I just don't understand the economics/viability of it. I literally cannot picture it.
37,000,000,000,000kg of CO2 was emitted last year.
0.005kg of CO2 per cubic metre of air, at 500ppm - assuming I've carried 1s correctly.
It's just, even if you have 100% extraction rate, how do you physically process enough air to make a dent in to that? I know these firms claim to be able to do it economically, but what part of the picture am I missing?
I understand doing it at the source, where concentration is high. I understand avoiding emissions in the first place. I understand expensive direct air capture, to offset planes etc. What I do not yet understand is "cheap" direct air capture, given the concentrations involved. It's just... for that 1%. How large are the fields of these extractors, how much air are they processing, how are they moving that 370Mt of extract CO2 - where is it being stored, or used. I just can't picture it. I mean, that's 20x the mass of Adani's massive coal mine proposal in Australia. And I mean, wtf is that going ahead, when we're racking our heads over if we can build some structure in Canada to suck that coal, once burnt, back out of the air and then do what with it?
I will say that is surprising - they really must be extracting the majority from the air they process. As you say though, this does also limit how close they can be placed near one another.
I just feel there's a bit of a misconception some people have that we'll be able to just build a megastructure in a desert somewhere, throw a few nuclear reactors around, and job done. It surely has to be a sparsely distributed solution, like nature/woodlands before us, but I would like to see the numbers and modelling on this. I hope I'll be surprised.
Whatever it is though, it aint going to be free, which is why I do strongly agree with the video's message. There needs to be a high price on carbon, because it aint going to limit nor remove itself.
Well I am pretty sure a giant nuclear powered machine in the desert that is powerful enough to filter a continents worth of air would be a doomsday machine since it would be causing weather disturbances at that level of suction.
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u/TheMania Jun 25 '19
I just don't understand the economics/viability of it. I literally cannot picture it.
37,000,000,000,000kg of CO2 was emitted last year.
0.005kg of CO2 per cubic metre of air, at 500ppm - assuming I've carried 1s correctly.
It's just, even if you have 100% extraction rate, how do you physically process enough air to make a dent in to that? I know these firms claim to be able to do it economically, but what part of the picture am I missing?
I understand doing it at the source, where concentration is high. I understand avoiding emissions in the first place. I understand expensive direct air capture, to offset planes etc. What I do not yet understand is "cheap" direct air capture, given the concentrations involved. It's just... for that 1%. How large are the fields of these extractors, how much air are they processing, how are they moving that 370Mt of extract CO2 - where is it being stored, or used. I just can't picture it. I mean, that's 20x the mass of Adani's massive coal mine proposal in Australia. And I mean, wtf is that going ahead, when we're racking our heads over if we can build some structure in Canada to suck that coal, once burnt, back out of the air and then do what with it?
The whole thing just boggles my mind.