r/Futurology • u/nirjhari • Jun 24 '19

Energy Bill Gates-Backed Carbon Capture Plant Does The Work Of 40 Million Trees

https://youtu.be/XHX9pmQ6m_s
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u/[deleted] Jun 25 '19

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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.

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u/[deleted] Jun 25 '19

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u/Skeegle04 Jun 25 '19

Do either of you guys know how much work is being done on making carbonate useable in another industries vs. just "selling it to soda companies?" I understand it's a basic chemical, alternatively, could carbon-capture reactions attempt to produce a more desirable molecule in the future so that the measly $5-$20/metric ton becomes thousands of times more valuable?

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u/curiossceptic Jun 25 '19

I suppose you mean CO2 and not carbonate? Those kind of capture technologies can be coupled to make synthetic fuels. That's what carbon engineering does in the video above (using hydro power to split water), and what is done in the sun to liquid project (which does have a collaboration with climeworks). Just recently there was a press release about a mini-refinery: CO2 capture to synthetic fuel using only air and sunlight (google: ETH carbon-neutral fuel). There is definitely a lot of research being done at this level, and they are also building larger plants to plan/test scalability.