Search results are dependant on who is searching. But still:
When you use DuckDuckGo the first result is wikipedia.
When you use Google the first results are corporations.
When you use Bing the first result is a corporation, then Wikipedia.
Brave search gives an AI summary of carbon capture, an investment page, one of the corp pages, and then a breakdown on why ‘carbon capture’ is a misleading tactic.
Edit: All this to say, maybe stop using Google.
You’re confusing the browser and ths search engine, I think. I use various combinations of Firefox and Brave browsers with Qwant, Brave Search and Google Search on different machines and AFAIK, I’ve only seen the crypto stuff in the Brave browser when I initially installed it. Quickly went through settings to disable that stuff and never seen it since. Still the best Chromium browser, and good to have next to Firefox in case of compatibility issues. Privacyguides.org is clear about that.
The search engine seems decent too, I haven’t noticed a big difference between Brave Search and Qwant so far, they are both fine, and less heavily manipulated than Google
It should be blatantly obvious just from basic thermodynamics that carbon capture cannot ever possibly be cheaper than not burning the fossil fuels in the first place.
Thermodynamics tells us it takes exactly as much to put the carbon back in as you got out of it by taking it out. So best case scenario we double the price of energy (which also means increasing the price of everything by a lot due to production costs increasing with higher energy costs) and capture as much carbon as we release.
However this is the real world and in the real world processes aren’t 100% efficient. Even a hyper efficient combustion engine is only like 40% efficient in converting the stored energy into a usable form. Our carbon capture techniques suck hard at the moment, but say we improve the tech. That means in the real world we would need to increase energy costs by 4-6 times. Which probably means increasing the pricing of everything by a factor of 10.
That shows just how unsustainable our current consume heavy economy actually is. And that is assuming we have a way of capturing carbon out of the atmosphere in a way that’s both efficient and long term. And do this in time before the processes we’ve set into motion spiral out of control.
And like you say, it puts into perspective how big of a win not releasing the carbon is.
Thermodynamics tells us it takes exactly as much to put the carbon back in as you got out of it by taking it out.
Thermo says it takes at least as much energy to put the carbon back in. If the process is done in a reversible way (reversible in the thermo sense), it would take exactly as much energy. And since real-world spontaneous processes are never reversible, it will always have energy lost.
I know you said down below that energy is lost, but I’m just saying that from a physics POV, there is not a possible way that reactions can ever be done in a reversible way, so it’s not like there’s even a possible theoretical world where you could approach 100% efficiency.
By definition, you will always pay the heat tax to the second law of thermodynamics.
To be extremely pedantic, operations on physical systems can be performed and perfectly reversed without loss of energy, but you couldn’t ever extract anything anywhere along the way - not even direct evidence that it happened. Our models predict that this happens literally all the time in quantum mechanics.
Edit: fun fact: this prediction is actually central to what makes quantum computers work.
Caveat: it’s been a few weeks since I read up on this so I’m fuzzy.
It’s also worth noting we will need carbon capture to actually keep catastrophic global warming from occurring. Even if we cut emissions to 0 by 2035 we’re blowing past 1.5C and maybe even 2 as I recall.
Doesn’t mean that we can fix the climate with CC, but we can’t fix it without.
There’s nothing thermodynamically wrong with burning methane, releasing the water, and putting the CO2 back underground. Sequestration does not require un-oxidizing the carbon.
Though if we’re going to bury harmful waste underground, nuclear power reduces the quantity of waste by a factor of a million.
There’s nothing thermodynamically wrong with burning methane, releasing the water, and putting the CO2 back underground. Sequestration does not require un-oxidizing the carbon.
Maaaaybe if the CO2 is captured at the point source of the methane burner. But if you’ve already let it disperse into the atmosphere, forget about it ever making sense to try to compensate for that huge increase in entropy by collecting and re-concentrating it.
No, definitely not cheaper. Also not a viable alternative to not burning.
That said, we’re probably going to need it eventually to try to undo even a small amount of the damage we’ve done
Problem is that it’s not being used to undo the damage - it’s being used to justify doing more.
Solar - even with batteries is significantly cheaper under almost any circumstances… Location, scale, photovoltaics vs thermal - it only tends to affect how much cheaper. Wind is cheaper too, but less so on average.
Funny how pulling power out of thin air is cheaper and better than digging it out of the ground, shipping it all over the place and burning it.
I do wonder if it could be beneficial for the case of excess solar/wind/etc production. Obviously, renewable infrastructure, storage capacity, and efficient transfer should be prioritized, but I can see there being a place for carbon capture, as long as it’s not to the detriment of something better.
Edit: but i do totally agree with you that using fossil fuels to power carbon capture is completely idiotic and makes no sense
I think Carbon Capture is a legitimate and respectable area of research, but it’s fuckall for any practical use today or tomorrow and it should never be treated as a replacement for emission goals or the maintenance of critical ecosystems.
Carbon capture is 100% useless until the day that we completely stop using carbon energy sources.
Even if you use solar panels, that energy would better be used directly.
It’s not useless. Carbon capture will have to become mandatory at industries that will still require fossile fuels for a little longer after electrifying everything. Think cement and steel production. This is called on-site carbon capture and prevents releasing more carbon to the atmosphere. This is already happening.
Now that stupid thing that sucks C02 gas out of the air, yes, it’s total bollocka and will never ever work efficiently. Maybe if we eventually develop cheap fusion power.
We will almost certainly need to remove carbon already in the atmosphere. Yes, we can wish getting serious about climate change one or two decades ago would have made that unnecessary, but we’re stuck with this choice now. Short of replacing every single carbon producing device tomorrow, that’s where we’re at.
Yes we are and because of those choices back then, we are fucked. The next generations will be fucked worse with each generation. It will take centuries to clean this shit up if we actively work on it and spend over 50% of our energy budget on cleaning. If we do nothing it might never recover and be the end of us…
There is a lot of things wrong with your statement but first and foremost is that Carbon Neutral is no longer a solution for our problems. Without a way to alleviate and regulate emissions already in the atmosphere the Human Race is still on a death march if it stopped producing today, much moreso 30 years from today. In addition to that, the sale of power to consumers can just increase consumption, and the infrastructure to move power and store power where it is needed is not necessarily there so for example Iceland’s Geothermal powered Carbfix may not be efficient on paper compared to magically selling the power off to a far off place: it is still an optimal nearly lossless solution given their circumstances.
No, my statement is perfect correct.
Starting carbon capture while there is still fossil fuel power generation is stupid at best. If you do it for research, sure, go nuts. Anything beyond is just making shit worse.
If you have the energy and no where to get it to, that might be the one exception, perhaps but that’s it.
If you do carbon capture with energy from CO2 power then you’re literally making it worse trying to make it better. If you use non CO2 power you’re still doing it wrong because of losses, that power would be better used to avoid others using CO2, you’d be more energy efficient that way.
My point is that there are multiple companies currently doing carbon capture and its just stupid, its another one of those “look at me being smart! Pay me money!” schemes that want government money that would be better spent on replacing CO2 power sources instead.
If you Google anything the first results are sponsored links.
Carbon capture, Carbon footprint, Carbon offsetting…
All things invented by oil and gas corporations to greenwash themselves in the public eye while they destroy the planet.
Good old offsetting.
Where it’s OK to cheat on your wife, as long as you slip 5 quid to a guy in another country, and he’ll tell you he’s stayed celibate.
That metaphor doesn’t apply. CO2 in the atmosphere is fungible. Taking a gram out after putting a gram in works out to zero.
Where it’s a problem is that they aren’t actually taking a gram out. Regulatory oversight is little to nothing. That has allowed companies to pay a token amount into offset programs and pretend the problem is solved. What they’re paying is far too cheap to accomplish what they claim.
Burns, burns, burns, the lake fire…
…cuz the ring lit the lake and it was full of oil.
Cuyahoga River – “at least 13 fires” …
