The title doesn't capture very well that this is about using CO₂ for bubbling water and similar food usages...
this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)
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CDR is removal of CO2 from the atmosphere - an essential basket of technologies for achieving UN IPCC best outcomes to mitigate climate change. This is a community for discussing advances and issues of CDR.
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This makes total sense- I was thinking co2 for drinks was direct air capture, but clearly that’s $$$. I think I was confusing with liquid nitrogen- so that means dry ice is constrained by the same co2 supply constraints, I’m surprised it’s not more expensive.
Apart from singling out the CO~2~ molecules, the problem is that while burning of hydrocarbons releases energy and CO~2~, the reverse is possible (plants do it, duh) but takes at least as much energy. Also, storing those hydrocarbons somewhere people won't find and burn them to extract their cheap energy.
In nature, the process takes place over millions of years in peat bogs and oceans but we’ve been doing the reverse for centuries to literally fuel our industrial progress. It will take a sustained effort for at least as long to undo these years of damage. Meanwhile, we can try blocking the Sun with chemicals in the upper atmosphere or something.
It's also important to understand practically all of the oil is from a time before anything was eating trees. Hundreds of millions of years of solar energy are stored in the earth and we've been digging it up and burning millions of years worth in about 200
Here's a great video that I found very helpful to understand what Earth's carbon cycle is like and why we need to quick ducking around because we're just now at the very beginning of the find out stage.
This is incorrect. The energy released by burning hydrocarbons is not the same as the energy required to convert carbon dioxide into biomass. The difference is that biomass has lower energy density than hydrocarbons.
The rate at which we burned fuel and the rate at which we undo the damage are not linked. We can remove carbon dioxide either faster or slower as we collectively choose.
Yes, biomass is not coal & oil yet, time and pressure are required for that. We can choose the rate of carbon capture, sure, but storing it faster requires more power and effort. In fact, it is recommended to first try to avoid releasing more CO~2~ where possible.