Thanks borano, I took the time to go through it. Interesting and amusing all at the same time. Excellent ABC catastrophising...
The first "device" that they speak of - the one to remove 36M kg of CO2/annum was funny. It was saying "we can pull CO2 out of the air!" like saying "we've made our own trees!" When you look at trees taking out ~40kg/annum, we are looking at < 1M trees. So, that is the base data:
- The plant itself takes some time to build
- This one isn't actually even finished yet, so it is more about what might be
- There is a *lot* of materials required to build it (mining and CO2 from the supply chain)
- It is only about 2,500 acres for the equivalent number of trees
- There is only this one unit
- There are 3.04 trillion trees on the planet
- Seems like another nice way to make money without making a difference.
- They talk about storing it in the ground in basalt (another whole facility) - whereas a tree turns it into oxygen...I know what I would rather.
The second "device" is about sucking CO2 out of the air with another "mechanical tree" capturing 1,000 times faster than a real tree:
- It is huge and takes a lot of materials to create it (again, mining and CO2 from the supply chain)
- Again, it is experimental
- Need to build 10M / yr to make it useful
- Unlike his "car" comparison, this thing needs land and connected services, and looks like it needs power to drive it?!?
- More $$$, no confirmed results, and no calculated offset...more money to make zealots feel good about themselves without changing a thing.
The third "device" is also experimental - about changing the acidity of the ocean!!
- 8,000t of Oivene sand
- Dissolves to reduce the acidity of the ocean (holy crap - how stupid are these people!)
- The ocean already absorbs about 25% of CO2 emissions.
- About 1t of Olivene equates to 1t of CO2.
- Some of these idiots forget that they have to get it in the first place - then there is a whole supply chain that needs to move it to the ocean.
- Talking gigatons of mining to get the quantities needed.
- You would need to build the ships and trucks to even haul it...and they need fuel etc.
- They are talking about billions of tons with no appreciation of impact on the marine life...and the dilution factor isn't even considered.
- Truly bordering on delusional.
The fourth is here in Aust with the fictional impact on the reef by temperature. And these are the idiots shooting crap into the sky:
- They measure impact based on one man's lifetime - I think sometimes people forget this is A PLANET! It has been around for a VERY long time.
- The have a "magic spray" that they shoot into the air to get the clouds to be more reflective. This is turning sea spray into fine mist.
- They call it "cloud brightening".
- Bloody hell, people have zero idea of collateral impact.
- Needs quite a lot of energy to execute.
- No results, no idea of impact. Another hobby horse.
For number 5 we head to Iceland. This time SO2 into the stratosphere to reflect the sun ("Solar Geo-Engineering").
- This was just pure fantasy.
- This was actually a bit scary that these idiots are allowed to impact our whole planet
- They want to "cool the planet down quickly". Bugger me.
- Fortunately a lot of people pointed this out.
Number 6 is a bunch of mirrors that reflect the sunlight to a location to create heat to convert gases into fuel.
- It has take a LOT of energy to create this monstrosity.
- It has just started to create fuel.
- Now that want a plant 1,000 times bigger.
- More fiction, more massive supply chains and massive amounts of waste.
The 7th is a single mirror-based "closed material" cycle to create jet fuel, the same as Number 6.
- Making an aircraft "net zero" by using this fuel.
- Do people think these things are made out of the air with no supply chain and no carbon footprint?
- What happens to these things once they reach end-of-life?
- No scale, no proven outcomes.
Each of these 7 devices are fictional and very theoretical. An excellent example of university boffins giving themselves jollies by dabbling in crap.
Interestingly, not one part of the show focused on CCS or CCUS - if you want to minimise carbon and still have cheap energy while building nuclear, this is a great place to focus.
Back to borano's point...I couldn't see anything about turning coal back on - perhaps you could let me know where I have missed it?
With all of the demand for these fictitious and frivolous devices, we are back to coal and gas to supply the energy and the steel. That continues to be sweet music for WHC and co.
That said, until the global equilibrium has been restored, any projection in this regard is as useless as each of these technologies.
Expand
(20min delay)