An engineering solution to climate change?

[living sounds]

Maybe yes:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05357-w

 

[JohnRoberts]

Several years ago there was a study from some (chicago) economists about multiple practical mitigations for climate change's "usual suspects".

Indeed direct action would be far cheaper, and more effective than the high level wealth transfer currently masquerading as a global climate change remedy.

I repeat my old caveats, we need to be damn certain of what we are doing before we start taking direct action and messing with global climate parameters. It's not nice to fool (with) mother nature.  :

JR

PS: I have shared about the study here before, same economists who wrote the "freakonomics" book. IIRC his name is Steve Levitt or something like that.

 

[s2udio]

Absolutely not................
You cannot engineer out a problem that exists only in the brains of the anthropomorphic propergandists.
Climate change is a natural cycle of warming and cooling, it is NOT manmade and CO2 is not a problem !
Remove CO2 and your crops and oceans die = starvation .
This huge lie from corperate  spin bullsh*te gets me really knarley.
Mr Gore is a total croney capatalist scammer, as well as many more bandwagon misinforming money grabbers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjlC02NsIt0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YMttEhtgpk

The worlds population should really be worrying about banking and internal government coruption, far more than the climate change unicorn, that truth will wake all citizens from the long sheeple sleep.

 

[living sounds]

Oh my. What has the internet done to you?

 

[boji]

I am fascinated by highly intelligent folks (here and elsewhere) that are convinced- with a near certainty- that the aggregated data on GW is bunk and a conspiracy.  Fascinated. Not because I think they are wrong but because intelligent people presumably carefully reason stuff out and for smart folks to come to such different conclusions makes me wonder if we aren't all (both sides) just acting out our own, very personal tautologies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gpt2Zb5V5A

 

[boji]

https://youtu.be/Dz8E8UOBFJQ?t=13

 

[Tubetec]

Argue about climate change till your blue in the arse if you want, but we (humanity) are having huge negative impact on the planet ecosystem, driven by consumerism and disposabillity  ,all kinds of shite is ending up on the land and in the sea and it threatens our very existance .The sort of 'full steam ahead' mentality that the likes of Trump is pedaling will get us down into hell farther and faster than ever, at an exponential rate  ,its all a load of bollocks ,our f**king shower of sh?t politicians here are force feeding us the same crap ,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KykrDJYKe0A

 

[Tubetec]

They want to build a large scale municiple and toxic waste incinerator down the road from me ,all the local politicians are against it ,regardless of which party they belong to .
Now are  they actually willing to put their balls on the block  and stand up against it by banding together and threating to pull down the powersharing alliance between the top two parties over the issue ,and force a general election . I hear the grumblings and discussions down the boozer ,and I tell you what ,this could turn into another game of soldiers altogether  if the predominantly Dublin4  cabinet push the wrong buttons down here .

 

[s2udio]

Oh my. What has the internet done to you?

The same as Its done to you .
Opening discussion and disseminating the facts, not accepting what the politicians contrive to enslave us to .

 

[living sounds]

Have you been watching Infowars by any chance? If so, stop. It's not helping.

 

[benb]

Headline from the OP's link: "Sucking carbon dioxide from air is cheaper than scientists thought"

Oh my.  This (if true) really changes the game.

I repeat my old caveats, we need to be damn certain of what we are doing before we start taking direct action and messing with global climate parameters. It's not nice to fool (with) mother nature.  :

JR

PS: I have shared about the study here before, same economists who wrote the "freakonomics" book. IIRC his name is Steve Levitt or something like that.

The antidote to Global Warming was in the followup book "Superfreakonomics." It described putting large amounts of sulfur dioxide into the high atmosphere (I recall something like 20 miles up) to raise the reflectivity to sunlight, lowering the heat from the Sun and thus lowering global temperatures. The estimated cost to do this was about $20 million, which is a drop in the bucket compared to estimated costs of global warming, or the costs of current industry.

The effects of this would be "global cooling," similar to the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa#Global_climate

Much of the reaction to this proposal has indeed been "we don't really know how the atmosphere would react, so we most not try to do it." This may indeed be a valid concern.

But the essence of this article in the OP is that it is economically feasible to remove carbon dioxide directly, what is claimed to be the most problematic "greenhouse gas," from the atmosphere.  This is something that few if any thought possible.

This looks substantially different from the sulfur dioxide proposition, as removing carbon dioxide can only bring the situation back to a "better" time when there was less of it in the air, and global warming wasn't a danger. How could this be bad, or how could it be like "messing with mother nature?"

The whole deal of "Global Warming" has been the rising amount of carbon dioxide in the air, and how more of it causes more global warming (see http://350.org, a sites whose name/url represents the maximum parts per million of CO2 its proprietors think should be in the atmosphere). If it could be directly removed and its prevalence in the air reduced, shouldn't the Global Warming alarmists cheer? Yes indeed they should, but I wonder that they would instead destroy the machinery like Luddites destroying automatic weaving looms.

 

[ruffrecords]

Maybe yes:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05357-w

Unfortunately the article seems to have ignored the problem of how to store the reclaimed CO2. The total CO2 in the atmosphere is around 3 x 10^12 tonnes which is supposedly 37% above the pre-industrial level. So to get back to how it was in the old days we need to store something like 1 x 10^12 tonnes of CO2.

Cheers

Ian

 

[JohnRoberts]

Headline from the OP's link: "Sucking carbon dioxide from air is cheaper than scientists thought"

Oh my.  This (if true) really changes the game.The antidote to Global Warming was in the followup book "Superfreakonomics." It described putting large amounts of sulfur dioxide into the high atmosphere (I recall something like 20 miles up) to raise the reflectivity to sunlight, lowering the heat from the Sun and thus lowering global temperatures. The estimated cost to do this was about $20 million, which is a drop in the bucket compared to estimated costs of global warming, or the costs of current industry.

The effects of this would be "global cooling," similar to the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa#Global_climate

Much of the reaction to this proposal has indeed been "we don't really know how the atmosphere would react, so we most not try to do it." This may indeed be a valid concern.

I would be surprised if nobody (some government or governments) is already running experiments. There are tons of conspiracy theories about visible vapor trails, while this wouldn't necessarily be very visible from the ground.

There were other strategies too IIRC, but the point is that we "could" actively cool this rock if we really needed to, and more cost effectively than the current political boondoggle. The heat is obviously coming from the sun, so just reflect more of that back into space.

But the essence of this article in the OP is that it is economically feasible to remove carbon dioxide directly, what is claimed to be the most problematic "greenhouse gas," from the atmosphere.  This is something that few if any thought possible.

This looks substantially different from the sulfur dioxide proposition, as removing carbon dioxide can only bring the situation back to a "better" time when there was less of it in the air, and global warming wasn't a danger. How could this be bad, or how could it be like "messing with mother nature?"

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2436/co2-is-making-earth-greenerfor-now/
except for the other elephant in the room (planet). The plants that we share this rock with like the extra  CO2. In fact by reducing it dramatically we could probably reduce crop yields and arable regions. We need to grow more food today than we did a century ago.

The whole deal of "Global Warming" has been the rising amount of carbon dioxide in the air, and how more of it causes more global warming (see http://350.org, a sites whose name/url represents the maximum parts per million of CO2 its proprietors think should be in the atmosphere). If it could be directly removed and its prevalence in the air reduced, shouldn't the Global Warming alarmists cheer? Yes indeed they should, but I wonder that they would instead destroy the machinery like Luddites destroying automatic weaving looms.

It is necessary for successful political arguments to reduce complex relationships to their simplest terms, sometimes so simple they are no longer accurate or fully representative of the reality. 

My caveats about messing with climate dynamics is that I don't trust that we have perfect understanding of how everything works together (beware unintended consequences of messing with chaotic systems), or even very good judgement about the pros and cons of doing nothing, certainly doing less. There will be winners from warming and more CO2, not just losers and planet ending catastrophe.

In fact the massive political wealth transfer would in effect do nothing to the climate in the short term (century, so relatively harmless scientifically except for the negative economic effects that are immediate), while those receiving and handing out the money appropriated by government force like it a bunch.  :

If you want something to worry about how about the next ice age? 

JR

 

[s2udio]

If you want something to worry about how about the next ice age? 

JR

Absolutely

Have you been watching Infowars by any chance? If so, stop. It's not helping.

I see the thought police are fully active as expected.

 

[living sounds]

I would be surprised if nobody (some government or governments) is already running experiments. There are tons of conspiracy theories about visible vapor trails, while this wouldn't necessarily be very visible from the ground.
JR

Seriously John, chemtrails?

 

[JohnRoberts]

Seriously John, chemtrails?

No those are probably  water vapor, I have a friend who feels compelled to share every conspiracy theory he hears about... I block them as fast as I see them. I haven't blocked him yet but come close. I may have snoozed him for 30 days at least once.

I suspect any real experimental programs will not be visible from the ground.  Of course there is much to worry about human ability to actually control climate (or even weather) as a geopolitical tool, but we can't even control our own weather, let alone change the climate.

That said I suspect the political elite would love a tool like that in their arsenal.

JR

 

[Bo Deadly]

Argue about climate change till your blue in the arse if you want, but we (humanity) are having huge negative impact on the planet ecosystem, driven by consumerism and disposabillity  ,all kinds of sh*te is ending up on the land and in the sea and it threatens our very existance.

Pretty apocalyptic but hard to argue with. Now that China isn't processing our (USA) recycling apparently a lot of it is being diverted to landfills. Now we basically have to clean your recyclables. You can't just toss in a soup can with some gunk on it. You have to carefully wash it out. That seems like a problem we could use an engineering solution for too.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Pretty apocalyptic but hard to argue with. Now that China isn't processing our (USA) recycling apparently a lot of it is being diverted to landfills. Now we basically have to clean your recyclables. You can't just toss in a soup can with some gunk on it. You have to carefully wash it out. That seems like a problem we could use an engineering solution for too.

China raised the standards for how dirty the recycled trash can be that they accept, resulting in a bit of a bottle neck... This is part economic as we probably got sloppy about that we sent them increasing their processing costs, and may be part of the trade back and forth we are now engaged in. But yes the land fills are now hopping again.

The economics of recycling have never been compelling and dirty trash cost more money to parse.  This may be an opportunity for automation and most domestic recycling is pretty well automated, but I suspect China has used cheap labor longer than most which is probably getting more expensive, even over there.

With oil prices climbing again (ignoring that the Saudis just announced increases in oil output) some plastic waste is being converted directly to oil substitutes (by heating but not burning). Lots of waste is converted directly to energy by burning but even that gets tricky managing smokestack emissions.

-------

Now for a reality burger. I live in small town bible belt deep south and our town's garbage gets collected once a week and trucked to a land fill several towns west of us (I see the truck carrying it).  Years ago we paid waste management (who does recycling) to collect our trash but apparently they were too expensive.

I get billed $13 a month for garbage collection which is probably cheap like everything else down here. I'd pay more for actual recycling but doubt many (any?) of my neighbors share my largess.

I already recycle glass, by refilling my beer bottles with beer.  8)  Every week my trash pile is a fraction the size of most neighbors but I don't buy any processed foods, and compost my vegetable waste, so I generate far less trash for disposal.

JR

 

[boji]

https://aeon.co/ideas/what-makes-people-distrust-science-surprisingly-not-politics
Spoiler: It's often your religious background. Climate science seems to break from this trend however, falling to the side of one's political bent.

 

[Squeaky]

Apologies, I didn't read the article - just writing in response to the heading and some of the comments.

The notion of climate engineering has always scared me (at least the concept of injecting some sort of matter into the atmosphere for the purpose of global effect). Oh the hubris. I suppose you could argue: volcanoes do it, why can't we?

There are ways to use carbon dioxide extracted from the atmosphere (if you can get it without breaking the "energy" bank). I think it was perhaps George Olah that first championed the idea of converting atmospheric carbon dioxide to a fuel? He favoured what he called the methanol economy. Both methanol (MeOH) (a fuel and chemical intermediate) and dimethyl ether (DME) (a diesel substitute and chemical intermediate) can be produced from a mixture of carbon dioxide and hydrogen - a lot of hydrogen (CO2 + 3H2 = H2O + CH3OH). Both MeOH and DME are considered hydrogen carrier molecules. Electrolysis of water with nuclear power is probably an option for generating the H2  (if you want to avoid thermochemically converting carbonaceous material to generate the H2). I suppose you could equally argue that the above process (hydrogenation of CO2) is just as much a way of making water (molar equivalent produced). (Aside: In a real world process plant the water would be recycled for further electrolysis).

George Olah is a Nobel prize winner. Not sure if I have mentioned this before, but I recommend reading at least the first chapter of his book "The Methanol Economy". It gives an excellent high level overview of the earth's energy budget (for man to exploit). Puts things in perspective.

You could also use algae to remove CO2 - oils, vitamins and biomass are all useful products that could be generated. This sounds like a great idea until you look at the footprint required for an algae plant to remove the carbon dioxide from even a relatively small point source.

In any process that extracts CO2 for use, there is typically a huge parasitic energy cost associated with this extraction. It is difficult (energy intensive) enough at high concentrations of CO2 but becomes even more difficult at very low (ppm) levels of CO2. There are pushes for major technology development in this field (e.g. membrane technology). The energy cost of CO2 removal has been one of the down sides to power plants proposing sequestration.

The notion that there is some ideal level of atmospheric carbon dioxide would seem to be, in my humble opinion, absolute poppycock. I guess you could make a decent argument for a preferred range (we have limited knowledge or memory of the alternatives so this is challenging as well). Admittedly, the Holocene has largely been very pleasant for man, so from an anthropocentric position low to mid hundreds seems pretty nice. I do like plants and trees though (it is worth taking a look at carbon dioxide levels over geological time frames if you haven't yet).

I hope we don't see the end of the Holocene any time soon. I believe there is a push to bring in a new era, the "Anthropocene". Therein lies the rub, separating the man's influence from natural variation. Tough job. As a scientist I would be fearfully avoiding words like "certainty" and even "likelihood" when discussing model results. That is just me though.

Accurately (whatever that means) modelling a coupled, non-linear chaotic system seems to be a fool's errand. However, I've (mostly) preferred empirical data to simulations. Even hindcasting seems problematic enough (beyond relatively short-term tuning).

If a computer was developed to understand the above-mentioned  system, then I might be more worried about the computer than anything else!

Sorry - got a bit off track towards the end.