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

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.

[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.

[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.

[Plus1Entropy]

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

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

Gee

[ArchieBunker]

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

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

[91degrees]

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

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

Re: No surprise here . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Think of the

[pjbgravely]

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

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: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.

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: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:$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:So make gasoline

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Or make methane? Much easier, apparently.

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:$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...

[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:the wrong approach is always more expensive

[Barsteward]

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

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: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: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: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: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.

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

[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: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.