The problem isn’t the inability to make something to do the job, but making it something that you can convince people they’ll make a profit from. Nobody wants to clean up pollution unless you either force them to do it or make it profitable.
Yeah, I am skeptical. What would be the energy expenditure of actually storing CO2 into those blocks and what about transporting them? I have a feeling this is like carbon capture plants, great for the headlines, but not really a practical solution.
I don’t think I will metabolize anything after eating tons of co2. Just put me in a big glass jar and let me celebrate my victory until I’m inevitably taken down.
taking plant waste from timber companies and farmers, drying it, compressing it, and wrapping it “into Lego-like bricks,” and storing it 10 feet underground.
So it’s effectively the astronaut ice cream version permafrost?
Immediately I wonder how much the process of transport -> drying -> compressing, wrapping, transporting, and storing + storage site prep and maintenance eats into savings.
Yeah, that’s what it sounds like. I do wonder if 10 feet is deep enough to prevent decomposition in the long term. I seems like converting the plant material to biochar would be a more stable form to trap the carbon in.
transport -> drying -> compressing, wrapping, transporting, and storing + storage site prep and maintenance
I think the key aspect here is that all of these steps are easier to decarbonize than the aviation (difficult) and cement production (almost impossible) processes these bricks are intended to offset.
How do you get the pollution into the brick? That’s what the brick is. Plants capture the CO2 and store it as sugar, and then the plant matter is compressed into a brick and buried instead of burning it for energy or letting it rot.
According to the article, this isn’t even recapturing CO2. It’s grabbing plant/decomposable waste before it rots, turning it into these dense bricks, and burying it under ground. Like, collecting corn husks from farmers. This feels stupid to me and like a big gimmick.
That would be very dumb because methane leaves the atmosphere on its own much more quickly than CO2. Roughly 12 years compared to carbon dioxide being closer to 500 years.
Of course it’s kind of a half life so putting a single number on it isn’t perfect but that’s the difference in scale at least.
this isn’t even recapturing CO2. It’s grabbing plant/decomposable waste before it rots
Does this not amount to the same thing? The plants capture the CO2 and store it in sugar, which is then buried instead of burning it for energy or letting it rot.
I agree. The concept is simple, and it’s not perfect, but it isn’t dumb either. This is basically recreating how coal and oil got in the ground in the first place. Plants absorbed carbon from the air as they grew, then they got buried in a way that prevented them from decomposing and re-releasing it into the atmosphere. My main question here would be whether burying it only 10 feet under ground is really enough for long term storage. The other big elephant in the room with carbon capture is that it can be a convenient excuse for companies to avoid doing work towards actually decarbonizing their operations. If, as the article suggests, this is used primarily by industries like cement making that don’t currently have a way to become carbon neutral then it’s a good thing. If it’s just used as cynical green washing by companies who could be doing better, then it’s at best a wash, and arguably a net negative.
We’re in the golden age of greenwashing. Corporations are horny to show like they are “doing something” for the environment without doing a fucking thing. But it can’t be too expensive and have it eat into their bottom line.
Just environmentally conscious enough to win over people who feel guilty for flying (bonus if you can get them to pay) but not so much that your shareholders wonder if you aren’t putting their short term interests first.
Yes but it’s wood that you are not allowed to burn or let rot, or the CO₂ gets released again. Basically, cut down trees and store them in oxygen-free water, salt mines, deserts or permafrost areas (or peat bogs, as nature did it over millions of years) where no bacteria/insects will feed on the wood and no humans come to scalp it. There is no way this can be economical, even with today’s carbon credits. Trees are “free” solar carbon capture devices but slow and inefficient, and need to be logged-and-stored continuously to work at all, as there is only a very limited space that we can cover in new forests in the next few decades.
I know they just want to find the best use for waste wood but I think there is too little of it in the first place.
Ah yes, the “We’ll pay someone else to be green for us without meaningfully improving our environmental policy” move.
Toss some money away, get a nice tax write-off, and don’t bother following up to make sure these supposed CO2 offset numbers are actually what they are advertised to be.
The frustrating part is that the whole idea is great on its face: pay to capture the co2 you generate where they can do so at scale, but this just... clearly doesn't do that.
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