Scientists Push For Government Research Program Focused On Sucking Carbon From Air

In a 369-page report, the nation's leading scientific body (consisting of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine) is urging the federal government to begin a research program focused on developing technologies that can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in order to help slow climate change. It is now believed that in order to avoid significant further warming of the planet, big chunks of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may need to be removed. The New York Times reports: The panel's members conceded that the Trump administration may not find the climate change argument all that compelling, since the president has disavowed the Paris Agreement. But, Dr. Pacala said, it's quite likely that other countries will be interested in carbon removal. The United States could take a leading role in developing technologies that could one day be worth many billions of dollars.

Right now, there are plenty of ideas for carbon removal kicking around. Countries could plant more trees that pull carbon dioxide out of the air and lock it in their wood. Farmers could adopt techniques, such as no-till agriculture, that would keep more carbon trapped in the soil. A few companies are building "direct air capture" plants that use chemical agents to scrub trace amounts of carbon dioxide from the air, allowing them to sell the gas to industrial customers or bury it underground. But, the National Academies panel warned, many of these methods are still unproven or face serious limitations. There's only so much land available to plant new trees. Scientists are still unsure how much carbon can realistically be stored in agricultural soils. And direct air capture plants are still too expensive for mass deployment. One solution that the National Academies panel recommended was for the United States to set up programs to start testing and deploying carbon removal methods that look ready to go, such as negative emissions biomass plants, new forest management techniques or carbon farming programs.

"At the same time, federal agencies would need to fund research into early-stage carbon removal techniques, to explore whether they may one day be ready for widespread use," reports the NYT.

Comments

Trees

[Futurepower(R)]

There are these things called "trees". They take carbon from the air.

How Do Trees Turn Carbon Dioxide into Oxygen? (April 5, 2018 )

Re:Trees

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa there! Hold on! What are you gunning for? A Nobel Prize? Leave the disruptive innovation to the real scientists, OK?

Re:Trees

[Camembert]

And yes, scientists are aware that planting trees will help, but you need an incredible surface of forest to now make a little difference - twice the size of India is what I read a while ago.
Likely multiple techniques will need to be used to be successful. And also a serious effort in reducing new co2 of course.

Re:Trees

[religionofpeas]

Efficiency of photosynthesis is low. Trees will eventually decompose. We don't have sufficient areas with good growing conditions for trees.

Re:Trees

[Anonymous Coward]

Back when I was growing up it was found that the Amazon Rainforest supplied much of the O2 that we breath.

Re:Trees

[blindseer]

Efficiency of photosynthesis is low.

I suggest that instead of just pointing out why you think something won't work that you also provide an alternative.

Trees will eventually decompose.

Yes, they do compose. In between the time the trees die and when they decompose they are storing carbon. Dr. Patrick Moore says growing trees is a very good idea on storing carbon. Dr. Moore has degrees in biology and ecology so I'm going to believe him over some random person posting something on the internet.

We don't have sufficient areas with good growing conditions for trees.

Dr. Moore disagrees. Do you have a better idea? I heard from another person with a PhD that suggests mining basalt and using it as fertilizer as a means to sequester CO2, Dr. Darryl Seimer. Basalt contains lime and when exposed to the air it turns to limestone. Farmers use a lot of lime in their fields to control pH but the most common sources involve producing a lot of CO2. There isn't a lot of basalt mined for lime because it is a very hard rock, but if we can make it economic to mine then that can remove a lot of CO2 from the air.

Oh, and both Dr. Moore and Dr. Seimer believe we need to use nuclear power to stop producing so much CO2. I will take the word from these people that are highly knowledgeable on the topic over so many more that believe we can solve this problem without nuclear power. Science is not something decided by a vote so I don't much care if 99.7% of people say otherwise. Science is base on fact, not popularity. A popular vote for something wrong just means a lot of people are wrong. If someone wants to prove these doctors are wrong then all it takes is one person with better facts.

Re:Trees

[zmooc]

Trees use photosynthesis to obtain the required energy for converting CO2 into C. And sadly, photosynthesis is wildly inefficient. Unfortunately, even PV-based solutions will outperform them easily. I'm afraid the inefficiency of photosynthesis will in the long term prove to be a major risk for the survival of trees :|

Re:Trees

[religionofpeas]

I suggest that instead of just pointing out why you think something won't work that you also provide an alternative.

The best alternative is to keep the fossil fuels in the ground.

Dr. Moore has degrees in biology and ecology so I'm going to believe him over some random person posting something on the internet.

You forgot the link to the study.

Re:Trees

[religionofpeas]

Wait, do you mean this guy ?

https://www.sourcewatch.org/in...

Patrick Moore is an ecologist who denies that humans cause climate change

So he's a nutcase.

Re:Trees

[AmiMoJo]

The good thing about tress is that they are cheap and low maintenance.

What we really need is something cheap and low maintenance and more efficient than a tree. Failing that, something expensive but able to remove vast amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Re:Trees

[Anonymous Coward]

Hang on, you mean, if we re-plant the amazon forest, and every other forest that we've been shopping down for decades, - we could reverse the damage we've done? Who'd of thunk it?

Re:Trees

[DirkDaring]

Did you know there are more trees in the US now than at the founding of our country?

Re:Trees

[argStyopa]

Or, we let whatever mechanism* act normally that has repeatedly reduced CO2 after the routinely-high peaks every 120k years for the last 3 million or so.

*my bet's on albedo - warming causes more evaporation causing more clouds raising the planet's albedo causing temps to fall.

Re:Trees

[Barsteward]

yeah, plant them down each road as lane dividers on multi-lane road, should sort the problem...

Re:Trees

[Crashmarik]

So when a tree is mature you are saying you have to chop it down before it dies and decomposes.
Then you should make use of the tree in some fashion that lasts a long time while you plant another tree in its place ?

Hmmmm If only there were ways to do that.

Re:Trees

[Anonymous Coward]

Likely multiple techniques will need to be used to be successful.

I agree. There is nothing wrong with looking for additional methods to get the job done, provided your being realistic and such. The problem is not science, or the efforts of science. The problem are politicians. The issue is useful to them and the people on the other side of it wouldn't vote for them anyway so their opinions do not matter and of course the people put them in power. Lately this seems more the fault of those who do not vote.

Unfortunately, not protecting the environment has a long term cost to the human race, and even to those living now, to one extent or another. It would, for instance be nice to not see air quality signs on my way to work, with them often saying, yah, not so good.

Let science do its job and figure out the least expensive path to fix things. They may not get it perfect the first time, but it is, after all, science. You learn from your mistakes and improve.

Any politician that ignores sound science is someone who should be fired as quickly as possible, with extreme prejudice never to be reelected. If people want to pray for the CO2 to go away that is fine, but its not a sound strategy. Personally I'd rather make the assumption that if we are divinely created that he gave us our intellect for a reason, and it was not to be selective in how we use it.

Re:Trees

[jellomizer]

They are also large, needing a lot of land space, deep soil and when they fall they often create a lot of damage.
I thought about what if we just plant trees on top of all the roofs in Cities? Then I was like, well we need the roughs strong enough to handle the tons of soil, and deal with the constant moisture, the roots may try very hard to break them. Then what would happen if a tree fell down from a 40 story building onto the streets....
Also this would attract animals to the area, which may not necessarily be a good thing.

Re:Trees

[GameboyRMH]

Now you have grass-fed beef instead.

Re:Trees

[drinkypoo]

Did you know there are more trees in the US now than at the founding of our country?

Did you know that mature trees sequester more carbon than "growing" ones? Tree growth only occurs in a thin layer below the bark, so the larger the diameter of the tree, the more growth occurs — not less, as most people assume. The fact is that for virtually all species of tree, mature forests sequester more carbon than young ones. They actually keep growing until they die.

At this point the only things we could plant [which I know of] that would take effect quickly enough to do any good are bamboo and kudzu. Both are invasive, so they represent substantial changes of ecosystem, but that's better than ecolapse. Kudzu solves two problems, because you can use it as feed for goats, and goats can replace cows — which fart too much. So does bamboo, as you can use it as a building material. It's like trees, only much faster. You can make lots of good stuff out of bamboo, obviously.

Re:Trees

[Zorro]

Wood has many uses. Like building houses.

Re:Trees

[riverat1]

Hemp is not too bad at it either and has useful products made from it.

As far as trees go, they help but they won't fix the problem on any short term schedule. The amount of just coal we dig up every day amounts to thousands of years of tree accumulation. You could cover the whole Earth with trees and it would still take thousands of years to bring CO2 levels back down to reasonable levels.

Re:Trees

[riverat1]

The mechanism that brings CO2 levels back down over the last several million years or so is mostly the cooling of the Earth due to changes in the orbital parameters (Milankovitch cycles) that cause the CO2 to get absorbed in the oceans and other places. The cooling has to start first to do that.

Re: Trees

[GameboyRMH]

He means energy-inefficient and/or time-inefficient, not money-inefficient...although in the medium/long term, letting the planet get wrecked due to insufficiently fast carbon capture is money-inefficient too.

Re:Trees

[riverat1]

Oh, and both Dr. Moore and Dr. Seimer believe we need to use nuclear power to stop producing so much CO2. I will take the word from these people that are highly knowledgeable on the topic over so many more that believe we can solve this problem without nuclear power. Science is not something decided by a vote so I don't much care if 99.7% of people say otherwise. Science is base on fact, not popularity. A popular vote for something wrong just means a lot of people are wrong. If someone wants to prove these doctors are wrong then all it takes is one person with better facts.

Nuclear power will be a viable option if you can convince people to pony up the extra cost it imposes compared to other options. The only way that works in the US is with massive government subsidies paid for from taxes. Now, if you impose enough cost on carbon emissions due to the damage they cause that might be possible but I feel it's pretty unlikely to happen any time soon.

Re:Trees

[riverat1]

I think you fail to understand the nature of a scientific consensus. It's not something organized that scientists do but rather something that comes about organically as a majority of scientists come to agree on some particular point.

Re:Trees

[riverat1]

It's true that water vapor is the source of most of the greenhouse effect on Earth but it's also true that humans can do little to affect the level of water vapor in the atmosphere. It's level is mostly set by temperature. If however you reduce the level of CO2 in the atmosphere the cooling that causes will also reduce the level of water vapor. If you reduced the level of CO2 to near zero it would reduce the level of water vapor so much that the Earth would freeze over nearly to the equator.

Re:Trees

[lrichardson]

Except that - generally - trees die, and the bacteria that decompose them return most of the carbon back into the atmosphere. Ocean algae also suck carbon dioxide out of the water, but when they die, they sink, and either get embedded in sediment, or digested by (mostly) non-oxygen utilizing processes.

Re:Trees

[WindBourne]

Actually, there is plenty of land to make an impact. For example, here in western America, we are losing our forest to pine beetle kill and now, Spruce beetles are coming. What we should be doing is allowing the dead/dying trees to be harvested ('blue pine' is beautiful ), and then replant the area. We can use drones to do that. Ideally, we can intersperse different species to prevent the pine/spruce beetle kills in the future. The nice thing about planting these trees NOW, is that initially, they will not use up that much CO2. BUT, as they grow bigger, their yearly uptake will increase. IOW, by the time that these are taking up large quantities of CO2, we will, hopefully, have stopped adding new coal plants, killed off the all of the old coal plants, and removed at least the old vehicles, and stopped selling ICE vehicles everywhere. IOW, we will have stabilized our CO2 emissions to not grow them.

Re:Trees

[MountainSamadi]

Carbon sequestration starts with soil biology. We have already figured out the solution to this problem. The issue is: not many people hear the answer. If we converted big agriculture to a polyculture based system along the lines of permaculture, we could sequester just about all the carbon released in the atmosphere within about a decade. Permaculture systems create soil, sequester carbon and reverse desertification at an incredible rate. We can build soil at a rate of 1-3 inches per year whereas nature normally takes 1,000 years to create 1 inch of soil. Farmers make more money, have more stable and diversified crops and animal products, soil biology is repaired, carbon is sequestered at an incredible rate, water is held in the soil - regulating stream flows, mitigating floods... Come on people. Don't make this harder than it needs to be. We have the answer. I'm actively doing it myself. Hope in a Changing World - Reforesting the Yellow River Basin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Trees

[WindBourne]

We desperately need nuclear SMRs to be able to replace the city coal plants that we have. In AMerica, nearly all coal plants located within cities are under .5GW. These are IDEAL to replace with SMALL SAFE nuclear reactors. Nuscale is ideal since they are 60 MW / reactor and can not fail (shy of dropping a nuke on it ). Put in 3-4 of these and you can replace the old coal plants. That would enable us to cut our coal back by 1/2 to 2/3. We would likely also see it replace nat gas since we will shortly see our nat gas prices jump quite high. Not as high as global levels, but high enough that inexpensive nukes will be ideal to put in place.

Re:Trees

[mspohr]

Just read this morning that Argentina has destroyed 25% of it's forest in the past few years to grow soybeans to feed to animals for meat.
It seems that it would be a good idea to stop cutting down trees first. (Also, stop eating meat.)

Re:Trees

[riverat1]

Licensing, etc. is not that big a factor in the cost. The two nuclear plants currently being built in Georgia, the Vogtle plants were originally budgeted to cost around $7 billion and be online by now. Now because of delays and screw ups by the people building it the cost has ballooned to around $26 billion and they're expected to be online in 2021/2022. Part of the problem was Westinghouse didn't have complete and fully developed plans to build them when they started and were making changes on the fly then Westinghouse went bankrupt. Licensing costs are just a small part of all of that. When the licenses were originally issued the Obama made about $8.3 billion in Federal loan guarantees available to them.

Re:Trees

[bwt]

Not just trees, but any form of plant and photosynthetic plankton. CO2 actually fertilizes plant growth, meaning if global levels raise, more plants grow -- up to a point, which the earth hasn't reached yet. In fact, the Al Gore era projections for global warming were all wrong precisely because those models didn't account for planetary greening due to CO2 fertilization. This creates a carbon sink, but it isn't enough to equalize temperatures, so it's warming in spite of this effect, just less than without it. Every molecule of carbon in fossil fuels was originally in the atmosphere (since fossils were once alive), and the earth has a tendency to bury its carbon. The planet will survive global warming, and even thrive, but specific species will suffer serious disruption during the transition.

Re:Trees

[jhoger]

Yeah, trees aren't doing the trick.

I think engineers can do a bit better.

Re:Trees

[argStyopa]

Except that Milankovich *mostly* explains current warming, leaving hysterical ecomarxists only a slight residual amplification (the ACTUAL anthropogenic warming, presumably).

Since "the sky is falling and it's our fault" makes so much better headlines than "this particular sky was going to fall pretty much this way anyway, and what we as humans are doing *might* (we think) be making it slightly worse" I'll leave it to you which message is shouted the loudest in our culture.

Re:Trees

[riverat1]

Milankovitch does not explain anything about the warming of the last 200 years since the general trend of the cycles is toward cooling. Before the current warming trend the Earth had been cooling at a slight rate for the last 6,000-8,000 years because that is the current trend of Milankovitch Cycles after they peaked on the warming trend that caused the current interglacial about 8,000 years ago. It is not cooling now mainly because of the increase in greenhouse gases (primarily CO2) in the atmosphere. The source of most of that increase is human activities. You may whine about "ecomarxists" but that doesn't change the physics behind the current warming.

Trees absorb and remove Carbon

[Anonymous Coward]

Now cutting down the Amazon and other forrests has NOTHING to to with global warming: Discuss.

Re:Trees absorb and remove Carbon

[WindBourne]

China has a lot of desert. At this time, the gov is pushing the forest INTO the desert and actually retaking land back. So, yeah, they are trying to clean up things.

CO2 is not a pollutant

[Roodvlees]

It allows trees to grow faster and with less water usage.
http://co2coalition.org/
That's probably why total plant life on earth has increased by 14% in the past 30 years:
https://i.imgsafe.org/35/352a2...

Re:CO2 is not a pollutant

[religionofpeas]

Just because CO2 helps plants grow does not mean it's not a pollutant. It is possible for things to have multiple properties, sometimes even conflicting ones.

Water also helps plants grow. That doesn't mean we should welcome flooding.

Re:CO2 is not a pollutant

[religionofpeas]

But plain water doesn't feed a plant any nutrients and cause it to grow, it has to have a combinations of thing 1 of which is CO2.

Right. A plant needs both water and CO2, and a bunch of minerals. But you can find CO2 everywhere on the planet. Water not so much.

Re:CO2 is not a pollutant

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because CO2 helps plants grow does not mean it's not a pollutant. It is possible for things to have multiple properties, sometimes even conflicting ones.

Water also helps plants grow. That doesn't mean we should welcome flooding.

Right, because going from 300 ppm to 400 ppm is equivalent to flooding. Natural variation is far greater than this. Photosynthesis requires CO2 concentrations above about 150 ppm, so right now plants are starved of CO2 and going so high as double what we have now would be beneficial to plant life. There is a point of diminishing returns. There is a point of CO2 becoming a hazrd to animal life and that would be about 5000 ppm, or more than ten times current levels.

We are very far from "flooding" the air with CO2.

Re:CO2 is not a pollutant

[SqueakyMouse]

I don't think their objective is to create the optimal environment for plants. It's to create the optimal environment for people. This of course means having sufficient CO2 for plants, so we can kill them and eat them and build furniture from them. However we don't care about them enough to make it optimal. We don't even care about them enough to stop killing them for food and furniture. That would make our lives very difficult after all.

Re: CO2 is not a pollutant

[Barsteward]

you try drinking a glass or two of that salty 70% or even use that salty 70% to water your plants

Re: CO2 is not a pollutant

[Anonymous Coward]

Air is about 0.04% CO2, 22% O2.
Blood likes/binds to CO way more than CO2, but likes CO2 more than O2, chemical valence wise

If air shifted up one percent each, ditching N2...
At 1% CO2 plus 23% O2, then every human and most mammals suffocate to death in minutes. Whales and breath holders might last an hour or two. Most plants and the earth are fine. Not sure about insect respiration, but flowering plants might die if the bugs do.

Re: CO2 is not a pollutant

[riverat1]

What happens if you counter this with increased oxygen, which is usually stimulating?

Where are you going to get the extra oxygen. Buy burning CO2 you bind oxygen in the atmosphere to carbon reducing the level of oxygen. And it's been measured that the level of oxygen in the atmosphere is dropping some, not enough to be a problem but enough to account for the carbon we've burned.

Re:CO2 is not a pollutant

[WindBourne]

Yeah, except it does not work the way that you want it to

Re:CO2 is not a pollutant

[WindBourne]

out of curiosity, is there any other condition that you drown to, other than death?

Re:CO2 is not a pollutant

[squiggleslash]

If you try to put 4.1oz of water into a 4oz glass, it'll make a mess, despite there only being a tiny percentage increase in the amount of water. Your comment "going from 300 ppm to 400 ppm is equivalent to flooding" implies that as long as an increase is small, in terms of orders of magnitude, it's harmless. That's not how anything works in the real world.

Re:Replace mineral Hydro-Carbon fuel

[religionofpeas]

Synthetic hydrocarbons are only a good idea if source-to-wheel energy conversion is better battery powered EVs. Right now, things aren't looking too good.

Trees, their root system, & forest fire

[Max_W]

Please, note that even after a forest fire the significant part of trees, the root system, remains intact underground. So trees reduce the CO2 even in areas with forest fires. Trees' roots are also built from CO2 through the photosynthesis.

Re:Trees, their root system, & forest fire

[gtall]

Tree roots decompose releasing their CO2. In the end, it is a wash. And as others have noticed, we cannot plant our way out of this, there isn't enough land area.

Re:Trees, their root system, & forest fire

[religionofpeas]

Hmmm...if only there was some way of harvesting the wood and storing it somehow so it doesn't decompose...like in some kind of a building.
Nah, that's impossible I guess.

Yes, that's impossible. Either the building will decompose, or humans will burn the wood at some point. Also, average US family produces 50 tons of CO2 per year, so they would have to build more than one wood frame house every year to sequester the carbon.

Re:Replace mineral Hydro-Carbon fuel

[mentil]

Carbon capture of the hot air coming from Washington's mouth-breathers would be even more efficient. Some of them definitely need scrubbers attached to their mouths.

Lifestyle changes, anyone ?

[vikingpower]

Only weeks ago, the most alarming IPCC report ever was published, stating that very drastic measures, at a planetary scale, are necessary in a very short time frame, to keep global warming at less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. In the Neherlands, in the wake of this report, environmental ngos scoffed at corporations advocating exactly this approach, as it would, they fear, give them a blank check to keep polluting and not do anything about the root of the climate change problem: emisison of CO2. And although I would advocate the measure (and developing the technology for sure would be a cool thing), I do indeed see a problem here. Relying on CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) could make entire societies dependent upon it, a bit like taking fentany for a toothache, instead of doing the sensible thing and going to the dentist. Donella Meadows, in her seminal book "Thinking in Systems", names this as one of the classical "system traps".

Re:Lifestyle changes, anyone ?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's not going to work, for many reasons. It took 33 years for the world population to grow from two to three billion people. It took 14 years from three to four billion people, and 13 for the next billion, and we've added a billion per 12 years since then. In the 50 years since 1974, the world population will have doubled. Asia's population growth has not slowed down. Africa's population has grown past one billion and it's growing at an increasing rate. Whatever you save in energy consumption by changing your lifestyle will be more than eaten up by the rapidly increasing world population. Just to give you a glimpse of what kind of lifestyle changes we're talking about here: People in the US use approximately twice as much energy as Europeans on average. Standards of living are mostly the same, so an energy reduction by half should be doable in the US. On your mark, get set, GO! Do you think you can reduce your energy consumption by half within a decade? And everybody else's in the US? But we know that's not nearly enough. To really make up for the consumption of a world population that doubles within 50 years and wants to live as well as westerners do, the global lifestyle would have to make do with a tiny fraction of today's average energy consumption in the western world. Forcing that kind of change onto people will lead to wars, plain and simple. Ironically, the death toll from these wars would be a big step towards solving the problem, but only the most cynical would choose that path for that reason.

Carbon sequestration is a shitty idea that will take too long to scale up, if it can be scaled up sufficiently at all, but it's still better than telling people to "change their lifestyle", because that has absolutely no chance of working. The solution must involve getting population growth under control globally and reducing the world population to sustainable levels. People don't like to think about that because it incites images of genocide and fascism, but it's necessary, so we better find a way to achieve it that does not involve totalitarianism and war.

Re:Lifestyle changes, anyone ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only weeks ago, the most alarming IPCC report ever was published, stating that very drastic measures, at a planetary scale, are necessary in a very short time frame, to keep global warming at less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures

And yet people still oppose the lowest CO2 energy source we have, nuclear power. Nuclear power is also the safest energy source we have. If you can't support nuclear power as it is implemented today then you are denying that CO2 emissions are a problem. There is nothing wrong with current nuclear power. Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and even Fukushima, were yesterday's nuclear power. Today's nuclear power is very safe, very low CO2, and if you deny this then you are also anti-science. I'm tired of hearing about how bad the CO2 emissions are today while at the same time hearing we can't have nuclear power. Well, we've been trying to get something better than nuclear power and we've run out of time. We need nuclear power now, and we need lots of it.

If any of you say we can't have nuclear power then you are a global warming denier and/or science denier.

Re:Lifestyle changes, anyone ?

[religionofpeas]

Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and even Fukushima, were yesterday's nuclear power.

Do you have a list of currently operating nuclear power plants that are still using "yesterday's nuclear power" ?

Re: Lifestyle changes, anyone ?

[MachineShedFred]

Answer: basically all of them in the US, and more around the world. But any new reactors would be so-called generation-4 which have better safety systems. I doubt they are as safe as the nuclear industry is trying to sell, but they are sure as shit safer than the 40+ year old BWRs that are having licenses uprated and extended because we aren't building anything new.

Re:Lifestyle changes, anyone ?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and even Fukushima, were yesterday's nuclear power.

Chernobyl: a deliberate attempt by a government to SIMULATE a meltdown. Turns out the "simulation" was a bit too good. Fewer than 200 direct casualties, mostly the firefighters dealing with the fire caused by the "simulation". Worst nuclear accident in history. Caused approximately 1/30th of the deaths that routine traffic fatalities caused during the same two days....

Fukushima: massive tsunami. First nuclear-related casualty happened a few months ago, as I recall seeing in the news. Total casualties approximately 1/6000000th of the deaths caused by routine traffic accidents from tsunami to first casualty.

Three Mile Island. No casualties. No release of radioactivity.

There is a little known accident involving a test reactor that killed three people in the USA back in the day. The reactor fit into a 55 gallon drum, and one of the three guys doing the routine maintenance didn't follow procedures, and killed himself and two other guys trying to do the routine maintenance.

So, the four (known - there is evidence that the USSR may have had another accident back in the 50's, but it's purely circumstantial, since the USSR wasn't big on admitting failures it could hide back then) worst nuclear accidents in history collectively produced less than 10% of the casualties that routine traffic accidents worldwide will cause TODAY! In fact, fewer traffic fatalities than will happen in the USA today, quite likely.

Somehow, I cannot see nuclear power as all that dangerous, even if you're talking reactors designed 50+ years ago....

Re: Lifestyle changes, anyone ?

[thegarbz]

I doubt they are as safe as the nuclear industry is trying to sell, but they are sure as shit safer than the 40+ year old BWRs

I would argue they are probably more safe than even they are trying to sell. Industrial processes have come leaps and bounds since the days of old BWRs across industries with a far lower incetive to achieve higher safety than the nuclear industry. With all the focus on the industry trying to sell itself as safe its one of the few areas where they have really taken the primary mechanism of inherent safety to heart.

NASA Clean Air Study

[NewYork]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... plant can remove trichloroethylene, benzene, formaldehyde, ammonia, and other chemicals from the air as per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Grasslands, not trees

[Pollux]

I know everyone is joking about trees, but a much more effective way, according to many researchers including this guy, are by restoring grasslands.

Re:Grasslands, not trees

[umghhh]

I managed to watch only to the point where the speaker said "there is no question about it at all". Banning questions is guaranteed way for projects to go wrong however nice and progessive their goal might be.

Re:Grasslands, not trees

[PPH]

Bamboo. Bamboo is a kind of grass. It grows quickly and can be harvested to replace a lot of wood products.

We will have to do something about those panda infestations.

Trees Decompose and the CO2 Goes Back Into the Air

[LionKimbro]

If we covered the entire surface of the USA with trees, it'd hide away just 10% of all the CO2 we put into the atmosphere... ...for ONE year. How are we going to cover the entire surface of the USA with trees ten times over, -- per year?

Tree decomposition times: 15 years for fine roots, 100 years for bark, 120 years for branches, 500 years for 2' diameter trunks. Forest fires can cause it all to go up immediately. (source)

So trees aren't a viable answer. They can only be PART of a solution -- and likely a small part as well.

Algae

[zwarte piet]

Makes it humongous scale algae production. Algae oil can easily be used as diesel fuel and can also be turned into a petrol like product.

Re:Old King Coal

[zwarte piet]

I hope that is organic coal.

Cement production CO2 capture.

[Rei]

Portland cement is made from limestone (primarily calcium carbonate) in a process that emits CO2, and slowly converts back over time by absorbing atmospheric CO2. If you can make cement production near-CO2-neutral with carbon capture and storage, everything built out of concrete will turn into net absorbers that suck CO2 out of the atmosphere.

Re:Cement production CO2 capture.

[DanDD]

Rei, your previous use of the word "spalling" in reference to concrete, and this post above, peg you as a civil engineer of some sort, or...

You are the evil spawn the the USENET newsgroup alt.pave.the.earth., as you seem to be suggesting that coating the planet in concrete will save us from CO2.

Which is a brilliant idea as we'll have more space to drive and park our electric cars :)

Re:Cement production CO2 capture.

[Rei]

Regardless of what I say or do, we (the human species) will be covering the Earth in extensive amounts of concrete every year.

Re: Weathering of Silicates

[MachineShedFred]

Oh good, so all we have to do is wait until after the mass migration of billions due to desertification and coastal destruction from rising sea levels and more powerful storms, the famine, the wars.

Great solution! I think I'd rather skip all that and just stop fucking everything up instead.

Re:Replace mineral Hydro-Carbon fuel

[blindseer]

Synthetic hydrocarbons are only a good idea if source-to-wheel energy conversion is better battery powered EVs. Right now, things aren't looking too good.

That depends on how you define "better". Synthetic hydrocarbons are already better than plug in electric vehicles because it means no new vehicles, high energy density, existing infrastructure for storage and delivery to end consumers, fast refuel times, and the technology exists today. You can claim that it's not looking good for synthesized hydrocarbons fuels but there's a lot of people that disagree, and I'm among them.

Re:Replace mineral Hydro-Carbon fuel

[religionofpeas]

That depends on how you define "better".

Better energy conversion means less energy needed for the same output.

there's a lot of people that disagree, and I'm among them.

So how much energy is required to produce 1 Joule worth of synthetic hydrocarbons ?

Why not reducing the production?

[aglider]

Maybe it's more effective, isn't it?

Re:Why not reducing the production?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late. Have to work it at both ends. (production and removal)

Re:Why not reducing the production?

[cascadingstylesheet]

Maybe it's more effective, isn't it?

Not so far.

Oh, you mean theoretically effective, not in the real world.

This sounds promising? (How CO2 Could Be ..Fuel)

[Craggles]

How CO2 Could Be The Future Of Fuel | VICE on HBO
Anyone know how accurate this report is?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Self promotion..

[Bert64]

Scientists push for government research program that would need to employ lots more scientists...

Never Happen

[Crashmarik]

There's no research grants to be had for it. People can plant them on their own and there's no central point to control the supply from.

Sorry this whole plant a seed and let it suck CO2 out of the air idea just doesn't grease any palms (well unless it's a coconut plam)

Re:Never Happen

[GameboyRMH]

Also it's too slow to be helpful, that's another problem...

Re:Never Happen

[Crashmarik]

Too slow ? I suppose if you are going to rely on just one Johnny Appleseed.

Re:Never Happen

[GameboyRMH]

Nope, throw all the manpower you want at it, we're releasing fossil carbon far faster than nature can stow it, especially considering that the land available for growing trees is less than it used to be.

Re:Never Happen

[Crashmarik]

You know depending on time of year North America goes net carbon negative. It's a result of reforestation

So maybe if you want to make your case, facts might just help ?

Re:Never Happen

[GameboyRMH]

http://www.anthropocenemagazin...

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/0...

https://uanews.arizona.edu/sto...

Re:Never Happen

[Crashmarik]

Seems you have alternate facts or maybe you just picked ones that supported your position

http://www.arborenvironmentala...

100 metric tons of CO2 can accumulate in one acre of forest over time.
Each person generates approximately 2.3 tons of CO2 per year.
The carbon footprints of 18 average Americans can be neutralized by one acre of hardwood trees.

https://www3.epa.gov/climatech...

Method for
Calculating Carbon Sequestration by Trees in
Urban and Suburban Settings

Re:Never Happen

[GameboyRMH]

These stats don't conflict with what I posted. 1 acre of forest would have to be stored underground before another acre could grow to absorb 18 average Americans' CO2 output. How many decades would that take? And those are average Americans who pollute far less than the world's wealthiest people.

Re:Never Happen

[Crashmarik]

That's continuous and your articles are based on the idea we would have to use farmland to plant trees.

Re:Never Happen

[GameboyRMH]

The continuous natural carbon sequestration is far too slow to have any meaningful effect, when trees die almost all of the CO2 is released into the atmosphere again. So when that acre of forest is grown to the point that its carbon intake plateaus, it would have to be cut down and stored out of the biosphere via some artificial means to actually sequester a meaningful amount of that CO2.

Farmland would have to be used to plant trees, because there's nowhere else to plant them. And it's still not enough. The idea that planting trees alone can counteract climate change in any meaningful way flies in the face of mainstream science.

Re:Never Happen

[Crashmarik]

The continuous natural carbon sequestration is far too slow to have any meaningful effect, when trees die almost all of the CO2 is released into the atmosphere again.

I know this elsewhere in the thread but wouldn't it be nice if we had some use for managed forest products. If only there were something that we could do with trees.
Someway to turn them into products that would be durable and beneficial.

Farmland would have to be used to plant trees, because there's nowhere else to plant them.

If only there were tracts of land that had trees but didn't anymore because they were harvested and clear cut, wouldnt that be something ? And wouldn't it be amazing if you could somehow combine tree farming with regular farming. We could call it agroforestry or something similar. After that wouldn't it be great if we had vast unpopulated regions where there were nothing but scrub grass at the moment ?

If anyone's interested here's a picture

[rsilvergun]

of an early prototype

There is rarely a silver bullet.

[jellomizer]

We are going on the dream of some piece of technology that will solve all our problems.
There isn't any.
This isn't fatalism, there are things we can do make the world better, but there will always need to be work around it.

Global Warming, and Water Quality seem to be the big environment problem. So effort in those areas can solve the problems, but make others worse. However if we fix those issues, we can re-adjust and focus on the problems these cause before they become unmanageable, then we may need to go back to the original problem or to others.

Complex problems needs complex solutions, and there isn't a number that you can dial that is just right, it needs to always be in motion.

Re: There is rarely a silver bullet.

[phantomfive]

That's ridiculous, there are plenty of potential technologies that will solve the problem. I'll name three right here: nuclear fusion, safe fission, and any type of inexpensive power storage (which will make solar and wind a viable option for base load power). A technological fix works excellently here for what is a technological problem. Furthermore, the technology has been improving dramatically, so we ARE making progress. When I first started posting here, solar wasn't a cost effective solution for power generation, full stop. Now it is, in many cases.

Re: There is rarely a silver bullet.

[drinkypoo]

When I first started posting here, solar wasn't a cost effective solution for power generation, full stop. Now it is, in many cases.

You started posting here in 1970? By the late seventies, PV solar panels would repay the energy cost of their investment in seven years, and could already last over twenty years. They weren't a potentially complete solution like they are now with massive battery storage technology, but they were viable. If we'd given them the financial support they need then we could have been building power plants then — some or even most of which would still be operating today, albeit at a reduced level of output.

Brawdo energy gas

[goombah99]

It's got CO2 that plants crave

Re:Replace mineral Hydro-Carbon fuel

[drinkypoo]

Renewable energy, such as off peak wind & solar could be used to to make hydrocarbon fuel from water and carbon dioxide. It would be carbon neutral and replace our dependency on mineral hydrocarbon fuel. Longer term we could remove atmospheric CO2.
Research plants for this are emerging now.

This is, no lie, the dumbest idea in liquid fuels today. It's dumb because it's grossly inefficient. There are literally only three biofuels which make any sense. All of them can be made from algae, although it only really makes sense for two of them.

Sensible biofuel number one is diesel fuel. It comes in two subsets, green diesel and biodiesel. Green diesel is made by cracking lipids in a fractional distillation column just as you would crude oil. Biodiesel is made through transesterification of fatty acids. The latter takes less energy to produce, but is only suitable in warm climates due to its high gel temperature.

Number two is butanol. It's made by bacteria in a process that also produces acetone and ethanol, which can also both be used as motor fuels. We would have been able to buy it by now in at least small quantities if not for BP and DuPont's company Butamax suing Gevo to prevent them from producing it. It's a 1:1 replacement for gasoline, and you can get the octane pretty high by blending it with acetone (which also makes it burn very cleanly.)

Fuel number three is methane. Tons of methane are permitted to simply escape into the atmosphere from numerous processes, notably the decomposition of poop. Feed lots typically sluice collected crap into a pond where it sits for an inadequate period of time "cooking" before it is pushed into a waterway which we use downstream for drinking water. If you instead put it into a big bag (or the equivalent, like AIWPS) then you can capture that methane, and either burn it at the point of production and put the energy onto the grid and/or into storage batteries, or use it in the same way you'd use natural gas. The remainder becomes valuable fertilizer that it is safe to apply directly to food crops, because putting it into an enclosure raises the temperature of decomposition.

The first two fuels make sense because you can produce them cheaply from algae, and you can produce algae anywhere that's not freezing and where you've got access to almost any water. The third fuel makes sense because it is currently being emitted from numerous substantial sources from which it is easy and cost-effective to capture it.

There is actually one time when it might make sense to make fuel from air, and that's for war — insomuch as it makes sense to make war. And it might even make more sense to make diesel fuel than to make hydrogen, not just because our war vehicles run on it already, but also because it's less volatile. But it makes zero sense for civilian purposes.

Re:Trees Decompose and the CO2 Goes Back Into the

[drinkypoo]

If we covered the entire surface of the USA with trees, it'd hide away just 10% of all the CO2 we put into the atmosphere... ...for ONE year.

Mature trees sequester more carbon than young ones, because they are so much larger and they don't just stop growing. You have this ass-backwards. Trees sequester carbon every year.

Big chunks

[plate_o_shrimp]

>in order to avoid significant further warming of the planet, big chunks of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may need to be removed.

If all they need to do is remove the big chunks, couldn't they just use nets or something?

Re:Trees Decompose and the CO2 Goes Back Into the

[PPH]

Trees sequester carbon every year.

Until they die, fall down and rot.

The only credit trees should get for carbon sequestration is the weight of the carbon removed from forests on logging trucks.

Algae has been done, but it was political then

[DanDD]

If you examine crude oil pumped straight from the ground you'll find the fossilized single-cell plants that produced the oil - algae and related diatoms. The slow, natural processes involving pressure and heat that convert this natural vegetable oil from everything between natural gas to heavy crude just contaminates the feedstock with nasties from the ground (arsenic, cadmium, etc) and makes processing into usable products more expensive and environmentally polluting. So your idea has great merit.

Under the Carter administration, as a result of the politicalization of middle-east oil and the subsequent embargo and US oil crisis, a program was initiated to do just what you propose - the massive, large-scale biological production of oil using algae. This program was called the Aquatic Species Program..

The program started by identifying and isolating strains of algae that were the most efficient oil producers, then setting up a pilot-scale plant. The challenges were that these strains of algae were easily taken over by more dominant, less efficient strains, so open-air ponds were problematic. More elaborate infrastructure to isolate the algae while exposure to sunlight have been proposed and tested on a small scale by others.

The most problematic aspect of this program was that it was political in nature. As soon as the Saudis/OPEC called off the oil embargo all political will to spend money on such a scheme evaporated, along with the Carter administration's energy independence initiatives. Reagan began dismantling and de-funding Carter's programs almost immediately upon entering office.

Solar PV in the 70's was an expensive side-show with future potential, at best. What was immediately available at that time and somewhat economical was solar thermal. In a bizarre and sad twist of fate, the solar thermal panels that once sat atop the United States White House now reside in a museum in China.

Sequestering CO2 probably won't get much serious attention from the US government until the 'politics' of global warming get personal - i.e. when sea levels rise by a few meters, which would put much of Washington DC under water. The Lincoln Memorial is currently 4 meters above sea level. The White House is approximately 15 meters above sea level. The ground level of Trump Tower in NY is at 18 meters above sea level. Currently.

Source: https://maps.ngdc.noaa.gov/vie...

Good idea!

[nospam007]

This government has 'an instinct for science.'
It will suggest that 'when you take the coal and clean it' as POTUS has said, you could just remove the carbon from the coal before burning it. That way it can't bind to the oxygen.
Easy as pie.
Just ask a stable genius, duh!

Re:Replace mineral Hydro-Carbon fuel

[GameboyRMH]

Internal combustion engines piss away 3/4 to 1/2 of the energy you put into them as waste heat, while EVs turn 90%+ of the electrical energy you put into them into kinetic energy. We can't afford to waste that energy for no good reason. And the incredibly wasteful infrastructure for delivery of liquid fuels is not an advantage.

Synthetic hydrocarbon fuels only make sense for vehicles where electric or nuclear power can't work yet, such as on large aircraft and small boats.

Re:RESTORING FORESTS IS THE ONLY SOLUTION!!!

[DanDD]

I think I see the problem here... increased atmospheric CO2 levels have led to an increase in coffee production, the over-consumption of which HAS CAUSED EXCESSIVE USE OF ALL CAPS AND SUPERFLUOUS PUNCTUATION!!!!

Keep sipping that coffee, you and Juan Valdez will sequester carbon and save the world, one cup at a time.

;-p

Any solution will be technological ...

[cascadingstylesheet]

... so this is a good focus :)

Re:Carbon dioxide from seawater

[GameboyRMH]

Interesting, where exactly did you see this? The ocean is already really good at taking CO2 from the air - at one time a popular denialist theory centered around ignoring the unexpectedly high uptake of atmospheric CO2 into the oceans. If it's cheap to extract CO2 from the ocean and directly counteract particularly dangerous ocean acidification at the same time, that would be a great approach.

Amazing

[WindBourne]

The same group that is pushing this, is the same group of ppl that push for utility solar grids that go over land.
Instead, if they would put the solar on rooftops or over parking lots, it would take sunlight that is today converted into heat, and convert it into electricity.
Yet, the far left will push the lot thing while at the same time, ignoring the fact that they are also saying to use that same land for plants.

Far right and left extremists are total idiots.

Re:Replace mineral Hydro-Carbon fuel

[WindBourne]

You may care to re-read this and fix your posting

Premature

[hdyoung]

It's all well and good for researchers to think about the problem, and make calls for action and funding of solutions. Nothing is going to actually happen until it becomes a real problem that's undeniable to nearly the entire planet. In the past, humanity was able to do things like agree to limit fluorocarbons for the greater good, but a lot of that sort of cooperation has died. At least for the time being. The bar for action on climate change is currently very, very high.

A slight rise in temperature isn't real enough.
A slight increase in storm severity isn't enough.
The loss of one or two major breadbasket regions isn't enough. Food production will just shift around.
Anything that happens in a poor country isn't enough, including starvation. Poor people simply don't count to those in power.
Any effect that is limited to the coasts isn't enough. People will just move.
Any extinctions short of full ecological collapse isn't enough. Most people don't care about critters beyond eating them.
Anything that is limited to the arctic isn't enough. Nobody lives there.
Mass migrations from poor countries won't be enough. Rich countries will just put up barriers and allow populations to die.


Things that will eventually force humanity to deal with the problem:

Costal or storm-related destruction that renders entire cities in the rich world uninhabitable. That level of economic damage won't be deniable.
The full loss of enough major food-producing regions to affect the dinner tables of people in the rich world.
A thick band of desert across the equator of the planet. The starkness of an image like that *might* convince enough people to act.

Re:Replace mineral Hydro-Carbon fuel

[GameboyRMH]

Small aircraft could run on batteries just like cars. Large boats could use a combination of nuclear and wind power...costs wouldn't be a problem vs. already-expensive fossil fuels that could be even more expensive and have carbon taxes added to them, but sadly politics could be...

Re:Trees Decompose and the CO2 Goes Back Into the

[drinkypoo]

Trees sequester carbon every year.

Until they die, fall down and rot.

Even then, a portion of their carbon winds up in the soil. In fact, that's true even when they burn.

Good Idea I Reckon

[Ferretman]

Go ahead, build your tech and suck out the CO2 as much as you can. I should think Steyer and perhaps Greenpeace could pool their resources if they really believe it's important. "Deeds not words" was one of the mottos of my clan, back in the day.

Ferret

Re:Replace mineral Hydro-Carbon fuel

[drinkypoo]

We would have been able to buy it by now in at least small quantities if not for BP and DuPont's company Butamax suing Gevo to prevent them from producing it.

You may care to re-read this and fix your posting

Fix my posting? Fix your reading comprehension. TFL clearly states that the first lawsuit in the conflict was started by Butamax. So were the next two.

Interesting. However, there is a mistake.

[Futurepower(R)]

"... replace the Sahara with forest."

Interesting.

But there is a mistake in the thinking. To put forest in the Sahara, there must be lots of water. If there is a lot of water, there will be a lot of evaporation. The evaporation will create clouds in the sky.

Clouds reflect sunlight out into space, very efficiently.