Climate change: New idea for sucking up CO2 from air shows promise

[Rupert]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64886116

This new approach, using off-the-shelf resins and other chemicals, promises far greater efficiency and lower cost, say the scientists involved.

The research team have borrowed an approach used for applications in water, and "tweaked" existing materials to remove CO2 from the air.

In tests, the new hybrid absorbing material was able to take in three times as much CO2 as existing substances.

[ergophobe]

I don't understand this - if you store it in seawater, does that mean "in the sea" and in that case won't that just accelerate acidification of the ocean (which already has 50X more CO2 than the atmosphere)?

captured CO2 can be transformed into bicarbonate of soda and stored simply and safely in sea water.

Sodium bicarbonate is quite acidic with a pH of around 6 vs a current pH of around 8 for the ocean. The ocean pH had fallen by 0.1 as a result of GHG emissions, and already that is creating disturbances (weakening shells and so on). So I'm curious how this can be done "safely."

>> $100 per tonne

I'm all for carbon capture and anything else that will help mitigate the problem, but we currently emit 37 billion tonnes. Even if we decarbonise to 90% and direct capture is only used for the other 10%, that's still 370 billion dollars per year. Do we have the will globally to do that?

[littleman]

>that's still 370 billion dollars per year. Do we have the will globally to do that?

On a global scale that's not a lot of money. Fossil Fuel Subsidies was over $1 Trillion in 2022 for the US alone.

[Rupert]

I was thinking it would fizz in water, then checked my chem, and it needs some vinegar too.

>> $100 per tonne

Weems cheap to me.  I wonder how it compares to the comparative forest.

Although the carbon absorption capacity can vary, it is generally considered that a tree can store about 167 kg of CO2 per year, or 1 ton of CO2 per year for 6 mature trees. This means that more than 67 trees would have to be planted a year to offset the CO2 emissions of a single Brit

https://climate.selectra.com/en/news/co2-tree

So 6 trees is $100 per year roughly.
200 trees per acre.....
https://homework.study.com/explanation/how-many-trees-per-acre-are-in-the-amazon-rainforest.html

[littleman]

>CO2 per year for 6 mature trees

That's a thing though, it takes a while for a planted tree to do it's uptake.  I wonder if anybody has done research on plants like bamboo?

[rcjordan]

aught my eye a few days ago. MIT involved....

MIT team makes a case for direct carbon capture from seawater, not air

https://newatlas.com/environment/mit-carbon-capture-seawater/

[ergophobe]

>> seawater

Best of all, the concentration of carbon dioxide in seawater is more than 100 times greater than in air.

That's the number I wanted when I mentioned seawater. I knew that most of the CO2 is in seawater, but because there is more water than atmosphere by mass, I wasn't sure how that worked out in terms of concentration.

That makes more sense to me than pulling it out of the air, but I have basically zero knowledge of the engineering involved. It also makes sense in that the first place that scientists started seeing problems from CO2 increase was in the oceans so it seems like a good place to start with cleanup.

>>bamboo

https://chinadialogue.net/en/climate/fighting-climate-change-with-bamboo/

Other than that, I don't know about bamboo per se, but there is a lot of research on things like tall-grass prairie and other traditional perennial grasses. We eliminated them from the plains for the most part, but they send roots deep into the soil and have the potential to store huge amounts of carbon. Yvon Chouinard said he gave up trying to reform the garment industry and moved his efforts to food and farming because the potential carbon storage in soil was so big.


>>not a lot of money
>>cheap

I fundamentally agree with you. It is not a lot of money, especially not in the context of fossil fuel subsidies, direct and indirect. I believe that too.

Still it's not easy to convince people to spend this money. The rich countries promised in 2009 to give $100b per year to help poor countries transition off fossil fuels. For many years, the amount give was paltry and even 13 years later, the 2022 total was $83b.

To you point, though, Time magazine points out that $100b is the amount Zuck lost from his personal fortune in 13 months. So it is cheap... and yet somehow hard to to achieve.
https://time.com/6231504/cop27-us-climate-change-aid/


>>over $1 Trillion in 2022 for the US alone

If I recall that is either a global number or, if just for the US, includes externalities - healthcare costs, premature death, cost of projecting US military power into oil-producing regions and all that. Direct subsidies are "only" about $20b in US at the federal level (no idea how much at the state level).

True accounting needs to include externalities, but in terms of budget discussions in legislatures, that's hard. Most people, especially people over 40, don't believe that the Medicaid payment for the kid who goes to the hospital due to an asthma attack is a fossil fuel subsidy. So those dollars are hard to reallocate on a practical level.

The $20b figure comes from here
- https://www.brookings.edu/research/reforming-global-fossil-fuel-subsidies-how-the-united-states-can-restart-international-cooperation/

Worldwide consumption subsidies are a full trillion dollars.
https://www.iea.org/reports/fossil-fuels-consumption-subsidies-2022

[BoL]

>Sodium bicarbonate is quite acidic

I thought it was alkaline? (caveat, I searched and clicked on a few results, I don't know and just presumed it was).

Had read an article saying so, but can potentially be acidic when reacting with sea water (no source).

[littleman]

>>over $1 Trillion in 2022 for the US alone

>If I recall that is either a global number or...

You're right, Google lied to me.

It's my understanding that acidification from the carbon uptake in the oceans are largely what's damaging the coral reefs.  I still think iron seeding is going to be part of the solution because it will lock up the carbon at the bottom of the oceans.

[ergophobe]

>>alkaline

You're right. I thought I saw pH of 6.1... it's actually 8.5 in a 1% solution... assuming Google isn't lying to me too :-)

So now that makes more sense. CO2 is acidifying the ocean, but sodium bicarbonate is alkaline. Now I get it.