[geo] Thermal removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere: energy requirements and scaling issues | SpringerLink

[Andrew Lockley]

Poster's note : important paper so cross posting. NB could potentially be
combined with liquid air energy storage for reduced energy requirements

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-018-2208-0

Climatic Change 

pp 1–11| Cite as

Thermal removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere: energy requirements
and scaling issues

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   - Ted von HippelEmail author 


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Article
First Online: 01 May 2018


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Abstract

I conduct a system-level study of direct air capture of CO2 using
techniques from thermal physics. This system relies on a combination of an
efficient heat exchanger, radiative cooling, and refrigeration, all at
industrial scale and operated in environments at low ambient temperatures.
While technological developments will be required for such a system to
operate efficiently, those developments rest on a long history of
refrigeration expertise and technology, and they can be developed and
tested at modest scale. I estimate that the energy required to remove CO2 via
this approach is comparable to direct air capture by other techniques. The
most challenging aspect of building a system that could remove 1 billion
tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere per year is the power demand of 112 to
420 GW during the wintertime operational period.
This is a preview of subscription conte

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Re: [geo] The Dangerous Belief That Extreme Technology Will Fix Climate Change

[Jonathan Marshall]

There is no necessarily mutually exclusive binary happening here. It could be 
dangerous to take either option, if those options are reduced to: "do nothing 
or do GE".

As I keep saying if we don't try and clear up the economic and political 
systems that are going on here, we almost certainly will keep making things 
worse.

The established powers that basically don't care to change because its too 
profitable for them to continue to destroy world ecologies, will not change 
because of patch up technology, no matter how radical.

jon

From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com  on 
behalf of Greg Rau 
Sent: Wednesday, 2 May 2018 4:37 PM
To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
Subject: [geo] The Dangerous Belief That Extreme Technology Will Fix Climate 
Change

GR - Given our track record with emission reduction and given questionable 
adaptation strategies, how dangerous is it to believe that we won’t need 
“extreme technology” to help counter climate change?:

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5ae07919e4b061c0bfa3e794

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[geo] The Dangerous Belief That Extreme Technology Will Fix Climate Change

[Greg Rau]

GR - Given our track record with emission reduction and given questionable 
adaptation strategies, how dangerous is it to believe that we won’t need 
“extreme technology” to help counter climate change?:
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5ae07919e4b061c0bfa3e794

The Dangerous Belief That Extreme Technology Will Fix Climate Change
It boils down to a failure to question capitalism, civilization, and the notion 
of progress.

Aleszu Bajak On assignment for HuffPost

Wake Smith imagines a fleet of experimental airplanes, not much larger than 
Boeing 757s, that could climb to 60,000 feet, high enough for people aboard to 
see the curvature of the earth, and release gas into the lower stratosphere. 

In order to ensure global coverage of their payload, the planes, looking more 
like firefighting tanker aircraft than commercial airliners, would take off 
from four different latitudes ― say runways in Houston, Manila, Brasilia and 
Johannesburg. On five-hour missions, they would seed the skies with blankets of 
clear, stinky, aerosolized sulfur dioxide gas. Dispersing 100,000 tons of SO2 
annually over several years would begin to approximate levels of the gas that 
follow a major volcanic eruption, blocking out the sun and lowering the 
temperature of the earth. 

Scientists have proposed solar radiation management, as it’s called, for 
decades as a form of global-scale geoengineering that could combat global 
warming. But few have done what Smith, a partner at a private equity firm and 
former airline executive, has done ― turned pie-in-the-sky, 
back-of-the-envelope calculations into a full-fledged feasibility study, 
complete with a development and operating budget for his fleet of planes.

Encouraged by the attention he has been getting from researchers at 
institutions like Harvard, where he was recently invited to present his work, 
Smith has worked out a 10-year operating plan for planes that would begin 
spraying SO2 in 2023.

The whole endeavor, Smith said, is far cheaper and simpler than he initially 
imagined. There are no real barriers, he said. The total cost of the project? A 
measly $3.5 billion, he estimated.


“I think it’s bad news how cheap this is,” Smith told a small group last month 
in a conference room at Harvard’s Center for the Environment. For that kind of 
money, Smith argued, it’s possible that any rogue nation, organization or 
individual could start experimenting with the climate.

The impacts of geoengineering on the global scale are unknown, in part because 
no massive geoengineering project has been undertaken ― apart from 
human-induced climate change. But models are potentially troubling. Some 
suggest geoengineering will disrupt rainfall worldwide and damage the earth’s 
protective ozone layer. A Rutgers University study published in January 
suggested that suddenly stopping a large geoengineering project, once it has 
started, could lead to rapid warming, pushing species into extinction and 
accelerating climate change.

As global temperatures continue to rise, however, some researchers say 
geoengineering shouldn’t be dismissed. Helene Muri, a researcher at the 
University of Oslo geosciences department, said it shows promise as a way to 
reduce harm from climate change, but it is not ready. “We need to know more 
about the risks involved before we, if we can ever, deem it safe to use,” she 
said. “Solar geoengineering is in any case not a substitute for cutting CO2 
emissions.”

Yet, with every year and climate conference that passes, a global-scale 
geoengineering project becomes more and more feasible. There’s virtually no 
regulation stopping a country or individual from trying this, Michael Gerrard, 
director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, 
told me. In fact, from a legal perspective, it’s easier to seed the 
stratosphere than get a permit to remodel your home, he added.

“I think there is such a large chance that someone will try geoengineering that 
it really needs to be governed,“ said Gerrard. That’s why, together with Tracy 
Hester at the University of Houston Law Center, he just published a book, 
Climate Engineering and the Law, intended to help policymakers, technologists 
and lawyers better understand current regulations and science underlying 
big-scale geoengineering projects. 

The question is when such a project might be attempted, and by who? Gerrard 
imagines a scenario in which some country, in the wake of a ruinous climate 
disaster, sees no other choice.

“One could imagine that if some catastrophic [climate] event were to occur in 
India, and they had a real concern that another one could happen, they would 
want to, on their own, launch a geoengineering effort to protect themselves 
against the next one. That’s an entirely plausible scenario,” said Gerrard. 
That’s why global agreement on governance is needed, he said, followed by 
country-by-country laws on geoengineering. Failing to legislate, he warned, 
could