The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, found that global carbon storage capacity was 10 times less than previous estimates after ruling out geological formations where the gas could leak, trigger earthquakes or contaminate groundwater, or had other limitations. That means carbon capture and storage would only have the potential to reduce human-caused warming by 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.26 Fahrenheit)—far less than previous estimates of around 5-6 degrees Celsius (9-10.8 degrees Fahrenheit), researchers said.
“Carbon storage is often portrayed as a way out of the climate crisis. Our findings make clear that it is a limited tool” and reaffirms “the extreme importance of reducing emissions as fast and as soon as possible,” said lead author Matthew Gidden, a research professor at the University Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability. The study was led by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, where Gidden also is a senior researcher in the energy, climate and environment program.
Breaking News! The thing we told you was going to happen for the past 50 years is definitely still happening!
*100 yrs
Honest question, does “10 times less” mean 1/10th? It makes no sense to me mathematically.
“We thought it was 10. Turns out it was 1.”
Ten times less: x * 0.1
Also known as “decimation”
Okay, so it does mean “1/10th of”. If words still had meaning then “ten times less” would mean “we thought we had 10 but we actually have -90”.
they’ll do anything to save us from the climate - create new technology, reinvent the wheel, anything anything EXCEPT LIMITING THE FUCKING EMISSIONS THAT ARE GOING TO KILL US.
Can’t do that, nah, bro… just a few more hundred billions gallons… bro come on, just a few more…
You’re obviously not considering the economy. We have to find a way to consume our way out of this problem
No one who is serious about carbon capture technologies expects that it is feasible to store it underground in gaseous form and that has been known for two decades.
What if we liquify it into a black gooey form first?
That’s the thing you do after 2080 when you have too much energy. Because you have to add in all the energy from burning it, and it’s very unproductive.
It would actually be simpler to go straight to soot and rebuild the coal beds. Electrolysis to CO followed by reverse Boudouard reaction. EZ.
E-fuel is an important technology of it’s own, because planes basically don’t work without the energy density burning oil has, but stopping the reduction at hydrocarbons has proven a lot trickier.
EZ. Use more energy. EZ.
Now I’m imagining a world where we produce coal in a factory from the air using solar power at peak times in the desert, the send the coal where it’s needed and burn it again later. Literally renewable coal nonsense.
(not a serious proposal btw it just seemed really funny to imagine we’re so addicted to the stuff we start making more just to keep using it)
It will either be fusion or nothing.
Why?
If I’m reading correctly, producing CO at room temp in a sealed vessel would essentially immediately produce soot and more CO2 to pump back through the system?
You need a catalyst and/or slightly elevated temperature for soot formation to actually happen, but yes. Information on what catalysts are the best is actually hard to come by, because this is usually a bad, accidental thing that happens and gums up your blast furnace. It sounds like just iron works to some degree, though.
Looks like gold and silver are the best for producing CO from electrolysis, wonder how they go for making soot
Ah, good thing those are cheap materials, then!
Well hopefully we don’t try to do that while actively digging up more black gooey form to burn. If it was thought to be economical at any point in the future nobody would give a shit about hydrogen after all.
We have to get rid of the old gooey black stuff to make room for the new gooey black stuff. Obviously.
Goo in, goo out.
I read a popscience article about how US naval ships with nuclear reactors are now using carbon dissolved in seawater to create kerosene. So there’s that.
Yeah but that doesn’t have to be efficient. It just has to be more efficient than crossing back over the Pacific Ocean to stock up on jet fuel
Why would they need kerosene? Lol.
I’m picturing them hanging out with old lamps down there.
Jet fuel is essentially kerosene. The idea is to fuel the jet engines on a nuclear aircraft carrier after the bombs drop. Namely sustaining a Pacific fleet against China after supply lines are cut.
Ah, an aircraft carrier. That makes more sense.
For whatever reason I forgot about those momentarily. That was weird.
Jet-A is kerosene and a handful of additives, mostly to prevent gelling at low temperatures. The ability to produce jet fuel from sea water would be extremely useful, but I highly doubt they have developed a feasible system on board a carrier.
Those carriers are pretty big.
Kerosine will run a diesel engine, all I can think of.
They do mention serpentisation in the article as an alternative, but point out almost none of the current projects are bothering with that, and are just going for immobilised storage in sedimentary rock instead.
what about storing it in plants like forests and jungles and algae? honest question; im a noob
edit: and bogs
What others have mentioned here, plus seagrass and kelp. There is a lot of recovery to do of these once massive ecosystems, thus a lot of carbon to tie up.
It’s all about quantity.
The fossil fuel industry is digging up the plants of forests and jungles and algae that have existed over millennia, then died and decomposed into oil, coal, gas. When you then burn it you release the carbon of hundreds of generations of plant life.
Fossil fuels are dead plant concentrate.
Add bogs to that list. Worldwide, bogs store more CO2 than forests. Restoring them and making sure they don’t dry up (which also would release a lot of gases harmful to the climate) would be a good way to capture CO2.
I don’t have any numbers to compare it to other techniques though, sorry.
On the prairies traditional grass (ie: not the shit in your front/back yard) works better than trees … because the grass has roots that can go down 7’+ and fire can’t kill it.
I think one problem with this is that there is only so much land/sea on earth. Once all available land is forested you have completely maxed out this option. Then when a tree dies and falls over most of its carbon begins to be released back into the atmosphere by decomposing organisms so you are reliant on another tree taking its place to maintain status quo. Same for any biological solution (algae dies/eaten -> carbon released).
We have to complete the gas/crue oil cycle: we must make a freaking pit and beging throwing trees in to free space for more trees
Oil is cursed
Two factors, basically.
Vegetation rots back out to the atmosphere. Bogs are better in that way, because they trap and grow over their own detritus. Managed forests are also pretty carbon-negative, because the carbon is now trapped in whatever wood products for centuries. Ocean-based stuff has had mixed results, though. You could also char and dispose of your biomass before it rots, but now you’re adding complexity.
Which brings us to the second: It might be expensive and slow, relative to just artificially capturing it and shoving it underground. Plants are not known for their speed, and reasonably moist land is expensive.
That being said, it’s still a serious contender for how to take care of carbon we’ve already burned, alongside this and other options like grinding up and spreading certain kinds of stone.
So all that billions of tons of carbon we dig up from the ground, sequestered for 300 million years, doesn’t just make it’s way back there?
Well fuck!
Who could have possibly guessed?
Who knew? Shame that this is the first time we’re hearing this
Anybody serious already knew carbon capture is not a solution. Reducing CO2 and electrifying with clean power is always cheaper than generating a lot more additional power for capturing CO2. It’s how the physics work out. It could’ve worked for cleaning up afterwards when all the rest was already clean and green.
Oops! All hellscape!
Don’t worry, at least the billionaire parasites and their offspring will survive in their underground shelters!
Not if we dump concrete in the intakes for their fresh air conduits! Hope they enjoy their tomb!
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So what you’re saying is, mine deeper, dig up more wells, and frack 'til the planet cracks? Because seriously, if we can’t turn back, we need to lean in and go with it.
Lol, no. We can turn back.
I wish I had your sense of unbridled optimism.
Fuck you
