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from the hot-on-the-heels-of-fresh-water-from-air dept.
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)
Direct Air Capture of CO2 with Chemicals (2011)
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:51AM (1 child)
So depleat your soil for 20 years, cut it down, waste a bunch of energy to compress it then haul it to the sea, and toss it in the ocean and call it a day?
All for $94 dollars a ton? I don't think you've done the math. I know you've not done the science.
Or use solar energy to remove CO2 from air? More solar power to break it down to carbon, and oxygen. Let the oxygen float away, or use it industrially. Bury the carbon.
What's the point of any effort at all if you think Green Energy is all just an accounting trick?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:20AM
This is the kind of suit-talk that drives engineers out of their mind.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]