from the capture-my-carbon-and-set-me-free dept.
Biden administration lays out plan for four carbon-capture facilities:
On Thursday, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced the latest program to come out of the bipartisan infrastructure funding package that was passed last year. In this case, the money is going to foster the development of a technology that we'll almost certainly need but is currently underdeveloped: capture of carbon dioxide from the air and its stable storage. The infrastructure law set aside $3.5 billion for direct air capture, and the DOE plans to use that to fund four facilities spread across the US.
Direct air capture has suffered from a bit of a catch-22. Most scenarios for limiting end-of-century warming assume we'll emit enough carbon dioxide in the next few decades to overshoot our climate goals and will therefore need to remove some from the atmosphere. That would necessitate the development of direct air capture technologies. But, at present, there's no way to fund the operation of a facility to do the capturing, so the technology remains immature and its economics poorly understood.
The DOE's funding has the potential to change some of that. It has a total of $3.5 billion to spend in the years 2022 through 2026. It plans to use that to fund four carbon-capture and storage centers spread across the US, each with the capability of permanently storing a million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year.
The funding will handle the entire process: the facility that removes and concentrates the carbon dioxide; any pipelines or transport hardware needed to get to where it's used or stored; and any equipment needed to do the storage. The funding is agnostic about the method used for capture and storage, mentioning that chemical capture, removal by biomass, and sequestration in the ocean are all options.
The entire project will be subject to life-cycle analysis to determine the actual capture potential of any projects. This will include all the materials and energy involved in building and operating the facility, any emissions due to land-use changes, and the duration of the sequestration of the carbon dioxide. If, for example, underground storage will be used, then leakage from the storage area will be considered. Similarly, sequestration via chemical reactions will need to have their efficiency monitored, and incorporation into a product will need to have the product's life span taken into account.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Michael on Thursday May 26 2022, @12:33PM (4 children)
From the point of view of cost per unit mass of carbon reduction in the atmosphere, at this early stage I can't imagine this being competitive with using the money to target emissions directly. For example the money could be put towards building low carbon energy generation to displace some of the fossils, or used as bribes to counteract the fossil industry bribes promoting carbon-profligate legislation, or finance campaigns to resist the destruction of ecosystems.
On the other hand, it's not possible to accurately predict how effective the various pilot projects are going to be, so there may be a surprise in there somewhere.
Also of course, it's partly a job creation project, so that would be a nice thing to do and should help reduce the general level of desperation in those areas chosen.
Here's my fanciful pitch for a project; round up a load of future prison industry fodder and garnish with a sprinkling of the Amish. Buy some marginal land, and subsidise them to learn silviculture and whatever handicrafts and cottage industries might result in products capable of displacing petrochemical-based consumer items. Deploy some instagram hipsters and advertising agencies to tout things made of coppiced wood, bamboo or whatever. Set up a battalion of retort kilns to make charcoal out of any and all scraps and offcuts to offer as a soil amendment to agriculture and gardeners. Extra points if it's moderately labour intensive. Purpose-build a little company town close-by with low carbon forms of amenities, district heating, super-insulated homes, a non-profit credit union, mass bargaining for healthcare and cheap public transport.
Also, maybe hire a few body guards, because when exploitation-industry lobbyists get wind of it they're liable to have you shot/suicided/car crashed for the suggestion. (Joking/not joking.)
(Score: 2) by Michael on Thursday May 26 2022, @05:46PM
It's pretty flippant, but why flamebait? Too pinko because I didn't mention anyone becoming a billionaire off the pork?
If it soothes you, imagine I also said "and the guy in charge embezzles half the money and strives mightily to put the staff into grinding debt". (Though I should have thought that was taken as read, as applied to real world usa.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2022, @04:11AM (2 children)
60 years ago, my parents bought some inexpensive rural property, too steep & rocky for farmland, so we camped there and let the trees grow. Turns out that, according to https://fpr.vermont.gov/sites/fpr/files/Forest_and_Forestry/Forest%20Carbon-Nov2016.pdf [vermont.gov] [pdf warning], our property is sequestering 77.1 metric tonnes carbon per acre every year. The property is 110 acres, so we're doing about 8500 tonnes per year. And paying local taxes to boot.
The DOE project in tfs is trying to sequester a million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year (in each facility). To do that would take about 12,000 acres or ~100 times our personal contributions. Let's say the DOE decided to buy land with their Billions of Dollars. For example, if they spent 0.5 billion or $500,000,000 (five hundred million) they could afford to pay something over $4000/acre to buy the required 12,000 acres...to sequester a million metric tons of carbon per year. There are plenty of parts of the USA where land prices are much less than this...
Did anyone at the DOE, or in Washington DC run these numbers? Can I bid on this DOE project, with a guaranteed success rate? All I have to do is borrow some sizable fraction of the $0.5B, buy some land, donate it to local land conservancies (I don't want to pay taxes on it all). And then,
...
Profit -- claim my full half billion that I bid for the DOE job.
Please check my math, it's been awhile since I've run big numbers like this!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 27 2022, @04:55PM (1 child)
Yep. [fs.fed.us]
It's funny though, when people suggest purchasing property and planting trees on it to offset their own emissions people like you accuse them of buying indulgences...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @01:54AM
> buying indulgences...
I'm the gp. Actually, I've never accused anyone of that. But I am suspect of forest owners that take (or sell) a carbon credit, wait a few years, then sell the timber for firewood (or any other activity that returns the carbon to the atmosphere). Thus my suggestion to give the land to a land conservancy--this is possible and at least in some cases the gift can mandate "forever wild" or similar to maintain the trees.
While I'm keeping ownership of the family 110 acres of trees for now, I don't have any direct heirs and my will specifies that the property goes to a forever wild land conservancy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @01:06PM (9 children)
"each with the capability of permanently storing a million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year."
That sounds like a plan that might work great until it doesn't. A likely failure mode that this plan creates is a sudden release. Do the climate experts have models showing how the biosphere will survive when this happens?.
A better plan would be something that takes co2, water, and sunlight and make something that replaces oil, gas, or coal for some purpose. (Perhaps growing ponds scum to make plastics?) Making it economically viable doesn't seem to be a constraint, but if it were, then it might scale by itself to actually help.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RamiK on Thursday May 26 2022, @01:51PM (8 children)
The 13gallon/50L of gasoline in your car are equivalent [epa.gov] to 0.116 metric ton of CO2 (gasoline is 3/4 density and then it's 3times the weight for the co2).
An oil barrel is ~300pounds/136kg yielding ~400kg of CO2 (crude is worse but whatever). The Saudis have 30billion barrels in reserve which represents 1.8% of the world's reserves... Oh, and their goal is to "remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere by capturing and durably storing it at gigaton scales for less than $100/net metric ton of CO2-equivalent (CO2e)" ( https://www.energy.gov/fecm/carbon-negative-shot-summit [energy.gov] )
I'm gonna stop here. That's not a plan that might work. That's homeopathic dilutions scale scam.
compiling...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @02:26PM (1 child)
Are the guy who poo-pooed my proposal to give schoolchildren empty peanut butter jars to run around and catch air inside and seal them with a tight metal screw on lid, thus removing CO2 from the atmosphere forever?
I swear, it's people like you that sit around waiting for the perfect solution. Every LITTLE bit helps!!!!
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday May 26 2022, @02:55PM
I don't know why you were modded Troll but I've thrown in a Funny because it genuinely made me crack a chuckle.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @02:38PM
I was going to comment but you hit the nail on the head.
The whole thing is just a ruse.
Thermodynamics rule here, no way you are going to solve this, just ask any physicist.
The entropy is far too high to think you can put that Jeanie back in its bottle.
Period!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday May 26 2022, @05:08PM (4 children)
And guess how they get all that oil out of those hydraulically fracked cracks....
They pump fucking C02 into the hole to displace the oil! Not always.....they do use wastewater sometimes too....but enough to already have a handle on preventing massive C02 releases.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by RamiK on Thursday May 26 2022, @06:12PM (3 children)
Pumping co2 to the hole to displace the oil... Holy shit dude you're talking about dry ice [wikipedia.org] here... Well, just in case you're not trolling or someone reads this and takes it face value, fracking fluid [fractracker.org] is 97% wastewater with some lubricants and solvents thrown in the mix to break apart the rocks and keep the fracture open: https://www.nrdc.org/stories/fracking-101 [nrdc.org]
compiling...
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 27 2022, @04:33PM
CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery [globalenergyinstitute.org]
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 27 2022, @04:46PM (1 child)
Also, fracking fluid just makes the initial cracks. That only occurs at the beginning of the process.
Once the well is capped you can extract a lot of oil and gas just from the natural pressure in the well. Once that pressure runs low you need to pump something down there to displace the remainder.
Wastewater injection [epa.gov] is the process of using wastewater, as opposed to C02, for that purpose.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday May 28 2022, @04:03AM
Carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery is exclusively a tertiary recovery process (where the well mostly dried out). Whereby, at most, 70% of the 100kg per-barrel worth of CO2 that are produced during refinement, are mixed-in with wastewater (sparkling water) or injected into the wells as is. Regardless, it's a con: Whether you pump them with the wastewater (so, 97% water, 0.5% CO2, lubricants the likes for the rest) or inject them (not pump) as gas, they either get mixed back with the oil/gas you're pumping out (so they're going back into the atmosphere when you refine/combust) or leak out during/after drilling since the bedrock is fractured (especially if fracking was involved).
The oil companies are saying it's permanent storage in the same sense they're denying this is happening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LBjSXWQRV8 [youtube.com]
Regardless, the amount of CO2 we're talking about here inconsequential. Even following their own numbers, it's 70% off 1/5 of the CO2 release. And again, it's not. It's a gas. It always leaks unless you make it into dry ice and store it in a pressurized metal container... I mean, even sodastream containers leak which is why they come with a warning label and an expiry date... Hell, haven't you ever had a coke? That's not even 1% co2 and that shit leaks out no matter how well you screw it back... How do you expect to keep it from leaking by pumping it underground when you've gone and drilled holes and formed cracks all over? Crazy...
You're talking about how oil was drilled in 70s. Current extraction involves continuous fracking where you drill multiple wells, some for pumping-in wastewater and some for pumping-out oil/gas. And the wells aren't stable so you often redrill through collapses.
Contemporary oil/gas fracking always involves wastewater injection. Nowadays we're been left with the equivalent of a mostly empty bottle of ketchup where it has to be squeezed out forcefully to get anything out.
To be clear, if a new oil well were discovered, you might get away with no fracking for a few years or just initial fracking to break through the bedrock before "passively" pumping out oil. But, there are no new oil wells. We're just digging deeper through old wells to squeeze out the leftovers. Well, there's still undiscovered / unexploited deep sea wells too but sea drilling is something else entirely.
All in all, this is nuts. There's no permanent CO2 storage with a sustainable energy balance. If pumping co2 back underground was viable in any remote fashion, we would have done it decades ago.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @03:21PM (1 child)
The Alchemist's Stone
a technological solution to transmute Carbon from exhaust into something non-harmful, say 3 He atoms?
Dream with me here...
So say it does it chemically somehow without releasing any radiation.
Now we need to get it on every combustion machine.
Then you can address the other herd of Elephants in the room, like returning the carbon in the atmosphere to safe levels.
Back to reality...
Does anyone see this technological marvel happening within the NEAR future?
Cause we need to remove carbon at a far faster and sequestered rate than decades of continued accelerating carbon dumping can possibly be accounted for.
Think. Red Queen's Race, or now more appropriately let's call it Red Russian's Race
These projects are a colossal waste of time, money, and resources, while misleading public understanding about the solutions own carbon foot printing and greenwashing.
Good Luck with that!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @05:26PM
Yes, these are only potentially helpful if we're already at our near carbon neutral and the existence of these experiments can lead to people thinking that they don't need to cut back. Once we're at it near carbon neutral, these projects can be helpful at the final stage of the solution.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @03:40PM (1 child)
*sigh* there's only one (and a second further down) reason to "capture" carbon-dioxide": if you ever get a unlimited but not socially-liberated (read: not anyone can do it) energy source you can use it to make hydrogen from abundant water and react the hydrogen with the stored carbon-dioxide to get (some energy) and methane (natural gas) and water. (note, if you ever DO have that unlimited energy source in the future, you could do the capture then too.)
i guess there's no reason to worry about all the oxygen that is getting buried too? hydro-carbons, not alcohols or sugars are liberated from the ground, from the far past, so no extra oxygen coming in too and added to the atmosphere?
also, do they accept waste carbon in form of plastic bottles to be injected into the ground or do they choose only the most difficult carbon to use, that is carbon-dioxide?
i find it astonishing how the "atmosphere" is just some ownership-less thing. air-space being closely guarded. but the air moves freely around and anyone can "use" it?
first just dump all your fossil fuel burning waste there, mind you only the "carbon" of carbon dioxide is the waste part. we all like oxygen. and now the oxygen is tainted but instead of removing the carbon first, the innocent oxygen from the ownership-less atmosphere gets thrown into prison too :(
not to mention, that carbon capture isn't for free. something needs to provide absorbents and the energy?
methinks, this is like a gigantic, gold plated, neon-illuminated middle-finger to the core argument of the renewable energy industry, that is the "increasing carbon in atmosphere" and the financial mechanism of "carbon and green credits", that would allow to uncouple a trade and reward system NOT based on oil-coupons.
so someone "woke up", gathered the beach towel and found a phone after sobering up enough to make a phone-call to "use oil-coupons to MAKE (not buy!) green credits.(*)" and in the process, ofc also make more oil-coupons.
(*)only applies if fossil derived energy was used to power the carbon-oxygen burial. if renewable energy was bought via "green credit"/"oil coupon in disguise" to support increase of independent oil-coupon decoupled energy generation, then there's still time for the fossil lobby to turn or convince the renewable supporters to join the dark side.
"green credits"/"carbon-dioxide generation and removal" really are a un-blessing in disguise, a loaded gun aimed squarely at the green-lobbies foot. :(
let's be honest, do we want less carbon-dioxide in atmosphere or a fossile-energy independent future?
it seems "green-credits" (carbon-dioxide sequestering) will not guarantee the later (fossile-fuel independent). kobe.
lastly: carbon sequestering is a gauntlet thrown down by the fossile energyists: the only way the renewables can now win is, if renewable machines and devices require less fossile energy input to create then energy required by fossile industry to bury their waste for the same amount of "carbon-dioxide".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @04:06PM
quick reminder: hydro-carbons reacting with oxygen, gives water and carbon-dioxide. removing the carbon atom (one) from oxygen (there are two!) requires the same amount of energy that was gained by making it.
so honest carbon-sequesterin', that is, ONLY burying the carbon and thus removing the oxygenS first, would only allow the energy of a hydrogen-water reaction to be used during the hydro-carbon burnin' process.
the energy gained from reacting carbon with oxygen would have to be payed back (thru energy input to liberate the oxygen again before burial).
-OR- one can sacrifice a material that will take the place of the oxygen and bury that combo.
using renewable energy to do it is st0pid 'cause it will then not be available to energize and grow the renewable energy machine making industry ... which will have to get THEIR creation energy from the guys who keep dumping on your front porch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @03:57PM (6 children)
The only realistic way you are going to ever get the levels down as much as some people want is with a far smaller human population. That can't happen nearly as fast as is "necessary." Advanced CO2 free technology can't provide nearly enough power for the world. This is the simple fact.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @04:29PM (1 child)
maybe, maybe not.
i just see that there are waayyy too many roofs and fields not covered with solarpanels.
i have to admit that it is easier to argue with educated people then un-educated people.
for some people, "saving" and "conserving" have a different meaning: it means you are poor. this is mostly in 3rd world countries: the people who are just now waking up to the fossile fuel powered life-style. they see the "rich" life-style but don't see the cost of "fossile fuel destruction" for energy.
if you talk to these 'em people about solar and saving and conserving, they are reminded how they have been doing this for like forever, because they had no money.
when you ask them what they needed money for and then tell them that neith nothing they wanted to buy but could not,, was because its price included fossile fuel; it's like a bomb exploded in their brain. if you keep pushing and asking how did "this" or "that" you wanted (washing machine, tv, car, etc.) come to them and with what was it created and keep asking until they realize that it was only and because fossile fuel energy.
being educated to submit, the safety switch flips near instantly and "but if solar is so good, why isn't it everywhere?"
Q:"what are you going to do if you cant ride your motorcycle to the fresh market if the fuel isn't brought to your countries shores and then by tanker to your village?"
A:"i'll walk or use a bicycle!"
Q:"and how is the stuff going to get to the market?"
A:"..."
Q:"how are you going to cook (mostly using gas)?"
A:"i can use wood"
these are the places the fossile fuelists want to keep out of the hands of renewables. here two solar panels can do AMAZING things. two solar panels do nothing in america or europe. a single house needs two digit number of panels to even make a "dent".
but it's hard to sell solar like this. the A.I. or brainwashing head start by the fossile industry is beyond 50 years (and the local clubbermint are firmly fossile believers and enablers, docile obedient "no questions asked" work force is good!).
it's like the new mobile phone generation forgot about files and folders, the 3rd world country has been abused (manufacturing enabled thru fossile fuels) and brainwashed (saving is BAD! conserving is BAD! MORE is BETTER! BUY NOW! PAY LATER!) and forgot what life used to be like: carry water from well, collect firewood. walk. all electrifiable. no fossile required.
so yeah .. it's a hard sell (for some). and the clubbermint is not too bright either: every tree chopped down needs to be replanted to be sustainable. same with solarpanels. they last 20 or so years. give them away and if you don't have a local plant, where are they going to come from? from the fresh market?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @04:37PM
oh, i forgot: they all have a mobile phone. so chips abound just not in the right form :/ and running costs to operate it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday May 26 2022, @05:10PM (3 children)
So long as you define the ONLY solution to be an impossible one you can absolve yourself of all responsibility for a fix.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2022, @12:46PM (2 children)
I give you points for CARING more than the poster you responded to. CARING is the most important thing, more important than actual analysis or results. (Science?)
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 27 2022, @04:35PM (1 child)
I'm pretty lucky in that I get paid to ACT on these issues.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @12:18AM
This is how working as a propaganda bot is called these days? Cute.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @05:35PM (2 children)
The thieves really have no shame at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @07:25PM (1 child)
running afoul of helping the "running black team" with classified information (sabotage)...
the way i see it, one would need about 4-5 kwh of storage and the ability to harvest that amount reliability during one day. so about 4 x 300W, 350W real:)
a way to make the storage last at least 20 years with minimal degradation. we don't want to fall back into a trap of constant replacement.
a way to draw at least 3500W peak as AC from the storage. don't piss off the established AC component market.
all should cost less then a regular 125 cc motorcycle and or a mid-to-upper gaming rig (1'800 -2'100 oil coupons).
this should allow a family of 2+(2*0.5) to:
run a AC fridge (300w)
a AC rice cooker (300w)
a AC induction cooker (1'300 w/ boast function)
...
per day.
the price does not include electric transportation (e-bike, 2kwh) and if bought separately would mean that somedays, the food will have to be cold and energy diverted for movement.
according to marx this would allow some of the digested calories to be used for own betterment (calorie planting, community project (water, dam, roads, solar panel factory, winding coils, t-hehehe, etc) and own leisure (without cost or damage to someone else), liberating one in part from using the digested calories to add "value" to a product in factory because the life-style and dependencies require to acquire oil-coupons ... for energy. "get a life".
example is for not having a winter / requiring heating.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @08:15PM
one independent energy source (IES) = 2'100 oil coupons. 20 years, it broke.
99 million barrels per day.
1 barrel = 100 oil coupons (oc)
99 million bpd equals 9'900'000'000 oil coupons (or the amount 5 billion people can play with everyday)
9'900'000'000 / 5'000'000'000 = 1.98 oil coupons
2'100(IES) / 1.98oc / 365days = 2.9 years
so all the output to make 5'000'000'000 IES for 2.9 year.
20y - 2.9y = 17.1 y
17.1y - 2.9y (for the next batch, to be sure) = 14.2y
if you agree to the life-style, we could leave oil in the ground for 14.2y * 99'000'000 barrels-per-day = 513'117'000'000 (513 billion barrels)
if not, that is what we need to get out of the ground for the next 14.2y at least.
(sry, to lazy, the year comma is not correct 10 instead of 12)