Mark, CC List
This is mainly to support your last paragraph below on fossil fuel corporation
responsibilities. It is also to comment on your book.
Both responses through further inserts below.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marc Gunther" <[email protected]>
To: "geoengineering" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2012 12:10:02 PM
Subject: [geo] Re: Calgary meeting on Direct Air Capture - thoughts?
Like Oliver, I attended the Calgary conference and I believe that air
capture technology is worth pursuing--not as a substitute for CCS,
surely not as a substitute for mitigation but as another pathway that
could help move the world closer (yes, yes, not fast enough, not far
enough, I know) to a low-carbon or no-carbon economy.
[RWL1: In the opening note in this thread, I cited your 11 March report on the
Calgary meeting
http://www.marcgunther.com/2012/03/11/direct-air-capture-of-co2-is-becoming-a-business-for-better-or-worse/
I have just re-read that and you seem to have already captured well the recent
comments on this list.
Re your phrase above "move the world closer", I see quite a big difference
between using the captured CO2 to make fuels and using it for EOR. Could you
comment on how the attendees in Calgary handled these two (and any other)
options for the DAC output?
This question is in part related to the 7:21 minute Carbon Engineering video,
which you introduced in your last sentence at the above site . One minute
before the end, the young engineer says that the necessary CO2 for a gallon of
synthetic petrol would cost a dollar. Could you (or anyone) say a) what that
relates to in $/tonne CO2, and b) what that is as a fraction of the final cost
of the gas. If the remaining costs only quadrupal the price to $4.00/gallon , I
can get behind DAC enthusiastically.]
I agree with everything that Oliver said so well, but want to add to
his comment about the financing of the DAC startups. As best as I can
tell, Bill Gates, Edgar Bronfman Jr. and the late Gary Comer invested
in these companies primarily because they believe that the technology
has the potential to do good. However, as I report in my book (Suck It
Up: How carbon capture technology can help solve the climate crisis--
it's just $1.99 on Amazon, Greg!), Warburg Pincus, a big private
equity firm, is seriously considering an investment in Global
Thermostat. One cam safely assume that their investment is financial,
and based on revenues that may be generated in the short to medium
term by using CO2 for EOR or to feed algae. So Ken Caldeira's and Dave
Hawkins' concerns are certainly relevant.
[RWL2: I have just purchased and read your book - and am glad in retrospect to
have paid my $1.99. I learned a great deal from your extensive interviewing of
the key DAC actors . We have heard in the last few days from some you
interviewed, but there are at least ten times as many , likely to have been in
Calgary, who I would like to have you interview again.
I was pleased that you had a little on Sir Richard Branson's CDR competition
(DAC and a few others). I urge you to write a similar book covering the rest of
the CDR field.
What to me is interesting about DAC is that it may help to reframe the
politcal debate about fossil fuels and climate change. It's a reminder
that the climate problem isn't caused by fossil fuels per se, but by
the waste they generate, i.e., CO2. The opens the door to a productive
conversation about why the fossil fuel industry shouldn't be required
to clean up after itself. You can call this extended producer
responsibility or just see it as another example of "All I really need
to know I learned in kindergarten."
[RWL3: As indicated at the top, I agree with all of this. However, to clarify,
should use of the CO2 for EOR qualify as cleanup? Would you count recycling
into fuels the same as deep sequestration? How would you compare either of
those options with other CDR approaches such as Biochar or BECS? And should
such other CDR approaches, if cheaper, qualify for meeting the "kindergarten"
responsibility principle?
Again thanks for taking such an active reportorial interest in this topic. Ron
]
Marc Gunther
www.marcgunther.com
On Mar 24, 7:06 am, O Morton <[email protected]> wrote:
> A few points as someone at the meeting and, it appears, a gusher...
>
> As Tim Fox pointed out in Calgary, the lack of any near-term
> likelihood of large carbon markets paying substantial prices has
> changed the terms of discussion. If DAC is to have any chance near
> term (and my feeling was that the consensus of the people on the APS
> panel that I talked to remains that it really doesn't) then it needs
> to be able to sell carbon dioxide into a market that both values the
> product fairly highly and actually exists. That is what the companies
> are looking with EOR and algae. The hope is that if the companies can
> get established in one of these niches, learning-by-doing effects and
> increased resources for R&D can drive the cost of capture low enough
> to be applicable more widely to climate issues.I would judge that for
> most of the guys working on this the selling CO2 is a means to an end,
> and if the climate relevant end were to disappear, so would their
> interest in and commitment to the technology. That said, we all know
> that people can get into a biz for idealistic reasons and stay out of
> inertia after those reasons dissipate.
>
> An exception here is Peter Eisenberger. Peter sees DAC and fuel-making
> as providing a new anthropic loop in the carbon cycle, and seems to
> have little interest in eventual sequestration. I think that's an
> interesting idea if somewhat ahead of its time, for a fairly high
> value of somewhat.
>
> When Greg says:
> Why start with a highly artificial and expensive process of
> concentrating molecular CO2 when nature provides much lower cost and
> less risky examples that are already in global scale operation?
> it seems to me that there are two answers. One is "No one says you
> have to. Enhanced weathering is very interesting and I applaud that
> you work on it. But there should be a strong ex ante supposition that
> looking at more methods and technological development pathways is a
> better idea than looking at fewer, and if some people are looking at
> different things then that's their right". The other is that
> concentrated carbon dioxide is a sellable product. I'm not sure how
> hard it would be to get an enhanced weathering scheme certified in a
> way that it could get carbon credits even for a VER market. It will
> obviously never be applicable to a market where having concentrated
> carbon dioxide to sell is part of the point.
>
> As the meeting was about DAC, not negative-emission techs more
> generally, doesn't seem that surprising that weathering wasn't an
> issue there. (There was a very interesting poster about direct
> seawater capture.)
>
> Dave's point that:
> If DAC earns a reputation as just another industrial gas production
> technique it will encounter well-deserved opposition.
> Is perhaps incomplete. I don't think industrial gas production
> companies in general face a lot of opposition. if DAC becomes an
> industrial gas production enterprise *which trades on climate claims
> it can't back up*, then opposition seems likely to be strong (cf
> biofuels). If it just does its thing, then it's not clear anyone would
> care that much one way or another.
>
> All this said, it does seem to me, as I wrote, that if through
> brilliance today's enthusiasts confound the expectations of other
> engineers and bring DAC costs down far enough for some quasi-
> commercial niches those niches are likely to be self limiting. If DAC
> can meet them profitably and they are of any significant size then
> carbon capture approaches applied to high-CO2 point-sources will move
> in and outcompete them.
>
> This seems to help in answering Greg's question "why is venture
> capital interested". I don't think it is, very much. Marc Gunther's
> book reports that Arch, the VCs who bought into Lackner's technology,
> are looking into selling the IP and moving on. The other firms seem to
> depend more on angels than VC. Angels have different motives, lack the
> same need for exit strategies, and are more easily moved by non-
> commercial motives. And the risk profile is likely too high for a lot
> of VC types. Remember that a) a significant number of people see the
> APS costs as too low and b) the companies have to beat them by more
> than a factor of four to stand a chance.
>
> Hope that helps, o
>
> On Mar 23, 2:19 pm, "Hawkins, Dave" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > I participated in the Calgary DAC meeting and in my remarks my primary
> > message was the need to resist the pressure to morph the technology into
> > a commodity CO2 production technique. If DAC earns a reputation as just
> > another industrial gas production technique it will encounter
> > well-deserved opposition.
>
> > As to whether DAC has a future as a genuine carbon-negative technology,
> > this is an economic proposition. Currently, it seems pretty expensive
> > but as has been pointed out, the actual costs won't be known until
> > someone tries it in a real-world context and there may be a role for it
> > to address remaining emissions after all the less expensive options have
> > been deployed. In my view, this argues for a modest R&D program to
> > build a few demo plants.
>
> > I understand the temptation for today's developers to look at the EOR
> > market as a way to do some learning by doing but I believe it is the
> > wrong path to follow. Such a path would create economic relationships
> > that could wind up impeding the policy changes we need to protect the
> > climate, rather than helping to speed those changes.
>
> > From: [email protected]
> > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ken Caldeira
> > Sent: Friday, March 23, 2012 7:17 AM
> > To: [email protected]
> > Cc: Geoengineering; [email protected]; Howard Herzog; John
> > Schellnhuber
> > Subject: Re: [geo] Calgary meeting on Direct Air Capture - thoughts?
>
> > "So what is the DAC business model, why is venture capital interested,
> > and what does it have to do with stabilizing air CO2? " -- GH Rau
>
> > Greg, I think you hit the nail on the head.
>
> > If we think of direct air capture as negative emissions, then air
> > capture is basically a more expensive way to reduce net emissions.
>
> > So, the only plausible business model is serving activities where CO2 is
> > needed where direct air capture may be able to provide the CO2 at lower
> > cost (or at least more conveniently), i.e., the goal is to profit
> > primarily by providing CO2 as a commodity.
>
> > You mention enhanced oil recovery (EOR), which of course involves a net
> > flux of carbon from geologic formations to the atmosphere. Another
> > possible application might be military applications where you want to
> > make jet fuels on a nuclear powered aircraft carrier using atmospheric
> > CO2 and seawater.
>
> > If the above framing is correct, then direct air capture is more about
> > seeking profits from oil companies and the military-industrial complex
> > than it is about reducing climate risk.
>
> > As the IPCC concluded in its 2005 Special Report on Carbon Capture and
> > Storage, there just aren't enough products that need CO2 as an input for
> > provision of CO2 for industrial uses to be a significant contributor to
> > climate risk reduction.
>
> > If EOR is really a primary target application, then direct air capture
> > is more about increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations than it is about
> > decreasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations; it is more about increasing
> > climate risk than decreasing climate risk.
>
> > It would be interesting to hear from the direct air capture companies
> > whether they see themselves as being in the business of climate-risk
> > reduction, and if they answer in the affirmative, it would be
> > interesting hear their rationale.
>
> > _______________
> > Ken Caldeira
>
> > Carnegie Institution Dept of Global Ecology
> > 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA
> > +1 650 704 7212
> > [email protected]http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab
> > @kencaldeira
>
> > YouTube:
> > Climate change and the transition from coal to low-carbon electricity
> > <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9LaYCbYCxo>
> > Crop yields in a geoengineered climate
> > <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0LCXNoIu-c>
>
> > On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 3:35 AM, RAU greg <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Ron,
>
> > Thanks for asking:
>
> > 1) Wasn't invited to Calgary.
>
> > 2) As Socolow et al and more recently House et al. PNAS 108:20428-20433
> > <tel:20428%E2%80%9320433> have shown, if your game is removing CO2 from
> > air, concentrating molecular CO2 from air is probably the last thing you
> > want to do because of the prohibitive thermodynamics and hence cost.
> > But what really irks me about the DAC crowd is they act as though they
> > are inventing air capture, e.g., the Economist article's subtitle that
> > gushes:
>
> > "The idea of pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is a beguiling
> > one. Could it ever become real?"
>
> > or Marc Gunther's quote:
>
> > "Most scientists believe removing CO2 from the air is expensive and
> > impractical to do on a global scale."
>
> > Let me be the first to break the good news; air capture is occurring all
> > around us, to the tune of about 17 Gt CO2/yr. That's right, the
> > equivalent of about 57% of anthro CO2 emissions is thankfully already
> > being removed from air by natural process for free. I'd say that is a
> > pretty good example of effective, low cost, global scale air capture,
> > in contrast to the latest $1000/tonne CO2 figure of House et al. So, if
> > one is interested in increasing air capture, the obvious places to start
> > are figuring out how to 1) increase global photosynthesis
> > (afforestation, ocean fetilization), 2) decrease respiration of biomass
> > (biochar), or my favorite, 3) increasing mineral weathering rates. Then
> > there are hybrids of 1 -3. Why start with a highly artificial and
> > expensive process of concentrating molecular CO2 when nature provides
> > much lower cost and less risky examples that are already in global scale
>
> ...
>
> read more ยป
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