouldn't allow most countries to operate them to begin with, and even in nations who already have nuclear weapons, there would be big security costs involved in operating a plant like that.

This leaves us with the traditional method that creates spent fuel, which we still have no long term solution for safely storing. Where can we put something that it won't be exposed to our environment for many thousands of years, and how do we ensure that nobody accidentally stumbles upon it even after our society and language are long gone?

Then there is the fun issue of decommissioning old plants. Who is paying for it and who is doing the work? There is a reason that they just keep running these old plants beyond their original lifespans.

Nuclear isn't all that economical for power generation in the first place, let alone once you start factoring in the costs of security, spent fuel, and decommissioning. The fact that hardly anyone is building nuclear plants isn't part of a conspiracy, it is just simply the free market making a choice.

The only real argument to go all in with nuclear right now is that it might be the best bet in fighting climate change.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I'm wondering what could possibly make you put a solar panel into landfill instead of recycling the glass, silver and silicon. It's still worth money even when it's totally dead. Oh, and that CdTe panel is a red herring anyway. There's only 5% of them, unless the share dropped again. Tellurium mining simply doesn't scale.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[Anonymous Coward]

the oil companies are running all the paranoia, 91% of energy in the world now comes from oil, all the green shit is funded by them

Re:Nuclear has problems

[jwhyche]

Nuclear power to expensive, thank a hippie. Nuclear power not safe because we are using designs from 1960 and can't update them? Thank a hippie. Can't move nuclear waste from one site to be reprocessed? Thank a hippie.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[apoc.famine]

You said:

I'd rather live near a nuke plant and far, far away from any large grid scale solar installations. I don't want to deal with any of the heavy metals that would leach off of the panels, no matter how slowly they leach.

When I pointed out how that seems to be an irrational fear that isn't backed up by data, you've now changed to:

Just like "who cares about CO2 levels 100 years from now" came back to bite us in the ass, "who cares about heavy metals in water reservoirs 100 years from now" will also bite the poor bastards living at the time right in the ass.

So you've gone from "solar might be bad for me, I don't want to live near it" to "solar might be bad for someone some time in the future so I don't want to live near it". Do you understand how stupid your argument against solar is in that context?

If you're going to irrationally hate solar, go for it. But don't try to rationalize it. The facts don't match up with your fear.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[Anonymous Coward]

> I don't want to deal with any of the heavy metals that would leach off of the panels, no matter how slowly they leach.

Photo-voltaics are so non-toxic they are not regulated by the EPA. California, which has stricter testing standards than the EPA, found that only CdTe panels might pose any problem. But this is only a problem when you're tearing up the panel, e.g., disposal and recycling.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[chmod a x mojo]

No, the irrational one here is you:

You can't seem to grasp the concept that even at PPM heavy metals build up in bio-systems. Hence why living near a coal plant is bad, one of the many reasons actually.

You also can't seem to grasp that 1: ignoring the problems won't make them go away, 2: the problems can affect an area now AND become worse over time, and 3: how to construct / deconstruct an actual argument.

And there is no "solar might be bad" for those that live near extremely large installations, it is and will be. It's simple chemistry. Whether steps can be taken ( or even will be at first, after all they cost money ) to mitigate this is yet to be seen.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[apoc.famine]

And there is no "solar might be bad" for those that live near extremely large installations, it is and will be.

If it is, you've got proof. Show me the research.

I took the time to show you some research that found that the amount of heavy metals leached from panels are negligible unless you crush them and continuously run an acidic solution over them. Your trite response of "omg, acid rain" is stupid, and I assume you know that.

If you've got evidence, present it. Otherwise you're the irrational one. That is pretty much the definition of believing something without evidence.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I've googled it. It has apparently nothing at all to do with solar power, or even wind power with induction generators. It does have a lot to do with Chinese carelessness, though.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Because nobody has a solution to spent fuel at this time. With wind and solar, why bother with nukes?

As for your falling lie. Count deaths from Chernobyl. They are real and in the thousands. Yes deaths from nukes are low IF YOU DON'T ACTUALLY COUNT THEM.

Also I would like to see the actual figures for falling deaths due to solar. I doubt it is many at all. Now count falling deaths from buildings in general then try to act like they are all solar installers you may have some significant and totally false number. You know, like how you fake nuke numbers by disregarding Chernobyl.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[Anonymous Coward]

You still get waste even with breeder reactors. The e reactors to burn spent fuel are not economical either. So you still have waste with no real plan and you have greater expense for the breeder reactor.

Your characterization of output from breeders is false.

Your personal concern about "leaching" from solar panels is false and ludicrous.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[AlejandroTejadaC]

> Nuclear has a waste problem and a fallout risk This is correct, but as many others pointed out: There is no continuous research to solve (or improve) this nuclear waste problem. For example, What happened to this research that proposed using Lasers to transmute nuclear waste? https://www.newscientist.com/a... Only Europe followed this research: https://eli-laser.eu/

Re:Nuclear has problems

[Anonymous Coward]

As I understand it, some solar cells have heavy metals and others don't.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[drinkypoo]

I'd rather live near a nuke plant and far, far away from any large grid scale solar installations. I don't want to deal with any of the heavy metals that would leach off of the panels, no matter how slowly they leach.

That's because you're ignorant at best, but more likely being willfully disingenuous. A nuke plant is jam-packed full of heavy metals, and without continual maintenance they will leach out. However, solar panels which are sold in the developed world these days are required not to leach toxics even if landfilled. The only metals they'll shed in any notable quantity come from their Aluminum frames, and the hardware they're mounted with.

As for the waste problem with nuclear, it's a solved problem.

Really? Why is so much of it sitting around in situations similar and/or identical to Fukushima's failed spent fuel storage, then?

We have reactor designs that can burn the fuel down a such a low radiation risk that a guy could literally shovel accidental fuel spills up into a wheelbarrow with little risk of radiation related health issue... providing he isn't exposed for long times / too often. It's just that those aren't allowed to be built because " nu-cler enremogy is the devil, mmmm-kay" morons.

Nobody is building them because they're expensive to build, and expensive and dangerous to operate.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[DarthVain]

The problem with nuclear is 100% perception. I think it is really a missed opportunity to not advance our nuclear technology. Somehow I see some textbook in the future and some child asking about the dark ages (sorry, sort of pun) of nuclear technology where little if any advancements were made, and the teacher responds that they were very very afraid, because they convinced themselves to be.

From what I've heard 99% of nuclear waste is things like gloves, dirt, whatever, and various other non-core materials that are slightly radioactive, have a huge half-life (i.e. they will be like that more less forever), but are only slightly more dangerous to handle than bananas... Of the very small amount of stuff that is left over (i.e. core and coolent like materials), it falls into two categories. The REALLY dangerous stuff that'll kill you from exposure, however it's half-life is extremely short (because it is decaying so fast to throw off so much radiation), so the storage isn't as big of a deal really, other than handling. The second category is the more problematic, in that it is radioactive to be pretty dangerous with any sort of long exposure, but isn't radioactive enough that it still has a pretty long half-life so it is going to be around for a very long time. Trying to do anything for a very long time is pretty hard. However again, from my understanding the reason it is produced like that is that we're using old designs, largely to produce weapons. Presumably in a newer design that same material would be consumed to the point where there is nothing left but a little nub of truly dangerous stuff, but which would dissipate on it's own in the short term so long as it is stored and handled properly.

Re:Nuclear has problems

[drinkypoo]

Given that large grid scale solar installations aren't a) crushed and b) having acidic fluid run over them continuously, I think you can stop worrying about leachate.

Yeah, it's not like there is a source of carbonic / sulfuric ( if there is any kind of volcanic aerosols in the air at the time) acid falling from the sky onto the panels occasionally.

I note that you conveniently left out the crushing part. When the panels are intact, all that stuff is hidden behind glass. When panels break, they are taken out of service and replaced because otherwise, you lose generating capacity. HTH, HAND!

Does this accomplish anything at all?

[magzteel]

This seems like a bad joke. According to TFA:

"Crucially, the lowest-cost design, optimized to produce and sell alternative fuels made from the captured carbon dioxide, could already be profitable with existing public policies in certain markets (see “The carbon-capture era may finally be starting”). "

So they are extracting it, converting it to fuel, and reselling it. Wont that put it right back where it came from?

Re:Does this accomplish anything at all?

[Gilgaron]

Yes! But it would be carbon neutral, and perhaps easier to store than CO2 if you wanted to sequester instead.

Re:Does this accomplish anything at all?

[magzteel]

Yes! But it would be carbon neutral, and perhaps easier to store than CO2 if you wanted to sequester instead.

This "low cost" solution is low cost because they are selling the fuel. If they sequester instead it goes back to being high cost.
I don't know if it's carbon-neutral either. I suppose it's possible if there was no carbon emitted in the extraction and alternative fuel production process.

I suspect it's more complicated than that though. As the article says

“It’d be such a great solution—if it were real,” MIT Energy Initiative senior researcher Howard Herzog, who coauthored the study that found costs could top $1,000 a ton, said at the time.

In an interview this week, Herzog complimented the detailed analysis in the new study, but said he remains skeptical of some of its financial assumptions. He expects that Carbon Engineering will face higher costs and challenges than it anticipates as the company moves to build larger plants.

“Until you really can confirm the costs and performance at scale, you’ve always got to take those costs with a grain of salt,” he says. “I still think a final number could be several times as much.”

Re:Does this accomplish anything at all?

[careysub]

This seems like a bad joke. According to TFA:

"Crucially, the lowest-cost design, optimized to produce and sell alternative fuels made from the captured carbon dioxide, could already be profitable with existing public policies in certain markets (see “The carbon-capture era may finally be starting”). "

So they are extracting it, converting it to fuel, and reselling it. Wont that put it right back where it came from?

Where do you think "it" (carbon dioxide) "came from"? The published plan for Carbon Engineering is to actually capture CO2 from the air. When combined with hydrogen produced from electricity you get a dense storable fuel that is carbon-neutral. Using it releases no CO2. They are either removing it directly from the atmosphere, or are capturing it from a stationary source which would otherwise release it to the atmosphere.

Capturing CO2 from a stationary source which would otherwise release it to the atmosphere accomplishes the same thing (until we are able to rid ourselves of such sources almost entirely) and is likely much easier and would be a good initial step to establish the industry.

Re:Does this accomplish anything at all?

[magzteel]

This seems like a bad joke. According to TFA:

"Crucially, the lowest-cost design, optimized to produce and sell alternative fuels made from the captured carbon dioxide, could already be profitable with existing public policies in certain markets (see “The carbon-capture era may finally be starting”). "

So they are extracting it, converting it to fuel, and reselling it. Wont that put it right back where it came from?

Where do you think "it" (carbon dioxide) "came from"? The published plan for Carbon Engineering is to actually capture CO2 from the air. When combined with hydrogen produced from electricity you get a dense storable fuel that is carbon-neutral. Using it releases no CO2. They are either removing it directly from the atmosphere, or are capturing it from a stationary source which would otherwise release it to the atmosphere.

Capturing CO2 from a stationary source which would otherwise release it to the atmosphere accomplishes the same thing (until we are able to rid ourselves of such sources almost entirely) and is likely much easier and would be a good initial step to establish the industry.

I'm sorry, I don't understand how "Using it releases no CO2". What will this new hydrocarbon produce when it is consumed?

This Technology Will Be Useful On Mars

[careysub]

It remains to be seen whether making fuel with captured CO2 and hydrogen will be economical on a large scale on Earth, but I bet it will have niche uses at least.

But developing this technology for use on Earth may assist future Mars exploration.

Robert Zubrin's "Mars Direct" and related proposals (you don't have to buy into his grand plan to appreciate the value of its components) relies on producing fuel on Mars for return trips, and to power exploratory vehicles, from the carbon dioxide and water that is found there. This would use a nuclear reactor to provide the electricity to split water into oxygen and hydrogen, the first of which would be store cryogenically, the second of which would be converted into methane from the CO2 that makes up most of the Martian atmosphere. which would then also be stored the same way.

Although you can use hydrogen as a rocket fuel directly, it has a couple of big problems - its very low density, and its very low boiling point. It is much harder to store, and to use in a vehicle. The rocket engine performance of methane or propane is quite good and would be much easier to work with.

Re:This Technology Will Be Useful On Mars

[careysub]

I should clarify - the summary discusses two different proposals, though referencing one more briefly toward the bottom - the Carbon Engineering start-up to produce actual fuel from the atmosphere, not just capture CO2 which must then be permanently sequestered somehow. This is the one I am commenting on here, not the carbon removal only scheme.

Re:Who knew that oil lobbyists could pay to revoke

[Quince alPillan]

You're mistaking the goal here. The goal isn't to produce energy. Although you could use renewable forms of energy to produce the carbon neutral fuel, it would be far more efficient to just use the renewable energy directly.

The goal is to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere with the side benefit that you can put the carbon into something usable to offset the cost of doing so.

What's new in this article is that the cost of doing that is a lot lower than originally expected, and with current markets, even profitable.

Plant a tree

[biggaijin]

If each of us planted a tree, it would consume enormous amounts of CO2 over its lifetime, it would produce O2 for us to breathe, and it would look great for many years. Of course this doesn't have the advantage of making some alternative-energy mogul rich.

Re:Plant a tree

[catprog]

Good idea except for one thing. Where are all the people in Manhattan going to plant their tree?

Risk

[sjbe]

More people die falling off roofs installing solar than die from anything nuclear on an annual basis.

And no solar installation has rendered a 1000 square mile area permanently uninhabitable. What is your point?

The "fallout risk" is higher in running 1960s-era reactors past their designed lifetime instead of building replacements.

There is no such thing as an industrial scale fission reactor without the risk of contamination. No new reactor designs have eliminated this failure mode. In fact no theoretical fission reactor designs have eliminated the risk either. It's the fatal flaw in the technology and its what scares people. Yes people overreact about it but that should surprise no one since people aren't rational animals. Until we solve that problem (along with the waste problem) nuclear fission is probably not going to become a bigger percentage of our energy portfolio than it already is.

So why don't we make it easier to build replacements that have vastly improved safety systems?

Because we still haven't eliminated the risk of large scale radiation contamination nor have we solved the waste disposal problem. Yes there are better designs out there. No they haven't solved the problem and it's obvious that people are not comfortable with that fact.

Re:Risk

[currently_awake]

Molten salt Thorium reactors appear to have solved the safety issues. You can lose all cooling and even rip the lid off the reactor while it's running without radioactive fallout. If you blow a hole in the side all the radioactive stuff will pour out then freeze for easy cleanup. Also the fuel is a byproduct of current mining, there is four times as much of it as uranium, and you don't need isotope seperation to make fuel.

Re:Risk

[MachineShedFred]

So you are into making 'perfect' the enemy of 'better'.

Got it.

In the meantime, we continue to run 'barely adequate' longer than it was designed to because of obstructionism such as you exhibit.

I like it and the science, but it is misleading

[EnOne]

The science is interesting on how they made changes to the capture device to make it more efficient. There are too many assumptions in the study. A big one of them is how much profit can be generated from creating synthetic oil from combining captured CO2 with H to create it. The previous study that is referenced where it was $1000 per ton was storing the CO2 after capture which made it more expensive.

I would prefer the raw numbers of how much it costs to go from Air to CO2 as a raw product. Then go about the costs and profits of what can be created or how expensive it would be to store the CO2.

Not a solved problem

[sjbe]

I'd rather live near a nuke plant and far, far away from any large grid scale solar installations. I don't want to deal with any of the heavy metals that would leach off of the panels, no matter how slowly they leach.

Got any other imaginary scary things about solar you'd like to make up? The computer you are using to type this drivel has the same dangerous stuff in it that your strawman argument has.

As for the waste problem with nuclear, it's a solved problem.

No it isn't. Your own arguments admit as much. Nuclear waste is a manageable problem but definitely not a solved one. If it was a solved problem we wouldn't have so bloody much of the stuff.

We have reactor designs that could burn the "spent fuel" for power generation, but since they will produce fissionable "weapons grade" isotopes that can be extracted we can't build them.

QED it isn't a solved problem.

We have reactor designs that can burn the fuel down a such a low radiation risk that a guy could literally shovel accidental fuel spills up into a wheelbarrow with little risk of radiation related health issue... providing he isn't exposed for long times / too often.

We have no proven designs that do anything of the sort. There are a few proposed and unproven reactor designs that are probably worth considering that may help with the problem if they prove practical and can get funded but they are little more than proposals at this point. I'm not aware of any reactor design that does not produce some amount of high level radioactive waste and/or undesirable byproducts.

Re:Not a solved problem

[chmod a x mojo]

Got any other imaginary scary things about solar you'd like to make up? The computer you are using to type this drivel has the same dangerous stuff in it that your strawman argument has.

Got any degrees that even remotely touch on basic chemistry or geology?

My computer isn't getting rained on with and saturated with weak carbonic and sulfuric acid to mobilize those heavy metals. I don't know about you, but I treat my electronics better than that. Well, yours seems to need to be drool-proofed, so maybe it's not so bad if it gets a little extra wet. Hell maybe it would wash some if the drool away.

QED it isn't a solved problem.

Yes it is. Saying it isn't a solved problem is like saying sewing up a knife wound isn't a solved problem because the doctors weren't allowed to perform the surgury that they know how to do.

Re:Not a solved problem

[K. S. Kyosuke]

QED it isn't a solved problem.

That's a very strange usage of the abbreviation.

Re:Not a solved problem

[drinkypoo]

Saying it isn't a solved problem is like saying sewing up a knife wound isn't a solved problem because the doctors weren't allowed to perform the surgury that they know how to do.

Ask the guy dying from the knife wound whether he cares if the problem goes unsolved for technical, logistic, or political reasons. Wait a few hours, and see how relevant it was to him which of those it was.

Re:Who knew that oil lobbyists could pay to revoke

[PPH]

This is all true. Keep in mind that the pilot plant is running in British Columbia, where cheap carbon neutral power is available from hydroelectric sources. As long as you have to get the CO2 out of the atmosphere, the news about the economics is good. But it is probably better to use the electricity directly for end uses than to have to chase all the CO2 around afterwards.

This does open up some interesting markets for locations that have abundant power available. If some sort of global payment system could compensate the people running the scrubbers, people could burn fossil fuels wherever they want and send the check for cleanup to Canada. Of course, increased hydro power demand will be met by Indians (First Nation) by cries of "Muh fish!"

I expect

[Anonymous Coward]

a weird weather year this year. The volcano eruptions shooting tons of ash into the atmosphere may demonstrate how insignificant we are compared to what moma earth can do in a blink.

GMO plants

[Rick Schumann]

You know, everyone seems to be such gods-be-damned fanboys about GMO crops, so how about we get these companies to develop a plant whose sole purpose is two-fold: (1) Grow and spread like weeds, and (2) Suck up and sequester CO2, and return us nice clean O2?

Re:GMO plants

[catprog]

1) You mean spread uncontrollably?

Re:Who knew that oil lobbyists could pay to revoke

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. Not all solid and liquid forms of carbon contain as much energy as gasoline or methane. Take the naive approach of just adsorbing CO2 from the air (this is the hard part that the paper showed can be cost effective) and compressing it. A carbon mole of liquid CO2 contains far less energy than a carbon mole of methane.

Before this study, full cycle sequestration was seen as impractical, but given the greater concentrating efficiency here it's perfectly possible to pull methane from the ground, burn it, capture the CO2, compress it to liquid, and pipe it back into the earth about a kilometer where it will be held stable by the pressure for millions of years just like oil is. And all of this with a net positive energy output.

Fizzy water for all!

[ZipK]

The study concludes it would cost between $94 and $232 per ton of captured carbon dioxide.

Can this be done at home and used to recharge my SodaStream carbonators? Will I need an adapter? How many 14.5 oz carbonators will I need to hold one ton of CO2?

Nuclear was impeded, cleanup benefits ignored

[perpenso]

Did you miss the part where nuclear reached 100 GW of installed capacity in 1970s and where solar reached the same in the 2010s? Nuclear had a forty year headstart - and forty more years of subsidies of course. "Why not subsidize nuclear power so we can develop the technology until it is cheaper than coal?" Well, what the hell were they doing those forty years? Apparently they should have already reached that point by now. Oh, but they didn't. Are you going to give them forty more years?

They were fighting nuisance lawsuits that stopped/slowed construction.

Research was defunded by politicians wanting to get the votes of "environmentalists".

Various environmentalist leaders now recognize they were wrong in impeding nuclear.

And there is a second benefit you and many others fail to consider. Modern reactor designs do more than produce electricity. They also clean up nuclear waste by consuming some of that old waste as fuel. The benefits of this cleanup need to be part of the calculation.

US coal released more radiation than US nuclear

[perpenso]

History suggests that those 1960s era nuclear plants were not so safe

Actually US coal has released more radiation into the environment than US nuclear.

And back then there was no plan for dealing with waste, it was something we (as in people living in 2020) were supposed to have solved with magic new technology.

Its not magic when the scientists understand the process but the engineers have not yet built the machines. By the way, we've built reactors that do consume old nuclear waste as fuel.

Perhaps there is a reason why nuclear turned out to be expensive.

The decades of lawsuits from "environmental" groups, the interference of politicians catering to the "environmentalists"? Some of the environmentalist leaders now admit that this hindrance of nuclear was a mistake, that nuclear is part of the non-fossil fuels solution we need to address global warming.

Don't forget impact of batteries

[perpenso]

Don't forget the environmental impact of the batteries that will be needed to store power for when the sun isn't shining, or the wind not blowing (or blowing too hard), or time shifting its use (ex charging the car at night when rates are lower).

Farmers and ranchers not loggers

[perpenso]

Maybe - there's an awful lot of illegal logging in rainforests though - and I really doubt those loggers replant.

I think you may be confusing loggers with the farmers and ranchers who are converting rainforest to agricultural lands.

Re:Farmers and ranchers not loggers

[Immerman]

Do a little research on illegal logging in the rainforest - it's a major problem, with loggers coming in, "strip mining" the most valuable (economically and ecologically) old-growth trees first, and moving on before the authorities are informed.

Not to downplay the damage done by farmers and ranchers - but they're not the only villains.

Re:Farmers and ranchers not loggers

[perpenso]

Do a little research on illegal logging in the rainforest - it's a major problem, with loggers coming in, "strip mining" the most valuable (economically and ecologically) old-growth trees first, and moving on before the authorities are informed. Not to downplay the damage done by farmers and ranchers - but they're not the only villains.

"In the Amazon, around 17% of the forest has been lost in the last 50 years, mostly due to forest conversion for cattle ranching."
https://www.worldwildlife.org/...

Re:Farmers and ranchers not loggers

[perpenso]

Do a little research on illegal logging in the rainforest - it's a major problem, with loggers coming in, "strip mining" the most valuable (economically and ecologically) old-growth trees first, and moving on before the authorities are informed.

Not to downplay the damage done by farmers and ranchers - but they're not the only villains.

And an example from the farming side:

"The report claims that between 2005 and 2010, almost 353,000 hectares of peat swamp forests were cleared – a third of Malaysia's total – largely for palm oil production."
https://www.theguardian.com/en...

Re:Farmers and ranchers not loggers

[perpenso]

Not to downplay the damage done by farmers and ranchers - but they're not the only villains.

They are the #1 and #2 villains, and much of the illegal logging is done to clear the land for the ranchers and farmers. The loggers working for the ranchers and farmers, harvesting a small number of commercially viable trees and burning the rest to clear and/or fertilize the land. For loggers actually focused on logging itself and not ranch/farm prep there are some sustainability practices. Minimum diameters, land on rotation (sometimes the period measuring decades), etc.

Much of the illegal logging is at the "entrepreneurial" and "small" scale. "Large" commercial scale logging leans more towards the regulated and sustainable, they often service export markets that demand proper paperwork and sustainability.

There are lots of problems with logging but they aren't the main threat, again making a distinction between logging for loggings sake and ranch/farm prep.

Re:Farmers and ranchers not loggers

[Immerman]

Hey, no argument. Farming and ranching are the gorillas in the ring. Don't know why they weren't the first on my list - just didn't spring to mind.

You're doin' it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop trying to extract and store CO2. Storing CO2 is expensive and allows for the possibility of it getting released into the atmosphere again (e.g.: due to catastrophic failure).

Break it down to C and O2, release the O2 back into the atmosphere and use the C in graphene operations.

Make Use Of Existing Resources

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Giant Orange Head sucks plenty, just use him to power the system. He's expensive by ordinary wage standards but that is the wrong way to look at it.

BGOH should be thought of as a terrestrial geo-engineering solution. He will suck, he will blow, and he's a renewable resource! Just feed him (food, ego, porn stars, whatever). In the realm of terraforming the planet he's downright cheap.

Making lemonaid out of lemons here!

Great Explaination, Small Flaw

[Anonymous Coward]

Electric vehicles aren't cheap to operate because they're more energy efficient. They use nearly as much energy as ICE vehicles.

That is actually not true, electric cars are much more efficient because they don't need to run accessories (like alternators) or even transmissions in some cases. Even when running off of coal, that energy is typically created at peak efficiency.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, taking all of the factors that you mentioned into play, a 2012 Nissan Leaf emits 226 grams of CO2 per mile in my zip code. Average emissions are 381 grams of CO2 per mile in my zip code. Try it for yourself.

With that said, what is easier to change to emit less CO2, Hundreds of power plants, or millions of cars?

Re:Great Explaination, Small Flaw

[Raenex]

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, taking all of the factors that you mentioned into play, a 2012 Nissan Leaf emits 226 grams of CO2 per mile in my zip code. Average emissions are 381 grams of CO2 per mile in my zip code.

Does that take into account that the Nissan Leaf is a small car, where most people drive bigger cars?

CO2 is easy...

[dddux]

CO2 is relatively easy to get rid of, but we have pollution, which is impacting everybody's health, to deal with, and it is much harder to get rid of.