CadeJohnson

joined 1 year ago
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

NYT is spouting every headline they can imagine to shift votes toward Trump, and not just lately. Their entire editorial focus is to cast confusion on Democrats' prospects. They should be recognized as firmly partisan and no longer serving a journalistic purpose. Unfortunate, but that's the times in which we live.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'd say no in general, but I hold the reins very loosely . . .

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

There is a new process for treating wastewater sludge that destroys the microfibers, so that is good news at least. I think it may be expensive, of course. It is called "hydrothermal carbonization". Basically put the sludge in a giant pressure-cooker and the heat breaks the plastics into carbon and some water-soluble residual molecules which can go back to the start of the wastewater treatment plant to be biodegraded. But like others say, the main source in general is tires - not sure if they know whether tire microplastics are the main source in agricultural land though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

From the immortal Journal of Irreproducible Results, "The Data Enrichment Method": ". . .its principal shortcoming is that before the enrichment process can be started, some data must be collected. It is quite true that a great deal is done with very little information, but this should not blind one to the fact that the method still embodies the 'raw-data flaw'. The ultimate objective, complete freedom from the inconvenience and embarrassment of experimental results, still lies unattained before us."

 

📢📢📢 OpenAir joins 350+ companies and organizations from across the CDR sector to call for a method-neutral EU #CRCF 🇪🇺🇪🇺🇪🇺  docs.google.com/document/d/1...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

We are going to need a lot more of this kind of work. I read on permaculture sites about the need to pre-load biochar with nutrients - planting seeded biochar without nutrients could be unproductive. Biochar loading also depends on soil type, how the biochar is made, and how it is applied (tilled in or top-dressed). Size probably matters - big chunks will eventually break apart, but moderate size reduction gives better distribution. Fine dust will not provide the same degree of soil aeration. So, the devil is in the details.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The statistic of low Firefox use is based on accessing US government websites. Could it be that there is significantly LESS government site access by the population of users that prefer Firefox? As a corollary I recently read that game companies observed significantly HIGHER bug reporting from Linux users on Steam, not because there were more Linux-related bugs, but simply because that set of users were more likely to initiate bug reports. Of course Firefox is not Linux and Steam is not the world, but a statistic from a relatively narrow segment of the internet should not be assumed representative of the whole.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Biochar is such an expanding area of investigation, it would be difficult to write a comprehensive book at this point. Of course the root idea of partial-combustion to make soil amendment is well-enough known, but there is much being learned about how to alter the properties of the char by how the pyrolysis is performed. There is much to be learned about how much char to add and how to pretreat the char. Beside burning to make char, there are other ways it can be heated and those affect the type of pyrolysis products that form - molten salt, steam, and subcritical hot water are all gaining prominence. The management and use of the pyrolysis products aside from the char is also a complex topic.

 

quite a lot of captured CO2 can go into concrete. Maybe a cement (powder) producer is not able to tap into that method directly, but policy shifts will open it up. There are already several US states with low-embodied-carbon concrete laws creating markets for this purpose.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

sorry nobody has replied - I'm no help for you from here in Puerto Rico. Are you familiar with the site iNaturalist.org? When we're looking for a species that seems to be missing, we use iNaturalist to check for sightings in the region. You can filter by dates.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

I also recently read about "hydrocarbonization" which is another approach for pyrolyzing sewage sludge. Pyrolysis of biomass on a dry basis is often energy-intensive in part because of moisture in the biomass. Nowhere is this more relevant than with sewage sludge, which leaves a wastewater plant at only about 25% solids, typically (though it has a solid appearance like damp clay). If the pyrolysis is performed IN water (which means under pressure if one wants to avoid evaporating the contained water), it can not only still occur, but the water at high temperature and pressure is an active medium for converting some of the biomass into smaller organic molecules.

Upshot is that there is quite a lot of work going on nowadays to be creative with biomass management - that seemed to be of low interest even a decade ago.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

wrong, western philosophy is often based on dichotomies - something is either this or that, but it is more of an analytical tool (I am not nature despite that I am a part of nature). Eastern philosophies are often mystic, though there is western mysticism - that some aspects of existence are incomprehensible on a rational basis and therefore dichotomies are illusory. But such a perspective does not inherently make people better stewards of the environment - in fact they might conclude that their every action is "natural" by definition.

 

entry details in the image text. A QR code is provided for a registration link

 

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/3903718

Excerpt:

That’s the theory, anyway. But today, the lion’s share of the CO2 captured from industrial processes doesn’t go back into the ground. Instead, 60 percent of it is used to extract more oil, in a controversial process known as “enhanced oil recovery.”

“I think it’s a huge problem,” said Lorne Stockman, research co-director of the advocacy group Oil Change International. “The oil and gas industry has done a very good job of co-opting our climate and clean energy policy.”

For over a decade, the U.S. government has been quietly funding the capture of CO2 that is ultimately used to drill more oil. Some experts and researchers argue that the climate impact is net positive: The oil will be drilled anyway, and the process can help companies learn how to capture CO2 more efficiently. But others say that the government shouldn’t be helping companies sustain more fossil fuel extraction.

 

My rainwater collection begins with a first-flush and debris removal tank, but it is not ideal; all the water flows through it and in a big rain it can stay stirred up. So it has debris and because it is necessarily open to the roof this means some bugs in there. The outlet to the storage tank is wrapped with three layers of window-screen cloth, but the overflow is open to the drain. Frogs (cute little coqui tree-frogs) come up the drain and inhabit the tank. The storage tank overflow ties into the first flush overflow, so once in a while there is a tree frog in the first storage tank. There are no bugs in that tank so the frog will die if I fail to capture it (which they are very wily).

How can I keep a frog from climbing up the pipe while being sure I do not obstruct water going down the pipe?

 

has anyone here ever experimented with an "electromagnetic" pump? If the pumped liquid is conductive and the piping is enclosed in a coil (think solenoid), and a current is passed across the fluid near the coil, then the magnetic field made by the coil should attract the fluid passing the transverse current (causing it to flow). As fluid flows toward the coil, new fluid starts passing current and so on.

Electromagnetic pumps are used in metal processing for continuous casting, but those are fancy and expensive devices. Could I pump seawater by wrapping a coil around a garden hose and pop-riveting a couple of electrical contacts into the hose on opposite sides next to the coil? I think regular "fresh" water would not be sufficiently conductive, but whatdoIknow? My longer term plan is to try pumping molten salt, but I want to learn on cooler stuff first.

I'm all ears!

 

This is a bit tangential, but it is a well-framed commentary which applies when we think about CDR.

cross-posted from: https://aus.social/users/ajsadauskas/statuses/111062337668091472

Right now, could you prepare a slice of toast with zero embodied carbon emissions?

Since at least the 2000s, big polluters have tried to frame carbon emissions as an issue to be solved through the purchasing choices of individual consumers.

Solving climate change, we've been told, is not a matter of public policy or infrastructure. Instead, it's about convincing individual consumers to reduce their "carbon footprint" (a term coined by BP: https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon-footprints-to-blame-us-for-their-greed-keep-them-on-the-hook).

Yet, right now, millions of people couldn't prepare a slice of toast without causing carbon emissions, even if they wanted to.

In many low-density single-use-zoned suburbs, the only realistic option for getting to the store to get a loaf of bread is to drive. The power coming out of the mains includes energy from coal or gas.

But.

Even if they invested in solar panels, and an inverter, and a battery system, and only used an electric toaster, and baked the loaf themselves in an electric oven, and walked/cycled/drove an EV to the store to get flour and yeast, there are still embodied carbon emissions in that loaf of bread.

Just think about the diesel powered trucks used to transport the grains and packaging to the flour factory, the energy used to power the milling equipment, and the diesel fuel used to transport that flour to the store.

Basically, unless you go completely off grid and grow your own organic wheat, your zero emissions toast just ain't happening.

And that's for the most basic of food products!

Unless we get the infrastructure in place to move to a 100% renewables and storage grid, and use it to power fully electric freight rail and zero emissions passenger transport, pretty much all of our decarbonisation efforts are non-starters.

This is fundamentally an infrastructure and public policy problem, not a problem of individual consumer choice.

#ClimateChange #urbanism #infrastructure #energy #grid #politics #power @green

 

tldr several BILLION tons per year by 2050! Roughly equivalent to the total mass of all the cars in the world - every year.

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