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Build the Navy run nuclear power plants to power the carbon capture rigs. What do we do with the ethanol? The same thing we do with it now, drink it.
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Oct 22, 2016 04:59
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If elected president, I will invest in this new technology so as to make the world's first national booze depository.
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Oct 22, 2016 08:57
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Strategic party reserve / carbon sequestration tank
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Oct 22, 2016 18:37
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Potential BFF posted:Build the Navy run nuclear power plants to power the carbon capture rigs. Letting the navy set nuclear policy is why nuclear power plants suck now.
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Oct 22, 2016 18:45
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I can think of worse ideas than sticking a bunch of CO2-derived ethanol in plastic tanks and storing them in old mineshafts or something. As permanent sequestration goes, the biggest drawback would be hobos showing up with a screwdriver and a straw.
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Oct 22, 2016 18:54
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Air travel is just about the only mode of travel that we have to use liquid fuels for. For energy density to mass reasons. At the height of the cold war both nations put a lot of effort into developing nuclear powered strategic bombers, it did not go well. Being able to viably produce ethanol from renewable electricity solves this issue. And yeah, completely new engines would need to be designed but could be done.
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Oct 24, 2016 01:30
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Hahaha yes let's capture the Co2 into ethanol and then burn it back into the atmosphere in airplanes. I'm pretty sure you're just going to end up heating the earth more with that same co2.
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Oct 24, 2016 03:19
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edit. double post
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Oct 24, 2016 03:19
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NewForumSoftware posted:Hahaha yes let's capture the Co2 into ethanol and then burn it back into the atmosphere in airplanes. I'm pretty sure you're just going to end up heating the earth more with that same co2. It will still be better than the status quo if we use carbon free electricity to sequester it. But beyond aviation, tools like sequestering carbon into ethanol can be an effective way to move an economy carbon neutrality without before your complete overhaul of transportation is complete. While we are still trying to roll out electric cars to the world, carbon neutral fuels can play a vital role even if their energy ROI is poor.
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Oct 24, 2016 03:27
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Pro tip read the study and figure out what material they are using to do this process and ask yourself whether it will scale.
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Oct 24, 2016 04:56
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NewForumSoftware posted:Hahaha yes let's capture the Co2 into ethanol and then burn it back into the atmosphere in airplanes. I'm pretty sure you're just going to end up heating the earth more with that same co2. the idea is to capture a ton more than we use, resulting in a net co2 deficit. apparently some thorium reactors can produce electricity so cheaply that this plan wouldn't be wholly unfeasible if not for our nuclear paranoia
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Oct 24, 2016 09:31
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NewForumSoftware posted:Hahaha yes let's capture the Co2 into ethanol and then burn it back into the atmosphere in airplanes. I'm pretty sure you're just going to end up heating the earth more with that same co2. Could we drink it? Ethanol's the potable -ol. I did some bar napkin calculations. 2014's CO2 emissions would convert to ~1.12 cubic miles of ethanol, or, about 1,235,946,827,918.185 gallons of 200 proof, "liquor." That's 5 bottles of whiskey per man, woman, and child per day to completely negate global CO2 emissions at the 2014 rate. Nevermind.
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Oct 24, 2016 10:25
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Accretionist posted:Could we drink it? Ethanol's the potable -ol. drinking it releases co2 back in the atmosphere. if we were doing carbon capture with hydrocarbons we would store a large portion of them indefinitely and burn a small amount for things that require energy dense poo poo that batteries can't handle. of course doing this means we need a huge electrical energy surplus
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Oct 24, 2016 10:28
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Oof, that's right. I completely forgot about metabolite exhalation, e.g. where burned fat goes (into the air as CO2, mostly). How could you store a cubic mile of ethanol, anyways?
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Oct 24, 2016 10:46
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Accretionist posted:That's 5 bottles of whiskey per man, woman, and child per day to completely negate global CO2 emissions at the 2014 rate. I find this to be acceptable! 
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Oct 24, 2016 10:58
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Accretionist posted:Oof, that's right. I completely forgot about metabolite exhalation, e.g. where burned fat goes (into the air as CO2, mostly). therein lies the problem with storing nothing but ethanol. other carbon capture ideas involve stuff like making and storing tons of graphite from co2, but of course graphite doesn't store energy, it's only good for removing surplus co2 from the atmosphere. one possibility for the ethanol storage is to put the generated ethanol into exhausted oil wells and seal them up
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Oct 24, 2016 11:28
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Condiv posted:therein lies the problem with storing nothing but ethanol. other carbon capture ideas involve stuff like making and storing tons of graphite from co2, but of course graphite doesn't store energy, it's only good for removing surplus co2 from the atmosphere. Graphite does store energy - it's impurity-free coal. My personal sci-fi ideas for carbon sequestration are bioengineered phytoplankton that produce specks of graphite or carbonate (like oysters produce pearls), which then either cause the plankton to sink to the sea floor when the specks reach a certain size, or which settle to the sea floor when the plankton die. And fast-growing trees with super dense wood that does not rot, which can grow in salt water, so we could flood sub-sea-level basins (i.e. in the Sahara) using canals and plant the trees there, and the basins would accumulate coal-like deposits of trees. All of these ideas are at least as realistic as sufficiently large-scale industrial carbon sequestration (by whichever method you choose), since they require minimal manufacturing and maintenance, and no energy inputs aside from the sun, make use of otherwise unused areas of the Earth -- open ocean and deserts -- and produce O2 as a bonus.
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Oct 24, 2016 12:18
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Placid Marmot posted:Graphite does store energy - it's impurity-free coal. This is akin to what happened during the age of the dinosaurs iirc. Fungus that could break down wood and bark hadn't evolved yet so deadwood was everywhere and the atmosphere was very oxygen rich.
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Oct 24, 2016 12:36
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Condiv posted:therein lies the problem with storing nothing but ethanol. other carbon capture ideas involve stuff like making and storing tons of graphite from co2, but of course graphite doesn't store energy, it's only good for removing surplus co2 from the atmosphere. It's not only a problem with storing it, but also capturing it. You'd need somewhere between 10 to 100 times the number of gas stations ever built of that sorbent style capture facilities. And then separating the CO2 from the sorbent uses so much electricity... we don't even generate enough right now let alone using 100% carbon neutral (and while we have sources of carbon neutral electricity existing, they are not completely GHG neutral, which afters when you consider the scale of capturing a whole years' worth of carbon emissions)
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Oct 24, 2016 12:48
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Uncle Jam posted:It's not only a problem with storing it, but also capturing it. You'd need somewhere between 10 to 100 times the number of gas stations ever built of that sorbent style capture facilities. And then separating the CO2 from the sorbent uses so much electricity... we don't even generate enough right now let alone using 100% carbon neutral (and while we have sources of carbon neutral electricity existing, they are not completely GHG neutral, which afters when you consider the scale of capturing a whole years' worth of carbon emissions) Yeah, the only way I could think of us generating enough electricity is thorium nuclear reactors.
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Oct 24, 2016 13:25
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We can't even get conventional nuclear reactors off the ground in 50 years and this joker wants to add thorium to the mix
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Oct 24, 2016 14:47
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Condiv posted:Yeah, the only way I could think of us generating enough electricity is thorium nuclear reactors. Why couldn't you do it with conventional reactors or even renewables? Doesn't matter if our excess electricity comes from a big PV field making ethanol all day or a reactor, we don't need new technology to generate clean electricity.
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Oct 24, 2016 17:15
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We need storage, political will, and gigantic spanking machines. The gigantic spanking machines are for correction: "Global warming isn't anthrop-OW" SWAT SWAT SWAT
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Oct 24, 2016 17:42
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Everyone concerned with climate change mitigation needs to really internalize this plot: If the early-90s was the point where the reality of climate change was clearly recognized (internet cranks and the GOP aside), then nuclear power capacity should have been ramping up by the early 2000s at the latest. Instead nuclear flatlined and we went all in on fossil fuels (not even mentioning the developing world). At this point pricing carbon (as unlikely as that is) has to come first, as rapidly expanding nuclear has even less public support and that's unlikely to change until it becomes (relatively) cheaper than fossil fuels. Thorium is even further out there.
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Oct 24, 2016 18:23
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You guys tend to look at new potential mitigation technologies through a faulty lens. Nobody ever suggested that, as an example, using nanotech to turn CO2 into ethanol would be the only thing we do. It'd be that, plus reforestation, plus biochar, plus the Great Green Wall, plus zero-emissions technologies, plus renewables and carbon nanotubes and mass transit and urban vertical farming and cloned meat and God knows what else. Instead of discussing the actual potential implications of a given new technology, you're disregarding it on the basis that it, employed by itself, couldn't solve the larger problem. It's like you automatically gravitate to whatever interpretation of the scenario will keep your doom boner at maximum extension.
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Oct 24, 2016 19:25
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Wanderer posted:doom boner at maximum extension. Climate Change: Doom Boner at Maximum Extension
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Oct 24, 2016 19:27
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Wanderer posted:You guys tend to look at new potential mitigation technologies through a faulty lens. Lol if you think we're implementing any real climate change mitigations strategies. Plot them on a graph against emissions. You can't even see the line. But no, serious, nano-thorium booze guys, this'll solve it.
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Oct 24, 2016 19:38
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Trabisnikof posted:Why couldn't you do it with conventional reactors or even renewables? thorium is cheaper to generate from thanks to being a ton more common in the earths crust than uranium, and we need a huge surplus of electricity to actually make a dent with sequestration. also thorium based plants are less suited to making the materials for nuclear weapons
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Oct 24, 2016 19:42
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TildeATH posted:Lol if you think we're implementing any real climate change mitigations strategies. Like I said: you're here for the apocalypse porn. The emissions curve is the single most devastating and relevant data point, but there are a myriad of adaptation, capture, and sequestration technologies coming up. Some are in the permanent five-years-out stage like fusion reactors, but some, like the renewables grid or using drones for reforestation, are changing things as we speak. The governmental reaction is incremental and painfully slow, but accelerationist doomspeak isn't the realistic reaction here unless you're trying to justify day-drinking to yourself.
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Oct 24, 2016 20:05
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Condiv posted:thorium is cheaper to generate from thanks to being a ton more common in the earths crust than uranium, and we need a huge surplus of electricity to actually make a dent with sequestration. also thorium based plants are less suited to making the materials for nuclear weapons Fuel costs are a tiny part of the costs of nuclear power. The relative difference in cost between fuel supplies is mostly overwhelmed by the advantages of having a fully developed uranium fuel based nuclear industry. The total amount of uranium isn't the issue, it is getting someone to throw down the billions for the plants. Here's a riddle that proves my point: how much did the last 1GW+ of completed thorium capacity cost to build? 
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Oct 24, 2016 21:55
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Wanderer posted:Instead of discussing the actual potential implications of a given new technology, you're disregarding it on the basis that it, employed by itself, couldn't solve the larger problem. It's like you automatically gravitate to whatever interpretation of the scenario will keep your doom boner at maximum extension. The problem is that mitigation plans that rely on a large number of technologies still require those technologies to scale up pretty far, even if they're only a smaller component of a larger plan. Take the seaweed cow feed additive as an example. You don't need to get every cow in the world eating it to make a sizable reduction, but you're probably talking about something like a 20-30% increase in global seaweed production even for more conservative targets. That's not insurmountable, but it's a pretty tall order when nobody is even talking about funding that kind of project right now. CCS strategies have almost the same problem, in addition to being an immature technology that might not even scale in an economical way. Some form of capture has to happen eventually, but for it to really make a dent we need to be funding it at a level that every government in the world would balk at. Like, nobody is even talking about doing this at a reasonable scale in a reasonable time frame. I like to think I'm pretty optimistic about our chances, but that doesn't mean I'm going to pretend that we're doing anywhere near enough now or that we aren't completely hosed if we don't start doing a lot more very quickly. It's not doomsaying to simply point at the reality of the situation and admit that things are not very good.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:04
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Wanderer posted:The governmental reaction is incremental and painfully slow, but accelerationist doomspeak isn't the realistic reaction here unless you're trying to justify day-drinking to yourself. Skepticism is not accelerationism. Being cynical about how governments and institutions implement climate change policies is the realistic perspective, and you should expect even non-day-drinking types to respond to any breathless announcement of nuclear booze or seaweed cowfeed to be met with a bit of eye-rolling. After all, cynics are the ones who have been right about things, that's got to count for something.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:23
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So I just came across this paper. (Probably behind a paywall, I don't know) http://www.diagonalarida.cl/SemI/Stine_1994_Persistentdrought_MCA.pdf Basically, there were two epic droughts that occurred in California. The first lasting for about 200 years and terminating in about AD 1112. The other lasted for about 140 years and terminated at about AD 1350. Roughly occurring during the medieval warm period. It made me sad.
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Oct 26, 2016 06:44
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BattleMoose posted:So I just came across this letter to Nature. (not behind a paywall)
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Oct 26, 2016 07:10
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@eNeMeE I don't know what you are trying to communicate by specifying it as a letter. Its a somewhat quirky terminology of that particular journal, and some others. For every intent and purpose, that "letter" constitutes some of the best science produced. Gone through rigorous peer review and while constituting excellent science, also needs to be highly relevant. We call them papers.
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Oct 26, 2016 07:27
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The two campaigns just sent surrogates for an hour-and-a-half long debate on climate (this links to the full video): Trevor Houser, energy policy adviser to Hillary Clinton's campaign, and Congressman Kevin Cramer (R-ND), energy policy adviser to Donald Trump's campaign. Vox summary of the key points here. Despite disagreeing on nearly everything, both are extremely pro-nuclear.  Clinton guy is clearly well-versed in the policy and outlines lots of specific proposals. Worst moment for the Clinton guy: Around 28:30, he reiterated the Clinton position that Natural Gas from fracking "has an important role to play in the transition" to a 0-carbon economy. This is, of course, almost as much bullshit as Obama's "Clean Coal" nonsense 4 and 8 years ago. Trump guy made the usual conservative academic response to this, which is disingenuous but ultimately correct: if the plan is to use natural gas as a "bridge" that is intended to quickly be obsolete, it doesn't make any goddamned sense for a single person company or government to invest in a natural gas infrastructure. Who’s going to invest in natural gas infrastructure if it’ll be phased out soon? What Clinton guy didn't have the guts to say (and Trump guy is too ideologically motivated to be honest about) is that "bridge fracking" is just another excuse to pump more GHGs into the air in a business-as-usual trajectory. But hey, it's moderately substantive as far as election-year political debates go, particularly for climate change, so I thought I'd share it.
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Oct 26, 2016 15:21
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like that houser wants advanced nuclear reactor research to be invested in. we definitely need to move to clean energy, but in the meantime we are relying on fossil fuels and its killing us. i really really hate that houser refused to take a stance on the dakota access pipeline, that is some grade A cowardice from team hillary. also do not like that hillary still refuses to take a firm stance on fracking, especially since my home state is enjoying the benefits of a massive fracking industry (thousand-fold more earthquakes, hooray!) trump's adviser was better than expected, but i expected him to be advocating pumping raw sludge into playgrounds so that's not saying much
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Oct 26, 2016 15:31
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Forever_Peace posted:What Clinton guy didn't have the guts to say (and Trump guy is too ideologically motivated to be honest about) is that "bridge fracking" is just another excuse to pump more GHGs into the air in a business-as-usual trajectory. For what it's worth, this is why I tend to get annoyed at people who decide to take an overly optimistic view about current efforts and technologies. A big part of addressing climate change is reaching a point where we can admit as a society that this problem is serious enough to demand near term economic sacrifices. It's incredibly easy to just say that something needs to be done and then point vaguely at stopgaps or immature technologies. It's a lot harder to directly say that certain industries are going to have to die and that we're going to need to find a way to either reduce consumption or fund large, government subsidized infrastructure projects (or both). That said, I already knew that a Clinton administration would basically be pro-nuclear, but it's good to hear it again.
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Oct 26, 2016 15:47
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The only thing Clinton and co are definitely doing is fracking, pipelines and shale.
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Oct 26, 2016 15:51
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Paradoxish posted:For what it's worth, this is why I tend to get annoyed at people who decide to take an overly optimistic view about current efforts and technologies. A big part of addressing climate change is reaching a point where we can admit as a society that this problem is serious enough to demand near term economic sacrifices. It's incredibly easy to just say that something needs to be done and then point vaguely at stopgaps or immature technologies. It's a lot harder to directly say that certain industries are going to have to die and that we're going to need to find a way to either reduce consumption or fund large, government subsidized infrastructure projects (or both). TBF he talks at length about plans to retrain coal miners en masse to do something more productive because he would like them to stop producing coal.
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Oct 26, 2016 15:53
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