Author Topic: Technical Solutions - CO2 Removal  (Read 1373 times)

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Offline Michael Hardner

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Technical Solutions - CO2 Removal
« on: November 26, 2017, 07:42:22 am »
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/20/can-carbon-dioxide-removal-save-the-world

You need 100 million of these units described here to keep up with CO2 emissions...

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guest7

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Re: Technical Solutions - CO2 Removal
« Reply #1 on: November 26, 2017, 10:58:38 am »
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/20/can-carbon-dioxide-removal-save-the-world

You need 100 million of these units described here to keep up with CO2 emissions...

They're the size of a semi trailer. I thought it was the little plastic sphere in the picture!  I thought, great, I'll get a couple of those myself.  Anything to help out, and all that.

It starts well.  Bill Gates always gives me confidence.  But the most telling paragraphs are at the end.  Words like “unrealistic.”, “high-stakes gamble” and “moral hazard par excellence.” rear their ugly heads.  I should make it clear I'd be happy to go with it anyway, if we are still so queasy about forced sterilization that we are willing to die instead, but I bet you won't get everyone else to sign on.

I loved the following:

"One of the peculiarities of climate discussions is that the strongest argument for any given strategy is usually based on the hopelessness of the alternatives: this approach must work, because clearly the others aren’t going to. This sort of reasoning rests on a fragile premise—what might be called solution bias. There has to be an answer out there somewhere, since the contrary is too horrible to contemplate."

Offline TimG

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Re: Technical Solutions - CO2 Removal
« Reply #2 on: November 26, 2017, 02:38:05 pm »
You need 100 million of these units described here to keep up with CO2 emissions...
And that presumes the incremental benefit of deploying such devices is the best use of resources. It is likely that cost-benefit analysis would establish that directing resources to adaptation makes more economic sense than spending various technical hail marys that will most likely never accomplish their stated goals.

Offline Omni

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Re: Technical Solutions - CO2 Removal
« Reply #3 on: November 26, 2017, 02:53:18 pm »
And that presumes the incremental benefit of deploying such devices is the best use of resources. It is likely that cost-benefit analysis would establish that directing resources to adaptation makes more economic sense than spending various technical hail marys that will most likely never accomplish their stated goals.

Can you then explain how that adaptation process would work effectively, and how it would be more cost effective?

Offline waldo

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Re: Technical Solutions - CO2 Removal
« Reply #4 on: November 26, 2017, 05:34:28 pm »
Can you then explain how that adaptation process would work effectively, and how it would be more cost effective?

you'll be waiting a long time for member TimG to respond. In the adapt-R-us-Only world of TimG, current levels of atmospheric CO2 and continuing increases in atmospheric CO2 to the tune of a billion tons of CO2 released into the atmosphere every 10 days... those levels are just so inconsequential! He perpetually just throws out this nebulous buzzword like reference to "adaptation" while castigating anyone who presumes to align with a combined mitigation/adaptation/prevention approach. To TimG encroaching on the sancity of the status-quo fossil-fuel usage is blasphemy to his BigOil allegiance... discussing pie-in-the sky type Geo-engineering solutions to remove CO2 from the atmosphere is just outright heresy!


Offline Omni

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Re: Technical Solutions - CO2 Removal
« Reply #5 on: November 26, 2017, 05:44:59 pm »
Well at least there is consistency. :D

Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Technical Solutions - CO2 Removal
« Reply #6 on: November 26, 2017, 06:08:58 pm »
I have to say it would have been nice if we were able to have an actual democratic discussion about adaption vs prevention, but we are (at) so far several decades where the discussion is jammed by people who have spread abject lies (ie. ice age) and so this rather high-risk decision has been made by default.

In an unrelated (or possibly completely related note) democracy doesn't work well in a fog of mass hysteria.

guest7

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Re: Technical Solutions - CO2 Removal
« Reply #7 on: November 26, 2017, 09:38:12 pm »
I have to say it would have been nice if we were able to have an actual democratic discussion about adaption vs prevention, but we are (at) so far several decades where the discussion is jammed by people who have spread abject lies (ie. ice age) and so this rather high-risk decision has been made by default.

In an unrelated (or possibly completely related note) democracy doesn't work well in a fog of mass hysteria.

Democratically speaking, which bits of the article you posted do you think are actually going to come to fruition?

Offline TimG

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Re: Technical Solutions - CO2 Removal
« Reply #8 on: November 27, 2017, 02:04:52 am »
I have to say it would have been nice if we were able to have an actual democratic discussion about adaption vs prevention, but we are (at) so far several decades where the discussion is jammed by people who have spread abject lies (ie. ice age) and so this rather high-risk decision has been made by default.
The trouble with any rational cost-benefit analysis is it depends on so many economic and technological assumptions and outright guesses that they are meaningless. So when someone says it is more cost effective to spend a trillions reducing the increase CO2 emissions by 5% than it would be to to pay for various measures needed to adaptation I can say with confidence that they are basing their claim on nothing but guesses and if these guesses were made by someone with an agenda then those guesses are nothing but ideological propaganda.

To be clear, the meaningless of cost benefit analyses also applies to analyses that say adaptation is a better option. I prefer adaption because:

1) Adaptation is local - no global agreements required and no problem with freeloaders/cheaters;
2) Adaptation only requires deployment of tech that we already use to protect against the vagaries of weather - so it is lower risk;
3) Adaptation is incremental. Every little bit helps. CO2 mitigation is all or nothing - i.e. if we don't cut CO2 by enough we will still need to spend on adaption.
4) Many specific examples of CO2 mitigation are virtue signalling exercises that have no chance of achieving their stated goal - this means I have little confidence that governments are capable providing incentives that actually reduce *global* CO2 emissions.

« Last Edit: November 27, 2017, 02:10:30 am by TimG »

Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Technical Solutions - CO2 Removal
« Reply #9 on: November 27, 2017, 05:49:10 am »
I can say with confidence that they are basing their claim on nothing but guesses and if these guesses were made by someone with an agenda then those guesses are nothing but ideological propaganda.

 

Sure... but the other side didn't get a chance, thanks to communication jamming. 

Offline TimG

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Re: Technical Solutions - CO2 Removal
« Reply #10 on: November 27, 2017, 07:31:36 am »
Sure... but the other side didn't get a chance, thanks to communication jamming.
Did you read the next line:

Quote
To be clear, the meaninglessness of cost benefit analyses also applies to analyses that say adaptation is a better option.
What I said is it is impossible to quantify future damages from climate change which makes any cost benefit analysis based on future damages an exercise in ideology - something that is true no matter what the opinion produced by said analyses.

I also went on to provide reasons for preferring adaptation as a strategy that does not require a cost benefit analysis.

Offline waldo

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Re: Technical Solutions - CO2 Removal
« Reply #11 on: November 27, 2017, 08:29:05 am »
The trouble with any rational cost-benefit analysis is it depends on so many economic and technological assumptions and outright guesses that they are meaningless. So when someone says it is more cost effective to spend a trillions reducing the increase CO2 emissions by 5% than it would be to to pay for various measures needed to adaptation I can say with confidence that they are basing their claim on nothing but guesses and if these guesses were made by someone with an agenda then those guesses are nothing but ideological propaganda.

To be clear, the meaningless of cost benefit analyses also applies to analyses that say adaptation is a better option. [waldo: which paints your aforementioned, "stating with confidence", as nothing more than an attachment to your personal predilections... i.e., as meaningless as your interpretation. And the irony is thick in this thread, as the OP's silver bullet geo-engineering concept is, in itself, an adaptation approach... ]

I prefer adaption because:

1) Adaptation is local - no global agreements required and no problem with freeloaders/cheaters; [waldo: this is an incredibly naive statement, notwithstanding its isolated focus on effect, rather than cause. The environment is not local, oceans are not local, the atmosphere is not local, etc.. It's also predicated on an acceptance that developing/smaller nations will not be able to adapt given the absence of global assistance; developing/smaller nations where adaptation capacity is often the lowest and needs are the highest - too bad, so sad for them! And, of course, you play out one of your favourite go-to's: freeloaders/cheaters! Of course you do, in spite of repeatedly being shown the stringent auditing approaches integrated into global agreements.]

2) Adaptation only requires deployment of tech that we already use to protect against the vagaries of weather - so it is lower risk; [waldo: outside of being such an ignorant comment, your accommodation to the "vagaries of weather" is a real testament to the heights of your hypocrisy... you're the guy who steadfastly refuses to accept changing weather ties to climate change - oh my! That you would imply there are no technology gaps associated with adaptation is a true reflection on your blow-hardiness, on your know-nothingness!]

3) Adaptation is incremental. Every little bit helps. CO2 mitigation is all or nothing - i.e. if we don't cut CO2 by enough we will still need to spend on adaption. [waldo: riddle me this: in the face of limited funding scenarios, as adaptation costs are emissions dependent, how do you reconcile an iterative adaptation only approach to ever increasing global temperatures? How many iterations, how many... increments in your view to target effects only in the absence of causal mitigation? Those with any understanding don't propose, as you imply, a mitigation only strategy; rather, what is needed quite obviously is a 3-pronged strategy of prevention, adaptation and mitigation.]

4) Many specific examples of CO2 mitigation are virtue signalling exercises that have no chance of achieving their stated goal - this means I have little confidence that governments are capable providing incentives that actually reduce *global* CO2 emissions. [waldo: you've repeatedly been shown how various policy approaches have acted to reduce country/localized specific emissions - you simply choose to ignore them, over and over again. And yet you have all the confidence in governments capability to manage incremental/iterative adaptation in the face of completely ignoring rising global emissions and rising global temperatures - how self-serving and selective to your fossil-fuel BigOil allegiance - yes?]

Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Technical Solutions - CO2 Removal
« Reply #12 on: November 27, 2017, 08:30:07 am »
You've got how many gazillions of cars & power plants on the planet pumping out CO2 constantly for the last century.  How many of these CO2 removal devices would be needed??
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Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Technical Solutions - CO2 Removal
« Reply #13 on: November 27, 2017, 08:37:15 am »
And that presumes the incremental benefit of deploying such devices is the best use of resources. It is likely that cost-benefit analysis would establish that directing resources to adaptation makes more economic sense than spending various technical hail marys that will most likely never accomplish their stated goals.

What's the cost efficiency of however many species going extinct because of climate change?

At this point I think it's fine if the next few generations of humans have to see hundreds of millions of people die or see reduced standard of living or shortened lives due to reduced standard of living in order to now screw up the planet royally.  It's pretty selfish of our generations of people to harm the planet so badly for our own wants & needs.  You can't replace species & habitats, without going all Jurassic Park.  The earth could use a good human culling anyways.   :-\
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Offline kimmy

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Re: Technical Solutions - CO2 Removal
« Reply #14 on: November 27, 2017, 09:16:42 am »
What's the cost efficiency of however many species going extinct because of climate change?

Cost efficiency: what would be the benefits of spending say $1 billion on this kind of technology, vs the benefits of spending $1 billion on replacing outdated coal-burning equipment with new facilities based on cleaner power sources. The founder of this company himself says right now the more effective use of resources would be to deal with existing sources of emissions:

Quote
“You might say it’s against my self-interest to say it, but I think that, in the near term, talking about carbon removal is silly,” David Keith, the founder of Carbon Engineering, who teaches energy and public policy at Harvard, told me. “Because it almost certainly is cheaper to cut emissions now than to do large-scale carbon removal.”

So this is certainly an interesting technology and in the future it could be important.  But for the time being if the goal is reducing net emissions then the best cost/benefit ratio would come from cleaning up existing sources.

 -k
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