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Comment by haizhung | Hacker News Reader

The way I see it is that we are way beyond all reasonable bounds already, concerning co2 ppm in the air. Even if we stop all emissions this very moment, there’s still way too much already in the atmosphere. So, we are going to need co2 removal either way if there shall be any hope of ever returning to a world climate similar to before 1980.

I am no expert in the field, but this is an area that at least gives me some positive outlook on the future. I could imagine, for example, that we start over provisioning electricity with renewables; and instead of scaling them down when there is no energy demand, we will redirect the superfluous energy into carbon capture.

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Superfluous renewable energy already has to go to hydrolysis to produce hydrogen to be saved for times whenever renewables don't produce energy.

Actually battery storage and stored hydro work. As does long duration battery storage options that are in the works now.

They don't work nearly as well enough or in the case of hydro storage are available in enough quantity to cover a month of weak wind.

For example. The US would consume its entirety of pumped hydro storage in a third of a day.

Superfluous energy should go to the consumer which otherwise would consume the most CO2. We do not need to use hydrogen when renewables aren't available (if such a situation should arise). We can continue to use fossils for these (rare) situations.

The only thing which matters is to use energy in the most CO2 efficient way to achieve goals overall.

It’s hard for me to believe that the answer isn’t biological given the whole self replication thing.

The Industrial Revolution is a history of various industrial processes outcompeting biology within a narrow boundary. Cars pull more than any horse, trains as well, an airplane flies faster and with much more cargo than any bird, and the industrial production of nitrogen is faster than bat guano.

CO2 fixation might also follow this curve, in fact, as a technology in isolation that's what I would bet on. Economics aside, a machine that sucks CO2 directly out of the air will remove much more CO2 than the equivalent parcel of land would if biology were used.

As a technology in isolation, sure. But something like iron seeding, assuming it works, would be orders of magnitude cheaper because most of the work is being done by algae and they don’t have to be paid.

I don’t think horses are particularly similar, but nitrogen fixation in the fertilize vs crop rotation case gets closer.

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