Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Remember all those assurances we’ve heard over the years, that carbon capture technology is ready for mainstream deployment? Turns out the technology is a little less ready to deploy than some people would like you to believe.
From Elon Musk;
So what are the chances of someone collecting the prize?
Bloomberg thinks this moonshot can’t miss;
Elon Musk’s Moonshot Prize Can’t Miss
By Kyle Stock
January 24, 2021, 7:00 AM ESTMr. Moonshot is at it again.
Space and sedan baron Elon Musk pledged to donate a $100 million prize to what he deems the best carbon capture technology. The Tesla CEO wants to save the world of course and get a cheaper, cleaner feedstock to cook up fuel for his rockets. He also wants to bask in the glow of a little green Twitter buzz, which is often what these kinds of contests are best for.
The so-called moonshot prize is a centuries-old tactic that falls somewhere on the spectrum between time-shrinking innovation catalyst and carnival barking. The difference is in the details.
…
Musk says he will flesh out the details of the prize this week. If he really wants to move the needle, the money should be spread out and spaced out. Breaking it up into small chunks for early milestones will encourage long-shots and leaving it open-ended long enough will further incite the serious players.
…
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-01-24/elon-musk-pledges-100-million-prize-to-crack-carbon-capture
Forbes reminds readers that there is no magic when it comes to the thermodynamics of sequestering CO2, though they suggest “billions of dollars from government” might overcome the economic obstacles;
$100 Million From Elon Musk Won’t Enable Carbon Capture
Brentan Alexander
Jan 24, 2021,08:10am ESTOn Thursday, Elon Musk announced in under 140 characters his intention to donate $100 million to the “best” carbon capture technology, chosen through a competition whose details and judging criteria are yet to be announced (he promised further details next week). Funding for research and development of carbon capture technologies is most welcome, and Musk’s donation will surely lead to technological advances in the space. The problems, however, holding back the mass deployment of carbon capture are primarily economic, and a Silicon Valley mindset that champions disruptive innovation as the solution to all problems will fail to advance this important industry.
…
Carbon capture today looks a lot like solar technology 20 years ago, which was on the brink of growing at a rate over 500 times over the next two decades. Research and development money did not unlock the solar market at the turn of the century, rather it was the emergence of a viable business model driven by mandated renewable energy targets that allowed solar to rapidly expand and run down the cost curve, driving further growth. So too is carbon capture ready to make such a jump. Musk’s prize will surely help some firms further their technology and reduce their costs, but Silicon Valley solutions won’t create the market that unlocks carbon capture technologies. Instead, carbon capture is ready for its Wall Street moment: it will take the deployment of today’s technologies within today’s regulatory regime, supported by billions from governments, banks, and corporations, to demonstrate the business case for carbon capture and truly enable the space to scale.
…
Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brentanalexander/2021/01/24/100-million-from-elon-musk-wont-enable-carbon-capture/
Perhaps we should thank Elon Musk for letting the mask slip, for giving us a glimpse of the true state of over hyped carbon capture technology.
Nobody has a scalable, affordable solution, thermodynamics suggests there may never be a scalable, affordable solution – that carbon capture if deployed would be an ongoing massive burden on the global economy. Yet most advocates keep up the pretence that carbon capture is ready to roll.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Most of the carbon dioxide is in the ocean. I would say pump huge amounts of sea water through desalination plants and capture all the CO2 in that water.
That’s really clever – obviously the limit is the profit if any you make from desalination, and the cost of sequestering the CO2.
Plant a tree
Plants, trees, more plants. They have been doing carbon capture for ages and ages, effectively and at low cost. Plus, they have by products that are useful. Many are low maintenance and sustainable.
Judging by recent panic-buying, the tree route is critical to ensuring an ethically sustainable supply of toilet paper.
Toilet paper sequestration 🙂
A pipeline made of carbon nanotube fibers to pump the excess CO2 in deep space.
That will sure take a lot of carbon to build 😉
Like it’s been attempted with all those “killer lakes” where deeply saturated with CO2 waters can release brutal surges:
https://youtu.be/dCkHvzf5Djo?t=713
Is my price check also tax-deductible or will the govt. fetch it’s share ?
Wow! That’s a lot of money even for a realistic project.
Much better to offer the $100 million prize to someone that could prove that changes in concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide CAUSE the real changes in climate.
Commented on CCS a few days ago. The amine process works fine stripping CO2 out of natural gas prior to pipeline injection. All that is used for local tertiary oil recovery. The amine process (and its derivatives) does not work well at all for capturing CO2 from combustion exhaust gasses, a very different chemical environment.
There are NO CCS projects that do not rely on selling CO2 for tertiary oil recovery. Injecting deep into saline aquifers failed in Illinois. Injecting into depleted natural gas fields failed in Norway and the UK.
Musk is wasting $100 million on PR. Of course, he can afford it.
You want CCS, there are two good answers, neither requiring Musk‘s millions. On land, trees do a remarkable if somewhat transient job. In the oceans, coccoliths do an even better job, since their end product is limestone.
BTW, were it not for calcium carbonate (ocean limestone) recycling via tectonic induced andesic volcanism, life on earth would cease in about 1.5 million years from CO2 plant starvation as ppm falls below about 150. Go, volcanos.
The “funny” thing is that $100 million isn’t even a drop in the carbon bucket… Reality can no longer even be seen in the rearview mirror.
I disagree he is wasting any money, until we see the terms. There may be no way to win and so it would merely be a cheap virtue signal
Maybe this is just damage control from the story the other day of him planning to drill gas wells, buying an indulgence that may cost nothing?
Indeed, the devil is in the details. if the only condition is being the “best”, then there has to be a winner as “best” doesn’t mean it has to be good, or even work just that it’s better than all the other suggestions. I suspect you’ll find that the fine print adds more conditions than just being the best of a bad bunch,
“Musk is wasting $100 million on PR.”
That’s what it looks like.
But why would anyone want to do that? CO2 greening has proven to be a great benefit and notwithstanding over 100 years of non stop bickering about the warming effects of CO2, there’s really no evidence that the human contribution can be measured. It’s still just conjecture. Besides, I see no down side to a slightly warmer world.
If we are serious about scrubbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere the most efficient way is to raise current CO² levels by 300% then …Plant More Trees.
The increased CO² will eccelarate the growth of the newly planted trees (as well as all other flora) which in turn cycles out atmospheric anthropogenic carbon dioxide.
Please, Make the check out to Mr. Johnathan Appleseed.
How about offering $1 billion for best technology to prevent the next glacial period? They tend to inconvenience just about every form of life on earth. Badly.
What?? No ads from Sid??
Coal?
That’s an easy 100m. I have technology that can turn CO2 into wood, cotton, food(meat is a 2 step process), and most importantly produce feedstock for making ethonol.
It runs on just inputs of solar, water, and only needs 250 ppm CO2 to work.
For HyperLoop, he took the concept through the feasibility phase, likely concluded it was unworkable, and abandoned it for others to pick up.
For Carbon Capture, it sounds like the thermodynamics failed at the concept phase and he’s just offering $100 million to anyone who can make it work.
If some one does, Musk gets in early. If no one does, there’s no cost. Either way, it’s great PR.
Plant a tree orv start a WAR
Elon, Elon, Elon! You’re a Queen’s man so I have to be nice.
There is NO CO2-driven climate crisis – it is a scary fiction, invented by wolves to stampede the sheep.
Regards, Allan MacRae, Science ’71
Here is a Cole’s Notes (aka Cliff’s Notes) version of what you need to know:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/13/may-middleton-rebuttal-to-geological-society-of-london-scientific-statement-on-climate-change/#comment-3162726
David Middleton wrote:
1 There absolutely is evidence that CO2 causes at least a minimal temperature increase. *See below.
2 Increasing the concentration of atmospheric CO2 also reduces the pH of seawater and decreases the saturation state of calcite and aragonite. *OK
3 However, there is no evidence that CO2 levels below 800-1,000 ppm would alter the temperature or marine geochemistry in a geologically significant manner. *OK
4 Trying to restrain the growth to 600 ppm would keep it within the Cenozoic “noise level” and would require very little effort beyond what we are already doing. *OK
______________________
I stress observations based on full-Earth-scale because the molecular-scale arguments used by some physicists (e.g. “CO2 IS a greenhouse gas!!!”) are simply not credible, because we know that scale-up “errors” are a routine part of engineering practice and most people will agree that a scale-up from molecular to full-Earth scale is “bigger than a breadbox”. (SmileyFace)
David:
A. Your point 1: “There absolutely is evidence that CO2 causes at least a minimal temperature increase.”
Maybe so, IF we assume based on full-Earth-scale observations that increasing CO2 causes warming of the atmosphere (a circular argument), THEN:
Actual Climate Sensitivity based on real-world observations ranges from minus ~1C (cooling) to plus ~1C (warming) per doubling of atm. CO2.
(Approx Plus 1C based on Christy & McNider 2017 and Lewis & Curry 2018)
(Approx Minus 1C based on the natural global cooling period from ~1940 to 1977)
OR:
B. Your point 1: “There absolutely is evidence that CO2 causes at least a minimal temperature increase.”
Maybe not, IF we look at other credible Earth-scale evidence, for example:
I recommend Ed Berry’s new book
“Climate Miracle: There is no climate crisis Nature controls climate”
https://www.amazon.ca/Climate-Miracle-climate-crisis-controls-ebook/dp/B08LCD1YC3/
My review: 5 Stars.
An excellent, readable book that destroys the scary global warming / climate hypothesis.
Reviewed in Canada on November 11, 2020 Verified Purchase
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah6/from:1979/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
Author Dr. Edwin Berry demolishes the IPCC’s very-scary catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis. Ed proves from basic principles that the growth of CO2 in the atmosphere is primarily natural, not man-made. Berry’s analysis is consistent with my 2008 publication that atmospheric CO2 cannot significantly drive temperature, because changes in CO2 lag temperature changes in the modern data record, as they do in the longer-term ice core record. Kuo et al (1990) and Keeling (1995) made similar observations in the journal Nature, but have been studiously ignored by global warming propagandists. “The future cannot cause the past.”
CARBON DIOXIDE IS NOT THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING, THE FUTURE CAN NOT CAUSE THE PAST
By Allan M.R. MacRae, January 2008
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
Conclusions:
Points A and B above are of highly significant scientific interest, to enable us to understand the causes and results of atmospheric CO2 increases.
However, from a practical societal standpoint, Points A and B are much less important, because based on correct Statements 2. 3 and 4 above there is NO real dangerous global warming crisis – the runaway global warming crisis does not exist, except in the overheated minds of global warming propagandists.
Not only is the global warming / climate crisis false, there is ample evidence that it is fraudulent – a scary story concocted by wolves to stampede the sheep.
Furthermore, the alleged “solution” to the global warming crisis , aka “green energy”, is also a fiction, because green energy (typically wind and solar) is not green and produces very little useful (dispatchable) energy.
Forests
Please send a cheque.
Sweep the CO2 under the carpet as the Greens have been doing with all their failed ideas and predictions.
Give my $100m to solve the lack of clean water and sanitation for the 30% of our fellow humans who are desperate for clean water.
Elon has obviously his eyes and heart on Mars. This technology although might be useless on earth from a ppm concentration point of view, it might be more appropriate for Mars’s atmosphere. The capture, from 0.095 psi as compared to the Earth’s sea level atmospheric pressure of 14.7 psi, might be easier in some ways. From my rough calculations, there is about 17 times more CO2 per volume in Mars atmosphere than that on Earth. The problem is still energy and I bet he would plan to use his solar cells with that winning technology to create O2 and fuel.
Everything he does has a direct use for his Martian City. If you keep that in mind then it makes sense.
That also includes the hyperloop. The tech is not really for a vacuum tube here on hearth but for transport on Mars.
It is a tree. Best carbon capture, trees. Wheres my cheque?
Split?
I suggested chopping up waste plastic and throwing it in the oceans to provide a substrate for algae to grow on.
What if you had renewable energy at the same percentage as the energy it took for carbon capture and storage, that is, to return the carbon into the ground? You’d solve the problem of rising CO2 while pumping all the oil you want? Good luck convincing environmentalists that carbon capture is a part of the plan, though. And of course, the CO2 isn’t doing anything anyway, and won’t for centuries. Good luck solving the politics in science, if we only had another Trump that could do that!
Slowly but surely they’re walking it back-
Why EVs Might Never Reach”Price Parity” With Conventional Cars (msn.com)
because…… CAPITALISM!
Mind you Lawrence is a bit slow on the uptake-
BMW: Electric cars will never be as cheap as a combustion engine – Car News | CarsGuide
But if he’s right with his overall theme then of course master EV capitalist Elon is screwing over Tesla owners instead of bringing cheap zero CO2 emission cars to the masses.
First, Musk should offer a $100 million prize to the first person who can prove that CO2 needs to be regulated and captured from the air.
Musk is assuming too much. A lot of smart people assume too much, for some reason, when it comes to the Earth’s climate. Musk assumes CO2 is a problem when there is no evidence that this is the case.
You based your space efforts on a firm foundation, Elon. You should do the same when it comes to Human-caused Climate Change. If you looked at it that way, you would discover that there is no basis in fact for Human-caused Climate Change.
You are putting the cart before the horse with your aim of taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
Groupthink affects all levels of society and all levels of intelligence. And that’s what we have here, Groupthink. Never questioning the foundation of their Climate Change beliefs.
Where’s the evidence, Elon? You need to find the evidence of a CO2 problem before finding a solution. Here’s a hint: There is no evidence, Elon. Prove me wrong and prove yourself right, but do so before implementing carbon dioxide capture because it may be just a big waste of time and money.
Elon can think outside the box on so many subjects, but he falls slavishly in line when it comes to Human-caused Climate Change. It’s like he put his brain in neutral on this subject.
Well, he has a lot of company. A lot of people have been fooled about Human-caused Climate Change. What a racket the alarmists have created!
I think they are expecting that price of carbon will be skyrocketing. I have suspicion that when Ice Age comes and atmospheric CO2 will plummet, any stash of carbon used to feed plants for food will have value.
@All: Personally, I think Elon is interested more in the challenge of capturing CO2 and storing it on MARS, for use in making rocket fuel.
My own approach would be a facility with a modular nuke for powering the chillers, and storing the C02 short-term until it can be processed into Methane.