The Reality of Carbon Capture
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- Опубліковано 25 лип 2022
- The truth about carbon capture technology. Offset your carbon footprint on Wren: www.wren.co/start/undecided The first 100 people who sign up will have 10 extra trees planted in their name! It's held up as both an essential piece of our renewable energy transition and a last ditch effort of the fossil fuel industry to keep polluting. Regardless of which side of the debate you’re on, there’s been a lot of advancements in recent years. Most of the headlines come from direct air carbon capture technology, but there are some natural approaches starting to get attention that could not only sequester carbon from the atmosphere, but also improve our food production, reduce erosion, and many other benefits. Do we need to build giant machines to capture carbon or has nature already given us the technology we need? Let’s see if we can come to a decision on this.
The research on biochar is extensive. There’s been more than 15,000 published research articles covering biochar. There’s so many research articles, that there are now essentially meta-meta-analysis (systematic reviews of meta-analysis).
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Do you think carbon capture is a fool’s errand? Or do you think methods like biochar and enhanced weathering are an essential piece of the puzzle? Offset your carbon footprint on Wren: www.wren.co/start/undecided The first 100 people who sign up will have 10 extra trees planted in their name!
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Soil is a limited resource. Biochar produced by plants / waste, will exhaust the soil.
Capture seems like good triage but reducing the amount of carbon produced has to be the long term goal. We can't just burn through resources and hope that it lasts forever
there is already a carbon capture program and its called houses. Plant millions of trees and after they grow and remove carbon from the atmosphere, cut them down and build a house out of them that lasts 200 years then repeat.
Worth a try
@@TP-sp5ky "exhausting soil" Explain, provide citations.
I was hoping you would talk about regenerative agriculture. Rotational grazing, silvo pasture, water harvesting and wet land restoration. I believe these things could make a massive impact if done on scale. Imagine how much CO2 is held in soils if we just raise the organic content a few percent.
This is the easiest and most effective way
I thought the same.
I'm glad to see others though this too!
Maybe Matt will see this and do a video on it. I feel it's the only chance the western US and may other areas of the world have left.
while i'm a big fan of this and dove deep into the topic we have to admit, that scaling this approach is very hard, since it needs a lot of manual labor. we won't change western societies to a point where one in ten people is a farmer again...
There is no downside to Regenerative Agriculture. Not even cost. Regenerative farms are more profitable, produce food with higher food value and reduce/eliminate chemical use in fertilizers and pesticides/herbicides. Run the calculations on how much carbon is captured when you increase the carbon content of soil per acre from 1-2% (typical of western agriculture) to 9-10% (rich healthy soil). The numbers are astounding. We need to work with nature not against it.
What is also amazing about biochar, is that it preserves the cellular structure of the original plant, but now almost 100% carbon. This means a very porous carbon product, like a carbon styrofoam. This porosity allows it to retain water near the plant roots, retain fertilizer near the plant roots, and create a microbiome that really enhances plant yield. And it sequesters carbon. Great stuff!
I'll do my part and dump a bag of charcoal in my yard.
Burning wood crates 3.6 times more CO2 by weight. 30 tons of wood would create about 10 tons or less of biochar and over 70 tons of CO2.
Biochar also reduces the plants need to absorb CO2 from the air. This gives us a net gain of atmospheric CO2 across the entire carbon cycle.
@@Deliriousintentionsprojects You don't burn the wood to make biochar. They use a process called pyrolysis, which is basically heating the wood in an oxygen-poor (or completely inert) atmosphere. This DOES release various gases, like some co2, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane, but usually the reason for using pyrolysis is that you are trying to maximize biochar output while minimizing released co2. Also, that hydrogen, carbon monoxide and methane (aka syngas) is useful on its own if you capture it. It can be used on it's own as a fuel (either burned directly or using the Fischer-Tropsch process to convert it into a liquid fuel), or as feedstock for the Haber process to produce ammonia. Assuming you aren't burning the syngas, and that the heat for your pyrolysis is coming from some other carbon negative or neutral process, the whole process is carbon negative.
@@raelik777 how is this different from normal charcoal? You heat wood or any organic matter really in a low oxygen environment when you make normal charcoal. This biocharcoal sounds like regular charcoal rebranded to me.
As a Federally Certified & License Professional Engineer, you are a Carnival Barker -- A simple-minded English graduate that doesn't have the mental capacity to understand basic Calculus, let alone Engineering.
Matt, I think a great subject which would've been good to explore, and perhaps deserves a whole separate video, is Regenerative Agriculture, Forestry and Livestock Management (such as Agroecology, Syntropic Agriculture, Analog Forestry, etc.) which aims to be productive while sequestering big amounts of CO2e.
What is the minimum CO2 for life?
150 ppm
The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was reduced by about 90% during the last 150 million years. If this trend continues CO2 will inevitably fall to levels that threaten the survival of plants, which require a minimum of 150 ppm to survive.
Matt - I’d be interested to get your view on less complex and less expensive methods being pursued to capture carbon naturally via ‘carbon farming’ - using agricultural practices like no-till and cover crops, amongst other things. There are methods to verify the amount of carbon sequestered by baselining current levels then using soil agronomy along with data analysis to prove carbon capture over time. Along with providing the farmer with improved soil health, these approaches seem more viable and less expensive than the other approaches raised here. I’d be interested to see what you think.
While I'm not against any of these methods in principle, the potential benefits of them are tiny compared to the amount of CO2 being emitted. It concerns me when I see companies investing in them for carbon credits or carbon offsets rather than reducing emissions when what we need is a hard focus on reducing emissions, not propping them up. These should be extras, not replacements.
I get the hesitation but it can also be seen as capital flowing to such initiatives... if the initiative is actually moving toward making an actual difference. The current problem is that we need to research and develop ways to capture more and emit less but that takes effort. Effort takes money. Carbon credits at least has money flowing to some worthwhile efforts. It's certainly not perfect though. Not even close.
@@AnErrantPhoton It's worse than "not perfect". It's a red herring, used to distract and obfuscate from the fossil fuel industry's obduracy and recalcitrance. If nations don't nationalise their energy sectors, they will kill us all for the next quarter's profit. Socialism or fascism, that's the future.
I can totally see where that skepticism comes from. Like the statement that Microsoft bought 1,500 metric tons of CO2 carbon credits. Cool. Good for them. That totally offsets their 2020 yearly emission of 13,800,000 metric tons of CO2.......
Also the enhanced weathering.... I get that the basalt is a byproduct of quarries. But how much carbon is produced to apply it? Transport it? Crush and screen it? Clean it? Remediate any heavy metal contamination? I would not be surprised if a thorough analysis of the total lifetime carbon emissions of enhanced weathering shows that it overall carbon positive.
The thing is, if we want to truly stop climate change permanently, we're going to need to not only stop producing more carbon but remove all the carbon we've already put into the atmosphere over the last two centuries-as well as compensate for all the deforestation that we've done. It's best that we start finding ways to do that and build up the necessary infrastructure.
@@stevethepocket While that's true, the actual effect is that companies don't reduce greenhouse gas output because they can 'offset' them to dubiously effective schemes like this instead. If these were completely decoupled and reductions were required as well, then I would see the possible benefit.
Ive been interested in seaweed farming.
#1 I have read that there are multiple start up companies trying to farm certain kinds of seaweed
#2 Because as it seems depending on what kind of seaweed (and I suppose the amount) is fed to cattle, you can reduce their CH4 emission by 40-90%.
#3 The great thing about sea weed is that it grows pretty easy
#4 And theoretically it should be a carbon sink
Carbon sinks that only work for a few years are next to worthless. Biochar is the way to go.
Seaweed farming can also be a good way to extract certain nutrients from the sea for land based agriculture which can both reduce algae blooms, and helo prevent issues with rock phosphate depletion(we literally are at risk of depleting our current phosphate supply soon so that is actually a big deal).
Extraction of co2 from seawater seems like a better option since liquid chemistry is more efficient than gaseous. There is also some companies proposing using co2 from seawater to make jet fuel. Please do a video on this
I remember the US navy had a program for that and developed prototypes for testing.
Sounds like a scam
I had a large garden with terribly heavy clay soil, and so I decided to improve it with deep mulching, or sheet composting. Over the last two years I have put tens of thousands of pounds of wood chips, grass clippings and really anything organic on this plot. I keep a flock of chickens on it which continually scratch and poop on it. So far, in a very short period of time, I have created a garden that veggies love to grow in. It never needs to be tilled, or weeded...rarely requires watering, and needs no fertilizer or soil amendments of any kind.
I have also read that this process also sequesters carbon, but I can't find any information on how much. If anyone has any data on this, I would love to see it.
Terrific way to create good soil in a small area, hauling in tons of stuff. This good soil will last you for a long time, but eventually any sustainable mulch and green manuring and crop residue/manure reaches a point where it it doesn't add much more carbon sequestered into the soil. The rate of decay will equal the rate of addition. It's due to this pesky stuff we're surrounded by called oxygen. Humus buildup lasts the longest, and could be years or even decades, but not really fully sequestered. The things that completely sequester carbon are the carbonates from basalt, and organic matter that accumulates in oxygen poor environments, like peat bogs, mangrove swamps, and in the deep ocean in low oxygen zones, like there are frequently near the mouth of the Mississippi and other large rivers, where fresh water floats on top of the salty sea and inhibits mixing. Natural in some areas during some seasons, but hard on the higher sea life. Biochar also can sequester some carbon for pretty darn long, like up to millennia. But it has issues with all the energy, work and cost to produce it. Minimising all these would make biochar work better.
@@chuckgoecke
Yup. That all makes sense. But I believe that it is possible that after my layers exceed 12 inches or so in depth, I have created an anaerobic layer that may hang on to some of that carbon. What do you think?
@@paulfay357 Anaerobic digestion produces methane which is a more potent greenhouse gas then CO2, it is generally better to store biologically active carbon in an aerobic environment. You still have increased the amount of carbon stored in your soil from very little to a lot, while using it to increase the land's productivity which is a win/win even if it isn't permanent.
@@garethbaus5471methane doesn’t actually last very long in the atmosphere before it’s converts into other chemicals, it’s like 12 years compared to 300-1000 years for co2
I’m a strong believer in the convergence of biochar, anaerobic digestion and vermiculture to work in synchronicity towards increasing carbon sequestration as well as improving soil health. I don’t think there will be a silver bullet towards carbon capture but multiple industries working in sync towards the same goal.
I completely agree it’s going to be all hands on the decks, not only carbon removal and carbon sequestration but also severe reduction in emissions!
The good news is that same feedback loop accelerators, when we got to the climatic catastrophe that we are in currently, also exist as accelerators in reversal of CO2e levels as additionalities, especially in biochar. These can accelerate the reversal from current situation.
Since biochar mimics what is it happened on earth for billions of years this is a stress tested methodology.
100% agree, and dont forget the role of mycorhiza in helping roots to absorb nutrients efficiently
If you throw a few billion dollars at this, you could offset literally hundreds of barrels of oil burned per year!
Unfortunately, the US burns about 10 million PER DAY
So, maybe we should say screw all of this stuff, go low tech, and just plant a few hundred billion trees.
Industries require markets, which require a value to be placed on carbon by some governmental agency. How is that value to be set? Beats me.
@@PatrickKQ4HBD Currently we place a price on it two ways:
1) half the price of gas is tax
2) beyond all the government-imposed costs like corporate income tax, resource royalties, fees, feasibility studies required for every petroleum extraction venture, there's the price of refining and shipping and selling the fuel itself. People burn oil because it's relatively cheap, and it's cheap because it does not take a lot of labor or resources to refine compared to many alternatives. If someone could choose two identical cars where one burned half as much fuel, only a fool would choose the one that burns more.
Feedback: It would make more sense to me to see relative numbers instead of absolute numbers. Usually I can't relate to something like 20t of CO2.
To put it into perspective the average American emits about 14t CO2 or equivalent in GHG annually. The average European or Chinese person is about 7t.
To give you an idea, for every liter of gas you put in your car weight about 750g where 652g of it is carbon (C). To burn that gas you need about 1740g of oxygen (O). The result is about 2392g of CO2 per liter used.
If your car's tank can hold 40 liters and you burned it all, this means you have created 95 680g of CO2, which is 95kg. Extrapolate that to your yearly gas consomption and you get a few tons of CO2 every year for running your car. Multiply that by the number of cars on the road and the consomption difference between cars, trucks, planes, etc. you get the whole heavy picture.
To go back to the video, when they say they can capture 4.5 tons of CO2, it really nothing... there has to be better, faster more efficient solution than carbon capture to invest in.
Guys I don’t think the feedback is to change the measuring metric, it’s more like the exemple below:
“20t of CO2, which is equivalent to X amount of cars stacked over one another”
Something more visual to the mind
agreed, he was also talking about increased yield of 1.2 tons/acre. I have no idea if that is 10% more or 70% more
@@markhaus Where you get that?
Carbon Capture is not the silver bullet to keep burning fuels but a way to help repair the damage from years of use.
There’s a couple of things I’ve been thinking about and would love for you to talk about. Different types of agriculture like permaculture and food forests. As well as farming in the ocean vertically. I’ve also been thinking about those sustainable cities. Ones that use porous pavement and stuff like The Sustainable City in Dubi. I personally haven’t heard much more about the last one in quite a while and I know Saudi Arabia’s The Line is getting more traction. Dunno if you wanna revisit The Line yet or wait a while longer for when even more info comes out. Anyways, another great video! Can’t wait to watch the next one!
I am suspicious of the ability of biochar facilities to capture resulting pollution from burning inefficient organic fuels. The process is carbon negative but soot and tar positive. I'd like to hear about how biochar plants are handling that. I also wonder about low volatility tars that remain bound to the finished charcoal and if they have a negative effect on soil and groundwater. Spreading a poorly cooked batch of char could be equivalent to an oil spill. The latter issue is easy enough to solve with reliable QC but I wonder about the former.
I wouldn't compare spreading a poorly cooked batch of biochar to an oil spill. There's a ton of mycorrhizal fungus species that take advantage of the volatiles present in unfully burned wood, take forest fires for example, they create space and resources for a whole clade of pioneering species. (as long as the burning isn't too frequent and wide-spread of course.)
Someone making biochar in their back yard the old school way the Amazonian did in pits and kilns will make a lot of soot. Any industrial scale pyrolysid machine will burn off all of that soot to provide enough energy to fuel the pyrolysis reaction. The only emissions should be co2 and water vapor
Burning biofuels is not carbon negative..first - you can "dry" biomass in 200-300C° on solar/wind/hydro.
Second, you mostly use biofuel - wood and or biomass, or even portion of same char.
@@romualdaskuzborskis burning biofuels isn’t, but burying biochar can be
In a professional setup, the only byproduct is water vapor. Please do more research before assuming there's a problem to be solved.
Biochar is particularly useful in poor soils occuring in the tropics and heavy clay soils. In heavy clay soils it actually improves soil structure, breaking up the clay layers making it easier for cultivation. In the northeast US we don't have any native earthworms. They were killed by the ice age and haven't made it back north yet. Our soils were built on fungal and bacterial decomposition. I don't know how biochar effects them but it largely beneficial to plant growth.
And now you have jumping worms there that threaten the maple syrup industry
What now? No earthworms in the northeast US? Am I missing something? I'm just outside Boston, and my yard is always swarming with earthworms. Please explain what you mean here, because I feel like that's just not true.
@@TheBeeFactory he said NATIVE earthworms
@@ColeSpolaric Gotcha. Didn't know they weren't native. I knew I had missed something there. Time to do some research!
@@TheBeeFactory When I heard the first time about earthworms being harmful I thought this guy must be nuts - here in Europe every child learns in school that they are very good for our ecosystem.
Shortly after that I saw a documentary how they are destroying the Canadian ecosystems.
(I'm a bit confused though because that documentary did not say anything about different species of earthworms ....)
Given that nearly every method has a "ticking time bomb" element, a time limit for the sequestration, I'm hesitant to consider these as any real long term solution, outside if where the carbon is being *used* and not just buried, or sunk in the ocean.
Biochar was used in the amazon forests and is making the land more fertile over 1000 years later. That top soil is now being sold off since it is so much more valuable than the surrounding soil.
Essential peice of the puzzle. Thank you for giving me more info on what is meant by carbon sequestration via agriculture. This was really helpful
What do you think of the permanence of biochar? I haven’t seen many papers showing that putting biochar in the soil is a good carbon sink over a timescale of decades or longer. Good for farming but not good for a long term solution. Happy to be proved wrong
Research Terra Petra in the Amazon Basin there has been some carbon dating to show the age of the carbon captured and stored in the soil.
From what I've seen it's estimated to last at least 200 years.
Duration is in Centuries. Used in terra preta with ceramic debris, up to 7000 years (and still going).
Even in highly bio-active regions like the Amazon, it lasts hundreds of years. In temperate regions, probably thousands.
Perseverance of biochar is largely a factor of the temperature it was cooked at. Low temp equals short lived and more toxic with PAHs like bbq charcoal. High temperature equals hundreds of years. This is what biochar needs to be.
Along the lines of using aggregate, etc. To sequester carbon, I work in the steelmaking industry, specifically on the metallurgical slag handling side, and we are currently supporting research into the use of steel slags and/or other materials) for both carbon sequestering as well as forming a calcium carbonate product which can then be used as a limestone replacement - so it's using a recovered resource to start, mitigating the need to quarry material, but it is also providing a useful end product which again can supplement limited quarried resources. In this scenario, the carbon capture almost takes a back seat to the financial benefits of taking an under utilised low value material and turning it into a mid to high value matierial which is desirable for other industrial applications.
What about all the harmful materials contained in the slag?
@@moos5221 such as? I'm not sure what you are thinking of that would be of concern for use in further industrial application?
@@benjaminmuscat7385 actually never mind. i thought there would likely be lead and other poisonous metals in the slag, but i just informed myself and realized i was wrong. slag has apparently been used for many applications for decades, seems reasonably safe.
@@moos5221 it depends on the type of slag, but for BOF Slag (which is what I deal with), it's very safe - the most concentrated metal we have to monitor is Chrome, and you are still talking about a fraction of a %, which is locked in and won't leach out
Thanks for the upload 🥰
Nice video I never heard of such thing. Thanks alot .
I'm not convinced... the best CO2 capture system is vegetation itself: Way better ratios of capture and even releases O2 (which turns O3 on Thunderstorms). What we need is more forests. But the video was awesome! XD
We have lots of former farms that are now too small scale and not used that could be allowed to return to forest.
Instead people have mostly grass covered these areas and then mow them by diesel powered tractor.
What does it turn to on Thunderf00ts?
Great informative video. I am in favor of all-the-above. We need all of the solutions. And do not forget we need to stop the dis-information. We need to stop companies from advertising on dis-information media outlets.
I do a lot of work in Detroit Mi, and spend a fair amount of time interacting with the residents of the city that live the lowest income area's. Last year I was having a conversation with a group of local moms when a Tesla drove past and got us talking about climate change. And every single person there said they had to worry far too much about the utilities being shut off or being able to feed their kids more than once a day to be concerned with climate change.
And when you look around this world you will see that there is an extraordinary percentage of the worlds population is living under similar or even worse conditions. They just don't have the money for electric cars or any other of the lower emission technologies. Many want to point at carbon capture as a way for companies just to keep on polluting, all the while missing the fact that the majority of humans are far worse off then themselves and we are talking billions of people in destitution around the globe. So personally I'm two thumbs up for carbon capture, sure its super expensive right now but it was not all that long ago that building a solar power plant cost as much as a nuclear power plant. And I think it will buy us the time we need to get low emission technologies to a point where the majority of people can afford them and once its affordable for the lower income community it will be willingly adopted with out the need for claims that the world will end in 12 years or any of the drama that we are currently seeing.
So bring on the R&D and let the brilliance run loose, and when we are done lets send that tech to Venus and get a second planet to use. If we can prevent the runaway greenhouse effect here on earth, why cant we stop one already under way right. After all the sky is not the limit, Its actually the starting line.
Holy crap. Your b-roll is incredible. Not sure where you get your footage but the quality is insane. Good job
Did I hear 6:53 that its bad for Earthworms? I'd need that study... Such a drastic changes to our environment, in hopes of reducing carbon outside of limiting/altering our use without knowing its impact, sounds wreckless.
I'm sure it depends on the soil type and organic matter content. Biochar is rather highly alkaline, sorta like wood ash, so in some soils for a season of two, it can push the pH around some. I think it is in highly acidic rain leached soils that it does the most crop benefits. In clay soils the aeration effects are likely beneficial, but in naturally alkaline soil, it probably doesn't help that much. The carbon in charcoal is very good at grabbing onto nitrogen that otherwise might get leached away, and slowly releasing it to the soil microbiome, to get to the crops eventually.
@@chuckgoecke Thank you for providing more information and perspective. Definitely something to look into.
And I can understand the benefit to the crops and our consumption needs. I'm just worried about the steps well take to further our species, while being a detriment to others. Its not like our population will slow or plateau at the perfect balance for nature... where do we draw any lines?
Either way, what I love about this channel is looking for ways to better our world for the benefit to all!!! 😄 Let's keep Searching/Researching.
I think biochar is a very interesting alternative. Especially if you can make the biochar from the plant leftovers from the farm and turn it there in to biochar. The heat can be used to heat the facility or greenhouses. I tried the biochar on my gardens compost. It is very promising! All the kitchen waste (even lemons) are decomposed after about 3 to 6 months. The biochar also gives space for microorganisms and enhances the composting process. It's cheap fast and a very good soil with a lot of earthworms.
Man these are such great videos! Thanks Matt.
Very nice Thanks for your knowledge sharing
Good video! As a Chef I am super interested in the development of more sustainable farming, and combining carbon capture with enhanced food growth is a huge step. Hope these new technologies really work out to be positive.
In the Netherlands there are various area's where off gas from natural gas fired power stations is directly led through green houses. Farmers even have to pay for the CO2 .... To me the whole CO2 story is a hoax as nature is perfectly capable of dealing with that. The CO2 percentage in air is ....... only 0.035 % or 350 ppm. And the reason for that low percentage is because plants absorb the CO2 and break it down to O2 and C. THe plants keep the C for their growth and they return O2 to the atmosphere. Forget sequestration and that sort nonsense.
Using nuclear power would reduce CO2 emissions drastically. It's always fossil fuels vs renewables, not what actually is the most efficient and best atm.
Fear of possible nuclear disasters is causing actual climate change disasters.
We have ran out of time, in the West (Europe US etc) Most Nuclear plants take 20+years min from planning to producing energy to the grid. We don't have that time left to adapt. Also, many Nuclear reactors are being curtailed or shut down because either the water is too hot to cool it or the water level is too low to guarantee reliable water supply (Read up on France for example). Nuclear is not sufficient quickly enough, carbon capture is not sufficient quickly enough, stopping burning stuff and putting WW2 level resources into green energy MIGHT be enough to save civilisation as we know it.
We don't need nuclear power to solve the problem, there are other ways that we know work. Given that nuclear is so expensive, and so risky we should use the other options that are available.
@@tlangdon12 Nuclear isn't that risky. There have been, what, 3 reactor incidents? And we can discount Chernobyl because that was soviet stupidity not building it properly. Two accidents out of how many hundreds of reactors running for decades? Pretty safe sounding to me. And I suspect LCOE is not bad for nuclear, and a nuclear plant only occupies a single acre of ground while getting the same power from solar requires hundreds of acres (usually in the form of clear-cutting forests or converting farmland).
Disposing of the waste is a bit of a challenge, but that is the only real down side to it.
@@blueswannabe Yes and no. Climate change is reversible. It will take time but every little thing helps, not just one big solution. It's impossible to shift to 100% green energy in 20 years. So nuclear will have an impact, especially if the West invests in nuclear energy in smaller nations that primarily use fossil fuels and won't be able to change even in 50 years.
@@TheHipClip "It's impossible to shift to 100% green energy in 20 years". No it is not, it is VERY possible, expensive yes, complicated, yes, we would need to ration power during the transition, yes, but it is very VERY doable. Now, does the political will exist to do so? Sadly I doubt it.
Existing Tech can do it, we could power Europe from Sahara alone. It is NOT easy but the alternative is millions of people starving and dying of thirst.
We don't have 20 years before the food chain and water supply collapses compared to what it is and how it is now, if we're lucky 10.
I work in the cleantech sector and this channel is amazing !
another great video, thanks Matt
The bio char option paired with dump greenwaste disposal sounds like a promising option!
I would like to see more research into the stability of biochar when it's used like that. When it's eaten, or put in the soil, does it actually stay as elemental carbon? I feel like there has to be some bacteria that when given nutrient rich soil and carbon and water is going to do something to the carbon. And there are some naturally occurring oxidizing compounds.
I'm sure it'll stay for a little bit, but i'd like this sort of solution to last at least a couple centuries. If we put the biochar somewhere away from water i feel like it could last millennia if not eons (assuming we don't just burn it), but in farms? or cow stomachs? idk. At least it'd be hard to put it in a power plant if it's spread out that much
bacteria don't eat graphene
you don't even need it to be stable for centuries, if it's table for a few decades or a century it's enough to have an impact on the climate
@@zazugee
biochar is more similar to coal than graphite. And some bacteria eat coal, according to my googling.
Yeah, decades is better than nothing (though, those bacteria sometimes turn it into methane, which is worse than CO2, so maybe it isn’t better than nothing). But I’m unsure that nothing is the alternative. These companies are going to buy carbon offsets either way, i like to think there are more long-term offset options. Like biochar that isn’t mixed with the soil.
there were many studies done on biochar but the most important ones, there was even done on multiple years on site and they found reduction in greenhouse emissions from soil and reduction in nitric gasses
it makes perfect sense because biochar seems to have an effect that slow downs bacterial decomposition in soils specially when mixed with compost, but the positive aspect on fertility is it's capacity to retain nutrients and reducing losses
but the reduction of decomposition should also help in accumulation soil carbon instead of it being reduced because of higher soil bacterial activity
Great video and even better topic
Great summary of the topic as always 👍 thanks for your work.
I work together with a startup on enhanced rock weathering. I even made an explainer video (also in EN).
I think you nailed it 👌
I think some people in the comments are getting the wrong idea with carbon capture. The idea is not to rid ourselves completely of the evil CO2 molecule in the atmosphere. In fact, doing so would kill the planet, as the carbon cycle is what keeps everything alive. Earth organisms are, after all, carbon-based. We still need carbon to enter and leave the atmosphere as a part of the carbon cycle - we just need to keep more of it on the planet and less of it in the atmosphere. It's actually okay for it to enter the atmosphere again - as long as we can keep enough of it out of the atmosphere at any given time to ensure we're not at risk of a climate crisis.
Thank you for pointing that out! I thought I made that clear in the video, but clearly didn't. We need CO2 for a healthy ecosystem, but the amount is out of balance.
Well said mate.
Have you heard of the recent project to remove acid from the oceans to improve their ability to capture carbon? I'd be curious to hear your take on the viability of that project.
Congratz on one million subscribers! And thanks for the vids!
Thanks!
Great video. You should also do a video on regenerative agriculture and how well it works to sequester carbon in large scale agriculture as it requires very little change from current techniques and technology.
Wouldn’t a combination of algae reactors and biochar be perfect to fill up old coal mines with sequestered carbon?
Just let the algae grow, harvest and char it and then bury the char where the carbon originally came from.
It might even be possible to extract nutrients from the algae that could be used to fertilise the algae reactors.
I‘m no specialist on this topic, but to me this seems like a efficient way to use these technologies and to make use of the holes and cave systems we dug to get the coal in the first place.
I've had thoughts along these lines for a while. Vegetable oils would provide a carbon-rich lubricant to allow granulated biochar to the pumped underground.
Problem: scaling algae does not work, billions have been burned without an output
@@tlangdon12 or we could just manually place the biochar underground. Mines usually have elevators and railway systems in them, which could easily be used to bring the char down where we can pack it into the caves and shafts of an old mine.
Producing vegetable oils is quite energy intensive and pumping them underground would also sequester nutrients that were taken out of the soils in growing the plants they are extracted from.
Altough creating artificial oil using biochar might be a interesting idea to eventually fill up oil fields that have run dry or to create carbon neutral fuel.
Don't forget we still need carbon in the industry. Carbon fiber is an excellent example, which could replace mining for metals to build cars, for example.
We don't need to bury it.
Downside, you will get less carbon stored than what you extracted, because burning it will release some of the CO2 and the rest will be oxygen and hydrogen rich depending on how burned you put it in the ground, and coal is almost pure carbon so you get less packed carbon, but this will not fix the loss of forests cut for furniture, burning, paper, or farmland acquisition (lime to cement). And doing a C-R to CO2 to C-R loses energy so you are burning coal to make less coal than what you burned up.
BUSTED!
I was associated for a short while with a company that actually captured rock dust at crushing plants. This is a waste, problem, product at the crushing plants but when I used it on my garden it was AMAZING. The results with plant growth really were noticeable. I tried to convince the (rock dust company) owners to try and incorporate bio-char and rock dust together. { I had been talking to a biochar promoter at the Sydney Royal Easter Show (and even bought his book).} Unfortunately the rock dust company failed so nothing happened. I still think rock dust / bio-char would be a good mix as I've seen the results of both with plants and the results were very impressive. Jim Bell(Australia)
A few months ago when I suggested doing a piece on BIOCHAR i didn’t expect the comparisons and inclusions of the CO2 sequestration as the focus. Biochar’s total potential has not been realized yet. Because most people can make their own BIOCHAR locally, as Joshua Hunt started out years ago before creating “Pacific BIOCHAR”, it is mostly left up to the local user to produce the Char in a manner that is best for his application. Producing quantity sufficient enough to earn “Carbon Credits” to sell as mr. Hunt does will not help the local end user to defray the costs associated with making “BIOCHAR”. There are too many benefits in the incorporation of “BIOCHAR” to the soil to rely on this comment alone.
Your presentation was wonderful, as usual.
Hi Matt, you have some interesting topics their but as with all procedures their seems to be a problem that has just been glossed over because it doses not help the sale of the material. In this case it is worms, they are the most effective breakdown machined ever and are free of charge, but biomass stops the worms from entering the soil so a quick mention at the beginning and then omitting any other mentions gets rid of that problem, but it does sent change the problem it just bures it and that is that hopping that no-one will bring it up again. Worms are one of the most beneficent animals in the world and they should be encouraged not ignored, I hope this will set up a healthy debate and I am sure that you will allow all forms of debate on your channels
I think we need to try every idea. Every effort is a good effort.
Hard agree. We are going to need everything.
Thanks for your always great videos.
At The Oaktree in the US we are developing a scalable carbon removal platform of multi-integrated modular factories removing +400,000 MtCO2-e p.a. By processing waste materials such as bio solids, producing biochar, renewable energy and algae. 🙂
Great video. We have a long way to go, but thankfully we have people like you to help paint a map.
👍 Thanks.
One thing I'm curious about: We always talk about the cost of carbon capture in $/ton. With these natural forms of carbon capture providing other benefits, how much of this cost can be offset by additional profits, perhaps through increased agricultural yield?
Currently, we get plenty of CO2 added to the atmosphere "for free" because it is a natural byproduct of a number of profitable processes. Is there a way to remove CO2 for free by having the other benefits of the carbon capture process create so much profit?
Really good question!
All of these fancy high tech methods of storing CO2 will never scale. Just plant a few hundred billion trees and be done with it. A dollar per planted tree is a good salary for a professional tree planter in a first world nation, so all in we could hire people in poor polluted countries to plant em for pennies on the dollar and solve all our problems in a matter of years, for less money than was spent on COVID stimulus. The only thing we'd have to watch is to ensure they aren't just digging up trees from elsewhere and claiming they planted new trees, we'd have to be sure that new trees are being grown and planted.
@@theredscourge Until the trees age, die and decompose .... or burn in forest fires as the earth warms and drought conditions increase. Other than those issues, nothing but blue sky ahead.
@@SeattleCoorain Okay fine, let's get rid of all the trees because they might burn down one day, and see what happens. Smarter than half the stuff the government has tried for the sake of the environment.
A shift away from petroleum plastic to plant-based plastics is a good start.
However, there is already a cheaper, easier, simpler, safer, and quicker means of mass carbon capture and storage: wood.
Use wood for almost everything it can but most importantly furniture and construction.
Wood gets broken down back to CO2, in due time... as it's exposed to atmospheric oxygen
@@jzxynow2a8gs21
Key terms:
in time
when exposed to atmospheric oxygen [and water]
Meaning wood that’s sealed, or not generally exposed to environment conducive to rotting, is a viable carbon capture and storage option.
Even burying tons of wood underground in sealed containers is a more readily accessible form of capture and storage.
Simple solution: pay people to grow trees then pay them again per unit mass or volume of wood stored.
@@montithered4741 Anoxic also has it's own problems, also it's not that much slower.
But the main issues with wood burial is nutrient lock up, (you are stripping away the good soil to be locked up deep), and disturbing forest and soil eco diversity, when done at the scale you are proposing
@@jzxynow2a8gs21
Trees are vast majority carbohydrates, most of the rest being water; they don’t deplete topsoil.
If trees depleted topsoil, then old growth forests couldn’t exist, to say nothing of sequoias and giant redwoods.
The scale is an advantage.
Trees exist in nearly every climate and terrain; making them much more available for widespread use,
no
A very interesting look at this technology. Thank you for sharing.
I've used rock dust for nearly 30 years in my gardens to improve the quality of soils and the health of my plants, with emphasis on food crops. While I wasn't talking to fellow gardeners about sequestering carbon we all understood that taking care of the soil is key to survival of the planet.
Since the early 1980's rock dust has proven a godsend for sections of Germany's famous Black Forest. At about the same time in Northhampton, Massachusetts Joanna Campe was starting the organization Soil Remineralization (now called Remineralize The Earth) to teach people about the many benefits of rock dust. And long before that John Hamaker and Don Weaver, authors of The Survival of Civilization, warned us we were running out of time, and advised that we get going right away with dusting.
Secrets of the Soil, by Tompkins and Bird provides an amazing education on this and many, many related topics. We don't need to turn this into yet another expensive playground for technologists to milk until the next ice age. We need to dust. Now.
There's no downside to biochar. It can be fueled from renewable crops.
Hemp for example pulls more carbon out of the atmosphere than trees, and it grows incredibly fast. It could be turned into biochar for permanent sequestration.
Hemp/cannabis should be widely used. He's covered the uses of hemp for building materials too.
tropical plants are many
@@fatjonseatingadventures5429 I agree with cannabis 100%
Hemp is a great crop for many uses, but dedicating large amounts of land to it for biochar is an absolute downside. There are enormous pressures on land use already, and we're seeing natural systems being converted to monocultures on a large scale, leading to loss of biodiversity. This matters too.
What about all the soot and other particles released from burning the material?
I've noticed a lot of permaculturists are now encouraging fellow gardeners to make their own biochar, but of course they don't have the same technology at their fingertips and this necessarily burns more oxygen than manufactured biochar.
However, that said, they seem to be happy with the results (which, to my mind, would be quite difficult to quantify, since all permaculturists are doing several things to improve their soils throughout the year anyway).
With regard to enhanced weathering, since there must be a limit to the amount of crushed basalt that can be added to agricultural fields - on account of the heavy metals they may contain - would this not be better as a product that could be offered to parks and ornamental gardens, where such elements are not going to be eaten.
Also, what about 'phytomining' the heavy metals out of the crushed rock?
If basalts from one area could be investigated to see what their components are, they could then be sold in fertilizer mixes to benefit such plants with phytomining in mind.
Box shrubs, for example, could be 'mined' for silver, an element the plant is known to retain. Certain fungi also draw certain heavy metals out of the ground, including elements like copper and cadmium. In fact, some mushrooms, like Wood Hedgehogs, come with a warning, foragers advised not to consume too many if the area has suffered radioactive poisoning recently, since they are likely to draw radioactive metals out of the soil.
Honestly the real solution is everybody should just have their own greenhouse or garden but gardening and other skills are not being passed down as readily as they once were and it's becoming a lost skill to most.
I have been making my own biochar, adding bokashijuice to it. After a year in my garden crops have increased significally.
Great piece. The biochar makes more sense than anything I have seen. There are tree farms all over the southeast that need to be cut down and replanted to sequester carbon. There are also a lot of farming plant by products that biochar would be a help to farmers both to get rid of and use.
I think that biochar has the potential to literally change the world, becouse in some places it already did. Im talking about Terra preta the antropomorfic fertile soil. South America and Afrika have naturally poor soil. Just imagine what it would mean to global food production if we could make these areas more fertile.
I am sceptical of carbon capture by pumping CO2 under ground. Given fault systems and earthquakes (yes we get them in UK too) and fraking and tunneling, it hard to see how the CO2 will not eventually get out. Also when it combines with the ground water it is likely to produce sink holes etc in the limestone.
So not a good long term outlook.
However, I think it might have a short term role to play in "playing for time" to stop us getting cooked while better solutions are worked out.
Reguards bio-char, it would be better if the heat applied could be by solar furnaces. Charcoal is an ingredient of gas masks so maybe it could be further used to trap CO2, SOx, NOx etc and stored down the old depleted coal mines. Burning biochar seems to defeat the object.
Further more bio waste can be composted. It would produce methane but that could be captured for fuel or further treated to produce amorphous carbon and H2.
It must be exciting to work in planet saving, but a battle against time?
The oil that we mine doesn't leak out from the ground very much at all, so it will be safe enough if we put it where we got all the oil from.
The idea isn't to pump CO2 under ground. It's to pump carbon in more stable forms under ground.
@@mikelord93 Good but what forms of CO2 are more stable?
@@emmabird9745 Limestone is an example. CaO + CO2 -> CaCO3. There are other ways, but pumping CO2 directly into the ground is a disaster waiting to happen
@@mikelord93 I agree on both counts. Pumping CO2 into the ground is a disaster and quick lime +CO2 makes limestone. Unfortunately quick lime (CaO) is not naturally occurring and is usually produced by roasting lime stone to make cement. If the cement industry was a country it would rank no8 for CO2 production. I heard that somewhere so 8 might not be current.
For those who don't know the biochar process here is being sold. They call it "biochar", "SynGas", and "pyrolysis oil". These are all marketing terms for the actual products: charcoal, wood gas, and tar.
You made it . Well deserved and love the videos . Next 2 million subscribers . Go for it
Thank you for having a more nuanced view on this. When compared to 'Just Have a Think's channel, I believe you've got a better overall idea of what needs to be done and how we can ACTUALLY get there.
And Our Changing Climate. That guy has gone full Anti-Capitalist mode and proposes unreasonable solutions that no one would agree to commit to. We need to think pragmatically about making the transition to clean energy instead of trying to take a shortcut to abolish capitalism and getting nowhere as a result.
Strange. I've always found JHAT to be very realistic / down to earth / bordering on cynical, and Undecided to be more optimistic. Most of Matt's videos are "hey look at this cool idea". This one is a bit unusual.
@@adrianthoroughgood1191 JHAT is very pie-in-the-sky, leaning far away from methods that reflect the reality of human nature. I had to unsub.
I came across Enhanced Weathering a few months ago and was really impressed with it. I am really glad to see you cover the topic. But even more, I am becoming deeply impressed with your site. Now I can't wait for each of your next topics. You cover with balance, consideration of why things were in the past, the realism of not just 'flipping a switch' to change, and the possibilities that can come. I feel if more people were of the balanced mentality that you present, we would not be as fragmented as a species as we are today, at each others throats. Keep doing your 'thing' and keep enlightening us to all the possibilities that human imagination can discover. Bless you all.
acid rain causes enhanced weathering.
@@janami-dharmam hahaha so we were right after all
Hi Matt, I just wanted to comment on a couple things you said about biochar. One was that the permanence is uncertain. There are several research pieces on this, and it is well defined based on properties or production processes. The other thing you said is that biochar needs more research in the ag industry. It turns out it is the most researched topic in soil science, and it solves several issues in the industry while displacing fossil fuels and reducing fertilizer usage. Biochar can improve in other carbon capture methods such as DAC, algae, concrete, and anaerobic fermentation. It can also replace many pollutant ad/absorbents. The fact that biochar is graphite makes it a great sustainable alternative for many uses in the tech sector. This is something I think about while watching your interesting shows.
👍
The solution:
-E-fuel made from Co2 and water. Completely Carbon neutral.(no dirty EV batteries)
-tax stuff to fund Co2 capture.(The tax must fund Co2 capture to take out more than what the product emitted)
-get electricity from renewable sources.
I am already using biochar in my potting compost for the plants I sell in place of vermiculite and perlite. I have just got some rock dust to add to the mix but it is expensive £10 for 20kg so I will see if it makes any difference to the plants. The biochar is a bit more expensive than the vermiculite and perlite but I think its worth the extra cost.
I've wondered if biochar could replace perlite. I can't find any data.
You can make biochar easily if you have a wood burner, or solar cooker, you need a metal container with a small gas outlet. Place some wood in the container. Place the container in the fire. The volatiles will burn out the hole. Rapid quenching will preserve the char in its carbonized state. If it cools slowly in air, it will burn to ash. Dont get the fire too hot, or the container will get damaged too much.
@@LOOGamala you can dig a hole to make biochar
@@razingcanez717 yes you can but the combustion releases more VOCs and PAHs. It better to put it in a proper combustion chamber.
One thing always bothers me with innovation dedicated to tackling climate change.
We are talking about ideas that “need more innovation”, “more funds”, that will have real impact “in the near future”.
But the urgency and capital importance of tackling climate change implies a need for options that are already available now and that works with a very high certainty.
I feel like this hopeful gaze into future technologies might be blinding us from the reality that we need to put all our efforts in what we know will work 100% of the time.
A lot of it sounds like too little too late, and it won’t save us from making huge efforts and sacrifices if we want to have a real impact on climate change.
This is often my problem with the tech-focused side of environmentalism: the reality is we do have the technology and the knowhow necessary to transition already, they're just expensive and potentially disruptive to our current lifestyles. But the thing is people don't seem to want to accept the compromises that implementing those solutions will inevitably come with, so they turn to tech and think that we can just innovate our way out of the apocalypse, when the reality is that transitioning society will be both costly and in some cases uncomfortable or strange. This is not to say that tech doesn't have an immense role to play or that we shouldn't try to make the transition as smooth as possible, just that the urgency of climate change necessitates radical changes to our society as a whole in order to ensure its very survival.
Great video!
I’m thinking it would be helpful to measure the cost of CO2 sequestering model in terms of dollars per ton of CO2, but also in two other ways that would give a sense of how rapid the removal is and how much land area is required: dollars per ton of CO2 per year, and dollars per ton of CO2 per acre.
I’m wondering why we never hear about sequestering CO2 from seawater, since seawater contains a much higher concentration of carbon than does the atmosphere.
Please keep updating us .
Hey Matt, great video!
It's interesting to see which new technologies are available to help us deal with the CO2 emissions issue. In addition to these technologies, we also have to do our part. Our team worked on a video explaining why planting tree isn't enough to reduce CO2 emissions. The idea behind it is that we need to invest in increasing sustainable development from local communities and combating deforestation. In the end, the solution will be uniting the available technologies and collective actions.
Satalites pictures show that large areas are getting greener without any further human intervention ....
You didn't mention Regenerative agriculture. This sequesters vast amounts of carbon in the soil, uses no artificial inputs to the soil allows the soil to hold more water and reduces polluting runoff
Love the video as always, but, a bit offtopic, at 9:49, love seeing part of my country (Bay of Kotor, or more specifically, Risan bay and Verige strait)
I have been using Biochar for 10 years in my Garden, Replace every 3 years because of salt build-up & PH is the same with or without Biochar ! Several raised beds, different set-ups / Hydroponics systems/ But I will try it & see if it will GROW !
Frankly we need to be taking every measure possible to improve/maintain our soil conditions... From what I understand we're on the brink of a soil collapse right now. If there's something that reduces erosion AND sequesters carbon? It's kind of a no brainer... Biochar seems like a gimme. The basalt seems more like a shot in the dark that needs to be explored further.
Great video Matt! Would you be interested in exploring the "failed promises" side of carbon capture, similar to what you did with carbon credits? I hugely appreciate that you are honest about the challenges new technologies face, and, well, that some companies fall short of their promises. I recently learned about fertilizer companies capitalizing on federal grants to lower CO2. If the only metric for environmentalism is green house gasses, the program looks great. The flip side is that these fertilizers are leading to soil toxicity and hurt crop yields after a few years of use. I'm sure the fertilizer companies will have a product to sell to "help" with that too. Unfortunately that's as far as I understand the topic and would love to learn more.
Matt, one day you are going to have to decide. I do appreciate the work you put into complicated topics. Have you done or considered an episode dedicated to ammonia fuel technology?
Very insightful and delightful. Great to be shown instances of people solving problems for a change.
3D printers have found many new applications. Including printing replacement human organs in LEO. How much about them is hype? You have to be the one to tell us.
Matt, massive global reforestation (and logging/sequestering logs) is the only carbon capture technology that is viable. It's easy and the most poorly run country on earth can organize it.
Massive global reforestation is only a temporary solution, as all that wood will get decomposed eventually.
Can think of it as a buffer, it will go so far as the total organic mass in all the live trees can allow for, no more no less.
@@jzxynow2a8gs21 No. Sequester the logs in an old open pit mine. Keep stacking them. They won't rot. Eventually the will be coal again.
@@oisiaa That's not how it works bruh.
Open Pit Sequestration will not ( ever ) turn wood into coal, you will eventually get all your CO2 back. There was a time and an age where this would have worked, and that has passed since long before humans even came into the scene.
Matt you presented both Biochar and enhanced weathering as having potential to improve soil. I wonder how these stack up against standard soil treatments, which for all of their benefits, have massive downsides. Could a farmer treat a field with biochar and/or enhanced weathering as an alternative to anhydrous ammonia or manure?
The enhanced weathing is a process that has been used in the reef aquarium hobby for decades. Using a calcium reactor you are basically pumping C02 into a chamber of water and old coral skeleton. The C02 lowers the ph and melts the skeleton and that effluent is dripped back into the system and feeds the growth of new coral skeleton
Earthworms actually aren't native to most of North America. I am in a ton of soil science, plant nerds, and everyone just assumes earthworms equals healthy soil, but a lot of our ecosystems adapted to not need them and their introduction is actually harmful. Interesting stuff.
Nature has given us a way to carbon capture... IT'S CALLED PLANTING TREES!
Planting trees then using trees for everything. The future is wood.
If you see any tile, ceramic, stone, plastic, or concrete, replace those with wood.
Good video. Co2 capture is an important technology since it can help with the environment as we bridge the gap from fossil fuels to green energy. This switch will likely take several decades if not more. In addition, there is no such thing as green energy. Some energy sources have lower impacts than others but all energy sources do have some negative effect on the environment.
Good show, Matt.
The reason “burning” oil is problematic is because vast quantities of ancient stored carbon is released all at once. Just like biochar I wonder if biofuel doesn’t provide that equilibrium we’re after. Grow the fuel, use the fuel. Constant cycling of carbon as it is done in nature.
Just 2 points from a realist: there are already too much carbon in the atmosphere. Even if we stop producing more today, the Earth is still going to heat up for decades. The second point is that we aren't going to be able to stop using fossil fuels soon. We need to reduce it as much as possible, but we need new technologies for that. From technologies to generate more energy, in a clean way, to battery technologies.
So... I'm happy there are people trying to remove carbon from the atmosphere. I'm also happy that there are people trying to make new and better technologies, like new types of batteries and solar panels. But we need much more. MUCH more.
If you want to help solve our climate problem, pressure politics to put more money in scientific P&D.
Oil is going to be forgot with time, by creating new and cheaper technologies, that produces more energy.
All the carbon we are releasing into the atmosphere was once sequestered out.
It annoys me that noone mentions weakening magnetosphere or solar weather when talking about climate. A massive part is ignored.
great information
1:09, many greetings from there! And thanks to pic the huge machines up.
I❤DXB
Alright--999k subs!
I like how carbon capture seems like general, blanket and easily applied option to augment our tools.
Renewables and other forms of carbon sequestration are two sides of the same coin.
1 million
A lot of people feel that carbon capture lets the oil and coal companies off the hook, and it does, but at this point everything must be on the table.
Something I don’t understand is that according to the Worldometers website which cites BP and the International Energy Agency as their sources, there’s only enough oil to supply the world at the current rate of consumption based on known reserves for another 41 years, until 2063. It’s there in plain english on their website. The real apocalypse isn’t climate change, is running out of petroleum without finding a lasting substitute to fuel human civilisation. The decade that oil runs out, transport, shipping and air travel comes to a halt along with personal transportation is literally the end of civilisation, unless a viable alternative can be phased in and scaled up with incredible urgency. Unless I’m missing something.
@@justwords3882 And yet the science says it works. Who are you going to beleive? Scientists or a randomly generated user name on the internet?
@@tlangdon12 CCS works but energy and material costs are prohibitively expensive. So yes it's a CON.
@@3rdrock You’re repeating that mindlessly like a parrot, because it’s inconvenient for you. It also shows an ironic lack of trust in the ability of scientists to innovate and improve technology.
@@wattlebough Oh really. Tell us where are all these wonderful CCS processes actually operating? and I'm not talking about unconventional oil and gas recovery.
Stop bleating for your FF masters like the useful idiot you are.
The problem with biochar is that it can take nutrients away from the soil for an extended period of time before it can become accessible. This is where priming the char ahead of time matters. If that requires it going through a digestive tract, also removing toxins in the process, then it can offset the problem that I mentioned. However, how many nutrients can it also take away from the animal during that digestive process? I'd love to see a study done on this potential issue.
I quite like the colourful and relaxing shots of the sea, fields, and even landscape shots including industrial stuff. It's photogenic, but it's also misleading and soporific -- it makes viewers wrongly reassured because it's colourful and relaxing. The trouble is it's generated by commercially active players pushing their line, be it a bit of tech or an idea, and the alternative is just to video Matt reading the script, so it might was well be an audio, not a video.
Interesting
There’s no way you watched it already since it just came out.
@@Toqtamish129 I’m built different
I love the idea of carbon capture, especially the idea of burying carbon. We pulled the carbon out of the ground, seems like the only way to fix it is to put the carbon back into the ground.
It has the attraction of simplicity as you put it -like all great ideas! More significantly , I think it wold enjoy widespread public support as an alternative to lifestyle changes being proposed -even if the taxpayer had to dig deep in his pocket to fund what seems an uneconomic process at present. Also it does not need the widespread negotiation with property owners that some of the soil-based proposals would need. Altogether much less disruptive to-peoples lives!
As a chemical engineer I wholly support biochar. It is a mature technology that has been around for thousands of years. The economic feasibility however is another story. Only the recent advent of corporations and individuals buying carbon credits in the form of tons of biochar make it feasible. The technology reduces the carbon 1:1. Put a ton of biochar into the ground-that's one ton out of the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Completely carbon negative. If there were government subsidies (and I think there should be) that made it feasible, most farmers could be convinced of the benefit. All you need to do is look at the amazon basin (which has very poor soil) and it's use of biochar charcoal to form Terra Preta soil to see the incredible results. As to one commenters question about the volatile organic compounds and tars produced- they are burned off-that's where the fire to make the biochar comes from. In a modern facility the resulting smoke goes up a stack just like in a coal fired plant. The difference is that instead of ash as a byproduct, you get the biochar.
so far all the carbon removal technologies that i read about have something negative: 1. the enchanted weathering... as a farmer i would not spray rocks that i don't know what they contain on thousands of hectares potentially risking to poison the fields. 2. DAC? removing co2 from the air with filters and injecting it into the ground? what is the risk of poisoning the water aquifers? 3. making charcoal out of bales of dried crops? we feed the cows with that. idk.. i would like to have a good solution for co2 emission but we really don't have anything at scale right now
It makes me crazy when people dismiss carbon capture out hand as a ploy by fossil fuel companies to keep burning. I agree the best long term idea would be to end fossil fuel but until then we should be using everything we can to bring down carbon levels. We need to be throwing everything we have at the problem regardless.
To be fair, that is a very valid concern. That's essentially what all of ccs has been used up until now. In norway they capture carbon and pump it down oil and gas wells to increase pressure so they can extract more fossil fuels. The same has been happening in thr US. 'Clean coal' is just coal used in a power plant equipped with a ccs system. Unfortunately, there's no restrictions on what powers the ccs, so they build a gas plant next door and use that to power the ccs of the coal plant, completely negating any benefit that might come from the implementation of ccs.
Yes, ccs has a lot of potential, but so do a lot of technologies and ideas, and that doesnt stop it from being abused by those who stand to gain if we keep fossil fuels flowing.
"From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Matthew 4:17
"But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." Matthew 5:39|
@@rfldss89 I agree and would like to see these companies made irrelevant and disappear but until then we need everything we can get
For me, what makes me think direct air capture isn't currently the best idea is the opportunity costs. The idea behind DAC is that you power it with renewable energy, from solar panels or wind turbines. But there is a limited supply of those panels and turbines, so using that energy for DAC means not using that energy on the grid, displacing fossil fuel powered electricity generation, usually coal. Figures I found online for Carbon Engineering is that their technology captures carbon at a rate of 409 gram/kWh (8.8GJ per tonne of captured CO2), while coal power plants emit 800-1200 gram/kWh, and natural gas with the leakage included emits 500-700 gram/kWh. This means that the most effective way to use the renewable energy generation to reduce the CO2 in our atmosphere is to use the renewable energy to produce electricity, displacing coal and gas generation.
Of course, in places where the addition of renewable energy would not result in the displacement of fossil fuels DAC would make sense, but due to the global market in solar panels and wind turbines only places such as Iceland with their abundant hydropower would be suitable for this.
This whole argument could also be made for CCS, but the figure that I found was 1440 gram/kWh, so this is in fact worth the effort
The point is it FAR cheaper to burn less fossil than to capture carbon emissions. So right now CCS is not really an alternative.
But in the bigger picture we still need CCS, when we get our energy production "carbon free" (or fairly close to that) CCS is the way to decrees the atmospheric CO2 level again and very much needed. And it's a good thing that those technology pop up now so we have them ready when they are needed and not just start the research too late.
Also countries like Iceland are already carbon free in their energy sector with their great geothermal preconditions and they start to use their excess carbon free energy to store carbon.
So close to 1 million! In a world full of misinformation, its nice to have a reliable source of knowledge that even the most lament can understand. Thanks for teaching the next generation the importance of science and new technologies.
They all have merit. I don’t think they need be mutually exclusive. But I really enjoy how they all give carbon a little tap on the shoulder to let it know it’s in the wrong place if it wants to be useful.
I live in SE Asia - a part of the World where crop residues are routinely and traditionally burnt but now there is a nascent trend to composting instead. Speaking from personal experience I can say that good compost (it isn't difficult to make - nature does most of the 'heavy lifting') can be transformative in the horticultural sector and even the agricultural sector with compost teas. AND the carbon+(nitrogen) returned to the soil reduces the load going into the atmosphere. WIN-WIN!