Well, you better forget the model of Hangx and Spiers, as it has no
relation to reality. They forget that grains roll on the beach and
collide and scour each other knocking off micron sized slivers, they
use weathering rates obtained in clean laboratories under exclusion
of biotic factors, and they assumed that waters of the sea do not
move. I attach a rebuttal of it (Schuiling, R. (2014) Climate Change
and CO2 Removal from the Atmosphere. Natural Science, 6, 659-663.
doi: 10.4236/ns.2014.69065
<http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ns.2014.69065>). A nice walk along the
beach would have saved them a lot of wasted time.
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Christoph
Voelker
*Sent:* zondag 25 januari 2015 17:15
*To:* [email protected]; [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: [geo] Energy Planning and Decarbonization Technology
| The Energy Collective
Well, firstly there has been the study of Hangx and Spiers (2009),
Hangx, S. J. T., & Spiers, C. J. (2009). Coastal spreading of
olivine to control atmospheric CO2 concentrations: A critical
analysis of viability. /International Journal of Greenhouse Gas
Control/, /3/(6), 757–767. doi:10.1016/j.ijggc.2009.07.001
who arrive at the conclusion
"The feasibility of the concept depends on the rate of olivine
dissolution, the sequestration capacity of the dominant reaction,
and its CO2 footprint. Kinetics calculations show that offsetting
30% of worldwide 1990 CO2 emissions by beach weathering means
distributing of 5.0 Gt of olivine per year. For mean seawater
temperatures of 15–25 8C, olivine sand (300 mm grain size) takes
700–2100 years to reach the necessary steady state sequestration
rate and is therefore of little practical value. To obtain useful,
steady state CO2 uptake rates within 15–20 years requires grain
sizes <10 mm. However, the preparation and movement of the required
material poses major economic, infrastructural and public health
questions. We conclude that coastal spreading of olivine is not a
viable method of CO2 sequestration on the scale needed."
I am sure that Olaf Schuiling has a different viewpoint, especially
on the kinetics, but what remains independent of the kinetics is
that the total amount of olivine needed to get a sizeable reduction
in pCO2 growth rate is on the order of a few Gt per year..
An estimate of how much silicate minerals are mined today (to get
that into perspective) is available from
Phil Renforth et al. (2011) Silicate Production and Availability for
Mineral Carbonation. Environ. Sci. Technol., 45, 2035–2041
And Moosdorf et al. have estimated the carbon dioxide efficiency,
taking into account transportation etc:
Moosdorf, Renforth and Hartmann (2014) Carbon Dioxide Efficiency of
Terrestrial Enhanced Weathering, Env Sci Technol. 48, 4809−4816
So there s already a lot around..
Cheers, Christoph
On 1/25/15 2:47 PM, Andrew Lockley wrote:
Someone needs to do a proper infrastructure study of olivine to
more comprehensively rebut the "contraptionist" arguments of
some in the CDR community.
Where are the mines?
How many railcars?
At what scale are the crushing machines?
Will we distribute to beaches with lorries, or shallow seas with
ships (and let longshore drift do the work)?
What environmental monitoring spend is needed?
Can this be used for a coastal defence win win?
Etc.
A
On 25 Jan 2015 13:23, "Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf)"
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Of course I support Andrew in this view, although chucking it
into the sea is maybe a too simplistic view. My preference is to
spread (coarse-grained, so little crushing energy spent) olivine
on beaches, where the surf will crush them by grain collisions
and by scraping them against each other. In a short while (in
our experiments it took 10 days to see already a large effect,
the water became opaque milky white from all the micron-sized
slivers that were knocked off). A mixture of coarser and finer
grit is more effective than a single grain size, as in society,
the big ones crush the smaller ones. */The surf is the biggest
ballmill on earth, and it is free of charge! /*An extension of
this method is to discharge them in shallow seas with strong
bottom currents. There are many sea bottoms covered with
pebbles, and there the same effects of crushing can be seen. To
avoid misunderstanding, the sea will not become opaque white,
slivers that form are washed away by the next wave. Within
those ten day experiments, we observed that many slivers had
already been transformed to brucite, (Mg(OH)2, known to
carbonate very fast, and the pH of the water had already been
raised considerably. And yes, of course, it will take a lot of
olivine, which is fortunately the most abundant mineral on
earth, Olaf Schuiling
*From:*[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
[mailto:[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>] *On Behalf Of *Andrew
Lockley
*Sent:* zaterdag 24 januari 2015 15:56
*To:* geoengineering
*Subject:* [geo] Energy Planning and Decarbonization Technology
| The Energy Collective
Poster's note : none of this explains why there's any need for
integration. Chucking olivine in the sea seems easier and
cheaper than all.
http://theenergycollective.com/noahdeich/2183871/3-ways-carbon-removal-can-help-unlock-promise-all-above-energy-strategy
3 Ways Carbon Removal can Help Unlock the Promise of an
All-of-the-Above Energy Strategy
January 24, 2015
“We can’t have an energy strategy for the last century that
traps us in the past. We need an energy strategy for the future
– an all-of-the-above strategy for the 21st century that
develops every source of American-made energy.”– President
Barack Obama, March 15, 2012
An all-of-the-above energy strategy holds great potential
to make our energy system more secure, inexpensive, and
environmentally-friendly. Today’s approach to all-of-the-above,
however, is missing a key piece: carbon dioxide removal (“CDR”).
Here’s three reasons why CDR is critical for the success of an
all-of-the-above energy strategy:
1. CDR helps unite renewable energy and fossil fuel proponents
to advance carbon capture and storage (“CCS”) projects. Many
renewable energy advocates view CCS as an expensive excuse to
enable business-as-usual fossil fuel emissions. But biomass
energy with CCS (bio-CCS) projects are essentially “renewable
CCS” (previously viewed as an oxymoron), and could be critical
for drawing down atmospheric carbon levels in the future. As a
result, fossil CCS projects could provide a pathway to
“renewable CCS” projects in the future. Because of the
similarities in the carbon capture technology for fossil and
bioenergy power plants, installing capture technology on fossil
power plants today could help reduce technology and regulatory
risk for bio-CCS projects in the future. What’s more, bio-CCS
projects can share the infrastructure for transporting and
storing CO2 with fossil CCS installations. Creating such a
pathway to bio-CCS should be feasible through regulations that
increase carbon prices and/or biomass co-firing mandates slowly
over time, and could help unite renewable energy and CCS
proponents to develop policies that enable the development of
cost-effective CCS technology.
2. CDR bolsters the environmental case for nuclear power by
enabling it to be carbon “negative”: Many environmental
advocates say that low-carbon benefits of nuclear power are
outweighed by the other environmental and safety concerns of
nuclear projects. The development of advanced nuclear
projects paired with direct air capture (“DAC”) devices,
however, could tip the scales in nuclear’s favor. DAC systems
that utilize the heat produced from nuclear power plants can
benefit from this “free” source of energy to potentially
sequester CO2 directly from the atmosphere cost-effectively. The
ability for nuclear + DAC to provide competitively-priced,
carbon-negative energy could help convince nuclear power’s
skeptics to support further investigation into developing safe
and environmentally-friendly advanced nuclear systems.
3. CDR helps enable a cost-effective transition to a
decarbonized economy: Today, environmental advocates claim
that prolonged use of fossil fuels is mutually exclusive with
preventing climate change, and fossil fuel advocates bash
renewables as not ready for “prime time” — i.e. unable to
deliver the economic/development benefits of inexpensive fossil
energy. To resolve this logjam, indirect methods of
decarbonization — such as a portfolio of low-cost CDR solutions
— could enable fossil companies both to meet steep emission
reduction targets and provide low-cost fossil energy until
direct decarbonization through renewable energy systems become
more cost-competitive (especially in difficult to decarbonize
areas such as long-haul trucking and aviation).
Of course, discussion about the potential for CDR to enable an
all-of-the-above energy strategy is moot unless we invest in
developing a portfolio of CDR approaches. But if we do make this
investment in CDR, an all-of-the-above energy strategy
that delivers a diversified, low-cost, and low-carbon energy
system stands a greater chance of becoming a reality.
Noah Deich
Noah Deich is a professional in the carbon removal field with
six years of clean energy and sustainability consulting
experience. Noah currently works part-time as a consultant for
the Virgin Earth Challenge, is pursuing his MBA from the Haas
School of Business at UC Berkeley, and writes a blog dedicated
to carbon removal (carbonremoval.wordpress.com
<http://carbonremoval.wordpress.com>)
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Christoph Voelker
Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research
Am Handelshafen 12
27570 Bremerhaven, Germany
e:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
t: +49 471 4831 1848
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