From Waste to Wonder: The Surprising Uses of Carbon Dioxide
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- Опубликовано: 30 июн 2024
- Can we solve our atmospheric carbon problem AND get something useful from it at the same time? Sounds better than just shoving it underground like Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects are planning, doesn’t it?
Carbon - in the form of carbon dioxide - is something that we have way too much of in the atmosphere at the moment. And carbon is also in a whole bunch of useful products ranging from diamonds to plastics to fuels. People are starting to figure out how we can make all kinds of products from captured carbon... but should we?
In this video I talk with Dr Jessica Allen about all the things you can make out of captured carbon, and assess each one in terms of their potential to be cheap, valuable, scalable and permanent.
Bookmarks:
0:00 Intro
0:23 What is Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU)?
1:26 What makes for the perfect CO2 uses?
2:19 Introduction to Dr Jessica Allen
2:54 "Trendy" uses of CO2: Beer, Carbonation, Diamonds, Graphene, etc
5:22 Fuels: Synthetic Fuels, Syngas, etc
7:46 Methanol and Plastics
9:43 Mineral Carbonation, Carbonated Materials, Building Materials, etc
11:21 Biochar - Slow Pyrolysis Process, Possibility of Being Carbon Negative?
14:20 CCU's Current Progress and Jess' Thoughts
15:24 Summary and Rosie's Thoughts on CCU
16:27 Outro
If you would like to help develop the Engineering with Rosie channel, you could consider joining the Patreon community, where there is a chat community (and Patreon-only Discord server) about topics covered in the videos and suggestions for future videos and production quality improvements. / engineeringwithrosie
Sources:
Cement production paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.201...
Mineral carbonation: www.mineralcarbonation.com/mi...
CCS costs and energy penalties: doi.org/10.1016/j.ijggc.2016....
Plastics: doi.org/10.1002/anie.201308341
Methanol synthesis: doi.org/10.1016/j.jcou.2018.0... 
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The graphic at 10:06 is from Mineral Carbonation International, it has been pointed out to me that its attribution accidentally got cropped out 😳 My apologies to MCi for not attributing their work!
Wood and other grown materials used in construction must be a great way to temporarily lock away carbon, and since we do lots of building that would be quite a lot of carbon. I've seen something about hemp bricks which was very interesting, hemp is a fast grower along with bamboo.
So far, in the short term, nothing seems to beat growing plants and turning them into semi-permanent goods like timber. The main problem is the scam "carbon offset" schemes which put carbon sequestration into the hands of tax lawyers.
As a former tree grower, the short answer is no, the "forces of evil" will destroy any suggestions that this is helpful and thoughly justified.
I can't tell you to check this out, records are scrupulously removed and disguised in the "Merchants of Doubt" context, which is in itself another example of mirror reflection framing and smearing science-truth.
Scientists sell their services to research reasons for doubt that knowledge is whole or intact, the MoD title actually applies to evil liars who collude with an otherwise indifferent population of participating believers in getting the highest financial return on the least effort or responsibility. (Bye bye planet)
This is the reality, I'm concerned that the Women who are standing for Parliamentary positions do not believe that "evil is evil" because it is not in their own makeup. Eg Trying to fix marriage partners and failing, that is the "School of Hard Knocks".
Keep up with the Balance of Probabilities evidence wherever it's possible. Teachers are taught Early Childhood education programs that are a revelation on the origins of human learning behaviours, when applied to societies as a whole.
Hemp yes, wood, not so much unless it's from farms. Cutting down forests may sequester that immediate carbon for a long time, but trees sequester quite a bit of co2 on their own, so it's not a good idea to cut down natural forests.
We just need whatever giant farm equipment we use to also do crazy hemp bricking when the plant comes out of lipid extraction. And great progress v. blowing 40-80 HP cracking every weed seed in the field before planting.
Carbon can be sequestered by applying basalt rock dust to soil for agriculture.
13:41 It's worth remembering that carbon added to the soil is reintroduced to the carbon cycle. It won't stay there forever. The reason carbon in soils is beneficial for agriculture and ecosystems, is that the microbes and plants incorporate the carbon into their bodies and therefore it will probably be released when the organism dies or uses energy
It's actually more complicated than that. Biochar consists of a labile fraction (10-20%), which acts as soil microbe food and a refractory fraction (80-90%), which is resistant to decay. This can remain in soils and store carbon for hundreds to thousands of years. Biochar is beneficial for plant growth in a variety of ways: initially it has a coating of mineral ash on the surface, left over from the feedstock. This ash is alkaline, providing a weak liming effect and a modest amount of nutrients. As it ages, biochar surfaces develop a negative electrical charge that helps it to retain soil moisture and positively charged ions such as ammonium (NH4+), Mg++, K+ and Ca++ that plants need. It also contains numerous pores which are exploited by soil fungi (mycorrhizae) and other beneficial soil microorganisms.
Trouble is the carbon released from decaying plant matter is largely in the form of methane which is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.
Plant trees and then harvest the timber after the tree has absorbed CO2 for decades.The timber locks up the carbon for centuries and even later on u can re-saw and re-use the timber for other things.
Alayne Perrott's reply to this comment is a much more accurate and informed statement regarding the stability of biochar based carbon in the soil.
@@chippysteve4524 Methane is only produced when organic matter decays in the absence of oxygen, e.g. in permanently flooded soils.
The Bloomberg Green newsletter recently reported on the decline in China fertile black soil regions, perhaps biochar could be added to improve the soils nutrient base?
I could watch content like this all day every day. Cheers! Will throw in extra comments for algorithms.
Great video! Just one point I think you dismissed plastics a little bit too fast. There is single use and short term use plastic that we should absolutely get rid of, as fast as possible. However long-term use plastic that stays in products for decades is probably going to stick around for some time. Just a few examples: windowframes, car interiors, sports equipmts even boat exteriors, chairs … you name it. Also our long-term use of plastic does actually reach this gigaton scale that you were talking about. You also talk about how Methan can be created out of captured carbon. This is already the chemical starting block for many plastics like PET. The only big problem I see you is that it’s only you solution at the end off our transition to renewable energy. Once we have abandoned and access to renewables we have the resources to waste them one such high energy loss processes.
I just commented this before looking at the other comments. XD Glad to see other people are thinking like this. :)
Very impressed by how simply and clearly Jess explained the chemical aspects - well done.
Hi Rosie, We've a 33 Hectare forest.
It would seem sensible to me to produce the biochar and electricity in a distributed fashion. Close to the sources of the organic feedstock. Removing much of the transport costs for both biomass and char (which can be locally applied to soils after adding nutrients and colonising the char with suitable microorganisms to avoid damage to soils and their biota)
Such a system would allow electrification of many of the operations which we currently use fossil fuels for.
For example, sawmilling, felling trees, perhaps even electrify the tractor, whilst I imagine that we'd have little surplus energy to send to the grid, our operation would be very carbon negative with carbon being sequestered in both the biochar and long lived wooden items made from the lumber produced.
Such a system would have available waste heatwhich canbe used on site for drying lumber and possibly also domestic needs.
Such a system if sufficiently scalable would fit into many farming operations and I am sure other areas also.
Is there any hope of such a system? any ongoing research?
We've a little experience here with making charcoal (for recreational iron smelting) and biochar (for our garden), I'm a Forester with a bit of engineering in my past, and would love to collaborate with others in developing such a system
Rosie, We would love to see your future biochar video. Below are some resources for it that you might find useful. Thanks for including biochar as a carbon capture and utilization technology. It was great to see your enthusiasm for it.
I've been involved with Biochar for over a decade. And you're right, it can be a very powerful tool for removing CO2 from the atmosphere at very large scale, even eventually at the gigaton scale. And unlike other biomass incorporated into the soil, it lasts for hundreds to thousands of years as a very stable form of carbon. When used properly, like preloading it with nutrients and microbes by composting it with other organic matter, it can provide some amazing benefits to the soil in addition to all of its atmospheric benefits.
Resources:
As an engineering resource, Tom Miles is an engineer who has worked with biomass for more than three decades and has been working on biochar even longer than I have. He is a Board Member of the International Biochar Initiative, as well as the Executive Director of the US Biochar Initiative. His depth and breadth of understanding of the biochar industry would be hard to surpass. As you can imagine, I highly respect his work.
T R Miles Technical Consultants Inc.
www.trmiles.com
The IBI or International Biochar Initiative has some good general resources here:
biochar-international.org/biochar/
They display an infographic I had made 11 years ago to clearly illustrates both the soil and atmospheric benefits of biochar. You are welcome to use it in your video. I can provide a high resolution copy of this image, or a low-res copy of it can be found at the following address:
biochar-international.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/CHARTREE3.jpg
The US Biochar Initiative has some great video resources on their RUclips channel.
ruclips.net/user/USBiocharInitiative
One of the most important current steps toward helping biochar deliver its potential benefit to our environment is through appropriately scaling the industry. There was a great forum on this in 2020 entitled simply, "Scaling Biochar".
www.scalingbiochar.com/
This forum highlights presentations from some of the most notable people involved in the biochar industry in the US.
Prior to that forum, one of US's largest biochar producers, Josiah Hunt of Pacific Biochar, along with Tom Miles were the leads for a working group tasked with presenting a plan for the implementation of, 'Large Scale Biochar Production". While they have a plan for the future, both of these guys are out there already doing the real world work needed to get biochar produced and into the ground.
Their presentations can be seen through these two links:
Tom Miles: Large Scale Biochar Production.
ruclips.net/video/uqViKqLvqtw/видео.html
Josiah Hunt: Leveraging Existing Infrastructure in California to Sustainably Produce 250,000 Tons of Biochar Per Year within 5 Years.
ruclips.net/video/mvVaBH76XjM/видео.html
Anyhow, I could provide you with a ton more resources. But this should give you enough to it immerse yourself, well beyond just dipping your toes in.
I can't wait to see a whole video about biochar by Engineering with Rosie with your characteristically high quality and thorough coverage.
Thank you for all the hard work you do to bring us great content. Keep it up!
Thank you so much Rosie for this great video. It's like a lecture. Currently, I am doing a course on CCUS, and this video has been very beneficial to me.
Great video as always 👍
Thanks for sharing your experience with all of us 👍😀
I love your videos. Always interesting and realistic.
Though I stay informed about potential and emerging uses for CO2 I really appreciate the repeated emphasis on the scale of the problem. Difficult sometimes not to lose heart
Thanks, interesting video, especially the talk with Dr Jessica Allen. However, as a chemist, I need to note a few things here: 6:11 The molecules displayed as ball and stick models are not what is written above them. The first one is CO2, the second one looks more like Chlorine (Cl2) than hydrogen (when considering the colours and sizes in the other models), and the third is methanol. At 8:05 the models seem to be better suited, however, according to what is said in the video the formula is not complete: It should be CO2 + 3 H2 -> CH3OH + H2O. But all the rest was good and interesting, as said.
I'm keen to see a video on biochar. Particularly how it affects carbon sequestration once applied to gardens, orchards, pastures and cropping paddocks.
I'm also interested in how it impacts the soil ecology and biodiversity (and their role in carbon sequestration).
The easiest / fastest way to capture carbon is to replant all the sea grass along coast lines. It's more important to take CO2 out of oceans and reduce the acidity. They act as a buffer against storm surges and erosion. They might become a good source of food and salts if we do it right. We might be able to get plastic eating microbes to co-habit with sea-grasses and help with that problem. How much space would a billion tonnes of seaweed take up? Ok, it's mostly water so 100 billion tons?
I like it, but the sea climatologist won't print the plot coupons ahead of time? Plus urchins and nudibranches are crazy? Yeah, a little farming on the way to ocean powered coasts and greener shipping is in order. Also...French Intensive Shore Stewardship, say what?!
Great video! Pyrolysis of biomass is the key to carbon capture. It can be scaled up by using pyrolysis of biomass to create carbon-neutral drop-in fuels for existing transportation fleets currently run on fossil fuels. As electrification of transportation progresses, this biomass would be repurposed for carbon sequestration or utilization in stable products.
Suppose tomorrow we woke up and humanity was magically carbon neutral. It would really not be important to try to remove the co2 we've already added if that happened. The point is, all we have to do is get to carbon neutrality. We don't have to do more than that.
Great summary, thank you.
Holla Fresh at Tantanoola in SA use pyrolysis in their greenhouse, using waste from timber production.
Surely the best use of atmospheric carbon is to replace all plastics produced from fossil fuel at the minute. Also make buildings from plastics made from recovered carbon dioxide
I was intrigued when you started out with Carbon.... from Coal to Diamonds... as I FULLY AGREE WITH THIS.
One must Challenge the Coal Industry to think "out of the box" rather than moan, groan and weep over the future where coal is not sold cheap to "Burn and Pollute" ... but Move Up the Value Chain (diamonds being at the top).
One of the most significant use (missed out) is in replacing Steel with Carbon Fibre, including use of 3D Printers for Components to even full Buildings etc... (Now you understand the " out of the box" thinking needed..).
I hope you will cover the Future of enhancing the Value of Cheap Coal to "Burn & Pollute" to Move Up the Value Chain WITHOUT COMBUSTION & POLLUTION... ALL THE WAY UP..... TO DIAMONDS... THE HOLY GRAIL OF CARBON...
Thanks for the post
Love engineering with Rosie!!!!! (...) Sincerly from Copenhagen. With thanks.
Tak skal du have!
Rosie, thank you for giving us helpful hopeful ideas to think about. Sheila Mink in New Mexico
Thank you Rosie 👏👏👍
There is a company out there re-carbonizing concrete structures as a form of strengthening. A bridge here in Oregon had the process done a few years back, and there were lots of variables, such as the age of the bridge, cost compared to replacing the bridge, lifespan of the rehabilitated bridge, etc. I wasn't on that project team, so I don't know much more than that, but it sounds like one of these CCUs, and I don't think anyone talked about it in that context at that time.
On the note of BioChar, I’ve heard soil utilization does have the soil benefits (Synthetic Terra Preta etc), it’s use for carbon sequestration is questionable. Granted *more research needed™️*, but essentially it can get used by an organism and thus release the CO2 again. The main article i heard this in was “Geo-Engineering Skeptical” or something. Let me see if i can grab the link, I’ll post it below if i find it, RUclips sometimes doesn’t like links.
I hope you get contracts from schools. Excellent presentation.
Thanks for the great video. Here's an idea you touched on: Mandate that all new plastic materials must be made out of captured carbon dioxide. This will raise the price of plastics, limiting their use. Also, make sure that produced plastics are not biodegradable, and don't bother recycling them. Just make sure they are disposed of properly in landfills. In this way we are taking carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it in the ground long-term at identified locations. At the same time we are greatly reducing plastic pollution. Just an idea, I am fairly sure it will never happen.
Sensible ideas from a CO2 perspective, and assuming that you can ensure every bit of plastic gets properly put into landfill and doesn't end up in rivers and the ocean. Lots of people are opposed to landfill though, even where there is plenty of land available for it. And in a lot of countries they burn waste instead of landfilling it, and then you'd just end up with the CO2 in the atmosphere again.
@@EngineeringwithRosie Agreed and all this would have to be regulated so there would not be unintended consequences. The plastic could be compressed and baled, then buried so it wouldn't take up much volume. We would know where it was, and there might come a time when we would want to mine it to extract things that may become valuable in the future. Again, though, I think this idea is rather counterintuitive and very unlikely to be implemented on any scale. But the core idea- require all plastic to be made of captured carbon- would go a long way to reducing plastic pollution because it would likely increase the production price by quite a lot.
@@EngineeringwithRosie since my comment, included a very similar suggestion... thx for giving your feedback on it...
@@kinguq4510791 agreed, my comment, included a very similar suggestion... but I also mentioned, it would be very emotionally distasteful to implement too....
It seems like it would be simpler to tax the mining of fossil fuels more substantially, than to try to micromanage what people do with them.
Biochar could be very useful in desert greening projects such as in the Sahara, China and Southern Africa.
Real engineering did a video on that topic. Conclusion was, greening the sahara or similar places would not net store Carbon. You should watch it, good video.
Also we would destroy another ecosystem by doing that. Even when biological not very productive, the sahara ecosystem also has a right to be.
I don’t think they covered it but I believe the albedo increase might cause global warming all on it’s own. Maybe installing mirrors that reflect light to geostationary factories would manage the temperature of the earth well.
Excited to see the CO2 captured concrete idea!
I thought that making concrete is a huge creator of CO2.
@@SirHackaL0t.
Calcium carbonate -> CO2 + calcium oxide. (+ CO2 from the energy to heat it up)
Calcium oxide takes the CO2 and turns back into calcium carbonate.
So on the short term it does produce a lot of CO2. Long term it takes it back.
Biochar is pretty close to my "troll" carbon capture idea: shipping containers full of dehydrated wood chips taken to death valley to dry out and sit there.
All the best!
The problem is co2 where it can't be captured. Lowering temperatures will lower co2. By lowering sea levels through re-salination that happens by the separation of salt from ocean water in polar regions where it can freeze an artificial glacier can be implemented. Ocean water also freezes. We can make it more likely to freeze by keeping it shallow and still. We need a desalination plant for the purpose of making ice not drinking water. Desalination in warmer climates can maintain a standard suitable for crops and ground seepage but again not drinking water. Ocean water in general should be allowed in at high tide and trapped where land filters it and fresh water should be regulated to a minimum out to sea. With these concepts we can implement desalination in a beneficial and inexpensive way while actively adding ice, increasing Ocean salinity, reducing sea levels, and boosting the ocean conveyer. If you want fda approved drinking water made from sea water it'll cost you the sun and the moon...but it doesn't mean the concept isn't worth considering in other ways. If environmental technology comes up with a solution it will hold it for ransom because it's a business and therefore it's self serving because it's only objective is to gain at any expense. Don't bother waiting around for it to save you. It doesn't care because there's no money in it.
Today I'd summarise our problems as solved by lots of renewable energy and lots of storage. CCU can be used as part the storage, but I'm mainly thinking grid storage where the CO2 can be captured more easily in concentrated form. We can use Syngas to generate in times of low renewables and when other more efficient storage has run out, we store all the CO2 in temporary storage and then use excess renewables to convert that back to syn gas. Carbons usefulness, as demonstrated by Nature, is that it is good at holding and storing Hydrogen. Carbon is also useful for holding O2 and is a very compressible gas. Syngas burns very cleanly producing mostly water and CO2 so cooling plant, compressors etc can handle it without getting gummed up with soot. The only question is how efficient is the process and can it generate net positive energy while its generating. Or would it be easier to simply make huge battery storage, Hydro, sodium, thermal whatever.
When you talk about these things the most important number is their round trip efficiency. This will dictate their usefulness to act as storage.
Personally my feeling is towards simpler storage like thermal or gravity, it can be scaled up and is achieving sensible efficiencies. So far chemical conversions seems to be in the single digits or fractions of % on RTE.
On the hard to electrify areas, I don;t think they are hard to electricfy, you can electrify anything for example planes and ships could use aluminium as a very dense fuel to directly create electricity. The oxide is kept on board (or dropped) and can be fully recycled with energy. Its efficiency is not great but I suspect it is better than chemical cycles.
Very fine, read some IPCC summaries already and get cheering for the all of the above kinds of championship. Even green solar driven chemistry, heat rejection to space, industrial solar, forestry and soil amendment that doesn't lien on the farm.
Excellent video. Even though syngas and methanol are not net negative, they can assist in transition to a carbon neutral economy by assisting in storing renewables over seasonal needs. Commercial viability is close.
Could you interview experts on the commercial aspect of the ideas presented. 2030 is so close that investments need to start happening now🙂
Bio char used in Regenerative Agriculture is surely going to have a massive positive climate impact...? Increasing living biomass "building soil" is surely using nature to get more carbon capture done because more soil means more carbon can be taken up by the soil. So we only need to do a small part of the capture and nature sorts the bulk of the problem. Oh, and we get better food and nicer landscapes.
yea that is the only way to go..
Is it true that carbon in the soil = more carbon capture? It would depend on other factors at minimum
@@ThomasBomb45 I'd think it's restricted to grasslands, places in the midwest US have 10 meters of living soil. That's a lot of a lot if bio mass, more than rainforests... if my non-qualified memory serves me right. But surely it's worth finding out, I'm not seeing a downside.
As a armchair observer with zero qualifications on the subject.
Lots of complicated factors involved. From my non-expert perspective it seems like bio char has huge potential but it's not yet completely understood. I am super keen to make an in depth video on the topic later in the year where I can get into all the complexities and uncertainties.
I think one of the big issues is getting that biochar into the soil.
While it works for agricultural fields already being tilled you wouldn't rip up a forest or savannah to do it.
And at scale it takes a lot of energy for machines to turn the soil or even get it from where it is pyrolyzed to where it is spread.
On the note of this, one thing i was wondering was if “Reverse Coal Mining” could be done?
Especially produce near pure carbon (be it synthetic graphite, or carbon black) (to not lead to mineral loss via ash content if using biomaterial, power-to-x may be less of an issue!) then put it into empty mines as fill material.
*GRANTED*
- I am not a geotechnical engineer so I don’t know it’s properties that well
- If using *only* carbon, would this boost earth’s atmospheric oxygen significantly, if so what effects would that have?
*BUT*
I feel like you get the storage capability of CO2 Injection, but the stability of solid carbon.
Bits of methodology need sorting out, but i was thinking:
If you made it into a carbon-water (or more “drill mud” like fluid with additives if need be) slurry, you could probably inject it as a liquid form, and use a rock formation/some form of downhole filter to essentially turn the ground/cavern/hole into a “Filter Cake” of carbon, making handling/deposit easier?
Also i wonder how the risk of a “Coal Seam Fire” like situation could be reduced.
Perhaps CO2 injection for inerting, or water flooding, or maybe even inject an epoxy like material (which could also be made from captured CO2) to fill any gaps?
Old coal pits can be used to store energy in. One way or another......... Or some third way I haven't thought about. Yet.
That's a full electroreduction of the CO2 which...you know, a few gigatons at a time as it scales, would get more available oxygen. See the IPCC report; they don't put novels in without plenty of callouts, and make you believe in full time climate science some. They cover your questions.
Of course the strict liability in the unadorned scheme is obvious in that you're sort of hiding amorphous carbon and hoping nobody thinks it's their opportunity. Just way, way more energy intensive than stuffing supercritical CO2 a mile down and watching it keep going, as oddly fraught as that has been for utilities with cross incentives.
@@ericlotze7724 it is important that the mile-plus bore not jam, so the idea is to not let rock in at the top. Yes the CO2 is going down as a liquid. No water pls.
@@Cineenvenordquist I wasn’t necessarily thinking about the sourcing if the carbon per se, moreso the method since it doesn’t seem too mentioned.
I’ll need to dive into the IPCC report then i guess, which sections should i look into?
I think it's long past time for engineers to incorporate biology into their thinking.
Everyday we are surrounded by room temperature carbon capture.
If we look at the differences in planetary biomass between epics we can see the enormous potential for capturing carbon within systems.
I hope we can find a blended approach using engineering and biology to solve this problem.
Plastics get an unfair rap because of how irresponsibly we use them. They are truly wonder materials. What other materials are light, very strong, and able to be easily made and modeled to any shape or quality we want, including transparency? And don't get me started on composite plastics, which can have amazing properties.
Also, it is easy to dismiss graphene as a new and quirky material, but it conducts electricity better than copper, while being stronger and many times lighter. If we replaced copper with graphene we could save energy (lower resistive losses) and store a lot of carbon. Currently we use something like 25 million tons of copper each year. When you look at replacing more than a century of copper already in use, that sounds like a pretty good start to carbon storage.
Diamond is not just for decoration. It has very cool properties that could be incredibly useful to us. As well as being extremely hard and very transparent, it is an excellent electrical insulator, while being a very good thermal conductor. The latter two properties could make it very useful in electronic circuits. Industrially producing diamond on a massive scale would also destroy the diamond mining industry, which would be a very good thing because of the awful social damage it perpetuates. It might be difficult to manufacture the perfect diamond that might be a better alternative to the glass fibre used for communications, but if a way could be found then diamond fibre might be a stronger alternative. In a more day-to-day use, cheap diamond windows would likely be stronger than glass windows.
At least two steps forward and one step back is still one step forward. There are some desalination plants that can farm fresh water a lithium at the same time. The draw back is it leaves a lot of salt. One solution to having too much salt could be CATL’s innovation of a sodium ion battery. So long as we have that one step forward, the next step can be foreseeable.
Best example of CCU I can think of is growing hemp and turning it into fire proof, mold proof, thermally massive, humidity regulating building insulation.
Making plastics from direct air captured carbon seems more plausible than biochar. Plastics are carbon rich, durable and have an enormous market already. Thermoplastic melts seem to be the ideal form for geological carbon storage, as they are chemically and biologically inert, and can be formed into any shape easily. It only needs heat to be reformed and can be used in consumer products between capture and storage. We already have supply chains for used plastics, all we need to do is divert them into (deeper) storage.
Ecotricity’s “Sky Diamonds” benefit climate change mitigation, not by sequestering large quantities of carbon, but by disrupting the high CO2 cost mining operations that were previously relied upon.
Además los cultivos etc crecerán menos.
Thanks Rosie this was very interesting, I'm also curious as to how gardeners could draw down CO2.
Organic farming, alongside no till agriculture. This improves and maintain soils, which can store massive amounts of carbon. Given that Agriculture is responsible for more than 25% global green house gas emission, the effect can be massive.
You haven't heard that CO2 is one of the most efficient refrigerants ? CO2 uses about half the energy of ozone depleting hfc s . Greenhouse gas potential per molecule with CO2 is one many of the hfc compounds have GHg potentials per molecule of over 1000 in many cases . CO2 in the world's automobiles , cold storage , ice rinks and air conditioning would not only carbon capture but lessen the use of electricity which will be fossil fuel based for a very long time .
Drawing down is silly, most large commercial green houses use CO2 generators to create healthy stronger plants, the more CO2 the better....
@@ChiefCabioch yes growers add CO2, but I'm afraid your comment is deliberately misleading.
Plants were growing perfectly well before I was born in 1970 when the ppm was 325, go figure.
But anyway what do the experts say on this subject?
Well that's inconvenient
“We know unequivocally that when you grow food at elevated CO2 levels in fields, it becomes less nutritious,” notes Samuel Myers
“The problem with [the skeptics’] argument is that it’s as if you can cherry-pick the CO2 fertilization effect from the overall effect of adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere,”
“get some benefits early on from higher CO2, but that [benefit] starts to saturate” after the gas reaches a certain level, Moore says-adding, “The more CO2 you have, the less and less benefit you get.”
Richard Norby said drought and heat stress-would likely overwhelm any direct benefits that rising CO2 might offer plant life. “It’s not appropriate to look at the CO2 fertilization effect in isolation,” he says. “You can have positive and negative things going at once, and it’s the net balance that matters.”
The biggest challenge is always the values gap; until we collectively place a high enough value on our planet and biosphere that we rely on to sustain our civilization, we will continue to mis-utilize whatever technologies we do have.
While trying to find use for CO2 is good, I think that simply addressing the problem has value in of itself; carbon removed from the atmosphere improves the quality and security of our climate.
If I were given the task of sequestering carbon, my personal approach would be to manufacture a very large amount of biochar, incorporate whatever I could into soil, and take and surplus and either bury it in old mines or dump it in deep, cold saltwater. I favor this approach for the fact that it takes advantage of photosynthesis, which is cheap and scalable, and for it's long-term stability.
Realistically, we are going to blow past our current emissions goals, then have to pull out all the stops as we navigate the 2030's and 2040's. I foresee geoengineering, massive carbon removal schemes, embargos against countries that continue to emit heavily, and even possibly military interventions against laggard nations.
This is going to get messy.
The biggest problem with renewables is they need to be renewed. Last I heard solar is now 17 years down from 30. What do we eat? Farming takes power but vegetables takes a LOT of power
I think the main issues facing many of these ideas and technologies is them being viewed either as a stand alone concept or with a very limited application/integration with other areas/industries/concepts/technologies.
There is potential in taking multiple technologies and processes from across numerous industries and fields to be integrated into a system or as part of a few systems to maximise their benefit while minimising or justifying their costs (monetarily, Resources and energy requirements wise).
Tailoring them not only to the demands and requirements of other technologies incorporated in the same system, but also the demands and requirements of the location (local, state, national to even international) they are used.
As we live in Australia it's a natural place to consider in this regard. It's also where I personally have thought about in regards to this specifically, so clearly my the most developed example.
There are numerous environmental, civic, resource management, economic and agricultural concerns here in Australia. Especially when it comes to discussing action on Climate Change.
So perhaps we should consider the prospects of addressing as many of these as we can using what we can do technologically, scientifically & with engineering in one system, or more likely with multiple connected systems.
Everything from maximising renewable sourced power generation & powered desalination. To Green Hydrogen & Ammonia production. To functional negative carbon CCS & waste water management. To using thermal Coal to make Biochar & dilution of waste desalination brine with civics water water. To airtight greenhouse Algae farms & Biochar to improve soil quality or fill open cut mines & "dry" oil reservoirs.
Utilisation and combination of the waste products from some parts of the system to become solutions (chemisty pun absolutely intended), fuels and base resources for other parts of the system.
This would help offset, negate or even add value to the costs of these parts within, or the overall cost of, the system.
As just because something can be made at scale doesn't mean it's value can be realised at scale by itself alone. At least not to a scale where it would have a meaningful impact for what it was designed for.
Integration of it within a larger system however would add value to it's higher scaling as it would be an essential part of that larger system. A system that facilitates multiple needs and requirements across numerous sectors and industries.
Starting with the absolute bare minimum we need to upgrade our national grid to allow the full use and utilisation of renewables.
Frankly without doing that to begin with we won't be able to viably power any of he component parts of the system at all. As noted many of these methods and technologies are very power intensive.
I get the free ScienceX newsletter in my e mail. It's a great compilation of newest published research in many science fields. You could a climate action group on social media,
everyone taking a topic ,
(i.e. planning sustainable microgrids,
with multiple renewable energy producers mixed and matched,
and the mass battery storage method
tailored to the resources
that are most abundant in each unique region,
look for promising plug and play electric interfaces,
that can store power from any/all
of the different sources into the same battery bank,
finding locations near to existing substations,
or retired power plants etc.)
Each member could be selecting one region
and filling in the puzzle pieces
reading, taking notes,
sending their notes to a shared file
using an organizational app
to coordinate this into organizational charts
to present to local and national government officials...
It might get you a way down the road to your goal...:)
Seems like there might be Gigatons of carbon in sewerage, Sewerage has the advantage that collection is already in place in the countries that produce the most carbon. It would seem that pyrolysis of sewerage, even if just buried the char would be useful.
I had heard about capturing carbon in carbonite form, for either storage or even for use in cement, though little seems to have been done as yet. Intriguing to use carbon capture to create plastic! Either would make a good show. It is amazing how much plastic is used in most of the goods we use and rely on, so there will always be a need. The downside of plastic, but like most man-made items, is that we do not yet recycle them efficiently- and the use of plastic for disposable bags and bottles makes them prone to be discarded as litter. I don't mind plastic bottles and bags, but we need better education on the effects of them as litter, and maybe more punitive consequences for such littering. Using carbon as a fuel is just self-defeating, and is, and has been, used by fossil fuel companies as a red herring to delay changes to the use of carbon-based fuels. Batteries are good enough now for all vehicle transportation up to and including long-rage semis, though cost still needs to fall, and battery production will need to massively scale up. Within 2-4 years, we will see eVTOLs used for short flights, and electric airplanes for city-to-city flights in maybe 3-6 years. In 10, we may start to see flights that can span all but the oceans and large continents. And this will occur with just evolutionary steps in battery technology and manufacturing. If we hit something revolutionary, like electrostatic solid state batteries (not the chemical solid-state batteries everyone is currently pursuing), we may yet even be able to span oceans via the air. Ships may be the one thing that is harder to propel- but we should be able to develop fuels that don't harm the environment, even if we have to pay more for our shirts and shoes from Asia. Though the answer there, per the pandemic-caused shortages, may be to once again do more manufacturing within each country- or certainly within each continent.
Poor Han Solo.
Shirts and shoes from everywhere, Asia too. Carbonite is a Star Wars plot coupon and a data backup company.... Carbonate is a rock, a type of electric power storage battery or 30, and say, weasel word for polycarbon or oxalic matter with large oxygen component.
I guess aviation can not only use biofuels but host many of the circular services we'll want, yeah!
As you point out, the use of renewable energy is key to ensure CCUS is carbon negative or at least neutral. I worry that the enthusiasm that a CCUS breakthrough is just around the corner will justify delaying the complete transition from fossil fuels. After all, if we're about to have a economical, scalable, and permanent solution for CCUS then why stop burning fossil fuels now (or ever)? Obviously we need to quickly roll out the renewable energy solutions we have now and continue to research possible future improvements/solutions such as CCUS. It would be nice to see you remind viewers that we need to both transition to renewable power AND look for future solution such as CCUS. It's far too late for an either/or. Thanks!
Hi. Is there a significant gain in efficiency if we power mechanical devices straight by a wind turbine instead of using electricity in between them? For example if I want to power an air conditioner with wind, would the turbine be much smaller if I coupled it directly to the compressor instead of generating electricity and then powering the AC with it?
Problem is what happens when the wind is blowing and you do not want the AC and when you want AC without the wind blowing.
Any gain in efficiency would be offset by the wasted power.
I’m looking forward to the results of your enquiries. One particular question I have is what toxic / carcinogenic byproducts slow pyrolysis produces if any and how can we transform those into useful chemicals or less hazardous substances.
Just don't bungle the process by having equipment go out of order. See also guides c.f. Nuu Biofuels Digest.
A lot of useful chemicals such as turpentine were made from plants in the past and distilled out. Oil and coal displaced the original sources of the materials.
Rosie thx, for another insightful post. But I was a little disappointed that true Bio based alternatives were not mentioned.
Starting with Hempcrete and the branded version of it from BioFiber, which uses a polymer reinforcement structure that could use CCU to produce it and CCU produced carbonates (that Biomason is produce for other uses) to replace the calcium hydroxide (ie hydrated lime) binder. But even without those upgrades, any form of Hempcrete has a much lower carbon footprint than traditional construction materials and it's highly scalable too.
And Biomason is growing carbonates to replace cementitious products and as a spray on dirt road stabilizer, is one another example of Bio based alternatives that need to be scaled up.
(BioChar is great for the soil, but so is manure and compost. But all of them will eventually be broken down by the micros in the soil and the energy potential of carbon will be released as CO2.)
Lastly all of us should hate that the world is being buried in waste plastic. But that should not let us lose sight of the fact. That replacing FF based plastic with CCU based plastic. Would sequester a huge percentage of the carbon that is necessary to keep the world livable. So then it's just a matter of finding a way of safely disposing of it. Ideally separately, in lined landfills or even better in a secure abandoned mine. Since ironically recycling it would be counterproductive.
I'll do a video on concrete some time this year and I definitely plan to focus a lot on alternative building materials in that video so I'll keep you suggestions in mind, thanks!
@@EngineeringwithRosie Sounds good.
But is there any possibility that it will be a live show. Where you would take some of your questions from the chat room?
> secure abandoned mine
Hempcrete isn't supposed to be a short novel series starter like THC stuff, but I am here for their green mining angles.
>Recycling it would be counterproductive
We gotta weasel some of it into biodiversity and neatening up the 3D printing industry on the way to founding cities on TPU bedrock.
One way to collect carbon must be micro algae, and some like lentil algae combined with tecnologies like vertical agriculture must be usefull in a short time. Some thing really interesting must be about technologies used to separate carbondioxide from the air. I have tried multiple times see diagrams about how it is done, Must be the first video explaining the tecnology if you can do it... Thanks.
Nice to hear about and consider the options. When will engineers start thinking by default, not by afterthought, about the lifecycle of everything?
The engineers might, but getting a Marketing that does that too has challenge points to be had. We're short entrepreneurs....
here is what we do: we produce Biomethane (purly from waste) the CO2 pruduced in the digestion and during Burning the methane for energy we use to feed alga those we use to produce more Biomethane (and perhaps some other products). Since use up biowaste, as long as this grows it is a C02 sink. And it will only stop growing after we have replaced all fossil fuels. Does not solve the hole problem, but the big advantage is: there is no extra Energy needed.
I have quite a few traditional CO2 capture devices and by products playout on kitchen counter daily
Plus there is also turquoise H2 production which produces an ultra pure carbon solid which can be used to make really cheap graphene or carbon black for vehicle batteries without having to mine graphite.
I would like to know more about the long & short carbon dioxide (CO2) cycles for carbon capture.
Replace all construction materials with atmospheric carbon. What we really need is open source homesteading hardware to extract the atmospheric carbon to produce fiber, resins, and electrical conductors and insulators.
There's conductive polymer batteries, for example PolyJoule, they are about 5 times less energy dense than lithium ion, made from "proprietary conductive polymers and other organic, non-metallic materials" and are good for 12k cycles at 100% discharge.
Making these out of DAC hydrocarbons would help electrifying the grid, as well as permanently remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
How about sourcing carbon from the atmosphere for graphite for battery manufacture. That seems like a good plan. Once in the battery cycle it should stay there.
When we perform carbon capture via atmospheric intake are there any other useful gases we are recovering that can also be used?
IMHO, if we start doing carbon capture in large amounts, and assuming it's because we have a clean energy source to use for that purpose, then we should turn it back into hydrocarbons to be used for applications where electricity is impractical, like air travel and heavy machinery. That's a long term carbon neutral solution.
We can't use gigatons of diamonds? Yes we can, as a replacement for sand and aggregates in concrete, even before we figure out how to make it a form of concrete directly.
Mineral accretion through electrolysis has an enormous potential to lock up carbon in the oceans. This will have the added benefit of creating more and more fisheries habitats. Thus enriching the oceans and in turn increasing fisheries catches to feed growing populations
Topsoil, topsoil, topsoil. Our topsoil is nearly nonexistent and as a farmer I can only say, surly you Jess?
Are you saying watching this episode didn't give you a Rosie outlook on using carbon capture for fertilizer? You just have to slowly cook it to get that perfect additive for your soil, SousV... ;-)
I’m actually interested in the ‘turning it into plastic’ idea because like fossil fuels, plastic is not going to be easy to replace also there is a big difference between say single use shopping bags and plastic on the wiring in your house or workplace that’s expected to last for Awhile. It won’t be used for forever in that application but a few decades or more is certainly longer than a plastic bag.
I saw a video recently where hemp ws grown to capture the carbon. Hemp can be used for a huge range of product. The video talked about a hemp based "concrete" This way the carbon would be stored for at least decades
At a meetup met a guy who was working for a company burning coal in caverns and then pulling/sucking out the carbon monoxide as CO can burn like fuel compared to the effort to extract the coal.
By capturing carbon and storing it in products that nature can't break down we will bring about the starvation of all life on earth! But nature is very resilient and will probably find a way to release it back into the atmosphere!
Dry waste or offcut wood storage. It is great as an emergency fuel source but also removes carbon from the cycle without major energy consumption.
High temperature molten salt solar/nuclear might be a good fit to decarbonize pyrolysis even further, you get 600°C without and 800°C with fluoride salts. Or simply have the reaction vessel be the heliostat.
I remember a movie that came out in the late 90’s? 2000’s? Were all the vehicles exhaust would run back into the engine to make it reusable
Peter Fonda directed a movie in the early '70's (Idaho Transfer) where _humans_ were used to fuel vehicles... 🤣
I always encourage people to watch the excellent Netflix show called Kiss the Ground. It is narrated by Woody Harrison and goes into great depth about how regenerative agriculture can and is being used to sequester millions of tons of carbon. It would take an agricultural revolution, but it is possible.
So, for carbon capture utilization to work, it has to work at a scale of gigatons of carbon? Seems like a bunch of business venture opportunities for some of the giga-projects from the futurist videos of Isaac Arthur. Of course, that won't help us today. Thanks for showing us this, Rosie.
Extending Allan Clow's remark, to use Pyrolysis in Sahara border regions for farming: Are there projects using photo thermal energy to enable Pyrolysis? Would that be feasible and efficient? Thanks for your research work!!
I would like to see CC used to make carbon-fibre. Then we can make cars, airplanes, etc. out of this, which will make them lighter and more efficient and so consume less energy. And of course, the carbon so used is permanently eliminated from the atmosphere. But the gain here is sort of off-hand, as it comes through improving the efficiency of things in-use, so the logic may be somewhat hard to follow. BTW, making cars from composites would eliminate the corrosion of metal and the complicated, expensive, and energy consuming processes needed to prevent the rapid demise of the machine (which is not very effective anyhow!). And consequently, the useful life of cars can be extended and the short-term replacement of them improved -- again with much saving of energy and pollution.
Even more amazeballs it would sort of imply several regrind and autoclaves per city to serve up the circular parts economy.
If a process creates more CO2 than it captures then it’s not worth the energy it takes. It would be better to not run the machines.
I have some time on my hands so I pyrolyse thorny clippings (which I don't want in the compost heap) in a simple conical pit with high sides. I've made more than half a tonne so far with no financial input. OK so it's a far cry from the billions of tonnes needed, but if everyone who could did their bit, we could dramatically improve poor soil for the long term (I've grown veg. in builders' sand mixed with charcoal) and develop a pyrolysing culture. Then having pyrolysis equipment on every farm and food processing factory would be a natural progression.
The use of CO2 to make a more efficient version of concrete exists and not mentioned. It's te carbonation process they talked about at 9:15. CarbonCure Technologies was the winner of the 2021 Carbon XPrize and is a commercial business that is in over 570 concrete plants. They just sold $35 million worth of Carbon Credits.
Great video! You mentioned using captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery, but oil aside, is it viable to store captured carbon in (partially) depleted oil or gas fields?
In Groningen (Netherlands), they started suffering from earthquakes after exploitation began of a natural gas field beneath the province; would it be possible to mitigate this by refilling the field with captured carbon? (Not sure if this is your area, but I'm curious to hear opinions).
Yes it's been done. As far as I know all projects like this so far have had major problems but there is potential to store significant amounts of CO2 like that so I'm sure people will keep trying. I'm planning a follow up video on that topic, with a geologist who can talk about all the challenges involved and which ones are likely solvable.
@@EngineeringwithRosie brilliant, thanks! I'll look forward to that video 👌
It costs very little more than the carbon capture itself, to turn that into e-deisel. e-deisel can then be used as jet fuel and for heavy machinery. This then removes a segment of the market for mined fossil fuels. It seems silly to continue to mine fuels, and then use carbon capture (which costs *way* more than the mining produces), just to shove it back in the ground. We need to be thinking of complete sustainable cycles. If we can reach equilibrium, there really is no need to go beyond that. Use capture for applications where electric is not practical.
@@eventhisidistaken absolutely agree. My question was about refilling already (partially) exploited wells to counter geological side effects (e.g. earthquakes), not about extending the potential for fossil fuel extraction.
@@eventhisidistaken No, we definitely need to do better than equilibrium to draw down atmospheric carbon, and it defs takes another process or 5 so far to valorate CO2 into advanced fuels, but let's see it done!
There is so much circular economy to build between keeping a lid on plastic soil content and breaking up PFAS, making new things in a way that stewards biodiversity more than squirrels, concrete that feeds aquifers and green cities, if we can tolerate more than a few entrepreneurs we can use the 40-80 gigatons a year of carbon (stuff.)
Biochar in soil seems brilliant.
Have a look at Durisol insulating building blocks, they lock up timber in a rot proof, fire proof block. But not sure how their carbon footprint, though must be better than building solutions
I saw a lecture talking about making aggregate (rocks/sand) for concrete from sequestered CO2. It's cheap because it's not energy intensive and it doesn't need high purity CO2. It doesn't release its CO2 over time. And the construction industry needs gigatons of aggregate every year. In fact, there is a shortage of aggregate and it often needs to be shipped hundreds of miles. I'm surprised more people aren't talking about this. Here's the link to the lecture ruclips.net/video/6RJ8lLgQvmc/видео.html
Replace standard concrete with desert sand and resin. Captured CO2 plus Hydrogen via high temperature steam electrolysis to make Methanol to Dimethyl ether (DME). Perhaps solvent blends based on dipropylene glycol dimethyl ether for the production of alkyd and polyester resins by the azeotropic process. Polycare are able to proceed with combining local dessert sand and polymer resin to print bricks. Use nuclear for the process heat - high temperature gas reactor. The Allam Cycle by Net Energy produces a very pure stream of CO2 for industrial uses. Pilot plant in Texas already up and running.
The first question should be where the energy for any method of carbon capture is coming from? If it is a renewable source, go ahead, if not, the company is a scammer!
PS. I was too hasty!, 16:08
Ha ha, we agree that this very important point is nearly always ignored when these kinds of topics are discussed!
We need to show you some of we are doing here a Kepler Carbon ReCapture. We are going to be scraping gigatonnes of CO2, permanently sequestering most of it, using the rest of it to further a green world, and doing it using renewable energy! Oh, and did I mention the fresh water?
Biochar and Pyrolysis are not a solution without issues. For example in Sweden, the pyrolysis plants are supposed to be fed by wood. The issue is, that the timber production in Sweden is already unsustainable and further increase of timber production from pyrolysis would require further intensification. The forests are degraded and old-grown forests which have the highest biodiversity are being cut down. At the same time indigenous Sami people are loosing their territory. And on the top of that it takes a very long time before new forest reabsorbs released emission. Oh well...
It would be nice if we could turn carbon capture facilities on and off during peak times when renewables are making lots of energy or consumers are consuming lots of energy. This could reduce the need for energy storage.
Of course leaving them on 24/7 may actually be a more efficient use of resources. I've also wondered if Aluminum smelters could be turned on and off to use cheap or wasted power.
If you turned them completly off it means they get very damaged.
However if you keep the aluminum molten and don't add any new solids you don't need to add the corrosponding eletricty either.
Hi Rosie. What about the new trends of deep geothermal wells where lithium salt brine is extracted from deep below the earth and converted by using CO2 for for Lithium Carbonate to supply the massive battery industry. Also carbon is used for the Anode material for Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries This is going to be enormous…
It seems that parts of the ocean that are natural carbon sinks could be leveraged or areas with naturally high current(high C02 flow). Semi- self- sustaining- bio-engineered solutions could be a good option economically. Super charged diatoms?
When you touch on soil applications of biochar, make sure you also state the dangers, as dust from biochar is nearly as dangerous as coal dust, so farmers getting coal lung could be a reality.
Another thing i was thinking along these lines was:
“Carbon Sequestration in Building Materials” (CSiBM) (Pronounced “See-Sib-Mmm”
Essentially:
Carbon Fiber (The fiber, rope, chopped fiber or woven matting for use in reinforced plastics, etc), Asphalt Concrete, and Plastics/Epoxy could all be made from captured carbon, and especially if buildings aren’t built with Planned Obsolescence in mind, the sequestration should be similar to deep burial?
Also:
- Carbon Fiber Rebar is lighter so has a better strength to weight ratio, also it cannot corrode (iirc; need to see if plastic can degrade)
- Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics (or even concrete if done in a manner similar to “Ferrocement”) are stronger and should last longer
- Unlike Portland Cement, Asphalt Cement can be recycled since it js essentially aggregate in a thermoplastic. For roads some devices even exist that do all steps “in-line reducing downtime”
- In the cases of replacing uses of mined materials (Carbon Fiber Rebar, Asphalt, etc) you not only can make it carbon negative (which is especially impactful since steel and cement processing are huge carbon dioxide emitters!), but you can also reduce the “Mine Footprint” (at least in theory, not a LCA including needed factory+refinery construction etc…yet)
But yeah that’s my idea/rant i guess.
I may “flesh it out” a bit more in an OSE Wiki page or something (if I haven’t already), but I think it is promising, especially with all the construction that will take place as more of the world urbanizes.
Just a thought: High carbon steels (for hardness) obviously use carbon. Where does it come from? While diamonds might be niche, we produce tons of steel for tools and buildings and vehicles, etc. There's already "green steel" made using renewable electricity, could we make it greener by incorporating captured carbon? Or am I completely on the wrong track? (don't know enough about this area to know what I don't know, heh)
Steel is only up to about 0.6% carbon, so it's not as much as the term "high carbon" makes it sound. Though as you say we produce so much steel that it is still millions of tonnes of carbon in steel. My next video we're editing now is on green steel, but we didn't consider it as a carbon storage potential, other than briefly mentioning a project from Rio Tinto who are using bio char instead of coking coal in their steel making process. And the carbon in bio char obviously comes out of the atmosphere.
Steel with graphene finishes is badass, you may be a fan of laser peening that stuff or ceramic surfaces, but yeah a little carbon surface treatment can hold back mineral fouling or enhance heat exchange something fierce. Extra 0.6% carbon in application is not to be overlooked.
In principle, a solution could be to grow plants, and have their material deposited without oxygen access. Over time, this would form new fossil fuels, to be left under ground, instead of the fossil fuels we're extracting. Of course, there is the practical details, including scaling, land usage and covering for this to have a chance of working.
That's kind of like bio char isn't it? If it's made with agricultural waste there is a significant scale possible and not a lot of extra land used. To me that's by far the most promising carbon utilisation tech.
The big difference is that deposits are meant to be at least for millions of years, with thick layers. While I do like the concept of biochar as a short term "corrective" plan to compensate that many types of agricultural activities release carbon from top soil, it does not really put carbon back into long term deposits.
Strictly speaking, my post was a bit of a satire directed against the absurdity of "us" releasing all the long-term carbon deposits we can find.
Ain't nobody got time for that. Taking diverse forestry out of the wood pellet biz and into compressed timber and some kind of forestry would be a boon.
Direct Air Capture (DAC) is nuts - why pull CO2 from the air at 415ppm rather than from power station or cement plant flue gas at 100,000ppm?
Surely we need to stop thinking "Plastic Bad, therefore not a solution" to looking at massively increasing uses of CO2 based plastic where its locked up permanently eg construction
Personally I am more excited about hydro-carbonization of biomass as it is a more flexible process that allows for the production of wider range of materials.
Fuels From Air - The Process
The FFA system uses renewable energy to capture carbon dioxide and water from the air, electrolyses the water to make hydrogen and reacts the carbon dioxide and hydrogen together to make hydrocarbon fuels.
One way to sequester carbon could combine precision fermentation and the subsequent reduction in land use for agriculture and then paying land owners to let their lands return to a natural state locking up carbon that way.