Babe wake up, new copypasta just dropped !
Comment on Entropy? Never heard of it.
excral@feddit.org 5 days ago
I’ve heard there’s a practical green solution to carbon capture. The units are practically maintenance free and power themselves with solar energy. This allows to deploy them on many small patches of land. The captured carbon is stored in solid organic compounds that may be used as building materials. It may sound to sci-fi to be true, but it’s actually just trees.
BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 5 days ago
Bosht@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Density of CO2 produced vs what trees capture is massively unequal. Yes trees can, but not on any tangible scale that would ever keep up with what we are doing to the planet.
excral@feddit.org 5 days ago
Yeah, agreed. Carbon capture won’t save us, not trees nor otherwise. We have to slow down what we are doing to the planet.
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
Yes, the most that carbon capture can do is temporarily slow down climate change. It turns out the only way you can stop getting carbon from outside the carbon cycle into the carbon cycle is to stop taking carbon from outside the carbon cycle and putting it into the carbon cycle.
But the problem with oil is that it’s really good, and it does a lot of stuff really well
excral@feddit.org 5 days ago
But the problem with oil is that it’s really good
Oil is good because it’s cheap and it’s only cheap because we don’t pay the full bill. If we’d bill polluters for the full cost it would take to offset the emissions, it would quickly stop being economically viable to use oil in many sectors.
Twanquility@feddit.dk 5 days ago
Not to mention the area needed, for the amount of trees needed. Trees also decompose, so the storage function is different, but people are quick to assume.
ubergeek@lemmy.today 4 days ago
Decomp still sequesters most of the carbon into the soil, which next gen plants uptake some.
Not to mention, a single sq km of algae sequesters tons annually.
And not even mentioning the add on sequesters: New trees bring whole ecosystems, and promote savannah and meadow formation, which also sequesters carbon.
Twanquility@feddit.dk 3 days ago
And don’t forget the biodiversity. Ecosystems and fauna depend on each other.
ThunderclapSasquatch@startrek.website 5 days ago
Ok, but how about we do more than trees? Why are you on the internet when pre-linguistic grunting works just fine?
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
If you can find a more efficient, less expensive way to physically sequester carbon from the atmosphere than letting forests grow, I’m sure there’s a lot of awards you could win
ThunderclapSasquatch@startrek.website 4 days ago
Why does it have to be cheaper? Why not both?
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
Because if it isn’t cheaper than simply growing trees, the money would be better spent simply growing trees
MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world 5 days ago
You could cause a massive death event in the West/developed nations plus China and India which would slow things a lot though I’d argue killing billions isn’t the ideal solution.
excral@feddit.org 5 days ago
The point of my comment is that if trees wouldn’t exist, they would seem like some futuristic sci-fi solution too good to be true. Just because something is shiny new tech, it isn’t automatically better. Sure, just planting trees won’t save us if we release all the carbon that is already captured in the form of fossil fuels, but how about we stop releasing all the carbon that is already captured in the form of fossil fuels?
MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
Water is the biggest limiting factor, trees need more water.
borokov@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Agree, carbon capture process is quite efficient now. I’m working on (pretty big) company doing Carbon Capture and Sequestration. The idea is to use empty oil&gaz reservoir to inject back carbon where it comes from. So there are several advantage:
Valmond@lemmy.world 5 days ago
That seems like a disaster waiting to (re) happen, what’s your thoughts on that?
borokov@lemmy.world 5 days ago
What do you mean ?
sploosh@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Carbonating a void underground seems like a bad plan. God help us if Mentos get down there.
And OP was talking about trees.
ubergeek@lemmy.today 4 days ago
Now imagine if instead of playing technowizard… your company spent that money on planting trees?
borokov@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Global Co2 production of human activities is about 35Gt per year (ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions). Forests absorb around 7.5Gt per year (wri.org/…/forests-absorb-twice-much-carbon-they-e…). Let say we double the total amount of forest in the whole planet, and we cut Co2 production by half. We are very roughly 15Gt produce VS 15Gt absorb. Is the problem solved ? Nope.
First, because these forests has to stay in place, or used as building material but cannot be burn to for heating. So we still have to plant extra forest for heating. Second, we still have all the Co2 we have put in atmosphere since a century. So the goal is not to be equilibrium, but to be net negative.
Worldwide CCS capacity has been estimated between 8,000 and 55,000 gigatonnes (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage). And, yes, it is already carbon negative, and already in production in several countries with currently a net result of ~50Mt Co2 per year (statista.com/…/large-scale-carbon-capture-and-sto…)
There is not a unique solution “Plant Trees and go electric” to global warming. There are lots of solutions, with pros and cons. CCS is just a small part of the equation. Use renewable energy, use storage (litthium batteries, Hydrogen, …), Nuclear, change habit to consume less, plant trees and develop carbon capture solution.
The problem won’t be solved with a unique solution, but by finding the good balance between all the possibilities. And those who know it won’t work are please to let those who doesn’t know try.
ubergeek@lemmy.today 3 days ago
How are CCS carbon positive, when it requires more electricity to sequester, than it would to just not produce the carbon output, to begin with?