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?
Prev: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/06/13/025232&from=rss
Related: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/08/20/0148258
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/10/29/1532257&from=rss
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/02/28/0231247
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Sucking carbon dioxide from air is cheaper than scientists thought
Siphoning carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere could be more than an expensive last-ditch strategy for averting climate catastrophe. A detailed economic analysis published on 7 June suggests that the geoengineering technology is inching closer to commercial viability.
The study, in Joule, was written by researchers at Carbon Engineering in Calgary, Canada, which has been operating a pilot CO2-extraction plant in British Columbia since 2015. That plant — based on a concept called direct air capture — provided the basis for the economic analysis, which includes cost estimates from commercial vendors of all of the major components. Depending on a variety of design options and economic assumptions, the cost of pulling a tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere ranges between US$94 and $232. The last comprehensive analysis of the technology, conducted by the American Physical Society in 2011, estimated that it would cost $600 per tonne.
Carbon Engineering says that it published the paper to advance discussions about the cost and potential of the technology. "We're really trying to commercialize direct air capture in a serious way, and to do that, you have to have everybody in the supply chain on board," says David Keith, acting chief scientist at Carbon Engineering and a climate physicist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
A Process for Capturing CO2 from the Atmosphere (DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2018.05.006) (DX)
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This Lab-Made Mineral Just Became a Key Candidate For Reducing CO2 in The Atmosphere
Scientists just worked out a way of rapidly producing a mineral capable of storing carbon dioxide (CO2) - giving us a potentially exciting option for dealing with our increasingly overcooked planet. Magnesite, which is a type of magnesium carbonate, forms when magnesium combines with carbonic acid - CO2 dissolved in water. If we can produce this mineral at a massive scale, it could safely store large amounts of carbon dioxide we simply don't need in our planet's atmosphere.
[...] Being able to make the mineral in the lab could be a major step forward in terms of how effective carbon sequestration might eventually be. "Using microspheres means that we were able to speed up magnesite formation by orders of magnitude," says [Ian] Power. "This process takes place at room temperature, meaning that magnesite production is extremely energy efficient."
[...] With a tonne of naturally-occurring magnesite able to capture around half a tonne of CO2, we're going to need a lot of magnesite, and somewhere to put it all as well. As with other carbon capture processes, it's not yet clear whether this will successfully scale up as much as it needs to. That said, these new discoveries mean lab-made magnesite could one day be helpful – it puts the mineral on the table as an option for further investigation.
Related: Negative Emission Strategy: Active Carbon Capture
Carbon Capture From Air Closer to Commercial Viability
Earlier this week, Y Combinator, which has backed companies like Airbnb and Reddit, put out a request for startups working on technology that can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
"It's time to invest and avidly pursue a new wave of technological solutions to this problem — including those that are risky, unproven, even unlikely to work," Y Combinator's website says.
Y Combinator is looking for startups working on four approaches that they acknowledge "straddle the border between very difficult to science fiction" — genetically engineering phytoplankton to turn CO2 into a storage-ready form of carbon, speeding up a natural process in which rocks react with CO2, creating cell-free enzymes that can process carbon, and flooding Earth's deserts to create oases.
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Researchers have used liquid metals to turn carbon dioxide back into solid coal, in a world-first breakthrough that could transform our approach to carbon capture and storage.
The research team led by RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have developed a new technique that can efficiently convert CO2 from a gas into solid particles of carbon.
Published in the journal Nature Communications, the research offers an alternative pathway for safely and permanently removing the greenhouse gas from our atmosphere.
Current technologies for carbon capture and storage focus on compressing CO2 into a liquid form, transporting it to a suitable site and injecting it underground.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @05:29PM (13 children)
Rube Goldberg lives!
And what do these *tailing ponds* smell like? And when they spill, what happens?
(Score: 3, Informative) by RandomFactor on Sunday April 07 2019, @05:51PM (9 children)
I've been to pulp and paper mills. You wouldn't want this in your neighborhood if they have the same odor profile! The smells usually have to do with processing the wood however, so I don't know if that's really going to match up to this process. Pulp and Paper mills are also typically in the middle of nowhere (more for logistics reasons as their feed stock is generally in the middle of nowhere also.)
more details on CE's process [cell.com]
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(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:17PM (8 children)
...hmm. And when this fuel is burned, what are the resulting emitted combustion products?
I'd prefer to see a tech that turns CO2 into a stable solid mixture of some sort. It's not like we don't have enough.
--
Do I know any jokes about sodium?
Na.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:54PM (3 children)
So something like wood. I wonder what technology could make that happen? Maybe this: https://imgur.com/DdEHq99 [imgur.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Sunday April 07 2019, @09:24PM (2 children)
You're right, hemocyanin.
There's one additional processing step after the shovel, though:
wood rots and returns to the carbon cycle in under 100 years, but for carbon sequestration, we need to temporarily store it for 500 to 1000 years, in which time we can find a more permanent solution, like export it in the form of people to the rest of the solar system :-).
Fortunately there's a low-tech solution for this sequestration step, discovered about 1000 years ago in the Amazon rainforest:
Terra preta [wikipedia.org]
in modern lingo known as Biochar [wikipedia.org].
I don't know how to make it, the process probably stinks so should be done on a village level instead of in an individual's backyard.
Improves the soil, and sequesters carbon for the medium term. Just one big disadvantage:
Multinationals can't make a profit from it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Monday April 08 2019, @12:00AM
Other options:
Put wood under water: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/photos/000/779/77958.jpg [nationalgeographic.com]
Put wood in a desert: https://www.textures.com/system/gallery/photos/Buildings/Wild%20West%20Ghost%20Town/116103/BuildingsWildWest0044_3_600.jpg?v=5 [textures.com]
Put a roof over the wood: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/europe-s-oldest-wooden-house-still-going-strong/1288454 [swissinfo.ch] ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dry%C5%AB-ji [wikipedia.org] (just don't let it catch fire)
(Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Monday April 08 2019, @03:35AM
Ok... [featurepics.com]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday April 07 2019, @09:25PM
You didn't read the article. And, that's O.K., not everyone can. But it explains why our great Oil Industry is financing this one. They need MASSIVE AMOUNTS of Carbon Dioxide. They put the Carbon Dioxide into their wells. And, the Oil comes out. The more Carbon Dioxide they put in, the more Oil they get. And as everybody knows, we can never get enough Oil for our ROARING Economy. Big money maker and it's very ecological too. Classic WIN WIN!!!!
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Monday April 08 2019, @12:53AM
It can also be pelletized or sequestered underground. The fuel stream is just one possible output (and one that takes more effort.)
Pulling carbon out of the air to burn it and put it back in the air is ~'carbon neutral', which is significantly less impactful than pulling that same carbon out of sequestration and dumping it into the air.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @03:01PM (1 child)
The CO2 that was previously bound. So yes, using it as fuel won't reduce the CO2 levels. However unlike burning fossil fuels, it also won't add CO2 to the atmosphere.
From the summary:
Finally a Fischer-Tropsch process turns this gas into a synthetic crude oil.
Of course there are also solid products that are made of crude oil, such as plastics and bitumen.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday April 08 2019, @09:21PM
Well, the problem at this point is pretty clearly that we need to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere. So "carbon neutral", while better than "here, have some more carbon" isn't great.
Seems like the way to go to me. Go to EV's ASAP, which are energy source agnostic, get off petroleum and other significant present-day atmospheric CO2 contributors (solar, nuclear, hydro, wind, tidal, geothermal, basically just about anything but burning stuff.) Hydrogen's basically a battery — you can only make it by shoveling in more energy than you're going to get out of it, and it's both difficult to transport and to store, so not all that great, really, barring a huge new infrastructure investment.
I keep hoping (and being disappointed) that one of these ultracap companies or some brilliant researcher somewhere will break the high-voltage barrier for ultra-thin dielectrics, so we can store enough energy in ultracaps to get past batteries and their nasty combo of toxic chemistry and very short service lifetimes.
Eestor [eestorcorp.com] was trumpeting all about that, but appears to have either been scamming or simply unable to do what they thought they could do (and yeah, I'm aware of their continuous trumpeting of independent test results... but where's the HV / high farad capacitor, fellas? Huh? Huh?)
--
What I if told you
you read the previous line wrong
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @06:55PM (1 child)
How can I give this company my money before they are discovered to be another Theranos? By then I'll be cashed out.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday April 08 2019, @12:29AM
Dunno if it's another Theranos, but the backing by fossil fuel companies has nothing to do with them believing it and everything to do with them greenwashing their images for pocket change. Which would actually be a good business model, come up with some vaguely-plausible tech that attracts greenwashing dollars from oil/coal, invest a fraction of it in pointless research that drags on and on while making accounting for where the money really went very hard, and the following year repeat with a new company.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:50PM
LOL -- I got to about the middle -- the part about hydrolyzing water with "green electricity" and thought "Rube Goldberg should plant a tree ...". Scroll down and here he is, mentioned at the top of the responses.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by RandomFactor on Sunday April 07 2019, @05:31PM (13 children)
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.
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(Score: 2, Interesting) by Sulla on Sunday April 07 2019, @06:32PM (2 children)
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)
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
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)
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)
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
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
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
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)
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)
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)
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
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
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.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by BsAtHome on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:03PM (8 children)
We create technology that hurts us. Therefore, we need more technology to solve our problem. That will save us, really, trust me.
And this is not the first historic example of technological "progress" killing us. Unfortunately, most still believe in the fallacy of technology. And, the time-span is generally too large for a single generation to see the consequences. Good that I'll probably die before hell manifests itself; see SEP.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:23PM
And what happens when it works? Seat belts worked really well for reducing the frequency and severity of automobile accident injuries. Should we have just banned cars instead?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by shortscreen on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:51PM (3 children)
The fallacy isn't technology, it's "growth." The alternative to using tech to solve the problems is to have fewer people.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 07 2019, @08:47PM (2 children)
Who's having the people? Protip: it's the poor parts of the world.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Sunday April 07 2019, @09:45PM (1 child)
Exactly. So when it comes down to hoping that tech can solve everything, or choosing to have fewer people, the countries with more tech and more stable population are arguably on the fence, while the countries with a deficit of tech and an exploding population appear by their actions to be in favor of the first option...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 07 2019, @09:56PM
In other words, the countries with more tech have solved the overpopulation problems while the countries with less tech haven't. Sure, there's more to it, like empowering women, that has a huge effect on population growth. But there is this big correlation between population growth and delayed technology development that can't be explained by saying they're completely independent.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 07 2019, @11:37PM (1 child)
Extending your 'argument' to the past, the humanity's 'primordial sin' was 'using technology', everything went worse and worse ever since.
You know? Technology like 'the fire', the thingy that creates CO2, and 'cow domestication' which creates methane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @03:07PM
No, actually the original sin was long before humanity, when plants started to produce that poisonous gas known as oxygen, and caused a mass-extinction. Life really should have stopped that instead of developing methods to not only survive that oxygen, but to even use it for more efficient energy production. :-)
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Monday April 08 2019, @03:09AM
Well, we certainly could get rid of technology.
Then we could all discuss better methods of subsistence farming without technology like plows, composting and seed selection here on the Soylent website via the internet.
...
Oh... Wait...
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:54PM (1 child)
According to the recent tsunami of spam which I've been on the receiving end of, climate change is going to be solved by fungus. It just needs investors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @08:26PM
I've been hearing this chatter too. In a related note, my friend voted for trump and then got diagnosed as ringworm. This new type of fungus is threatening hospitals around the world, supposedly it feeds on dark matter.
https://aricjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13756-016-0132-5 [biomedcentral.com]
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/08/intensive-care-unit-closed-as-three-people-die-from-new-superbug/ [telegraph.co.uk]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by The Shire on Monday April 08 2019, @12:33AM (5 children)
Lets recap:
1) You start with a CaOH solution. The CaOH has to be produced chemically which requires energy.
2) You pump large volumes of air through this solution to extract some of the CO2. This requires energy.
3) You heat the resultant precipitate (CaCO3) to 900C to release the concentrated CO2. This requires LOTS of energy.
4) You generate Hydrogen for the next reaction through electrolysis. This also requires LOTS of energy (very inefficient).
5) You react the CO2 with Hydrogen again at 900C. This again uses LOTS of energy.
6) Now you have synthgas and lots of Calcium Oxide. Turning CaO back into the initial CaOH again requires energy (see step 1)
Now, if you burn the synthgas then you have just returned all the CO2 you converted right back into the air after expending vast amounts of energy to sequester it. The amount of energy the synthgas provides is likely less than 10% of the energy you put into this process.
At every step of the way you expending considerable energy which has to be produced either with renewables or with more CO2 producing fossil fuels. If you are using renwables then instead of displacing fossil fuel consumption elsewhere, you're using it for this process instead which means somewhere else the renewables are not available and will have to rely on CO2 producing fossil fuels. Renewable energy sources are not infinite.
This process is an energy sink with a net INCREASE in CO2 production. For every ton of CO2 sequestered you have just burned and released two tons, even more if you turn around and burn that synthgas you just created.
The smarter thing to do is simply take that "green energy" they claim to use to produce hydrogen and just pump it into the grid thus reducing the need to burn fossil fuels. You'll cut back on CO2 production much more efficiently that way then some elaborate energy consuming process that saves the planet in name only.
(Score: 3, Touché) by RandomFactor on Monday April 08 2019, @12:56AM (2 children)
Next you are going to tell me that Electric Cars aren't really green.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Monday April 08 2019, @03:12AM
I've seen pictures of that electric powered vehicle Opportunity and I don't remember it being green.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @03:19AM
Some of them are green. But I've noticed that they come in many other colors as well.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Monday April 08 2019, @03:40PM
Nitpick: I think step 6 is exothermal. Wiki says: "One litre of water combines with approximately 3.1 kilograms (6.8 lb) of quicklime to give calcium hydroxide plus 3.54 MJ of energy. This process can be used to provide a convenient portable source of heat, as for on-the-spot food warming in a self-heating can, cooking, and heating water without open flames. Several companies sell cooking kits using this heating method.[10]"
(I can't be arsed to look the enthalpy up in the Rubber Bible)
Otherwise, I think you're spot on.
Plants do all of this work for free (only need sunlight, recoverable nutrients and water).
Then there is 1 step, to sequester the carbon stored in the plant, before it rots and returns the carbon to the cycle.
We could burn part of the plants to provide the energy to dry and char the rest. The net energy costs would be very low, mostly transportation of wood and charcoal.
It's only inefficient, if the area for planting was already in use as a solar array field :-)
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday April 08 2019, @06:34PM
If you get the energy from renewable sources, then it's carbon-neutral. You capture CO2, create oil, burn the oil and re-release the CO2. But "neutral" does not mean it's worthless. Hell, even lossy (ie, powered by carbon-generating sources) doesn't necessarily mean it's worthless. It turns oil from a fossil fuel to a battery with a better energy density than any battery we've ever created, compatible with a huge range of pre-existing infrastructure that may be difficult or expensive to replace. Do you think producing batteries requires no energy or no fossil fuels? Do you think replacing a gas car with an electric car just happens with zero impacts? It doesn't have to have zero impact to be worthwhile, it just has to have less impact than the alternatives. You might as well be asking why people bother buying AA batteries when grid power is orders of magnitude cheaper per KWh...because it's so easy to just move a watt from one place to another and instantly have it available whenever and wherever it is needed, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @04:46AM
Allan Savory: How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI [youtube.com]
Joel Salatin: Cows, Carbon and Climate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z75A_JMBx4 [youtube.com]
Managed "rotational mob grazing" has been tested for decades on all continents except Antarctica. It mimics symbiotic behavior of massive herbivore herds (eating some but trampling most of the grass, thereby covering soil to slow down water evaporation, and producing large amounts of natural fertilizer), their predators (preventing overgrazing by keeping the herbivores on the move), and birds (sanitation crew - eating insects and parasites that grow in dung patties and spreading the patties evenly, preparing the pasture for the next cycle).
Such cycle gradually builds up the topsoil by sequestering atmospheric CO2 and water.
Any technology that we may invent is likely going to require building massive processing and distribution infrastructure, recurring consumption of energy (fossil fuels), and produce undesired side effects (lagoons of possibly toxic waste byproducts).
(Score: 2, Redundant) by Some call me Tim on Monday April 08 2019, @06:04AM (4 children)
All of this climate change crap is nothing more than a thinly disguised attempt to transfer billions of dollars from the US to third world countries so the globalists can steal it.
This article is from 2013 but it's still relevant. Scare the sheep so we can steal their money!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/02/05/in-their-own-words-climate-alarmists-debunk-their-science/#7fd9bbbd68a3 [forbes.com]
Questioning science is how you do science!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @07:24AM
I knew Forbes was bad but I didn't know they were pure shit. For the greedy morons by the greedy morons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @01:00PM
Sure seems that way. Other than western countries and certain Asian countries that were propped up by western money after WW2, the Korean war, and the Vietnam war, every country in the world is an economic, political, democratic, and liberty failure. Essentially they are totalitarian shitholes. Even China was a backwoods totalitarian shithole country until they changed their economy from a socialistic to a capitalistic format in the 1980s, and look what they have accomplished since then. These brainwashed climate change believing sheep don't want these countries to be brought up to western levels, they want western countries to be brought down to the shithole levels.
(Score: 3, Touché) by fritsd on Monday April 08 2019, @03:44PM (1 child)
When cereal crops begin to fail on more and more years, because of draught and overheating, then you'll find out that you can't eat money.
(Score: 2) by Some call me Tim on Saturday April 13 2019, @04:56AM
When that happens give me a call, we've been hearing this BS every ten years for decades now and nothing has happened. Face it, the models are total crap and are in no way scientific proof that warming is human caused.
Questioning science is how you do science!