Costing far more in space and money than planting a simple tree. And powered by.. electricity.
This idea was worked for decades. The ratio of energy invested to CO2 stored and the capacity are still ridiculously bad. I doubt it’s ever gonna fly …
I mean, if you cut down a grown tree and throw it in some swamp, you have also pulled CO2 out of the atmosphere and stored it underground.
The amount of CO2 they can suck out of the air as around the equivalent of CO2 emitted by the gas-heating of an office complex.
It’s way more efficient in terms of CO2 reduction to forbid oil- and gas heating. And use the money you would invest into CO2 storage for compensating home owners to make the change faster.
Moving thousands of square meter and going in deep grounds releasing other more potent greenhouse gasses like methane to store a few CO2.
Stupidest idea, we all know carbon capture is ridiculously inefficient. Plant some forests, eat less meat, take the train and heat with a heat pump are true solutions
I do that too, I plant seeds and eat the salads, fruits, vegetables…
There will be a time when all our energy will be renewable. But already there are times when solar and wind produce so much there’s no good use for it. Maybe we will capture some of it in great batteries in the future, but I think there will always be times when there is an energy surplus. Using it to capture carbon (if that is technically viable) might be a good use for it.
There are other applications as well. For example we could capture carbon from room air, which improves well being and performance.
Carbon capture is a scam — the energy cost for this whole thing is a joke.
What we need all across Europe is a move to shallow-depth geothermal for heating and cooling all our buildings. We could just stop using methane entirely right now if governments weren’t so shit.
You know what’s natural way for co2 storage? Growing trees.
celiulose is Carbon from atmosphere.
Good, we desperately need progress here. There are few technologies that have the potential to remove already produced CO2 permanently, and just by reducing CO2 alone we will not be able to reduce global warming sufficiently fast
We need to pursue every approach, in combination, aggressively
At what energy cost. Just like bringing in EVs into this world for the sake of the environment, it is just shifting the goal posts. What a scam
Most people in this thread are being cynical and negative. Climeworks has been doing this for at least a few years, and is expanding fairly rapidly. And the end result is undoubtedly good. Anyone opposing carbon capture outright does not, I think, actually understand the realistic paths out of the climate crisis.
From an energy use perspective, sure, this is energy intensive. But they’re not idiots. Their operations are almost entirely in Iceland or Switzerland where power generation is largely emissions free.
Furthermore, solar and wind power once were criticised for the same issues. Years of development made them cheaper and better. The same could happen here. Imagine a future of cheap(ish) carbon sequestration everywhere. It beats what’s happening now.
Finally, trees, plants, ocean algae etc. Are all great ways to absorb carbon, but we all know that we’re having a hard enough time stopping deforestation, let alone recovering huge swathes of the earth’s surface with new forest or grassland. The need to protect and regrow forests and wild spaces should not stop us from pursuing through all available means the solution we most urgently need: less CO2 in the atmosphere.
While I think that carbon sequestration is a worthwhile research venue, at the moment the energy and money used for this could be used to a much stronger effect in multiple other sectors:
* Increase efficiency/coverage of public transportation, making it more attractive/viable to more people, would reduce the number of cars used therefore reducing the emissions
* Increase the efficiency of the energy used today for private and public use. Optimizing the use of energy would lead to a reduction of its need.
* I’m sure their are other area that would have a bigger impact, that I don’t have on the top of my head
In the end the carbon capture and sequestration is meaningless at the current rate of carbon emission (and not accounting other GHGs). If we where carbon neutral this could be an instrument of remediation to stabilize the climate.
So basically, companies pollute everywhere around the world and pay a swiss company to cleanse our local area of the exact amount of CO2 they used.
Meaning in the long-term, Switzerland will be a node of pure air.. I’m okay with it.
Just plant a tree, does the same. Just bury it underground after it has grown some time.
A lot of negative focus in this thread on CO2 captured vs CO2 generated by energy used. Anyone notice the photo in the article is from Iceland? Geothermal. Just saying.
As mentioned in the article the main issue are:
– how much energy it takes to remove one ton of co2
– the amount of co2 that can be removed annually with one installation
Unless you all want to pave the planet with these machines it will take ages to remove the current annual co2 emissions.
20 comments
Costing far more in space and money than planting a simple tree. And powered by.. electricity.
This idea was worked for decades. The ratio of energy invested to CO2 stored and the capacity are still ridiculously bad. I doubt it’s ever gonna fly …
I mean, if you cut down a grown tree and throw it in some swamp, you have also pulled CO2 out of the atmosphere and stored it underground.
The amount of CO2 they can suck out of the air as around the equivalent of CO2 emitted by the gas-heating of an office complex.
It’s way more efficient in terms of CO2 reduction to forbid oil- and gas heating. And use the money you would invest into CO2 storage for compensating home owners to make the change faster.
Moving thousands of square meter and going in deep grounds releasing other more potent greenhouse gasses like methane to store a few CO2.
Stupidest idea, we all know carbon capture is ridiculously inefficient. Plant some forests, eat less meat, take the train and heat with a heat pump are true solutions
I do that too, I plant seeds and eat the salads, fruits, vegetables…
There will be a time when all our energy will be renewable. But already there are times when solar and wind produce so much there’s no good use for it. Maybe we will capture some of it in great batteries in the future, but I think there will always be times when there is an energy surplus. Using it to capture carbon (if that is technically viable) might be a good use for it.
There are other applications as well. For example we could capture carbon from room air, which improves well being and performance.
Carbon capture is a scam — the energy cost for this whole thing is a joke.
What we need all across Europe is a move to shallow-depth geothermal for heating and cooling all our buildings. We could just stop using methane entirely right now if governments weren’t so shit.
You know what’s natural way for co2 storage? Growing trees.
celiulose is Carbon from atmosphere.
Good, we desperately need progress here. There are few technologies that have the potential to remove already produced CO2 permanently, and just by reducing CO2 alone we will not be able to reduce global warming sufficiently fast
We need to pursue every approach, in combination, aggressively
At what energy cost. Just like bringing in EVs into this world for the sake of the environment, it is just shifting the goal posts. What a scam
Most people in this thread are being cynical and negative. Climeworks has been doing this for at least a few years, and is expanding fairly rapidly. And the end result is undoubtedly good. Anyone opposing carbon capture outright does not, I think, actually understand the realistic paths out of the climate crisis.
From an energy use perspective, sure, this is energy intensive. But they’re not idiots. Their operations are almost entirely in Iceland or Switzerland where power generation is largely emissions free.
Furthermore, solar and wind power once were criticised for the same issues. Years of development made them cheaper and better. The same could happen here. Imagine a future of cheap(ish) carbon sequestration everywhere. It beats what’s happening now.
Finally, trees, plants, ocean algae etc. Are all great ways to absorb carbon, but we all know that we’re having a hard enough time stopping deforestation, let alone recovering huge swathes of the earth’s surface with new forest or grassland. The need to protect and regrow forests and wild spaces should not stop us from pursuing through all available means the solution we most urgently need: less CO2 in the atmosphere.
While I think that carbon sequestration is a worthwhile research venue, at the moment the energy and money used for this could be used to a much stronger effect in multiple other sectors:
* Increase efficiency/coverage of public transportation, making it more attractive/viable to more people, would reduce the number of cars used therefore reducing the emissions
* Increase the efficiency of the energy used today for private and public use. Optimizing the use of energy would lead to a reduction of its need.
* I’m sure their are other area that would have a bigger impact, that I don’t have on the top of my head
In the end the carbon capture and sequestration is meaningless at the current rate of carbon emission (and not accounting other GHGs). If we where carbon neutral this could be an instrument of remediation to stabilize the climate.
Edit: Also, while the majority of electricity produced in Switzerland is green, the country is not self-sufficient and needs to buy from outside, so in the end just outsourcing the issue. [Article, in french, about that](https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/13572101-lelectricite-suisse-pas-si-verte-que-ca.html)
This is great news!
Now all they need to do is pull all CO2 out of the atmosphere and no one on the planet will ever have to worry about climate change again!
It’s bullshit tech. It takes a lot of energy to do…
https://youtu.be/nJslrTT-Yhc
So basically, companies pollute everywhere around the world and pay a swiss company to cleanse our local area of the exact amount of CO2 they used.
Meaning in the long-term, Switzerland will be a node of pure air.. I’m okay with it.
Just plant a tree, does the same. Just bury it underground after it has grown some time.
A lot of negative focus in this thread on CO2 captured vs CO2 generated by energy used. Anyone notice the photo in the article is from Iceland? Geothermal. Just saying.
As mentioned in the article the main issue are:
– how much energy it takes to remove one ton of co2
– the amount of co2 that can be removed annually with one installation
Unless you all want to pave the planet with these machines it will take ages to remove the current annual co2 emissions.