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posted by martyb on Sunday April 07 2019, @05:20PM   Printer-friendly

Climate Change: 'Magic Bullet' Carbon Solution Takes Big Step:

A technology that removes carbon dioxide from the air has received significant backing from major fossil fuel companies.

British Columbia-based Carbon Engineering has shown that it can extract CO2 in a cost-effective way.

It has now been boosted by $68m in new investment from Chevron, Occidental and coal giant BHP.

[...]CO2 is a powerful warming gas but there's not a lot of it in the atmosphere - for every million molecules of air, there are 410 of CO2.

While the CO2 is helping to drive temperatures up around the world, the comparatively low concentrations make it difficult to design efficient machines to remove the gas.

Carbon Engineering's process is all about sucking in air and exposing it to a chemical solution that concentrates the CO2. Further refinements mean the gas can be purified into a form that can be stored or utilised as a liquid fuel.

[...]Carbon Engineering's barn-sized installation has a large fan in the middle of the roof which draws in air from the atmosphere.

It then comes into contact with a hydroxide-based chemical solution. Certain hydroxides react with carbon dioxide, reversibly binding to the CO2 molecule. When the CO2 in the air reacts with the liquid, it forms a carbonate mixture. That is then treated with a slurry of calcium hydroxide to change it into solid form; the slurry helps form tiny pellets of calcium carbonate.

The chalky calcium carbonate pellets are then treated at a high temperature of about 900C, with the pellets decomposing into a CO2 stream and calcium oxide.

After any water lingering in the concentrated CO2 is removed, the result can be converted into a fuel:

The captured CO2 is mixed with hydrogen that's made from water and green electricity. It's then passed over a catalyst at 900C to form carbon monoxide. Adding in more hydrogen to the carbon monoxide turns it into what's called synthesis gas.

Finally a Fischer-Tropsch process turns this gas into a synthetic crude oil. Carbon Engineering says the liquid can be used in a variety of engines without modification.

The question then becomes are people going to look at this development and think there is no need to reduce their use of fossil fuels and/or delay the transition to renewable power sources?

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by RandomFactor on Sunday April 07 2019, @05:31PM (13 children)

    by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 07 2019, @05:31PM (#825861) Journal

    The question then becomes are people going to look at this development and think there is no need to reduce their use of fossil fuels and/or delay the transition to renewable power sources?

    Seriously?
     
    We have to put the planet at MORE risk so we can have it remain a big crisis and do the right thing in the long run is the mentality?
     
    When you are in a hole STOP DIGGING. Filling it back in is important also, but cheese and rice.

    --
    В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Sulla on Sunday April 07 2019, @06:32PM (2 children)

    by Sulla (5173) on Sunday April 07 2019, @06:32PM (#825879) Journal

    If we could use this method to sequester a high percentage of the CO2 from coal, nat gas, and diesel plants it would make the transition to an electric transportation system much less burdensome.

    --
    Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 08 2019, @02:33AM (1 child)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 08 2019, @02:33AM (#826045) Journal

      If we could use this method to sequester a high percentage of the CO2 from coal, nat gas, and diesel plants it would make the transition to an electric transportation system much less burdensome.

      That's a big if.

      Tell you what, though. Why not capture the CO2 at the source of emission, when it's concentrated - should be more energy efficient, isn't it? Assuming you are burning all oxygen in the air that you use for combustion, you'll have to take CO2 out from about 21% concentration by volume. Definitely should be less energy intensive than separating it out from 0.04% by volume.

      I wonder why the "dyno juice and farts energy industry" seems to favor "well, we'll sponsor others in the chase for wild Rube Goldbergs" instead of looking into they own yard?

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday April 08 2019, @06:15PM

        by urza9814 (3954) on Monday April 08 2019, @06:15PM (#826294) Journal

        It's more concentrated, but it's also more limited. Sure, you can set this up at the output of a nat gas plant...and probably get cheaper results when it spins up...but they don't generally keep those things running 24/7. And if the plant closes, so does the carbon capture. And more importantly, is it cheaper to attach one of these to a coal plant vs just building a wind/nuclear/solar plant instead? Otherwise it doesn't actually solve anything.

        The big problem is with transportation, because the energy density of oil can't be matched by batteries. And you can't put one of these on every tailpipe. If you can pull the CO2 out of the air and convert it to oil, then power that with renewable energy, that can solve the problem by making the oil carbon-neutral in the first place. I think the other potential use would be for grid-scale batteries -- as it might be easier to produce and store oil rather than having a much larger volume of batteries -- but you still can't pull the carbon out of the power plant because you'd want to be producing carbon specifically when the power plant isn't running (ie, when you have an excess of solar/wind/etc.)

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday April 07 2019, @06:41PM (8 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 07 2019, @06:41PM (#825882) Journal
    My take on that question is what if those people are right? If they truly don't need to reduce their use of fossil fuels (at least over the span that fossil fuels are economically viable to extract), etc, then what is the point of changing society and forcing behaviors?

    I'm willing to grant that this particular thing is probably not the magic bullet implied in the summary, but one huge thing commonly ignored in the climate change debate is that hydrocarbon-burning cars remain a really good form of travel. They're very efficient considering energy use, range, mass, and point to point travel. Some other sorts of transportation are more efficient in some ways, such as electric cars and rail. But it remains that we have a hugely successful mode of transportation that is threatened because of some vague concerns about the environment.
    • (Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:16PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:16PM (#825899)

      This is like arguing why stop using asbestos or DDT because of some vague concerns about the environment.

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by khallow on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:22PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:22PM (#825903) Journal

        This is like arguing why stop using asbestos or DDT because of some vague concerns about the environment.

        Or it's like argument why stop using water because of some vague concerns about the environment. Ban DHMO! It kills more people than all the other chemicals put together!!!

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @10:10PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @10:10PM (#825964)

        where "concerns about the environment" result in real-world poor dying of disease by the million.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Malaria_control [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 07 2019, @11:31PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 07 2019, @11:31PM (#825998) Journal

      They're very efficient considering energy use, range, mass, and point to point travel.

      For some value of 'very', that is.
      All in all, the energetic efficiency of a car (including all the other losses by friction) is around 13% [google.com].

      I wish my bosses would reward me as 'very efficient' with such a low number, I could enjoy more spare time.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @04:03PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @04:03PM (#826216)

      It would be kind of annoying just standing there being back in the stoneage on the cut-off day when there is no more oil. No matter what our beliefs are, trees are the best tech we have for regulating the climate and renewable energy is our best bet on a sustainable energy source.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 08 2019, @05:57PM (2 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 08 2019, @05:57PM (#826282) Journal

        It would be kind of annoying just standing there being back in the stoneage on the cut-off day when there is no more oil.

        I'd be hopping in my electric car on that day. Contrary to popular opinion, I'm not the stupid one. Oil won't magically just disappear. When it becomes expensive enough, due either to scarcity or idiots meddling with economics beyond their ken, I'll figure out the next best thing and move to that. The real question is how well off people will be by that time. I think my path is better for humanity than eco-hysteria is.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @08:59PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @08:59PM (#826361)

          I was trying to say that this thing you call eco-hysteria (and I'm probably on of those in your eyes) and what it produce is something that we are all going to need. I don't see why any of us could be against this development. It is very important to have one thing in the clear. We are not saving Earth, we are saving ourselves. Earth don't care.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 08 2019, @11:11PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 08 2019, @11:11PM (#826417) Journal

            and what it produce is something that we are all going to need.

            Fossil fuels produce things we need too. There's got to be a balance. Not magic thinking that there's one true path.

            As I've noted before, a big flaw in the proposals to mitigate climate change is that they haven't shown that such mitigation is better than doing nothing about climate change.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 07 2019, @08:45PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 07 2019, @08:45PM (#825932) Journal

    Filling it back in is important also

    Unless, of course, the hole is important to have. One doesn't usually dig a hole because they want to be stuck at the bottom of a hole. Don't address that reason and you may end up with more people stuck in holes.

    Here, the actual hole is overpopulation. And we've discovered a way out (which doesn't involving killing people) of that hole via developed world civilization. But I doubt you can get both developed world civilization with its low fertility rates and vastly reduced green house gases at the same time. One has to give. Since global warming is a long term problem (with not much compelling evidence to claim that it'll be crippling to us even in advanced stages) while overpopulation is in the absence of below replacement birth rate an exponential one with near future die-offs a serious possibility, I'd rather put off the former.