Scientists Push for a Crash Program to Scrub Carbon From the Air

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

Scientists Push for a Crash Program to Scrub Carbon From the Air

By Brad Plumer
Oct. 24, 2018

WASHINGTON — With time running out to avoid dangerous global warming, the nation’s leading scientific body on Wednesday urged the federal government to begin a research program focused on developing technologies that can remove vast quantities of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in order to help slow climate change.

The 369-page report, written by a panel of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, underscores an important shift. For decades, experts said that nations could prevent large temperature increases mainly by reducing reliance on fossil fuels and moving to cleaner sources like solar, wind and nuclear power.

But at this point, nations have delayed so long in cutting their carbon dioxide emissions that even a breakneck shift toward clean energy would most likely not be enough. According to a landmark scientific report issued by the United Nations this month, taking out a big chunk of the carbon dioxide already loaded into the atmosphere may be necessary to avoid significant further warming, even though researchers haven’t yet figured out how to do so economically, or at sufficient scale.

And we’ll have to do it fast. To meet the climate goals laid out under the Paris Agreement, humanity may have to start removing around 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the air each year by midcentury, in addition to reducing industrial emissions, said Stephen W. Pacala, a Princeton climate scientist who led the panel. That’s nearly as much carbon as all the world’s forests and soils currently absorb each year.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/climate/global-warming-carbon-removal.html

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Finally. A perhaps decent proposal that details can be worked out ...

every little bit helps. How about tax credits for those who retire or don't drive their vehicles? I'm sure that if they ask for solutions that they would get thousands and thousands of them. Every person can do their bit, e.g., if you drive, consolidate trips so instead of 3 or 4 trips, make 1 trip. Ride share too. Continue development of diamond technologies by using carbon dioxide. Where would one store the carbon dioxide too? Lots and lots of things to question and do.

[NNadir]

2. The engineering challenges of doing this are enormous.

It would require enough energy to overcome two centuries of accumulated entropy.

It is difficult to imagine if we can't stop using fossil fuels for energy now, how we'll find the additional energy to clean up the fossil fuel waste already dumped over two centuries.

Many scientists have been considering this problem for decades quietly; Chris Jones at Georgia Tech comes immediately to mind.

There is simply no will to act.

I note that the New York Times has played a huge role in demonizing the only form of energy with the energy density that might be capable of accomplishing the task, nuclear energy.

As much as we'd all like to say this is the fault of evil Republicans, we are all responsible for this increasingly intractable nightmare.

[NNadir]

3. From the text of the full NAP book...

Page 134

Plant capture rate from air = 1 Mt/y CO2
● Concentration in air = 400 ppmv CO2
● Volumetric flow rate ? 58,000 m3
/s air
● Capture fraction from air ? 60+ CO2
● Concentration of product ? 98% CO2
• Emission factors3
o Heat from natural gas = 227 g CO2/kWh
o Heat from coal = 334 g CO2/kWh
o Heat from nuclear = 4 gCO2/kWh
o Heat from solar = 8.3 gCO2/kWh
o Electricity from grid (U.S. average) = 743 gCO2/kWh
o Electricity from natural gas = 450 gCO2/kWh
o Electricity from coal = 950 gCO2/kWh
o Electricity from nuclear = 12 gCO2/kWh
o Electricity from solar = 25 gCO2/kWh
o Electricity from wind = 11 gCO2/kWh
• Plant life = 10 years4

We have, here at DU E&E, people celebrating the rise of gas to replace nuclear.

In this kind of environment, what hope have we?

Very little, I'd suggest. By the way, the solar and wind figures posted here do not, assuredly, include the carbon dioxide cost of maintaining back up when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing.

[The_jackalope]

4. Where would the profit come from?

Without a source of profit, nobody is going to invest in such schemes. Last I heard, large amounts of concentrated CO2 were not terribly profitable.

Any democratic government that proposed to fund such a scheme out of tax revenues would probably be voted out of office in a heartbeat. So that means that only autocratic governments would have the ability to force the funding. But they have no desire to pour their money down such a sinkhole.

It ain't happening, no matter how much arithmetic the boffins do.

[NickB79]

5. Australia voted in a small carbon tax, then promptly removed it

And those who pushed it through were voted out of office.

We aren't going to do shit.